Dark Souls II: Crown of the Sunken King DLC Previews

We’ve rounded up a few hands-on previews for Dark Souls II’s first DLC offering, Crown of the Sunken King, which was present in playable form on E3’s floor.

Joystiq remains vague to avoid spoiling surprises, but seems to like it:

The next group of enemies, four archers, were placed in two devilish banks across narrow platforms overlooking the below. As soon as I approached engaging distance with the first pair, the second bank started firing at me, forcing me into a swift retreat. That set the tone for the next 25 minutes.

Exacerbating the lack of space were those curveball elements I mentioned. After navigating another set of perilous walkways, I stumbled upon a clump of the green poison-spitting statues. After running past it and avoiding its green toxic spitballs, I turned to the rep on hand and said, “They just chuck poison at me, right?”

“Yes,” he replied, “Except it’s different when you attack it.”

GameSpot is unimpressed:

Sadly, there wasn’t much to the demo that was worth talking about. Unlike Artorias of the Abyss (Dark Souls’ lone DLC), which thrust you into a hectic boss fight from the beginning, then pushed you through a forest teeming with monsters to another intense battle, Sunken King is little more than a typical stretch of Souls action. Now, that’s a good thing, because Dark Souls is one of my favorite franchises in existence. However, fighting one enemy type along narrow crevices was hardly noteworthy. I’m crossing my fingers that something fascinating will emerge if I get deeper into the adventure, but in my short time with the game, I left feeling slightly deflated.

GamrReview concludes our brief round-up:

As I cautiously worked my way through the ruins I was attacked repeatedly by green-skinned, hallowed warriors in steel armor. They were slow and easy to dodge, but their inherent stability threw me for a slight loop when they couldn’t be staggered easily. I also came upon some large insects with sacks on their backs filled with the yellow corrosive liquid that is the bane of every Dark Souls II player’s Third Dragon Ring.

Overall, the enemies were not really what excited me about this DLC. What did was a puzzle homage to a classic Zelda mechanic. Switches throughout the ruins could be activated by swiping a sword (or shooting an arrow) and doing so would move platforms up and down. This was a pre-requisite to moving forwards as it made previously blocked paths passable.