Fume Knight / Sir Alonne:

- Party animal / Antisocial isolationist
- Smoke weed / Doesn't smoke weed
- Betrayed everyone for ego / Ashamed of his old self
- Embraces fire / Rejects tradition

They are in love with each other.

Dark Souls II's second DLC is a rather fun time much like the first, feeling more balanced and fair than the base game. Brume Tower is pretty challenging, however, each death felt awarded to me and not like a 20-1 gank fest. There are a lot of traps and the tower is decently long, but the prize at the bottom of the tower is one of the best bosses in the series, and for sure the best in DS2. Fume Knight was the first boss I found to be actually challenging and exhilarating to fight, he has a great moveset to memorize, and it took me a solid hour or so to defeat him. His design is also really awesome, and the story he contains is some of the best in the game. This is also followed up by another excellent boss for all the same reasons, Sir Alonne. The only dud in this DLC was the optional area containing a reskinned Smelter Demon, an already somewhat tedious boss. The runback is AWFUL and when it's for a boss you already fought, why even bother? I certainly didn't. Otherwise, another good addition to the game I enjoyed much more than base DS2.

With the best area and easily the best bosses, Crown of the Old Iron King is Dark Souls 2 at its peak... mostly.

I say "mostly" because like the Sunken King before it (And Ivory King after it) this DLC contains another total fuck fest optional section that doesn't really need to exist. I discovered that these gank areas were designed as Co-op zones, which would make more sense as to why they're so jam packed with enemies. But it doesn't explain why these areas are just so bland; only consisting of like 3 hallways littered with enemies that aren't worth fighting even once.

Despite that, I still wanted to give this DLC 4.5 stars... but unfortunately Fromsoft said "I got one more in me" and added a 2nd terrible runback to this. This runback is especially annoying because it leads to Sir Alonne, a really fun boss with one of the most stylish arenas in any souls game; a marble palace in the sky, overlooking the burning world around you. There was simply no need to hide this amazing fight behind a lazily thrown together "level" with nothing but recycled enemies littering a shockingly bland hallway. And its not even an actual level! It's just 2 hallways filled with like 20 enemies. The fight definitely makes up for the runback, but I just don't see the reason behind there even being a runback in the first place, if they weren't gonna make it an actual level.

Thankfully, Fume Knight doesn't have a dumb runback so players are able to fully appreciate how incredible that boss fight is. He is probably the most aggressive boss in DS2 and easily the hardest. But his moveset is so consistent and fun that it makes learning it an absolute joy, and after many attempts you'll be able to run laps around him. Such a great fight and one of my favorites in the entire Fromsoft catalogue.

Crown of the Old Iron King is another aggressively 4 star DLC that should be higher but Fromsoft was determined to remain consistent and have every piece of DS2 content be 4 stars.

A noticeable step up from Sunken King in pretty much every way. The level design is really cool and for the most part, sick bosses.

The idea of starting at the top of a tower and making a downwards descent rather than vice versa allows for a lot of really cool encounters, and while there might be a few hiccups and one room everyone hates, it’s mostly pretty manageable, regardless that this game is physically and mentally unable to stop doing gank encounters. The barrel hollows are a little goofy and they don’t work as intended but I do like the idea at play. There’s also some really sick visuals here, the whole fire and ice pairing is something I’ve loved since I was a kid playing Spyro, and this includes some really harsh architecture and wonderful views of the surrounding land. The lore surrounding the area is all pretty cool, although Nadalia to me comes off as the least interesting of the four (or five) sisters of dark.

Fume Knight I was expecting to be as perfect as I remembered, and I was basically right, but I was not expecting the first DkS2 boss on this playthrough that actually provided a serious, rigorous challenge. Up to that point (I just had the three endgame bosses and Ivory King left to run through) the only boss that felt truly challenging was Darklurker, but it still only took me a handful of tries. Smelter Demon was up there but it was mostly the shitty SOTFS runup. Fume Knight absolutely broke me, and forced me to learn every single one of his moves by heart, no bad runup included. He is absolutely brutal and suffocating, and you must be truly better than him to triumph. With this, paired with a nice arena, amazing music, and great lore, Fume Knight manages to be one of the couple S-tier bosses in DkS2.

