Fenrir: it sounds like you got the worst ending! Which isn't a surprise because the other two are SECRET and hidden behind obscura (did you even find the Untended Graves? That's only Ash Lake tier obscure, Archdragon Peak unlock is the real how did anyone even find this? zone). Also I'm pretty sure everybody fucks up all the NPC quests in this game first run. I sure did. Some of the unlocks and timing windows here really are absurdly obtuse.
Speaking of, HERO PATCHES confirmed. So this time I did the following:
-Left Siegward in the well (for a while at least). Pointedly did not buy his armor from Patches.
-Reached Irithyll.
-Told Greirat to go to Irithyll.
-Actually answered Patches this time when he asked where Greirat went. (Patches sounds legitimately concerned in response, it's great.)
-Killed Old Demon King because killing a boss, any boss, is the trigger for the game to check whether anyone's available to save Greirat.
-Went back to Firelink. Greirat is back safe and claims an onion knight saved him. Obviously it wasn't Siegward (who I save after all of this without disrupting his quest).
So the upshot of all this is that Patches is really just tsundere and can't stand to undertake saving someone without a disguise. I guess an act of known goodwill would spoil his image.Great stuff.
Anyway sorcery run is done. Sorcery is amazing if you go all-in but you also cannot take hits at all because you have both Dusk's Crown and the Sorcery Clutch Ring nuking your defenses at once. It's basically more cost-efficient pyro. Your casting times may be worse (which makes it harder to use in boss fights but doesn't stop it from taking exploration completely to pieces) but you should also never ever run out of FP as long as you stick to the Great Arrow tier of spells. Soul Spear and anything crystal probably not worth using outside of maybe the castle bosses. They burn too much FP, without the extra couple hundred damage really warranting the 3-4x hike in cost. Soul Stream is super cool but you will never ever use this in a boss fight without getting hit. It's great to blast knights with it, though. Bores right through shielded defense like a drill.
DEX run is started and uh is also done. Wow. See preceding two posts, Sellsword Twinblades are absurdly good. You have the stats to cast Magic Weapon at game start as a mercenary and it's recommended to pick that up immediately (this goes for everyone really, the reqs are so low in DS3 that most classes can cast it right out of the gate). Makes things immensely easier early on. This is some of the most out of control melee offense I've seen in these games, it's just bonkers. I think HLW didn't even last thirty seconds. Combo 1 -> *SMASH* -> Combo 2 -> *SMASH* -> Combo 3 -> *SMASH* after just two swings. Holy shit. This is pretty much exactly the kind of weapon I was looking for. You're just a human blender.
I tried other weapons! Chaos Blade is stronger on paper, but Chaos Blade can't be buffed. All the other twin weapons that look like they should be for DEX builds are actually Quality weapons. Farron Greatsword is hilarious but it's so heavy and stamina-intensive that I couldn't properly make use of it until the game was basically over. There was other cool stuff but just nothing else as completely dominating as buffed Twinblades. You don't have a kick with the scimitars though and that's painful. This run renewed my hatred for everything with a shield in DS3, and especially for greatshields. Holy crap are knights the most infuriating bastards. Hi there, I'm gonna maneuver around you for backstab NOPE SHIELD BASH TO FACE okay fine I'll just walk up and kick your shield away NOPE SHIELD BASH TO FACE. It's like goddamn Psycho Mantis is on the other side of the screen reading my moves. Fuck these fuckers.
Unfortunately, I'm disappointed with the Xanthous set this time you guys. Not yellow enough. Not. Yellow. Enough. Maybe DLC will give Nanami a satisfactorily yellow outfit. Here's hoping. I rocked Sunless set instead because it's amazingly fabulous.
Oh yeah, I did eventually beat Nameless. First win was with the Cidward's Elder Brother along to help, but I soloed it with the pyro after that. Took 6-7 tries? I was ready to rage at the camera here at first, but when I won it was without significant camera problems due to not being positioned stupidly at all times (don't hang around under the dragon you guys) so I think intermittent motion sickness was mostly a consequence of Doing It Wrong.
(Just in this fight, though, as I readily acknowledge these games are filled with legitimately BS Camera Souls moments.) All I had to do was stand back a little bit and the first phase became a joke. 3x fireball to the face -> visceral attack -> 2x more fireball while it's recovering = done. Pyro kinda broke you guys. Second half still pretty tough! But Black Flame really came through here. I just stuck to him like glue instead of hanging back and lobbing fireballs and this worked out much better. His ranged attacks are way trickier to avoid.
