Topic: You Died. The Dark Souls Series Discussion Thread

Yeah as Johnny has already confirmed you've reached the area we were talking about for it's lack of geographical cohesion @Th3solution!

Though from what I recall DS II was going to be rather ambitious and be open world but they ran out of time and had to form fit everything together...

You shouldn’t worry about Dark Souls II not being open world, they already fixed that with the sequel; Dark Souls II 2, but renamed it to “Elden Ring” for whatever reason.

Hi : )
Yeah : )
It’s yo gurl
It’s ready!
Here goes:

Hello. So this is essentially me tying one final loose end before starting the DW8 guide. Don’t worry friend, it’s coming out next week. It’ll have tons of DLC, a free ps6 version for free (that’s also free to those who pre-order), free pre-order bonus if you pre-order the pre-order pre-order bonus and tons free updates that will be free updates that will become free once they’re free and then free.

But first, more pressing matters at hand… video games!

Thankfully in West Asia+North Africa (aka basically the Arab World), Friday and Saturday are the weekends so tomorrow I’m freeeee and will get full sleep!!!!

So taking this opportunity to tie up loose ends. You’re the final remaining… I sounded like an assassin there.

I’ll do what I could to keep this brief. Well, brief by my standards anyways.

Moving along, it’s funny you bring this up, as it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while. While I forgot about some points I may have wanted to make, I’m confident I can still convey my main ideas.

I’ll try to separate my points into sections as this is quite tricky to tackle head-on due to it involving multiple angles. I’ll leave some obvious stuff out but I’ll also address the more crucial things early on, blindfold or not, if you’re a guide user of any kind, you’re ultimately ok in my book (buy it now) and if anyone has an issue with you, I’ll tell you what, they can tell me whatever they want and I will explain very carefully why it cannot be.

(So uhhh… futuresef coming in to interrupt this portion of the script. I actually got really overconfident. And now this is being delayed another week. It’s Wednesday as of the time I’m typing this. Midnight Wednesday so I shouldn’t be feeding into my sleep deprivation… but good life choices were never my forte.)

Now we resume our usual programming.

So I will break down my arguments very simply. Not sure how much I can keep delaying this and forgetting everything very slowly but I will further streamline my arguments.

Here’s the outline of my main ideas:
-what are guides, actually?
-how old are guides, really?
-what is dark souls, really?
-A: NES homage?
-B: not an NES homage, then what then?
-difference in skill floor for guided vs guideless?

Now let’s start with a lovely question. What is a guide? A MISERABLE LITTLE PILE OF SECRETS!

Err… ignore that. Moving on, guides are, let’s not complicate it. It’s external help. All kinds of external help are guides. Walkthroughs, gamefaq (this will be important), magazines, manuals (these two as well), my little brother helping me back in 2016, everything.

I can expand, but it is essentially to keep that particular part both brief and simple, as it will act as the foundation of my argument. The simpler it is to trace, the better. Let’s move on.

How old are guides, really? This is a part where we will see misinformed people wrongly enforce their self imposed values as being synonymous with the truth. It is a false perception that guides are a “new age” thing. As a matter of fact, there’s an extreme argument that can be made that guides have existed as early as gaming did. Not only that, but people using guides, such as magazines, strategy guides, gamefaq guides that existed since 2001 were considered “the true gamers”, sure, back then those were harder to obtain, which leads me to my next points…

What is dark souls, TRULY?
This is the real part where many people’s self imposed values being used in place of the truth will become truly exposed full front.
The reason I’ve established age as my initial argument is to act as a beginning for the timeline of this argument.
You may think “Dark Souls is a homage to ‘NES hard’ games” is a solid enough argument on its own, but this could not be gather from the truth.

One of the biggest complaints modern games have against retro gamers is their claim that they can only get through their retro games due to prior familiarity. However I can tell you right now, with absolute certainty, that this argument holds zero water. Because the “prior familiarity” they’re thinking of is nowhere near as unobtainable as they may deem it as. Not only did a lot of retro games come with manuals, but they were usually helpful manuals. Giving you tips that are lost on you if you play the game right off the box. Not only that, but you will see retro gamers who complain to modern gamers that they do not respect the intended way to play the games, that they require some external knowledge, external knowledge provided to you by the product you’ve already purchased.

As you have by deciphered by now, this is another argument that falls apart very quickly. In fact, even if you play devil’s advocate and say dark souls was never meant as a homage to retro games, it would only lead us to my next argument, which I placed after this as this exacts as the basis. You can already see a streamlined, staircase style arguing which one argument acts as the basis for the next in a deliberately and meticulously crafted order.

What is Dark Souls truly?

A game?
A series?
A way of life?
So many questions, yet only one true answer holds true.

You may think a difference in skill exists between you and the guideless fellow. As per usual, this could not be farther than the truth.

