If the bonfire had the particles from Elden ring That would’ve safed me 2 hours. Bro as if I would look down a ledge when a giant throws pots at me like that would be stupid af
Shoutout to all the poor players who never found the bonfire before the Iron Golem and had to do the entire Sen’s Fortress LOL. Maybe that’s why the best summon in any game is there for the boss. TARKUS TARKUS TARKUS!
You can just take the cage elevator shortcut and it takes you right in front of the fog gate. If 3 man serpents are enough to stop you then you're cooked lol
There was a really horrible runback that I've done but not a boss runback. I once did the great decision to explore the great hollow and ash lake before getting the lordvessel and I also rested at the ash lake bonfire. I also got cursed by the frogs in one of my attempts without having a purging stone so I had to go through the entire great hollow backwards while having half hp (let me note that I was pretty early in the game and quite inexperienced with souls games). I can also remember a specific spot in the great hollow that blocks you from going through backwards (I think the floor after it was a little bit elevated or something and prevented you from walking towards it) and forced me to make a difficult jump at a branch right next to it. Anyways, I spent 4 hours or so and I made myself the most painful runback that day.
This happened to me too! i asked for advice online and people just said to start a new character lol. I guess i thought i could warp from ash lake but NOPE
yeah. How bad bed of choas' runback is has been exaggerated quite a bit here. You actually don't need to give the fair lady any humanity to get the 'shortcut' (I suppose it's less enemy dense, but that's more of a consolation prize than anything), which is probably how most players would discover it. Giving her humanity is only useful to save Solare, making it the single most important thing in the game, but I digress.
i love ds2s bonfire menu and nashandra enabling you to see how many bonfires are in each area, it made it really fun to go back and search for the missed ones myself
I've always thought hiding bonfires was a kinda dumb decision. The game does a great job getting players to explote via hidden items and areas, while doing this with bonfires has always seemed like an odd choice, given they are so critically important to the game that continually missing one makes the game so much more punishing and demotivating to play for someone who's newer. There's a certain amount of punishing and encouraging exploration that should be done in a game, but imo hiding checkpoints behind hidden walls or behind a drop you can't really see is too far, and only serves to really damage a new players experience imo
They should have just added some obvious visual indication to them. That would make the player feel smart, but right now it just depends on if you read messages or not.
I was going to comment about the message system, but honestly if you play offline you better be SUPER observant or you’re going to miss pretty much 90% of the hidden walls.
I would personally rate the Lud and Zallen runback just as bad as running through the entirety of Sen's fortress for Iron Golem, I fell into the damn pit so many times because of the snowstorm
Got to mention that the Four Kings runback is even worse if you let the firekeeper die and you haven't found the darkroot basin hidden bonfire. The nearest bonfire is either the lord vessel ( if you have it), or the undead parish one.
i’m quite sure you don’t need the Old Witch’s Ring to open the shortcut for Bed of Chaos. you can offer her humanity and level up the covenant without her dialogue.
I missed every single ds1 shortcut/hidden bonfire (except opening the door for sif if you want to count that) in this video on my first playthrough. For Quelaag I ran from the middle blighttown bonfire.
@@Domo3000 Honestly the only two that really had me frustrated was Queelag and Bed of Chaos as I died against them a fair bit. By comparison Iron Golem and Sif were first tries, but I died plenty just trying to reach the Golem. By the time I was doing Four King runbacks from Firelink I had sort of just accepted that "this was how the game worked" lol.
I missed the lower blighttown bonfire as well, but had the additional problem of Lautrec having killed the fire keeper. I fought Quelaag from Andre's bonfire in undead parish. I missed the hidden ones in Sen's and Izalith as well, (also didn't find the cage shortcut for Sen's and Iron Golem took me a lot of attempts).
I'm of two minds about the very hidden bonfires like in the dragon sanctum or aldia's keep. It's potentially a problem that you're so unlikely to discover it on your own, especially for people playing offline, but it does play nicely into the community information sharing aspect that is a core piece of the whole series. I found all the hidden bonfires in ds2 thanks to messages pointing them out, and it always feels nice to help and be helped like that. Regardless, great in depth analysis as always
Offline you need to cast Guidance every 3 minutes in order to stand on equal footing with online players, as it will show messages in front of every illusory wall. They should have just given those two some visual indication.
Really the only thing that's bad about DS2 runbacks are the enemies. Length wise it's fine and honestly quite tame. (excluding FO of course) But DS1 sacrifices enemies with the most mind-numbingly tedius paths you could _ever_ possibly take in your life. I have suffered through the worst case of Gwyndolin. (and have a video of it) It is as bad as it looks here.
The worst runback is the ng+ drangliec castle entrance in vanilla it's just way too hard to deal with a red phantom 2 mamoths and royal soldiers constantly harassing you with crossbows
The hidden Bonfire in Lost Izalith was always present, and the dragon legs indeed once had enormous aggro ranges. The best strategy for dealing with the dragon legs was to run into the first pagoda and hope that you could dodge and stay far enough out of range from the door and the walls the dragon legs were clipping through until they all defeated themselves via friendly fire. A bow would help with picking them off at the door too. Also, aside from the opportunity to save Solaire, the Chaos Servant walkway avoids all of the dragon legs. Considering how obnoxious those enemies were with their initial aggro ranges, this route to Izalith was a great reward. I appreciate the unique equipment you had for every boss fight in the clips!
The issue with that is that he's standing on top of a building filled with like 20 ghosts, and as unlikely as it would be you could potentially reach it from the very beginning and run out of transient curses and get trapped. It wouldn't be a fun runback either way. I'd put one in front of the giant door to the Valley of Drakes myself.
A lot of those hidden bonfires behind illusory walls are actually easy to discover thanks to all the messages, provided you play online of course, but that's how I imagine an average player does their first playthrough. The most unique for me was the Lost Izalith bonfire though. There weren't any messages, but when I got to that island I heard something making weird noises which appeared to be inside the tower. That prompted me to poke around and dispell the illusory wall. Turns out that something was a small vagrant. They are already hard to come by, but in that case I was lead to a hard to find place by an even harder to find enemy. A pretty unusual experience I think.
