I love Dark Souls. I think that’s not going to be a shock to anyone. It’s my favorite series of games by a country mile and Dark Souls III is my favorite game, bar none. By the way, I’m happy that I can play DS III again, which I’ve been doing. I had to take several months off after the non-plat because it was ridiculously grueling* to get the covenant items and the thought of starting up a new game just did not do it for me. About a month ago, I started getting the itch again and I made a new character. Well, I say new, but I mean the exact same character I always play. Pyro starting out with the Hand Axe, switching to the Executioner’s Greatsword when I get it, then my beloved Lorian’s Greatsword near the end of the vanilla game. I use the Great Chaos Fire Orb until I can buy and use the Chaos Bed Vestiges. That plus Hidden Body and Tears of Denial are my spells. Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring, Lingering Dragoncrest Ring, Witch’s Ring, and Saint’s Ring are my base rings.
Stats-wise, I have to have 26 Strength 10 Dex to wield Lorian’s Greatsword. 20 Int and 10 Faith for the CBV. 18 Int and 18 Faith for the Crystal Chime (which I can use for both spells and miracles). I like to have 30 V and 30 End, but that’s not possible until the very end of the game given how many points I have to pump into other stats. I keep my Vit at 15 until the end game when I like to push it to 20. I have to get my Int up to 25 and my Faith at 20 so I can use a spell (Pestilent Mist) and miracle (Dorhy’s Gnawing) that take 30 Int and 25 Faith respectively. There are rings that add +5 to the important stats (individually, not all) so that’s why I need five less than the number stated.
In the past several days, I’ve been playing both Dark Souls Remastered and Dark Souls III every day, though not for very long on either one since I’m still dealing with a gamy thumb. Funny story: I went through DS III not getting any human summons and I shrugged it off, thinking it was just that I was playing at weird times or that people had moved on. I did get invaded, though, so there’s that. It was only after I had fought the Twin Princes several times with the NPC summons that I realized I had the password setting still on from when I was not-platting the game. I cracked doing the farming for vertebrae shackles and begged Ian to let me kill him over and over again while I had that covenant on, which was why we set passwords. I turned it off and voila! Human summons once again.
I got the best human summon for the Nameless King last night. Wearing my favorite armor (the torso part, Black Witch Set) and wielding the scythe. She had some kind of buff, maybe Oath of Sunlight and she absolutely destroyed the Nameless King. She did the King of Storm in less than two minutes and the Nameless King was like putty in her hands. I’m not saying I didn’t do my bit, but it was much less than her bit. I am now ready for the DLCs, which, by the way, are my least favorite parts of the game. Also, I just beat Biggie & Smalls with the assistance of two epic human NPCs and now into the lesser second half of the game. Oh, hey. Look! A segue into the actual reason for this post nearly 700 words in.
Some Dark Souls fans insist that the games are perfect and will brook no argument. Any opposition they hear is met with reasons why that’s a feature and not a bug. They are wrong and I’m here to list several of the things I find frustrating about the games. I’m not interested in whether they are features or bugs because they’re mosquitoes to me. I wrote about some of my issues with the games in my last video games post, but I wanted to expand on it more because I’ve been thinking about it as I play the games. In addition, I want to acknowledge people who have frustrations with the games. I understand that and sympathize because I had such a rough go my first time playing the original game. Any time someone confesses to me that they gave up on a FromSoft game, I tell them I understand because I really do. If I weren’t so unbelievably stubborn and prideful, I would have quit the first game for good a long time ago. These won’t be any in any order except for as they come to my mind.
First game, no fast travel until you get the Lord Vessel after beating Biggie & Small, then limited fast travel after that. I know why it’s the way it is and I will concede that not having fast travel made me get to know the game in a way I might not have otherwise. Though, I will argue that it’s because I died so much and repeated did the same thing over and over again. I get that the interlocking world is amazing in the first game–it really is. But for me, the overwhelming fatigue I felt the first time I played Dark Souls has stayed with me, many years later. And the limited fast travel in the second half of the game is annoying, too. In fact, I would say one of the biggest reasons I play Dark Souls III and Dark Souls II more than the original is because of the lack of fast travel in the first game.
Cryptic tutorials. One thing that Sekiro did really well was tutorializing. I have a hunch it’s because Activision took one look at the beginning of the game and said, “Um, no. You can’t leave people flailing like that.” I’m glad they put on the pressure if that was the case, but I don’t like that they insisted that the title be, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Joke’s on them, though, because NO ONE calls it that. It’s always Sekiro, which was what FromSoft wanted it to be. But things were pretty clear in Sekiro in a way that it isn’t in any of the Soulsborne games.
Byzantine upgrade paths. Oh lord. I get the shivers just thinking about it, especially in the first game. By the way, I’m excluding Demon’s Souls because I haven’t played it yet, but it’s even worse in many ways–especially the upgrading paths. But, it’s bad enough in the original Dark Souls. If you’re just using a basic weapon, you can upgrade to +5 before needing the…*Googles to make sure* Large Ember in order to take it up to +10. You need Titanite Shards to upgrade to +5, then Large Titanite Shards to upgrade to +10. The Large Ember is in the Depths. The Very Large Ember is in New Londo, which is normally a second-half part of the game. With it, you can upgrade your weapon to +14. +14? Yes, +14. In order to fully upgrade it, you need a Titanite Slab. In this game, they are few and far between.
You think that’s bad? Let’s talk about my beloved Pyromancy Flame. The thing I need in order to hurl fire everywhere. The main upgrade path is not that complicated, though it’s pricy. It’s only souls and not Titanite Shards and each upgrade is exponentially more expensive. You can get it to +15 and then you can ascend it +5 further. But! Wait! It’s not that simple. Oh, in order to upgrade the PF, you have to free the pyro trainer, Laurentius of the Great Swamp (my fave NPC), from the Depths. He can get you to +15, but you need another trainer, Quelana, in order to ascend the PF. She’s in the swamps of Blighttown, but there’s a hitch–you have to have a PF +10 in order for her to appear. The first time I played the game, I tried to do it without reading the Wikis or visiting the forums. I wanted to go in fresh, which was brave, but misguided. Anyway, it takes 340,500 souls in order to fully upgrade the PF. That’s many, many souls.
Wow. I’ve barely scratched the surface and I’m ready to wrap up this post. I’ll write more about it later. You can count on that.
*And, yes, I knew that the “right” way to get the numerous items is by P-v-P’ing, but that. is. not. my. jam. I don’t care how many people argue that it’s fun, blah, blah, blah. Some of the dudes from the RKG group like to argue this. “You can learn to P-v-P just like you learned to P-v-E.” First of all, that presumes that I want to learn it, which I don’t. Secondly, it’s a very different skill and just because HE was good at it, it didn’t mean everyone could do it.