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S1 Ep14: Dark Souls
76 Plays7 years ago
Join us as we journey through the fire, the flames, and the dark in this full spoiler episode of the original Dark Souls!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
Good day. You look reasonably sane. I'm trusty patches, the one and only. We're on the same side. I'm dead outcasts. Fantastic, isn't it? Wait, are you a cleric or something? Yes, I imagined as much. Best of luck with your pilgrimages or missions or whatever you do.
Dark Souls 1: Overview and Significance
00:00:26
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Welcome to yet another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I am joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? It's going right, Jake. That's great. We have a extra special episode lined up for you this evening, guys. It's not better than any of our other ones, I'd say, but probably worse. But the content, the content is what matters here. And we are here to talk about a rather important game, Dark Souls 1, or Dark Souls, some people call it.
00:00:57
Speaker
Made more sense back then. Right? Right there? Panicking. The panicking.
Combat Mechanics and Exploration
00:01:08
Speaker
So Dark Souls 1 released in 2011 by From Software. Most people who listen to this podcast that are confirmed listeners already know about this game, but we'll tell you about it anyways. Dark Souls is a...
00:01:27
Speaker
mostly single-player action game and a third-person kind of combat. I'm trying to think of a way to describe it. How would you describe it, Dave? I would say is a third-person single-player adventure game. That's good. Yeah, leave it vague. Don't get too specific. That's the key.
00:01:52
Speaker
I mean, combat's definitely an element to it. You obviously have upgrading of items and skills. There's a lot of exploration. You get to fight a lot of different enemies and bosses, various NPCs through the game. So I'm throwing an adventure RPG up there. Yeah.
00:02:11
Speaker
But the game starts off really slow. You can kind of play it at your own pace. And the combat feels really weighty, especially for when it released compared to other games.
00:02:28
Speaker
There wasn't really animation canceling, so to speak. So you'll be fighting with weapons like swords, spears, shields, things like that most of the time. There are magic abilities like you mentioned. But one of the big differences here is every time you make an attack, you are committed to that attack.
Co-op Playthrough Experiences
00:02:47
Speaker
And sometimes the opponent can, you know,
00:02:49
Speaker
parry you, or dodge out of the way, or backstab you, or backstab you, and the bosses are gigantic, they have tons of health, and if you attack it the wrong time, you can just be wiped out.
00:03:03
Speaker
So if you try and run, that expends stamina. If you try and attack, that expends stamina. You need to wait for that to regen before you can do a reaction. What happens if you block though? That takes stamina. Dang it. What if you want to roll out of the way with those iframes? Stamina. So some of it becomes...
00:03:22
Speaker
Not once a resource management, but you do need to pay attention to what's going on around you, especially if you're fighting a big boss, because if you get hit, it might only be one or two hits before you're dead, because you do not start off strong at all. And a lot of this game is based off of knowledge. Like Dave and I, to get ready for this, we completed a co-op playthrough, mostly co-op, when the game led us.
00:03:48
Speaker
play through of the game again and We can play it in pretty good time. I'd say like It you know took us a couple weeks, but you know, we're working, you know, we have lives obviously you have a life I should say yeah But When we actually sat down and played we made like pretty good progress, I think. Oh, yeah
00:04:10
Speaker
And it felt good since we were so familiar with where to go and what to do to be able to just do it with a friend and reminisce and relive the experience. Always good to do it with a friend. The key thing, I think, for me was we had so much information about where the items were, how we wanted to build our characters. As soon as I entered an area, when we were talking, we'd be on Discord, I'd be like, all right, we need this item specifically from this location. Skip everything else.
00:04:42
Speaker
And that's definitely different than the way I think we played when we started because we both started, uh, probably like roughly the same time. The game is still pretty fresh and nobody knew anything.
00:04:55
Speaker
No, you aren't really given directions on where to go or what to do.
Game Mechanics and Character Building
00:05:00
Speaker
You kind of just explore, try not get ganked by some murderer hobo who's right around the corner. Yeah. And as you go, you start hitting these checkpoints, which are called bonfires, where you can arrest that. And if you ever die, you can respawn there. Right.
00:05:16
Speaker
But a lot of it is figuring out where to go. And then you walk into a boss fight. You're like, I must be at the right spot. Yeah. What's this white fog wall look like? What's this for? You can walk through the fog. But yeah, I think, I think when I started, uh, my first play through, I probably put over a hundred hours onto that safe easily. It was a long time.
00:05:43
Speaker
Cause like half of them are exploration and then the other half are deaths. Right, yeah. Recovering from the exploration. Yeah. Running back to the point of exploration.
00:05:53
Speaker
But a lot of how you go through the world is determined by how you build your character. And that starts from the very beginning, right? Yeah, character creation. Do you want to go more of a strength class, more of a dex for a faster attack speed and lighter armor? Or do you want to go full cheesy magic? Damn you, magic bastards.
00:06:14
Speaker
Like, right from the get-go, you've got some of those choices, right? Like, you can make your character look absolutely ridiculous in Dark Souls 1. This is the main selling point. There's some great examples out there. Zero Lenny. Yeah, Zero Lenny. Classic look.
00:06:29
Speaker
Oh, who's the other one? Another one you guys should Google and then just, you know, come back to the podcast, obviously. Ed Wadd is a hilarious one. Great stuff, really. But you have some choices. You pick your starting class. You get to pick like a gift and there's almost no explanation for what so many of the items do. Yeah.
00:06:52
Speaker
One of the things you can pick is actually has no use. Essentially is what the description says or no known use. And this game loves to do that. But after you've set up your character, you've given yourself your name, it kicks off in earnest, right? Like it actually drops you down and game starts off properly.
00:07:13
Speaker
And you're in prison. Thanks Elder Scrolls. You don't actually know what you did. You just know you're a scraggly, unhealthy looking fellow or lass. And some keys are thrown into your jail cell and you kind of break out and you're going down a hallway. You see a couple of other guys who look a little bit like you, but not doing as well, kind of clawing at the wall and just hanging out.
00:07:40
Speaker
He's like, oh, nice. He's a skinny pink guy. And so you dash through and you're in this prison and you find your first bonfire and these big set of doors, which you push open. And on the other side, you see another big set of doors. So you go towards the big set of doors and a giant demon drops down. So you say, the jailer is the key. Kill him and you'll be free.
00:08:06
Speaker
Fuck this noise. Book it to the left where there's like a small open door. Did you die? Our first time I played the game, I'm pretty sure I died. Yeah, I don't think I saw the door first either. I just, he sat on me. I was like, oh, okay. Didn't
Boss Strategies: Taurus Demon
00:08:21
Speaker
know I was into that. Pack up the game. So if you book left.
00:08:26
Speaker
You kill a small guy or two and there's some items on dead bodies. This is where you can get your first shield and sword or whatever weapon you picked for that starting class.
00:08:39
Speaker
And then you go through the prison a little bit more, and you come up to another fog gate, and you walk through, and you're in the same room with that giant fat demon again. Yeah. Steering down on him, right? And he's looking up like, do something. And what's fun about this is the game wants you to jump off and stab him on the way down, have this dramatic plunging attack, right?
00:09:02
Speaker
but if you choose to wait here the demon does not wait forever there comes a time where he's like all right i'm gonna kill you though and jumps up and does so so
00:09:15
Speaker
In some ways it's punishing. It doesn't let you just, you know, take your time for absolutely everything. Yeah, but at this point the game is giving you some hints through soapstone messages. Hey guys, you know soapstone, that's our thing. Yeah, we left those for you. And it basically tells you to attack while falling above the enemy to do a plunging attack.
00:09:36
Speaker
and you'll hit him and I'll do like a big chunk of damage, which really helps you out because compared to him, you probably have like a 10th or a 20th of his health. You have health, yes. About as much as you have some health.