The only real advantage you have over a guideless fellow is locations of certain stuff.
In the end, nothing matters. You will fight a boss anyways and it’s going to require your true skills. No BS. No shortcuts. Just you and the giant butterfly.

Happy dark soulsing.

Gonna have this as a separate production since it’s all post-production. I’m really happy with how this turned out. Delaying finishing the script ultimately turned out to be a good thing as I was able to add stuff I like and add more and more of my little flair. : D

To further clarify, the portion of the script before the GTA V gif was written last week. The rest was written today.

And now with this I’ve tied up all loose ends. : ))))
Max Payne : They were all dead. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark on everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the trigger, and it was over.
Uhhh ignore that last part.

@Yousef- I’m speechless… 😄
Thanks for your exceptionally thorough inspection and exploration of the subject! Wow, I really appreciate your time and effort.

And I love how you deconstructed the age-old question into the core parts and then, in the end, made it conclude logically. The Thor picture and caption are a perfect pair too. 😂

One of the other points that really stuck out to me, even though I’ve been an advocate for using guides to help me, is that simple exchanges and advice from peer gamers is essentially using a guide. YouTube video and detailed Fextralife tables and walkthroughs are what we think of but simple exchanges on forums like this are at their core, guide usage.

Well, in the end I have come out feeling like a real gamer again, because even though I sliced through Old Iron King with ease because I knew to hide behind the wall and that he was weak to lightning, I still beat the behemoth with my own controller and my own two hands. And that’s more than the other 52% of people who played the game can say. (According to trophy data) 😄

Anyway, thanks again my friend. Take a breath and a nap. You earned it. 😅 And whenever your HP and Stamina bars have fully recovered, you can complete the DW8 dissertation.

@Th3solution thank you, my man! As you can tell by how late it is, i can’t be super chatty but I must leave you with track I forgot to add in my post-production comment. Many people compare it to Gwyn’s theme and I wanted your opinion. This is actually my favorite 2D game so this is a golden Chance to bring it up, especially to a dork soils fan

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm-8LKGVGiY&list=PLAAF5Gvfo...

And this lovely image (you’ll get extra brownie points if you recognize ghost trick)

@Yousef- Yes, that is a lovely musical theme, indeed and does sound like Gwyn’s theme when I listen to them back to back. I’m not very good at paying attention to the music in my games, but I can appreciate when they really add something to the mood.

And as for the image, I’m not sure but do I see the side profile of a horse’s head there in that image? Perhaps it’s supposed to be referring to Torrent or whatever its name is? (I haven’t played ER yet)

@Th3solution the image is one giant meme mocking the “leaker” for using the wrong Roman numeral. It’s got no deep meaning behind it. I just found it extra hilarious because the user bellow has a Sissel avatar from the game ghost trick.

@Yousef- Oooh, I gotcha. Except, well… Call of Duty has actually done the “Black Ops IIII” thing in the cover art for its stylized form instead of using “4” or “IV”.

But the Ghost Trick avatar did completely go over my head. 😅

@Th3solution Which was mocked to oblivion. So I enjoyed the “leak” because of that.

Don’t worry. Sometimes I just like goofing around. That game is good btw.

@Yousef- Ghost Trick is good, or Black Ops 4? 😜

Hey guys finally got that Demons Souls platinum last night. It’s only taken me about 5 months which is yeah terrible but hey family and work lmao . Buzzing

@Mikey856 completely understandable. Even easier plats took me longer because of work/family.
And congratulations.

@Mikey856 Well done! I recall this was a pretty horrendous Platinum, and would be near-on impossible to get without a guide...

I went into DeS knowing full well I wanted the Plat, so used a guide from Day1. Some of the world tendency nuances are so bizarre that I don't know how any normal human would ever navigate it successfully for the trophies! Well done sir

@CJD87 @Yousef- thanks guys! Yeah it was pretty tough not going to lie, I had a bit of help with a couple of bosses on ng+ lol. Also I screwed up my white character tendency for the ally ring of the monumental but luckily I was only 1 level away from pure white so I let a black phantom join on upper latria and low and behold I kicked his ass haha. Got my ring rest is history ! Onto the next

@Mikey856 It makes you realise just how nice the plat trophy for Elden Ring is! Nice and simple, collect some weapons, kill some bosses, do some side quests etc... lol!

@CJD87 ha well I’m yet to attempt Elden but I’m sure the time will come

GL out there. It’s quite exhaustive. But it’s doable.

@Yousef- yeah of course! Push through the pain like Armor Spider on your first NG+ 🫣. I’m definitely down for some Elden at some point

Edit:: but then that was nowt compared to Amigdala in the defiled chalice 🥲

Such as the life of the tarnished, well either way have fun hunting!