DARK SOULS: if you need me i'll be in an induced coma so mvrch comes tomorrow

The details and mechanics change slightly in each game, but the overall approach is the same. III is much more like I, I'd actually recommend doing that before II (which is sort of its own animal).

yeah, without spoiling things too much, ds3 is a much more direct sequel to the first game than ds2 - i'd probably just skip straight to the third one and then if you're still jonesing for more dark souls action go back to 2

tbh i'd probably recommend playing bloodborne before circling back to ds, bloodborne is very much a masterpiece in its own right

I think that might be the plan, as such. I actually already have Dark Souls II, because a while back the complete version with the DLC was on sale, but DSIII I guess hasn't put its complete version on sale yet so I will wait for that. I do have Bloodborne, though (in fact through a comedy of errors I have two copies) plus its DLC, so will get to that at some point.

Killed Gravelord Nito. Tomb of the Giants was a huge pain in the ass.

Blightown was more annoying than I remembered on NG+. On my first play through, I was the most guide-dependent in this area, and with no guide, it's just a confusing mess. Unhollowed and murdered Quelaag first-try (with Mildred in tow), but then died very honestly (several times) while attempting to ascend the conveyor belt to get home.

If you wanted to, you could have just taken the back door! Dip down from Firelink to New Londo, take the elevator to Valley of the Drakes, then take the conveyor belt down to Quelaag and you're done.

Btw a friend doing his first playthrough brought his Switch over so I could get him to Andre's bonfire (I think he had gotten there himself, but hadn't noticed the stairs, then kept dying and lost motivation). I've never felt more useful in my life.

So what am I supposed to do next? I can't remember if I was told or if there was some hint, which is one other downside of a game this esoteric, especially if you take a few days off, or hope around in a weird order. For example, I bumped into someone at Firelink but I wasn't sure if I recognized them. Asked me a question about pyromancer, I told him, and ... now he's vendor. Then there was a woman in Tomb that I didn't know; I killed her dudes, and she gave me something, but I don't know what to do with it. Was she the one who used to be praying in Firelink with a bunch of bodyguards? Also down in Tombs some asshole kicked me off a cliff; was I supposed to know him? And last I saw my bud Solaire he was moping defeated in Lost Izalith. Why? Did I miss something?

Ok Josh I think it's time to look at the wiki
http://darksouls.wikidot.com/npcs

I think now you can either go to the final boss, or go to the dlc. You should go to the dlc (and that you definitely need a guide on how to access...it's ridiculous, but I think when they released it they really wanted people to go back through the game to figure out what was different, and work together to figure out how to do it).

Yeah I know about that shortcut but I just kind of... ended up dashing through the world and not thinking. Got to Quelaag's sister-- also, I FORGOT SHE WAS HIDDEN BEHIND A SECRET DOOR, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS GAME-- and realized that there was no shortcut activated, just the Lavalous Chamber Of Boredom, so I turned around

I am definitely probably not going to move on past getting the Lordybowl, no real positive memories of the back half of this game

Might do DLC again though

Things I haven't done, afaict: giant tree/ash lake, Crystal dragon area (?), final boss, vanishing boss in a long hallway ... ? I'm sure there is a ton of other stuff I've missed, too. It's hard to tell what to do next because the goal of the game has always been deliriously vague!

Wow, I looked at that wiki and it is remarkable how few of those names I recall from memory, how few of those NPCs I recognize even from reading their descriptions, and ... well, why I should care? Onion Knight is the only one I ever really seemed to interact with much. And Solaire, I guess. The other people would talk and offer things, but to what end ... I dunno. I assume if I had a different build. So far in the game almost all my purchases and equipment and upgrades I've gotten from Andre and the Undead Female Merchant.

Giant Tree is annoying, Ash Lake is a slog but it's pretty. Doing the vanishing boss was sad, because you break bad to do it, but it was fun and worth it, I guess, it kind of goes full Japan on you for a bit.

Hmm, so I've been spending time Duke's Archives, and as far as I can tell I've killed everything but Seath the Dragon, more than once, and 1) I still haven't found a key to unlock Hatman in the basement and 2) the two times I faced Seath he just kept his distance and then killed me instantly with those crystals. Is this like the Hydra, where you have to find the magic spot? And where is that stupid key?

I did like how the first time I faced Seath he was pretty easy to get to, and then as soon as I died I woke up in some random cell by a random bonfire that wouldn't let me warp. So far I think I've found three bonfires in Duke's Archives, which seems ... excessive?

you can't kill seath in that room, you need to ignore him and find another way out of the archives. i don't remember where logan's key is exactly

I must be turned around then, since I thought I explored everything.

*extremely quiet whisper* you have to let Seath kill you

Oh wait you did that. I can't remember where Logan's Key is but you need to unlock him to kill Seath iirc? I remember Duke's Archive's being very long and very tedious

The cut scene had a hint, but you need to find something in that room that will make him vulnerable.

