Note: Blog was down for a while so that's why this has gone up late, apologies.
And so we reach the end of my second day with Dark Souls. I made a lot more progress today than yesterday, at least it certainly feels that way. Death count has also risen exponentially, let's just say it's over fifty at this point, I lost track. Playing for quite a long time leads to complacency, which, in turn, meant I made some really silly mistakes and died pretty often in my last hour or so of play. Nevertheless, Kaiden has journeyed well today.
So, the story so far: After a little more grinding, I proceeded on to try and find the next boss, or bosses, as it turned out. A pair of gargoyles, an awful lot like the pair of gargoyles you may have fought in the last game. Ok, I'll end it with the "Hey this is just like that part in Demon's Souls" bit now, because it'll get annoying and is pretty unfair to the game, because frankly, for everything in this game that seems to be a copy from Demon's Souls, there'll be something else entirely new to remind me it is a completely different game with a lot of fresh content.
After a few tries with the gargoyles, I finished them off. One cool thing about the boss fights in this game is that most bosses will have tails, tails which can be removed with carefully placed strikes, an act that rewards you with special items. So, for the sadists out there who think these boss battles aren't hard enough already, there's an extra level of strategy you can try and indulge in to earn all these items. Personally, I just duck, roll, and flail wildly at the big, scary monsters until they fall down, but luck was on my side with the gargoyles as I somehow managed to lop off one of their tails and claim a nifty axe as my prize. It came in handy in the areas that followed.
Another, quite remarkable thing about Dark Souls is that it literally does not tell you where to go next. There are so many alternate routes and paths and areas to explore, that, really, you just have to pick a direction and hope for the best. It's yet another quite ingenious way of immersing the player in the experience and make this feel like a true adventure. Cautiously taking steps down an untrodden path, wary of what you might find, never feeling safe, desperately hoping you've chosen an easy route, moments like this are so commonplace in Dark Souls and truly do create this feeling of exploring an unknown, and dangerous world. There are so many role-playing games out there where you can feel relatively safe venturing from your beaten path, secure in the knowledge that your character should be more than a match for any enemies you might find. In Dark Souls, it's very different, there are places in the game that you can most certainly try and journey through, but unless you're ready for what that area has in store, you certainly won't live to make it to the other side.
There are side paths you might take, just to see where they lead, and suddenly find yourself falling through a hole in the floor, unable to get back, forced to make your way through some new mysterious area, completely unaware of what fresh terrors await you. Fear, caution, and doubt are all commonplace, but so is the spirit of adventure! There's so much to see and find, so many places to explore that are wildly different, a ridiculous amount of terrifying creations out there ready to hunt you down, and the best part is, you never know what you'll find next. Each path you choose and step you take feels like an important decision that could have untold effects on the way your story plays out, even the mistakes you make are your own and define your adventure, ensuring that no two Dark Souls journeys will ever be quite the same.
An example of this came today in my own journey. After defeating the gargoyles, I found myself with no real sense of direction, I wasn't sure where to go next. There is no clear path marked out for you, so I began exploring the area a little deeper to try and progress. It was then that I stumbled on a new area, Darkroot Garden. I was foolishly optimistic that this area might be suited to my level after how quickly I had disposed of the previous bosses, so began exploring. After a little while, and a few turns onto some side paths, I became hopelessly lost in the area and found myself wishing to be back at the castle. Then, in the distance, I spotted something moving and went to investigate. That was yet another mistake. The movement turned out to be a nine-headed hydra monster thing that killed me as soon as I got in range.
At this point I realised that the Darkroot Garden might not be my cup of tea, so began the search for another way. I found a new path taking me deeper into the castle and decided to follow this, it turned out to be much more suitable to Kaiden's abilities, and I made my progress quite steadily, defeating the area boss on my third attempt. Luckily, the path continued from this point with little deviation so I followed it onward to the next area, the Depths. This turned out to be a sewer maze, everyone's favourite part of an RPG. I decided to just try and brute force my way through, sprinting whenever I got a chance, slicing through any enemies I found before they could attack, and boy were there some creepy looking enemies down there. Bug-eyed freaks that seemed to be able to turn their victims to stone, gelatinous blobs falling from the ceiling, and a giant rat, naturally.
It was in this area that I had my first taste of the game's competitive multiplayer. With no real warning to speak of, a player entered my world, rising from the ground in front of me, and proceeded to get destroyed by that nifty axe I mentioned earlier. He or she didn't seem very good at the game, but the experience itself of fighting another player was beyond terrifying. It just adds more levels to that fear and adventure I spoke about, not only do you not know what the world itself holds in store for you, but at any moment these other players can infiltrate your game and strike you down, the level of tension all of this creates is unreal, so much so that at this point I just try to block it out and let each death not bother me too much, all of them have to be treated as learning experiences otherwise you may literally go mad with frustration playing this game.
At the end of the Depths area I spent about a full hour trying, and eventually succeeding, to defeat the boss, a hideous, and ridiculously large dragon. After this I have journeyed on to the next area, delightfully, and fittingly named Blighttown, and it is here where the adventure has ended for the day. Beating three area bosses feels like a decent amount of progress, if I can keep that up maybe there's a chance of finishing by the deadline, but it still seems like the game has only just begun, and I can't help feeling it's about to get a lot harder from here.
There's little more I can say about Dark Souls at this point, the exploration, varied environments, hidden secrets, terrifying creature designs, and wonderfully challenging combat are helping it secure a place as one of my top games of the year. On the negative side, there have been some pretty severe frame rate issues, and despite how well-designed some of these areas and creatures are, I'm yet to see an environment that really feels entirely new and different to anything I played in Demon's Souls, it's not that I want the game to be completely different, and I appreciate that the RPG genre naturally confines itself to some cliché environments, the game was always going to have to have a castle area and a sewer area for example, but I do hope to stumble on at least one unique place before my journey ends. Despite these criticisms, I'm enjoying Dark Souls more and more as it goes on and look forward to seeing what I find tomorrow.
Death count so far: 50+
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