I've done the impossible. For many years I thought I could never do it. I had tried half a dozen times, and each time was met with failure and disappointment. To what exactly am I referring? I have finally beaten a Dark Souls game. The best part of this is that it wasn't as torturous as I thought it would be. In fact, I think Dark Souls 3 (the one I beat) is one of my favorite games of all time now.
The first time I played Dark Souls I had no idea what I was getting into. I was a fifteen-year-old looking for a fun fantasy game like Skyrim to entertain me. I saw Dark Souls had good reviews, so I borrowed it from a friend and gave it a try. Upon fighting the tutorial boss and lacking any progress after a few tries I realized that Dark Souls was not for me.
As the game and series rose in popularity, I found myself with a bit of fomo, but I knew that I was stuck on the outside because I didn't enjoy my first encounter with the game. I ended up getting the third game for Christmas in 2016. When it finally came time for me to play it, I ran into the same issue I had with the first one. I couldn't even beat the tutorial boss! Worst of all my uncle was watching me play and kept saying "why don't you play something else?" after every death. Needless to say, I was pretty done with Dark Souls 3 at that point.
Then when I was in college, I took a class that required me to play dark souls in order to study the mastery loop found therein. I reluctantly and a bit fearfully complied. My experience this time around was a little better, I beat the tutorial boss fairly quickly and was soon exploring Undeadburg. I actually enjoyed the tension there, but I wasn't every really quite sure I was going the right way or doing the right thing. With the help of some guides, I defeated the next boss and slowly made my way to the top of the church. I hit a bit of a wall in the fight with the golems. I was frustrated by the imprecise dodging and extremely accurate enemies. I had played enough for my class and put the game down.
Realizing that my frustrations might just have been because the game was over 10 old, I figured my concerns would not be present in Dark Souls 3, and I was right. I beat the tutorial boss and found the game a lot more fun that Dark Souls 1. So much so that I couldn't stop playing. Over the last couple of months, I have put around thirty-five hours and on Halloween night 2023, I finished Dark Souls 3.
I've taken some time to reflect on what made the game so fun for me this time around and what I think would've helped me enjoy it the first time. So, here is why I think Dark Souls 3 finally clicked for me:
I realized early on in my playthrough that I wanted to level up as much as possible, and if that meant grinding a bit, then I was okay with it. This mindset ended up paying off quite a bit as I felt accomplished every time I leveled up, rather than just when I made progress in the game. Throughout my playthrough when I got stuck on a boss, my first step to beating them was to go grind a bit. Grinding for a few hours in my playthrough enabled me to never really feel like I was a lower level than I should've been going through some levels or fighting certain bosses. Also, I usually hate grinding in games, but I was sure to split it up over short 10-15 minute sessions and that kept me from getting board.
Early on in this playthrough I realized that I didn't need to fight every enemy I came across. This saved time and a lot of frustration. Especially around the halfway point in the game in which the standard enemies deal massive amounts of damage and can overwhelm you if there are just a few of them. Rather than learning to fight all of them, it is much quicker and easier to instead learn the timing to dodge their attacks in order to run past them. This helped the game go much faster and saved my patience.
With regards to timing dodges, this is key when it comes to beating any of the game's bosses. I would guess it's very rare for a player to beat a Dark Souls 3 boss on their first try. In fact, a lot of the bosses may take players dozens or even a hundred tries before they are able to stand victorious. The key is to focus on each defeat not as a failure, but rather learning a new way not to beat the boss. Each time through is a chance to learn the timing of all the boss' attacks, learn when and how many times you can attack, and how near or far you need to be from the boss in order to balance the attacking/dodging success you have. This mastery loop is endlessly fun when approached with the correct mindset.
Another thing that helped, but not as much as I thought it would, was reading walkthroughs and guides online. If I ever got truly stuck on a boss, I didn't see anything wrong with pulling up an IGN walkthrough just to get shown the right direction to go. I don't know if this is credit to the game's designers or the IGN walkthroughs team, but those guides never really told me exactly what to do. Like a boxing coach, they only give tips on how to approach the boss rather than a second-to-second guide on how to beat them. This helped me get started on defeating the boss while still allowing me to learn the intricacies of defeating them on my own.
Before I wrap things up, I want to mention some things that may have helped me, but I'm not really sure. I mentioned timing dodges earlier and that's because I only ever dodged as my method of defense. In order to make my rolls faster, I unequipped my shield and put some lighter armor on. This worked for me, so hopefully it works for you too. Next, with my one-handed broadsword I only ever did the light attack. This made all my attacks quick and easy to dodge out of. Again, this worked for me and I'm not sure it would work for everyone. On that note I just want to mention how impressive it is that there are so many viable builds in the game. The developers did such an incredible job.
After 35-36 hours of gameplay, and its completion, Dark Souls 3 is now one of my favorite games of all time. I finished it a couple of weeks ago and it's been on my mind ever since. When Elden Ring came out last year, I swore I'd never play it because I knew souls-born games were not for me. Now, I can't wait for when I finally make that purchase and start playing. Dark Souls 3 changed me as a gamer and helped show my how good at video games I really am.
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