If you happen to feel upset about some of the placements here, or wonder about my reasonings or if I'm qualified to be talking about these, I made a 20 minute long comments reading primarily addressing a lot of the negative comments. Cheers! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-QtXkSy3Xa8w.html
Completely agree with the worst area being frigid outskirts. From software may still make some bad areas even after Elden Ring but I doubt they'll ever be able to top the abysmal garbage that is frigid outskirts.
see my thing with the frigid outskirts is that it was meant to be bad. it is known as a place where the king would send exiled to be tormented forever. hence why its constantly blizzarding and having those horse things spawn with it. and if one happens to get far enough, his pets were there guarding the exit. it makes sense that its a hellhole because it is an area that only exists to torture. which is quite well indicated by the way you get there is a coffin sliding down a frozen cliff face.
@@twilightsparkle75 But tower of latria was also made for torture and imprisonment, yet that area is enjoyable to play. Lore doesn't excuse bad gameplay
@@deusvultpictures6550 I describe scholar as trying to hard to be a different experience instead of a better one. And since often times things were already relatively well thought out to begin with, changing it around for little good reason besides making it different, often means worse. It can feel a bit like a bad fan mod. It does improve a few things. But it's utterly disappointing in that so much time was spent into changing the game that could have instead been spent fixing the flaws with DS2. If you've played DS1, it's like if they haphazardly changed the monsters and treasure around in the first half of the game which basically everyone already thinks is nearly a masterpiece, all the while not actually making Lost Izalith and whatnot good. Oh, and then they put about 1000 more enemies in the archives because there was a risk of that late game area actually being good.
I got to Iron Keep today. The boss run to Smelter Demon is the biggest pain. By the time I actually make it to him my estus is at like half charges because of the abysmal boss run. I quit today because of that lol. I'll try again tomorrow
@@bubfusion Well, you only have to kill things 12 times so even if you "quit" you're still making progress. But you're making it harder on yourself. It's optional. Try it after beating the area and having access to all the bonfires- the defenses are far weaker coming in from the back side where you start from the high ground.
Honestly DS2 areas like black gulch and shrine of A have great aesthetic and would be cool levels, especially the gutter with the hidden cliff jumps, cool fire on oil design and branch of yore bonfire, but man did the poison statues and water deaths ruin those potentially awesome areas
The Gutter's mad underrated. Using your torch on the sconces throughout the area lets you see better, yeah, but it's also like you're a true adventurer delving deep into a pitch black dungeon. Every single dot of light you place makes it feel that much more welcoming, and you feel satisfied knowing that the tiny fire in the distance over there, against the mass of dark, was something you created all on your own terms without even being told explicitly what to do. When you travel along the path, you keep activating the sconces all the way up to the point with the super long zipline, effectively rewarding yourself with a complete overview of your handiwork in lighting up the entire place. The level designers should be proud of The Gutter.
@@astefor_i_will_regret_this_url said the same thing in another separate comment, agree and it’s maybe the best souls has done using the torch mechanic
I really think you're wrong about Mohgwyn Palace. The NPCs aren't random, the birds are amazing even if they're just a reskin, the Albinaurics make a lot of sense lorewise, and the walk up to the palace itself is a beautiful view.
NPCs aren't random but the way they're summoned makes them feel like they are. He did say he liked the birds. Albinaurics making sense lore wise doesn't justify bad enemy placement. The view is only beatiful in a small section (though not particularly bad in the rest of the area, unless you're bad with blood of course) Though I do agree the reasons he mentioned didn't sound like enough to justify this low of a placement.
The point of all the Pharros Lockstone holes in the Doors of Pharros is to do stuff with the Rat Covenant in that area. Joining the covenant makes the enemies there friendly and opening doors with enemies behind them makes it so players that get sucked into your world have to deal with more hazards. Same with the traps you can activate, those are meant to be used to catch a victim who is trying to traverse your world. Also, this area contains one of the coolest weapons in DS2, Santier's Spear. At first glance it's a mediocre halberd, but after getting its durability to 0 the big rock breaks and it gains an incredibly diverse moveset containing spear, halberd, twinblade, and curved sword moves and becomes unbreakable. Even without scaling, it is a monster of a weapon.
