Just like the old days Dark Souls again. Because if I'm playing something else these days, I'm wasting precious grinding time. And how about a nostalgic double-whammy? I will combine gamestorytime with CHOOSE YOUR ADVENTURE: Story of BADASS ANTICS: Flirting with the Hydra Spoiler Darkroot Basin. This is around the time I've just cleared the Undead Parish, and found my way into Darkroot Garden, which branches off shortly afterward to the Basin. The path goes down a ways before emptying out into a large clearing, which I've been to before. There are ice demons there--"In the forest? Wut?" Yeah, I know. Any rate, the ice demons killed me with a big ice missile thing last time I was here, so I run up and agitate one of 'em to see if I can take him. But then all of his buddies aggro and run up to punch through my spine. I'm bobbin' and weavin', holding my own but not really doing much damage, when I get blind-sided by one of the missiles. It cuts my health to a third... ...and kills one of the demons. That's when I realize they aren't shooting the missiles. There's something else in that clearing. Sure enough, I turn to get a better look into the forest, and I see patches of shimmering white in the distance. I'm being sniped. So after a few tries, I manage to get my maneuvering down to the point where I can get the missiles to rip through the demons without rearranging my vital organs. Once they're all dead, I start moving farther into the clearing. The farther I move, the more icy ordinance I have to dodge; it seems most of them were previously slamming into trees before they could reach me. But until I actually get past the forest proper, all I see in the distance is a thick, bluish-white fog which is apparently vomiting rocket-cicles. Then I emerge from the forest. I see a lake; and in it, a mass of necks, twisting and undulating. I look up. And I am staring into the nine angry heads of a blue dragon of at least three to four stories. IT'S A MOTHERFUCKING HYDRA. A FULL-SIZE, BONA FIDE GODDAMN HYDRA. And its mouths are foaming with icy discharge. I freak out and mash the circle button, taking a few hits to the pinky toe which apparently accounts for four-fifths of my health. After jumping around like a monkey on hot coals for a while, I notice a corpse and accompanying soul in the water. (If you don't know, retrievable items and such are represented by the souls of the deceased.) MMM BBY 1Z D4T SUM PH4T L00TZ? You bet it is. Objective identified. Commencing mission. I wait for the next round of missiles, then bolt for the treasure. I pick it up. Knight Armor. FUCK YEAR BEST L00TZ. And then I hear a rumble. The Hydra rears back. It's preparing a physical strike. The next few seconds are a mess of OHGODOHGODOHGODs and thrashing dragon heads. It basically slams its whole being into the ground around me, a few of the hits close enough to take my ears off, but somehow I remain unscathed. As it recovers I make a beeline for the forest, and barring a few missiles grazing my temples I'm pretty well safe. Now, this was on my first run. I've made a few since then, and on one, I recently set my sights on that armor once again. But I decided to try something fun. So after clearing out the ice demons and making my way to the Hydra's lake, I wait for the last round of missiles to fly, and run right up to the edge of the water. And I taunt. I perform my favorite gesture, "What! What is it!" wherein the character holds up his arms and takes a step or two, daring the universe itself to fuck with him. I do this in the face of a thing literally a hundred times of my size. It prepares its many-headed rush of righteous retribution. Lets fly with the holy headbutt. And misses completely. I nab the treasure from between its heads, buried like shameful ostriches in the ground, and take off. IRL, I pump my arm, just a little bit. Mission success. Story of CRIPPLING DESPAIR: Melancholy of the Gaping Dragon Spoiler This is a much sadder story, filled with misery and defeat. It takes place in an area I should've visited before the forest. The first area, the Undead Burg, leads to several different areas, but its natural extension is the Undead Parish. Inside the Parish, you find a key which leads to a lower area of the Burg, and from there to the Depths, the obligatory sewer area. Noteworthy for weird frog things, giant rats, living slimes (all three of which poison if they hit you enough), and a Pyromancer NPC who sells you Pyro spells once you rescue him. Which is great for me, since I'm a Pyro! But first I need souls to pay him with. So I decide to explore the sewers. The place is confusing as hell. There are traps, pitfalls, ambushes, you name it. And the set-up is just a tad labyrinthine, not helped at all by the poor lighting which can obscure doors and pathways. Thankfully, the enemies are easy kills as long as I keep my guard up and don't make any stupid mistakes. A priest who gives buffs to a trio of mid-sized dire rats goes down with little fanfare; a swarm of weird frog-things gets thrashed. But not knowing where I'm going, the trek starts to wear me thin after a while. On the plus side, I end up with 10,000 souls, a damn good number considering my highest at a time before the Depths was about 6,000. I come to a large room with an eccentric merchant and what looks to be only one exit. Now, I've played Demon's Souls all the way through, and Dark Souls behaves enough like it that I know this is a pre-boss room. Something big is coming up. So I have a choice: Spend the souls now, or risk losing them. I decide to check things out before I make any commitments. So I go through the exit. Up and down several flights of stairs, which let out into a huge open room. I mean huge. We're talking bigger than a house. Ruined pillars and structures litter the floor. A large crack in the wall allows that bleak, overcast semi-light to shine through. On the far end of the room is a chasm stretching from wall to wall, with a wide stream of water emptying into it. This is not just a boss room. This is a That Boss room. I immediately run back to the merchant and spend all my souls. This shit is not a risk I want to take. Then I return, making my way to the white fog door that stands