The other obvious alternative, even not knowing about the Ancient Dragon's "eye", is that when the dragon armor mentions the "black dragon", it actually means Guyra, the black dragon from King's Field that preceded Kalameet. With Miyazaki working on Bloodborne, Dark Souls II was open to more influence from the staff members who had previously worked on the King's Field series, so going even further back than Dark Souls for a reference wouldn't be out of place.
ive recently played a fair bit of kings field 4 and there is /so/ much that dark souls 2 takes from that game, the undead crypt, the design of the golems/giants, the gyrm design, and so much more. its a very weird feeling seeing whats basically the previous iteration of things from one of my favourite games of all time.
Noticed the Hellkite dragon flying away from the bridge off to Darkroot for the first time last night after warping to the Sunlight Altar bonfire. Don't think you've done a video on it, would be interesting to know what exactly triggers that, and to see where it goes
@@NocturnalNick just the act of being behind the arch way when it's perched causes it to fly away. As far as where it goes is just away. Lol you can get him to come back the same way he originally showed up.
The "memories" aspect of DS2 was probably one of the coolest things about the game. It was a pretty genius way to give the player the ability to experience the past in a way that makes sense in-universe.
Considering how central Dark Souls II's scrapped time travel concept was, they probably ended up creating the idea of the memories as a way to at least get some use out of all the work they had to throw out with it.
@@ZullietheWitch The young Herald was pretty well known early on, but my mind was completely blown when I saw that McDuff was actually originally "young Lenigrast". I'm so curious about the original Dark Souls II concepts...
@@ZullietheWitch I was going to say, it seems like the kind of concept that they would have added to the game to get it back in line with the original Dark Souls, ie something that was added after the directors changed. Since time travel was something they were already working on, that probably seemed like the perfect shoehorn to fit this idea into the game
I did not enjoy much of DS2 myself, since I'm mostly here for the bosses, but the memories I genuinely found cool even if they didn't do much in terms of gameplay the backtracking to something you'd been wondering about at the beginning of the game and going back into the past, to events you kept hearing about in NPC dialogue, was very good, and especially the dragon's memory was haunting
The central socket is a marriage of eastern and western dragon mythos, where a dragon's pearl and wisdom is grown in the center of the forehead. As someone else has commented, it's a mythologized evolution of the discovery of parietal eyes and notions of extrasensory perception associated with the linked pineal gland.
Always love seeing the dark souls 2 content, as it was a sequel that had potential and tried something different. Really makes you think what they could have done if they had a few more years
I personally really love how DS2 ended up. It’s a great game. That Yui Tanimura and the rest of the team managed to finish this game, and get it into this state, is nothing short of amazing considering the production issues it had. I hope he directs another FromSoftware game in the future.
@@colbyboucher6391 I absolutely agree. DS2 was unique in it’s approach as it was more focused on the environments being the challenge as opposed to the Bosses. You really had to pay attention and figure out how to deal with your enemies. This is the same for Demon’s Souls, where most of the bosses, with exceptions like Flamelurker, were puzzles that you needed to solve instead of brute force your way through like in BB or DS3. You couldn’t do that with Adjudicator. It was more methodical and meticulous. Funnily enough that’s part of why I love DeS and DS2 the most besides their atmospheres. It feels in parts like you’re playing a video game version of OSR D&D in parts, whereas the other titles are more like 3.X and 5e or 3d Castlevania. It’s the difference between combat as sport vs combat as war. I’m someone who’s more in the middle, leaning towards combat as war, which DeS and DS2 also do.
This is exactly why I prefer DSII over DS3. They tried so many new things and mechanics to make it it's own game. Had they had the time to finish most of it, DSII would have been an even more unique experience. DS3 on the other hand didn't really do anything. They just mashed DS1 and Bloodbourne together and called it a day.
@@theomnitorium7476 Exactly. It felt like Bloodborne with Dark Souls elements thrown in and a heavy dose of fan service. DS2 had it’s own distinct identity. Like Yahtzee said, “a good sequel jumps off the original, a bad one wallows in it.”
The holes in the limbs and wings make me think it might be battle damage from Gwyn's lightning. With the quiet I'm not sure if this was meant to be shortly after the end of the war, and this dragon was one of the last to fall, or if it was already long dead by the time the memory itself happened and it just held significance to the memory's owner
Iam sorry to inform you but zullie is actually wrong there, if the dragon was supposed to be "impaled" there was absolutely no reason to make holes in his body since you wont be able to see clipping anyways because of the object (the one it is impaled with) being in your view, it is most likely some glitch from transitioning between whatever art software from uses to make those models and the game engine. If not then only 2 options are that object was supposed to visually pass through the dragon leaving the hole behind (lightning spear ? maby ?) or player was supposed to interact with dragon in some way that would later have visible holes in him.
@@tezwoacz Being impaled usually leaves some of the surrounding flesh pushed inward, so saying it'd be 'pointless' to include the holes in the design is rather incorrect itself.
Gwyn hunted the dragons with stakes and spears of lightning that were usually thrust downward into the dragon for the greatest piercing effect. The holes are probably from when the dragon was killed in the war with Gwyn.
since the holes arent textured, they were probably never intended to be seen by the player when the model was made. i imagine this is why zullie came up with their theory
@@stuntfumbler even still they may have had the idea that the dragon was impaled there from lightning and added it to the base model. Then when they realised players wouldn't see this section simply didn't bother adding in proper textures.
Some of the archtrees' bases being lower can be explained by them all being the same model, but the designers wanted a variety of how thick each tree was, so some were just stretched to create that appearance. But the tops of the trees, which the player can see, had to all match, so the bases are varied instead.
Many real life reptiles have what’s called a parietal eye on top of their head. This “third eye” is light sensitive and regulates their circadian rhythms. Souls dragons have this “third eye” to help regulate their circadian rhythms to the cycle of light and dark ;)
That's actually very interesting. From Software is circular enough in their references to their back catalog that the third eye that keeps popping up on their dragons could all be Guyra, but it would also make sense for them to have been influenced by a neat real life biological fact as well.
@Alberto Fernandez Well I’m not sure why it hasn’t been eliminated by natural selection at this point in real life animals. As you note, reptiles have normal eyes, which in mammals do double duty of vision and measuring light levels to determine a rough time of day. Don’t know why some reptiles can’t just do that other than we might be observing them at a point in time where evolution is on the road to eliminating them but hasn’t finished yet. Some insects have similar “eye spots” on top of their head they use to roughly determine the orientation of the sun to help them navigate in a 3D world during flight. Of course fictional creatures can have them for whatever reason, though a third eye that senses the super natural is a very, very old idea. I just was making a joke that it would be funny if if dragons used them to measure “light levels cast by the first flame” instead of normal sunlight.
At least he has the luxury of being dead though. Probably. Think about the human undead, who simply will not stay down. To the point that entire towns do nothing but continually bury their bodies, grind them into paste or burn them so that they at least stop moving. Even their broken and burned bones are still alive enough to remember the warmth of a bonfire. And even when they truly leave behind their bodies, they just sink down into the abyss and beyond to become dregs or murkmen. They stay aware, forever.
@@Lunartic_ As opposed to being interred, I guess. It's fallen out of favor in recent history, but historically people used to care a lot about what happens to their bodies after death. Honorable burial, remembrance, all that jazz. Lying unmourned and without any marker in a field (like this dragon does) was considered a horrible thing, and often the worst punishment anyone could receive.
