My Dark Souls playthrough

Dark Souls is an interesting game, as I'm sure anyone who has played any of the Souls games (or Bloodborne) already know, but this is my first time playing.

Usually I don't blog about games to note my progress - mostly because it's not necessary. Most RPGs are fairly linear and even if they do provide some amount of choice (such as Mass Effect) there aren't a lot of room for actual mistakes and failures and huge fuck ups. Dark Souls does have room for all this stuff though, and somehow this makes all the achievements I do get that much more awesome.

Dark Souls is the only game where every boss battle I go in to, I get a huge adrenaline rush and I realize after I win (or die) that my heart rate is usually through the roof. It's the only game where I would rather slowly sneak my way through an area holding my shield up in fear than just blindly run through and hack and slash my way through crap. Hell. It's the only game where I've even thought about using a shield to parry and have actually had to time my dodge rolls to a precise second. Seriously. This game was a huge learning curve for me, but I am learning.

And to track all the learning I've done - this is where this post comes in to play!

Currently: GAME COMPLETED WHAAAAAT

Fuck ups:

• With my first character, I accidentally killed the first merchant at Undead Burg. I was grinding outside the bonfire, all my weapons broke, realized that the merchant was the one who could have repaired them. I restarted.
• Agro'd the female merchant accidentally (the talk option wasn't appearing so I figured she was a hollow) -- absolved my sins though cuz I had extra souls :)
• Cursed at the Depths and didn't know how to get purging stones since the female merchant wasn't an option at the time (I figured out creepy priest also had them)
• Falling off the cliff for Gaping Dragon. God damn it :|
• Falling off the roof during Gargoyle fight multiple times?
• Ran around in circles at the entrance to Blighttown getting destroyed by the dart guy because I couldn't see the path to go and kill him
• Just... Blighttown. Falling. Lots of falling.
• Going through the fog not knowing the Capra Demon was behind it and getting obliterated in 5secs flat. What.
• Sen's Fortress. Just. What the hell? I'm pretty sure I missed 50,000 of the things hidden in there because I never want to go back there again.
• KILLED SOLAIRE CAUSE OF A FRIGGEN INVADER AT ANOR LONDO OMG
• The New Londo Ruins made me want to cry because I couldn't find out where the dude was to drain the water :| Laaaaaame. 
• After that... the darkwraiths weren't as scary as people said they'd be. Fighting them was just like fighting the dark knights and I actually found it kind of fun to buttstab them xD
• Fuck. The. Dogs. In. Tomb. Of. Giants. 
• The Dukes Archives confused the hell out of me and I spent along time just wandering around it because I had no idea where to find Seath. I didn't know you could actually walk into the crystals in the garden outside. *sigh*
• Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith were pretty lacklustre and boring (also the amount of bosses in the demon ruins was a pain in the ass - like seriously). Also the lava. Why. Not amused. 
• RUNNING THROUGH THE KILN LIKE NBD BEING CHASED BY AALLLLLLL THE BLACK KNIGHTS LOLOLOLOL

Boss Battles (Achievements!):

• Tauros Demon took me a while but it definitely taught me the importance of dodging
• Gargoyles also took some time as well but that's because it took me while to figure out I could block with a shield, and once I figured that out fight became a lot easier (also with a +5 Uchiganata)
• Moonlight butterfly just sucked hands down and I'm pretty sure I only got by through sheer luck (I still never figured out how to perfectly dodge those spears, but I managed to dodge everything else enough to survive)
• Capra Demon... wasn't that bad? I noticed the stairs right away, sprinted up, killed the dogs, and just did a lot of jump-stabbing, rinse and repeat
• Gaping Dragon I beat while cursed (half HP) which means I never got hit once, and the only reason it took me more than a couple tries was because I was damn impatient (I died three times, one strike away from winning because I tried getting in the last hit rather than knowing to back up and get the fuck out)
• Big Giant at Sen's Fortress beat him in two tries and was probably the easiest boss I've had to deal with so far :D Slow big bosses I can do no problem, yes!
• Sif the Great Wolf took me a while... I did SUPER well the first time and nearly killed it and then every time after I got considerably worse and worse (not even down to half HP). Finally decided the first time was beginners luck and actually figured out his attack patterns of when to move in and when to hang back.
• Priscilla the Half Breed was super easy. End of story.
• Ornstein and Smough I actually managed to kill Ornstein like.. 3 tries in and got super-Smough down to half, died... and then proceeded to suck at them for the next three days. Fuck this. Solo-melee'd them though so... there's a special sort of accomplishment in that.
• The Four Kings they weren't as bad as I thought they would be... still took me a couple tries but not that many once I got used to the fact that if I just hugged them (like reaaaally hugged them) they barely hurt me. After that it was just hack and slash and boom, dead.
• Pinwheel ...well at this point... really? 
• Nito waas pretty damn easy after Snorlax and Pikachu. Hey. I think I'm getting pretty good at this game maybe?
• Seathe was pissing me off a lot. Everyone said he'd be super easy so I thought he'd be super easy. In retrospect he was... okay. The clam things before reaching him though are terrifying as fuck though.
• Bed of Chaos This was a dumb boss and was super frustrating in that it took no skill, just sheer dumb luck.
• Lord Gwyn Fuck this shit. Bosses with fire capabilities suck ass. 

Other Things:

• Joined the Forest Covenant
• Discovered The Great Hollow (have yet to actually travel inside yet though)
• Went through the Painted Land of Ariamis (and wanted to die in the well with the Bonewheels - what the fuuuuck?)
• Retrieved the stolen firekeeper soul from Knight Lautrec (yo this fight was a PAIN).