A few things happened with this trip.One, I should have been recording or streaming what was going on here. I mean, I'm supposed to write a story after the month is over, so I should probably either begin to promote it somehow or at least have some footage I can refer back to and personal screenshots to use. I guess I'll start doing that.
Two, I was right to be afraid. I decided that running 4-2 was the safest bet after how things were going over the last few days. Not that I'm particularly intimidated by what's left of the game (5-2 notwithstanding because it sucks), it's just that 4-2 is prime real estate for early- and mid-game level farming. Right in the beginning of the stage, you can buy cheap arrows from Grave Robber Blige, a vendor that can be freed from a cell in 4-1. You only need between a handful of them for this exercise, but I tend to buy in the low 200s for future purposes. Anyway, just past our shiny-domed friend is the entrance to the actual level, which is a scaffold of narrow stone walkways overlooking an altar below. Standing in front of said altar is a Grim Reaper enemy, who has the handy ability to summon ghostly giants to come after you. But we want that to happen. Armed with a few things to shoot and the knowledge that the dope is right below you, you can rain down some misery on the Reaper before dealing with the phantoms, killing him and making his sidekicks disappear. The payoff for this is a range of experience starting at around 4500 souls depending on your world tendency (which, I promise, I'll get to in a future post), and since this whole affair takes place mere steps after you enter the level, it's easy to kill this guy, head back to the Nexus, and repeat ad nauseam.
When the game was new, I wrote a small "getting started" document for friends of mine that I would convince to play the game because, let's face it, it's kind of a hard nut to crack for first timers. After explaining the ins and outs of character builds, weapon scaling, item vs. equip weight and all kinds of other junk, I would carefully walk them through 1-1 and then immediately suggest that a person bum rush 4-1 with the explicit plan to get them to this one spot. In a way, this is weirdly cruel because 4-1 is super hard the first time through, but I am nothing if not a strict task master. Besides, this little bit of muscle-building should feel like a reward for toughing through such a hard level. Things aren't entirely a breeze after putting the Reaper loop in play, but it's as good a way to easily build some soul levels until you feel like you're comfortable enough to go on.
So I circled through this a couple of times, already a little advanced for the payoff since I had already flattened a few early levels with relative ease. I even augmented it with killing the black katana-wielding skeleton behind a hidden wall not far from where the Grim Reaper stands. I bought some spells, I bumped up my Magic stat, and sat back telling myself, "yes, old friend. You were a wild stallion that I have since tamed. Let's ride off into this internet sunset together, assured that we're both a little older, a little better. Maybe, even, we're a little kinder. We're more ourselves than we were all those years ago." And then I remembered that 4-2 can go right off and fuck itself blind.
After the success of the further Dark Souls games and especially Bloodborne, the larger gaming populace has found that From Software's series of pitch black fantasy action RPGs are hard, but fair experiences. In a lot of places, Demon's Souls is only one of those things. Enemies frequently ignore the same rules that your character must adhere to, and specifically in terms of stamina loss. I can't just sit there and continuously swing my sword before a little green meter informs me that it's time to stop. Monsters, especially a few in the Shrine of Storms, don't subscribe to this law of nature. Worse, they have some fairly wily AI, so there are occasions where a literally unstoppable death machine will come tumbling before you on a narrow cliff face while another guy is pelting you with arrows and a giant flying stingray is shooting magic spears at you. It's a lousy setup, and worse knowing that the death machine is prone to accidentally falling into the cliff itself, and when this happens, you will wander off of it with it with absolutely certainty. There are times when you can meticulously plot your advances and ward off foes far ahead of you. There are other times where you are the mercy of the random flight patterns of flying fish and their asshole friends on the ground.
Demon's Souls can get a little bullshitty. People forget this, and everything in 4-2 past our first lucrative encounter with Death is there to remind you of that. You'll meet other Reapers and their ghostly henchmen. Sometimes they'll shoot giant, damaging lasers at you (because, sure). Other times they'll just stumble around. This is the only area of the game that's perhaps more infuriating than thrilling because you just never can tell how things are going to react to you foraging for items and poking your head around corners. It absolutely killed 90% of my playtime for the day just fumbling along to the boss, the Old Hero. As a guy with a house, a wife, and a small kid, getting stomped on by a game that I used to think I knew pretty well was making me seethe in fury.
Then there's the Old Hero himself. This is funny fight because the adversary is blind. This way, you can let him wander off and pelt him with arrows or magic from afar. When he figures out that some jerk is behind him shooting shit, he comes running. If you're in soul form (which I assuredly was after dozens of deaths in this level), you're quiet enough that you can sprint to the other side of the arena before he drops his giant sword down on you. Well, that's how it's supposed to go. I've never gone toe-to-toe with this guy before after figuring out what to do, but for whatever reason, my tried and true plan just kept screwing up. He'd figure out I was running past him and swipe me for an easy kill (magicians are frail, you see), or peg me with a long jump that I had trouble reacting to. There were many, many times where I wanted to just put the controller down and tell 4-2 to eat shit for the day, but I dug deep and remembered that I had a ring that made me harder to detect by enemies. I put it on finally, more than an hour of my day wasted, and triumphantly beat the snot out of the Old Hero. It wasn't the bittersweet death of an enemy that shared some genteel mutual respect with me. It was a curb-stomping. I earned it. It was time for my first major boss demon, and a lot more power leveling.
But we'll talk about that tomorrow.
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