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah, this boss and most of the other bosses have dramatically more else than you. This is the type of game where this first boss you might be able to get by without fully understanding his moves and things like that. But observing bosses and finding out how they'll attack you is one of the key features for
00:10:13
Speaker
actually being able to beat Darkzell. And thankfully the first boss has enough of a windup where you can pick it up pretty easily. Yeah. Like, oh, he's putting the weapon over his head. He's probably going to come down with it. He's either scratching his back or killing me in one blow.
00:10:29
Speaker
So after you killed him, you kind of pushed through the other doors of the undead asylum and you kind of just run out onto this ledge. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like suspended in the air or something. I'm not sure. It's like it built out to something before, but a lot of the stone work had just broken down over time. Yeah. So you kind of just have this weird stone cliff.
00:10:52
Speaker
Yeah. We run forward, right? To this ledge, naturally, you find a ledge, you gotta run toward it. That's what the game message tells you to say, at least the players, the ones players leave. And jumps into a cutscene. And you get grabbed, basically. By a giant raven.
00:11:10
Speaker
Yep. Not the Teen Titans one, just like an actual Raven. That'd be a different mod. That'd be pretty funny. But it goes into a cutscene, it's grabbing you in its talons as it flies you across the landscape and you're like, oh, it's one of these games. Thanks Japan.
00:11:32
Speaker
On raven wings you descend upon grass-overgrown ruins, a central hub for undead who have escaped the asylum. You bear witness to the vast world of Lordran, through your half-closed eyes, branching paths to areas unknown. Before you, next to the bonfire, rest a crestfallen night. This is where your story begins.
00:11:55
Speaker
now that you've regained control at Firelink Shrine the natural path is to head away from there and up this hill to the right you'll go up these like stone stairs and there's some there's some undead up there right
00:12:11
Speaker
Skeletons. Yeah. Yeah, you got some skeletons and They'll try to throw some bombs down at you They have some slow attacks. You can kind of parry them and like counter take them out. I Still managed to find a way to die here. Even though it's like one of the first really challenging encounters in the game I Try not to though Keyword being try
00:12:34
Speaker
Yeah. After finally clearing those out on the 10th attempt, I'll go up the stone stairs and into what appears to be an aqueduct. And there's like a big rat off to the left. So rats are scary. I'm not going over there. So I go to the right and into the aqueduct I go. I see a light off to the left. And so I take that exit.
00:12:57
Speaker
So emerging from the aqueduct, you make your way up these stairs into Undead Burg, right? And this is kind of your first real level of the game. The Asylum kind of counts, but it's really short. This one is where they start to throw more things at you. Literally, start to throw things at you. Yes, they throw fire at you. Fire bombs.
00:13:19
Speaker
I mean it starts off with the skeletons are kind of very sword and shieldy. They might hide one or two. You might have an archer here or there. Usually slow telegraphed attacks. Yeah. And I think probably the most annoying ones you initially encounter are the spearmen. Oh yeah. Who block your attacks and then stab you. Terrible flavor. I prefer peppermint. Really wintergreen all the way. Yeah.
00:13:46
Speaker
Yeah. After you go past the one Archer, there are, and I don't think you normally see them for how your camera pans, unless you forcefully look up. Yeah. But they started throwing fire bombs at you and you get hit by one. You're like, Oh fuck. Yeah. And you kind of sprint through into the next room. And then there's just three dudes were like, what's up? And they started all, I agree with you at the same time. So you have to like navigate around them or try and pick one off at a time. So yeah, it's more manageable.
00:14:16
Speaker
And there's like a bonfire in this area, so you have a checkpoint. Like, the game's not super, super punishing at this point. It's like, I'll kill you a bunch, but you won't lose that much progress. Yeah.
00:14:25
Speaker
And it's nice that if you're learning the level and some of the enemies, you do have a checkpoint to go back to. Yeah. You're like, okay, I just need to run back, get my dead body, recover my souls, which you use to level up and buy things. So if you killed like some of these enemies and then you died, you could run back, get your souls, beat the enemies. You're like, huh, now I have enough souls to level up. Maybe dying is the secret to success in this game, which is
00:14:51
Speaker
Not strictly true, but it is sometimes else. It's an approach to each their own. Right. But you can continue through Undead Burg. There's like a dragon will drop down in front of you at some point. This was earlier and flies off and you're like, oh, that's weird. But this area is mostly just about teaching you to be cautious. The opponents will punish mistakes that you make and it'll punish you for being inattentive.
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah. If you don't look at the spot, there's typically someone there. Yes. And then they will show up very shortly after. If you've ever heard the expression, check a cornice. This is where it came from, actually. But eventually, you make it through all the way up. There's a tower at the end, and you walk through your fog wall, which at this point, you're starting to get a little bit suspicious of fog walls. Fog walls mean something. I don't know what yet, but it's important.
00:15:47
Speaker
What's funny is sometimes it means nothing, but the game's not going to tell you when that is and is not the case. Yeah, it has a nice little niche way of saying, I'm going to fuck with the player a lot. But you head through and that takes you to your next boss fight. It's just a walkway, essentially, on the top of this castle, on the wall, right?
00:16:09
Speaker
And you don't know what's a boss fight necessarily to start out. No, you just go through the fog gate. I was kind of quiet. You just can't turn around. That's the tell. Yeah, so something's up. If you play an RPG and the door closes behind you, be suspicious. So you kind of walk out and then...
00:16:28
Speaker
You're about halfway there, you're like, oh, things are good. You take another step, another giant demon. This time, very hairy, a more humanoid, but also easily three times your size. It's like a giant axe. Kind of jumps over the other side and just lands and starts coming towards you. You hear the music go and you're fucking booking it away like, oh, shit, what do I do?
00:16:53
Speaker
So if you were attempted when you first went through the fog gate, you'd see to the right there's a ladder you can climb up with two artists behind you. But you didn't, and they have shot you multiple times now. And then you got dinged by the demon and you're kind of fucked.
00:17:08
Speaker
But if you climb up there and deal with the archers, which you could do before the boss. Yeah. Cause he only triggers when you go to that halfway point. You can then go trigger the boss, sprint back, climb up the ladder. And if you guys remember from earlier with the asylum demon, the plunging attack, you wait for him to come up. You jump down and you get that early incentive of damage, which is really helpful.
00:17:30
Speaker
Yeah. So basically now that they've given you the second opportunity to use a plunging attack, they're like, Hey, good job. You remembered what you taught you that first time. You'll pretty much never use it again. It's few and far between, but when you get to pull it off, it is so fucking rewarding. It is pretty great.
00:17:47
Speaker
But you defeat that foe because obviously you're awesome and you got half of this health and one attack from the top. And if you didn't, please pause the podcast here and come back later. We're going to gate this. You have to beat the Taurus demon to proceed.
00:18:02
Speaker
This is actually the first time we haven't said the spoiler warning, but I feel like it's really obvious now. Yeah, I'll put it in the description. It's a game we've played. We're going to talk about parts of it. Yeah. Yeah. The statue of limitations on spoilers has run out in this case. So continuing through that area, we'll speed this up a little bit, but your next NPC you encounter is the most important in the game. Sunbro himself, Solaire. It's just Solaire.
00:18:28
Speaker
Yeah, invites you to participate in jolly cooperation and gives you the namesake of the podcast, The White Sign, Soapstone. What is that used for, Jake? Fair listeners. That's used for stabbing people. It's not that effective. Soapstone is not hard. No, it's your co-op tool.
00:18:48
Speaker
So you drop that on the ground and somebody, you have to be human, which requires using humanity at a bonfire. Transition from your undead's granny state into a human's granny state for most of my characters. They make them very weak. So the human can summon in somebody else, right? If you drop the white sign and sub-sum.