yeah also he doesn't get the point of frigid outskirts which is to be played with a party of friends and the summons right there only reinforce the concept
@beef business no, they wanted people to play with friends for the optional bosses of the three dlc in particular, hence why those dlc allow you to summon people into those areas, even when the person you're summoning doesn't own the dlc themselves. Ivory King DLC also came out after the Iron King DLC, whose optional area explicitly, unequivocally, heavily encouraged you to summon a friend by having gates that could only be opened and crossed by two people, not one. Quite literally the strongest hint toward a feature that Fromsoft has ever given in any of their Souls games. Frigid Outskirts also serves as an area "out of bounds" (even though it isn't actually out of bounds), which is a dream come true for many old-school RPG fans who always wanted to explore outside the map of a linear level. Elden Ring repeated this exact idea with a bit more pandering to the public (by giving you easy to follow paths through the mess) with the Lake of Rot and snowfields (on the way to the Haligtree).
That sounds like a loteof fun. Unfortunately however, i never met someone in that covenant there or was invaded there. And for singleplayer, this area isnt great at all.
The exploration aspect is good, but all the others elements are either meh or awful, specially the enemy variety, clearly one of the zones that suffered due to the development hell this game went through
@@PersonGuy968 Blighttown is also a bunch of shacks made out of sticks, but it has an unique flare thanks to the swamp underneath and the sickly color pallete. The gutter is JUST a giat shack suspended in the abyss. Also, BT has the demon insects and the ogres, which are fun designs, while Gutter only has generic zombies and the lame dog things
I believe the room with a dozen jailers was intended to be cleared by luring either the Mimic or the locked up Lycanthrope into killing them. Too bad it barely even works because they're too aggressive and will just rip you to shreds instead
I lost my deathless DS3 run in the jailer gangr*pe room yesterday. :( Granted, I deserved it for being lazy and greedy. But it challenges how vehemently I defend Irithyll Dungeon. It is actually one of my favorite areas in DS3.
It's also possible to skirt around them for the left side of the level, or aggro them one by one with a ranged weapon, or do both. Direct engagement is optional.
@@dunkleham When I died, I came from the Profaned Capital side of the room. I was going back to get a Symbol of Avarice after buying some Undead Hunter Charms (and ultimately getting it first try...I TRIED SO HARD AND GOT SO FAR BUT IN THE END IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER). I learned my lesson for my next run. Not gonna be lazy, cocky, and impulsive. I'll do a longer runback if I must, or I'll prepare my charms in advance. It sucks because I even killed Dancer before heading toward Yhorm, and I cleared Lothric Castle.
Some people say that consecrated snowfield is as bad or worse than frigid outskirts and that's just insane. I don't care how much you hate that place, it's a thousand time better than that hellhole. However the gutter is a pretty neat area, same goes with Farron keep and Iron keep, even though they can be frustrating. Definitely a 50/50 list for me so far, But i guess everyone has their experience and taste.
My advice for DS2, carry a whip. Whips, even if broken and without enough stats, can be used to break statues and acid/poison pots without risking your status.
As a diehard ds2 fanboy I agree that it is home to some of the word areas in the series. But How is Aldias keep considered bad. One of the coolest aesthetics in the series, multiple npcs (including best girl) and really cool lore implications on aldias experiments and the creation of the Emerald Herald. It’s one of my favourites in the series imo
The areas aesthetics are pretty nice but my problems with it is -there’s no way to tell when enemies will come out and attack you and mostly rely on jumpscaring you with no hints on the environment. -Somehow enemies can just break cages super easily despite being trapped in it. -the start of the level wasn’t amazingly non linear but had some rooms to explore which is great, problem is the second half is just a one way trek to the end of the level.
18:43 to be fair to doors of pharros it was fully deaigned to be a pvp area where players in a covenant could have their traps active while being invaded and while in the covenant the enemies wouldnt attack you but the invader. pretty sure same thing for grave of saints
Excited to see how this goes! Loved the all bosses ranking. Been here with you since you were at 100 subs and used text rather than voice and I intend to stay as long as the entertaining content keeps coming
With farron swamp, while it is definitely not a good area, they did actually have a good design aspect to get you through it if you don't want to explore. If you just follow the burning piles it leads you in a straight line between each of the 3 towers and if you do that the area isn't that much of a slog at the very least.
