Like its predecessor, beating the game becomes a good pat on the back after a tireless journey through several locations, with countless deaths in tow. This time, you also get be crowned as the ruler of Drangleic!
After passing through the creepy area that is Aldia's Keep, seeing the Dragon Aerie and the Dragon Shrine for the first time has left many players speechless, largely because of the surreal setting which ditches the Dark Fantasy for a High Fantasy feel.
So many of the areas are utterly breathtaking, and not just from specific views, either. Cardinal Tower, for instance, allows you to climb a huge, stone sword (with a severed stone hand attached) that's jutting out of the castle wall...and then you see two giant stone statues on either side of the castle wall. One is missing a hand—the one you're standing on—and the other is missing its head. Much, much later in the game, you find out what happened to the head...
The Iron Keep. A Lethal Lava Land has never looked so beautiful before.
The Doors of Pharros are absolutely ethereal. It's like a place with an infinite number of stone doorways of an infinite number of sizes, all leading to untold places. Its pairing with water as its theme only makes it even more awesome.
Drangleic Castle, however, deserves special mention. The approach to it is utterly breathtaking, and practically every inch of the place is a sight to see. An obsidian-black castle in pouring rain and illuminated by a lightning storm has quite the impression.
Majula is practically made of gorgeous views, and not just because of the beautiful, ever-present sunset there. It's easy to stop by the cliff and stare at the shores for a long while, even if there are more important tasks at hand.
Things Betwixt is hauntingly beautiful and highly surreal. It's mostly dark, but the player can light a number of torches through out it, making it look like an illuminated path to the beginning of your epic journey. The impossibly-tall stone columns and trees in the middle of a vast ocean, all of which is seemingly inside a (somehow) hollowed-out mountain except for a single crack of sunlight...
Shrine of Amana is amazing to look at and think about. It takes place on a massive lake, hidden under a ginormous tree, that might even be an Archtree from Lordran. The echoing song of the maidens rebound off the walls of the cavern and back into your ears, giving you a sense of calm or unease depending on your disposition.
The Ancient Dragon's Memories, a small look at the world in the Time of Ancients, before Gwyn. And in it, the immense corpse of an Everlasting Dragon. You can even use its soul to craft a weapon with a pretty awesome callback to the first game's intro.
Alonne Knights. Giant, armored knights that act like samurai, such as sheathing and unsheathing their blades after every swipe, and have impressive looking armor. Not to mention their fairly intimidating death cry that matches the Black Knights' death cry from the first game.
Fans of the previous game get to see a Call-Back as early as their trek in Heide's Tower of Flame. Once you make your way to the Blue Cathedral, prepare for a vicious church brawl against the Old Dragonslayer, accompanied by the ever brilliant soundtrack. It's just as awesome as it sounds.
The Skeleton Lords are generally considered one of the weaker bosses in the game, with the main bosses being two or three hits with an upgraded weapon, and its flunkies going down in one. Despite this, the fight is still awesome for being possibly the best power fantasy you can have in a Dark Souls game. To elaborate, the fight starts with three rather impressive looking Skeleton Lords. Killing each of them spawns a small army of lesser skeletons. If you're careless or fighting for the first time, you'll be facing down a massive horde of skeletons... And then you get to slaughter them all with ease.
Illuminating the Undead Crypt. Originally, it looks mostly featureless and black. But once the lights come on, you see what you've been missing...
It's heavily implied that King Vendrick was behind all the barriers and measures blocking your way to the Throne of Want, in an effort to stop Queen Nashandra from taking over. Even if he ultimately became a mindless Hollow, he succeeded.
The battle with the Looking Glass Knight. Not only is the boss himself visually astounding, his arena is equally beautiful, and to top it all off, you fight him in the middle of a huge thunderstorm. The game essentially drops all pretense and indulges in a cinematic tribute to Battle in the Rain.
The ending. Confronted with the choice of Linking the Fire or abandoning it, the Undead Hero does not even hesitate to sit on the Throne of Want.
This changes in Scholar of the First Flame, where the player can walk away.
The Crown of the Sunken King DLC is just chock full of awesome moments.
In the very first stretch of the DLC, it's entirely possible to use the switches to your advantage. Stare in awe as emerging structures bash unsuspecting Hollow warriors into tiny bits.
The fight against dark spirit Jester Thomas. AscendedMemetic Badass to the nth degree, he is the smartest invading NPC phantom that From has made and the fans love it.
Facing Elana is what the fight against Nashandra should have been. A greater number of hexes to cast, she uses pyromancy, she can summon Mooks, she teleports! And one of those mook summons? Velstadt.
Slaying Sinh the Slumbering Dragon is like facing Kalameet all over again and it is glorious. Combined with summoning Abbess Feeva, and using Lightning Spear yourself, it's like re-enacting the intro of the first Dark Souls.
Something added in that doesn't require the DLC being bought in order to encounter: you can now use the Ashen Mist Heart on Vendrick's clothes/armor in the Undead Crypt and encounter him before he Hollowed...and he's so stupendously powerful that your attacks, no matter your stats and equipment, don't even scratch him.
The Crown of the Old Iron King is also chock full of awesome moments:
Crossing a giant chain to reach a broken-down castle is awesome, looking down to see you are so far in the air you can't even make out the ground clearly, and what you can see is rivers of magma, and with ash falling from the sky like snow is mega-awesome.
The Phantom Maldron the Assassin who challenges Jester Thomas for the position of smartest phantom, being the first one to run away to get backup from other enemies and heal when the fighting gets tough. Yes that's right, the phantoms are learning OUR techniques.
Dark spirit Quicksword Rachel, who comes at you with a sword that can assume any element she wants, combined with an unbreakable poise and heavy armour, she's a good challenge.
