Dark Souls – Page 5

Dark Souls: Who Am I, James Sunderland?

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan began slogging through the sewer level, and as expected, had all sorts of rat-related fun.

Already itching for a reprieve from the stanky sewers, I decided that I was going to adventure somewhere else for a while. Namely, back to the Undead Parish, where I could buy an ACME Home Weapon Smithing Kit from that one blacksmith guy. I could improve my own armor already, but found myself wanting for the ability to upgrade weapons as I saw fit.

Just as I was about to leave the Depths, however, I noticed that there was a doorway hidden behind some crates in the kitchen. I smashed the crates up good, and wandered through the doorway to see what was back therAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!

A hole. A long, terrifying hole is what was back there. As if it wasn’t bad enough that I had almost died from the fall, the place I’d fallen into was a small ledge overlooking the giant rat’s room. This turned out to be a blessing, however, as I found a rather nifty Spider Shield on a body. Also I was in the perfect position to murder the giant rat without putting myself in danger. I lobbed a few firebombs to soften him up, and then lept off the ledge and finished it off with a plunging attack.

I scoured the area for treasure, and then ducked into a waterway that seemed to be the only way out of the giant rat’s room. Unfortunately, that turned out to be another, even longer hole. As I was falling, I decided that if I survived, I was going to start watchign where I stepped.

The fall left be with only a sliver of life, but that wasn’t even the half of it. The room I’d fallen into was infested with the most horrifying monstrosities that I’d come face-to-face with yet. These quadruped beasts had huge, cartoonish eyes plastered to the tops of their heads, and barfed out a disgusting black liquid from their oversized mouths. The closest thing I could liken them to was some sort of horrible mutant frog.

I ran as fast as I could from the monsters, but it seemed that around every corner there was another one or two of them waiting for me. Eventually I put enough distance between them and myself to chug some Estus, and then finally faced them down. The frog-beasts, thankfully, were pretty fragile and went down with a single strong blow. Once I’d cleared the area, I picked up a fancy-lloking ring off a corpse and started trying to make my way back out of the sewer.

The deepest part of the sewer was a twisting maze of corridors and waterways. I was startign to panic, as I was low on Estus and having a hard time navigating the halls that all looked the same. It was here that something very odd happened: I was invaded.

This was unusual because I was offline, so there was no way any other players could invade me, right? But here I was, and there was the invader: the Knight… Kirk? What the hell kind of name for a fantasy character is Kirk?

I was too shocked by the sudden invasion to raise myshield, however, and Kirk immediately skewered me on his sword. I turned and ran, hoping to get to a safe distance where I could drink some Estus. It was difficult though, as the sewer halls were cramped and Kirk appeared to be very driven in his goal of murdering me. I managed to confuse him with a short staircase though, and that gave me enough time to recompose myself.

The fight with Kirk was not an easy one. He fought very similarly to the many knights I’d already defeated, but he was much more aggressive and had enough life to shrug off quite a few hits. I eventually did take him down, but at the cost of the last of my Estus. Now, getting back to that bonfire was of dire importance.

A few frog-men later, I emerged into a large hall. On one end, I found a massive gate and a peddler who informed me that it led to a place called Blighttown. I seemed to remember the first fella I met in Firelink saying something about Blighttown after I’d rung the bell in the Undead Parish. This must be where I needed to go, but the gate was quite locked. The key had to be in the sewers somewhere..

A staircase from the large hall led up to what seemed like a castle wall overlooking a massive underground courtyard. Off in the distance, though, there was a crack along the wall with sunlight pouring in. It was a welcome sight after spending so much time navigating by nothing but torchlight. I tried descending to the courtyard, but the final doorway was barred by a Fog Gate, and in my condition, the only thought that passed through my mind was to run as far away from it as I could.

A few more slimes and some rats tried to stop me, but I did make it back to the sewer bonfire. Refreshing my Estus Flask, I steeled my resolve and pledged to myself that this time, there would be no distractions. I would head straight for the Undead Parish, not stopping for anything but to kill any monsters who tried to get in my way. I’d had more than enough excitement in the last hour to last me a lifetime.

Tune in next week for Part 10: Out of the Sewers (For Now)

Dark Souls: The Sewer Level

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan killed the Capra Demon with an incredibly cheap tactic, and butchered a butcher.

Ugh. The sewer level. The absolute worst part of pretty much any video game that doesn’t star a team of adolescent turtles. Although this isn’t a turn-based RPG, so at least we won’t have to deal with a stupidly high random battle encounter rate.

The kitchen area had a flooded lower area with a few dogs and a single zombie. It seemed like a dead-end at first, until I noticed a section of the wall that had crumbled away, which I climbed up into a hallway. I chose to check out what was to my right first, and I made it all the way around the corner and to a far door before I heard somethign stomping up behind me.

It was another butcher, though where he had come from, I had no idea. The hallway had seemed empty when I got there, but I decided to go back and investigate the room that was on the opposite end of the hall, to make sure there weren’t any more butchers waiting to stalk me.

