Okay so

@justin258 said:

@joms5 said:

@mgalchemist said:

Dude, get ready for the boss fight of your life.

You fucking said it.

Holy shit. I really hope this is the hardest boss in the game because it's defeated me for the night. Been playing for about 2 hours straight and I can say without 100% absolute certainty that this fight is BS. Any before you say "git gud", let me explain.

First, I am going with the strategy to kill Ornstein first because killing Slough first is damned impossible. I have no problem killing Ornstein. So that's not the issue. The problem is after about 20 minutes of carefully placed hits, I get to Slough who I can't get even close to, and when I do it's like a 1 hit kill. Did I mention that he gets all his health back? WTF? I haven't even got him down to 1/5th health yet. It's mainly his AOE butt slam that kills me because I just can't get away from him fast enough. When i'm not dying because of that it's any one of his other attacks. I can't block his attacks because I still take lightning damage and anytime i try to get close to him get does the butt slam.

I've given up for the night because I find myself just getting more angry and it's making all my runs worse.

Please tell me other people here pulled their hair out fighting these guys. It's bad enough that I hate games that through 2 bosses at you at the same time. But this is masochistic. HE GETS ALL HIS HEALTH BACK!!! Give me a break. I'll update if I ever beat them.

So you're still using the Battle Axe? Can you post a picture of your stats? I don't know how powerful the Battle Axe gets when it gets up to +15, but I seriously doubt it's the most powerful you could be right now. You say you've dumped a bunch of points into endurance, so you ought to have a pretty high equip load and you ought to be able to roll a lot.

Here's some shots of my current stats: (Battle Axe is actually at +14 and not 15 like i previously stated)

Gallery

I was thinking of upgrading the Black Knight sword as far as I can as it's base damage is not far off from my Battle Axe. I'm going to give it a few more tries with a level head right now. If nothing comes of it I may have to try a different weapon. Do you guys really think I should go in there without the armour? I would assume 1 or 2 hits would decimate me without much covering me.

Sorry but what is fast roll? I've got havel's ring equipped which helps but i feel as though I can't get away quick enough from the butt stomp. Perhaps i'm not fast rolling. I basically am hitting back on the A-stick and the roll button (sommersaulting backwards) some people have said that 2 backstep's is enough but that hasn't been successful yet. I'm going to try your 1 hit and walk away strat.

Those two sentences are making me want to persevere. lol

Yup. Went into New Londo rather early. Shot red robe guy with arrows till he gave chase, got scared and ran from him (slid down the ladder quickly). Only he followed me all the way down so I had to fight him. Lucky for me he got into this routine of backstepping constantly into the fireplace where the ladder was. Don't know if it was a glitch or not but I just laid into him with firebombs and that was that. Sif was a pain in the ass though. Just couldn't get the dodge timing correct.

So i'm going to try one handing them. Also take off armour. Might even try a different weapon. I'll let you guys know how it goes. :)

@joms5: Your roll is the fastest/has least amount of recovery time before you can move again if you are under 25% of your total "Equip Load." If you don't change the rings you're wearing, that means your Equip Load needs to be under 30.0 (it's above 57 right now).

The fast roll is definitely advised for the part of the fight when you've killed one and the other is superpowered.

The easiest things to shed for weight purposes are your pieces of armor. You might try keeping your chest plate and removing everything else. Conversely, you might try removing your chest plate and keeping everything else. Mix and match to your heart's content. I just recently played through this fight wearing the Gold Hemmed set + a Spider Shield.

Having less armor means you will take more damage from being hit, but if you are willing to experiment with the roll timing and learn to dodge the attacks, that won't be a problem.

EDIT: Hey! Also!

I just took another look at your equipment, and you have both your Battle Axe and your Black Knight Sword equipped to your right hand. Having two weapons queued adds weight to your Equip Load as well, so you probably want to take a hard look at which weapon you're definitely going to use for the fight and just unequip the other one altogether for the time being.