As for the optional boss, the same cannot be said in the slightest. The trend of “DkS2 DLC has an absolute garbage optional area and boss” gets even worse with the much-maligned Iron Passage and the concluding Cool Ranch Smelter Demon. Nothing about Iron Passage is fun to progress through, with seemingly endless footsoldiers, ranged attackers, casters who slow you down with whatever this game’s TWOP is, all in some ugly claustrophobic caves. Yeah, it’s sounding a lot like Cave of the Dead, but this is miles worse. No one ever takes their time with this area for a reason, and just tries to haphazardly roll through it all, which is more than possible but still requiring some skill, an amount more than rolling through Cave of the Dead. As for the Smelter Demon, it’s the Smelter Demon, but does magic damage instead of fire, as well as scaled damage and health. Literally no differences beyond this, this includes a garbage runup, so even though the original Smelt is a good boss, F for unoriginality.

And…yes. Sir Alonne teeeeeeeechnically is an optional boss as well, but no one’s letting themselves move on without beating him. Aside from a couple of iffy hitboxes, Sir Alonne is a super consistent boss, which is definitely a spell easier than Raime, but reflects himself as a dangerous swordsman who requires much attention and patience, as much as he himself is giving you. The honour and eloquence of Alonne is reflected in the arena, whereas the rest of the DLC features these old worn castle walls corrupted by fire and heat, Alonne’s arena is clean, reflective, and pristine, with a backdrop of a tart orange sunset. The fight also contains a pretty epic score by Kitamura that she would unfortunately later ripoff heavily in the theme for DkS3’s Slave Knight Gael. This whole experience is only weakened by an absolutely asinine runup. This game couldn’t go without giving me TWO horrible boss runups bloated with Alonne knights and fire hazards. I just don’t get it.

All of this comes together to provide what I can easily call the best DLC of the bunch, despite its numerous shortcomings.

Despite giving this the same score as Sunken King, I am a little bit more mixed on this one. While the level design is very unique and fun, the enemy placement makes some sections absolutely hell, especially since half the area is very linear. The runbacks to Alonne and Blue Smelter Demon are also absolutely egregious and some of the worst game design I've ever seen.

However, this DLC has probably my two favorite bosses in the game, Fume Knight and Alonne. These two perfect what DS2 has been lacking for the most part, well-made and polished bosses. They have no bs attached and are just one-on-one duels that are pretty challenging and fair.

While I prefer Sunken King, Old Iron King is still pretty solid and proves DS2 could've been so much better.

Best DLC for Dark Souls II for sure. Two great boss battles, a dull one.

It's basically climbing down a tower made of Iron. Same problem with the Crown of the Sunken King, enemies hit like trucks and have very little poise. Best option is to run.

Sir Alonne boss fight is peak. Love it. Fume Knight too, awesome. Before entering Fume Knight, try get dressed as Velstadt for a quriky surprise.

Y'know, this one wasn't as bad as the Sunken King. It had some shitty moments like the boss run to Sir Allone, but that was manageable after grinding down some of those annoying knights. Blue Smelter Demon was one of my favorite boss fights in a weird way. Incredibly difficult for me, yet so engaging despite it's clockwork nature. It might be the hardest Dark Souls II boss fight for me if I'm being honest. It doesn't help that the runback for that one is a special kinda of hellish that I didn't grind down. And finally, Fume Knight was pretty fun! I actually found it to be the easiest boss fight in this DLC, but still a great time. I also loved how easy the boss runback was for this fight.
The DLC focuses on what DS2 does best, knight boss fights. It doesn't reach the heights of Artorias of the Abyss and the level design is still frustrating at times, but not nearly as bad as The Sunken King DLC. It's better than most DS2 levels or bosses, but still not enough to really kick it up a notch for me. Worth playing in some sense, but it's still DS2 at its crappy, contrarian core.