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Derpy Review #102: Dark Souls (Specifically the remaster version, also, spoilers, obviously)

(part 1)

Shekra: Do we even need to make an introduction to Dark Souls? You guys know, we both love it, it’s the poster child of this series that fans rave about for years that also become an influent juggernaut to the gaming industry thanks to the connecting level design, boss design, gameplay and how it doesn’t hold your hand that much from start to finish.

Micro: To be honest, I was struggling to figure out how the hell we do the introduction to this review, but you said it best. Dark Souls doesn’t need much of an introduction given how much a meteoric impact to the gaming landscape it made when this game came out twelve years ago, yes, it has indeed been that long already, you’re welcome. This game alone has been reviewed, looked at, dissected and probably other words I’m forgetting to write down to get the point of what I’m making, that trying to say more of Dark Souls would be just milking a dry cow at this point… so let’s do it anyways. But first, any tidbits to talk about this game that probably hasn’t been said already, Shekra?

Shekra: Some things I tried to find. Obviously, after the release of Demon’s Souls, it was viewed as a failure in terms of how much it sold on the PS3, what I didn’t know, or fail to completely understand was that the game was already deemed as a failure by even Miyazaki himself given what he said, which we thought was more from Fromsoft’s words instead of Miyazaki. However, given how much of a powerful good direction Miyazaki taken the game, guess Fromsoft saw the potential and gave Miyazaki another chance, this time with a different publisher, that being Bandai Namco themselves this time with them pretty much publishing most of the Soulsborne game except I think Bloodborne, but that will have to wait till we get there. Why Bandai Namco in the first place exactly? Well, from what I could even find, for some reason trying to do any research of any game is major pain in the butt for me with google.

Micro: I blame algorithms for that.

Shekra: Right, well, back to why Bandai, it was because of being published to more platforms than just the PlayStation, with these games coming out on consoles, before coming to the PC, to which the game THRIVE like you would not believe….. when you don’t account on the fact that these people had to mod the living hell out of the game for optimization due to poor frame rates.

Micro: Score one for console players as always. That said, yeah, once Dark Souls came out, it became a juggernaut monster that shook gaming, so much so it created a new type of genre that some games will try to carry out the vague term of Souls-like, with plenty of game missing the very point of what makes Dark Souls well Dark Souls, while at the same time this series helped inspire plenty of games, some of which I did tried like the Surge and Code Vein, the later of which is the only one I’ve beaten of the two, but hey, at least I got an excuse to try the Surge again, and Hallow Knight…. God I really want to try Hallow Knight after this marathon now….

Shekra: Please, I want to try it too.

Micro: We’re already stopping a lot of projects just to do this marathon, so, best to at least wait a little longer before thinking about that game

Shekra: Fine.

Micro: Back to the topic at hand, yes, Dark Souls has became a well know series that even though Demon’s Souls was the first of the Soulsborne series, it was Dark Souls that put Fromsoft and Miyazaki on the map, not even games like the Armor Core series did that, with Dark Souls being very well know in one way or another, for better or worse. Yes, while this series has been dissected to death to explore every lore, glitches and tricks in the whole goddamn book, it unfortunately got the annoying reputation being known as “A hardcore game for hardcore players.” And Christ did this brought a lot of annoying re$%rds who through the most childish of fits if they watch other players use another mechanic of the game to continue instead of fighting Artorias while in your underwear and bare knuckle brawling the fight, and don’t think I’m making that up.

Shekra: Thankfully those type of people doesn’t really matter to talk to and are a waste of time in listening to us, but I will say the thought of this series only being know for being hard really is a detriment to the series as I find the Soulsborne series to be more than just being hard to beat. For crying out, the marketing for the PC port didn’t help with it being call the prepare to die edition, though I will say that I do enjoy the “Git Gud” meme that spawns from this series. That’s not to say the games aren’t difficult, they are and will kick your butt all the way to the bank and work, no questions ask, but there are a lot more than difficulty to the series with each game. That aside, back to the topic of development, besides one specific thing that if you what we’re going to talk about in the final half of the game then you know why we’re holding off on talking about that yet, there really isn’t much to say, again from what little I can find no thanks google, the main thing of Dark Souls was to refine a lot of the mechanics and level design from Demon’s Souls, and while not trying to make it a spiritual successor, still try to differentiate it from Demon’s Souls. But as it release, it has gain a lot of praises to say the least, and the rest is history, with the game being the measuring stick of how difficult games are now as well as being stupidly used by every journalist in the most idiotic way to compare games of today when reality, these people have the same gaming skills as a toddler that shove a crayon up their nose. Seriously, do I even need to remind any of you guys of such reviews as the Crash Bandicoot insane trilogy or Cuphead, the later of which was because the guy playing it has the same skill as DarksydePhil. That said, with the game released on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC, the game made millions of sales, and that’s not including the remastered version that came out on 2017, this version from what I remember did sting fans a bit on PC. From what I can look up, the biggest problems fans had with this particular version is some of changes they did to some art design such as the bonefires, yes, you be surprise how important that can be to Soulsborne fans, some mechanical changes, as well as having to pay for this game if you’re on PC given that this flat out replaces the Original from what I can remember, that one really stinging fans given from what I can tell, prefers the original or at least have the option to have the original still be on Steam like with Dark Souls 2 and the Scholar of the first Sin edition. Besides that, the remaster is what it is, a slight graphical remaster that also help make the game very stable on PC, a bonfire or two added to the game, and much like the Prepare to Die edition, the remaster includes the DLC that is for this game, and that’s the most to say to be honest.

Micro: And I should say this now, the remaster version is the one we’re going to be using for this review, and side note, I’m playing this game, in fact, we’re playing every Soulsborne game of this marathon, on my PS5 since it should be far more powerful to handle the game than my original PS4 that wants to crave death every time I so much put a game that has graphics that are higher than Undertale into the damn thing. Kind of wish we were looking at the Switch version since I would like to see how well, and terrifyingly, the game could be play on the Switch, as well as have an excuse to hunt down that Solaire Amiibo. Though I also wish we were playing that just so we didn’t take as long as we did with this game, I’ll say this now, this review should’ve been done at least a week ago, however, a certain bat girl found out how much effort it would take to get all the trophies to get this game and couldn’t help herself even the slightest to get all of the trophies so we could platinum it… we’re doing this crap with the rest of the series, Shekra.

Shekra: I’m not apologizing.

Micro: Milk this marathon as much as you can, cause we’re holding off on a lot of projects for this marathon, and as soon as we’re done with it, we’re playing a horror game.

Shekra: I-ghhh… fine, that’s fair.

Micro: That aside, before we continue, while I try to not recommend another person’s review or retrospective as I would rather give our personal thoughts ourselves, if you guys don’t want to read this review but instead want to listen to someone nerd on this game, as well as being a rather comical retrospective video to listen to, I highly recommend this one video I discover about a week ago from this guy name Sethorven. The video is a Lord of the Rings amount of listening, but the guy knows how to make the whole thing very entertaining as well as be very funny about two thirds of the whole video, maybe a little dramatic in certain parts, but again, I highly recommend the video if you guys want to listen to someone that would be far funnier to listen to than whatever we try to attempt to write. With that said, I think that’s enough rambling on, so how about we see how well Dark Souls still holds up, is it worth newcomers to play, what massive obvious cracks that the most insane of Dark Souls 1 fan refuse to acknowledge that prevents this game from being my favorite in the series. Well, grab your Sunny D bottle, huddle up next to the bonfire and get ready for us to talk about this game that has been talked to death by every Soulsborne Youtube content creator.

Shekra: Spoilers are abound!

Story and characters:

Shekra: In the world of Lordran, a kingdom fill of gods and warriors, a battle was once wage, a battle of the gods against everlasting dragons. While the dragons once proudly rule the land, fire soon came to existence, and with it, mighty lords came within the flame and these lords challenged the dragons. Nito, the first of the dead, unleash a miasma of death and disease, the Witch of Izalith and her daughters cast great firestorms, Seath the Scaleless a dragon betray his kind and revealed his kind’s weakness to the leader of the lord, Gwyn, leader of Lordran and uses his powerful lighting to peel the dragon’s scale apart so the rest could kill the dragons. And thus, an age of fire began, however, it would not last for long.. or I should say, I shouldn’t had last a long as it did.

Micro: And everything would slowly go to hell in a handbasket as that age of fire should’ve fade away… buuuuuutttttttttt, the gods are a bunch stubborn mother$%kers and Gwyn was not letting man have their age of darkness and his kind losing power to man. As such, Gwyn decided to prolong his age of fire… and boy did this f$%k everything up to a cataclysmic scale.

Shekra: As much as we want to talk about the lore of Dark Souls alone, Dark Souls is the pinnacle of being the iceberg deep lore so bury that the only thing reviling it in terms of how much effort you need to hunt all the information to understand just what in the world is happening on the land… is freaken Kirby of all series. Dark Souls has sooo much information to talk about that if we tried to talk about everything that happens to the world, we would need at least another six post just to upload the information. Doesn’t mean we will try to at least sum things up, but just know that if you want a really deep understanding of this world, I highly recommend VaatiVidya, guy has been making Dark Souls lore videos for a decade and the guy manages to talk about some of the most obscure secrets you may not know about. But that aside, um, yeah, the age of fire, this whole thing was meant to end at some point, however, because I believe it was mostly out of pure fear, Gwyn did not want his kingdom to come to a end, and so he has tried many methods to keep the fire going by keeping the First Flame alive. The First Flame is what mostly dictates an age, for once it fully dies, the world enters an age of dark, a cycle of life and death, humans become undead and many things, with time and space being warped and mixed around no thanks to this thing, and it’s this thing is what Gwyn tries to keep alive with whatever means he could to avoid that age of dark, something that many people has also try to keep alive as well, not wanting to see the age of Dark come into play.

