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Dark Souls III plat is like giving birth

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*Bonus Post*

hellraiser up in this bitch!
Delicious bow cheese!

Completing the Dark Souls plat made me feel relieved, but still wearied. I didn’t feel that much joy or accomplishment, and it was definitely muted. Yesterday (Thursday), I buckled down to plow through the rest of the plat requirements for DS III. I didn’t want to do it; I seriously thought about taking a break. But, I know myself. I know that if I stepped away, I would just obsess about it more until I did it. So. Four bosses. Four rings. I took a deep breath and took the plunge. I went after Oceiros with the help of Hawkwood, and it was no thing; he never is. Champion Gundyr, on the other hand….First of all, I’d like to note that I was playing offline because I did not want to deal with invasions–human or NPC. I can’t get a human summon for the life of me, but I have been invaded. There’s an NPC invasion in this area as well, and I simply did not want to deal with her.

I biffed it in my first attempt on Champion Gundyr, even with the Sword Master by my side.  I was too hesitant and allowed Champion Gundyr to dictate the fight, and he pushed my shit in over and over again. I was already irritated, and, let’s face it, that did not help. Fighting a boss while in a heightened emotion in a FromSoft game means certain death. This time, I resolved to be more deliberately forceful, and I got all up in Champion Gundyr’s face–By the way, Champion Gundyr is so goddamn aggressive, but I managed to get him solo with not too much difficulty the first time I met him. Being a caster is helpful with certain bosses, including this one. That’s what I did this time around, and it wasn’t hard at all once I settled the fuck down.

I stealthed my way through the Black Knights though I normally kill them because I just didn’t care about anything that didn’t help my run progress. I made it to the Dark Firelink Shrine and beelined it for Lothric’s throne. Behind it was the Life Ring +3, one of the four rings I needed. I briefly chatted with the Shrine Handmaid then warped myself back to ‘my’ Firelink Shrine. I set myself up for the next part of my run–which was Lothric Castle. It’s pretty big, and it can take some time to explore the whole castle. There are dragons with black slooge that breathe fire as you try to get into the castle, so you have to go the back way, and there’s oodles of other shit you can do as well. I ignored the other stuff and went straight to the level to open the front gate. I died to the scrubs in the castle twice because I was rushing and not doing the area as I normally would. Plus, I was getting more and more worried about the last thing I had to do, but I’ll get to that later.

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Three Lads and a Dark Souls Let’s Play

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I stumbled over a Let’s Play a little while back of three British lads from IGN playing Dark Souls (the original). To be more precise, one lad, Rory (Irish and American. NOT Irish-American, but actually Irish and American separately), had never played any Souls game, and he was the one who was going to control the sticks. He’s a cheerful, optimistic, hyperactive youngin who had no idea what he had agreed to do. Daniel (Northern English)  was his beleagured Souls guide, often giving long-suffering looks directly at the camera after Rory had done something particular bone-headed despite Daniel warning him not to two seconds before. He’s also the lore guy, which can be trying when Rory is nattering on about his gems (prism stones) or whatnots.  Gav (Welsh. He makes that VERY clear) was there for comic relief and to slag mercilessly on Rory. Except, when Rory was actually feeling down, then Gav would bolster him up. They’ve done two seasons of it, the original and then Dark Souls III, both with the DLC, and it’s highly enjoyable to watch, except for the occasional crossing the line into really crass and/or gross. I just accept that with dudes hanging out together, though, and they are by far the best about not doing it constantly. Is that a backhanded compliment? Yeah, but not really. In addition, it’s not as gross because of their lovely accents. Everything sounds better with a British accent. One weird thing is that they don’t swear much and they bleep out the swearing, probably because they’re doing it for IGN and not just three guys hanging out.

In the second series, Rory was getting his ass beat, and he said (paraphrasing), “People say that III is easier than I, but I don’t think that’s true at all.” Daniel replied that many people thought Dark Souls was hard, but with the proper guidance, anyone could play it. I actually said out loud to the screen, “But most people don’t play it with you guiding them, Daniel.” It got me thinking about the relative hardness of the games because I’m someone who thinks the third game is easier than the first. There are several reasons why. One, for most people going into the first game, it was something completely different than they’d ever played before. Going into it without any prior knowledge guaranteed that it would be a rough ride. For me, by the time I reached the third game, I had played I and II with all the DLC more than once each. While III was hard and has one of the most difficult if not the most difficult boss in the series*, knowing the general mindset of Miyazaki and having learned to be cautious as I proceeded served me well as I traipsed through Lothric.

A reason I think it was harder for Rory was because he’s very reckless in his play. He barges into situations without sussing them out, and there are more mob situations in III. In addition, Daniel was more hands-on in the first game while allowing Rory more leeway in the third game. Also, Rory used several summons, both human and NPC, in the first game which makes the boss fights MUCH easier. He summoned Solaire for Ornstein & Smough, which is the boss fight that has broken many Souls players and made them quit the game for good. He also summoned Solaire and Lautrec for the Gaping Dragon without even fighting it first (finally beating it with a human summon who was fucking badass), and that’s when I realized I had become THAT GUY about Dark Souls. When Gav mentioned that he thought you should at least try the boss solo once before summoning, I was nodding my head vigorously in agreement. You have to at least try the boss before summoning! That was the very moment I realized, “I’ve become that guy. Oh, shit.” Anyway, Rory decided early on in the third game that he wasn’t going to summon,** so that made several of the bosses substantially harder. He also skipped three of the optional bosses in the original game, all of whom can be quite difficult. In addition, he glitched out Ceaseless Discharge (yes, his real name) and didn’t have to properly fight him.

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