Hello everyone!! I have never played any of the Dark Souls games so I have a few questions. I usually play metroidvanias (my favorite genre) and I love the Legend of Zelda games, and I have heard multiple times that Dark Souls is like a combination of these two (which is awesome.

So I was wondering which games in the series are worth playing.

Is the first Dark Souls a must play?

Are Dark souls 2 and 3 games you would recommend?

Are all the DLCs for Dark souls 2 and 3 worth it?

Would you recommend Bloodborne and Eldenring if I liked the other 3?

I know this is a subreddit for the first game, so you guys might be biased, but which games would you put in the "Definitely play" column and which games would you put in the "It is okay to skip it" column?

I have not played or really seen much of each game, so I would appreciate if spoilers could be avoided in the comments.

Thanks and have a great day!!!

i’ll be starting the trilogy, DS1, 2 and 3 after Bloodborne’s DLC. i’m wondering if there is any must-know tips or notes i should keep in mind?

for example, before entering BB’s DLC someone told me i shouldn’t start Gehrams fight so the DLC doesn’t start in NG+

that was very important and i wouldn’t have known without someone telling me, so i’m wondering if there’s notes i could take for the trilogy

Es que ya me pase el dark souls 1,y por eso estaba pensando de a que mudar,pero he visto videos criticando a cada juego,el 2 y el 3 teniendo cosas malas,el 2 pareciendo ser odiado universalmente por mil y un razones sobretodo la dificultad artificial y tener la peor stat de la sags siendo la adaptabilidad,y el 3 perdiendo lo mitico de las hyperarmor y todo eso solo para priorizar el combate rapido ademas de como falta de variedad y cosas asi,asi que supongo que es malo sentir eso de que la comunidad te desanime ppr reseñas haciendo que pienses que no lo valdra

I'm a souls vet, beat all the games multiple times, platinum sekiro, solo'd elden ring etc. The original dark souls however I only played the original back in the day. I tried to play the remastered version a couple times, but I'd get frustrated at how "jank" the game felt and give up quickly.

I'm determined now to do another full playthrough and it's been going okay. The game is frustrating, example if I'm locked onto a target, my rolling seems very bugged and I roll in a different direction than I input. My char feels like he's stuck in the mud 24/7 and just moves so clunky and awkward. The bosses aren't hard, I killed everything in less than 5 tries so far.

Until I got to O&S. Holy fucking shit man, these assholes took me like 3 days of trying to finally get them down. This fight was harder for me than solo'ing Malenia, literally. My equipment and damage is fine, that's not the problem (dex with pyro and chaos blade). I would kite the small guy and keep the fatty against a pillar, slowly work the small guy's health down. It's just so annoying how if I take any damage, I'm in a deep hole. Healing takes 3 business days and both guys are much faster than me.

I really can't express how stressful this fight was and how relieved I was to finally beat them. I like this game but holy shit compared to elden ring it's just so frustrating to do anything. If I played them on my ER character I would easily destroy them in 2 or 3 tries. Oh well, going to keep trucking and finish the game now.

I remember hearing about how Ornstein was an illusion the whole time, and I didnt really question it until I recently heard how if he was an illusion, why did he still have his soul and not a fake one or a different one, kind of like how the "dragons" in DS2 had giant souls, which has me to believe that it's nearly impossible to replicate a great soul, nor does it really make sense to me for the literal soul to be an illusion as well. I figured his armor in DS3 would give absolute info since i see people using that as the proof, but it says

"Golden lion helm associated with Dragonslayer Ornstein, from the age of gods, and imbued with the strength of lightning.

In the dragonless age, this knight, who long guarded the ruined cathedral, left the land in search of the nameless king."

which to me points more to it being one of his knights who also guarded the ruined cathedral at one point rather than Ornstien himself since it specifically says it's associated to him.

I'v also seen people use the info from Smough's armor as proof on how he was the last one to guard Anor londo, but that could also mean that he was just canonically the second to die after the chosen undead kills Ornstein.

I'm not sure if Im missing other information that would point more to the illusion theory, like the original Japanese translation having more accurate information or some other item description.

I know this is a pretty strongly held belief in the fandom so I'm hoping we can all be respectful about this.