While I'm not 100% on this, it wouldn't surprise me if the reason the grave warden hit you there is because of hitbox shifting or maybe interpolation. I think interpolation would be more documented if it existed, but it's basically when the game sort of draws hit boxes that would flow in between frames of animation. Weird reference point, but I think smash bros has well documented showcases of interpolation being good and jank, if ds2 does interpolate hitboxes, and like I said I'm not 100% on that. If ds2 does interpolate it's hit boxes, I imagine he thrusted directly at you but because of the way he was facing, and the tracking on it, it created a small short lasting 180 degree sweep that covered everything to his left. It could also just be hitbox/hurtbox shifting, and he thrusted directly at you for a frame and it just barely clipped your toe or something.
You literally blew my mind with the old iron king shortcut. I've had to deal with that aweful runback for so long, never knowing there was a closer bonfire than the Smelter Demon one.
Somehow I did not discover the first iron keep bonfire on my first playthrough, so I had to run to smelter demon from Mytha's secret bonfire (yeah, somehow, I discovered this one). It's was not harder than a regular smelter runback, since there aren't much more enemies, but HELL it was annoying to ride that elevator everytime I died at the keep or the boss. Now imagine how bad would OIK runback from that bonfire be.
Its great how fast the large weapons in ds2 sotfs swing. Really helps with the faster enemies. And the instant knockdown/pancake make NPC enemies far easier to deal with.
Great vid but I'm certain you dont need the old witch's ring for qualaag's covenant. Also I'm pretty sure that if you go straight past Bed of Chaos, you can open the Shortcut from the other side where the sunlight maggot is without having to be in her covenant.
You should cover the gaping dragon, on my first playthrough I was stuck on him for so long because i was cursed and didnt know how to cure it, and also I missed every single shortcut in the area and had to spend like 5 minutes getting to him every time
I love seeing all these different paths, knowing there are people who had to use them. Rip to many hours of people time lmao Good video. One thing though: something you could do while youre showing the clips is to add the amount of time it took in the corner. Would help when you’re showing multiple clips at once.
Looked like a combination of the Gravekeeper's initial tracking on your character before locking into the spear thrust and your character's running animation. My best guess is that the spear's hitbox grazed your character's right heel when it was raised at its highest point.
First of all I never knew where the bonfire in upper Sen's is, or especially about that cage shortcut. Second of all I just finished a new playthrough where I never fast travelled so I've been through Sen's back and forth about seven times. The full way.
I remember missing the first iron keep bonfire and mytha hidden bonfire in my 1st playthrough. So whenever I died, I had to go aaaall the way from earthen peak to smelter demon(didn't known he was optional).
The Frigid Outskirts one sucks because one, DS2S spoiled us. Two, the game teaches you to take it slow and kill enemies instead of running past them but the frozen reindeer teach the complete opposite.
heavy flashbacks on moonlight butterfly. I was a 10 yo who tought he had to fight every enemy. Hadn't found the hidden bonfire and was going at it with the giant stone knights every single run. Worst weekend of my life. Especially cause up to that point, I was using shield to block everything physical, and suddenly there's a boss that fires spells that actually do damage :O funnily enough that flying grub is the boss that taught me how to dodge
I recently started my first playthrough a couple months ago of Dark Souls 2 (haven't finished it due to a big move) and the only reason I was determined to defeat the Old Iron King in one try is because my bonfire was the Belfry one. I didn't know about that one near the fire/spike rooms so I dreaded the idea of going through all of that portion of the keep again if I died. And well I defeated him in one try so I didn't have to lololol! This video makes me realize how much I have missed in this game. It's great!!
Fun fact: On my first playthrough I missed both the smelter Demon fight and the third bonfire, so I attempted Old Iron King by always running through Belfry Sol ^^
I'd forgotten how awful those hidden bonfires were in DS2. There in the most random walls and you have to hit the action button instead of the typical attack, so they are waaaay harder to find. I mean, why in the hell would I press A on this random ass wall?
Yeah I love the amount of secrets in DS2, but they should have kept the bonfires out of it. Just give me a standard bonfire and put something cool in the illusory wall instead. I have to disagree about the Action button though. It is the superior mechanic imo. I didn't like it at first, but by the end of the playthrough I thought it was a good decision. With the insane amount of secrets within DS2, having to smack each individual wall panel with your weapon would be slower, and it would become very tedious imo. With the Action button, you can run diagonally against a wall and mash the button. You asked why you would be pressing a button on a random wall - but why would you be smacking a random wall with a weapon as well? Lol Really, they should have implemented both methods - for people who prefer the weapon swing, and so people could accidentally/naturally stumble upon illusory walls during combat.
The Orma and Reeve knights technically don't *force* you to wait, as if you hit a projectile in the correct spot on the left wall behind the knight, the noise will attract the left knight's attention and make him turn towards the wall, opening a gap which you can run through smoothly. A new player who would actually go through the worst case runbacks wouldn't know this, but it's some neat tech to know otherwise to help you go ever so slightly faster.
There is only one thing I found wrong with the bed of chaos run back, you don't need the ring to access the short cut. The only purpose the ring serves it just for the couple of lines of dialog.
They added a bonfire to Vamos' forge in the remaster so it's actually one of the shortest runbacks now. And Pinwheel is a one-shot boss in any case so that was never the problem. The problem is more going to the Tomb of Giants afterwards and falling to your death while you stumble around in the pitch darkness.
@@shiroamakusa8075 issue is that on first playthrough, that place where you drop down in, its hard to tell if you could survive the fall. Playthroughs after it, you can easily die if not positioned right. Plus skeleton wheels are my most hated enemies in the entire series. Anyway, video demonstrates how bad runbacks are if shortcuts or bonfires are missed. But yeah I totally agree with you on Tomb of the giants. Even worse the tomb of the giants bonfires (both of them) are missable in the darkness.
Today I learned how to open the Sen´s Prison Cage Also most of them seem to happen because of some hidden wall problems. Luckly, at least for me, often player messages told me to attack random walls for rewards. Even tho it worked that´s absolutly not a thing you can rely on on your game since some people may play offline or don´t get the message shown (propably rare if even, chance may be still there) Or the scary world that is about to get you so you don´t feel motivated to explore. I get that feeling well in the DS3 Dreg Heap, the area lags to hell for me and that makes exploring it hell. I literally grab 2 or 3 rings and a few wanted items and leave, even skipping the Titanite Slap. I even know how to skip the whole swamp part. To a point where I looked at the loot on the wiky to see if it´s worth trying to get it (like the Banner Staff)
I never found the bonfire at the bottom of blighttown on my first playthrough either. I made my way from the top of blighttown every time I attempted Queelag, killing every enemy on the way. I think it took me around 7 minutes each time, and it was a lot of tries. Then I died about five times on the elevator trying to get out, still never finding the bonfire at the bottom.
