Elden Ring: Lord, O Elden Ring

[Part of my Elden Ring journal]

To take a break from the black knife assassins I go talk to a white mask assassin instead who cuts off one of my fingers and insinuates that I can use it to get an audience (in this world that means duel apparently) with his lord. Sure! I warp to the Nokron-adjacent palace of blood and after beating up many blood toads (better than the snow castle XP grind) because I went the wrong way, I find Mogh (again) who at this point I simply steam roll. For good measure I kill that white assassin too.

Then its time to retry Radagon and after a fair few goes which actually starts making me believe I'm playing a Dark Soulsesque game, I manage to beat him and the elden beast once I load up on holy protection gear. Ranni then shows up and disintegrates Radagon's remains and then... ends the game? WTF just happenend? Anyway, it lets me keep playing so I do - without accepting the offer of "Journey 2" which I assume is New Game+.

That sword was a person. o_o

I solve the pit descent beneath the capital where rolls instead of jumping is the key and in the darkness below find a gigantic three finger thing that burns itself into me. Afterwards I then also complete the fire puzzle at the snowfield ghost village which gives me access to a teleporter which takes me to the top of another freaking giant tree! On the plus side, this means I can parkour evade the fat bards and ants on the branches to make it to the tree house village below.

Steam Discovery Queue - Crusade of the Free XXXII

Continuing freebies from last time... the one in bold is the best of this set.

Ann: 2D explorer horror set in a haunted school. Need to save the game a lot as danger and death are usually very sudden. You'll get it once that first piano kills you. Kind of annoying.

Blood Spear: A dark gothic horror that looks a lot like Dark Souls, except with the only weapon being a sentient and very blood thirsty spear. There are good visuals and action segments and one of the stand out parts is the death system. There are many "ghost knights" who do nothing but say one liners if you talk to them. Turns out, should you perish - the spear lives on, and you can fly it to one of the ghost knights to revive and possess. Very cool.

Recommended!

Chess: Uh. Probably would have been better if it was actually chess instead of whatever this garbage is.

Doorways - Old Prototype: First person platformer set in hell with developer notes lying around. Bleh.

Iraq War: Doesn't even start. Fail.

IWOCon Digital Convention: Argh. I don't just say that for the pirate theme, but this gives me the feeling of trying too hard. Yes, its a great explorer game but the main purpose of it - which should be the booths - are far too spaced out and are even divided by loading screens. Easily falls into that trap of lots of stupid space only used for traversal.

Plokoth: A hand drawn 2D platform with precision difficulty. Expect a lot of deaths and a high challenge level. Luckily checkpoints are very regular, as you will need them!

Red Button: Simple game where you play one of five world leaders in a bid for world domination. Each turn you pick one of three defense strategies and one of three attack strategies. The country that still has people left at the end wins.

tERRORbane - an introduction, mostly: A pretty good and short demo of an intentionally buggy (and hilarious) game. Pretty unique and worth a look.

Vedelem - the Golden Horde: A real time strategy game where you must build up your base and defend against hordes of Mongols whose main force arrives when the timer runs out. Might be interesting for RTS fans, which I'm not.

Dark Souls (Cards): Pursued into the Darkness

A board game session from Dark Souls: The Card Game

A staircase descends beyond the realm of fire into an impossibly huge cavern - lit only by distant fauna and skittering bugs. It is here that that the party sets up another bonfire before patrolling (level I + level I) the area and resting up. The path to the first boss here - Yhorm, the last giant, gives a choice of going the long way (the two level I areas again) or through a harder (level II) path. The team picks the latter, and while the enemies are slightly scarier they are whittled down in no time.

Whittling down is the name of the game against Yhorm as well, as the giant makes for a decent opponent with big hits while jumping around the board. Eventually with enough spells from our sorcerer (mom) and axe strikes from the warrior (DL), the giant falls to the coup de grace from our assassin (wifey). It's then back to the bonfire to prepare for the battle against the Pursuer!

To reach him is either a level III encounter or a level III encounter which makes the choice a bit meaningless, and boy are those enemies tough! Our assassin in particular takes a bit of damage before we can get past them to the boss fight. While this dark knight has less hit points than Yhorm, he has more armor making him a pain to deal damage to while his damage output is ridiculously high. Lucky the assassin could evade his impale attack because if not that does around 9 damage (around 1/3rd of someone's life).

