So I felt about done with the game. I'd ventured just a bit into Shulva, I hadn't messed around with Vendrick at all, I'd sunk 60 hours into the game and I was really ready for it to end. So I said, fuck it, let's just go do the end boss and lock myself out of any more end-game play - otherwise I know it'll gnaw at me.

So I go and kill Nashandra, sit on the throne, and watch through the credits (really quite a lot of Chinese names in there, that surprised me) - and what happens? I'm dumped back in Majula. Nothing has ended, nothing has locked me out of anything. It's all still there to gnaw at me. Goddamnit!

It's structurally really weird. The chosen undead sits on the throne and --- what? Links the fire? There hasn't been any talk of linking any fire so far in the game. We don't need no steenkin' fire! What is this link the fire of which you speak? Or not, as far as the narrator knows or says. The door just closes, and the chosen undead is severed from your control, YOU don't even, as the player, know what your erstwhile puppet will do. It's out of your hands. And THEN that same puppet (or is it) is unceremoniously put back in your control and dumped back in Majula like nothing's happened? WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN THE THRONE ROOM AND MAJULA! IS IT EVEN THE SAME CHARACTER; OR SOME SIMULACRUM OR DARK SHADOW?

IT IS SO WEIRD! The narrative implications are boggling my mind.

Since time immemorial, players have complained about not being able to keep playing a game after beating the end boss, so Dark Souls II finally gave players what they've always wanted, and now you have the gall to complain about it?!

I never asked for that ;-) #notallgamers

It's also so you can go do PvP and the DLC content without having to start a new character.

You can't exactly reload an earlier save in those games.

No, I get _why_. It just creates such an impossible narrative tangleknot that I don't know whether I'm coming or going.

You skipped the dlc? But...that's the best part of the game. Also you get the option for a much more interesting ending if you do the dlc.

@qrowdyy: Meh - I've clawed my way through Shulva and half of the Dragon Sanctum, and it is just a slog like the main game never was. Just frustrating and mean in a way that's new for me and very much a turn-off. I'm sure there are people for whom that tucked-away ghost armor room was awesome - for me it was just ultra frustrating that I could never turn those ghosts vulnerable. So when I found all those armors, I was just drained and resigned, not pumped and awestruck.

I got killed just twice by Jester Thomas, and instead of getting fired up like before, I just went ugh, I don't wanna do this anymore. I'm over this.

Maybe I'll come back and do them in a year's time or so, as a prelude to getting into DS3, but right now I'm all soulsed out.