Board 8 > Andy plays the Dark Souls of video games

(+) Yeah! (+)

Axl_Rose_85 posted...

Boss words

Dude didn't ask for a strategy guide

The theme of today's session is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXQwx1EolD8

Thanks for the advice Axl, though I'm not looking for specific strategy tips for each fight. At least not until I get super desperate! Oddly enough, I managed to beat Capra on my first attempt today, and this was before Axl's post. I think it was a combination of luck and overleveling, I realise now I wasn't 'supposed' to go to Darkroot or Ghostville just yet (despite the dude at Firelink explicitly telling me about the latter).

My strategy wasn't all that dissimilar to Axl's recommendation, though I didn't use the stairs at all. I sliced the first dog in the initial onslaught, then separated the second from the demon for an easy kill. The 1v1 was then pretty straightforward, although not easy, I finished with a single potion remaining. I kept my distance and tried to learn its moveset so I knew when to strafe/block/roll to avoid getting hit. This included a rather nasty angled slice of its sword which cut right through my shield. But we defeated!

Next, we travel further down into the simply named Depths. There's a couple of smith looking enemies here but they're no harder than the knights in the castle. Honestly I think the game has taken a step down in difficulty, which I greatly appreciate as it tricks me into thinking I'm getting better at the combat >_> Things do feel like they're clicking now though. We free Laurentius of the great swamp, who mentions being 'her' lunch, whoever she is. There's weird sludge monsters here (yes, the first one got me in an OHKO) that I just slice several times with my sword, I'm probs supposed to burn them or something but I'm in no rush.

Then I see the GIANT RAT, and I realise how much fun I'm having playing this game right now. Most of the rats in this area are passive and actually run away from me. I leave them be, thinking that may placate the giant rat or at least not aggravate it. This means leaving a couple of items behind, but no biggie. There's a delightful fake boss gate here, I was sure it was about to lead me into a boss fight with the rat but nope it's just a load. At some point I pick up the Ring of the Evil Eye, which regens my health on kills. Oh hell yeah, this one is staying equipped! There's also some strange amphibian creatures that only seem to spew smoke, and another friendly man named Domnhall. He offers some very specific advice that I note down right away as it seems like it'll be important: "If you seek kindling in the catacombs, use divine weapons. That will repel the reassembling skeletons". Hmm, I don't have any of those.

I eventually enter a pretty beautiful looking room, and wonder how there can be cracks of light in the wall when we must be below the surface by now. Maybe it's mist. I think to myself that this looks an awful lot like a boss arena, but boss arenas always have white mi- oh there's some mist. Boss time it is!

The Gaping Dragon (why do all the bosses have such shit names lol) enters with a cool cutscene. I like that the game shows me its full design before the battle, because I spend 90% of the fight stabbing away at its legs from the side and avoiding its giant mouth. I'm sure there's a weak point I'm supposed to hit (maybe its tiny head), but my side stabs are safe and functional so I don't try to get fancy with it. Amazingly, I down this beast on the first try! Our reward here is 25k souls (!) and a key to the infamous Blighttown. Welp, we're on a roll today, down we go! (How much further down does this world go?!)

We descend into the unusually lit Blighttown, and I promptly die to the first enemy. Great. We're sent aaaall the way back to Firelink, but there's new stuff going on here too! Laurentius teaches us Pyromancy, and there's a praying woman and her guards on their way to some catacombs (I hope they have divine weapons!). Hm, plot. Not sure what to make of it. I like how the characters move around this land on their own quests instead of being stationary, really helps the world feel lived in. Though most of them seem to wind up at Firelink waiting to sell me stuff.

Back to Blighttown, I pick up my 30k+ souls and very slowly inch my way along the opening path until reaching a very welcome bonfire. I spend my souls and, now free of immediate worry, go exploring. To my surprise, I think I actually like this place! Aside from the big dung pie dropping brutes, none of the enemies are very threatening. The main problem to solve here is the layout of the area, everything is laid out pretty strangely and there's lots of back and forth and similar looking bridgework. There's also a weird tentacle beast protruding out of the wall that I can get behind but not damage (I didn't buy any fire spells so maybe that'd do it). I don't bother trying to chase down every little item, but instead slowly make my way down.

