What’s your favourite boss lore?
The Dancer of The Boreal Valley from DS3 will always hold a special place in my heart, more for the fight itself.
The Dancer’s lore is tragic, but relatively brief. She, once a maiden of Gwynevere, was turned by the Pontiff into a relatively mindless monster and defender, although it can be argued that she may have preserved a bit of herself through the greater context of her presence within the game.
However, as stated, the fight against her is even dearer to me. It really does feel like a tantalising dance of sorts, with both partners forcefully alternating the lead, lunging and retreating over and over again, like two forlorn lovers. She is beautifully animated, so much so that I’ve let her kill me plenty of times just so I could focus on admiring her moveset, her fluidity, her forcefulness. You can feel you’re up against a being of immense strength but also blessed with radiant gracefulness. And the backing track is perfect!
The fight against The Dancer is up there with the Cyberdemon waltz from DOOM* 2016 for me in terms of “knowing someone through combat,” it’s just artfully expressive if you have the patience to allow it to unfold and evolve.
Well put. Haven’t personally gotten to her yet but from what I’ve seen in videos, the fight looks really good. Thanks for sharing!
Interesting to hear people enjoying DOOM boss fights. I’ve not enjoyed a single one of them, to my knowledge, apart from the Marauder if you want to call it a boss fight. The ideas are cool in a vacuum, but the gameplay is not something I really want or appreciate about DOOM games
You can get to her as the first boss in the game.
Dancer? Really? I thought Vordt is the first main boss
Yes, that’s the intended first boss that is obvious. You can instead go the other way, where the old lady is sitting that gives you the banner. Kill her, she drops a quest item for later, and the dancer spawns. She is most often than not too high level for most people to confront that early, but some people do it for the added challenge. You get a single endgame location early for it, but cannot progress through archives since the door is locked and you need a key you get by following the “normal” path.
The lore is both Vordt and Dancer were changed into monsters to guard people “spawning” on high wall of lothric from progressing further. She guards one path, Vordt guards the other.
Holy shit, that’s awesome. Can I still do that if I’ve progressed to the forest?
You can always do it as long as the grandma is alive. Just revisit it and kill her. Technically when you go in for the actual dancer fight, the grandma is dead, and picking up the quest item triggers the fight. So by killing her you just accelerate it a little bit
Gotcha. Thanks for the intel!
Totally understand your stance on DOOM, it’s honestly why 2016 is my favourite of the bunch - precisely because it doesn’t much conform to what DOOM was and became again.
Is Eternal more similar to oldschool DOOM? I was under the impression that 2016 is similar to the OGs and that Eternal’s departure from that direction is what made it so controversial.
To me, Eternal feels like all the good stuff from 2016 but cranked to 11: the soundtrack is bangin, the gunplay feels weight, snappy, responsive, the “parkour” elements implemented in the arenas made the game feel really dynamic and fast-paced. All around just a really solid successor.
What do you think?
To me, yeah, Eternal feels like they upgraded the ethos of old-school DOOM with contemporary mechanics. They both feel like bullet hell games, in a way.
2016, on the other hand, felt more like Titanfall 2, to be honest, an adventure FPS with hardcore mechanics, and narrative gameplay (feels like it tells more of a story through the context, combat and environment than Eternal does - Eternal feels more like themed arenas to me, just like the originals).
Which is why I can’t bring myself to finish Eternal!:)) I’ve played through about 75% of the Campaign and I always try to find as many secrets as possible, but I just don’t feel the pull to go through with it… Every time I try, it just makes me wanna reinstall 2016.
That’s so interesting! It shows that people do value very different things for the same experiences - that’s awesome. I value story-telling a lot and enjoy environmental story-telling too - duh, check the community - but DOOM 2016 felt a little too cryptic to me at times. Maybe it’s to do with me not having been into this narrative style yet back when I played the game but it felt like the game dragged on too long. I hindsight, I probably would enjoy the game’s narrative a little more today. But the gameplay just feels so slow compared to Eternal’s if that makes sense. It’s a different style of gameplay in a way though, so that’s fine.
I had the same experience with Eternal, sorta, in that I couldn’t make myself finish the game, the only reason being is that I get bored of games a little too quickly for my taste. I think I was missing like 3 levels or so and wanted to move on to the DLC but put it off for ages. Finally got around to it again, enjoyed the couple remaining levels and got the wind blown out of my sails with the final boss of the game. Actually had to turn the difficulty down because the fight was so frustrating to me lol. And didn’t get to play the DLC either despite owning it.
Will you be checking out the upcoming DOOM game? What’s it called, The Dark Ages, or something?
Yepyep, I get what you mean by slower pace, and I agree! 2016 felt like a rhythm game, whereas Eternal gets very frantic. Dunno, maybe that’s why I love it, it also synchronises really well with the soundtrack, so the entire game feels like tech-stepping your way through a demon mosh pit, if it makes sense. It’s also not as difficult once you get into the rhythm of things, and the missing extra movement mechanics they’ve added in Eternal do slow it down even more. But I’m coming at it more as an Unreal Tournament 2004 player than a DOOM player.
You may also be right about enjoying 2016 more now, it has sooo many subtle elements strewn across the maps, almost like exploring the game more than I do killing the demons!
Oooh, yes, it is an unexpectedly difficult game at the worst of times! Feels overtuned waaay too often (which is another element 2016 gets better, imo, as it’s a bit more flexible in how it allows you to approach a combat situation), even down to jump distances - there have been many ledges I failed to reach because I didn’t wait for the very last millimetre of ground before pressing Space.
And you’ve hit the nail on the head, winded! That’s exactly how I felt by the time I stopped playing, winded. Played it through on Medium/Normal/whatever because it’s one of my fixations, but it sure was a slog at times…
Now that I think about it, I also like DS2 more than 1 or 3 for many of the same reasons, so it may just be me:))
Edit because I forgot: I didn’t even know they were planning on making another one! I’ll probably check it out, but Eternal taught me to manage my expectations, unfortunately…
Never played UT since I didn’t grow up with it. First FPS experiences I’ve had were CS 1. 6 that I watched my older brother play, Turok, Star Wars Battlefront, that kinda stuff. Must feel cool to have a game somewhat similar in style then?
You take the good with the bad, I guess. Most of the time, traversal and jump’n’run sections work quite well, especially in combat. Some platforming sections felt a little off, tho, true.
So you’re a contrarian then :P Can’t comment on DS2 since I haven’t played it at all but from what I’ve heard, some people enjoy it the most because it had the freshest ideas of them all and felt like a good continuation of DS1. DS3, while great and regarded as the second best I’d wager, fails a little when it comes to the story and lore - kinda like DS1,5. Again, just paraphrasing what I’ve heard - haven’t finished any DS myself.
Cautious optimism :D I’ll see if I’ll pick the game up for cheap some time after release. Not in a hurry
![[DS] Pinwheel Lore](https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/8feddcfb-6ad9-4983-a95a-e0e5871c53e9.webp){kind=link}