Dark Souls

[ItsThere]

Just finished this so ending spoilers below:

->Open Spoiler<-

um... that was brief! Just drank a Red Bull expecting a hard last battle but I got a co-op warrior who helped me, my fire was very effective against Gwyn as well making for an easy battle with no deaths... Tiny ending cinematic and then credits... I am hoping for more because the interlinking story / end game in Demon's Souls was brilliant. The regeneration made sense then, hopefully there will be something linking this in here because there must be a NG+ to play through. Otherwise it pales in comparsion story wise to it's older brother...

[Supergoal]

@Supergoal: I recommend getting yourself cursed by one of those bug-eyed weirdos in the Depths so you can attack ghosts, and then farming a few transient curses from the ones in the ruins. They drop them pretty often and in packs of two!

I haven't been down there yet so I'm not sure what you mean by bug eyed weirdos. I went to the zombie woman merchant and she sells them for 4000 souls a piece!! Way out of my league.

[BaronSqwelch]

After a couple of days off to let the rage subside I have made real progress today...killed the Gargoyles, the thingy in the basement and made it to 10000000000 deaths by the Butterfly to add to my other directions travelling to 100000000000 by the Gaping Dragon. Rage returns.

The dragon I can nearly kill (with both phantoms help tho )...but the Butterfly? Can get it to land once so I can actually hit it...even farmed enough souls to raise my intelligence 2 points to use heavy soul arrows and I still get raped.

The boss difficulty spikes in this are so infuriating!!

Says on igns guide there is a summon sign by the butterfly but I couldnt see it...tho I expect that is because I took the bizarre step of leaving the covenant I was in knowing my luck

[PeteJ]

As with all bosses, just wait for the right moment. I defended like crazy on the butterfly and although its tough (impossible?) to avoid some of the attacks there is a big enough gap to heal yourself. When it lands deal as much damage as possible but don't get cocky. Repeat and it'll eventually fall! By the way there is a secret bonfire right next to it

->Open Spoiler<-

see that door with the magic seal (costing 20k souls to unlock), to the right of this there is a wall you can smash down. Bonfire behind. Handy!

The Gaping Dragon is also pretty easy, keep running so you are at the back\side of it (I never used lockon either) and wait for it to charge. For some reason the dragon just sits still for ages after every charge. Takes a while to take down but so long as you stay away from the front and don't get too close before it charges (the swipe attack is really powerful) you shouldn't have too many problems.

[briareos_kerensky]

->Open Spoiler<-

Blightown

has become my favourite place in Dark Souls. Entering from the

->Open Spoiler<-

Depths you get a lot of highly dangeorus jumps and catwalks rewarding you withe excellent loot,

the scenery is fantastic (albeit the frame rate drops often and it's difficult to spot where you have to go),

->Open Spoiler<-

there is a poisonous swamp

and the boss there is the best looking in the game...well, part of it.

->Open Spoiler<-

The swamp puts to great use the Rusted Iron ring and again there are some wonderful items spread all across the swamp; giant mosquitos respawn and they don't drop souls, but the giant leeches drop huge amounts of green tanites, so every minute is well spent.

And then two hidden paths.