The only boss I haven't actually soloed is Big Gunther and I don't expect that to change. I have cheesed this fight out with summons every time I've won and I feel precisely zero shame about this. I wouldn't mind this fight so much if the run back to him wasn't long without a shortcut and with enemies that are sometimes tricky to avoid (grave wardens, ugh). If it was a quick trip I'd mind less having to try over and over again against an unfair chain-attacking bastard that literally never allows you an opportunity to heal. But put those things together and fuck no Krusty wants out.
My first impressions haven't changed, it's a cool game but not revolutionary.
Yeah pretty much. I don't think it ever really stretches to do anything the series hasn't done before, but it's a very solid entry in what's pretty obviously my favorite series, so why am I going to complain? I get more Souls combat and the amazing environments that DS2 largely lacked are back again. Score. I'd have to call Bloodborne a more
impressive game just for being more adventurous, though. This is funny to consider since there was a lot about Bloodborne that bugged me when I first played it (although that is true of most of these games). DS3 still has it beat for instant replayability, though. BB just lacked that immense build variability. I mean, fuck, look at this, I'm on my sixth run already (it's Luck mode
oh god what have I done. Seriously though there will likely be a quality build after this to pick up all the weapons that didn't fit anywhere else and then I'm probably done).
I think my series ranking probably runs something like: Dark Souls 1 > Bloodborne > Dark Souls 3 > Dark Souls 2 >>> Demon's Souls. I could shuffle BB and DS3 if the latter has boss enough DLC though. Anyway despite all the welcome quality of life improvements the later games added, it's hard to top experiencing something like this for the first time. Nostalgia may be a factor here but I just don't think anything after DS1 had as impressive a world to explore.
~
I ended up disappointed overall with Salt & Sanctuary, but I suppose I should have lowered my expectations since a knock-off of Souls is still a knock-off. The game is really rough around the edges; I was very sad that the bow controls are so poorly thought out in particular. Movement was acceptably fluid much of the time, but I felt like it was far too easy to fall off of cliffs at times, which is strange since there was no slippery footing to contend with or anything like that. I'm not big on the rolling and parrying in a 2D space, though I can appreciate the attempt to get the combat right; that's my story, sticking to it.
While I didn't hate the art style as much as some people seem to, and even liked some designs, the graphics were actually a problem for me, as everything looks pretty similar (read: dark) and it's very easy to miss things. I suppose you could argue that adds to the challenge, and in some cases I'd agree, but for me it was frustrating more than it was neato. The music was kind of annoying when it wasn't just ambiance, but the ambiance and sound effects were well-done, at least as far as I could tell.
Enemies seem to suddenly gain tons of HP midway through the game, and it makes fight a real slog. I might have had more fun if I didn't feel the need to just run past encounters before even getting through them legitimately. Maybe my build wasn't on point, though (Polearms). Any flying/mage enemy is insufferable. Several bosses are downright terrible. I must have died to the Tree boss 20 times due to a platform crumbling as soon as my character touched it at random times. (normally it takes a second or two)
I'm not sure how I feel about the skill tree vs something more simplistic, but I guess it's cool if you want to know what you're working toward? Being able to delete and reassign points was a nice touch.
The game certainly has some enjoyable qualities, and I might recommend it to fans of Castlevania and the like, but I wasn't particularly impressed.
Funny thing, I actually didn't stumble off of ledges too much in S&S. I had
tons of gravity-driven deaths due to platforming failure, but few if any incidents of accidentally walking right off a fatal precipice. S&S actually does not let your attack momentum carry you off a ledge. Try swinging away at the edge of a cliff, you won't budge. I actually appreciated this considering how many times over-exuberant R1 spam took me for a fatal fall in Souls games after I knocked my lock-on target over the edge.
Art's a mixed bag. I principally disliked the PC's character style. For backgrounds, the color scheme could stand to be less washed-out and pallid, but I think there's variation enough in environment types. The darkness doesn't necessarily bother me. Actually think that was better used here as a strategic element here than say DS2's torch system. Sticking with a light source in S&S actually enforces tactical decisions--if you're used to two-handing weapons or dual-wielding, you're gonna have to find a workaround or be genuinely blind, because there are stretches in these levels that you cannot safely explore and execute combat in without a torch.
Tree of Men is indeed bullshit. I don't think I hate it more than I hate The Third Lamb, but it certainly gave me the most trouble first time through when I was a pure melee build. Then I came back with a gun and it was a joke. I never even tried bows! But the gun and magic aiming mechanics (pretty much identical there) seemed fine to me.
