Dark Souls Impressions - The FINAL Update

Reposting so it's on the top of the next page

<- Previous update: Painted by the Numbers

Recap:
- Found Ash Lake
- Found the Painted World
- Spared Priscilla

Current missions:
- Beat the game


Before we wrap this shit up, let's take a final look at my stats and inventory:



Honestly, things haven't changed too much from the beginning of the playthrough in the items department. The Wanderer class wound up having the coolest looking clothes in the game, and I never really found any armor I liked more, so I decided to stick with them for the whole game.

The Winged Spear has been my weapon of choice since I found it in the graveyard, and I'm extremely comfortable with it. I've tried many other different weapon types, and nothing comes to me quite as naturally as the spear does. Coupled with an Eagle Shield, the ability to attack while blocking has been invaluable to me across the entire journey and I'm not sure how I would've fared without it. No other weapons are as fun or as satisfying to use.

Rather than using my greatshield, however, I'm bringing back an old friend of mine—the Grass Crest Shield. It doesn't synergize with my spear quite as well as a greatshield would, but it's the first shield I ever decided to stick with for any length of time, plus it unlocks a particular ability that I've rarely had access to, which wound up being very important during the final fight. It also produces a cool green aura, signifying its stamina-boosting powers. It's my favorite.

I have the Ring of F&P because it's about time. I planned to bust it out for the final fight, and I'm following through. There's no real reason not to just go for it—I don't really plan on doing any NG+ stuff, except maybe to get the platinum trophy down the line. But at that point, I'll just be able to pick up a second one anyway, so it doesn't matter.



My build from the start was constructed naturally without looking anything up—Vitality, Endurance, and Dexterity with enough Intelligence to use certain spells, enough Attunement to use up to three spells, and enough Strength to wield certain weapons. Pyromancy was my choice of magic, because it doesn't really require any extraneous stat investments other than Attunement, and because pyromancy spells are fucking sick. Power Within is my bread-and-butter spell for bosses—I've slaughtered many a foe with its help. Fire Orb is situationally useful, and Fire Surge is a new spell I've only limited experience using, but it seems powerful.

That's about all, I think. Oh wait, one more thing—Darkmoon Blades for life; the guilty pay the price.

All right, now I'm done. This is the final boss video.

YouTube

Hey, remember when i didn't even start the playthrough until 9 pages into the thread, because people were too assmad about my opinions on the game's MP to even let me start

that was fun

got some things i decided to give extremely belated responses to

Honestly just don't play the game.

Don't even bother.

hahaha suck my dick

tbh there are a few things in the game that are basically wiki or bust

Spoiler

ceaseless, he was very shit design

Literally beat him on my first (real) try without even thinking about it.

sometimes there just isn't a clear way to progress

firelink is different, there are several areas you can try to progress through but they have too tough of enemies.

being lost after anor londo is just a bunch of backtracking until you can find the damn new areas

Really? I never had any issues knowing where to go or how to progress. The only areas that stumped me were the optional ones that didn't really have anything anyway.

Verb will not make it through the Tomb of Giants, and Verb will go through his entire playthrough without even knowing of The Painted World's existence.

You will never figure out how to get there.

IT WAS YOU

OH NO NO NO NO 😂😂😂😂😂

Flee's posts are consistently good from what I see in terms of arguing a point.

eh

He's going to end up loving Dark Souls. Just watch.

maybe you should change your name to nostradamusX

Verb don't look at this one

Spoiler

do you think he'll rage when he gets cheesed by the dragon the first few dozen times?

would you believe it if i said i never "raged" a SINGLE time in the entire playthrough

When you've beaten the game can you pls make a list of your top ten areas and top ten bosses or something?

Okay

Areas:
1. Anor Londo
2. Darkroot Garden
3. Sen's Fortress
4. Darkroot Basin
5. Undead Parish
6. Quelaag's Domain
7. Firelink Shrine
8. Kiln of the First Flame
9. The Duke's Archives
10. The Abyss

Blighttown, Lost Izalith, the Depths, Tomb of the Giants, and the Great Hollow for worst areas.

Bosses (coolness of design + how much fun i had fighting them):
1. Capra Demon
2. Crossbreed Priscilla (never fought her, but I really like her design)
3. Four Kings
4. Moonlight Butterfly
5. Bed of Chaos
6. Gaping Dragon
7. Seath the Scaleless
8. Gwyn, Lord of Cinder
9. Gravelord Nito
10. Dragonslayer Ornstein (but not Smough, he's uggo)

worst bosses are the asylum demon clones for being fucking lazy, and quelaag for being the game's one and only instance of completely unnecessary gratuitous female nudity—the game was doing SO well on that front until she showed up

There is a certain boss you'll meet later on that proves my point pretty well. The longer you fight it, the harder the battle gets, until it is damn near impossible.

