Hello. At the end of the last post, I was talking about my disappointment with
*SPOILER WARNING*
an optional boss, Metyr, Mother of Fingers. I mentioned how Fextralife was saying that it was a hard boss and that it hit hard. The latter is definitely true. I think the former would have been true if I had gone in earlier and without the Scadooooooooo Fragments.
Side note: According to someone in the Discord, Scadu is an old Gaelic word for Shadow. So it’s pronounced Shadow Fragments. I don’t care. It’s Scadooooooo to me and that’s how it’s always going to be.
Last night, I went back to the Belurat, Tower Settlement–the first self-contained area of the DLC. This is the area (along with the first mausoleum boss) that made me dump 20 points into Vigor because even the scrubs were three-shotting me. Everything hit so hard, I was laboriously making my way through the area. The one enemy that specifically gave me trouble was the Horned Warrior–shit. Looking this up, I just found out there’s an NPC questline I completely missed. I think? I will have to check it out.
Side note: I checked it out. I don’t remember him at all–I think I must have ran by him as I was being chased by several enemies. I remember dying soon after, so I probably just didn’t go back to him. I saw thet the NPC questline was fairly short so I decided just to do it.
In order to finish it the way I wanted, I had to find the second Iris of Grace. In doing that (and, yes, I used a video guide in order to do so), I found another area I did not know existed. For whatever reason, I had not opened seen the door that led to it or assumed I couldn’t open it. I also found another passageway I had not gone down because I assumed it was just the other way to a passageway I had already done. Or something. This is in the Shadow Keep Area where everything looks the same to me. I gave up halfway through as in I gave up trying to explore everything and just made my way through.
I told Ian that I probably had 65 to 70 hours in the fame and I still have one map fragment left to find and four or five catacombs/tombs/caves to explore. Remember, I’m about twice as slow as everyone else. Even so, I have about 10 to 20 hours left to go. So we’re talking about 100 hours in total. Maybe 90. At any rate, that’s nearly half what I put into the main game. Even if it’s just 80 total hours, that’s still a nearly a third of what I put into the main game.
I try not to feel a bit of envy when others in the chat say they’ve beaten the final boss. I know it’s not a race, but I don’t feel as if I’m anywhere close to it. Krupa from RKG does a Lore Masterclass for Producers. He mentioned that he had finished the DLC and that he would be up for a DLC Lore Masterclass. I said that I hoped it’d be in a few weeks so I would have time to finish the game.
I will admit that while I’ve been inhaling the game, I have also been dawdling in a way. What I mean is that I am exploring every blade of grass, every corner, and every pathway. Or at least if I can remember to explore, I will. As this post has proven, I don’t always remember that I have yet another path to explore. Yes, I probably should take notes as I play, but I’m not going to. Let’s be real. I know myself. This is not going to happen.
Back to the four bosses I recently fought.
Holy shit. It took me a long time to get back to that. As I said, ultimately, I found Count Ymir’s questline disappointment. Not terrible, and I got some cool shit out of it, but I did not care for either of the boss fights in this questline. I do like the spirit ash I got, but Mimic Tear is still my favorite. I did like that it got me to explore more, but the ruin maps were, to put it bluntly, shit. Or rather, they did not help at all. I spent way too much time on the first one thinking it was nearby because of the wording Ymir used, but it wasn’t.
Now. Let’s talk about the Shadow Keep. I had put off doing it for several days because I knew it was on the main path. Again, I don’t know how I knew that, but I did.
Ok. I have to say I found yet another area I had missed. Here’s the problem, I think. My spatial issues/depth perception issues make it so it’s dififcult for me to see if there is something around the corner if my camera is not aimed in exactly the right way. I have marked this area as well and will do both of them tonight. Well, at least one. It depends how packed they are (and if there are bosses).
Let’s talk about Mesmir the Impaler. He is the statue who was included in the elite edition (whatever it’s called. It’s not for us hoi polloi), and he is featured prominently in the offficial gameplay reveal trailer (which also revealed the release date)–which I have included above. He is a son of Marika, and there is a bit about him in the main game–if you look for it. What was gleaned before the DLC came out was that he was the banished son of Marika–or something similar to that. He has red hair, naturally, and a spear that does crazy damage. Plus, the Orb of Mesmer, which I am using (an incantation). He has a big-ass snake that shows up in the second part of the fight.
I did not realize he was at the end of the Shadow Keep. Given how prominently he was featured in the gameplay trailer, I figured he was not the end boss, but I thought he would be pretty close to it. Shadow Keep is maybe halfway there. Or a little over half. It makes sense once you think about it beacuse you need Mesmer’s Kindling to burn the tendrils of the Scaduuuuuuuu Tree that are blocking off an area of Belurat Settlement. And in the story trailer, it talks about the tyranny of Mesmer’s flame. Still.
As I made my way through Shadow Keep, I expected it to end with…I don’t know who, actually. When I stepped through the fog door and it was Mesmer, I actually gasped. I can’t tell you what a shock it was. Plus, the whole spectacle of, well, him, was magnificent. I love the fact that I was expecting him at some point, but not that point.
I called in my Mimic Tear, but I was surprised that Hornsent wasn’t available for me to summon. I got Mesmer to his second phase (with the aforementioned big-ass snake), and I actually found the second phase a bit easier than the first. Mimic Tear and I got him down to maybe a quarter health left begfore dying.
In the second run, we were in the second phase when I noticed Hornsent’s golden summon sign IN the arena. This has only happened once before (Sif against Manus in the OG Dark Souls‘ DLC), so it’s understandable that I didn’t think to look for it whilst fighting the angry fire man with the incredibly long arms and spear. By the way, Mesmer is left-handed. I only noticed that when I watched a video of someone rage-quitting whilst fighting Mesmer. It has to mean something, but I’m not sure what it is.
I’m done for now. More tomorrow.