Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: not-plat run

Hades NOT-plat run and, let’s say, 7 tips for n00bs

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yummmmmmmmmm
Two is better than one!

Hi, my name is Minna and I’m addicted to Hades. Every time I think I’m done, I get sucked back in. Most of the time, it’s the lore. Oh, consider this whole post spoilers of some sort. In the beginning, spoilers for the very end game. Then, spoilers for techniques and whatnot. In general, spoilers abound.

About a week ago, I realized that I had most of the achievements for Hades. Not surprising, really, given how much I’ve been playing it. Which is roughly 165 hours. You know what’s bizarre to me? I just passed the amount of time I put into Dead Cells (and got nowhere near this far), which was about 150 hours. I just checked. It was 127 hours. Still. It’s 1/5th the amount of time I put into Nuclear Throne. And, let’s not talk about how much I’ve played Binding of Isaac.

Anyway, more lore! I found out that everyone is shagging everyone else in the game. Megaera has slept with Thanatos and Hypnos (brothers!), and it’s heavily implied that she’s slept with Achilles as well. Or maybe it’s just my interpretation. He, by the way, is in love with Patroclus, and I had to reunite them in Elysium. Orpheus and Eurydice, of course, are beloved as well. Side note: Orpheus is very goth in this game with puffy long black hair and black eyeliner. I was Googling him for something (probably how to do the side quest. We all know by now that I have no qualms about Googling how to finish side quests after I have given it the old college try) and I saw a bunch of Reddit threads asking why did they make Orpheus a girl in this game.

Sigh.

How embarrassing, boys. Can we at least pretend we’re part of the 21st century? Guys can have long hair and wear makeup! Although, I wouldn’t be mad if Orpheus was a woman in this game, but that’s not the lore.

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Recovering from not-platting…still

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pestilent mist to the tree balls!
Cheesy fun on the way to the not-plat!

I’m feeling the urge. The urge to purge. Er, no, not that. The urge to play Dark Souls III again. It’s just a whisper, and I am not going to do it, but the fact that it’s in the back of my head less than a week after platting the game demonstrates how much I love the game. I’m relieved that I don’t completely hate the game any longer, but it’s still going to take some time before I want to dive back into it. I did break and buy Code Vein on sale at Steam, but I probably won’t be playing it any time soon, either. It’s very good–at least from what I’ve played in the demo (though I’ve seen on the internet that there’s plenty of jank and frustration–and the DLCs are trash), but it’s anime Souls. That’s not a knock–I just don’t know if I can deal with it right now. I’m still exhausted from not-platting, and I’ve been thinking about it lately. Dark Souls not-plat was tedious. Believe me, very much tedious. Very grindy, and it was mitigated because I could do it over several characters. That really helped do the upgrading to the fullest every kind of weapon–meaning, crystal, lightning, magic, etc. I have mentioned this before, but I’m so glad that the upgrading paths have streamlined over the sequels. Having different material for each upgrade path was a pain in the ass. I know it was even more convoluted in Demon’s Souls.

I will say that the ‘have one weapon of all kinds’ achievement in the third game was, in theory, better than it was in the first game. You just had to have one of each infusion–and you didn’t have to upgrade the weapons at all. I think it’s partly because upgrading is so much more expensive in the third game than in the first, but for whatever reason, it was a welcome change. The achievement being bugged was fucking irritating, though. I’m just lucky that I had several characters on my old laptop (and could still get the laptop to work) in NG+ many with a plethora of all the material needed to try and try again.

I have complex feelings about the not-plat of the third game. Still. I understand that they want to make it difficult to obtain the plats, and it makes perfect sense. However, the way a lot of games seem to go about it is to just make you grind for an insane amount of time. I suppose you could technically say that skill is involved because you have to kill many of the bosses twice for boss souls (and three times for *sob* Sif), and with the same character. That means going into NG++. Technically, you only need to kill Sif on NG+, but in order to get to the Giant Blacksmith to make the weapon (and that of Gwyn’s soul), you have to get to Anor Londo which is halfway through the game (if you go the normal way). So, you have to play half the game and kill one boss for the plat, which means killing all the non-optional bosses on the way.

In the third game, you have to make it to the last area save the final boss’s boss arena in order to get one of the rings you need. On NG++, I mean. So you pretty much have to play the game three times through on one character to get the rings achievement. It took me roughly two hours to get to the Giant Blacksmith in Anor Londo on NG++. It took me six or seven hours to beat the Nameless King in NG++. Not to beat him himself but to get through him as the final obstacle to the not-plat. The emotional toll that the DS III not-plat took on me made me question why the fuck I was doing it. The first game was tedious and boring  in many parts, but it never warped my brain the way the third game did.