Micro: Unfortunately, almost every plan that made just made things worse in one or another, in fact, a lot of problems that occur in this series can be chalked up to two specific people to blame, Gwyn and Seath, there is also a third person to look at, but that is a massive abyss that we’re not the people fit to even dark about Manus and his darkness. For Seath, this massive dragon betray his kind out of jealously as he was not immortal like the rest of his kind, and by helping Gwyn, he tried to look for immortality, only for him to go mad and in the process has created a lot of horrific experiments that let’s just say really f$%k a lot of things for people, the only GOOD thing Seath did created is everyone’s favorite fluffy waifu that’s in the painted world, no I will not even explain how Mario 64 came to play as I’m too busy wanting to give Priscilla a hug on her tail.

Shekra: Furry.

Micro: As for Gwyn, well, let’s not sugar coat it, this guy is an absolute bastard to say the least. This guy manipulates and uses so many people for his own goals that saying he’s one of the main causes of being the catalyst of things to come would be a understatement. He tried to duplicate the first flame by having the Witch of Izalith use her magic to make it, only for things to go so wrong that she unintentially created demons that now flood Izalith and are running around Lordran. Gwyn tried to use his own people to use souls and humanity to keep the first flame alive, and well, you can only do that for so long, which really f$%ks things over for literally everyone when in the process of keeping the age of fire alive, a new problem has came to play no thanks to Gwyn, the curse of the Undeath. This curse is a horrifying thing once you understand what it is, basically, humans can’t stay dead at all, however, as time continues with the confusion of how time and space is messed up from the prolong exposure of the this age, humans will slowly lose their humanity and sanity, and should the human body die far too many times or lose whatever purpose they tried so hard to cling to, if a human is inflicted with this curse and one of the two things I just said happens, the person will go hallow, a horrific state where, unless the cursed can keep a shred of humanity to prolong their sanity, the person will become like a mindless zombie, trying to kill anything that even a shred of sanity or humanity all while their body is decaying, and to make matters worse, once completely hallowed, the effect are irreversible. So yeah, if you thought things can’t get worse in this world, there’s always something worse to say the least.

Shekra: Which finally brings back Gwyn and one last act he tried to do to keep the age of fire alive. In a finally attempt to keep his kingdom running, Gwyn and his soldiers went to the first flame and Gwyn sacrifice himself to link the flame and amazingly this breath in new life to the flame. However, even this could only last for so long as the flames still need fuel to stay alive, a new powerful soul of Lords to fuel it. And this is where you finally came to play. Yeah, everything we talked about, that’s all stuff you have to find out on your own, as usual with these games, as such, we’re not going to keep reminding you that a lot of the information we just mentioned is something you have to look for yourself if you don’t feel like looking up lore videos. Lord knows we haven’t even scratch the surface of everything in this world alone.

Micro: But back to the topic at hand, this is where we kind of come to play as we play one of the unfortunate bastards that is undead as we about to embrace in a grand adventure of fun and plenty of arrows up the ass from pricks with master marksman degrees. You start your adventure as Derpina Dark Souls, hey not all the characters are going to be guys ok, like to mix it up once in a while, and we start our adventure…. In prison…. Great start.

Shekra: I told you to stop committing war crimes in Tears of the Kingdom.

Micro: Never, those Koroks aren’t going to crucify themselves in blazes of glory.

Shekra: At this point, I’m afraid of what Geneva Convention law you haven’t broken.

Micro: Don’t worry, by the time I’m through with this series, its going to sound like the Geneva Suggestions.

Shekra: Anyways, we’re in prison, more specifically an asylum where the undead or force to go, and can’t do much in the process, that is until a knight in shiny armor came to drop a whole body next to us that also has the key to leave and we can finally escape, only for our hero to eat dirt no thanks to the skinniest of diet soda lover. However, before he dies, Oscar gives us not only the most useful item in the whole series, but also is kind enough to tell us of a little prophecy that could help link the first flame, starting with ringing two bells at two locations.

Micro: Best of luck, and that’s f$%king it cause your own from now as soon as you beat the Asylum Demon get picked up by Tweety to real tutorial of the game as you have to figure out where the hell to go to find these two bell to ring, with next to no story significant to talk about at all for about sixty percent of this game, now you know why we went a lot of the lore in this game first.

Shekra: Thankfully, and sometimes unfortunately, you will encounter some characters along the way, a bunch that you have to go out of your way to actually find as Dark Souls kind of change the structure of NPC where you can actually bump into characters in your adventures. Some will call out to you, while others you’ll have to talk to them just to get anything out of them. And I’ll say this now, Dark Souls’s characters beat Demon’s Souls’s characters by a landslide in terms of memorability, sorry Stockpile Thomas. While the game still has handful of characters that are worth talking about, there are very much more interesting to talk to compared to Demon’s Souls as they actually have a lot more to say as you go about your adventure, with the characters you can talk to have important information that could help you know where to go next or something important of a boss you might be about to encounter, to some lore importance of the area or of the world that is interesting to listen to, and more importantly, several characters have side quest that are interesting to do and pretty much worth doing as long you don’t screw it up. Yeah, the game still has it where if you tick the NPC off, you’re screw unless you can find a specific NPC that can help “forgive” at the cost of an absurd amount of souls. Now, not all characters are that memorable, like Griggs or Reah, honestly, completely forgot these two even existed until we bump into them, but then you get to more loved characters that fans of the series cherish a lot, such as Big Hat Logan, very accurate name, where this wizard gives the best sorcery spells, or one of my personal favorite characters, Andre the blacksmith. Boys, this guy right there is what a man looks, this walking wall of a man that can help upgrade your equipment and give you some helpful tips, be like Andre, especially when he’s ready to throw down if you tick him off. In world of magic casting, powerful weapons, demons, gods and whatever else in between, this Wolverine size fridge will be ready to bare knuckle brawl you to next week. Screw your Goku in Smash Bros, I want Andrew to drop kick his way into the next DLC roaster.

Micro: Of course, there’s no way in hell we can’t talk about characters without talking about two of the most love characters in the whole game, or the whole series as a matter of fact, Solaire of Astora and Siegmeyer of Catarina. If you were to ask any Soulsborne fan of who their favorite NPC are, I bet you that nine out of ten times its one of these two given how lovable these two are. In the world where everyone wants something no matter what or have a goal of their own, Solaire is an absolute bro in this game, he is the guy that is willing to help you with some fights if you can call for him, he’s a beacon of sunshine in this bleak world as he is wanting to look for his Sun, whatever the hell that means. I still remember the fan theory that Solaire might be a child of Gwyn given that Solaire could use lightning bolt, sadly with Dark Souls 3 pretty much disconfirming that theory with Nameless King, still it pretty much show how much of an impact Solaire has made in the community. As for Siegmeyer, he’s another fan favorite, though mostly for another reason. He’s a walking onion that is trying to be a knight yet is an absolute dork that I can’t help but love and if you say otherwise, you will be going straight to hell, I’m not giving you a f$%king choice. No matter how dark the series can get or how tough the challenging is, Solaire and Siegmeyer has been a sight for sore eyes whenever you can find them, with these two alone leaving a lasting impact that future games would have their own version of these two in one way or another and still not feel like a rip off, such as Alexander and Blaidd in Elden Ring. Without these two, Dark Souls probably wouldn’t be the way it is to be honest given the lasting impact these two have with players…. which is why completing their side quest is a real gut punch once things hit the pain train.

Shekra: Yeah, one thing that you best brace yourself with this series is be ready to receive a gut punch if you are invested to a character, as its rare for any character in any part of this series to receive a “happy ending” or a ending at all where the character is completely satisfied of what they accomplished such as Alexander if you see his quest to the very end in Elden Ring. Not every character has a side quest, but the ones that does, they each have different outcomes that could leave a horrific fate for them if you don’t do things right, or even if you did, their ending might not be what you expect, such as Reah even if I completely forgot she existed, or one of the more obvious being Logan if you see his quest till the end. And Siegmeyer has one of the bigger punches to say the least given that there is plenty of ways to screw his quest up and even you don’t, the end of his quest might leave a bitter taste. And as for Solaire, I don’t think I need to pull up the number of videos of people shock to see what is the most common conclusion people gotten with Solaire with his side quest before people found out later that there is a way to save Solaire from his fate.

