Topic: You Died. The Dark Souls Series Discussion Thread

@TheBrandedSwordsman It’s a game (like all the From games) that is really fun to discuss because people have different experiences with it, yet also common experiences too.

Yes, I did find the spot you mention. There was some nice soapstone messages to help identify, so I’m good there.

Regarding equipment, I actually also have to r BK Sword and BK Greatsword, but neither have quite the balance of speed and strength as the Halberd. I suspect the GreatAxe is slow to wield, but apparently has an AoE with the attack which I wonder if it makes it worthwhile.

I’m not sold on my current armor I’ve leveled it to +3, but am reluctant to spend more resources on it since I feel like there is most likely better armor out there. I don’t want to give up my normal roll for a fat roll, so I am keeping my weight down too.

So what is the advantage of a Chaos enhancement? I haven’t got to the point of enhancing weapons with the various magic or secondary effects? I don’t think my BK weapon can be ascended like that.

@Th3solution Just makes it a lot more powerful and I believe there is also some fire damage, you can Google what you need and the precise location of the blacksmith who'll do it for you in order to get it.

Let me know how you get on at Sen's fortress if you go there next, and at the location after that, thanks.

So I was able to take care of Sif in the Darkroot area after several failed attempts. It’s not the hardest From boss I’ve encountered, but it was pretty tough and probably the hardest so far in DS1. But after a handful of attempts, Sif went down and then on to Sen’s Fortress.

So Sen’s fortress, aka Sen’s funhouse, was quite the challenge. My least favorite part was the rolling boulder puzzles. Didn’t care for the lighting caster mages either. Despite all the cheap deaths from the traps it was still fun though and the final boss was probably the easiest in the game. The elevator cage short cut right at the end before the boss proved very useful… as you’ll see in a minute.

After the unceremonious slaying of Iron Golem, I was greeted by Anor Londo. After working my way through to the first bonfire, I made a major blunder. I went up to the fire keeper and talked to her then decided to put my controller down on the couch so I could run to the jon. As I set the controller down I hear the slashing sound of metal on flesh and then an exclamation from the fire keeper something like, “Oh, I see how it is! You will regret that!” after which she commenced to turn aggressive and fight me. Realizing my stupidity of laying my controller down where it had accidentally pressed the R2 trigger, I quickly picked the DualSense back up and darted as fast as I could up the stairs to get away and figure out what to do next. When I returned to the bonfire thereafter, the fire keeper would immediately attack me.

I’m already down one fire keeper thanks to friggin’ Lautrec, so I didn’t think I could do well without this bonfire, so I trekked all the way back to that dude Oswald of Carim to purge my sin. Thankfully it was a surprisingly quick jaunt, thanks to the elevator short cut in Sen’s Fortress. It cost a whopping 30,000 souls to purge my sins though. Sheesh. That’s like almost 3 levels worth of souls at this point.

Thankfully it worked though, and now the NPC isn’t aggressive toward me and I can use her bonfire again.

If there was one thing I wish this game had, it’s a pause function. I learned to never put my controller down when I’m standing near anyone.

So that’s where I am. At the beginning of Anor Londo and so far these enemies and quite lucrative so I’ll farm a little to make up for my lost souls.

Tagging @Ralizah and @TheBrandedSwordsman who were wondering how I’d get along with Sen’s. Overall it was a good area. Much more enjoyable than Blighttown. 😄

@Th3solution I believe I defeated Sif, then went to Sen's Fortress. Some people seem to hate it, but, thematically and mechanically, I liked it a lot. The puzzles and general atmosphere reminded me a bit of Twilight Princess. In general, I think more puzzles and environmental interactivity would only improve these games. That's also a big reason why I preferred BotW to Elden Ring.

Tbh the lack of a traditional pause function is why I played almost entirely offline. It was a simple thing to put my Switch into sleep mode and "pause" the game that way. More than worth not seeing some bloodstains on the ground and the very occasional useful message.

@Th3solution I didn't find Sif very hard at all, I probably found the Iron Golem harder, oh well, different people find different bosses harder than other people. Sorry to hear about your expensive sin purge, but oh well, like you say, that's the problem with these games lacking a pause button, good luck with the boss of Anor Londo, should prove your first real test in the game, it's probably the hardest boss in the game. I would appreciate it if you kept me posted on your progress with this - one of my favourite games.

@MaulTsir To answer your question I thought I’d follow your good example and try to avoid pulling the Cyberpunk thread too far off topic… 😄
But yeah, Dark Souls Remastered is still probably my main game right now, even though I haven’t really played much of it (or much of anything for that matter) in the last couple weeks due to the holidays, my weird schedule, some unforeseen travel, other various real world issues, etc. I also have a playthrough of MGS2 going on my Vita, which has been great too.