The far room was filed with nothing but barrels and boxes. Or so it seemed. In the far corner, I saw a head poking out of one of the barrels. I approched, and the head informed me that his name was Laurentius and begged for me to free him before the monsters turned him into lunch. I shattered the barrel with a single kick, as slicing it open with my sword seemed like it would do more harm than good. Laurentius thanked me profusely and ran his hippie ass back to Firelink.

Heading back though the door on the other end of the hall, I descended some stairs into the sewer proper. There I saw a corpse with a shiny item, and as I went to claim it, a huge blob of goo dropped onto my head and started sucking away my life. Eventually I was able to shake it off and stabbed the thing like mad until it dissolved into the grimy water. The bundle of souls I pilfered from the corpse afterward was probably worth the damage I took from the slime, though.

I wandered through the sewers, slaying zombies and slimes as I went, until I came to a small room with iron bars separating it from a larger room. In that larger room was the biggest freaking rat you’ve ever seen. The thing could have easily swallowed me whole, and I was eternally grateful that those iron bars were keeping it from doing just that. The huge rat stared at me as I passed through the room, and I was all to happy to leave there.

Just outside of the giant rat’s observation chamber, I came across a small pack of more reasonably-sized (but still way too big) rats. There were at least five of them, and they all started running from me the moment they noticed me. Assuming this would just be a handful of easy souls for me, I approached the rats and started stabbing them. They didn’t like that, and by the time I had killed them all, I was covered in bites and horribly poisoned.

Having no antidote of any description, and the poison very swiftly depleting my life, I had no choice but to start running the marathon back to Firelink. Through the sewers and taking the shortcut through the Lower Undead Burg, I sipped the last of my Estus, hoping I had enough to make it back to the bonfire before succumbing to the poison. I dashed down the aqueduct and pushed past the undead guarding the staircase to Firelink, and collapsed in front of the bonfire with only a sliver of health left.

Restored, I sought out the dirty hippie Laurentius, to see how he’d repay me for saving his life. He gave me a Pyromancy Flame and told me that he’d sell me some pyromancies. I didn’t really understand any of it, but bought Combustion and Fireball. Equipping the Pyromancy Flame instead of a real weapon allowed me to use the spells I’d just purchsed, and I immediately felt buyer’s remorse. Combustion was absolute garbage, just creating a poof of fire in front of my hand. Fireball was a little better, as I was able to actually throw a little ball of flame a distance. I practiced by torching a few undead, and then traveled all the way back to the Depths.

I took my revenge on the gang of rats by burning them alive with my new fireball spell. I noticed a shiny on one of their corpses, and investigating it I found… a humanity? This was easily the most unlikely thing that had happened for the duration of the adventure up until now.

The rats also managed to get one last laugh, As I strolled away from the scene of the slaughter, a rather unsuspecting box burst apart and a rat flew at me, scaring the absolute bejesus out of me. Needless to say, I quickly turned the rat into little more than chunks of rancid meat floating in the sewer water.

Venturing even deeper, I found another grate looking into the giant rat’s nest, and pressed up against the bars was most of a man’s body. He held on him a key. From here, I had three options: I could head down a narrow waterway to my right, follow a hallway through a Fog Gate to my left, or head back to a locked door I’d passed earlier and see if the key worked on it.

A little exhausted from splashing through the sewers, I decided to try the door. Much to my surprise, the key worked! And even better, there was a nice quiet room with a bonfire inside! I kindled the fire, and sat down to rest for a while. I really wasn’t looking forward to whatever the rest of the sewers had in store for me.

Tune in next week for Part 9: Who Am I, James Sunderland?

Dark Souls: Capping the Capra

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan explored the ghetto and was cut down by a boss before she could even see what the heck it was.

Morgan woke up at the Firelink Shrine bonfire, wondering what in the heck just happened. It was the quickest, least preventable death that she’d suffered so far, and it only served to make me more wary of what was lurking behind that Fog Gate. On the other hand, there was a tidy bundle of souls trapped back there now, as I’d been saving up to buy Morgan the strength levels that she needed to wield the Drake Sword.

Quite a pickle indeed.

Not one to rush headlong into harm’s way, I sought to explore a little bit more before facing down that boss again. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot left to explore, and the one door that I hadn’t been in was locked up tight. Despite the fact that I started the game with a master key that I was promised would unlock all doors. Oh well.

I did find a set of thief armor, which I considered wearnig for a while. My current set is way heavier than Morgan can deal with, and as a result her movements are slowed down drastically. However, the heavy armor’s defense rating is so much higher than the thief armor’s that I just can’t justify the tradeoff. I get hit way more often than I should, so mitigating that damage is important.

Having failed at finding anything important, I decided that it was time to suck it up and head through the Fog Gate again. That was, of course, after a quick jog back to Firelink Shrine, as that’s the easiest route to take to the Lower Undead Burg boss. The upper Undead Burg’s bonfire might be a little closer, but I’d have to fight through way more bandits and zombie dogs if I went that way.

The second fight again the boss didn’t go quite as well as I’d hoped. At least I knew how important it was to pass through the Fog Gate with my shield raised; the Capra Demon rushes you as soon as you enter the room, and he’s got two zombie dog friends hanging around to help rip you to shreds. It’s an incredibly difficult fight any way you slice it. You Died.