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Dark Souls III fears come to life

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farming my life away.
Look at my ridiculous tongue!

Back when I had completed my Dark Souls not-plat run and was watching Krupa finish his Dark Souls plat run, there was talk in the chat of what plat he should go for next. Several people suggested Dark Souls III, and I mentioned that I was worried that doing a not-plat run for DS III would ruin the game for me–and it was my favorite game. Now, almost two weeks later, I can say that my fear is coming true. I’ve been working on the DS III plat like mad without even mentioning what I’m doing this time. I don’t even call it the not-plat; I just do it. This plat is by far worse than the original one. I mean, that one was grindy as fuck, yeah, but this one is triple the grind and triple how far you have to get in NG++.

I have one achievement left (plus The Dark  Soul, which you get for getting all the other achievements)–Master of Rings. It’s the Knight’s Honor achievement of this game, but far more tedious. There are 107 rings you need overall, supposedly. This is one of the achievements that can glitch, and I will be super pissed if that happens. The Master of Infusion achievement glitched for me, and I thought that it was because I was offline. I have a tendency to run through the games offline until I hit a boss and then I want summons. Unfortunately, I am currently way over-leveled due to my grinding for covenant items, so I have not seen a human summon since…well at all in the not-plat run, which started midway in NG+.

I tried three times for the Master of Infusion achievement in three different ways, and I was unable to get it to pop. I was pissed, obviously, because as I noted in the last post, I only have one character on this laptop. I read all the wikis and I tried all the tips and tricks. None of them worked. I did NOT want to have to start another character just to get this achievement, so I dragged out the old laptop, plugged it in with this power cord, and pulled up one of the dozen of my old characters–one that is on NG+…..something or the other. More than 2, I think. I had all the material I needed, so I did the tip that someone suggested of buying fifteen daggers and infusing them one by one with the different statuses. I held my breath as I did the last one, and it popped! Thankfully, or I probably would have hurt myself by punching something very  inanimate and hard.

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Some whine with my Dark Souls cheese

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farming outfit nonsense.
Full farming regalia.

During my Dark Souls not-plat run, I tried some cheese late in the game to make it more interesting for me. I mentioned it in my last two posts about the end of the not-plat run, and I brought the same mentality into my current playthrough of DS III. Here’s a fun fact* about the third game: there is no cloud sync. There is one in the original, but not this game for whatever reason. That means that I can only play whatever characters I have created on this computer–which is one. I found this out the hard way when the game came out and I had finished it. Then, I went to visit Ian right around the time of the second DLC, and I was on a different computer than the one I had done the main game on. Imagine my surprise when I tried to find my character, and she wasn’t there. I had to start over and run through the whole game again in order to access the DLC. Maybe it was the first DLC. At any rate, it was frustrating.

My current character is on NG+ and when I picked up the game again, I was about to enter the Catacombs of Carthus. I was a strengthcaster per yooz with a heavy emphasis on casting. I had 30 in Int and 30 in Faith, and I had skimped on Vi….t? Vig? *frantically Googles* Vigor! They change all the stats from game to game so it’s not easy to remember which is in which game. Anyway, I skimped on Vigor, Endurance, and Vitality (see!), and I am trying to beef those up now. I usually neglect Vitality because I prefer to wear lighter armor and bump up my other stats. My one character on NG++++ (pauses) + (I think it’s NG+5) has Vit for days, but I’ll never be able to use her again, sadly.

I finally have my Vigor up to 28 and Endurance up to 30, and I’ll probably leave them once I get my Vigor up to 30. Faith is 35 so I can use Bountiful Sunlight with the Symbol of Avarice when I’m farming for…I’ll get to that in a minute. I would like to get it to 45 to use Soothing Sunlight, but I’m not sure I can justify 10 points in Faith just for that miracle. I do have it, however. I’m not doing a plat run, nor am I doing a not-plat run, but it’s nice to have in my back pocket just in case.

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Not-plat Dark Souls run DONE!

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*Bonus Post*

moonlight greatsword is mine!
Gotcha, asshole!

In my last post, I wrote about my not-plat Dark Souls run, but I forgot to mention Seath. He of the Moonlight Greatsword tail that I needed for the not-plat. I fucking hate the Crystal Cave. Earlier in NG, I went to grab the Titanite Blue Slab that is nestled there. I have never gotten it before, so I fell off that particular invisible path several times. Fortunately, I have several characters pretty far in this game so I was able to do the upgraded weapons with more than one character. That meant that I could use the Titanite Blue Slab I already had on one character (there are two in the game) for one upgrade and the one I nabbed in the Crystal Cave on a different character for the other.

