I just want to talk about Dark Souls...

[Dirty Hipsters]

Hey all, I just felt like talking about Dark Souls (well, all the souls games actually), and there hasn't been a front page topic about any of the Souls games in Gaming Discussion for a while so I figured "eh, why not?" and decided to make one. No really direction to this, I'll just start talking and anyone is free to steer the conversation anywhere they want and talk about anything they want, so long as it's Souls series related (hell, maybe even Bloodborne, what do I care?).

So, to start, I'm currently playing all the souls games concurrently and doing so has really made me realize some interesting things about them that I never noticed before when playing them separately.

1. The boss fights in demons souls are ass. Visually they're cool, but mechanically speaking they're kind of a joke. All of them are easy, yes even flamelurker and the maneaters. None of the bosses punish healing. If you have grass you can pretty much chomp it at any point in the fight and not worry about the boss retaliating during your healing animation. This is the second time I'm going through Demons Souls, and I have yet to die on a single boss, what's up with that? I'm running through Dark Souls 2 with a caestus only build and I died to Pursuer 6 times.

2. I really like Dark Souls 2 from a mechanical standpoint. I'm using a dual caestus build right now and it's soo much fun. I love the fact that any weapon is totally viable. Thinking about doing a ladle run after this. Whenever I was playing Dark Souls 1 I always felt like there where certain weapons that I just favored so much more than others, like certain weapons were totally unusable to me, and Dark Souls 2 doesn't feel like that at all. I feel like I can grab any weapon and use it confidently which is really cool.

3. I'm also playing through Dark Souls 1 again, though this one I'm doing much more slowly and methodically than the other 2 (partly because this is the first time I'm playing through the DLC), and I've noticed that there actually aren't very many boss fights I really like. Ornstein and Smough are obviously a standout, as are the bosses in the DLC, and gaping dragon and Quelaag are visually amazing, but a lot of the other boss fights just aren't that great. Many of them are very challenging, but part of the challenge is that the bosses are just huge and the camera doesn't like cooperating with me. It's difficult to roll an attack when you lock on to some of the bigger bosses because you end up having no idea where your character is in relation to them, and if you don't lock on you can't see some of their attacks. Wish they'd fix their camera for Bloodborne, but from the gameplay trailers it doesn't look like it.

4. The Quelagg and Najka boss fights are actually nothing alike. Quelaag and Najka have very similar visual designs, but I actually don't think they share a single attack in common. Quelaag doesn't have a tail, so Najka's tail attacks are unique to her, Quelaag doesn't have magic so Najka's magic attacks are also unique to her, and Najka can tunnel underground, which Quelaag cannot do. At the same time Quelaag has constant fire damage on her weapon, which Najka doesn't, and Quelaag has area denial with her lava, which Najka doesn't have. Hell, even their melee attacks are totally different with Quelaag using slashes and Najka favoring stabs. It actually kind of bothers me now that people complain about Najka just being Quelaag 2.0 considering they fight nothing alike.

 

[Frezzato]

I recently decided to give Demon's Souls another shot, and I honestly can't stand it. There are aspects to it that are just so fucking aggravating I can't stand it. And it has nothing to do with the difficulty.

What was it that finally drove me to stop playing? The idiotic voicework that constantly plays every time you talk to someone in the Nexus. Every damn time I go to deposit/withdraw inventory, it's "Oh! I was worried about you blah blah blah." And when people are talking to you you're blocked from all other actions like talking to someone else, accessing your inventory, and even hitting the start button. It wouldn't be so bad if the characters actually had more than two lines, but they don't. And it sucks. Because every action takes 10 seconds to complete. It drove me bonkers.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like Skyrim is much better (dead eyes!) but at least I can access my inventory or go into my house every time I hear the arrow-in-the-knee guy start blabbing.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I recently decided to give Demon's Souls another shot, and I honestly can't stand it. There are aspects to it that are just so fucking aggravating I can't stand it. And it has nothing to do with the difficulty.

What was it that finally drove me to stop playing? The idiotic voicework that constantly plays every time you talk to someone in the Nexus. Every damn time I go to deposit/withdraw inventory, it's "Oh! I was worried about you blah blah blah." And when people are talking to you you're blocked from all other actions like talking to someone else, accessing your inventory, and even hitting the start button. It wouldn't be so bad if the characters actually had more than two lines, but they don't. And it sucks. Because every action takes 10 seconds to complete. It drove me bonkers.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like Skyrim is much better (dead eyes!) but at least I can access my inventory or go into my house every time I hear the arrow-in-the-knee guy start blabbing.

