We're a bit late to the party on Dark Souls, but we decided to document our quest for bell #2. I am really quite loving this game, and I think Matt is enjoying it too, despite his audible wondering as to why I'm even playing this crazy thing. Sometimes I wonder too though.

Is this game genuinely good or is it just Stockholm syndrome?

Part 2. I love those froggy guys. They kinda don't look like they belong in the game, but of course, it's Dark Souls, so appearances are deceiving.

Part 3. We fight the Gaping Dragon along with a summoned player and NPC. Man, what a crazy ass monster! I feel kinda bad that we ended up just kinda shooting arrows at it while our buddies kept it busy, but whaddya gonna do I guess. Besides, the dude that helped us prolly got a bunch of humanity right?

Part 4. Man. Blight town suuuuuuucks...

Part 5. We were pretty demoralized at the thought of trudging back into Blighttown. I don't think I've ever been this stressed out by a video game.

Part 6. This one is mostly us being lost on all the windy wooden paths. Also, arguing.

Part 7. Finally some progress! We make it to the swamp bonfire and get a new sword in the process.

Part 8. Progress continues. We start to think, hey, maybe Blighttown isn't so bad? Then we meet the guys with the boulders. Nope, it's still bad.

Part 9. I feel like an idiot after realizing the Blighttown elevator isn't as complicated as I thought. Also, those guys with the blowguns are assholes.

Part 10. Man, we've done 10 of these already? Apparently, we inadvertently cause the death of the Firekeeper in this one. Or something. Man, I dunno, Dark Souls.

Part 11. The penultimate episode, which really should have just been the ultimate episode if we weren't boneheads. Highlights: Quelaag, killing an invader and then summoning the same player, Quelaag again (with feeling), and being boneheads. I swear, we didn't do that on purpose. We honestly had no idea.

We turn around and pull the lever that was right behind us. Yep. We're dumb. That was the bell! Which means Dark Souls Adventures has come to a close. Here's the YouTube playlist if you're interested.

Final Thoughts

Making these videos was a lot of fun. Some of the best I've had in our so far short run of game video makings. I am definitely going to continue playing, though I think Matt is pretty sick of Dark Souls at this point. He has vowed sever times over the course of these videos to never, ever play it himself, and honestly? I can't really blame him.

There's something brilliant going on in the * Souls games. These are games where the acquisition of a regular, non-magical sword that's maybe a couple points better than your current one is a huge cause for celebration. This is pretty amazing in the modern RPG genre, and in modern games in general, where most devs go out of their way to reward the players fast and often. Rewards are great, but they start to lose meaning if they are too ubiquitous. I am far more attached to my Iaito in Dark Souls than any weapon I ever found in World of Warcraft, Torchlight, Borderlands, et al, because I feel like I earned it.

That said, this game is also full of some pretty solid jank that can't be denied. Obscured camera, overly complicated controls, unexplained systems, awful framerates, and a confusing localization all add more frustration on top of a game that is already very demanding of it's players. It doesn't seem fair that a game that asks 110% from you doesn't also perform at the top of it's own game.

If From Software fixed these issues, however, I can't help but feel like the experience might be diminished somehow. The jank is, inextricably, part of the game; a game that I still genuinely love despite it's flaws. Perhaps the devs, instead of being overly ambitious and not reaching their goals, are in fact evil geniuses? Perhaps From realizes that flaws make things interesting, as long as you have something likable at the core. If they don't realize that, I hope somebody out there learns from it's lesson.

Playing this game on video and sharing it with you duders and other viewers on YouTube has also been a great experience. I almost wish everyone could play the game this way. There's a huge sense of camaraderie when sharing this game and discussing it with others, as if we're all sharing war stories and displaying old wounds.

I can't wait to play more.

@idoublespy: The second part of this is going up soon, it's rendered and uploading tonight when I get home from work. I wish it was my full time job to make these stupid videos, but bills gotta get paid.

