The Real Dark Souls is that it’s hard but it’s not supposed to be THAT hard
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Because my many false starts have been spread out over the last decade or so, this has actually happened to me more than once! Something about that first staircase just makes it slide right off my brain visually, so I used to always end up trying the graveyard first…
This time, perhaps importantly to my later success, I did not bother with the skeletons
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is surmounting the “difficulty” of these games important to you? This may be obvious advice you’re already well aware of, but Ancient City, Eternal Ring, and Shadow Tower: Abyss all make minimal fine-motor demands while providing the other From essentials
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Not in the sense it seems to be for the broader Souls crowd, no. I do enjoy that sort of thing on some level, but what’s largely drawn me to From’s games in this ilk is much more about atmosphere, mood, and the way their worlds are built…as they are, so to speak, rather than being conformed to the player (something I once got from older MMORPGs, but they’ve largely moved on from that style of design)
That last part does require some degree of difficulty to land properly, I think, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be motor difficulty
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I agree on all counts yeah. I think the fascination with difficulty was sort of novel given the time/place in which DS landed, but I think that aspect has been pretty well exhausted at least for me. Those earlier From games and subsequent indie games like Pathologic 2 and Fear & Hunger show that there’s a more durable way to convey danger and menace without making the same kinds of manual dexterity demands on the player. But the gamer public invests a lot in that supposed “skill” so it’s caught on. It’s been a while since Déraciné they should let Miyazaki do another weird one, he only made the company about a zillion bucks after all
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I did this too and since it was my first Souls I really thought I was just never going to be good enough to play the game. Eventually I looked up strategies hoping there was something I was missing and it turned out I was missing the first many levels of the game
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Yes. For the latter example, there’s the poo poo hole for one. That’s much more compelling than the git gid doctrine (actually not joking)
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Why did discussing Fromsoft games in the “what are you playing” thread seem fun, but I have no interest in the actual Fromsoft thread now that the conversation has been moved?
My own psychology continues to baffle me.
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broken window theory
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We are so back!!! FS discussion has been resurrected on the IC FORUM!! 
Just play King’s Field II and call it quits
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Today’s adventures have me praying I never see another video game ghost for the rest of my life! The New Londo Ruins are far more troublesome to me than the famed poison swamp was, that’s for sure…
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Your brain is extremely cool
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guitar plectrum necklaces
Obligatory Anor Londo arrival screenshot, I suppose?
I think it’s pretty safe to say I love this game now, lol
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I would finish Anor Londo before you say that…
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wow! to think the capra demon almost ruined it all!
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At least get past those fuckin’ rooftop archers…
My claim to Dark Souls infamy is that I beat Ornstein and Smough on my very first attempt. Mind you, I had years of people hyping it up for me, so I went in with my loins girded as if by Kanien’kehá:ka ironworkers. But, still.
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sapphicvalkyrja is having the quintessential experience here, I think. looking forward to any possible subversions.
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There’s definitely “scarier”areas in DS where its dark and ugly and off-putting, but everything about Anor Londo was quite unsettling to me. From what I remember the architecture was huge but mostly empty except for enemies and it all felt like a creepy liminal space.
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