That Demon Firesage plunging attack was a thing of absolute beauty, I actually gasped when it happened

I'd like to see something like this for DS2, especially because the early game is so open. For example, under an extremely specific set of circumstances, it's actually possible to be summoned for the final boss, without having fought any other bosses, and without needing any glitches.

What's even more wild imo is that the Four Kings can be your second boss fight

The Demon Firesage attack was amazing! I wish I could see it properly without the end cards though

There's a video by NGPlus (Beating Dark Souls Bosses in Alphabetical Order) where he shows a very convoluted way of reaching Kalameet (and Artorias) while skipping the Guardian, requiring another player dropping a Purple Cowards Crystal (in itself a difficult thing to pull off, because it shouldn't be droppable) and using it to arrive at the multiplayer arena right after Artorias. From there, even Manus is reachable, since you can meme roll from one of the elevator pits down to the chasm of the abyss, if I recall correctly.

Another useful thing if you fight pinwheel first: If you can navigate through the darkness you can get the silver serpent ring. So 20% more souls for the entire game

I think it's kinda weird to rate Capra Demon's difficulty "without the dogs" considering that is in fact part of the fight and very much makes the experience of beating Capra demon first harder.

Fun fact: A madman by the name of NGPlus made a video about beating the dark souls bosses in alphabetical order. He was able to find ways to fight Bed of Chaos, Kalameet, (and by proxy, Manus) first. (I think Artorias might have been possible, too!)

You can also fight Artorias first. If you have a friend summon you they can drop the purple cowards crystal for you (which is another ordeal on itself as it requires maxing out the invisible item burden before entering the PvP arena fog gate, causing it to be sent to the empty chest in firelink, then constantly try to pick it up, moving it towards an area where you can summon another player a few pixels at a time) so that you can perform a wrong warp with it and go straight to the Artorias arena.

I once read you can do Four Kings as second boss since you only need ring from Sif and you don't need to have lord vessel since there is no barrier to them

4:30 - The other benefit to taking out Pinwheel first is that you can then go into the Tomb of the Giants and beeline for the Silver Serpent Ring with the Ring of Sacrifice you can get under the aqueduct equipped then just jump off. You'll keep your Pinwheel Souls and also have the Soul boosting ring from day 1.

Hello everyone, thank you for watching. Not sure when the next upload will be but I've got some good stuff in the pipeline. Have a nice day. Edit: Oh and I guess I'd like to say the difficulty ratings I put in the video refer to the methods used to get to the boss, not the fight itself. It's just my opinion anyways just to give some people that aren't too familiar with the glitches a way to understand the effort needed to pull them off.

Awesome video! Man DS1 really had a lot of replayability, it''s really timeless.

Ok, that Deom FIresage pllunging attack really caught me of guard. I had no Idea what you where going to pull there and I never expected that...somehow. Beutifully done Video.

I'm always surprised to see something I didn't know about Dark Souls even after 10+ years. That new Duke's skip is insane.

Even the normal order was such a big challenge for me.. I coudln't imagine beating some of the bosses earlier!

4:05 Man I enjoy Runescape's music, this song was stuck in my head for decades. This was a nice video, rather than doing a challenge run you're exploring all the bosses you could potentially fight first.

I knew about all of these glitches except for the quitout on the duke's archives elevator jump, that's pretty clever. Nice video!

Excellently made. Good job and thank you.

Cool video I recently started Dark Souls back and I'm definitely going to take on Pinwheel early!

This channel is my new favorite 🙏🏽

awesome video! just earned yourself an sub for going up and beyond!

So happy to be recommended a new Dark Souls challenge channel! I will literally never get tired of DS1 content, any excuse to return to Lordran for 20-30 minutes of self-imposed torture is a good one. There's a lot of potential for challenges with mods, too, such as Fog Wall Randomizers and "Use what you see" item randomizer runs which I would love to see more of :)

Super interesting video, thanks!

Music for the Gaping Dragon section was unfathomably funky

Awesome video, instant sub :D

Great video, dude! Glad to see it's only 5 days old and already has 75K views.

I thought I was the only one who got Rite of Kindling first in a run (and usually the Great Scythe), can really be helpful when you're new to the game Great video 💯

I saw someone mentionning it , but this would be sick in ds2, anyway awesome vid Meta

That plunging attack was so beautiful

For the past few years, well since DSR came out, I always go to the Catacombs to take out Pinwheel first, then to Blightown using the Master Key. The Catacombs is fun as hell really low level, and I love Blightown in DSR. In original DS, it was a disaster, like 15-20 fps. Now it’s awesome. Great video! I dig this stuff.

