Dark Souls 2's Boss Theme Intros
714 views · Published 6 January 2016 · 0:48 · Indexed 11 October 2026
Channel: heyguysinternet · 2016 · Music
I made a compilation of Dark Souls 2’s boss intros to demonstrate how inconsiderately homogeneous they are. Not all of the boss themes are included, but most are. The boss themes from the DLC (Crown of the Sunken/Old Iron/Ivory King) aren’t included, although they do fit into this trend. Something interesting about Demon’s Souls was that its bosses’ designs, including the very places you encountered them in, and their emotional qualities covered a wide range, and this was reinforced by the stylistically sparse but varied and complementary soundtrack. You absolutely would not be able to switch the Fool’s Idol’s theme for the Tower Knight’s and have it function comparably. Each was particularly suited to the tenor of its context. By the time of Dark Souls 2, nearly everything had become a large, angry, and emotionally interchangeable threat, and the music reinforced this by almost always starting out with a crashing burst that soon tumbled into indistinct messes of brass, choruses, and cliché stringwork (courtesy, one might note, of embarrassingly dated sound libraries). Here, there was no reason why you couldn’t switch out the theme of an enraged giant for the theme of a pack of rats. And so the problem was not just one of simple homogeneity, but of stylistic adherence – everything needs to sound like the fucking arrival of the apocalypse!!! – even in the face of unsuitable context.
