Sif

[Barry Admin]

Best videogame dog? I think so.

I just beat Manus with his help and watched the alternate cutscene again on YouTube.

This comment is great too, for people like me who don't follow the Dark Souls lore too much. This is my second time playing the DLC - I bought Remastered a year or so ago, and dip in every now and then.

Spoiler alert

During this special cut scene Sif recognises you as her saviour, she then lifts her head up and bellows a cry towards the sky knowing that she has to kill you, the one who saved her, the one who freed her owner from the grasp of the abyss, the one who fought by her side to avenge manus for dooming Artorias.. why Sif turns agressive towards you is that she is actually trying to protect you, She is protecting the ring of abyss covenant with her life because she doesnt want anyone to suffer the same fate that Artorias did.

[close]

That's very fucking cool. I don't think I freed him the first time round, or at least didn't summon him to help me fight Manus.

As I say, I don't follow the lore as much as I should, but really enjoy it when I do.

[The F Bomb]

One of my favourite pieces of lore in all Souls/games/media.

I also love how the whole Artorias legend is actually bullshit and the only reason the legend exists is because you, the player, traversed the Abyss after him and did everything he was celebrated for.

I love that stuff a lot, it's meta and breaks the fourth wall but in a way that's completely inconspicuous, not hammered home and doesn't seem at all clever clever, just simultaneously uplifting and tragic.

[Schlippy]

There's tons of fascinating lore across the Souls dynasty, all hidden away in item descriptions and fragments of conversation. I loved Miyazaki's explanation that he wanted to give players the same experience he had as a kid reading Lord of the Rings in a foreign language, so he took the (relatively) straightforward stories and explanations and tore them into little bits and spread them throughout the world, meaning you have to pay attention and dig if you want to get the most out of it.

Shame that the main source of all the collected lore has the voice of a prolific and enthusiastic child sex offender, can't make it through more than 30 seconds of a Vaati video.

[Kelvin]

Even putting aside the cool lore, Sif's just a really great concept for a boss. A giant dog wielding a sword. What's more badass than that?

[druss]

Never thought Vaati sounded like a sex offender, but I don't hang around with sex offenders so I'll have to bow to superior knowledge on the subject.

Sif is amazing, both her and Solaire's story (if you don't do the very convoluted method to save him) bring a tear to my eye, just doing a DS1 playthrough myself and not far from Manus now. Have saved the Sif fight for the alternative cutscene, it's great stuff.

The Solaire stuff really got to me this time, he's such a positive person when you first meet him but seeing his descent and then his final line about seeing the dark was really powerful. Amazing how much pathos they can get into half a dozen 45 second encounters that other games can't manage with hours of voiced dialogue. And Sif doesn't even have any dialogue (for obvious reasons) yet they tell a more
Impactful story with her and Artorias than 90% of games where the story is the main focus.

Looking forward to an Artorias, Alvina and Sif adventure game please From.

[bgmnts]

My favourite video game dog is Amaterasu from Okami.

[The F Bomb]

My favourite video game dog is Amaterasu from Okami.

The most famous video game wolf of all time.

[bgmnts]

Canis lupus, I'm counting it.

The only other dogs I can think of are Hewie from Haunting Ground, and Dogmeat from Fallout. They're not very good.

There is a dog in MGSV too, I suppose.

[Noodle Lizard]

Not sure if it needs a new thread since this one's timely enough, but I'm finally committing to a full playthrough of DS1 having bounced off it a bunch of times. I got further in one night (using a shield/spear poke build supplemented with the Drake Sword) than I did in any of my previous attempts, so that's nice. Just got the Capra Demon, which was every bit as tedious as I'd been led to believe.

I've heard an awful lot about Sif. Sounds like a lovely dog. Hope I don't have to kill the lovely dog with a big sword or anything like that.

[The Crumb]

The most famous video game wolf of all time.

Great Grey Wolf Sif is actually a husky

[Barry Admin]

Fuck sake I forgot they were actually a wolf, what a noob.  And I spent hours last night reading up on Artorias lore and watching the videos of cut dialogue and shit.  Then I spent many hours failing to cut Kalameet's tail, so I could try to get a weapon I'd likely never use anyway. 

This is amazing, regardless of what you think of his voice:

I found this fascinating too:

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I still call it Great Grey Wolf Jif.

