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The Reunited [Souls] Thread

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  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    I am literally using Ashen as a head canon Dark Souls 4 to answer one of those questions.

    Cantido on
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  • AistanAistan Tiny Bat Registered User regular
    The massive lore discrepancy/wasted opportunity between DS2 Scholar and Dark Souls 3 is the main reason why the latter is one of my biggest gaming disappointments ever.

  • TheStigTheStig Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    I'm pretty sure Miyazaki wrote DS3 before DS2 was developed and that DS3 is pretty much his DS2 and 2 is just someone else's spinoff. Which is a disappointment because I really like 2.

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  • furlionfurlion Riskbreaker Lea MondeRegistered User regular
    I remember when I started 3 I was super excited to see what looked like an elite knight sitting against a broken lord vessel. It was not until a few hours later I realized it was going to be less subtle nods and more straight up dark souls 1 expansion pack. Still a great game but lesser even then 2 in my mind.

    sig.gif Gamertag: KL Retribution
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  • ElendilElendil Registered User regular
    a DS1 expansion pack is, i think, giving DS3's lore a little too much credit

  • Casually HardcoreCasually Hardcore Once an Asshole. Trying to be better. Registered User regular
    Going through Bloodborne yet again. I think this is my favorite game of this generation

  • manwiththemachinegunmanwiththemachinegun METAL GEAR?! Registered User regular
    Karoz wrote: »
    Which I think just reinforces why I like Dark Souls 2 Scholars lore the best.
    What does dark and light mean? Is it bad to give up this age of light? What does an age of dark entail? Is there something beyond these options that actually just trap us in a purgatorial cycle?

    Alas Dark Souls 3 was very content to sweep all those questions under the rug, despite having the perfect final boss in response to them IMO.

    No, there isn't. There's only entropy. There is only the horror of time.
    Light and dark are irrelevant, both are crushed to nothing by the aeons of time. The future of a true "world of dark" is seen in the Lord Of Hollows secret ending. Which is a nightmarish landscape of eternal skeletons. Stability at all costs. Not worth living in, if you can call it that.

    In my view, the best ending is simply to let the fire die, and say to hell with Kaathe and his followers Yuria and Ariandel. Let the universe die and something better may come in its place. You do create a small "escape pod" of sorts by helping the Painting Girl create a new home for lost souls. That's the hope spot of Dark Souls 3.

    But to answer your question, no. DS2 was a pointless exercise. You cannot resist the Curse of the Undead in any meaningful way. Life dies. Light dies. Even dark, dies. Absolutely, totally, without exception. It's why the last few stages of the Ringed City, and the surrounding area is all ashen, broken ruins with time itself collapsing. No matter what Kaathe says, there's no escape from that.

    I feel that's truer to the original Dark Souls that whant DSII was going for. Yet another, YOU ARE THE SPECIAL. Where you went the whole game assuming you mattered, and in the end, you only mattered as fuel. And any act of defiance you took to become an edgelord Dark Lord? That didn't matter either, because someone *else* linked the flame driving away the dark yet again.

  • KarozKaroz Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    Karoz wrote: »
    Which I think just reinforces why I like Dark Souls 2 Scholars lore the best.
    What does dark and light mean? Is it bad to give up this age of light? What does an age of dark entail? Is there something beyond these options that actually just trap us in a purgatorial cycle?

    Alas Dark Souls 3 was very content to sweep all those questions under the rug, despite having the perfect final boss in response to them IMO.

    No, there isn't. There's only entropy. There is only the horror of time.
    Light and dark are irrelevant, both are crushed to nothing by the aeons of time. The future of a true "world of dark" is seen in the Lord Of Hollows secret ending. Which is a nightmarish landscape of eternal skeletons. Stability at all costs. Not worth living in, if you can call it that.

    In my view, the best ending is simply to let the fire die, and say to hell with Kaathe and his followers Yuria and Ariandel. Let the universe die and something better may come in its place. You do create a small "escape pod" of sorts by helping the Painting Girl create a new home for lost souls. That's the hope spot of Dark Souls 3.

    But to answer your question, no. DS2 was a pointless exercise. You cannot resist the Curse of the Undead in any meaningful way. Life dies. Light dies. Even dark, dies. Absolutely, totally, without exception. It's why the last few stages of the Ringed City, and the surrounding area is all ashen, broken ruins with time itself collapsing. No matter what Kaathe says, there's no escape from that.

