Progress report: I have entered Anor Londo and beat two of the lightning breathing Gargoyles.
I'm feeling less conflicted about how I feel about Dark Souls, but I think I'm starting to figure it out. This game is working for me because of the community around it. Not the Dark Souls Community writ large, but the small group of people I've been able to talk to about this game and who watch the streams. If I were playing this offline on my own, I would have looked up a guide or just straight up stopped playing by now.
And I think I get it. When this game released years ago, there was a rush of excitement and overall community surrounding it. Surrounding the mystery and wonder of exploring the unknown and cryptic world outlined. The difficulty and communal discovery lends itself towards building a group of people to talk with, and that is worth praising. You see these cottage communities pop up around certain games. For me, Undertale was that game, where I would play through then wait to talk about it with other friends after they experienced it. As someone who had That Game before Dark Souls, I can start to see and appreciate the picture of this game.
So real quick, I want to thank anyone whose read these posts, stopped in the discord channels, or stopped by the stream. It's been a pleasure to discover this game with you, and I am humbled that you have shared in any success I have had. The various clips and highlights you guys have made have warmed my heart.
Now, to talk more directly about the game. Sen's Fortress. Where to start where to start. Based on my playstyle, it took me a long-ass time to find a strategy that worked for the opening room. Normally, I try to take control of a situation, but for some reason the two Snake Sworders kept me on my back foot for a long time. After that, I could regularly push to new areas and path, but the opening gave me trouble until o figured some things out. Aural Decoy, which is just "Distraction!" the spell, did so much heavy lifting for me. I thought the spell would be situationally useful, so I equipped it on a lark. Turns out the situation was "almost all of them".
It took me some time to finally clear the boss. The other day, when exploring the outer parts of the Fortress, I had a harrowing exchange with the Archer as I was out of estus and and resorted to Humanity healing. I also ended up getting too cute with my usage of Aural Decoy at times, as I would sit and cast it instead of dodging or just trying to block into a Soul Arrow cast. What's nice though is that after I came back from a few days break, the most recent stream had really good runs. After a few days off I tend to internalize things I guess, and just play better. Don't know why.
I'm enjoying the game, on its own merit and the community aspect of it, mentioned above. How's that for progress?
No comments:
Post a Comment