I beat Dark Souls, and by "beat," I mean that I beat the "final boss" in the game and was rewarded with the end credits. That being said, I did not "complete" the game, which apparently takes at the very least, one additional NG+ (New Game) run through to see everything, experience all the NPC's storylines and to see the multiple endings, of which I have heard that there are at least two.
Now, I've brought up Dark Souls a number of times, the first dating back to December 2014 while playing/starting with my fourth character, and most recently, in April while on my fifth character, whom I was able to finally beat the game with.
I know that nothing that I really have to say about Dark Souls will be new or revolutionary, I just wanted to relay my experience playing the game, while using a handful of pictures to aid my lack of knowledgeable wordings'. And just a word of warning, there will be some SPOILERS, but I will try to keep it to a vague minimum.
My character, fifth time around was Bjorn, a male warrior with the following image/stats.
I know that nothing that I really have to say about Dark Souls will be new or revolutionary, I just wanted to relay my experience playing the game, while using a handful of pictures to aid my lack of knowledgeable wordings'. And just a word of warning, there will be some SPOILERS, but I will try to keep it to a vague minimum.
My character, fifth time around was Bjorn, a male warrior with the following image/stats.
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| I got so excited that I left the chamber and killed a hollow before running back to take a picture, hence the 20 souls. |
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| Disclaimer (I didn't take a picture of Bjorn when I started, which is why "For Pictures" is the name, but the stats are the same. |
And now for a comparison with how I looked, roughly 73 hours later
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| Not a great angle, but damn is that a pretty decent picture! |
That's right, level 101. Overkill maybe. Overpowered, maybe. But that's what it takes sometimes, so there. And in the end, I used the following gear:
Now, keep in mind that while playing, I ran a 95% (+/- 5%) blind playthrough, meaning I didn't intentionally look up information about where to go for the best items or how to get them, or how to react around certain NPCs. The way I played, from about April through when I finished, was to play the game normally, then watch an episode of Extra Credits' Side Quest series where show co-creator Dan would play Dark Souls. There were things that I unintentionally found out, such as information about Lautrec of Carim, how to interact with The Painting in Anor Londo, or that there's a guy who may or may not push you off the edge of a cliff, because there's treasure down there. For these few instances, I tried to think about how I would have played the game had I not known about a certain piece of information. Although I did end up attacking and killing the pushy-cliff guy as I was low on life and afraid that the fall would be an insta-kill.
And in Dark Souls, doing things without being influenced can be incredibly difficult if you constantly find yourself reading the glowing orange messages that other players have left behind. It's one of the few online interactions that can occur while playing, although apparently sometime around early/mid-April, the servers for PC players has been quieter than usual. Even I noticed and I don't do a lot of online play, and I never utilized the "invading" function of the game, although I did illicit help from a player whom I've since forgotten in order to get through the Ornstein and Smough fight (after dying 15+ times and spending a number of hours, trying, dying, grinding, dying, trying, et cetera). But thank you very much person who helped me out of a tight and heavy electric-induced jam.
There were a couple of times when I felt that watching Dan fight a particular boss would be okay. His character was a Dex-based knight, whereas I was playing a Str-End based warrior, our gear and tactics would be different, but honestly watching the videos where he would fight Chaos Witch Quelaag, the Capra Demon, the Gaping Dragon, Sif, and Seathe the Scaleless. . .there might be others too, but I don't immediately recall. Every time, I would give the particular boss a couple of tries and if I wasn't able to figure out what to do, I would watch Dan's tactics.
I also want to add that with my "build," I did not follow any guides, as anyone whose "got gud" will tell you that I wasted three levels by putting them into Resistance. I also wasn't 100% sure about what a number of the stats were and how they affected my character and the way I was playing. Sure I could have looked up the definition in-game, or looked it up online, but at the time it didn't seem too important. I did realize though that at a certain point, my defense stats stopped going up with each level increase so leveling up a stat only increased its corresponding attribute (Str = Weapon Damage since I was using a halberd; Int = Sorceries Damage; et cetera). And even with increasing Endurance, once my Stamina reached 160, that stat remained static and only increased equipment load, which I was trying to increase as I ended up creating a heavy tank-type build and wanted to try and equip as much of the Stone armor or Havel's armor as I could.
Pretty early on, I decided that I wanted to be able to have some sort of ranged attack (as I wasn't able to figure out how to aim with the bow until I was in the Painted World of Ariamis, so I put a number of points into Intelligence so that I could cast Soul Arrow and later, Great Soul Arrow. I did get quite a lot of use out of those spells, even though they didn't do a whole lot of damage, most of the time used to egg enemies out to come after me if they were unmoving when I found them. I also used it quite a lot against the Titanite Demon in order to get its health down to 1/4 or 1/2 (depending on the demon and where I was fighting it). I also put some points in Faith in order to cast heal spells when my Estus flask ran out (which happened frequently before I gained the Rite of Kindling), although in areas like Sen's Fortress, and Tomb of the Giants, being able to heal further was very much needed.
As far as the story goes with other NPC's , I felt like I did quite a bit. I talked to as many as I found and I know that I didn't fully complete most/all of their storylines. The one involving Siegmeyer of Catarina was funny/sweet and I thought took a final dark turn at the end, which turned out not to be the end. Then there was Solaire, of which I did find out a major spoiler about him, but without that knowledge, there was nothing in-game that hinted at how to "complete" his storyline, so I just played it out to its bitter end, which is how I would have played had I not known.
At the end of the game, I took only one try at Lord Gwyn before being able to kill him, with the first attempt bringing him down to 5% health before he did some horrible multi attack that I was not prepared for and died. Upon my return, I was able to kill him and did briefly think about leaving to go complete the DLC area (Oolacile), but then I saw a bonfire and figured that I would just warp out of the area. Turns out I linked the fire and finished the game.
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| Not what I had intended, but okay. |
I also recognize that there is plenty that I did not understand lore-wise. Even after watching Dan's Lore Retrospective, which did help on quite a few points, but even he said that the video is meant as more of a primer rather than an all encompassing tell all, which apparently is covered in greater depths from other sources.
So I spent, in total, 112 hours playing Dark Souls, about 20 hours or so of that time was spent being frustrated and not really sure how much more I could take and if I wanted to invest any more time in this beautifully created yet difficult game. It really wasn't until after I defeated the Bells Gargoyle that I really started to enjoy the game. Even more so after I got my Strength up to 24 so that could wield the Zweihander and I was able to decimate enemies often with a single swing/smash. But now with NG+, I can start off with all of my equipment and take out the Asylum Demon the first time around; I did notice though that all of my keys (with the exception of the Master Key which I started off with) were taken away, but that's to be expected.
So now, or at least sometime after Dark Souls II: Scholar of Sin goes on sale during the Steam Summer Sale, I will have a go at part II, which should be fun, considering that Dan is now doing a run through over on Side Quest. Or maybe I'll pick up Lords of the Fallen, or one of the other Dark Souls clones that's out there. We'll just have to wait and see.
In the end though, I am happy that invested my time getting used to and finishing this game. It was a difficult and often frustrating game, but ultimately I was able to enjoy it when I began to take my time and notice the details of the world.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
P.S. During the entire game, I was invaded at least once by a real person, who attacked me as I was on my way to fight Ornstein and Smough. The rest of the invasions were by NPCs in-game (such as Paladin Leeroy), and I only died once, and it was to Xanthous King, Jeremiah. But to Dekareez who thought he could invade, kill me and make off with some spare souls and humanity:
Your failure has been immortalized. And thanks for the 15450 souls.
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