Considering he is dead in the memory the memory itself would have been the exact point of his death. We are experiencing the final moments of this ancient dragon
I really wish this area was expanded on, imagine how amazing it would be to be running across the ground as dragons fly through the sky, and maybe you can see Gwyn and his four knights and his army fighting the dragons
Two Knights* Artorias and Ciaran were not knighted by that time, for they have no dragonslaying gear and abilities. Canon implies that both became Elite or Best Knights of Gwyn when humand revolted against the gods
The Dragon Memory is one of my favorite areas, such a fantastically dark atmosphere, it brings such a heavy feeling of tragic and dire events long past, and now you return, to pick away at what remains like a vulture, from a corpse of a battle you never witnessed by those you never met as they were. It's moments like this that solidified DS2 as one of my favorite games and puts it right up there along with its kin of the series as all being fantastic.
They're in the endgame of DS2, and you can only enter them after having gotten through the majority of the roadblocks in the main game. If you played the game and then quit before the game, you could've technically gone through the vast majority of the game and never been in a position to enter them. I mean, to do so you'd have had to have gotten the King's Ring, which is an accomplishment in and of itself, then you would've had to have gotten through Aldia's Keep, up the elevator to to the Dragon Shrine, gotten all the way to the Ancient Dragon, then gotten the key to the Memories from it. What you end up finding out is that King Vendrick literally put up as many roadblocks and challenges as he could in order to prevent anyone from getting there.
@@Tom3kkk You never speaked or killed the ancient dragon in 20 different playthroughs? You doin somethin wrong Son 😅 even a 15 yr old me remembers the memories. Being scared of approaching the huge dragon , But its all at the end of dragon aerie if i recall.
@@Tom3kkk Well, now that I think of it, DRAGON Memory is a different place technically than GIANT Memory, though both are gotten to the same way: you approach the trigger area in the normal game world with the Ashen Mist Heart in your inventory. You need to go through the Giant's Memories in order to get the Giant's Kinship, which is the final key of the game, but you can go to the Dragon's Memory once you get the Heart. The only thing worth getting in the Dragon Memory is a boss soul for free that lets you create a weapon. You're supposed to have realized that the Dragon corpse in the boss room of the Duke's Dear Freja is an appropriate trigger because the Heart allows you to visit the past of long-dead bodies, such as the Giant's trees.
Fun fact: lizards have a third eye in the middle of their head called an "parietal" or "pineal" eye. It's not as sensitive as their other two eyes but it helps them detect ambient light levels.
I’m pretty sure that’s only in one not-lizard that looks exactly like all other lizards called a tuatara that is the last of its linage. Then again, I don’t know a whole shit tonne about lizards so I could be mistaken.
All those Archtrees remind me again of the Hunter's Dream. FROM seems to use that imagery to convey desolation and a sort of clearly repeating but otherwise featureless landscape, but the way they keep positioning us in the midst of them seems to imply that each one is rather like another world unto itself, a concept that jives well with Soulsborne's asymmetrical multiplayer
@@MidnightatMidian So it seems, though the significance of that comparison is sort of unclear. Is it meant to imply that the Trees prop up different worlds even in the Souls games like they seem to in Bloodborne, as many have speculated? If not, then using them as a mere visual reference would seem confusing or misleading
My small theory always was that each archtree represent it's own unique world. It would explain why we see so many around in the Ash Lake, but only one on the surface - should we go up another tree, we'd have emerged in a different world. Like invading, but going on foot instead of teleporting. Ash Lake in this theory stands as the original world, now a hub for every other. Light, with all it's strange DS properties, split the worlds apart, but Ash Lake remain unchanged, hidden from the Sun.
@Chompy the Beast The symbolism with the trees and Pillars, is that every player has his own world-game, which are on the same levels as other players worlds, that you can invade, as your own archtree can be invaded. The trees and the pillars are just that, a representation of others games. Like the lighthouses at the end of Bioshock Infinite. It's pretty obvious.
This area hit me hard for some reason, i felt so sad and alone in this vast, abandoned place shared only with this magnificent ancient creature who's life had been taken long ago. It left me feeling empty.
I finally started getting into Dark Souls 2 after so many failed attempts over the years and I'm finally beginning to appreciate it. Dark souls 2 is without a doubt the most ambitious of the franchise, had tons of great ideas and probably the best atmosphere of the whole series. Every time I enter Majula and the music starts playing it gives off such a tragic and lonely feeling that really sets the tone for the rest of the adventure. Majula is hands down my favorite hub.
well, maybe, ideas are fine and good but all the execution was pretty awful. which makes the atmosphere also very barren, espeically if we take all the other fromsoft games
@@bencullen2476 I don't think you get to shut down other people's opinions on a RUclips comment. If you don't want discussion this is the wrong place to express yourself.
DS2 did have its good points. The atmosphere in some areas is pretty great. Majula is a nice hub (Though, it probably gets some undeserved hate because of DS2 not having leveling up from bonfires meaning you HAVE to keep going back to Majula). Also, Emerald Herald is a top tier waifu.
I know it will probably never happen, but I _really_ want them to do a remake of DS2 like they did Demon souls, but add in all the stuff that was originally _supposed_ to be in DS2, like the day and night cycles
I think what you're looking for is called Elden Ring. Besides, Shitpoint would never make a remake of DS2 with the cut content restored, and without worsening what already is good in the original game.
@@davewilson5413 I don’t know that people have shit on the remake, and I’m curious as to what sorta things the shit talkers say about it. Wasn’t it pretty faithful? I didn’t actually play either version of demon souls, but I watched a significant portion of the Jacksepticeye play through and it seemed fine.
When you consider everything that happened to the game it really does exist as some Lovecraftian amalgamation of corpses crudely stitched together. Hell, FromSoftware even experimented on it after release like Aldia did with Dragons, creating something which looked more like DS1 but still had a different soul.
Honestly, replace Drangleic with Lorekingdomthingy, Drangleic Castle with Anor Londo, change names of the kingdoms into kingdoms from Dark Souls 1 and people won't feel that much of a difference
@@NiCoNiCoNiCola There are a ton of differences between the two games that distinguish them. And both of us know that Dranleic is the inferior when comparing names with Lordran.
@@cave_dweller6 nah, Drangleic sounds cool, while Lordran is kinda screaming "I'm a japanese developer who knows English words" Like those goofy ah american names in that one sport game
Gotta say Zullie, I’ve learned more about the Soulsborne series than I ever thought possible from your videos and I thank you for that. It’s really cool to see how these games could have turned out. Keep it up!
Ever since that old Dark Souls 2 trailer, I've always liked the idea that "true" everlasting dragons have a third eye, and that it wasn't a feature unique to Kalameet. Kinda sad that they more or less abandoned that idea, seemingly partway into Dark Souls 2's development.
i wouldn't mind getting a dark souls 2 remastered with all of the originals ideas more fleshed out and given a proper dev time. it could be a fantastic game
Fromsoft will never do that. Demon souls only got updated graphics and soundtrack when they could’ve added in the final broken arch stone. Dark souls remastered literally just got higher quality textures.
@@yoboiboy4182 One could dream though. A proper Souls complete edition. Featuring DeS with the final arch stone, DS1 with a proper Izalith, DS2 with all its incomplete ideas and DS3 with DS2 references. Of course, it'd be a lot of work updating/completing 4 games... But it would give them a reason to sell _yet another_ copy of them all to everyone.