@joms5: Full Black Iron gear with a battle axe and BK Sword equipped? Oh man, you are fat rolling for sure. If you unequipped Havel's Ring you probably couldn't roll at all. That's why you can't escape Smough's AoE. Dump that armor for this fight and pick one weapon, two-hand for max damage, and unequip the other.

@hippie_genocide:He's not fat rolling because his Equip Load is 57.5/120, which is under 50%. He's mid rolling. If he unequipped Havel's Ring, he'd have 57.5/80, which is fat rolling, not no rolling.

@joms5: The heavier your Equip Load, the slower your walking/running speed too, so reducing your Equip Load to under 25% will make you all around faster. You can unequip your Black Knight Sword, your Knight Shield (if you're not looking to block), and some/all of your Black Iron armor. You can try lighter armor that has high defense:weight, like the Gold Hemmed set. Two other ways to improve your damage are to two-hand your weapon and to use pine resin to give your weapon some extra elemental damage. Additionally, you can improve your Stamina recovery in a couple of ways, which particularly helps given that you've got such a large Stamina bar: use Green Blossoms for temporarily accelerated Stamina regeneration and/or equip the Grass Crest shield on your back.

@savage: Yeah, you're right I sort of went off half-cocked there. I just looked at the gear and thought wow, that's some heavy stuff. But regardless, @joms5, you should be looking to lighten your equip load because having better defense is pointless if it causes you to get hit more often and powered up Smough hits like a truck so evading stuff is key.

Gallery

Praise be to Giantbomb!!!

I was stubborn and refused to summon. I wanted to do this mono e mono. So I tried going 2 handed. Never ever got to the second part of the fight that way. Just couldn't dodge Ornstein to leave me with a favourable chance to strike. So I went back to my strategy, but this time when I made it to part 2 I switched to two handed for the extra damage. It was rough the first couple of attempts. Every time I'd get close to him I feel like he'd hit me with his swinging mallet or with the butt stomp. Eventually I just got into this groove of predicting when was the opportune time. I can't tell you how much my hands were sweating when I was out of Estus flasks. But when I saw his health in that 2nd screenshot I told myself the next time he swings his mallet down i'm running in and going for broke. And then it happened.

This game is fuckin brilliant and I really wish I hadn't let it scare me off for all these years.

Both invaluable pieces of information. I had no clue having 2 weapons equipped added to the weight. I could have sworn I tested it but clearly I must have not been paying attention.

I will keep this in mind for future fights. I started the game with the fat roll and hated it. When i got Havel's ring, I immediately noticed the different and can never go back. I don't want to know how much better the fast roll is. If I did there's a good chance i'd never go back.

Thanks again for all the help. It feels nice to brag about this defeat simply because there was a chance last night where I was going to throw in the towel. This game has the highest highs and the lowest lows. But if this is indeed the most difficult boss then that will make me breathe easier.

Next up, Ceaseless Discharge and the Four Kings. Also going to save up for that Silver Knight Armour (looks badass). Thanks again everyone!

@joms5:Congrats! Defeating S&O without summoning help, and in your very first Souls game, is quite an accomplishment, indeed. Good on you for persevering!

FYI: you'll soon have additional areas (and bosses) open up for you to tackle in any order you wish. You don't necessarily have to face Ceaseless Discharge and Four Kings right now; you're free to choose from multiple paths available to you.

Also, it will soon become possible for you to open up the DLC, which contains some of the game's best content. I definitely recommend you play it, but the way you must access it within the gameworld is every bit as obtuse as Dark Souls' reputation might suggest. If you don't want to look up explicit spoilers on how to find it, you'll need to be paying close attention to the scant clues the game gives you. If you want further hints, just ask.

@joms5: Awesome job, dude! You're definitely in the groove of the game now, you didn't even need to use the summon! The game is pretty open ended from here on out, so you can figure out what order of tackling them works best for you. Best of luck!

@joms5: Bad

Ass.

Nice work, man. Seriously. Ornstein and Smough break a huge fraction of players who make it to this point.

The better news: You have all the tools now. You are Liu Kang in Shang Tsung's arena, Luke Skywalker in Palpatine's throne room, Aragorn before the legions of the Dark Lord.