The Capra Demon’s room is also quite small, barely wide enough to accomodate the boss himself. So in addition to the three-pronged attack that you’ve got to defend yourself against, there’s pretty much no breathing room. I tried climbing a small staircase towards the back of the room, but it didn’t go anywhere, and it wasn’t so tall that the Capra Demon couldn’t hit me while I was at the top. You Died.

I tried fighting him straight up. You Died.

I tried killing the dogs first. You Died.

I tried running in, collecting my lost souls, and then pushing against the door in hopes that the soul bubble would spawn on the other side of the Fog Gate. You Died. No such luck.

Fighting the Capra Demon legitimately is is so difficult, in fact, that I didn’t even feel bad when I found a loophole. See, the Capra Demon has one very obscure weakness: he hangs out in a courtyard. Courtyards, by definition, don’t have rooves, and this one is no exception; you can simply stand outside and chuck firebombs over the wall until the Fog Gate dissipates and you get your rewards. The dogs will rush you at this time, but without their master they really aren’t any more dangerous than any other zombie dogs. It’s a super cheap tactic, but given how hard it is to defeat that sucker in a real fight, I heartily approve of doing it that way.

Even worse, your big reward for beating the monster is the key to the sewer level. So really, eff that guy.

However, with key in hand, it was time to venture into the Depths. Right away I could tell that I wasn’t going to like this area. It was dark, dirty, and filled to the brim with red zombies. Some had torches, some bore blades, all of them failed horribly at trying to damage me. The large mess hall emptied of its unded patrons, I looked over the railing into the lower kitchen area and saw a huge butcher chopping away at a slab of mystery meat. He saw me too.

The butcher ran up into the mess, and started swinging his oversized blades at me. He wasn’t very difficult to deal with, though his attack pattern was suspiciously similar to that of the giant skeleton that I was so terrified of. The butcher’s pet dog came around too, but it was slain before it could cause any problems. I sat at one of the tables for a moment to catch my breath, and then pressed on into the sewers.

Tune in next week for Part 8: The Sewer Level.

Dark Souls: Going Downtown

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan rang the bell in the Undead Parish, and not knowing where to go next, went and died over and over in a spooky cave.

Indeed, the Catacombs didn’t seem like a great candidate to be the proper way forward, so I made the executive decision to start retracing my steps through the Undead Burg and look for any alternate paths that I may have missed.

Along the way, I noticed that Morgan had been toting around a bow for som unspecified amount of time. Feeling that it would come in handy very soon, I decided to stop in at the merchant’s balcony to pick up a few arrows to go along with it. After all, a bow by its lonesome isn’t overly useful. Also I picked up a couple dozen firebombs because why not?

Eventually I made my way back up to the bridge area leading to the Undead Parish. There I found a door that was unlocked by a key that I’d pilfered from some corpse back in the Parish. Would it be the way to whatever my next destiniation? I was itching to find out, but figured it’d be a good idea to rest up at the bonfire across the bridge before venturing into the unknown.

Of course, having a mind like a sieve, I totally forgot about the enormous dragon chilling on the overhang above the bonfire’s room. His fire breath toasted Morgan to a fine crisp, and I was just barely able to escape down the nearby stairwell before the second blast turned her completely to ash. You Died.

Seeking revenge for the intense physical and emotional (but mostly physical) damages, I whipped out that bow and slinked down to the lower supporting section of the bridge. From there, I could see the dragon’s tail hanging over the edge. I began pelting it with my flimsy little arrows, which really didn’t do much in the way of damage, but seriously irritated the beast. It was too dumb to figure out where the arrows were coming from though, and eventually just flew off.

The diversion was well worth my time, though, as when I travelled back up to the main level of the bridge, I found that the dragon had dropped a shiny new Drake Sword for me, which was streets ahead of any of the dozens of other wepons currently filling up Morgan’s rucksack. She didn’t quite have the strength the wield the thing properly though, so it would have to wait a while before seeing any action.

I recharged at the bonfire and scurried back across the bridge to my mystery door. It turned out to lead down to the lower level of the Undead Burg, which was a much less inviting place that the upper level. It was all wrecked up, with buildings falling apart and small fires burning all over.

It wasn’t far from the entrance that I was accosted by a pack of wild dogs. Zombie dogs, that is. They were far too purple to be alive. They were also fast and vicious. I also found some of the weak red zombies down an alley, who were all bearing torches and did their best to try to light me on fire. Apparently a zombie memo had gone around sharing the news of how effective the Bell Gargoyles’ fire breath has been at killing me.

After rescuing some jerk named Griggs, who had managed to lock himself in a house the size of most closets, I found a shortcut back up to the bonfire in the middle of the Undead Burg. This was good, because those dogs from before had torn more than a few chunks of flesh out of Morgan’s hide, and she was in pretty dire need of some healing.

Further exploring the Lower Undead Burg, I noticed that it was getting too quiet. There was the pack of dogs right at the entrance, and the zombies down the back alley, but that was it. The path between buildings was becoming more narrow, and I was starting to worry. I attempted to open one of the doors to see if anyone was around, but instead stuck it with my sword, which resulted in the door… taking damage?

Suspicious, I started whacking other doors, and a few of them groaned at the strikes as well. I kept moving forward until I heard the creaking of several doors opning at once. Spinning around to see what happened, I watched a band of undead emerge from the doorways that I’d been attacking. There were three of them, but I wasn’t worried, because pfft, these mooks are no problem.

Only they were sort of a problem. These weren’t the same undead that I’ve already re-killed hundereds of. These were bandits, and they were a bit more dangerous than the previous types of undead. First of all, they’re quick, and dealing with three at once made that a real problem. Secondly, they can parry attacks and counterattack by flipping over Morgan’s head and digging their blades into her. It’s not an instant-kill, but it hurts enough to be a serious threat.

I won the fight with the bandits, but was beaten up enough that I didn’t stand a chance when the next group of three attacked. It sure didn’t help that they had brought a couple zombie dogs along with them, to boot. You Died.

Returning to the scene of my own murder, I was able to best both groups of bandits. Behidnt eh secnod group was a Fog Gate, and I didn’t feel quite ready yet, so I decided to follow the small, barely noticable staircase just to the right of it. A couple bandits and a welcome shortcut back to the Firelink Shrine were down that way. Also a merchant in the aqueduct, but she wasn’t selling anything that interested me.

Resting at Firelink, I steeled myself for another difficult encounter and headed back to the Fog Gate in the Lower Undead Burg. I walked through it and was cut down before I could even figure out what was happening. You Died.

Tune in next week for Part 7: Capping the Capra

Dark Souls: Ring That Bell

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan cut her way through the knights and zombies infesting the Undead Parish, and was cut down herself by the Bell Gargoyles.

Since she’d been carrying a small wealth in souls and more than a handful of humanity points, Morgan was a little ticked at that stunt that the Bell Gargoyles had pulled. Dying again would be a terrible loss, so it was time to see what could be done about her fire resistance, since it was that fire breath that really caused a problem.

There weren’t many options though. None of the equipment in her inventory offered much in the way of fire resistance, and the one merchant in the Undead Burg didn’t sell anything better. It looked like all that could be done at the time was to start grinding for souls and use them to level up a bit. The souls requirements for level ups had gotten fairly high for what enemies were dropping, so that wasn’t even really a reasonable solution.

The only real choice on the table was to buck up and attack the gargoyles again. Surely, if I could keep my distance from one, I’d be able to deal with the other. That strategy didn’t work so well, as the gargoyles decided to stay as close together as possible, and Morgan’s body was reduced to a pile of ash even faster than the last time. You Died.

Feeling lucky, I ran upstairs to challenge the Bell Gargoyles a third time. It went pretty much as bad as it could have. I got backed into a corner as soon as the second gargoyle flew in, and Morgan ended up getting well done yet again. You Died. Really, it was either that have her jump off the roof to her death.

Annoyed at how skillfully the gargoyles were roasting me, I decided to meander around for a while, hoping to stumble upon a path that I hadn’t been down yet. It wasn’t an overly successful journey, but I did wrangle up enough souls to buy a couple levels. Not that they would make an appreciable difference.

I also picked up a humanity point in my travels, and I decided on a whim to use it to become a human again. It doesn’t mean a lot in offline mode, but it’s not like I was going to use that humanity for anything else. I returned to the ladders leading up to the parish’s roof, and noticed something different.

On the floor in front of the Fog Gate was a glowing etching. It prompted me to “summon” something, so I went ahead and did so. Just like that, a phantom of Solaire, the man I’d met after defeating the Taurus Demon appeared out of nowhere and pledged to fight by my side for a while. This was an interesting turn of events.

The Bell Gargoyles had no idea what hit them. The fools seemed to forget I was even there and focused all of their attacks on Solaire while I stabbed them in the backs repeatedly. As the second gargoyle uttered its death moan, Solaire’s phantom vanished without so much as a wave and the door to the bell tower opened.

I ascended the tower and rang the bell. I guess that was my objective this whole time? To be honest, it’s been so long since I started the game that I’d totally forgotten what my goal was.

I took the shortcut elevator back to Firelink, and assuming that my work over in the Undead Burg was done, I steeled myself for a return trip to the graveyard. The skeletons were waiting for me, waving around their scimitars menacingly. They weren’t as tough as I remembered, but maybe it was just that I’d gotten more skilled. Nevertheless, they still forced me to use up roughly half of my Estus Flask’s contents.

I explored the graveyard, busting up skeletons and frisking corpses for loot. I didn’t find anything that seemed immediately useful, and had to make a few return trips to the bonfire before I’d cleared the graveyard of is shiny item markers.

The skeletons were starting to seem manageable when I came across the Giant Skeleton. He was a monster, and had an attack that not only sapped most of my stamina, but also broke my guard and did roughly 50% of my HP in damage. I fought tooth and nail against the big bonehead, and eventually won, but was left in a very critical state. If anything had assaulted me at this point, I would have bit it for sure.

After healing up, I sped through the graveyard to a cavern at the other end. I descended into the cave and discovered the Catacombs area. It was nearly pitch-black, and I was immediately accosted by a skeleton. As I was blocking his strikes, I noted something glowing in the distance. Whatever it was let out a shriek and a massive fireball whizzed at me. The skeleton took the fireball in the back and shattered to bits.