[The Crumb]

The shiba buddy in Lost Judgement was fun, not a patch on Amaterasu though.

[druss]

Not sure if it needs a new thread since this one's timely enough, but I'm finally committing to a full playthrough of DS1 having bounced off it a bunch of times. I got further in one night (using a shield/spear poke build supplemented with the Drake Sword) than I did in any of my previous attempts, so that's nice. Just got the Capra Demon, which was every bit as tedious as I'd been led to believe.

I've heard an awful lot about Sif. Sounds like a lovely dog. Hope I don't have to kill the lovely dog with a big sword or anything like that.

Start a new thread I say! Enjoyed the DS2 thread and I've literally just completed a DS1 run so it's even fresher in my mind.

[Barry Admin]

Not sure if it needs a new thread since this one's timely enough, but I'm finally committing to a full playthrough of DS1 having bounced off it a bunch of times. I got further in one night (using a shield/spear poke build supplemented with the Drake Sword) than I did in any of my previous attempts, so that's nice. Just got the Capra Demon, which was every bit as tedious as I'd been led to believe.

It's your thread that partly inspired me to try and get back into DS.  I gave it a go a month or two ago, but couldn't really get my bearings cause I'd forgotten where I was, and where to go next.  It always takes a bit of effort to get back into the whole thing, especially mid-game where you have no idea what most of your gear does anymore.

I'd only done the DLC once before, but this weekend I pressed on and figured out I had to go to the Chasm of the Abyss.

Couple of things I will say there, again from stuff I've read over the past day:

Spoiler alert

1) I could not resist twatting Dusk's prostated, sobbing body after I beat Manus.  SPLAT, Zweihander pancake, cry more princess. 

I since looked up the dialogue I missed out on.

2) I really like what seems to be the ambiguity as to whether or not Artorias and Manus actually fought. It doesn't seem to be specifically mentioned in any of the items, so you have to come to your own judgement there.

So I loved that there are prism stones on the way down, who left those, Artorias? We know Sif was down there, and he protected him with his shield. 

Did he fuck up his arm and go mad right before they fought?  Driven nuts by the Abyss and humanity?

Interested to hear what you guys have to say on this.

[close]

[Barry Admin]

The other thing I wanted to say about DS1 is I went back to my Xbox 360 saves last night, and they are hilarious.  I got the first three achievements - basically just arriving in Lordran - and then fucked the game off for about two years.  Then I think I got to Sen's and stopped for another year or two.  Just didn't really get it and/or did my ADHD thing of getting distracted and drifting away.  It's a miracle I finally finished it, and testimony to how good it actually is!

But it sure is an odd game to come to fresh, I vaguely recall that.  Definitely worth persisting with, definitely worth all the hype.  I have multiple abandoned saves, including an SL1 one.  Some of them have a good amount of playtime, cause sometimes it's just nice to begin anew and try a different build. 

Tried a new run in DS2 last year and tempted to get into that again now.  I guess I should really force myself to finish DS3 and/or Elden Ring, but they never appealed to me in the same way.  Elden Ring especially, sadly.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

More dawgs!

[Barry Admin]

Omg fuck this Kalameet tail cut, especially as I nearly beat him on my first try. Gonna leave it for now and maybe level up int so I can try with Dark Bead.

Is there a lore reason why the bloathead Artorias throws at you doesn't vanish? What actually happens in the lore when you sit at a bonfire, that makes cetain things reset but not others?

[Barry Admin]

Just saw my second ever vagrant! I noticed the trail of abyss slime round the area you fight Artorias so I'm mooching back through Oolacile before I leave, to see if he left snail trails, basically. And there it was, right at the end of that narrow path you have to edge along while a sorcerer tries to knock you off.

Edit: "evil drift item", cunt nearly got me with his projectiles.

Edit again: it seems not uncommon in this location?

[druss]

I think everyone I've seen might have been in Oolacile. I guess people tend to have a lot of souls there which is when they appear I believe (when someone has lost a load).

I like the idea that Artorias fought Manus, who unleashed a volley of dark at him which corrupted him. At some point in the fight he got his arm broken as well, maybe by the dark seeing as his shield was with Sif so he couldn't block anything and that dark is a bastard to dodge away from if you don't have the silver pendant.