@@yoboiboy4182 Worth noting that FromSoft didn't make the Demon's Remake or the Dark Souls Remaster. But, yeah, they don't seem to have interest at all in doing much with older titles compared to simply moving on and making new things instead.
Your videos are super chill and I love dark souls lore and the way you explain stuff. I recently tried playing SOTFS and it nearly broke me after 350 hours of Elden Ring - I played the original on PS3(my first souls experience) and again on PC through a pirated version a few years back. Thanks for the content.
As someone who barely played a Dark Souls title and stumbled on this channel through yt recommendation, this (and the rest) is truly fascinating stuff. Great video.
@@abaddon130 Theres actually a prequel story where a chosen dragon escaped from the Northern Dragon asylum. Aided by Osclaw, a fellow dragon, who gifted them dragon scales and then sent them on this crazy mission to ring a couple of bells, assassinate some public figures and bring forth the age of acients by linking the ashian mist and making everything a bit foggy. After that we're going to see the age of the deep sea. See some fish is stuck in Nothern undead aquarium. Aided by Oskrill, a fellow fish, they manage to escape... Then they refuse to link the... um... dark soul... and it all gets a bit wet. Cyclical, see?
I feel like there's so much untapped lore exploration around DS2 in relation to what we've seen from DS3. Miyazaki was involved in the DLC and what we know as the "true" ending of DS2, and went out of his way to return some of these concepts in DS3 with the thrones and the significance of a true monarch fit to link the flame. I've heard the argument that the Lords you return to the Thrones in DS3 are yet more incarnations of the original DS1 great ones. I dont personally really see that. What I do see is a lot in common between this Thrones ritual and the "true" ending of DS2. Think about what actually happens in that cutscene where you put the lords on their thrones, you're not using them to link the fire, that choice happens later, you're taking their power for yourself much like you did with the lord's crowns in DS2. In DS2 this gave you the power to break the cycle and live forever without going hollow. In DS3 this cutscene plays and you end up at the end of reality, everyone's confused and then gets distracted talking about the endings and the plin plin plon, but what actually happens to the world when you absorb those Lords? We assume some teleportation or something magical happened but what if your character just lived through it, beyond the cycles, and ends up on the dreg heap as the natural transition to the end of the basegame and the final DLC? Rather than the 5 Lords on their 5 Thrones being incarnations of the 4 DS1 Lord Souls, what if they have more in common with the Monarchs who's power we usurp in DS2? Lothric has clearly followed Vendrick's path, the Monarch fated to link the flame but who shirks their duty. Fans have already speculated that Yhorm is a descendent from the Giant Lord of DS2, the one that drops the kinship that makes you worthy to enter the Throne Room. DS2 keeps talking about proving yourself a true monarch in order to link the fire, and introduces this concept of needing to become worthy (which DS3 expands on by having unkindled who tried but were unworthy), but if a true monarch can link the flame then each of Vendrick (we already knew that one) but also the Iron King, Ivory King, Sunken King (who are treated as peers in terms of strength to Vendrick) and Giant King could have been potential lords of cinder. If any of this were valid, it would have big implications for the DS2 ending which is pitched to us by Aldia (a character the community should probably stop trusting so blindly) as something radical and different letting us beat the cycle. I dont think Aldia was correct (or honest with us) as we certainly did not end the cycle after DS2, and DS3 even seems to be demanding that we do the same thing again like a...cycle.
@@colbyboucher6391 Yup, it's the bit of DS3 that's always made the least sense to me, but because it happens just before the plin plon and the endings I struggle to find any lore videos or chats online that try to understand what happens with that lords-on-thrones ritual, cos yeah the intro and dialogue seems to indicate the lords were meant to do that themselves and the Unkindled were only risen because the Lords abandoned their thrones. But what we see later is that even if returned to their thrones, all that does is grant the ability to combine their power in another strong individual, who would that have been in the Unkindled were never risen? I think the Souls community has speculated about DS1 long enough to know we shouldnt take anything any NPC tells us at face value, everyone's trying to manipulate us or they dont know the complete truth themselves. But I dont see Aldia in DS2 or the Thrones ritual in DS3 being given near the same level of scrutiny, especially since the community seems more than happy to accept Aldia's narrative that Gwyn was a bad guy.
@@MikeHesk742 Pretty sure The Ringed City all but reinforced DS2's ideas - and by extension, Aldia's commentary - on Gwyn's motives - especially since the Gods literally branded their own soldiers to keep the Darkness contained. Aldia saw the linking of the Fire as a pointless deception and had his own motives which failed, so he isn't actually shown without scrutiny. The player has the ability to ignore the cycle entirely thanks to Vendrick and carve out their own destiny by becoming immune to the Hollow curse.
Thank you so much for covering this. Though Dark Souls 2 doesn’t have many highs for me, this is definitely a memorable moment, perhaps the most memorable from the Souls series. Standing in an age so long ago, amongst gods and spectacular dragons, when the world was being forged under a legendary war, it’s so surreal.
This was an unforgetable moment in the game for me. The realization that the majestic dragons you've seen before were merely creation from a dead corpse not unlike frankensteins monster. It really hammers home the feelings of consequences for others action and the attempt to rectify it seen throughout the game.
Its super cool seeing all these secrets and unfinished stuff also kinda upsettin that I would have never seen em if I didn't watch this channel so thanks zullie very cool vids.👍
I love going behind the scenes like that and seeing all the background stuff barely detailed and awkward looking. Great games. I can’t wait for your videos like that after Elden Ring comes out
A middle third eye indicating a true ancient dragon would be a neat way to differentiate them from all their descendants. I kinda wish they did go hard in making this a true defining feature, as now it looks like it was just Kalameet’s unique feature.
God the first time I visited this memory was so utterly striking... such a tragic feel to everything about it. All the dead archtrees, walking up to the poor lifeless dragon... it's basically giving you a direct view to the destruction the war Gwyn started caused. Makes me wanna pet the poor reptile even if that wouldn't really do anything, just feel bad for them ;;
Based on the placements of those holes, (what appears to be his hands and forearms) is it possible the corpse was once meant to be held up in a crucified position? The hole on the wing gives me the impression that it may have been hanging in such a way that would have looked like a crucified, one winged angel
One of the few interesting things we never get to see in the other titles. Despite the memory mechanic being mostly unfinished, this one is very emotional for the player
I have learned things from this video and this comment section about Dark Souls 2 that put it in a whole new, sadder, light. Man I wish we could actually get the games FromSoft wanted to make. So many times have their original ideas been better than what they ended up with. But I did not know to what extent this applied to Dark Souls 2.
The subtle nature of the scene definitely adds more than any amount of action or explosions ever could. It's a corpse of a great being that we as players in the world of souls never get to see, with the exception of a rare few and none of them are true ancient dragons except kalameet. But we never see a true, scaled ancient dragon. Probably because we as characters simply wouldn't have the power to kill them. Only the godlike characters being at full strength had that sort of power.
I just realized that the 3rd eye is probably what was referred to as "the dragons jewel" which was one of the two items needed to power the pendulum of time in the original cut story of the game which explains it being an empty socket on the other model
Fun fact, most reptiles actually do have a third eye. It's on top of their head and is really only good for detecting light and dark. People surmise it helps land-dwelling reptiles "see" aerial predators circling overhead so they can get to safety.
@@abaddon130 Unfortunately tortoises belong to a different family than other lizards and they lost their mystical eye :( If you have a beardie or a gecko, it would!