When we finally reach the bottom I realise this place is a swamp, and there's some more maze work to do to try to get across the poison water quickly. Thankfully I have plenty of purple moss from the garden, which also comes in handy for the toxin firing dudes. This place is pretty massive, it feels like two environments in one. I have absolutely no idea where to go (I can't see any bell to ring), so I follow some torch lights (nice way to indicate a ladder) and slowly make my way back up, climbing a water wheel and several more ladders. I collect a bunch of items that I don't stop to check for fear of little flies getting me while I'm in the menu, and sadly die to a pair of dung brutes right as I felt I was getting to an exit. Boo!

Right now, I have positive thoughts about this place, but that may change depending on how much time I spend stuck down here >_> I did pick up a New Londo Ruins key, so I'm tempted to go back there first, but I doubt it'd be much quicker than navigating Blighttown again. I'll have a think. Good progress today!

Very good progress. Nice job, man

I only played the Remastered version so I never experienced it myself, but apparently one of the reasons Blighttown in the original version sucked so much was because the framerate dropped like a rock in that area. So making your way through those rickety platforms while being sniped at by poison darts was much more difficult than it had any right to be.

Consider yourself lucky you didn't die to the Basilisks (the smoke breathing frogs). If you do your HP is cut in half until you use a really expensive/hard to get item to cure it. It happened to me in my first two playthroughs and boy oh boy did that suck.

It had a solid 3 fps on the original. But I did end up enjoying it after getting used to the level design, and realizing that no enemy there really did much damage, they just toxified you. So just eat the toxic and run through. You can easily get to the next bonfire that way.

Andy said he's playing on 360, isn't that the original version? So he's probably experiencing the shit fps firsthand

andylt posted...

The Gaping Dragon (why do all the bosses have such shit names lol)

I almost said "it gets better after Gaping Dragon" but uh.

There's definitely at least one that's much worse still to come.

I really like Blightown, even the original PowerPoint presentation version.

One of the uses of the dung pies that the big guys drop is to help avoid to the toxin blow dart guys. The toxic status you get from that is way weaker than the one from the dart boys and the effects can't stack.

Yeah I'm on 360, honestly the framerate hasn't been that bad in Blight? It's definitely framey but not atrocious, no worse than New Londo Ruins. It's more severe when there's a bunch of enemies around but I've been trying to clear everybody out so maybe that helps. Maybe they patched it at some point.

Peace___Frog posted...

Very good progress. Nice job, man

Thanks! I was very proud of myself.

Murphiroth posted...

One of the uses of the dung pies that the big guys drop is to help avoid to the toxin blow dart guys. The toxic status you get from that is way weaker than the one from the dart boys and the effects can't stack.

Oh that's cool, I was wondering if part of the reason this place is hated is because people go here before Darkroot and don't have the anti-poison moss. I wonder how long it takes people to figure that out though.

Grand_Kirby posted...

Consider yourself lucky you didn't die to the Basilisks (the smoke breathing frogs). If you do your HP is cut in half until you use a really expensive/hard to get item to cure it. It happened to me in my first two playthroughs and boy oh boy did that suck.

Oh dear, I must have gotten lucky. I was thinking they were giving off too many souls for how non-threatening they were lol.

Kenri posted...

I almost said "it gets better after Gaping Dragon" but uh.

There's definitely at least one that's much worse still to come.

I am looking forward to this now!

After all this time thank you for reminding me that Blighttown is total ass

I didn't do very much today, I had more of a wandering around session. It turns out there's a bonfire really close to where I already went lol, I must have walked right past it yesterday through the swamp up to that water wheel. The devs must have known this area would trip people up, because until now they have been really eager to space the bonfires out and have you reuse old ones when appropriate, and here we have two of them at different levels of the same area!

