Well good luck on getting some writing done today then!
Yeah, not feeling like it was pulled from the main game is important. Still, the Witcher kind of had it easy if only because they had a lot of lore to rely on to make things interesting, not to mention the main formula behind the entire franchise, both books and games, is retelling old folk tales from various parts of the world with varying degrees of post-modernism. And so, the first expansion reintroduces a much beloved character from the books and first game in a very sweet scenario, with its main plot being a retelling of a very unique Polish version of Faust known as Pan Twardowski (probably the only version in which the Faust character outwits the devil, either through his smarts or by having a wife that’s scarier than the devil), but it does it in such a way that is very much reflective of modern-day sensibilities and in general is just an incredibly poignant tale about the human condition - not to mention the fact that there are two endings and disputes about which one is good and which one is bad are still going on. And for all the shortcomings the second DLC has, it has the most delicious throwbacks to the books, including the single best character in the franchise who was believed to be dead and he’s just perfectly done in the game. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, really. In general, neither of the two DLCs feel like they were cut out from the main game - they fit right in but they are their own contained stories. My writing has slowed down a bit. I wanted to spend a larger part of the weekend writing, but instead I had to deal with a particularly severe migraine so I slept through most of it, to my frustration. I will make progress today, however. No more excuses. And at least I feel well rested for once.
The Uzuki is bound to be in there somewhere. Yeah, I like when the DLC is not just costumes but also when it doesn't feel like it was yanked out of the main game. For Dark Souls 2, all three DLC involve going to another fallen kingdom and trying to collect the crown of their fallen king. The interesting lore connection here is that within the main game, the main "antagonist" if you want to call them that, is the former Queen of Drangleic who bewtiched the king and led his kingdom to ruin. The DLC deals with her "sisters" cause it turns out all four of them are the fragments of the major villain from the DS1's DLC, and all four of them seeked king's to bring to ruin and and gain the power to avenge their "father". What's kind of cool is the the story of these three other sisters. The first one is kind of a carbon copy of the main villain if she had succeeded, but the other two actually have some serious twists to their stories, with one reaching a kingdom that fell to ruin before she even got there and now trying to figure out what to do, and the other one actually being turned by the pureness of her king to actually drop her goal of revenge and instead take up his quest to keep the Chaos Flame (another nod to the first game) from spreading. Each DLC deals with a new kingdom with a theme. The Sunken Kingdom which I'm currently playing is themed with Poison and Dragons, as the kingdom used to worship a great sleeping dragon who breathes poisonous fire. When he was awoken by an invading army, assumed to be the King's army from the main game, it laid waste to the kingdom. Each DLC offers two story bosses and a pure optional one, and I'm currently trying to complete the optional area first, but getting my butt kicked by the boss of the area. How has your writing been going?
Btw, the game kinda threw me off guard. There was one character that, from aesthetics alone, make me think he’s the “Uzuki” character of this game. But now that I’ve seen more of him, he does not fit that at all. However, I later learned another character I know can join the party later and not only is he very Japanese, he also uses a sword, so now I’m pretty sure it’s him, even if he lacks the trademark long hair.
I mean, even the trash missions are fine because you really get to familiarize yourself with this world in a relatively organic fashion. I’ve been discovering a lot and have covered a sizeabld chunk of the first three continents, though some of the exploration is blocked out so far and I think I need a Skell to really get around. Speaking of, I JUST GOT MY GIANT ROBOT HOLY CRAP!!! I will definitely get the DLC when I get to that game. I like how big, substantial DLCs are becoming the norm now. Like in the Witcher 3, which is imo the gold standard of what DLC should be, has a bundle of free DLC which isn’t substantial and is mostly additional missions and aesthetic, but it’s free so that’s great. And then there’s substantial bits of DLC, one of which has one of the best stories I’ve ever played and the most fun bosses in the series, while in the latter they’ve added a whole new open world that is even better designed than in the former (and that second DLC alone won game of the year 2016, which is really saying a lot). So I do appreciate it when the devs ho out of the way to take all they learned from the base game and then make it even better in the DLC. So I’m about halfway through XCX and I think my next game is going to be Bayonetta. Unless I get stuck in the abyss that is post-game content, of which I heard there is A LOT in this game.
That's a pretty good setup for the missions, though I still feel Monolith needs to focus more on "less is more". Yeah, the first of the three DLC is pretty groovy. It's got a puzzle aspect cause the whole area has secret doors and switches to raise pillars and what not. There is also a gimmick where some knights are super -powered by the souls of the dead and in order to actually really harm them without breaking your weapons after awhile involves hunting down the graves of the spirits helping them and slaying them. There is a really nasty corridor that almost turns into a stealth mission because of how many of these knights there are and trying to find your way into the mausoleum where their spiritual benefactors are. There is also a friendly NPC who helped you in an earlier area comes to invade you, and FROM did some interesting A.I. tricks to make this invader almost feel like another player, like letting him use gestures to taunt you and it's good about luring you into traps. For the most part, they are three for three now on some serious quality DLC. Artorias of the Abyss and The Old Hunters were both some of the best highlights form their games.
Yeah, only this time they’re kind of two separate kinds of missions. Basically, all the trash quests are called Basic Missions while all the other ones are Normal Missions. There’s also an additional type - Affinity Missions, which are even more robust, fully voiced, and connected to the main story, but I treat them pretty much just like story missions since they’re mostly character development, and they’re pretty much there to accommodate to the non-linear story structure this game has compared to the first. Some of them are also mandatory to progress. That’s good to hear. It’s always nice when a company goes out of its way to really provide substantial DLC.
A little mix and match like the original I take it? I'm tackling the DLC for Dark Souls 2 at the moment, and as usual with FROM Software, it's really well done so far.
They’re decent though. Not as incredible as the Witcher’s, but they’re also not the boring MMO variety for the most part, though there are a couple of those too
Man, too many sidequests.