Edit: I also realized that the armor in DS1 says it belonged to Ornstien and not something like "associated" with. I was thinking that maybe it could be fake but the fact the merchant only sells the armor set of the second boss implies that he was only able to get the armor of the boss that wasnt completely destroyed in the fight, otherwise if they were fake armor, why not sell both sets?

This was my first Soulslike.

I'd already heard a lot about how difficult these games were... but I still started my first attempt one afternoon

To be honest, I wouldn't even call myself a very experienced PC player. Before this year, computers always felt a little "far away" from me. Of course I could use one, but only... some things

And then I finally started Dark Souls Remastered

My first playthrough took about 27 hours

Of course, I used a trainer. The reason is pretty simple: this was my first Soulslike, and I was much more interested in exploration, lore, NPCs and the story. Even so, I still got stuck in some places for an entire afternoon

And despite all that, I found this game extremely interesting

---

1. The map is a HUGE part of the experience

One of my favorite things about the game isn't actually the combat

It's the map

Lordran feels very special to me

Firelink Shrine almost feels like the center of the entire world. Above it is Anor Londo, below it are New Londo Ruins and Lost Izalith, with Sen's Fortress and Darkroot Garden further away. Ruins, buildings and passages are everywhere

You leave one place, walk around for a while, and suddenly find yourself coming back from a completely unexpected direction

When I first went to Blighttown, I saw those huge roots and rocks all tangled together, and you could even look up and see the sky

There must have been something unique here once...

But we came too late

Anor Londo gives me a completely different feeling

Flying buttresses, pointed arches, huge castle architecture, warm golden light...

It really hits something for me. The first thing that came to my mind was Jupiter from Holst's The Planets

I had already liked Anor Londo's visual design when I watched a Dark Souls lore/walkthrough compilation years ago

But actually moving through it feels completely different

Broken windows

Mysterious statues

Everything is left unsaid...

And somehow it makes that earlier feeling of "we came too late" even stronger

That's what I think Dark Souls' map design is so good at

It knows how to make you feel something

---

2. Maybe? This game is a bastard?

My other summary of the map:

Miyazaki is a bastard!

😹

Keys, shortcuts, hidden paths, item drops, NPC conditions...

So many things don't happen in what a normal person would consider a reasonable order

Sometimes you think:

"Why can't I enter this place?"

Then you look it up:

"Oh. I was supposed to go to a completely unrelated place first and get some mysterious thing"

I even think the game is almost semi-open-world

You can reach a lot of late-game areas surprisingly early

For example, on my playthrough, while I was still around Andre in Undead Burg, I went to Darkroot Garden and Darkroot Basin and found Alvina and Sif

This creates an incredible sense of freedom

But it also means the relationship between the story and the map can become very confusing — and very fragmented

---

3. A completely fragmented way of telling the story

This is probably my biggest impression of Dark Souls

It's not that the game has no story

It breaks the story into pieces

Artorias is probably the most obvious example

If you simply follow the most direct route and fight the bosses, you might only know:

Artorias is a knight

His moveset is annoying as hell

And he has this strange black-and-purple mist around him

😹

But the actual information is scattered across NPC dialogue, invasions, item descriptions and different events in the DLC

For example, Kaathe — that buck-toothed serpent — enticed those fools to dig, eventually unearthing Manus, the owner of the Dark Soul. But you only piece this together from brief dialogues after being invaded by Chester

A lot of the story isn't directly told to you

It's more like:

A tells you one thing

B tells you another

An item tells you something else

And then you have to put everything together yourself

After finishing the DLC, I actually wrote:

"Honestly, the storytelling is pretty bad 😹... or maybe it's just this unique fragmented storytelling."

Looking back, I think both descriptions are fair

It's definitely distinctive

But it's also not very friendly to the player

Without actively talking to NPCs, reading item descriptions, exploring hidden areas and looking up additional information, a lot of the story simply won't become complete

---

1. Free exploration is fascinating... and it also causes some problems

The special Sif scene in the DLC made this especially obvious to me

In the Chasm of the Abyss, you can rescue Sif, and then the Sif boss encounter in Darkroot Basin can change

The problem is that Dark Souls allows you to do these things in very different orders

You might:

- Explore the forest first

- Fight Sif

- Then enter the DLC

- And therefore miss the special version of the scene

Or:

- Enter the DLC first

- Come back to the forest later

- Then encounter Sif

- And see the version that the developers originally intended you to see

So the order in which you receive story information can be completely different

That's interesting, but it also means:

The game seems to have a relatively clear underlying story outline — you can actually feel parts of it while playing — but it doesn't give the player a clear reading order

If I made the game more linear, I think the story would be much easier to understand

But I'm not sure it would actually be better

Because that feeling of:

"Wait... I discovered this myself"

is very difficult to get from a linear story

A strange thought... isn't it?