Shortly after lighting said bonfire, I'm invaded by a Maneater Mildred. I am very shocked at this, partially because this is my first invasion, but also because I'm playing offline >_> I didn't know they had offline raids, but it's nice of them to let me emulate the online experience I guess. She's easy to beat. Instead of following the bonfire path up I decide to return to where I was yesterday, and maybe it's because there's less pressure now but I die a bunch more times around here. I fall off the water wheel, slip through a tiny gap in the path, and get hit a lot more today. That's what happens when I let my guard down! I also realise that the poison dart dudes don't respawn, which is awfully kind of them.

At the top, I get past the brutes this time and visit the Valley of Drakes! But not for long, because I open a nearby door and am back in New Londo Ruins. Once again the interconnectivity of this world delights me, and once again my internal compass was way off as I had not expected these places to be right next to each other. Firelink must be waaaay up the mountain, for all of this to still be this far above sea level.

Speaking of, I head up to Firelink while I'm here hoping to cash in my latest Fire Keeper Soul, but the Keeper is dead! The gold knight is gone too, as are the praying lady and her guards. At first I think this is a major plot development, but then I read the item description of the eye from the keeper and now I see this is another pseudo invasion kinda thing. No idea how to invade the murderer's world, so the fire is staying out for now. Thankfully it's safe enough to head over to the Smith's bonfire from here. I pick up some fire spells from the pyromancer seeing as I have souls with me this time. He's a very kind man, apparently him giving me the fire power is him giving me a part of himself. Everybody is so nice in this game!

Over at the blacksmith I hand over my Large Ember and upgrade my longsword to +6 (I decline to go Raw despite the higher power as I'm guessing those downgrades on it were important). In return he gives me some pretty useful info about the surrounding areas, most importantly he mentions a divine blacksmith living in the garden that will be helpful whenever I visit these famous catacombs. Must be the tourist hotspot of Lordren, everybody is banging on about these catacombs.

I head back to the valley and explore properly. Thankfully the giant dragon here is lazy and doesn't chase me around so I can pick up items from the nearby corpses and run along my way. The smaller electric dragons aren't as kind, and I get toasted/pushed off a cliff multiple times. It looks like there's a bell in the distance (!), but when I get near the path appears to be all rubble and inaccessible. I try to cross the bridge but there's lots more dragons over there, so I give up on this for now. I'll probs head back to the lower Blighttown bonfire next time.

Mildred drops one of my favorite weapons in the series, the Butcher Knife. Good damage, great reach, good moveset.

The eye from the keeper will let you know when you can use it, and that won't be for a little while, I'll say that much.

I do think you might have missed some bonfires, there's one in the Depths for instance. Since you said you had to go all the way back to Blighttown from the Firelink Shrine after you died I assumed you didn't find it. It's not a big deal, but it shows how rewarding it is to search every nook and cranny. Even the checkpoints and shops are hidden away.

Ah yes I didn't find one in the Depths, I definitely didn't search every nook and cranny there. I didn't get to fight the giant rat either, I was too excited about going down to the infamous Blighttown to bother going back and scouring the area >_> Plus as said I avoided killing the non-hostile little rats, so I probs missed a hidden path or two around them (and def some items). I'll head back there at some point.

I think I've only got 5 bonfires- Firelink (well, not right now), Undead Burg, the one above the smith, and the two in Blighttown.

Murphiroth posted...

The eye from the keeper will let you know when you can use it, and that won't be for a little while, I'll say that much.

Ah it did mention an 'Anor Londo' so maybe it means there. So if you're playing online can people just come and snuff out your bonfires? Sounds annoying!
And I will try the Butcher Knife, thanks.

andylt posted...

So if you're playing online can people just come and snuff out your bonfires? Sounds annoying!

Not quite, this is a special npc thing.

Though when you're invaded you can't use a bonfire until either you or the invader dies.

Well I'll only be getting invaded by NPCs so idk how often that'll be happening.

Today I head back down to Blighttown and it turns out the way I assumed to be the path forward was a dead end with a single Dragon Scale. So I wander around the bottom floor of the area for a while, encountering some ogre like enemies very fond of their rocks, and picking up some spare items. It turns out the way ahead is up the really weird looking surface at the end of the swamp, I had assumed that was just an unscaleable boundary marker until I saw three rock ogres stood on it lol.