All you have to do is hit X to skip their dialogue. Seriously, it's not a big deal (although the Maiden in Black will always do her chant when you're leveling up since she does it in the background under the menu where you can't mash X). But yeah, the voice work in Demons Souls is not what one would call "good." Especially with some characters, like Freke's Apprentice, who not only sound bad but are annoyingly smug assholes.

 

[Frezzato]

All you have to do is hit X to skip their dialogue. Seriously, it's not a big deal (although the Maiden in Black will always do her chant when you're leveling up since she does it in the background under the menu where you can't mash X). But yeah, the voice work in Demons Souls is not what one would call "good." Especially with some characters, like Freke's Apprentice, who not only sound bad but are annoyingly smug assholes.

I swear I must have mashed every button every time somebody started talking, at least the first 50 times. I can't stand exposition or unnecessarily flowery/excessive/repetitive dialogue, and Demon's Souls...ugh.

It's not all complaints though. I like how you can basically kill everything, like when I found out you could kill the red dragon from the tower at Boletarian Palace. As soon as I found that out I bought 300 crossbow bolts and headed straight for the bridge.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

I found that with the largest bosses Dark Souls you dont even need to lock onto them, theyre so big that you dont really need to move the camera much to find them

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I've never played Demon Souls, so I have no comments on that game.

I've enjoyed Dark Souls II more than the first one, at least from a gameplay stand-point. It feel smoother to me, and I like that fact that I can carry so many more things now. Allows me to switch between many different fighting styles depending on the situation.
Have you tried using the Claws or duel whips? Because I find that those two options aren't all that great for a lot of fights, even though I think they're the most fun to use. Something about snapping two whips against an enemy is just so much fun. Too bad it barely does any damage it seems.

Have you tried the DLC for Dark Souls II yet? I loved both of them, although I'm curious as to who the other woman was that The Old Iron King fell in love with. I kind of thought it was The Lost Sinner, seeing as that's where the other bell tower is, but I didn't really find anything in the DLC to support that. I did however find my new favorite sword. Artorias for the WIN! Now if only they had given me a non-corrupted version of his armor...

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I've never played Demon Souls, so I have no comments on that game.

I've enjoyed Dark Souls II more than the first one, at least from a gameplay stand-point. It feel smoother to me, and I like that fact that I can carry so many more things now. Allows me to switch between many different fighting styles depending on the situation.
Have you tried using the Claws or duel whips? Because I find that those two options aren't all that great for a lot of fights, even though I think they're the most fun to use. Something about snapping two whips against an enemy is just so much fun. Too bad it barely does any damage it seems.

Have you tried the DLC for Dark Souls II yet? I loved both of them, although I'm curious as to who the other woman was that The Old Iron King fell in love with. I kind of thought it was The Lost Sinner, seeing as that's where the other bell tower is, but I didn't really find anything in the DLC to support that. I did however find my new favorite sword. Artorias for the WIN! Now if only they had given me a non-corrupted version of his armor...

Eh, claws aren't really my style. I've tried whips but didn't particularly like them. I have a +5 poison infused spotted whip, and while it's pretty good I still kind of regret wasting so many dragon bones on it. When you dual-wield whips do they have a special powerstance moveset and if so is it any good?

I haven't played the DLCs yet. I kind of want to wait until they're all out to play through them, maybe even wait til they're on sale. It's not that I don't want to play them I just don't have a huge influx of cash at the moment.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I own Demon's Souls and Dark Souls.

My girlfriend and I decided to try to play Demon's Souls together (Note for interested parties: BIG MISTAKE), and it's been a rather slow process because of that. I played Dark Souls before it, but I prefer it in a lot of ways.

The first of which being the Nexus

Holy shit, that is quite possibly my favorite area in any game. When I first got to the Nexus I just spent who knows how long roaming around exploring it. This area, the Archstones (particularly the broken one at the front), sigils, and massive statues really helped draw me into the game. It felt like everything in there suggested something about the world.

Err... the rest of the game's nice too I guess

I really liked Dark Souls as well. It's got a very interesting interconnected world. There were a number of times I'd see a castle, ruins, or some interesting feature far in the background and note "Huh, that place looks interesting, shame I can't see any way of getting there", only to stumble upon the area some number of hours later completely unexpectedly. Because of this nothing felt like a backdrop, everything I saw was something realized.

