Introduction

that wouldn't break me in half

"Wait, this is blind? That's a bad idea, man"

"Any particular build/approach you're taking?"

A note for folks viewing from the LP Archive...

As most of you probably know, Dark Souls is the sequel to the infamous Demon's Souls, which was a huge hit in 2009 on the PS3. Originally, it didn't seem as though Demon's Souls would see western shores, but fortunately, it was possible to import an Asian copy, which had complete English voicework and text included. A perfectly playable game outside of an occasional badly-translated phraseA lot of folks went this route, resulting in Atlus picking up the title for a proper western release. The rest is history! That said, Dark Souls does not require knowledge of the previous game's plot.What pulled so much attention to the original, aside from its atmosphere and setting, was its unrelenting difficulty. You couldn't hack-and-slash through the game and zip through checkpoints. Battles needed some planning, and, in several cases, avoidance until you had the skills or equipment to deal with it. Every time you died, you would have to trek through most of the level all over again, re-populated with baddies, in order to reclaim your souls (currency). To make matters worse, shortcuts were pretty spread out at times. Unforgiving is the best way to describe it. Not unfair, but just flat-out brutal. From what I know and have been told, the sequel follows very closely in the first installment's footsteps.(I highly recommend that you give Squint's masterful run of Demon's Souls a look prior to this LP, if you have not already done so!)I've played maybe a fifth or so of Demon's Souls before hitting a wall and going off to play somethingelse. Squint's LP was going at the time, so I just hopped on-board with that. I purchased Dark Souls with the intent of getting in to it, but I've been kicking the can. In short? This is a blind LP.That's not all, though! Tagging along for the LP, I've gotfor help (later on, a few other guests joins us). I've encouraged him to step in and give me advice or let me sink like a stone at his leisure. It's basically what he did regularly in Slowbeef's Metroid Prime LPs. Also, repetition will be edited out. If it takes me a dozen retries to beat a boss, at the very most you'll see a montage of sorts (unless something of importance is mentioned during the corpse run, ie: advice or tactics).I'm a sword-and-shield type in these games. I did pretty okay in Demon's Souls with the basic knight approach, so I'll be doing something similar. After the first session (ends at episode 5), I look up a general build. By the third session (starting on episodes 9), I've gotten very comfortable with something. I'm not too great overall, but things really start to click eventually!The Stream Archive (linked above the first episode's banner) has footage from a Stream that Kuvo ran using a very special build. The usual commentators are typically wrapped up in them, and it's some pretty amazing entertainment. If you enjoyed the LP, definitely give it a watch. Given that it's stream footage, it isn't really HD or polished, but it's absolutely an extension of the LP.Also, I can't recommend enough that you take a look at the fan-art. It was major a highlight of this LP, and you're missing out if you don't at least give it a glance! There are some pretty amazing artists on these forums, and some of them put a hefty amount of effort in to contributing some stuff. I have them linked and divided by episode, so that you can bread-crumb along at your leisure without concern for spoilers.