We enter Quelaag's Domain, and soon meet our next boss. I feel like there are too many 'sexy spider lady' creatures in fiction these days, what's all that about. Anyway the Chaos Witch is fire-based and I get quickly wiped by the spider's... roar? attack? IDK what it was but it did a lot of damage. I figure I'll have to make my way back out of Blight and get some anti-fire gear, but I can't be bothered to do so right away and instead try to fight the boss once more. And wouldn't you know it, she goes down! My tactics here are pretty similar to the Gaping Dragon, I stay very close round her sides (and sometimes directly under her) and get to stabbin'. I get plenty of attack time while the spider is spewing fire everywhere, and her sword attacks are easy to dodge. I still don't know how to avoid the roar attack (probably by rolling at the right moment), but blocking it minimises damage so I leave it at that.

This is the third consecutive boss that I've defeated on either the first or second go, things have definitely cooled off since the Bell Gargoyles! We ring the second bell and the gate to whatever-it's-called opens up, I hope Mr Onion Knight is happy. There's probably more to discover in this area, there's a disc sized hole in the room with the bell and what looks like something useful down below, but I don't want to risk falling to my death with all these souls so I leave it be. I stop off at the Blighty bonfire but there's no need, I make it back to Firelink without any issue.

Once again things have changed at Firelink! I uh, don't know how to describe the creature that has appeared, but its name is Kingseeker Frampt and it's not hostile. In fact it's very friendly, and tells me my fate is to succeed King Gwyn and obtain a Lordsvessel from somewhere. Was this the thing I heard snoring a while back? That's pretty cool if so. When I later return to Firelink the regular guy who sits by the fire has left, and when we last spoke he mentioned 'doing something' about Frampt so I'm a little worried about my new friend.

Before moving on I figure it's finally time to down the Moonlight Butterfly given that I'm on a boss roll. This thing really is striking, from its appearance to its theme to its name to its arena it is entirely different from every other boss I've fought. I really wanted to love this fight, but unfortunately there's very little to it. It turns out I didn't need a ranged weapon at all, because after firing a few... magic beams?, the butterfly gets bored and simply lays its head in front of me to let me kill it. How very bizarre. Not much of a boss really, but I'm curious why it was placed here and why everything about the atmosphere of this fight seemed to stand out so much. Hopefully there's more to come.

It turns out there's no more of the garden left, but we do get a key and a Divine Ember from a statue or petrified corpse or something that I assume represents the old divine blacksmith, and take it back to our living blacksmith who can now craft divine weapons. It seems divine weapons do a lot of magic damage but not much in the way of physical, so I won't convert my main weapon. While I'm here I buy the crest that unlocks the forest door. Between that, the key to the watchtower in Undead Burg (I think I remember where this is!), and the newly opened gate, I'm spoiled with paths to choose from for next time. I'm riding high on this game right now, who knows how long that will last!

I feel like there are too many 'sexy spider lady' creatures in fiction these days, what's all that about.

Dark Souls is 11 years old now! I do think there was a slight uptick in sexy spider ladies after people saw Queen Lag.

Was this the thing I heard snoring a while back?

Correct.

andylt posted...

I feel like there are too many 'sexy spider lady' creatures in fiction these days

never too many, and also they should be bigger and scarier

I had a fair amount of trouble with Quelaag, trying to solo her at least. Once I summoned Maneater Mildred as a distraction it was a pretty simple fight though. Nice work beating her on the second try!

andylt posted...

It turns out I didn't need a ranged weapon at all, because after firing a few... magic beams?, the butterfly gets bored and simply lays its head in front of me to let me kill it.

Yeah I almost mentioned this when you first got to the boss, but I assumed you'd figure it out soon enough. Weirdly pathetic boss.

Yeah I also held my tongue on butterfly. It's actually the zone I do next after gargoyles because it's so easy.

There's a next logical progression spot to go to continue the main game but it's up to you! Almost at my favorite area.

Also there's a few missable zones that are kind of hidden, but if you're cool with it I'll wait until it makes sense to tell you about them.

