Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hello and welcome to this Dark Souls guide and playthrough. With the imminent release
of Dark Souls 2 you might wonder what the point in releasing a Dark Souls guide is at
this juncture.
It's simple really: firstly, I love this game. It has become my favourite game of all time
and I've been playing games since the mid-eighties when the first ZX Spectrums were released.
Secondly, I've been inspired by two chaps who upload Dark Souls content to YouTube.
The first is a fellow called Rord64 who has made a brilliant guide for beginners to Dark
Souls. It is straightforward and to the point. There's no waffling; it's just information
and help. The second person is Marcus, who goes by the moniker of EpicNameBro, and his
lore videos have enriched the Dark Souls experience for me.
Thirdly... . Is there a third point? I guess there's a narcissistic reason for doing so;
everyone likes to show off and share their contributions...
Anyway, let me talk about the game now. Hah! I'm having a look just now at the Stray Demon.
That's his name or her name. You can hear him or her stomping around in the cell. They
appear to be imprisoned in here just as we were.
These hollows that we encounter in this corridor are target practice. That's the function they
serve. They allow new players to sample the combat mechanics, albeit with a very poor
weapon: a broken sword!
Nevertheless it gives you a chance to try stabbing. Well, not stabbing; I guess you
can't stab someone with a blunt sword. Or a broken sword.
As we come up these ladders we're going to approach the game's bonfire. Or the bonfires.
They are the game's checkpointing system, so if you die you respawn at the last bonfire
you sat at. Sitting is the important part. They're also the interface that the user makes
use of to interact with various in-game mechanics, such as increasing your character's stats.
Improving his attributes such as strength, dexterity, health. These kind of things.
We'll talk more in depth about the bonfire system in another video. I'm actually just
coming back to Dark Souls for the first time in a while, so I'm kind of rusty and I'm trying
to get reacquainted with the mechanics and different buttons myself. I'm playing on PC
and using the Xbox 360 wired controller.
A quick point about... As we push these doors open if you look up to the roof you'll see
another one of the demons. Identical, almost, to the demon we seen below. We can actually
hear the Stray Demon stomping around below as we go through the doors.
Going through that gate is a scripted event. The developers intended for new players to
come through here. You're not expected... They're not that sadistic that they expect
new players to take on a massive enemy - a massive boss like that - with a broken weapon.
Again we come up to a second bonfire. They're not as plentiful as they appear to be in the
tutorial.
In this corridor we're about to walk into, we encounter the game's first hostile enemy.
The other chap who dropped down back there, the Asylum Demon, is a boss, but this is the
first genric enemy we encounter. We also pick up our character classes shield and primary
weapon in this corridor. Our character class is the Bandit class. We're equipped with the
Spider shield, which provides a resistance, a complete resistance, to toxic and poison
damage, which becomes useful in certain areas of the game.
I chose the Bandit class as it's a class I've never tried before, and I believe he has the
highest damage output of all the melee characters from the start of the game. That's going to
suit our playstyle as we're going to be focussing on melee combat. I don't think I'll be going
into sorceries or magic in this playthrough. There's nothing wrong with them; they can
be very helpful and useful in the game, but it's just not something I'm going to do with
this guide.
Again, this is just me trying to get used to the game. You'll see that I fail miserably
to defend myself - I take an arrow and another. Nearly take a third if I'm not careful. And
what I do here is perform an attacking move called the backstab. It's a critical attack,
meaning that you inflict more damage on an enemy. I'll explain how backstabs are performed
later on.
I just want to talk about fog gates for a second. Fog gates as you come through them
be prepared for combat, and sometimes you'll come through them and encounter a boss and
other times you're just entering a new area. But always be prepared for combat and have
a look around and be diligent. When I first started this game - you'll see a canon ball,
or a big iron ball rolling down there - I actually thought that you could maybe block
that and attempted to do so without much success. You're better just to jump off the stairs
as it comes down.
We encounter the first human NPC of the game, his name's Oscar, and if you look up to the
roof it looks like he's been bashed through here by the Asylum demon, who also came from
the roof, as we seen a moment ago. Oscar has some important information
for us so I'll let him speak.