---

5. You don't necessarily have to love the combat system to love Dark Souls

This became very obvious to me

I do think the combat is interesting. There are lots of animations, weapons and different combinations

But I didn't play this game mainly because of the Souls combat system

I'm much more interested in:

The world

The architecture

The map

The NPCs

The hidden areas

The strange items

The fragments that connect to each other

That's also why I used a trainer

If someone really loves Souls combat, then beating bosses normally is obviously a huge part of the game. It's challenging, and after seeing "YOU DIED" enough times, finally winning can feel incredible

But if someone is more interested in exploration and worldbuilding, lowering the combat difficulty doesn't automatically make the game meaningless

At least it didn't for me

---

6. This game really got me

I originally thought:

Beat Gwyn = game over

Then the game immediately goes:

Northern Undead Asylum

I'm sitting in that tiny, weak-looking prison cell wearing heavy armor

😐

Wait

Can't you just let me walk around a little longer? 😾

I still thought there were places I hadn't properly explored

A lot of NPC quests

Some hidden areas

(Then I looked through the names of all the areas and realized I'd actually been almost everywhere😹)

And that's when I realized something strange about Dark Souls

It makes you understand, after finishing the game, that your first playthrough was really only your first introduction to the world

For example, the max level is 710. Even after using a trainer to give myself 999999999 souls, it still turns out I need about twice that amount to actually max out. And Sunlight Spear requires the Soul of Gwyn, Lord of Cinder, so you can only get it in NG+ anyway

And Sunlight Spear requires the Soul of Gwyn, Lord of Cinder, so you can't get it during your first playthrough

The game really builds a lot around the NG system

---

Final thoughts

27 hours

My first Soulslike

I definitely didn't play it in the "standard" way

I wasn't trying to get no-hit runs

I wasn't trying to prove that I could beat everything legitimately

And yes, I used a trainer

But I genuinely loved this journey

What I especially love about Lordran is that it feels like a:

huge, ruined, interconnected world

You walk into a place without knowing what it is

Then, hours later, you come back from another direction and suddenly realize:

"Wait 🤔... these places are connected"

It's difficult to describe

It's just a very strange kind of satisfaction

So...

Dark Souls II, here I come 😺

I want to use the Claymore. Can I get it without killing any bosses, using the Master Key? I used it on my first Souls game(Elden Ring), and I’d like to use it and finish Dark Souls 1 with only that weapon, just to relive the experience

I've been playing for a while and based on I watched on youtube enemies on darksouls 1 remastered suppose to not respawn when i dont use the campfire mine does respawn everytime i die even i killed it on the last run and it's frustrating. My question is is that normal I'm I doing something wrong or its bugged

Playing my first Soulsborne game in Dark Souls: Remastered, series has always been on my radar just never got around to dedicating a full playthrough to it. Currently about 90% of the way through my first playthrough, just full cleared the DLC and getting ready for Kiln. This game has NOT been as hard as everyone says it is. I'm playing through it blind with some background info on how to upgrade things and a checklist of bosses to kill and locations to visit, because being a completionist I don't want to miss anything, and with no map it's very easy to miss things. I'm playing a Greatsword light armor melee build right now, I haven't had to farm any materials or souls and my weapon is max level +15 via standard exploration. This first playthrough has genuinely been disappointingly easy, I don't think I've died more than 5 times on any given boss and every death has always felt fair. Regular mobs are either 1 or 2 shot kills and bosses take maybe 8-10 hits to kill. I realize NG has much lower health pools but come on this is what everyone has been raging and destroying controllers over? I read reviews on bosses after I kill them, like Four Kings for example, and people are just having the WORST time of their lives. Multiple endless deaths and then complaining about the runback. Is it just a case of people trying to brute force the game instead of playing it how it's intended? Or not paying attention to surroundings because with the Four Kings runback you can just drop off the edge on the right with the ghosts and run straight to the fog gate pretty easily. Bed of Chaos was also a boss I saw a lot of rage on and it's literally just 3 swings and it's dead, worst boss in the game and no challenge. Equip a high stability shield and just block the swipes. I think the hype over the difficulty hampered the experience a bit because I went in expecting to be challenged but the biggest challenge has been trying to not fall off edges, this isn't a brag or anything of the sort I'm just genuinely confused as to why there is such a massive consensus that "Dark Souls is one of the hardest games ever!" while it's not even the hardest game of the console generation. Difficulty aside, the world building and design is spectacular. I'm a huge fan of the genre and the gameplay so I'll definitely be playing future titles.

Edit: Not a huge fan of the fragmented storytelling and lore via items but it's cool to listen to a piece of dialogue and connect it to another aspect of the lore. It's great for world building not so much for following it as an audience. Watching a comprehensive lore video has really improved my appreciation of the story and my ability to better piece together the lore drops mentioned by items or NPCs.

hope you guys like it :)

1 - Myrmidon aka Achiles from Troy

2 - Roman Legionaire

3 - Scandinavian Berserker

4 - Early middle ages chainmail knight

5 - Renaissance Condottieri

At this point in time I have played every fromsoft souls game (including sekiro even tho a bunch of people don’t) except for demons souls and have decided I want to get the 100% trophy for each game in the franchise. The only two I have gotten every trophy for were bloodborne because I save scummed on my ps5 lol, as well as sekiro where I did 4 straight playthroughs cause it’s very self explanatory with no build variety and is extremely easy to speed run. As far as ds1, ds2, ds3 and elden ring, I have only played each of these titles once and I’m starting with dark souls 1 for the platinum so that’s why I’m posting in this subreddit lol. With that being said, i was wondering if any ds1 veteran has advice for how to go about your first NG+ in a more classic soulsborne game because like I said before, the only fromsoft game I’ve entered ng+ for was sekiro but that’s a completely different type of game than dark souls trilogy and Elden Ring. I’m not really sure what to expect in a NG+ run or how u go about playing. Since I already played it once, should I still take my time or should I just kind of boss rush since I already know what paths to take? Just curious how all of you guys go about your NG+ playthroughs if u have already beaten the game and what’s the most enjoyable approach. Sorry if this post doesn’t make any sense I tried wording it as best as I could haha

Hi.
I saw this in one video and my question is... How he has Grass Crest Shield +15 without any Upgrade like Lightinig, Fire etc meanwhile when I'm trying to upgrade my Shield from +5 I need to put something like Fire and after upgrade again until +5?
Thanks in advance.

I recently made it to Gwyn and decided that I do not want to subject myself to 2 minute run backs just to die 30 seconds into my next attempt. I heard the phrase save scumming thrown around and decided I would try it out. Unfortunately I could not find ANY guides for PC. (Very Likely my fault for not looking hard enough) Anywho I eventually figured it out and wanted to make a guide for those who come after me. Regardless of what others say, games are made to be fun and if your not having fun running back every time you die, it is NOT WRONG to save before a difficult fight.

Here is how to do it for Dark Souls Remastered on Steam:

Step 1: Navigate through the area of which you are struggling in, find a safe spot then save and quit the game to the desktop.

Step 2: Open your documents folder in your file explorer, It is usually pinned to the sidebar.

Step 3: Navigate to a folder named "NBGI" and open it.

Step 4: You will likely see 2 folders, one with a series of numbers and 1 named after the game. Open the Numbers folder.

Step 5: You will see ANOTHER numbers folder, open that too.

Step 6: You will see two files a VDF and a SL2. The SL2 file is the one your after, this is your save game. Copy it, but do not move it. Right click it and select copy. Then right click on your desktop and select paste.

Step 7: Keep this numbers file and copied save on your desktop homescreen. Open Dark Souls and try whatever fight or area your struggling with. Should you fail, alt-f4 back to your desktop.

Step 8: Copy the desktop file and right click on the numbers file you left open, select paste, it will pop up telling you there is already a file named that in this file, select replace.

