Dark Souls Impressions - The FINAL Update

So, I've decided that I enjoy this game enough to buy its DLC.

The question is, do I buy it now, or after I've beaten the game?

I'm leaning on saving it for NG+, making this playthrough 100% vanilla, but I'd still like to make videos for the DLC bosses.

Get it now.

Get it now.

Well, that was posted well before we knew about the remaster, which includes the DLC. So it's preeeetty much decided at this point. I don't really wanna have to spend extra money, unless I can be convinced otherwise.

Edit:
I suppose the remaster isn't full price anyway, so maybe I could bite the bullet, but I dunno. I'll figure it out.

Anyway, as Flee said, we back, and I am absolutely positively ready to finish this game now.

To refresh everyone's memory, I'm just before Nito and I still have only fought him once.

I think it's really fucking stupid how the secret passageway to Nito's lair cannot be used to trigger the boss fight, even after you've already fought him. It's only there for you to join his stupid covenant. If you want to fight him, you HAVE to take the scenic route.

He's probably not that hard anyway, but that's still pretty dumb. Maybe I'm missing something.

Anyway, as Flee said, we back, and I am absolutely positively ready to finish this game now.

To refresh everyone's memory, I'm just before Nito and I still have only fought him once.

I think it's really fucking stupid how the secret passageway to Nito's lair cannot be used to trigger the boss fight, even after you've already fought him. It's only there for you to join his stupid covenant. If you want to fight him, you HAVE to take the scenic route.

He's probably not that hard anyway, but that's still pretty dumb. Maybe I'm missing something.

He paralyzes you with sex germs when you're in the coffin, no way around it.

DS1 has the worst trecks back to bosses, Nito isnt even the worst for future reference

DS1 has the worst trecks back to bosses, Nito isnt even the worst for future reference

Dark Souls 1s boss runs are fine other than Nito and Seath and even then DkS2's can get far worse than any of those, especially for Cool Ranch Smelter Demon

It's only there for you to join his stupid covenant.

Joining that stupid covenant gives you the gravelord sword, which is one of the most powerful weapons in the game and can be acquired very early in a play-through.

It's only there for you to join his stupid covenant.

Joining that stupid covenant gives you the gravelord sword, which is one of the most powerful weapons in the game and can be acquired very early in a play-through.

No thanks.

This screenshot is doing less justice to it than I would've wanted, but this place is gorgeous.

I kindled the nearest bonfire to Nito (the one that can't be warped to) because I hadn't done so yet, and I was invaded by an NPC whose name I forget. I killed him, but I didn't get anything out of it. Lame.

Edit:
Paladin Leeroy, that's right. I picked up his armor later on.

If that's referencing what I think it is, that's pretty cute.

...I severely overthought that boss.

Video coming soon.

I'm getting a 33.33, repeating of course, percent chance of survival.

I'm getting a 33.33, repeating of course, percent chance of survival.

better than what i usually do

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This screenshot is doing less justice to it than I would've wanted, but this place is gorgeous.

Not sure if you've found out yet but there is more to that location that it just being a nice backdrop.

This screenshot is doing less justice to it than I would've wanted, but this place is gorgeous.

Not sure if you've found out yet but there is more to that location that it just being a nice backdrop.

It's been months since I first came here, so I may or may not know what you mean, but I'll snoop around.

This screenshot is doing less justice to it than I would've wanted, but this place is gorgeous.

Not sure if you've found out yet but there is more to that location that it just being a nice backdrop.

It's been months since I first came here, so I may or may not know what you mean, but I'll snoop around.

Definitely keep snooping and if you want a tiny hint then here:

Spoiler

Don't snoop around in the tomb of giants for it, you'll have to look somewhere else.

Spoiler

i have acquired much better software for video editing but i'm still learning how to use it so bear with me as i continue to use wmm

<- Previous update: ...Consider giving up, skeleton.

Recap:
- Explored the rest of the Catacombs
- Found Gravelord Nito in the Tomb of the Giants

Current missions:
- Kill Nito
- Explore the Great Hollow
- Explore the Demon Ruins
- Find and kill the Witch of Izalith


I think we're about due for another one of these, huh? Let me just take a second to refresh you guys on where we're at.

