Dark Souls: Prepare to Die (Part 1)

I died a lot.

This must be the third or fourth time I’ve tried to complete this game. Bought it on a whim, decided it wasn’t for me after a little. Tried it again after a little then got busy and couldn’t keep playing. Finally, last year a friend of mine had to really convince me to play it, so I did and here we are. Dark Souls is tremendously different depending on how each individual plays the game. I will detail my experience with the game. There are a lot of people out there who think this game is for everyone, they just need to get into it. That’s false. The game is most certainly not for everyone. I’ve fought all the bosses in the game and I’m still not fond of it. If you do play the game just to see what the hype is about, just roll a magic character and steamroll everything.

My character was a Wanderer class with binoculars as the gift. Wanderer starts with the Scimitar weapon. Before actually playing the game my friend recommended a weapon called Greatsword of Artorias. I thought this weapon was so cool and decided would go for that as soon as I was able to. Off the bat, I decide the scimitar sucks. It’s a curved sword so it only has slashes and no stab. This is terrible for hallways because the sword will actually bounce off surfaces if it doesn’t have enough clearance. Still, I liked my outfit so I kept my character. I didn’t really want to use it so I tried killing all the Black Knights (optional minibosses) to try and get their weapons, which didn’t pan out. That friend from the earlier recommends me the Balder Side Sword aka Baller Swag Sword to tide me over till my weapon of choice. Luckily, the farming area for this sword is pretty close to the starting of the game. As this is probably my 3rd or 4th time through the start of the game, it passes by uneventfully. 

This game hates teaching the player. Actually, that’s not true, the game hates instructing the player. Every lesson you learn in this game you teach yourself (unless you use the internet). You’re encouraged to explore by not being given a place to go, but an objective. After getting to the main hub of the game, Firelink Shrine, there’s an NPC you can talk to who sort of tells you where to go. Namely, up above and down below. Then, due to the way the world is laid out, you naturally progress to a bridge where the sun is shining from. It is both intuitive and yet not at the same time. This has the unfortunate side effect that the player might waltz into an area they’re not supposed to. Due to the game’s crushing difficulty, they might assume it is the right way, just harder fought. This is quite an intuitive way to gate content. Usually when you play RPGs, you’ll naturally start at level 1, if you walk into an area where monsters have a number 10 over their heads, you turn around and find a place where you can continue to fight monsters with a number 1 over their heads. One of the design philosophies of the game was that you as the player do a lot of damage but also take a lot of damage, the same goes for enemies. This is where the marketing sort of hurts the game. The player isn’t supposed to go towards the catacombs right off the bat, they can, but they’re severely underlevelled. Though since the marketing is all ‘Prepare to Die’ so you might think it’s the right way, the game is just super hard. The game is only as hard if you want it to be, honestly. If you want to be L337 as hell and go for the catacombs at the start of the game, sure. People like me go to Undead Burg.

Still using my shitty scimitar I fight my way through the stage and kill the first boss, Taurus Demon, by using the plunging attack the same way the game teaches you to kill the tutorial boss. I’m a really careful player, so whenever I can level up or close I will backtrack towards my most recent bonfire and try to level up, even if I have to farm a bit. This is just me, and I became really efficient at clearing this stage. I could have parried everything blindfolded, and I did eventually, somewhat. The Black Knight here is an interesting enemy, I think because of the fact that they are armed to the teeth you’re supposed to register them as a miniboss. It is nice that the game doesn’t explicitly tell you this guy is a miniboss, so if you start fighting him you’re like wtfomgbbq this guy one shots me. At that point you’ve either learned the lesson ‘maybe I shouldn’t go here now’ and move on, or decide that he is beatable and beat him; and it is oh so satisfying to beat him. If you’re lucky he even drops a sword that can carry you for the rest of the game.

