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

Lovely. I assume a lot of people are going to go back through these games for the first time after playing Elden Ring, and I'm very curious how it goes for them. On the one hand many of the bosses are more predictable ( not as many moves, also not hellbent on punishing heals, etc). But on the other hand there aren't as many options for cheesing them or different playstyles (although summoning and magic was always there). I wonder if it will feel easier or harder to backwards from ER.

beat the capra demon, he wasn't hard at all, the only challenge was dealing with the annoying dogs while avoiding his swings. looks like i'm heading to the depths

Well, after beating Elden Ring twice and getting through a nice chunk of Bloodborne, here I am a short bit of the way through Dark Souls Remastered, cursed and wondering whether to continue through The Depths or use it to my advantage in New Londo Ruins

It's interesting coming to this after ER. Obviously it feels like a more compact world, but also a more concentrated form of the gaming experience. It's a lot less forgiving than ER and clearly there's a lot less opportunity to just randomly move around however you like. Everything feels more methodical - a puzzle to be unpuzzled in a very specific way - and the consequences for messing up are far more punishing (and often infuriating).

that's all a good way of looking at it.

There are certainly a lot of elements that were lost with moving to a more expanded world. I love how neat everything feels in DS1, and I was fascinated to discover that the entire game is based on a single column with levels wrapped around it, which accentuates that endorphin rush of finding a shortcut from one area of the game to a totally different area. Everything connects to each other in this hugely satisfying way.
The mechanics of combat feel a lot more precise and less arbitrary. It doesn't feel like you can just hack away and hope for the best. If you get stuck on a boss, you can't easily farm or grind yourself up till you beat it without a lot of tedious trouble, so you're forced to find a solution or just git gud.

Likewise, the absolute dearth of bonfires is a blessing and a curse. I did feel that ER's generousness when it came to bonfires did make things altogether a little too easy sometimes. At the same time, having to hack my way through the same bunch of enemies again and again and again in DS1 gets pretty annoying - especially at, say, New Londo Ruins where I start back at Firelink Shrine and have to get a lift down every time I accidentally jump off a ledge.

The most frustrating part of DS1, which I'm glad doesn't happen in ER too much, is just having to dolefully gain Souls, not to make your character or weapons stronger but just to regain normality. I spent an enormous amount of time yesterday slowly farming enough Souls to carry out an absolution after I'd accidentally pissed off Griggs of Vinheim in Lower Undead Burg. Then halfway through my farming mission, my sword became blunt and I had to spend a bunch of Souls on fixing that. When I finally had the 15500 Souls to go through Zombie Corridor and get to Oswald and all that, I almost immediately got cursed and had to go back to farming enough Souls to buy some Purging Stones from the same guy. I'd essentially spent three or so hours of game time running around killing the same old enemies just to get back on track with the game, and little to show for it!

This is the stuff of nightmares, the stuff of dreams, the stuff of memories....

Well I just got to Blighttown so it's getting close to the stuff of quitting

lol

presumably you at least don't have to slog through it with the awful slowdown that affected Xbox3/PS3 versions of the game?

one for the original Darks Souls headz there

I'm playing the Remaster.

LOL, I got a bit stuck yesterday and decided to see what DS2 was like... Geee I take it there's not much to be loved about that one?

I think this has been talked over quite a lot over the years, but in a nutshell: it's weird, janky and not as good a game as any of the others, but it has an atmosphere all of its own and some good set-pieces and locations

this is how I break it down to some extent:

God tier: Elden Ring, Dark Souls, Bloodborne
Great but not god tier: DS3, Sekiro
Black sheep: DS2

[n.b. I've not played Demon Souls]

oh man i loved sekiro for the pure precision and intensity of the combat. simply nothing else like it in gaming. obv i don't game v much so you will tell me i'm wrong here - but it almost feels like guitar hero or dance dance revolution in terms of timing and responsiveness.

yeah I thought Sekiro was fantastic for those reasons as well, some days it's definitely god tier for me but it perhaps doesn't have the immersiveness of my other god tier ones

yes makes sense. i dropped elden ring about... i want to say halfway through? because i decided i probably needed a work sabbatical to play it properly. and then, being an adult, realised that if was going to take a sabbatical i should probably learn a language and do a course in something or other rather than playing elden ring.

still not sure this is correct logic tbh.