The Pursuer then wails on the cleric (me) for a bit, forcing me to use too many heals on myself while the others chip away at him. Soon, the assassin and the sorcerer are also on the defense as their cards (life) run really low. Luckily the warrior gets his good cards just as the boss gets weak to their attack types, and DL finishes him off for a narrow victory. Mom had six cards left, wifey had TWO! 

Interesting that they made a non-boss the final bad guy over Yhorm, who gave me a hard time in the PC game. Thus concludes another exciting adventure and for the time being, this story as those are all the bosses/maps I have.

Dark Souls (Cards): Linking the Fire

A board game session from Dark Souls: The Card Game

Having vanquished the Abyss Watchers the team comprised of a warrior (DL), assassin (wifey), sorcerer (mom) and cleric (me) continue downwards into a realm of fire, lava and demons. A quick scout (level I + level I) of the immediate areas gets us reacquainted with our gear (and how to play the game) before we resting up at the bonfire to charge through (level I) to the first boss here: the Smelter Demon.

His perk is that all attacks can only ever do a maximum of one damage to him so the sorcerer and assassin take turns bopping him until he heats up which adds a weak burn riposte to his attackers. At this stage even the lowly cleric can smack him a little with his mace, while DL having the unfortunate hand full of gear but no stamina to use it is left waiting, waiting, and waiting... until suddenly he manages to actually swing an axe to finish off the boss! Side note: he does the same thing with jigsaw puzzles where he keeps one piece hidden away to ensure he "finishes" it. LOL.

Resting up at the bonfire again it's time to head the other way which is heavily guarded (level II) with five foes! Wifey the assassin gets smashed a bit here but I can heal most of the damage, while DL goes full bankai to use his special "hit everything in the same row" ability with his best weapon which clears them out quick. After the remaining enemy knights (pontiff knights who chased us all the way here) are dealt with it's time to battle the Old Iron King, a massive demon who can only be hit ONCE per player turn since he quickly submerges into his lava lake after each attack.

Team demon.

This means the strategy is to see who can do the most damage on each turn and let them (and only them) attack. This turns out to be the mother sorcerer for majority of the fight, so much so that I have to expend many healing chimes to make sure she doesn't run out of cards (because we are defeated if she does). I also intentionally walk into some of the King's attacks now, since I'm not actually "hitting" its better if I can tank the damage instead of letting someone else (usually DL) do so. True to form, DL finishes off the monster as we complete this area. When asked, mom reveals she only had five cards left to spare which is cutting it a bit close! Makes me glad I decided to stay as a cleric instead of switching to knight or herald (the other available party members currently available).

Also we dodged all the invaders this game (previously fought Knight Slayer Tsorig and Xanothous King Jeremiah) which was a first! Lastly, for those wondering how the two demons compared to their in game counterparts they are not overly different. My team kicked the Smelter Demon's ass in the PC game, while the Old Iron King is simple to fight but managed to throw me into the lava lake a few times. Glad he didn't do that today!

Dark Souls (Cards): Catacombs of the Abyss

A board game session from Dark Souls: The Card Game

Descending a hidden ladder within the cathedral, the team prepares to battle more undead with our herald switching to the more magical arts of the sorcerer class (mom), while the rest remain the same: assassin (wifey), warrior (DL) and cleric (me).

The path ahead has two branches, a shorter but tougher one or an easier but longer one. We decide to take the short (level II) path first and get absolutely wrecked by a giant skeleton and an Alonne knight that guard the pass with a few invisible enemies (can't attack them until the others are dead). It's a close victory but we still have to retreat to the bonfire afterwards.

For our second excursion we took the longer (level I + level I) route, and while our sorcerer got hammered by a bad combo involving a big hollow and a crystal lizard, we manage to push through to the chamber of High Lord Wolnir: a lich so massive, his main body doesn't move (and can't be hit). Instead its his two giant hands that we need to destroy while they slam, slap and claw us around. It is an incredibly close fight with DL clinching the win just before we are defeated (I used up all my heals)!

Wolnir is better designed in the card game than in the PC game.

A quick trip back to the bonfire earns our assassin the onion knight's Catarina Armor. She's not too happy with it as it looks ridiculous but quickly changes her tune when we proceed onwards (level II) and encounter the pyromaniac Xanathous King Jeremiah! The armor saves her from a lot of damage and her special backstab which only does one damage turns out to be fantastic against weak but heavily armored enemies.

