Dark Souls: The Breath of Andolus Review: Great Game, Average Comic

“Dark Souls.” Those two words will bring delight and cause PTSD flashbacks of dying a million times to many gamers. The popularity of the series has ballooned to the point where comics have been made, expanding on the universe. One of the first ones is “The Breath of Andolus” by George Mann with art by Alan Quah. The comic itself is decent at best.

Fira, along with her companion Aldrich, goes on a journey to rid the world of the Wyrm King Andolus after her kingdom was destroyed.

Anyone familiar with the “Dark Souls” lore will be a bit disappointed at how vanilla this story is. Yes, Fira’s kingdom was destroyed, but the world of “Dark Souls” is balls to the walls messed up where if something goes wrong it stays that way or just gets worse. There’s even a fake out guest appearance by one of the series’ most famous characters that feels cheap.

Not to mention one of the greatest aspects of “Dark Souls” is the excellent epic boss fights. There are battles in this book, but they are over quickly and come off as someone killing a normal hollow in ‘Undead Burg.” Even when she fights Andolus it’s over in a heartbeat.

As for the characters themselves, Fira is some warrior who has flashbacks of her kingdom burning. That’s it. She’s not that interesting in the least. The characters from the games have a lot more depth than she does. Hell, look at how many cried about Sif and he’s a grey wolf.

Quah’s art is the only high point of the comic. The characters designs look exactly like what a “Dark Souls” character looks like and the backgrounds scream “fear this world because everything will kill you.” The giant monster designs on the hand look generic. “Dark Souls” is known for some legendary boss designs. Hell, even the dragons are memorable. Here, they may look dark and scary, but they also look like something we’ve seen plenty of times in other fantasy stories.

“Dark Souls: The Breath of Andolus” takes a great series and makes it into a generic fantasy comic. The characters are dull, the enemy designs are basic and just about everything else is mediocre with the exemption of character designs and backgrounds.