I took shelter behind a wall and waited for something to happen. The glowing thing didn’t reappear, but something else did. I noticed the skeleton’s bones, laid out across the cavern’s floor, begin to vibrate and then reassemble. It put it’s head back on, looked my way, and then lept forward to swing its sword. I blocked the attack and shattered the skeleton again. After a few seconds, the skeleton began to reassamble itself again.

Totally freaked out, I tried to run deeper into the catacombs to escape the immortal skeleton, following a round staircase around the edge of a bottomless-looking pit. I reached a small plateau at the end, and in the inky blackness it seemed to drop off into more nothingness. A skeleton that was hiding behind the wall struck me in the back, and as I tried to fight back, the first skeleton showed up and the two of them overwhelmed me. You Died.

I ran back to the Catacombs in an effort to retrieve my souls, and made it back down into the cavern, ignoring the skeletons. I grabbed my souls, and started back up the stairs. But the first skeleton blocked my way and as I tried to push past it, I heard that screeching noise again. Before I knew it, I was caught in a small explosion and rebounded off the wall and into the chasm below. You Died.

Again, I made for the Catacombs to retrieve my souls. They were halfway up the staircase this time, and that was just the edge I needed to make it in and out successfully. I did take another magic blast to the back, but at least this time it didn’t knock me into the great unknown.

I settled down at Firelink Shrine’s bonfire to rest, and began to plan my next move.

Tune in next week for Part 6: Going Downtown

Monthend Video Game Wrap-up: December 2013

Hey, the year is over, and so are some video games that I was playing. Though, since December is kind of a busy time, there was a lot less going on than usual. Let’s have a look-see.

~ Now Playing ~

Dark Souls (360) – Have you been following the weekly Dark Souls feature? You should be. They happen on Thursdays.

Plants Vs. Zombies 2 (iOS) – I thought I was done with PvZ, but somehow the sequel drew me back in. Mostly because it was free. And then I saw that it was free because it was built almost entirely on microtransactions. Yuck. That’s awful, EA.

Pikmin 3 (WiiU) – It’s not often that I get excited for DLC, but the new Mission Mode stages that Nintendo keeps rolling out for Pikmin 3 are pretty darn good. Also, pretty darn hard! My bro and I have been slowly plucking away at them, but those platinum medals aren’t coming as easy as they did in the original stages.

~ Game Over ~

AdventureTime: ETDBIDK (WiiU) – The last 5 floors wrecked us several times over, but we finally pushed through to the end. It was a delightful game, but I don’t think it’s quite delightful enough that I’ll be able to convince Wifey to battle through the Nightosphere with me.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS) – Finally got around to finishing the Master Quest run that I started many, many months ago. You could probably even measure it in years at this point. Anyway, Master Quest is such a nice addition to this game. I’ve played OoT so many times now that I need remixed dungeons to keep it interesting.

Kid Icarus Uprising (3DS) – As much as I like this game, I found it very hard to stay really interested in. Believe it or not, I bought it when it first came out and have only now gotten around to beating it. It makes me sad that there’s still so much game left in there that I know I’m not going to bother playing.

Eathbound (WiiU) – I’m pretty proud to say that I played through Earthbound twice in 2013. Most RPGs I don’t play through twice at all, but this one’s probably getting close to a dozen. And I love it more every time. I’ve never really considered the possibility before, but I think that Earthbound might very well be my Favourite Video Game.

Paint it Back (iOS) – Victory! That’s yet another picross game in the can. Did I mention that I don’t really like the touch controls? I think I’ve probably said that already. Anyway, it’s still a damn good picross game.

Bleed (360) – A cute little indie game about killing all the current video game heroes so that you’re number one. Sounds oddly familiar. Only this one is a side-scroller mashed up with a twin-stick shooter, and I might add that it’s quite stressful, but also a lot of fun. It’s even been recently updated with a co-op mode! The really weird thing about it though, is that while you can unlock a pretty decent variety of guns, the default SMGs are always the most effective weapon.

The Simpsons Arcade (iOS) – I bought this some months ago, and beat one level before forgetting about it. I decided to push through to the end before deleting it, just so that I could say I finished it. This was not the fun revival of the old arcade game that I was hoping it would be. More like a single-player slog with poor touch-controls.

~ Reruns ~

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS) – Had to play through this one again immediately, because I liked it so much. This is the first time I’ve played a Zelda game in Hero Mode and… it wasn’t really that much harder. The first few dungeons were tough due to a lack of hearts and the Blue Mail, but once I hit Lorule it was smooth sailing.

Picross e (3DS) – I’ve been itching to get e3, but couldn’t be bothered to actually spend the money, so I just replayed the first one. It’s pretty great!

Dark Souls: Perishing in the Parish

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan overcame the first real boss and nabbed herself a stylin’ new helmet.

Afraid of the troublesome undead knights that stood in my path, I had yet again let Dark Souls sit unplayed for a good month or so. By this point I was starting to come around to actually liking the game rather than playing it because all the cool kids are playing it. Still, the constant deaths aren’t quite as endearing as some would say.