Moving on there’s a bridge where a dragon comes out and roasts you. The dragon was shown earlier but you might have forgotten with all the Black Knight Taurus Demon stuff. This ambush is sort of cheap, they could have kicked it in halfway across the bridge and in a way that is obviously telegraphed. Some people have timed this at determined it to be unblockable even if you know it’s coming. At this point you can go past the dragon or go through the sewers to get to the Undead Parish. There’s another Black Knight here, but he hits you before you can see him which is absurdly cheap. Remember the Baller Swag Sword from earlier? I spent 5 hours farming it here. I became so proficient with the farming path that I was able to watch YouTube and farm. There are a few enemies here that don’t respawn upon killing them. Which is confusing because in later areas they do respawn. Maybe it has something to do with how well an enemy “fits” an area. Though that might not be true because there’s an enemy here that does not respawn because it doesn’t fit, but the same enemy in another area does respawn even though he doesn’t fit. Due to the insane farming I did for my sword, I was able to hit the soft cap for Dex and upgrade it as much as I could, +5. Now I couldn’t get any stronger until I could upgrade the sword more or get my original intended weapon, Greatsword of Artorias. Unfortunately, because I was so overlevelled I steamrolled through the boss that tends to give most people some trouble. Bell Gargoyles, or technically 2 x Bell Gargoyle, wait at the top of the Parish. At first you fight one and sort of learn his patterns, getting used to him. Once you feel comfortable you’re brave and start beating him up and halfway through the fight another gargoyle flies down and just starts breathing fire at you. This really showcases one of the bad points about the game, namely enemy attacks can just pass through each other. I understand that they didn’t want enemies to damage each other because that would make some fights trivial and subject to cheese. Instead, it should have been hardcoded that enemies standing behind other enemies won’t swing, or if their queued attack would hit another enemy, they won’t do it. You might still be able to cheese encounters by just fighting dudes in a narrow hallway, but it’s still better than what we got. Sometimes the overlap is so severe that you just spend a lot of time blocking or just dodging and not fighting back, which is sort of boring. This is the time where most players meet their first blacksmith and if you like your weapon you upgrade it. Someone like me likes to keep stuff for a rainy day, so I always feel bad when I upgrade a weapon I don’t know I’ll keep. Baller Swag is such a cool sword that I liked it and made an exception and actually used it later in the game again. Of course you can use your starting weapon the entire game with sufficient upgrades, and you can even sort of transform it and change it back and switch it around. The weapon system is both flexible and annoying. There are a dizzying amount of weapon types all with their own strengths and weaknesses. You can just go full physical and not have much trouble for the entire game, though. To be the most efficient with a bunch of different weapons for differing situations is highly unrecommended though. Mainly because the game would like you to focus on one weapon and have mastery of that one for most if not all of the game. The combat system is indeed deep enough to facilitate this. Adventurous players will know so many moves and even players who aren’t so keen will find that the moves the game teaches you is enough as well.

At this point in the game, I was lost. My friend gave me some advice and told me where to go. You actually get a key somewhere in the level but who the hell remembers every locked door they’ve come across in this game? This key could open any door in the game. The key drops are really obscure and don’t make much sense. Organically, you’d ask the guy at Firelink where to go and would remember he said to go below so you’d end up going down to a stage where you’d be underlevelled for. If you’d grabbed the master key as a starting gift you can actually just start opening all the doors and be kind of overwhelmed where to go. Now that I think about it, if you didn’t explicitly know where to go you could get quite lost. Eventually players find their way and get to fight through lower undead burg. This level is super short and there’s a boss at the end. This is the cheapest boss in the game. For some reason they decided to make the boss room really tiny. There is no other boss room like this in the game, it is so small. The adds here are also abysmal. They’re quick and eat at your stamina if you block, the boss has such wide swings that do so much damage to also eat your stamina or just hit you outright. This fight might be considered the antithesis of the rest of the game. If you stand at the beginning and just block your stamina will get eaten and then get slammed by the boss. Alternatively, you can try to fight the adds but then the boss will slam you. Pretty much the only way to reliably fight this using melee is to run at such a specific angle to the back of the room and then kill the adds to get a proper chance at the boss. That is if the game’s wonky hitboxes don’t get you first. Though it might be because my game was modded to run on 60fps because PC Master Race. The game was built to run on 30.Pathing to the next area after the boss is quite organic. There’s even a second shortcut back to Firelink, which is amazing. There are only two moments like this in the game. Subject to your tolerance level with the game, though.