Micro: People like talk about the difficulty of this game, but I say they are missing the more important thing that this game brings out and that is the experience you are going to have with your adventure in this game, what you see from the world around you as well as the characters you can talk to, and some characters that can flat out eat dirt, eat S$%T Lautrec. With that said, I think that’s enough of the whole characters as there are a bit more of who you can find to talk to, get annoyed with, Patches, you magnificent bastard, how’s the ass kicking doing, as well as not even bump into depending how you play this game, as we still got an adventure to do. Getting to Firelink Shrine, we go up to the Undead Burg as it’s the only area to go that will continue anything, you’ll thank me later for not dealing with the bone daddy’s, we go through a whole areas of undead folks, some black knight bastard that will surely kill you if you haven’t died once yet somehow, beat up a demon, avoid a pissed off dragon, and go to church to ring one bell before having to go down underneath the town after dealing the Kappa bastard of the game and into everyone’s favorite location of the game that is Blight town, before having to dealing with the biggest why boner, with a very fiery vengeance, we ring the second bell before finding out that we have to go through Miyazaki’s happy fun time house that can burn in hell for all I care for, and getting a lift from your paralyzes demon into Anor Londo, the very place that Gwyn ruled over. But not before we meet Frampt who….. ok, what the f$%k am I looking at?

Shekra: I… don’t know to be honest. Yeah, in this game where you fight horrific demons, a vigina dragon mouth with hundreds of teeths, and whatever horrific disease awaits you in Blighttown, Dark Souls knows how to throw a curve ball so you don’t know what to expect, and it throws you this…. Serpent thing with a flesh mustache. And what’s worse is that he’s not the only one you can meet in this game, as there is a secret second serpent name Kaathe that you can only meet if you beat this one boss call the Four Kings, more on them later, without talking to Frampt once in this game. And as weird and honestly creepy in an uncanny way as these two guys are, believe it or not, these two play important roles in what’s happening in the world as some areas is because of these two meddling around. I don’t even want to begin talking about these two things, mainly cause I don’t want to be looking at them a minute longer than we need to, but just know that you’re going to be spun in a whirl the moment you meet these two as they pretty much give you your next objection, that being going to Anor Londo to get a Lord Vessel, something that you will need in order to beat this game.

Micro: With that said, how about we just talk about the game play for a minute just so we can take a moment to recover from the sudden whiplash that is the talking dark fairy tale creature over there.

Game Play:

Micro: While I wish we could just skip the game play mechanical stuff and go to the level design, given that with most of the Soulsborne series, mechanics are more or less the same at least with combat, but unfortunately for my lazy ass, we got plenty to talk about in this in this section.

Shekra: Now, if you manage to play the remake of Demon’s Souls, then in terms of fluidity or polish in combat, you might be inclined to believe that there isn’t much different from that game to Dark Souls, while maybe thinking that this game feels a bit slower in comparison. However, remember one thing, and that is this game came out after Demon’s Souls on the PS3, as such, there is a massive difference in combat, at the very least, combat has been polish up a bit where things don’t look awkward, characters didn’t look stiff, though this game still feels too slow for my liking, and of course what Dark Souls changed besides the combat. Well, if you came from Demon’s Souls to this game, it may feel like a glove as the amount of equipment and rings are the same, annoyingly for us on the ring part, souls mechanic functions the same as well as leveling up, and of course you have magical spells of sorcery and miracles, however, this is where Dark Souls brings in the bigger changes in combat and mechanics. New to the block is a different type of magic that being Pyromancy, magic that focuses mostly on fire spells with some of it able to give some good buffs, however, and here’s the real kicker of what makes Pyromancy more unique compare to the other two spells, Pyromancy doesn’t scale on states, but instead scales with the item that is use to cast pyromancy, and yes, this can potentially destroy a lot of challenges as long you aren’t fighting enemies that are resistant or immune to fire damage as you can upgrade pyromancy rather early in the game as long you can find the right NPC. As for other changes, equipment weight has change where you no longer have to worry about how much items you can carry in your pockets or need to shove into a box, only need to worry about the weight of the stuff you’re wearing and holding, last thing you want to be doing is rolling around at the speed of a panda. And this is the biggest change in the series compared to Demon’s Souls, the level layout. If you hear people’s praises of this game, the most common thing you’d hear is how interconnected areas of Dark Souls are to each other. Dark Souls may not be the first game to come up with areas connecting to each other the further you get into the game, but this game became the go to example of what some people think level design should be. Let me paint you an example, the Firelink Shrine, arguably the most iconic area in the whole game given how many times you’ll be visiting this area as it’s the hub area of the game, gone is Demon’s Souls’s whole teleporting to dedicated areas that don’t connect to each other even the slightest, as Firelink Shrine can be connected to three areas right off the bat, but as you go further through the Undead Burg and go to the church that has one of the bells you need to ring, you’ll discover a shortcut that actually connects right to Firelink Shrine. This is something Dark Souls, as well as plenty of other areas of every Soulsbone game afterward, rather excels in with its level design as you go further into the game, pushing some of the rougher areas of the games, only to find a path that actually connects to other areas you may have been through or maybe Firelink Shrine, it’s a massive confident boost as well as nice way to show just how much you have gotten far with you being told about in your face. And you might be wondering if this game does the same thing in Demon’s Souls where you have to go through one whole area and beat a boss just to get a checkpoint, but no as one of Dark Souls staple begins in this game with it being bonfires. Throughout your journey, you will find bonfires that serves as actual checkpoints that you can rest at, refill your health and more importantly refill your Estus Flasks, that item I mentioned is the most important item in all of the game that Oscar gives you at the beginning of the game cause its your healing potion. Dark Souls throws away the whole grass healing items where you don’t grind items to get as much healing items to stuff into your mouth to cheese some challenges, you are stuck with the Estus Flask as the only healing item with limit amount of uses until you rest at the bonfire, unless you want to use spells that can also heal you if you have the states for it. I honestly like the bonfire, its something that feels like a ultimate reward to find as you explore the world, trudging through some brutal areas that I don’t want to stop at cause I don’t want to do the whole area again if I die and have to run over to pick up my souls again while trying to not die a second time before then, only to find in the distance either from walking around or finding secret paths leading to a much needed bonfire that is a sight for sore eyes. And it’s a good thing to look for these bonfires as well, as its also the very rest stops where you can level yourself up instead of having to talk to an NPC to invest in souls, which I think this is the only game in the series to bother doing that except for maybe Sekiro. And you’ll be wanting to think carefully about looking for bonfires as well as what type of build you might be thinking of doing cause Dark Souls is a lot more challenging than Demon’s Souls. I may made fun of the Prepare to Die edition at the beginning of this review, but do prepare to actual die a lot in this game as this game will try to kick your rear, especially if you so much try to take the game very lightly, the game takes offense to that and will show you what your hubris has lead you as your are getting shank by the even the most goomba of enemies in this game.

Micro: No kidding, Dark Souls may function the same as Demon’s Souls, but it even quicker to kick your ass if you’re not prepare. That’s not to say the game will immediately want to kill you right off the bat, as the game is actually still teaching you things to expect in this game with the level design, even though this game does not hold your hand in the most obvious of fashion. Prime example, Firelink Shrine having three directions to go, you have the intended path you need to go first but you also have two other areas you can go early, however, these areas are extremely tough areas that you shouldn’t go to until you are higher level, have some proper equipment to handle the situation, and have more experience in this game, except the game does not flat out tell you that you shouldn’t visit these areas nor does it block the areas except very deep near the end of the areas, more specifically the catacombs with the third biggest bane of a Soulsborne player, skeletons. So, if the game doesn’t flat out tell you not to go there, then how exactly you know not to go there, simple, the game beats the living s$%t out you over and over again every time you try to be stubborn in try to go even remotely deep inside the catacombs without a divine weapon or knowing to kill the necromancers along the way through because Dark Souls has no difficulty setting and is perpetually stuck on the “f$%k you” difficulty. If you are smart, you should come to the conclusion that these enemies are tough and you might not have the means to deal with them yet, so you should think about coming back later at another time in the game when you think its time to try to venture through the area. Like I said, this game doesn’t try to hold your hand in the obvious of manners as you need to pay attention of the level design, especially at the beginning of the game to understand that the game wants to subtly teach you the importance of pay attention, look around and try to not be a cocky dips$%t if this is your first time playing the game. That said, the game still will reward you in one way or another if you try to be bare through some challenges earlier than you should’ve, prime example, the catacombs again, I say not to go here first, but there is a good reward if you are willing to got through the area and take on the boss, which is very easy to do so even at the start of the game, to which you get one of the most useful items in the series, the rekindling item, yes, I forgot what the actual name is call and I’m too lazy to look it up. Rekindling is one of the most useful items to get especially early in the game as it can be use to make it where you use it three times to make it where you can have up to twenty Estus Flask as long you go to the specific bonfire that you rekindle at. However, to use the rekindling thing, there’s one thing you need to do first, and that is you need to not be hallowed. Remember earlier that we said you were in the Undead Asylum right at the beginning, well, guess what, because you are undead, it means you are already hallowed, which in for the most part doesn’t mean much as being in a hallowed state is nothing as bad as Demon’s Souls awful spirit mechanic where you’re stuck with half of your health unless you are using a ring or return to human form. In hallow form, the only major things, if you’re playing offline, that being in that state is that you look like walking jerky and you can’t use the rekindling mechanic, as well as summoning, but more on that in second. So, how do you get out of being hallow, use humanity, as you go through the game, killing enemies will either give you humanity or drop humanity, more specifically rats will give you humanity more than most of the game, to which go to a bonfire and use humanity to restore yourself to whatever horrific creation you made in the character creation, as well as use humanity to rekindle as well. That said, as for the benefits now being in non bacon form, there is only one benefit to be in human form and that is to be able to summon NPC, or other players. This is something that is in Demon’s Souls, but Dark Souls really was the game where multiplayer play a key role into things, and it was something I had no intention of talking about in this marathon, but Shekra was not letting me continue this marathon until we finally talk about this feature, something I regret being talk into as my internet really hates this game and that bitten me in the ass several times when I got kicked out of the game.