    I feel that's truer to the original Dark Souls that whant DSII was going for. Yet another, YOU ARE THE SPECIAL. Where you went the whole game assuming you mattered, and in the end, you only mattered as fuel. And any act of defiance you took to become an edgelord Dark Lord? That didn't matter either, because someone *else* linked the flame driving away the dark yet again.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c

    They could have addressed 2 in some meaningful way, even to refute it, but other than dropping references on items and a level with some enemies they didn't address the core message that game brought up.
    Having Bearer of the Curse become removed from the cycle by uniting the crowns--not because s/he was special but because s/he had the will and ability to do so--was one of the most powerful moments in the souls games for me--but why did we do it?
    But one day, you will stand before its decrepit gate. Without really knowing why...
    Like a moth drawn to a flame, your wings will burn in anguish. Time after time. For that is your fate. The fate of the cursed.

    Just like the death and rebirth of the age of fire, one Bearer would eventually succeed and offer a small chance of undoing the cycle that Gwyn's sin had caused. The loss of our Fire Age selves drives us to something more, be it merely the postponement of the age of dark or finally the ending the age of fire--or something more.

    Hell, it could have been cool if it was revealed that the Bearer was responsible for the Lord of Hollows plot in a last ditch effort to end the purgatory cycle.

    My dearest hope was actually that the Fire Keeper was in fact the Bearer, with her face mask being an amalgamation of the four crown.

    Heck, anyone of remote interest who has witnessed multiple cycles.

    Instead we got Patches.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAUOPHqx5Gs

    End of the day you got the sequel you wanted, so I am not sure why you seem so riled up.

    Karoz on
  • Endless_SerpentsEndless_Serpents Registered User regular
    To this day I lie to myself that DS 2 is after the dark ending, and DS 3 is after the link the fire ending. They’re both the sequel, and DS 2 isn’t ignored by 3, it’s just on different timeline possibilities.

  • walnutmonwalnutmon Registered User regular
    I like DS3 lore, I mean, I didn't figure any of it out myself (I never do...) but the VaatiVidya videos on DS3 are excellent. I agree that there was too much blatant fan-service; but it's still a video game, and it doesn't detract from my overall enjoyment.

    I'm playing Bloodborne now for the first time, which I'm super excited about; I'm pretty deep in the game and have really enjoyed it so far.

    xbox: jmbizzo | ps3: walnutmon | steam: walnutmon | SC2: walnutmon.591
  • KarozKaroz Registered User regular
    Yeah I have to give credit to VaatiVidya for piecing together lore/doing the investigating for lazy me.

    Not to say I always like his conclusions but it made me appreciate how much you could pull out of these seemingly minimalist stories--even if it was just wild mass guessing.

  • walnutmonwalnutmon Registered User regular
    I have a special place in my heart for DS3 because it is the first one that I beat all bosses legitimately. I played most of the game blind.

    DS1 and DS2 I did a lot of reading and watching videos before I cleared areas to alleviate my Soulsborne anxiety. DS3 and now Bloodborne, I am instead embracing it. Which means I have messed up every side quest and my world is totally devoid of NPCs, lol.

    xbox: jmbizzo | ps3: walnutmon | steam: walnutmon | SC2: walnutmon.591
  • manwiththemachinegunmanwiththemachinegun METAL GEAR?! Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    To this day I lie to myself that DS 2 is after the dark ending, and DS 3 is after the link the fire ending. They’re both the sequel, and DS 2 isn’t ignored by 3, it’s just on different timeline possibilities.

    DS2 still happened, it just happened so long ago only the legend of it remains.

    Consider that maybe the crowns DID work, and the Chosen Undead of DSII was able to resist going Hollow. They're still "Undead". And how long does that last? A century? Two centuries? 100,000 years? Till the sun goes dark or the heat death of the universe? In Dark Souls, the map is changing from game to game. That takes a long, long time.
    By the time of Dark Souls 3, the cycle of light has gone on long enough for the different ages to start collapsing in on themselves and time is dying. As the lands merge. There's a reason those hollows you killed have all gone totally crazy and mindless. I'm not sure any biological being could stand living that long with sanity intact.

    manwiththemachinegun on
  • KamarKamar Registered User regular
    It seems like we're to associate the light with time, and thus the fire fading with the collapse of time, but I'm not sure then what differentiates the age of dark from the age of ancients.

  • Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
    The Demon Prince is an absolute bastard

    Why is he not weak to frost!?

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
  • Zoku GojiraZoku Gojira Monster IslandRegistered User regular
    Mojo_Jojo wrote: »
    The Demon Prince is an absolute bastard

    Why is he not weak to frost!?

