Dark Souls 3

[Baryonyx]

The Abyss Watchers boss isn't hard. For any class versed in melee skills it should be a breeze. Clear the Cathedral first, then go back and beat the st out of the AW.

If you think they're hard, you'd have wept tears of blood with Maria on Bloodborne NG+. Almost the same sort of boss, but with quickening, three phases and no CPU assist.

[lexusboy]

I haven't played DkS1 or DS but I've played DkS2 and Bloodborne but this seems much more brutal and unforgiving than those 2, loving it though

[Mastodon2]

Since my last post, I realised I'd gone the wrong way. I cleared the Cathedral of the Deep with ease, killed the giants in the main hall for fun, went back to the Abyss Watchers and flattened them. Next through the Catacombs of Carthus area, I found a large club and crest shield combo to work well, allowing me to block dark magic damage and physical attacks and the club, even when blocked by the enemy, would knock them to the ground. It was easy pickings - I nearly beat Wolnir on my first try but he ran over me with his darkness bubble, so I had another crack using the Wolf Knight greatsword instead of the club and absolutely wrecked him with the blessing damage bonus. Apparently he can summon skeletons, but I never saw them as he was dead in little over a minute.

[Steven_RW]

Mastodon2 said:

Since my last post, I realised I'd gone the wrong way. I cleared the Cathedral of the Deep with ease, killed the giants in the main hall for fun, went back to the Abyss Watchers and flattened them. Next through the Catacombs of Carthus area, I found a large club and crest shield combo to work well, allowing me to block dark magic damage and physical attacks and the club, even when blocked by the enemy, would knock them to the ground. It was easy pickings - I nearly beat Wolnir on my first try but he ran over me with his darkness bubble, so I had another crack using the Wolf Knight greatsword instead of the club and absolutely wrecked him with the blessing damage bonus. Apparently he can summon skeletons, but I never saw them as he was dead in little over a minute.

So... all in all from your Friday post to your Sunday post... are you back in love with the game?

I really liked DS3 environment. It is the first game that I played sat 3 feet from the 50" tv and played with headphones on to up the immersion feeling. I really liked it. Now completed and started second play through.

RW

[Mastodon2]

Steven_RW said:

So... all in all from your Friday post to your Sunday post... are you back in love with the game?

I really liked DS3 environment. It is the first game that I played sat 3 feet from the 50" tv and played with headphones on to up the immersion feeling. I really liked it. Now completed and started second play through.

RW

DS has always erred between the lazy and the sublime, DS3 is definitely not as bad as DS2 in that respect. However, DS3 is not without it's bad bits, see the Abyss Watchers - dull and lacking imagination, or the reapperance of the ghru enemies in the tunnels under the smouldering lake, rather than give us something new they simply padded that area out with old enemies from earlier in the game, but changed their poison mist to the toxic mist and crammed them into tiny spaces to make it nearly impossible to avoid. Ok, I understand they're trying to force you to use the items and buffs to survive, but ultimately it still made for a slow, dull gameplay experience.

On the other hand, DS3 has pure magic such as the first view of Irithyll, Wolnir appearing out of the darkness etc, the good vastly outweighs the bad and I've never said any differently.

[Steven_RW]

Mastodon2 said:

.,...

On the other hand, DS3 has pure magic such as the first view of Irithyll, Wolnir appearing out of the darkness etc, the good vastly outweighs the bad and I've never said any differently.

:thumbsup: I'm not looking for a fight! :-)

As you say, some of the scenes and vista views and so on in DS3 are spot on. The sound quality on headphones turned up really help with the atmosphere.

Cheers

RW

[Mastodon2]

Yeah, I'm playing with headphones and it is stunningly atmospheric.

I'm on a run of great bits in the game at the moment, having just explored Ithiryll, whooped Pontiff Sulyvahn on my first shot solo and then progressed on to Anor Londo, which appears curiously out of time and space, took a few goes at Aldrich but beat him in the end - though we did draw effectively as my final strike killed him and as he went down his arrow rain finished me off, but the mist was cleared and the room was empty next time I ran up.

The amount of craft that has gone into this game is so evident, it feels so much closer to DS1 in terms of detail, well thought out design and memorable bits, than the rather bland DS2. I still think DS2 was a good standalone game but it wasn't a patch on DS1, DS3 is a return to form.

[Baryonyx]

It is a top game. Nearly as good as Bloodborne, and that's saying something.

I logged in tonight and found my way to the Consumed King's Garden. That boss could have been a bd with that gauntlet ahead of him but I found a shortcut, and was able to dodge his knight vanguard outside the fog gate, leaving me to take him on alone. I absolutely thrashed him. Despite a number of tricks, he had nothing to answer for my high END and heavy armour. Even just taking the odd RB strike against him where I could (Executioner Sword+6) and dealing 196 damage, I soon wore him down and when he was silly enough to drop his head after a combo I could really go to town on him. It was a cool, steady paced fight the likes I haven't seen since the Orphan of Kos! He was another tt I banged out on my first go.