We opt to return to the bonfire to recover before fighting through the same area again (level II, but no invader this time) and make it to the final boss of this area: the Abyss Watchers - the lead of whom does big damage. His two allies though? Not so much. We quickly decide to just ignore them since it would cost more cards to attack them than to just tank their hits.

The weaker ones vanish anyway once we reach phase two where the main Abyss Watcher consumes his allies to gain strength and start doing area attacks worth seven damage! I manage to use an acid spray scroll to weaken his armor and he is promptly brought down by everyone else in that same round, with the sorcerer blasting him away as the finishing move. Area cleared!

Compared to the video game Wolnir is much harder in card form while the Abyss Watchers are far easier in card form.

August 2021 Review: Lockdown 2 Month 2

Sounds like a level of GTFO!

The lock down continues for me and I'm really missing our regular board game sessions. The Dark Souls: Card game ones I'm posting now are the last we managed to play prior. PC game wise Ghost Recon Wild lands has taken a back seat on the Friday night co-op list for Strange Brigade which is both funny and cool. Basically we start with GTFO then switch game when Archer needs to leave (not everyone can play into the wee hours). Meanwhile my non-Fridays are filled with a random scattershot of games, movies or TV shows which no doubt I'll be posting about shortly. :P

Most Viewed Posts in the last 30 days:

The Banner Saga
GTFO: R5B1 - Smother (Normal)
GTFO: R5A1 - Floodways (Extreme)

The Banner Saga was a really fun thing to play through. You do need all three games though so that you can do the full story. No surprises that the GTFO play through / walk throughs are back to round out the top three.

Dark Souls (Cards): The Pontiff and his Dog

A board game session from Dark Souls: The Card Game

On a quest to stop the coming darkness, four adventurers arrived at the border of Irithyll City: a warrior (DL), herald (mom), assassin (wifey), and cleric (me). After a quick scout of the lesser patrolled areas (level I and I) to get some practice in they returned with their hard earned loot at the bonfire. DL was not happy as his weapons didn't make it to his hand during these and he basically served as the monster's punching bag.

The same again happened passing through the next (level I) area to reach our first boss: Vordt, the armored giant dog that breathes ice (additional damage if you walk around). It is an intense battle where everyone lands hits on the beast until finally it is brought down by the cleric (a rare thing since I barely ever attack). After recuperating at the bonfire, DL earns the wolf great sword which is finally a worthy weapon in his eyes.

The sword comes in handy as the team tries to reach the cathedral (via a level II path) and encounter Knight Slayer Tsorig. Using the blade and his special ability to hit an entire row, DL cleaves through the opposition and leads us to victory - earning the Knight Slayer Ring (ignore 1 point of enemy armor).

Since Tsorig hurt us bad in the fight, its back to the bonfire to recover and then back through the same (level II) path which is now guarded by silver knights and an old knight who has incredibly high armor. Too bad for him, he is weak to magic and the cleric uses his magic shield to eradicate the trouble some foe.

We needed to beat three of his clones!

Finally the party reaches the cathedral to face Pontiff Sulyvahn, a psycho dual sword wielder who summons clones of himself during combat. Despite this HP sponge gimmick, he proves to be an easier fight than his dog Vordt and the party quite easily defeats him with the assassin landing the killing blow, completing this zone. 

Compared to the video game Vordt was a lot harder in card form while the Pontiff was much easier in card form.

Dark Souls: The Card Game

(and the Seekers of Humanity expansion)

Based on the computer game series of the same name, this deck builder sees up to four players cooperatively strive to defeat two bosses (per session) before their bonfire dies out. This bonfire dwindles each time the players use it to intentionally to claim their hard won loot, or each time the team is sent there automatically if one of their number dies.

Much like the original game, visiting the bonfire restores you but also returns enemies in the areas previously cleared. This isn't too bad, since there are only around five "rooms" per map, of which you'll likely only visit three at most - encounters that also feature minions from the game, and if you have the Seekers of Humanity expansion - the much deadlier invaders.