[Schlippy]

The other thing I wanted to say about DS1 is I went back to my Xbox 360 saves last night, and they are hilarious.  I got the first three achievements - basically just arriving in Lordran - and then fucked the game off for about two years.  Then I think I got to Sen's and stopped for another year or two.  Just didn't really get it and/or did my ADHD thing of getting distracted and drifting away.  It's a miracle I finally finished it, and testimony to how good it actually is!

This was pretty much my experience with Dark Souls originally too har har har. Returned my first copy on 360 before getting out of the Asylum, bought it again after the hype kept building assuming I'd missed out, made it as far as the floor of Blighttown and thought, this game clearly does not want me to play it, so back it went again.

One more run on 360 saw me get to O&S who stonewalled me for maybe ten hours before I gave up. Bought PtD on PC and started over, levelled really carefully and deliberately bracing myself for what I knew was coming at the end of Anor Londo...then beat them first try lol. Breezed through the rest of the game then sank over 200 hours into PvP and making tons of other builds, couldn't get enough of it after that.

Saw my first vagrant on the ground floor of the gargles church in the Burg when my girlfriend was doing her first run. Thought I knew the game inside out at that point; she asks who's this wee fella, I looked up and freaked out. WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT

[C_Larence]

i hate "lore"

[Noodle Lizard]

This was pretty much my experience with Dark Souls originally too har har har. Returned my first copy on 360 before getting out of the Asylum, bought it again after the hype kept building assuming I'd missed out, made it as far as the floor of Blighttown and thought, this game clearly does not want me to play it, so back it went again.

I've bought it on PS3, Switch and PS4! It was the first one I played in the series, on recommendation of my bald friend, about 10 years ago. Didn't even make it halfway through Undead Burg before declaring that it was a bad game for masochistic perverts. I had a similar response to Bloodborne when I tried that a couple of years later.

Now look at me. Threads left and right. Elden Ring, Bloodborne, Sekiro, DS3 and DS2 all done and (for the most part) loved, with platinums in the first three. I've still bounced off DS1 every time I've tried to play it, though. For whatever reason, I always found it significantly more difficult and frustrating than any of the others. Playing DS2 seems to have fixed that, as I'm currently further than I've ever made it and having a blast - although the Capra Demon fight did have my wife wondering who I was yelling "fuck off" at again.

It appears I'm about to hit the infamous Blighttown, so we'll see how optimistic I am tomorrow.

[Schlippy]

Blighttown is a slog, deliberately so (Miyazaki's said it's meant to break the player's spirit), but on 360 it had the added "bonus" of dropping the frame rate to an absolute crawl because of the draw distances down there.

Runs fine on modern hardware so you'll only be as miserable and frustrated as you're sposed to be.

[The F Bomb]

I think that Artorias did fight Manus, but as I said up thread, Artorias' legend is actually based on the paradox that the player followed him, killed Manus and all our achievements were misattributed to Arty.

Not sure why I find that so cool.

[Milo]

God of War Ragnarok has a good dog.

[oggyraiding]

Blighttown is awful unless you go back to the asylum and get the ring that lets you move through swamps without being impeded.

[Mister Six]

As the owner of an Australian shepherd, I have to give a big shout out to some great Aussies in gaming:

Angelo (actually a girl), who is prepared to launch herself at enemies in exchange for a treat.

And all the lovely Aussie pups in the Switch Zelda games:

[Thursday]

The correct name for Angelo is "Jizz" or "Spunk" so that when Rinoa uses her limit break you get
"Spunk Rush"
"Spunk Cannon"

It's hilarious.

[Kelvin]

I also did another run on DS Remastered recently, over Christmas. Felt like I had some unfinished business with Ornstein and Smough, as last time I played I found it weirdly hard to beat them, even after over-levelling. Hadn't found it anywhere near that difficult on previous runs.

Anyway, I spent this Christmas playing through the first half of the game, arrived at Ornstein and Smough, and came really close to beating them after only a few tries. Started the fight again, then decided to clear out some videos on my Switch so I could save a video of me kicking the shit out of them, for posterity. Only I'd forgotten that Dark Souls doesn't pause when you enter the Switch menu, and when I returned to the game after a few minutes, Giant Smough had zero health for some reason, and just keeled over right in front of me.

I was utterly robbed of my redemption. And I still have unfinished business with Ornstein and Smough.