DS virgin: the play-by-play

[Warning: Wall of Text]

Hi folks,

Just got into Dark Souls a week ago after DS3 speedruns at the past couple GDQs got me curious about the series. I've never been terribly into the whole dark/demon/undead thing but the combat attracted me. Now I've played a fair bit of Monster Hunter on both Wii and WiiU, and the combat looked rather similar, as did the oversized foes. The famed difficulty of the series attracted me too, making it sound like a challenge it'd feel good to overcome. Having received DS2 SotFS from Humble Bundle, I considered starting there, but with the mixed opinions about it, I thought I'd try to go at it in order and picked up the original. This is a report of how I'm doing and what it feels like on that first run. So if you haven't played the game, expect spoilers to happen. If you have, expect to lol at me for having missed obvious stuff.

I'm coming to the game knowing very little about it apart from a few tips read around: roll speeds are set on encumbrance with 25% and 50% the critical thresholds, different weapons scale on different stats, weapons and armours are pretty much all sidegrades, and more importantly, the starting class is just a template for the beginning. I don't want to know much more as I'm afraid it'd spoil the game for me. As it turns out, the player messages already do a very good job at giving tips in-game. Well, the honest ones at least. :)

Since I'm here for the melee combat, MH style, I rolled with a warrior. The knight looked a bit too defensive oriented, many characters felt too magic/faith oriented to my taste, and the wanderer wields a curved sword. I mean, ewwwww. Picked the Tiny Being Ring as gift, as it seemed both useful early on and low-hassle, and while the Master Key looked great, it sounded like it'd break too much sequencing for a first run through the game.

So, start of the game, the Asylum. Usual mandatory tutorial. Not much to report apart from a failed attempt at killing the Asylum Demon with the broken sword (I'll try that one on a reroll at some point, is there an achievement for that or what?) and too many deaths trying to get the timing right on parry. Discovered a bloodstain and witnessed what I thought was my previous death, but found out that it wasn't me. Mind blown. I always assumed DS was a pure offline solo experience... Anyhow, got the Asylum Demon on the 3rd or 4th attempt with the longsword. Core difference with MH: the boss fight was insanely quick. Expected much more dodging around and whittling down. I now see a door left with a dark corridor leading down, and the main gate leading outside. I feel like I'll look outside first, and end up being picked up by the raven. It'll haunt me forever if I don't get back to the asylum to explore that corridor...

I'm now in Firelink Shrine. More apparitions of various warriors around the bonfire, and plenty of orange messages which I quickly understand are from other players, this is pretty cool. Having learned something will happen if I ring two bells, I start exploring around and end up in New Londo. Cool. The undead here all cower and don't fight back. Easy souls. And then, the ghost murders me. Ah. I come back down again, this time ready to fight the ghost, but get killed again. And again as I dodge from the bridge and fall into the water. And again, by the second one that showed up this time. I decide to run past them and up the stairs behind. Sadly, as I'm happy with myself at the top of those stairs, they have apparently followed me and I die again. Ugh. Another run and I enter the ruins at the top of the stairs: more ghosts inside, I die again. Right. I check my inventory and find two usable Transient Curses explaining they'll allow me to fight ghost-like creatures. Great. I run down again and apply one on the bridge before the ghosts. I engage, but quickly get murdered. This. Isn't. Working.

Change of plans, and I explore other areas of Firelink Shrine. I find a hidden section with 3 chests, but more importantly, the path leading to Undead Burg. I'll hone my skills and farm a few levels from the hollow soldiers on the road and before the Undead Burg white light portal. I use a lot more blocking now, as my parry still isn't up to scratch. Then I go through the fog, and enter Undead Burg proper. The hollow soldiers here are easy enough to deal with, and the new bonfire conveniently located. The spear-wielding hollow is tricky though, until I finally figure out the kicking down his shield. Then as I go downstairs, lured by the chest above the stairs, a message tells me to "beware of knight". What? I move in and the giant knight at the end of the corridor turns around me and slices me in two. Note to self: skip knight for now. Run in again, climb tower, go through light. Locked in now, so this looks like a boss fight. I look around myself and see the ladder leading to the top of the tower. I climb and kill the two sneaky hollows at the top. Good. I get down, and slowly walk through when the Taurus Demon jumps in. My dodging timing is off and I get flattened. I try it a couple more times with poor results, then the third time notice that from the archer's tower, the wall is broken and I can jump down, just like the tutorial showed me against the Asylum Demon. It'll take me four attempts to get it right, the second one being particularly hilarious as I loitered to heal on the tower and the Demon jumped up to finish me up there. Haha. Anyhow, the big cow dies, and I proceed forwards to meet Solaire who tells me about summoning help. Not that I care, I don't want help as the fun is all about those 1v1s. Nice of him to offer though. The next bridge looks ominous, and as I run through it, the dragon appears again, taking down over half my life, but killing the hollows. To my relief, I make it half-way and find stairs on the right that lead to a bonfire. Wait... That's the bonfire I was at earlier... Only then do I take not of the indeed curving nature of the map. Great design. Before going further below the bridge then (as the dragon is still above and I don't fancy my chances now), I decide to re-explore Undead Burg a bit. I die again to the Knight, but discover the merchant, yay. I farm long enough to purchase lots of stuff: short bow, bottomless box, and a heater shield. Yeah, the same shield I already have, I'm an idiot...

