Sometimes they cut things for a reason

Flying enemies in shooter games are fine, but Dark Souls is only a shooter game if you've got certain mods installed.

Song used: Windfall Island - The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker OST

[ZullietheWitch]

I really like how the flying drakes look, and honestly, if how this janky cut content enemy plays is any indication, I'd love for From Software to make a game where you get to ride one, but wow do they really seem like they'd be a nightmare to deal with as actual enemies.
Also, sorry if the little detour about the red drakes seemed out of place. I just didn't know when else I'd mention it, and there were quite a lot of comments asking for it in the video about Hellkite.

[EmperorSigismund]

"...would have been very obnoxious to actually fight..."
"QUICK, Miyazaki is asleep. Cut the flying drakes and ship it!"

[elguapo]

"Would have been a nightmare to actually fight."

Cue Elden Ring's storm eagles.

[dorkmoonblade]

I think Fromsoft has always had a secret desire to design functional flying enemies after how janky they turned out in Demon's Souls.

[helpfulDeathgod]

"I'm glad I never had to actually fight one in regular gameplay."

Elden Ring:

[zxcvbnmasdfghjkl]

Having all of them fly would be a total nightmare, but maybe if only one was flying through the valley like a patrol... give it an item drop and make it a permanently killable enemy and you got yourself an environmental hazard the player can remove and also get rewarded in their efforts beyond safety

[theblah]

I always thought it was a bit weird that they simply stand around waiting for the player to arrive, feels very artificial. The same can be said with other enemies in Dark Souls but for some reason it's less immersion breaking when it's regular undead soldiers.

One of the things I really liked about Bloodborne is that the enemies go on their own patrols, and have their own pathing before being aggroed. Makes the world feel so much more alive.

[StarshadowMelody]

I would have had them fly as movement only, and land when engaging the player for combat.

[zillionfurball]

Stormveil castle birds: "allow us to introduce ourselves"

[flavorgamer]

Y'know, whenever Zullie uses Zelda music in one of her videos, it kinda makes me want her to do videos breaking down the design and behind-the-scenes stuff for Zelda games.

...with the super intense Dark Souls and Bloodborne music playing in the background, lol

[doppie]

Seems From Soft finally got to utilize the experience they got from these animations with the Stormhawks in Elden Ring, and they are just as obnoxious to fight as we thought they’d be

[Alberic_StrN]

Back in the day my best buddy and me used to call them terminally depressed drakes, due to their willingness to just straight up fall to their death due to the terrain while having freaking wings. And when they would just fall almost unprovoked due to the janky AI, man, that was the cherry on top. We even included that in our lore discussions, the dragons definitely don't wanna live in this world anymore, they're done with this bullsh!t.

All this time just to discover they had a functional *primary* flight based moveset. If this isn't comedy, I don't know what is.

[HekateMGO]

And then they made a dragon that turns into a flying thunder cloud.

[Blurgleflargle]

Looks like an issue they haven't really managed to figure out to this day - even in Elden Ring, airborne enemies such as the bats and eagles are still very basic in terms of behaviour; they don't really fly as much as hover (which at least for the eagles makes sense from a lore perspective, since they are weighed down by the blades tied to their feet). Wildlife on the other hand is actually capable of flying, but doesn't have any advanced pathing or even collision detection, and often just vanishes straight into level geometry.

[GILGAMESG]

I wish the valley of drakes had more to it more than just a passage to different areas like Idk a dropdown that leads to a secret area or something

[carlosmartin]

If I remember correctly, in the "Daughters of Ash" mod they had the flying moveset and yes, they were very anoying to fight, specially few that were placed in Anor Londo.

[ZacmanTheRed]

Miyazaki was trying to perfect the fucking birds as far back as dark souls.

[serene-illusion]

Ah, yes. Brings me back memories of Daughters of Ash mod. A lot of people whined about the flying drakes online, but I didn't mind them too much. I just figured since rarely ever did those drakes land on ground, the mod creator intended for the drakes to be ran past or something. I never had a problem with running past the drakes until I looked up what people thought about the mod. It's a great mod, and I heavily recommend it.

[JSS]

Dragons: essentially the bomber jets of fantasy that could kill entire armies without landing.
Dragons in video games: decide to land to give the heroes a fair chance.
Still, I would've hated to fight the always fighting drakes. It's like a swarm of actually dangerous Moonlight Butterflies

[HalfGroxus]

Yeah, totally agree. Not everyone is sporting ranged means of dealing damage.