Most demoralizing Dark Souls zone?

[Kerg3927]

Wow, why is no one saying Sen's Fortress??

Always annoying, even when you know what you are doing. I hate going through there.

Blighttown, you can skip the top part so no big deal.
Lost Izalith is easy, minus the piece of shit boss.
Tomb of the Giants is also pretty easy to navigate on repeat playthroughs.

Sen's always is a chore. No shortcuts. No easy way. You just gotta do it.

I was just coming in here to say this! Granted, my DS experience is limited, but just after thinking it couldn?t get worse than Blighttown and those dart blowing dicks, Sen?s Fortress proved me very wrong. Demoralizing is it; just when you make a little more progress than your last attempt, some booby-trap, hidden enemy or clumsy fall off a narrow ledge sends you right back to the beginning.

That's what makes Sens Funhouse so annoying. Even if you know where all the traps are, you still have to dodge/outrun them every single time you go up there until you get the elevator unlocked. The upper pathways are really bad in this regard, because one hit from one of those blades knocks you all the way to the bottom(and probably kills you) and the timing on that last set of swinging blades doesn't allow for much error(and that's after you deal with the magic throwing snake(wo?)man covering that final stretch).

When I was first going through that, I asked a friend who loves the series "Is there, by chance, a way to turn the traps off once you get past them?". He started laughing. Serves me right for asking, because I'm playing dark souls.

Anor Londo is paradise in comparison. Sure, there's tough enemies, but most of them can be bypassed until you reach the narrow ledges, the ones who can't be bypassed can be pulled one by one and you almost always have lots of room to fight them in. Even those silver knights aren't really that hard provided you know how to dodge, block and parry.

I have to admit, I am doing my first NG+ run right now of DS1, and have cleared it 3 times prior. I still died like 3-4 times in Sen's to falls. One time I didn't make it back and lost like 50K souls, too.

 

[Kerg3927]

For me it's The Black Gulch. Fuck that place and everything about it. Being optional i was so, so tempted to just skip it but i powered through.

Yeah, Black Gulch is certainly in the discussion. A whole zone of wooden platforms with no light and lots of poison. Fuck yeah!

 

[Ravenbom]

Yeah, I know they're optional but DLC is kind of not optional once you buy it.
That being said, the Dark Souls 2 DLC is awful.
Crown of the Sunken King is great. It's hard and it leads to a fight with a dragon which you know you want more than anything. Also it has a boss fight with 3 NPC mobs that really gang rape you, but it's not unfair. You just need to be able to kite for 10-20 minutes.

However,
Crown of the Old Iron King is mostly fine... until you get to Iron Passage and Memory of the Old Iron King (Smelter Demon and Sir Alonne). Two VERY VERY cool bosses, 2 of my favorites... hidden behind overly long, near impossible paths with bonfires that are miles away from them.

Then you try out Crown of the Ivory King and it's like what's the point?

Dark Souls is great when you eventually see that the game has rules and doesn't cheat you at all... then you see the end of Iron King and Ivory King and you know you might as well give up.


Also, 200 hours of Dark Souls 1 and Sen's Fortress still makes me sigh.

 

[Foolery]

I think one of Dark Souls 2's greatest failings is throwing mobs at the player. The areas aren't exactly the problem. It's enemy placement. It'd be more manageable if the mobs they were tossing carelessly at the player were weak, but they often end up being large enemies with sweeping attacks and few chances to parry, riposte, or back-stab. Like the Alonne knights in Iron Keep. Doesn't help that the targeting system is generally geared for fighting one on one. The hit-boxes on boss strikes are also slightly off, and there are far too many foes with auto-tracking attacks. I think the Dragon Airie is worse than Amana. Broke my gear fighting suicide bombers. Then again, Aldia's Keep is also garbage. Or Black Gulch, or the Gutter.