Dark Souls- PS3, Xbox 360, PC

[Sumez]

The blacksmith in the tower between the Parish, Sen's Fortress and Darkroot.

[Zaarock]

It's pretty irritating you need to keep going to him to upgrade weapons further normally even in the endgame where you have no trouble getting the titanite required.

[Leader Bee]

I enjoyed Sens fortress, the lizardmen are not particularly difficult and you don't have to fight many of them on small walkways either. The iron golem would have been easy for me had he not had the "grab you and kill you in one hit" move.

I cheesed the firebomb throwing golem with arrows and after that I really had no problems with this place (Sayign that i still need to return and finish off the titanite demons on the bottom floor)

So far, blight town had been the shittiest hole i've been in and other than the giant knights in Anor Londo taking a good few hits to kill they're not difficult, just tedious and i've not had any problems in Anor Londo.

[Sumez]

Blighttown is definitely the worst place in the game, and I've played all of it now.

[Elixir]

Blighttown is.. interesting, but it's not like it can't be circumvented entirely once you've gone through it once.

The shortcut between there and Firelink, then Firelink to Depths means I won't be back there.

[CMoon]

Yeah, actually once you've trekked through the depths/blighttown once, you never have to take that route again. I guess if you had the master key you could skip the depths and most of blighttown entirely.

[Sumez]

Yeah, I realised that after finally escaping Blighttown... and I had even been to Valley of Drakes before.

But, unless you only consider the part with the pink humanoids and poison spewing jerks that fortunately don't respawn true "blighttown", believe me you'll be back a lot.
Until I opened the door to the final area, this was the place to farm the leeches for large titanite shards, and I think at this point, it's still the best way to get small titanite shards (through feeding all the green shards you get to Frampt).
And of course, you'll return once you figure it's time to take on Demon Ruins and everything beyond that.
At this point, the area isn't much of a bother at all, though.

[JBC]

I finished Dark Souls a couple of days ago and am a good bit of a ways into my first NewGame+ now. I really love the substantial increase in collected souls, the Darkroot gate exploit I found earlier allots me nearly 30,000 every 2 minutes (When wearing Covetous Silver Serpent). This is great because farming shit isn't fun, even when it's a cheap trick like what I'm using. I'm sort of sad though because I really tore my first playthrough apart and ended up exploring every area in the game. It's sorta left me with only item collecting and equipment leveling left to do. At least the challenge hiked back up to fun levels but I decided to put it away for now.

And go back to Demon's Souls, which I never completed. I spent the better part of the last 24 hours tearing through Demon's Souls with my newly acquired training. I hate to say it but I really think it's the better game. For one, the frame rate in Dark Souls gets f***ed more times than I'm comfortable with and there are too many broken parts like the exploit I mentioned above. Demon's Souls system just seems to work better than Dark's, especially for offline play since I have no internet where I live.

Secondly, the graphics are better. I'm running both of them on PS3 and it blows me away that Dark Souls in 1080p doesn't look nearly as crisp and beautiful as Demon's does at it's maximum 720. Maybe I'm missing something here but if you compare Bolatarian Palace to the Undead Burg Dark Souls looks like a big ole butt. Dark Souls' HUD is also gigantic and obtrusive as fuck. It looks alot better if you turn it off but then you can't survive since glancing at your health & stamina is absolutely vital. It would have been nice of them to include a transparency adjustment option or maybe a fade-in/fade-out setting for both games but at least it doesn't mar the experience as much in Demon's.

Another point I'd like to make is that the controls seem much tighter in Demon's. When I die I always feel like it's my fault but I can't say that for Dark. I actually feel like it has something to do with the framerate chugging when the action heats up. There just no excuse for it and I find myself wondering that if maybe I limit my PS3 to 720 output it could positively affect the game's performance? I'm pretty sure there's a way to do that.

Don't get me wrong, I loved Dark Souls but I have to admit I'm having a helluva lot more fun with Demon's. Maybe it's just the better game for me.

[CMoon]

And suddenly I broke through the wall of difficulty. Gained three levels grinding on silver knights practicing riposte (can you riposte the halberd? I haven't been able to yet, but the sword knights are cake), only to find the smith and get the crystal ring shield (upped it to +5) and now everything basically dies in one hit.