There is not a single boss from here until the end of the game who can't be overcome by applying some of what you've learned during your fight against the Dragonslayer and Executioner. So whenever you find yourself between a rock and a hard place, just reflect on this process, and it will see you through.

The road ahead is challenging. Sometimes shocking, occasionally unfair. But you have everything you need to ford it.

So great job, and good luck. Can't wait to answer the rest of your questions, but excited to see you bring your journey to a close.

@joms5: Congratulations! But... ah... why were you taking screenshots at such a critical time?

Anyway, you have passed the threshold! The rest of the game is now accessible to you. Go into the rest of the nooks and crannies this game has to offer. In my opinion, you must do the DLC, I recently finished a playthrough of Dark Souls, didn't do the DLC, and totally regret it. There's a boss fight in the DLC that is probably my favorite in the entire series, easily one of the most elegantly designed one-on-one fights I've ever seen in a game.

These have probably already been answered multiple times but I'll just say that when it comes to weapon choice and what to upgrade, find a normal damage type weapon that you enjoy using. Upgrade it. Simple as that. Finding a weapon you like the move-set on is more important than raw numbers. This isn't the kind of game where you have to do quick burst damage to survive, really. Using a weapon that doesn't suit your play-style will get you killed 100x faster. I've beaten this game 4 times and no matter how much experience I have, I suck at using normal straightswords and ultra greatswords. Spears and regular greatswords are my jam.

As far as enchanting, keep in mind that putting, say, fire on your sword makes your sword have split damage. It turns half the physical damage to fire, reduces the stat scaling, and makes it so that each damage type has to go through a separate type of armor on the enemy, generally resulting in less damage unless they have a weakness to what you're using. This means that elemental weapons are kinda meh, which is one of the more unfortunate things about the game, but there you have it.

Thanks everyone for the kind words. The game is sadly coming to an end. Just went back down to the Abyss and took out the Four Kings on my first attempt. It was a close call though. Totally forgot about the Graveyard area near Firelink. Went down and absolutely wrecked shop (I think I was supposed to venture through the catacombs much earlier). Pinwheel boss went down in 3 regular attacks. So i've collected 2 of the souls for the Lord Vessel and i'm on my way to the final one in Anor Londo but with all the praise about the DLC in here I want to make sure I don't lock myself out of it if that's possible. Also just realized that I used the Firelink Shrine soul to reinforce my estus flask rather than bring the Firelink firekeeper back to life. :( Wish I had read that item description more closely and not been so hasty with reinforcing my flasks. So...

I feel like i've looked around everywhere as well as in my inventory for keys or orbs or anything that might point me in the right direction. I have one theory that maybe you could confirm or deny, simply because there's a prompt in the world that makes it seem important. If i'm wrong perhaps you could just tell me in what part of the world the DLC is located in. I'd really like to try and figure it out on my own, as some of you might know, that's some of the most satisfying stuff about this game is just stumbling across it yourself.

So does the DLC have anything to do with the painting in Anor Londo? The one in the room with the big chandelier?

A side question for all who have played. What level were you when you finished the game? I've started to watch Load our Last Souls here on Giantbomb and realized that Vinny is at about the same part as I am but at a much lower level. Maybe i'm just too careful with my items, but it also appears to me that he has almost no humanity in reserve whereas I have 24 humanity and about 6 double humanity. Was the PC version nerfed in any way compared to the one on PS3? For those interested i'm at level 88.

@joms5: wait, two lord souls? There are 4 areas to go through after Anor Londo/Ornstein and Smough. If you only stopped at Pinwheel in the catacombs area, then you might want to go back and check the boss room. Again, not sure if I'm misreading some stuff.

Edit: painting has nothing to do with DLC but the painting does do something :p I don't want to ruin it but it's also pretty vague. It's my favorite thing in Dark Souls 1 is all I want to say!

Yeah, you're not done yet. As for the DLC, unlocking it is rather fiddly. Its the kind of thing you should look up. The painting holds an optional area which is available to you if you have a special item. This item can be found right back at square one.

@joms5: I first finished the game at soul level 94 and that's a pretty high level. I wouldn't worry about leveling or losing souls anymore if I were you.

