[Riff Rex]

It's thrilling and terrifying exploring new territory in this game. I find myself racking up a lot of souls as I go, whilst hesitating to go back and cash them at the bonfire and reset all the enemies...I'm always holding out for that next bonfire...and stressing about each new class baddie I cross paths with.

This time, my fetish for forward momentum got the best of me. Started with trying to find the bonfire in Blight Town, ended up going deep down the Great Hollow. I assumed those bug-eyed bastards only poisoned and dropped a solid 400 souls, but goddammit, they cursed me!

I THINK I remember the covenant guy in the 1st bell tower having a cure for curses. If I am wrong about this or anyone has a better solution, I'm all ears. Otherwise, time to begin the long trudge back -__-
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[Riff Rex]

I only got cursed once, but I've heard that curses can multiply so that you then have half of half of your HP and so on... Is that really true!? That's a potential game ender right there.
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[Riff Rex]

The only blacksmith I've run into at this point is Andrei at the Undead Parish. There is a long pathway across from the side entrance to the church. This leads to a building that goes down to a bonfire, him, and a couple of pathways.
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[Riff Rex]

Ah, I forgot about that Blacksmith, sorry :/

About the curses, it's good to know that From still thinks about the fairness of these things. I've learnt that for the sewers, it's a good idea to stock up on fire bombs so those bug-eyes can't even get close.
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[Riff Rex]

Did anyone else find the secret passage from Blight Town to The Great Hollow? You have to attack TWO walls that disappear once hit. I thought myself pretty clever, especially when it came to breaking the second wall (there was a chest after the first reveal, but I had to take another slash, just to make sure!) I followed this down for a long time before I got cursed and high-tailed it back. It seems to end with a bunch of mushroom people at the bottom...I wonder what's down there. I'll make it back eventually.
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[Riff Rex]

So I followed that secret passage from Blighttown to The Great Hollow to Ash Lake. There's another Hydra there and it leaps out of the water, into the air, over the island your on and to the other side. It's relentless, and seems much stronger than the one in Darkroot (haven't killed it...yet)! I followed this beach along for a while and came to the Everlasting Dragon. I made a covenant with it (seemed much cooler than being aligned with the bowl-cut guy in Firelink) and offered a dragon scale to "deepen the convenant". What does it all mean?? Anyone been to Ash Lake?
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[Riff Rex]

Sweet. Dragon bros! It is a bummer about the multiplayer at this point.

I got really lucky with that Hydra. It moved behind one of those massive trees and fired its attack at me. It blew up in its face and killed itself :D

I can't wait to try that Dragon's Eye though. Also, I noticed that if you go around the Everlasting Dragon, its tail is RIGHT THERE. In Dark Souls that tells me that you can attack it and maybe get a killer drop? Tempting to try, but I think I'll honour the covenant for now.
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[Riff Rex]

Really!? Alright, back I go! Thanks!
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I wish I could talk in technicolour

[Riff Rex]

Me and my new sword that I can't properly wield. Yet.
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[Riff Rex]

This game is much more fun when playing with others! Beat Quelaag last night with the help of another player. I did my little "joy" gesture, forgetting that they had been automatically warped back after the boss's defeat. It's been the loneliest moment yet.

Also, I was invaded twice last night (lots of people playing at 1am in the northwest I guess?). One of these people behaved like a bad A.I. getting stuck on things and just running around in circles...maybe it was an NPC? Or if a connection fails they become an A.I. bot? ...or they were just really dumb.

[Riff Rex]

When did that dogthing from the Neverending story go bald? Seriously, what is that thing that appears in Firelink after ringing the second bell?

I had my real "hate this game" moment when I was in Sen's. I open a chest. Some large arms grabbed me and promptly drained my full life bar...fuck, that's unfair. Maybe I missed some kind of tell on the chest, but still. Fuck.

Those snake guards are wicked cool though.
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[Riff Rex]

Wow, I knew you could attack up and down on ladders but not the sliding bit.

