#finished ds1 recently. what an absolutely amazing game

[curlytsunamiart]

chosen undead & bearer of the curse

[eri-blogs-life]

The Souls Are Always Darkest

So since I have been on a FromSoft kick again (my gf and I started playing the Bloodborne board game, and that made me go back and finish Elden Ring), I decided I’d go back and replay some FromSoft games and write down some of my thoughts on them.

So, here’s my thoughts from this playthrough of Dark Souls

Obviously, generally speaking, the game’s a god-damn masterpiece. Amazing combat systems, tons of exploration and discovery, beautiful fantasy world to explore, and... there’s some kind of story there too. Something about killing Gwyn so you can become the new king or something? I don’t know. Story’s never been what I focus on in the Souls games

One of the first notes I have in my little notebook is “Poise. So nice. Also broken. Easy mode?” Which like... seems like a reasonable place to start. DS1 definitely makes the difference in light and heavy armor feel like it matters. I don’t know that I ever felt as much like it mattered in later games, but in DS1 wow what a difference light and heavy armor makes. Not just better armor reduction, but the ability to continue your own attacks or estus drinks while an enemy hits you if your poise is high enough. But you absolutely CAN’T dodge. It does actually make it feel like your choice in loadout matters.

Now, for what it’s worth, a person’s build is definitely going to impact their experience in a FromSoft game to some degree. I went with a “quality” build this time - close to evenly leveling vitality, endurance, resistance, strength, and dexterity. But the strength didn’t end up mattering a ton, cause the weapon I ended up maining was the Uchigatana. I got it early on and used it almost exclusively for most of the game. One hand was the Uchigatana, the other was a caestus I used for parrying, and it was excellent.

So, comparing the combat of DS1 to my recent experiences with, for example, Elden Ring, the combat feels so slow and deliberate. Like, in Elden Ring I felt like I was scrambling to dodge or attack or block or whatever. In Dark Souls I felt a lot more like I was in control. Attacks were slower for both sides, but that gives a little more time to process. At least, it feels that way to me. I’m not really sure if that’s actually true. That’s part of why I’m doing this series of FromSoft replays, so I can see if there really IS such a difference.

But also I might feel that difference because of what I was doing during my playthrough. Like I said, build might make a difference. In my Elden Ring playthrough I was a Faith-based character, casting a lot of spells and not being able to take many hits. But in Dark Souls, with my quality build, I was mostly parrying enemy attacks. Parries provide a nice opportunity to hit with a high-damage riposte and/or heal back up. It definitely gave me more of a sense that I was in control of each fight I was able to parry the enemies. Including the final boss. I got Gwyn in a parry-loop and killed him SO quickly and easily. Wow what a difference being good at parrying makes.

(not the best pic, but me just tanking one of Artorias’s hits while I hit him at the same time)

Let’s see. The world. Dark Souls certainly has a really cool world. The environments spread throughout are beautiful, from the dark forests to the huge castles to the towns to the lava ruins to the dark abysses where there’s nothing to see. However, the huge world also kind of sucks. Walking back and forth everywhere for everything feels bad. Sometimes.

The big interconnected world takes a long and annoying time to walk back and forth through every time you have to do that. But, finding shortcuts did make me feel very clever, which was much appreciated. I don’t know if that was worth the trade-off of the annoyingly long travel times for everything else all the time, but it did provide quite a nice feeling.

The bonfire placements, though... Dang, they suck. Like, they could certainly be worse, sure. But there are so many bosses that don’t have nearby bonfires so you have to walk all the way through a big long gauntlet of enemies, which slowly drain your resources before you even reach the boss. However, with bosses balanced around that being the case, it kind of works. Plus, it makes finding shortcuts or alternate paths even more enticing, as you might find a path that takes less of your estus in the run-up to each boss.

(these guys in lost izalith are such a cool weird lovecraftian monsters that don’t feel like they fit in but also they fit in so well with everything else in the world of Dark Souls)

And my final note: Bed of Chaos FUCKING SUCKS as a boss fight still. I hate it

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Dark Souls is still one of the best games of all time. I don’t really even know what else to say. Unfortunately, it’ll be a bit before I can play through DS2 and write up my thoughts on it, but I will like to do that at some point. I always love returning to Dark Souls 2. It is, after all, one of my favorite games of all time.