00:19:09
Speaker
Yes. And in this case, after you talk to Solaire, the next boss you encounter, which is the Gargoyles, you can summon him in and he'll help you out, which is pretty
Boss Strategies: Bell Gargoyles
00:19:22
Speaker
legit. Or you can bring in players, but why would you do that?
00:19:25
Speaker
I mean, I personally enjoyed co-op with you Jake, but whatever. Yeah, it was fine. No, it was good. So very important for our playthroughs and probably my favorite way to play the game when I'm a filthy casual is to co-op as much as possible. Yeah. Feels good.
00:19:45
Speaker
So Gargoyles is because of the first Bell of Awakening, right? Right. Yes. So, uh, this is the first stop on our quest. Undead Quest. Yeah. Which is the original title of the game. Was not as poetic. But then Johnny Quest sued and it was a whole fucking thing. Yeah. It's all called Undead Quest. But the, the Gargoyle fights first time and kind of like, oh, you fight multiple bosses at once.
00:20:14
Speaker
Yeah, what you don't know that initially that's true because you have like a cutscene One of the gargoyles from atop where the bell tower is kind of comes down. You're like, oh good and so you're fighting him and then At some point like a second health bar appears. You're like, what's that? That doesn't mean anything
00:20:37
Speaker
But yeah, that's the first one where it's very convenient to have somebody else to help you fight because you can kind of divide and conquer and take these guys out. If you're really fast, you're doing a bunch of damage, you can get through it solo without too much of a problem, but if you haven't really optimized your character that much, you're struggling a bit, you can get overwhelmed.
00:20:57
Speaker
And this just can happen later with another boss and a much more extreme measure, which we will get to. But yeah, that is the gargoyle fight. If you complete it, then good job, summon somebody in probably, filthy casual. Climb to the top of this tower and ring a bell, right? Yeah.
00:21:21
Speaker
There's a pretty cool mechanic at this point since the game is like pseudo online. Everyone has their own world, but you can visit other people's worlds. Through being summoned in or invading? Yes.
00:21:32
Speaker
And invading is, you don't get to pick whether you're invaded or not, other than whether you're human. But if you're able to summon people in to beat a boss, you're able to be invaded. Yeah, so you have the option of saying, hey, I want the extra help. They're like, yeah, but it comes at a price. You will constantly be at risk. But ideally, you and your summoned in-person can help fight off any invaders who come in.
00:21:59
Speaker
Yep. But invaders usually, they kind of know what they're doing to a certain extent because they're the one initiating this, right? Yeah. They're not the one like running through with like a short sword and no upgrades and rags. Put all of their stats into poison resist. They're like the grandmother doesn't know how to Facebook and just starts posting on your wall. Hey, am I invading you right now?
00:22:24
Speaker
Get like really late game and you're just like, how are your items so bad? You don't have anything. But I leveled up the broken sword. Way to go Lenny, way to go. But yeah, once you ring the bell, since it is this like pseudo online, pseudo online, yeah. Other people in other worlds can hear the bell ringing in the background.
00:22:47
Speaker
If they're at the same spot, right? If they're in the area, yeah. I can't remember exactly how large the area is, but it's pretty... I think it's anywhere under the parish, which is... Yeah, if you're around the church, you're like, oh, I actually hear the bell. So you know somebody actually beat the boss, which is cool. Yeah. It's kind of like inspiring, to a certain extent, too. If you're really struggling to get there and you hear the bell ringing, you don't know what it means. But if you ever figure it out, then you'd be inspired.
00:23:14
Speaker
I think the first time you hear it, you're just like, oh, I'm at a church. Done. And then once you complete, you're like, oh. First time you hear it, you're just like, that's the bell of awakening. I don't need to go there anymore. It's a new time. I'm awake. Let's go. So having cleared that, you can continue on your quest to reach the second bell of awakening, which takes you under.
00:23:39
Speaker
Back through the the kind of near where you met Solaire through the depths, which is just like a sewers area, right? Yeah like other areas of the game it's
00:23:51
Speaker
It's not too challenging once you learn the mechanics, but certain things are very annoying. Yeah. Like there are frogs who can spew curse on you and if you get enough curse meter, you turn to stone and you're dead. Yeah. There's like slime stuck to the ceiling. They'll try to drop on you and trap you and stuff. Just a lot of, a lot of things to try to trip you up in these close quarters. Um, but, uh, you can get some useful items for upgrading your gear as you're going through here. Um,
00:24:20
Speaker
But eventually you run into a gaping dragon, which sounds really weird and is also just a huge dragon where it's like chest cavities full of teeth and all this crazy stuff. And it's not a particularly tough boss, but it's very intimidating.
00:24:39
Speaker
Yeah, again, it's another one of those. It's 40, 50 feet long. Yeah. And you have to watch out for its arms and legs and other things. It's got like a probiscus type head thing. It's really weird. I don't know. Yeah. But just try to avoid it, but also hit it enough times that it dies. Yeah, that's a good strategy actually for most things. For all future bosses, please apply that. Yeah. Have you tried not getting hit? Oh, yeah.
00:25:08
Speaker
But clear that boss and then make your way into best area in the game, Blighttown. Fuck you, Jake. I know Jake many sarcastically. Yeah. Blighttown is historically known as being a bullshit area. Yeah. Because it's like a shitty wooden scaffolding as you kind of make your way across and down. It's like a bog. Yeah.
00:25:30
Speaker
Which, the fog poisons you. Yeah. On the scaffolding, there are guys who can blow darts, which poison you. Or, sorry, give you toxic, which is a separate type of poison. It's worse. So there are certain items in the game to alleviate status ailments, like most RPGs. So if you eat a purple moss clump, it will resolve any poison you have on you. But it does not resolve toxic. You need a separate moss clump. The blooming purple moss clump. Which is much harder to find, as toxic as less common.
00:26:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's a fun, it's a fun trek down. On top of all of that, despite the fact that you the player hate the area, that's not enough. Your computer will also hate the area. And the original Dark Souls that we're talking about right now, this lagged the heck out of like anybody's computer. It's like a terrible framerate. Yeah, it's just something about the shadows or what they were doing with rendering, or I have no idea what, but
00:26:31
Speaker
It's just terrible. It's just terrible to get through there. Maybe that was the early stages of Bitcoin mining. They were just using your machines while you're here. Oh man, know how from made their money. Eventually you do make it to the bottom after probably many attempts on your first try through here. There's another bonfire down there.
00:26:54
Speaker
And running across the swamp, you approach the final guardian of the next bell that you need, right? So after you've gone through the bog, you kind of reach the corner of this one area. And you start going up this white hill, which is very different from the brown, poisonous mush you've been dredging
Boss Strategies: Quelaag
00:27:13
Speaker
through. Right. And as you go more up, there's kind of like a tunnel you can go into.
00:27:19
Speaker
but you realize that it's not just like a static white texture. It is very layered and viscous and sinewy because it's spider webs. And it's favorite. Yeah. And if you're like me or anybody else in who plays video games, as soon as you see webs, I got some spidery shit going down.
00:27:38
Speaker
And you start seeing these guys on the ground. Turtle boys. You call them turtle boys? I have no idea what I call them. Now I call them turtle boys. Alright, turtle boys it is. But the turtle boys are essentially infected with some type of larva. Yeah. But I don't want to say larva and singular. It's just their back is full of pulsating. It's like an egg sac. Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:01
Speaker
And it's weird. Yeah. It doesn't sound that great to me. I'm kind of just booked by them. Cause if you attack them, the grubs break out and then kind of latch onto you. So you make that mistake only once. Yeah. And then you get down into a fog gate and you're like, I'm pretty sure this is a boss. And you get in and then the animation starts. Yeah. And you see, do you want to? You see this giant lava spider come from around the corner. Like,
00:28:30
Speaker
Oh, I wasn't expecting you. Hello. But also on top of the spider, somewhere between like the head and back, is the torso of a topless lady. Yes. She does have hair. Yes. The hair covers the nipples. It's a very sensual boss. Right. Yeah. But this is Quailag.
