The Official Dark Souls Thread

[TechMaster]

Chooka messaged me on Live about this so here's the 'skinny'.

I recently started playing Dark Souls. After reading the reviews on Amazon saying this game is not for the feint of heart I was intrigued.

Let me just say that you Die...a LOT! if that bothers you then definitely do not get this game.

You start out as a Hollow undead person. As you play you find shards of Humanity that can be used to reverse the undead state. You can only do certain things when your are Human (or not undead). Your discovery of items after killing stuff in increased when you are Human. You can also invade other peoples games as a wraith (if you have the proper item that gets used up in the process) and if you kill them, you get shards of Humanity and souls (I think). (Haven't tried invading anyone yet). I have been invaded once and they kicked my ass. :P

When killing things you get loot like weapons, armor, titanium shards (for upgrading stuff) etc, but you also get souls. Souls are your currency in this game. You use Souls to level your skills as well as buy stuff from the vendors when you find them. You can also get a shard of Humanity. They occasionally drop after killing stuff for a while. They also drop off preset bodies and also from tough enemies. Humanity Shards should be saved and used when you get back to your Bonfire. The Bonfires are were you recover health and save your progress.

If you die you leave a bloodstain on the ground. You revive at the last bonfire with any gear you found but none of your Souls or Humanity. If you can make it back to the bloodstain you can recover your souls and Humanity that you have been collecting. If you die a second time before getting back to the bloodstain you lose them. Also, all the things you killed (Minus any really tough enemies and Bosses) will respawn, so you need to fight your way through them again. It can get tedious but it means more souls to spend when (and if) you get back to the bloodstain.

So far I've got about 20 some odd hours into 2 different characters. I like a challenge and this is definitely challenging. If you like 'grinding' RPG goodness then this game will fit the bill. At the moment I'm grinding a section for souls to skill up my damage with my weapons. I recently got the Dragon Sword and it is an awesome damaging weapon. I finally have a good chance against some of the tougher knight enemies.

Tips:
1. Talk to everyone that can be talked to until they basically tell you to shut up. I initially ignored the one guy that told me to begone, Later I found out that he can teach you stuff so i had to backtrack to him. He ended up teaching me a healing spell that would have come in handy a lot sooner had I known it.
2. Be sure to find the first vendor when you get into the undead berg. Buy his repair kit first and a bunch of fire bombs.
3. The first 2 really tough enemies can be tagged and led to a spot were you can firebomb them from above without getting squashed pretty quickly.
4. When you get to the dragon (that you won't be killing any time soon) be sure to read up on getting the Dragon Sword by attacking his tail.

That's it for now.

[chooka1]

I appreicate the lengthy comments. I'm interested.

How would you rank this game compared to Skyrim, Fallout or other similar games?

I know I would love Dark Souls if you didn't have to die all the time and repeat long segments. I just don't know if I have the time or patience to play. I wish this game had a casual mode even if it meant my character wore a chicken costume.

[TechMaster]

I haven't played Skyrim yet although it is in my que for Xmas/New Year timeframe. As far as rating it against those great games I don't think I can place it above them. Maybe a notch below them at this time. The RPG aspects are great and the Graphics rate pretty high. Those other games offer companions and parties where as this one has just 1 character through the whole game at a time.

The repetitiveness factor although great for grinding, weighs it down a few points even for a die hard like me. Although my second character who knew some of the pitfalls went through those areas much faster. Keep in mind I have only just made it to the Second area called Undead Parish, so even with 12 or 13 hours (for one character) I am only just getting started.
And from all reports the game is at its most gruesomely difficult in the beginning so my opinion may change as I progress. I do believe it however as I recently acquired the Drake Sword and it helps dramatically (one shotting in many cases) some of those earlier critters.

Also character class choice has definite effect on both the level of difficulty as well as the way you make it through some of the areas. I started out as knight thinking the heavy armor would help me survive some of the first encounters but it turned out the heavy armor also weighs me down and makes me much slower making it tougher to dodge and escape some of them when things go bad. After reading a bit more on the forums I found out a Pyromancer is the better first time starting class. her lighter armor gives her mobility and her Fire attack is very effective on many of the earlier creatures especially the knights.

You might want to do some reading about the game in the online FAQs and Forums before starting it. The 3 page manual (and I wouldn't even call it that) gives you very little guidance. Whatever happened to writing a good manual with some great back story and/or history to get you pumped up about the game? Curse this generations' A.D.D. syndrome kids.

In any case if you think your patience will be tested I would recommend renting it first. It may not be your 'cup of tea'.