Edit: Also we do produce more videos than what I post here. I'm reluctant to post too many on Giant Bomb for fear of being marked "youtube spam."

That was pretty enjoyable, I'd definetly watch some more.

Now, I respect your decision to stay away from stuff that might spoil the experience, but I don't think that the following vague information will spoil anything for you:

• You can upgrade your healing potions with a special item.
• You should have already found one of these items by this point, in fact people who go out of their way to explore early accessible areas could have two.
• You need to bring this item to a certain character in the starting area in order to use it properly.

@idoublespy said:

I would like to see you two finish Dark Souls and have it uploaded.

We're not actually planning on finishing the whole game (well, that is at least not on video). We're ending this series with the ringing of the second bell. There are plenty of others doing full runs of this game on YouTube, and I personally get bored with 100+ video Let's Plays. I want it to have a shorter, stated goal and then move on to other games.

Commentary by you two is a little more palatable then 90% of video game quick looks.

Thanks man! That means a lot! :-)

PS. What are you using to capture Console Games? I'm very interested in doing that

We are using an Avermedia cardand FRAPS (because the encoding options in the included software are garbage for HD.) I'm a little disappointed with the quality, though I guess you get what you pay for. I've heard the Black Magic cards are significantly better, but also almost double the price. If you pick one up, let me know! I will be interested to see what you do with it.

@RockmanBionics said:

• You can upgrade your healing potions with a special item.

Would you be talking about the "Fire Keeper Soul" by any chance? I've had one hanging out in my inventory forever. Had no idea what to do with it.

• You need to bring this item to a certain character in the starting area in order to use it properly.

The Firelink Shrine area or the Undead Asylum? (can you even get back to the asylum?)

This is great!

Man though... it can be hard to watch someone else play a Souls games sometimes. The deliberate and methodic way that a person has to play a game like this makes someone like me go "But! Ah no - you should have, gah!" at almost every encounter.

As always, looking forward to future installments.

@idoublespy said:

@RockmanBionics: I would say that the early Firekeeper Soul located in New Londo Ruins can be a pain early on; so getting the Firekeeper Soul from the Chruch in Undead Parish is a sure bet.

Since I discovered it, it is the first thing I go for when starting a new character. Basically I arrive in Firelink, spend all my souls then take the elevator down and do a suicide run for it. You don't lose anything because you are not alive yet and don't carry any Humanity either.

@drevilbones said:

We're not actually planning on finishing the whole game (well, that is at least not on video). We're ending this series with the ringing of the second bell. There are plenty of others doing full runs of this game on YouTube, and I personally get bored with 100+ video Let's Plays. I want it to have a shorter, stated goal and then move on to other games.

I think that was a good choice, though if you'd later do a "Misadventures in Sen's Fortress" video, edited to show a bunch of deaths (I'm assuming :) ) like the beginnning of this first one, I wouldn't compain.

@drevilbones said:

• You need to bring this item to a certain character in the starting area in order to use it properly.

The Firelink Shrine area or the Undead Asylum? (can you even get back to the asylum?)

Since you asked, yes you can get back there once you've opened up the elevator between Undead Parish and Firelink Shrine. The path there is really obscure and going at all is completely optional, however I would still recommend it since it has two really useful items (one of which should make your journey to the second bell slightly easier) as well as an item required to enter another unique, optional zone later in the game (that just so happens to be my favorite). I should warn you though, the area has been repopulated with slightly stronger enemies.

@RockmanBionics said:

Since you asked, yes you can get back there once you've opened up the elevator between Undead Parish and Firelink Shrine.

Oh, you know what? I'm pretty sure I know what elevator you're talking about. Hmm. Perhaps we will check it out if we run into some trouble. Thanks for the tips!

@idoublespy said:

In my experience making nearly 10 characters and sinking 140 hours into this game

That is hardcore, dude! Impressive!

Holy shit, you guys. Fuck Blight Town. Like, for real.