The last time I updated (back in August), I found the secret passageway to Gravelord Nito's chamber in the Tomb of the Giants. No boss fight commenced shortly thereafter, because Nito was hiding inside of his coffin, and apparently, I can't hurt him when he's in there. The only thing I could do in this room is join his covenant, which I had no intention of doing.

Instead, on a complete whim, I went back down to that one room where I killed Pinwheel, I found myself another way into the Tomb that I had previously missed. It's a pretty large area with a lot of shit going on, but it's extremely dark and I got my asshole torn apart by a bunch of skeletonized gorillas or some shit before I could find a bonfire.

One of the first things I did to help navigate myself through this place was switch my Pyromancy Flame for my other magic wand of choice: the Oolacile Ivory Catalyst that I got from that nice lady in the Darkroot Basin. I know using magic is more or less frowned upon, but not to worry—I did not intend to use any offensive spells; just cute gimmicks and utility spells. I have just enough attunement slots for all the things I wanted to use: Cast Light, Hidden Body, and Aural Decoy, and just enough Intelligence invested to use them.

Cast Light is pretty indispensable, and my favorite spell to use in dark areas where it's hard as fuck to see shit. It surprisingly helps a lot more than you'd perhaps expect it to, and it makes me feel like I'm using a Wand-Lighting Charm, which makes the Harry Potter fan in me feel all giddy inside. One little trick I like to perform before leaving the bonfire is set up a light and immediately re-sit at the bonfire to instantly replenish the spell, effectively giving me 4 uses rather than the standard 3. I'm sure nobody has ever thought to do anything like this but me, an intellectual.

Hidden Body is cool, because it makes it so some of the more dimwitted enemies can't tell where you are for a brief period of time. And in the Tomb of the Giants, there are a lot of dimwitted enemies. In particular, the bonewheel skeletons that everyone seems to hate so much? Works like a charm on them, and I'm pretty happy that I came up with that solution on my own. I never really had too many issues with the bonewheel guys anyway—I carry a greatshield, after all, so their attacks glance pretty easily off of it. It only sucks when they gang up on you, but with Hidden Body, I don't even need to worry about that shit.

Aural Decoy is what I meant by "cute gimmick." The moment I bought this thing near the beginning of the playthrough, I could tell that it was probably one of those spells that everyone thinks is completely pointless, but I thought to myself, "I'm gonna find a use for you." And I did—it's actually a pretty good pinch tool for those situations where you'd like an enemy to move his ass out of the way without having to fight it, but again, it only works on stupid enemies. I haven't used it very much, but it's still a satisfying trick to pull off whenever I do.

As for the Tomb of the Giants itself, I'm afraid I don't remember every detail of it, since I cleared it so many months ago, so I'll just go over the biggest events.

So, I'm sure everyone remembers that prick who pushes you off the cliff, right? The one who asks you if you're a cleric, tells you about a "treasure" at the bottom of the cliff, and then asks you to take a peek?

Here's the thing about that guy—I knew exactly what he was about to do, and I wouldn't have let him do it if the game didn't give the event trigger such a deceptively wide area of effect. I get the impression that being kicked down here was nothing but a good thing, though, so it wasn't really a big deal. Even so, as soon as I got back up there, I wanted so much to just kill the guy, just on principle, but I ultimately decided against it. Since the game has permadeath in terms of the NPCs, I'd rather not do something I might completely regret later.

It was in the pit where I discovered that one maiden—the one from WAY back—the one who entered the Catacombs with an entourage of Way of White dudes. Those dudes went hollow, so I pretty much had to put them out of their misery. She gave me a spell I don't remember the name of because I'll probably never use it, but it was still a cool little game moment I guess. Kinda weird for the game to suddenly pull a damsel in distress out of nowhere, but I'll take it. That's probably the best way to use that trope, really—a random thing that happens on the side, rather than having it be the main quest. I don't know if that was an intentional subversion, but it works for me.

