Sunday, January 2, 2022

More Altoholism in Dark Souls 3

 While my sorcerer has been stuck on the Twin Princes (he's also on the Demon Prince, though that I've only attempted a couple times and then sort of went "uh, just... later") I've been futzing around with some other characters.

I have a Strength-based character who I'm now trying to level Faith in (after he hit 50 Strength) in the hopes of getting what I'm told is the very powerful "paladin" build. My initial intent for that character was to go with pure physical stats, getting his vitality strong enough to actually wear some of the insane heavy armor sets and use a great shield, but we'll see.

The Greataxe, which I just spent my first titanite slab to get to +10, has actually proven to be a very fun weapon. (I also finally took the heavy infusion for it, which I probably should have done earlier). I'd intended to go with the Fume Ultra Greatsword, which is cool, but so insanely heavy (even compared to the Greataxe) and I'm not sure I love its actual move set. In fact, with the heavy infusion, it looks like the Greataxe outdoes it in terms of damage at my Strength level, so I'm not sure it's worth going for.

I managed to take down Aldrich in maybe five or so attempts - I'd been acting too aggressively (I think a habit learned from the Sorcerer) and once I started acting a little more defensively I got a kill - though I died to his arrow-rain as I got the final hit in, which meant that I got teleported to the Dancer's room and then immediately died. Luckily, I was able to warp back to Aldrich's bonfire (I guess you don't actually have to light them when you kill the boss) and grab the souls.

And then I one-shot the Dancer of the Boreal Valley, which had me feeling pretty confident. Unfortunately, I failed to learn the lesson from Aldrich and went in too aggressively on Oceiros, so I finally lost the ember there (also, Oceiros' first phase on my sorcerer was trivial, so I didn't really think much about dodging his spells).

I also dusted off an old Herald character I'd created years ago but who had stalled out in the Undead Settlement. I've now just got Deacons of the Deep to take down and then she can be on to Farron Keep, though I snuck ahead to pick up Lightning Spear.

I then found out that if you buy any dark miracles from Irina, Eygon will take her out of Firelink Shrine and you need to kill him to bring her back. And... you know, I sort of felt like I was the bad guy (even if "Dark" is not necessarily evil in these games).

This character is intended to be a true paladin build, so I actually could use Eygon's massive hammer, but only after a lot of leveling. This character's still using the Deep Battle Axe, which is a great thing to find early in the game but also is so good that I basically use it on every character. I'm hoping I can get my stats to a point where the Saint's Bident will outpace it, as I haven't really played with a weapon that has such massive reach. Still, after the whole Eygon incident I felt kind of bummed playing that character, hence returning to my Strength guy.

He's now on the Dragonslayer Armor, which I've only ever fought using a summoned ally, and have never died to. So, part of me wants to continue that trend, though another says that maybe I should see how that fight is "as intended."

I also realized that the elevator up to DSA is way easier to reach if you just use the Dancer bonfire rather than trying to get to it from the Lothric Castle one.

Anyway, the game's fun. I still think Bloodborne remains my favorite of the games in this genre I've played, and I wish that Bloodborne were as extensive as Dark Souls 3 in terms of scope. I wonder if we'll ever get a direct sequel to Bloodborne. Elden Ring looks fantastic, but it seems to really be in keeping with the Demon's Souls/Dark Souls aesthetic, and I liked that Bloodborne took that gameplay to an entirely different kind of setting.

Part of me wants to see FromSoft do a futuristic sci-fi souls-like game, but we'll see. I guess I should try Sekiro, though I've heard that that's even harder than DS3, and I'd be happy to see DS3 be the absolute cap on difficulty.

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