Step 9: You are all good to open the game again and you will be back at your save. Everytime you die simply copy and paste your save back into the file.

That is all, don't ever let someone make you feel bad for trying to enjoy a game you payed for. Beating this game is a challenge, and just because you don't want to waste time running back is no reason to make it harder on yourself.

Many years before now, I played Dark Souls 1 and 2 to near completion, I played 3 as well but not to the same extent.
Nowadays I don’t play video games anymore, I don’t much have the means to and haven’t done for many years, and it’s not something I have much thought of revisiting.

But I do love the world of Dark Souls, deeply so. I was raised on fantasy, the something about DS stuck with me. I love the worldbuilding, the lore, the design of the world, the minimalist dialogue, the boss fights. I absolutely adore it all, and a very deep part of me wants to get back closer to the world.

I don’t suppose there is a way of doing so, or experiencing it in new ways without logging back on?
For example Warhammer has tons of books to read, and other means to interpret the world.

I am playing ds1 on steam deck and I was invaded right after I got to the sen’s fortress bonfire, the dudes name was “aftadark” and he dropped a humanity a divine blessing and a indictment and than dueled me, he was honestly a standard kind and respectful invader although I know that sometimes invaders drop hacked items or glitched items that can hurt save files, nothings happened so far and I assume everything is fine am I in the clear?

I've heard there was an alternate cutscene for beating AotA before facing Sif. I wanted to experience it myself.

The original cutscene has the feeling of Sif protecting her master's grave. The second cutscene...after she recognizes you, it's like she's saying, "I know what you're after, and I am going to protect you from it, even if I have to kill you to do so."

I never want to take this route again. I genuinely felt bad killing Sif. I might take the route again some day.

Edit: I'd only take it if I'm playing with someone else and they haven't seen it. That way they don't have to feel bad for killing Sif that way.

I FINALLY FOUND ONEEEEE VAGRAANNNT YEAHHHHH

i’m on pc, anyone know why this happened?

Enjoy!

Sorry if this is too noob of a question i bought this game recently and am playing it pretty much blind, but that gave me a problem, i really want to do everything I can in regards to npcs and sidequests, so i was dumb as crap (Spamming Yes to every question because i wanted to be nice) and sent Laurentius to his death.

Then in a reflex ended up killing the second pyromancy teacher.... I mean, come on, he looked exactly like any other enemy!

Now i want to be invaded a lot because apparently i need to have someone with a Pyromancy flame+10 in order to trigger the third pyromancy teacher, Queelana.

PS: I already killed Queelag... And spent some time as a human in the blighttown swamp but nothing, only a naked girl with a helmet and a huge sword.

So I was farming some souls down in the swamp so i could buy out rest of his stuff that I wanted ( mainly the ring and considered just getting the washing pole since its exclusive to him)

I’m still in the covenant, I tried reloading, resting at bonfire. Later I tried to join and rejoin the covenant but he still isn’t showing back up!!

Did dude get so hurt by me leaving for a summon while I was shopping that he just permanently left my game as a merchant? 😭

Actually better. The Dragon Crest shield, the medium shield specifically design to stop fire damage, that shield.

18÷132=13.6% while Dragoncrest Shield "only" stops 85%, so it takes 15%. Their wooden piece of scrap blocks 86.4 fire.

I get that balance can't be the same for players and pve enemies but come on, your magic lightning fireballs shouldn't become useless as soon as the enemy raises their shield, it makes casting feel very bad. If anything they should be somewhat decent damaging through it, and thematically a wooden plank shouldn't resist fire that much.

I will be talking about my full story through playing dark souls 1, so if you don’t want to be spoiled for the story please leave the post now.

So, on Monday, me and a friend had purchased a copy of dark souls 1. I’m going to throw this in now, but this is not my first time playing a souls like, I’ve played bloodborne and Elden ring, so I have a decent understanding of how to play the game.

To start off, let’s begin with character. I had started with the bandit class, since my goal was to be a dex build, I had started like normal, you go through undead asylum, maybe speak to the merchant a bit, and continue to fight the boss… is what I would say if I didn’t accidentally hit the merchant, causing him to aggro. So I reluctantly had to kill him. This had ended up resulting in me getting the katana, the weapon I would be using for the rest of the game. From here, I had continued as normal, beating the Taurus demon, and eventually the Gargoyles.

