Dark Souls 2: Crown of the Old Iron King Review

After a solid four and a half hour binge, I managed to fully complete the Dark Souls 2: Crown of the Old Iron King DLC, and boy was it fun. Just to note here, there will be major spoilers ahead, so if you’re still playing the DLC, or want to avoid spoilers, stop reading now! I’ll be splitting up this review into several sections, but before that, I’ll give a brief overview of how I felt it was.

All in all, the DLC was great, not as good as Crown of the Sunken King in my opinion, but great nonetheless. The level design was fantastic, the enemies were challenging and the weapons, items and armour you find are all unique and wonderful. I have a few quips with some of the bosses, but I’ll get to that later. The atmosphere of the DLC was lovely, and this was complimented by some of the gorgeous views you can see in certain areas, from ashen towers to lovely sunsets accompanying your vicious battles.

Now that I’ve got a brief summary out the way, let’s go into more depth.

Level Design

FROM seem to have taken the fans advice in terms of level design. Crown of the Old Iron King (along with the previous DLC) are a lot less linear than the main game itself. In this DLC a lot of emphasis is put onto vertical height, as well as horizontal distance. You’ll constantly find yourself taking lifts, and jumping up to new areas. I absolutely love this. One of the reasons I loved The Gutter was because of the vertical height the designers had in mind. You’ll see a lot more of this in CotOIK.

The aesthetics of the DLC look (in some areas) very similar to the Iron Keep in the main game. A lot of lava and stone. I don’t have a problem with this, after all the DLC is an expansion of this area. However, Brume Tower is also known as the Tower of Ash, and this is definitely noticeable. Some areas are completely coated in ash, leaving satisfying footprints as you plod along, or satisfying crunches as you roll out of the way of an enemy attack.

One of the main added features in this DLC is the addition of Smelter Wedges, a form of a key that you must thrust into the bosom of statues littered around the area. Doing so removes hazards and makes dealing with the level easier. For example, one of the boss arenas has statues around the outside, constantly healing the boss as you fight it. In this case, the boss is  These wedges aren’t easy to find however, they’re littered about to force exploration, and exploring this DLC was a joy in itself. One of the highlights for me was carefully treading across a giant chain linked to another tower, only to be invaded by Red Phantom. An epic battle ensued, with me victorious on the chain, cheering over the corpse of my enemy as the golden sunset flickered in the distance. Finding all the wedges is optional, but if you find all of them, and destroy all the statues, you’ll be granted with a Boss Soul used to make a special weapon. Finding these wedges is a challenge itself, especially due to the number of fire traps, exploding enemies and giants chasing you along the way.

Enemy Design

Exploding Hollows? Yes please. Giant headless beasts with a massive hammer? Hmhm. Lighting throwing assassins? You bet. Some of the enemy designs are utterly brilliant, and are a joy to fight. The headless giants are deadly, one wrong move and you’re dead. The exploding Hollows are both dangerous to you and your enemies. What I figured out is if you lure the Hollows towards a group of enemies, run away and then chuck a fire bomb, you completely decimate everyone in that group, brilliantly deadly.

Some of the other enemy designs are a bit lackluster. Generic axe and lance wielding soldiers are commonly found, and don’t require much skill at all to beat. It’s only when the game (rarely) uses cheap tactics do they pose a problem. One instance of this was at the bottom of the ladder. While on the ladder, you physically cannot attack or defend yourself. Waiting at the bottom of the ladder are three of these axe wielding soldiers. But by the time you dismount from the ladder (after a lovely long animation), they’ve already ganged up on you and taken the majority of your health. Instances like these are rare, but when they do happen, especially in a game like Dark Souls, you feel cheated out of a battle you would’ve won otherwise. Thankfully they don’t happen often.

Bosses

Oh there’s been a lot of anger about on various websites regarding these bosses. You know how people complain that most of the bosses in Dark Souls 2 are humanoids wielding a sword or some other weapon? Well, all of the bosses in the DLC are like this, one wielding a sword, one a ultra greatsword and one a katana. The biggest kick in the balls was a boss that was a complete reskin of one in the original game. The Smelter Demon makes a return, but instead of his flames being red, get this, THEY’RE BLUE. Literally no other difference. It’s shameful how FROM decided to rehash one of the most despised bosses again in the DLC.

I think this is compensated for by the other two fantastic bosses. The Fume Knight wielding a fiery greatsword was the most difficult boss I’ve ever faced in Dark Souls 2. Everything from his unpredictable moveset to how hard he his. I failed countless times, and when I succeeded, you don’t want to know how loudly I screamed “YES”. One problem I have with this boss however is the inordinate amount of health he has. It felt more like a battle of attrition rather than a battle of skill. This can be seen in two ways. Firstly, it was fun seeing how long I could keep my A-game up, because he had so much health I had to stay on my toes right from the very beginning, all the way to the end. One wrong step and that’s it. On the other hand, the boss didn’t need that much health, at some points it felt like a chore. Any other boss would’ve been dead by now, so why are you still alive?! It was a minor irritation, but such fun was had during that fight.

Sir Alonne is the last boss of the game, wielding a massive katana. If you’ve played Dark Souls 1, I would describe him as Orenstein on crack. What made this boss however was the music, the arena and his moves. The arena itself is a shiny marble floor, overlooking the sun as it sets. Alonne jumps and slashes at you constantly, barely giving you time to breath. Coupled with the epic music playing in the background as you struggle for your life against this beautiful backdrop, makes this boss fight one of my favourites.

Weapons and armour

The DLC adds a plethora of armour and weapons for you to try out. We all know the story of Velstadt and Raime, but now we have to chance to don Raime’s armour, and it looks splendid. That katana Alonne was using? My new favourite weapon. You also get interesting new weapons like a spear that doubles up as a catalyst, along with cool rings that make you invisible when you roll.

Crown of the Sunken King gave us unique weapons, like the Puzzling Sword which acts like a whip, CotOIK follows this trend, there’s no shortage of unique weapons and armour. So for all of you wanting to touch up your fashion souls, you best buy this DLC!

Closing Remarks

A very solid DLC, with a lot of new content. The only negative points are minor. The only reason I prefer Crown of the Sunken King was because the setting was that little bit more unique. CotOIK offers around five hours of content (that’s if you rush), with plenty more to be found if you wish to find all the hidden items. If you’re a Dark Souls fan, then this DLC is a must.

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