I don't have enough strength to equip the Butcher Knife, so I can't experiment with that just yet. Also I don't think I've said but I'm wearing the crimson gear now and the gargoyle helm, seems to be the best balance of stuff without making me too slow.

To kick things off today I go to the two obviously not main quest areas- the forest door leads me to some ghost knight that is tough and some more tree monsters that catch me off guard because they apparently have more HP than normal here. I quickly die and decide to leave this for another time. My adventure to Undead Burg is more fruitful, as after a long but pretty harmless battle I receive Havel's Ring, which increases my equip capacity! Now I'm fast! Weeee! This also drops me out at Darkroot Basin, huh. I'm not gonna try the golems or dragon hydra thing again though, instead I'm itching to go through that open gate and see what awaits me.

Remember how I said the game had taken a step down in difficulty post-Gargoyles? Yeah, well, forget I said that. Sen's Fortress is a bitch and a half. Not even a step into the new area and I trigger a trap, and two snake warriors (?!) come charging at me. That's the theme of this area, nothing ever lets up and the game is out to trick me at every opportunity. For the first time the game features platforming challenges in addition to combat ones, and man it doesn't even ease you into things. The first swinging blades already have me being rushed along by a reptile zapping me from above, and there's another snake waiting on the boardwalk. There's boulders and traps galore here, it takes me some time to get used to things.

After a while I decide the easiest course of action is to run past most of the enemies here and let them kill themselves on the blades, or try to trigger the traps so they get hit instead of me (for some reason they don't trigger the traps themselves by walking on them). This doesn't always work but it saves me a lot of bother and I get used to their patterns. After a while I figure I'm getting the hang of this place, and then a treasure chest comes to life and swallows me whole. ...What?! I didn't know there were fake treasure chests in this game! Now I'm gonna be nervous every time I come across one :( On another attempt I try to fight it, but evidently it can still instakill by grabbing me. A fake treasure chest with creepy long legs, this is like the dark version of Kid Icarus Uprising's Mimicutie. Though I guess this came first.

I do manage to avoid the next trick on my first go, thanks to a noticeable bloodstain on the rising platform. Then I reach the room controlling the boulders, and this ends up being the sneakiest trap of all. I swear, I turn the boulder to face the room I went past at the start, watch it go crashing down a few times, then decide to walk back over one of the other paths I already went to see if I missed something. Then I get crushed by a boulder coming down that path! Was it time rigged, does it just reset itself, does the game just want me dead?! Argh!

There's some more platforming challenges past that and at this point nothing is fazing me, I somehow get myself into the zone and get through the next segment without worry (at one point I fire bolts at one of the projectile reptiles until it falls off its platform so I can get across the narrow bridge). Then we're outside, and this is a whole new open terrain with some new (and some old) enemies. Man this is an impressive area. It takes me a while to realise where the explosions are coming from, there's a giant ogre hurling explosive boulders at us from above (of course). I make my way across and up a few times- there's a few side paths here that seem to go nowhere and a large empty looking back section guarded by one of those big knights- and eventually reach what is obviously a boss gate.

Now here, I'm afraid, I must reveal my shame to you all. I'm really liking this area, painful as it may be, but after spending so long getting up here I really really don't want to have to do the whole fortress again, and I'm sure that I've missed a bonfire and that the game wouldn't want me to go through all that every time I attempt the boss. So I go to discord and ask b8chat if anyone knows if there's a bonfire in this location, and sure enough I'm directed to an answer (thanks, Emerald). I feel guilty that I betrayed myself by cheating like this, but the urge was too strong. Now, to teach me a lesson, I can't actually find the bonfire and die in the process of looking >_> Serves me right!

A bit later I manage to get back up to the top, and this time I follow the instructions I was kindly given and discover the bonfire. Now how in the hell was I supposed to figure this one out myself?! It requires dropping off the side of the castle to the bonfire platform below, but it's not as if I had time for sightseeing while fleeing the explosive boulders! I'm hoping the trickster aspect of today's session is unique to Sen's Fortress and not something to expect from the entire game going forward >_> But as said, despite the initial 'oh come on' aspect of some of the deaths, I do quite enjoy this area and all its intricacies, and on a clean run it doesn't actually take very long to get to the top. I attempt the Iron Golem just the once and immediately die, so that'll have to wait for another day. I apologise to you all for cheating and looking up the bonfire, but honestly I doubt I would have ever found that myself if I didn't know it was there!