00:28:50
Speaker
So going into the lore for a moment, I'm just kidding. Dave gave me the look. Can you tell a little bit? No, I'm just kidding. There is lore here, but basically she's a native to the area. She has sisters who are all involved in this pyromancy and this.
00:29:08
Speaker
the source of the demonic presence in the world, basically. And she's an interesting boss. This spider will vomit up magma, create magma pools on the ground. You cannot touch this. She has a flaming sword that, when she attacks, has crazy reach. Absolutely insane.
00:29:41
Speaker
She was definitely a boss that I struggled on for a while, but not to say I don't struggle now, but I've definitely gotten better. And I really enjoy the boss fight because mechanically the spider will jump around and you have to avoid the lava, avoid the sword swings. And again, try and beat it to death while dodging death. Like earlier, you were talking about how important stamina is. This is like one of those boss fights where it's very important to monitor whether you can escape
00:30:02
Speaker
And yeah, it's just a fun time overall.
00:30:10
Speaker
in a given situation to not like over expend all of your resources attacking because she'll hit you with this like incredibly high damage sword swing and you won't be able to block because you're out of stamina.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah, you also don't want to get trapped in by the lava because it is a walled area. You only have limited space. So yeah, it's pretty big. But if you like mess mess up your footing a bit and walk in the lobby, you'll have a bad time. Also, if you breeze up on a hill.
00:30:42
Speaker
uh the lava texture like won't be visible sometimes you're just like oh time to run up here and i'm dead so don't do that uh defeating her though you can progress and ring the second bell of awakening um i think you can actually say ding dong the witch is dead and that applies here oh yeah because she is one of the sisters and witches of isolith right yes one of the witches of isolith i like how do i explain my own joke yes
00:31:13
Speaker
Yeah. You got lore, lore backup though. So that's all you need. As long as you smile. Thanks. So inexplicably you're given a homeward bone at this point, as soon as you ring the bell, which allows you to return to the, uh, the bonfire.
00:31:27
Speaker
And you have the trek of leaving Blighttown. You can take a different path. You can take like an elevator that's powered by a dog on a wheel. You can't explain everything in this game, Jake. It's a Japanese game, I don't know what to tell you.
00:31:47
Speaker
but finally escaping you can return to Firelink Shrine and there's now if you talk to the Crestfallen knight there he'll be like oh great like you hit the two the two bells of awakening awesome I don't care this guy's breath is terrible and like what are you what are you talking about man
00:32:12
Speaker
I guess that's fair. But you had to find out exactly whose breath is terrible. It's a giant snake head. Yeah. Yep, that's the thing. I didn't know we were talking about Fran. This is why I'm just giving you like the blank stare.
00:32:31
Speaker
Yeah, so this guy, this guy's very serious. Oh, no, we're not cutting this. Oh, no, no, this is content. And Frampt basically tells you a little bit more about what your quest should be, that you should go forth and continue the Age of Fire. So you rang two bells to wake this guy up. I guess it's his alarm clock.
00:32:58
Speaker
I'm not really sure. Not one ding, but two. It doesn't matter how separated the dings are, as long as there's two dings on there. He's got like a built-in snooze on the first ding. But he gives you like a little bit more guidance. He's like, hey, what you doing? Go, uh, ghost in the age of fire. It'll be great.
00:33:20
Speaker
So, uh, beyond our blacksmith friend, I'm sure we mentioned earlier, right? No, totally didn't. There's a blacksmith in the game. He can help prepare your items or upgrade your items. Was it Eric? Was that his name? Eric Andre. Yeah, that was it. Drink a cheers to that, bro. Who shot this guy? Who invaded that undead?
00:33:47
Speaker
so the gate is open to sense fortress you walk in and the first thing you do is step on a trap where it starts shooting things at you from a small hole in the wall which you did not see yeah and then you get attacked by two snake people you then respawn and try again it's true you get past them
00:34:07
Speaker
there's a narrow walkway over a giant chasm where there are these slow sliding if you've seen like torture things from like an evil villain in like really old movies they'll have like the pendulum blade and it gets closer and closer
00:34:22
Speaker
It's like a giant one of those that's really slow, but if it hits you, it will either kill you or damage you enough and then knock you into a pit, which will kill you. So you have a couple series of these. There's more snakes throughout Sen's Fortress. More platforms that we step on, it'll start shooting darts out of the hole in the wall. Rolling rocks. Oh, the rolling rocks.
00:34:46
Speaker
And I think in the last playthrough in a co-op thing, I was telling you about how you can skip most of the level if you just run up where the rocks are actually headed at, coming from at the right time. You can dodge out of the way and you're just like, nope, see a level. This is again the thing where you're like, I don't care about these items. This game's all about knowledge since Fortress is a good example of it. Yeah, if you don't know the traps,
00:35:13
Speaker
it kind of just catches you by surprise every single time. So the next time you're like, okay, I'll look up for that thing, but you have to keep remembering each single one and not fuck up because otherwise you have to go back to the beginning. And it's not towards the very end of sense fortress that you have another checkpoint. It's true. And it's hidden. Yep. Like most things in Dark Souls, the little buffs for you or conveniences are hidden, which you'll find through exploring. And the next time you'd be like, oh, nice.
00:35:40
Speaker
Yes. So if you don't know about that one, you have to take a side passage, get a key, and hope you unlock the actual shortcut back, which almost no one does because it's out of the way to actually grab the key. So this game wants you to pay attention. Thankfully, you have those messages, those orange soapstone messages, and a lot of times people will tell you when there's a bonfire coming up. So if you're playing online, you stand a chance at least, right? Yeah.
00:36:09
Speaker
But not long after that bonfire, you avoid some exploding bombs being thrown at you, run to the top of a tower, kill a giant who likes to stomp a lot. And if you're human at this point, you can summon bro number two in for the next boss. And I'm not going to go over all the summons, but this guy deserves a mention, I think. Motherfucking black iron Tarkas. Yeah, that's his friend's point. I even changed my voice for that one.
00:36:37
Speaker
I'm not going to do that because we both do it. It's racist. So yeah, just one at a time. Yeah. Black Iron Tarkis is, uh, he's got super, super heavy black iron armor. Um, as the name may imply a huge shield and, uh, basically it doesn't take no lip from no one is, uh, it's his, uh, his motif.
00:37:01
Speaker
He has the distinction of, depending on RNG for the next boss, which is the big iron golem, he can beat him on his own. It does come down to RNG and who gets their hits and who gets staggered, but it's hilarious to just summon him in, sit back, eat some popcorn, and watch Tarkis go to work.
00:37:22
Speaker
Now that I know what you're into. Black Iron Targets. Once you go Black Iron Targets, you don't go Back Iron Targets. Oh, that sounds so dumb. I like how dumb that was, but it wasn't scripted. Yeah. Good sell. They won't know it's scripted now. You added that one, right? Yeah, that was added in the post. After you beat that, you have this nice circle of light on the ground, right? So that doesn't mean anything.
00:37:53
Speaker
Nope, doesn't mean anything. You can activate this circle. It's kind of just floating there for no reason. I don't know. It's just there. It's something to put in the game as like an interaction. Japanese game. I got a Japanese game. And these demons swoop in and pick you up. Yeah. And apparently you're just like this portable play toy. It's like, oh, let's bring him here. And so you get brought over the giant walls, which you've always been on the other side of, and you don't really know until you got to the top of Sen's where you both see it.
00:38:23
Speaker
So they fly you up to the top, and now you're in Anor Londo. So you start walking down from the top of this wall, and there is this beautiful, gleaming, golden city. It's just at sunset. It's like that witching hour feel to it. It's inhabited by a couple of giants, but everything is very ornate. Yes. It's carved. Every group together. Yeah. Yeah. Because previously you had a lot of cobble work. Shoddy worksmanship, I must say. Yeah. Honestly, not that great.