Shekra: Multiplayer is one of the key things in the Dark Soul Trilogy, so it would not be right to not at least talk about it once in this marathon, so might as well do it in the one that everyone knows it more for. I doubt we talk about it much in Demon’s Souls, so here’s the run down for how online multiplayer works, as you continue through the game, you’ll find ghost of other players running around the world which are actually players playing the game as well, you’ll find signs on the ground that are messages from other players, plenty being extremely helpful and plenty from players that just want to be degenerate gremlins, feet obsess freaks of cringe. There is also covenants that is mostly use for PVP but you get something for joining or ranking up, with the only important one that you should join is the Sun Bros covenant, and maybe the Chaos one if you want to rescue Solaire. But more importantly, you’ll find summoning signs of both NPC and other players where they can help you traverse areas and help you fight the area boss that you might be having some struggle with or just want the fight to be a bit more even to your liking. That said, there is a downside of being human and this is the risk of being invaded by either an NPC or another player, and God help you if you get invaded by a player because high chance are that you’ll be picked on by some jerk that either is some weird hack cheater that somehow is still in Dark Souls’ servers, or a player that sunk thousands of hours into this game and know every single frame to parry you and stab you in the stomach. While it can be annoying to get invaded, multiplayer in some ways in still an importance in this game as it was something that was thought of as well as it had the mind set of the fans being a actual community, sharing knowledge in one way or another, discovering something new that you didn’t know about, telling others of something you discover such as a secret area, the whole Mew is underneath a truck talking gathering in the lunch tables kind of deal. While this idea more or less is kind of dying out no thanks to the boring way of people looking up codes to find out of interesting content, its still an idea I like with this series and its something I do enjoy of this community, as well as will laugh at the idiots who have the gull to complain about people using multiplayer or something honestly a single cell brain dead idiotic idea that you have to do so much by yourself in such arbitrary r$%arded way, these are the same people who would say you not doing the game the developers intended while at the same time these are the same idiots that are ignoring the very mechanics the devs put into this game in the first place, missing the point of Soulsborne series in thinking that it’s the challenge that matters when reality, there’s no point, only the experience. That said, I will also love it when something happens in the community that will drive everyone up the wall. Anyone remember that whole useless pendant debacle where so many people were obsess that there had to be some meaning to the item only for Miyazaki himself to flat out say that the pendant was put there as a joke for the specific reason of driving people insane to find any purpose on. I’m realizing why Micro loves this guy’s work.

Micro: My hero that I hope to perform such a dick move on players someday. With that said, do you need multiplayer, honestly, not really, you can do NPC summons if you want, but I won’t argue when I say its more fun to have other players to help out even when you can’t talk to them at all. Still, even without multiplayer, or at least without summoning others, I enjoy venturing this world, enjoy looking at every single corner to look for whatever goodies, even after when you beat the second boss is when the game that now it wants to start trying to kill you. Still won’t stop me as Dark Souls has about some of the best level design for about two third, maybe three quarters. Ok, I say best level design, not every location I like. Let’s get this out of the way, I flat out hate Sen’s Fortress, this area can burn in hell for all I care. While its not the most annoying dungeon trap invested hell hole that you would be expecting given what to expect from the first room you just step into, I hate this area far more than Blighttown. The biggest reason I know why people hated Blighttown, besides some of the poison spitting pricks, was with the original version where the frame rate of the game just plumets into the Earth’s core, mostly of PC players, but once you get through the frame rate drop, Blighttown isn’t bad, as long you’re not afraid of heights, have fun with the vertigo newbies. Sen’s Fortress on the other hand, it has serpent man pricks that loves to be on narrow walkways with no room to walk around and pendulums swinging around that will knock you to the basement where if the fall doesn’t kill you, one of the most annoying enemies to kill will be waiting for you downstairs. Boulders that tells gravity to f$%k off and launches you into space even if its not moving, an elevator that most certainly kill every player in this game, don’t f$%king lie. And one of the more dick moves in this game, the introduction of mimics that let’s be honest, unless you have multiplayer on and see messages surrounding this lanky bastard, you aren’t going to know this thing will pacman you to death. If that wasn’t bad enough, there is only one bonfire in this area and you have to find it over a ledge while a giant is chucking firebombs at your ass. People say that this series is always hard but fair, but that’s complete bulls$%t even for Dark Souls 1 as there are several bulls$%t moments that you won’t know is going to occur until its too late, most of it probably will because of one of the more frustrating things this game introduces, jumping. Yeah, Dark Souls introduces jumping and its awful to use, and worse if you have to do platforms in this game, Dark Souls is not made for platforming even for the slightest so what in God’s Green Earth was Miyazaki thinking of having platforming be something that the players have to deal with at certain part of the game, especially with one of the most infamous area that don’t worry, we’ll talk about later. If you want to know why I hate the idea of platform in this series, and unfortunately for me this mechanic is something that will be stuck for the rest of the series with only maybe two games that got platforming right, its because in this game, trying to land on a platform below is a crapshoot as you have to deal with the biggest bane of a Soulsborne player, gravity.

Shekra: What’s the second bane?

Micro: The camera.

Shekra: Ah.

Micro: While you will find plenty of spots that have large areas to land on, most of the time you’ll have to land one a platform that’s smaller than wasp’s dick with the edges being awful that there’s a chance that you’ll slip and fall to your death, and I swear the amount of height your character can take in this game compare to Demon’s Souls is drastically nerf as just a tiny ledge hurts your knees I swear. And god help you if you find Titanite lizards that you want to kill for resources. Oh, right, I forgot we haven’t mentioned these little guys since they were in the last game. Titanite lizards are annoying little bastards that will not hesitate to run away and if given enough time will disappear on the spot if you don’t hit them in time. Thankfully, quitting out the game and loading back in will spawn the little guys back on the spot for you to kill them with no efforts.

Shekra: I can’t help but love the titanite lizards, they’re so derpy and cute, I would like a plushy of them.

Micro: Well, have fun looking one yourself, because I can’t find any plushie versions of these guys at all on Amazon or Ebay.

Shekra: While I will agree that there some very sour spots in the game, I find Sen’s Fortress the least offensive compare to what we’ll get into in the ending section, I still love the areas you can explore in this game, Undead Burg is a great tutorial level as well as emphasizing the idea of exploring everything possible, I enjoy Darkroot Garden and Basin from it being a massive forest area and being to introduction of the Hydra that defiantly caught people off guard, though my favorite area has to be the Painted world, this completely optional area that you can’t enter unless you get a doll that is all the way in the very cell you were in at the beginning of the game. That’s something I really love of this series, its not afraid to have secrets, and I mean actual secret areas, that you have to find for yourself, areas that had the potential of never being discover at all by player for a long time, and the devs just make these areas and didn’t put some massive sign saying there is a giant secret behind something like some games would do. Want to know how secretive this game loves to hide its secret area? In Blighttown, at the bottom of the swamp where you go to other side of the area of where you’re supposed to go is a giant tree base that looks like it has nothing, except it has not one, but two illusionary walls you need to hit, one of which is behind a chest, to which you have to platform your butt all the way to the bottom just to find one of the most breathtaking area of the whole game. I can only imagine that this was only discovered because somebody got paranoid of the chest being a mimic and manage to hit the wall behind it. And if you really want to talk about hiding content on purpose, the DLC is a puzzle to get to as you can’t just simply go into the DLC. Just to save you a bit of headache, remember the Hydra I mentioned in Darkroot, kill it, rest in a bonfire that’s in the area, go to the side of the lake and kill this gold golem to rescue a woman, finish her conversation and only after do you beat the boss in Anor Londo do you go to this area call the Duke’s Archive where you kill a specific blue golem at the beginning to get a pendant, then go back very spot you rescue the girl and get Mario 64 to the DLC. I don’t recommend doing the DLC until after you are close to fighting the final boss as the DLC is hard, its for people that knows how to play the game and it will kick your teeth in.

Micro: Hey, up to you if you want to deal with the challenge, after, I think we made it clear that Dark Souls is very open handed of letting you deal with situations the way you want to, which is something I love about this game. I mentioned that Dark Souls 1 is not my favorite in the series, and it ain’t because of Sen’s Fortress or the slow control, its what you got to deal with in the second half of the game, but everything else in the game I can’t help but love still. I really enjoy this game not holding my hand, letting me be free to explore the world, know the lore at my own pace if I really want to, it has areas I would prefer to drop a nuke on, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to explore a lot of the game, wondering several questions along the way. What secrets will I find, what boss awaits me around the corner, did I just got one punch man by a mushroom? And I am not making that last question up. Turns out the Mushroom Kingdom has some residents in this game and apparently, they invested in a f$%king gym.

Shekra: I would love to see a death counter like in Dark Souls 2 but specifically from this enemy as I want to know how many people weren’t expecting to see Saitama’s spirit animal in this game.

Micro: Probably not as much as Havel the Goddamn Motherf$%king Rock.