The Depths is a bit of a maze. Well, a lot of a maze, it’s quite mentally taxing to map this area in your head. It’s pretty short though but there are these enemies called the Basilisks that terrify me. I mean it when I say I’ve never died to them in a run. They can inflict a status effect called curse that transcends death and halves your HP upon respawn. This can only be cured with an item or by a specific NPC. There’s a mini-boss here that’s a giant rat that the level is built around its ‘cage’. It is kind of cool to get a shock the first time you see it, realise it’s safe to proceed and then spend the entire level wondering which door or path will lead to fighting it. The actual boss of this area is the Gaping Dragon, you can cut its tail off and honestly doesn’t put much of a fight. He’s so big that not all of him fits on-screen so it’s tremendously difficult to read. Maybe that’s why he only has two attacks, stand up and lunge forward and spew acid all over the floor. I beat this boss the first time and one of my Twitch viewers called me legit pro. It was my SGT from work.

Now onto the area everyone loves to hate Blighttown. I hate it as well, but for different reasons. Mosquitoes are the worst in real life, and they’re the worst in this game. Like the depths this place is a maze, but it’s a vertical maze as well as a horizontal one, so it’s really mentally taxing. There are these blowdart dudes that throw toxic at you, which is like poison but 10 times worse because it ticks forever. They die in one hit and don’t respawn. You’d think that once you get to the bottom there’d be a nice bonfire, but no. There’s this really huge poison lake that just gives you poison when you stand on it. What I did was run all around the lake and used up all my estus and antidotes and then found the bonfire when I had like a sliver of health left and poisoned, it was quite exciting. The lesson here was to come back later when you’re sufficiently geared up, especially with a certain ring that makes it so you aren’t slow while wading through the muck. So because I was out of the moss that heals poison, I had to trek all the way back up to Firelink to go to a secret area. Thankfully there’s a shortcut and a key to easily get back to Firelink through Valley of Drakes & New Londo Ruins.

After some parkour through the top of Firelink, there’s a crow’s nest. Interacting with the crow’s nest and waiting a little will make the crow from the beginning of the game pick you up and fly you back to the tutorial area, Undead Asylum. What’s changed is that there’s a ton of hollows with fire sticks that do a rush attack that does a ton of damage. It could kill players, honestly, especially 2 of them. Killed by hollows would be embarrassing. After going back to where I fought the Asylum Demon, the floor gives way and there’s a fight with another boss called the Stray Demon, which is the same as his Asylum brother but with magic. The cool thing is this boss has actually been here all along, after leaving the cell where you start the game if you pan the camera facing right you can see him bumbling about in the cellar, which must be crazy scary for a new player. The stupid thing about this fight is that you have to take fall damage from the ground giving way to get a shot at the boss, if you panic and heal the boss smacks you and would probably kill you because you’re already at half HP. The AOE magic he does is also surprisingly misleading, the hitbox is way bigger than it looks and it lingers for a little, which feels very anime. My boss might have bugged out because he just kept doing his AOE move over and over as I ran in and out hitting him. Other than that, there are 2 Black Knights to fight and some new loot. Namely, the Peculiar Doll which is used for something later on. I came here to get the Rusted Iron Ring to navigate Blighttown easier. The Black Knights here also taught me something, the hard knockdown some enemies are capable of is downright cheap. There’s no movement available to the player so they might just hit you again as you’re standing up and there’s no way to avoid that damage, which might result in death. Most likely a death. It gets even more irritating later on in the game. I got back to Blighttown the same way, I came up. The crow takes you back to Firelink the same way after the tutorial. Snuggly the crow is also here, you can drop things at her nest and she gives something else after a load screen.

