Of course, this is a process, not just a singular moment. You're forced to not only run through the un-losable tutorial on your first playthrough, you're also required to finish level 1-1, which is the actual tutorial of the game. The "journey to the Nexus" (as the tutorial mission is called) may have taught you the mechanics, but 1-1 gives you tough love. You may acquire items to help you along the way, but your first trip through 1-1 is a combination of skill and drive. Meeting with the Maiden, then, to add levels to your statistics list, is payoff; a reward for a job well done.
But it's that process that makes the game fascinating from run to run. Really, it's a puzzle that the larger meta game works itself to a metaphorical bone to solve. The learned player will settle on what kind of build they want before finishing 1-1 so they can plan their course through the game. Should you make a magic build? Then you should dump your levels into the Magcic stat and then unlock some spell trainers. Will you try to bulldoze the game as a Strength build? Then, it's a good idea to run into 2-1 immediately for the Crushing Battle Axe, a weapon that scales well with the STR stat, that's found in the first five minutes. As a subset of a subset, whole corners of YouTube have been set aside for the Souls games' "best possible start" videos. Where to get powerful weapons early and how quickly you can overwhelm the start of the game with the lowest possible stats is a draw for a lot of people.
This is what keeps me coming back to the game. Maybe I want to run a Faith build, as I did for this month-long experiment. I wondered that if the servers were cooperating, then I could blast through 5-1 and double back for Istarel, a powerful spear that opens up under pure white World Tendency. If you've been keeping up with these stories, you know that this didn't happen (not even close) since the servers needed some maintenance last week. But that's part of the fun, I suppose; that feeling that the best laid plans might not work in your favor.
Yesterday, I skipped a day of writing. Part of it was because I wasn't feeling well. The truth is, though, that I can talk about this game forever, but I'm hitting my saturation point playing it. I've done a fair amount of co-op, I've fended off and have participated in my share of invasions for PvP. But I've gone through this game dozens of times at this point. Yesterday, as I logged in for a few minutes between family obligations, I sat in the Nexus looking for players to co-op with, ultimately doing nothing at all. I did the same today, too. At this point, I'm left wondering if there are any more roads to travel here. I'm sure there are, but everything has an endpoint. I'm feeling that, now with only three days left, I may have found it for myself.
I thought about deleting a character and starting a final run. Maybe it would be a Dexterity build, poetically calling back to the first character I finished the game with all those years ago. That's when I actively decided I didn't need to write something yesterday. Another cold truth is that I've never finished a blog-a-day. When I would skip, I would double up and go a little overboard the next day. This isn't quite that, either. Like everybody, my eyes are usually bigger than my stomach in this instance. In the case of writing about one video game for a solid month, even a short one, I guess I'm more like Don Draper: I only like the beginnings of things.
Essentially, though, things are ending.
That's sad.
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