Preface During an interview for the original Dark Souls, Director Hidetaka Miyazaki said that he had created the character of Solaire partially to rebut accusations that he had a slant against religious people, presumably in reference to his depiction of the priesthood in Demon’s Souls. While I can understand these complaints on their surface, the […]
It is unclear if Melfia, original name Melvia, (メルヴィア) existed as its own country before the introduction of its Magic Academy, much like its thematic predecessor Vinheim. And like the Dragon School of Dark Souls, (DS1) this is largely because the magic school has completely consumed its cultural identity since its inception, which in this […]
I don’t blame anyone for knee-jerk skepticism with regards to cut content. It is by its very nature unused, never to be seen by design, and the reasons are commonly because they are relics of the development process. As Game Director Hidetaka Miyazaki relates in the Dark Souls: Design Works interview, Andre was originally planned […]
Put simply, I generally do not factor New Game+ (NG+) into my analyses. Not because it lacks any informational value, but because that value is, for the most part, superfluous. NG+ is a means for players to replay the game with a familiar yet fresh experience, and any changes made to that end are almost […]
You run the gauntlet of Sen’s Fortress, dodging shadowy traps — only to get knocked down into the tar pits below, by a scythe. Seeing that all-too-familiar white light flaring in the distance, you slowly wade your way over. Loot the corpse, and, lo and behold, you found the scythe. Dark Souls (DS1) is filled […]
What constitutes a god? Demon’s Souls presents a cornucopia of perspectives, all of which somehow tie back to the soul and magic. However, the most prominent God is heavily rooted in the Judeo-Christian conception. Not so with Dark Souls. There, divinity draws inspiration mainly from polytheistic mythologies. The “gods” — almost exclusively shorthand for the […]
The cinematic opens with a massive desert littered with half-buried ruins. The accompanying narration informs us that we are looking at Lothric, which the Japanese subtitles clarify to be where the homelands of the Lords of Cinder “drift” to. Indeed, we can see pilgrims journeying to the castle city, and the surrounding ruins are all […]
The Ashen Mist Heart is literally a “core of ash fog” (灰の霧の核) which has taken that peculiar shape — in other words, a dense mass of fog not unlike the mist seen in the opening cinematic for the original Dark Souls. (DS1) It should come as no surprise then that it is an “art” conjured […]
Despite the provocative imagery and creative editing, the opening sequence is fairly straightforward. A man had been trudging through a forest during a heavy storm where he had at one point collapsed. He serves as a generic stand-in for our player character prior to selecting our appearance and class, and so I shall refer to […]
Preface The Gutter is perhaps the most visually appealing iteration of FromSoftware’s infamous trash levels, largely because it is divorced from the traditional swamp aesthetic. Despite inheriting almost all of the themes and motifs from past levels of its ilk, omitting their most recognizable aspect helps alleviate the repetition. That said, a more creative aesthetic […]
Lokey Lore 