I’ve never tried to get into Dark Souls. I actually bought the second game in the series but I don’t think I actually played it more than once (not through any fault of the game’s, I was just more interested in playing Smite with my friends at the time). Unforgiving, boss-focused games have always fascinated me though, and I was intrigued by Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption’s “level-down” system when I wrote about it at the beginning of October.
Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption begins with a brief introduction informing you that you’re a person who has forgotten their past, but now must pay penance for their forgotten sins. After making your way to the game’s central hub, following a brief tutorial zone, you have the freedom to play the game’s bosses in whatever order you choose. The hub houses several rune-covered monuments that you can walk up to, read a brief poem, and then choose to make a predetermined sacrifice (hence: “level-down”) and face that monument’s respective boss, or retain what needs to be sacrificed and choose to face another boss at a different monument.
The first monument I came to required that I sacrifice a good chunk of my health and stamina in order to continue. I laughed at how difficult that would make the rest of the game, and moved onto another monument. The second one removed my armor and took away my regenerative health. I passed on giving up those two, much-needed aspects so early on. The third monument I tried told me that if my stamina bar ever depleted (i.e., if I attacked too many times in a row, or rolled around too much) my character would temporarily collapse in exhaustion. That sounded manageable, so I went ahead and made the sacrifice. A portal opened in front of my character and I walked through it.
The first boss, Sloth (each boss is one of the seven deadly sins) met me in a ghostly chamber dotted with lit braziers. The boss was flanked by about a dozen armed guards who slowly and silently fanned out to try to flank me. I felt like a small fish who suddenly found itself among hungry sharks. I ran up to one guard, and before I could react the guard thrust his spear forward, partially stunning my character. The swift attack was followed by another, and before a second guard was able to similarly jab my character I rolled out of the spears’ reach.
I pivoted the camera around as my character recovered from the escape roll. The other guards, and the boss, were already behind me by a few yards and closing. This was not going to be easy.
In an effort to keep this article spoiler-free, I won’t explain the boss fight much further. Just know that I got my little butt beaten by Sloth and his handful of Spartan-like cronies. I ended up retreating from the encounter and teleported back into the purgatory-like hub world. Luckily you can re-summon your scarifies, they only vanish permanently during the boss battle and after the boss is completed.
The next closest rune was for Envy. To meet her in battle I needed to sacrifice a good chunk of my supplies. A fee I found surprisingly affordable compared to the first two. I entered into her empty ballroom and was immediately humbled by her intimidating size. The closer I got to her, the room seemed to shrink around me. There was no one else there, but I got the sense that I was being watched by more than just Envy’s gaze.
The battle with Envy is so fast-paced that I was unable to capture a non-blurry screenshot. This is from the game’s Steam page.
While Sloth’s scenario was slow, plodding, and workable, Envy was quite the opposite. Alone, she was fast as lightning — at times, literally — and she wielded an array of weaponry that dealt devastating amounts of damage before I realized what she was doing. It was frustrating madness, but I kept going back for more.
I know, deep down inside, that I’ll probably not have the patience to pick apart and analyze these boss fights for hours and hours like some people will. I will instead, like many of you will if you’re being honest, go watch some YouTuber play through the boss fight, watch what they do and then do my best to mimic it in the game.
Even then, I’ll still likely fail spectacularly.
Look for Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption on Discord (Steam release to follow in 2019), and on the Nintendo Switch.
A PC retail copy of the game was provided to Epic Brew by the publisher.
