"Ring my beeeeellllllll, ring my bell (my bell)" - a Dark Souls 1 game journal - Chapter 3
So I can't cross the bridge (dragon fire and all that) - but a path beneath leads into the castle proper. The first enemies I meet do that game thing where they look exactly the same, but are inexplicably tougher. I've never liked that feature, but I understand the neccessity for it, as developers can't make a new enemy type every five minutes, but difficulty does have to increase.
I've also noticed that this game is fair stingier with it's souls than Dark Souls 2 - making leveling a slow business. In addition, I've yet to find a blacksmith (or equivalent) able to upgrade my weapons, leading to me feeling consistenly underleveled for almost every encounter I've had. As this is the day one version of the game, I wonder if perhaps they made any changes to how many souls you get. I'd be curious to know, but given this is a FULLY blind run, I won't be able to find out until it's done.
Which I feel is gonna take some time. The Undead Burg transitions into the Undead Parish, and man, these guys do not make it easy. I crawl through the level, each encounter slowly draining my health bar, which drains my limited supply of estus flasks. No disposable health items here. Little margin for error. I meet a new enemy type, a knight with buckler and rapier, and these guys are aggresive and fast - engaging to fight no doubt, but it takes some time to learn them. The rapier is so fast, that to deal with it I end up turtling behind a shield most of the time, blocking to force an opening.
The more deliberate, slow pace of combat, and the increased reliance on the shield is begining to make me feel that perhaps I should have gone with a knight type build - especially considering the differences in rolling between weight classes, it's significantly more noticeable. Dark Souls 2 taught me that the best defence was to finish the fight as quickly as possible - but without effective offensive options, suvivability might be of greater import.
I struggle through the Undead Parish, pockets full of precious souls, estus flasks dwindling, dwindling - then gone. I have no idea where the next safe place is, but I don't want to have to do this again, so I keep going, and going - and then I hear it. Faint clanging. A blacksmith. I turn right onto a narrow bridge, down to a tower, and the most glorious of sights - a bonfire. The combined feeling of relief and exhilaration is one of the most profound experiances I've had in gaming, not by beating a boss, but the level. The differences between this entry and Dark Souls 2 are drawing into focus. Wherein that game felt somewhat more like a path to lead to bosses, in this game the level IS the focus.
The blacksmith, Andre, is a gem. Not just a nice chap, but also selling infinite titanite shards. I use what souls I have to upgrade the Estoc, level up, and on a whim, buy the broadsword. Testing it, I find it moves rather rapidly compared to the Estoc, and hits suprisingly hard. I decide to grind and upgrade it, and find myself pleasently suprised with it's performance.
The bonfire at Andre's is my new base from whcih to strike out in several directions. In short, I find the Onion Knight (another fine fellow), explore Darkroot Garden, and descend into the Darkroot Basin (which after finding the leather armour, I promptly leave due to those dang black armoured knights), and finally I head back towards the Undead Parish.
At the end of the bridge outside Andre's is a rather chapel looking building - now my understanding of chapels is that they are often fitted with bells...
I climb up, and run into an absolute army of undead alongside a wizard type fella. It's a slog of a fight, but I get through, climb the ladder and on the roof meet the absolute bane of my existence. Gargoyles. Now the gargoyle fight in Dark Souls 2 was one of the most obnoxious fights in the game, and that was OPTIONAL. I can see the bell tower behind them, so this fight is not. I don't get far into it before being flattened.
This needs some consideration, to shift things in my favour. So I grind for souls to upgrade the broadsword and level up some. More importantly, I find an elevator in the parish. On a whim, I take it, and it goes down - and I am absolutely terrified that it's gonna spit me out in some dark, smelly place. But it doesn't. It leads back to Firelink Shrine. Holy S**t, what an amazing link! A-plus level design, and a massive boon to me, as this bonfire doubles my estus flasks. The whole humanity thing is QUITE making sense to me yet, but it seems that if I kindle a bonfire, it increases my estus flask allocation.
So, after some wandering and grinding, I fill up on Estus Flasks and head back up to the chapel. After the mess of dealing with the hoard of undead (who I end up just kiting downstairs before running past), I make it up, and find my first summon - it's Solaire! I figure yeah, why not, and call him up. What a bro. And because I don't want to deal with the undead again, I add some Gold Pine Resin. Full send.
And then we begin. The broadsword with the resin is MIGHTY potent, and Solaire is a tank, drawing the Gargoyles attention away. We take down the first Gargoyle, chopping off it's tail, before a second weaker one joins. He dies even faster. It's a messy fight, and I get very lucky by just avoiding one of those fire attacks by the skin of my teeth, but it's over quickly.
And that's it. I climb the tower, and ring the bell. One down, one to go.