I had no idea you could summon Paladin Leroy in the catacombs. Over a decade later and I'm still learning new things about this game.

"This scope wouldn't be touched again in Elden Ring." Dark Souls 2 literally had 4 paths you could choose between right off the bat, lol. 5 or 6 if you count the two locations in the pit and the miracle gate being unlocked by the maiden from Heide's Tower of Flame.

Well after reading these comments, I do appreciate all the mentions. Cool video idea :)

"This boss will likely kill you in one hit" Difficulty 1/10

the morning star under the elevator to the church is actually pretty good against stray demon even unupgraded (because all "fat" enemies bleed really well) and easily gotten right away. I like doing stray before gargoyles in to also get another try at some black knight weapons and grab the doll early

I was thinking about this the other day I love ds1 so fucking much it's unreal

Oh wow, didn't realize how quickly I clicked! I'd say that Quelaag and Taurus probably don't both deserve the same rating as first bosses, she's gotta at least be a 1 rather than a 0 outta 10. And I'm not sure I'd call the skips full 10/10, there are some set-ups that make em more consistent, making the RNG more about baiting attacks. Had no idea about that last one though, what a great finish lol

This is literally exactly what i was curious about like two days ago, thank you youtube algorithm

That was really awesome.

I think a quick explanation of what the death cam actually is and how it works would go a long way for new players. Otherwise, it's a great video and could serve as an (unintentional?) introduction to the speed souls community. It makes me so happy to see people still putting out content on a decade-old game that I spent so much of my life on.

"Words won't do this one justice, so let's watch." *proceeds to cover the screen with links*

My brain grows every time I watch your videos😂

4:40 i also like going for the silver serpent ring and lamp to trade it for fog ring, they are such a high boost as well

The entire Internet at my fingertips and I’m watching another Souls video. Great content !!

Something interesting I found out doing a lot of early game scurrying around like this is that you can actually climb the ladder up to the forest hunters area without killing the hydra. Sometimes they just can’t nail you with enough water bullets but sometimes you will just die too. Come to think of it you might even be able to quit out near the bottom for more consistency but I haven’t tried it

1:43 I thought he was doing a reference to umineko as he talked about summoning beatrice, was fighting a butterfly and talked about a huge amount of souls. Turns out the character beatrice from dark souls is probably an actual easter egg refering to the golden witch beatrice from umineko

This was the coolest soulsborne video ive seen in years

I always go for pinwheel first for a good cash of souls and the silver serpent ring.

Great stuff

While the back half of the game is a lot more linear (basically being a straight shot from Drangleic Castle to endgame) I think DS2 is just about as non-linear as DS1. You have two routes open to you from the start (three if you grind for 1370 health or the silvercat ring) and going even a little bit into one of those will open two more (beat Dragonrider to get access to Huntsman's Copse, or get a Fragrant Branch of Yore to get access to the Shaded Woods).

My jaw literally dropped at the end how do I keep learning shit about this decade and change old game

just an awesome idea for a video

I have seen a lot of cool boss skip type stuff in my years of dark souls enjoying but the fucking demon firesage plunge attack might be the coolest thing I have ever seen done, and the most unexpected.

The firesage one was crazy. Never seen that one before.

some of these glitches are just insane. had no idea all of that was possible.

There is actually a somewhat easier way of skipping the golden fog gate at dukes archives. It requires some out of bounds parkour but I believe its used in the ptde all bosses speedrun and maarionete speedruns has a tutorial on it.

You can beat firesage in the remaster too You have to do the same glitch that you used to kill the centipede but instead of trying to fall down you try to go back

It would have been nice to see a summary... How many bosses were low difficulty? How many total? Also I'm curious how many of the 165 Elden ring bosses can be fought first without glitches... I bet it's a huge number

