Ah, Dark Souls, just when I think I have you figured out, you go and do.. something. We're talking Day 5 here of my first full run of Dark Souls. If you haven't been keeping up, let me get you caught up. Inspired by recent Dark Souls talk and all of the Bloodbourne in 2015, I've decided to play Dark Souls after I had to give it up my first time because life just got busy. I saw a lot of people saying just how much they enjoy watching others' first runs of the game so I decided to make this the first game I've streamed. I'm not letting chat give me spoilers and only asking them questions for slight hints that will keep the stream moving. There are some specific things in video games that I get slightly OCD about so that's where I ask for those hints. You can read more about that in my first two blogs. As far as the game itself, we've rung the first bell, defeated the Hydra and released a princess. We've been learning lessons as we go and the game has been seeming much easier than back when I first played it, but that's also explained in my previous blogs. Today, I'm going to quickly summarize our progression and talk about two interesting things.
So without further adieu, here is the list of the lessons we've learned so far and a highlight video of Day 5!
Lesson #1: Expect the unexpected.
Lesson #2: Maintain your composure and always be aware of your surroundings.
Lesson #3: Analyze your enemy.
Lesson #4: Sometimes the best defense is a good (and smart) offense.
Lesson #5: Do not handicap your tactics based on your assumptions that something will or will not work.
Lesson #6: Fight on your terms.
Lesson #7: Explore new areas if you feel that you are stuck.
Lesson #8: Use the environment to your advantage.
Lesson #9: Never underestimate enemies; every enemy deserves full attention and stratagem.
Lesson #10: Don’t keep doing the same thing expecting different results… Yeah yeah, I should have been smarter than that.
Lesson #11: Don't waste too much time worrying being Dark Souls-ed, you can always recover.
Lesson #12: Always watch your back. Always!
Venturing into Blighttown led some new enemies and annoying mosquitoes, which was odd because I had a dream about mosquitoes eating me alive the night before... anyway. We fell down and didn't know where we were! My mind was racing because I was worried that we were somewhere we shouldn't have been. Spoilers: it was find, we just skipped a couple of ladders. COOL! So we came across a treasure that we'll talk about later and were summoned. I got to experience Quelaag and was hoping to use the summoning to analyze her a bit. Well I got some information from it but not too much. After returning to my world and gathering a ton of questionably useful treasures, I went on to my first real attempt at Quelaag. This was perfectly timed because someone had just invaded our world as we were heading there. I took care of her on my first attempt and rung the second bell, which opened up the gate near the onion warrior. Looks like we know where we're going next... that is unless we find a really cool underworld area full of fire and lava- OH HEY! LOOK AT THAT! LET'S KEEP GOING! We went through a fog gate, stole some treasure from a giant lava spider thing and got the heck out of there with a homeword bone. We'll be back to kill that guy some other time. I tried to light the bonfire but it turned out that the fire keeper was dead! MURRRRDERED! More on this later. I fed a giant serpent my surplus of green titanite and turned them into titanite shards! Perfect! I had been wanting to upgrade my Laito so I could make it my main weapon. Some tricky platforming for some more treasure, upgrading my Laito at the Blacksmith, and we were done for the day! Whew, sorry for the very quick rundown, but lets move on.
So, onto the stuff that I find interesting. Towards the beginning of the game after I found the new bonfire, I found a treasure sitting very conspicuously in a pit. Come on Dark Souls, how obvious could you be! I'm onto you! I didn't want to just go down there because I knew something was lying in the wait. I dropped a summon sign to use someone elses world and find out what trap was waiting for me. Well that didn't work because the person that summoned me had already opened the treasure. We were just going to have to do it the hard way. I slowly approached the treasure, checking my surroundings for any change with every step. As if this trap weren't obvious enough, the treasure was attached to a chain! Too. Easy. I attacked the treasure chest a few times and quickly rolled back, ready to dodge anything ready to counter-attack. Nothing... yet. I opened the treasure and rolled back again! HA! ...nothing still. So I took what was inside and ran. Ha! I got away! ....wait... nothing is coming for me... I didn't get attacked. I didn't lose any health. I didn't get poisoned. Nothing.
That's right, there was absolutely nothing there. I was being hyper-alert and cautious for nothing. I couldn't help but laugh. Dark Souls had used everything I had learned about being hyper-aware and alert against me, and I fell for it hook, line and sinker. This is the kind of humor I can get behind because it all relies on me setting myself up, really. Good job, Souls, good job. Let's move on....
Listen, I love lore and I'm willing to do some work to find it. I've spent a ton of time watching cutscene supercuts of games and delving into wikis for long amounts of times just to learn all about lore of games that I haven't even played. I get into it. The intro to this game and everything that has followed up until the start of day five's session didn't really do much for me. The only piece of lore that I found intriguing was learning that a Dragon had betrayed all of the other Dragons. I tried reading items and talking to NPCs but there was nothing that caught my attention. Well okay, maybe the guy that was trapped in the church and an item description about someone being locked up. But nothing has really come together for me. Well someone's dead now and that certain someone being dead means I can't rest at a very important bonfire, damn it! And there's some lay praying to the pots? What the hell is going on?
The story is picking up in this world that I've already spent a lot of time in. Stuff is happening in what feels like the place I've been calling home and I need to know what is going on. So I'm intrigued and in a game like this, I want to know the deep lore. I'll admit, I started reading the backstory, not knowing what is a spoiler and what isn't, but you know what, I'm not really worried about that and I'll tell you why. In a world where I'm not understanding what exactly has happened and what is going on, finding out the backstory of the people I have been killing and talking to has made EVERYTHING a lot more interesting, in a retroactive way. Even if some story beats do get spoiled, knowing about the people and places I encounter and not having ah-ha moments is still more fun than not know what's going on AT ALL. Plus, I'm sure there's some narrative and explanations I've already missed. Spoilers. No spoilers. It's all about having fun! There's a fun lore deep in this game and I'll have to try a bit harder to find it.
Lesson #13: If you're not getting many story beats, you're probably not trying hard enough.
So that's that for Day 5. Another boss and area down, and some events are actually unfolding in the world. We've also got a new weapon we're going to start using now that the Laito is reinforced. We jumped up about 50 points of attack power if I recall correctly, so the next session should be quite an experience. I can tell these blogs may be dipping in quality but it can be hard for me to keep writing about the same game every week, especially when I do it on my first day off. I'm not too sure how much longer the blog will be updated on a weekly basis but I'm not making any promises. No death compilation this week either because there just weren't many at all. Thanks for watching and reading, and join me next time!
The archives of the full run are only temporary on twitch so they are indefinitely archived on YouTube as well. Included in my channel are most attempts at the boss fights (thus far) and larger enemies, and highlights. I’ll most likely be including death compilations only in these blogs and will make a full death compilation available on my page once I finish the game. Below are the links to my pages if you want to subscribe and follow along.
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtJjnxQwdCO6L2FbmytTGqA
Twitch Channel: http://www.twitch.tv/flashflood_29/
Thank you for reading and watching!
*Blog 1 (Day 1 and Streaming) - http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/flashflood_29/blog/dark-souls-day-1-and-streaming-highlights-included/112403/
*Blog 2 (Days 2 and 3) - http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/flashflood_29/blog/dark-souls-day-2-and-3-first-full-run-w-highlights/112488/
*Blog 3 (Day 4) - http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/flashflood_29/blog/dark-souls-day-4-first-full-run-pvp-and-boss-desig/112549/
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