This area has some fucked up looking enemies, too. I saw what looked like a bunch of totem poles made up of skeleton parts and dirt? Weird shit. They're not even difficult, but they're very slow and freaky looking.

A couple of hidden bonfires later, I eventually came upon what appeared to be the critical path to Nito's boss door, so the next section is pretty foggy for me and I don't remember much. All I can say for sure is that the trek to Nito is one of the longer and more tedious boss runs in the game, and I wasn't having a great time with that, especially since I don't particularly enjoy the strategy of just running past every enemy I see. I try to fight everything, mostly for the souls, but I eventually decided I was wasting too much time with that and just ran past everything. Feels kinda stupid, and it's one of my least favorite aspects of the game. It's kinda fucking lame.

At least the scenery in this section of the game is beautiful, though. I linked that one screenshot earlier with the big trees and the green foggy atmosphere.

The room just before Nito is insane, because it's a big cramped-up cave that's swarming not only with Pinwheel guys, which are just regular enemies now I guess, but also these baby skeletons that gang up on you like anklebiters, and I believe they can poison you, too. And they all respawn. During my boss runs, these guys were just nuisances more than anything. Avoiding all their magic blasts can be tricky when you're trying to reach the fight as soon as humanly possible, and since you're forced to take fall damage going into Nito's lair anyway, it's definitely a section that keeps you on your toes. I actually like this part, and I didn't mind running past anything here, because they can still blast you if you're not paying good enough attention.

And then I made it to Nito. For whatever reason, he wants to fight me now, even though I was 100% ready and available to fight him several hours ago back when I found the hidden passage to him, but oh well.

My first attempt, like with most of my attempts, wasn't really much of an "attempt" at all. I only had two helpings of Estus left, so I knew I wasn't gonna stand a chance, so I took the opportunity I had to just feel him out and get a sense for how he fights.

Turns out, he's a big lumbering idiot who lets his minions do most of the work for him. His legion of lesser skeletons ganged up on me and set me packing in less than thirty seconds—the last thing I spotted was Nito performing an attack that caused a lot of collateral damage to his own army.

That all happened last year. After that first attempt, I had intended to take a momentary break from the game—maybe a week or so—but "a week" wound up turning into nine months. WHOOPS.

I'm back now, though, and I'm excited to show you what I've been able to accomplish in the past couple of days.

YouTube

Just a few more left now, my friends:

Major Boss Hitlist

Asylum Demon
Bed of Chaos
Bell Gargoyles
Capra Demon
Ceaseless Discharge
Centipede Demon
Chaos Witch Quelaag
Crossbreed Priscilla
Dark Sun Gwyndolin
Demon Firesage
Dragon Slayer Ornstein & Executioner Smough
Four Kings
Gaping Dragon
Gravelord Nito
Gwyn, Lord of Cinder
Iron Golem
Moonlight Butterfly
Pinwheel
Seath the Scaleless
Sif, the Great Grey Wolf
Stray Demon
Taurus Demon

The Demon Firesage is probably right around the corner, and the Centipede Demon sounds like something that would be lurking down in the Great Hollow, if I were to guess. All the rest sound like endgame material, except for the Stray Demon, which I'm not too sure about.

your narration almost sounds like its coming straight from the character, like a memoir of sorts

Other than Darkwraiths, what can I use to farm for Chunks? I just need a little bit more, and I can't respawn the Darkwraiths because my Homeward Bone location is currently occupied by an important bonfire uncomfortably far from New Londo Ruins.

edit:

Wound up finding enough, but this would still be good to know. I also don't know where to find Titanite Slabs (in fact, I've never even SEEN one yet), but I'm okay with not knowing just yet. I'd rather come across just one before I ask where I can find more.

Other than Darkwraiths, what can I use to farm for Chunks? I just need a little bit more, and I can't respawn the Darkwraiths because my Homeward Bone location is currently occupied by an important bonfire uncomfortably far from New Londo Ruins.

edit:

Wound up finding enough, but this would still be good to know. I also don't know where to find Titanite Slabs (in fact, I've never even SEEN one yet), but I'm okay with not knowing just yet. I'd rather come across just one before I ask where I can find more.