I'm
going to interrupt Oscar. He gives you the Estus flask. The Estus flask is this games
health system. It allows you to... If you imbibe the contents of the Estus flask it
allows you to restore a proportion of your total health. Sitting at the bonfire... If
you use five Estus flasks that doesn't mean you won't get any more for the rest of your
playthrough, it just means you have to sit at a bonfire to repopulate your total amount
of Estus flasks. I'll talk about them again in more detail as we go on through the game.
As you can see, if you noticed there, when that hollow's sword hit off of our Spider
shield you can see he was momentarily stunned. That's a good opportunity for you to attack
him. This game is about observation and timing. You want to observe your enemies attack and
defensive patterns and exploit them basically. Don't rush in, you know, in attacking enemies
in this game, and when you do start attacking enemies sometimes it's better to back off
and then go back in for the kill.
That was a jumping attack. Perform that by pressing the left stick up and the right trigger.
I'm looking at that ledge to point out to intelligence or faith builds that you will
pick up either your catalyst or talisman... talisman for faith builds and catalyst for
intelligence.
I could have rolled out of that attack and performed a... sorry, rolled out of that manoeuvre
and performed an instant attack on that hollow. I didn't. I'm trying to remember at this point
how to parry and riposte. That's another critical attack. I think it might inflict more damage
on enemies than the backstab. I'm not entirely sure if that's correct, so if I'm wrong about
that please correct me.
There is a parry and riposte. It's a beautiful animation, and it is particularly deadly.
Oscar talked about the Bells of Awakening and we'll encounter another human NPC, quite
soon, it's the next video actually. We're going to approach the Asylum demon here and
we do a thing called a plunging attack on him. As you can see it takes off over half
of his total health.
I don't lock-on to him as I want to get behind him. I was a bit careless there. I don't lock-on
as I want to get behind him to smash into his *** with my axe. I want to slash at his
hind quarters and take him down. I don't want to be in front of him as it makes me more
vulnerable to his attacks. I got a wee bit too far away from him there: I should have
been a bit closer and not as cautious of his floaty *** attack.
You'll see I make a mistake that is common to beginners and people who haven't played
the game for a while: I think I can take him out by continuing my attack where I should
have maybe retreated after landing a few blows on him and then come back to finish him off.
It looks like he has no health but he has a dribble left, and this last swing will take
him out! So that's the Asylum demon down.
We receive the Big Pilgrim key, which will allow us to successfully escape the asylum.
There's not point in tagging that bonfire again really. We may as well just continue
forward. We can still hear the Stray demon stomping around down below us. It's interesting
the asylum, eh, yeah, the Northern Asylum is so derelict and yet it is still in use.
People are still imprisoning hollows, undead and demons in this asylum.
If you go down to the left here you'll pick up what's called a soul item. The souls items
confer a number of souls to your character, and the number of souls you receive depends
on the size of the soul item that you pick up. You can tell... you can find out what
size they are by reading their descriptions or looking at their names and comparing it
to what's on the Wiki. Anyway, for that soul item we received two hundred souls. Souls
are the game's currency allowing you to upgrade your character and his weapons and armour
and whatnot.
This is an NPC called Snuggly the Crow. You can trade items with it, and more often than
not you'll receive an item that's more valuable to you than the item you give it in the first
place. So, for example, you might give it some useless medal and he might give you a
massive weapon in return. I don't know if that is the case, specifically, in terms of
the weapon and medal example, but in general you receive better items than you give.
I apologise for skipping through that voice-over. I accidentally hit the button. I think she
just repeats the legend that Oscar discussed with us. We're brought to Lordran which is
the location that the game's main story is told. And this is us in a location called
Firelink Shrine. This is the beginning area of the game. As you can see we're instantly
greeted by a bonfire and an NPC. Do not attack that NPC. He's a good fighter and it will
make the game tiring and difficult if you attack him and don't succeed in killing him.
Rest at the bonfire. Use your souls to level up. I'll go into more detail about the levelling
system in the next video. One thing I will say is you never increase Resistance because
Resistance... Resistance can be improved through other means. ANYWAY I HOPE THIS VIDEO WAS
helpful and I'll be back for the next one.