Maybe the holes were made by the dragonslayer arrows or lightning spears? Makes sense that a dragon would be impaled to a wall by an arrow designed to kill one.
You know what? I don't care about popular opinions, Dark Souls 2 was a fantastic game. It was just dripping with this unsettling, eerie atmosphere which permeates the entire game. Everything just seems shrouded in mystery upon mystery upon mystery.
I can only imagine how amazing Dark Souls II could've been if they were given the chance to see development all the way through to the very end, when they were officially finished with the game.
The dragon memory is a place I like going to, but dislike staying for the whole minute or 2 that you're trapped there. It's peaceful, for sure, but the existence of nigh-nothingness is super eerie. In the age of ancients, there were rocks. There were trees. There were rocks with wings. Everything we hate, dislike, like, and love just didn't exist. But even with all that, seeing the dead dragon makes me sad, even though it's unlikely they ever had such feelings or emotions.
Fun fact: all reptiles have a tertiary, rudimentary eye on their forehead. It's not very precise, it can only distinguish changes in light, but since reptile sight in general is pretty bad, it helps them. So, you know, if dragons are reptiles, a third eye just sort of makes sense.
If we could go back to the past I will go into the realm named Memory of Early DS2 Development. And wait there for a few years to see Memories of Miyazaki too
It's kind of a shame nothing else is shown or given for the old war between the Dragons and Lord Souls. DS2 gives you that taste of it, but there's nothing else. All that's left is seeing what little remains of the dragons and sub-species that appear throughout the series. With how DS3 tries to give a sense of finality to everything, with facing Gwyn 2.0 at the end of vanilla and Gael inside the Ringed City holding the air of, "This is the end," seeing more of where the world began could've helped supplement it.
The holes in the dragon's limbs might be seen as references to the Dragon God boss fight, which makes From's desire to hide them very understandable. Heh...
I always assume the holes on it were impacts points from lighting spears from qwyn and his silver knights during the dawn of fire. Also got to admit I never knew the armor of the dragon shrine dudes had 3 eyes on it, cool little detail
DS2 is a game I feel like I could play a hundred times, and I'd still be learning or discovering new things about it. It's like it'll never run out of secrets to uncover.
DS2 was my first souls game and will always be my favorite just because of nostalgia. I'm sick of people just trashing it as a meme, especially since most of them haven't even played it. So thank you Zullie for showing me some of the weird stuff hidden in the game.
Thing about the memory system in darksouls 2 is it works on almost the same logic as bloodbornes nightmare worlds in which dreams and memories have no logic other than the ones we give them. But memories are far more biased than we'd like them to be so who know
That's just the gem the black dragons used to talk to each other at great distance. Kind of like a radio but more like telepathy. Also, loving the old Ancient City soundtrack in the background, you have good taste.
First time I gasped at something in this game, other than the moment I set foot into Majula. The latter being a memory of which I am still quite grateful for.
It saddens me that DS2 gets so much hate from Dark Souls fans. It was actually my very first Dark Souls game and I felt it was a great game. It made me fall in love with the series as a whole which led to me getting the other games and playing through them too. The game will always have a special place in my heart.
"Dark Souls II went though a lot and barely came out a playable game at the end," I think that is incredibly harsh. It's more than playable, it's a very enjoyable game, just not on par with DS1 and the others.
This game really deserves a full remake for next gen with all of the original ideas brought back and expanded, too bad we will probably never get it though…
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The other obvious alternative, even not knowing about the Ancient Dragon's "eye", is that when the dragon armor mentions the "black dragon", it actually means Guyra, the black dragon from King's Field that preceded Kalameet. With Miyazaki working on Bloodborne, Dark Souls II was open to more influence from the staff members who had previously worked on the King's Field series, so going even further back than Dark Souls for a reference wouldn't be out of place.
ive recently played a fair bit of kings field 4 and there is /so/ much that dark souls 2 takes from that game, the undead crypt, the design of the golems/giants, the gyrm design, and so much more.
its a very weird feeling seeing whats basically the previous iteration of things from one of my favourite games of all time.
Noticed the Hellkite dragon flying away from the bridge off to Darkroot for the first time last night after warping to the Sunlight Altar bonfire. Don't think you've done a video on it, would be interesting to know what exactly triggers that, and to see where it goes
Is there any possibility of some sort of direct descent from Kalameet to these dragons that was originally intended, but never materialized?
@@NocturnalNick just the act of being behind the arch way when it's perched causes it to fly away. As far as where it goes is just away. Lol you can get him to come back the same way he originally showed up.
That's a huge stretch considering Kalameet had such a prominent "eye."
The "memories" aspect of DS2 was probably one of the coolest things about the game. It was a pretty genius way to give the player the ability to experience the past in a way that makes sense in-universe.
Considering how central Dark Souls II's scrapped time travel concept was, they probably ended up creating the idea of the memories as a way to at least get some use out of all the work they had to throw out with it.
@@ZullietheWitch The young Herald was pretty well known early on, but my mind was completely blown when I saw that McDuff was actually originally "young Lenigrast". I'm so curious about the original Dark Souls II concepts...
@@ZullietheWitch It should've worked somewhat like the time travel system in Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, right?
@@ZullietheWitch I was going to say, it seems like the kind of concept that they would have added to the game to get it back in line with the original Dark Souls, ie something that was added after the directors changed. Since time travel was something they were already working on, that probably seemed like the perfect shoehorn to fit this idea into the game
I did not enjoy much of DS2 myself, since I'm mostly here for the bosses, but the memories I genuinely found cool even if they didn't do much in terms of gameplay
the backtracking to something you'd been wondering about at the beginning of the game and going back into the past, to events you kept hearing about in NPC dialogue, was very good, and especially the dragon's memory was haunting
The central socket is a marriage of eastern and western dragon mythos, where a dragon's pearl and wisdom is grown in the center of the forehead. As someone else has commented, it's a mythologized evolution of the discovery of parietal eyes and notions of extrasensory perception associated with the linked pineal gland.
Thank you for mentioning the parietal eye.
Always happy to learn about real mythology that inspires From 👍
Bloodborne strikes again
I think it was stated in lore, but the third is supposed to allow them to see the future?
sorry if I'm wrong
Parietal eyes. Holy crap today was a school day.
Always love seeing the dark souls 2 content, as it was a sequel that had potential and tried something different. Really makes you think what they could have done if they had a few more years
It would have been truly an awesome game. At least Elden Ring seems to be taking a lot of Ds2 concepts
I personally really love how DS2 ended up. It’s a great game. That Yui Tanimura and the rest of the team managed to finish this game, and get it into this state, is nothing short of amazing considering the production issues it had. I hope he directs another FromSoftware game in the future.
@@colbyboucher6391 I absolutely agree. DS2 was unique in it’s approach as it was more focused on the environments being the challenge as opposed to the Bosses. You really had to pay attention and figure out how to deal with your enemies.
This is the same for Demon’s Souls, where most of the bosses, with exceptions like Flamelurker, were puzzles that you needed to solve instead of brute force your way through like in BB or DS3. You couldn’t do that with Adjudicator. It was more methodical and meticulous.
Funnily enough that’s part of why I love DeS and DS2 the most besides their atmospheres. It feels in parts like you’re playing a video game version of OSR D&D in parts, whereas the other titles are more like 3.X and 5e or 3d Castlevania.
