GRcade plays... Dark Souls series

Yeah nice that you've found a bit of a groove with DS3 Karl! Personally I really like the more expansive combat options in 3 and have never really had an issue with some of the things you're describing - for me it's possibly the best feeling Souls combat out of all the ones I've played!

I don't know if you've visited Archdragon Peak but it's well worth seeking out if you haven't!

Yeah, I have particularly weird taste! Rock hard bosses don't bother me at all, I'll sit there and figure it out, but I think when I'm exploring I just want to focus on that. Otherwise it's a bit too... stressful? It's hard to put into words but I'm glad I found a way to do that even if it's probably not entirely the intended experience.

I'll keep an eye out! Seen references to it but not sure I'm far enough in quite yet.

I did find a wonderful new Dark Souls waifu though. Yorshka cute :wub:

!

Speaking of NPCs, the Karla story is pretty dark, isn't it? Glad I figured out to go back and rescue her. I also had Yuria murder Anri and then I "married" his corpse. The plot takes so much of a backseat that I don't really think too much about these things, but yeah, bit grim!

I've been missing the past couple of Tuesdays and I'm going to miss tomorrow as it's my partner's 30th so I'm gonna hop on for a couple of hours at 11ish for a bonus Easter Monday souls stream!

Will be carrying on my first Souls playthrough in about 30 mins on the GRcade twitch channel!

Ooo I'll be there!

My Dark Souls 3 update since my last post:

I have smashed Lothric Castle and done Archdragon Peak except for ringing the bell, which I understand is optional. I will probably do it next session though! Then it'll be DLC, and finally the endgame. Still lots to do!

I felt like switching up my build a little bit. At first I tried adding on some Faith, but even at 30 it seemed a bit underwhelming. I already have ranged options better than e.g. Lightning Spear, and the buffs didn't seem essential. I feel like I must be missing something and maybe I'll experiment more some time. Morne's Great Hammer had a fun weapon art to be fair!

Anyway, I redistributed again to try out mixed Strength and Dexterity for the Black Knight Greatsword and I farmed the armour too so I'm doing a bit of a Black Knight cosplay at the moment. I understand it's objectively a very good weapon and it seems fun... but I can see myself going back to the basic full-on Strength and Smough's Great Hammer build I had before, it's just so satisfying!

Thanks for watching me tonight lads! Really enjoyed that session and getting a few more bosses done.

A shame I couldn't beat the untended graves boss but it was a cool revelation and looking forward to giving that a go next time!

I finished Demons Souls on the PS5. I’ve done Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Demons Souls now, should I go into Dark Souls 2 or straight into 3, as I’ve heard lots of indifferent opinions about the second one.

You should let more experienced players answer this question, Bill, as I haven't played much of the souls games. I've been asking for opinions during my streaming of 3 and most people seem to like 2 but agree that 3 seems to be the more "direct" sequel to 1.

I've been enjoying 3 a lot, but only played about 10 hours of 1 and never played 2.

DS3 is a direct sequel to DS1, and the gameplay of DS3 is an evolution of what you find in DS1 and (in a couple of aspects) Bloodborne. DS2 is more of a stand-alone story, and is quite experimental, so the gameplay contains a few kinda weird elements - some are fun, some aren't.

I personally think DS2 is overall good and worth playing for what it's worth.

Thanks for the response, I would like to play both but I worry that I’ve been spoilt a bit by the Demons Souls remake. I’ve watched a couple of videos online and DS3 seems like a much modern take on the DS formula.

I've now finished Archdragon Peak and beat Nameless King; as well as the Painted World and beat Frieda.

They were both good zones. I think Peak was my favourite of the two - it had some cool visuals and I liked the summoner enemies even if it took me a few invasions to get how they were working! But it was interesting to see Painted World reimagined too - I liked how they padded out the backstory a little bit. "This land is peaceful, its inhabitants kind..." was a cool line in DS1 but didn't really make sense given you'd just had to fight your way through the entire town!

The big bosses both started out very cool. I really liked fighting the King on his wyvern - some camera issues aside it was definitely something a bit different. The first two stages of Frieda were good too, and although it was a bit spammy the second stage had a big emphasis on managing the health and aggro of the NPC summon and I liked that aspect.

The final phases of both were a bit much for me though, honestly. I mean, I beat them, but they were very "this guy is very very strong and very very fast" and I feel like they already nailed that with Knight Artorias in the DS1 DLC and I didn't need to do it again for even stronger even faster dudes.

Ringed City very good so far.

I've finished DS3. (I'll try to keep my thoughts mostly spoiler free...)

The Ringed City DLC was really great. I don't think the bosses were quite up there with DS1 AOTA's, but they were still very good. My main criticism was only that Darkeater Midir was kind of an unnecessarily long battle because of his absolutely huge health pool.

But the level design was top-tier Dark Souls - two of the best zones in the series IMO. Loved Lapp's side-quest too (though as usual for Dark Souls side-quests, a guide is really required to see it all the way through!).

The final boss in the main game was a decent fight as well.

I like the game now but I did bounce off it a few times before this run. I think it places a lot of emphasis on difficult combat, and makes you engage with that combat on its own terms, with the overall faster pace and nerfs to shields and magic and poise. I'm not actually very good at these games, so it took a lot of experimenting to find a way to handle it that I actually enjoyed. Once I felt like I was playing with the game - rather than being, like, told off by the game for doing it wrong! - I warmed up to it a lot.

How did you play it?

I played a real strength build in DS1 and then a magic build in Demons Souls, so I don’t know what’s best for DS3.

I did enjoy magic in Demons Souls but it did make some parts a little on the easy side ...

Sure! I don't think there's a best build, it's just about finding the style that works for you. Outside of bosses (which I accept have to be a bit frantic sometimes!) I like to play in a slower, more methodical way - I don't really have great reflexes or anything like that - so I tried to build around that. My instinct in DS1 when the pressure is on is always to hide behind a shield, take a breather, and get my bearings, but that just doesn't work in DS3. Keeping my distance and lobbing fireballs is also something I do a lot in DS1 that doesn't translate well. So you can imagine I was a bit stumped the first few times I tried to play DS3!

(Build info in spoiler box.)

I don't think that's "good" necessarily but it worked for me!

I kind of forgot to mention my favourite part about the Ringed City, which was (major spoilers) people finally talking about "the Dark Soul" - it was so cheesy and self-indulgent, but in an endearing way. :lol:

Carrying on with this on the GRcadeUK twithh channel tonight at about 8ish!

Will be carrying on with this tonight from about 8ish on the GRcadeUK twitch channel.

Going to be starting with the Nameless King :dread:

Dark Souls 3 security risk on PC - play offline or install a simple mod to protect yourself

There's a potential security exploit in the Dark Souls 3 multiplayer: https://old.reddit.com/r/darksouls3/comments/n1235k/potential_pc_security_exploit_spreading/

You can protect yourself by selecting "Play Offline" in the game's settings, or by running this very straightforward mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/darksouls3/mods/723

I guess this post is mostly aimed at The Watching Artist, who is doing a DS3 playthrough on PC.

The Watching Artist wrote:.

GRcade plays... Dark Souls series

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