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

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

Either I've not seen it or I passed it by! Feels like I've gotten pretty far - up past the marble turntable. I'll keep an eye out.

Part of the problem (or the fun) about these games is that you can be knee deep into a level and it's tormenting as to whether you should risk poking around areas like the Pit and risk being killed or just keep on until you get to the next bonfire.

Lol, I think it involves a hidden wall and a drop, so it's easy to miss on your own. One of those things that's totally fair game to look up.

Also it's crazy how you can run through Sean's Fortress in a few minutes once you know where everything is and you're not exploring. That's true of anything in this game, but hits especially hard here since it feels so byzantine and intimidating on your first time through.

I recall farming those first two snake people, and also using an upgraded version of their giant machete as my main weapon.

A lot of people farm one of the knights after you first reach the rooftops for the Balder side sword, but it's a rare drop. Nothing too crazy, just a good straight sword with a nice moveset (same one that was used for most of the straight swords in DS3, I believe).

I enjoyed that video DL, especially your deliberate approach, really takes me back to the early days of my DS obsession. :)

I love the Baldur’s Side Sword. I usually farm it next to the chapel.

The upstairs bonfire is easy to find, just look right once you’re dealing with the firebombs, drop off the edge and you’ll land right on it :)

Hehe, I'm not sure what you mean about "deliberate" - barely scraping through maybe? I had a look online for that bonfire but I think it's a bit further from where I managed to get. I saw someone speed run their way to that bonfire in just a couple of minutes. No idea how they managed to so boldly roll through guillotines and man-serpent crowded corridors, but it's possible (apparently).

I spent about an hour yesterday mostly grinding those two man serpents at the start and one of them dropped the Man Serpent Sword, whcih is massive and unwieldy. Honestly, there are so many weapons in this game which just seem kind of useless and have better alternatives. But anyway, fun to have.

I also managed to grab the lightning spear from the pit and upgraded it, so I'm going to use that for a while.

So obvious once you see it, but if you don't know about it you're so freaked out by the firebombs and not wanting to die after making it all the way to the rooftops, there's no time for careful exploration. FROM!!!

xp

Yeah it's juuust after where your video stops, I think.

damnit

Sean's weirdly a totally chill dude, dunno what the story is with his Fortress.

you see him occasionally, just wandering round in his tatty robe and tiki mug.

he knows all the names of the man serpents guarding the stairwells,

"hey Sean...."

"Hey Rhojax, how's your kid getting on with that new retainer huh?"

Haha, that's definitely the vibe I get. "NTS, oil the squeaky death guillotine. Hey Ghorbox, just resting your eyes there mate? Yeah I see you..."

Very pleased to report I reached the bonfire. Whew! If I hadn't known about it I definitely wouldn't have found it

ANORRRRR LONDO!

I've heard so much about this place.

It's interesting coming to these older games (Dark Souls / Demon's Souls) and seeing exactly where Elden Ring gets its DNA from.

There are areas of these games that correlate directly to each other. Boletaria / Undead Burg / High Wall of Lothric / Stormveil. Anor Londo / Leyndell. Valley of Defilement / Blight Town. Stonefang Tunnel / Ruin Strewn Precipe etc... And yet it never feels like theey're just rehashing themselves. They're more like callbacks or self-references.

Anor Londo features IMO the most difficult bit of any of the Soulsborne games, so much so that first time around I had to give up for a while before going back

Welp, that's been my experience with almost every area so far

All of these games (with the exception of Bloodborne and Sekiro, though not entirely) are essentially the same games over and over again, with subtle tweaks and refinements. That's something I like about them. Oh, here's the poison swamp, here's the fire lake, here's the palace in the sky, etc. They all feel thematically linked, but are all different enough to feel distinct and fresh.

Anor Londo features IMO the most difficult bit of any of the Soulsborne games, so much so that first time around I had to give up for a while before going back

And it's funny how much of the difficulty of that bit is psychological, and the placement. Assuming you haven't spent much time in the first half of the game fighting black knights and working on your parry skills, you're faced with this silver knight in a high-stress situation without any room to circle around or maneuver. But after that, there are silver knights all over the place and you get very used to their moves and timing.

Or of course you could just block and step backwards so that he falls off the ledge, lol.

yeah, it's a proper sweaty palms moment when you get that far, and then a bit later you wonder what all the stress was about!

My most-recent replay of DS1, having become "good" at From Games, I just cruised on through, beat every boss first try, basically didn't die at all, even Kalameet was a softie...

...except for the archer run. It's amazing how bizarrely arbitrary that moment is. Just when you get a handle on facing your adversary, you get an arrow in the back.

Huh! I rarely get shot at by the other archer, if you hoof it to the knight on the right it usually puts you out of aggro range from the one on the left, I thought.

Update: I thought for a minute I was really smart examining that gigantic painting

ha!

*sigh*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERcN6frKuB8

lol, good stuff dl. Congrats on (presumably) escaping the painting though! No mean feat.

