About a year and a half ago I played Elden ring with no dark souls gaming knowledge and got my ass handed to me and made it through the base game by the skin of my teeth and thanks to lots of summons and spirit ashes. I was immediately in awe of the mechanics, level design, world building and boss/enemy AI that from software created and I wanted more.
So I worked backwards and played dark souls 3 still not quite sure of all the intricacies and hidden gameplay mechanics and again, stumbled my way through till the end.
It wasn’t until beating both bloodborne and the original dark souls that I felt like I finally started to get how to play and enjoy these games rather than suffer through to say I did it.
long story short, I’m in the middle of a new playthrough of ds3 and it’s crazy to have like tangible proof that I’ve gotten better and “get” these games. Beating the first boss in 1 try (first playthrough took me maybe 25), starting as a deprived so that I had to be more resourceful. Idk it’s fun to see how far I’ve come as a player! areas that scared the shit out of me that I wouldn’t take the time to explore I’m now getting to see and im finding soooo many new things. i love you dark souls 😭