Shekra: Well, I think we made our point of what’s people should expect to experience in this game, so how about one of the most important things to talk about in this series, the bosses.
(End of part 1)

Description

Derpy Review #102: Dark Souls (Specifically the remaster version, also, spoilers, obviously)

(part 1)

Shekra: Do we even need to make an introduction to Dark Souls? You guys know, we both love it, it’s the poster child of this series that fans rave about for years that also become an influent juggernaut to the gaming industry thanks to the connecting level design, boss design, gameplay and how it doesn’t hold your hand that much from start to finish.

Micro: To be honest, I was struggling to figure out how the hell we do the introduction to this review, but you said it best. Dark Souls doesn’t need much of an introduction given how much a meteoric impact to the gaming landscape it made when this game came out twelve years ago, yes, it has indeed been that long already, you’re welcome. This game alone has been reviewed, looked at, dissected and probably other words I’m forgetting to write down to get the point of what I’m making, that trying to say more of Dark Souls would be just milking a dry cow at this point… so let’s do it anyways. But first, any tidbits to talk about this game that probably hasn’t been said already, Shekra?

Shekra: Some things I tried to find. Obviously, after the release of Demon’s Souls, it was viewed as a failure in terms of how much it sold on the PS3, what I didn’t know, or fail to completely understand was that the game was already deemed as a failure by even Miyazaki himself given what he said, which we thought was more from Fromsoft’s words instead of Miyazaki. However, given how much of a powerful good direction Miyazaki taken the game, guess Fromsoft saw the potential and gave Miyazaki another chance, this time with a different publisher, that being Bandai Namco themselves this time with them pretty much publishing most of the Soulsborne game except I think Bloodborne, but that will have to wait till we get there. Why Bandai Namco in the first place exactly? Well, from what I could even find, for some reason trying to do any research of any game is major pain in the butt for me with google.

Micro: I blame algorithms for that.

Shekra: Right, well, back to why Bandai, it was because of being published to more platforms than just the PlayStation, with these games coming out on consoles, before coming to the PC, to which the game THRIVE like you would not believe….. when you don’t account on the fact that these people had to mod the living hell out of the game for optimization due to poor frame rates.

Micro: Score one for console players as always. That said, yeah, once Dark Souls came out, it became a juggernaut monster that shook gaming, so much so it created a new type of genre that some games will try to carry out the vague term of Souls-like, with plenty of game missing the very point of what makes Dark Souls well Dark Souls, while at the same time this series helped inspire plenty of games, some of which I did tried like the Surge and Code Vein, the later of which is the only one I’ve beaten of the two, but hey, at least I got an excuse to try the Surge again, and Hallow Knight…. God I really want to try Hallow Knight after this marathon now….

Shekra: Please, I want to try it too.

Micro: We’re already stopping a lot of projects just to do this marathon, so, best to at least wait a little longer before thinking about that game

Shekra: Fine.

Micro: Back to the topic at hand, yes, Dark Souls has became a well know series that even though Demon’s Souls was the first of the Soulsborne series, it was Dark Souls that put Fromsoft and Miyazaki on the map, not even games like the Armor Core series did that, with Dark Souls being very well know in one way or another, for better or worse. Yes, while this series has been dissected to death to explore every lore, glitches and tricks in the whole goddamn book, it unfortunately got the annoying reputation being known as “A hardcore game for hardcore players.” And Christ did this brought a lot of annoying re$%rds who through the most childish of fits if they watch other players use another mechanic of the game to continue instead of fighting Artorias while in your underwear and bare knuckle brawling the fight, and don’t think I’m making that up.

Shekra: Thankfully those type of people doesn’t really matter to talk to and are a waste of time in listening to us, but I will say the thought of this series only being know for being hard really is a detriment to the series as I find the Soulsborne series to be more than just being hard to beat. For crying out, the marketing for the PC port didn’t help with it being call the prepare to die edition, though I will say that I do enjoy the “Git Gud” meme that spawns from this series. That’s not to say the games aren’t difficult, they are and will kick your butt all the way to the bank and work, no questions ask, but there are a lot more than difficulty to the series with each game. That aside, back to the topic of development, besides one specific thing that if you what we’re going to talk about in the final half of the game then you know why we’re holding off on talking about that yet, there really isn’t much to say, again from what little I can find no thanks google, the main thing of Dark Souls was to refine a lot of the mechanics and level design from Demon’s Souls, and while not trying to make it a spiritual successor, still try to differentiate it from Demon’s Souls. But as it release, it has gain a lot of praises to say the least, and the rest is history, with the game being the measuring stick of how difficult games are now as well as being stupidly used by every journalist in the most idiotic way to compare games of today when reality, these people have the same gaming skills as a toddler that shove a crayon up their nose. Seriously, do I even need to remind any of you guys of such reviews as the Crash Bandicoot insane trilogy or Cuphead, the later of which was because the guy playing it has the same skill as DarksydePhil. That said, with the game released on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC, the game made millions of sales, and that’s not including the remastered version that came out on 2017, this version from what I remember did sting fans a bit on PC. From what I can look up, the biggest problems fans had with this particular version is some of changes they did to some art design such as the bonefires, yes, you be surprise how important that can be to Soulsborne fans, some mechanical changes, as well as having to pay for this game if you’re on PC given that this flat out replaces the Original from what I can remember, that one really stinging fans given from what I can tell, prefers the original or at least have the option to have the original still be on Steam like with Dark Souls 2 and the Scholar of the first Sin edition. Besides that, the remaster is what it is, a slight graphical remaster that also help make the game very stable on PC, a bonfire or two added to the game, and much like the Prepare to Die edition, the remaster includes the DLC that is for this game, and that’s the most to say to be honest.

Micro: And I should say this now, the remaster version is the one we’re going to be using for this review, and side note, I’m playing this game, in fact, we’re playing every Soulsborne game of this marathon, on my PS5 since it should be far more powerful to handle the game than my original PS4 that wants to crave death every time I so much put a game that has graphics that are higher than Undertale into the damn thing. Kind of wish we were looking at the Switch version since I would like to see how well, and terrifyingly, the game could be play on the Switch, as well as have an excuse to hunt down that Solaire Amiibo. Though I also wish we were playing that just so we didn’t take as long as we did with this game, I’ll say this now, this review should’ve been done at least a week ago, however, a certain bat girl found out how much effort it would take to get all the trophies to get this game and couldn’t help herself even the slightest to get all of the trophies so we could platinum it… we’re doing this crap with the rest of the series, Shekra.

Shekra: I’m not apologizing.

Micro: Milk this marathon as much as you can, cause we’re holding off on a lot of projects for this marathon, and as soon as we’re done with it, we’re playing a horror game.

Shekra: I-ghhh… fine, that’s fair.

Micro: That aside, before we continue, while I try to not recommend another person’s review or retrospective as I would rather give our personal thoughts ourselves, if you guys don’t want to read this review but instead want to listen to someone nerd on this game, as well as being a rather comical retrospective video to listen to, I highly recommend this one video I discover about a week ago from this guy name Sethorven. The video is a Lord of the Rings amount of listening, but the guy knows how to make the whole thing very entertaining as well as be very funny about two thirds of the whole video, maybe a little dramatic in certain parts, but again, I highly recommend the video if you guys want to listen to someone that would be far funnier to listen to than whatever we try to attempt to write. With that said, I think that’s enough rambling on, so how about we see how well Dark Souls still holds up, is it worth newcomers to play, what massive obvious cracks that the most insane of Dark Souls 1 fan refuse to acknowledge that prevents this game from being my favorite in the series. Well, grab your Sunny D bottle, huddle up next to the bonfire and get ready for us to talk about this game that has been talked to death by every Soulsborne Youtube content creator.

Shekra: Spoilers are abound!

Story and characters:

Shekra: In the world of Lordran, a kingdom fill of gods and warriors, a battle was once wage, a battle of the gods against everlasting dragons. While the dragons once proudly rule the land, fire soon came to existence, and with it, mighty lords came within the flame and these lords challenged the dragons. Nito, the first of the dead, unleash a miasma of death and disease, the Witch of Izalith and her daughters cast great firestorms, Seath the Scaleless a dragon betray his kind and revealed his kind’s weakness to the leader of the lord, Gwyn, leader of Lordran and uses his powerful lighting to peel the dragon’s scale apart so the rest could kill the dragons. And thus, an age of fire began, however, it would not last for long.. or I should say, I shouldn’t had last a long as it did.

Micro: And everything would slowly go to hell in a handbasket as that age of fire should’ve fade away… buuuuuutttttttttt, the gods are a bunch stubborn mother$%kers and Gwyn was not letting man have their age of darkness and his kind losing power to man. As such, Gwyn decided to prolong his age of fire… and boy did this f$%k everything up to a cataclysmic scale.

Shekra: As much as we want to talk about the lore of Dark Souls alone, Dark Souls is the pinnacle of being the iceberg deep lore so bury that the only thing reviling it in terms of how much effort you need to hunt all the information to understand just what in the world is happening on the land… is freaken Kirby of all series. Dark Souls has sooo much information to talk about that if we tried to talk about everything that happens to the world, we would need at least another six post just to upload the information. Doesn’t mean we will try to at least sum things up, but just know that if you want a really deep understanding of this world, I highly recommend VaatiVidya, guy has been making Dark Souls lore videos for a decade and the guy manages to talk about some of the most obscure secrets you may not know about. But that aside, um, yeah, the age of fire, this whole thing was meant to end at some point, however, because I believe it was mostly out of pure fear, Gwyn did not want his kingdom to come to a end, and so he has tried many methods to keep the fire going by keeping the First Flame alive. The First Flame is what mostly dictates an age, for once it fully dies, the world enters an age of dark, a cycle of life and death, humans become undead and many things, with time and space being warped and mixed around no thanks to this thing, and it’s this thing is what Gwyn tries to keep alive with whatever means he could to avoid that age of dark, something that many people has also try to keep alive as well, not wanting to see the age of Dark come into play.

