Dark Souls III: High Wall of Lothric and Undead Settlement

Having picked up Bloodborne again recently, I assumed I'd be in good shape to breeze through some of Dark Souls III's early areas.

Um. No.

Granted, I don't think I've been going into the kind of controller-smashing frustration I had with my first foray into the Undead Burgh in the original Dark Souls, but it certainly hasn't been the kind of cakewalk that I have with Central Yharnam on playthrough... four, I think, of Bloodborne.

The pace and rhythm of the game is also very different. If you pile on the armor in Dark Souls, you're not going to be able to dodge. Also, the lack of recovery - the mechanic in Bloodborne where you can get health back after being hit as long as you strike back quickly and don't get hit again - makes the Bloodborne gameplay style a little too reckless in Dark Souls.

Still, it hasn't been horrible. I've managed to beat Iudex Gundyr (the only boss you have to beat before you can level up,) Vordt of the Boreal Valley, and the Curse-Rotted Greatwood, all in about three or four attempts.

There are a lot of quests to keep track of, but I think I've managed to get all the NPCs out of these areas, and I did the first part of Ringfinger Leonhard's quest chain (the Venetian-like mask he wears MUST BE MINE.)

I will say that leveling up in Dark Souls is a lot more complicated than in Bloodborne - in the latter, you can more or less pick one of the throughput stats and then just level it up in tandem with Stamina (which is the health stat, if I recall correctly) once you have the requirements for your chosen weapons. There are many more to juggle in Dark Souls, and I haven't done much exploration of spellcasting as an option.

I'm still at a level where I could go either Dexterity or Strength - I'm generally drawn to the latter, though given the fast Bloodborne-style gameplay I'm used to and the fact that it seems like there are way more Dex weapons than Strength weapons, I'm equivocating a bit (for now I'm going to try to pump in enough Dex to use the Hollowslayer Greatsword, which is a boss weapon from the Curse-Rotted Greatwood.)

This is of course a shared feature with Bloodborne, but I've got to say that having the ability to teleport from the get-go (never having beaten Ornstein and Smough, I never got that in DS1) as well as getting a bonfire after every boss has been a huge quality-of-life improvement. I have yet to summon an NPC for a boss (my ember from earlier bosses has never made it to the next and I'm not ready to start using up the consumable items) but I'm very grateful that you don't have to Ember up at a bonfire, and can instead pop one right before stepping into a boss room - I can't tell you how frustrating it was to lose all my humanity after some ill-timed dodge fleeing the giants in Anor Londo before I even got to O&S.

I'm actually contemplating trying out a PS+ account to try the online stuff. I'd love to aid people in Jolly Cooperation and potentially get... some kind of reward? I've never played these games online, so it would be new to me.