Go back to where you fough Pinwheel. There's a recess in the back right corner of the room with a ladder on it. Climb it. Proceed. That area is required. This sounds obvious but that ladder blends in so well that finding it could be frustrating if you don't know where to go.

Getting to the DLC area is too obscure, look up a guide for that one. It has nothing to do with the painting in Anor Londo, though that painting does have something to do with optional content.

@joms5: I just got back from GameStop, because I got Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin, Bloodborne, and Dark Souls 3. I can't wait to start playing two. I went through Demon's Souls last week, and two days ago finished Dark Souls. They're really not that tough of games, so anyone interested should not be discouraged. When it comes to bonfires in the first, for any of them, you have to use a humanity, then become human, and then use humanity again to kindle. Later in the game it'll allow you to go up to 20. I felt that there would be a time when I'd need to save it for a specific part, but I never actually did, and I didn't pay for it. Just kindle fires you feel you want to. As for the knight sword, it depends on the sword. There was one heavy, powerful sword that I used all the way through once I was upgraded, so in that case, you might want to keep it.

That said, later in the game, there'll be a character that comes up above ground in firelink shrine, you can feed him items for few souls. It's just a better way to get rid of items than to drop them from earlier on. If you're early on, you can definitely upgrade your equipment, even to level five. Even if you did that, you'd still have enough time to have a lot of much better equipment in the end, and the ability to upgrade. The best place to grind, if you need to do so, is in Anor Londo, near the area you fight Smough and Orstein, which will be hours ahead if you're still in the beginning part. Something I see not a lot of players do, but was extremely helpful, and made quick work and basically every enemy, and every boss in the game was to do the jump attack.

I finished the game at level 100 or so. The final boss at first would kill me basically because of my shield, so in the end, find a strong shield if you're doing the armor/sword gameplay. I had to go back to Anor Londo and grind for 30 or so minutes to get my strength to 50, and then the boss was easy, first time kill. Most of the bosses consist of holding up the shield, running backwards, perhaps to the right of them, and waiting for a time to hit. It's only intense because guys either kill you quick, or they have a bunch of health. It's not that difficult, but intense regardless. Ceaseless Discharge was the hardest for me. Bed of Chaos, while extremely easy otherwise, hits relentlessly that he was the cheapest and most annoying. What I recommend for him when you get there is to take off all equipment and run down the center. That allowed me to beat him my first try with clothes off.

I played all of Dark Souls offline, and will continue to do so with the rest of the games.

Edit - I didn't realize you were almost done. Only read the original post, nor did I catch when this was made. I thought it was today. Never mind.

@joms5: The painting is another secret, separate from the DLC. If you want, here's a couple of hints to set you on the path to revealing it: the first step is to discover a secret at Firelink Shrine by adventurously exploring above ground level.

Here are a some hints about reaching the DLC: if you have been thorough in your exploration, you should have rescued a woman named Dusk of Oolacile; if not, you can find her in the vicinity of the hydra in Darkroot Basin; next, you will find a crucial clue in The Duke's Archives, a required place that you may not have visited yet, but can easily reach right now via a previously blocked path in Anor Londo, from a crystal golem similar to the one that Dusk was imprisoned inside. I'll leave you to put together the pieces from there.

As for your level and resources, I wouldn't worry about it. You're probably a little overleveled and a little overstocked, but that's perfectly fine. Vinny is a more free wheeling type of player who used his Humanity liberally and didn't always endeavor to recover his dropped souls. And there's nothing wrong with that either--he beat the game just fine. The PC version was not nerfed compared to any other version; all versions that are up to date have the same balance. Vinny was playing on the current balance patch, which is likely what you're playing on.

@joms5: I'm guessing you were overly cautious and didn't run up to him then, so you just killed him from a distance? I'm talking about the red robed dude. Dude, that sucks. If you get cursed, he was the one to made it so you're not cursed anymore. There's another way by getting a stone, but I never used it. I was a little cautious there, thinking "uh oh, not sure if I can take this guy on', but walked up to him, and realized he's a good guy. That said, I commented not realizing you're near the end. Happy you're done, or about done? Wasn't that difficult huh?