Micro: Unfortunately, almost every plan that made just made things worse in one or another, in fact, a lot of problems that occur in this series can be chalked up to two specific people to blame, Gwyn and Seath, there is also a third person to look at, but that is a massive abyss that we’re not the people fit to even dark about Manus and his darkness. For Seath, this massive dragon betray his kind out of jealously as he was not immortal like the rest of his kind, and by helping Gwyn, he tried to look for immortality, only for him to go mad and in the process has created a lot of horrific experiments that let’s just say really f$%k a lot of things for people, the only GOOD thing Seath did created is everyone’s favorite fluffy waifu that’s in the painted world, no I will not even explain how Mario 64 came to play as I’m too busy wanting to give Priscilla a hug on her tail.

Shekra: Furry.

Micro: As for Gwyn, well, let’s not sugar coat it, this guy is an absolute bastard to say the least. This guy manipulates and uses so many people for his own goals that saying he’s one of the main causes of being the catalyst of things to come would be a understatement. He tried to duplicate the first flame by having the Witch of Izalith use her magic to make it, only for things to go so wrong that she unintentially created demons that now flood Izalith and are running around Lordran. Gwyn tried to use his own people to use souls and humanity to keep the first flame alive, and well, you can only do that for so long, which really f$%ks things over for literally everyone when in the process of keeping the age of fire alive, a new problem has came to play no thanks to Gwyn, the curse of the Undeath. This curse is a horrifying thing once you understand what it is, basically, humans can’t stay dead at all, however, as time continues with the confusion of how time and space is messed up from the prolong exposure of the this age, humans will slowly lose their humanity and sanity, and should the human body die far too many times or lose whatever purpose they tried so hard to cling to, if a human is inflicted with this curse and one of the two things I just said happens, the person will go hallow, a horrific state where, unless the cursed can keep a shred of humanity to prolong their sanity, the person will become like a mindless zombie, trying to kill anything that even a shred of sanity or humanity all while their body is decaying, and to make matters worse, once completely hallowed, the effect are irreversible. So yeah, if you thought things can’t get worse in this world, there’s always something worse to say the least.

Shekra: Which finally brings back Gwyn and one last act he tried to do to keep the age of fire alive. In a finally attempt to keep his kingdom running, Gwyn and his soldiers went to the first flame and Gwyn sacrifice himself to link the flame and amazingly this breath in new life to the flame. However, even this could only last for so long as the flames still need fuel to stay alive, a new powerful soul of Lords to fuel it. And this is where you finally came to play. Yeah, everything we talked about, that’s all stuff you have to find out on your own, as usual with these games, as such, we’re not going to keep reminding you that a lot of the information we just mentioned is something you have to look for yourself if you don’t feel like looking up lore videos. Lord knows we haven’t even scratch the surface of everything in this world alone.

Micro: But back to the topic at hand, this is where we kind of come to play as we play one of the unfortunate bastards that is undead as we about to embrace in a grand adventure of fun and plenty of arrows up the ass from pricks with master marksman degrees. You start your adventure as Derpina Dark Souls, hey not all the characters are going to be guys ok, like to mix it up once in a while, and we start our adventure…. In prison…. Great start.

Shekra: I told you to stop committing war crimes in Tears of the Kingdom.

Micro: Never, those Koroks aren’t going to crucify themselves in blazes of glory.

Shekra: At this point, I’m afraid of what Geneva Convention law you haven’t broken.

Micro: Don’t worry, by the time I’m through with this series, its going to sound like the Geneva Suggestions.

Shekra: Anyways, we’re in prison, more specifically an asylum where the undead or force to go, and can’t do much in the process, that is until a knight in shiny armor came to drop a whole body next to us that also has the key to leave and we can finally escape, only for our hero to eat dirt no thanks to the skinniest of diet soda lover. However, before he dies, Oscar gives us not only the most useful item in the whole series, but also is kind enough to tell us of a little prophecy that could help link the first flame, starting with ringing two bells at two locations.

Micro: Best of luck, and that’s f$%king it cause your own from now as soon as you beat the Asylum Demon get picked up by Tweety to real tutorial of the game as you have to figure out where the hell to go to find these two bell to ring, with next to no story significant to talk about at all for about sixty percent of this game, now you know why we went a lot of the lore in this game first.

Shekra: Thankfully, and sometimes unfortunately, you will encounter some characters along the way, a bunch that you have to go out of your way to actually find as Dark Souls kind of change the structure of NPC where you can actually bump into characters in your adventures. Some will call out to you, while others you’ll have to talk to them just to get anything out of them. And I’ll say this now, Dark Souls’s characters beat Demon’s Souls’s characters by a landslide in terms of memorability, sorry Stockpile Thomas. While the game still has handful of characters that are worth talking about, there are very much more interesting to talk to compared to Demon’s Souls as they actually have a lot more to say as you go about your adventure, with the characters you can talk to have important information that could help you know where to go next or something important of a boss you might be about to encounter, to some lore importance of the area or of the world that is interesting to listen to, and more importantly, several characters have side quest that are interesting to do and pretty much worth doing as long you don’t screw it up. Yeah, the game still has it where if you tick the NPC off, you’re screw unless you can find a specific NPC that can help “forgive” at the cost of an absurd amount of souls. Now, not all characters are that memorable, like Griggs or Reah, honestly, completely forgot these two even existed until we bump into them, but then you get to more loved characters that fans of the series cherish a lot, such as Big Hat Logan, very accurate name, where this wizard gives the best sorcery spells, or one of my personal favorite characters, Andre the blacksmith. Boys, this guy right there is what a man looks, this walking wall of a man that can help upgrade your equipment and give you some helpful tips, be like Andre, especially when he’s ready to throw down if you tick him off. In world of magic casting, powerful weapons, demons, gods and whatever else in between, this Wolverine size fridge will be ready to bare knuckle brawl you to next week. Screw your Goku in Smash Bros, I want Andrew to drop kick his way into the next DLC roaster.

Micro: Of course, there’s no way in hell we can’t talk about characters without talking about two of the most love characters in the whole game, or the whole series as a matter of fact, Solaire of Astora and Siegmeyer of Catarina. If you were to ask any Soulsborne fan of who their favorite NPC are, I bet you that nine out of ten times its one of these two given how lovable these two are. In the world where everyone wants something no matter what or have a goal of their own, Solaire is an absolute bro in this game, he is the guy that is willing to help you with some fights if you can call for him, he’s a beacon of sunshine in this bleak world as he is wanting to look for his Sun, whatever the hell that means. I still remember the fan theory that Solaire might be a child of Gwyn given that Solaire could use lightning bolt, sadly with Dark Souls 3 pretty much disconfirming that theory with Nameless King, still it pretty much show how much of an impact Solaire has made in the community. As for Siegmeyer, he’s another fan favorite, though mostly for another reason. He’s a walking onion that is trying to be a knight yet is an absolute dork that I can’t help but love and if you say otherwise, you will be going straight to hell, I’m not giving you a f$%king choice. No matter how dark the series can get or how tough the challenging is, Solaire and Siegmeyer has been a sight for sore eyes whenever you can find them, with these two alone leaving a lasting impact that future games would have their own version of these two in one way or another and still not feel like a rip off, such as Alexander and Blaidd in Elden Ring. Without these two, Dark Souls probably wouldn’t be the way it is to be honest given the lasting impact these two have with players…. which is why completing their side quest is a real gut punch once things hit the pain train.

Shekra: Yeah, one thing that you best brace yourself with this series is be ready to receive a gut punch if you are invested to a character, as its rare for any character in any part of this series to receive a “happy ending” or a ending at all where the character is completely satisfied of what they accomplished such as Alexander if you see his quest to the very end in Elden Ring. Not every character has a side quest, but the ones that does, they each have different outcomes that could leave a horrific fate for them if you don’t do things right, or even if you did, their ending might not be what you expect, such as Reah even if I completely forgot she existed, or one of the more obvious being Logan if you see his quest till the end. And Siegmeyer has one of the bigger punches to say the least given that there is plenty of ways to screw his quest up and even you don’t, the end of his quest might leave a bitter taste. And as for Solaire, I don’t think I need to pull up the number of videos of people shock to see what is the most common conclusion people gotten with Solaire with his side quest before people found out later that there is a way to save Solaire from his fate.