Blighttown annoyed me so much that I looked up a guide on how to get to the boss of the area without using any moss to clear the poison, because I had no more moss. This boss is sort of interesting, she throws lava around which stays on the floor so my first instinct was to sort of keep my distance because half the arena was covered. The lava doesn’t last quite so long but she has other moves like some sort of laser sword. This sword has some insane range, so my next instinct was to stay close to her. I might have spoiled myself because I actually got this advice to fight close to her off the internet. Depending on how closely you follow this advice it might actually change your entire outlook on the game. All this time I’ve been waiting to hit enemies during their recovery frames after their swing; What I should have been doing is taking the initiative and gone on the offensive and use the invincible frames from the roll or put up my shield right before their swing. Okay, actually, I think most of the time I’ve been parrying before this boss. It’s actually the first boss that I was somewhat appropriately levelled for. Other than the fact I had soft cap on DEX, most people should have a +5 weapon by this boss which is where most of the damage comes from. But I’m insane so I farmed till my sword was +10 after my trip for the ring. Advice about going on the offensive would stick with me through the rest of the game. Two-handed my weapon, started rolling and never looked back; Unless it was an enemy I could cheese by parrying. After sticking to her like white on rice I beat her, she guards the second Bell of Awakening.

After ringing the bell there’s a cutscene that shows a gate opening and where it is relative to the Undead Parish. You can actually go to this unopened gate a lot earlier and meet an NPC that’s rather ho-hum about being stuck. I progressed a little further towards a map called the Demon Ruins. I asked a friend who was online at the time if I’m going the right there and they were like ‘Naw, head to the gate you just opened’. This second trek up from the bottom of Blighttown was straight up excruciating, it’s never easy because of all the damn mosquitoes. The big gate unlocks Sen’s Fortress. You may or may not have heard about this area before. I remember it being called ‘most rage-inducing area’, ‘bullshit stage’, ‘cheap level’ and other stuff. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad, I wouldn’t go through it again, but it wasn’t that bad. From’s thinking behind this area was a sort of ‘house of traps’ and indeed there are a ton of traps to avoid and stuff, but that’s not the bad part about the level. To me, the worst was trying to map it internally. It’s winding and vertical and also quite sprawling and you think there are different sections but there actually aren’t. The trick is to just not rush through the stage. The only bullshit part about this level is that there’s this mechanism at the top which knocks boulders down hallways Indiana Jones style. You can turn the mechanism so the boulder goes down a different hallway or just make it so it shoots out the building onto some poor unsuspecting sap below. But it doesn’t stay that way. After I made sure the boulders were shooting outside, I died, so when I went back to the boulder room I thought I’d be safe. No dice. Got rekt. What the fuck. Seriously, the fuck. There’s actually been some research done on this, there is nothing that moves this mechanism. There is no in-game reason for this to track the player, not even the sneaky snake men that populate the level. Another thing in this level that gets people is the mimic. Standard JRPG, if you asked me, a chest with a trap. I’ve known about this beforehand and was attacking every chest since the start of the game so it didn’t get me. Like with the rest of the level, it isn’t that bad. It’s really out of place which I think is supposed to give away the fact that it’s a mimic. Some of the things they ask of the player are a bit… out there, for sure. I’m not sure how many playtests were conducted specifically for the mimic, but maybe they concluded something like ‘if 7/10 players fall for this, it’s good’. Maybe they expect only 3 out of 10 players to infer that it’s dangerous, and the rest learn the lesson from death? Or maybe they wanted to opposite and 7 players should be able to tell it is dangerous. There are no stats on deaths to the first mimic and I’m not even sure if From did playtests, so it’s hard to definitively tell how much thought was actually put into this first introductory mimic. Of course, I know the devs put a lot of thought into it, but whether it was Miyazaki (Dark Souls Game Director) going ‘Do this, this and that, if they die too bad’ or ‘Let’s see how people who don’t know manage to figure it out and then tweak’ can’t be determined. Each death the game gives you is designed to be a learning experience. In that sense, the developers manage to get away with a lot. Death is especially annoying in this area because of all the traps you have to run through once again. That, and the fucking magic tracking boulder.