Also a fan of the general aesthetic, something that's regrettably been turning me off a bit from getting Dark Souls 2. Many of the creatures in Dark Souls had a dark, grotesque beauty to them. I see similar things attempted before, but this was the one of the first times that it looked right to me.

The combat I was a bit more polarized on though. I liked the melee combat a lot, it's methodical and gives you a lot of control over your character. Having been in a rut of games with combat like Assassin's Creed's before this, it was a nice change. I'm not a big fan of the combat feeling like it's on rails: Point roughly at an enemy and push a sequence of buttons to initiate some sort of combo.

The magic and ranged combat was what I had an issue with. It just wasn't nearly as fun or calculating as the melee. The animations were pretty dull, and it was just too slow for my liking.

I recently decided to give Demon's Souls another shot, and I honestly can't stand it. There are aspects to it that are just so fucking aggravating I can't stand it. And it has nothing to do with the difficulty.

What was it that finally drove me to stop playing? The idiotic voicework that constantly plays every time you talk to someone in the Nexus. Every damn time I go to deposit/withdraw inventory, it's "Oh! I was worried about you blah blah blah." And when people are talking to you you're blocked from all other actions like talking to someone else, accessing your inventory, and even hitting the start button. It wouldn't be so bad if the characters actually had more than two lines, but they don't. And it sucks. Because every action takes 10 seconds to complete. It drove me bonkers.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like Skyrim is much better (dead eyes!) but at least I can access my inventory or go into my house every time I hear the arrow-in-the-knee guy start blabbing.

Can't help but agree with you on the voice work. It's appallingly bad. It's worse in Dark Souls, half the time I couldn't hear what someone was saying because of the echo in their helmet or it was just too damn quiet to hear over the music

 

[Casual Shinji]

Don't get me wrong, it's not like Skyrim is much better (dead eyes!) but at least I can access my inventory or go into my house every time I hear the arrow-in-the-knee guy start blabbing.

The problem there being though that they'd start talking to you if you came within a 10-foot radius.

I was never too bothered by the voice work in Demon's/Dark Souls. The characters are all trapped in this hellish apocalypse, so it's no surprise they're a bit weird, and I think this comes across well in the voice acting (whether deliberate or not).

 

[SmallHatLogan]

I'd imagine a lot of the bosses in Demon's Souls are probably pretty damn challenging to those unfamiliar with the series. As someone who played Dark Souls first though I did find quite a few of them underwhelming. On my first playthrough I pretty much curb stomped about half of them on my first try.

Can I tell you my Storm King story? Well I'm going to. For those of you who haven't played Demon's Souls one of the worlds has a lot of cliff faces you have to traverse while being attacked by these flying sting ray things that shoot harpoons at you. The only way to kill them is with ranged attacks, which I was doing with my trusty bow. You eventually get to a boss, the Storm King. Essentially the brood mother to all these things. It's gigantic, and it also has a bunch of its babies with it. What's my first instinct? Use my bow, after all I've been using it through the whole level. I pick off all the sting rays one by one, then I set my sights on the Storm King. It seems to be following a very simple flight path and only fires harpoons from one direction which I'm easily able to avoid by hiding behind a conveniently placed rock near the entrance to the arena. The boss goes down very easily (albeit a bit slowly) and I'm left feeling pretty "meh". I make my way down through the boss area only to find a sword that has a crazy, magical ranged attack. I come to a realisation: I've cheesed the boss without even realising it. I thought the boss was unusually easy, and it was, because I fought it wrong. That in itself wouldn't necessarily be the game's fault, except the preceding level had trained me to do it that way.

I have to say I felt cheated.

 

[LostCrusader]

I just recently started a new play through of Dark Souls 2 after having tried pretty much any unique version of caster that I could think of, and tried a couple of tank builds. So I decided to try a straight mundane build and I keep going back and forth on loving and hating it.

Also, maybe its just my memory messing with me but it always seems like the loot drops know exactly what I want and will not it to me. I ended up needing a second mundane stone and farmed one of the 2 monsters that can drop them besides lizards into extinction and didn't get a single one.

 

[default]

Meh, guess I'll weigh in.

I've just about finished a Soul Level 1 run in Dark Souls. If you know what you're doing and have played the game to death like I have (500 hours and counting), I strongly recommend it. It feels like playing through the game for the first time again, and everything that challenged you at first that became a breeze over time is now coming full circle to bite you again, even harder. It's also so intensely satisfying killing bosses after dying and readjusting your loadout thirty times. Also, being able to invade anyone, anywhere and anytime. I'm really enjoying going to wierd, out of the way parts of the map and seeing who I can find. You really get to see the whole spectrum of Souls players, it's very interesting. The limits staying at SL1 force upon you are a really thoughtful challenge.