@@TheExcavateable yeah I mixed it up. There's another bug that sometimes the door doesn't open which can be fixed by defeating a boss or reloading the game. So for me it randomly didn't work, then I paid another 30 humanity and it randomly worked again. I misunderstood what was happening
@@Domo3000 interesting, and no worries on mixing it up, I love your content and it's always quite insightful to me, keep it up 👍🏻 just thought you should know about it
I think the main problem with Frigid Outskirts is that best case scenario it's a straight 3min sprint, there isn't anything you could learn on subsequent playthroughs (shortcuts invisible walls etc) that would make it shorter.
I had a horrid 5 minute runback in NG+ in DS1 one time, basically I was trying to beat the bosses in the strangest order i could think of and i was fighting the Four Kings before Anor Londo, unfortunately for me Firelink shrine wasnt an option because the firekeeper was dead, i tried from Undead Parish but id forgotten to upgrade that bonfire to 20 flasks and the 10 there were simply not enough, to my dissmay the closest bonfire i had with 20 flasks was the roof of Sen’s Fortress so i had to endure this 5 minute runback from the Sen’s Fortress bonfire i had to first take off Haval's armour, then run to the cage shortcut, across the Parish church, down through Firelink, down to New Londo, drop down after the first ghosts, past the darkwraiths, run halfway down the stairs then i put Haval's armour back on and then finally drop down
Personally, what makes the Frigid Outskirts runback so bad is that freaking "reindeer" thing. I don't know why, but I have such a hard time dodging it when trying to run back to the boss fight. Not only that, but I fell off into the pit just before the boss fight several times because of the snowstorm and losing track of where I was. In general, I personally will take a Run-back with less enemies, rather than the shortest route (to a point of course). So it is also a little dependent on taste and preference I think.
You miss the first iron keep bonefire when first entering the zone that would make the run even worse probably just add another 40 seconds with the elevator ride back up lol.
Or you start the game and sprint straight threw the game no bonefires or teleports so you do the full jog on over. If you die restart the game then continue the run.
18:42 it was likely a random glitch that happened bc of how long the game was running or bc of issues trying to load something in. No idea honestly just speculation
I don't think people understand how absurdly brutal ds1 can be on a first playthrough. Ds2 can be frustrating but at least if you know that you need to take your time through the levels, it isn't bad at all. Ds1 straight up felt like a rage game on my first playthrough even with guides and online help. A lot of the areas felt really spammy with the enemies (I had only played ds3 and elden ring before this) and I just wasn't having any fun. If I had thought that the other games had been like ds1 I don't think I would have played the other games because so many of the interactions feel like the devs just want to troll the player for no reason
@bihn On my first playthrough, I played with light armor on medium roll. I didn't realize poise was such a massive mechanic in ds1 so everything stunlocked me and I would lose every trade. This mechanic was never explained to me but I assumed that medium roll was enough to avoid damage
@@samthepigman4069 I found poise intuitive, it made sense to me that armor with higher poise would help me stagger less. The in-game explanation of poise: "Ability to receive attacks without breaking form." It's a pretty accurate description, and I found the system intuitive. It's unfortunate that you didn't understand poise, but the explanation was there.
That's funny because about two weeks ago my friend who loved playing through DS1 played DS2 and although he finished the game once on vanilla (he was not having a pleasant time), quit halfway through SoTFS because he considered it a rage game, which was his preconception of what DS1 would be. Admittedly he played poorly at times in both, but his only real gripe in 1 was getting cursed, he felt like the game was trying it's hardest to kill him in 2.
I’ve been watching a bunch of your videos and I’m happy there’s finally someone defending DSII and showing the faults in the other games, though after all this I have one question; is that your cat in your profile picture? They are adorable.
I would just like to correct you on a little point on the bed of chaos section, you do not need the ring to communicate with the fair lady in order to unlock the short cut, you just need to join the covenant and offer humanity.
15:00 Right there! You just described the source of the most common complaints about DS2. None of them want to adapt, they want THEIR fashion and THEIR weapon and THEIR rings, and if it's extremely hard to do without adapting: Game bad. I'm not even kidding, i've seen multiple first playthroughs where people's first and ONLY response to Black Gulch is to rush it. I refuse to believe BG's first bonfire is a missable bonfire though. You just entered a new area (which is where you would often expect bonfires) and you can see it by simply looking left into the alcove while walking forward.
The ultimate nightmare run back for me was the no resting at bonfires challenge in DS2. You can only set your respawn location at each bonfire once by lighting it. You end up having to go through multiple sections of Shrine of Amana without resting or saving progress either going in or on the way back out. I chose to run the whole gauntlet on my way out and jfc was that an ugly day. Not a run back to a boss, but a run back to any bonfire not in the longest, worst dead end.
15:25 Has that bonfire been there this whole time? I have legit always ran back from the gutter. Legit i have never even seen either of those bonfires, i have always just ran through from the first one. WTF.
The Four Kings run back is one of the worst in the series. Lotta people don’t bring up Bloodborne when it comes to bad run backs, but it did have a couple that were bad.
I think the Catacombs run to Pinwheel then back to Firelink Shrine is worth a mention since happens a lot for people on first blind playthroughs end up going there and somehow not realize it is not intended because of how the Souls reputation goes about being a hard series of games, so they are misleaded by it and think it's normal not doing any damage to skeletons. At worst case scenario I know people that even made all their way to the first or second tomb of giants bonfires without the Lordvessel then having to climb their way back extremely underleved and with a +0 weapon. The wheel skeletons are specially horrible to deal with in this run.