Yeah, in two playthroughs of Dark Souls (PC version) I never ended up doing the DLC because I didn't look anything up and never organically came upon the way trigger it. Recently, during this Dark Souls 3 zeitgeist, some of my friends and I were talking about our experiences with it and the topic turned to the best bosses in the series. They all started gushing about Artorias, and I felt compelled to finally go and do that DLC. Unfortunately, my save was apparently lost in the switch from GFWL to Steamworks (I had a character in mid game that could have quickly gotten to the DLC), so I'd have to start a new game to see that.

That was pretty disappointing, wish I'd just looked up how to get to that content during one of my other playthroughs.

@ll_exile_ll: You can keep using your GFWL saves in the Steamworks version of the game (I did!). All you have to do is move the save file to a slightly different directory (up one level in the structure). Google if you want more info.

So a pretty productive weekend in Dark Souls. Got all 3 boss souls for the Lord Vessel. Can I just say that the Crystal Caves was the most anxiety I think i've ever felt in a game before. Worse than Silent Hill, worse than Fatal Frame and very close to P.T. I can't tell you how much of an ordeal that entire area was. The boss in that area was of a particular pain in the ass with the curse stuff. Luckily for me my fiance took an immediate interest in the game on Saturday and gave me some much needed advice for that boss, mainly to see if I had a ring that raised curse resistance. She was right, beat it on my next attempt.

Thank you for this hint. Vague enough to let me figure it out for myself but pointed me in the right direction. In fact I didn't even know you could go back to Undead Asylum. When I curled up in the nest I really thought it was a trick to kill the player and figured i'd have to venture all the way back up there to claim my souls. Alas it was not. Fought the Demon in Asylum after the floor fell out beneath me (they really gotta stop with that kinda crap :P) managed to get a titanite slab down there though, and upgraded my axe to it's final +15.

So i'm currently in the painting and loving every second of it. The fact that the world is covered in snow is a nice change of scenery. Quick aside, really creepy description on the Doll needed to enter the painting, kinda worried that I may meet her as the boss. We'll see. Close to finishing up the area though. Just have to cross the bridge with the dragon, which i'm not looking forward to.

Had to take the screenshots. Proof that I did it on my own, no summons and whatnot. I have it bound to a very large key that I just slam quickly with my palm so as not to take away too much of my attention.

As for the DLC, as soon as I complete the painting i'll read this post:

If it's as obtuse as everyone seems to be making it out to be i'll simply look it up. But I always like to put in a decent effort before giving up. Like I did with the Ring of Artorious (sp?). Not much else to say, so my next post will most likely be my final thoughts on the game, which can't be shocking given how i've already gushed about it on here. But it's been a while since a game like this has really taken hold of me. Not since System Shock 2 has a game consumed my thoughts day in and day out. I can't wait to play the other 2 Souls games as well as Bloodbourne.

Wish my luck in my final push. And Onion Man had better reunite with his daughter, or else. :)

@joms5: Did you finish it yet? :-)

Indeed I did. Last night in fact.

Let me start by saying that I was severely disappointed with the DLC. It felt very disjointed from the rest of the world if that makes any sense. I know it's supposed to be additional content but it didn't feel like it flowed properly with the game. Second i'm shocked at how obtuse (some may disagree) it was to access. Funny thing was I had checked that cove in Darkroot Basin after defeating the Hydra, only to read online that you have to quit the game and reload. Arg. The one thing that bothered me the most, which I wont harp on too much after realizing it made narrative sense, was the fact that Royal Wood was just Darkroot garden. After I realized that it made sense it didn't bother me as much but it wasn't as interesting to explore knowing that I had seen a lot of it before. Having said all that the boss fights were just as thrilling as any other in Dark Souls and I thought Hawkeye was badass.

