Demon's Souls: Three Years Later (Part 8)
Oct. 29, 2013Demon’s Souls: Three Years Later (Part 8)
Last time;our noble hero ran away and hidfrom a God in a spectacular display of allowing someone’s else weapons of old to do the work for me. After not being squished like a bug and picking some Dragon boogers (the flamiest!) I tried to storm a castle of humanoids and got killed by a knight. In true Souls fashion, I quit. It’s time to go back and settle the score, once and for all! Or at least until the next time one of us respawns.
Chapter 8
Boletaria’s Heroes Fall
I had some unfinished business with a Blue Eyed Jerk on a bridge. Back to the castle. I try to get cute with the assassins on the stairs. The Tower Knight Archstone is a fine place to visit a couple extra times(1).
On one of my several times back through; I show the first archer how to do it in style. My first arrow pierces his temple and angles a little bit to exit out the back of his head (his right side). He turns to face his assailant and takes aim at me. Just in time for the second arrow to skewer his right eye. As his corpse allows gravity to take one final dreadful grasp on it, I see that my arrows make a perfect “X” in his skull.
I feel a small pang of guilt taking pleasure in that fact. Hint: “small pang of guilt” is code for “tremendous amount of pride.”
Fun fact, sometimes the assassins’ corpses will vanish like the assassins do for their “invisibility buff(2).”
I’m back to the Knight on the bridge. Instead of thinking I can parry him, I revert to my Kiln challenge technique I used to get better at Dark Souls PvP. Essentially, for those of you who haven’t seen me explain this yet (which means you need to go back and read the rest of the chapters), what I did was fight the Kiln Black Knights without blocking or dodging. You bait their attack, casually step out of range and then strike.
This turns out to be amazingly effective on this knight. Turns out he’s kind of a punk actually. The assassin that jumps down after him when you cross the bridge doesn’t surprise me and dies quickly. I collect my loot from a Minister I turned into a pin cushion earlier(3) and clear the area leading up to the stairs.
I love turning the tables on guys with traps. As my gaze ascends with the next set of stairs, I take aim through the flames at the top. The soldier up top is waiting to push a burning barrel down the steps to the dismay of the casual traveler. Rather than performing as expected, he lets go of his clever trap at the precise instant his face meets my arrow.
I die again to the next blue eye knight. Guess who tried to get cute again(4)(5)? I make my way back easily enough and have little trouble when I’m focusing on each fight. I decide I really want the shortcut open and jump down to do that(6). I’m sneaking up on the Minister guarding the gate when I hear a familiar voice.
When I played before, the best I can figure is that I beat the game through four cycles with my character. I think I did Ostrava’s storyline once but if I did it was only once. I’m actually surprised to see my buddy in trouble. I’m also reminded at how much progress I’ve made. The first time I played I recall it being very difficult to protect him. This time around I’ve kept him safe with relative ease.
I can’t take my time here though, that Minister needs to go. Stress can bring out the best in us. I filet the Minister quickly. Before he can attack actually. I flip the lever as the sinister three converge on Ostrava(7). Two have glowing red eyes. I run through the door despite doubts that either one of us will be getting out of this alive. I use sweeping attacks to take control of the fight and drop the weakest member. Ostrava sees that help has arrive. As valiantly and gratefully as he can, Ostrava……walks up the stairs casually, away from the fight. Fantastic. At least I know HE’S safe. I backpedal and fight and come out on top. Pretty sweet(8)!
I go chat with Ostrava who thanks me again and gives me the pure stone. That’s my second of that type. Then he walks away again.
At this point I’m set on what I need to do. If I want to see who is tougher…..I need to go free Biorr(9) prior to the Penetrator(10) fight. This turns out to be no problem whatsoever. The sole obstacle (one more Minister) gets sliced up pretty quick.
I make my way back up to clear the area before the Penetrator and find another quick instance of surprise. I forgot just how many soldiers were up there. Archery is again my friend. As I’m taking them out I imagine this conversation occurring:
Soldier 1: OuchSoldier 2: What happened? You just said “ouch”Soldier 3: Did that guy just say “ouch?”S1: I think I got shot with an arrowSoldier 4: Yeah, that definitely looks like an arrowSoldier 5: Hey, did that guy just get hit with two arrows?S2: Two arrows?S1: Yeah, I think I just got shot again. Man, what a way to start your morning huh…S3: Hey…dude, did you just get hit with a third arrow?S1: aaaaaaaggggghhhhhhhh falls deadS5: Whoa guys, I think someone just shot him to deathS3: Yup, that’s definitely what happenedS2: OuchS4: Ouch?
And so on. For a group of guys standing that close together they’re not really great at comparing notes and problem solving. I probably literally had a group of five or six at one point all investigating what was getting shot. Never once realizing that there’s likely a person holding a bow somewhere nearby to explain the mystery arrows.
So the Penetrator fight awaits. I say let’s do it as planned.
Biorr vs. The Penetrator
If you didn’t feel like watching garbage cell recording of my TV, the recap goes like this:
Biorr starts off strong but Penetrator shows how he earned that name and is about to get the kill. Not on my watch, Biorr seems like a cool guy(11). I bail him out knowing that he actually lost the fight. However, it’s amazing to me how close the match is. If I let it play out, there’s a change Biorr lands another hit or two. With a little luck, that’s a victory. Penetrator seemed to have the advantage by position but it’s a close one. It seems to reaffirm how much time From takes to balance things to make them just right. Everything about letting them go at it seems fitting.My primary battle won I decide to finish some of Boletaria’s celebrities.