Normally when you rest at a bonfire or die, all the minor enemies that you’ve killed will respawn. Luckily, this is not the case for a few enemies here and there, and the giant armored boar is one of those who are perma-dead once you off them the first time. So his area was reduced to a short gauntlet of zombies, and was easy enough to navigate.

Getting the hang of duelling the undead knights was not as hard as I’d made it sound last week. It’s pretty much the same as with zombies, only the knights have much higher stats and shorter vulnerability windows. By playing very carefully, I was able to move on past the one that killed me so many times, and finally made my way to the level that opened the big iron gate that stood between the bonfire and the Undead Parish.

I opened the gate, and immediately entered the parish, where three knights were waiting to take me down. You can fight them one at a time, but I was still getting their fighting style down and one ambushed me as I walked through the hallway door into the parish lobby. You Died.

Dusting myself off, I battled back into the parish, and through the cluster of knights up to their leader, the Tower Knight. He loomed at the back of the parish by the altar, and once I entered the main hall, a wizard started lobbing magic at me from the second floor balcony. I got the Tower Knight’s attention and lured him back into the lobby area where the wizard couldn’t see us and engaged the knight.

Honestly, he went down pretty easy. I’d battled the trio of regular knights in front of the parish a few times from practice, and had gotten good enough at fighting them. Tower Knight is just a bigger version of them with a really big shield, so I was able to take him out without a fuss. I proceeded to the altar, where a corpse layed in the fetal position, holding a Fire Keeper’s Soul.

The item description of the Fire Keeper’s Soul says “used to upgrade your Estus Flask” so I used it right away and it… gave me 5 humanity points. Only later did I learn that I actually had to give the (incredibly rare) Fire Keeper’s Soul to an NPC back at the Firelink Shrine to upgrade my Estus Flask. Whoops. Thanks a lot, whoever wrote the item descriptions.

There were two ways to go from the altar, I started left and got ambushed by a knight. You Died. Changing my mind, I travelled to the right, past some zombies, and found myself a new bonfire in a small building outside the parish. I could hear a clinking noise, and as scared as I was to investigate, I raised my shield and headed down into the basement. The clinking turned out to be a blacksmith clanging away at his anvil, and he offered to upgrade my weapons and armor. I happily forked over a few souls and some material for the service, and even bought myself an ACME Home Smithing Kit, which allowed me to upgrade my armor at bonfires.

I went back to the altar in the parish and got my vengeance on that sneaky knight, and followed the stairs up to the second floor. I knew that wizard was up there, so I took it slow, expecting to be blasted with magic. Instead, I was rushed by at least a dozen red zombies, who are somewhat weaker than their browny-gray cousins. But, in such a large group, all flailing their sharpened sticks at me at once, they posed a real threat. Luckily, the narrow stairwell acted as a nice bottleneck and I was able to take them out without taking too much damage.

The wizard was next. He… posed very little threat. I ran around the corner from the stairs to his perch and sank my blade into his gut. He leapt off the balcony and “hid” in a corner back on the main floor. I followed suit and came up behind him. The bugger didn’t try to defend himself -didn’t even turn around– as I sliced him to ribbons.

I went back upstairs and down the hallway the wizard was guarding and fought another knight. At the end, I found a boarded-up doorway. I smashed my way in and discovered a staircase that led up to a tiny cell. What an odd little room. The man trapped in the cell begged me to set him free, and though I worried that it was a trap, I opened the cage. He thanked me and promised that he’d reward me at a later time. He didn’t leave the cell, but there wasn’t anything else of interest here, so I took off.

At the other end of the second floor was a set of ladders leading up to the roof. The door outside was, as you may have suspected, a Fog Gate, and I braced myself as I passed through it. I took a few steps onto the roof and a huge monster flew down from the bell tower and tried to slice me in half. The Bell Gargoyle was a fearsome foe indeed, but I was skilled enough to match its attacks and counter with my own.

The fight was rough, but I was managing to inflict decent damage while blocking the monster’s blows and healing when necessary. Suddenly, when the gargoyle was at about half health, a second gargoyle came out of nowhere and set me ablaze with its fire breath. I was caught totally off-guard and the first gargoyle brought its massive axe down on my head. You Died.

Tune in next week for Part 5: Ring That Bell

Dark Souls: Big Bullies

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan tore through the Undead Burg only to be stopped cold by the Taurus Demon, and I gave up on the game forever.

Forever, as it turns out, is really only a matter of months. I did decide to give Dark Souls another shot after a few months of dwelling on my previous failures and having given up so early into the game.

I spent a little time grinding zombies to add a meager amount of numbers onto Morgan’s stats before giving the Taurus Demon another shot, and a little birdie suggested that I try out a tactic that I’d learned while fighting the tutorial boss, but had very quickly forgotten about.

Climbing back up that dreadful tower, Morgan stared the Taurus Demon square in its haunted eyes yet again. Would it be the last time? Having previously cleared the archers off the nearby battlement, I lured the demon out of hiding and then ran back over to the ladder. When the beast drew near, I lept off the tower with little more than a prayer, and plunged my sword into its skull. The attack drainde a good third of the beast’s hit points, and then the fight began in earnest.