I also strongly recommend trying to play with the aggression mod on. It sets the AI's resting point at your character, and once you load an area they start wandering around on wierd pathing routes. It breathes crazy new life into the game. Things are never where they are meant to be, the enemies can ambush you in the wierdest places and you can see some truly strange behaviour.


I also recently bought a cheap PS3 for Demon's Souls and a couple of other games (birthday money). I really love some aspects of Demon's Souls. The atmosphere, mood and aesthetic are fantastic. The combat animations are very stylish and flashy and feel great to use. The gameplay is still damn good, but it's very simplified (compared to DaS) and can feel a little stiff at times. The areas are very interesting and engaging, and there are some really stand out emotional moments. I haven't quite finished it yet. I've sort of run out on steam for it at the moment, but I'll definitely get back to it soon. I have a few criticisms of it, but I'll think about those and play the game a little more before talking about them.


Dark Souls 2 on the other hand... meh, I like it, but it just does not stand up to the other games in any way in my opinion. It's still a great game in its own right, and it did some things very well, but overall it just pales in comparison to its older brother.

You can really tell it had no passion or focused creative vision like you could see in the other two. The aesthetic is bland and shitty and shallow and all over the place, the gameplay is slow and gluggy, there's no crispness and speed to the combat and movement anymore, the characters are pointless and unengaging, the world and levels are for the most part very boring... I mean, that being said, I've still put about 120 hours into the game, so that has to mean something. There is a nice sort of slow-moving flow to the PvP, and there are a lot of very cool weapons that are all very fun to use, and the animations are great.


Those are my current thoughts on Souls.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Eh, claws aren't really my style. I've tried whips but didn't particularly like them. I have a +5 poison infused spotted whip, and while it's pretty good I still kind of regret wasting so many dragon bones on it. When you dual-wield whips do they have a special powerstance moveset and if so is it any good?

I haven't played the DLCs yet. I kind of want to wait until they're all out to play through them, maybe even wait til they're on sale. It's not that I don't want to play them I just don't have a huge influx of cash at the moment.

The claws I use only because I didn't use them in other runs and they're fast, but man, come up against anything with armor and forget about it.

The whips do have a special two-handed stance, which is why I like using them. It feels very natural in the way you flow with them, but the problem is the same with the claws. The damage output is just so low--even compared to a a regular sword--that it's hard to justify using them. I too have a plus five Spotted Whip, as well as a plus ten Bloodied Whip (don't ask how long it took to get one of those), and while the poison does help, some enemies are immune. The Old Whip does serious damage, and if you can get two then they become reasonable, but their durability is so freaking low that they're only good for three or four fights before they run the risk of breaking.

Waiting until they're all out is a good idea, seeing as the last DLC comes out next week. I'm not sure if they're ever go on sale though. At least, not on the PS3 version. If you have the PC version, you may have better luck. I would suggest, when you do get them, giving The Crown of the Old Iron King a shot first because The Magnificent Greatsword (Art's sword, let's be honest here) has its own, completely unique move set--when held in the proper hand.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Eh, claws aren't really my style. I've tried whips but didn't particularly like them. I have a +5 poison infused spotted whip, and while it's pretty good I still kind of regret wasting so many dragon bones on it. When you dual-wield whips do they have a special powerstance moveset and if so is it any good?

I haven't played the DLCs yet. I kind of want to wait until they're all out to play through them, maybe even wait til they're on sale. It's not that I don't want to play them I just don't have a huge influx of cash at the moment.

The claws I use only because I didn't use them in other runs and they're fast, but man, come up against anything with armor and forget about it.

The whips do have a special two-handed stance, which is why I like using them. It feels very natural in the way you flow with them, but the problem is the same with the claws. The damage output is just so low--even compared to a a regular sword--that it's hard to justify using them. I too have a plus five Spotted Whip, as well as a plus ten Bloodied Whip (don't ask how long it took to get one of those), and while the poison does help, some enemies are immune. The Old Whip does serious damage, and if you can get two then they become reasonable, but their durability is so freaking low that they're only good for three or four fights before they run the risk of breaking.