Combat is pretty simple once you get the hang of it, and your deck holds armor and shields to defend yourself against the enemies who always move first as well as weapons to strike back - each having multiple options of various stamina (also cards in your deck). Using these will eventually send them to your discard pile, as does taking damage - and outside a few select healing abilities you won't ever get your discarded cards back until you use the bonfire. Run out of cards? You died.

It's an interesting system but one where you get hands where there is nothing you can do during your turn. Is it as hard as the computer game? Nope. It also doesn't really have much lore/story to it on its own, so having someone familiar with the franchise helps. I still quite enjoy it though and give it three souls out of five.

Play through:
Chapter 1 - The Pontiff and his Dog
Chapter 2 - Catacombs of the Abyss
Chapter 3 - Linking the Fire
Chapter 4 - Pursued into the Darkness

That's it for now. Thanks for reading!

Remnant: from the Ashes - The Undying King

[Part of our Remnant from the Ashes story]

We finally made it to this damn tower!

The Undying King is a chatty fellow who once nuked this planet to eliminate the Root from it. He offers us a key to the locked doors in the labyrinth in exchange for a creature's heart; a creature that happens to be the guardian of another world and is doing a good job keeping the Root out so we decline this trade which enrages the monarch into a boss battle.

Unfortunately for him, he is nowhere as strong as Claviger or the Hive. In his first mode, he is supported by Goa'uld attendants while he either summons pew pew orbs (which should be killed ASAP as they have low HP and don't move, to have one less thing shooting you) or, if he has his swords out does some lethal combos if he closes the distance which actually downs DL in this fight. His style has a fatal flaw though - back away until he does his jumping lunge and dodge AT him and he'll miss every swing. Thank you Dark Souls experience!

Once weak enough he heads over to his throne to regenerate while summoning a swarm of the man spiders but between our dogs and Jim's flame pistol, those never make it up the stairs leaving the idiot King open for all my strong melee attacks which kills him. Once. Obviously he gets up again, hence his title, but is easily burned down by beam rifles wielded by Jim and myself. Stupid king felt what happens when you cross the streams - there's no coming back from that!

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Way more than twice.

Made by the same people who made Dark Souls, this is almost just Dark Souls in Japan. In it you play as a ninja protecting a special kid with powers from people that want to abuse said powers. You are also terrible at this, as babysitting was not a quality or talent you have learned.

Instead you'll be spending most of the time exploring, killing and looting while learning skills and earning gear to do the same thing more efficiently. The environments are gorgeous, and the bosses are deadly. As a ninja, you'll need to evade and parry since armor isn't really their thing.

There's also a lot of fire.

Is it a hard game? Yes, and there is no difficulty option. Is it harder than Dark Souls? I'll say ... no. Especially not Dark Souls 3. Why? Many reasons:

1) You are faster than anything else in the game and can literally run or grapple past everything bar the mandatory bosses.

2) Bosses have two "health" gauges. One is life, one is posture. End either and you get a kill shot. Some have more in one than the other, so that comes with the learning.

3) It's strictly single player. There are no enemy players who will ever invade you. In the same token there are no mandatory bosses that you need allies to help with (I needed a lot of help with a few Dark Souls ones).

4) Dark Souls bosses have killed me more than the ones in Sekiro. Sister Friede in particular.

That's not really the question you should be asking though. What you should be asking is, "is it fun?" and the answer to that is hell yes! Highly recommended - I give it 4 artificial arms out of 5.

October 2019 Review

Happy Halloween! That backlog is getting cleared up a bit now but again at the expense of everything else, as usual! Trying something new this month - "small jobs". I'm hoping its a mental thing that I can't get advance in a few of these so I'm simplifying the list. I'm also adding new trackers for Soft Drinks and Sweets to help with the weight goal since that seems to be my current "dragon" that I want to beat.

