Dark Souls Doom Diary - Days 6 and 7

As Frank Sinatra once sang, I did it my way. 


Dark Souls is complete, and not a moment too soon. Literally, I beat the final boss at around 11:20pm. I actually don't want to comment too much on what I've just played and the sheer intensity of that experience, I'll save that for the review which should be up by the end of the week. On Friday night, after a day of grinding and with the deadline of the challenge looming, my determination got the best of me. I decided I wouldn't let anything stop me from completing this game on time, and trust me, a lot of things tried to stop me, mostly scary things. The reason I'm not particularly conveying exuberance or joy in this post is because I'm still overwhelmed with disbelief that I've actually finished the game. Some of the battles seemed impossible at times, and even just getting through some areas was the most daunting task. Parts of it felt like I was just banging my head against a wall. The last few hours were some of the hardest I've ever had in gaming, and I've played Atlantis no Nazo. 


The game was everything I expected, and more, I really am sadly too tired to write too much on it right now. Not to sound like one of those people who pretends gaming is a strenuous activity, but that last session genuinely left me exhausted. 


Apologies for the lack of post yesterday, I was playing well into the night and, had I even attempted to write something in my sleep-deprived, caffeine-fuelled state, it would have been beyond incomprehensible. 


The review will be up soon, which will serve as a proper end to my Dark Souls-related musings, and in which I will go into much more detail about how this game turned out. I feel like it was one of the most excruciatingly intense, yet ridiculously rewarding gaming experiences of all time. I really wish I could write more, but this must be the effect of playing that game under pressure for nearly two days straight. 


I'm speechless.

Dark Souls Doom Diary - Day 5

In case the picture isn't clear, I'm grinding. 


The sad fact is I am not good enough, or at least not confident enough in my character and skills, to carry on to a new area, because every time I try, I seem to get slaughtered pretty easily. I know where I'm heading next, the area known as Sen's Fortress, a place that opened up after I killed the spider, so should be pretty well-suited for me. I've spent a lot of time grinding today, killed that mean old hydra I met back on day one, along with another sub-boss or two, and I entered a covenant.


Now, the covenant system in this game confuses me a little. This is probably because, as with most aspects of Demon's Souls, very little is explained. Basically, I seem to be able to join one of several covenants, or factions, and each one grants me a few bonuses, but I can only be in one at a time. Remember that ring I mentioned at the start of the week? The Old Witch's Ring? I finally found out what it's used for, it lets me talk to a half-spider, half-lady type thing who invites me to join her covenant, which I did. This got me a cool new fireball spell, after that I carried on exploring the area and discovered the covenant which I plan to stay in for the rest of the game; the path of the dragon. Now, I got a pretty cool bonus for joining, and there's only one way I can really describe it; I get to transform my head into a freaking dragon's, and breathe fire. So now you see why this is the covenant for me. The fire attack doesn't actually seem too powerful, but that's probably something to do with my stats. Anyway, each covenant has a leader, (guess what mine is? A huge freaking dragon!) and you can talk to them, and it seems like you can take on special missions for them or give them items. I'm not sure what this does just yet, but I'll try and find out, maybe it unlocks further covenant bonuses or something like that.


So it's been another boring day sadly, but I've decided that today will be the last extended period of grinding I do in this game. From now on I'll be charging head first into the jaws of death with nary a care in the world for my STR or INT values. If I'm to have any hope of finishing in time, I'll have to start making progress, and that begins tomorrow. I've chosen my next destination, and will make my way through it even if it kills me, which it will, several times. If I can get a few bosses beat tomorrow and get through a handful of areas I might just about have enough time to finish it off by Sunday evening. I'm not holding out much hope but there could still be a chance, and even if I don't finish then these posts will continue until I do. Nothing stops the Doom Diary.


Wish me luck.

Dark Souls Doom Diary - Day 4

Remarkably uneventful day in terms of Dark Souls, since I have been too busy with pesky real-life business to get much done. I've still had a few hours of play, and want to get one or two more before bed so this'll have to be a quick post. Basically, I'm grinding. Kaiden just doesn't seem quite tough enough to handle any of the areas that are available to me right now, so I'm tediously killing a few enemies over and over to level up. There are probably much better grinding spots elsewhere in the game than the one I've chosen, but at this rate I'm going up a level every five minutes or so. I'm also focusing on levelling some weapons, which leads me onto another point I wanted to briefly touch on.

The upgrade system in this game is deep. There is a lot going on, and, in typical Dark Souls fashion, the game won't really tell you much about it, leaving me to figure out what I can by myself, but basically, you collect different shards, which can upgrade your weapons in different ways. Rarer shards will add elemental damage and the like, while the more common ones will simply improve strength. At certain points when levelling your weapon, you can choose which path you want to take with it, for example, I levelled a sword to '+5', at which point I was given the option to continue levelling it all up to '+10', or create a 'Raw' or 'Divine' sword with my rarer shards, giving the weapon different characteristics. I've also collected some souls from a couple of bosses, which are also apparently used to create unique weapons, although how I would go about this remains to be seen. It turns out, playing this game without a guide is pretty darn tricky, but I'll stick to it.

