The Undead Pilgrimage, Proper Knowledge Based Progression, and Why I Stopped Collecting PS3 Games
I collect PlayStation games. I’m not a reseller and I intend to play each game that I buy at some point, at least that’s the goal. So on my journey of validating myself in spending hundreds of USD on old discs I went in to start playing some of these games. For some unholy reason I picked Dark Souls. I think I watched too many lore videos and had to experience the game myself, and having the game disc on PS3 from collecting it seemed like a good place to jump in. I used to play a lot of Dark Souls III on PC with a few friends and we completed that game a few times but I put that lightly as I basically just summoned them and watch them tackle each challenge for me so I really don’t see that as an accomplishment of my own. So moving back to Dark Souls I was hesitant that I was going to have a rough time but my experience in positioning and stamina management got me through the areas that I’ve been through so far. Then I got to Blighttown.
Blighttown on the original cut of the game runs so choppy that the simple act of moving the camera can drop you to (by what it feels like) about 10–15 frames per second. This section of the game is a large area that is loaded all at once with only enemies and detail effects being protected behind the render distance which can occasionally be a very far ways. If it wasn’t bad enough that this shanty town is infested with a full arsenal of ways to get you poisoned, vertical level design that places you in unfavorable locations during fights, and those dang mosquitos; I was also falling behind in gear. I chugged through it, defeating Quelaag and ringing the second bell of awakening which finished the undead pilgrimage section of the game. As I crawled out of Blighttown I began to notice that the game did not run much better in the other sections of the game either, starting to chug in Firelink Shrine and some other sections. This caused me to put the game down for a few days. After this, I got Dark Souls Remastered on PC and it ran like a dream. But then a thought loomed over me that I would have to travel to the pits of Blighttown again and that intimidated me.
To my surprise, game knowledge made catching back up to my previous spot a breeze, I rarely died even at bosses that I had already faced. And that is when I found the real progression in Dark Souls. My items, gear, and level all seemed like immaterial gain and background knowledge compared to my mental maps of areas allowing ease of traversal and combat strategies giving me the upper hand in every encounter. Having to replay the first part of Dark Souls made me feel like I had genuinely improved at this game. For a game that is so punishing the first time around I would strongly encourage any player looking to start a Souls-Like game to play it twice just to feel their own improvement and how fast you can blow through parts that at one time took way too long. Of course series veterans know this already, and I’m most likely preaching to the choir but this game has a serious problem with its difficulty gatekeeping players out of this experience. But here I am, standing at the boss gates for what is by some people known as the hardest boss in Dark Souls, feeling confident as ever that what I learn in my next deaths will stick with me for hundreds of hours playing this series in the future, which is extremely exciting.
My experience with Dark Souls made me a believer in the remaster. That old games can be given new life on modern hardware. I had also just finished the Pokemon Diamond and Pearl remakes that add quality of life changes that make it impossible for me to return to the originals. So after this I gathered all my PS3 discs of games that had been remastered and set them aside so that I could experience them in their most complete forms. And for the PS3 most games got remastered, even niche favorites like Kingdoms of Amalur and Sleeping Dogs. I will always appreciate having exclusives like inFamous and Ratchet and Clank easily accessible however, games like Dark Souls remain in the spotlight and I’m ready to embrace their accessibility to the modern gamer because many of these games deserve to be relevant in 2022.