Lost Izalith is such a bummer because you can tell the area has a lot of potential, and the actual city part of it in the center of the lava looks pretty cool and could be so much more fleshed out and interesting, but that the whole thing is so clearly unfinished and thrown together. It's fairly well-known that both it and the Demon Ruins were parts of the game they simply didn't have time to fully flesh out and finish in order to meet the release deadlines, so I think it's not too hard to forgive them to some extent. Though I do disagree that the capra demons in the Demon Ruins make the earlier capra demon boss feel less special. I think it's a really neat way of showing the player how far they've come after struggling against the capra demon (as most first time players are sure to) earlier on. Like, here's this thing that wrecked my shit 15-20 times earlier in the playthrough, and now I can take out like 6 of them one after another easy. The placement is clearly a copypaste job though. Again, they just ran out of time for development on those segments of the game.
What bums me out is that the tragic lore surrounding The Witch of Izalith, her daughters and the creation of demons is one of the most engaging parts of the series (at the least, I found it so), but everything surrounding the area itself is both copy-pasted and "empty". If it was more fleshed out, I could see it being one of the most compelling locations in the trilogy. As awfull as Bed of Chaos is (and I would go as far as to call it the worst Souls boss still) its design is really unique.
The usage of capra demons and taurus demons degrades the previous bosses because they're overused. I do agree it's super neat to have these previous bosses in a new area, particularly since it implies THIS is their source and they simply wandered to the burgh because there wasn't anyone to fend them off anymore, but the fact that there's so many of them makes their gameplay feel really overdone. It should've just been 2-3 at most of each. I imagine they initially planned on making one or two other demon enemy types but just didn't have time and thus had to place a lot more of these guys to make the area less of a cakewalk.
I feel like for the Demon Ruins, the map creators saw the word "demon", and then were really tired so they just copy pasted a bunch of already existing demons and called it a day. There are some unique enemies but still
They ran out of time to do demon ruins and lost izalith properly. Miyazaki said in an interview after ds1 came out. I always thought ds3 demons ruins (or whatever it was called) was made to show what the place was supposed to look like.
Well lore wise it is the birthplace and home of the demons so it makes sense for regular demos to be hanging out there, while the boss versions of them are just some demon champions that got a special asignment in the whole scheme of the gods.
When I saw Frigid Outskirts at #102 I was shocked to say the least.. I would have added the main hubs and larger areas of Elden Ring just so it places even worse I think the worst design choice for me in smoldering lake is the fact that the whole giant field, the demon ruins leading to the top of the balista... its just all put to the right of the area entrance, while the boss is not at all connected to any of it and instead put a relatively short walk to the left of the entrance. As someone who on repeat playthroughs just wants to fight all bosses this means I cant at all be bothered to do the actual area, though as it is shit anyway I guess its not really bad just a design choice im confused about..... I wish they did this in Frigid Outskirts
I’m a huge completionist when it comes to games, and when I got to the frigid outskirts I nearly gave up souls period cause it’s that ass of an area. So perfect worst area, -100/10 wouldn’t wanna experience again.
I kinda like the demon ruins/ lost izalith because I find it fascinating. It’s truly incredible how a game being rushed is able to MANGLE an area in such an obvious way
@@Nameless.-._ You didn't think the fact that the place that is supposed to be the birthplace of all demons is almost exclusively populated by undead dragon butts seemingly placed randomly in a lava field that hurts to look at was strange?
gonna be honest lake of rot is one of the easiest and chill swamp levels in soulsborne. you are given the map from the start and see it's a tiny area, a handful of boluses and something like flame cleanse me basically negate the whole rot situation outside of a flask or two between procs, and most of the platforms are spaced out where you can easily get to the next and clear your rot before looking for the next platform. i just treated it like a routing puzzle, and crafting some easy to make sleep arrows lets you pretty handily deal with all the basilisks. i feel like the only struggle aspect of lake of rot is that it's going to punish unprepared, stubborn people who insist on barging through with as little material as possible when they have plenty of resources to ease the experience. *by no mean* am i saying it's a great area, it's literally just a lake of rot and some dudes by a coffin, but it's fine for what it is, tbh. im glad it's compact and out of the way and miyazaki didn't do something absolutely insane like make the entire inner liurnia mistwoods rot floor all around
That’s kind of the problem. It’s just a big empty swamp with some dudes in a coffin. If every area were like it, the games would be unfathomably boring.