But I did want to say how much I’ve enjoyed Dark Souls. I know you and I talked about playing through more Souls / FromSoft games after enjoying Devon’s Souls so much. I think when we last talked I was planning to jump to Dark Souls III before hitting Elden Ring, but I was convinced by some other fans on here to try DS1 first and so I was fortunate to find a copy for cheap and so far it’s been great. I think you had similar plans to fast-track to Elden Ring, and I’d certainly be interested when/if you get to it, but I’ve been quite pleased with Dark Souls 1. In many ways it’s better than Demon’s Souls, but you have to get used to the lesser grade graphics, because let’s face it — Demon’s Souls is about the most beautiful game on PS5. DSR is still decent visually speaking, thanks to the remaster, and it played at 60 fps which makes it appear better than the muddy graphics would otherwise. But the awesome art design still shines through and the combat and gameplay loop are intact from DeS. There isn’t a hub world like Bloodborne and DeS though, so one small complaint would be the presence of back tracking to get to and fro. The bonfires are spaced fairy evenly though, but there’s still plenty of treks through enemy territory that have your palms sweating while you beeline to the next bonfire.

The famous level layout lives up to all the praise I’ve heard, for the most part. It really is quite genius the way the different areas are intertwined with one another through shortcuts and such. Similar to Bloodborne in that regard, but even more clever because of the lack of a hub space to use as a base of operations. There is a couple “main” bonfires (one in particular) which functions as a hub though, so it’s familiar enough to me.

Anyways, I’ve got many more thoughts I’ve expressed on this thread and I’ll have many more to come, I’m sure. I figure I’m about 2/3 through the game or so. I’m really taking my time and grinding a lot so as to make the game easier.

I’m considering playing DS2 now also, but I haven’t decided. I might still just go straight to DS3 and follow up with Elden Ring. I’ll need to put some distance between From titles though because I don’t want to burn out.

Cue the gif of Ben Stiller incognito in Starsky & Hutch urging “Do it” 😉

@colonelkilgore @Th3solution

@TheBrandedSwordsman Somehow missed your response. You seriously found Sif to be easier than the Iron Golem? That is wild! Sif was probably the second hardest boss in the game for me, whereas the Iron Golem... well, he's not easier than the Asylum Demon, but he's not too far off, either. Once you hit his legs enough, he just kinda chills on the ground for half a minute, wide open to attacks.

@JohnnyShoulder my hero 😉

@Th3solution firstly sorry to hear you've not had much time to play, life can be a cruel mistress at times 😒 hopefully things calm down for you and you can get back to what's important 🤣.

Jokes aside I've just looked through your last few posts of the thread and seen you must of put a decent amount of time into the game and it's good to hear your enjoying as much or even more than Demon's Soul's. Is the combat more fluid than Demon's Soul's? I know that was one of the things we talked about how the combat was initially alot slower than Bloodborne and took a while to acclimatise too.

It's interesting to hear that there's no "portal" world or safe haven so to speak and it does intrigue me to see how that would work when the system in Demon's Soul's and Bloodborne works so well.

Also in terms of difficulty how have you found it?

Its also good to hear that the "older" style graphics haven't dampened your enjoyment, I'm not really bothered about graphics in a sense but it is often a bit of a turn off for me if the game is so old it's look awful and plays awful, but it seems that the remastered version has atleast made the game enjoyable enough to play.

I do still plan on playing Elden Ring, probably after I've finished Ragnarok with mabye a smaller game in between but I do feel like at some point I want to tackle more or manye all of the other From Software titles and (cyberpunk aside) we normally seem to have similar thoughts/insights into games from what I've read so far your recent playthrough and good words of this have made me feel as if though I would most likely enjoy it.

Anyway hope you get time soon to enjoy and finish it off, I look forward to checking on your thoughts if you do

@Ralizah Sif just jumps backwards, found that pretty easy to read after a while. Iron Golem can one shot you off the edge of the arena pretty easily. Different bosses for different people I spose?

I love that about Souls games, I’ve had some great chats with people where we have had diametrically opposed experiences with many of the bosses.

@TheBrandedSwordsman Trying not to fall off the environment itself proved to be the only tricky part for me with the Iron Golem. As for the dog, while his movements weren't hard to read, he often made it exceedingly difficult for me to stay underneath him (which was the only way to keep him from just immediately slaughtering me).

Definitely agree that the Anor Londo twins were tougher, though.

Although, IMO, the final boss is even tougher if you're like me and suck at parrying.