->Open Spoiler<-

After defeating Queelag I rang the second bell and when I was "Demon Ruins" I went back, but a message "hidden path ahead" prompted me to hit all walls and...a white Queelag, "guarded" by a talking egg-man! The white spider woman can upgrade your Estus Flask and you can join her covenant but decided not to, serving "Our Fair Lady" as the egg-man put it didn't sound too tempting. But hey, +2 Estus Flask! I returned to the swamp and got into an other area, up to a giant root and in an alcove with a plank shield inside...wonderful treasure for sure. A giant leech was able to follow me up the root and by swing my greatsword to kill it I revealed an other hidden path. This path goes down, using the inside of a hollowed tree (the location is called The Great Hollow) with, again, a lot of leap of faiths leading to los of colored tanite chunks and shards and two crystal lizards. And a lot of basilisks, like the one in the depths but with a more powerful curse. Near the base of the hollowed tree there are mushroom men that can kill you with two punches (level 38 with +2 Elite Knight armour) and you end up in The Ash Lake, an infinite lake with a narrow strip of white sand connecting The Great Hollow to a second, smaller tree. There are other trees in the background and then it struck me "I'm where the dragons of the intro movie lived! And the ash is due to the firestorms! How cool is that? And, hey, hello second hydra." And yes, there's a second hydra in the Ash Lake and seeing it jumping from side to side of the tiny ash strip is a fearsome sight, especially when it bombs the path when it's jumping. I removed my armor and run toward the second tree, only to get killed by a mushroom man. I was cursed so a single punch was enough. Tried again and I noticed a small path to the second tree's right, so I went there. And, behold, a dragon from the intro movie. You can pray to the dragon and join his covenant, which I did. I received a Dragon Stone and a Dragon Eye, plus you can offer Dragon Scales to the Ancient Stone Dragon to deepen your pact with him. The Dragon Eye allows you to invade players with Dragon Scales, the Dragon Stone...remove your helmet, use the stone and your head becomes that of a dragon, able to breath fire! I'm so loving this covenant.

Also, the soldier near the bonfire in Firelink Shrine:

->Open Spoiler<-

after ringing the second bell the snake thing appeared and he was moaning about its stench. Went around the world a bit, returned to Firelink and he said "he would do something about it". Third time returning in the Shrine and he's gone. Snake thing is still there, the soldier nowhere to be found...is he lost forever? If I knew I would have harvested him for souls.

[rmoxon]

->Open Spoiler<-

Blightown

has become my favourite place in Dark Souls. Entering from the

->Open Spoiler<-

Depths you get a lot of highly dangeorus jumps and catwalks rewarding you withe excellent loot,

the scenery is fantastic (albeit the frame rate drops often and it's difficult to spot where you have to go),

->Open Spoiler<-

there is a poisonous swamp

and the boss there is the best looking in the game...well, part of it.

->Open Spoiler<-

The swamp puts to great use the Rusted Iron ring and again there are some wonderful items spread all across the swamp; giant mosquitos respawn and they don't drop souls, but the giant leeches drop huge amounts of green tanites, so every minute is well spent.

And then two hidden paths.

->Open Spoiler<-

After defeating Queelag I rang the second bell and when I was "Demon Ruins" I went back, but a message "hidden path ahead" prompted me to hit all walls and...a white Queelag, "guarded" by a talking egg-man! The white spider woman can upgrade your Estus Flask and you can join her covenant but decided not to, serving "Our Fair Lady" as the egg-man put it didn't sound too tempting. But hey, +2 Estus Flask! I returned to the swamp and got into an other area, up to a giant root and in an alcove with a plank shield inside...wonderful treasure for sure. A giant leech was able to follow me up the root and by swing my greatsword to kill it I revealed an other hidden path. This path goes down, using the inside of a hollowed tree (the location is called The Great Hollow) with, again, a lot of leap of faiths leading to los of colored tanite chunks and shards and two crystal lizards. And a lot of basilisks, like the one in the depths but with a more powerful curse. Near the base of the hollowed tree there are mushroom men that can kill you with two punches (level 38 with +2 Elite Knight armour) and you end up in The Ash Lake, an infinite lake with a narrow strip of white sand connecting The Great Hollow to a second, smaller tree. There are other trees in the background and then it struck me "I'm where the dragons of the intro movie lived! And the ash is due to the firestorms! How cool is that? And, hey, hello second hydra." And yes, there's a second hydra in the Ash Lake and seeing it jumping from side to side of the tiny ash strip is a fearsome sight, especially when it bombs the path when it's jumping. I removed my armor and run toward the second tree, only to get killed by a mushroom man. I was cursed so a single punch was enough. Tried again and I noticed a small path to the second tree's right, so I went there. And, behold, a dragon from the intro movie. You can pray to the dragon and join his covenant, which I did. I received a Dragon Stone and a Dragon Eye, plus you can offer Dragon Scales to the Ancient Stone Dragon to deepen your pact with him. The Dragon Eye allows you to invade players with Dragon Scales, the Dragon Stone...remove your helmet, use the stone and your head becomes that of a dragon, able to breath fire! I'm so loving this covenant.