(no need to unlock Logan, he's optional, but the key is near the bonfire before you leave the Archives to go to the caves area, behind the bookshelves somewhere)

huh. I really must have just gotten turned around.

doesn't make it any less confusing to throw one of those turning staircases in the middle of it.

Killed Seath, was relatively easy once I stopped getting cursed. Fount Gwyn once and lost, but don't foresee it being too bad when I head back to the game. I like the spooky, desolate, lonely vibe of that last level, and particularly like that they don't make you fight a million pia monsters on the way to face the Big Bad, just a few easy to kill knights.

Oh, wait, do I do the DLC before or after I face him? How about the Giant Tree and Ash Lake, should I do them first? Is Gwyn the end-end, roll-the-credits end?

DLC (and everything else) is before Gwyn. If you defeat Gwyn, you go into NG+ whether you want to or not.

NG+ is ... the hard version? Do you start from scratch? I don't think I want to do that, so maybe I will explore the stuff I've missed first.

You start over, nothing's really different except you keep most of your gear and enemies do more damage and have more health.

Eh, I think that means I should hold off on Gwyn for now and maybe try to other stuff I've missed.

OK, figuring it was sort of a use it or lose it situation, I went to the Great Hollow, which was mostly a pain, because I kept getting cursed, which was as annoying as Sen's. But at this point I'm pretty powerful, so even at half strength it wasn't that bad, though in the end there really doesn't seem to be much in there. Which leads me to Ash Lake, which might as well be called the Great Empty. There's even less there, afaict, other than a chill dragon you can pray to, and not only do they recycle the hydra as a mini-boss, they more or less recycle the way to kill it, and ... you don't even have to chop off all of its heads! Kinda lame. One of the stupidest bosses along with Seath, who is otherwise in this really cool environment, gets a cool intro, and turns out to be an albino dragon slug that moves slowly and curses you if you get overambitious while relatively easily kicking its ass.

So now all that's left is the DLC (which I haven't looked into yet) and that hidden dark wizard in Anor Londo. Oh, and Gwyn. Kind of weird how this ultra challenging game sort of peters out at the end with all these big empty places.

You don't have to chop off all the first hydra's heads if you do enough damage, I think. Alternatively, you can chop off their heads but still leave the body alive if you do really low damage, then you have to finish it with arrows or whatever.

Apparently they were running out of dev time for the late game sections, which is why the Demon Ruins etc aren't nearly as interconnected and cool as earlier parts.

It's such a bummer, because obviously a lot of work was still put into those sections. Also, it's been 7 years or whatever, so I'm a little surprised they didn't fill in the gaps, so to speak. Plus I've encountered more than a few glitches so far - books floating in midair, enemies attacking through walls - and while ironically that has traditionally been part of the Dark Souls experience, as I understand it, you'd think they'd have cleaned it up a bit.

Yeah I don't expect I'm gonna go further in my NG+ play through than Anor Londo + Painted Ruins + Lordvessel + DLC. I don't look forward to the Catacombs/Tomb/New Londo/Archives/Crystal/Tree/Lake/Hellscape nearly so much as the first half of the game

Honestly! Demon Ruins + Lost Izalith are not fun!

agreed. post anor londo, only tomb and new londo are comparable to the first half

painted > catacombs > blighttown > undead > depths > tomb > anor londo > darkroot > new londo > sen

I kinda liked Archives, at least on my 1st playthrough. Seath was kinda bad tho, and the boss run seemed waaaaaay long.

Anor Londo
Undead
Sen
Painted
Blighttown
Tomb
Darkroot
Archives
Catacombs
Depths

Hmm, I'm not sure how I would rank things at this point. I guess it would have to be a balance of enemy and environment, which actually supports Blightown and Painted or even Darkroot or New Londo as peaks. The issue I've come up with is as you make your way you get stronger and better and more powerful, but the enemies don't really scale with you. That is, they get more difficult, but only if you're not leveled up. Which makes the environments do the heavy lifting for the game, which in turn makes things frustrating. The enemies become incidental and the long walk becomes the challenge, which in turn becomes kind of boring, since it's often your own stupidity or sloppiness after having to do the same run again and again that's the challenge, not the fight. I dunno, I guess that lend weight to the first half of the game being the best, but it's a tough call, since a lot of what makes that first half so fun and rewarding is just figuring things out. And then your reward is that the second half isn't so bad. Another easier aspect of the later stages is that dying is even less of a big deal, because you are plenty leveled and blowing off 40k souls or whatever is nbd.

I'm going to dive into the DLC today, that looks pretty cool. And yeah, there is no way I would have known it was there or where it was if I didn't look it up.

