Dark Souls - Ok, finished the Expansion DLC. Was cool in that it was a full independent storyline that added and filled in a bunch of the lore. Was great seeing the other 3 of the 4 knight captains besides Ornstein who was in the main game. Not super big on the re-skin of the forest (Bloodborne first DLC area is a remix too, but not as blatant), although Dark Souls 1 DLC re-use makes sense for story reasons. Also was pretty short. Definitely shorter than the Bloodborne DLC expansion. Only 3 real areas (Forest, Town, Abyss) and they're all pretty short and simple, and only a couple of boss fights. Manus was pretty tough, probably toughest fight in the game for my overpowered character. Dude is fast, hits hard with wide range and doesn't let up. I didn't find Sif until after the fight, so having Sif distracting him probably helps. The optional one-eyed Dragon fight is a really challenge too, barely beat it by the scrape of my skin even with 20 Estus flasks. His head swipe attack has such a huge range it's tough to dodge and you can get swiped twice, and then if you don't rush in his flame stuff can do heavy damage (I wasn't strong enough to use any good shields beyond Dragon Crest shield in the game, so my shields couldn't stop this stuff). Maybe he was harder than Manus, I dunno, but they were both a challenge. Can't even imagine taking them on in NG+ or NG++ in melee without an OP character.
Then I went to the First Flame (great looking, but not much of an area) and then the final boss...
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, is he supposed to be a joke on purpose? Like even if you weren't overpowered (which seems impossible if you've leveled using the souls from each boss a long the way), just using the Black Knight weapons dropped in the hallway before him, he goes down in under a minute, if not 30 seconds. He looks cool, but his moves are easily dodgeable and he just dies really, really easily. Was sort of super anti-climatic. I remember Demon Soul's final boss being tough but then I was playing sorcery magic there. Bloodborne's final boss was easy, but at least tougher than Cinder. Got the Dark ending and youtubed the Flame ending. Short endings, but overall I was extremely impressed by the story when all the lore and plotting is put together.
After Bloodborne and Dark Souls 1, whoever is writing the stories/lore (not sure if it's Miyazaki himself) has really established themselves up there with Matsuno and Takahashi as creating the best universes & stories in gaming. It was really fun piecing it all together and reading all the lore synopsis and seeing how much is told through just the level design cues. Man, when you end up in Ash Lake through the secret wall in the tree and that music kicks in and that underground sky....so epic, really feels like you've walked into a world from before time...WHICH IT KIND OF IS. And then the level design of it all makes sense because the Stone dragon is hiding from the Giants/Gods and hence the illusional wall blocking the entrance to the Great Hollow. Just incredibly well put together world from a lore perspective.
Looking forward to playing Dark Souls 2 and 3 in 2016. Definitely going to go for a strong 2H STR build in DS2 for something different. Could do an Archer, but sniping people just doesn't sound fun. Maybe go back and try magic again for DS3. I was really damage capped at the end of Dark Souls 1 with my 40 DEX Katana+15 build with pyro Power Within spell because I didn't do research beforehand about BUFFING and way too late found out I needed to get my INT to 32 to use magic weapon buffs and basically go from 420 damage -> 780 damage. So when I play DS2 & 3 I'm going to read up on buffs and where I need to put some points into for max damage later in the game.
Anyhow, great game. Liked it in some ways better than Bloodborne, but think I like Bloodborne just an inch more because of the better boss fights and more responsive controls for melee combat.
Also worst boss was the Gaping Dragon. Looks so cool and epic and scary in the pre-release photos, yet in the game it's this big dumb slow headless body that just walks a bit and crashes down on the ground and you run up and hit it a few times. Repeat. What a joke.
HES SO SCARY. He's a giant SKELETON
He looked really cool in the opening CG! Thought he'd be more impressive. Same with Seath.