3:53 Demon Ruins is definitely garbage, but I have to admit the random army of taurus demons is hilarious to me. It's just such a weird placement that it almost looks like a mod & makes me laugh every replay
Can't bring myself to hate Elden Ring's poop lake, if only because it reminds me of what I liked about, say, Nether exploration in Minecraft. It's a place that will likely kill me if I'm not careful or stay too long, so I gotta know what I'm going for, make a plan, prepare the supplies, then execute, get in and get out. If there were more places that dangerous in the game my opinion may be another story, but as it is I got no major problems with it. Still find myself agreeing on Mohgwyn Palace though. Cool ideas, meh execution. If it wasn't such a treasure trove of runes I probably wouldn't be in any hurry to get there in my runs.
I personally loved the smoldering lake. It has tons of great loot thrown about, the ballista is easy to dodge, and the worm not hard to kill or cheese. The underground portion is nothing new, but it doesn't even ever feel bullsh*t to traverse, and feels like I'm playing DS1 again. It's a great farming spot, has access to the fume knight greatsword, Black Knight weapons, and tons of pyromancies, It's semi-important to an alternate ending, and has some great lore, and can be easily missed, making it fun to explore after countless hours in the game. I get why some people dislike it, but the underground section especially, is a great place for me to just mess around and chill.
@@BBQcheese Nah it really isn't that bad. Currently replaying it for the second time (since a friend essentially just coop-ed with me on my first playthrough), and I'm like, barely dying. It's obviously not flawless, it has some very shit runbacks (Executioner's Chariot and Smelter Demon, though I killed the latter on my first try thankfully) and Shrine of Amana is an area which you have to take REALLY slowly, but a lot of the areas are quite unique and don't take that long to go through. Granted, I am using a Rapier, which appears to be a really strong weapon since I'm basically melting everything that comes close to me, but I really don't feel like it's that frustrating.
@@BBQcheese I still maintain that DS2 is better than DS1. In my current playthrough (in which all I really have left are the DLCs and the final boss), the only times I can say I wasn't really having fun were when I went through Shrine of Amana and when I fought the Ancient Dragon. I didn't die on either of them, but I had to play waaay too carefully. DS2 does have 3 main issues: -Adaptability is a poorly thought out stat, specially because of how vague it is. There is a silver lining in that leveling up in this game is pretty quick, specially in the early game, and the weapons tend to have enough base damage to not force you to prioritise investing in their scalings, but still. -Durability is a bit of an annoyance, though I'd say it's not that big of a deal. The enemies and areas that actively drain your durability are a pain in the ass though, specially those exploding guys in the Dragon Aerie. -There's definitely quite a few enemy ganks, though I don't think there's THAT many in general, specially if you actually look at where the enemies are. In many cases, the enemies that gank you aren't that tanky either. My main issue with this is that it aggravates another problem, which is the lack of i-frames when you're in the middle of interacting with the environment (fog gates, chests, mechanisms), which does suck. Besides these things, the game does have a few meh or downright bad bosses, but I feel like it also has quite a few alright to good ones as well. At this point, compared to everything on Elden Ring, it kinda feels like I'm playing on slowmo, which means I'm barely struggling against any of this game's bosses. Overall, I just... like this game, I like most of its areas, I like its lore, its combat is a bit dated but not bad, and... yeah, not much else to say, I just genuinely like DS2.
I’m not even joking, I like the frigid outskirts. 1. It’s an optional area, which is perfect given how absurd it is. 2. It captures such a feeling of oblivion and hopelessness that very few other areas in the souls games have, and that makes it very special in my book (as opposed to the 500th area with rats and basilisks). 3. If you don’t cheat by looking up help then it’s a pretty fun puzzle to solve from a strategy and planning standpoint. It takes ages to map the area yourself and to learn how it works and plan your route and gear and engagements accordingly. I really liked how the dispersed buildings play into strategic development. 4. The boss was epic and challenging, and I considered it to be the true final boss of DS2. I still remember struggling with Ava for ages before vanquishing her and subsequently how my heart sank when I entered that arena for the first time and saw two of her, both black as night with darkness. Actually, the only thing I dislike about it is the random knights that are just chilling there like they aren’t freezing to death. The reindeer were perfect for the setting, and again, a fitting enemy for a boss run in what is likely the final area of the game.
