I'm honestly relieved to be done with Dark Souls II's DLC. It's extremely overhyped. I always heard that Dark Souls II's DLC was what made the game worth playing and I'll tell you right now, whoever says that is full of shit. There's really nothing all that great here. It's the same stuff you got in the base game, but at times, even more annoying. The frigid outskirts is particularly terrible. I reached the boss once and then decided it wasn't worth it.

I initially thought it was a mandatory fight, but the instant I found out it was optional, I yeeted the hell out of there. What an absolute waste of time! Lets just have the previous mandatory fight, but this time, there's two of them and the boss run is the worst one we've ever made! God damn! Why even bother? Keep in mind that I'm the guy who's okay with the Blue Smelter Demon boss run. I'd always been the guy who'd fight as many bosses as I could in these games, but this time around, I honestly couldn't be bothered.

To be fair, the DLC integrates the level design with the boss fights in a way that is an echo of other bosses in the base game. However, it's just a chore in my book. I didn't enjoy the final boss much, which greatly encourages the player to find four knights to serve them during the boss fight. Neat idea in concept, but in execution, it was just a hectic mess of a fight. I easily preferred the bosses from Iron King or even Sunken.

It's not terrible, but it might be my least favorite DLC from DS2. Not enraging like Sunken was at times, but also lacks the high highs that that DLC had to offer in the form of those standout boss fights. What a disappointment. Hopefully DS3's DLC is better...

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.

Well, it passes the time... I've always considered most Kirby games to be bland and safe titles that do little to impress more seasoned gamers. And this is coming from a Kirby fan! The peaks of the series in my opinion are Kirby Super Star, Planet Robobot, and possibly Crystal Shards for the way it dramatizes the typical old school true ending structure.

For my favorite addition to this remake of Kirby's Adventure, they got rid of the annoying Star Rod piece collections. I hate having to follow a guide to collect all the crap the old school Kirby games (excluding Super Star) needed in order to allow players to see the true ending. That stuff is absolutely garbage design in my opinion. It makes it into a guide game because I don't have the desire to scour the entirety of the game to get stupidly placed collectibles to face the final boss and get true closure on a story. (I'm also not a fan of when Sonic games do that too)

So thankfully, they streamlined it to fit my desired lazy gamer experience. Besides that, it's like they had all the badass additions from Super Star, but decided not to use most of them. What gives? I understand the value in simplicity, especially when making games for babies, but the Super Star system had the best of both worlds. It can be simple for kids, but more nuanced and enjoyable for us senior citizen gamers too. So yeah, at the end of the day, it's a game that passes the time, but I'd recommend it only for you Kirbyheads out there. Oh yeah, and of course the best content is the final boss. Of course it is...

As a start to the Dark Souls II DLCs, it's rather fitting. The contrarian's Dark Souls has a contrarian DLC. The level's exterior is quite beautiful, but once I started progressing through the area, I knew I was in for some shit. Finding bonfires was difficult because after playing through the entirety of the main campaign and not interacting with any puzzle based buttons or switches, this brilliant DLC decided to introduce them without telling me. As a result, I stumbled through the area not finding a lot of the bonfires and eventually giving up and looking up a guide. It's ultimately a new way to design a Dark Souls level, but as with a lot of the things that make Dark Souls II unique, it just isn't enjoyable. The DLC doesn't do a good job explaining how the puzzle mechanics work, which made it a real pain in the ass. Along with that, the enemies are irritating to fight against since they refused to stagger and the mechanics are not explained. Adding to that, classic asshole Dark Souls II enemy placement made the experience quite hellish at times. Luckily, the DLC is saved by having two great bosses back to back at the end of the level. Hopefully the next two DLCs are more conventional.

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The queen was a fun mix-up that does a good job building on Dark Souls II's trademark multi-fight system where you have to juggle fighting summoned enemies, while dodging the queen's dark magic. I found Elena to be my favorite boss in the DLC and possibly one of my favorites in Dark Souls II.

Sinh was a pretty neat dragon fight. It spews poison fire and likes to fly around a lot. The latter making the battle a little tedious at times, but with proper practice and active preparation, the fight becomes pretty fun.

Y'know, it's the quintessential contrarian's Dark Souls. It does weird things that differentiate it from other Souls games, but a lot of what it tries results in failure. I do like some of the changes, but a good majority of the crap it does makes it terrible. The suffering in this game is exacerbated in the Scholar of the First Sin edition since they messed with enemy placement to the point where I was quickly frustrated on every other level. The worst of these levels is the Shrine of Amana. It's clear that the game is not anywhere near the majesty and sheer quality of From Software's greatest works, but it was certainly a vital game for moving the series forward and trying new things along the way. Not my favorite Souls game, but I appreciate it nonetheless. (I much prefer the non Scholar version btw)

Oh yeah, and they made the Uchigatana's hitboxes a lot worse lmao!

I played Dawn of Sorrow back in high school and it was a blast! And now I can finally say that I beat Aria of Sorrow!

It's pretty cool! I liked it's straightforward design, though I must admit, I just felt like finishing it by around the time I beat Legion. After that, I just rushed through, since I knew we were almost done and I was kinda over it by that point.

Still a neat game though. I think the story is a bit basic and the characters are pretty one dimensional though.

I played this game when I was an elementary school kid at my friend's house. He had just gotten the Gamecube and I was super interested in what the console had to offer. Along with Lost Kingdom, he had Sunshine and Melee, but this was the game that surprised me the most. It was a strikingly exciting new form of gameplay I'd never seen before and because of that, I didn't really understand what was really going on. Years later and here we are.

Lost Kingdoms has its frustrations, but I do enjoy seeing From's old work. It's astounding how they've become one of the industry's leading developing companies despite the clear jank and lack of polish in their past titles. They've really cleaned up their act over the years.

We play as Princess Katia who's trying to save her kingdom and there's a fog that's covered the land. This is reminiscent of what we'd see in Boletaria in Demon's Souls. The story is told pretty up front, but it lacks that extra spicy of mystique that the Miyazaki games would provide in spades. However, we can case appreciate that the structure is there. It is a fairly bare bones story all things considered.

Mechanically, it's jankily implemented, but the idea of summoning creatures using cards is certainly a neat idea. I found that there was a lot to enjoy in terms of the sheer ideas, but actually playing it was much less enjoyable. I can see that the concepts in Lost Kingdom have a lot of potential, but in this game, it did get pretty frustrating. It's a very positioning focused game with a lack of mobility options. Also, a lot of the mechanics around the cards could've been explained a lot better. I played through the majority of the game not even fully understanding how to discard cards. I knew how to do it, but I thought that discarding them would take them out of the game for the rest of the level.

Finally, that final boss is quite a difficulty spike. I had to completely adjust my deck to take it down. Along with that, the road to reaching the final boss is very tedious. The boss right before the final boss was also one of the worst bosses because of how they summoned creatures with some of the slowest summoning animations. It was tedious as all hell.

All in all though, I admit that Lost Kingdoms is a neat game with great ideas. It only falters in the realm of implementation.