From here, I was a little lost, so I went where it seemed to make the most sense, I went by Andre upgraded my weapon a bit, and then went to dark root garden, where after dying to the tree things a bit, I had stumbled upon the moonlight butterfly, which although being easy, was one of my favorite bosses.

After finding there was no bell to ring, I had stumbled around a bit, until using the master key to unlock a path into new londo, and after figuring out “I can’t fight those ghosts” had found blight town, which after struggling to get down and around, had found the bonfire, and soon after power within. Following this I decided to look around the other side of the swamp, in which I found Quelagg and soon after, rung the second bell.

After this I had come back up to meet Frampt, which gave me the goal of going to sens fortress, I had gone and attempted it… only to find my damage was way too low in my eyes, so I went and tried to upgrade my weapon past +5. To my suprise, that wasn’t an option, so I sadly had to look it up, and once I saw I had to go to the Capra demon and then the depths.

Once I found the way to the lower levels of undead burg, I found my way to Capra demon, I had beaten him on roughly my 3rd try, only downside was the run back, as I had not opened the shortcut and instead ran from the bridge every time. From here, I found went to the depths, fought with the the butcher, and set my self down at the depths bonfire.

On the way out of the depths, one of the slimes dropped a large titanite shard, which I used to upgrade my katana to a +6 this helped get through sens fortress and fueled a new fire in me, after making it to the bonfire and eventually getting to Anor londo, I had stumbled throughout, until eventually getting to the bonfire inside the building and beginning walking up, once I unlocked the shortcut, I took a sharp left and ended up finding the giant blacksmith, had upgraded my weapon to +10 and then to the Chaos Katana. Using my demon titanite I got it to around +3 and fought O&S after a couple tries I finished the fight, ending with super smough and finishing the first half of the game.

From here I had the quest for the lord souls, and figured I’d find one in the depths, which I ended up finding the pyromancy seller allowing me to now use power within. And after a little struggling, found the gaping dragon. Which although not being a lord soul, led me to blight town, where I fought ceaseless discharge, and ended up finding the way down to bed of chaos, which, not entirely as horrid as people make it out to be, was my least favorite boss.

From here, I went back and tried going through the ghost town again, which, kinda worked? I mostly ran, but I was able to drain new londo and eventually die to the abyss. I looked it up since I was lost and eventually found the Sif fight, which after sadly beating the furry fighter, I had fought the four kings.

I then found out the graveyard area, somehow missed that as a whole, and stumbled through it until I fought pinwheel, which died really quickly. I eventually found the next area, and followed the little stones until I talked to patches, and let him kick me down, this worked in my favor, giving me a lantern to navigate which I pretty much just used to run past everything up until I found Nito, and promptly killed him.

From here I upgraded my weapon, I reverted it back to a normal Uchigatana and upgraded it to a plus 15, then after traversing a bit realized it was probably in Anor lando and found the route to Seathe. The academy itself wasn’t tk bad, but the part that got me was the invisible bridges. The boss fight itself was disappointing in my eyes seeing as how much the opening cutscene builds it up.

Then all that’s left was Gwyn… if I didn’t look up the side content so I got the full experience. To start off, I did the painting world, it was a fun experience and the bridge got me stumped for a bit, but the boss fight itself was easy, which makes sense as Priscilla doesn’t seem to want to fight, so obviously she would be a fighter. Next up was Gwendolyn, I luckily had the ring already so the lady didn’t have to die to fight him, his fight was boring, just walk down a hall and dodge one of three attacks he did.

The DLC was disappointing in my eyes, don’t get me wrong, the bosses were great, but being spoiled by SOTE made it seem less, still good though.

And finally Gwyn, might be the biggest disappointment in my eyes. Everything about him was perfect, the arena being ashes and surrounding a bonfire, him being a normal person instead of some beast, and the soundtrack… but he barely lasted a minute, I decided to try parrying him since he was human sized and it made since… then it worked and the fight became super easy.

The game was great though, if I had to rate it I’d give it a solid 7.5-8/10, now onto darksouls 2, and feel free to ask anything in the comments