00:38:53
Speaker
But everything's kind of beaten down, but this area is really, really well maintained. Yes, absolutely pristine. There's like a break in one or two windows that you can run through. Thankfully. And that's about it for the damage.
00:39:11
Speaker
But Ana Orlando is, it's awesome to behold. Like the first time you descend on that city and you see the vista you described, it's just like, holy crap, what is this? And there's some hope, you know, maybe you'll encounter some people, but no, not really. You have one NPC at a bonfire there, but she's not the chatty sort. Yup. Just another fire keeper. It's people who just maintain your bonfires for you, basically.
00:39:41
Speaker
I don't tip my fire keepers personally. I don't believe in it. Here's some souls. They should just pay them away. What if they get the souls when you die and you can't recover? They would be so rich. But you can head through, break your way into this palace here in the center. You'll fight another gargoyle or two on the way.
00:40:05
Speaker
To clarify, Jake's referring to the gargoyles you fought on top of the church. Right. You get to now encounter as a more common enemy. Yeah, you've made it. If your bosses become like, oh, I get to face him again. Yeah. And there's some interesting places here, but eventually you push your way through and into this palace under the hail of archers trying to knock you off the ledge to your death.
00:40:32
Speaker
And finally get a bonfire in there and can push to the next boss fight. Which basically is always where I quit my playthrough. It's definitely a jump in difficulty. This is of course the Ornstein and Smough fight. So you go through a giant fog gate and you're in what is almost, I guess I would call a chapel. Like a throne room really.
00:41:01
Speaker
Like six to eight really tall pillars. It's surrounded by windows on the outside. And there's a gigantic fat guy with a huge hammer. And they're in full armor, golden armor. And there's another guy in full golden armor with a lightning spear. How do you know it's a lightning spear? Because it's hit me many times. And there's lightning sound effects. Then the tip is covered in lightning.
00:41:27
Speaker
This guy's got like a a fox head like helmet or something like that. Is it a fox? It's some type of beast. Yeah.
00:41:35
Speaker
is the shape of the helmet. But it is really difficult managing fighting both of them at the same time. Yeah, they both just jump at you, right? You got like, hey, you know, that time you fought like three guys that, you know, weren't like consecutive back to back, like immediate. And they weren't that big of a deal. Here's two guys and they're a big deal. Pretty big deal.
00:42:01
Speaker
And they're basically designed to make you hurt, essentially. Like the guy who's really slow, there's one guy who's like really slow, and you're like, okay, maybe I'll like, you know, circle around, kind of take him out or something. No, the other guy, Ornstein, is super fast, and he will jump at you from anywhere with that lightning spear, stab you with it, hold you up in the air, and electrify you.
00:42:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's if you've not used rolls at this point in the game, you should definitely start rolling here. Yes. So you can kind of just do a quick dodge out of an attack to avoid the Ornstein impalements or the smell hammers or the ass drops.
00:42:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's just a lot but you do learn to kite Usually you want to face Ornstein first since he's lunging at you so quick. Yep, you can kind of face him one-on-one before Smough arrives and To some degree. Yeah, you can kind of like run away Ornstein will be really fast chase you and you can get on the other side of like a pillar or something slow Smough down and try to chip Ornstein away which is important that you trip one of these bosses away because as soon as you beat one the other one fills the full health
00:43:12
Speaker
And the reason they do that is because when one dies, the other one absorbs their soul and becomes an ultra version of themselves with the powers of the other boss. So like, in Ornstein's case, if you kill Smough first, Ornstein becomes gigantic, is still stupid fast, and does stupid amounts of damage, and no one beats the boss that way. Yeah, I don't think I've ever done it that way because of that reason. Always go Smough first.
00:43:42
Speaker
Sorry, Ornstein first? Yes. And they kind of have like, just to take a little lower sidetrack here. I'm just kidding. They essentially absorb the power of their defeated comrade, depending on which one you kill, in different ways. So if you defeat Smough first, then Ornstein will actually like hold his hands over his body in like a reverent manner and like absorb his soul and become really powerful.
00:44:09
Speaker
If you defeat, defeat Ornstein first. Smoke kind of just walks up while Ornstein's like injured on the ground presumably. It's just like, oh, nope, he's gotta put him down. Just smashes him with the hammer. And just kills him to absorb all his power.
00:44:26
Speaker
It's pretty metal. Yeah, but Empowered Smough is usually still Smough's moveset. Nothing super crazy. He just hits away harder. Yeah, he's got some lightning aways. Yeah, mostly his thing. That's rough. Yeah, the only advantage to do the other way, do it the hard way, is whoever the final one you beat is, the empowered one, they're the one whose armor set becomes available. Oh. Yes.
00:44:50
Speaker
This explains why I've never gotten Ornstein's armor set. Yep, that's how you do it. But eventually, after 15 hours of looking up guides on the internet, you might have a chance of passing these guys.
00:45:05
Speaker
But once you do, you will come across some orange soap, so messages, the most common of which being amazing chest ahead. And yeah, there's, there's a door before you, you open the door and you see the one remaining DD that you know of in an Orlando.
00:45:29
Speaker
which is Guinevere, who has huge boobs. It's true. Must defining characteristic. To be fair, she is a giantess. Yes. Compared to you. Presumably whoever lived in Anor Londo were giants. Like this is the city of Gwyn, the city of the gods. And they're supposed to be pretty big. Like there's statues of them. They're gigantic. Guinevere is pretty big. Um, I don't know if they all are, but that's a different lore discussion.
00:46:01
Speaker
But we've now cleared Anor Londo. We've gotten the Lordvessel. Yep, she gives that to you. You can also shoot her with an arrow real quick and you'll also just immediately get the Lordvessel. That's what the speedrunners do.
00:46:14
Speaker
course you do that and the lights go out and it all gets really weird so just don't do that talk to her get the lord vessel and uh... yep from there you have the ability to work between bonfires not all of them a lot of them and you also get this nice cut scene where it's like all right
00:46:32
Speaker
your goal now is to gather the Lord's souls, the bequeathed souls of Gwyn to these these great beings and you see a cutscene where these barriers go down at different places in the world that would previously block your progress to wherever these bosses are but now you can make your way there.
00:46:54
Speaker
If you know where they are. Yes. So a key thing is that you see some context of which doors are being opened. But if you're not familiar with the area, you have no idea where the fuck it is. So you have to keep exploring. Thankfully, some of them are.
00:47:08
Speaker
near where you've been before. So there should be enough context clues where you're like, aha, over here. Yes. And the game is very open-ended. Like from Firelink Shrine, you can go to all of these different areas. And two of them, two of the paths you can take from Firelink Shrine, if you just kind of linearly follow where it goes, would take you to two different wards. You could go through the cemetery and the Tomb of the Giants.
00:47:37
Speaker
which is this completely pitch black area where you can get an item that kind of makes it easier to see in the dark or if you're using sorcery which is one of the magics you can do that but otherwise it's a very uncomfortable experience.
00:47:53
Speaker
Yeah. You can't see anything outside of, there are these things called prism stones, which you can drop on the ground and they leave some light. Yes. But they don't really have any radio light. It's kind of that spec that you dropped of light. So you see a couple of these strewn about to guide your way, but you can't see anything else in between them. So you hope that a straight line is the best option for you. Yes.
00:48:21
Speaker
And as you're heading through this path through the dark, you see some other lights before you, but this time there's two white glowing lights kind of floating there in the darkness. They're moving just a little bit and you're like,
00:48:36
Speaker
Just roughly based on approximate size and height and location distance from each other. Those are eyes, yeah. And then you quit the game and you never come back. So thanks for playing. No. Reload the game, come back in here and die to skeletal giants and a tomb of the giants. Go figure. Or as we call them, bone daddies. It's true. That is what you call them.