So about this skeleton blacksmith. I heard him down in the Catacombs, but couldn't find him. Is he past the second Titanite Demon?

[Riff Rex]

Blame the fleshy. I see how skeletons are! Ok, cool. Thanks for the info. I didn't even know about the second bonfire. Somehow I took care of the mask boss without even coming across it.
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[Riff Rex]

That is some consolation! I will be sure to leave a note when I get back there.
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[Riff Rex]

If you want to save youself on projectiles, there's a way to lure the cats to their "threshold of engagment" and get them stuck. Basically, there's a tree where the ramp up to their arena meets the lower ground. You can lure them to this intersection point and they will angle downwards and start walking into the tree...forever. They will loop in place while you can just hit them in the head without any reaction from them. I did this with all three. It's cheap, but whatever.
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[Riff Rex]

So...I've found the skull lantern in the very dark Giant's Tomb. It doesn't seem to provide any extra light. What am I missing here?

It sure would be nice to see these terrifying four-legged skeleton things before they start ripping me to bits.
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[Riff Rex]

Just beat Ornstein and Smough. Wow! Certainly the highest point in the game for me. After some thoroughly depressing attempts at facing them solo, I used my last humanity to turn human and recruit two other players. What a battle. Intense to the last moment, and all three of us survived. So lonely after they left :/ But the payoff was an incredible moment. Bonfires are always a relief, but then walking into that room with Guinevere. The lighting, her pose, the music, everything just came together in a wonderful dreamlike moment. I'm not going to pretend that the her giant, perfectly modeled polygon boobs didn't have something to do with it, but it was a very rare moment of beauty and softness and lightness, that was very rewarding. Getting an object that lets you warp on top of that was also pretty sweet!

Another moment that took my breath away, for different reasons, was a note in the chamber that read: "Amazing chest ahead." THIS is the game at its best.
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[Riff Rex]

The force was with me today! Defeated Seath the Scaleless (pretty easy with the curse ring once you know his moves), Fire Demon (Stray Demon was a good warm-up, had help from a phantom for about half the battle, so it was no sweat) and Nito (beat him solo on my first try!). Looks like now it's just the Four Kings. I was summoned to help with these guys once...and they seem scary (my host died within minutes). And no bonfire in New Londo Ruins? Boo.

I'm a little sad that my options have significantly narrowed down, but it's been a blast all the way through (NG+ should be fun). I'm thinking about working towards some higher level weapons. I have the chance to upgrade my longsword to chaos but...it scales depending on your humanity? Doesn't seem like a good idea since I rarely have more than one on me at a time, if that.

[Riff Rex]

Four Kings. Last boss I need to kill to fill the vessel and they're giving me a hell of a time.

Question: How does the Iron Flesh work? I can't seem to cast it on myself...
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[Riff Rex]

@remote

Pyromancy! DUH. Thank you
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[Riff Rex]

I beat this game over the weekend! Unfortunately, teaming up with two helper phantoms led to a very easy and anti-clamactic beatdown of Gwyn. Plus the ending scene was seriously underwhelming. I like how vague the story is in many respects, but I feel like they do a poor job of explaining your motivation for striving to be the ultimate badass. Still, with such an exciting journey getting there, maybe it doesn't matter so much.

I'm really jonesing to play through NG+ I'm not worried about getting too high-level for pvp (I'm only at about 80 starting NG+) cause you gotta figure that there are a ton of others who are doing the same. I'm really looking forward to creating some cool weapons this time round. My maxed out Fire Longsword and Lightning Spear were pretty boring choices, I admit, but they did the job. The flurry of pvp that I experienced right before the final boss has certainly whet my appetite for that sort of thing more than ever. Truly the game at it's best (and I suck at pvp).
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[Riff Rex]

Sounds like I might have to return to this beautiful bastard-of-a-game for the patch. Skyward Sword's boring the hell outta me right now. Surprise!! The stamina metre, equipment upgrade system, combat, and exploration is not as compelling as that in Dark Souls!
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