I find it funny people have complained about the drake sword or what not (it helped, but did not break the game), while the CRS might really be game breaking--or at least it does trivialize the difficulty of about everything I've been fighting. Even took out Lautrec with it. Now I'm using ring of fog + slumbering dragon ring to hit everything with this shield and one shot it. Don't think this will work for the boss(es) of Anor Londo, but hey, willing to give it a shot.

Circuitface> I totally understand your complaints, and they are very much real and present. The controls definitely aren't as tight in Dark Souls as they are in Demon's Souls, and there are plenty of other blunders. What Dark Souls has going for it is that giant world; no smaller than Zelda 64, or the likes. I don't know why that scores so high for me, but I think at times I'm more into the world they've made than some of the not-quite-so-perfect combat mechanics. I can only hope with high sales we'll see a third installment that tightens up the problems with this entry.

[alastair jack]

How to find out if they've started a 3rd souls game?

[Sumez]

can you riposte the halberd? I haven't been able to yet, but the sword knights are cake

Yeah, but only when he's swinging it horizontally, not the poke as far as I know.

I don't know how you guys can say the controls were tighter in Demon's Souls. To me it feels like a copy/paste job, which is fine with me. I don't remember the lock-on system or camera causing annoyances as often as it does in Dark Souls, but it's likely I've just repressed those memories.

How to find out if they've started a 3rd souls game?

They made six King's Field/Shadow Tower games between 94 and 2003 (and I guess they only stopped because 'souls replaced them), and have been doing Armored Core non stop since '97, I don't see them stopping the Souls series any time soon - especially considering they've never had more success with anything else.

[iconoclast]

The worst thing about the controls in Dark Souls is how you will occasionally press a button, and nothing will happen. I have absolutely no idea how a bug like that could get through QA.

[Sumez]

I've never had that happen, sure it's not your controller that's screwed?
I like the game's method of queuing actions, so you won't ever miss one because of another animation playing out (which again seems to be exactly the same as in Demon's)

[Leader Bee]

I've had it happen and I think it is a lag/Framerate related issue whereby if you try and input a command when things are a little dicey it might just not register it and you'll have to wait for the lag to go away before trying to do it again.

The lock on system isn't as good as Demons souls either, I have no idea why they changed it but now you can only switch between targets by flicking the left analogue stick, whereas demons souls would switch target the moment you moved it.

[sjewkestheloon]

The worst thing about the controls in Dark Souls is how you will occasionally press a button, and nothing will happen. I have absolutely no idea how a bug like that could get through QA.

I think it's a controller issue. This was happening to me but I also noticed that my shield kept dropping for a split second and then coming back up. In my case it was 360 pad's shonky shoulder buttons. I switched out for my newest controller and then had no problems.

Had an epic battle the other night. I was running up to the fatboy and slim fight in Anor and decided to get some help. Summoned two helpers and started to clear out the enemies on the approach. Then we got invaded.

Guy threw a dung bomb at us and then started using all of the knights and giants as decoys. I ended up using every estus flask to keep us alive through the fight leaving no heals for the boss. After a taking out skinny one of our guys croaked it but me and the other guy destroyed fat boy in the end with only one break to pop a humanity item for some healing.

Was very exciting!

[Elixir]

They made six King's Field/Shadow Tower games between 94 and 2003 (and I guess they only stopped because 'souls replaced them), and have been doing Armored Core non stop since '97, I don't see them stopping the Souls series any time soon - especially considering they've never had more success with anything else.

They need to finish making Dark Souls first.

[Sumez]

I've had it happen and I think it is a lag/Framerate related issue whereby if you try and input a command when things are a little dicey it might just not register it and you'll have to wait for the lag to go away before trying to do it again.

Are you playing the X360 or PS3 version? Cause I swear it never happened to me (on PS3), and I get a lot of those accursed framedrops.

[Leader Bee]

PS3 version. It doesn't happen all too often but obviously occassionally and it's pretty annoying.

At the moment i'm still grinding those accursed clams in ash lake so no lag whatsoever here; Does ash lake remind anyone of the underground forest from Nausicaa of the valley of the wind by any chance?