Already been pointed out about not needing the ring for Chaos Servant covenant but the whole "can't just dump 30 humanity" surprised me. I replayed the game somewhat recently and didn't seem to have problems with that? Trying to think back to my PS3 and PTDA days but can't really remember the Izalith bonfire not being there. Definitely found it because the previous chest prompted me to try the pillar for a secret, for sure, that little detail worked well =3
i didnt know the tomb of the giants bonfire OR vamos fire OR the jump shortcut so i had to go through all of that to get to nito and not to mention how many times i did falling through the ground
I did the old iron king without going up the ladder and i thought it was the worst runback i ever experienced i had a rapier and had to kill every single enemy individually i almost first tried the boss but i think i became brain dead and died enough that all the enemys despawned some of my deaths were because i fell in the lava when fighting the boss too and i dont think my rapier was fully upgraded because i remember every enemy being taking 5 hits which is very hard to do when you got 20 other enemies going after you much rather do frigid outskirts than do that shit again
Kind of surprised you didn’t mention the pinwheel run back from either firelink shrine or the first catacombs bonfire, as that was the one I did for my first few playthroughs, and it felt pretty awful
You literally can't miss the first bonfire, so it wouldn't really be fair to count from firelink. However, if you went through the area, you should already be aware you can survive some drops to get to Pinwheel faster
I think the whole concept of runbacks were never being considered an actual issue in the Souls trilogy as you weren't supposed to get back at the boss with all your flasks and at full health (unless the devs clearly put a bonfire right next to the boss arena. For me it worked more like checkpoints where you were suppose to go through the final section of areas fighting some enemies in your way and reaching the boss with maybe half of your flasks idk. This idea of running pass enemies straight to the boss is a player invented issue that for some reason became a game flaw.
I think the kindle system is great for this. Having trouble getting to the boss? Kindle and now you have 5 charges for the run, 5 for the boss. I was torn on the respawn statues in Elden Ring when it first launched, but in a game like that I understand it. Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls both want you to get confident clearing the level before moving onto the boss. ER pretty much just shifts the entire learning curve from 50-50 level-boss to 5% level 95% boss. I feel like we’re a little bit spoiled today, with all the knowledge and context of the games. 10 years ago I think getting back to the bosses was part of the fun. Maybe we’re just outliers lol
I always fought my way to the boss on my first few playthroughs, only running past enemies once I was very familiar with the game and I still died multiple times. Plus the extra souls don't hurt if you're already struggling and dying against the boss.
@HowdyYT the bosses are alot harder and faster in Sekiro and ER comoared to the older games so it would would make sense that you aren't just running to get your ass handed to you more often and you can actually study the patterns instead
@HowdyYT I do miss the level focus. For me, dark souls never had the hardest bosses, but rather the levels and bosses were part of a combined piece. The ability to sprint past ruins that balance imo
7:30 That's one thing that I really like, duplicating objects to make the races more enjoyable is so easy that I give a point to ds1 for having that bug.
I forgot how awful the iron golem runback is when you don't know the secret bonfire. You brought back bad memories of my first playthrough.
Good thing he's one the easier bosses.
You are the famous PvZ guy
Yoo crosscode guy
If the bonfire had the particles from Elden ring That would’ve safed me 2 hours. Bro as if I would look down a ledge when a giant throws pots at me like that would be stupid af
Same
Shoutout to all the poor players who never found the bonfire before the Iron Golem and had to do the entire Sen’s Fortress LOL. Maybe that’s why the best summon in any game is there for the boss. TARKUS TARKUS TARKUS!
I found it on accident when an enemy knocked me down there
You can just take the cage elevator shortcut and it takes you right in front of the fog gate. If 3 man serpents are enough to stop you then you're cooked lol
Good thing there is usually at least one sign "bonfire ahead" on the floor
@@PIKL_Creep I think the cage shortcut is way more missable than the bonfire.
TARKUSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love the little tangents you go on. It goes to show just how invested into these games and their details you are.
There was a really horrible runback that I've done but not a boss runback. I once did the great decision to explore the great hollow and ash lake before getting the lordvessel and I also rested at the ash lake bonfire. I also got cursed by the frogs in one of my attempts without having a purging stone so I had to go through the entire great hollow backwards while having half hp (let me note that I was pretty early in the game and quite inexperienced with souls games). I can also remember a specific spot in the great hollow that blocks you from going through backwards (I think the floor after it was a little bit elevated or something and prevented you from walking towards it) and forced me to make a difficult jump at a branch right next to it. Anyways, I spent 4 hours or so and I made myself the most painful runback that day.
I did that journey in another video. It took me like 15 minutes from the second Ash Lake bonfire to run back to Firelink Shrine.
It's brutal.
That trip back is always such a journey, I actually quite enjoyed it 😊
Oh man I remember doing that on the unpatched version where the curse takes your life down to almost nothing.
This happened to me too! i asked for advice online and people just said to start a new character lol. I guess i thought i could warp from ash lake but NOPE
Can't stand that one janky branch that makes you almost fall to go up
6:52 you don't need the ring to give Quelaag's sister humanity. You won't hear any dialogue but all her covenant's content is completely available.
yeah. How bad bed of choas' runback is has been exaggerated quite a bit here. You actually don't need to give the fair lady any humanity to get the 'shortcut' (I suppose it's less enemy dense, but that's more of a consolation prize than anything), which is probably how most players would discover it. Giving her humanity is only useful to save Solare, making it the single most important thing in the game, but I digress.
They also fixed it in the Remaster, you can give all 30 humanities in one go, and it will unlock the shortcut.
@@kirinthewanderer5896 is there really a way to open the shortcut without the covenant?
@@HowdyYT yeah, you just go around the other way. It means solaire dies, but you can open the shortcut from that side.
@@kirinthewanderer5896 didn’t realize you could just open it from the back lol. Thanks for the tip!
i love ds2s bonfire menu and nashandra enabling you to see how many bonfires are in each area, it made it really fun to go back and search for the missed ones myself
Wait she's the one who allows you to see the foggy bonfire slots 😮
@@Lego_Whis_the_wiseI believe it's the priestess eye in the Crown of the Ivory King DLC
@@shirothr5384 I don't think so, I haven't entered the dlc and I think the bonefire menu updated around drangleic/shrine of amana
not a runback perse, but running back from tomb of the giants to firelink without warping is probably the most messed up thing in dark souls
Lebron James reported reach the tomb of giants without obtaining the lordvessel!
Did it on my first run. Genuinely gave up on that character and made a new one
The AI voice going "weeeeeeeee" at 6:36 is hilarious
I've always thought hiding bonfires was a kinda dumb decision. The game does a great job getting players to explote via hidden items and areas, while doing this with bonfires has always seemed like an odd choice, given they are so critically important to the game that continually missing one makes the game so much more punishing and demotivating to play for someone who's newer.