Waiting until they're all out is a good idea, seeing as the last DLC comes out next week. I'm not sure if they're ever go on sale though. At least, not on the PS3 version. If you have the PC version, you may have better luck. I would suggest, when you do get them, giving The Crown of the Old Iron King a shot first because The Magnificent Greatsword (Art's sword, let's be honest here) has its own, completely unique move set--when held in the proper hand.

Yeah, I'm on PC so I expect the DLCs to go on sale eventually (probably during the next steam summer sale if I'm lucky).

As far as the conversation on fist weapons goes, one of the reasons that the caestus are actually really viable is because they do strike damage, making them quite good against armored enemies. With the stone ring on you can even stun them pretty often considering how fast you hit with the powerstance left handed weak attack. I managed to do the ruined sentinels in 2 tries (actually almost did it in one, but I tried to rush the fight and paid for it) because the caestus were actually doing pretty good damage against them. So even though from what I can tell claws have better base damage, the caestus just seem overall better, especially considering their scalings. It's just a pain that you have to level them separately which will probably mean that I won't have 2 +10 caestus by the time I get to drangleic castle.

 

[Nomanslander]

I have mixed feeling for DS2. I like it... or... I'm trying hard to like it because I still feel like its a great game, but then again there's too many glaring flaws in it that's been a pain to forgive. I miss the level design of DS1. I can tell there was a lot of time and energy put into its creation, and that had to be one of my favorite aspects of that game. As for DS2? I get the sense that the developer found himself enjoying DeS more, and deciding his DS would be more like it as in linear game style. Majula might as well be the Nexus considering how we have to keep going back there. And even though all the levels are seamless, they branch off too far from one another to give me that same interconnect sense I got from the first game. I personally didn't like DeS as much, and found DS1 as a massive improvement. Now... it feels like we've gone backwards. Now I know this can all just be me... but still.

Yeah... I'm really trying to like DS2 right now, and it's really not working out all that well. Besides level design, I don't like it'a difficulty either. The first DS difficulty was a lot more methodical: slow in pacing giving you ample amount of time to make either right combat choices, or poor ones. With DS2? It's difficulty is a lot more time based: with the Smelter Demon, I have to roll at this exact time... once... twice... maybe a third time. Attack. Then get far away to replenish my stamina meter. And my timing for all this has to be impeccable or I'm going to get my face smashed in.

Yeah... Personally I find this boring and tedious. I honestly don't like games that forces me to have impeccable timing. DS1 was also about timing, but there was no forcing one to play a certain way. You were allowed to assess a fight and set up your own pace, and you either pulled it off how you wanted to, or you got sloppy. And really... it was all you when you got sloppy, and that is why DS1 - as hard as it was - always felt fair. In DS1, when you lost, you saw how it was your fault, you saw what you did wrong, which lead towards you wanting to do better.

With DS2, this isn't the case.

With this game, sometimes I feel like I'm not even allowed to assess a fight. I try to get distance from an enemy to study them. But then all of a sudden their reach spans the length of the entire level, and I'm forced to block or dodge when I'm no where in the vicinity. Now DS1 had this now and then which always kept me on my toes when dealing with mobs, but with DS2 just about every enemy seems to be able to pull a Stretch Armstrong and knock me back and down to a quarter of health from a different freakin' area code. That and I really feel like the hit boxes are sometimes off; getting hit when I feel like I shouldn't have when I felt like I rolled and blocked at the right time.

I don't know. The Smelter Demon fight really pissed me off. It's a long fight that's constantly got me rolling a bunch of times to avoid his attacks, and giving me only very little amount of time to strike back, only to be forced back to splitting frames, getting the right tempo of when to roll and when not too. And doing it over and over again. God!

After the 35th try, I finally got it right, and I beat him. And you know that feeling of accomplishment that most fights in DS1 gave you? I didn't feel that way after dealing with all that. I felt relief. Relief that I didn't have to deal with that annoying boss for the 36th time. The experience of defeating him made me feel a little hallow inside... really. And turning of the game, or replaying DS1 to remind myself why I fell in love with this series in the first place.

-_-

 

[Windcaler]

I never played demon souls so I cant speak about that.

Dark souls was an artistic masterpiece

Then theres dark souls 2 which I kind of want to talk about and then kind of dont. Ive been avoiding talking about dark souls 2 since it came out. Ive beat the game just one time and I dont really feel a desire to go back to it although I may just need more time with it. Dark souls was a game I could play over and over and over again and never get bored of it but Dark souls 2 doesnt get that same enthusiasm from me. I havnt quite figured out why yet.

