Hello Giant Bombers, I'm writing this as a tool that hopefully will be read by those who might be turned off by Ryan and Jeff's opinions on Dark Souls and to see what the game is like for me, someone who didn't play Demon Souls, but learned how to operate in the Dark Souls world and have a great time.
*I am NOT a Demon Souls fanboy, never played it, no ps3. I am not defending a game simply because I like it, I take Jeff and Ryan into consideration with most game purchases and I just think that some of their base opinions (yes, calm down) swayed a little bit too far in the cast, a rare occurrence in the beautiful weekly cast. (castlevania was a good game though)
This may be a weird layout because I don't post my thoughts often, but I'll break the game down a bit.
1) Mentality Shift
This game does not tell you that you are not ready for an area. The game will not tell you that you need fire to kill an enemy. The game will not tell you to run. You need to adapt in order to understand the way this game is played. Master the small things and learn the big things and quickly you will see in the 3 hours that the big are small.
It is okay to use a guide to stop the one time death fighting level 40 mobs at level 1 at the beginning of the game, if that's your thing. Me, I just understood that when I hit a skeleton for 1/100th of his life, its time to go. This happens usually after each major area you accomplish, so realize where the difficulty is too much for your character, its relatively easy to see how much damage you do to the enemies.
Fights ARE avoidable if you are unprepared, even in areas you THOUGHT you can handle. If the game gives you an item before a massive enemy, and you just run up swing your sword and get rocked. . . .
Sometimes, there are just badass monsters chillin the the 'lowbie' zones. Learn who they are and what they look like and how to not attack them or this will be a no souls for you situation, the game never throws you at a brick wall in the pre 15 hour mark.
There is usually more than 1 way around everything. This game is littered with help, tips, secrets, passages, and u can sprint really damn fast. There is usually a way around.
2) Controls/Enemy Placement/Group Attacks:
Dark Souls hosts a very unique control scheme that gives you complete control over the flow of a battle. You've seen how the block(and or roll) mechanic is key and mastering the regeneration of your stamina is taught to you very early on when you need to choose between swinging or quickly saving for a block. What they neglected to discuss was Invincibility during Parry attacks. Also in the early game, when you meet the spear wielding skeletons you learn the emphasis of timing and parry attacks. When a group of 5 mobs attacks you, parry the first and watch as 4 skeletons are poking at you as you murder their buddy while regaining stamina for the next block or fire turd thats aimed for your face. Honestly though, these group attacks are usually avoidable and you can brainpower your way to fighting 2 or 3 at a time.
Learn from your mistakes or die often. If the enemy can parry your quick attack and kill you in one hit, don't quick attack him. Just a little tip by the way, i've found the jumping forward attack to be incredibly useful in many, many situations, experiment will all of your attacks and positioning. I suffered a few death runs to shitty monsters who I usually beat because I played cocky, too close, and got murdered. But with jump attacks, rolling back, and repeating, you put the enemy in your death zone and they actually get scared of you. This being said, what they don't tell you is the reason why the game gives you 100 different weapons is that different weapons are good against specific enemies, good to play around alot-it is a game after all.
3) Gotta go but might finish this later just wanted to say something about 'fuck i lost my 20000 souls'
It matters, but it doesn't. This game is an exercise in learning not in loot whoring, death counting or complaining. What is more important than losing the 20000 souls or the humanities or the anything is the learning from it. Your character will never die forever, he will remain on your console waiting for you to dust him off 5 years from now to make him a deadly warrior god regardless if u have 1000000 souls banked or none. All that you have to do is use what the game gives you, which is a lot more than the bombcasters seem to know and read between the lines to complete something truely old school and fulfilling.
CHECK everywhere, map or no map your brain as the power to remember this relatively tiny world every passage and corridor, and there are many secrets that I would consider to be...not..optional...
Happy Gamings,
Log in to comment