It’s no secret thatHidetaka Miyazakiloves poison swamps as much as we love his games.
His self-confessed masochistic streak compels him to keep adding them.
That got the old brain cogs a-whirring.
Folks are always banging on about objective game rankings, so this is just giving them what they want.
for complete this arduous, malodorous task, I needed the right tools for the job.
To that end, I have devised the SWOMP system to rate a poison swamp from each game.
Highest score wins, simple!
How does SWOMP work?
Allow me to explain.
With our objective, highly scientific system explained, let’s bring on the swamps!
The standout feature here is not the swamp itself, but the preceding area.
It’s an exhilarating nightmare that makes the soggy bottom seem like a cakewalk by comparison.
Poison, how does it work?
If the bar fills up, the effect kicks in.
Sounds like a lovely place, right?
Maybe a brand name for organic cereal bars or something.
Probably why it reminds me of Peterborough.
I mean, Blighttown is considered THE Soulsborne poison swamp and that’s just a big pool of poop.
I’m here to objectively rank games, not get into arguments about wetlands.
The icing on the cake is that poison in DS2 is considerably nastier than in other Soulsborne titles.
Rather than being an easily-manageable annoyance, it quickly eats through your health.
Stinky, sprawling and maze-like, DS3’s Farron Keep is the real deal.
It has some horribly tough enemies that really take advantage of your lack of mobility.
To really increase the fun/frustration (funstration?)
you’re required to light three ritual fires so that progress to the next area.
Can you even smell things in dreams?
This is the riddle posed by Ashina Depths.
Who’d have thought, jumping in a video game!
Even if you do get poisoned, your antidotes and healing items will go that much further.
At that point it’s only the convoluted pathways, secret passages and angry monkeys to contend with.
So easy it may as well play itself!
Mechanically, it functions like a nastier poison, much like toxin from DS1.
