Dark Souls 3 - April 2016 : You Died, You Died, You Died

Okay, this is on tonight.

man the first miniboss really is no joke, huh
got him but it sure was an early gut check
ROLL ROLL ROLL ROLL hit ROLL ROLL ROLL ROLL ROLL hit RUN RUN RUN heal ROLL ROLL ROLL ROLL hit

so in one day with this thing I have:

launched with deprived, tinkered with the face to make him look like an emaciated owl
killed the iudex, gundex, whatadix
chased off the dragon (not that difficult!)
killed the crystal lizard dragon
killed the mimic
killed both monstrosities
found my first normal crystal lizard
killed the fat guy
killed the blue knight
unlocked all the doors and freed the prisoner
activated the elevator
fully explored the first level and done a full kill sweep of the entire area
leveled to 21 and balanced the build so i can use magic, miracles, a bow and an axe
bought and used all the available armor/magic/weapons/items from the merchant
improved my sword to +2
have etched the first world layout/enemy placement firmly into my mind
got the banner
found Vorgul and have tried going after him three times now, I have yet to hit him more than twice

this is dark souls 3, day one

xp all the items except that 20k key of course

finally playing this tonight. it is amazing. you can't sleepwalk through this game but it just plays better and more user-friendly imo. i like this starting area on the wall and rooftops way more than some of early DS1.

the game is beautiful. so beautiful. they have turned up the dreamlike elements. this is HD dark fantasy at its peak. impossible architectures.

the speed is great but something to get used to after playing Dark Souls 1 so much recently. so much stamina! like 5x as much more something! why even level up endurance when you have that much? Dark Souls 1 you really have to be economical w your rolls but here you can dodge like a maniac, slashing your weapon. it's more button-mashy. but still good and strategic! best combat yet. i get trapped by my own impatience still but it gives you more leeway to make mistakes. still hard but more forgiving.

level design is lovely. everything is still a mystery and i am enjoying the flow of silent storytelling. again this is something Dark Souls sort of pioneered for the modern era and here it is done extremely well. i am getting some old fantasy Heavy Metal goth Edward Gorey or Frazetta feelings from many places. i want paintings of every screen of this game.

the dragon draped over that building in the beginning is so great. Alfred Hitchcock would be proud.

the shrieks from these ghouls are insane

you are probably going to like the next zone it really creeps me out

if you can stand next to a candle you can watch the light flicker across your shield and armor.

damn this green glowing cobblestone floor is amazing. this game is really impressive i bet at 4K it is just dropping.

art what zone are you talking about? where im at reminds me of Undead Parish especially the place you find Solaire at.

ahhh! woah!! surprise boss fight! yes! not gonna spoil this thank you!

um...so that wasn't a boss fight. he respawns! so glad i have pyro.

this game is really really good. level design is top notch. better than Bioshock Infinite quality graphics. level design so far like Undead Asylum stretched out to 5x the size with few mobs and lots of jump scares. i love it.

parts of it remind me of Undead Parish too but this is way way better than the basement area w Capra Demon.

gonna call it a night. im still only at the 2nd bonfire but i feel like i've done so much. SPOILERS i had a bunch of cool pyro fights with a princess mononoke dark liquid monster on the rooftops in between two dragons. i fought Smough in a really beautiful Castlevania style town square with a classical statue water fountain and full of empty suits of armor set up everywhere to look like they are resting. i threw fireballs from top of some stairs at 3 skeleton dudes with spears that were trying to get me.

http://i.imgur.com/f3ziSHk.jpg
set of screenshots from tonight
http://imgur.com/a/SFV6K

I started this last night also as a pyro guy, I liked the antler thingies he wears. Also at 2nd bonfire, need to take out that pesky knight after the flame run

GIANT ENEMY CRAB

@adam once you get to the legit boss of the area where you currently are, the zone after that is the one im talking about.

i turned HUD to auto in settings, much better for screenshots

think i've killed 4 or 5 bosses now, still not sure how far i've gotten. none of them have been main dudes in the intro. also had a few invasions in the crab area and killed them all. the npc invaders have been much tougher!

i turned brightness all the way down and now it looks perfect. seems like they took cues from dragon's dogma with the natural lighting

not feeling the disconnected world thing i've complaints about either, there are numerous times where i've looked around and realized where i am in relation to where i've been. it does seem to deliver on the whole "if you can see it you can go to it" concept

man, I do not enjoy beg covered in worms D:

torch ;)

that first boss....damn that fight was good!

it was really tough but i totally felt that WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS feeling at the end

found out im nearly able to score the red eye orb, need to invade in a very serious way

this game just got super medieval. i found this fat self-immolating alt dimension spanishi inquisition official who laughed like Tiny Tim and shot some dark magic at me, slowly sneaking through the air, so I was hiding around corners while he cackled in the distance, surrounded by a pitchfork-wielding village mob. so cool.

second boss down. i need more time to sak this in.

Tomorrow morning, I'm finally going in

the evangelist is a weird-for-dark-souls bad guy: near miniboss hitpoints, distance and close up attacks, generally flanked by a few underlings and it TALKS which was very off putting

Swamp covenant is the most fun. seems like many/most fights involve at least three phantoms and summons are so constant i had to take off the item to progress the story

yeah the evangelist! i haven't played through Bloodborne yet but i remember seeing some of these types of enemies in that. i am really glad they did that, Bloodborne was great.

another cool new thing: roll hits? rolling/dodging actually can stun enemies now! i don't think that was ever a thing before, right?

evangelists are super creepy when they start reading from that book.

i love it every time they have crows scattering. this game is pushing all the right buttons.

Swamp covenant is the most fun. seems like many/most fights involve at least three phantoms and summons are so constant i had to take off the item to progress the story

True, but it pisses me off slightly they no longer refill your estus when you win a PvP invasion or successfully kill a boss.

Have they raised the max human players cap for this? I may have miscounted but it seemed at one time there were more than 3 phantoms at once. Though one of them may have been one of the scripted NPC invasions.

I love how chaotic things can get with mad phantoms, swamp covenant, npcs and regular enemies all getting at each others throats.

wow the 2nd boss is incredible. like something out of Shadow of the Colossus. this game may be better than Dark Souls 1.

killed my first Lord of cinder and now I dunno where to go :(

if its the one im thinking of, you can keep going thru the back of the room

i fell for one of the oldest tricks in the dark souls book re: an npc, gg from

evangelist = fat official from demon's if you look close

really? fuck xp

XPS - with that gnarled hand item you buy in firelink you can summon 3 phantoms then at least one can invade or possibly two if you're in the swamp. I want to say the cap is 6 including the host but it might be 5. either way it's totally nuts and chaotic and exactly what i want

i think there's a second area protection covenant but i haven't made it far enough yet

where do i join swamp cov

i had 2 blues invade at once in crab area and i was alone. killed 1 and the other ran off and 'returned home'

ok this is great. i just got through the tree boss.

coolest thing that's happened so far is probably summoning a mad spirit just before that point, to see what they would do. they helped me clear out the whole area, then he finally attacked me once we got to the fog gate (i won).

got the red eye orb and have had some fun invasions so far, although it's too chaotic for me when there are two whites/yellows plus the host. much prefer duels.

there's a big wolf u pray to in the poison swamp farron keep zone. As u advance thru the zone u will find a long ladder going up the side of a bridge support, scale it,pray to the giant sleeping wolf, ask to join the cov and boom - unlimited invasions forever

ok yeah i got there but didnt join

parrying is tricky in this game but seems crucial

every game, i start out promising myself THIS is the one where I'm gonna force myself to learn to parry correctly. never happens.