I need to replay Sekiro. In some ways it's the most Elden Ring-like in terms of the pure physical feel of the game, just because it was the most recent (jump button, graphics engine, etc). But it's also the polar opposite in concept -- instead of being able to approach a scenario any way you want, you're pretty much forced to engage with the combat mechanics as they are (and no summoning for help, either).

DL, it's worth pushing through Blighttown! The feeling of finally getting out is worth it by itself.

i honestly didn't mind blighttown.... (sudden flashbacks to losing 20,000 souls through falling off a platform, after having died from a graphical glitch before, and smashing the controller on the floor)... and found the end of level boss v easy, but i only ever played the remaster so have never known the true trauma.

I appreciated Sekiro, but it was the only of all these games that left my controller damaged, not from throwing it or anything but just from fighting the giant ape. Also, iirc it had the most byzantine hidden late game entry, so much of a pain in the butt (imo) that it's the only of the From games where I just stopped playing after beating the first final boss (I think).

DS1, I kind of want to play it again. It has the loneliest vibe of all the games.

this tweet reminding me how much sheer *joy* my brother got from watching me continually trying and failing over the course of several *weeks* to kill Rom the Spider in Bloodborne. He used to *run* downstairs to watch me and literally cry tears of laughter when I got very close. He had one-shotted it or something first go.

confession: i always liked watching boyfriends play video games. the stories are fun but i’m not good at using the controller!!! and it can actually be very feminist to sit back and say “go in that room i bet something is in there”

— Brandy Jensen (@BrandyLJensen) September 1, 2022

"fuck this i'm going to bed now"
"noooooo! give it another go, i'm sure you'll beat it this time."

Ugh, iirc Rom was the Giant Ape of Bloodborne for me.

right

Sure, I could run through Blighttown in a few minutes *now*, but DS1 was my first Souls game and it took me forever to beat the boss and figure out where to go (and I just could not make that jump to get the Iaito sword for my life). For the boss, it was mostly because I was greedy and refused to read the cues for those big AoE explosions. Then you add in the poison, the curses, etc. Ah, memories.

Rom was horrible. I quit Bloodborne when I got to... I think Micolash (the dude who runs around a lot and you have to chase him). Partly because I kept dying and partly because Elden Ring came out

I can't really kill the enemies in Blighttown. No issues beating the Gaping Dragon - got him in one go with very little damage to me. But even the first enemy I encounter in Blighttown is way tough. I decided to just run past him and there are like three more. I ran past all of them then fell off a ledge

i spent a long time on Micolash or w/e but i found it hilarious. all that running around and then cornering the stoopid blooter and smashing him till he died.

I ran past all of them then fell off a ledge

describe DS in one sentence.

It's interesting to read my "first time playing a From game" from four years ago. In the intervening four years I think I've always been playing a From game in some capacity.

Funny to read/remember too that I was using a Chaos Gargoyle's Halberd on my first play through. I totally forgot that was the case! I've been using one again on my current run and thinking I was ~so~ original.

I also can't imagine that I ever played this game, on my first play through, without any rolling capability. I played Bloodborne after this game and so shields were not an option, it's all rolling all the time

Anyway, my current DS1 run is, again, a dexterity build, enjoying the incredibly overpowered Balder's Side Sword, and sometimes the Chaos Gargoyle's Halberd and sometimes the Silver Knight Spear. The Balder's Side Sword is an unhappy choice for me, it looks like a 12-year old's woodshop project, but it's just too fun and powerful for me to really commit to any other option.

I'm light rolling while wearing silver knight greaves and gloves, and the cute-as-hell Antiquated Blouse. Great look

I don't know if I ever actually got the Balder Side Sword to drop, although I know it was a favorite of many and that most DS3 straight swords use the moveset.