I enjoyed your videos, you guys have a good sense of humor. You said that the guy who helped you beat the Gaping Dragon probably got a lot of humanities.....actually he only gets ONE humanity for helping you beat the boss. Also, I noticed it seems like you waste arrows, like after you've killed an enemy and there's no one to shoot at but you have your bow drawn for another shot, you go ahead and release the arrow at nothing. Instead of doing that, you can hit "right" on the d-pad and unequip your bow, then you won't release the arrow. EDIT: The very last part of your fourth video reminded me of something. Dark Souls.

@AndyD74 said:

You said that the guy who helped you beat the Gaping Dragon probably got a lot of humanities.....actually he only gets ONE humanity for helping you beat the boss.

Oh really? Man, I do feel kinda guilty now. Oh well. C'est la Dark Souls.

Also, I noticed it seems like you waste arrows.

Yeah, I make a lot of dumb mistakes in this game that I shouldn't. I know about putting away the bow without shooting, I just always forget in the heat of things. Either that, or too many hours of Oblivion...

Dark Souls.

sigh... Dark Souls...

Hah, I knew it! You've played Oblivion. That used to piss me off so much. How hard is it to make it where I can put away my arrow without having to shoot it?

@idoublespy: I think @AndyD74 is responding to my comment on wasting arrows and not putting away the bow. In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, if you had an arrow knocked, you had to shoot it before you could put away your bow. I end up doing this in a lot of other games because of the ridiculous amount of time I spent playing Oblivion. So many arrows were shot directly into the dirt of Cyrodiil.

Yeah, I was responding to drevilbones on the knocked arrow dilemma of Oblivion.

Cool videos guys. Your first reaction to Blighttown was exactly the same as mine.

6th video: "Well, we're getting back to the bonfire one way or the other..." That made me lol.

@StrikeALight said:

Cool videos guys. Your first reaction to Blighttown was exactly the same as mine.

Is there any other appropriate reaction to Blighttown? Thanks for watching and the kind words!

@drevilbones: Just checking- haven't watched them all quite yet, but have you busted out the Pyromancer trainer from the start of the depths? It seems like the kind of thing that might have helped you in a few spots.

@Make_Me_Mad: No actually, we must have missed him. Where is he at?

@drevilbones: He's pretty much in the very first room, before you even reach the sewers- after you unlock the door with the key from the Capra Demon, you go down some stairs into a little open room with a lot of torch wielding undead, and two non-respawning butcher enemies. The pyromancer is trapped in a barrel in a side room- make sure you roll into the barrel to break him out, as using your sword will injure him and make him hostile to you, which would be a bummer. He heads back to Firelink, where you can talk to him to start learning some spells and things, with the basic fireball behaving like a suped-up firebomb, and combustion being a close-range option with the appealing feature of not using up stamina. Also, fire damage done by the spells will tear through those physically resistant slimes in the sewers, which means a lot less now that you're down in the swamp.

Having just got to Blight Town your series is pretty relevant to me! Also you guys seem to have a great chemistry and I loved the intro to the first video (that pun was so bad!).

Keep it up!

EDIT: Hang on a second, there's a crosshair for the arrows!?!?!? Watching someone else play is literally blowing my mind right now. You play so different from me! I totally didn't even know you could aim with arrows without locking on, how on earth do you do that? And I didn't know either you could thrust with swords. I knew there was a thrusting stat but I have no idea how to execute it... Or is it specific to that particular sword?

I spent the entire month of October playing Dark souls. I haven't played it in two and a half months since yesterday. I started a brand new game yesterday and rang the 2nd bell in 4 hours.

@drevilbones said:

@AndyD74 said:

You said that the guy who helped you beat the Gaping Dragon probably got a lot of humanities.....actually he only gets ONE humanity for helping you beat the boss.

Oh really? Man, I do feel kinda guilty now.