There's a certain amount of punishing and encouraging exploration that should be done in a game, but imo hiding checkpoints behind hidden walls or behind a drop you can't really see is too far, and only serves to really damage a new players experience imo
They should have just added some obvious visual indication to them. That would make the player feel smart, but right now it just depends on if you read messages or not.
100% agreed
I was going to comment about the message system, but honestly if you play offline you better be SUPER observant or you’re going to miss pretty much 90% of the hidden walls.
I love that ds2 has a helmet that let's you see messages near hidden walls even while offline, it is a dlc helm tho
@@klatschi7968Yeah you can also use the miracle "Seek Guidance" to show the messages in ds2.
I would personally rate the Lud and Zallen runback just as bad as running through the entirety of Sen's fortress for Iron Golem, I fell into the damn pit so many times because of the snowstorm
Got to mention that the Four Kings runback is even worse if you let the firekeeper die and you haven't found the darkroot basin hidden bonfire. The nearest bonfire is either the lord vessel ( if you have it), or the undead parish one.
There's a hidden bonfire in Izalith?
i’m quite sure you don’t need the Old Witch’s Ring to open the shortcut for Bed of Chaos. you can offer her humanity and level up the covenant without her dialogue.
This is true.
Yeah
Yeah it’s only needed to hear her voicelines, which are not required at all
I missed every single ds1 shortcut/hidden bonfire (except opening the door for sif if you want to count that) in this video on my first playthrough. For Quelaag I ran from the middle blighttown bonfire.
That's harsh. First you get shipwrecked and then wrecked by runbacks
@@Domo3000 Honestly the only two that really had me frustrated was Queelag and Bed of Chaos as I died against them a fair bit. By comparison Iron Golem and Sif were first tries, but I died plenty just trying to reach the Golem.
By the time I was doing Four King runbacks from Firelink I had sort of just accepted that "this was how the game worked" lol.
@@Ashipwreckedguy I started with Demon Souls so none of them would have felt out of the ordinary
I missed the lower blighttown bonfire as well, but had the additional problem of Lautrec having killed the fire keeper. I fought Quelaag from Andre's bonfire in undead parish. I missed the hidden ones in Sen's and Izalith as well, (also didn't find the cage shortcut for Sen's and Iron Golem took me a lot of attempts).
I'm of two minds about the very hidden bonfires like in the dragon sanctum or aldia's keep. It's potentially a problem that you're so unlikely to discover it on your own, especially for people playing offline, but it does play nicely into the community information sharing aspect that is a core piece of the whole series. I found all the hidden bonfires in ds2 thanks to messages pointing them out, and it always feels nice to help and be helped like that. Regardless, great in depth analysis as always
Offline you need to cast Guidance every 3 minutes in order to stand on equal footing with online players, as it will show messages in front of every illusory wall.
They should have just given those two some visual indication.
By that point, you'd at least know there's more than 1 bonfire in those areas.
No way they removed the bonfire in the New Londo Ruins, would have been such a quality of life bonfire
Really the only thing that's bad about DS2 runbacks are the enemies. Length wise it's fine and honestly quite tame. (excluding FO of course) But DS1 sacrifices enemies with the most mind-numbingly tedius paths you could _ever_ possibly take in your life. I have suffered through the worst case of Gwyndolin. (and have a video of it) It is as bad as it looks here.
The worst runback is the ng+ drangliec castle entrance in vanilla it's just way too hard to deal with a red phantom 2 mamoths and royal soldiers constantly harassing you with crossbows
I wonder why they removed them in scholar. But I would say the worst NG+ run is totally iron keep. 7 red phantoms from the starting bonfire 😢
The hidden Bonfire in Lost Izalith was always present, and the dragon legs indeed once had enormous aggro ranges. The best strategy for dealing with the dragon legs was to run into the first pagoda and hope that you could dodge and stay far enough out of range from the door and the walls the dragon legs were clipping through until they all defeated themselves via friendly fire. A bow would help with picking them off at the door too.
Also, aside from the opportunity to save Solaire, the Chaos Servant walkway avoids all of the dragon legs. Considering how obnoxious those enemies were with their initial aggro ranges, this route to Izalith was a great reward.
I appreciate the unique equipment you had for every boss fight in the clips!
They could have put a bonfire on the roof with Ingward.
Out of the water, and next to a somewhat important NPC.
The issue with that is that he's standing on top of a building filled with like 20 ghosts, and as unlikely as it would be you could potentially reach it from the very beginning and run out of transient curses and get trapped. It wouldn't be a fun runback either way. I'd put one in front of the giant door to the Valley of Drakes myself.
whips are actually really good at breaking the poison statues in black gulch because of their range
I ended up using the zweihander even without the stats because of the range
A lot of those hidden bonfires behind illusory walls are actually easy to discover thanks to all the messages, provided you play online of course, but that's how I imagine an average player does their first playthrough.
The most unique for me was the Lost Izalith bonfire though. There weren't any messages, but when I got to that island I heard something making weird noises which appeared to be inside the tower. That prompted me to poke around and dispell the illusory wall. Turns out that something was a small vagrant. They are already hard to come by, but in that case I was lead to a hard to find place by an even harder to find enemy.
A pretty unusual experience I think.
While I'm not 100% on this, it wouldn't surprise me if the reason the grave warden hit you there is because of hitbox shifting or maybe interpolation.
I think interpolation would be more documented if it existed, but it's basically when the game sort of draws hit boxes that would flow in between frames of animation. Weird reference point, but I think smash bros has well documented showcases of interpolation being good and jank, if ds2 does interpolate hitboxes, and like I said I'm not 100% on that. If ds2 does interpolate it's hit boxes, I imagine he thrusted directly at you but because of the way he was facing, and the tracking on it, it created a small short lasting 180 degree sweep that covered everything to his left.
It could also just be hitbox/hurtbox shifting, and he thrusted directly at you for a frame and it just barely clipped your toe or something.
23:23 Old Iron King is packing a dump truck! The lore I didn't know I needed...
Nope, it's not the worst runback. The worst runback is to Bed of Chaos. A long runback just to get into a jumping puzzle.
Just save and quit after each hand. After that you only need couple tries to understand how to dodge them when you running central path
Frigid Outskirts actually pretty easy if you run by the right side of the area, took me 2 tries to run to the bosses and kill them
Never realized that the darkroot basin bonfire is faster than firelink. I should've done that during my platinum 🤣
I am hard wired to use Firelink lol
It's only slightly faster with more darkwraiths along the way (+drakes)
the hidden bonfire in lost izalith was in the game day one, i played the pre-patched version of the game on my ps3 and it was still there!