I had been theory crafting this for a while now, and I actually had no idea gaping dragon was reachable that way so I had written him off. For those not aware, you can "skip" asylum demon. You kill him to get the big pilgrims key to move to oscar, but quit out before his death is actually registered. That way you reload and he's still alive and technically not beat, but you did kill him so I can understand not counting this. If you do count it that really does make every boss first try. As others have pointed out, that bosses in alphabetical order video has some great bits of information. BoC is reachable first boss, and so are artorias, manus, and kalameet even if it is incredibly difficult (especially kalameet) and require some online shenanigans. That just leaves Nito, Four Kings, and Gwyn as unreachable as a first boss. Nito seems the most likely to fall. You can wrong warp past pinwheel from where you join the gravelord covenant. You just need to find a way to glitch past the golden fog wall. I haven't looked into but I would bet there is a way past it. Not like many people are glitch hunting this because it wouldn't have any speedrun uses. Four kings is so tantalizingly close. You can reach the area in a multitude of ways without beating any boss, but you can't survive without the ring from sif. No way to get the ring without killing sif, but there is a glitch that allows you to equip certain items in other equipment slots, and if the IDs match up it will be valid. You can get a lot of rings this way, but not the one we need so sadly. We can also get out of bounds and see the "fifth" king which is found under the arena. The fifth king is never fought directly and is only used for keeping track of the boss health (and possibly for the cutscenes?) But there's no known way to hit or attack him. With so many possibilities you would think the four kings would have some crack, but alas. Gwyn of course is almost certainly never to fall. Finding a way to reach him first would revolutionize the any% route. He can be reached second I believe using sens gate skip, iron golem skip, then beat O&S and then wrong warp. I still believe there is some way to reach the arena without wrong warp even. You can drop past the sealed door and into the kiln directly to the right after andre's room. If you have a bloodstain on those steps leading down into the kiln you can see you are falling directly onto it. Jump onto the railing on the right outside of andre's and aerial roll onto the terrain below. Quit out and arial roll underneath the chapel. If you have you're bloodstain in the right spot you'll go right on top of it. **All** that you need is a way to keep the kiln map loaded while at the chapel and not die to fall damage ;) Ofc finding something revolutionary about map loading/unloading is highly unlikely, but I want to believe.

Fun idea I liked watching it

first thing first, you need to skip the asylum demon with the black fire bombs, but in that case, you can't no longer pick the dull since it requires that the new lair be loaded on undead asylum so technically you can't go to the painted world; great video noun the less, keep up the good work

that ending was crazy !!!

Cool video, just wanted to add that you can actually do bed of chaos as second boss too, get 30 humanities, do the quelaag, enter the chaos coven, get to 2nd tier, do the ceaseless skip, go to bed of chaos through the solar worms tunnel

If I'm remembering correctly, back in the very first few patches of the game on the original console releases, prior to the prepare to die edition, there was a set of glitches that allowed you to fight gwyn almost immediately. The only thing I can't quite remember is whether any other bosses had to be fought first. Edit: Finally found stuff on this, and unfortunately the lordvessel still needed to be acquired to perform the wrongwarp glitch, it only bypassed the lord souls. Though I have to wonder if the lordvessel really requires killed bosses, given it's possible to at least reach O&S without killing any other bosses.

In DSR, after doing the Sen's Skip, if you rest at a bonfire, there is still a way to get back out. It involves jumping out of bounds and memerolling off the top of the fortress.

6:20 imagine going through Painted World of Ariamis right after the asylum. Good luce trying to surpass those pesky skelleton wheels.

Would love to see a video like this for DS2 considering you can go to almost every area you want from the start of the game. Sadly that they got rid of the open ended design in DS3

coldest ending to the video I could've expected

I actually really enjoyed this vid. Also. Seeing a darksouls boss have a 0/10 difficulty rating made me spit out my coffee 🤣

great video

When you say you can't sit at a bonfire or you're stuck forever, is that for the rest of the save? Or can you reach a point where you can use bonfires again (e.g. after defeating a boss)?

All of these are some the reasons for why this game was truely special among it's peers.

I am in awe.

I can't believe you'd call Priscilla, an S tier waifu, an abomination.

That ending was hype

I love how you can enter Taurus demon from the back if his arena and you can see he cliping inside of the wall 😀

I really wonder if some first-time player got lost and ended up facing something like Sif as their first boss lol.

the demon firesage pluge literally made my jaw drop

I did not know summoning Leroy was a thing. Despite my first ever playthrough I got stuck in the catacombs (and later on the tomb of giants) very very early on

I actually just tried it today and quelagg is a very easy boss to do early. If you kill mildred and then summon her for quelagg all you need is either 30 or so arrows or some amount of spells. By shooting her torso repeatedly you can nearly stunlock her whil mildred does the damage. You then have acess to ceaseless discharge for even more easy souls.

