#its insane to me how there are still things i havent seen in ds1 like i know i havent finished the dlc but in the main game??

[sinecosinewheel]

just found the ash lake in ds1 for the first time. god damn.

[some-creep]

Creep Ranks: The Dark Souls Trilogy

Because I finally beat all three of them.

Dark Souls 1: I got Prepare to Die like. When it first came out. I was terrible at it so I stopped playing. I beat the Taurus Demon and that was it. I didn’t start playing them again until quarantine when I decided to give it another shot as genuinely as I could. And I was terrible at them again. But instead of giving up I kept trying. Anyway, DS1 was a game I was always hesitant to play because I’m very bad at navigating large, sprawling, interconnected worlds. I am TERRIBLE at games like Castlevania and Metroid because of this so I don’t play them. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle the navigational stuff especially because you don’t get fast travel until midgame. But it wasn’t as hard as I thought. In fact, most of the game wasn’t as hard as I thought. Most of the difficulty of these games is in your head. Like sure, they’re difficult, but you get better and they’re not so scary. Anyway. I used NPC summons a lot because I wasn’t very good at handling bosses on my own (O&S anyone?). Sen’s Fortress and whatever the area before Seath is called with the invisible platforms were horrible and I hated them. I DID them, but I hated them. Those bits in Anor Londo too. You know the ones probably. The amount of thin platforms you have to navigate in this game was more than it needed to be. The HUD is also very ugly. I really liked the game though and decided I wanted to play the others. I initially skipped 2 and went straight to 3, beat 3, then went back to 2. As you do. Anyway DS1 is a great game and if you’re interested try it. I hear the remaster sucks but its the only one you can buy now. Weirdly the switch version of the remaster uses the old graphics, which are better because the lighting is better. Do with that what you will.

Dark Souls 2: I got Scholar of the First Sin, again, around the time it launched. Again. Horrible at it. Got no where. Gave up. At the time of writing this I have not yet done the DLC. I should mention I didn’t do the DLC in 1 either, but started NG+ before doing it so I’d probably have to restart… whatever. DS2 is… I don’t think I can say anything that hasn’t been said before. Mechanically this game just is not very good. I played this AFTER 3, so it felt shockingly easy by comparison. You are showered in souls, levels are insanely cheap, bosses are incredibly slow.  Most of the bosses I beat w/o summons, (and none of them took me more than 3 tries...and I SUCK at these games) although I used them for Watcher and Defender because that boss was kinda lame. The final boss was… Yeah. Maybe the DLC has better bosses and I’ll see later. The lock on in this game is broken. Even if you lock on in a 1v1, once you kill them, chances are it’ll zip to an enemy above you that hasn’t seen you yet. This happened more than once. It also tends to favor enemies behind you over ones in front of you regardless of how close they are. If not for all of the weird mechanical hang ups, this game would be the easiest in the franchise. It still is if you can get over them. I installed a mod to make the weapons not degrade twice as fast but I don’t think it worked because they still seemed to degrade incredibly fast. Can’t say for sure. Also there are so many dudes in any given area which I think was done to encourage you to kill them over and over until they stop spawning but that’s also kinda dumb. I don’t know. If you didn’t play 1 or 3 you might not notice some of this. Or maybe you’ll find it even worse. ADP controlling your i-frames while dodging and how fast you drink estus was a bad choice. I probably didn’t hate this game, but I found it to be the weakest. This game got rid of leveling up at any bonfire which also sucks. Wish DS3 hadn’t kept that but oh well. Losing part of your max HP when you die was bad and feels like it only exists to punish new players. But going hollow doesn’t prevent invasions? This game felt like it had a LOT of NPC invasions too. Maybe 1 and 3 do too but I didn’t spend a lot of time human. Hm.

Dark Souls 3: Not long after beating 1, I got this game. It’s the Dark Souls of Dark Souls games. Okay maybe it’s not that bad, but the jump (for me) to 60fps made everything much, much faster. And smoother. Going from PtDE to DS3 is like. Wow. Anyway everyone in this game is incredibly fast and hates you and wants you to die. It also had to wean me off of using NPC summons. Because I didn’t do one of the quest lines, I missed out on summons. So I was forced to just git gud. Lorian and Lothric were very difficult. I found Soul of Cinder to be hard too but I think people disagree with that (I couldn’t summon for either of those bosses so it was just me improving til I won). At the time of writing this I beat the first DLC (streamed beating Sister Freide, that was fun :) ), and started going through the other. Beat Dancer on my first try which I am still very proud of, and the consumed king in two. Did not yet beat Nameless King but I probably will. I think I had the most fun with this one because I was used to the souls formula by now and understood what to expect from things. However, in terms of exploration, this game is the weakest. It’s incredibly linear compared to 1 and even 2. That didn’t bother me because my favorite part is the combat, but I know a lot of people think this game was too boss focused. I dunno. 3 might be my favorite of them all. It certainly has the best looking HUD of the trilogy.

TL;DR: DS1 -  Most exploration, some difficult navigational things caused by the environment and not just enemies. Bosses hit hard but GENERALLY weren’t overly fast (but I havent played the remaster) 8/10 DS2: Less exploration, but fast travel from the start. Fewer instances of dangerous walking but a few miserable sections overloaded with dudes. And poison statues. Bosses are slow and it’s easy to upgrade your weapons and yourself. Could be a good place to start if not for all the mechanical jank. 6/10 DS3: The least amount of exploration probably. Fast travel from the start. I can’t remember any sections with pits and dangerous walking. Enemies are incredibly fast and dangerous. Most bosses are incredibly fast too. 9/10