between me and what is most certainly my death. I prepare my weapons with the appropriate augmentations. Make sure all my healing items are in order for easy access. Say a little prayer. And step through the fog. The cut scene begins immediately. A clawed hand reaches out of the chasm. What follows looks a bit like a lizard. Not very big; maybe three times my height? Which, really, is not that big for this game. Hell, it's kinda cute. C'mere little guy, you wanna fight m--SWEET MOTHER OF GOD WHAT IS THAT. The rest of it starts to crawl out of the chasm. Six arms/legs. Two pairs of wings. A large, gnashing tail. And in the area where I expect any normal, non-bowel-voiding beastie would find its ribcage... rows. And rows. And rows. Of fangs. This thing is as tall as the Hydra, and about six stories long. And half of that is fangs. Have you seen the Dark Souls trailer? This is that thing that slams down on the player character, presumably killing him in one shot. Only it looks bigger. It's called the Gaping Dragon. Say hello. As horrified as I am, I actually fare rather well. Turns out the bastard is not that hard to defeat; he has an easily exploitable AI loop that leaves him open and immobile for several seconds. I wouldn't fully grasp how exploitable it was until my last few bouts with it, but eventually I take it down. It drops TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND SOULS. Let's put this in perspective. My best opportunity for grinding yet has been in the sewers prior, where I could make about a thousand souls in ten minutes. And that's without calculating the backtracking and/or dying and retrieving souls from my corpse. Long story short: I've just been handed several hours' worth of work in a matter of minutes. And I can't get out of the sewers. I search the place high and low, but I can't find a way out. All of the paths leading to the lower areas are one-way; they're either traps or steep inclines which I can't climb in reverse. As far as I can see, there's only one way out. The Gaping Dragon drops a key which opens a door by the merchant. This leads to Blighttown. I've been here before; I know that it's a lot like the sewers in that everything poisons, except most of them can actually hurt me. I have enough souls to afford new fire spells, new equipment, forging out the wazoo. But to get any of it, I have to get back to the surface. And it seems I'll have to go through Blighttown on the way. I'm on my way down, climbing down several ladders. I start to see wooden planks and torches. Getting closer. I arrive at a narrow bridge overlooking a fatal drop. Oh hell, this is the last place I want to get into a fight. And there, on the opposite end of the bridge, stands a cave troll. I have fought cave trolls before. Two at a time, even. But I had room to dodge then. Their sluggish blows would tear right through my shield and send me flying, but with a little space to breathe I could take them down in a few hits. I am facing a lone troll. A very slow, very brutish troll. And I can't fucking beat him. Several times I try. I am beaten into the ground, pushed off the side, and I accidentally roll off a few times. I try to roast him with fireballs, but he runs right through them. There's not enough room to kill him before I run out of bridge, no matter how I approach. So I decide to make a run for it. After a few failed attempts, I breeze past him. There's another troll a few yards beyond, still on narrow footing. I run past him, too. The paths start branching out, and I'm having trouble keeping my footing without running off the edge in my frenzy. Then I start seeing skeletons. Fast ones. Purple ones, seeping with poison. I hold up my shield, praying no one catches me. Poison darts start flying out of the woodwork. Finally, after reaching something which remotely qualifies as "space to move," I turn and see if I can't start picking off my pursuers. The entire pack is behind me. At least six skeletons, two or three trolls. Several large mosquitoes are floating towards me. I can see the very first troll far in the back. I've just dashed past a third of an area's worth of enemies and not a one of them has stopped pursuing me. There is no hope. A few futile sword swipes later, I am obliterated. And this time, when I return, I can't get past the first troll. He slams his club into me, halving my health. I put up my guard for the second hit, but the force of the blow sends me off the bridge. Let's take a tally of what was just lost: Thirty thousand souls. Almost ten hours of work, some informed, some very real and very grueling. As I watch myself fall off the bridge, I see it all fall with me. I like my games, but I don't usually get into them enough for impassioned emotional displays. But at this point I am on the verge of tears. ...Do you want to know the saddest part? There was a way out. There's a ladder in the merchant's area. On the opposite end of the room. But with the shitty lighting and the fact that every ladder in this game is rust-colored, I didn't notice it even after several searches. Once out of the Depths, home base was not more than five minutes away. I went through all that for nothing. This is a level of rage that I've found my brain is unable to process. I was angry at first, sure: cussing up a storm, blaming the game, calling it a pile of shit and wanting to forget it exists. But once I loosed some of the fury, I just kind of shut down. Dark Souls broke my brain. Listen, don't let the story fool you. This game is excellent. GotY if you ask me. Game of all years. It's absolutely stellar. Everything is as it should be: The creatures are creative and terrifying, the score is one of the best game scores ever heard, all the equipment and techniques are unique and fun to use, and--a surprisingly rare hit for RPGs--all of the stats matter, and effective builds can be sculpted around just about any play style. Sometimes it is on the level of gaming legend. But sometimes, it just wants to break you. If you can do yourself any one favor, just try to keep an eye out for emergency exits. They usually exist, and they can save you a fortune (and precious sanity) if you catch them in time. I spend WAY too long on these things
