OK, so this post will be a review of a slightly different sort as it will cover a PC game mod for one of my favourite games, which is Dark Souls and the mod in question is Daughters of Ash, which is available for free download from Nexusmods.com. Daughters of Ash itself is a re-imagined version of the original game with many different changes throughout.
So, for this review I will simply take a look at some of the differences to the original game but I won't go into massive detail on this because I haven't played all the way through the mod itself but I have done a fair amount of it and enough to post my thoughts on it.
BACKGROUND STORY
Warning this may contain some spoilers relating to the original game!
So, the background of the game is no different to the original with your character, a chosen undead, who is linked to the curse of flame who is set upon a quest to break the curse and succeed Lord Gwyn to keep the age of fire going. And the chosen undead will encounter a number of dangerous and tough enemies along the way including many bosses and in particularly four that possess great souls of power needed to gain access to the kiln of the first flame where Lord Gwyn awaits...
THOUGHTS
Well, I have to say I had high hopes for this mod myself as I am big fan of the original game and was keen to see what changes were made. And overall its a decent re-imagining of the original game but its not perfect and does have some issues.
In fact its clear that the gamer that made this mod (simply named Grimrukh) wanted to challenge players by making these changes such as removing bonfires, making humanity next to impossible to farm for and of course making some of the bosses WAY tougher in an attempt to test the mettle of any gamer. However, I fear that these changes really do hinder your progress and actually serve to demotivate you in a way that the original game and the Souls series actually never did. However at the same time, the mod in itself isn't all bad and does have some good changes here and there.
GAMEPLAY DIFFERENCES
Regardless however of my thoughts on the game, I will still mention some of the differences to the original game.
AREA NAMES
Starting with the area names, this is one of the main changes to feature in this mod as you wander around familiar sites you continually get different names popping up, e.g. lower Blighttown is now called "Fetid Slagmire" and the Catacombs is rather stupidly called the "Bome Chimney". There are plenty of others I could mention as well such as Sen's Forge, which replaces Sen's Fortress but I guess these give you an idea of the change.
CONSUMABLE SOUL CHANGES
Another change is to do with the consumable souls that you pick up in the game as they also have different names such as Soul of a Lost Cleric and Soul of a Pyromancer etc. The main change however with these souls is acutally quite a neat one in a way though because they each have a different effect, such as the Souls of a Lost Cleric partly restores your health or Soul of a Lost Soldier, which provides a temporary damage boost to your weapons. Other souls bring elemental effects such as the souls of a pyromancer or wizard that both cast spells as you use them although I'm not sure if you can lock to enemies when you use them however. Regardless of that however, this is still one of the more interesting and unique changes to the mod.
BONFIRE PLACEMENT
Another thing that has changed quite a bit are the placement of the bonfires throughout the game, as some bonfires have actually been relocated to more convenient locations whereas other bonfires have actually been removed altogether! One such example of a good bonfire placement in the mod is the one at Sen's Forge where the bonfire positioned just below the tower out in the open as opposed to having drop over a ledge below to activate it. There are however some pointless bonfire relocations such as one in Anor Londo where they have literally swapped rooms around and it can be found on the other side of the hallway. So, it is certainly a change but I'd certainly say one of the less necessary ones.
CHANGES TO NEW LONDO RUINS
One of the major area changes to the mod is actually an interesting one, which is to New Londo Ruins, which is now known as The Dead City of New Londo and no longer appears as being dark but is more illuminated and is filled with hollows (common undead) most of them who mind their own business (or remain in their personal torment with head in hands or head against a wall). The area changes here are actually quite a welcome one in a way as its the main location that sticks as being different. However this all changes I believe once you drain the water in the New Londo and this will bring around the wraith ghosts and the dark wraiths that appear in the original game for this area.
NPC PLACEMENT
Another change worth of note is to do with the placement of the NPC's in the game as they can be found in different locations to the original game and some of which might even take quite a bit of finding before you spot them! One such example of this is the pyromancer NPC, who was originally located in the Depths but has now been relocated to lower Blighttown or rather, the Fetid Slagmire! Another NPC that has moved is the undead female merchant, who was originally up in the tunnel above Firelink Shrine but is now situated in the original Capra Demon boss room. Again these changes don't really add much to the mod other than give you a bit of a runaround to locate them but I guess its a change for changes sake.
NEW BOSSES
The game also features some new bosses although since I haven't played through the entire mod, I don't know all of them but I did encounter a few along the way. As an example there is the boss next to the Undead Parish (now known as the Abandoned Church) which is the Titanite Demon and is now called Haunting Semblance, who has a counterpart that appears half way into the fight called Profane Image, which is a ghostly version of the same demon. Another example is the fight with Gravelord Nito, which has now added a second enemy into the encounter called Gravedaughter Ciaran and uses two dex weapons (gold and silver tracers I think) and this adds to make the fight alot more challenging and not necessarily in a good way but I will get to that later!
SIDE QUESTS
There are also a few different side quests in the mod as well that include Havel's quest and if you are not aware, Havel is a big guy wearing bulky armour and carries a big hammer like weapon shaped like a banana called dragon tooth! In the original game you basically kill Havel and take his ring, which allows to maximise your equipment load and carry more weight and still move freely. Another side quest that is new to the game is Velka's Pact quest that is quite detailed and must be followed quite strictly or else it won't work but it does end with you fighting a different and more powerful version of Gwyn.
EMBER NAMES
And lastly I will mention changes to the ember names that are available in the game which of course have also been tinkered with! ;-) As for a couple of examples, the divine ember is now called the Blessed Ember and does the same thing as it can allow you to kill skeletons without them respawning in the Catacombs area (or Bone Chimney as it is known here!). And another ember name change is the Faded Ember, which was the Large Ember in the original game and can upgrade your weapons to +10 with Sen's Ember being the renamed version of the Very Large Ember that upgrades them to +15.