    End 2019 with less weight (-4 kg from last month, running total: +2 kg)
    +Drink Less Soft drinks (current consumption: LOTS)
    +Eat Less Sweets (current consumption: LOTS)
    Complete web comic chapter 1 (simplified)
    +Make 1 web comic page
    Make board game (simplified)
    +Make new board game idea (previous idea didn't work)
    Clean the roof (cancelled due to budget + water restrictions)

BACKLOG
Enderal [free on Steam]
Borderlands 2 [gift]
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice [gift] (done)
LEGO Batman [free from Epic Games] (keeps crashing)
LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes [free from Epic Games] (done)
LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham [free from Epic Games] (done)
Try Shroud of the Avatar [free on Steam]
Try No More Room in Hell? [free on Steam] (no interest from my group)
Everything [free from Epic Games] (done)
+Minit [free from Epic Games] (done)
+Surviving Mars [free from Epic Games] (had enough)
+Destiny 2 [free on steam] (huge download size is an absolute turn off)
+Alan Wake: American Nightmare [free from Epic Games]
+Observer [free from Epic Games]
+QUBE2 [free from Epic Games]
+Layers of Fear [free from Epic Games]

Board games:
Zombicide: Black Plague Campaign (10/11)
London Dread Campaign (1/4)
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage (0/13)
+Firefly Adventures: Brigands and Browncoats (2/4)

BLOG STATS

One Year Ago
I played through Shadowrun Chronicles and drew some Neverwinter artwork!

Five Years Ago
I played through Tropico 3 and Dragon Age Origins.

Most Viewed Posts last Month
Do you support Dictatorship?
Blizzard Cancellations
Dark Souls II: Size Compensator

Skipping over the top two since they are the same as usual. Instead I've listed the next three and it's not surprising that the political ones are coming up... followed by "Size Compensator". LOL.

Top Search Terms last Month
part of anomen
scp secret laboratory
neverwinter fiery pit too difficult to solo   

While SCP matches up with Halloween/Scary games and Neverwinter Fiery Pit can be difficult solo, especially if you unconsiously run into elite mobs (or try solo the HEs), I am very surprised that the cowardly paladin Anomen gets the top search! In case that was you, here's a compendium of his time/mentions in my play throughs (start from the bottom). :)

Design: Longer Combat isn't always more Fun

It's just more tedious.

[Part of the Design Folder]

How many times do you think you need to stab someone with a sword, or shoot with a gun, before they die, or at least are incapacitated enough to stop fighting? RPGs in particular have a nasty habit of making this number waaaay higher than it should be.

Yes, combat doesn't have to be realistic in games but it has to be fun! Dark Souls is a decent example as boss fights are varied enough to require learning and require no repetition (unless you fail), and that the more mundane enemies are often slain quickly, or quickly slay you.

The Assassin's Creed series was doing good too - using the counter-kill system which made combat through the swarms of baddies not only fun but kept the games tempo up. That is until they made AC: Unity. Gone is the counter-kill ability, replaced by parry / slash-slash-slash button mash. Oh, so just like Dark Souls right?

Wrong. Dark Souls has a wide array of enemies with different behavior patterns and attacks and as I said, combat ends quickly. AC: Unity has the same 4 dudes in various skins on an endless, respawning loop and some are HP sponges for no other reason than "this zone is harder, so the baddies should have more HP". They are also so frequent which ultimately makes them a chore rather than a fun experience. Stupid design Assassin's Creed: Unity. Stupid design.

Developer Appreciation: Wizardy Online Permadeath

Death is a slap on the wrist in many MMOs these days with even "corpse runs" becoming extinct as far as I can tell. Even Dark Souls "punishment" is only a mild inconvenience when you think about it. Well, one MMO decided to go the opposite way and for that reason alone I really liked it. Wizardry Online was a tough SOB. It had unfriendly instructions, controls and difficulty spikes which really made it less than appealing for casual players to get into.

Yep, this party is boned.

On top of all that, there was a permadeath system in place that really put you on edge when exploring a new zone or even traversing an old one. The idea that your next death could be your last really pushed you to ask yourself if you -really- wanted to try fight those three monsters for a treasure chest, or if you should keep delving deeper despite already being wounded. All that, and it wasn't even guaranteed perma death - just the threat of it is effective enough.

This is because when you die there you respawn as a ghost and have to run back to a shrine / safe spot to resurrect. Reviving is simply a dice roll, with a base success of 90%+. You can even guarantee your revive by sacrificing items to whatever force is reviving you. The kicker is, when you run back to the shrine as a ghost all you can see are other ghosts, and reapers: apparitions of death that patrol the halls who can outrun you (hope you practiced dodging). 

Should they reap your soul, you get put back to the spot your body is at and can try run back to the shrine again. You also get a -10% chance to revive !each! time they do this. Fortunately, other players can pick up your body and move it somewhere closer to a shrine or even take you back to the safety of town (you still need to roll though). I thought it was a great system.