While I agree that the enemy placement and enemy type in Demon Ruins screams rushed and annoying, there is actually a way to skip over the Capra Demons on the bridge to Demon Firesage, you just have to jump down and have a good jump around the centipede, which would make me swap the placements of Lost Izalith and Demon Ruins
It’s such a shame. I like The looks of Lost Izalith temple so much, and the chaos demon (the weird octopus blender) is my favorite enemy, there was so much potential to it.
I dont know why but I actually really enjoy the Lake of Rot its kinda beautifull and I dont mind the status because there are so many ways to counter it the only thing I truly dislike in that area is the stupid Tree Spirit
Well everyone here seems to love the jank. I liked that encounter with Tree Spirit because it has a good design and it's one of the only big bad enemies of the area, also you don't get scarlet rot by just walking.
I finished DS 2 yesterday. All I say, Shrine of Amana at least looked pretty, at one point at least, beside that, I just equally frustrated with that until I piled up arrows and take on sorcerers with arrow first, then clear the halberd guys and crawlers melee. It was still tedious.
Don't forget step 6 in Shrine of Amana where they make the death pits impossible to see so when you are running from the enemies you fall into the abyss and die.
I like Lake of Rot because it’s the only swamp area where the point is not to get poisoned. Every other Fromsoft swamp just has you get poisoned and fight on bad footing, but Lake of Rot is all about hitting the pressure plates to raise platforms out of the more. Is it really the area’s fault that most people ignore the platforms and instead just sprint through the poison?
If you thought elden ring had the worst areas… try playing DS2 SOTFS dlc with frigid outskirts and the iron passage. Those areas will mentally break you
Weirdly, i actually was kidn of excited for black gulch when i found it. A dark grimy green cave, full of giant horrible bugs was a cool concept. Then the level ended 30 seconds later and i felt like it was such a waste...
Honestly, I personally love The Gutter. I love the creepiness of the pitch black that surrounds the player with the rickety wooden platforms where you never know which might lead to a room full of enemies. I also love the torch mechanic to light the area up, as I feel so satisfied when I look around and see that I'm making good progress. The enemies are not great, sure, but honestly they never bother me, and I love the idea of the enemy being the level itself almost with how precarious it is.
A little surprised that nightmare frontier didn’t make it in. I thought that was universally agreed to be a GARBAGE area. Also, this video is showing me how many ds2 areas I have next to no memory of lmao
Yeah, I hate Nightmare Frontier. Even knowing where to go I can never find the paths and keep getting stuck on tiny rocks it looks like you should be able to run over.
Funny story about the run up to Sir Alonne. I went through so many runs to him killing everything that I eventually permakilled EVERY enemy in the area before I finally defeated him.
To make matters worse on the stupid "set fire to the windmill" gimmick is the fact that the shaft of the windmill, you know, the part you *set on fire* appears to be made of old rusty metal. It doesn't even resemble a flammable material. Insultingly unintuitive.
Even though byrgenwerth is underhwelming, from a pacing perspective, its good to have a smaller and more simple area after the maze that was the forbidden woods.
I actually kind of like the Lake of Rot. (Here, have some stones to throw at me OOOOOO) Mostly because A) It's entirely optional, and extremely short if you do chose to run past it B) It doesn't have a confusing layout C) the poison doesn't slow you down D) You raise platforms to make traversal quicker and less deadly. E) if you roll in the rot and the status is triggered by that lingering effect, you suffer a much less potent form of scarlet rot F) You can freely warp back to the site of grace G) It's visually interesting (Yes, it's just red, but it's still more interesting than Farron Keep or Ashina Depths) All of that makes it the only poison swamp level that's actually enjoyable. It feels like you're on a timer to get as much done as you can before you die, and because of all the things I listed above, it doesn't suffer from the issues the other swamps do.
Bearbugs in Demon Souls do have a weakness and take very little time to defeat if you use magic attacks against them. The miners in this area have the same weakness and physical attacks (except piercing) do not do very much damage at all and are very weak to magic damage. It might seem like a bug (!) or a number tweak gone wrong that they take ages to kill otherwise, but you are just actually supposed to use magic against the enemies in this area.
@@magicat7356 Strange, I remember doing 100+ damage to these guys in the 2009 version with just the base scimitar in 4-1, but from yours and others gameplay the numbers look alot lower. Haven't played the remake but maybe they changed the scaling or the bearbugs resistances or something..