So, apologies for this brief post, to make up for it I'm about to write another little article about Dark Souls that you'll hopefully enjoy or find useful. And then more grinding for as long as I can stay awake.

Kaiden out

Dark Souls Doom Diary - Day 3

Day 3, two bosses beaten, well over one hundred deaths now logged, some sweet wraith-style armour discovered, quite a lot happened, but day 3 will always primarily be remembered as 'Day of the Insects' in my Dark Souls Journey. 

Having ventured on from where we left off yesterday, me and Kaiden found ourselves in a swamp, an area I specifically abhorred in Demon's Souls, and this was no different. Not only is the swamp poisonous, but it plays host to some of the creepiest creatures in the entire game. Huge mosquito-types that spray you with blood, some giant fly/spider hybrids, and leeches, which are also obviously wonderfully oversized just to make them that much scarier.

This area is not fun. I'm sure, when Dark Souls was being developed, this is the part where they just let the extra-sadistic half of the office design an area, the enemies are terrifying, every step you take poisons you further, and the place is so dark that you can barely see a few feet ahead of you, let alone figure out which way you should be going. Oh and, just so you don't feel too pleased with yourself when you do finally make it out, the very next area is a tunnel covered with spider webs, leading to one of the hardest bosses in the game.

As you may have noticed, I've had a rough old time with Dark Souls today, I've now logged about 23 hours with the game, but the last few of those hours have really pushed my limits. As with Demon's Souls, the first couple of areas of the game seem hard at first, but once you play them for a few hours, they become much more manageable, you feel like you have some control in those areas once you know where the traps and enemies all are. I know that I can run through the first few castle areas now without too many problems, I know the enemies, I know the layout, I'm in control. Down in the dark swampy depths, I lose that feeling of control entirely. When you're in a huge open area with enemies rushing you from every direction, the ground poisoning you as you trudge slowly along, and the lighting so dim that navigation becomes a chore, it seems nearly impossible to suggest that you could ever really learn this area well enough to feel comfortable in it, and it certainly seems impossible to suggest you could ever enjoy it. Maybe that's the intention, they clearly set out to design a treacherous, harrowing, oppressive environment, and they succeeded, but in doing so, they've made an area that I never want to visit again because nothing about it was fun. 

This same thing happened to me in Dark Souls, and it might just be one of my own personal issues, but I dislike the fact that any time I play this game again, I'll always dread that area and wish I could skip it entirely. I suppose it's an unavoidable element in a game like this, when the game is specifically designed to frustrate and scare you, there will undoubtedly be parts of it that fill you with dread. But, in this instance, it's not a case of being scared of the swamp, I've already conquered the area, I know I can do it and the enemies there aren't particularly challenging, it's simply a case of finding everything about that swamp to be tedious, unfair, and completely lacking in any enjoyment whatsoever. Maybe it's just me, or maybe it really is a case of the developer's going a little too far with this one. There are always those odd levels, even in your favourite games, that you sometimes wish you could avoid, the 'Library' of Halo: Combat Evolved, Ocarina of Time's 'Water Temple', those bits in the last-gen GTA games where you have to control RC planes, you get the idea, and I really think these swamp sections are the 'Souls' series' absolute worst bits.

Anyway, enough of "Mike's Pet Peeves", on with the story. After finally making it out of the swamp and reaching the spider's lair, I was treated to yet another brilliant and ridiculously challenging boss battle. I won't lie, that one took about fifteen tries, and the feeling of satisfaction from finally beating it was quite overwhelming. That's probably the best thing about these games, the feeling you get when you finally do it, when the thing you've been desperately hammering away at over and over finally falls down. There are times when I literally have to set the controller down and jump for joy, it feels that good. People will always criticise these games for the amount of time you spend in a state of frustration and anger, but what they don't realise is that, at least in my opinion, the rare moments of elation you get from eventually overcoming whatever obstacle is frustrating you are totally worth it. I spent about three hours, getting more and more annoyed, grinding away at that area and boss, but when I finally beat her, my moment of triumph felt pretty damn good, and it really felt like I'd accomplished something. I think that's the real driving force behind people who play these games, the sense of achievement and overcoming the odds when everything is stacked against you. Emotions that, sadly, are somewhat hard to find in games these days. Dark Souls provides them in spades. 

My feeling of triumph turned out to be short-lived after the spider's demise. I was killed shortly afterwards by a colossal lava demon called Ceaseless Discharge, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

I went back to the relative safety of the castle, searching for new routes, ended up in a forest where the insect theme continued in the form of a battle with a giant laser-firing butterfly. I might as well stop putting words like 'giant' in front of everything, you could just assume from now on that most things in this game are stupidly huge. The butterfly didn't put up much of a fight and was defeated quite easily.