[Sumez]

Grind them in crystal cavern instead, should be a lot faster. Two handed attacks work well on them.

[iconoclast]

Does ash lake remind anyone of the underground forest from Nausicaa of the valley of the wind by any chance?

YES. I'm glad I'm not the only one who was thinking that.

Re: control issues. There's a thread about it here on GameFAQs, so it does seem like a glitch in the game, rather than controller issues or whatever. It's fine 99.9% of the time, but it's really annoying when it does happen because it can cause you to take a big hit and die, if you get really unlucky.

[Zaarock]

Now I'm using ring of fog + slumbering dragon ring to hit everything with this shield and one shot it. Don't think this will work for the boss(es) of Anor Londo, but hey, willing to give it a shot.

But... why? Don't get why you would want to break the game for a first playthrough, but I guess each to his own.

I'll probably use it to farm titanite demons and darkwraiths on NG++ since I was too lazy to farm in NG and I'll stop for pvp at that point.

[CMoon]

Now I'm using ring of fog + slumbering dragon ring to hit everything with this shield and one shot it. Don't think this will work for the boss(es) of Anor Londo, but hey, willing to give it a shot.

But... why? Don't get why you would want to break the game for a first playthrough

I had not clue it was meant to be game breaking. I had been itching to make something from all the demons' souls I'd collected, and that seemed like one of the best items. And now I am wondering if it actually is game breaking, versus things like the ring of fog, etc.

[Elixir]

People who use Ring of Fog in PvP are assholes.

[Zaarock]

People who use Ring of Fog in PvP are assholes.

It's not very useful, unless you actually use it to hide from enemies.. sucks in the forest I guess. Many better rings you could use when you actually fight someone; generally fog ring users have either low poise (get hitstunned) or low mobility (easy to hit) because they don't have a ring to raise one of those. Also, I've seen a lot of people trying to use great combustion as their only attack, stupidness.

[Jeneki]

The control lag bug has been discussed a lot on a number of Dark Souls boards. It's definitely not a controller issue, since you can do other things during the lag which all register fine.

For example: I press R2 to attack. Nothing happens and I miss my opportunity to attack, so I press L1 instead to block. The game responds to L1 correctly and I raise my shield. Then, a half second later, my block is interrupted by the R2 attack I inputted earlier on, causing me eat an attack instead of blocking. Very, very annoying.

It is also not caused by being out of stamina, as it can happen even with a full stamina gauge.

[Zaarock]

Seems to be largely related to blocking, I've barely ever seen this as I rarely block and attack with the character I'm using (mostly grass crest shield or block to two-hand).

[Elixir]

Gonna be lazy and ask, what is the best set without stamina penalization? I'm thinking the Gold Hemmed set. For Demon's, it was Old King Doran's.

Also, my build is str/end. I'll probably switch to Dragon King's Great Axe at 50, but I'm actually thinking of getting Dexterity up to 20, in order to use that rapier. What do you guys think?

[Leader Bee]

Fully upgraded Black Iron Armour has a similar resistance to Havels armour so I hear but it doesn't have the ridiculous weight issue. I'm sure you'll still fat roll however.

As much as I like axes I think i'm going to miss out on the Dragon Axe this playthrough and i'm a str/end build too. I'm at 36 str at SL 57 and even I think 50 is pushing it for NG.

[Zaarock]

Gonna be lazy and ask, what is the best set without stamina penalization? I'm thinking the Gold Hemmed set. For Demon's, it was Old King Doran's.

Also, my build is str/end. I'll probably switch to Dragon King's Great Axe at 50, but I'm actually thinking of getting Dexterity up to 20, in order to use that rapier. What do you guys think?

Gold Hemmed set has zero Poise, so no way. Black Iron armor apart from leggings doesn't have stamina penalty apparently, so might as well use that with painting guardian leggings(better than gold hemmed) or antiquated dress.

Are you talking about Ricard's rapier? no point raising dex for that if you're mainly leveling STR. It's only really useful with a strong buff like crystal magic weapon (25 int) or darkmoon/sunlight blade (30 fth). Oddly enough some unique weapons with special attacks like dragon axe are buffable as well.

[Sumez]

How is painting leggings better than gold hemmed?