I could have lured the beast to the opposite side of the arena, and then tried to pull off the plunging attack again for an easy win, but I preferred the idea of winning the ret of the fight through skill. And I showed a marked increase in skill this time around, for some reason. I suppose maybe I’d somehow gotten better at Dark Souls by not playing it for a while? Anyway, I killed the Taurus Demon fairly easily considering all the times he’d stomped me flat. It was finally time to move on and see what else the game had in store for me.

What it had in store was nothing but more terror.

I continued along the path, and out to another large balcony. There I met some guy who went on about stuff that I either didn’t care about of didn’t understand. In the end, he gave me an item that I could have used for some multiplayer shenanigans, but alas, I was (and still am not) subscribed to Xbox Live Gold, so I’d be having none of that.

Past the balcony was a bridge between towers, lined with zombies. No sweat, zombies were a piece of cake. So I started crossing the bridge, preparing to engage the enemy, when a hug freaking dragon flew overhead, landed on top of the entrance to the opposite tower, and absolutely covered the length of the bridge on fire. I was able to duck into a small alcove on the side, but every last zombie on that bridge was incinerated.

In my alcove, there was a stairway that opened up a shortcut back to the bonfire in the Undead Burg. Handy!

I returned to the bridge and bolted to the far end in between the dragon’s bursts of flame. There, I found another bonfire (whew!) and the entrance to the Undead Parish. Or, the entrance to the path leading up to the entrance to the Undead Parish. What should have been a short jaunt up a cobblestone sidewalk was laden with trouble though.

The first thing in my way was a huge freakin’ armored boar. While imposing at first, the boar was easily defeated by… a narrow staircase. Indeed, the was a small staircase leading up to a higher level in this area, and it was narrow enough that the boar could not climb it. So it was just matter of luring the boar nearby, then hopping off and doing a plunging attack for big damage. The boar went down without a fuss, and I was awarded with the single most amazing piece of armor that Dark Souls will ever give me: The Fang Boar Helm.

Indeed, with Morgan rocking this magnificent piece of kit, I was happy enough to consider Dak Souls conquered. But, I kept going for a while anyway, just for a larf.

There was a massive iron gate barring me from the Undead Parish proper, so I had to go around a winding, zombie-infested passage to get to the other side and open it. Unfortunately, zombies weren’t the only thing stalking the halls here. It was in this passageway that I met my first undead knight.

The undead knights are big, fully armored, and incredibly deadly. Not only are they adept at blocking and dealing damage, but the ones carrying rapiers can parry your attacks and kill you instantly with a counterattack. You Died.

Or, at least, their counterattack does enough damage that it could kill Morgan instantly every time. You Died.

Even with the nice defense boost afforded by the Fang Boar Helm. ~~F-O-E!~~ You Died.

Despite it being a minor enemy, the sour experience with the knight was enough for me to go back to consdering the Fang Boar Helm the pinnacle of achievement in Dark Souls, and that was ostensibly the end of Morgan’s adventure.

Tune in next week for Part 4: Perishing in the Parish.

Dark Souls: Road to the Undead Parish

Previously on Dark Souls: I made my way out of the tutorial and was subsequently slaughtered by skeletons.

There were two ways out of Firelink Shrine. The first was through an area that looked like a graveyard. It was inhabited by skeletons that were way out of my league, so I had no choice but to see what was down the other path. Or, up the other path, as it were. This trail was a staircase up to a rather precarious ledge of land with a straight wall of stone on the left and an endless-looking drop on the right.

The staircase route was loaded down with zombies. These fellow undead weren’t nearly as tough as the skellingtons, but they were still perfectly capable of killing me if I let my guard down for even a moment. Heck, they were perfectly capable of killing me even when my guard was up, as I quickly learned when one of the zombies atop a flight of steps started pelting me with firebombs. You Died.

Collecting my souls, I learned to lure the zombies on the cliffside to me one at a time so I could take them out more easily. The ones at the top of the steps were still going to be a hassle, as I’d have to dodge the firebombs as I ran up to engage them. Trouble is, Dark Souls’ controls are a little finnicky and take some getting used to. And that’s how I ended up plummeting into the great unknown. You Died.

Checkpoints in Dark Souls are bonfires. Resting at a bonfire will initially refill your health and Estus Flask (healing kajigger), and allow you to spend your souls on level-ups. It will also respawn any enemies you’ve killed. So I ran back and forth between the bonfire and the zombie cliff many times before I made it up the stairs and across the skywalk/aqueduct spanning the chasm, finally reaching the Undead Burg after a good half hour.

The Undead Burg is just what it sounds like: a city filled with zombies. There are little paths here and there, but it’s a fairly straight shot from the entrance to the boss. By this point I’d gotten fairly adept at dispatching regular zombies, so of course the game would throw in archer zombies and spearman zombies to make sure I didn’t get complacent. The lucky part is that the spear zombies are mostly off the critical path, and the archers leave nice long gaps between shots.