Micro: People like talk about the difficulty of this game, but I say they are missing the more important thing that this game brings out and that is the experience you are going to have with your adventure in this game, what you see from the world around you as well as the characters you can talk to, and some characters that can flat out eat dirt, eat S$%T Lautrec. With that said, I think that’s enough of the whole characters as there are a bit more of who you can find to talk to, get annoyed with, Patches, you magnificent bastard, how’s the ass kicking doing, as well as not even bump into depending how you play this game, as we still got an adventure to do. Getting to Firelink Shrine, we go up to the Undead Burg as it’s the only area to go that will continue anything, you’ll thank me later for not dealing with the bone daddy’s, we go through a whole areas of undead folks, some black knight bastard that will surely kill you if you haven’t died once yet somehow, beat up a demon, avoid a pissed off dragon, and go to church to ring one bell before having to go down underneath the town after dealing the Kappa bastard of the game and into everyone’s favorite location of the game that is Blight town, before having to dealing with the biggest why boner, with a very fiery vengeance, we ring the second bell before finding out that we have to go through Miyazaki’s happy fun time house that can burn in hell for all I care for, and getting a lift from your paralyzes demon into Anor Londo, the very place that Gwyn ruled over. But not before we meet Frampt who….. ok, what the f$%k am I looking at?

Shekra: I… don’t know to be honest. Yeah, in this game where you fight horrific demons, a vigina dragon mouth with hundreds of teeths, and whatever horrific disease awaits you in Blighttown, Dark Souls knows how to throw a curve ball so you don’t know what to expect, and it throws you this…. Serpent thing with a flesh mustache. And what’s worse is that he’s not the only one you can meet in this game, as there is a secret second serpent name Kaathe that you can only meet if you beat this one boss call the Four Kings, more on them later, without talking to Frampt once in this game. And as weird and honestly creepy in an uncanny way as these two guys are, believe it or not, these two play important roles in what’s happening in the world as some areas is because of these two meddling around. I don’t even want to begin talking about these two things, mainly cause I don’t want to be looking at them a minute longer than we need to, but just know that you’re going to be spun in a whirl the moment you meet these two as they pretty much give you your next objection, that being going to Anor Londo to get a Lord Vessel, something that you will need in order to beat this game.

Micro: With that said, how about we just talk about the game play for a minute just so we can take a moment to recover from the sudden whiplash that is the talking dark fairy tale creature over there.

Game Play:

Micro: While I wish we could just skip the game play mechanical stuff and go to the level design, given that with most of the Soulsborne series, mechanics are more or less the same at least with combat, but unfortunately for my lazy ass, we got plenty to talk about in this in this section.

Shekra: Now, if you manage to play the remake of Demon’s Souls, then in terms of fluidity or polish in combat, you might be inclined to believe that there isn’t much different from that game to Dark Souls, while maybe thinking that this game feels a bit slower in comparison. However, remember one thing, and that is this game came out after Demon’s Souls on the PS3, as such, there is a massive difference in combat, at the very least, combat has been polish up a bit where things don’t look awkward, characters didn’t look stiff, though this game still feels too slow for my liking, and of course what Dark Souls changed besides the combat. Well, if you came from Demon’s Souls to this game, it may feel like a glove as the amount of equipment and rings are the same, annoyingly for us on the ring part, souls mechanic functions the same as well as leveling up, and of course you have magical spells of sorcery and miracles, however, this is where Dark Souls brings in the bigger changes in combat and mechanics. New to the block is a different type of magic that being Pyromancy, magic that focuses mostly on fire spells with some of it able to give some good buffs, however, and here’s the real kicker of what makes Pyromancy more unique compare to the other two spells, Pyromancy doesn’t scale on states, but instead scales with the item that is use to cast pyromancy, and yes, this can potentially destroy a lot of challenges as long you aren’t fighting enemies that are resistant or immune to fire damage as you can upgrade pyromancy rather early in the game as long you can find the right NPC. As for other changes, equipment weight has change where you no longer have to worry about how much items you can carry in your pockets or need to shove into a box, only need to worry about the weight of the stuff you’re wearing and holding, last thing you want to be doing is rolling around at the speed of a panda. And this is the biggest change in the series compared to Demon’s Souls, the level layout. If you hear people’s praises of this game, the most common thing you’d hear is how interconnected areas of Dark Souls are to each other. Dark Souls may not be the first game to come up with areas connecting to each other the further you get into the game, but this game became the go to example of what some people think level design should be. Let me paint you an example, the Firelink Shrine, arguably the most iconic area in the whole game given how many times you’ll be visiting this area as it’s the hub area of the game, gone is Demon’s Souls’s whole teleporting to dedicated areas that don’t connect to each other even the slightest, as Firelink Shrine can be connected to three areas right off the bat, but as you go further through the Undead Burg and go to the church that has one of the bells you need to ring, you’ll discover a shortcut that actually connects right to Firelink Shrine. This is something Dark Souls, as well as plenty of other areas of every Soulsbone game afterward, rather excels in with its level design as you go further into the game, pushing some of the rougher areas of the games, only to find a path that actually connects to other areas you may have been through or maybe Firelink Shrine, it’s a massive confident boost as well as nice way to show just how much you have gotten far with you being told about in your face. And you might be wondering if this game does the same thing in Demon’s Souls where you have to go through one whole area and beat a boss just to get a checkpoint, but no as one of Dark Souls staple begins in this game with it being bonfires. Throughout your journey, you will find bonfires that serves as actual checkpoints that you can rest at, refill your health and more importantly refill your Estus Flasks, that item I mentioned is the most important item in all of the game that Oscar gives you at the beginning of the game cause its your healing potion. Dark Souls throws away the whole grass healing items where you don’t grind items to get as much healing items to stuff into your mouth to cheese some challenges, you are stuck with the Estus Flask as the only healing item with limit amount of uses until you rest at the bonfire, unless you want to use spells that can also heal you if you have the states for it. I honestly like the bonfire, its something that feels like a ultimate reward to find as you explore the world, trudging through some brutal areas that I don’t want to stop at cause I don’t want to do the whole area again if I die and have to run over to pick up my souls again while trying to not die a second time before then, only to find in the distance either from walking around or finding secret paths leading to a much needed bonfire that is a sight for sore eyes. And it’s a good thing to look for these bonfires as well, as its also the very rest stops where you can level yourself up instead of having to talk to an NPC to invest in souls, which I think this is the only game in the series to bother doing that except for maybe Sekiro. And you’ll be wanting to think carefully about looking for bonfires as well as what type of build you might be thinking of doing cause Dark Souls is a lot more challenging than Demon’s Souls. I may made fun of the Prepare to Die edition at the beginning of this review, but do prepare to actual die a lot in this game as this game will try to kick your rear, especially if you so much try to take the game very lightly, the game takes offense to that and will show you what your hubris has lead you as your are getting shank by the even the most goomba of enemies in this game.

Micro: No kidding, Dark Souls may function the same as Demon’s Souls, but it even quicker to kick your ass if you’re not prepare. That’s not to say the game will immediately want to kill you right off the bat, as the game is actually still teaching you things to expect in this game with the level design, even though this game does not hold your hand in the most obvious of fashion. Prime example, Firelink Shrine having three directions to go, you have the intended path you need to go first but you also have two other areas you can go early, however, these areas are extremely tough areas that you shouldn’t go to until you are higher level, have some proper equipment to handle the situation, and have more experience in this game, except the game does not flat out tell you that you shouldn’t visit these areas nor does it block the areas except very deep near the end of the areas, more specifically the catacombs with the third biggest bane of a Soulsborne player, skeletons. So, if the game doesn’t flat out tell you not to go there, then how exactly you know not to go there, simple, the game beats the living s$%t out you over and over again every time you try to be stubborn in try to go even remotely deep inside the catacombs without a divine weapon or knowing to kill the necromancers along the way through because Dark Souls has no difficulty setting and is perpetually stuck on the “f$%k you” difficulty. If you are smart, you should come to the conclusion that these enemies are tough and you might not have the means to deal with them yet, so you should think about coming back later at another time in the game when you think its time to try to venture through the area. Like I said, this game doesn’t try to hold your hand in the obvious of manners as you need to pay attention of the level design, especially at the beginning of the game to understand that the game wants to subtly teach you the importance of pay attention, look around and try to not be a cocky dips$%t if this is your first time playing the game. That said, the game still will reward you in one way or another if you try to be bare through some challenges earlier than you should’ve, prime example, the catacombs again, I say not to go here first, but there is a good reward if you are willing to got through the area and take on the boss, which is very easy to do so even at the start of the game, to which you get one of the most useful items in the series, the rekindling item, yes, I forgot what the actual name is call and I’m too lazy to look it up. Rekindling is one of the most useful items to get especially early in the game as it can be use to make it where you use it three times to make it where you can have up to twenty Estus Flask as long you go to the specific bonfire that you rekindle at. However, to use the rekindling thing, there’s one thing you need to do first, and that is you need to not be hallowed. Remember earlier that we said you were in the Undead Asylum right at the beginning, well, guess what, because you are undead, it means you are already hallowed, which in for the most part doesn’t mean much as being in a hallowed state is nothing as bad as Demon’s Souls awful spirit mechanic where you’re stuck with half of your health unless you are using a ring or return to human form. In hallow form, the only major things, if you’re playing offline, that being in that state is that you look like walking jerky and you can’t use the rekindling mechanic, as well as summoning, but more on that in second. So, how do you get out of being hallow, use humanity, as you go through the game, killing enemies will either give you humanity or drop humanity, more specifically rats will give you humanity more than most of the game, to which go to a bonfire and use humanity to restore yourself to whatever horrific creation you made in the character creation, as well as use humanity to rekindle as well. That said, as for the benefits now being in non bacon form, there is only one benefit to be in human form and that is to be able to summon NPC, or other players. This is something that is in Demon’s Souls, but Dark Souls really was the game where multiplayer play a key role into things, and it was something I had no intention of talking about in this marathon, but Shekra was not letting me continue this marathon until we finally talk about this feature, something I regret being talk into as my internet really hates this game and that bitten me in the ass several times when I got kicked out of the game.

