Dark Souls 2 - DLC Levels and Bosses

Overview

The video reviews Dark Souls II’s three DLC expansions, arguing that they contain some of the series’ best level design and boss fights. Each expansion is reached through a separate sanctuary, giving it a distinct setting. The narrator recommends playing them in release order and warns that the discussion contains major spoilers.

The Three Expansions

Crown of the Sunken King — Shulva, Sanctum City

Shulva is the narrator’s most praised expansion overall, especially for its level design and bosses. The area teaches players to use environmental switches: striking them moves columns and platforms, creates cover, and can damage enemies. Bows can activate switches from a distance, and moving platforms can provide shortcuts.

The layered temple rewards careful exploration with hidden routes, bonfires, treasures, and shortcuts. Its spirit knights are tied to their buried armor, so finding and destroying the armor makes later encounters easier.

The route to Elana, the Squalid Queen leads to a fight that tests players’ awareness of two threats at once: Elana’s spells and her summoned enemies, especially the mace-wielding warrior. The narrator praises it as a fair, well-designed multiple-enemy fight.

Sinh, the Slumbering Dragon is the narrator’s favorite boss in the series. Sinh’s flight, wide-reaching fire attacks, and momentum-based dives create the feeling of actually battling a dragon.

A later stretch and its boss are criticized as a return to tedious, enemy-filled corridors and encounters that feel unfair.

Crown of the Old Iron King — Brume Tower

Brume Tower is a visually striking, vertical maze. Its paths loop back as players descend and later revisit routes they have opened.

Melting wedges remove Nadalia’s soul shards. The shards empower nearby enemies, adding a recurring combat and exploration challenge. The level also encourages players to use their surroundings: gunpowder-barrel carriers can be led into hazards, fire-breathing statues can be turned against enemies, and barrels can break weak walls.

Fume Knight is praised as one of the game’s hardest and best fights. Its mix of fast and slow attacks, pauses for counterattacks, and a second phase that requires quick movement make it challenging without relying heavily on tracking attacks. One sword’s hitbox is singled out as a flaw.

Sir Alonne is considered a good but comparatively easy fight when using a shield. The route to the optional Smelter Demon is criticized for its exhausting enemy gauntlet, and the boss is seen as too much of a repeat of the original Smelter Demon.

Crown of the Ivory King — Eleum Loyce

Eleum Loyce is a bright, snow-covered castle that contrasts with the other DLC areas. It is more horizontally spread out, with shortcuts, hidden paths, and revisits that expand the level.

Aava, the King’s Pet is initially invisible. A special item found along a long route reveals hidden things—including Aava—so exploring before the fight is important. The narrator struggled to defeat Aava with a shield and had to learn to dodge her attacks.

Speaking with the queen melts much of the ice, changing the level and revealing new enemies and routes. The final boss can technically be reached early, but exploring the altered castle reveals additional knights who can help.

Finding all four knights makes the battle against the Burnt Ivory King much easier, as they help contain the portals that continually produce corrupted knights. The narrator likes the large-scale battle’s concept and spectacle but finds the final duel underwhelming. They suggest that the boss should scale in difficulty with the number of allies found.

The optional Frozen Wastes is an open blizzard area with limited visibility. Players can navigate by remembering landmarks during clearer moments or using the sun as a directional guide. However, the narrator criticizes its long, empty boss run, inconsistent reindeer spawns, repeated loading, and reused two-cat boss fight.

Other Gameplay and Design Points

The narrator praises Darklurker as the base game’s best boss. Its two-enemy fight is difficult but fair because attacks are readable, pauses create openings, and players can track both enemies without being trapped by overlapping attacks.

The video uses “Gary” as a fictional shorthand for frustrating design choices: long runs through enemy-filled corridors, excessive targeting, waiting, and difficulty created by piling on enemies. The narrator sees these problems in specific DLC sections but emphasizes that they do not erase the expansions’ strengths.

Other suggestions and criticisms include:

• Add optional challenge modes, such as no magic, no shields, a single weapon type, or fewer bonfires, as well as a boss-only mode.
• Consider having bosses retain some of the player’s lost souls and gain health after repeated deaths, so fights remain challenging after players learn their moves.
• Make greater use of the game’s mechanics—such as curses, poison, bells, moving columns, and soul-powered golems—to create larger, more involved levels.
• Shorten the chest-opening animation and give some bosses more health so players have time to see their full movesets.

Overall, the narrator considers Dark Souls II an imperfect game that comes close to Dark Souls and sometimes surpasses it in the DLC. They suggest that players’ reactions may partly depend on whether they expected a direct continuation of the first game or approached the sequel on its own terms.

Gamers and Sources Mentioned

• Joseph Anderson — narrator and reviewer.
• Games and works referenced: Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, Dark Souls III, Chrono Trigger, Shadow of the Colossus, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and World of Warcraft (Uldir and Throne of Thunder raids).
• No other individual gamers are identified.