#Isoul of cinder dark sou ls series#

The player character is the ‘chosen undead,’ and you are destined to slay Gwyn and rekindle the fire to extend the Age of Fire further. Those who received the curse were doomed to slowly decay, eventually becoming insane beyond repair. One effect of this breach of the natural order of things was that humanity was cursed to undeath. To prolong the Age of Fire, the lifeline of the world he helped to create, Gwyn sacrificed his very soul. It’s never explained fully what the Age of Dark would entail, exactly, but, y’know. The First Flame began to sputter out, and as it did, the Age of Dark approached.

Unfortunately for Gwyn, no fire burns forever. The following era was known as the Age of Fire. I won’t get too into the details, but essentially, Gwyn was responsible for establishing the world as you see it in Dark Souls, thanks to something known as the First Flame, which let Gwyn and a handful of other ‘gods,’ as well as the race of humans, conquer the land of Lordran. Once I’d learned more about the story of Gwyn, ‘sad’ became ‘heartbreaking.’ His theme is a solo piano piece, the only one like it on the whole soundtrack, and to me it just sounds sad. It’s because Gwyn’s story and his place in the world is a tragic one. So, if every theme for every boss fits them in the sense of their role in the world of the game… why is Gwyn’s song so melancholy? The battle with the Moonlight Butterfly is set to light, graceful female vocals, emphasising the beauty of this elegant and mysterious creature in a crumbling world the Taurus Demon is announced by the frantic and bombastic crash of an orchestra – apropos, considering he’s the first real boss you face and the fight starts as terrifying ambush and as Gravelord Nito shambles unnervingly towards you, someone, somewhere, smacks a harpsichord every now and then just to really mess with you. When the music does kick in, it normally means one thing – boss time.Įvery boss in the game has a unique theme (if I’m not mistaken) and every theme fits the boss to a tee. Most areas typically don’t have music, instead letting you freak out over ambient sounds and the scrapings and growls of monsters prowling in the black. The soundtrack for Dark Souls is incredibly fitting. But I’ll go through the relevant part in a second. It’s long, complicated, and requires some personal interpretation. If you’re not familiar with the plot of Dark Souls, well… this post alone won’t do much to change that. How does Dark Souls use music as more than just music? It Enhances The Story Mandatory warning alert – this post features spoilers of the nth degree, what with it being a rundown of the story behind the final boss of the game and all. What it is, though, is an incredible example of how a game can, as a sum of parts, become an incredibly intricate work of creativity with remarkable effects on the player, and I’m going to try and run through that. Is it the best song from a game ever? No, most probably not.

Click play on the below, and listen as you read for optimum pseudo-intellectual bollockery. To do that, I’m going to ramble about a song from Dark Souls – specifically, the theme of the final boss: Gwyn, Lord of Cinder. More specifically, how a song can be so much more than just… a song.

#Isoul of cinder dark sou ls series#

(If you are here for that, VaatiVidya on YouTube has an amazing series called Prepare To Cry where he runs through the lore of individual characters from the Souls games.) I could talk for a long time about why I love the obtuse narrative that makes you work and think for scraps of information hidden in item descriptions and lines of throwaway dialogue about how the intense, often-frustrating gameplay lends it a unique place among the games or today of how the sheer depth of the game as a work of art as opposed to just a video game dwarfs that of many others. This is an article about Dark Souls Music. The lore, the despondent sense of your surroundings… and the music. Not necessarily just one of those people who thinks it’s the most enjoyable game in the traditional sense, but one of those people who has, for some reason or another, been completely consumed by the atmosphere of the Souls games.