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.
The Proof of the Concord Kept grind was real, but I didn’t mind it too much for whatever reason. I think it’s because it netted me 22,000 souls for two Silver Knights slewed (was a suggestion for the grind rather than doing all three. The third is further away and harder, so it made more sense for expediency just to do the two), and they were right by the bonfire. That’s when I got my mad influx of levels so I’m over 200. 50 in int and 45 in faith, though. So it’s not as if I’m crushing it.
I was miserable in the first half of NG++. So miserable, I was thinking of taking a break. I was just about to get the one last gesture I needed for Master of Expression (hopefully. The path to getting it was nitpicky and disputed, and I had never gotten it before), but I was flagging. I didn’t want to play, but I felt I had to keep going because I was so close. By the way, let me tell you how to get this one gesture. It’s called the Proper Bow, and it’s given to you by Yellowfinger Heysel who is part of Rosaria’s Fingers, which is a covenant. She has the funniest hat in the game, which is the Xanthous Crown. It’s not nearly as funny as the Xanthous Crown in the first game, which is itself a tribute to the Old Monk’s helm from Demon’s Souls. In order to get her gesture, you have to let her invade you in the swamp in the Road of Sacrifices. Then you have to kill her. You have to be human and online for this to happen–the invasions, even of NPCs, don’t occur offline in this game. Then, you have to get to Rosaria’s Bedchamber and offer her a Pale Tongue. Then, you have to snuff out the three braziers in Farron Keep (another swamp) and open the door to the next area. Then, you have to go to a certain spot in the swamp next to the little hut with a ton of slugs guarding an Undead Bone Shard and Yellowfinger’s summon sign will show up. Summon her, and she gives you her gesture.
At least, that’s how I got the gesture. I’ve read that you don’t have to kill her first, but I decided to do it because if I didn’t and then found out that’s what fucked me over, I would have been furious. I’ve also read that you had to kill her twice (she invades you twice), but I can confirm that’s not the case. Here’s the thing. Before I went on the quest for her gesture, I decided I needed a shift in my thinking. I love this game, and I always play it to the fullest when I play. Meaning I do all the side quests and storylines and whatnot. To finish my business with any semblance of good feeling for the game, however, I had to let go of my completionist side. In not-platting the original game, I beelined it for the end goal in NG++. I had to do the same here, and that’s what I did. I let go of everything not strictly necessary or really helpful and buzzed through it in the fastest way possible.
Side Note: In obtaining the gesture from Yellowfinger Heysel, I had to cut off the storyline of another character, Sirris. She is one of my favorite NPCs in the game, and I always help her out. She is m’lady, and it pained me to have to piss her off just to get this one fucking gesture. I did get a new interaction with her after offering the Pale Tongue to Rosaria, though, when I went back to Firelink Shrine. Normally, if she’s there, she’s just chilling on the stairs, sitting in an elegantly refined position. This time, she was standing up with her hands clenched in fists. When I went to talk to her, she gently remonstrated me and told me that if we met again, I would catch her hands. Not in those words, of course, but that’s what she meant. I did the Darkmoon Loyalty gesture to her to no avail. I could have killed her for her amour, but I already had it, and I was not going to kill my lady.
It went against my nature to skip things, but it made the grind much more tolerable. The game is so dense and long (in a good way), and I really needed to focus on what I had left to do. Which, by the way, included one thing that nearly made me quit the run right there. See, I knew I had to get all the rings, but I hadn’t read where they were all located. I have a document in Word as to what I have and what I needed, but I didn’t jot down how to get the rings. Once I reached NG++, I decided to include the information so I wouldn’t miss any of the +2 (and one +3) rings. When I read how to get the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring +2, I nearly gave up on the spot. It’s in the area BEHIND the Nameless King boss arena, which means you have to beat him to get it. Yes, the boss I couldn’t beat solo on my first playthrough (had to wait until NG+ with my caster, and even then, it was nails) and always summon on (except when I couldn’t on NG+5 and did it solo, but also took a lot out of me), I have to fight, most likely solo.
This is such bullshit. I understand that the plat is meant to be something difficult to achieve. It wouldn’t have any meaning otherwise. However, this is too much. I’ve read in the forums that this plat in particular is considered the worst of the FromSoft games, and I have to agree. I don’t know where the line is between acceptably difficult and fucking ridiculous, and this is way past the line. I killed nine bosses yesterday. Yes, you read that right. Nine. In comparison, I killed six bosses in total in the first game in NG++ on my not-plat run. In all of NG++2. I killed three before the nine-in-one, and I have four more left. So that’s sixteen total bosses. In addition, I only had to make it to Anor Londo in the first game (and didn’t have to fight Biggie & Small). That’s roughly halfway into the game. In this one, I have to go to all the areas except the last one and beat almost all the bosses in the game.
I’m going to see if I can finish up the run today. Maybe. I feel like I need a break, but I’m so close. I hate the game right now. I’m not sure if I’ll play it again for fun after I’m done with this run. I also don’t know why I’m pushing on with it. Yes, I do. I’m so close and my OCD traits won’t let me think about stopping. It’s what helped me beat all the games in the first place, and, of course, it’s going to push me to the limit now. I will say that I may check out my NG+5 character to see what rings I have on that character. If I have them all but the one that comes from grinding Darkwraiths for Pale Tongues, I may choose to go that route instead. Either way, I need this to end soon for my own sanity. Then, I need a long break from FromSoft games. Hopefully, that’ll save me from hating this one forever.
ETA: I did cheese a bunch of the bosses just to make it somewhat amusing to me. Hey, I gotta do what I gotta do!