@MaulTsir I do think I’ve put quite a bit of time into it, way more than I probably should have to still not have completed it. 😅 I’m guessing maybe 30-40 hours…? I’ll have to check my PS5 playtime and see (although I find it’s time calculations to be of questionable accuracy sometimes)

As far as the combat and its fluidity, I’d definitely say it’s closer to Demon’s Souls than to Bloodborne, so I adjusted quickly to it because DeS was the more recent experience for me. But as you recall, I went with a magic build for DeS and I’m playing more of a strength and balance build for this one and so that changes things entirely as to the approach and feel of combat. But overall, it feels more ‘slow, methodical, and defensive’ like DeS rather than ‘quick, twitchy, and offensive’ like BB, but individual variance in what build and weapon to use would definitely alter that somewhat.

I’ve grown to appreciate and utilize a shield in the left hand which I almost never used in DeS — I had my catalyst in the left hand and my sword in the right and would fire spells from distance and then finish them off with the sword (usually a short curved blade that was quick). For DS1 I’ve got a shield in the left hand 90% of the time unless I want to two-hand the weapon, or use the bow/arrow for a special circumstance, or if I want to use pyromancy. Which, speaking of, pyromancy is a new addition where you can throw some fire spells like fireball and it functions separately from the magic spells (ie no catalyst required for fire spells like in DeS) and the potency of those fire attacks aren’t dependent on your magic skill level and you can enhance pyromancy separately (and cheaper, soul investment-wise). So it is nice to be able to dabble in the fire spells whilst still doing a melee type build.

As for the lack of a hub / safe haven portal spot, it has potential to have made the game a disaster, but that’s where the intricate map comes into play. The only way to make it work is to have this spiderweb of connections between areas, and it really works well for the most part. The most central bonfire is relatively a safe space too, like the Nexus,, but early in the game I learned that yes, enemies that you aggro and then run away from will indeed follow you all the way to the bonfire. 😫 . Learned that the hard way. But as long as you don’t go out and stir things up, it’s safe.

As far as difficulty in general, I’d say it’s a touch harder than Demon’s Souls. But not by too much. Some of the DeS bosses especially were pretty easy if played from range. Bosses are a little harder, but not quite as hard as Bloodborne. But there’s a lot of variance there. Definitely with your DeS platinum and having completed BB (I can’t recall if you have that plat) then you’ll be fine with DS1 if you choose to play it. It’s a nice difficulty balance.

Finally had a few hours to string together this past weekend and was able to get the Lordvessel. Hurrah! Thrilled with this.

I also was able to finally get my revenge on Lautrec. Looking forward to having Firelink bonfire back again.

As far as Ornstein and Smough, I had prepared for the worst, but ended up beating them on the first try. I did summon Solaire to help though, which I hadn’t used any summoning up until now. It made the fight relatively easy, by From boss standards. Being able to whale on an enemy while they are distracted by a companion certainly helped immensely.
I didn’t specifically target one of them to kill first, I just attacked whomever was attacking me or was closest at the time. So as luck would have it Smough went down pretty quickly that way and so I was left with the powered up Ornstein at the end. That was the hardest part because he seemed to target me instead of Solaire and kept jumping on top of me which caused some major damage. I survived though and he eventually was slain by my mighty Black Knight halberd.

One mistake I made was that I was stockpiling estus flasks in preparation for what I’d heard was the hardest boss fight of the game (except the final) and I had like 16 estus flasks going into the boss area, but since I invaded Lautrec and took care of him first, I didn’t realize that you lose all your extra estus when you do an invasion. So it reset me back to 5! 😫 …It ended up okay though since I only used 3 during the O&S fight after all.

@Th3solution Beating O&S first time out the gate is no mean feat! Nicely done.

@Th3solution You beat one of the hardest boss encounters in the game on your first try? Whatever. Come back after you've no-damage'd them with no equipment while controlling the game with a bundle of bananas.

@LN78 Thanks, mate. I was thrilled to have it go smoothly after I stupidly lost all my estus. Granted, I’m properly overpowered at this point. I think I’m level 70 or so. I spent a couple hours grinding souls from the giant knights in the first part of Anor Londo, since there’s 6 of them right there by the bonfire. So that’s 9000 souls in less than 10 minutes and I didn’t find those guys too tough.

@Ralizah 😂 No way — I’m mostly lucky, since both of them focused on the NPC during the first phase and essential ignored me while I chipped away from behind.

Actually, the blasted Titanite demon in Anor Londo shortly before the boss fight was a much harder fight. I’m embarrassed to say how many times I died to him. The room he’s in is so cramped he can easily pin you into a corner and you can’t roll away. 😅

I’ll never understand why people do those crazy challenges with beating the game with a guitar hero controller or blindfolded. Props to them, but it would drive me crazy

Edit: I did utilize a semi-cheese on the famous Anor Londo archers though. Poison arrows worked like a charm.