Board 8 > Dark Souls Playthrough [first time]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah there's a few things going on here.

First, the four final areas can really be done in any order and they're definitely "balanced" for that. Since you did the Archives first it probably gave you the most trouble. And everything after that would get progressively easier, in terms of the battles.

Secondly, the dlc definitely made you even stronger and the bosses pushed you more since they don't give you very much time to breathe.

So yeah you're gonna cruise through this
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Peace___Frog posted...

So yeah you're gonna cruise through this

Bed of Chaos, though
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they have beds on cruises
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Finally got around to continuing.

headless t-rexs i was not prepared for this. thank god they don't respawn. They were also basically the only notable thing here on the exploration side, this was another fairly small area, so on to the boss it was. Huh... well... this was different. First attempt: Break one of the side things, get knockbacked into the floor breaking. "cool." At least those things stay broken. Had a similar-ish death on the other side thing. And then got blasted once more when I tried to approach that big central hole though I at least got a look at it before I died so I knew where to run/aim for on the fourth and final attempt. Different kind of boss, and I can kinda appreciate the change of pace, but this particular one didn't work out so well. It wasn't even hard it was just... an annoying runback after what were basically "get pushed into a bottomless pit" deaths.

Lordvessel filled and I'm guessing that door goes to the final place so this is another good time to not do that but check an FAQ to see what things I may have missed before we go do that.

...and so began my descent into villainy in the pursuit of items.

First up was Anor Londo where we just ruined everyone's day - literally - by turning it dark, killing the Fire Keeper because she went aggro, then marching down to kill Gwyndolin. Got him first try because he was squishy though it took a few rounds of chasing him. Damn that arrow/knife/whatever attack hurts if it hits though. He's pretty easy to dodge but I got hit by that once and yikes.

Then I started hunting down NPCs with unique items because y'know... collecting! Gough surprisingly tough! He got me twice even! I didn't feel too bad about that DLC Invader Merchant though. Not only did he invade me first, but his shop's a ripoff. >_>

Also there's a trading thing at the Asylum so I traded for some stuff.

I want to forge some weapons out of my Boss Souls, maybe collect some other items I don't have, maybe maybe raise my Faith to 25 to join that one covenant (may pass on this though) and then... I think it's go time? Hopefully this little excursion doesn't take too long.
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The Bed of Chaos is widely regarded as the worst boss in the series. Lost Izalith in general isn't so good of an area.

Love the headless T-Rexes though. So bizarre.
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Lost Izalith hurts my eyes and I try to spend as little time there as possible.

Bed of Chaos is definitely the worst boss in the series. Gimmick bosses are hit or miss and it's a major miss.
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xp1337 posted...

Also there's a trading thing at the Asylum so I traded for some stuff.

Give me, warm.
Give me, soft.
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KamikazePotato posted...

Love the headless T-Rexes though. So bizarre.

very bizarre yes

Murphiroth posted...

Lost Izalith hurts my eyes and I try to spend as little time there as possible.

Blighttown has probably been the worst, visually, for me. The top part is often super dark, and even in the swamp portion, sometimes the lighting just goes completely wonky and cuts to almost nothing inexplicably.

Peace___Frog posted...

xp1337 posted...

Also there's a trading thing at the Asylum so I traded for some stuff.

Give me, warm.
Give me, soft.

*squawk*
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game beated

After some more item getting, I finally convinced myself to get on with the show and head to the Kiln of the First Flame. Short area but it looked quite cool, almost a shame it wasn't bigger and we could poke around more. A short walk down and it was on to Gwyn. Haha, no cutscene you just walk in and he's ready to roll, I like it. He also is quite aggressive... and really doesn't like it when you try to heal. He got me the first time when I had him around 30% because I stupidly misjudged his grab's range, got exploded, and then couldn't escape his onslaught long enough to heal back up.

