Dark Souls tips for new players without spoilers

[The Boston Crab]

You have to be human to kindle so reverse hollowing at the bonfire first.

[Kryton]

Any idea at what point I should think about ditching this Drake sword?  It's serving me well so far, but I'm gonna have to think about upgrading something else eventually.

Drake sword by design is designed to be slightly OP at the start of the game but doesn't scale well once you make progress. I guess it depends on your build.

[Kelvin]

That's not true about locking on, you can strafe 360 degrees locked on.

Yeah, but the lock in is worse than useless for a lot of bosses. It locks onto their centre, so you end up swinging through misleading hit boxes and completely missing their huge appendages, even at point blank range. Its extremely frustrating, and I quite often turned it on and off throughout certain fights too. 

[Sin Agog]

You have to be human to kindle so reverse hollowing at the bonfire first.

I am human, +1 etc.  Apparently it sometimes affected early ps3 users, but I'm not hooked up to the internet so can't update the glitch away.

Drake sword by design is designed to be slightly OP at the start of the game but doesn't scale well once you make progress. I guess it depends on your build.

I'm at the giant, toxic insect pit at the moment, and still feeling happy with it, but I reckon I'll go with a levelled up Zweihander soon, like I did with DS2.  By the way, I really shouldnae have played that first.  It's buggered up my experience of this.  It's made me long for the empyrean open spaces of the sequel, which I wouldn't have done if I'd only played in sequence..

[Sin Agog]

Yeah, but the lock in is worse than useless for a lot of bosses. It locks onto their centre, so you end up swinging through misleading hit boxes and completely missing their huge appendages, even at point blank range. Its extremely frustrating, and I quite often turned it on and off throughout certain fights too.

It seems way better to just have a camera awareness of where they are, then strafe around the fuckers.  Locking on is playing by their rules, and it seems like their attacks are generally designed to hit locked on players.

[The Boston Crab]

That's true yes and it's way worse in later games where bosses are fast as fuck

[Thursday]

I usually log on for general movement  around the enemy, and because it seems easier to block/dodge when you're centred around them, but when I get in close for a hit, that's when I log off.

[Sin Agog]

Just want to thank Boston for that R2 and up trick for the leap attack.  Great for closing up a gap, though I often mess it up and do a special move where I send a shockwave that blunts my stupid sword.

I wish I was better at remembering game maps.  Maybe it's clearer in the remaster, but I spend way too much time groping about for that path I found yesterday.  I know that obliqueness is entirely intentional, and I do love the exploration aspect, but it's also a smegging timesink.

[Fry]

Finished it. Amazing game.

Tomb of the Giants was dogshit.

But overall, amazing.

[Kelvin]

Tomb of the Giants was dogshit.

Didn't you have a lantern?

I imagine it would be horrendous without one.

[gmoney]

I did it first around with out a lantern. Can confirm it's shit.

[Thursday]

The better way is to do Lost Izalith first and you can get a Sunlight Maggot. To elaborate would be spoilers.

[The Boston Crab]

Just learn the entire map off by heart. Easy.

[Fry]

Didn't you have a lantern?

I imagine it would be horrendous without one.

Nah I had a bright light maggot helmet from my poor mate Knight Solaire, the dark wasn't the problem. I just found that it was a slog to travel through. It lacked a unique atmosphere, it was a retread of The Depths. Cramped, confusing pathways, pawing your way through the dark and occasionally coming up against enemies which were a chore to fight.

To be honest, I kind of felt like the game blew its load at Anor Londo. Being plonked down in that sprawling, majestic city after going through the grimness of Blighttown and Sen's Fortress was an amazing moment which it never really topped.

That's not to say I stopped enjoying it after that point, christ knows I put enough time in. I thought Lost Izalith and The Duke's Archives were fun.

[Fry]

I basically went through the entire game blind so I'm scouring wikipedia to find out what I missed.

Turns out there's entire areas I had no idea about, like hours worth of content I never found. Now I'm torn. I do wanna try new game+  so I can actually use the weapons I upgraded after farming titanite chunks from the run up to Gwyn, but also I wanna have a go with some of the weapons I never levelled my Dexterity/Faith/Intelligence up enough to try. Not to mention all the spells and shit.

Is there a lot of new stuff in the new game or is it just the same enemies with more health?

[The Boston Crab]

That's pretty much the way most expert superplayers (like me) feel about it. I've only finished it probably three or four times but I've got the Lord Vessel probably twenty times. The DLC is the only reason I'd play the second half, to be honest, because the Artorias and Manus stuff is amazing, and the best lore stuff in the game.


Edit: NG+ is nothing really in this. Dark Souls 2 makes NG+ something a bit special, best ever NG+ in fact, but this is more straightforward.

[Kelvin]

I basically went through the entire game blind so I'm scouring wikipedia to find out what I missed.

Turns out there's entire areas I had no idea about, like hours worth of content I never found. Now I'm torn. I do wanna try new game+  so I can actually use the weapons I upgraded after farming titanite chunks from the run up to Gwyn, but also I wanna have a go with some of the weapons I never levelled my Dexterity/Faith/Intelligence up enough to try. Not to mention all the spells and shit.

Is there a lot of new stuff in the new game or is it just the same enemies with more health?

I actually found NG+ a cakewalk, because I was already over-levelled for 80% of the game. Even New Game ++ wasn't too bad, until I reached the Anor Londo Boss tag team. If you want to burn through the game again (as I did), I'd recommend doing it in New Game+, rather than starting over. It's almost certainly quicker.