Now I find myself in a bit of a pickle. There are four or five possible routes to go, all of which seem to contain enemies that might just be a little too tough for me, so I'm back to grinding, the trouble is, I'm at the point where it takes quite a lot of time to even go up a single level, so it doesn't really seem worth the trouble. I've switched off the game for the day while I mull over my next move. We're nearly at the halfway point of the week and I feel like, if I continue at this pace, I can definitely finish the game by Sunday, but the move I make next could prove vital. I have no real idea which way to go or what to do next, but I'll have to decide one way or another.

Tune in tomorrow to see how it turns out...

Death count: I have no idea anymore, but it's easily over 100

Dark Souls Doom Diary - Day 2

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+ 

Dark Souls Doom Diary - Day 1

Well, here it is, the first day of my Dark Souls challenge. I spent a pretty decent amount of time with the game today, but not as much as I'd have liked, and I didn't make nearly as much progress as I might have liked, but still, today was a refresher, and boy did I need it. 

It's been quite a while since I played Demon's Souls, and, let's not beat about the bush here, Dark Souls is almost identical to its 'spiritual predecessor', so it took a while to get back into that mentality. The whole "I need to move slowly and cautiously and keep an eye on my surroundings at all times because there are traps and if I- OH MY GOD DRAGON!" mindset took a little while to sink in at first. These games really do require their own specific approach, the same as any other game really, it's just that with Dark Souls, the approach you have to take is to be as attentive, careful, and patient as humanly possible.

So, yeah, it's a 'Souls' game through and through. The combat is slow and methodical, the lock-on system is shocking, death is inescapable, and you really do need to concentrate. A friend keeps on describing the game as 'oppressive', and I'd be inclined to agree, but just because that word isn't exactly glowing with positivity doesn't necessarily mean it has to be a criticism. I suppose it could certainly be taken as one, there are a lot of people out there who would say this game is just too much, too brutal and unforgiving, oppressive in the way that it saps their enjoyment and forces them into concentrating much more than they would want to while playing a video game. I, on the other hand, love that side of it. Yes it's brutal, yes it's unforgiving, yes it will give you that feeling of wanting to tear out your hair and go play Viva Piñata instead but, when you're really into it, there's nothing quite like it. 

So, for me, the fact that the game is oppressive merely means it is incredibly engaging, it sucks you in, in a way few games can, it forces you to really get into it and immerse yourself as fully as possible if you want to succeed. It's as though the game itself is saying "Hey man you're gonna really play me ok? Don't go looking out the window, don't go making yourself a cup of coffee, don't think you can play this with one eye on your computer screen! Pause button? You don't get one! If you want to succeed at any part of this game, you are gonna have to pay attention!" Personally I really like that about this game. It's a kind of crude 'forced immersion' technique when you really look at it, but it works, and that's kind of all that matters.

So how am I doing so far? Well, Kaiden, my pyromancer, made it through the first tutorial area without so much as a scratch! And then proceeded to be impaled, slashed, and burned alive no less than fourteen times in the first area. Keeping a 'death count' for the purposes of this blog is a little depressing, but at least I'm a long way from triple digits for now. Currently I'm grinding the first area, which I've pretty much memorised at this point, levelling up, buying some better equipment and tools from the local merchant, and getting ready to try and storm through the next few areas, this is pretty much how I went about the first game. It probably won't go as smoothly as I'm hoping but I feel like I'm much more in the 'Demon's Souls' mindset than I was when I first started playing, which should help my progress. The idea of finishing this game by Sunday night seems impossible at the moment but I'll keep at it. 

Kaiden is looking pretty snazzy at the moment with some new armour I found, and wielding a battle axe along with his fiery magic, I'll try not to lead him into too much peril. On a side note, when creating a character, you are given the option to select a 'Gift', an item to start the game with, now this can be one of any number of things, there's a full health potion, an explosive firebomb, a key that will unlock any door, and a couple of somewhat more mysterious objects. I chose something called the Old Witch's Ring, an item with no apparent use, but I am desperately hoping it pays off into something awesome later on in the game, I could easily search for it online and see what it does, but one of the rules is no strategy guides so I'm avoiding all that sort of info. I'll let you know when I finally figure out what this ring does, and when it inevitably turns out to be disappointing compared to my expectations.

I don't particularly want to go too far into spoiler territory with this but there are just some things I won't be able to leave out over the rest of these posts so do be warned. So far I think Dark Souls is excellent, it takes an awful lot of cues from the previous game, right down to the fact that the first area involves running across a bridge beset by a ferocious dragon, but there's definitely a lot of new content here, it seems like everything I was hoping for. Can't wait to play some more.

Death count so far: 14