9:30 you needed 15 flasks to do ceaseless skip, which would require you kill pinwheel first, unless you 1) can find a more optimal way to do the skip with only 10 flasks, 2) are playing in NG+ and kindled a bonfire in a previous playthrough to get 15 flasks before entering the demon ruins, or 3) wait by a bonfire that players have to light when they first reach while in online mode and afk to get up to 15 flasks (for those that don't know, if you're close to a bonfire that another player activates in their world, and you're playing online, you will get a bonus flask)

Something useful to note for PtDE players using DSFix attempting the final glitch - you don't actually need to restart the game to switch to 30FPS, just hit backspace a few times. This toggles DSFix's FPS override.

another reason to do pinwheel first is the covetous ring and patches just past him

first time seeing that alternate method of duke prison skip.... and only in this video is there a video with mode detailed explanation about that skip? i know its simple but so is my brain kek

"Alright Iron Golem, your task is to make sure only the worthy can get into the city." Iron Golem: *yeets some random undead into the city* "YOU HAD ONE JOB!!"

great video tbh

Another comment already said this but all the dlc bosses are possible with multiplayer shenanigans But you can also do Nito and Bed of Chaos first, from the same NGPlus video, you can use the coffin to get into Nito's bossroom, the force quit wrong warp to the start of the Tomb of the Giants. For Bed of Chaos you can use the Centipede demons grab attack to teleport past his bossroom, it's the same glitch as the worm to get into Centipede and as the Iron Golem skip So out of the 25 bosses ( not counting Asylum demon) 23 are possible as the first Only missing ones are Gwyn and the Four Lords Four Lords are definitely impossible without killing Sif Gwyn might be possible, but it probably would've been found already since it'd be very useful for any% speedruns

i was watching my brother and friend play DS1 (they were sharing a save file so i could watch them play as a group activity) and they picked the master key as their gift and managed to sequence break their way to the bell gargoyles.

4:40 leroy goes down there automatically if youre wondering you probably did that cuz the phantom walks to the middle when the bos isn‘t in yet

Hah I remember counting them years ago, although without considering glitches. The freedom DS1 gives to the player is incredible considering the world is still relatively small, they couldn't replicate it in the other titles, and even Elden Ring can't match it because yes the open world gives you freedom but it's not as well crafted and sometimes it feels just lazily filled with enemies for difficulty sake.

2:55 "you miss captivation" uh... you meant captivity? x)) very cool video though, was super entertaining to watch and while the editing is very splinplstic, it gets the job done ^-^

Damn, had the same idea for this very video, but ya beat me to it! XD This list is put together without factoring in glitches, and not counting the initial tutorial in Undead Asylum, until after you arrive in Lordran for the first time. It also requires that the player take the Master Key as their starting gift. * = Required to complete game. First Boss: Tarus Demon Capra Demon * Bell Gargoyle/s * Quelaag * Sif (Crest of Artorias required, or fight Hydra) Moonlight Butterlfy * Pinwheel Stray Demon Second Boss: (Requires the defeat of one previous boss to access) Gaping Dragon (Capra) * Four Kings (Sif -> kill Ingward for key) * Ceaseless Discharge (Quelaag) Third Boss: (Requires two Bells of Awakening) * Iron Golem Fourth Boss: (Requires access to Anor Londo) * Ornstein and Smough Half-Breed Priscilla (Peculiar Doll required) Dark Sun Gwyndolin (Seance Ring required) Fifth Boss: (Requires Lord Vessel) * Seath the Scaleless DLC - Sanctuary Guardian (Rescue Princess Dusk and get the Broken Pendant) Sixth Boss: (Requires Lord Vessel+) Demon Fire Sage (Ceaseless) Centipede Demon (Ceaseless) * Gravelord Nito (Pinwheel) * The Witch of Izalith (Ceaseless, potentially Centipede Demon) DLC - Atorias the Abyss Walker (Sanctuary Guardian, does NOT require Lord Vessel) Seventh Boss: (DLC only) Kalameet Manus, Father of the Abyss Final Boss: (Requires access to the Kiln of the First Flame) * Gwyn Lord of Cinder (Requires a minimum of 11 bosses to reach)

Very nice

I accidentally found sif before the taurus demon on my first playthrough wandered down the valley of drakes died a lot finally got past to the bonfire... got reckt by my first black knight halbardo. Spent an hour getting killed by the Hydra till i "escaped" up the ladder to the forest ran from the horror cats to a big arena and met Sif who promptly one shot me... decided I'd go the other way (Undead burg) and believe it or not it was a lot easier 😂

Gotta be honest, I've performed a lot (i mean really a lot) of glitches/strategies and exploits but I had never seen the strategy to get paladin Leeroy close to pinwheel before the fight starts!

You don't need the firesage glitch drop, as far as I remember. Just ceaseless skip and walk into the boss room.

You can also use leroy to kill the black knight in the catacomes for a small chance at an early B.K. Battle-axe

Can't wait for the Dark Souls 2 version, with how maaany first options there are.

Sea Shanty 2, good lad.