Now onto the game itself. I really thought the final boss was going to pose quite a challenge. I even went so far as to change my gear (went with a higher damage weapon), used some buffs and generally just changed my strategy when fighting. What a mistake. One thing I realized with this game is that you get so accustomed to a specific way of fighting that while you may not be doing as much damage as quickly as you would like, you're comfort with the slow and steady approach is almost always more reliable. As some of you have read previously I played most of the game with the Battle Axe +15. I finished the game with that weapon in hand and it felt fantastic. The ending was a bit abrupt and if I had one overall complaint it would be with the lack of any traditional or easy to follow narrative. But everything else about this game just hits the right spots. The satisfaction from defeating a boss that you've been banging your head against the wall with is something that cannot be described. Never have I wanted to explore a space so much before. Whacking walls everywhere I think that they might have put a secret tunnel. And the dread that you feel when you see the name of a new area that you know is going to be hell to explore; i'm looking at you New Londo and Blighttown.

This game for me hits all the same notes that a game like Resident Evil does. It's played at a slow methodical pace. Rather than checking a map in game of where to explore next, I make one in my head and check every nook and cranny. The joy of seeing a white or yellow loot drop gives me the same excitement of finding more ammo or a green herb. And managing that stamina is just like managing ammo. To me it's a survival horror game with RPG elements and I loved every second of it. There's no doubt this game is right up there in my top 10 favorite games of all time. The best part is, I have 2 more souls games to go. I'll take a break for a while before I start Dark Souls 2, just to avoid getting burned out on them.

The strange thing is, I hardly even dabbled into magic, pyromancy, dual wielding, daggers or ranged weapons. I never used a talisman, built any boss weapons and i'm damn sure I missed a ton of extra content. In fact just today I watched Vinny (In the final episode of LOLS) beat an optional boss in Anor Londo and also kill Princess which turned the world to darkness. How much more have I missed of this game. It's crazy. There's talk of people beating the game naked, never resting at a bonfire and at level 1. It's mindboggling. I'd love to find the time to go back and play as a sorcerer or magic person just to see if it's possible. For those interested I ended the game at 90 hours at level 105.

I started Dark Souls exactly 4 weeks ago. I wanted to give it a fair shake. I refused to summon during any bosses yet wanted to finish it before May. Victory achieved.

Not much else to say about this masterpiece. I wish I had played it sooner. Couldn't have done it without you guys though. Thanks again to everyone who gave me advice and to those who encouraged me during the dark time which was Dragon Slayer Ornstein & Executioner Smough.

So now feel free to spoil anything that I may have missed in the game. I'm sure there are tales abound. Also confirm or deny that New Londo and Blighttown are two of the worst areas in the game (not worst as in bad per se but the most frustrating).

@joms5: Congrats, duder.

For some reason, it has been extremely fun living vicariously through you as you've made your way through this game for the first time. It's been a fun reminder of those same highs and lows we all felt on our first times. Really, this experience has been a lot like summoning from multiple degrees of separation away. All of us vets and fans lobbing tips and pointers to help you on the way to mastery.

I recently just made it through Dark Souls' DLC for the first time myself. For all of the praise it gets, I think most of it stems directly from the quality of its boss fights, which in my mind jump out immediately as some of the game's best. The one-two punch of Artorias and Manus feel like an extraordinary codifying of essential Dark Souls skills. The one, in its incredible emphasis on precision, simply a primer for the other.

But, largely, I tend to agree with you on the structure of the DLC. The Dark Mages are more annoying than not, and it really isn't very enjoyable traversing the blackness of the Chasm of the Abyss.

But, man. Those bosses are great. Did you fight Kalameet?

The big thing you likely missed are the numerous NPC sidequests. I certainly missed all of that on my first playthrough. Like all things Dark Souls, the process to further the sidequests is so opaque that, without a guide, your recurring encounters with Solaire or Siegmeyer probably feel more like meetings of happenstance than anything intentional.

Finally, yeah. New Londo Ruins and Blighttown are super grating. Blighttown, in my opinion, becomes way less frustrating after you've been through it once. New Londo never quite loses its charm, though. Everyone has their pet peeve areas. Me, for instance? I never really enjoy my time in the Tomb of the Giants. But it's a cakewalk for some folks.