I was right.

One boss with one gimmick wasn't enough to prove your point.

Make sure you tell us when you get to Blightown asap so we can make sure you don't miss something super super cool in the game that's kind of tucked away.

Spoiler

Ash Lake?

ash lake was most certainly NOT "super super cool"

Spoiler

Spoiler

Also I'm looking forward to when he gets to Anor Londo.

You think he'll ever fond gwyndolin or even get into the painted world?

Anor Londo was awesome. I found both of those things. Didn't fight Gwyndolin because betraying my own covenant is silly, and the Painted World kinda sucked. At least, relative to all the unwarranted hype and build-up the area had.

I really can't wait until Verb gets to this part.

(Don't click Verb)

Spoiler

Honestly, the archers weren't that bad at all.

Verb dont click

Or click, its spoilerish but I wont make it obvious

Spoiler

Hes going to do what the gods want, the fool!

I guess he doesnt know what hes actually doing but he'll be interested to know that eventually he did have options.

yeah i don't know

I wonder how verb will do the

Spoiler

abyss section

Apparently there's more to the Abyss than I thought to explore.

It's the place where you join the Darkwraiths, right?

Yeah, fuck that.


That was a trip.

i really did take way too long to beat this shit, huh

my review should be finished sometime in august

Where does Sif fit on that list of bosses

Where does Sif fit on that list of bosses

on the lower end tbh

strictly from a design standpoint, the very concept of a wolf wielding a giant sword (rather than just, you know, using his fangs) is pretty fucking silly to me, and the fight itself is fairly average on the fun scale imo

i don't actively dislike him though—i like his storyline, it's pretty feelsy, almost to a point where i feel like he should've been an optional boss, and i like how they rub it in your face by having him limp around helplessly when he's severely wounded

Leveling up doesn't make the game easier

Leveling up doesn't make the game easier

faster =/= easier

Leveling up doesn't make the game easier

faster =/= easier

But it does tho?

Leveling up doesn't make the game easier

faster =/= easier

But it does tho?

No

Leveling up doesn't make the game easier

faster =/= easier

But it does tho?

No

But it does tho

Leveling up doesn't make the game easier

faster =/= easier

But it does tho?

No

But it does tho

Making enemies spongier just wastes your time, there's literally no added difficulty

if leveling up lowered the intelligence of the AI or some shit, you'd be right

Leveling up doesn't make the game easier

faster =/= easier

But it does tho?

No

But it does tho

Making enemies spongier just wastes your time, there's literally no added difficulty

if leveling up lowered the intelligence of the AI or some shit, you'd be right

Reducing the time in a dangerous environment makes things easier

Leveling up doesn't make the game easier

faster =/= easier

But it does tho?

No

But it does tho

Making enemies spongier just wastes your time, there's literally no added difficulty

if leveling up lowered the intelligence of the AI or some shit, you'd be right

Reducing the time in a dangerous environment makes things easier

Playing the game at all to win makes it easier, by that logic, you fucking moron

Leveling up doesn't make the game easier

faster =/= easier

But it does tho?

No

But it does tho

Making enemies spongier just wastes your time, there's literally no added difficulty

if leveling up lowered the intelligence of the AI or some shit, you'd be right

Reducing the time in a dangerous environment makes things easier

Playing the game at all to win makes it easier, by that logic, you fucking moron

Fucking what

Leveling up doesn't make the game easier

faster =/= easier

But it does tho?

No

But it does tho

Making enemies spongier just wastes your time, there's literally no added difficulty

if leveling up lowered the intelligence of the AI or some shit, you'd be right

Reducing the time in a dangerous environment makes things easier

Playing the game at all to win makes it easier, by that logic, you fucking moron

Fucking what

"Don't reduce the time spent in a dangerous environment, because that's EZ MODE LOL"

literally what you just fucking said, you retard

okay, it's easy mode to do anything that is to your advantage as a player at all, okay, got it

Leveling up doesn't make the game easier

faster =/= easier

But it does tho?

No

But it does tho

Making enemies spongier just wastes your time, there's literally no added difficulty

if leveling up lowered the intelligence of the AI or some shit, you'd be right

Reducing the time in a dangerous environment makes things easier

Playing the game at all to win makes it easier, by that logic, you fucking moron

Fucking what

"Don't reduce the time spent in a dangerous environment, because that's EZ MODE LOL"

literally what you just fucking said, you retard

You understand my original statement two years ago was sarcastic right?