GRAPHICS
As for the changes to graphics there hasn't been that many other than the relocation of areas and changes to New Londo Ruins, its all much the same with no changes to character models, boss or enemy models at all. The mod is available for both the PC - Prepare To Die Edition and Dark Souls Remastered version, so the graphical upgrade still applies to the remaster, so no real changes basically.
FLAWS (Warning: this section may contain spoiler info for the game!)
As for flaws...yep Daughters of Ash has its share!
For starters I think one of the most frustrating changes in the game is the lack of farmable humanity as humanity has become a rare item and bit like finding gold dust as it sprinkled throughout the game and can no longer be farmed from the rats like you could in the original game. So, as a result of this, you need to try and be more econimcal in your use of the humanity that you get but if you want summon for a tough boss and keep getting killed then the lack of humanity available will suck big time! Not only that but it means you will need to keep going back to other bonfires to restock your estus if you have no humanity left and want more than 5 at one time. So the lack of humanity in the mod was a big problem for me.
UPDATE ON ESTUS: Regarding the Estus, on replaying the mod, I found it wasn't too bad getting humanity as a pick up and you usually get at least one after defeating most bosses and there are some to be found lying around the game. However you still cannot appear to farm it from the rats like you could in the orignal game, which is a bit annoying.
Another issue is to do with the general upgrade in difficulty, especially relating to some of the bosses and such an example is the Gravelord Nito boss, who now has the Gravedaughter Ciaran in the fight and she can use your dex weapons to slice you up real quick as well as through Lloyd's talismans at you to prevent you healing! Add onto this, Nito's attacks such as his AoE dark attack and his sword springing up from the ground, it makes the fight that bit more annoying and tricky. However to be fair I was eventually able to get past this fight and there are of course much tougher ones in the Souls games alone.
This also relates to adding extra enemies in certain places that increases the difficulty of said areas such as the Demon Ruins where you get more giant worm guys aswell as the inclusion of more Capra Demons and also a knight that can do lethal fire damage! The same is also true of other places such as the Tomb of Giants (now called The Undercrypt) which has more annoying enemies and I found that area to be REALLY frustrating I mean there really are times where the difficulty in this mod is overkill!
UPDATE ON DEMON RUINS AND CATACOMBS (OR BONE CHIMNEY)
As for the Demons Ruins, I found the knight wasn't too bad to kill on replaying the game with a strength based character, so I guess my mage character was a bit unprepared for him! Also I would say that the renamed Catacombs, now known as the Bone Chimney is WAY more frustrating as they have added ALOT more necromancers (i.e. the guys who can ressurect skeletons after you kill them and they also can throw fireballs at you!) who DO respawn, which is really annoying! So, I would have to say the Bone Chimney is my least favourite place in this mod.
This also brings me to another issue, which is to do with the removal of certain bonfires, which can make your life very inconvenient. Now, there are instances where bonfires are relocated, which help to make your life actually a bit easier but at times, the removal of such bonfires can be a total pain in the ass! One such example is the trek back up to the top of upper Blighttown as there is no bonfire once you reach the upper area like there was before in the original game and this allows you to mess up more easily and start from the bottom all over again!
Another thing I found quite annoying is that not all of the DLC bonfires will be warpable, which they were all warpable in the original game. And as an example for this, I had to do a big run back to the dark cloud in Darkroot Garden where you access the DLC every time I wanted to restore my estus back to 10 or 15 after failing to defeat the deeply annoying boss that is the Sanctuary Gaurdian! Now, if this bonfire WAS warpable then it would make life ALOT easier but unfortunately it isn't, so if you haven't got enough humanity to kindle that bonfire in the DLC then you are shit out of luck and you need to do that big run back to the garden to access the DLC again. And this for me is a huge flaw and drawback in the mod, which is very frustrating.
I also felt that overall the whole name changing of areas was a bit unecessary as was the relocating of NPCs as it was all designed just to make you do a bit more running around. I especially felt that swapping round for example, the bonfire keeper at Anor Londo from one side of the room to the other was totally pointless and added nothing to the game itself. So, at this point its a case of asking...why??? Why???? What's the point???
And last of all, I felt that some of the new boss encounters were pretty disappointing and at times even pointless, such as when you fight the Capra Demon outside the original cramped area (which to be fair is one of the better changes!) when you beat him, he appears again under a new name and kills you and then vanishes! And when he would later reappear at Sen's Forge, renamed as a Capracious Thrall, my character (which was a sorcerer) literally spammed spells at him as he stood still and did nothing and eventually died! I mean that was completely pointless wasn't it?!
Anyway, so that's it for the flaws.
SUM UP
So, to sum up, Daughters of Ash is not a bad mod but it does miss the mark on a few fronts at the end of the day.
I did find some of the ideas were not bad and the relocation of certain items, areas and NPCs at times were neat touches but other changes were simply annoying and/or pointless. I also felt that the new boss difficulty was at times mixed and other issues such as the lack of bonfires and even missing some warpable bonfires was a big problem too that lead to many a tedious runback, which was totally unecessary. I also felt that the lack of farmable humanity in the game was one the mod's biggest omissions and was obviously done to make your life a bit more difficult.
So, in the end for me, Daughters of Ash is a decent re-imagining of Dark Souls and it does add in some good changes but I still definitely prefer the original version of the game and for the most part, I felt I was enjoying the game here more than the modifications made via the mod itself. However as it is a free mod, I certainly would say its worth having a look at even if its not perfect.
Right, so that's it for now and I will be back with maybe one more post before the end of April but if not I will be back on here in May.
Till then take care and bye for now!
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