It’s the difference between combat as sport vs combat as war. I’m someone who’s more in the middle, leaning towards combat as war, which DeS and DS2 also do.
This is exactly why I prefer DSII over DS3. They tried so many new things and mechanics to make it it's own game. Had they had the time to finish most of it, DSII would have been an even more unique experience. DS3 on the other hand didn't really do anything. They just mashed DS1 and Bloodbourne together and called it a day.
@@theomnitorium7476 Exactly. It felt like Bloodborne with Dark Souls elements thrown in and a heavy dose of fan service. DS2 had it’s own distinct identity. Like Yahtzee said, “a good sequel jumps off the original, a bad one wallows in it.”
The holes in the limbs and wings make me think it might be battle damage from Gwyn's lightning. With the quiet I'm not sure if this was meant to be shortly after the end of the war, and this dragon was one of the last to fall, or if it was already long dead by the time the memory itself happened and it just held significance to the memory's owner
YO IMAGINE IF WE GOT TO SEE GWYN TOSSING LIGHTNING IN HIS PRIME IN-GAME
Or Gough's arrows
Iam sorry to inform you but zullie is actually wrong there, if the dragon was supposed to be "impaled" there was absolutely no reason to make holes in his body since you wont be able to see clipping anyways because of the object (the one it is impaled with) being in your view, it is most likely some glitch from transitioning between whatever art software from uses to make those models and the game engine. If not then only 2 options are that object was supposed to visually pass through the dragon leaving the hole behind (lightning spear ? maby ?) or player was supposed to interact with dragon in some way that would later have visible holes in him.
I think it was more a dragonslayer arrows barrage, but your idea is also interesting
@@tezwoacz Being impaled usually leaves some of the surrounding flesh pushed inward, so saying it'd be 'pointless' to include the holes in the design is rather incorrect itself.
That dream just reminded me that ds2 is the only dark souls game where you fight regular humans who don't turn to ash when you kill them
And they even make the same sound as the Boletarian soldiers in Demon's Souls (the original), when you kill them :p
Which humans don't turn to ash? NPCs? I never killed them to know
@@NiCoNiCoNiCola i think he means the Drangleic soldiers in the Giant Memories
@@howescookies and humans in the same Giant Memories too I guess
Gwyn hunted the dragons with stakes and spears of lightning that were usually thrust downward into the dragon for the greatest piercing effect. The holes are probably from when the dragon was killed in the war with Gwyn.
since the holes arent textured, they were probably never intended to be seen by the player when the model was made. i imagine this is why zullie came up with their theory
@@stuntfumbler even still they may have had the idea that the dragon was impaled there from lightning and added it to the base model.
Then when they realised players wouldn't see this section simply didn't bother adding in proper textures.
bs, those were meant to be eyes like on kalameet, they just scrapped the idea
"that were usually thrust downward for the greatest piercing effect"🙄🙄
dark souls opening cut scene wants you to hold its beer
@@AlexAegisOfficial Damn kalameet has eyes on his legs and wing?
Dark souls 2 deserves a full, restorative "development heaven" remake
I’ve been saying this ever since I started playing it!! It could be so good!
Agreed. Even people who hate the game to bits like myself whole-heatedly want to see it done properly.
That' s pretty much elden ring though. A big open world dark souls.
@@Simon200o but it's not what dark souls 2 would have been
Could not agree more. It was the most "different" of the souls games, and I'd love to see that fully explored.
Some of the archtrees' bases being lower can be explained by them all being the same model, but the designers wanted a variety of how thick each tree was, so some were just stretched to create that appearance. But the tops of the trees, which the player can see, had to all match, so the bases are varied instead.
Thank you for putting the King's Field 4 music in your recent videos. Any love for the classics is always appreciated.
Many real life reptiles have what’s called a parietal eye on top of their head. This “third eye” is light sensitive and regulates their circadian rhythms.
Souls dragons have this “third eye” to help regulate their circadian rhythms to the cycle of light and dark ;)
That's actually very interesting. From Software is circular enough in their references to their back catalog that the third eye that keeps popping up on their dragons could all be Guyra, but it would also make sense for them to have been influenced by a neat real life biological fact as well.
@Mattia Capaldo Well, don't forget that the Ancient Dragon that talks about murk doesn't actually have the eye and is a complete scam by Aldia.
This is the first time I've seen Zullie hearting a comment
One real life reptile, distantly related to the rest, has the "third eye".
@Alberto Fernandez
Well I’m not sure why it hasn’t been eliminated by natural selection at this point in real life animals. As you note, reptiles have normal eyes, which in mammals do double duty of vision and measuring light levels to determine a rough time of day. Don’t know why some reptiles can’t just do that other than we might be observing them at a point in time where evolution is on the road to eliminating them but hasn’t finished yet.
Some insects have similar “eye spots” on top of their head they use to roughly determine the orientation of the sun to help them navigate in a 3D world during flight.
Of course fictional creatures can have them for whatever reason, though a third eye that senses the super natural is a very, very old idea. I just was making a joke that it would be funny if if dragons used them to measure “light levels cast by the first flame” instead of normal sunlight.
I always felt bad for this dragon, just laying dead and alone for who knows how long 🙁
At least he has the luxury of being dead though. Probably.
Think about the human undead, who simply will not stay down. To the point that entire towns do nothing but continually bury their bodies, grind them into paste or burn them so that they at least stop moving. Even their broken and burned bones are still alive enough to remember the warmth of a bonfire. And even when they truly leave behind their bodies, they just sink down into the abyss and beyond to become dregs or murkmen. They stay aware, forever.
Why would you feel sad for something that's been dead for hundreds of years
As opposed to laying dead with pals...? It's dead. I'm pretty sure the Dragon couldn't care less the amount of corpses next to it
@@Lunartic_ As opposed to being interred, I guess. It's fallen out of favor in recent history, but historically people used to care a lot about what happens to their bodies after death. Honorable burial, remembrance, all that jazz. Lying unmourned and without any marker in a field (like this dragon does) was considered a horrible thing, and often the worst punishment anyone could receive.
Considering he is dead in the memory the memory itself would have been the exact point of his death.
We are experiencing the final moments of this ancient dragon
I really wish this area was expanded on, imagine how amazing it would be to be running across the ground as dragons fly through the sky, and maybe you can see Gwyn and his four knights and his army fighting the dragons
nah, being subtle would be much stronger. seeing some stuff in the backround would be enough
Two Knights*
Artorias and Ciaran were not knighted by that time, for they have no dragonslaying gear and abilities. Canon implies that both became Elite or Best Knights of Gwyn when humand revolted against the gods
literally running around while World War 1 happens in the sky above you would be fun
The Dragon Memory is one of my favorite areas, such a fantastically dark atmosphere, it brings such a heavy feeling of tragic and dire events long past, and now you return, to pick away at what remains like a vulture, from a corpse of a battle you never witnessed by those you never met as they were. It's moments like this that solidified DS2 as one of my favorite games and puts it right up there along with its kin of the series as all being fantastic.
I'm in awe. I've actually never seen or heard of the Dragon Memories. It's so haunting. Things like this really make me appreciate Dark Souls II more.
They're in the endgame of DS2, and you can only enter them after having gotten through the majority of the roadblocks in the main game. If you played the game and then quit before the game, you could've technically gone through the vast majority of the game and never been in a position to enter them.
