Why Demon’s Souls & Dark Souls Make You Trade With Crows

While it’s true they’re primarily known for their difficulty, Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls are both packed to the gills with secret content that many players walk right past. Many developers shy away from hiding big sections of their games, fearing players will miss a segment they worked tirelessly on, but FromSoftware has never held back in this department. Some of the most popular secrets in the series are the mysterious trading crows, who offer surprisingly useful loot and appear in both Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls.

One of the most mysterious aspects of these crows is that their purpose isn’t initially clear, even if players do manage to stumble upon them. In Demon’s Souls, players can find the nest of Sparkly the Crow hidden in a side path of 4-1 (after backstabbing a few of Demon’s Souls‘ skeletons along the way). Sparkly demands the player offers “sparkly-twinkly” in exchange for items. If the player drops a compatible item, Sparkly will rejoice, but nothing else happens. In order to cash in the traded item, players need to quit out of the game and boot up their save file, at which point they’ll find a new item sitting in its place.

This manner of trading items with crows became a tradition in the Souls series and can be found in each of the subsequent Dark Souls games. In Dark Souls, Snuggly the Crow can be found in the Undead Asylum near the cliff where players get picked up by the giant bird. Dyna and Tillo can be found in the Things Betwixt area in Dark Souls 2, and Pickle Pee and Pump-a-Rum are located at the top of the Firelink Shrine in Dark Souls 3. At this point, trading crows are more of an expectation than a secret in the Souls series, but their additions make for a cute and charming distraction from the oppressiveness of FromSoftware’s worlds.

The Best Items To Get From Dark & Demon’s Souls’ Crows

Demon’s Souls’ Sparkly can give the player Colorless Demon’s Souls in exchange for the Gold Mask and the Talisman of God items, and these Demon’s Souls can be used to level up rare weapons, like the Dragon Bone Smasher. Players also discovered that Sparkly played a pivotal role in unlocking the Demon’s Souls remake’s secret door hidden in 1-3, since she trades its key for 26 of the exceptionally well-hidden Ceramic Coin items. Dark Souls’ Snuggly also gives great loot, such as the all-powerful Pursuers spell, available in exchange for the Soul of Manus, and the Twinkling Titanite, available in exchange for each type of moss clump.

Once players discover what items can be earned from the crows, they become useful NPCs that offer strong loot to aid in the brutal games. It’s not exactly clear why FromSoftware originally put this in Demon’s Souls, but it’s become a tradition to the series as important as mushrooms in Super Mario or the Master Sword in The Legend of Zelda. FromSoftware loves to reference its older works, as it’s done with King’s Field’s Moonlight Sword, so it’s no surprise the studio continued to reference Demon’s Souls in this way throughout the entirety of the series. As mysterious as they are, the crows from Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls will remain fan-favorite characters, due to their quirky charm and usefulness.

About The Author