Another two days are in the books for my first full Dark Souls run and I'm here to tell you all about it! Our last day left us off at the blacksmith after we managed to ring the first bell. We didn't die too much that day but days two and three turned out a little different. Dark Souls started showing its true colors and challenge but we managed to make the best of our situations and power through. I decided to keep streaming because of the fun I had the first day and some new viewers joined us during these sessions. Before we start off, let's recap the lessons we learned from day 1!
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.
And here is the highlight video.
Day 2
After talking to the knight in front of a locked gate, we started out session by facing the Prowling Demon near the blacksmith. The first step was to analyze his moveset before trying to take him down. His ranged lightning strikes were easy enough to dodge but the long sweeping physical attacks proved to be dangerous, and could easily rush our life bar down. Being able to easily recover our lost souls meant there wasn’t much at stake, though, and that made the encounter feel less threatening. Each death led to some new revelations and I finally felt comfortable going for the kill.
During the final fight, the Demon used a jumping attack that we kept trying to roll away from. At some point, I accidentally blocked that particular attack with my shield which was something I did not expect to be able to do.
Lesson #5: Do not handicap your tactics based on your assumptions that something will or will not work.
There was also something quite amazing that happened during this fight, which can be found early in my highlights video. After inadvertently luring the Demon to the top of the small staircase, I began fighting him from a lower position to give myself room to retreat, rather than being backed up against a wall. From the top of the stairs, nearly none of the Prowling Demon’s attacks reached my lower position; he attacked as if we were both still on flat ground. This meant that most of his attacks were not making contact with my hitbox. At this point, the rest of the fight was cheese. Lesson #?: No matter how well the design, a video game is still a video game and can be taken advantage of.
We spent the rest of our day in the Darkroot Garden where we first encountered Demonic Foliage, Giant Stone Knights, and a couple of odd trees that kept making weird noises /spoiler(Possessed Trees)/spoiler. We wandered around the area, collected some treasures and the next thing we know, that crazy tree was moving on its own, revealing a hidden path. More treasures were had. This was a fairly uneventful area but still, as always, there should be lessons to take away from our time. Here, our lesson came from being outnumbered and slowed by a spell, which led to our death. If we catch ourselves in a situation where our chances of success are very low then we should retreat, and re-engage when we have the advantage. In this case, if we were slowed we should have hunkered down and focused solely on surviving until the slowing de-buff would wear off. We also used the difference in the Foliage and Knight’s speed to separate them and take them on almost individually.
Lesson #6: Fight on your terms.
The Moonlight Butterfly was the boss of the area and the fight was straight forward in terms of mechanics. It flies around throwing projectiles at us and then occasionally gives us free hits. The difficulty here came down to learning how to properly dodge the attacks. After adjusting our equipment to maximum magic resistance and using the environment to our advantage, we took down the Moonlight Butterfly and called it a night.
Day 3
Day three started out with some exploring to make sure we were thorough in the Darkroot Garden. As we started backtracking we found a new path and took down another Black Knight. After lighting a new bonfire, we encountered the Hydra, and we got frustrated at the Hydra, and we got frustrated at the Hydra, and we got frustrated at the…. We decided to take a break and it payed off. Taking down Haval and opening some new shortcuts not only meant we had farmed up souls and increased our level, but it also meant we got some sweet new items.
Lesson #7: Explore new areas if you feel that you are stuck.
But this is Dark Souls and that means we can’t run away from all of our problems. It was time to head back to the Hydra and figure out a plan of attack. After countless attempts at slowly approaching it and chats help, I remembered that his attack bypasses over my head as long as I get close enough. Using the environment to my advantage as seen in the highlight video, I was able to rush towards the Hydra and outlast his physical attacks for the win.
Lesson #8: Use the environment to your advantage.
The next area gave us more goodies but after some ambushes of strong enemies we had to fall back again. A golden golem fell to us and we rescued a princess which chat helpfully pointed out was part of the DLC, and that I didn’t have to worry about her or that area for now. Again, this is another way streaming makes the experience more enjoyable: the chat helps me understand when I should and should not worry about things, without spoiling any part of the game, or giving me too much guidance. Essentially this just keeps my anxieties and frustrations about the unknown in check.
Since we could not go forward, the only way to go was back. We unlocked shortcuts, went to Lower Undead Burg, and thwarted more ambushes. We seemed super over-leveled for this area and found ourselves at a fog door. While waiting to be summoned at the fog door to practice against the Capra Demon, we made our way to some treasure guarded by weak looking enemies wielding torches. I had underestimated them and became careless when I engaged them. It took only one flurry from a single Hollow to rush my health down almost completely.
Lesson #9: never underestimate enemies; every enemy deserves full attention and stratagem.
After devising a plan for the Capra Demon, I took him on myself. The strategy was simple, walk up the stairs and onto the ledge where he didn’t seem to fit on, where we could take out his pets and then single him out. We were wrong; boy were we wrong. After rushing onto the ledge, he and his pets trapped us in the corner and whooped us for a good long while. I kept defending hoping he would fall but that definitely didn’t work. I’m not sure why I had spent so much time stuck in that position rather than just simply jumping down. After wasting so many Estus flasks in that crappy situation, I managed to defeat the Demon’s minions and then him quickly after.
Lesson #10: Don’t keep doing the same thing expecting different results… Yeah yeah, I should have been smarter than that.
So that wraps up Day 2 and 3 of our stream. Mistakes were made and lessons were learned, but in the end we came out victorious! Deaths were much more common and I had become much more frustrated during these sessions, but my infatuation with the game only kept increasing. No matter how frustrating a section of the game gets, the draw for that patented Souls feeling of accomplishment keeps us going, as I’m sure it does every player that has beaten this game. Streaming was just as enjoyable as the first time as some new viewers stumbled into the stream, and stuck around. It’s always fun to interact with people that have beaten the game already because everyone brings new insight and points of view into the mix. Well, I’m already itching to get back into the game and keep going, because I know there’s a second bell that needs to be run, so stay tuned for more Dark Souls! And as always thanks for reading. Here's a death compilation for your pleasure!
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), most encounters with 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/
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