I mean, to do so you'd have had to have gotten the King's Ring, which is an accomplishment in and of itself, then you would've had to have gotten through Aldia's Keep, up the elevator to to the Dragon Shrine, gotten all the way to the Ancient Dragon, then gotten the key to the Memories from it.
What you end up finding out is that King Vendrick literally put up as many roadblocks and challenges as he could in order to prevent anyone from getting there.
Similar to the giant memories
@@LabTech41 I've played through softs at least 20 times and I never knew of dragon memories wtf
@@Tom3kkk You never speaked or killed the ancient dragon in 20 different playthroughs? You doin somethin wrong Son 😅 even a 15 yr old me remembers the memories. Being scared of approaching the huge dragon , But its all at the end of dragon aerie if i recall.
@@Tom3kkk Well, now that I think of it, DRAGON Memory is a different place technically than GIANT Memory, though both are gotten to the same way: you approach the trigger area in the normal game world with the Ashen Mist Heart in your inventory. You need to go through the Giant's Memories in order to get the Giant's Kinship, which is the final key of the game, but you can go to the Dragon's Memory once you get the Heart.
The only thing worth getting in the Dragon Memory is a boss soul for free that lets you create a weapon. You're supposed to have realized that the Dragon corpse in the boss room of the Duke's Dear Freja is an appropriate trigger because the Heart allows you to visit the past of long-dead bodies, such as the Giant's trees.
Fun fact: lizards have a third eye in the middle of their head called an "parietal" or "pineal" eye. It's not as sensitive as their other two eyes but it helps them detect ambient light levels.
Useful for anticipating overhead aerial predators
I’m pretty sure that’s only in one not-lizard that looks exactly like all other lizards called a tuatara that is the last of its linage. Then again, I don’t know a whole shit tonne about lizards so I could be mistaken.
@@featherdragon7894 nah, Galapagos Iguanas have quite prominent third eyes too.
@@featherdragon7894 I have no idea what tuatara are so you at least know more than me
All those Archtrees remind me again of the Hunter's Dream. FROM seems to use that imagery to convey desolation and a sort of clearly repeating but otherwise featureless landscape, but the way they keep positioning us in the midst of them seems to imply that each one is rather like another world unto itself, a concept that jives well with Soulsborne's asymmetrical multiplayer
Well it's the other way round, the pillars from the hunter's dream are a direct references to the dark souls archtrees.
@@MidnightatMidian So it seems, though the significance of that comparison is sort of unclear. Is it meant to imply that the Trees prop up different worlds even in the Souls games like they seem to in Bloodborne, as many have speculated? If not, then using them as a mere visual reference would seem confusing or misleading
My small theory always was that each archtree represent it's own unique world. It would explain why we see so many around in the Ash Lake, but only one on the surface - should we go up another tree, we'd have emerged in a different world. Like invading, but going on foot instead of teleporting.
Ash Lake in this theory stands as the original world, now a hub for every other. Light, with all it's strange DS properties, split the worlds apart, but Ash Lake remain unchanged, hidden from the Sun.
@@chompythebeast It's just Fromsoft reusing certain assets. Don't overthink it.
@Chompy the Beast The symbolism with the trees and Pillars, is that every player has his own world-game, which are on the same levels as other players worlds, that you can invade, as your own archtree can be invaded. The trees and the pillars are just that, a representation of others games. Like the lighthouses at the end of Bioshock Infinite. It's pretty obvious.
This area hit me hard for some reason, i felt so sad and alone in this vast, abandoned place shared only with this magnificent ancient creature who's life had been taken long ago. It left me feeling empty.
Same
I finally started getting into Dark Souls 2 after so many failed attempts over the years and I'm finally beginning to appreciate it. Dark souls 2 is without a doubt the most ambitious of the franchise, had tons of great ideas and probably the best atmosphere of the whole series. Every time I enter Majula and the music starts playing it gives off such a tragic and lonely feeling that really sets the tone for the rest of the adventure. Majula is hands down my favorite hub.
well, maybe, ideas are fine and good but all the execution was pretty awful. which makes the atmosphere also very barren, espeically if we take all the other fromsoft games
@@Exel3nce I don't think he asked for your opinion though
@@bencullen2476 I don't think you get to shut down other people's opinions on a RUclips comment. If you don't want discussion this is the wrong place to express yourself.
DS2 did have its good points. The atmosphere in some areas is pretty great. Majula is a nice hub (Though, it probably gets some undeserved hate because of DS2 not having leveling up from bonfires meaning you HAVE to keep going back to Majula).
Also, Emerald Herald is a top tier waifu.
@@bencullen2476 i dont think he asked you to defend himself.
Just saying the truth
I know it will probably never happen, but I _really_ want them to do a remake of DS2 like they did Demon souls, but add in all the stuff that was originally _supposed_ to be in DS2, like the day and night cycles
There's no need for that now that Elden Ring exists and explores many of the cool ideas Dark Souls 2 failed to fully explore.
I think what you're looking for is called Elden Ring. Besides, Shitpoint would never make a remake of DS2 with the cut content restored, and without worsening what already is good in the original game.
Yeah or a Dark Souls II 2
So not like the remake of Demon Souls at all?
@@davewilson5413 I don’t know that people have shit on the remake, and I’m curious as to what sorta things the shit talkers say about it. Wasn’t it pretty faithful? I didn’t actually play either version of demon souls, but I watched a significant portion of the Jacksepticeye play through and it seemed fine.
When you consider everything that happened to the game it really does exist as some Lovecraftian amalgamation of corpses crudely stitched together.
Hell, FromSoftware even experimented on it after release like Aldia did with Dragons, creating something which looked more like DS1 but still had a different soul.
Honestly, replace Drangleic with Lorekingdomthingy, Drangleic Castle with Anor Londo, change names of the kingdoms into kingdoms from Dark Souls 1 and people won't feel that much of a difference
@@NiCoNiCoNiCola Well yea hit has similarities to the original, as it is a sequel but it approaches those concepts very differently.
@@NiCoNiCoNiCola There are a ton of differences between the two games that distinguish them. And both of us know that Dranleic is the inferior when comparing names with Lordran.
@@cave_dweller6 nah, Drangleic sounds cool, while Lordran is kinda screaming "I'm a japanese developer who knows English words"
Like those goofy ah american names in that one sport game
Gotta say Zullie, I’ve learned more about the Soulsborne series than I ever thought possible from your videos and I thank you for that. It’s really cool to see how these games could have turned out. Keep it up!
Ever since that old Dark Souls 2 trailer, I've always liked the idea that "true" everlasting dragons have a third eye, and that it wasn't a feature unique to Kalameet. Kinda sad that they more or less abandoned that idea, seemingly partway into Dark Souls 2's development.
Gwyn, seeing the player character show up in the dragon memory: "Oh, hey Furtive Pygmy, I'd so easily forgotten about you!"
I always wished we got to see more of the Age of Dragons
U mean the age of ancients
Big trees, big dragons, everything is grey. There you go.
i wouldn't mind getting a dark souls 2 remastered with all of the originals ideas more fleshed out and given a proper dev time. it could be a fantastic game
Fromsoft will never do that. Demon souls only got updated graphics and soundtrack when they could’ve added in the final broken arch stone. Dark souls remastered literally just got higher quality textures.
check out Scholar of the First Sin edition. They basically did this, but still on a limited budget of time and money.
@@yoboiboy4182 One could dream though. A proper Souls complete edition. Featuring DeS with the final arch stone, DS1 with a proper Izalith, DS2 with all its incomplete ideas and DS3 with DS2 references.