You understand my original statement two years ago was sarcastic right?

yeah, that's why we had an extended argument about it where you ardently defended the point, because you were being sarcastic

that's why you're defending it now, too, because you're being sarcastic—that's totally how sarcasm works

You understand my original statement two years ago was sarcastic right?

yeah, that's why we had an extended argument about it where you ardently defended the point, because you were being sarcastic

that's why you're defending it now, too, because you're being sarcastic—that's totally how sarcasm works

The ez mode shit was sarcastic. Me suggesting that you not level up your character or weapons was sarcastic. You thinking that doing so doesn't make the game easier is retarded.

The ez mode shit was sarcastic. Me suggesting that you not level up your character or weapons was sarcastic. You thinking that doing so doesn't make the game easier is retarded.

it's basic knowledge of how games work

making an enemy take twice as long to kill while making yourself half as strong doesn't make a game more difficult, it just makes it more tedious—this is basic game design, and nobody who knows anything about how games work would tell you this model is anything more than a classic example of artificial difficulty

a game becoming easier would involve giving the player more options, removing options from enemies
a game becoming harder would entail giving the enemies more options, taking away player options

tweaking numbers has shit to do with real difficulty, and you have to have the smallest of brains not to understand this

The ez mode shit was sarcastic. Me suggesting that you not level up your character or weapons was sarcastic. You thinking that doing so doesn't make the game easier is retarded.

it's basic knowledge of how games work

making an enemy take twice as long to kill while making yourself half as strong doesn't make a game more difficult, it just makes it more tedious—this is basic game design, and nobody who knows anything about how games work would tell you this model is anything more than a classic example of artificial difficulty

a game becoming easier would involve giving the player more options, removing options from enemies
a game becoming harder would entail giving the enemies more options, taking away player options

tweaking numbers has shit to do with real difficulty, and you have to have the smallest of brains not to understand this

When did we decide that artificial difficulty doesn't make things harder? It's the cheapest and easiest way to make things more difficult but it still achieves that goal. Having an enemy hit harder and have a larger health pool makes the game harder.

When did we decide that artificial difficulty doesn't make things harder? It's the cheapest and easiest way to make things more difficult but it still achieves that goal. Having an enemy hit harder and have a larger health pool makes the game harder.

it's in the term—it doesn't achieve any goal except making the game waste more of your time

ask yourself what you're really testing—your skills, or your patience

games that test your patience rather than your skill can only be described as "hard" if you want to be simplistic about it

When did we decide that artificial difficulty doesn't make things harder? It's the cheapest and easiest way to make things more difficult but it still achieves that goal. Having an enemy hit harder and have a larger health pool makes the game harder.

it's in the term—it doesn't achieve any goal except making the game waste more of your time

ask yourself what you're really testing—your skills, or your patience

games that test your patience rather than your skill can only be described as "hard" if you want to be simplistic about it

I'm a simple man verb.

Although I'd wager your skills are tested more vigorously if you literally cannot get hit.

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I feel like you should at least give that portion of the game a try before talking about stuff like that. You are in the covenant in name alone and have have never done anything for it, nor have you unlocked any of the rewards, advanced its interests or made any contributions to its side in the larger balance between covenants.

not true, killed lautrec, it counts—i even found another ear in the painted world, i just never got around to offering it—and i would even argue that my choice to kill petrus towards the end of the game was on behalf of my covenant's cause as well

there's many many things wrong with this post in general (as are most of your posts regarding anything to do with dark souls MP), but i'll save it for now

i will say that, even if i had played online, it's not likely i would've met very many players anyway—it's the second oldest game on an outdated platform with a remaster already out on next gen consoles, so it would've been just as empty anyway

when i pick up the remaster on switch and play it again, i'll play online—but i will not like it

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Some of my fondest memories playing video games are from Dark Souls PvP.

the game only had to implement pvp in an ethically acceptable manner, and i would've been able to have similar experiences

i've heard it through the grapevine on several occasions that future installments make it more ethical, so here's hoping

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Nioh, on the other hand, while it has a fun PvP you have to actually search for people

wow I guess Nioh is worth more than $5 after all, I'm gonna get it now thanks

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Nioh, on the other hand, while it has a fun PvP you have to actually search for people

wow I guess Nioh is worth more than $5 after all, I'm gonna get it now thanks

cringe

cringe

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