00:49:05
Speaker
There are certain ones that are like humanoid. There are other ones that are more kind of like a dog. Yeah. Which changes up their attack pattern. And there are certain ones which are just pillars of bones. Yeah. Which have flailing arms and are annoying. Just hold up for one second. I'm gonna put a gif of an attack of one of the the dog skeletons in here so you can all see this.
00:49:28
Speaker
Yeah. Isn't that terrifying? Like that's, that's like unmanageably scary for me.
Boss Strategies: Gravelord Nito
00:49:33
Speaker
Can you imagine that coming up from the light? Yeah. Just jumps at you from the night. Don't want it. Anyways. So you get through two of the giants and all the dark bullshit, keep following the path of blue lights. And you eventually come to this really open area, kind of go off into a side tunnel, go through a couple more tunnels. You get some light again, right? Yeah. Finally comes back.
00:49:56
Speaker
And through the side tunnel, you fight a couple more of these giants, a couple of these pillar skeletons, some miniature versions of a previous boss that's just got a bunch of masks on his face. It's Japan, you know, it's Japan. And he's much like the first boss of Fury, actually. He's basically the same guy.
00:50:17
Speaker
But after fighting these miniature versions of him you come across your first Lord Soul wielder, right? Needo Burrito. Yes.
00:50:30
Speaker
AKA Grave Lord Nito. Last name, last true name Burrito. And his area is like, it's essentially a catacomb, you have to fall into it. And he emerges from his tomb. And honestly, just Google Grave Lord Nito real quick. He looks awesome. I have art of him above my computer. Because he's just that cool. But his boss fight is particularly tough if you're not
00:51:00
Speaker
If you're not a faith class, somebody using divine weapons, right? Because he has these bone daddies and bone boys, I guess you call those normal skeletons. Yeah. That will regenerate over time. Yeah. So you might kill them, but then like 30 seconds later, they'll get back up. Yes. So you have to deal with those while fighting Nito, who is a giant, like most things you'll encounter. But he's made up of all of these
00:51:29
Speaker
Skulls and other body parts skeletons. Yeah. Yeah, he's still humanoid kind of in rough shape But he's like this big sweeping cloud of death and he has like a little little bonehead on top little skull Yeah, he's got like a cloak and his cloak is just covered in all of these hanging skeletons. It's just like Yeah
00:51:50
Speaker
Kind of badass. It's pretty awesome. So if you're playing with a divine weapon when you kill his little summons, his bone daddies as you call them. And bone boys. And bone boys, yeah.
00:52:03
Speaker
then they don't come back up. They don't rise again. Makes the boss fight a lot easier, which was what we did when we co-opted him, right? Thank you for building face, Jake. But finally defeating him, you get the first of your plot souls that you can't eat. Usually when you beat a boss, you get a large soul that you can somehow turn into an item, or you can just stuff it in your mouth, get a bunch of souls. Can't do that with this guy. Unedible soul. Inedible? Inedible soul.
00:52:33
Speaker
Sometimes I like to just not say anything and look at Jake and see what comes out of him. It's great. But you can use a bonfire that activates in that area and head off to fight your next Lord Soul wielder. Do you want to take this to New Londo?
00:52:53
Speaker
New Londo is a good place to go. We didn't do this one in this order for our game, but New Londo is just below Firelink Shrine there. This area is just kind of more wrecked ruins and it's all flooded. Part of the plot here is you need to talk to a guy, get a key. He's like, great, go deal with those treacherous leaders and the dark.
00:53:19
Speaker
you drain new londo and this area infested with dark wraiths or people who strive after humanity and try and steal it is exposed and ultimately you can make your way to this this central spiral that kind of leads down and then jump down the whole thing and immediately die
00:53:40
Speaker
We forgot a key thing. A key item we need to hear is the Covenant Ring for Artorias, who is known as the Abyss Walker. Yeah, which is a cool title. It really is. Abyss Anything, Abyss Eater, Abyss Napper, whatever, that's fine. But with his ring, you can traverse the Abyss and fall down and actually deal with the four kings who have been running the place.
00:54:05
Speaker
And you fight them one at a time. Initially. It's a cool arena, too. It's pitch black. You have no sense of depth perception or where you're going, really. But they just start to appear. And they are, again, larger than life. The sword swings are gigantic. Yes. And you have to take them out, but they keep spawning at like a time interval. So if you didn't beat the first one in like a minute, the second one spawned. It doesn't give a shit. Yeah. And then the third one will come. And then the fourth one.
00:54:35
Speaker
And then actually the fifth one, if you take too long, there is a bonus king that'll spawn in. I don't know, Japanese game. Can I just be the tagline for this Spotify episode? Japanese game, I don't know. But if you manage to cut them down in time, then that is one more Lord Soul acquired. So only two to go.
00:55:00
Speaker
From there, you may go and claim the soul of the Everlasting Dragon Seath. You have to go through his archives, just a bunch of books, and there's an area in the game where it actually, this is the only point, I believe, where it forces you to die. There is a scripted death.
00:55:20
Speaker
You basically enter a boss fight with Seath, who is this big scaleless dragon. He's pale, really smooth, breathes, curse, ice, like all over the place. And you're like, great, boss fight, let's do this. Rant this up, use their spells, hit him in the face. No, he's on a platform, you can't hit him in the face. You have spells, they don't do any damage. He's immortal. Yeah.
00:55:44
Speaker
So, he fucking nukes you, and then you wake up in a prison cell, which is a tower, bookcase, with a lot of gears strewn about at the bottom, various lizard enemies, and... More snake things. Tentacle ladies? Yeah, maidens, basically. Tentacle maidens. Yeah, I wasn't gonna put the word tentacle in there. No, Google it, it'll be fine.
00:56:08
Speaker
don't do that so after you go through here and escape you're essentially in the other part of the archives which are these if you imagine vaulted ceilings filled with books there's many floors you can go on there's an elevator there's ramps that rotate around a bunch of archeries skeleton boy archeries there's channelers too who give buffs to enemies annoying cunts
00:56:36
Speaker
It's a lot of stuff. You know how this arrow takes 10% of your health? What if it took 50% of your health? I did not sign up for this. Sign up now. Eventually, you can head through there, get a shortcut, open your bookcase shortcut, classic. In every game that has a bookcase, there's a shortcut behind it. And head through this kind of open field area with all these crystal golems. Pretty much ignore them or fight them.
00:57:06
Speaker
And it starts to slope down, right? And that opens up into this cavernous expanse. You start running down these giant slabs of crystal into the crystal cave. As you go down, everything's crystal. And again, for the time, it looks really beautiful. The particle effects are aesthetically pleasing and not over the top, but it's this huge fucking cavern.
00:57:34
Speaker
and it's sparkly and pretty but at a point you're looking off to where you are there's kind of a ledge and you're not sure where to go next and there's a little bit of an effect of a crystal fall or snowfall which kind of goes out into nothingness and kind of stops almost like there's an invisible platform and again if you've played games you're like this is an invisible platform
00:57:58
Speaker
So you very slowly walk across, or you drop prison stones, or if you're me, you're throwing daggers at the ground, hoping to see what sticks. And then you essentially have to explore the cave that way, dealing with some other enemies and golems, and finding the other invisible pathways to get across. Yeah, golems trying to ledge you, other problems like that. Yeah.
00:58:21
Speaker
Yeah, in our case, when we played through in co-op, we thankfully were playing online. And it was the invisible walkway. It was just covered in messages. So I'm just like, I know exactly when we're on. Thanks, players. Clearing that area, you push through some creepy, leggy, crab, clam-type monsters that I'm not a fan of. It's mainly because they have a weird walk cycle.