The BSS has a fast and supremely overpowered R2 poke. There isn’t any sword like it in Elden Ring that I know of (although the thrusting sword class of sword in ER is far more powerful than in DS1, so it doesn’t matter)

It’s kinda crazy how unbalanced it is, to be honest? Also interesting in DS1 is just how much more valuable/necessary shields are

I got totally stuck on this in Blight Town - my only good sword got blunted and I didn't have a repair kit to fix it. Not being able to warp from bonfires is the thing that sucks about this game

I argue the opposite, I think it is what makes the first half of DS1 so compelling :)

I got totally stuck on this in Blight Town - my only good sword got blunted and I didn't have a repair kit to fix it.

happened to me on my PS3 save, and managed to fight/run my way out of outside Queen Quelags area with one of the big clubs you pick up from the trolls that I didn't have the stats for, all the way to the blacksmith outside Sens fortress.

the feeling when I actually went above ground, was a great feeling, rarely replicated in video games since...

So totally agree, once you can warp between bonfires this game loses some magic.

Fought Gwyn. Parried to critical, parried to critical, dodged a grab, parried to critical, parried to critical, he died.

Was even swapping to my Chaos Rapier for maximum criticality

Didn’t even take a hit! How times have changed

So tonight I set myself the task of escaping from Blight Town with a broken main weapon. It took me well over two hours, but coming back up for air, getting to Firelink and getting the usual rude response from the Crestfallen Warrior was like getting out of prison after six years

Ironically, I'd unbeknownst already unlocked the back route into Blight Town via Valley Of The Drakes before getting cold feet and turning the other way. Essentially I had fought my way all the way down there when I could have gone the quick route

Now what though? Do I really have to go all the way back down there? I HAAATE it there

Haha. That's an essential experience though. Do you just have the boss left? It does connect to a couple other areas, not sure if you've reached them yet (and the back way is much faster).

Yeah just gotta kill the boss.

Oh man, getting back on solid ground and using loads of titanite shards to upgrade my once broken weapon to a +7 is a revelation! I've gone from dying to single firedogs to being able to slice my way through the Blighttown swamp with ease. I'm so glad I persevered.

In my head, this is perhaps the toughest of the Soulsborne games I've played so far, which is saying something. Bloodborne was really tough mind you. Had no real trouble with Demons Souls.

It also feels like the grittiest, but maybe that's down to the older graphics. Once you get to Blighttown and other darker areas, everything looks like a photocopy of a photocopy on high contrast, which gives it all a murky patina

Haha, I’m glad you got to experience one of those desperate, broken crawls out of hell. Lived a similar situation, chronicled above surely, and it’s still one of my favorite gaming moments.

I’m always curious to see how DS1 hits for people working backwards to it.

Just beat the Quelaag boss on third go. I feel like I've tamed a runaway horse or something. Yay Dark Souls!

So no one told me about Sean's Fortress. Talk about out of the frying pan...

Stayed up way too late last night on this level - it's huuuge, the enemy placement is unforgiving, and the lack of bonfires and shortcuts is just plain cruel.

I can't wait to get the widget that lets me fast travel to bonfires. It feels like I've been playing this game for a pretty good while and yet I suspect I'm barely halfway through.

It's strange coming to this after Demon's Souls though. Granted, I was playing the Remake, but there are aspects of Demon's that just make sense which don't appear in DS1, like bonfire fast-travel from the start, or a less obfuscated central hub.

Sean's Fortress lol

from memory by the end of it you do get some useful shortcuts? Though not that many! And there's exploration to be done in its basement, if you can face that

xp - lol autocorrect. It'll be Sean's Fortress from now on. Same as Margit will always be Margaret

I didn't dare explore the Pit! I rescued Big Hat Logan, but died to two lizardmen after a long time traipsing around the marble mazes.

Here's a vid of my exploits and me muttering unintelligably into my controller microphone if anyone is really that bored:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78r2_t1uTF0

You probably know already but there's a very useful hidden bonfire in Sean's fortress.

It's strange coming to this after Demon's Souls though. Granted, I was playing the Remake, but there are aspects of Demon's that just make sense which don't appear in DS1, like bonfire fast-travel from the start, or a less obfuscated central hub.

It's the giant interconnected world, traversable without fast travel, that's the big achievement of this game. It makes it feel so much more immersive and less video game-y. It's also what's so amazing about Elden Ring, even though fast travel is kinda necessary for crazy scale of the world. I loved watching someone's no-fast travel blind playthrough when ER first came out.

ah yes I remember now, worth seeking out by looking for messages if you've not found it already DL