Load Our Last Save: Load Our Last Souls: Part 04

I find it somehow ominous how the headline trails off into dots to reveal...Iron Flesh.

Papa Souls

Good job Vinny, two bosses down in one episode. Load Our Last Souls might be shorter than I'd previously expected.

The same boss in DS can be tough as nails or easy as shit ... it all depends in what shape you arrive there, both equipment- and level-wise. Vinny is overpowered but that's also a valid way of playing DS. And it's actually pretty easy to become overpowered now after the increased amount of souls in the latest versions of the game. Chances are, if you played vanilla DS and stopped because you got frustrated with a boss fight, if you played the game now, you'd arrive at the same boss much stronger and would have less trouble with him.

"Am I done?"

Well, all that Vinny has left is the worst part of the game. Lost Izalith.

I never heard this in the video but when you randomly get an extra Estus Flask it means that in another world the bonfire you were near was kindled by someone.

I wish my first encounter with the 4 Kings went so smoothly... I had to buff my thief character with Power Within and rush in with my Painting Guardian Sword while performing crazy acrobatics to avoid their attacks. Definitely wasn't easy!

Although they had no real chance against a bona fide knight!

Keep 'em comin'

Still great, but the summoning of the phantoms kinda soured it for me a bit.

@drgreatjob: Ive beaten dark souls twice (with the secret story) and the DLC, and read quite a bit. I can at least confirm 100% of the misinformation I spout in these videos is genuine misinformation. Dark souls has so many weird mechanics that its easy to get stuff confused, and wrong.

Sorry if people find that frustrating, but Dark Souls doesn't exactly do much for you to make it clear how certain mechanics work.

I found that really weird. That should have been a fun moment.

I guess since Rorie had mostly played on PC, where plenty of people use cheating programs to boost their characters to a ridiculous degree and just invade other people's games to ruin their experience, he'd come to the conclusion that it'd be useless to even try to fight as there's no chance to win, nor any fun to even do his best against an overwhelmingly powerful opponent. I don't think the cheating issues are as prevalent on consoles though, so Vinny may actually have had a fighting chance. It's sad that Rorie discouraged him from even trying, but I can see the reason Rorie did so.

Rorie "You're a ..." retort count: 7

Best feature ever

Epic episode, guys. Greatly enjoying this feature. Great way to see the game without having to play it. Increasing my interest in getting Dark Souls 2 when it comes out. Glad Vinny is the one playing this even when he sometimes rushes into battle at the worst times for a game like this. Glad I watch the archived version so I don't miss a thing. Hope you get your streaming stuff working better soon. Rorie does a good job of checking the chat for hints and pointers as to what's going on.

YEAH VINNY, YOU DID IT!

I would not have showed the path if I knew they were going to extend by 30 minutes.

The key word is 'think'. It's like saying "If I recall correctly.." because you may recall incorrectly.

It's too bad they didn't get to save Sieglinde, she's one of my favorite characters. I hope they at least run into Solaire when they get to Izalith, since he is kind of out of the way and easy to miss.

Also in a game filled with misinformation it seems strange that he gets so worked up about it. Also who gives a fuck? There's a lot of information in this game and not everyone has time to research everything about this game.

So, I played this on release and hated it, I tried playing PC version this week and it seems waaaaaaay easier. Like, I just beat Quelaag and I've died like 3 times. Granted, now I know where to go (I got to Anor Londo before I just couldn't stand the game anymore) but it shouldn't be THAT much easier. Seems like enemies don't aggro from nearly as far away, either.

Also maybe 90% of the game's challenge was from the awful framerate. Hard to tell.

I dunno, I just decided to try it again after seeing Vinny flail around and somehow succeed (I hope in this vid he finally figures out the range of his halberd) and wondering if the game was nerfed. I still think, for the most part, it's horribly designed, and the open world decision was a terrible one. When I realized after beating Quelaag I had to trudge back to firelink I remembered why I hated the game all over again. Well, and all the super arcane shit like covenants and whatever.

God damn I loved Demon's Souls, though. I really hope Darker Souls can bring back that magic.

I liked that some guys were summoned and helped Vinny. They got to feel awesome, Vinny got an easier and better time of it. Win - win. Or should I say Vin - Vin?

Huh. I assumed that when the stream went down they'd just call it so I stopped waiting around for it. Instead they went another 45 minutes.