Of course, it'd be a lot of work updating/completing 4 games... But it would give them a reason to sell _yet another_ copy of them all to everyone.
@@yoboiboy4182 Worth noting that FromSoft didn't make the Demon's Remake or the Dark Souls Remaster. But, yeah, they don't seem to have interest at all in doing much with older titles compared to simply moving on and making new things instead.
@@joshmay2944 oh sotfs is the version i play. i meant like dark souls 2 truly realized
Your videos are super chill and I love dark souls lore and the way you explain stuff. I recently tried playing SOTFS and it nearly broke me after 350 hours of Elden Ring - I played the original on PS3(my first souls experience) and again on PC through a pirated version a few years back. Thanks for the content.
As someone who barely played a Dark Souls title and stumbled on this channel through yt recommendation, this (and the rest) is truly fascinating stuff. Great video.
I absolutely loved the soundtrack you used, awesome as always
Good work, Skeleton!
Dont give up, skeleton
Listen carefully, skeleton
Scarier thought: the web dragon had eyespots like a moth, to scare away predators.
Interesting, what could ever predate that thing?
@@abaddon130 Theres actually a prequel story where a chosen dragon escaped from the Northern Dragon asylum. Aided by Osclaw, a fellow dragon, who gifted them dragon scales and then sent them on this crazy mission to ring a couple of bells, assassinate some public figures and bring forth the age of acients by linking the ashian mist and making everything a bit foggy.
After that we're going to see the age of the deep sea. See some fish is stuck in Nothern undead aquarium. Aided by Oskrill, a fellow fish, they manage to escape... Then they refuse to link the... um... dark soul... and it all gets a bit wet.
Cyclical, see?
@@fightthepowerman what the astral fuck mate, what did you smoke?
I feel like there's so much untapped lore exploration around DS2 in relation to what we've seen from DS3. Miyazaki was involved in the DLC and what we know as the "true" ending of DS2, and went out of his way to return some of these concepts in DS3 with the thrones and the significance of a true monarch fit to link the flame.
I've heard the argument that the Lords you return to the Thrones in DS3 are yet more incarnations of the original DS1 great ones. I dont personally really see that. What I do see is a lot in common between this Thrones ritual and the "true" ending of DS2. Think about what actually happens in that cutscene where you put the lords on their thrones, you're not using them to link the fire, that choice happens later, you're taking their power for yourself much like you did with the lord's crowns in DS2. In DS2 this gave you the power to break the cycle and live forever without going hollow. In DS3 this cutscene plays and you end up at the end of reality, everyone's confused and then gets distracted talking about the endings and the plin plin plon, but what actually happens to the world when you absorb those Lords? We assume some teleportation or something magical happened but what if your character just lived through it, beyond the cycles, and ends up on the dreg heap as the natural transition to the end of the basegame and the final DLC?
Rather than the 5 Lords on their 5 Thrones being incarnations of the 4 DS1 Lord Souls, what if they have more in common with the Monarchs who's power we usurp in DS2? Lothric has clearly followed Vendrick's path, the Monarch fated to link the flame but who shirks their duty. Fans have already speculated that Yhorm is a descendent from the Giant Lord of DS2, the one that drops the kinship that makes you worthy to enter the Throne Room. DS2 keeps talking about proving yourself a true monarch in order to link the fire, and introduces this concept of needing to become worthy (which DS3 expands on by having unkindled who tried but were unworthy), but if a true monarch can link the flame then each of Vendrick (we already knew that one) but also the Iron King, Ivory King, Sunken King (who are treated as peers in terms of strength to Vendrick) and Giant King could have been potential lords of cinder.
If any of this were valid, it would have big implications for the DS2 ending which is pitched to us by Aldia (a character the community should probably stop trusting so blindly) as something radical and different letting us beat the cycle. I dont think Aldia was correct (or honest with us) as we certainly did not end the cycle after DS2, and DS3 even seems to be demanding that we do the same thing again like a...cycle.
@@colbyboucher6391 Yup, it's the bit of DS3 that's always made the least sense to me, but because it happens just before the plin plon and the endings I struggle to find any lore videos or chats online that try to understand what happens with that lords-on-thrones ritual, cos yeah the intro and dialogue seems to indicate the lords were meant to do that themselves and the Unkindled were only risen because the Lords abandoned their thrones. But what we see later is that even if returned to their thrones, all that does is grant the ability to combine their power in another strong individual, who would that have been in the Unkindled were never risen?
I think the Souls community has speculated about DS1 long enough to know we shouldnt take anything any NPC tells us at face value, everyone's trying to manipulate us or they dont know the complete truth themselves. But I dont see Aldia in DS2 or the Thrones ritual in DS3 being given near the same level of scrutiny, especially since the community seems more than happy to accept Aldia's narrative that Gwyn was a bad guy.
@@MikeHesk742 Pretty sure The Ringed City all but reinforced DS2's ideas - and by extension, Aldia's commentary - on Gwyn's motives - especially since the Gods literally branded their own soldiers to keep the Darkness contained. Aldia saw the linking of the Fire as a pointless deception and had his own motives which failed, so he isn't actually shown without scrutiny. The player has the ability to ignore the cycle entirely thanks to Vendrick and carve out their own destiny by becoming immune to the Hollow curse.
Thank you so much for covering this. Though Dark Souls 2 doesn’t have many highs for me, this is definitely a memorable moment, perhaps the most memorable from the Souls series. Standing in an age so long ago, amongst gods and spectacular dragons, when the world was being forged under a legendary war, it’s so surreal.
Dragons were like "Grant us eyes" way before it was cool.
This was an unforgetable moment in the game for me. The realization that the majestic dragons you've seen before were merely creation from a dead corpse not unlike frankensteins monster. It really hammers home the feelings of consequences for others action and the attempt to rectify it seen throughout the game.
Its super cool seeing all these secrets and unfinished stuff also kinda upsettin that I would have never seen em if I didn't watch this channel so thanks zullie very cool vids.👍
I love going behind the scenes like that and seeing all the background stuff barely detailed and awkward looking. Great games. I can’t wait for your videos like that after Elden Ring comes out
We absolutely NEED Dark Souls 2 remake with the original concepts!!!
Absolutely
Specifically the original lighting concepts
@@TheHonoredMadman I heard there's a mod called flames of old revising some features of dark souls 2(ex player tracking and lighting
I'd never realized we weren't at ground level in this memory.
A middle third eye indicating a true ancient dragon would be a neat way to differentiate them from all their descendants. I kinda wish they did go hard in making this a true defining feature, as now it looks like it was just Kalameet’s unique feature.
I like these videos cause I can watch them during school
Really thought this was gonna be about the northern limit
God the first time I visited this memory was so utterly striking... such a tragic feel to everything about it. All the dead archtrees, walking up to the poor lifeless dragon... it's basically giving you a direct view to the destruction the war Gwyn started caused. Makes me wanna pet the poor reptile even if that wouldn't really do anything, just feel bad for them ;;
your content never stops to amaze me, keep up the great videos zullie!
The dragon body in both the memory and Freja's lair scare the bejeezus out of me, and learning more about them somehow only furthers that fear
That's why Gwyn fought em
King's Field really had some bangers in their OST
Based on the placements of those holes, (what appears to be his hands and forearms) is it possible the corpse was once meant to be held up in a crucified position? The hole on the wing gives me the impression that it may have been hanging in such a way that would have looked like a crucified, one winged angel
Holy fuck, imagine marching up to storm your enemy's castle and you see a giant dragon crucified at their front doors.
dragon jesus?