Spoiler

return the slaaaaaaaab...

Other than Darkwraiths, what can I use to farm for Chunks? I just need a little bit more, and I can't respawn the Darkwraiths because my Homeward Bone location is currently occupied by an important bonfire uncomfortably far from New Londo Ruins.

edit:

Wound up finding enough, but this would still be good to know. I also don't know where to find Titanite Slabs (in fact, I've never even SEEN one yet), but I'm okay with not knowing just yet. I'd rather come across just one before I ask where I can find more.

The final level has respawning enemies that 100% drop chunks

But that's a bit of a ways off

A general location hint for one slab

Spoiler

Undead Asylum

Enemy with a 0.21% slab drop chance

Spoiler

Darkwraith

Theres a third one that i know of but im not sure if you can still get it. Most people will only come across one naturally and even that is hidden so dont feel too bad spoiling it.

Wait, Verb are you planning on doing the Artorias DLC

Wait, Verb are you planning on doing the Artorias DLC

i'm back on the fence about that

i could spend the extra money on that, but since i'm planning on getting the remaster on switch when it comes out (which has the DLC), i'm not sure if that would be a waste or not

so, i'm leaning on waiting for the switch port, but since we don't even know when that's coming out, that puts me back in an undecided position

Wait, Verb are you planning on doing the Artorias DLC

i'm back on the fence about that

i could spend the extra money on that, but since i'm planning on getting the remaster on switch when it comes out (which has the DLC), i'm not sure if that would be a waste or not

so, i'm leaning on waiting for the switch port, but since we don't even know when that's coming out, that puts me back in an undecided position

Grab it for PS4 and I'll show you how a man plays dark souls.

<- Previous update: That's Real Fuckin' Nito

Recap:
- Killed Gravelord Nito
- Arrived at the Demon Ruins to explore
- Killed Ceaseless Discharge

Current missions:
- Explore the Demon Ruins more
- Find and kill the Witch of Izalith
- Explore the Great Hollow


One Lord Soul remains—and it belongs to a someone who is not named on my hitlist. That sends me a couple of strange messages in and of itself, but here's all I've been able to gather thus far about her whereabouts:

I've only heard of this "Izalith" place a single time, by the blacksmith in the Giants' Tomb. He called it the Lost Izalith and described it as impossible to reach, and if my memory serves correctly, I remember seeing a few people in this thread heckling me about this place a couple years ago, thinking I'd never make it there.

Beyond that, there's the clothing set I picked up that triggered the Ceaseless Discharge fight—the Gold-Hemmed Black set, the descriptions of which all mention a Witch of Izalith. Or, more specifically, "the witch Quelana of Izalith, mother of pyromancy and Daughter of Chaos."

"Daughter of Chaos," huh? That's the name of the bonfire warp point that sends me to Quelaag's Domain. As for Quelana, isn't that the name of the mute spider lady inhabiting that place? Is she the Witch of Izalith? I mean, it kinda has to be, right? Who else would "Daughter of Chaos" be referring to? But does that mean I have to kill her? What if I don't wanna? She hasn't really done anything to me personally—which brings me to that earlier point I brought up.

Whoever the witch is, she's not on my hitlist. That would have to mean she's not a boss; she's just an NPC that I have to kill. I recall Kingseeker Frampt's words—"The beings who possess these souls have outlived their usefulness, or chosen the path of the wicked. Let there be no guilt—let there be no vacillation."

Seath, the Four Kings, and Nito all clearly chose the path of the wicked. They were obviously the evil ones. But Frampt did happen to suggest that not all the souls I'm after are possessed by wicked beings; instead, they may have merely "outlived their usefulness," whatever that means, but they're not evil. I don't know if I like the sound of that, because it doesn't tell me why they deserve this fate. I've seen the horrible things the other bosses have done firsthand, you know what I mean? So I'm just not really sure where any of this is going right now.