Don't, he also got just as many souls as you did. It used to be that you split the souls but I heard that they changed that because people started throwing out their phantoms once the boss was defeated. Helping people out with Gaping Dragon while I was farming Large Titanite in the Depths turned out to be very profitable when I played. Being a phantom is completly without risk to your souls so once I was done I could level like 8 times or something.

@RockmanBionics: Oh, good. I will probably end up helping some people out later on when we're done with the bell and grinding out some stuff.

@Make_Me_Mad: Oh yeah, I remember that guy. Cool, I will have to track him down in Firelink and get us some fire magics. Thanks for the tips!

@Chavtheworld: You hit the button you have the bow equipped to again. (i.e. I have it on the left, so I hit L1 to ready the bow, then L1 again to zoom). You can only do it with bows, i'm pretty sure, not crossbows. Also the sword thrusting is with the little pokey sword I have, the Mail Breaker.

@kingzetta: I've started a new character also while waiting for Matt to record new episodes, and yeah, once you know an area, it's a lot quicker. We are going pretty slow and methodical with this.

@Make_Me_Mad: Oh yeah, I remember that guy. Cool, I will have to track him down in Firelink and get us some fire magics.

@Chavtheworld: You hit the button you have the bow equipped to again. (i.e. I have it on the left, so I hit L1 to ready the bow, then L1 again to zoom). You can only do it with bows, i'm pretty sure, not crossbows. Also the sword thrusting is with the little pokey sword I have, the Mail Breaker.

@kingzetta: I've started a new character also while waiting for Matt to record new episodes, and yeah, once you know an area, it's a lot quicker. We are going pretty slow and methodical with this.

@drevilbones: Just remember that you can only see the souls signs of people within 10% of your level, it's why I waited to level up until after I was done farming and had helped a bunch of people. I found the most people looking for help with Gaping Dragon when I was around lv 25, that might have changed though.

@drevilbones: Just remember that you can only see the souls signs of people within 10% of your level, it's why I waited to level up until after I was done farming and had helped a bunch of people. I found the most people looking for help with Gaping Dragon when I was around lv 25, that might have changed though.

@RockmanBionics: Oh, gotcha. I didn't know about that 10% thing. I should probably do some grinding then sooner rather than later. (It will be def off camera though in either case.)

I think the phantom gets half as much as the host when they defeat the boss, but I could be wrong. It used to be that the host had to split the souls with the phantoms, but I'm thinking now the host gets the full amount, and the phantom gets half. Can anyone confirm?

I was lmao on the 9th video when you got toxic and took the purple moss to cure it. Then you saw it didn't help and were trying to figure out how to cure it as your health was whittling away. I did the same thing my first time, and with the same end result.

@drevilbones: Thanks for the tips! Thankfully you ended up explaining the bow mechanics in the video too, I totally didn't realise that - cheers!

@AndyD74 said:

I was lmao on the 9th video when you got toxic and took the purple moss to cure it. Then you saw it didn't help and were trying to figure out how to cure it as your health was whittling away. I did the same thing my first time, and with the same end result.

I also also did the exact same thing, and panicked like crazy till I just used a homeward bone so I didn't lose my ~10,000 souls.

I don't know if you realised by now, but that phantom which invaded (and you guys later summoned) was actually a NPC.

And good job with the spider witch!

@StrikeALight said:

I don't know if you realised by now, but that phantom which invaded (and you guys later summoned) was actually a NPC.

And good job with the spider witch!

Oh really?? How can you tell? I had no idea the game even did that. So many surprises in this game!

Can't wait for the next episode. Are you guys going to stop once you ring the second bell? I would love to see more of it.

Hey duders I have a question. I just got the Iaito as drevilbones did in his playthrough. I'm a dex build and I'm at a crossroads now. Should I upgrade my Iaito to +15 raw or get the lightning upgrade? I'm asking this because I don't know if I should keep spending points in dex or vit and end during the rest of my playthrough. I'm planing on going NG+ obviously. My research so far says I should go +15 due to dex A scaling... My question is wich one does more damage? A +15 Iaito with 40 dex or the lightning upgraded iaito?

heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell yea updates.