I mostly hid behind my shield on this one. I would take minor damage because of his fire sword but nothing too bad (though obviously I'd have to heal after a bit of this as it built up). Though occasionally he could combo to break my guard and that could sometimes... end poorly. I quickly learned to try and use the pillars to get him to charge futilely into them if I need to heal. Actually attacking him was another matter, the only move I could reliably get him on was while he was recovering from a missed grab. One attack for sure, but I always went for two even if it risked him getting me in return if he chose to quickly go into an attack instead of jump away. I did experiment a bit with getting hits in after some of his other moves/combos, and the charge/thrust seemed the most promising but a good 80-90% of my offense came on the grab attack. Got him the second try.

Pretty fun fight with how the pressure is almost always on, but it didn't reach the heights of Artorias or Ornstein and Smough. Capped off my late turn to villainy by becoming the dark lord and plunging the world into darkness.

Only took NG+ up to Firelink just because that felt like the right place to leave off. lmfao at how badly i obliterated Asylum Demon with my endgame weapons. 4 hits with my sword and down he went lol.

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Overall, Dark Souls was a really fun game. I do still prefer Bloodborne on the whole, but Dark Souls definitely had its own charms that Bloodborne didn't have.

Top/Favorite Boss Fights:

1. Artorias
*Small gap*
2. Orstein and Smough
*Fairly big gap*
3. Gwyn
4. Kalameet (Despite my annoyance in the moment this was a memorable one)
5. Manus, I think

I will definitely play Dark Souls 2 (and in all likelihood 3 after that)... but probably not for a bit. Aside from it always being in my mind that I'd space these out at least a little bit to avoid any chance of burning out, we're only three weeks away from Cold Steel III which is basically my 2019 main event. >_> Also, I have to binge rewatch Mr. Robot in preparation for Season 4 which is only a week away and I just wouldn't really have the time to comfortably play DS2 right now anyway!

Um.. thanks for reading along everyone, even if I don't think my write-ups were terribly interesting or engaging!
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I enjoyed the writeups!

Gwyn is parryable, which can make the fight a joke. If you fight with without parrying it's a lot more fun.

Dark Souls is a special game. I'm making my way through the series right now, and Dark Souls 2 & 3 (while still good games) just don't feel as impactful. If you have the ability to play Demon's Souls, I would recommend that as well - I think it's almost as good as Dark Souls 1.

xp1337 posted...

Capped off my late turn to villainy by becoming the dark lord and plunging the world into darkness.

I would recommend watching some lore analysis videos if you're interested. A quick and dirty summary would be Dark isn't necessarily a bad thing, and Frampt is trying to play you like a fiddle
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Lore videos are good, but yeah, Frampt is basically on the side of gwyn. As long as the fire is linked, the age of men won't start. PS there is another serpent who wants the opposite of Frampt and tells you as much.

ultimately the ending doesn't really matter since the rest of the series assumes you linked the fire. or someone walked in after and did it

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Also. Glad you enjoyed Dark Souls, and thanks for making this topic when I asked you to post your thoughts! Dark Souls might be my favorite game of all time, even though I bounced off it a bunch when it first came out. I really believe it changed gaming and created a new genre that found itself after Demons Souls was successful but had some rough edges.

Souls 2 and 3 are great and worth playing, and Sekiro is really fun as well. 3 ties in to 1 really well, with Dark Souls 2 being almost a spin off but still worth playing.

Here's to hoping Elden Ring is just as fantastic as all the rest of FromSoftware's other games.

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Looked some into the lore stuff, but yeah, even without that there were some definite signs that something shady was up that I noticed as I played.

The item descriptions around the Firelink Firekeeper as well as her dialogue after I saved her was a clear red flag. Then there was some other item description that very clearly implied that Gwynevere had left Anor Londo which left the big question of just who exactly you were talking with there (solved by the whole Gwyndolin thing if you really go to pull that thread.)

OTOH it's not like there wasn't shady things around Team Dark too, especially in the DLC with the Abyss and someone (The Merchant, maybe? Gough too, I believe, for someone more seemingly trustworthy) mentioning how "that serpent" deceived them into releasing it and ruining the place.
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