00:58:52
Speaker
walk they have like a noise and then in their mouths it's just a pile of skulls yeah yeah yeah it's not great not about it but walk through there and watch the end of this obvious boss fight looking arena and there's a they'll usually be statues around here of um they they look kind of like they're made of stone with like spikes coming off them and stuff
00:59:15
Speaker
That's not foreshadowing of anything. Walk to the end of the arena, cut scene plays. See if the scaleless flies in, because apparently he can fly. His dragon, I guess, makes sense. And lands in front of you. But the cut scene kind of shows you this crystal formation in the back of the cavern, right? So once that ends, you're like, huh, I'm going to poke that with a stick. So you poke it with your stick. And it breaks. And see, it's like, ah, my stuff.
00:59:44
Speaker
You can deal damage too. Yeah, basically it's just like a plot mechanic so he's not invincible anymore. No more cheating. Not much more of that is really explained. But then you get to go whale on him. He's again gigantic. He has this cursed frost breath attack you have to deal with. You have to avoid his arm attacks and his leg attacks.
01:00:07
Speaker
but eventually you kill him. And after Jake helps you for the fourth time. And this is another thing where the information kind of helps us here. We had fought Nito before this and I'm like, hey, that set over there has like some of the best curse resistance in the game. Pick that up, go over here, fight Seath. And it's like, hey, this boss is the one that uses curse in the game. So use that stuff. Because if you get fully cursed like we saw before in the depths,
01:00:33
Speaker
you do get turned to stone and die instantly. Yes. And that's actually what those if you ever see those stone statues in the game, there's like a few points in the depths where they're fixed, basically, I believe. But I'm not even 100% on that. Every other time it's a player who's actually been cursed to death and died. Yes. So the reason his arena has all of these curse statues, because players die to this boss due to curse.
01:01:01
Speaker
Kind of a big deal. But yeah, he's beaten, three souls down, one to go. Dead, killed him. Dead. Last one is easily my least favorite. Boss in quotes. Boss.
01:01:16
Speaker
Yeah, for this one, it's below if you continue to descend from when you fought Quailag and ring the first, or the second Bell of Awakening. Doesn't really matter which order you're doing, but usually it's the second. There's this huge magma-like boss, and there's lava flowing out of him, and it's actually filling this chamber. His name's Ceaseless Discharge.
01:01:42
Speaker
I don't even need to make any jokes. Your brain already made them for me. If you beat him, then the magma dries up, and you can run along through this long passageway if I, you know, a bunch of other guys, and ultimately end up in this cavernous area, like below the earth, as many of the levels are underground, right? And probably, I would say, almost everybody's least favorite boss of Dark Souls 1.
01:02:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's not really fun to get to. It's just a lot of lava, not the best level design comparatively. But then the boss fight itself, it kind of wastes time by like putting you down like a ramp. You slide into the arena. Yeah. And then you're fighting this giant tree creature, which the only way you can kill is to go to either side.
01:02:35
Speaker
and destroy kind of like a node. Yeah. If you've gotten past the giant sweeping arms and you have to do that again on the other side. It'll knock the floor out on you too. Yeah. In between these phases. And it just gets progressively harder because it'll swing at you with an arm and it has more than one frame where it'll hit you and it'll kind of slap you and push you into the hole. Yeah. So it's very frustrating.
01:03:01
Speaker
But beyond that, you're not damaging it. You're just taking out these three spots of weakness, and then it's beaten. So it's not exactly a boss per se, but... Yeah, it just doesn't use any of the strong combat mechanics that they built up for the rest of the game for no reason, in particular.
01:03:22
Speaker
It's like they must have realized that there are some problems with it because they don't actually even reset the boss phase They don't make you hit the left and right sides if you fail Yeah, like if you've succeeded and you've broken one that never progress back permanent. Yeah, so
01:03:37
Speaker
not great but defeating that that is the fourth lord soul obtained we can go back to Frampt go back to Frampt and he'll at this point eat you and put you in his mouth and take you down to the bottom which is this deep area underground and there's a large vessel there you can pour the lord souls into
01:04:03
Speaker
You can just drop out of your hand one at a time. It's actually like a high res cut scene too. I'm not sure exactly why, but it's that one and the one at the end like actually looks really cool. I don't know. Anyways, door opens. I like it too. Not an argument there. Door opens because you're now, you've proven yourself worthy. You've reclaimed the souls. And before you is a stairway down through a white abyss to the left and to the right.
01:04:31
Speaker
And these shadowy knights will be walking in front of you across this expanse. Like ghostly images of the past. Yeah. And walking down to the base of the staircase, you enter the Kiln of the First Flame, which is the ultimate area of the game. And this is where the final boss fight happens.
01:04:56
Speaker
But you start out here and once everything loads in, as you've gone through that stairwell,
01:05:03
Speaker
It is just burnt out. Like it was an actual kill and the flames have been dead for years. You have these dunes of sand and ash. You have all these broken structures around you. The fact that you can connect over to the boss fight is, I mean, obviously level design, but kind of miraculous because nothing has been upheld for what
01:05:28
Speaker
You'd guess like a century. Yeah. Or a millennia. Yeah, there's there's points where like the actual ground beneath you, the walkways and the passageways are like carved out by the flames and just time and the winds blowing through this. And it's just a really awesome impactful area.
01:05:50
Speaker
It would be a great place to farm, too, for certain items and drops and things. But you're at the end of the game, so... Doesn't matter so much.
01:06:00
Speaker
But you do get to fight some Black Knights while you're there. True. It's a good way to get all their weapons, actually. And Black Knights are always fun in my opinion. But they have a great sword, a great axe, and great spear. They're just great all around. Yeah, they're actually just pretty great. But once you learn the moveset, they're not the worst. I think you only have five or six of them. Yeah, they have pretty basic moves. It feels really great to parry them, too. You're just like, knock to the side.
01:06:29
Speaker
stab but if you miss then you lose all your health so risk reward yep after clearing those guys out they're the final line of defense these are the guys that are here to defend Gwyn until the end and walking through those that final fog gate into the heart of the kiln where this flame has been burning the final fight starts cue the music
01:07:02
Speaker
Gwen, Lord of Sender, progenitor of the Age of Fire, destroyer of the Everlasting Dragons, and loving father. This is also the first time that the fight is much different tone than the others. Usually the music is supposed to amp you up or put you in a state of terror or anxiety. Yeah. But there's really a somber tone here.
01:07:32
Speaker
Yeah, this is really, it feels like the end of the game. Like, this is, you know, which is good. This is the culmination of all your efforts is taking Gwyn's place and having the choice to either extinguish the flame or start the next Age of Fire and take his place.
01:07:50
Speaker
You know, and it's, it is a tough, tough boss fight. Like there is a mechanic in this fight that makes it much easier for some players. And that is Gwyn can be parried. Most of the bosses can't be parried. This guy attacks really fast, but you can parry
Final Boss: Gwyn, Lord of Cinder
01:08:07
Speaker
his attacks.
01:08:07
Speaker
And part of that is Gwyn at this point, this is the end of the Age of Fire. This is everything is burned to cinders. His army has been used as fuel to keep the fire going. And there's very little left of him. He was a god.
01:08:23
Speaker
Literally. Yeah, you saw statues of him earlier. You saw how big Guinevere was, but when you see him now, he looks just like a mortal man. Yes. He has a flaming sword, which is kind of cool, but beyond that, pretty, pretty mortal. And he looks really frail, but the start of the fight walks forward towards you a little bit and then just leaps off the ground with this sword swing. If you're playing like a low health build, this is basically where you die.
01:08:53
Speaker
But he, like I said, he has that weakness that most of the humanoid enemies in the game do, and they can be parried. If you don't parry him, he's usually kind of a tough fight. Yeah, but thankfully you can still roll. If you have a lightning weapon, which thankfully I did, you can stagger him on certain hits to kind of interrupt his pattern, which is nice.