I'm really impressed with the weapon, armour and levelling choices in this DS. It really is deeply build based. Moreso than ever before. Whereas Bloodborne really relied on skill, DS3 is the ultimate refinement of the 'stat to win' style. Some bosses are a waltz and some are much tougher based on build. PVP is pretty exciting when you get into it but I do not seek it out. I'm only found the whole Red Eye Orb today as part of Leonhard's quest! I'd been carrying that thing for ages, I don't even remember where I found it!

Suffice to say I'm loving this game. It'll easily be the best and most memorable thing I'll play all year.

[Steven_RW]

Agreed to all said by Baryonx and Mast*.

I did still very much enjoy dark souls 2 (played it on Ps4).

My play order was... Bloodborne, Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2 (ps4)Bloodborne DLC and then Demon Souls and just completed Dark Souls 3.

The pace difference from Bloodborne to DS was quite a shock. I didn't get that far on Demon Souls. I should go back and try and complete it properly..

Btw, I played Bloodborne DLC on NG+ and the orphan of Kos destroyed me. I didn't ever manage to win that fight. The fact you first timed it would suggest you're the better player by quite a margin!

I've moved to NG+ on DS3 and made my way to the firelink shrine. I think I'll spend more time offering up help to other players this time through and trying to cover off some of the other quest lines that I missed first time through.

Cheers

RW

[Baryonyx]

Bloodborne was a bit of a different beast to DS because there was nowhere to hide from the bosses. You couldn't sit behind a shield and wait them out like I did with Oceiros last night. The Orphan wasn't too bad, but Maria was a bh and Laurence was horrific too. I was on NG+, simply because there was no 'post ending' session on Bloodborne for mop up prior to NG+. The NG+ on Bloodborne felt more difficult than DS NG+ because the bosses were gifted huge amounts of health and just seemed to endure for ages. The boss battles became quite protracted. I had used the cane exclusively until I got the Moonlight Greatsword from Ludwig...!

On DS3, I made it to Champion Ludex this morning. I'm slowly grinding my way to 30 sunlight medals there. I have 18 at the moment, I started with 10 this morning. There is a ready stream of summons and he's easy to beat providing your connection to the host is good. Once I've got this I'll be boosting Darkmoon and Mound Makers so I can get their miracles and pyromancies. I have really enjoyed repeatedly kicking Ludex all over today.

[ambuletz]

I'm up to the nameless King. I think I've died 10 times so far but he seems damn hard(er than anything done so far). Oh well.

[Mastodon2]

I beat Yhorm the giant earlier, what a fight that was - to finally see Siegward complete the quest he has been cryptically talking about in DS games since the start was very special indeed, even more so because both me and Siegward were wielding the Storm Ruler swords, blasting the boss to bits with the special attacks. The teleport to cathedral room was a surprise, even more of a surprise when the dancer appeared. What a shock, but dealt with her on my first go, I'm not sure what would happen if you fail in that fight, transported back to the Profane City bonfire perhaps?

[Steve Evil]

Mastodon2 said:

I beat Yhorm the giant earlier, what a fight that was - to finally see Siegward complete the quest he has been cryptically talking about in DS games since the start was very special indeed, even more so because both me and Siegward were wielding the Storm Ruler swords, blasting the boss to bits with the special attacks. The teleport to cathedral room was a surprise, even more of a surprise when the dancer appeared. What a shock, but dealt with her on my first go, I'm not sure what would happen if you fail in that fight, transported back to the Profane City bonfire perhaps?

Siegward only ever appeared in DS3, it was other onion bros in the other games.

And yes, if you fail at the dancer, you go back to the last bonfire, I didn't fare so well at my first attempt and it took me a while to twig where I had to go in order to have another attempt and retrieve my souls, especially as it started quite unexpectedly.

[Mastodon2]

I've reached the Nameless King, what a total anus this guy is. I will beat him, but it will take a build to do it. It seems that no matter what armour you wear, you'll take 500+ damage a shot and probably enter a stumble if hit so the follow up will almost certainly kill you if you're less than 90% health. Dragonslayer shield will be getting buffed if it's as good as people say it is for this fight, then I'll be buffing a lightning-resistant armour set and stocking up on lightning resist items, I may also infuse a fire greatsword. Carthus Bloodring might get rolled out. This guy is a 2-hit cheese monster, but I will overcome him, even if the rewards are poor.

[ambuletz]

Mastodon2 said:

I've reached the Nameless King, what a total anus this guy is. I will beat him, but it will take a build to do it. It seems that no matter what armour you wear, you'll take 500+ damage a shot and probably enter a stumble if hit so the follow up will almost certainly kill you if you're less than 90% health. Dragonslayer shield will be getting buffed if it's as good as people say it is for this fight, then I'll be buffing a lightning-resistant armour set and stocking up on lightning resist items, I may also infuse a fire greatsword. Carthus Bloodring might get rolled out. This guy is a 2-hit cheese monster, but I will overcome him, even if the rewards are poor.

i don't think you need to go that far. some people have beaten him LV1 with no rolling/dodging etc. I have not beaten him yet but you need to try to not panic roll, timing really is key. and IMO, I find it easier if you use free-aim and remain close to him (which helps a great deal). you'll get to know his pattern of attack soon enough. first phase is easy.

