Dark Souls – Catching Up

20 August, 2015. 528 words.

Don’t really having time to write up every boss fight in Dark Souls right now, but here is a quick summary of the bosses and mini-bosses Sir Thomas the Knight has gotten through.

Havel The Rock

A mini-boss waiting at the bottom of the Watchtower right before the Taurus Demon. He hits really hard and takes a ton of damage, but is otherwise fairly straightforward. He drops Havel’s Ring, which boosts your carrying capacity (and typically increases your movement speed).

Iron Golem

This massive automaton lies at the end of Sen’s Fortress and guards the way to Anor Londo. The fight was mechanically not very difficult (basically don’t get hit), however the space is tight and one wrong move will send you plummeting to your death.

Undead Dragon

A hideous, rotting dragon mini-boss that clings to the side of a mountain path in the Valley of Drakes and spits poison at any who stray too close.

Stray Demon

Found back in the Undead Asylum, the very first area in the game. You need to find a pseudo-secret area in Firelink Shrine to get back there. I went back because I saw/read that there was a nice ring to find and I wanted to see how I fared against the boss. At first I didn’t think I would be able to withstand the punishing hits and magic explosions, but the attack patterns became apparent fairly quickly for me and then it became a straightforward fight. As always, your mileage may vary.

Darkroot Hydra

Another mini-boss, but still a terrifying spectacle found in the lake of Darkroot Basin near the crystal golems and Havel’s Watchtower. Fortunately its bark is bigger than its bite and it’s not hard to defeat after you get close enough. Once the Hydra is defeated, you can climb a ladder that leads to another forest area where Sif, the Great Grey Wolf awaits.

Sif, the Great Grey Wolf

An adorable husky that picks up a tremendously large sword in its mouth to fight you. You wouldn’t think a wolf would be able to pull that off but I saw it with my own eyes. Sif is fast and has at least one devastating one-shot kill attack. The fight required a lot of patience. I wasn’t expecting to face a boss but I stumbled on him while exploring Darkroot.

Pinwheel

A creepy spell-caster boss found at the end of the skeleton-filled Catacombs, which are down the steps down past the big black bird at Firelink Shrine. Pinwheel turned out to be a rather simple boss for me and I killed him/her/it on the first try. After killing Pinwheel you get to move on to the Tomb of the Giants, another bastard of an area that’s even more bastardly than Blighttown.

At this point, after wandering all over the place, I finally figured out how to progress in Anor Londo, so I headed back there to find the Lordvessel.

P.S. The horrifyingly bad images in this post were grabbed from video stills. I have failed to take any screenshots of Dark Souls bosses. (Mostly because in the time it takes to capture a screenshot, I’d probably get killed.)