You literally blew my mind with the old iron king shortcut.
I've had to deal with that aweful runback for so long, never knowing there was a closer bonfire than the Smelter Demon one.
Figuratively*
@@jarlwhiterun7478 Nah, I used Literally to give emphasis to what I was saying, it's called Exaggeration.
Somehow I did not discover the first iron keep bonfire on my first playthrough, so I had to run to smelter demon from Mytha's secret bonfire (yeah, somehow, I discovered this one). It's was not harder than a regular smelter runback, since there aren't much more enemies, but HELL it was annoying to ride that elevator everytime I died at the keep or the boss. Now imagine how bad would OIK runback from that bonfire be.
that's crazy how you got those two switched than normal
I missed thst one too for like 3 deaths
Genuinely, how did you miss that? Do people not explore every possible pathway in each area?
@@Zoomii5 I don't know, I was just ignoring both left and right turns and always went straight to the bridge.
Its great how fast the large weapons in ds2 sotfs swing. Really helps with the faster enemies. And the instant knockdown/pancake make NPC enemies far easier to deal with.
Great vid but I'm certain you dont need the old witch's ring for qualaag's covenant. Also I'm pretty sure that if you go straight past Bed of Chaos, you can open the Shortcut from the other side where the sunlight maggot is without having to be in her covenant.
these videos are great dude id love to see more like this
You should cover the gaping dragon, on my first playthrough I was stuck on him for so long because i was cursed and didnt know how to cure it, and also I missed every single shortcut in the area and had to spend like 5 minutes getting to him every time
I love seeing all these different paths, knowing there are people who had to use them. Rip to many hours of people time lmao
Good video. One thing though: something you could do while youre showing the clips is to add the amount of time it took in the corner. Would help when you’re showing multiple clips at once.
the text to speech weeeee was freaking hilarious LOL
Looked like a combination of the Gravekeeper's initial tracking on your character before locking into the spear thrust and your character's running animation.
My best guess is that the spear's hitbox grazed your character's right heel when it was raised at its highest point.
Yeah that's probably it
Luckily i've never really had to experience the Iron Golem full runback thanks to Iron Tarkus
14:20 that....that was bonfire.......I only noticed the statue on my last and successful attempt...
First of all I never knew where the bonfire in upper Sen's is, or especially about that cage shortcut. Second of all I just finished a new playthrough where I never fast travelled so I've been through Sen's back and forth about seven times. The full way.
i accidentally killed my firekeeper at the start of the game. So my run back for Four Kings was way worse than the ones mentioned for Four Kings.
I remember missing the first iron keep bonfire and mytha hidden bonfire in my 1st playthrough. So whenever I died, I had to go aaaall the way from earthen peak to smelter demon(didn't known he was optional).
The Frigid Outskirts one sucks because one, DS2S spoiled us. Two, the game teaches you to take it slow and kill enemies instead of running past them but the frozen reindeer teach the complete opposite.
As far as I remember you don't need to wear Witch Ring to offer humanity to Pale Lady, I think you need Witch ring only to get extra dialogue.
I would gladly take the reindeer a hundred times over having to deal with the rafters and elevator on the way to Gwendolyn again
Undead crypt first bonfire was hidden under the steps and easely missable.
heavy flashbacks on moonlight butterfly. I was a 10 yo who tought he had to fight every enemy. Hadn't found the hidden bonfire and was going at it with the giant stone knights every single run. Worst weekend of my life. Especially cause up to that point, I was using shield to block everything physical, and suddenly there's a boss that fires spells that actually do damage :O funnily enough that flying grub is the boss that taught me how to dodge
I recently started my first playthrough a couple months ago of Dark Souls 2 (haven't finished it due to a big move) and the only reason I was determined to defeat the Old Iron King in one try is because my bonfire was the Belfry one. I didn't know about that one near the fire/spike rooms so I dreaded the idea of going through all of that portion of the keep again if I died. And well I defeated him in one try so I didn't have to lololol! This video makes me realize how much I have missed in this game. It's great!!
Fun fact: On my first playthrough I missed both the smelter Demon fight and the third bonfire, so I attempted Old Iron King by always running through Belfry Sol ^^
6:35 wheeeeeeee! 😂
actually the frigid outskirts runback is easy and i did sl1 coc u just need a strat,and observe your surroundings.
i did it by panckaking enemies
though to be fair someone playing the game for the first time wouldnt know none of this.
also bed of chaos runback is definitely the worst of the series.
@@RelaxingNostalgia you atleast don't have to deal with annoying enemies in the bed of chaos runback lol.
I'd forgotten how awful those hidden bonfires were in DS2. There in the most random walls and you have to hit the action button instead of the typical attack, so they are waaaay harder to find. I mean, why in the hell would I press A on this random ass wall?
Yeah I love the amount of secrets in DS2, but they should have kept the bonfires out of it. Just give me a standard bonfire and put something cool in the illusory wall instead.
I have to disagree about the Action button though. It is the superior mechanic imo. I didn't like it at first, but by the end of the playthrough I thought it was a good decision. With the insane amount of secrets within DS2, having to smack each individual wall panel with your weapon would be slower, and it would become very tedious imo. With the Action button, you can run diagonally against a wall and mash the button.
You asked why you would be pressing a button on a random wall - but why would you be smacking a random wall with a weapon as well? Lol
Really, they should have implemented both methods - for people who prefer the weapon swing, and so people could accidentally/naturally stumble upon illusory walls during combat.
The Orma and Reeve knights technically don't *force* you to wait, as if you hit a projectile in the correct spot on the left wall behind the knight, the noise will attract the left knight's attention and make him turn towards the wall, opening a gap which you can run through smoothly.
A new player who would actually go through the worst case runbacks wouldn't know this, but it's some neat tech to know otherwise to help you go ever so slightly faster.
I didn't find any of the bonfires in Iron Keep, that runback was brutal.
I found the Sens Fortress bonfire because a nice undead left a messsage.
There is only one thing I found wrong with the bed of chaos run back, you don't need the ring to access the short cut. The only purpose the ring serves it just for the couple of lines of dialog.