Anyway, tackling Seath’s tail was a bitch. Getting there was more stressful because….I don’t know why exactly. I couldn’t remember exactly where the invisible path was, and I fell more than once. It took me five or six times just to get to Seath, and one of those fucking clams came into the arena with me. I died and was fuming as I made the trek again. One the second time I made it into the arena, I tried the strat of letting him kill his own crystal (I did it myself the first time) so he would be stunned as I ran around to his backside. I did not have Power Within activated, and I breathed Great Combustion on his tail…but missed once. I think I hit him once, but it wasn’t enough. So, I had to do it the hard way of running around him, baiting out the laser attack, and getting one or two swipes (Furysword) or GC on his tail–making sure I aimed at the tip. The thing is, though, he lashes his tail around, which meant I missed more than I hit.

I had to keep an eye on his health, obviously, as I did not want to have to do him on NG++. Not only did I not want to have to do him on NG++, I did not want to have to get to that part of the game as I only had to reach Anor Londo and Cuddles (Giant Blacksmith) to transform two boss weapons. I had Seath’s health down half just by attacking the tail, and I was getting nervous. I was wearing pretty strong curse-resist armor and had a high magic-resist shield, and I wasn’t taking much damage at all. I wonder if he’s like the Four Kings in that he does more damage the further you are away from him. Just as I decided I would probably have to let him kill me and try again, his tail came off! A few agonizing seconds before Moonlight Greatsword flashed on the screen, and then his tail…just…stayed…there. For the rest of the fight. As you can see in the pic above. Which was kinda gross, tbh, but at least I didn’t have to harvest it for the MGS as I would have in Monster Hunter World.

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My Dark Souls not-plat run is almost done

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staring into the abyss.
Got you, motherfucker!

I stand before the abyss, ready to take the plunge. No, wait. I’ve already done the Abyss as in the Four Kings on NG+ with my strength/faith gal, and it was fucking bullshit, I’ll tell ya. I don’t normally have trouble with the Four Kings because I just Pyro them in the face. New Londo (the area leading up to it) ain’t fun, but it’s not the worst, either. I normally can get through it on one or two tries. As for the Four Kings themselves, it’s usually a one and done in NG. I’ve even done it on NG+ before and not had an issue, but that’s with a character who had vit, end, and strength for DAYS. On this character, I was short all three (though I did bump up Endurance and finally have 40), and the ghosts were owning me. It took me four or five tries to get to the Four Kings, and then they wrecked me in one. I looked up tips (I ain’t too proud to beg), and then I followed the advice of using Power Within and Haveling it up. Mask of the Child for Stamina and the Crest Shield, then, and this is the important part, Great Combustion those assholes in the face.

I love me some Great Combustion, but I tend to view it as a last resort. It really is powerful as fuck, and I’ve been using it as a first option generously. I have two of them which is 16 uses in total. I also have two of the weaker ones, Combustion, and one Black Flame (the dark version) as well. But wait! We are not at that point in my narrative because there was so much other stuff I went through to get there. I stuck with my faith gal because in order to get one of the covenants, you needed to feed Gwyn’s soul to the Altar of Sunlight as a Sunbro AFTER offering ten Sunlight Medals. And, if you break the covenant as I did in the end of NG in order to save Solaire, then  you have to offer five more medals in order to get back into the covenant. Anyway, I did that, got the last miracle, and was able to check that achievement off my list.

Here’s a funny thing about me. I’m a completionist, even when I’m running through a game for the hundredth time. I still want to get every item and go to every  area even if I can skip it. I usually do Blighttown the normal way even when I have the Master Key just because. Also, Blighttown ain’t as bad as everyone says, especially on the PC. Anyway, on this NG+ non-plat run, I said fuck it. I was just going to go as fast as possible, making sure I did everything I needed to do along the way. I even went into Blighttown the back way and skipped the whole platforming mess. I made it to Biggie & Small in three or four hours, which is unheard of for me. I freaked out before fighting them, however, as I needed Ornstein’s soul. I never fight Super Ornstein because why would I? I had his soul on another character because a summon went for Smough first and I really had no choice. That character was in NG++, however, and didn’t have either Priscilla’s tail or Seath’s tail. I don’t care about tail cuts and have never done either. I also don’t kill Priscilla ever since the first time. Not because it traumatized me and made me think I was stuck in the Painted World of Ariamis forever (though it certainly did that), but because she’s cute and fluffy, and she’s not hurting anyone.

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