I missed that bonfire on my first playthrough and I don't blame you for looking it up. Or looking up anything. The wikis are popular for a reason!

andylt posted...

. Now how in the hell was I supposed to figure this one out myself?! It requires dropping off the side of the castle to the bonfire platform below, but it's not as if I had time for sightseeing while fleeing the explosive boulders!

Honestly checking for this sort of thing is second nature after playing so many Souls games. Every nook and cranny must be examined, the camera panned around every corner and ledge.

That's probably one of the most commonly missed bonfires, I wouldn't have found it on my first run if there weren't like 8 player messages all clustered at the point where you drop down.

Mimics are great - there's a specific visual tell that lets you know if it's a real chest or not, but I'll let you figure that one out.

Yeah I'm pretty sure I found that one thanks to a message. From that point on I went back and explored every corner for drop down locations lol. I do it out of habit in all their games now. Gotta make sure I am looking everywhere.

Yeah, it's important to remember that if you play online you'll see messages left by other players that'll help you find secrets and warn about traps and stuff. The Sen's Fortress bonfire generally has a dozen messages around it telling you where it is.

KamikazePotato posted...

Honestly checking for this sort of thing is second nature after playing so many Souls games. Every nook and cranny must be examined, the camera panned around every corner and ledge.

Also, this. I remember the exact moment I finally learned to start checking the areas next to the doorframe before entering a room and it's paid off so often in this and in future From Software games

Ah, the sens fortress experience

Yeah that Bonfire is brutal. I'm always nervous about dropping to it, go to slow and you get bombed, go to fast and risk falling off the edge.

Also huge fan of the mimics, they're intimidating enough in regular fantasy games, leave it to FromSoft to make them even more terrifying.

Messages are so important to the experience for me personally. I don't know how I would have gotten through Elden Ring without them.

Walking into an enemy ambush being like "you fools. you absolute charlatans. I read 50 messages on my way in here and 49 of them said 'try finger but hole' but 1 of them warned me of your trickery!"

Agreed.

And the threat of being invaded isn't even very high in most of the games, if you know how to avoid it

My favorite interaction with messages was right before the Priscilla fight, I saw a ton of them just saying Feet and I just assumed it was everyone being horny, took me way too many attempts to realize they were actually talking about her footprints

I expect to miss some things by not checking every little corner, but a bonfire is a pretty important thing to hide like that. It's not like there's a shortcut up the fortress from the smith fire!

And for what it's worth I didn't actively choose to avoid playing online, I just have an early model 360 that requires a wired connection and it's a whole hassle to set up (my Xbone needs a new harddrive and I have a series S so no disc drive there). Though I am curious about all the messages, I can't help but think it'd ruin my immersion a bit but it must be useful when it comes to things like that bonfire!

I kill the boulder throwing ogre by hiding in the stairwell while it thrashes around and slicing it up when it's tired. Then it's boss battle time! There are two key obstacles to overcome in this fight, and neither of them are the Iron Golem. The biggest issue is the arena itself, despite appearances it's rather small and VERY easy to fall off of. For some reason I tend to do the best when we're both on the narrow corridor on the far side, maybe because there's only forwards and backwards to move so it's easier to know where I'm facing.

My strategy to this fight is pretty similar to the past two bosses- stay by its legs. Depending on the golem's attack I either roll through its legs to the other side or roll around to avoid its grab. And this is where the fight's second challenge comes in: the camera. I am glad none of you can watch me do this fight, you would likely get dizzy from the constant camera spins as I hack away from directly underneath the boss's crotch. I know I can turn off the targeting but I find it much easier to see what attack is coming and to roll in the right direction with the target on. Anyway, after a handful of attempts I have the fight down, and get the golem down to a sliver of health while still having a couple of potions left... then I roll off the edge of the platform. Oh well.