Pinwheel imo has one of the worst runbacks
They added a bonfire to Vamos' forge in the remaster so it's actually one of the shortest runbacks now. And Pinwheel is a one-shot boss in any case so that was never the problem. The problem is more going to the Tomb of Giants afterwards and falling to your death while you stumble around in the pitch darkness.
@@shiroamakusa8075 issue is that on first playthrough, that place where you drop down in, its hard to tell if you could survive the fall. Playthroughs after it, you can easily die if not positioned right. Plus skeleton wheels are my most hated enemies in the entire series.
Anyway, video demonstrates how bad runbacks are if shortcuts or bonfires are missed. But yeah I totally agree with you on Tomb of the giants. Even worse the tomb of the giants bonfires (both of them) are missable in the darkness.
I found the sen‘s fortress bonfire on my third playthrough I think. I was just lucky enough to beat the iron golem first try.
Don't forget you also had to offer the humanities ONE BY ONE
Today I learned how to open the Sen´s Prison Cage
Also most of them seem to happen because of some hidden wall problems. Luckly, at least for me, often player messages told me to attack random walls for rewards. Even tho it worked that´s absolutly not a thing you can rely on on your game since some people may play offline or don´t get the message shown (propably rare if even, chance may be still there)
Or the scary world that is about to get you so you don´t feel motivated to explore. I get that feeling well in the DS3 Dreg Heap, the area lags to hell for me and that makes exploring it hell. I literally grab 2 or 3 rings and a few wanted items and leave, even skipping the Titanite Slap. I even know how to skip the whole swamp part. To a point where I looked at the loot on the wiky to see if it´s worth trying to get it (like the Banner Staff)
At 17:55, i think it was your foot when running that got caught in the hitbox. it seems to extend behind you quite a bit, not sure but just a guess.
Yeah that seems to be the best explanation.
@@Domo3000Bearer of the Curse is too sensitive
You should really do Soul Level 1 hitless of ds2. I think you’re skilled enough.
I never found the bonfire at the bottom of blighttown on my first playthrough either. I made my way from the top of blighttown every time I attempted Queelag, killing every enemy on the way. I think it took me around 7 minutes each time, and it was a lot of tries. Then I died about five times on the elevator trying to get out, still never finding the bonfire at the bottom.
i never found the bonfire before wolnir so that has been the worst runback for me so far
I was able to give all 30 humanities at once in DSR and was still able to open the door.
This was a little over a week ago
@@TheExcavateable yeah I mixed it up.
There's another bug that sometimes the door doesn't open which can be fixed by defeating a boss or reloading the game.
So for me it randomly didn't work, then I paid another 30 humanity and it randomly worked again.
I misunderstood what was happening
@@Domo3000 interesting, and no worries on mixing it up, I love your content and it's always quite insightful to me, keep it up 👍🏻 just thought you should know about it
I think the main problem with Frigid Outskirts is that best case scenario it's a straight 3min sprint, there isn't anything you could learn on subsequent playthroughs (shortcuts invisible walls etc) that would make it shorter.
Yeah at the start domo does clarify that with full info it is still the worst
I had a horrid 5 minute runback in NG+ in DS1 one time, basically I was trying to beat the bosses in the strangest order i could think of and i was fighting the Four Kings before Anor Londo, unfortunately for me Firelink shrine wasnt an option because the firekeeper was dead, i tried from Undead Parish but id forgotten to upgrade that bonfire to 20 flasks and the 10 there were simply not enough, to my dissmay the closest bonfire i had with 20 flasks was the roof of Sen’s Fortress so i had to endure this 5 minute runback from the Sen’s Fortress bonfire i had to first take off Haval's armour, then run to the cage shortcut, across the Parish church, down through Firelink, down to New Londo, drop down after the first ghosts, past the darkwraiths, run halfway down the stairs then i put Haval's armour back on and then finally drop down
Good Ole Horse Fuck Valley. I'd say I missed ye, but I doth never bothered.
Personally, what makes the Frigid Outskirts runback so bad is that freaking "reindeer" thing. I don't know why, but I have such a hard time dodging it when trying to run back to the boss fight. Not only that, but I fell off into the pit just before the boss fight several times because of the snowstorm and losing track of where I was.
In general, I personally will take a Run-back with less enemies, rather than the shortest route (to a point of course). So it is also a little dependent on taste and preference I think.
You miss the first iron keep bonefire when first entering the zone that would make the run even worse probably just add another 40 seconds with the elevator ride back up lol.
Or you could go from majula and have a fifteen minute run back.
Or you start the game and sprint straight threw the game no bonefires or teleports so you do the full jog on over. If you die restart the game then continue the run.
22:43 THERE IS A LADDER???
18:42 it was likely a random glitch that happened bc of how long the game was running or bc of issues trying to load something in. No idea honestly just speculation
Another user pointed out that it could have been my leg or arm during the run animation and that the camera angle is just bad
Fromsoftware please just stop hiding bonfires please
So when people talk about bad runbacks they're usually talking about the optimum runback
When people complain about a horrible runback they often missed a shortcut or closer bonfire.
In my experience when people talk about bad run backs it’s usually the least optimal run, at least for first time players
I don't think people understand how absurdly brutal ds1 can be on a first playthrough. Ds2 can be frustrating but at least if you know that you need to take your time through the levels, it isn't bad at all. Ds1 straight up felt like a rage game on my first playthrough even with guides and online help. A lot of the areas felt really spammy with the enemies (I had only played ds3 and elden ring before this) and I just wasn't having any fun. If I had thought that the other games had been like ds1 I don't think I would have played the other games because so many of the interactions feel like the devs just want to troll the player for no reason
I played Dark Souls as my first, and I never felt this way at all. I guess we had a very different experience.
@bihn On my first playthrough, I played with light armor on medium roll. I didn't realize poise was such a massive mechanic in ds1 so everything stunlocked me and I would lose every trade. This mechanic was never explained to me but I assumed that medium roll was enough to avoid damage
@@samthepigman4069 I found poise intuitive, it made sense to me that armor with higher poise would help me stagger less.
The in-game explanation of poise: "Ability to receive attacks without breaking form." It's a pretty accurate description, and I found the system intuitive.
It's unfortunate that you didn't understand poise, but the explanation was there.
That's funny because about two weeks ago my friend who loved playing through DS1 played DS2 and although he finished the game once on vanilla (he was not having a pleasant time), quit halfway through SoTFS because he considered it a rage game, which was his preconception of what DS1 would be. Admittedly he played poorly at times in both, but his only real gripe in 1 was getting cursed, he felt like the game was trying it's hardest to kill him in 2.