If Quelana is the witch I'm after—and all the evidence is pointing to her—I'm not just gonna kill her thoughtlessly. That doesn't seem right. I think there's something fishy about this situation, and I'm gonna make sure I don't fuck anything up or do something completely stupid. Especially if I end up being wrong, but at this point, I don't know how I could be.

In any case, it was high time for me to start exploring more of the Demon Ruins. Slaying the Ceaseless Discharge caused parts of the lava down below to fall, making it possible for me to access the lower part of the area. This is an interesting place—almost all the enemies in this area are ex-bosses. Smaller Taurus Demons and smaller Capra Demons run amok here like regular enemies. I guess that's how you know I'm coming towards the end game.

I didn't have to go too far to find a new bonfire. In this neck of the ruins, I started seeing some stranger enemies—like these giant centipede-like beings that emerged from walls, but remained stationary in an attempt to block my path, as well as these chubby snake-like beings that pretend to be statues and spit fire after an ambush. The latter of which are extraordinarily weak and easy to deal with, but the giant centipedes got pretty annoying after awhile.

I found a very large flame ember, and I was invaded once by an NPC called Kirk. I noticed he was wearing Spike Armor, which is pretty cool, and is more or less the armor set I've been anticipating the most across my entire playthrough, because it looks cool as fuck and the loading screens have been teasing me about it for a long time. Alas, the invasion took place on the side of a cliff, where I was sandwiched in between an invader and a Capra Demon, and I failed to finesse the situation. First time an invasion has ever resulted in my death. Oh well—he probably wasn't going to drop his armor anyway. I'll probably find it somewhere else.

It wasn't long before I found the next boss—or should I say, the next two bosses.

Yep, we got ourselves another double feature. Had I known that the trifecta of Demon Ruins bosses would all happen in such quick succession, I would've saved the Ceaseless Discharge video for a triple threat YouTube coverage featuring all three of them, but it can't be helped.

YouTube

PROGRESS

Major Boss Hitlist

Asylum Demon
Bed of Chaos
Bell Gargoyles
Capra Demon
Ceaseless Discharge
Centipede Demon
Chaos Witch Quelaag
Crossbreed Priscilla
Dark Sun Gwyndolin
Demon Firesage
Dragon Slayer Ornstein & Executioner Smough
Four Kings
Gaping Dragon
Gravelord Nito
Gwyn, Lord of Cinder
Iron Golem
Moonlight Butterfly
Pinwheel
Seath the Scaleless
Sif, the Great Grey Wolf
Stray Demon
Taurus Demon

The ring, of course, allows me to walk on lava while reducing the damage taken to a light tingle. I used the ring to find a bonfire where I met up with Solaire.

I found the Lost Izalith shortly thereafter.

Couple things to add:

I forgot to mention that, during my little grind for Chunks, I saw Patches back up in Firelink Shrine. He appears to just be a harmless merchant now, but I still don't fully trust him, even if he does sell some pretty neat stuff. I didn't see the maiden anywhere, though, so I wonder where she went off to.

I also found an elevator that takes me from the Demon Ruins back up to Quelagg's Domain, which is nice. The elevator is in the center of a four-way staircase—two of which lead to nowhere, one of which leads to the Demon Firesage's boss room, which makes me think I could've used this spot to plunge down on him. Maybe, not sure.

There's also a room just before the Firesage's place I forgot to mention. It's just a weird hallway with dead trees, strange arachnoid things that aren't hostile, and a door that won't open—even after all I've done so far. The spiders aren't hostile, even though I had a kneejerk reaction and killed one. Not sure what else I have to do here.

I've also been told that the spider lady's name is Quelaan, not Quelana, which pretty much shatters my theorycrafting efforts I posted above. Turns out there are multiple daughters of chaos, meaning she's not the witch I'm looking for. I don't blame myself at all for this confusion.

well, last night i made some good progress

and i found out what that door was for, all right

and uh

Spoiler

I KILLED SOLAIRE

just had to get that off my chest

well, last night i made some good progress

and i found out what that door was for, all right

and uh

Spoiler

I KILLED SOLAIRE

just had to get that off my chest

Thats fine, Black Iron Tarkus is better anyway