Part 15: The Gutter

The Gutter, quite an interesting area when it comes to the lore. There's less item descriptions and more emergent story-telling here. What we learn beforehand is that this is where all the unwanted "filth" of drangleic goes. Gameplay-wise I'm not too fond of this area but it's one of the few areas that actually utilize the torch, though, you can go through it without one. It's just going to be much harder unless you've played through it before and know where to go.



Switching to Alva Armor for Hiltrud now. I like the Knight set, but it was about time for a change in wardrobe.


Another cosplay, huh? Llewelyn armor, mostly. Opposed to the Belmont build this one is a little less gimmicky seeing as it utilizes more commonly used gear such as the Greatsword and Avelyn. This is a build mimicking the abilities of Guts from Berserk who's famous for using a huge-ass sword. Guts also has a prosthetic left arm which sports a repeating crossbow, in our case the Avelyn as well as a cannon, emulated by pyromancy.



Sadly, there's no Boss this time around. But since we're cosplaying as a character from Berserk, which is a long running Manga series that heavily inspired Demon's Souls and Dark Souls I may as well delve at least slightly into the many ways it references the Souls games.


The Ironclad armor from Dark Souls II, for instance, looks a little like the armor of Basuso, who's a minor character that shows up for like, two or three panels before dying.


Then there's the Greatsword from Dark Souls, which looks a lot like the sword Guts used while he was younger. But the Greatsword in Dark Souls II is actually just that sword but a lot bigger, or rather wider.


The Crypt Blacksword from Dark Souls II, a weapon that we'll only be able to get later, looks a lot like the Dragonslayer, the sword he's famous for. We're not using that today, though, of course.


In Demon's Souls there is an item that directly references the Dragonslayer's description from Berserk, The Dragon Bone Smasher is a massive slab, chunk or whatever of iron depending on the translation. While also fitting that description it looks different from the Sword in the Manga.


One of the other more obvious references is the design of Artorias from Dark Souls and the pose he strikes in the promotional art for the Artorias of the Abyss DLC, which is very similar to a pose of Guts from the cover art of one of the Manga volumes.


There's numerous other references too, like the Motherfucking Bonewheel skeletons that show up in the Manga,


the Red Eye Orb, which looks like the Crimson Behelit, an artifact of doom and... uh... too many to list them all. Some more minor, like there being a young blacksmith called Rickert in both Dark Souls and Berserk. If you are familiar with Berserk and play through the Souls games you are probably going to find some references not listed here. Small things like various armors, enemy designs, parts of environments etc.
Even though there are Berserk games I've heard people say that the Souls games are the closest to an actual Berserk game you can get. Having not played any of the official games I can't really say if that holds true.