Dark Souls III: I Got Gud, Part One

I’m in the middle part of Dark Souls III, and I have to admit, I was starting to drag a little. This happened to me while playing the first two games, too, as the games are long, and I tend to gorge on them. The first time I played the original Dark Souls, I hated the game by the end of it. I just wanted it to be over, and I couldn’t be happier once I put it in the done folder. I thought I’d never touch it again, but I did, and now, it’s one of my favorite games ever, if not my most favorite game ever. Part of the problem is that I mainline these games, gulping down chunks of them at a time. It would probably be better if I parceled out the experience a bit more judiciously, but I can’t. When I sit down to play a Souls game, I don’t emerge until several hours later. Sometimes, I’m not even sure how much time I’ve been playing. The games really feed into my OCD traits, so it’s not really that surprising that I would experience fatigue while playing them.

A few days ago, I was saying to Ian that maybe I should take a break. Ever since I reached Irithyll of the Boreal Valley, I’ve felt under-leveled and not strong enough to take on the area. I felt all badass after easily dispensing of High Lord Wolnir, only to have my ass handed to me by the common  enemies of IotBV. I’ve complained more than once that I think FromSoft* hates casters, and it really felt that way during this section. It felt very Bloodborne-y (meaning faster action), which reinforced my belief that while I love watching other people play Bloodborne, I might not be as into playing it myself because my reactions are just too slow for that shit. I co-oped the boss of the area, though I hadn’t really meant to. I co-oped with someone else and helped them beat the boss, so I had my ember restored, which gave me almost twice as much HP. I decided to make a run at the boss so as to not waste the ember, and I summoned Anri of Astoria and a human phantom to help me out. I honestly didn’t think we’d beat the boss because the boss gets more HP in direct proportion to how many phantoms you summon. To my surprise, we beat the boss, much to my relief and slight disappointment because I like to beat bosses solo on my first playthrough. Relief because I was frustrated by how much I hated this section of the game. I went back recently just to see if I could kick some ass, and I could. That’s one of the best parts of Souls games–returning to a previous area that completely wrecked your shit and getting your revenge.

Still. The game only got harder from there, obviously. After Pontiff Sulyvahn, the aforementioned boss, there was a section of the game that I just ran my way through (prior to Anor Londo).  Normally, I would feel bad about that because I like to thoroughly explore each area, but not this time. It was fucking brutal. I’ll go back and see if I can explore it at a more leisurely pace and see if I’ve missed anything, but I have to admit, I’m not looking forward to it. I’m used to feeling overwhelmed while playing Souls games, but there’s a fine line between that and feeling helpless, and I was leaning more towards the latter. Most die-hard Souls fans insist that you should play as a melee character on your first playthrough, and while I bristle at the elitism of the statement, they’re not wrong for one reason–the games are heavily biased towards melee players.  One of the fun thing in the games is picking up new weapons and feeling like a badass as you plow through enemies with an ultra greatsword or a giant scythe. I don’t get to experience that as a caster, however, because I can’t pump the stats necessary to wield such weapons. Besides, the best way to use those weapons is to two-hand them, and I suck at that. But, it must be nice to do a thousand damage with one swing. I will never know that feeling. When I pick up one of these cool weapons, I just glance at it before moving on because I know I’ll never be using it. Now, to be fair, any time I get a new pyromancy or pyromancy tome, I’m excited as all get-out. Even some of the miracles or magic spells can thrill me–if I have the stats to use them. However, I’m almost pure pyromancer this time around, which is unusual for me, but I like stacking everything towards my fire usage.

One thing I’ve done in this playthrough that is unusual for me is trading in boss souls for boss weapons. In this game, it’s a process called Soul Transposition through the Transposing Kiln, which you obtain by killing the Cursed-Rotted Greatwood (an early boss in the game). In the past, I tended to hoard the souls and not do anything with them except carry them around like trophies. This is ridiculous because even if I didn’t want to make boss weapons out of them, they’re worth a lot of regular souls. In this game, I just said, “Fuck it. I’m transposing ’em.” Any soul I could transpose into a pyromancy or spell that I could use, I have. Chaos Bed Vestiges, a pyromancy that takes two slots, is made from the Soul of the Old Demon King (my hardest boss so far), and it’s one of my primary spells. In fact, it’s the only boss soul spell that I use at all, which is sad, but not unexpected. While I’m glad pyromancy is back as an official class in this game, it still feels like it’s treated as a second-class citizen. I will say that wearing the two pyromancy-boosting rings does noticeably increase the power of my flame. I’ve mostly resisted the urge to level up my skills in a desultory fashion. Right now, I’m concentrating on upgrading my intelligence so I can use the sweet dark pyromancies/sorceries I have my eye on.

At this point in the game, I had two areas that I could explore–Anor Londo** and the Profaned Capital. I cleared out the latter in little time, running into the boss in a rather ignominious fashion. The boss is Yhorm the Giant, one of the Lords of Cinder (the big honcho bosses), and I started as I normally did–by hurtling a Great Chaos Fire Orb at him. It did NO damage, and I thought, “Oh, shit” as I ran around the boss room. I spotted a body I could loot and grabbed–something. Didn’t know what it was. After Yhorm killed me, I looked up what I had found. It was the Storm Ruler, and the lore on the item said it was especially useful when facing a giant. Hey! Yhorm was a giant, so it would probably be useful against him! When I tried it, though, it did peanut damage. I decided to explore Anor Londo instead. It’s a small area, and I soon ran into a fog wall. What? Another boss so soon? Well, hell. Might as well give it a shot. I had to smile slightly because it’s the same room in which I fought Ornstein & Smough, and I wondered what would be behind the fog wall. I stepped through and was met by a grotesque monstrosity that had….Dark Sun Gwyndolin’s face????? What the hell? The name ‘Aldrich, Devourer of Gods’ popped up on above the boss’s health bar at the bottom of my monitor, and I cleverly deduced that Aldrich had devoured Gwyndolin. I don’t know how because I had killed him in the original game, but maybe his soul had lingered in the abyss or something. Anyway, Aldrich looked like a giant worm with Gwyndolin’s face, and he was shooting magic at me willy-nilly. I did decent damage against him with my pyromancy, but he got me in the end.