    Well, in fairness, it makes equal sense for him to be resistant to frost. For frost, essentially, to be weak to him.

    "Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are." - Bertolt Brecht
  • AistanAistan Tiny Bat Registered User regular
    Elemental weakness diagrams never make sense logically and it's best to not think about them.

  • Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
    Apparently I missed an entire area

    Archdragon peak, here I come. I did think the place with the dragon Knight was weird at the time

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
  • cB557cB557 voOOP Registered User regular
    Tomb of Giants in this sorc run is cathartic. I walk up to slightly outside of the aggro range of enemies and homing crystal soulmass instantly kills them.

  • cB557cB557 voOOP Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    Hah, Gwyn went down a lot easier this time. Killed him on the second attempt and only took like 30 seconds. Some of that was knowing how to do the setup parry this time, but the speed of it is probably down to a focused sorc build instead of the little bit of everything from my first completion. Having a little over 40 into int with an enchanted estoc and crystal soulmasses was a big jump in DPS over... I think it was something like ~30 in faith, dex, and strength each.

    cB557 on
  • KamarKamar Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    I need to fight Gwyn legit next time. I've only every parried him to death, and that feels like a waste of a boss.

    Kamar on
  • cB557cB557 voOOP Registered User regular
    Kamar wrote: »
    I need to fight Gwyn legit next time. I've only every parried him to death, and that feels like a waste of a boss.
    I would not recommend that.

  • TheStigTheStig Registered User regular
    Cheesing bosses in dark Souls is totally legit.

    bnet: TheStig#1787 Steam: TheStig
  • KamarKamar Registered User regular
    Cheesing bosses on my gazillionth playthrough is pointless, though.

    If I had fun following an optimal route over and over I'd be practicing speedrun strats, not pushing through the game with theme builds.

  • KamarKamar Registered User regular
    Huh, apparently this is an even more complete and crazy overhaul of DS1 than Prepare to Die Again. Someone said PTDA is like Scholars of the First Sin, while Daughters of Ash is like SotFS but also there's a huge DLC integrated through the whole thing. Interesting.

    https://www.nexusmods.com/darksouls/mods/1524

  • KarozKaroz Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    I've fought Gwyn "legit."

    It's not really fun. It's finding the slant on the terrain to make his attacks go over you so you can get your hits in.

    So just cheese of a different flavor.

    Karoz on
  • ReynoldsReynolds Gone Fishin'Registered User regular
    Kamar wrote: »
    Huh, apparently this is an even more complete and crazy overhaul of DS1 than Prepare to Die Again. Someone said PTDA is like Scholars of the First Sin, while Daughters of Ash is like SotFS but also there's a huge DLC integrated through the whole thing. Interesting.

    https://www.nexusmods.com/darksouls/mods/1524

    I made a few big posts about this in another Souls thread. But, basically, if you want to be totally confused by Dark Souls again, like it was brand new, including missing tons of content and getting frustrated by enemy placement and difficult bosses, give this a try. For better or worse, it feels like playing a new DS1 made with the same building blocks. Just a lot more inspiration from DS2 and Demon's Souls. A lot of it doesn't feel fair...but those games didn't feel fair at launch, either.

    The main changes I'd warn anyone about are that shields are nerfed across the board, with only two 100% block shields in the game. Most other stats are lowered as well. Enemies are also more aggressive and clumped together, and heavy armor (and the rings required to wear it) aren't available until far later than usual. Magic, magic rings, magic enchantment, etc. are all available far earlier. The creator really wants you to wear light armor and dodge while using spells, basically. There's even a new weapon type that replaces/buffs the Enchanted tier. Also, Hollow form has lowered health, like in Demon's and DS2. But, since online mode is broken, staying human is more viable if you're offline only. And I won't spoil the big changes, but I'll just say Blighttown is even less fun than usual.

    On the plus side, there's a few 'new' bosses and one actual new/restored boss, plus I think some other cut enemies were fixed and added. There's a new game-long quest line that offers a new experience, a later new sub-quest that has some fun events and changes a huge chunk of the game world, an alternate final boss and alternate route through the DLC. The DLC is also integrated into the main story and main progression, and balanced to fit this progression path.

    uyvfOQy.png
  • Monkey Ball WarriorMonkey Ball Warrior A collection of mediocre hats Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    I got DS1 for my switch. Had never played anything in the series, and I had heard stories about the difficulty. But I play Ikaruga; difficult doesn't scare me, if done right. And I am a fan of the Lost Kingdoms series, which was also made by From Software, so yeh, had to try this out.