Once I go to the top of the building I expected all the nonsense to be over and a bonfire. Not so fast, says the game, and I get napalm’d. I didn’t die from that but I did walk back down to the safety of the building. There’s a giant on a nearby tower that chucks firebombs down to the player’s location. You can run past the bombs as they set fire to the platform behind you. I ran till I fought another hollow NPC and a heavy knight. Much to my dismay there was no bonfire. At this point, I’m in disbelief, there’s no way there isn’t a bonfire up here, no way the game is going to make me go through the funhouse again. Sure enough, there is a bonfire, but it’s hidden. There’s a crack in the buttresses that the character is able to fall off onto a little outcropping with the bonfire on it. How I’m supposed to notice it when there’s a giant attempting to nuke me, I’ll never figure out. But I suppose it fits with the theme of the area, traps, and misdirection or whatever. I don’t know whether to commend the game for its dedication to fucking with me right till the end or to hate it for not giving me a simple bonfire. The bonfire’s location was discovered through the internet, in my case. There was no way I was going through the area from the bottom again. If only the boulder didn’t track, it would be tolerable. Iron Golem is the boss of this area. His moves are a bit anime like the Stray Demon, he can swing his axe and create a mini tornado in an area. This fight is sort of easy, just stay behind his feet and hit his ankles. Only, the boss has this grab where he reaches between his legs to try and grab the player, but the hitbox on this move is hella wonky. The first time he used it I was nowhere near his hand but he straight-up force pulled me into his grip. When I noticed this move in subsequent fights, I made sure to give it a wide berth. There is only one thing after the boss, a dead end. That, and a little white circle on the ground. When I interacted with it… White flying demons kidnapped me and brought me to Anor Londo.

Anor Londo is this medieval city with a giant castle/palace/fortress in the middle. It’s sort of walled off from the rest of the world, the walls might actually be the tallest buildings in the city. Being introduced to it by way of gargoyle was a little jarring, I would have still been impressed even without the flyby. Since you get dropped off at the top of the stairs at the top of the wall and then walk down a large flight to get into the city proper, it’s quite the sight. A few of the NPCs have talked about Anor Londo, ‘City of Sunlight’, ‘Land of the Gods’ are some of the titles for the place. It’s certainly very different from everywhere else in the game, it is very clean. There are these new enemies that are basically giant knights, they can be taken care of in the same way as the Iron Golem. Later on I got so good at fighting them I could roll between their legs during their attack animation, which was very satisfying. The mimics also make a return in this are, quite commonly in fact. By this point, the player might not know about the mimics though. These Giant Knights actually guard one or two of them, but they’re passive until you get pretty close. If you’re like me you hoard your souls so I ran straight to where the bonfire was (I was paranoid so I googled where it was). In retrospect the bonfire location was pretty obvious. I suppose this might be a better mimic introduction since the bonfire is right next to the enemy. Proceeding left from the bonfire there’s this area that looks like it’s mirrored from the right of the bonfire, so I expected another set of stairs leading up somewhere and sure enough, there was. Only there was this magic barrier that didn’t let me pass. Which is a bit weird that the game blocked off content like that. It apparently is ‘Sealed by the Great King’s Power’.