There are a lot of enemies in the short run from the bonfire to the boss room, so I decided to sacrifice one of my pyromancies and equip the ‘Hidden Body’ miracle instead. Why? Because it allowed me to run past the enemies without them detecting me–which was invaluable for keeping my health topped off. I tried Aldrich several times to no avail. He had magic arrows that chased me around the room, and if I got caught in the storm, it would stun-lock me to death. His other worst attack was the Soul Spears that could go through pillars. It was frustrating because I didn’t feel he was that hard, but he kept killing me. I put down my soapstone sign and got summoned a few times. I have to reiterate that I really fucking love helping other players with the bosses. It’s a great way to see the boss myself, but more to the point, it pleases me that I’m a pretty good phantom. I know the first rule of phantoming–making sure your host doesn’t die. It’s OK if I die as a phantom, but my main job is to keep my host alive. To that end, if I notice that my host is at low health, I rush in to focus the boss’s aggro on me until my host can heal. In addition, most of the people who have summoned me have been melee players, so me being a pyromancer is really helpful. I can do about five hundred damage with each cast of my fire spells, which isn’t bad at all. One of my favorite co-op fights was when I was summoned by a sorcerer. He also summoned another phantom who was part of the SunBro Covenant, and he was rocking the lightning. We didn’t get the job done the first time, but the second time, we killed Aldrich in about twenty seconds. It was exhilarating to see the boys pelting him with magic and lightning while I hurled fire at him. It was a glorious fight. Then, I took my embered self and faced Aldrich yet again. I finally beat him, and I was exuberant.

Can I just say I never truly valued how much a difference being human/embered made? It’s been in every game, but I never really thought much of it before. Then, I read something in a wiki for this game about beating a certain boss, and the writer said, “Before you waste your ember–” and I thought, “Wait, you’re supposed to be human for the fights?” I mean, it makes sense, and they give you plenty of embers in this game. They did the same with human effigies in DS II, though they were pretty sparing with the humanities in the original game.  By the  end of DS II, I had nearly ninety human effigies. I already have over fifty in this game. I like to hoard them in case of an emergency, which is ridiculous. Anyway, you get more health points when you’re embered, and it’s made a difference in more than one boss fight. Having thirty percent more health is great, but I wish I could also have roughly the same amount more mana. Yes, yes, it’s focus points, but, come on. It’s fucking mana. The estus flask is even blue! Anyway, I still won’t waste an ember before a boss fight, but I do love becoming embered when I help someone defeat the boss in their world. The problem is if I die to the boss, I feel like I’ve wasted an ember.

After Aldrich, I went back to the Profaned Capital to give Yhorm the Giant another shot. I was feeling cocky, which was immediately knocked out of me when a phantom invaded and killed my embered ass. My pyromancy kept doing shit, so I pulled out the Storm Ruler again. I had practiced the charge-up skill which is gathering all the elements and bringing down a storm upon the enemy’s head, so I gave it a shot. I did 5000 freaking points of damage on Yhorm and took off about a fourth of his health bar. Oh, yes. This was the way to go. I tried it again and whiffed, and Yhorm made short work of me. Still, that damage, though. I tried a few other things, but it was clear that the Storm Ruler was the way to go. I got rid of my two rings that give me additional spell slots and wore two other rings instead. I got rid of most of my fire spells (except a few dark ones) since they weren’t helping, anyway. I embered up, and I beat Yhorm with the Storm Ruler, which was pretty damn awesome. I was ridiculously pleased that I had beaten him strictly melee. As I was patting myself on the back and waiting for my bonfire to appear, a cutscene started instead, and I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Some woman dropped down in front of me and babbled something about saving Prince Lothric. Once she was done, a creature that looked like a robotic Artorias, but swathed in veils or some shit emerged, and a boss bar appeared at the bottom of the screen. Great. Fucking great. Dancer of the Boreal Valley. I just beat a boss, and now I have to beat another boss. With less than half my potions and very few of my fucking fire spells. Needless to say, I was NOT pleased.

I heaved a sigh and readied myself. OK, Dancer of the Boreal Valley, let’s do this! I actually got her down to about half health before she finished me. I was transported back to my last bonfire, pissed as hell. Not only did I lose my souls, I lost my embered self as well. I grumpily changed my rings and spells back and stomped back to Yhorm’s boss room. There was nothing there. What? I had to fight this boss, but how could I do that when I couldn’t find her? I was mad because I had just beaten two bosses and should have had at least a minute to feel good about myself, but, no. Miyazaki couldn’t even give me that before pummeling me into the ground again. Because I couldn’t be stuffed to find the boss, I looked it up. She was in the room where I met High Priestess Emma much earlier in the game. I made my way back to the boss room, pleased that the enemies that had vexed me so when I first encountered them were easily dispatched by me. I put on a Ring of Sacrifice before entering the boss room. It would allow me to die without losing any of my souls, so all I had to do was pick up my souls before dying–and I knew I would die. I spotted my souls and stepped on them to pick them up, so I didn’t care when Dancer killed me. At least I could spend the souls I earned killing Yhorm the Giant, which was all that mattered to me at the moment. After I did that, then I would face Dancer again.

This is getting long, of course, so I’ll end it here and pick it up again in another post.

 

 

*Developers of the Souls games.

**A callback to the original game, and my favorite thus far.