Speaking of which, I must have interacted with the NPCs out of order or forgotten to do something. Solaire, as I mentioned, I last saw sitting dejected near Demon Ruins. Why? What's up with him? And Onion Knight, I've seen him all over the place, perhaps last being rescued by me in Anor Londo. And then later I saw his daughter (maybe in Crystal Caverns or Archives?) and told her, yes, I'd seen her dad. But then I saw her again in Firelink and she asked me if I had seen her dad again. So I said yes again. But then I bumped into Onion Knight sleeping in the swamp when I went to explore the tree, gave him some Moss, and helped him escape again. A lot of the other Firelink NPCs have just sort of vanished, and I can't remember where they've gone, whether they went aggro and I killed them or if they left for a quest or whatever. For example, once I was down in Blightown and I got invaded by some NPC, which I killed easily. Who was that/ Dunno. But the most recent trip to the swamp I got rushed by what I assume is a different NPC, one with pyro. I easily beat that one, too, but have no idea who or what it was.

One of the things that really appealed to me about Ico back in 2003 or whatever was the feeling that the "show" was the environment, the way it revealed itself, that you'd see the windmill in the distance, and then you'd be at the windmill, and then hours later you'd be out on the ramparts and see the windmill still blowing in the wind, 500m away in-game.

Dark Souls really did that in the way the environments twist and turn and have back doors to each other. In general I loved the denseness and variety of the basic Burg / Parish / Lower Burg / Woods / Basin kind of hub. It was only when shit started to become more linear that the game started to feel less interesting. The DLC was probably my favourite part of the game after that.

I wonder what the game would have been like with no fast travel? On the one hand, it could get super annoying. On the other hand, nothing is really too far away, and late in the game it would be pretty easy to run past or beat most enemies. Might have made it feel less ... rushed? Pro forma? I'm still having fun in these end moments, but a lot of it also feels sort of rote. Like, with only one attempt under my belt I have no doubt I'll be able to beat Gwyn, just messing around elsewhere for the time being and putting off the inevitable.

Having just played it beforehand, I think Hollow Knight might have ultimately been more challenging/rewarding, though obviously it would not have existed were it not for Dark Souls, and Dark Souls has still been a total blast.

xxp

the pyro npc was laurentius, who was trapped in a barrel in the depths and sold you the pyromancy flame in firelink

onion moves from the swamp to izalith and 3 things may happen there. another one for looking it up on the wiki, if you do things right you get a slab

logan moves to the archives

solaire moves from the ruins to the izalith corridor shortcut that's only open if you're a good chaos servant and fights you. if it's open he survives and can be summoned for gwyn

Huh. I rescued Logan from the archives, but I don't know where he went after that. Onion guy, I feel like I interacted with him and his daughter a bunch, but seeing as I am almost finished I must not have done the right thing. The pyro guy, yeah, I seem to remember rescuing him from a barrel in lower depths, so why did he try to kill me? Is that part of the mythology I somehow missed? There was a guy I rescued from sen's fortress as well, who is that and where did he go? When I'm done I'll have to look all this stuff up, assuming I even remember who these people are and where I encountered them.

it's dark souls, all npcs die at the end of their quest
logan should still be in the archives' library side room rapidly losing his sanity, he's the one you rescued from sen's
laurentius goes hollow if you tell him where quelaana is, if you don't he'll stay in firelink forever

Dag ... Artorius. This guy might be the most times I've gotten my ass kicked in a row since Capra Demon, and there are no dogs or tight spaces involved. Gotta figure out a good strategy!

I was close to taking down Artorius before I had to go on a trip. I assume there will be a slight curve getting back up to speed now that I'm back, which will leave me with him, the dragon, and Manus. Right? Oh, and I guess that disappearing Anor Londo hallway wizard, but that doesn't seem like much of a battle.

Playing on Switch. Up to Sen's Fortress. First couple of tries, I hated it. Dozens of deaths later, I love it. Is Dark Souls just Stockholm Syndrome: The Game?

It feels good the first time you figure out you can waste lizardmen with the traps

There's definitely a steep learning curve but it's so empowering once you nail it.

that disappearing Anor Londo hallway wizard, but that doesn't seem like much of a battle.

Actually one of the harder bosses for me, since you need to have a read on each of his ranged attacks and know how to react (and some of them can kill you in one shot). And you can't make it much easier with poise/damage racing etc (although actually a shield + armor with amazing magic resistance probably trivializes the fight, I've never tried).

I killed Gwyn first try with my overpowered muscle bastard but it was definitely a challenging fight

Unfortunately Mario Fight Club has taken over this household and Dark Souls is no longer on my brain

Artorius down! Now that was a fun fight, with gravity and all. Area after him has taken a turn for the gothic, too. Creepy giggling monsters in the dark, etc.

Kalameet wasn't too bad, but boy, Manus! fgti, how did you take this boss down on your first try!?