No, that makes no sense
One of the few interesting things we never get to see in the other titles. Despite the memory mechanic being mostly unfinished, this one is very emotional for the player
I was convinced the DLC would be memory based. Then it wasn't. Still got to remember Sir Alonne and his gank halls tho.
This is far and away my favorite location in the entire Souls series. Absolutely breathtaking.
I love ds2 cut/unused content because it's so interesting, but it's also depressing that so much was lost for us to experience in game
I have learned things from this video and this comment section about Dark Souls 2 that put it in a whole new, sadder, light. Man I wish we could actually get the games FromSoft wanted to make. So many times have their original ideas been better than what they ended up with. But I did not know to what extent this applied to Dark Souls 2.
Okay but DS2's PvP slapped
That moment... when you realize you are standing ages ago in the age of ancients is one of my all time favorite moments in the dark souls series
The subtle nature of the scene definitely adds more than any amount of action or explosions ever could. It's a corpse of a great being that we as players in the world of souls never get to see, with the exception of a rare few and none of them are true ancient dragons except kalameet. But we never see a true, scaled ancient dragon. Probably because we as characters simply wouldn't have the power to kill them. Only the godlike characters being at full strength had that sort of power.
I just realized that the 3rd eye is probably what was referred to as "the dragons jewel" which was one of the two items needed to power the pendulum of time in the original cut story of the game which explains it being an empty socket on the other model
Love the Dark Souls 2 stuff! Great work as always!
Gosh damn it just found another area I completely missed still after all these years, never seen this memory till now
Thinking about how much work was put into this one little 30-second snippet of the game makes me appreciate the souls series so much more
The whole idea of Arch Trees and Everlasting Dragons is so cool and I feel it's a bit sad this is as far as they went with it :/
Fun fact, most reptiles actually do have a third eye. It's on top of their head and is really only good for detecting light and dark. People surmise it helps land-dwelling reptiles "see" aerial predators circling overhead so they can get to safety.
Does my 4 year old tortoise has a Kalameet eye then?
@@abaddon130 Unfortunately tortoises belong to a different family than other lizards and they lost their mystical eye :( If you have a beardie or a gecko, it would!
Maybe the holes were made by the dragonslayer arrows or lightning spears? Makes sense that a dragon would be impaled to a wall by an arrow designed to kill one.
You know what? I don't care about popular opinions, Dark Souls 2 was a fantastic game. It was just dripping with this unsettling, eerie atmosphere which permeates the entire game. Everything just seems shrouded in mystery upon mystery upon mystery.
I can only imagine how amazing Dark Souls II could've been if they were given the chance to see development all the way through to the very end, when they were officially finished with the game.
Phenomenal choice of music in this.
The dragon memory is a place I like going to, but dislike staying for the whole minute or 2 that you're trapped there. It's peaceful, for sure, but the existence of nigh-nothingness is super eerie. In the age of ancients, there were rocks. There were trees. There were rocks with wings. Everything we hate, dislike, like, and love just didn't exist. But even with all that, seeing the dead dragon makes me sad, even though it's unlikely they ever had such feelings or emotions.
Fun fact: all reptiles have a tertiary, rudimentary eye on their forehead. It's not very precise, it can only distinguish changes in light, but since reptile sight in general is pretty bad, it helps them. So, you know, if dragons are reptiles, a third eye just sort of makes sense.
I never realized there were archtrees in the memory...
I wonder what are the pilars seen in the hunter's dream in Bloodborne... Archtrees too ?
Evil Lost Izalith be like
Looks like the dragon acolytes in Aldias keep fashioned their masks after the eye/orb on the dragons head.
If we could go back to the past I will go into the realm named Memory of Early DS2 Development.
And wait there for a few years to see Memories of Miyazaki too
It's kind of a shame nothing else is shown or given for the old war between the Dragons and Lord Souls. DS2 gives you that taste of it, but there's nothing else. All that's left is seeing what little remains of the dragons and sub-species that appear throughout the series.
With how DS3 tries to give a sense of finality to everything, with facing Gwyn 2.0 at the end of vanilla and Gael inside the Ringed City holding the air of, "This is the end," seeing more of where the world began could've helped supplement it.
this game has the most interesting cut content out of every single game ive ever heard of
The holes in the dragon's limbs might be seen as references to the Dragon God boss fight, which makes From's desire to hide them very understandable.
Heh...
I love the soundtrack in this area. Is so nostalgic.
I would really love to see a remake of Dark Souls 2 which realizes all its ideas
I always assume the holes on it were impacts points from lighting spears from qwyn and his silver knights during the dawn of fire. Also got to admit I never knew the armor of the dragon shrine dudes had 3 eyes on it, cool little detail
The arch trees in this scene look strangely similar to the pillars form the Hunter’s Dream.
A small addition, the music of this area is really beatiful :)
The 3rd eye could actually be a continuation of Kalameets Diamond eye. His species may have evovled to use it as telepathy while the rest grew in size
>makes you wonder what could have been
souls in a nutshell ;(
DS2 is a game I feel like I could play a hundred times, and I'd still be learning or discovering new things about it. It's like it'll never run out of secrets to uncover.
DS2 was my first souls game and will always be my favorite just because of nostalgia. I'm sick of people just trashing it as a meme, especially since most of them haven't even played it. So thank you Zullie for showing me some of the weird stuff hidden in the game.
This is a really cool memory. Hadn't found it until I was trying to 100%. Wish they could've gotten more done in this game
Half of us watching: ah the dragon memories. I played through this game dosen times before finding them.
The other half: There are dragon memories!?
This video changed my life
I love this zone, has its own soundtrack even
I hope DS2 somehow gets a directors cut or something
Thing about the memory system in darksouls 2 is it works on almost the same logic as bloodbornes nightmare worlds in which dreams and memories have no logic other than the ones we give them. But memories are far more biased than we'd like them to be so who know
That's just the gem the black dragons used to talk to each other at great distance. Kind of like a radio but more like telepathy. Also, loving the old Ancient City soundtrack in the background, you have good taste.
ive beaten this game multiple times and i never had any idea this was here. wow.
Hello to you from Russian DS community. Thank you for your job. All your videos is great. Thank you 🙏
This area was so cool to find.
First time I gasped at something in this game, other than the moment I set foot into Majula.
The latter being a memory of which I am still quite grateful for.
It saddens me that DS2 gets so much hate from Dark Souls fans. It was actually my very first Dark Souls game and I felt it was a great game. It made me fall in love with the series as a whole which led to me getting the other games and playing through them too. The game will always have a special place in my heart.
DS1 was my favourite game ever made, until I played DS2
It’s a great game, but compare silver to diamond and you’ll prefer diamond.
I've always thought of this as the same location we see Seath in dark souls 1 intro cutscene. Fairly similar design.
Arch-trees are visible from the Hunters Dream in BB and you can't convince me otherwise.
Your channel is fuckin awesome. I love these vids, bro
"Dark Souls II went though a lot and barely came out a playable game at the end,"
I think that is incredibly harsh. It's more than playable, it's a very enjoyable game, just not on par with DS1 and the others.
This game really deserves a full remake for next gen with all of the original ideas brought back and expanded, too bad we will probably never get it though…
Love this channel!