@Deusx said:

Can't wait for the next episode. Are you guys going to stop once you ring the second bell? I would love to see more of it.

Yeah, after we ring that bell, that's it. We might do a "check in" later on? We'll have another "Adventures" series soon enough though.

Do you know that when you use an estus you will also heal the phantoms you summoned? That guy was very low on health for a while there on Quelaag, and was saved only because you decided to heal yourself. It's extremely frustrating to help someone with a boss, and then they don't heal you when necessary.

EDIT: A phantom cannot use estus themselves, they rely on you to heal them

You guys have pleasant voices for video's like this, I enjoyed watching that last one.

@drevilbones said:

@Deusx said:

Can't wait for the next episode. Are you guys going to stop once you ring the second bell? I would love to see more of it.

Yeah, after we ring that bell, that's it. We might do a "check in" later on? We'll have another "Adventures" series soon enough though.

Nice, you guys should do Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning! I played the demo and fell in love with that game.

@jozzy said:

Do you know that when you use an estus you will also heal the phantoms you summoned? That guy was very low on health for a while there on Quelaag, and was saved only because you decided to heal yourself. It's extremely frustrating to help someone with a boss, and then they don't heal you when necessary.

I actually knew that, which makes me even more of an asshole that I wasn't paying attention. I publicly apologize to that player. xXMUVIXx, if you ever find this, I apologize for that dick move, and also thank you for the help!

@Deusx said:

Nice, you guys should do Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning! I played the demo and fell in love with that game.

I was thinking about that. I also enjoyed the demo, so I will prolly be picking it up and doing at least a single vid on it if nothing else.

@drevilbones said:

@StrikeALight said:

I don't know if you realised by now, but that phantom which invaded (and you guys later summoned) was actually a NPC.

And good job with the spider witch!

Oh really?? How can you tell? I had no idea the game even did that. So many surprises in this game!

You can usually tell by their name and behaviour, you don't actually see character names but peoples PSN ID's/Gamertags when playing, that's why there are so many guys with X'es or numbers in their name and whatnot. Also the golden summoning signs are sunbros, people or NPC's that are in the Warriors of Sunlight covenant. The Covenant is focused on co-op between players and defeating a boss with one in your party gets you a Sun Medallion.

NPC invaders always invade at the same spot in a level, the reason you didn't encounter her until now is because you need to be alive for them to invade. Defeating them usually unlocks something, like a corpse with their armor will appear somewhere in the world, in this case it made Maneater Mildred available for summoning at the boss, lucky you!

Not quite so lucky was that you didn't pick up her Humanity and the weapon that she dropped when you killed her :(

@RockmanBionics said:

Not quite so lucky was that you didn't pick up her Humanity and the weapon that she dropped when you killed her :(

Yeah, I didn't realize that either until I was editing. Pretty much all of part 11 is The Bonehead Show starring the boneheads. We did a lot of dumb stuff. In our defense, we had also been drinking, so I'm just going to blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alchohol.

Thanks for clearing up the stuff about the summons! How exactly does one join these "sunbros?"

@drevilbones said:

@jozzy said:

Do you know that when you use an estus you will also heal the phantoms you summoned? That guy was very low on health for a while there on Quelaag, and was saved only because you decided to heal yourself. It's extremely frustrating to help someone with a boss, and then they don't heal you when necessary.

I actually knew that, which makes me even more of an asshole that I wasn't paying attention. I publicly apologize to that player. xXMUVIXx, if you ever find this, I apologize for that dick move, and also thank you for the help!

Ha, in your defense, it was one of those [xX<insert awesome username here>Xx] guys. Anyway, it was just some personal frustration for those times when I got summoned and spend minutes half dead, frantically trying to stay alive while the host continued to ignore me.