LogFAQs > #954135789

After you meet Solaire, there's a long ominous bridge guarded by the Hellkite Wyvern which is one of the most powerful monsters in the entire game. He will douse the entire bridge in flame every few seconds which makes it hard to cross. You can take the path underneath the bridge to get around him, but it is actually possible to run past him if you bait him into flying over to you and then making a break for it right as he does, and I always do it this way because it lets you access a bonfire you couldn't reach otherwise. I was still human at this point so I kindled this bonfire too. Just past that point there's a giant metal pig which is one of the few enemies in the game who does not respawn, although that's kind of a shame because he has a low chance to drop his head as a helmet, which is a funny looking item, especially if your character isn't wearing anything else except the pig helmet. I wasn't lucky enough to get it this time around. The pig is pretty much invincible to everything except the backstab, but there's also an item in this area called the alluring skull that attracts certain enemies to it, and it's possible to cheese him by throwing that item into a fire to make the pig cook himself.

The Undead Parish is where you run into the first serious enemies in the form of rapier-wielding knights who can block your attacks and will sometimes even parry you for an instant kill. They're quite vulnerable to parrying themselves though. To the right of the church is a staircase leading down to a bonfire and a blacksmith, which I used to upgrade my sword to +4. I also walked toward Sen's Fortress to chat with Siegmeyer of Catarina, another one of the rare cheerful characters.

The Parish is where you fight the Bell Gargoyles, which represent a really big difficulty spike because you end up fighting two bosses at once. I had been playing really carefully up to this point so I was still human which meant I could summon Solaire to make the fight a fair 2v2 which we won surprisingly quickly. I also let Lautrec of Carim out of his cell. Everything was going really smoothly up to then, but I started dying quite a lot after I kindled the hidden bonfire in Darkroot Garden. I ended up dying quite a few times to the Moonlight Butterfly, which was kind of embarrassing because she's considered one of the easiest bosses. She just flies and launches projectiles at you and then occasionally comes to land and gives you a chance to attack. You can speed up the battle if you had a good projectile attack, but my soul arrows barely did any damage.

Once I beat the butterfly I walked down into the Darkroot Basin and fought the Black Knight that's blocking the way down to the Valley of Drakes, since I'd said it was my goal to explore there. The first blue drake at the very start of the area killed me multiple times over and I decided I had better wait until I've leveled up to come back. I also tried fighting Havel but my backstabs did like than 10% of his health and he flattened me in one hit when it landed so I decided to avoid that fight as well for now. I did take out the Titanite Demon at the entrance to Darkroot though. Then I finished upgrading my Katana to what is essentially the current limit of +5 and went to the Fire Keeper at Firelink to upgrade my Estus Flask with the Fire Keeper Soul before calling it a night.

Most of the time when I think of Dark Souls these days I focus more on its themes and method of storytelling, so coming back to the game was a nice reaffirmation of how fun it is too. One thing worth focusing on is how the game conveys gameplay information to the player. When you first bump into the Asylum Demon and have to hightail it out of there, that establishes that it's sometimes best to look for alternate solutions and even just run from tougher threats, which is useful later on - for example you can just run past the Titanite Demon to get to Darkroot Garden if he's giving you trouble. What really strikes me so far is the sheer breadth of freedom in terms of the order you do everything in, at least if you know the secrets. There are so many different things I could be doing in the game right now - I could keep trying to fight Havel or press on through the Valley of Drakes, I could try and take out the Hydra, I could go back and fight the Black Knights I skipped earlier, I could return to Undead Asylum, and it's even possible to buy the gate key for Darkroot Garden and go on to fight two bosses that are supposed to come much later right now. I could also try and run through the catacombs to fight Pinwheel if I really wanted to. But I'll probably leave all of that stuff for later and progress the main quest by going through everyone's favorite area when I pick up the game tomorrow.

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