Shekra: Multiplayer is one of the key things in the Dark Soul Trilogy, so it would not be right to not at least talk about it once in this marathon, so might as well do it in the one that everyone knows it more for. I doubt we talk about it much in Demon’s Souls, so here’s the run down for how online multiplayer works, as you continue through the game, you’ll find ghost of other players running around the world which are actually players playing the game as well, you’ll find signs on the ground that are messages from other players, plenty being extremely helpful and plenty from players that just want to be degenerate gremlins, feet obsess freaks of cringe. There is also covenants that is mostly use for PVP but you get something for joining or ranking up, with the only important one that you should join is the Sun Bros covenant, and maybe the Chaos one if you want to rescue Solaire. But more importantly, you’ll find summoning signs of both NPC and other players where they can help you traverse areas and help you fight the area boss that you might be having some struggle with or just want the fight to be a bit more even to your liking. That said, there is a downside of being human and this is the risk of being invaded by either an NPC or another player, and God help you if you get invaded by a player because high chance are that you’ll be picked on by some jerk that either is some weird hack cheater that somehow is still in Dark Souls’ servers, or a player that sunk thousands of hours into this game and know every single frame to parry you and stab you in the stomach. While it can be annoying to get invaded, multiplayer in some ways in still an importance in this game as it was something that was thought of as well as it had the mind set of the fans being a actual community, sharing knowledge in one way or another, discovering something new that you didn’t know about, telling others of something you discover such as a secret area, the whole Mew is underneath a truck talking gathering in the lunch tables kind of deal. While this idea more or less is kind of dying out no thanks to the boring way of people looking up codes to find out of interesting content, its still an idea I like with this series and its something I do enjoy of this community, as well as will laugh at the idiots who have the gull to complain about people using multiplayer or something honestly a single cell brain dead idiotic idea that you have to do so much by yourself in such arbitrary r$%arded way, these are the same people who would say you not doing the game the developers intended while at the same time these are the same idiots that are ignoring the very mechanics the devs put into this game in the first place, missing the point of Soulsborne series in thinking that it’s the challenge that matters when reality, there’s no point, only the experience. That said, I will also love it when something happens in the community that will drive everyone up the wall. Anyone remember that whole useless pendant debacle where so many people were obsess that there had to be some meaning to the item only for Miyazaki himself to flat out say that the pendant was put there as a joke for the specific reason of driving people insane to find any purpose on. I’m realizing why Micro loves this guy’s work.

Micro: My hero that I hope to perform such a dick move on players someday. With that said, do you need multiplayer, honestly, not really, you can do NPC summons if you want, but I won’t argue when I say its more fun to have other players to help out even when you can’t talk to them at all. Still, even without multiplayer, or at least without summoning others, I enjoy venturing this world, enjoy looking at every single corner to look for whatever goodies, even after when you beat the second boss is when the game that now it wants to start trying to kill you. Still won’t stop me as Dark Souls has about some of the best level design for about two third, maybe three quarters. Ok, I say best level design, not every location I like. Let’s get this out of the way, I flat out hate Sen’s Fortress, this area can burn in hell for all I care. While its not the most annoying dungeon trap invested hell hole that you would be expecting given what to expect from the first room you just step into, I hate this area far more than Blighttown. The biggest reason I know why people hated Blighttown, besides some of the poison spitting pricks, was with the original version where the frame rate of the game just plumets into the Earth’s core, mostly of PC players, but once you get through the frame rate drop, Blighttown isn’t bad, as long you’re not afraid of heights, have fun with the vertigo newbies. Sen’s Fortress on the other hand, it has serpent man pricks that loves to be on narrow walkways with no room to walk around and pendulums swinging around that will knock you to the basement where if the fall doesn’t kill you, one of the most annoying enemies to kill will be waiting for you downstairs. Boulders that tells gravity to f$%k off and launches you into space even if its not moving, an elevator that most certainly kill every player in this game, don’t f$%king lie. And one of the more dick moves in this game, the introduction of mimics that let’s be honest, unless you have multiplayer on and see messages surrounding this lanky bastard, you aren’t going to know this thing will pacman you to death. If that wasn’t bad enough, there is only one bonfire in this area and you have to find it over a ledge while a giant is chucking firebombs at your ass. People say that this series is always hard but fair, but that’s complete bulls$%t even for Dark Souls 1 as there are several bulls$%t moments that you won’t know is going to occur until its too late, most of it probably will because of one of the more frustrating things this game introduces, jumping. Yeah, Dark Souls introduces jumping and its awful to use, and worse if you have to do platforms in this game, Dark Souls is not made for platforming even for the slightest so what in God’s Green Earth was Miyazaki thinking of having platforming be something that the players have to deal with at certain part of the game, especially with one of the most infamous area that don’t worry, we’ll talk about later. If you want to know why I hate the idea of platform in this series, and unfortunately for me this mechanic is something that will be stuck for the rest of the series with only maybe two games that got platforming right, its because in this game, trying to land on a platform below is a crapshoot as you have to deal with the biggest bane of a Soulsborne player, gravity.

Shekra: What’s the second bane?

Micro: The camera.

Shekra: Ah.

Micro: While you will find plenty of spots that have large areas to land on, most of the time you’ll have to land one a platform that’s smaller than wasp’s dick with the edges being awful that there’s a chance that you’ll slip and fall to your death, and I swear the amount of height your character can take in this game compare to Demon’s Souls is drastically nerf as just a tiny ledge hurts your knees I swear. And god help you if you find Titanite lizards that you want to kill for resources. Oh, right, I forgot we haven’t mentioned these little guys since they were in the last game. Titanite lizards are annoying little bastards that will not hesitate to run away and if given enough time will disappear on the spot if you don’t hit them in time. Thankfully, quitting out the game and loading back in will spawn the little guys back on the spot for you to kill them with no efforts.

Shekra: I can’t help but love the titanite lizards, they’re so derpy and cute, I would like a plushy of them.

Micro: Well, have fun looking one yourself, because I can’t find any plushie versions of these guys at all on Amazon or Ebay.

Shekra: While I will agree that there some very sour spots in the game, I find Sen’s Fortress the least offensive compare to what we’ll get into in the ending section, I still love the areas you can explore in this game, Undead Burg is a great tutorial level as well as emphasizing the idea of exploring everything possible, I enjoy Darkroot Garden and Basin from it being a massive forest area and being to introduction of the Hydra that defiantly caught people off guard, though my favorite area has to be the Painted world, this completely optional area that you can’t enter unless you get a doll that is all the way in the very cell you were in at the beginning of the game. That’s something I really love of this series, its not afraid to have secrets, and I mean actual secret areas, that you have to find for yourself, areas that had the potential of never being discover at all by player for a long time, and the devs just make these areas and didn’t put some massive sign saying there is a giant secret behind something like some games would do. Want to know how secretive this game loves to hide its secret area? In Blighttown, at the bottom of the swamp where you go to other side of the area of where you’re supposed to go is a giant tree base that looks like it has nothing, except it has not one, but two illusionary walls you need to hit, one of which is behind a chest, to which you have to platform your butt all the way to the bottom just to find one of the most breathtaking area of the whole game. I can only imagine that this was only discovered because somebody got paranoid of the chest being a mimic and manage to hit the wall behind it. And if you really want to talk about hiding content on purpose, the DLC is a puzzle to get to as you can’t just simply go into the DLC. Just to save you a bit of headache, remember the Hydra I mentioned in Darkroot, kill it, rest in a bonfire that’s in the area, go to the side of the lake and kill this gold golem to rescue a woman, finish her conversation and only after do you beat the boss in Anor Londo do you go to this area call the Duke’s Archive where you kill a specific blue golem at the beginning to get a pendant, then go back very spot you rescue the girl and get Mario 64 to the DLC. I don’t recommend doing the DLC until after you are close to fighting the final boss as the DLC is hard, its for people that knows how to play the game and it will kick your teeth in.

Micro: Hey, up to you if you want to deal with the challenge, after, I think we made it clear that Dark Souls is very open handed of letting you deal with situations the way you want to, which is something I love about this game. I mentioned that Dark Souls 1 is not my favorite in the series, and it ain’t because of Sen’s Fortress or the slow control, its what you got to deal with in the second half of the game, but everything else in the game I can’t help but love still. I really enjoy this game not holding my hand, letting me be free to explore the world, know the lore at my own pace if I really want to, it has areas I would prefer to drop a nuke on, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to explore a lot of the game, wondering several questions along the way. What secrets will I find, what boss awaits me around the corner, did I just got one punch man by a mushroom? And I am not making that last question up. Turns out the Mushroom Kingdom has some residents in this game and apparently, they invested in a f$%king gym.

Shekra: I would love to see a death counter like in Dark Souls 2 but specifically from this enemy as I want to know how many people weren’t expecting to see Saitama’s spirit animal in this game.

Micro: Probably not as much as Havel the Goddamn Motherf$%king Rock.

Shekra: Well, I think we made our point of what’s people should expect to experience in this game, so how about one of the most important things to talk about in this series, the bosses.
(End of part 1)