I love Dark Souls games. I don’t think that’s a surprise to anyone who knows me. Back when I first started got into them, I played them years after they came out. That meant I normally knew the twists and turns before I played them. I didn’t have a PS4 so I thought I would never get to play Bloodborne. I watched several playthroughs so I ruined myself before playing it. It was still great when I finally did play it, but the thrill of discovery was gone. When I played Dark Souls III, I was playing it real time which meant that I didn’t know all the tricks of the trade before going into the game.
I watch outsidexbox even though I don’t have an Xbox. I started watching PlayStation Access recently even though I don’t have a PS, either. Or rather, I have one, but I don’t use it. They’re both British groups, which I like, too. They both do list videos once a week. One time, on PlayStation Access, it was called Massive Mistakes We Made That Completely Ruined Games about how they fucked up a game they were playing after many hours.
I was watching, half-listening, when I flashed on my own moment in a game where I ruined my playthrough. It was Dark Souls III, the first time I played it. I wanted to have an organic experience so I stayed away from the wikis as much as possible. I was enjoying the game, exploring everything along my path, when I got the option to Heal the Dark Sigil with the Fire Keeper in Firelink Shrine. This was something new! I had never seen this before so of course I had to do it. It cost a pretty penny (it costs more and more the worse you are hollowed), but I managed to scrape together all my pennies in order to do it.
Before I tell you what happened, let me explain what I had to do to get to this point and what NPC it involved. The ramification of healing the hollowing, I mean. Ok. Try to keep this straight. There is an NPC early on who you can have on your team. His name is Yoel of Londor and he’s a pilgrim/sorcerer. He offers to let you draw out your true strength, which is leveling up. If you’re like me, you don’t notice until later that there’s a new stat called Hollowing. And you get one per level you take from Yoel. Oh, spoilers. Obviously. So after five levels, he dies. Then Yuria from Londor shows up asking if you were mates with Yoel. She’s into dark magicks, which is right up my alley. I took to her quite quickly and she became my favorite NPC in the game. I talked to her periodically and we were becoming fast friends.
That’s the background to me going up in the tower for 20,000 souls (for the key) and getting the Fire Keeper’s soul. Now, in the first game, this is the way to strengthen your Estus Flask. You give the Fire Keeper’s soul to a Fire Keeper and she gives you more estus per sip. So in this game, when they said to give the Fire Keeper’s soul to the Fire Keeper at Firelink Shrine, of course I would do it. And then when it said I could heal my hollowing, well, I had to try it, didn’t I? It was something new in the game!
I saved up my souls and did the new thing. Nothing happened immediately, which was disappointing. I shrugged and moved on, quickly forgetting about it. Then, the next time I went to talk to Yuria, she refused to talk to me. She said I wasn’t the true champion of Londor and she disappeared. She fucking vanished from my playthrough! I was furious and Googled it to see if there was anything I could do to reverse that decision. There wasn’t. I was roughly a third of the way through the game and she was gone.
I was so mad. I contemplated starting the game over again because I couldn’t imagine finishing the game without her. Intellectually, I understood that it was part of the game and the joy of discovery. But in reality, I was crushed. This is one of the things that takes away from the brilliance of these games. Decisions like these make me less willing to take chances or make decisions without Googling what it means. I ended up playing the game dozens of times so ultimately, it didn’t matter, but what if that was my only playthrough? I had wanted to craft a build around dark magicks and while she ultimately wasn’t central to that decision, it was still very emotional. And, I get it. They have to make the decisions mean something. And as I said, you could still do dark magicks and she’s not really pertinent to the mechanics…but that makes me mad the other way. Put me through the emotional ringer for a decision that didn’t really make a difference to the game.
Here’s the thing. There is a lot with Yuria story-wise that is interesting and cool. All of this is spoilers, obviously. Separately from Yuria, there is another storyline with two more NPCs, Anri and Horace. They are lifelong pals who have been traumatized by Aldrich, one of the bosses in the game. Also called Devourer of Gods. He has Dark Sun Gwyndolin’s face and Nito’s skirt. Here’s a neat bit of detail. If you play as a man, Anri is a woman. If you play as a woman, he’s a man. So everyone I watched play it got Anri as a woman and never had a clue he could be a man. I always play as a woman so I only knew him as a man. Hetero norms and all that, but it’s still a neat detail.
Anyway, at some point, Yuria mentions Anri and intimates that you should get to know him. Progress during the game and speak to Anri in all the places you see him, and Yuri eventually tells you he’s ready for matrimony. Wait, what? You can get married in Dark Souls III? Well, yes, but in true From fashion, it’s not your typical wedding. You stab Anri in the face and get 5 Dark Sigils from it. I did not get this on my first playthrough, by the way. You can also help him in his world defeat Aldrich. If you do that, you can’t marry him. If you do the marriage storyline (and in the meantime, Horace goes hollow and you have to kill him), you end up the Dark Lord and Anri is back alive, bowing to you with the rest of the Londorites at the end of the game. That’s the dark ending, obviously. There are three endings, with an alternate ending to one of those endings. So, four in total. The alternate ending is actually the darkest one, I think, because you step on the head of the Fire Keeper after you summon her.
Anyway, Yuria is my favorite NPC in this game. Her sister, Friede, is the big boss of the first DLC. Quite possibly the hardest boss in the whole game with her three phases. She’s the first boss who has three phases and it was kind of all bets are off at that point. The final boss of Sekiro has FOUR phases, which is ridiculous. I know all of this sounds mad, but it makes sense in the confines of the world.
A neat touch is that you can summon Yuria for the final boss fight. The Lord of Cinder. Who is on the box art. Cheeky, FromSoft! I love that you can summon her and the Londor Pale Shade, and they are really useful. You can also summon the Londor Pale Shade for the Abyss Watchers and Pontiff Sulyvahn. They are a fantastic NPC summon.
I still love Yuria. She’s my favorite NPC of the third game and it’s not even close. I am glad I didn’t ruin my game forever by healing the Hollowing, but I would have liked to have known the consequences before making the decision–which defeats the purpose of the game, really. Elden Ring releases in a month and a half. I’ll be playing real time. It’s going to be one hell of a ride.