DLC Part 2! Dark Souls Part 16
Added 2023-08-13 00:01:21 +0000 UTCOK, DLC was amazing! Had my favourite fights for sure. It felt like a fairy-tale, going to save the princess, talking to a mushroom, becoming a hero... An anonymous hero. Bit of a bigger update: I have FINISHED the game! It was a little bit of an accident, I wasn't sure if I would lock myself out of content but I think I have, I hope I got most things people wanted to see and that the playthrough was decent hahaha. I have 1-2 more videos left! Plan is to read up on some lore, maybe do a video on it from Vaati's or others research! Do you have any other resources you would recommend?
I have accidentally stumbled into a Zelda break but I think its really needed, I felt myself burning out big time. Obviously it'll continue, just a bit slower! I think I have killed off the series, it was doing soooo much better than I ever thought it would and seemed like people were enjoying it and its definitely my fault that I couldn't keep up haha. Dredge is probably the same, my bad, but its incoming LOL, I tell ya that series was a harder play and edit than I thought it would be! But I loved it. Had a great time with videos so far. Hoping the rest of the year is a good time too!
I am very concerned about DS2 so I am thinking that I will film ahead a little bit, post the progress as early access for you all to get any good tips and stuff but decide if I want to do a playthrough before posting publicly. Nervous to commit to another big game if its a hard one to get through!
Seriously though thank you again everyone. Thanks for all the help, tips, and good old banter during this series. I loved it. This isnt even the last episode and I have written a bunch oops haha.
Comments
Please don't be dissuaded by these critiques of DS2. Begging you not to skip it. It's a beautiful game with incredible storytelling (especially post game and getting into the Vaati videos and such) and you just have to take a slightly different, and perhaps, more careful, approach than some of the other From games. Let yourself be immersed in it, it's well worth it. In related news, if you aren't frustrated by some parts of From games, then you don't get From games. DS2 just has a little bit more of that, and it involves learning a few new approaches, which is actually nice. As others said, you will recognize some elements that came back in other From games. It's really cool to see how everything affecting the future, how they picked the elements that served the experience.
Errrik
2023-08-16 16:31:43 +0000 UTCLooking forward to the final one or two parts for sure! You did great on Manus. He's generally considered to be one of the hardest Souls bosses I believe and I definitely took quite a bit more attempts than you did. I never found that necklace though, I can see how that would help a good bunch in that fight. I don't know if you knew this already, but the DS1 dev team went from the DS1 DLC straight to Bloodborne and DS2 was done by an entirely different team. My personal theory is that BB was already in the concept stage by the point they worked on the DS1 DLC, so that top hat NPC is definitely more like an easter egg/tease on their upcoming project. Also, the director on DS2 went on to co-direct Elden Ring together with Miyazaki (lead director on DeS, DS1, DS3, BB and Sekiro; which you possibly already knew). There's a few interesting game design tidbits you can glean from all this. First off, I personally really noticed in the DS1 DLC how they started to nail down their boss fight design. Both Artorias and Manus feel like templates for most Fromsoft bosses that came after (well, except for DS2). Manus reminding you of Cleric Beast is no coincidence in that sense. Second, DS2 feels really different from DS1 in a lot of ways. I'm still going through the game myself now, right after I'd finished DS1 and the differences are really noticeable; even down to how it feels to play. It does feel like an alternate take by a different team on the same concept, which I guess is literally what happened. So playing DS2 was initially a bit of a rough experience for me. I wasn't sure if I liked it at first. It eventually started to win me over though, and now I'm fully invested. It's considered the black sheep of the series for a reason and it does some quirky things for sure. Some of which turn out to work really well and are arguably an improvement (and are in some cases still entirely unique to this game), while others just fall flat. No matter what though, it should at the very least be an interesting playthrough. It has a unique atmosphere, good sense of exploration and loads of build variety. Having said all that, I think I will never really like the combat in DS2. You can spec yourself out of some of it's quirks (like iframes being tied to stats), but it's just so slow regardless of that. Definitely the slowest combat in the series. Thankfully the rest of the game eventually made up for this shortcoming. Anyway, to quickly loop back to the Elden Ring co-directorship; and the third game design tidbit I wish to mention: there's definitely some DS2 DNA present in Elden Ring, or the other way around. In a lot of ways ER does feel like a mix of DS2 and 3 and Sekiro. I'm curious if you'll think the same when you eventually get to play Elden Ring yourself.
