We're Playing Dark Souls Too! - Part 03

YAY! MORE SOULS

Shrine of Amana came to be one of my favorite places in the game (great place to farm Twinkling Titanite). It isn't so bad...just switch to a shield that blocks magic DMG.

Could it be from having hundreds of stuff in the inventory? I kept mine cleaned out and never noticed any UI lag at all.

Yeah. Y...yeah.

@vinny You really need to upgrade your weapons. I was used a +10 Bastard Sword and a +6 Mace when I got to this area and they served me pretty well. Also, that Mastodon Greatsword is my new jam, at +10 it scales A with strength.

Finally, near those two crossbow guys (before the throne room with the Queen) there is a ladder leading to a hidden bonfire.

Are these the total deaths for the PS3 or do these take into account 360 as well? My gut says the former but I can't be so sure.

@pyrodactyl: Oh I know, that frog-like boss in Shrine of Amano(Amana??) I summoned a guy for that fight and he had lightning spears. Dood took that boss out by himself in like 10 seconds.

Iron keep killed my desire to finish the game.

not sure why vinny is having such a hard time with the sentinels. my +10 mace didn't have much trouble with them..

This.

There is probably no area in the entire series that is as overstated to be extremely hard as Shrine of Amana. That place is not that difficult. Only if you refuse to learn will you get stuck there. All builds have access to some type of ranged attack. And even so, you can do it with pure melee as well if you want. You just need to figure out a good route and execute systematically.

That rusty water Vinny fell into is powerful enough to break all his armor, but has no effect on his flesh.

@turboman 38:00 minutes in

I feel like this game loses a lot of steam after Undead Crypt, I had to really push myself to beat it after that. Iron Keep and Shrine of Amana can definitely be roadblocks depending on who you ask, this game has a huge boner for ranged encounters and having to fight multiple enemies at once. Add to that the changes to Poise and it's easy to see how heavy melee builds can struggle.

It's a shame the gang probably won't ever touch NG+ at this rate, there's all kinds of new drops, enemies, and boss changes. But hopefully this feature isn't completely lost to the wind.

For all the talk of the zeitgeist around the series, turns out it's mostly been bitching about PvP, debate over ADP, and lamenting how much better the previous games were in various aspects. Maybe it just needs more time to sink in.

@getz: thanks

I'm sure Diablo and Infamous are fine games, but goddamn I can't play anything else other than DS2 right now.

I don't know man, I've done at least 6 bosses with melee, including that one, on first go solo. Whilst I can say that quite smugly, it is interesting how everyone has a completely different experience with the game. I just kept it simple, real simple. I trucked with the broadsword I started with for 75% of the game without delving into the advanced weapons and did not suffer. Deceptive!

I'm finally at a point where I'm finding it too hard but I thought most of the game was an alarming breeze by souls standards... Which I should be grateful for.

@vinny You're probably past that boss by now, but you missed a bonfire right before the fog door. Left of the first crossbow guy you encounter, there's a ladder going down and then an illusory wall with a bonfire.

@vinny I didn't catch how upgraded your weapon was, but you're getting to a point in the game where you get something you like to +10. Since you don't have any points in Faith or Intelligence, I'd say it's not worth Imbuing your weapon with Lightning or Fire (since those scale with Faith adn Intelligence). You're better off finding a weapon that has high Strength scaling and just get it to +10. Good luck!

Also, the reason you're missing with that overhead Ultra Greatsword attack might be because you're pointing the left stick AWAY from the enemy. You're actually aiming your attack with the left stick when you attack, even if you're locked on. I learned that the hard way a few times too.

Because that's a Strike weapon and it's more effective against them. I hate how overpowered Strike is in this game. It's lame. It's why on that speed run the dude just dual wielded Great Clubs and wrecked shit.

Also I'm not sure why Patrick and Vinny had issues with Iron Keep. It's really not that bad. Annoying in some spots, for sure but it's not awful.

@kishinfoulux: I've been wondering that as well. Iron Keep isn't harder than any of the other area's I don't think. I do think Smelter Demon is one of those bosses that you need to figure out. But once you do, he's pretty easy. In fact, I ended up defeating him without taking damage from his strikes. I forget the name of the greater demon there, but I defeated him first try. He telegraphs his attacks like 10x as much as any other enemy in the game.

I couldn't stand the fat rolling in this game. I always had my equip under 70% so I could roll out of danger if needed. That and a +10 mace kind of trivialized a lot of the late game enemies. The Iron Keep was pretty simple with the exception of the boss with my build.

I am kind of questioning this, also. But the character models and such may balance that out. But I think it deserves more of an answer than, 'we's here for the gameplay, not the looks'. I was at least expecting a significant better looking game than DS, although they can only do so much. So I wait with qualified expectations (not too much!) for the PC port. Demon Souls is enough for right now.

Tried popping her with an arrow nothing happens :(

@ethanielrain: I kept mine clean as well. There are just known bugs with the PS3 version regarding input lag. I wasn't trying to be dismissive when I said you're lucky if it's not happening - I really do mean you're lucky. I've had times where I stand there pressing start for minutes before the menu will open (which I have heard from other people with a similar issue that jumping may fix it).