There's a corridor by the merchant that might be leading down, but I don't feel like going down now, so I go back to the bonfire, climb up and head below the bridge. I dispatch the hollows, and see the dragon's tail hanging out. Orange messages tell me to shoot the tail, so I proceed to do it, taking a while to first understand how to use the bow and zoom-aim. After a few arrows, I wonder if I should hit the tail with my sword when the dragon lands above me, but that only leads me to two falling deaths... I keep shooting wondering if that's a cheesy way to kill the dragon, when I get rewarded with the Drake Tail sword. 200 damage. Niiiiiiice. Thanks orange messages. I then go through the rats, learn about poison, and enter the Undead Parish.

A staircase leads up, and as I climb it carefully, I see the knight at the top. Nope. I go down instead, and see the giant armoured boar. A few arrows pull some hollows to me, then I move in to aggro the boar. And get stomped. Ok. I try again, and this time notice the ledge above the stairs. I pull, and hide on the ledge. The boar disengages and walks out. I run after to hit the back but it turns around and mauls me. Third time's the charm as I pull it further down the stairs and dive-attack his unarmoured tail from the ledge. I follow on into the courtyard, clear the hollows, but don't fancy going through the giant portcullis, so I explore the side downstairs instead, which ends up being a good idea as after looping around it brings me to the bonfire above the blacksmith. There's also a blocked path a weird knight sits in front of.

The blacksmith offers upgrades, but upgrading the drake sword requires exotic materials, and I don't have many normal mats eithers. Yeah, he's selling some, but I don't feel like farming too much. I end up upgrading my heater shield to +2, and try my luck against the big demon below. And die. And again. And again. Ok, another time then. I try running past and end up dying in Darkroot Garden to the first treeman who eats my head although I was blocking. I'll finish exploring the Parish after all...

I go back to the parish and enter the church by the side door and discover the giant black knight with the tower shield and the mace. I try blocking but his eats just melt my endurance pool and I get beaten to a pulp. Third time's the charm as I decide blocking won't do here, and I time my dodge/stabs well enough to kill him outside. Inside I notice the spell-casting priest upstairs, and climb up. I end up dying to the horde of zombies. Next attempt I try to rush the priest and die up there. Third time I get a better pull before running back to take a stand at the corridor corner. A couple zombies die then the priest himself shows up and dies quickly before I get overwhelmed. As I go back though, he stayed dead, so that's done. I keep exploring and find the fog gate. I turn back and on the other side I free an imprisoned knight (Lautrec?). I try the lift and it takes me so far down that I feel like I'm not ready yet for another area. Yeah, didn't I feel like an idiot when I found out later it went back to Firelink Shrine...

Fog gate time then, and I find myself on the roof with ominous stone gargoyles all around. I really really really hope they won't all come to life but have a bad feeling about it. But then only one comes in. I've got a good feeling about this. And then I die. Right, it hits fast, far and hard. Hmmmm. I try it again a couple times but my dodging isn't up to scratch. Remembering the Taurus fight, I explore the area and try to hide on the ledges at the sides of the bell tower but it's useless apart from a little bit of safety from melee, and I get roasted to death. Another try and a lucky hit on the tail chops it off and grants me the Gargoyle Tail axe before I get killed. The axe proves too cumbersome and I die on my attempt to use it. I check my inventory and see the lightning damage consumable, but I'm not sure the gargoyle is weak to that and I don't want to waste it. So I go again, this time focusing on a slow blocking approach. Turns out I can decently soak all the damage and hit quick on the counter. Soon enough the Gargoyle is almost dead but another one joins in... I push hard to finish the one I'm on then rush to the ledge to drink Estus and raise the shield to block the fire. As soon as the fire dies, I rush out and melee. More fire that I dodge out of, and two side hits end up the fight. It feels good and I take time to soak up the view from the rooftop before climbing up to ring the bell. A priest offers me forgiveness on the descent, but I didn't commit any crime I can remember, so...