Getting to the bonfire in the Burg wasn’t overly challenging. In fact, I made it that far quite swiftly and without any deaths. It was the stretch between the bonfire and the boss door that caused trouble. Firstly, there’s a bridge that you have to run across while zombies up above pelt you with firebombs. Of course, the first time I tried going across I had no idea they were there. You Died.

The second time around, I made it across the bridge, but was greeted with a room where three zombies were chilling. Up until this point, enemies could be handled one at a time. That wasn’t really the case here. You Died.

Passing that room eventually leads you to a staircase with two spearman zombies at the bottom. The spearmen aren’t technically that much harder than a regular zombie, but they have two advantages: they hit hard, and they’re really good at using their shields. And if you hit the shield, you’re very likely to take a spear to the face, and spears hurt. You Died.

Collecting my souls, I decided to venture out to another rooftop near the bonfire. The many features of this rooftop include a pair of spearmen. And this is where I learned to kick. Somehow. I guess I must have done it by accident at first, but by some stroke of luck I discovered the kick command, and how it will break a blocking enemy’s guard. It makes the spear zombies really easy.

There’s also a staircase on that roof that leads down to a balcony where a merchant lives. The only thing I bought from him was chain mail armor, as Morgan’s defense was seriously lacking and I wasn’t comfortable enough with the most basic game mechanics to start buying and playing with items that had fairly vague descriptions.

Eventually, and after a few more instances of seeing the You Died screen, I made my way up a tower at the end of the Undead Burg. There, I found a Fog Gate, which the one nice thing Dark Souls does: it’s an unmistakable warning that you’re about to encounter a boss. This boss was the Taurus Demon, essentially a really big minotaur.

The first fight with the Taurus Demon went about as well as you can imagine. I started walking across the empty rampart, wondering what was going to happen. Then arrows started raining down from the battlement behind me. I started to run away, and then the Taurus Demon fell from the sky and crushed me. Between the arrows and his huge axe, I panicked and got pounded to a pulp. You Died.

The biggest problem now was that my bubble of lost souls was stranded inside the boss arena, so the only way I could reclaim it would be to get there and then defeat the boss. If I died anywhere else, all those souls would be lost forever, so I was pretty set on finding a way to defeat the Taurus Demon.

I worked my way back up the tower, and to the boss’ room. I immediately turned around and climbed the ladder up to the battlement where the archer zombies were waiting for me, and took them out before triggering the boss’ entrance. Not having to worry about those arrows was a great boon in the fight, but in the end I learned an important lesson: he can break your guard and stagger you very quickly if you spend too much time defending. And that, in most cases, will be fatal. You Died.

I tried it again, remembering to lower my shield when I wasn’t actually trying to block an attack, so that my stamina would replenish faster. That helped, but it wasn’t enough. You Died.

And again. You Died.

You Died.

It was around this point that I declared the Taurus Demon too hard for me, and put Dark Souls down for what could have just as easily been forever.

Tune in next week for Part 3: Big Bullies.

Grayish Souls

Dark Souls, maybe you’ve heard of it? People seem to be absolutely nuts about this game, but I opted not to buy into it when it first swept the gaming world. I did buy it once it hit $20 though, because it’s just so beloved that I felt like I needed to know what was up.

And, well, I wasn’t so crazy about it. It was at least a few weeks after purchase before I put the disc in my 360 for the first time, and that first play session was the only Dark Souls play session for me until months later. What can I say? It just wasn’t really what I was expecting to play.

My first brush with Dark Souls was probably much like most people’s first brush with Dark Souls. I watched the opening cutscene, which left me more confused than anything, and then I made my character. Or maybe it was the other way around? Whatever, doesn’t matter. I rolled a lady thief named Morgan, and then I was told that she was actually a zombie of sorts. Huzzah.

I bumbled my way through the tutorial stage, which is some sort of purgatory for zombies. It’s probably the first time in a video game where the tutorial level posed a significant level of difficulty. I don’t remember how many times I died there, but the important thing to take away from this is that I died in the tutorial. And that’s the kind of game Dark Souls is.

After somehow managing to best the Asylum Demon, who looks to me like a gritty version of a monster out of Dragon Quest, I made it up into the actual game world, and marked a new checkpoint at the Firelink Shrine.

I was led to understand that Dark Souls is an open-world sort of game, and there were two immediate ways to go from the Firelink Shrine. I figured that heading in the graveyard-looking direction seemed more like the intended way forward, and after a very short bit of travel, I ran into a couple of skeletons. Two minutes out of the tutorial and I had my first You Died screen of the real game.

Dying in Dark Souls strips you of all your souls (which function as experience points and currency) and Humanity, which has a few different uses that I’ll get into later. Handily, these are all left in the spot you died in a glowy orb that you can grab to regain everything. If you die again before you collect it though, it’s gone forever and all those points are lost.

Knowing this, I headed back toward the skeleton area, figuring that it would be best to recollect the small amount of souls I had on my person at the time. I also thought I’d try my hand at fighting the skeletons again; maybe I wasn’t playing carefully enough before. I had just been running forward without much of a care, after all. I was able to retrieve my lost souls, but the second fight with the skeletons did not go any better than the first. You Died.

Maybe it was time to take a look at what the other path had to offer.

Tune in next week for Part 2: Road to the Undead Parish