Earlier in the playthrough, after ringing the second bell, scaling up from Blighttown brought me back to Firelink. Much to my surprise, there was this weird looking smiley face, and I got so scared I hid behind a wall because I thought he was just going to eat me or something. Hiding, I texted my friend ‘WTF IS THAT CREEPY THING IN FIRELINK?!’, he told me it was friendly. Spoke to it, he introduced himself as Kingseeker Frampt and told me I was supposed to succeed Lord Gwyn. Whatever, dude still creeps me out. He’s also the only NPC in the game that will buy things from you, well, he’ll eat things you give him and poop souls out back to you. Other than that he can break bigger titanite stones into smaller ones by, I don’t know, gnashing them. The snake also gives exposition for the first time in the game. It’s also the player’s first solid goal since Oscar back in the Asylum. To be honest, you might not even notice the snake, depending on how you progress through the game. This just happens to be the way things played out for me.

There’s only one place to go from the Fire Keeper’s bonfire. Ahead there’s an automatic elevator, and at the bottom there’s a Bell Gargoyle, just one. This guy actually hit me more than the bosses from earlier in the game. Then, dead-end. Well, it’s more of a sheer drop than a dead end. I had to run around quite a bit before I finally figured out the way to go. At the bottom of the elevator, there’s a supporting structure of a nearby… flying buttress. Proceeding into the adjacent building, there are these dudes in all white with a gap for their eyes. Finally, a chance to practise my parrying again. From has this insistence on having an area where you have to sort of tight rope on a really narrow platform. This is that area of the game. It doesn’t really bother me because I played a ton of 3D platformers back on the PS3, but some people really dislike these sorts of areas. Oh please. This section is fine because there’s no nonsense shooting the player from the sides, unlike Sen’s Fortress. In the middle of the church is a big hanging chandelier, like an idiot I jumped on it hoping to ride all the way down, I died and it just dropped down. It was then that I figured out that you’re supposed to hit the chain at the top and let it fall. Outside is the elevator to complete the bridge where the gargoyle was, it can lower even further to another bonfire. Behind the big statue here is covenant if you have the ring or kill a certain NPC. I did not do this. Back in the far wall of the church there’s this giant painting, walking close to it triggers a cinematic and brings the player to…

The Painted World of Ariamis. You can only get here if you went back to the asylum and picked up the doll from your cell, so it’s kind of a hidden area. It’s actually a hidden area hidden behind another hidden area if you think about it. Which is really admirable of the devs to conceal content like this. On the one hand you want your players to see all the hard work of every part of the game, but on the other they also want us to figure things out for ourselves. But I suppose if you’re used to RPG games you always want to explore so you’re a little ahead of the power curve for the main storyline. At least, that’s me, because I like to see everything. This area was actually the demo for the game that the team used to pitch to higher-ups. Unfortunately, after the rest of the game was made they didn’t quite know where to put it, that might be why it is so well hidden. It really contrasts against the rest of the world, because it’s snowing. The area is actually a lot like undead burg/parish with it’s hidden areas and shortcuts that loop back to the one central bonfire. I actually don’t like this area because it has one enemy that explodes when you kill it that gives you toxic. Which is nonsense. I figured out that my sword was so long that if I stabbed them with the very tip of the hitbox they will die without poisoning me so, it was alright. More often than not I just ran past all of them. There’s a ton of level mechanics in this area. Hidden walls, invasion NPC, shortcuts, tons of loot. But I suppose being the game demo they tried to cram as much mechanics as they could into one area. Once everything’s unlocked it’s a literal straight shot to the boss door. Though, guarding the bridge there’s this Undead Dragon that looks seriously menacing. The actual combat loop for this particular enemy is really boring and repetitive though. It sort of sprays this poison onto the floor that you have to run away from, so you just run around hitting it before it has a chance to spray that area. Other than that there are these bird people that have a really wonky hitbox for their insta-kill grab attack, but that might be true for all the enemies in the game. 30fps vs 60fps might also be the cause but I can’t confirm. Towards the end of the stage is another Heavy Knight but this guy actually respawns. Initially I killed him and went back to the bonfire to ‘cash in’ my souls. Imagine my surprise when I went back and had to fight him again. The boss of this area was originally intended to be the player character or one of the player characters you’re able to make. Which is interesting because she’s some sort of half-dragon. The mechanics of this boss are really interesting because she turns invisible as soon as you aggro her. Watching her footprints in the snow is a good indicator of roughly where she is though. Or shooting an arrow into her face as the first attack. Her tail can be cut, which is tremendously difficult considering she’s invisible. I guess I could have used an arrow to shoot her butt, but I only discovered the arrow trick after the fact. Your character takes an Assassin’s Creed Leap of Faith to leave the area.