With all those souls, since I'm not quite happy with the slow drake sword, I decide to try more weapons. I have high hopes for the bastard sword but it feels too slow too. So I end up pimping my old longsword to +5, as well as the heater shield. With my strength, the sword damage is still lower than the drake sword but the quickness and triple attack make up for it, I think.

Time to decide where to go next. I've got four options: the merchant corridor in Undead Burg, the downlift in the Parish, Darkroot Garden, and New Londo. I try the lift, and feel like an idiot since it brings me back to Firelink Shrine. Ah well, I fill up on Estus and head to Darkroot Garden, skipping the blacksmith demon. Since blocking doesn't help against the treemen, I wield the longsword two-handed, and find that they die easily. A side road goes to Darkroot Basin, but I'd rather not start another area just yet so keep goin down the Garden path. I make it to the light gate, which I presume requires the 20k souls crest the smith is selling, and a helpful orange message tips me to the bonfire.

From this bonfire, I'll go around the locked gate and explore the garden. And face my first stone giant, who proceeds to murder me despite my blocking attempts. I switch to dodging and wield the sword two-handed because why not. A few attempts in and he falls. And then I notice there are more like this. It's a mob, not a mini-boss... I proceed forward towards a corpse with a bright soul, and end up murdered by two giants and two treemen. As I come back, an orange message in the corner of the area attracts my eye and tips me to the secret area behind the killable tree. The area is simple enough, the frog mobs never even hitting me, not sure what their point is. The stone giant on the ground is easy as he's alone, but the one in the staircase is tougher due to the lack of space and I die. I head back and pull him down, managing to fight him at the entrance. That kill allows me through and I score the Wolf Ring, realising this was the corpse I could see much earlier near the very entrance of the zone. I really like the map design. Not too sure how Poise works, but I presume it's the time you need to regain control after taking a hit. I equip it since I have a free slot.

Back to the main area, and a slow approach sees me clear the way to the bright soul corpse, which to my delight is the full set of the Elite Knight armour. It's slightly too heavy to stay under 50% encumbrance, so I mix and match with some starting and chainmail armour. I keep exploring and find something in a small hidden clearing with a treeman ambush and snakes on a tree. Can't remember what it was though... I keep going and soon find a tower climbing towards the lovely fairy lights I've been seeing in the night sky for ages. Fog gate. Ah. Those lights are coming to murder me then...

I head through the fog and find myself facing the Moonlight Butterfly on a pretty but very narrow bridge. The butterfly is too far for me, and I can't be bothered to range. Let's see what the patterns are, and there should be some melee opening is my thinking. I soon die from the butterfly shots, and come back twice to die after recovering my souls and humanity, learning how to run away from the spikes and dodge the tracking missiles, and on my last death I see the butterfly landing on the bridge. That would be my melee opening. I come back, wield the sword two-handed, evade the missiles, and in two melee phases the butterfly is down. As it dies, I'm torn. Why did something so pretty have to die? Why did it even have to attack me? Is there no place in this world for beauty? And still looking for an answer, I climb up the next tower. And find the remains of a forge, with a petrified blacksmith holding a Divine Ember in his hands. What happened here and why? The butterfly was holding on to this tower before. Did it turn the smith to stone? Or was the creature simply attracted by the bright light of the Ember? The latter is an awful thought, as it'd imply the divine light pulled the creature towards its doom by putting it on my way... I take a final look around from the top, staring at the fortress parts I've been through or will go through at some point, then head back to the smith as the Ember description says it's used for upgrades. Sadly I don't have the special Titanite required, and anyhow, Divine damage apparently scales on Faith and I still have my starting 8... I also have a Watchtower basement key, I just need to find a watchtower with a basement now. I think it might be down that corridor by the Burg merchant.

Now that I'm starting to feel (over)confident in my skills, I remember I have some unfinished business, and I head to the black knight in the Parish. I pull it down into the courtyard where it proceeds to kill me. How that dude can be that fast with such a large sword, I wonder... A couple more tries and he falls, and I score his Black Knight Greatsword. I can't use it but ah.