Also, the soldier near the bonfire in Firelink Shrine:

->Open Spoiler<-

after ringing the second bell the snake thing appeared and he was moaning about its stench. Went around the world a bit, returned to Firelink and he said "he would do something about it". Third time returning in the Shrine and he's gone. Snake thing is still there, the soldier nowhere to be found...is he lost forever? If I knew I would have harvested him for souls.

He

->Open Spoiler<-

appears in the London ruins and attacks you.

[briareos_kerensky]

He

->Open Spoiler<-

appears in the London ruins and attacks you.

Good to know that his souls aren't lost forever.

[Bort]

Haven't tried yet, but in Demon's Souls it wasn't possible to enchant a bow to have magical arrows...though it was possible to "transfer" the enchantment by first enchant a right hand weapon and swap it with the bow (right on the d-pad). But, IIRC, turpentine and other special effects given by items (as opposed to magic) wouldn't transfer.

The bow couldn't be enchanted and the trick didn't work.

Went scouting last night after I finished all I could do. Found the

->Open Spoiler<-

Hydra

, NOPE!

[crocky-chocky]

I haven't been down there yet so I'm not sure what you mean by bug eyed weirdos. I went to the zombie woman merchant and she sells them for 4000 souls a piece!! Way out of my league.

You'll know when you've seen one! To be honest, and without giving too much away, there's not that much of a point to taking out all the ghosts beyond a few nice items. I just did it for the man points.

I agree with B_K -

->Open Spoiler<-

Blighttown

is awesome and my favourite place in the game so far. The

->Open Spoiler<-

swamp area

is proving quite tough without any crossbow bolts though, those

->Open Spoiler<-

poisonous bugs

are a nightmare to fight melee, and the frame rate admittedly makes it quite hard to judge their distance...Must head back for some bolts. But yeah, I love it...so many daring sprints across the

->Open Spoiler<-

poisonous bog

for tough to reach nuggets of treasure!

[BaronSqwelch]

As with all bosses, just wait for the right moment. I defended like crazy on the butterfly and although its tough (impossible?) to avoid some of the attacks there is a big enough gap to heal yourself. When it lands deal as much damage as possible but don't get cocky. Repeat and it'll eventually fall! By the way there is a secret bonfire right next to it

->Open Spoiler<-

see that door with the magic seal (costing 20k souls to unlock), to the right of this there is a wall you can smash down. Bonfire behind. Handy!

The Gaping Dragon is also pretty easy, keep running so you are at the back\side of it (I never used lockon either) and wait for it to charge. For some reason the dragon just sits still for ages after every charge. Takes a while to take down but so long as you stay away from the front and don't get too close before it charges (the swipe attack is really powerful) you shouldn't have too many problems.

Have found the bit in your spoiler...I run straight from there to the Butterfly without stopping in order to get as many deaths as possible as fast as possible

[rmoxon]

The thing that kept killing me with th butterfly was the attack it does when its directly above you. I kept thinking it was a beam attack and was running away from it. Once I realised it was a bomb and the trick was to run towards the butterfly it was much easier.

[MrKirov]

The butterfly? I summoned the witch and the thing was dead in second without me getting one hit in haha!

[fuse]

Slightly OT - anyone know an online store with the hardback guide still in stock?

[Brad]

@MrKirkov - You summoned a witch!? WTF?

[SUMIRE]

Yeah i just summoned a "helper" and she caned it.