I just had the same experience as you
I’ve been watching a bunch of your videos and I’m happy there’s finally someone defending DSII and showing the faults in the other games, though after all this I have one question; is that your cat in your profile picture? They are adorable.
I would just like to correct you on a little point on the bed of chaos section, you do not need the ring to communicate with the fair lady in order to unlock the short cut, you just need to join the covenant and offer humanity.
15:00 Right there!
You just described the source of the most common complaints about DS2.
None of them want to adapt, they want THEIR fashion and THEIR weapon and THEIR rings, and if it's extremely hard to do without adapting: Game bad.
I'm not even kidding, i've seen multiple first playthroughs where people's first and ONLY response to Black Gulch is to rush it.
I refuse to believe BG's first bonfire is a missable bonfire though. You just entered a new area (which is where you would often expect bonfires) and you can see it by simply looking left into the alcove while walking forward.
The ultimate nightmare run back for me was the no resting at bonfires challenge in DS2. You can only set your respawn location at each bonfire once by lighting it.
You end up having to go through multiple sections of Shrine of Amana without resting or saving progress either going in or on the way back out. I chose to run the whole gauntlet on my way out and jfc was that an ugly day.
Not a run back to a boss, but a run back to any bonfire not in the longest, worst dead end.
6:50 You don't need the ring at all in the game, I always use the shortcut and I've only used the ring once
Yeah he’s wrong on that
You also don't need to keep the egg guy alive, and also you can donate all 30 at once
DS1 has many different versions, but I am not familiar with any of those fair lady problems.
I’m glad somebody said it
@@funkymachine Offering/using items in bulk was added in the remaster
15:25 Has that bonfire been there this whole time? I have legit always ran back from the gutter. Legit i have never even seen either of those bonfires, i have always just ran through from the first one. WTF.
Certified dark souls moment there. RIP
The Four Kings run back is one of the worst in the series.
Lotta people don’t bring up Bloodborne when it comes to bad run backs, but it did have a couple that were bad.
Love your videos but please up the brightness in your game footage
I think the Catacombs run to Pinwheel then back to Firelink Shrine is worth a mention since happens a lot for people on first blind playthroughs end up going there and somehow not realize it is not intended because of how the Souls reputation goes about being a hard series of games, so they are misleaded by it and think it's normal not doing any damage to skeletons. At worst case scenario I know people that even made all their way to the first or second tomb of giants bonfires without the Lordvessel then having to climb their way back extremely underleved and with a +0 weapon. The wheel skeletons are specially horrible to deal with in this run.
Already been pointed out about not needing the ring for Chaos Servant covenant but the whole "can't just dump 30 humanity" surprised me. I replayed the game somewhat recently and didn't seem to have problems with that?
Trying to think back to my PS3 and PTDA days but can't really remember the Izalith bonfire not being there. Definitely found it because the previous chest prompted me to try the pillar for a secret, for sure, that little detail worked well =3
Adding this to the wikipedia for "tu quoque"
Honestly the Aldia's Keep hidden bonfire is easy to find.
The wall looks way too perfect. Far too perfect.
i didnt know the tomb of the giants bonfire OR vamos fire OR the jump shortcut so i had to go through all of that to get to nito and not to mention how many times i did falling through the ground
I did the old iron king without going up the ladder and i thought it was the worst runback i ever experienced i had a rapier and had to kill every single enemy individually i almost first tried the boss but i think i became brain dead and died enough that all the enemys despawned some of my deaths were because i fell in the lava when fighting the boss too and i dont think my rapier was fully upgraded because i remember every enemy being taking 5 hits which is very hard to do when you got 20 other enemies going after you much rather do frigid outskirts than do that shit again
the iron golem is about mastering the level instead of the boss so you have enough estus for the pretty easy fight
Kind of surprised you didn’t mention the pinwheel run back from either firelink shrine or the first catacombs bonfire, as that was the one I did for my first few playthroughs, and it felt pretty awful
You literally can't miss the first bonfire, so it wouldn't really be fair to count from firelink.
However, if you went through the area, you should already be aware you can survive some drops to get to Pinwheel faster
I don't like last sinner's one because waiting for 40s is way worse than playing for a minute.
What was that weapon for the black glitch section? I’ve never seen it before, or is it a set of gauntlets?
Malformed Claws
Sets of weapons do not exist pre-DS3 in Souls.
@@Domo3000 ty
I think the whole concept of runbacks were never being considered an actual issue in the Souls trilogy as you weren't supposed to get back at the boss with all your flasks and at full health (unless the devs clearly put a bonfire right next to the boss arena. For me it worked more like checkpoints where you were suppose to go through the final section of areas fighting some enemies in your way and reaching the boss with maybe half of your flasks idk. This idea of running pass enemies straight to the boss is a player invented issue that for some reason became a game flaw.
I think the kindle system is great for this. Having trouble getting to the boss? Kindle and now you have 5 charges for the run, 5 for the boss.
I was torn on the respawn statues in Elden Ring when it first launched, but in a game like that I understand it. Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls both want you to get confident clearing the level before moving onto the boss. ER pretty much just shifts the entire learning curve from 50-50 level-boss to 5% level 95% boss.
I feel like we’re a little bit spoiled today, with all the knowledge and context of the games. 10 years ago I think getting back to the bosses was part of the fun. Maybe we’re just outliers lol
I always fought my way to the boss on my first few playthroughs, only running past enemies once I was very familiar with the game and I still died multiple times. Plus the extra souls don't hurt if you're already struggling and dying against the boss.
@HowdyYT the bosses are alot harder and faster in Sekiro and ER comoared to the older games so it would would make sense that you aren't just running to get your ass handed to you more often and you can actually study the patterns instead
@HowdyYT I do miss the level focus. For me, dark souls never had the hardest bosses, but rather the levels and bosses were part of a combined piece. The ability to sprint past ruins that balance imo
you can join chaos covenant without the old witchs ring the ring just makes it so that the fair lady actually says something instead of ...
dark souls is a series of dark comedic events if you know where to look
6:36 wheeeeeeeeeeeee
Nah frigid outskirts is the ultimate filter
7:30 That's one thing that I really like, duplicating objects to make the races more enjoyable is so easy that I give a point to ds1 for having that bug.
9:37 dawg what😭