I suppose I was due for a bad boss run. I spend the next hour failing at this boss, sometimes getting close to beating it and usually falling off. A couple of times I get grabbed and thrown off the ledge, and I don't think this is supposed to happen because then my souls spawn below the arena in a spot I can't reach. I start getting worse at the boss until I make myself pause and think. I try turning off the targeting reticule, it doesn't seem to help. Then I realise I haven't been using my shield at all, and switch to holding my sword in both hands to deal more damage. My very first attempt with this gets the golem down below half health with barely any potions used, then it does its stagger thing giving me a bunch of free hits, and then... it falls over the edge! Poetic justice. I had been trying to push it over a while ago and figured bosses must be immune to that, but it seemed to have a unique animation as it fell so it must be a timing thing. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't quick but it is done!

Our reward is a glowing ri- oh wait we've been kidnapped! And dropped off far away in the land of Anor Londo. This place is pretty beautiful and strangely... clean? Modern? Realistic? Artistic? Open? I don't know, but it's very different from every other area so far, this must be very important. There's some giant guards that aren't any trouble to take down, and oh great, the gargoyles are back! Thankfully they're just one at a time for now, so way easier than the boss fight. We meet our second fire keeper who gives us a bit of exposition about where we are, and then I gawk at our surroundings some more. There's plenty to admire here, some cool statues and a beautiful sunset/rise and the like. Nice lighting.

There's also, very handily, a regular chest and a mimic chest next to each other in the same room, so I can see the differences. It appears that the mimic chest is more fanciful and decorative, and if you rotate the camera it has a base below the chest that the regular wooden one doesn't. I suppose it's that standard 'ignore extravagance' trope in action, pretty cool.

I spend a very long time figuring out where to go next, much of it jumping and hoping for the best. Eventually I discover a slope up the side of one bit that I assumed was a piece of background scenery, and this leads me up to the scaffolding of a church. After carefully dealing with the enemies on the wooden beams we open a shortcut back to the centre and dispatch another gargoyle. I'm a bit tired so I leave it here for today, it feels like things are about to get meaningful and I want to be on full alert for whatever comes next. Not my best work today, but we're moving forward!

One of my favorite Dark Souls moments ever was watching a friend walk into that area, check the normal chest to see if it was a Mimic, and then not check the Mimic chest.

Spending an hour on a boss is completely normal. I'd say you've actually been doing better than most at the bosses so far.

andylt posted...

There's also, very handily, a regular chest and a mimic chest next to each other in the same room, so I can see the differences. It appears that the mimic chest is more fanciful and decorative, and if you rotate the camera it has a base below the chest that the regular wooden one doesn't. I suppose it's that standard 'ignore extravagance' trope in action, pretty cool.

It appears you are still missing one specific detail that easily singles the mimics out. I don't think what you're noticing was intended by the developers lol

Pretty sure the iron giant politely chucked itself off the cliff for me too, though I might be remembering wrong.

Anor Londo is great. Almost definitely the consensus best area, and for good reason

I love that first wow moment you get landing in Anor Londo.

Anor Lando the best

Also, you're doing great so far. Keep it up!

andylt posted...

I suppose I was due for a bad boss run. I spend the next hour failing at this boss

Welcome to the true Souls experience. My first time playing the game, I was stuck for about a hour against Stray Demon. I can confidently beat that boss without taking a single hit now. And that is just one example.

Aecioo posted...

Anor Lando the best

Also, you're doing great so far. Keep it up!

It takes FromSoftware five more games to make an area that is better and more iconic than Anor Londo. And that is absolutely not a knock on the four succeeding games, it is just how amazing Anor Londo is.

No updates today I'm afraid. You all love Anor Londo, I'm pretty excited to see what else this place has in store!

CassandraCain posted...

It appears you are still missing one specific detail that easily singles the mimics out. I don't think what you're noticing was intended by the developers lol

lol oops, well I'll take more notice but for now I'll keep whacking every chest I see just to be safe.