SpectR0nn
2023-08-14 11:10:20 +0000 UTCIn terms of resources, yeah you can't go wrong with Vaati. I always recommend the comedic video called "Dark Souls: In Summary". You need to have at least finished Dark Souls to appreciate it. My friends and I quote it constantly, and it gives me a pretty big chuckle. DS2 is a bit of a weird one. The story doesn't really lend itself to be a sequel except for some very vague tie-ins. It is very long (including DLC), and has the most bosses in the series. It isn't cohesive in that the world is extremely disjointed/fractured. Some people swear by it as their favourite, others think it's horrible. I personally think it has the best DLC, but you'd honestly not be missing much by going straight to 3 which truly is a sequel to the first game. I remember getting to play the tech demo of DS2 at a Bandai Namco event back in late 2013 (Coincidentally Vaati was there), and the demo was stunning. You got to traverse a block of a very early part of the game and it led into a castle area where you fought a mid game boss. Unfortunately the graphics and environmental detail used was not how the product shipped and the animations/lighting also felt cheapened in the retail version. You can see how shortcuts were made by observing the interconnectivity of the world compared to 1 and 3, but maybe that's what what they were going for? Who knows.
Adam
2023-08-13 14:09:57 +0000 UTCI'm surprised you're going to play another FromSoft game immediately with so many other titles on your list. Personally, I'd like a change of pace just for variety's sake. And honestly, I don't care for DS2 very much.
The Mighty Pipe
2023-08-13 07:55:00 +0000 UTCTry Hellblade instead of DS2
Nathan Elkin
2023-08-13 03:13:49 +0000 UTCExcited to dig in! Don't feel obligated to jump into Dark Souls 2 right away. If you need a break playing some more chill games, or just a break in general, that's okay. It's not like there is an infinite supply of Soul games anyway. As a total aside, if you're looking for some more fairy-tale esque games, you should check out the Trine series!
Trolez
2023-08-13 02:46:27 +0000 UTCHaven't had a chance to watch this video yet, but I think doing soft launches on Patreon sounds like a great way to sound out new games/ideas without locking yourself into a committed playthrough! To me, it sounds like a good way to alleviate some pressure & mitigate the FOMO regarding games you might want to try but don't want to commit to. Coming from the perspective of someone in the food & bev industry, no restaurant builds a new dish or develops a new drink without some workshopping, and no new restaurant opens its doors without a friends & family day or pop up events to help iron out kinks & highlight successes. And just to really torture this metaphor, even the greatest spots have some menu items that don't quite work and have to be cut or respec'd or put away for a different season. Obviously, a plate of food or a cocktail is far more ephemeral than media or art, but all are a form of performance for an audience, and there's nothing wrong with using a walled garden/safer space to play around in before pushing something out to the general public!
a smith
2023-08-13 01:01:01 +0000 UTCGreat work with Manus. He definitely does look like Cleric Beast. There are some design similarities that show up in the Soulsborne/Sekiro universe. Great idea dipping your toes in DS2 first before dedicating to it. It's definitely the worst game in the soulsborne/serkiro universe....but being the worst souls game is like being the poorest billionaire, innit fam?
Suited For Gaming
2023-08-13 00:43:33 +0000 UTCbtw, i don't mind telling you this now because you're not going to see it on this save file, but if you rescue Sif in the abyss before fighting Sif in the base game, the cutscene that plays at the start of the fight is slightly different edit: if you do another playthrough, i'd encourage you to focus on being human more often, mainly so you can see all the summons you missed out on this time around. nudge nudge wink wink. (you can also just look them up if you'd like lol)
dialog_box
2023-08-13 00:30:43 +0000 UTCImo take your time with TOTK. There’s no use in pushing yourself to put out episodes more often if it makes the game less enjoyable to play/edit.
familiargarlic
2023-08-13 00:20:43 +0000 UTCAs you continue playing through these games, I would love small segments where you really consider the fashion you’ve chosen and walk us through your thought process. The number of times I’ve worn a specific armor set specifically for its damage reduction stats is so few I can’t even remember specifics. Instead, I usually gain enough endurance so I can wear any combination of armor pieces. That metal boar head with the dancing wizard chain mail robes (what a mouthful) was a pleasant surprise of a look, and I bet you would be surprised by how many styles you can pull off once you start NG+. DS2 actually has some really distinctive styles when it comes to character and armor designs, so that’s one of my few bonuses if you move on to that game. If you have watched Across the Spider-Verse and fell in love with the art style from Gwen’s world, you should try the game Gris. Short game inspired by the journey of losing someone, with a truly one of a kind approach to expressing emotions.
Nathan Elkin
2023-08-13 00:16:37 +0000 UTComg the second i finished the other part, this notification popped up, i feel like i have been blessed by the universe lmao. i really recommend checking out some vaati vids, there's also zullie the witch who does much shorter videos talking about cool details and things from the games. she has no commentary, just text and a lot of zelda music, they're super interesting! take all the time you need with zelda and dredge, i'm looking forward to seeing the end of this series and the continuation of those! thank you!
ChilledGricken
2023-08-13 00:06:30 +0000 UTCHey just what do you think you are doing, miss! You can't just give us two entire videos in one day, that's illegal!!
dialog_box
2023-08-13 00:03:05 +0000 UTC