[ambuletz]

For me, game done. Final boss took me about 5 tries. nowhere near as many as the optional boss (probably 20+). I cannot help but feel like the story is not explained well. I still don't fully understand the flame, me, why i was defeating lords of cinder and why the final boss.

[lexusboy]

ambuletz said:

For me, game done. Final boss took me about 5 tries. nowhere near as many as the optional boss (probably 20+). I cannot help but feel like the story is not explained well. I still don't fully understand the flame, me, why i was defeating lords of cinder and why the final boss.

I haven't a clue what the story is, it's probably the only game I play purely due to enjoyment of the mechanics and the challenge

[Mastodon2]

ambuletz said:

For me, game done. Final boss took me about 5 tries. nowhere near as many as the optional boss (probably 20+). I cannot help but feel like the story is not explained well. I still don't fully understand the flame, me, why i was defeating lords of cinder and why the final boss.

It's all in the item text and cryptically hidden in NPC speech. If you want to understand it better, look up Youtuber "Vaati Vidya", he has some good videos on it.

I've been trying the Nameless King again, getting the dragon down is a formality, surviving the relentless attacks of the NK is the hard bit. I've tried the Dragonslayer greatshield, I've tried cheesing him with a +9 arbalest, but I just can't seem to evade long enough to drop him. Trying to get a summon is nigh impossible as so few people are volunteering and when they do they seem to get snapped up immediately and the summon fails. I may just leave it now until after I've done the DLC, get a few more levels on my character and have another crack. For now I think I'll just press on and finish the game.

[Baryonyx]

I finished the main game this evening. Absolutely astounding stuff. Now to beat the Nameless King and make a new character. I may try buffing a spear and a crossbow as they are apparently the best weapons for cheesing this cheesiest of bosses.

[Mastodon2]

Finished this last night, smashing through the twin princes in one feel swoop. After that, I decided to use my humanity to have a crack at the Nameless King, no fancy builds, no special tactics, just my full Gundyr set and my Flamberge+10. I managed to summon in another player who was using the Darkmoon bow (I would later realise I'd never transposed Aldrich's soul, so I did and got my own bow) and we crushed the king. The dragon phase was over in under a minute, then taking down NK was just a case of me rolling and dodging, getting a single swing in and whenever NK tried to open a gap to do some charge attacks the other player would shoot him for aggro allowing me to attack NK from behind as he tried to chase the other player down. Done with no drama whatsoever, though there was a lot of swearing and whooping by me afterwards.

I have now done a bit of clear up, grinding some souls out to buy the rest of the armour sets from the vendor in the shrine. Eygon of Carim has a particularly good set which you can get early in the game in you end up with him being hostile or you decide to kill him, assuming you're strong enough, but it's heavy armour and not really usable until later in the game anyway. It still gets my vote for probably the coolest new armour set in the game, that or the Gundyr set which saw me handily through the final quarter of the game or so. The Flamberge was an absolute gem too, taking me all the way from the entrance of the Cathedral of the Deep to the end of the game, only occasionally being switched for another weapon to get an elemental boost against a boss.

I have tried the Smough set, but even with my high vitality I cannot fast roll in it, even with no weapons or shields equipped, and equipping Smough's great hammer slows my movement speed to walking only and removes my roll entirely - god knows how much VIT you need to be able to use the full Smough set effectively!

In all, it's been an absolutely tremendous Souls game and a massive return to form after the dodgy DS2. It really does seem Miyazaki has the magic touch, DS2 suffered because he was only supervising and not directing as he was putting his effort into Bloodborne and that turned out to be amazing. DS3 brought back the things I loved and felt a lot more balanced in terms of gameplay than DS2, in particular the bosses were a lot better on the whole for DS3 though not without a few questionable moments. Where DS3 really shone for me was the incredible architecture, always the highlight of the Souls games for me, in particular DS3's stunning return to impossible castles - standing in the undead settlement and looking back at the gargantuan castle of Lothric, with it's multitude of spires, towers and sub-buildings is a sight I won't soon forget. Emerging out onto the cliff facing Irithyll is probably the most breathtaking vista I've seen in some 23 years of gaming.

The game world still didn't quite feel like the stacked cube of DS1, where there was as much vertical travel as tere was horizontal and many areas were stacked atop one another, but as with all things DS, the theme of the game is cyclical and circular and the layout of the game reflects this, starting at the high wall of Lothric castle, cutting a circular path to track the lords of cinder and completing the circular journey back at Lothric castle, which at least is far more inventive than DS2's bland layout. And that theme of cycles gives me hope that one day we will see another DS game; Miyazaki does not seem to have retired DS but has confirmed that he and From Software are working on a new IP. This is a good thing I think, as like Baryonyx I wouldn't want to see DS turned into a cash cow, but I hope that one day in the future they can return to it and keep the AAA quality there.

As glad as I am to have finished it, I'm also sad it's done and that I can't go back and experience it again for the first time. Bring on the DLC, let's have it.