It's a monumental journey you've made. All who make it come away with similar praise. Dark Souls is an amazing game, and you'll commonly hear people longing wistfully to experience it for the first time all over again. The discovery, the surprise, the challenge, the triumph, they're all things few other games offer with such personal gravity. You made it. And if you choose to seek them out, new challenges and games, new landscapes and enemies await.

But the journey you've completed is special. Congratulations.

I did fight Kalameet. I think that was my favourite boss fight of the game. I like those large all encompassing bosses that seem way to large to take down. Plus it's a dragon. I completed most of Onion Man's sidequest and finally looked up the rest online. But yeah there's no doubt I missed a lot of side stuff. The fact that I didn't know you could just walk away from the final bonfire to get a different ending says a lot.

The worst part about Blighttown for me was not knowing why I was becoming poisoned time and time again. And the narrow walkways and bad camera were an exercise in frustration. Tomb of the Giants was annoying until I realized I could use the lantern to make a bit easier.

Have you played and finished Dark Souls 2?

@joms5: I played through Dark Souls 2 only once, and it was right after the game's initial release. Long before the DLC additions or the remixed enemy placement included with Scholar of the First Sin. My plan is to go back to Dark Souls 2 after wrapping up Dark Souls 3. It's really looking like I'll run multiple playthroughs consecutively through Dark Souls 3, so who knows when I'll finally make it back to Scholar of the First Sin.

So then maybe you can tell me if those games have identical systems to the first one?

Is there still the humanity and bonfire kindling system? All the stats are the same? I think I remembered hearing something about losing health permanently if you die in the game?

Also what was your impression of the second game. I know it doesn't get the praise that the first one does. Would you say people are being too hard on it or does it lack something that the first game had?

The systems aren't totally the same, but they're similar enough.

Humanity and Hollowing are the chief differences (again, from what I recall). In Dark Souls 2, you can be invaded/summoned even when Hollowed. As a result, Hollowing takes on a different role in the form of--as you already mentioned--the effect it has on your health. As a Hollow, every time you die your maximum health decreases by a small amount. It's a small fraction, but upon a long string of consecutive deaths it can really add up. There's a limit to how low your maximum health can drop, however, so you're never just running around with a sliver of health straight away from a bonfire.

This effect is reversed with an item called a Human Effigy. You do not need to be at a bonfire to consume this item or to experience its effects. And, in turning human, you effectively undo the damage sustained to your maximum health, so it returns to whatever the value is dictated by your Vitality stat. When you die the process begins again.

Reversing Hollowing, if memory serves, increases the chance that you'll be invaded.

--

Largely, my experience with Dark Souls 2 was really positive. It is as good as the first game in many respects, while, of course, not being as memorable simply by virtue of being the second game in the series. There are changes to the general structure and framework of the game that might bristle against your tastes following the original, and an equal number of changes that might be flat-out superior to design decisions made the first time around.

The major things you might want to know going in:

• You will be able to warp between bonfires immediately.
• You may want to research the importance of specific stats before playing, since Dark Souls 2 reorganizes point distribution and adds separate stats dedicated to influencing your Equip Load and the effectiveness of your dodge.
• Enemies no longer respawn indefinitely. If you are stuck in an area, or farm it for souls, and continue fighting off enemies through multiple bonfire cycles, the area's enemies will eventually stop appearing. This can be both a benefit and a drawback: in some cases, you'll be glad to clear out an area in order to sprint through it with impunity, and in others you'll sometimes have wiped an area clear before getting specific drops or earning enough souls to level. The game offers an item you can use to repopulate an area, though doing so increases the strength of the enemies you're bringing back.
• Some of the game's areas are deeply associated with PVP covenants, meaning your likelihood of being invaded (or even summoned to fight against other players) against your will skyrockets, even when Hollowed. You can avoid this by playing offline, if you'd rather to avoid PVP.
• Dark Souls 2's New Game + is far and away the most rewarding in the franchise, completely changing entire areas, entire boss fights, and offering unprecedented rewards for your continued effort

Again, overall, I really liked Dark Souls 2. Most of the criticisms you see from the hardcore Dark Souls community are pretty valid. But they might be overvalued. What gets understated is that Dark Souls 2 is still an exceptionally well-made game, even in the stark shadow cast by its iconic predecessor. Amongst the changes you'll find only a handful of real surprises--much of the game will probably feel like territory you've tread before. But the experience is still very tight and some of the more overt callbacks are still really, really cool. You will almost certainly enjoy exploring Dark Souls 2's varied, lived-in environments.