Loved this episode! This is easily my favourite feature on the site right now. Disabling the livechat is always the first thing I do though.

JOLLY COOPERATION!

Dunno what Ian is talking about, super heavy armor is like... THE way to fight Four Kings

As someone who was constantly invaded toward the end of my first character, I saw that first invasion coming from a mile away. Never waste time when you need to kindle a bonfire!

Thy actually did kinda "nerf" the game since the vanilla version. The amount of souls you get from enemies and bosses was heavily increased with various patches. In vanilla DS, certain enemies wouldn't give you souls at all. I think they went a little too far with it the soul-amount increase though.

I don't get the "horribly designed" part btw. I loved the connected world and going from Queelag to Firelink is super quick due to the shortcut (and halfway through the game you get the ability to warp... it's all much better than the constant and long loading times in Demon's Souls). I played Demon's Souls after Dark Souls at quite frankly didn't like it nearly as much.

Go that way!

I'm not gonna tell you anything.

This continues to be super.

When the stream cuts out that way, as it often does during GB streams, the twitch player rarely starts playing automatically once they come back, you generally just have to mash the play/pause button until something happens (or wait until the chat says it's back).

My main playthrough on PC is a high-dex dodging rolling Silver Knight Spear-wielding hole-poker. I'm very deliberate, observant, and patient. I've soloed every boss so far, sometimes on first go (Sif, Ceaseless Discharge, Centipede Demon, Sanctuary Guardian, others).

So when I got to Four Kings, this boss was destroying me. It's like the encounter was designed specifically to show the flaws in my playstyle. After 6 attempts, I had to Havel up and tank, VinnCo style.

I play on PC and the only hacker I've ever seen was one who somehow summoned himself into my game as a white phantom, then proceeded to buff me and spam encouraging emotes. It was pretty funny, actually. I googled his name and he's apparently well-known for doing this, but it was a while ago so I don't recall the name.

Real invaders have been quite evenly matched and non-hacked. I love to sit at the bonfire in Oolacile Township and battle the invader train.

I enjoy watching this so much more than playing it myself...

So why the boar helm? I'm just a little behind Vinny but the extra Stamina recharge from the creepy face seems like a much better item unless I'm missing something?

"Fide-y"

I know, but I didn't want to wait around because I assumed they'd just call it soon anyway after the boss.

It's about the journey, not the destination :)

This is becoming a favorite feature of mine.

Shoulda been. Another cool thing killed by Rorie.

This invasion shit is annoying. Go away.

It has better defense, and is an awesome metal boar head.

And I'm not sure that the recharge rate of the mask is going to help offset the recharge penalty that he's going to have from wearing full Havel.

Geez congrats Vinny! Way to go on Seath and on the Four Kings. That was so great to watch! =)

@cptbedlam: The level design tends to pull you in the wrong direction. It places landmarks in areas you're not supposed to go, and often obfuscates the actual path you should take. Also the way things connect just doesn't make a whole lot of sense most of the time. It's hard to explain. I also felt that the singular levels in Demon's made for a more concise challenge, if that makes any sense?

I did look at patch notes now, and it seems like aggro range was indeed reduced, as well as a lot of other nerfs. Maybe this was to compensate for them taking out those soul-multiplying glitches or something?

Whatever, I picked it up again because watching these videos (where Vin basically starts where I left off, except for Anor Londo), the areas reminded me a lot more of Demon's. But man, fuck this stair-rotating shit.

Also it doesn't help that the mega-fans of Dark Souls who are apparently solely obsessed with HOW TOTALLY HARD IT IS MAN are the worst people, worse than Dota fans.

@ltsquigs: You don't need to explain yourself man. You're doing something cool for peoples entertainment, who cares if you're not 100% correct all the time, like Random-Internet-Guy? Try to let it go over your head.

JEEEEZ guys, stop worrying about telling Vinny stuff, and just tell something or don't, it doesn't really matter. All this worrywarting Rorie does after anything Ian says gets on my nerves.

EDIT:

@rorie You are at least partially responsible for those fucking Cazadors? The thing that was partially responsible for me never finishing New Vegas? Shame on you.

I remember trying to get through some cave because a bunch of my quests were on the other side of some mountain or something. And it was full of Cazadors that killed in a few hits, and if not that - poisoned you damn quickly. So I just put the game away for a bit. Afterwards I didn't have time to play for a month or so, never got back in.

Never finished that game.