I've heard speculation that it could be due to server sync and/or autosaving - the game preventing me from accessing my menu and doing something that could corrupt either of those. It may just come down how the PS3 version handles assets or saves or syncs or something else entirely.

You made the right choice. Infamous is lifeless and the main character is a twat.

This, pick the weapon you are most comfortable with and get it to +10 (assuming it doesn't require twinkling titanite). I am using a large club and it makes armored enemies (which seem to be most enemies) into a pretty trivial thing.

I was rocking the Black Knight Halberd for pretty much the whole game, I loved it, great reach on it plus fire damage.

Can you legitimately play as a caster in this?

That death at 38:45 may be the most deserved death ever. He was just asking for it.

Considering she's the final boss that makes sense.

All the way through? probably not; it is a good idea to switch to your weapons to kill weaker enemies. You can make your weapons deal damage based on your INT or FAITH or whatever so its not as bad. I`m not sure what you define as a legitimate caster but you will probably run out of spell casts before you kill a boss (Initially anyways). After a certain point its pretty possible to kill stuff just with casts however.

The real problem Vinny is having is he is not upgrading weapons, +1 or +2 stuff just isn't cutting it, and a +0 weapon is naturally going to not do very well.

Alright this is convincing enough to tell me that only incredibly stupid people who played Dark Souls for hundreds of hours and have absolutely no common sense are saying this game is easier.

yep. spell dmg is crazy. dark dmg type is awesome in this game. you will want to switch out to a fast weapon and a shield for some areas. You can summon NPCs to help with some of the tougher bosses for solo casters. Just be human form at the fog door and look around for the NPC summon sign.

@fredchuckdave: I didn't play for hours but I do think several things are easier - or more accessible anyway. Combat has gotten worse in that the delay between shielding and striking is a little absurd at times. Of course now there's a whole contingent of people claiming that only idiots play with a shield and dual wielding is where it's at. Whatever, the series was built upon shielding I don't care whatever people say and there are enemies with wide strikes that hit low to the ground and rolling simply doesn't work.

Getting souls is easier. Level requirements are lower and bonfires are more frequent. Being able to warp between them is just common sense so that's a return to proper form.

Bosses also haven't been overwhelmingly difficult. Overall as a non insane person that beat Demons Souls twice and Dark souls reluctantly once, I say this is somewhat easier than both of the previous entries in the franchise.

Wow. I want to enjoy any videogame as much as Vinny has enjoyed the souls series.

Oh man, is there a gif somewhere of Vinny's character giving the thumbs up as he dies in the acid pit? that was hilarious.

Boy the comments devolve into a wiki fast.

What is the name of the golden armored spearmen? They have a great design.

The true way to play is to use Havel's armor and have 64 in Vitality so you can fast roll. That's what I did!

Pfft, you don't even need that much with a few certain rings.

@wsgexe: The big ones? Sentinels. I believe Ruin Sentinels fully, but it could just be the ones that are located elsewhere.

I haven't found any equip load increasing rings. Even if I did, I like the rings I have equipped as it is.

Haha wow why would you be over 70% encumbrance? Seems like it makes the game so hard, I just roll whenever I see an attack animation. The difference in damage in TINY, seriously armour isn't very useful, its all about dodging and having high DPS.

I don't want to say you are playing wrong, but you are making the game very boring and very hard.

EDIT: You NEED to upgrade weapons also, my +10 varagian sword is very fast and did about 3x the damage of vinny and was about 10x the speed.

One day it shall continue.

Gotta agree with those who found the end a slog - pretty much after the journey to the castle and excepting a certain rope-bridge heavy area I found my interest waining and the slog beginning.

Was inspired by the video to finish off the last couple of bosses with my dual wielded black knight and mastadon great swords and it just wasn't that interesting. Good to have another Souls game but overall didn't feel as involved as I had with the other two.

Though the multi-player was MUCH better for me this game.

Mind you, I will concede that running around dual-wielding +5 Demon Great Hammers was fun :D

@pkmango7: I think it's literally just because of how much the game starts punishing melee builds. I'd imagine that's the most popular play style (it's how I play) so whole swaths of the game become a chore. I started using a greatbow near the end (especially in Amana) because I got so frustrated with how often it was favoring ranged play styles. I thought Dark Souls struck a much better balance with that aspect, and I liked Lordran a lot more than Drangleic. Some incredible sections here, but overall, Lordran relied less on dark, poisonous, Blighttown/Valley of Defilement-esque areas, whereas that's every third area in Drangleic, seemingly. Plus, I just loved how connected everything was in Lordran as opposed to the more Boletaria-style splintering of Drangleic.

I will say, Drangleic had a lot more secrets and "oh shit" moments in figuring out where to go next than Lordran did though, and I really did like that. I felt like I really needed to pay attention and explore everything and read everything or else I might miss where to go next and have no idea what to do.

Dark Souls II is really good, but between the two, Dark Souls is my favorite.