Penetrator was enough to get White World Tendency. I go for Executioner Miralda(12). The Black Knight Ax in Dark Souls and the Kiln challenge has made me more than prepared for the executioner. She falls with little difficulty. While collecting treasure on a beam shortly after, I fall with little difficulty. Whoops. On the second trip I notice that, as you enter the door to where she’s waiting for you, the angled floor is bloodstained. Crazy detail. Did Miralda lie in wait, then kill potential adversaries in a location where she can easily dispose of corpses? Seems like. Awesome!
I finish the night by taking out the phantom trio after the Penetrator. I’ve never fought all three one on one on their terms before. Surprised I pull it off but I beat the swordsmen in a straight up fight. I have a stand off with the archer but it comes across as Robin Hood comparing to, uh…..not Robin Hood. Someone help me out, any mythology where someone is crappy with a bow? The point here is that we had a shootout and myoveruse of the bow made it a mismatch.
The last guy gives me a problem(13). Not that I can’t hurt him but because he broke some of my armor(14).
All in all, a good night!
(1) I’m still dying…
(2) The assassins can’t be seen until they close within a certain distance, regardless of line of sight. It can be pretty harrowing to backpedal and have a very fast enemy just turn invisible once you get so far away. Their corpses can do it too I guess
(3) Between the assassins and the knight on the bridge I repeatedly shot a Minister. It would make more sense to talk about it chronologically, but….here we are
(4) Me
(5) I even tried batting my eyelashes and that didn’t work at all
(6) When you first come into the area there’s a straight shot up a set of stairs that gets cut off by a Minister laughing at you via a large gate. It’s a lot more convenient than the gauntlet of enemies going the other way. Almost like they planned it that way
(7) The sinister three is just a reference that three enemies are attacking Ostrava. I don’t actually know if they’re left handed though
(8) …and astonishing
(9) Biorr is one of the great warriors from Boletaria. He naps a lot and swing a big sword around
(10) The Penetrator is another great warrior from Boletaria. Unlike Biorr he got himself all infected by the demon curse or what have you and is consequently in a pretty bad mood most of the time. A Minister wakes him up from a nap in the intro scene to the fight and let’s just say The Penetrator does not like being woken up. That account may be a little embellished
(11) He’s cool alright. Until later that is….ha ha ha ha… Hold onto that joke. It’ll be funny later
(12) Executioner Miralda is a named NPC/enemy. She appears in both Pure White and Pure Black Tendency and is aggressive either way
(13) The last guy is a “tank” in PvP terminology. Heavy armor, huge shield and pokes at you from behind his shell with #14
(14) The Scraping Spear. It’s bad enough he pokes you from behind the shield but the spear wears away your equipment and a long battle gets progressively harder as you find your gear quitting on you
Read the rest of the Series
You can read more game articleshere.
skarekrow13
By reading this, you agree to the Skarekrow13 Terms of Service:
- I agree to read all articles written by Skarekrow13 and share them with everyone I know; 2. I understand that installing non-certified replacement parts on my Skarekrow13 will void all warranties, whether express or implied; 3. I agree that I will not leave my Skarekrow13 in corn fields unattended for prolonged periods of time
Entertaining and as usual, at your comedic best! You have a way of lightening one’s burdens…DeS burdens in this case. 😀
I have decided to read your series now that I am not denying myself some “forward” knowledge. Since I had decided to attempt a low level first playthru (don’t ask me why…I honestly don’t know why).I have rationalized that any good warrior worth their salt, which (btw) was used as pay way back when in the misty past and is where the word “salary” comes from, will gather strategic and tactical intel. to make logistics easier and accomplish the goal of not dying 10 to the power of 20 times!
…rationalizing action is so convenient. Hahaha!
I’ll help you further rationalize…I don’t give away too many tactics (besides archery which works for everything) so you’ll still get the joy of learning enemy attack patterns. Although actually I might give away some strategies when it’s time to run the Black Phantom gauntlet. In this instance, “might” is in reference to the fact that I “might” edit the strategy I’ve already spilled the beans on out since the entire playthrough is actually already written.
Haha! Ok. 🙂
On a note: Flamelurker was owning my poor little low level arse. Until I settled, and mentally calmed and focused myself. Then the oddest thing happened. You know how fast, furious and aggressive that boss can be…it was over-whelming. lol
Well, he just seemed to slow down and move in an almost slo-mo fashion the entire fight. Yeah, I came close to dying by a sliver a couple times…but still it was truly weird how I seemed to be controlling the battle.
I died maybe 4x to him before hand…is there some kind of game mechanic where a boss gets easier the more times you die to it? There others didn’t seem to do that. Or did that “mental focus” actually slow things down neurologically speaking?
Flamerlurking is just generally a jerk. But if you got him then you should be in good shape honestly. As far him slowing down…Since everything comes back to food, football or video games why not mix them up? It’s probably the same phenomenon that you hear about a million times during the NFL draft, preseason and a good chunk of the beginning of the regular season. You hear a lot about rookies having trouble until the game “slows down” for them. Now I’ve never done any quantifiable research on the matter, however it’s my impression that the other team is not in the habit of running around faster against rookies and then a few games in decide to take it “easy” on them. What’s happening (from a sports/martial arts perspective) is that your prior experience leads to faster decision making, which presents the appearance of the time distortion. In several fights I’ve had I’ve often felt the opponent was moving in slow motion due to years of working on reaction times and decision making skills in relation to that.
I forgot to mention food in my response.
Tacos
Flamelurker is one of those bosses you just have to “understand” – magic is the way to go against him and there are a couple of scenery tricks to be used and abused. The boss I really really hate is Maneater. Falling to your death is not fun.
You must belogged into post a comment.