Back to Anor Londo. There’s a whole other half area to explore. More of the giant dudes to fight that were initially introduced. Progressing further there are the demons to fight that initially carried the player here. Due to their floaty jump and their attacks moving such a long distance, I still have trouble killing them. Thankfully they die quite easily when I rush them down. There’s an area here that everyone seems to hate where you have to navigate along a narrow path and a pair of knights shoot you with Dragonslayer Arrows. Seriously, the bow and arrows they use are as tall as they are! The danger of being hit by these is other than the tremendous damage done it knocks you off into an instant death. I actually had no trouble with this area and couldn’t understand what the big deal was. Once reaching the end of the path there’s a part of the map that breaks LOS so they both can’t shoot you at once. Now, if one of them could fire at the player while fighting the other one, I understand how this area could be annoying. After the archers we’re in the castle proper. More mimics, more silver knights carrying different weapons. There’s a hidden area in the basement with a lot of good loot but it’s pretty easy to find the hidden door. In one of the rooms, there’s one of those Headless Demons that inexplicably has 10 times more HP than every other one. You can also meet your old friend the Onion Knight. He gives a ring. The final section of this area is a gigantic hall with more giant knights and dragonslayer archers. Off to the side, there’s a giant blacksmith that can turn ordinary weapons into really awesome boss weapons if you give them their soul. Me, being an idiot, didn’t have the soul of Sif that I needed for the sword I wanted. I wanted to save going there till after I got the Lordvessel which is the reward from the bosses of this area. That’s right, this area has 2 bosses. 2 bosses in one fight.

Everyone knows this fight by now, it is steeped in infamy. None other than Dragonslayer Ornstein & Executioner Smough. Initially I had a really cheesy tactic and managed to take one of them down to see the others’ super phase. He then impaled me with lightning and I died. A lot of the issue with this fight is that enemies can strike through each other. You’d be looking at Smough who can completely occlude Ornstein, but because Ornstein’s lance is so long he can poke you through his buddy. That’s honestly bullshit. It should have been hardcoded so they couldn’t do that. Logically it makes sense, why would he stab through his friend? Ornstein also has this really buggy dash move where he sort of zig-zags toward your location and swings his lance. When I say buggy I mean this move is downright broken. If it’s a straight shot to the player it’s fine, because he just dashes in a line and swings. But there are so many pillars that actually break his pathing that he ends up just all over the place then swings at you from off-screen. For some inane reason he speeds up each time his pathing breaks. It might be coded into the move to reach the player in a certain time, which is the only reason I can think of that he speeds up. When is pathing breaks, he sort of stands idle for a bit, but then his dash starts right back up, which is the real crux of the problem. The move could have been coded in a way that if there’s no path to the player he can legitimately stop, rather than zig-zag around. Another big gripe I have with this fight is that these two are relentless if it’s not one of them it’s the other and due to that most of the fight feels like just waiting for both of them to not do anything so you can attack the one closest. So I didn’t know about their super phase, and spent all of my estus getting both of them to low HP before finishing one off. It was really deflating when he regenerated to full health after his Bankai. I think I saw the super phase for each of them at least once.

This fight broke me. Eventually, I just stopped playing. I couldn’t do it. I realised that I needed to git gud. I could have gone out back out of Anor Londo to the rest of the world and gotten the sword I wanted, but I convinced myself that this was the only way out. I did not want to go back through Sen’s Fortress… I hadn’t heard about the shortcut. What to do if you want to be better, without actually playing Dark Souls? I played Bloodborne.