The "something" Dark Souls 2 ultimately lacks is novelty. But, even still, it isn't without merit.

There's lots of similarities but they aren't the same.

You respawn with a little bit less health each time you die in DS2, down to a minimum of 50%. You can get back up to 100% by using the game's version of humanity (human effigies). I finished the game with like 30 of those spare but semi-permanently losing health made dying feel shittier to me. Minor item spoiler: There's an item that limits health loss to 75% but I also play spoiler free, unless I get really stuck, so I didn't find find it in my first playthrough.

There are lots of great areas in DS2 but it lacks the overall quality of world building of DS1. There's a lot of boss fights and they are mostly good, but people tend to complain that they weren't as well designed or as interesting as the fights in DS2, which I guess is true; you don't do anything near as cool as fighting a giant wolf wielding it's dead giant master's giant fucking greatsword. But there's nowhere in DS2 that's as shitty as Blightown, and the DLC areas are fantastic.

DS3 is a big step up from both IMO.

If you ever play through DS1 again, there's a shortcut to Blighttown not too far from Firelink. Get the master key as your starting gift and you can be at the bonfire at the bottom of Blighttown in less than ten minutes. You miss most of the items, though.

I guess how much you like Dark Souls 2 depends on what you really liked from Dark Souls 1. Story-wise, the game doesn't feel as cohesive as Dark Souls 1. Areas were more interestingly laid out in Dark Souls 1, you do a lot of unlocking shortcuts and finding paths that connect areas in in DS1. DS2 does some of that but nowhere near as much. Austin, on the Beastcast, described DS2 as a flat landmass and DS1 as an interconnected tower and I think that makes a lot of sense, but it means that DS2's areas are generally a lot more linear than they were in DS1.

On the other hand, I think DS2's gameplay tends to be more interesting. It feels like you can do a lot more with character builds than you could in DS1, and they feel more equally viable than they do in DS3. DS2 is a much more colorful, game too. DS1 is kind of a brown game, for most of the time you're in it, and that's not a bad thing - again, DS1 is more cohesive overall - but DS2's areas trade in cohesiveness for variety.

At this point, I'm pretty sure that DS2 is my personal favorite of the series. I'm not really going to argue its strong and weak points with other people, that's a hell of a rabbit hole to drop into, but I don't see how anyone could enjoy DS1 and not also find some enjoyment in DS2. Same goes for DS3 (side note: I'm also pretty sure that I like Dark Souls 3 the least of all that I've played - it's still an excellent game, but it's not even scratching the same highs that DS1 and 2 did for me).

I might be wrong about this, but I thought reversing hollowing in DS2 actually lessens the chance that you'll be invaded?

In any case, I don't engage in PVP in any of these games and I can count on one hand the number of times I've been invaded by a real person in DS2, across over a hundred hours of playtime on the PC and Xbox One. It seems like as long as you don't actively participate in it, you won't really have to deal with it.

The wiki doesn't have any information one way or the other, so I'm not sure. But you can burn Human Effigies at a bonfire in order to prevent any online interactions for 30 minutes.

Want to reiterate my disclaimer that I played right after the game's release (again, pre-SotFS), so my anecdote could be completely irrelevant, but there were two specific areas in Dark Souls 2 where I was being invaded constantly as a result of nearby covenants. The game supposedly offered a buffer to people who'd been attacked by other players in order to prevent repeated invasions, but I was still felt like I was being fending off invading phantoms left and right in those spots.

Also:

(side note: I'm also pretty sure that I like Dark Souls 3 the least of all that I've played - it's still an excellent game, but it's not even scratching the same highs that DS1 and 2 did for me).

I totally agree.