    I've had to Google a few things here and there(ex. you don't have to fight the tutorial boss when you first see it) but I am starting to see the basic idea. I picked sorcerer, which probably made things extra difficult. I've yet to try the online pseudo PvP mode or get to either boss in the post-tutorial starting area (one is up in a tower and one is deep below), but I can make loops between bonfires to farm souls for leveling, so I am at least on my way.

    "I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
  • Alistair HuttonAlistair Hutton Dr EdinburghRegistered User regular
    I got DS1 for my switch. Had never played anything in the series, and I had heard stories about the difficulty. But I play Ikaruga; difficult doesn't scare me, if done right. And I am a fan of the Lost Kingdoms series, which was also made by From Software, so yeh, had to try this out.

    I've had to Google a few things here and there(ex. you don't have to fight the tutorial boss when you first see it) but I am starting to see the basic idea. I picked sorcerer, which probably made things extra difficult. I've yet to try the online pseudo PvP mode or get to either boss in the post-tutorial starting area (one is up in a tower and one is deep below), but I can make loops between bonfires to farm souls for leveling, so I am at least on my way.

    The 'difficulty' of Dark Souls is grossly overstated. The perception of difficulty however is incredible. The way the game makes you feel amazing for overcoming it's challenges is super clever.

    I have a thoughtful and infrequently updated blog about games http://whatithinkaboutwhenithinkaboutgames.wordpress.com/

    I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.

    Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
  • KarozKaroz Registered User regular
    For every build you'll have encounters that feel laughably easy to frustratingly hard.

    Casters in Dark Souls games almost always start at a disadvantage due to the low number of spells and poor melee stats (maybe better in 3 due to the return of a magic bar?) but get undeniably strong as their toolbox grows. It's just too bad that the most of the cost effective spells are just some form of magic missile.

  • cB557cB557 voOOP Registered User regular
    So, since I finished my sorc run of DS1, I started up DS2 for the first time. Not sure what sort of build I want to go with for this one. I want to do something different again, but since I don't know all the stuff available in DS2 I'm not sure what. In DS1 in my first playthrough I mostly used the Astoran straight sword and a medium shield, pyromancies, and some miracles, and then in my sorc run I used, well, sorceries, and an estoc with a medium shield. Any suggestions for what to go with?

  • BlackDragon480BlackDragon480 Bluster Kerfuffle Master of Windy ImportRegistered User regular
    Loincloth and a club?

    No matter where you go...there you are.
    ~ Buckaroo Banzai
  • Dizzy DDizzy D NetherlandsRegistered User regular
    As DS2 is the only game with powerstancing, I would go for a build with dual wielding.

    Steam/Origin: davydizzy
  • KarozKaroz Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    If you are playing Dark Souls 2 you have to try powerstancing. Alas I am on my phone and can't link to the totally unexplained mechanic.

    Edit: beat

    Karoz on
  • AistanAistan Tiny Bat Registered User regular
    Powerstance some clubs and demolish the first 1/5 of the game.

  • KarozKaroz Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    @cB557 Here is the link to Power Stance

    Short of it: if you have x1.5 the required stats for two weapons, put them in both of your hands and hold Y (tap makes it dual wield) you'll get a special moveset for your Left Button/Left Trigger.

    Karoz on
  • TheStigTheStig Registered User regular
    Aistan wrote: »
    Powerstance some clubs and demolish the first 1/5 of the game.

    Then move on to the Gyrm axes. I'd of they're the best but I had a lot of fun power staving them.

    bnet: TheStig#1787 Steam: TheStig
  • KalnaurKalnaur I See Rain . . . Centralia, WARegistered User regular
    My big problem with power stance/dual wield in any Dark Souls game is that eliminates the possibility of a shield.

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  • Alistair HuttonAlistair Hutton Dr EdinburghRegistered User regular
    cB557 wrote: »
    So, since I finished my sorc run of DS1, I started up DS2 for the first time. Not sure what sort of build I want to go with for this one. I want to do something different again, but since I don't know all the stuff available in DS2 I'm not sure what. In DS1 in my first playthrough I mostly used the Astoran straight sword and a medium shield, pyromancies, and some miracles, and then in my sorc run I used, well, sorceries, and an estoc with a medium shield. Any suggestions for what to go with?

    Rapier. DS 2 is all about dat rapier.

    Two of them. One I either hand.

    I have a thoughtful and infrequently updated blog about games http://whatithinkaboutwhenithinkaboutgames.wordpress.com/

    I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.

    Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
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