I then decide to explore Darkroot Basin, but that Demon by the smith is also beginning to annoy me. An orange message tipping me to use lightning damage, I decide to sacrifice my resin and have a go at it. My damage looks good, and my endurance pool is large enough that blocking helps a lot. I have to retreat twice up the stairs to drink Estus, but I take it down. I'm still not sure if the lightning damage helped, but who knows. It's the last thing I'd have expected though, since it was shooting lightning itself...

I head down the basin, and soon find myself facing another knight. The fight works well and he dies, allowing me to recover some leather armour and light a local bonfire. The back of the bonfire cave leads to the Valley of Drakes where my shield block doesn't help against electric death. I recover my souls/humanity and take note that I'll have to come back later. Much later. I head up the basin and see bright lights in the distance. Smells like boss fight. But closer to me, on the side is a tower. I've got a hunch and indeed, that's the Watchtower my key opens up, yay. I get in and look around. And die to the fat b*****d with his two-handed dragon fang/tooth hammer. I head back and find out that blocking doesn't really work, my endurance draining too fast. Dodging is tight too, and after more deaths, I decide to leave it for later.

Down the Basin then. I deal easily with the crystal mobs with dodges and two-handed wielding, and get to face the Hydra, whose water balls I already abused to kill some crystal golems, haha. A few deaths teach me the following: my shield can block the water balls in full, water balls hitting the ground do AoE, if that AoE is beside/behind me, it won't be shield blocked, the rock far from the shore isn't a safe spot due to AoE, the Hydra stands in deep water, and one doesn't swim in plate armour. Then I find that the small rock by the water's edge is safe as long as my shield blocks the projectiles hitting the front. Now that I have time, I get the general patterns: silent movement means shooting, and shriek means that the heads will crash to the ground around me, allowing me to melee them. Soon a head gets chopped off. Then a second. I now notice something else: each head shoots in a specific spot relative to me, hence why the danger area is so large when in the open. After I chop another head, the last two always shoot left and right of me, allowing me to use the sword two-handed safely. The fourth head gets cut, but the fifth will take me ages as it lands far to my left each time and I can barely run to it due to the water. I get around the problem by hugging the rocks to the right side, which get the head to land just a bit closer to land and I end up chopping it down. That was an easy but boring fight overall. A change of pace I guess.

Further out, by a waterfall, a ladder climbs up to what I presume is another section of Darkroot Garden. The treemen here are much tougher, still reacting slowly enough to be dispatched easily, but requiring 5/6 two-handed hits instead of 3. I decide to visit the place later, and head down again to finish exploring the Hydra lake. An orange message tells me that some Humanity lies ahead, but all I found was a golden crystal golem that had to be fought sluggishly in the water. It took me a goof few tries but I took it down, and this freed an elvish looking Lady of the Lake which I could probably summon for help now if I wanted to. I thanked her and went back to meet my dragon claw hammer friend in the watchtower...

Dying a couple times to him again, I realise that he's hitting so hard my armour is useless. Also, he's surprisingly fast and I rarely have enough time to place more than a single hit at a time. I reequip to be naked (which, being undead, is pretty gross I have to say) and wield the drake sword two-handed for max damage per single hit. This gives me fast rolls, that should help. I need a few more deaths but the fat knight end up falling, and I collect the awesome Havel Ring from his body before dressing up again. Incidentally, trying out the moves, I only then discover the drake sword two-handed ranged strong attack. Wow. And abusing it in the open, I'm told the sword is at risk so I guess it costs a lot of durability.

I repair and go up the tower, and am amused to see I'm back to the Burg in the tower leading to the Taurus demon. I take the opportunity to settle unfinished business and though it takes me a few tries, I kill the Knight there and collect a Black Knight Sword. For some reason, it's only there and then that I find the stats screen for equipment... Everything makes more sense now, and I see why the drake sword damage is constant, and why my longsword damage goes up with strength and dexterity... Great. I also see that my 20 strength is fine for that Black Knight sword, but my 16 dexterity is too short by 2. I mark that up for my next two level increases and go back to the lake waterfall ladder.