Alas, the rest of the game wasn't quite up to scratch and Wizardry Online ended up suffering its own permadeath. Still, if there's one system I would hijack from this game it is that one. RIP Wizardy Online. RIP. For those who want to see what it was like, I suggest watching Dremlock's short video on youtube.

Developer Appreciation: Dark Souls

I previously talked about how I enjoyed Stalker's oppressive and challenging environment. Switch it up to medieval times, plug in a haunting sound track, up the graphics and add a whole cluster of WTF lore and you get Dark Souls, a game series known to be punishing and brutal. While that is somewhat true, especially at the beginning while you learn the timing for parry/counter and possibly at each boss fight after, it is also amazingly beautiful and rewarding.

Not everything is an enemy, but they can be if you play it that way.

It offers what seems to be near impossible situations, but through perseverance, skill and a bit of luck you can and will overcome them - and that feeling when you do is just amazing. Despite the grim surroundings, there are many moments of beauty as well - and the maps are so well designed to loop on itself as you open shortcut after shortcut giving you that feeling of progression.

Then there are the choices, those terrible - terrible choices. Do you use a limited resource to restore your humanity which increases your life and combat abilities but then leaves you open to other players invading your game? Most of them have murderous intent. On the flip side, while "human" you can summon other "human" players to join your game in a cooperative fashion which often helps with bosses. Dark Souls is a work of art.

Blaugust Topic Idea: Pretty Pictures

When you are struggling to find words remember that a picture paints a thousand of them! This is a technique Bhagpuss admits to using himself, and is one I'm going to use right now because I wanted to show off these two nifty posters I bought from the last Supanova Convention I attended.

Lothric, Lorian and Solaire.

There's always room in my house for Dark Souls. :)

Neverwinter Online: The Cloaked Ascendancy

Late review, I was stuck in the Far Realm with these guys...

Given that Tomb of Annihilation (the next module) is just around the corner, this is a very late review for the Cloaked Ascendancy which comes after the terribly grindy Storm King's Thunder. Yes, it was so bad I actually quit Neverwinter for awhile and am now playing catch up.

Fortunately the rag-tag band of mages who have returned from the Far Realm make for interesting adversaries not just mechanically but story wise too. It helps that you get to interact with each of them at least a little bit while going through the story chapters, instead of just having some "bad dude" that you never see waiting at the end of a dungeon that you need to take a deus ex machina from or just murder in general.

Nothing very cloaked about them though.

There is only one new area, the River District, which is not just pretty but very functional in terms of dailies. This cuts down travel time from the last modules grind by a metric ton, since there you were required to venture into 4 zones towards the end. Daily.

Of course the grind is still here too, but at least you have a bit of variety on how you want to fill your "daily bar" in this campaign. It's a mix and match of heroics, dungeons, or capturing and upgrading guard posts. Don't worry, all options still include a copious amount of murder. You can choose to just kill 1000 each day too, but that's a real slog.

If that was brought down to 100, like the stronghold daily, it would be much better (10 times!). The guard posts I mentioned before are a great addition too, unfortunately the logic on them is the reverse on what it should be where players actually benefit -more- if they fall to enemy forces.

Shroud of Souls, the short "finale" of the campaign, holds a few really good adventure segments which I wish there was much more of. Evernight in particular is a faaaaantastic place. A world full of undead where everything is messed up? Now I know where Dark Souls takes place. :P

I have a feeling the Cryptic guys took some inspiration from it.

Definitely one of the better modules for me. Hopefully this continues with the Tomb of Annihilation. We won't have long to find out!

Today I Smiled: A Soul less Dark

Hope you all enjoyed what is probably the last entry of my Dark Souls tale, since that was the final DLC. I certainly had fun playing through it! I am getting exhausted with this daily posting schedule though, especially this year which seems to be flying by. It's the end of April already and I feel it's like I've done nothing productive. Anyway, the Skyrim/TESO story will carry on for a bit more but with more gaps between them as the content there finally catches up to where I actually am. Yes, I do like holding posts in reserve.

I plan on making my Nameless creative writing experiment, which has taught me that drawing eats a ton more time than writing, fill the gap for a bit: and I'm going to break that wall of using my own art per post in that story since it is really stifling myself. Back to generic pictures we go! To leave you with more entertaining stuff, here are some youtube vids: the Indian Nod, the Indian Alphabet Song, and just to have something non-Indian, Dork Souls III - a cartoon parody which is more effective for those who have played the game, or have read through my playthrough.

