Daniel (@dungeondive) returns to Ornstein and Smough after some off-camera farming, carrying a Man-Serpent Greatsword at +10 because it suits the death-knight look, and a newly practised parry. He uses the warm-up to make a case about parrying: it lets the player set the tempo of a fight rather than wait on the enemy, though Dark Souls undercuts it by making so few bosses parryable — something he thinks Elden Ring does far better.
The rematch is won, Smough falling second, with a running complaint about the greatsword’s hitbox swinging straight through Smough’s belly. Then the plot finally moves: Gwynevere’s sunlit chamber (an illusion, he points out), the Lord Vessel, a delighted Frampt, and the Firelink Altar, which he calls a missed opportunity of a final area. Solaire and the Crestfallen Warrior have both vanished, and he admits he has never kept good track of NPC quests.
The second half enters the Painted World of Ariamis, which he reads as Demon’s Souls DNA — reportedly one of the first areas built, from a game once meant to be its sequel. That prompts a pointed aside: closing Japan Studio, he says, is the biggest mistake Sony ever made. Toxic-spitting hollows, Phalanx blobs and Berserk-style bone wheels follow, and he explains why he will leave without fighting Priscilla: in this level, more than any other, the player is the invader.
Daniel spares Priscilla because the Painted World makes him feel like the invader. Have you ever skipped or spared a boss for story reasons rather than difficulty?