LogFAQs > #954135284

ctesjbuvf posted...

This will be the first of hopefully a fine number of games that Ill finally play after owning it for quite some time now because this project reached that point.

Well, for what it's worth, it would make me very happy if my doing this project inspired other people to try more games. Bloodborne gives you a decent idea of what to expect from Dark Souls, because although there are some mechanical changes they have a lot in common gameplay-wise. I think you're definitely right that the game's difficulty gets overstated because it came out at a time when most AAA games were super easy - I definitely think it would be an exaggeration to call it one of the hardest games ever. I'd say it's not that it's super hard so much as that it doesn't fuck around - that's to say, none of the enemy attack patterns are exceptionally hard to figure out, but you can never really just tank your way through enemies and letting your guard down tends to lead to a quick death.

I started up the game and played for a few hours. Here was my character's starting information:

Name: Leon
Class: Deprived
Gift: Old Witch's Ring

I wanted to cut down on the role-playing for this game in comparison to how I handled Pokemon or New Vegas, so I wanted to recreate a pre-existing video game character, and after playing around with the character creator for a minute I found out that one of the haircuts looks pretty damn close to Leon Kennedy's 'do, so I rolled with that.

The game begins with a creation myth - in an age long past, the first men discovered the four Lord's Souls, which wound up in the hands of Gwyn, the Lord of Sunlight, the Witch of Izalith, Nito, the first of the Dead, and the Furtive Pygmy. These four waged a war against the Everlasting Dragons, which came before, and killed them all except for Seath the Scaleless, who betrayed his own kind to fight with Gwyn. All that was followed by The Age of Fire, which is currently in its last days before it fades away - and that itself is heralded by a plague of undeath, whose victims are locked up in an asylum.

Leon is one of those victims. He's sitting hunched up in his cell when a man drops a corpse through the skylight, with the key to his cell on its person. He unlocks the door and the player takes control, and I don't think I ever noticed before how you can just turn the camera to the right and see the Stray Demon at the very start of the game. Leon makes his way through the asylum and has to run away from its guardian demon until he can recover his club and meet up with the man who sprung him from his cell, who says that he's about to die and go insane - in that order. He asks Leon to take up his quest - to escape the asylum and ring the "bell of awakening" and gives him the keys to the asylum and some estus flask, which the undead use to heal, before he kicks the bucket. Leon fights up to the asylum balcony to get a leaping head-start in the fight against the Asylum Demon, takes it out, and leaves the asylum - on a giant bird that carries him to the Firelink Shrine in Lordran.

Like the name implies, the Deprived class that I picked starts with nothing - you're naked with a club and the weakest shield in the game. This is probably the hardest start of any class, but the club it gets does have certain merits, particularly high strength scaling, which is nice because when you wield a weapon two-handed in this game it treats the damage calculation as if your strength is doubled, so it does some hefty damage when used that way and let me take out the Demon really quickly. It's intended to be the most customizable class with completely balanced starting stats but they messed that up a little by giving it a high starting level, so what you should really do is pick one of the classes that has a lower starting stat in those stats you won't use compared to the Deprived's 11. For example, if you want a build that doesn't use faith the sorcerer would be good. I just like the Deprived because it helps create a sense of progression when you go from having nothing to being one of the most powerful people left in the world. The Old Witch's Ring has a specific story purpose but another really good choice for the gift is the Master Key, which makes the game a bit more open-ended from the very start.

In Firelink Shrine, there's a ton of stuff you can do before you go on to your first goal. I started by taking the elevator down to the ruins of New Londo to grab the Estoc in a jar there and buy a sorcerer's catalyst and the Soul Arrow spell from Rickert of Vinheim, who has locked himself in a cell for his own safety, because he's too afraid of turning hollow in the outside world. The Deprived can use Soul Arrow with no stat investment and it makes a good reusable long range attack for the first few hours - it takes out the weakest enemies in one hit. Then I go into the graveyard area and pick up the winged spear and the Zweihander (my favorite weapon in the game) because it's tradition, although I died twice in the process. I also talked to Petrus of Thorolund and joined his covenant, even though it didn't do anything for me just yet - it's a requirement if you want him to sell you miracles, which are the spells that use the faith stat, including heal which is handy to let you restore health a few more times on any given attempt of an area. Before I leave Firelink, I turn myself back into a human.

The Undead Burg is the basic first area that's designed to help you get used to the game. Most of the enemies are weak, but there are a few traps or larger groups that can take you out if you aren't careful, and I remember having my fair share of deaths here when I first played the game. This time around I got through it in one go, though. There's a somewhat curmudgeonly shopkeeper in the lower part of this area who sells basic equipment and a few other odds and ends. I buy the Residence Key from him for 1,000 souls and then I kill him and take his sword, the Uchigatana, which is an excellent dexterity-based weapon for this point in the game with a fast light attack (and a surprisingly slow heavy attack) and I'll use it at least until I get its brother weapon the Iaito. Since I was already human, I kindled the bonfire in Undead Burg for +5 Estus when resting there and then went on to fight the first real boss, the Tauros Demon. I didn't have the strength to actually use the Uchigatana in one hand at this point so I fought him while two-handing it and sometimes standing way back to blast him with soul arrows which was cheap but effective. He's your typical slow-but-strong giant boss and makes a good introduction to the dodge mechanics if you got through most of the Berg by blocking, which is really strong there.

Once he's out of the way, you get to meet the fan-favorite character of this game, Solaire of Astora. I love this guy. He's a devotee of the Warriors of Sunlight, which is appropriate because he is the ray of sunshine in this game's otherwise-depressing world. He gives you the white sign soapstone which lets you get some jolly cooperation going with other players if you want.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 20/129
Currently Playing: Dark Souls