I hate FromSoft fanbois. Not the community in general, mind you, but the assholes who have a very rigid idea of what should and shouldn’t be. I’ve talked before about gatekeeping and how much I loathed it. I’m of the mindset that play the game as you want to play it. Enjoy it how you want to enjoy it. And that’s how I play the games myself. I know myself. I know my strengths and my weaknesses. Now.
When I first played Dark Souls, I had no idea what to do. Looking back, it was not the smartest thing for me to do–play Dark Souls when I’d never played anything remotely like it. But, something about the fantasy world captured my attention and, yes, the difficulty was something to be conquered.
I slogged my way through the game, first going to the graveyard. I got my ass kicked time and time again, but I thought that was supposed to happen. I mean, what’s the one thing most people know about the game? It’s brutally hard. I’ve heard Souls fans laugh and say it’s obvious by how difficult the skellies are that you’re not supposed to go that way. Sure–once you see the actual initial path, but if you go first to the graveyard, you have no point of reference. What is appropriately hard and what is too hard? Who’s to say?
The other way you’re not supposed to go is down the stairs and the lift to New Londo. Why? Because there are fucking ghosts you can’t attack without a certain consumable item (or a certain kind of weapon). Again, FromSoft fans point out that the fact you can’t attack the ghosts should let you know that’s not the way to go. But in a game where everything is supposed to be brutal, what’s a few non-attackable ghosts?
Even going the right way doesn’t mean you’re going to have an easy time. I totally sucked at the game. I wanted to quit so many times, but there was something about the game that just kept drawing me back in. Plus my own stubborn pride. I wasn’t going to let some game beat me down! I made it to Andre’s bonfire and then–I did something horrible. I accidentally attacked him when I was trying to talk to him. In that game, if you hit an NPC, they are permanently aggroed until you get your sins absolved. Which you can’t even do until after you beat the boss of the area (The Bell Gargoyles) and rung the first Bell of Awakening. When you climb back down the ladder, there’s Oswald of Carim, the pardoner. He can forgive your sins, but it’s not cheap. It’s 500 Souls per level. I was probably level thirty or forty by that point. You do the math. I couldn’t afford to get my sins forgiven, but I also couldn’t approach Andre without him trying to punch me in the face. I could have started over, but the thought of doing that made me really depressed. I hadn’t killed the Bell Gargs at this point so I decided to do that and then get my sins pardoned.