The boss lurking at the bottom of the Brume Tower, the Fume Knight (or Sir Raime the Rebel), puts you on the defensive right away with an ultra greatsword and longsword combo that strikes both fast and hard. Just when you think you have the the upper hand, he ditches his smaller blade and sets his BFS on fire, gaining the ability to swipe half the arena with dark fire and shoot out a 360 degree Fire Orb attack that can cause One-Hit Kill if you aren't wearing good enough armour.
As per company metrics, the Fume Knight is the boss with the highest success rate in the entire dark souls franchise...against players. In other words, the Fume Knight is the most lethal Dark Souls boss, the frustration you get from being beaten from him is not uncommon, and the revelry from defeating him is well-earned.
The boss residing at the very top of the Brume Tower, Sir Alonne, is one of the fastest striking bosses in the Souls franchise. Wielding a katana as big as he is, which is big, he comes at you with tricky moves that require pinpoint dodging and the ability to carefully determine how much stamina you can afford to spend before being rendered defenseless. The very second you can't dodge in this fight, you have lost.
Dan Jones: How could ANYTHING topple this kingdom?!
If you defeat him without taking any damage, he will commit Seppuku in shame. A true samurai to the very end.
And for the third and final boss, guess who's back? The Smelter Demon! And he got an upgrade. This time you fight in a near pitch-dark arena, the only light source being the hauntingly beautiful blue flames coming out of the massive demon that's charging at you with an even bigger BFS than before that's made of blue fire, and who has brand new moves to trip you up and some new details added onto his armour to make him look even more intimidating than before.
Returning to meet Vendrick in the Memories again and learning that a true king, the one who will defeat the curse once and for all, will be able to harness both Fire and Dark. And that shadow, despite being dark, is a servant of Fire. The brighter the flame, the darker the shadow.
And it turns out that, according to Dark Souls III, Vendrick was right. The only way for humanity to defeat the curse, albeit with its own consequences, is to be someone who can harness both the Darksign and the First Flame.
The three bosses of the Old Iron King DLC are, in many ways, a moment of awesome for the game designers. They have managed to outdo themselves with the challenge of these three. The Blue Smelter Demon is essentially a second coming of one of the most deadly bosses in the main game, this time with Magic instead of Fire as his main theme. The Fume Knight is a battle the likes of which we have not seen since Artorias Of The Abyss. And Sir Alonne is one of the most incredible and most challenging duels in the game. The designers have set up the players with not one, but three Lightning Bruiser bosses that will challenge players to their utmost.
And now for the Crown of the Ivory King:
After defeating the final DLC boss and acquiring the titular crown, you bring all the crowns to Vendrick and he imbues all of them with a special power that prevents hollowing and has infinite uses. Seems quite useful... then the Fridge Brilliance kicks in and you recall that your character basically came to Drangleic in hopes to cure their undead curse - and has just succeeded in doing so. Sure, it's not perfect and the Undead Hero still will lose their souls after death, but as long they wear any of the crowns, they will not turn into a mindless monstrosity.
Maldron the Assassin returns, this time wearing the White Ring! And this time, he's not an invader, so a Seed of a Tree of Giants will not do anything!
The King's Pets bosses. You fight huge spellcasting white tigers in the middle of a snow storm.
The final battle for the crown itself. This time, you're not fighting a dragon, or a fallen knight. Instead, you're fighting the Ivory King himself, tainted by the Chaos Flame. And not just any king, but one who, long before taking the crown, was the most powerful swordsman in Forossa, home of badasses such as the Lion Knights and Vengarl. He makes his entrance by emerging from a gigantic Hellgate, and as soon as the fight starts, he makes sure you'll learn how powerful he is through leaps, jumps and howls which would make False King Allant proud.
The Ivory King himself is one gigantic living Moment of Awesome. He was a king of Forossa, meaning he was a badass among badasses. When the Old Chaos sprung up, he beat it back and built an entire city around it to contain it. He then situated his throne directly above the entrance to the Old Chaos so he would be the first line of defense against the ancient evil. He changed the heart of a Child of Dark out of sheer love and kindness and when he sensed the degradation of his own soul, he plunged into Chaos headfirst to go out in a blaze of glory. There's Royals Who Actually Do Something, and then there's this guy.
For those looking for an easier fight, it's entirely possible to One-Hit KO the boss by luring him close to a mirror that's about to be frozen, as seen here.
And before that you gather the last Knights of Eleum Loyce, those who have remained standing guard over the kingdom for god only knows how long, and together you literally leap into the Old Chaos and take the fight to the Charred Knights who guard the king. Made even more awesome by the fact that for once you are not alone, these Knights give their lives to make the fight easier for you and keep the Charred Knights back so that you can give their king the release of an honourable death.
Many of the vaguely human bosses (like the Lost Sinner and Ruin Sentinels) can be parried. This is naturally incredibly satisfying.
The True Final Boss of Scholar of the First Sin: none other than the title character, the previously unseen Aldia.
In a sense, what said True Final Boss did in the backstory can also count, albeit crossed with a very heavy dose of Nightmare Fuel. Like his brother King Vendrick, Aldia sought to find a way to break the Undead curse, though by far more heinous means, and eventually decided that the only way to do so would be to leave humanity itself behind. Amazingly enough, he succeeded, and while he became something that wouldn't look out of place in Lovecraft horror, it still stands that he broke the cycle of Light and Dark, life and death itself, as evidenced by the fact he doesn't drop souls or his own Soul upon defeat and still speaks to the player. In the end, the Scholar of the First Sin succeeded where only the Bearer of the Curse would surpass him.
Yor: The Hunter from the Future.