01:09:16
Speaker
Yeah. There's some other weapons you could probably have at this point. I'm sure a Colt would be amazing against him, but literally no one has ever made an occult weapon. There's one you can find in the game that's the only one that exists. But he's relentless. He'll try to keep you down. He doesn't want you to heal. I abuse pillars. The fight, a ton to keep him at length. He's going to shrug the pathing a little bit, yeah. Yeah. But he can jump around those. He can. It is always a temporary measure.
01:09:47
Speaker
But once you've finally finished him off in the end, then you have your choice, right? And it's worth noting that at the end of Dark Souls, it's really possible to have no idea what's going on.
01:10:02
Speaker
I mean, it's a Japanese game. Yes, it is a Japanese game. They don't make a lot of it really obvious. And although you might have known your goal was to kill the final boss. Yeah. Maybe, you know, extend the Age of Fire.
01:10:18
Speaker
The option to not light the fire. I think I picked on accident, kind of. I was just like, I don't want to play the game a little bit more. I'll walk away for now. Yeah. You're like, oh, guess I'm a Lord of Dark. Whatever that means. And you actually get to see the light slowly fade out. Yeah. And that's that's the start of it. That's the start of the Dark Souls franchise.
01:10:46
Speaker
Not the start of Souls-like games,
Impact of Dark Souls on Gaming
01:10:50
Speaker
obviously. Demon's Souls technically exists. This is true. But nobody talks about that one. This is also true. But this one went on to have a pretty crazy impact in a lot of the features it brought, right? I mean, it gets used as a reference for so many other games. I still remember when Cuphead was being called.
01:11:10
Speaker
Oh, the dark souls of platformers. Because of the difficulty and like love and care that's put into it, it gets used as a metric for so many other things where it's not necessarily applicable. But it gives you a rough feel. Yeah. And the game has like, it has flaws for sure. Like this far after after launch, there are people
01:11:32
Speaker
There's still some people, you know, using hacks or whatever. And from soft, it doesn't have the best policy. Yeah. Track record kind of on dealing with that. Either not addressing that at all or going completely nuclear when things are detected.
01:11:51
Speaker
That all being said, the multiplayer experience really defined Dark Souls. Being able to play with friends or complete strangers. Or being able to fight friends or complete strangers. It's like if you were playing Legend of Zelda, but there wasn't that one room with Dark Link. Dark Link could just show up at any time.
01:12:14
Speaker
You get notified that Dark Link is there. Dark Link is invading your world. Flash, flash. And that tension, I think, is really what makes Dark Souls. Like, I don't remember a lot of games that I play. I remember specific traps in Dark Souls because I've fallen prey to them. Yeah, and even when you know them and you still get hit by them, it is so frustrating.
01:12:41
Speaker
And it kind of just burns itself into your memory by this necessary repetition, but kind of like a good difficult game. Because Dark Souls, I would say, probably isn't crazy mechanically difficult. It's not like a bullet hell shooter or anything like that, where at the top tier it's just like impossible.
01:13:03
Speaker
There are people who are amazing at it, but you don't actually have to be amazing at it to beat the game. Everything is a pattern that can be learned. There are tells for moves. That core concept basically is what they built everything else around. It's like knowledge and learning is going to take you far in this game. A chest is a mimic.
01:13:25
Speaker
How would you ever know that? Well, you could be cautious. You could hit it once. That costs you nothing. Um, maybe you eventually found out that the chain on the side of the chest is laid the other way. Yep. Or maybe you'd look at the chest and see that it's breathing ever so suddenly. Yeah.
01:13:43
Speaker
And there's just so many little things like that where having a little bit of foresight or information about it makes it much easier. Which is why you can beat the game now in a fraction of the time it took, originally. Because you know everything you can skip, you know everything that you want, and you know where everything is.
01:14:02
Speaker
Yeah. Like there are certain other optional areas in DLC or just in the base game that we didn't get to cover because there's a lot of optional content. True. But it is really fun to explore that content. It gives you more of an insight into the world of Dark Souls and maybe it'll get you a cool weapon for part of your build. Yeah.
01:14:22
Speaker
Yeah, I really like the DLC for this one. Without going into the details of it, it's got plenty of great fights, expands the lore a ton, has some of the series like most beloved characters, and they do the whole like Final Fantasy thing of like, hey, here's that optional dragon boss that's gonna destroy everybody forever. Thanks Kalamate.
01:14:49
Speaker
but yeah it's just it's just the package of the content and the moment to moment gameplay i remember when this came out i was like listening to reviewers and it might have maybe even been demon souls before this but um and they're like it's it's slow like it takes time you want to put time into the game yeah
01:15:07
Speaker
And it's not fast-paced, you're not playing Call of Duty, anything like that. But when action kicks up, you're so invested in it because you know if you die, you've got to run back, you've got to reclaim your souls.
01:15:19
Speaker
To go back actually to what Jake said in the beginning, all of your attacks have a cost. As soon as you initiate the attack, you're invested for that animation, which leaves you susceptible to other attacks. Right. But it's that way through the whole game. It doesn't give you breathing room, but it always gives you a chance because every enemy is scripted. It has certain actions it's going to do based on certain triggers.
01:15:46
Speaker
So sometimes I'll try and like move close to an enemy, let it start the attack. And then when it's doing the attack, I'll start my attack from a slightly further range. Exactly. And come over him with his Y. Yep. But it always challenges.
01:16:01
Speaker
Cause like we said, we'll fall prey to like the same things we know already exist. Yeah. Like you can ask Dave, it took me like several attempts to beat Gwen after we actually did the co-op thing. Yeah. Cause I've had a couple co-op runs of the game and basically the way it works is after, after you get to the end, one player can help the other guy in co-op. But once that main host beats the game, it immediately kicks you in to do game plus once the credits are done.
01:16:26
Speaker
So number two guy has to try to solo it. And it's fun. This is the one that started it. I don't know. You think maybe we'll eventually cover other Dark Souls games?
Upcoming Content and Game Praise
01:16:43
Speaker
Probably not, too, because Fuckskall of Versen. Look forward to the solo episode of me covering, too. But I really do enjoy what they've done with Three and the DLC for that.
Evolution of Dark Souls Gameplay
01:16:55
Speaker
Yeah, they've built off of that same core gameplay and their ideology around it, but it's just a lot smoother Yeah, like we said Dark Souls one's a lot more clunky and slow
01:17:07
Speaker
and waited. Yeah. I think across the series, they release a game.
Trial-and-Error Gameplay Adjustments
01:17:13
Speaker
The sliders are kind of like in this odd arrangement. You're just some things are in extremes. And then the next one, they're like, huh, that didn't work so well. They flip the sliders to like the other side. New guy on a soundboard, basically. Yeah. And then for the third one, they really lined a lot of it up to drive it
Legacy of Dark Souls
01:17:30
Speaker
home. And that is just a really good game.
01:17:32
Speaker
Maybe we'll cover that one, we'll see. We'll take a little break and come back to it maybe. But Dark Souls is one of the definitive games of our generation for sure. It broke a lot of ground. Broke a lot of hearts. It broke a lot of controllers. This is true.
Listener Appreciation and Engagement
01:17:52
Speaker
I'd like to thank everybody for sticking to the end for a longer episode that we've had again. It's great that we have listeners out there who come back and are willing to put up with us week after week with only a week break. If you have some specific ideas for how you'd like to put up with us in the future, feel free to send them in to soapstonepodcast.com or check out our Facebook page. We have that. That's the thing now. It's true.
01:18:20
Speaker
The information for that is in the description of this podcast. Probably. If there's a description for the podcast. We'll do them post. Yeah. I mean, it'll be there. I just don't know how they're listening to this. This could be years later. Maybe descriptions don't exist. Anyways, I'm going to head out. So you guys have a good one and we'll see you in the next one. See ya.
01:19:12
Speaker
you