I suspect that a game that was originally built around loneliness and changed to be all about multiplayer effects my views but I think it goes deeper then that. Much like the difference between God of War and God of War 2 the Dark souls change in directors has effected the game and made is something...else. Dark souls 2 is not the artistic masterpiece that was Dark souls but to be fair I dont think it was ever going to be the same without Miyazaki leading it. When I played it I felt like Shibuya and Tanimura missed the point. They put in lots of challenges and boss fights which really reflects Shibuya's work on the monster hunter series but I didnt feel like there was a good narrative behind it all which made the game feel less about the world and more about the boss fights. Its probably unrealistic of me to expect dark souls 2 to be at the same level as dark souls but I guess I just expected more from an artistic standpoint.

Something that confounds me is Im known to be rather puritan with games I love and their remakes. In both remakes of X-com: Enemy unknown and Devil may cry I felt like they were imposters wearing masks of those old games. Theres no doubt in my mind that if either game was called something else I would be kinder to them but using the names of past games mean theyre trying to appeal to me as someone who enjoyed those games (if they werent depending on the name to get more sales they would have called it something else). I dont really feel that way for Dark souls 2. Its different but I dont feel like its a worse game, mechanically speaking, but I do feel its a worse game artistically speaking. For me, its like it is and yet isnt dark souls. That probably doesnt make much sense but Im not sure how to put it into words

I think I need more time with dark souls 2 so I can get a clearer picture of it but Im in no rush to go back to it

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Demon's Souls was one of the first modern games that frustrated the shit out of me without being bugged to hell or having a generally shit control scheme. I still feel it was better overall than Dark Souls but maybe thats due to the unique nature it introduced and Dark Souls was just expanding on it. I don't know but I felt more tied to Demon's because it was first. Might also be due to my first run and killing the executioner chick after a harrowing run and getting her awesome armor set (look at least).

EDIT: Forgot the obligatory "Praise the Sun!!!"

 

[Dark Knifer]

I've only played Dark souls 1 but I've had a lot of fun with it. I'm burnt out of it right now with over a hundred hours and plenty of new game pluses but I thoroughly enjoy the mechanics, bosses and background storytelling that encourages exploration and the artorias dlc was remarkable. I had a lot of fun versing Kalameet with my tank build as being able to do that backwards role after blocking with the greatshield is really cool.

It does have flaws though, the infamous ledge in anor londo with the archers and I didn't really like new londo apart from the four kings boss but I've had a good time.

 

[AntiChri5]

I've never played Demon Souls, so I have no comments on that game.

I've enjoyed Dark Souls II more than the first one, at least from a gameplay stand-point. It feel smoother to me, and I like that fact that I can carry so many more things now. Allows me to switch between many different fighting styles depending on the situation.
Have you tried using the Claws or duel whips? Because I find that those two options aren't all that great for a lot of fights, even though I think they're the most fun to use. Something about snapping two whips against an enemy is just so much fun. Too bad it barely does any damage it seems.

Have you tried the DLC for Dark Souls II yet? I loved both of them, although I'm curious as to who the other woman was that The Old Iron King fell in love with. I kind of thought it was The Lost Sinner, seeing as that's where the other bell tower is, but I didn't really find anything in the DLC to support that. I did however find my new favorite sword. Artorias for the WIN! Now if only they had given me a non-corrupted version of his armor...

Eh, claws aren't really my style. I've tried whips but didn't particularly like them. I have a +5 poison infused spotted whip, and while it's pretty good I still kind of regret wasting so many dragon bones on it. When you dual-wield whips do they have a special powerstance moveset and if so is it any good?

Yes, they do, and if you are rocking two poison spotted whips it pretty much instapoisons.

 

[Da_Schwartz]

I tired, i really tried. Im 34 and couldnt resist this generations "Hardcore" flagship game. (yes i remeber when most games were difficult) But Souls has this reputation like its an honor or insta kudos if you are ever to finish the game. But...I dont like it. I love fantasy stuff, i love rpgs, but the game is just a pain in the ass. It's not because its overwhelming difficult. Its no walk in the park mind you, but the fact that combat, skill, patience, preserverance is replaced by simple trial and error really bothers me. No matter how much ass you can be kicking it all comes down to patterns, trial and error, and at later stages spamming health pots. It seems like it was made as a giant FU to anygame with health regen and no checkpoints. "Like hey look how hardcore this is GRRRRR!!" meh whatever. It's cool and all, just not enjoyable.