Anor Londo is incredible, really neat to look at and the design of the area itself as you navigate around it is great.

If you use the Summon Sign Tarkus can honestly single-handedly take on the Iron Golem by himself. What a badass.

Grand_Kirby posted...

If you use the Summon Sign Tarkus can honestly single-handedly take on the Iron Golem by himself. What a badass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZYJAjATPzY&t=60s

Lol oops.

That was incredible, I never knew just how much of a legend Tarkus was. He's the hero we all need.

And that leads me to believe his soul must have been reincarnated into let me solo her

Praise Tarkus

Preach, who needs the Sun when we have Tarkus

CassandraCain posted...

Preach, who needs the Sun when we have Tarkus

Agreed, nobody beats Chad Iron Tarkus.

I do not remember meeting Tarkus, whoops. That's funny though. And makes me glad I'm not using summons yet, definitely a bit cheap!

Yesterday's update: We meet some lightning goblin things that fortunately have a great tendency of falling off the edge of the platform to their doom :) Guess those wings aren't that useful. From a distance I thought they were purring but now I see it must be their electric spears lol. There's some very aggressive archers that knock me off a few times, and then we're into the castle proper. This place is really neat, I'm amazed that they apparently don't go back to this style of architecture/level design for a while. It feels a bit like a different game wandering around here, it's laid out like a Resident Evil mansion or something. Wonder if the paintings mean anything in particular. I bet this place is a godsend for lore fiends.

Solaire and a bonfire are here, and Solaire thinks I have feelings for him. I'm beginning to see why he's a fan favourite! Further around we meet our old Knight of Catarina friend too, who gives me a ring I already have. I guess you can't upgrade the number of ring slots, but hey we have more than two fingers so why not!

The enemies here are mostly armoured knights like in the first castle way back, only harder. It takes me a while to properly learn their patterns, and honestly I can't say I've fully nailed them every time. I hate when you press the wrong button and have to wait hopelessly as your character gets around to executing the motion after finishing what he was already doing >_> Good to discourage button mashing I suppose. I notice none of the enemies are dropping items, wonder what that's about. I haven't figured out the secret to mimic chests yet, but I'm pretty good at killing them by now so no big deal.

I think I clear out everything that's here, including that lightning demon missing limbs that I've seen before (oddly no chest in that room). We eventually enter the grand entry hall from the side, and dispose of two giant guards. These things annoy me until I realise they can heal, so instead of diving on them from above I split them up and deal with them normally. For their size they sure are adept at jumping. I'm surprised they respawn.

I collect a dragonslayer bow and meet another blacksmith, this one a giant! I can upgrade my main weapon to Lightning Longsword but I don't feel good about making it a pure magic thing. Especially not here when the enemies are lightning based! I can also forge it into a greatsword but that'd be too heavy for me right now and I don't have the right materials, so it's staying as it is. Also the black eye from earlier starts activating, and we can invade the world of the Fire Keeper's murderer! Turns out it's our old friend Lautrec (I shouldn't be surprised). I can't use items here and die pretty quickly, but thankfully it doesn't take my souls. I'm in no rush so don't head back to that right now.

I'm pretty sure the mist here is a boss gate, given the layout of the room, the guards, and the proximity to two bonfires. The atmosphere seems right. But I don't feel up to starting a fight now, so I leave this, but we shall see what lies beyond next time! Maybe the giant guards are a hint.

Wow you handled the Archers really well! It took me forever to get past them.

andylt posted...

I haven't figured out the secret to mimic chests yet, but I'm pretty good at killing them by now so no big deal.

Yeah the secret really isn't too useful, since it's faster and more fun to just hit every chest before opening it anyway

I'll give you a weird hint about how to spot mimic chests: think of Fleetwood Mac's most popular song (it was in GotG2).

And now that you found out about Lautrec, it's pretty funny when going into a new game with that knowledge. You can kill him immediately after releasing him, though he's a bit tough for early level. I always cheese him, after he travels to Firelink Shrine you can just nonchalantly kick him off the cliff he's standing right next to. Easy starting ring and you don't have to suffer losing access to your bonfire.