Welcome back to the Race to Git Gud, where I trounce through the dark, depressing worlds of FromSoftware with reckless abandon and firmly below-average ability.

Today, Katia crosses a bridge full of real freaks and wanders into the glittering, deeply unserious kingdom of Kendarie.

With a new understanding of how other kingdoms have managed to absolutely fumble their runestones, Katia decides to check in on the wealthier neighbors across the Kendarie landscape. Surely they have things under control.

Surely.

A Bridge Too Far

The Bridge of Sarvan is a genuinely beautiful stretch of land—especially when you remember this is a GameCube-era title. The setting sun gleams across shimmering waters, the sky casts everything in gold, and for a brief moment you’re tricked into thinking things might be okay.

They are not.

The path itself is mostly linear, with only a few side routes and occasional battles breaking up the stroll. The enemies here are pure nightmare fuel: a gigantic floating eye, a woman-bird Siren, a massive butterfly, and finally the Chimera—a stitched-together horror made from all the worst parts of nature. There is no joy here. No divine presence. Just deeply unholy vibes.

Anyway, the level gets cleared. The single puzzle is solved via some light jogging back and forth. A few new cards slide into the deck. Onward.

All That Glitters Is Not Gold

The next “level” is technically just a cutscene, but it’s an important one. The King of Kendarie wastes no time telling Katia to get bent. There’s no fog here, he says. He doubts the fog even exists.

Cool, man. Very helpful.

On the way out, Katia is stopped by a soldier who drops a crucial detail: Kendarie did have a runestone. Past tense. It was stolen by a monster and hauled off to the nearby Yyprek Mines.

Yi-Preck? Ee-Prick? Who knows. Regardless—

We long for the mines.

We Long for the Mines

The age of the GameCube really shows here, in the best way possible. The mines are dark, damp, and oppressive. Massive crystals jut from the ground and ceiling, catching bits of torchlight. Monsters lurk in corners. Dead Kendarie soldiers are scattered throughout, victims of a very bad career decision.

While carefully stepping around these fallen soldiers, Katia encounters the sole survivor: a trembling guard clutching a torch like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered to this plane of existence.

He stammers through the story—everyone else is dead, he’s all that’s left—and insists that he simply cannot allow Princess Katia to face the mines alone. What follows is a series of genuinely funny ambush battles. The soldier stands frozen in the center, actively panicking, while Katia dices up caterpillar centaurs with sword-wielding lizards.

Once the monsters are gone, he immediately regains his bravado. Chest puffed. Voice steady. A hero again.

It’s goofy, charming, and a welcome bit of levity in an otherwise bleak stretch of the game.

Eventually, his remaining courage evaporates. He informs us the final boss is just ahead, wishes us luck, and very decisively opts out of helping further.

Thanks, king.

Strings Attached

Dropping down into the final chamber brings Katia face to face with the problem at hand: the Puppet Master.

He’s capable of controlling other monsters using whip-like puppet strings, and—oddly enough—he can talk. Which raises an interesting ethical question: is it right to defeat a clearly intelligent being and compress them into a monster card for later use?

The game does not linger on this moral dilemma.

The Puppet Master is defeated. The Kendarie runestone is reclaimed. Katia gains more health.

And somehow, despite all of that, she misses out on the card.

Fantastic.

Onward

With no new leads but another runestone secured, Katia returns to the Apothecary and Gurd. Their advice is straightforward enough: head to the next castle.

The destination? Castle Whyt.

All that stands in the way is an ancient battlefield littered with angry souls, rotting corpses, and a Lich with a truly terrible attitude.

What could possibly go wrong?

Stay tuned