I took the coward's way out. Killed the pukey dragon and spared the furry fox lady. I'll come back to them

yeah watched your video DL and... it do be like that

Finally I'm at Ornstein and Smough. Only given them a couple of cursory shots but mostly I've been grinding to improve my weapons as the Lightning Claymore I have felt too big and slow to deal with these guys.

So I've managed to upgrade a Silver Knight Straight Sword to +5 and try them a few times before I use humanity on summoning Solaire.

So far I've hardly used any humanity, save to kindle bonfires. is that a normal thing to do in this game, or do people run around unhollowed all the time? Is there even any point if I don't really care for PVP?

Aside from bonfires, you don't really need to use humanity unless you want to summon help, except for:
-some weapons scale with humanity (Chaos Blade etc)
-you can pop one for a full heal. PVPers ran around with stacks and stacks of them.
-random other stuff: http://darksouls.wikidot.com/humanity

But I ran around hollowed for basically the entirety of my first playthrough I think.

Do what you want, but I highly recommend not bothering with Solaire (he's not that much help anyway), O&S is a good chance to get some 'fighting multiple enemies' strategies together -- kiting them, experimenting with playing unlocked and controlling the camera, etc.

Iirc in most of these games, summoning NPC help is a double edged sword, since it increases the boss's health pool, and the NPC is rarely as good as you are (something Elden Ring sort of changed with the addition of the mimic tear), and in my experience usually dies well before most enemies are even close to defeat. Which is to say, you still need to get good, while at the same time the bosses get harder.

I found O&S doable by constantly being on the retreat, like always backing away (and never into a corner), attempting to angle oneself so that one of the two is "engaged" with an intervening column, and then smatching at the other.

It's generally seen as being "easier" to kill O before S, and superpowered-S is definitely an easier fight than superpowered-O, but I usually found myself thwapping S before O, as he tended to be more aggressive and more reachable as I backed away, backed away, backed away

Fun fight

Don't summon anybody

Huh, I thought O was more classically aggressive, always lunging at you as you backpedal.

fgti, did you play Sekiro? If not, you simply must play Sekiro!

I too would like to know what fgti makes of Sekiro

Oh I’ve talked about it elsewhere. I fought the immortal dummy extensively, had zero issue navigating the first proper level, and then found I had absolutely no facility in fighting the very first mini boss. I even was getting a free jump hit in on him, still just died and died and felt insanely stupid and bad at games. Never made it any further

Ohhh, you really should give it another go. It just has a different feel and approach than the other games, but especially post-Elden Ring it's so worth getting over the hump. Maybe their best single player game.

it's Dark Souls as a parkouring rhythym action game, it's fantastic

I do like it. I really struggled on that first mini-boss too, I'll be honest. It takes a bit of getting sed to the flow, and the combat is lightning-fast and intimidating. I know fgti is a big fan of creating different builds, so I wonder if it would appeal as much as the Souls games. I'll def get back to it once I've ploughed on a bit with DS1.

The run back to Rogers & Hammerstein is a toughy. Even though I've fought them so many times now, I find it fairly hard to fight or dash through those Silver Knights without a scratch and I usually arrive at the fog gate breathless and needing to top up my health. I was feeling mentally fragile last night so I only gave them about three attempts. Pleased to say that on my last attempt I managed to get Ornstein down to a slither health before losing the rhythm of the fight and getting splatted. But one more hit and he'd have gone down. I know from vids that this is only about a third of the fight of course. But I got pretty good at kiting them around the arena, as you do.

To boost my Warriors of Sunlight covenant stats and get the lightning spear, I did the Captain and Tennille fight many, many times, as it was one of the more fun and it was good to help others. #jollycooperation

Once you are down to one of them, it does get easier and goad them into hitting the columns, keep columns between you and them... also learn the big AOE attacks as they will wreck anyone with less than 50% health..

What is it with these games that one minute you're really close to beating a boss, getting used to their move set, getting them down a little more each time. Next they're destroying you before the fog gate has barely cleared? Grrrr...

Yeah, I lose months of my life to video games, historically. Can’t remember when it was but I remember I took a two week vacation to someplace lovely a decade ago but I was so addicted to ADOM that I spent the entire vacation lying in bed working on getting some Ultimate Avatar Of Order ending

I remember in 2012, I bought Skyrim but told myself I’d only play it once I got sick with something and had nothing else to do, and then I got sick and I did end up spending two weeks just hoovering up that adventure like a dump truck of digital cocaine

Aside from iPhone bridge and Worldle I haven’t played a game since March, which is great… I was finding myself killing Pthumerian Elders on repeat attempting to farm rare Bloodborne Cold Abyssal Gems and it was the pinnacle of “wasted time”; I’m glad to be game-sober right now!

xpost I think it's just sloppiness/impatience, tbh. At first we're really cautious and strategic, then as we improve we get a little too confident, forgetting that the boss is still really tough. That's usually a sign that it's time for me to take a break. There have been a few From bosses where I kept getting so close, over and over, that eventually I just turned it off. Then the next morning I would get up, make a cup of coffee, and beat the boss on the first or second try.