Up in the Garden, I noticed that a bridge led to another section again. Went there, and found a giant catlike mini-boss. Died once, came back, brought my A-game, and did well until two more showed up, clearly telling me that it'd be wiser to do the treemen section first. So I ran from the bonfire again and climbed to the tough treemen section. Followed the left cliff and got rewarded with a full set of Eastern armour. By now my endurance is just high enough for the full Elite Knight set with medium rolls though, so the Eastern is out of the picture just yet. Rather than head inland, I go back along the cliff and explore the right side. A hidden archer suddenly shoots at me from the distance so I raise the shield and advance slowly towards him. But as I do, a ghostly knight with a big sword runs at me. I run out of the archer's range and engage the ghost knight. To my relief, he takes damage, so he's not a New Londo style monster. He strikes hard and fast though, and, a novelty: he also dodges and kicks my shield... I die to him a few times, including once where two treemen joined the fun. Then, on a fight where I ran down towards the ladder to drink Estus, he followed me, only to disengage slowly as I crossed the bridge. Not sure if it's simple aggro distance or if ghosts can't cross rivers in this world, but here it was. I headed back to the ledge and sure enough, he came again. We fought a bit there, and with no other threat and no space to the sides, I went for a careful shield up engagement, with a careful single hit per block. As he was close to death, he suddenly decided to roll backwards and fell into the water... I lol'ed. Then I went to say a few words to the archer which turned out to be a she and the same kind of ghost. And she died in the river too, after my hits on her shield pushed her back. Clearly I was onto something. She dropped the Black Bow of Pharis as well as the Hat of Pharis. The bow looks neat for my aggro purposes, thanks to the increased distance (thank you equipment stats screen!).

Further out, two more foes: a ghost thief and a human cleric. It's... like... the first hostile human I encounter. It came out as a shock as so far all humans have been allies. At the back of my mind I'm wondering if I should have tried to 'reverse hollowing' to become human, but then, other humans saw me undead and recognised me as not quite hollow, so... Anyhow, in a familiar pattern, the thief and cleric fell from the cliff and died. But then another human, an axe warrior this time, got the best of me. I ran back but died to him again after discovering that although the knight and archer didn't respawn, the thief and cleric did. I'll have to be more careful on my next approach then.

And, so far, this is it. That was the end of my game session yesterday and my progress so far. My provisional plans are to finish clearing this area, go kill the giant cats, then maybe farm up 20k souls to open up that light gate locking another Garden section. Then probably explore that merchant corridor going down the Burg. But who knows what I'll find on the way...

Overall, I have to say I'm enjoying the game a lot. I'm about 18h in according to Steam, but there's been a fair bit of downtime, so I'm probably a few hours less than that of actual game-time. Coming from Monster Hunter, I felt at home right away with the combat. Just like in MH too, I can't handle the target lock and feel much better with free movement, facing and slashing. While I miss the range of preparation you have access to in MH to tailor yourself to a fight, the lack of heavy grind in DS makes up for it. I enjoy the shorter boss fights too, although it get a bit old to run back each time, but ah... Difficulty wise, so far the game is ok. I presume it hasn't thrown the worst at me yet, so I'll reserve judgement for the end, but until now, it's been very manageable. Everything so far is a small lesson to be learned, and the game feels very rewarding. It's amazing how easy previous areas feel even though my equipment isn't that much better than it was at the time. How creatures that felt boss-like (Stone Giants) now do feel like the mobs they are and how I just run past them because I can't be bothered to waste time on them on my way... New Londo taught me that not everything I can reach can be tackled immediately, Undead Burg taught me how and why to kick shields, the Taurus demon to study my environment, the Gargoyle to block, the Stone Giants to roll and run away from magic, the Hydra that one doesn't swim in plate mail, the Watchtower Knight that nudism is underrated, the Ghost Knight that cliffs can be my friends...

Finally, a note on the atmosphere. This is the one thing I wasn't expecting at all since the undead/demon thing in games hasn't been my thing since my Doom/Doom2 days. I love the game's atmosphere. This weird desperate world is exposed in great fashion imho. The very little background, the tiny clues and dialogues, the weird and connected locations, the strange denizens, the Arthurian style of the lone knights being found on a quest here and there against overwhelming odds... And, and it took me a while to actually notice it: the absolute lack of music. The full reign given to ambient sound is majestic and really reinforces that feeling of solitude you get from being alone out there trying to find some meaning to a quest you barely know anything of. It reeks of Super Metroid in that feeling of isolation in a place you slowly get to know, and like it, I guess the connected map design is part of it. Watching around, seeing bridges, towers or the Moonlight Butterfly wings in the distance and knowing that you can and will get there is great.

Anyhow, that's me done so far... If you're commenting below, please, please, please, avoid spoilers. Small tips are ok if you feel they're needed, but so far I find the orange messages are doing more than enough to provide me with tips here and there and it feels great to discover the stuff as it comes for this first playthrough. It wouldn't have been the same for example to already know about the tower to jump from onto the Taurus demon. The one thing I was really puzzled with (weapon/armour stats and scaling) turned out to be me noobing out and now that I found that screen I have a much clearer idea of how all equipments compare. :)