I remember older FROM games had similar areas like Frigin' Outskirts - like one foggy area with invisible, shooting enemies that you have to take down with rare firearms with little ammo you find or afford
I've struggled to play DS2 for more than an hour or two, but l appreciate that you (and, most people) say it's still a good game. One of these days I'll dig my feet into the stand.
I actually really loved the swamp of sorrow, it’s really punishing and difficult, but the enemy encounters are fun and the actual look of the area is super creepy and interesting. I love the lore and each time I play through it I tend to like it more
I’ve just started watching but I have a feeling DS2 will make up a lot of the lowest-ranked areas. It has a few decent ones, but they’re not as common as in other games like DS3 or Bloodborne. Edit: I probably should expected some specific non-DS2 areas as well (no spoilers)
D2 has triple the content of D1 and double the content of D3, it was bound to happen anyway. However i disliked the amount of information given for each area presented and the criteria for ranking seems weird too. I dont see how the Elden Ring areas can fit with these criterias he is judging and honestly i am not keen to find out on his other video parts.
Hey I'll be the second person that enjoys frigid outskirts and I do mean the genuinely. So you probably already know that DS2 has a enemy despawn mechanic, if you kill the same enemy 20 times it despawn (as long as you are not in the covenant of the champions). Well the reindeer spawn in what seems infinitely but each section of the map in the outskirt has a cap of around 60. The map is broken up into 4 sections with one behind the spawn so those reindeer you don't have to worry about, the other 3 sections are in the empty spaces between the buildings on the way to Lud and Zallen. So you are able to go on a reindeer hunting spree and don't have to reload the area every time in order to hit the despawn cap. Luckily the game gives you 3 summons pretty close to your spawn so you can forge a hunting party and kill lots of reindeer and when you kill roughly 180 reindeer (might be 200 with the last area having 80 spawns) then the frigid outskirts is officially conquered. Furthermore Lud and Zallen is a fantastic boss (in my top 3 for DS2) it just gets a lot of slack because of the runback. So yeah frigid outskirts is awesome!
I agree about Frigid Outskirts, it's the obvious choice in my opinion for worst area ever. I will say that I think Iron Keep deserves to be even lower than Demon Ruins and Izalith, though. Ruins and Izalith are boring and unpolished, but at least you can blow through them if you know what you're doing. Iron Keep's bizarre layout and constant hazards make it very annoying to navigate, the innumerable copy-pasted enemies make it difficult for even experienced speedrunnners to get through quickly, the bosses are slow and boring... the entire area is torturous to get through. There isn't even one redeeming aspect going for it to make up for all that either. When people ask me why I think DS2 is the worst souls game, these two areas are the first things that come to my mind.
frigid outskirts isn't just annoying and difficult to go through, it's downright boring as shit. Like there's so many cool ass areas in ds2, and this is all they could come up with; a massive frozen wasteland with nothing but a couple tiny buildings to go through. That's so fucking lame man
I gotta disagree with the gutter placement. The atmosphere and sense of progression with the torches, the interconnection of the level, the secrets and the fear generated from the looming darkness with its horrors and toxins to be discovered within make the gutter A tier for me.
Huh, didn't expect Smoldering Lake to be this low to be honest. I kinda like the area, I think it looks cool and it's fun and challenging, yet rewarding to explore. The way you enter it feels like a massive secret the first time, which is also really cool. Then again, I'm quite fond of DS3's level design in general which turns out to be a controversial opinion in its own right.
I'm weirdly at peace with the Black Gulch. I absolutely hated it at first, but I find the place oddly therapeutic now. I actually take the time to smash the poison statues and use it as a moment to chill because the area really isn't that bad if you take your time and are methodical, plus it's super short. The worms are big and intimidating, but very easy. All you have to do to kill the darksuckers is torch the oil spots, and as a bonus they can drop titanite chunks. There's a cool little secret area, and the boss (The Rotten) isn't too terribly difficult. I can definitely see why people hate it though, especially people who feel like they must blast through it as fast as possible (what I used to do) because in that case it's an absolute nightmare!
Swamp of sorrow is amazing and I'll not hear otherwise. I will never forget the terror I felt going through it the first time, and just the eerie, creepy pestilent vibe it gives. Same with blighttown, though blight was horrible for fps before it was fixed, but the design of those areas are what souls is all about.