And just for kicks, one more Dark Souls video - apparently the armor of thorns does damage when you roll into things, so of course... we get Dark Rolls! Have a good day everyone! :)

Dark Souls III: Midir

Tales from Dark Souls - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

It takes a number of goes before I realize the fight against the bridge dragon is really simple. Hide behind a rock, wait for fire to pass, run out, hack his feet twice and run back - repeat. Eventually the winged beast falls off and finally lets me enter his massive cavern boss room where he is MUCH angrier. I am unable to find anyone to help for this fight, so I have a lot of deaths attempts which slowly improve as I begin to be able to read the beast.

Of course he has a laser too!

I'm thankful I fully upgraded my Fume Ultra Greatsword earlier, since hitting his face requires some vertical range. Also, strafing right at mid range happens to avoid most of his attacks, except for his flying one in which running left is better. Ultimately, he dies without beating Nunja Friede's record of the most times I died to a boss. As a final challenge I decided to go hunt the dragonslayer in the swamp (since I did his job for him).

He is really tough to duel, but not that bright. In the end I defeat him simply using a robe (for running) and a longbow. This is made really easy when he gets "stuck" on some ruins at the edge of his leash. I just fill him with 99 poison arrows and 33 large arrows which ends him and earns me his armor. Bwahahahah. Done here, I return to the painting girl (in the still slow burning church) and give the child her Uncle Gael's soul. She is thankful and shows me her painting...

It looks like an odd grey nothing at first but as I focus it starts to look like spiraling hues of blue. I can't seem to put my finger on it as I am drawn closer and closer. I also can't seem to breathe...

Dark Souls III: Physics Breaker

Tales from Dark Souls - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Beyond the Church I arrived at the chamber of the sleeping princess, who wasn't so much sleeping and more long dead. Poking her destroyed the illusion that is the Ringed City (much like I heard that if you poke Gwynevere you reveal the true "dark" Anor Londo in the first Dark Souls) and left me standing in a massive desert of ash and ruin. Apart from one of the Princess' Knights who I put down, the only other one here is Gael... having grown to a massive size by cannibalizing the "people" here. He then turns to me with murderous intent.

The boss fight against Gael is certainly one of the "prettiest" in the series, with the physics defying knight flying in unexpected angles as he attacks. I only attempt two practice runs to read his basic set before summoning sunbro DogHow and S***A to assist. They are clearly experts at the fight and we have no problems as Gael switches to his even more beautiful phase 2 and phase 3 sequences, ultimately slaying the old slave knight with no friendly casualties. Thanks guys!

A picture cannot capture how awesome this fight is.

This just leaves one mysterious boss fog I found in an earlier secret passage which I couldn't enter. At first I thought it to be a bug, but it turns out there was a pre-requisite to open it first... defeat the dragon on the bridge.

Dark Souls III: The Spears of the Church

Tales from Dark Souls - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

The boss fight inside the church is one of the most devious in Dark Souls. While there is a respawning painting assassin NPC during the fight, the main boss is... another player. Yes. I hope you've been practicing your PvP skills because one of the many crazies who enjoy ruining the day for others will be summoned as "your boss fight", and given the people who sign up for this covenant would be the ones who PvP at every opportunity - lets just say are not novices.

Said opponent cannot use Estus heals which is great, but everything else in their arsenal seems to be ok. They also get an AoE spear summon and an automated magic spear spell hovering above them (at least I think its automated). The "Spears of the Church" Faltran and Bloodfire did their duty of blocking my progress. Rather than hoping one will just throw the fight (which probably isn't going to happen, given the game) I decided to tilt the battle to my favor as much as possible, summoning sunbro Andraste to assist and coating my axe with the bleed buff.

Pre-combat shot. The fighting is too intense later to take screenies.

Spear of the Church Anayaki still put up a good fight, but with my tricks and a late "suddenly switch opponent" tactic by Andraste and me, Anayaki was caught unprepared for an axe to the back. Being unsure of who to block against next ensured both of us hit which ended the boss fight in our victory. Thank you Andraste! Funny that someone named after a goddess/saint helped me get through this section! ;)