☠ Souls Series Symposium ☠

[Xeogred]

Yeah, that's the thing. A chunk of the Dark Souls 3 bosses aren't exactly always hard, but they all seemed really well designed and were just all badass. I appreciated that, considering the boss spam in DS2 was a bit much, and a lot of the bosses in Bloodborne didn't do much for me. Dark Souls 3's bosses had the cool factor maxed out.

The cool addition to the boss battles in Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 is that they started to have advanced phases as their health hits certain points, so their movesets and strategies change which made the fights more intense and interesting.

Did you notice the composer subtlety changes the further you get into Dark Souls 3? Motoi Sakuraba passed the torch to Yuka Kitamura. It's not how it evolves point for point, but for the most part he did most of the earlier bosses and she did the later ones. It's cool to realize and then notice the changes in style. It's still amazing how Motoi Sakuraba did a lot of work on these though, it's a huge departure from his norm. I wish they could have brought back the Demon's composer at some point though, it definitely had the weirdest music of them all, but in a good way.

[CFFJR]

Also keep in mind that arrow/bolt damage is reduced over distance, so if you can get a closer vantage point they may do better.

I didn't know that, and likely would not have worked it out on my own. Thanks!

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Gonna edit so I don't double post.

No time to play yesterday and not much tonight, but I finished 2-2.

This level kinda freaked me out in general. Not pleased with the claustrophobic tunnels and the giant shadowy worm bugs lurking inside. And the smaller ones have the gift of flight! My surround sound made that buzzing noise crawl up my spine. Yeesh.

Speaking of those stupid bugs, painfully obvious trap is painfully obvious. You guys know what.

Flamelurker is an ass. My attacks didn't do much damage to him, and I didn't get a lot of openings in the first place, so this became a war of attrition. He seemed to get even more aggressive once I had him down to a third of his health, so I was forced to be even more defensive. Getting in his face just resulted in taking more damage, and I was lucky to dodge out a couple of times when I suddenly found myself pinned between him and some object or another. The ring of flame resistance helped too I'm sure, but that was a long fight.

[isiolia]

Flamelurker is an ass. My attacks didn't do much damage to him, and I didn't get a lot of openings in the first place, so this became a war of attrition.

He takes better damage from magic, which (as Exhuminator noted) means Sticky White Stuff works well, or using a magic infused melee weapon. There's a Crescent Falchion +1 conveniently provided near the beginning of 4-1 that's pretty handy for that, or other magic weak things. It's really just a pretty strong weapon in general.
Flame resistance ring helps, I also ended up using the Purple Flame Shield - I seem to wind up using a high stability shield for select fights in most of these games actually, and wearing light or no armor to accommodate them

Also hate to say dude, I thought the skeletons ruled in Demon's. They were cunning and legit threats. Nice variety between the colors like a beate em' up, different types and movesets, weapons they had, etc... well you get some skeletons again in the rest of these games but they are a total joke in comparison. It's a weird disappointment.

I'd argue that DeS used skeletons in a generic way, so the more accurate comparison to later entries is probably to different mob types. For example, the Alonne Knights in DS2 are likely comparable.

Meanwhile, skeletons tend to get weaker, but used more thematically, both in areas they show up in, and ways they spawn/etc. The bigger ones in Tomb of Giants might stack up though?

Or there's these guys:

HateHateHateHateHateHateHateHate


Between the jailer nun things in DS3 and the Winter Lanterns in Bloodborne, I'm fine with not seeing more mindflayer or similar enemies

Silver Knights just pretty much walk around with signs saying to backstab or parry them.

[Exhuminator]

No time to play yesterday and not much tonight, but I finished 2-2.

Congratulations! Flamelurker was one of the three bosses that really gave me trouble. The next one for you will be Maneater. And after that, False King.



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As for skeletons in DeS, they're great. In nearly every other game, skeletons are slow and weak mob fodder. Even in King's Field they are only marginally dangerous. But in DeS those bastards move super fast and hit super hard. I thought it was a cool change of pace.

[MrPopo]

You see that picture isiolia posted? That will haunt your nightmares once you play Dark Soulis.

[Xeogred]

The bigger ones in Tomb of Giants might stack up.

Between the jailer nun things in DS3 and the Winter Lanterns in Bloodborne, I'm fine with not seeing more mindflayer or similar enemies

Silver Knights just pretty much walk around with signs saying to backstab or parry them.

Oh those guys stack up alright. Probably the scariest and worst enemies in Dark Souls.

Freaking loved the jail in DS3, finally got a nice call back to Tower of Latria.

Won't deny that. The rare ones patrolling the outer worlds can be intimidating when you're lower levels, but they are cannon fodder once you reach their main zones. Still iconic and fun enemies to fight though and the Silver/Black Knight sets are my favorites to wear in all the Dark games.

[isiolia]

Oh those guys stack up alright. Probably the scariest and worst enemies in Dark Souls.

Depends on what light source you bring. The consistent one to make me super careful is basilisks. You get that nice audible warning at least.

[Exhuminator]

How's it going CFFJR? Keep us up to date man.

[CFFJR]

Heh, sorry dude. Didn't mean to go quiet or anything, I just haven't been able to play since my last update. Nothing to report I'm afraid.

I'll definitely be able to give it some real time Friday night though. Hopefully Saturday too.

[CFFJR]

Alright, so I managed to get a bit done tonight, but not as much as I wanted.

First off, I beat the Dragon God. He killed me 5 or 6 times with his flame before I got the timing down to get by him. The hints are there (the eyes) it was just a failure to execute on my part. It was cool and full of spectacle, but Flamelurker was a lot more intense, and even though it had me on edge at the time, it was also more fun.

Then I moved on to 3-2, which is a really cool (and kinda disturbing) level and much less frustrating overall then 3-1. The "music" is awesome and creepy and really suits the area. Only had 1 death here from rolling off an edge like a jackass.

Of course, the Maneaters fixed my wagon. I had the first one down to about a quarter of his health, and the second nearly half. But the bastards like to hit you with inescapable combos if you're not careful. I managed to survive that a couple of times, but that's still how I lost in the end.

The real difficulty here is that there's two of them. Even with the perilous location, fighting only one would be much simpler.

Anyway, that was my first attempt, and unfortunately I had to shut the game off because I have an early day tomorrow and I was already giving up sleep to play as it was.

Round two coming soon though.