So I’ve had this game since release and really liked it alot but I put it down earlier this year because of Blighttown. It runs so poorly and is so hard to find your way around in that I gave up and moved on to something else.
I picked it back up last week and forced myself to power through the worst area in all of video games and managed to kill that fire spider lady and rang the second bell! Now I’m making all kinds of progress. Killed the butterfly boss, the hydra, got the badass stone armor.
Now I’m stuck at Sens Fortress and the stupid swinging blades. I can fight anything toe to toe in there but those blades are cheap as hell, especially when there are archers shooting at you while your crossing a 2ft wide beam with 4 blades swinging across it.
With that said, I instantly remembered why I enjoyed this game so much. The combat is stellar and challenging. There are very few run of the mill enemies in this game and even an early enemy can kill you quite easily if you let your guard down. The repeated dying still rewards you as you learn how to get just a bit farther each time you die. The camera is horrible though and has led to many deaths due to lock-on switching enemies while I’m in mid stride, sending me off a ledge.
I’m thinking about trying out some PvP soon. I’m lvl 46. Anyone ever invaded anyone elses world yet?
Who’s still playing this or has fond memories of big accomplishments?
Still playing - lvl 130-ish DEX/FAITH build; Cloranthy Ring, Greatshield of Artorias and my trusty Claymore +15 all day, every day! Supposing from the tone of the OP that this is a spoilery thread, I guess I can brag a little about my finer accomplishments, so here’s my top 3:
Absolutely wiping the floor with the Four Kings in my first go at them on NG+. Had a bitch of a time with the buggers in NG, so killing them faster than they could spawn on NG+, which is twice as hard as NG, was a tremendously vindicating show of just how far I’d come during my second playthrough.
Killing Black Dragon Kalameet. I had no less than two summoned phantoms, one of these a complete blithering idiot that managed to get himself killed within moments - the other got himself backed into a corner about halfway through and was chomped, swiped, burnt and chewed so thoroughly I couldn’t drink Estus fast enough to keep him alive. Struck the killing blow 2-handed with my claymore - had I not killed him with then and there, I’d have been all out of stamina and Estus, and his shortly-to-follow riposte would have gotten me for sure. The “win” was especially memorable because Kalameet’s blows, even when blocked, knock you all around the place, and winning a fight where you feel outright dominated on sheer physicality is tremendously rewarding.
Losing my Ornstein-and-Smough-virginity. You’ll run into Biggie and Smalls soon enough, and provided you neither summon help nor scummily spam pyromancies, these two will drive you to your wits’ end. They’re a perfectly constructed boss fight - the combination of the agile little lancer and his plodding bruiser buddy is preposterously challenging without ever actually feeling cheesy. It took me almost 30 tries and upwards of 12 hours to finally get the two of them, but finally taking them down with just a trusty spear, mano a mano y mano, was the only time I’ve ever experienced an emotional reward from a game that approached the truly orgiastic.
Dark Souls is a great, legitimately challenging game with phenomenal replay value - especially so, you’ll see, once you discover the Blighttown-bypassing shortcut
You’ll need to pick up so-called embers and, for normal reinforcements, hand them to Blacksmith Andre. The one you need for normal reinforcements up to +10 is in the Depths in a chest right by the seconded bag-headed guy you killed coming through there.
Not to discourage you, but be prepared to get your ass kicked. A lot.
PvP is crazy hard in Demon Souls. If you’re on the PC or 360, there are actual hackers out there using modified save files to give themselves really high stats and equipment, but keep a low level. But even on the PS3 and against the non-hackers on PC/360, it’s crazy difficult.
It’s full of griefers/min-maxxers who, rather than just do a fair, one-on-one fight, will use glitches and tricks to basically just back-stab you constantly. Seriously, you’ll get so frustrated after the tenth time in a row you just got back-stabbed from the front or side, you’ll rage-quit.
And then, even IF you avoid the hackers and glitchers, and fine someone who won’t use cheesey tactics, you’ll die. There are people out there who can beat this game at level 1…yeah. So they can go through the whole game at a low level, get good, late-game equipment, and then on their second/third/whatever playthrough they can invade/be-invaded at low level, but with amazing equipment, and are so good at the game you’ll stand there going “huh?”
I love this game, but I stopped doing PvP a long time ago.
Yes. Raw means that more of the damage comes from the weapon itself, and it gets less of a bonus from your strength (and dex, though I don’t think a claymore gets much dex benefit anyway.)
Honestly, Raw weapons are terrible. Rarely will you encounter a situation where a weapon is better at Raw instead of getting regular enhancement. You’re better off spending souls to level up the stat that the weapon benefits from (in most cases, str, in some, dex, in a rare few, both) than spending them to make it Raw.
Here and [url=“http://darksouls.wikidot.com/”]here are two Dark SOuls wikis that go into a good detail on the game. Avoid things like bosses, locations, etc… to avoid spoilers, if that’s your thing. But you’ll learn a lot about the best way to upgrade equipment.
Though you’re certainly free to just experiment for yourself and try things out, it’s just that things in this game aren’t very straight-forward. You never know exactly how much damage your weapon does to a given enemy. Best you can do is change some stuff up, and go whack some bad guys and see how they react.
Edit: Oh, and when I said Demons Souls in my previous post, I of course meant Dark Souls. :smack:
