Tag: darksouls3

• Aria

  The small girl whispers in the wind —

  

  A prayer for a true spring that is absent of liars and tyrants;

  An older man, who’s likely her father, hums an ancient aria.

  The aria is a song of old; the prayer of peace and the end of both fire and shadow. It’s the hope that these weary golden trees may bless the land with life once more; the assurance that the bewildered may suffer no more. It’s the certainty that ashes cease to ride with the wind.

  The little girl, with her sapphire hair, experiences a jade green aura that blesses her body with strength as she sings along with her father the aria of spring. Their hope for better days is what keeps them together.

  No matter how cold the world is. No matter how cruel the lands may be — peace is all they long to invoke.

  Their world’s suffering has already reached its peak, as both fire and shadow have strangled the world which they rule in — leaving it blanketed in ghostflame never-ending.

  They’ve lost enough and so much. The winter has been insufferable for ages. Their dream of spring is all they have.

  The closing hours simply have a small girl and an older man humming the aria of spring — over a land barren from ghostflame with nothing but a ringed city and a slain falcon perched over.

  11/01/2024

  adreamofspring, aria, darksouls3, Falconia, poetry, ron322, Writing

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• Closing the book of Dark Souls III

  Damn, just damn…I ended my recordings of Dark Souls III. October will be when you’ll see the final episode of the series but in the meantime, I wanted to talk about the feeling of having finished the NG+ run.

  As far as the difficulty curve in this run…it’s not as bad as advertised. Field enemies do have about 2-3x hp and do hit 2x as hard but also yield 2-3x Souls drop. This visible change is prevalent from beginning of the game until mid-game. Whomever drew the NG+ difficulty chart online, thank you. Upon entering mid-game ie Boreal Valley/Anor Londo, it starts tapering off and becomes almost indistinguishable from your first playthrough except sort of easier since by then, I was significantly higher in level than when playing the first time.

  The difficulty curve change in Ariandel and Ringed City was mostly unchanged. Go ahead and do a search on Fextralife to compare the hp of Elfriede, Midir and Gael; hardly 10-15% higher than NG. Even then…Midir was still very much the nightmare I endured the first time! Sure, I was much higher in level but most of my essential build softcaps were already covered even by mid-game of NG+ (Vigor, Endurance, Strength and Dex) and from there, it was more of a focus of skill and strategy.

  Concluding was truly cathartic as upon the end of it all, I always save Gael for last instead of Soul of Cinder for this reason — when you realize the Ringed City is Londor and Midir is essentially buried in the site of Manus even far below Farron or Catacombs and unearth the secrets of what’s in Londor…it really made you question the point of linking the First Flame and instead Make Londor Great Again or just let it all fade to black. Of course, as a special treat, the playlist will show me give you guys those two endings.

  Will I ever farm to remove my sigils to then grant you all the vanilla ending? Maybe but it’s the ending I despise and the one that really means nothing knowing that FromSoftware has moved on with Elden Ring.

  09/26/2023

  Bandainamco, darksouls3, FromSoftware, newgameplus, reflection, ron322

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• Near Journey’s End in NG+ of Dark Souls III

  For all intents and purposes, my streaming series of DS3 was supposed to be 100% solo with only NPC summons at my aid. For a good chunk of it, I managed to do so— until I had a case of missing my FromSoft bonding w/my best friend; and what better way to remedy that than to do the unthinkable — party chat and co-op together again.

  If you tuned in on my Twitch channel to watch us live, we love and I mean love to talk trash. While not all of it makes it to the editing floor when condensing to weekend episodes on YouTube, I leave just enough to enjoy and see our interactions; especially when I fall to my doom or as we now call it, “Vintage Ronnie!”.

  As much as I loved braving the game solo, I found even more enjoyment playing w/my best friend; it’s a camaraderie that cannot be replicated and goes as far back as us doing story mode together in Gears Of War 2 and 3.

  Don’t get it twisted though — there’s a real chance that we may do said shenanigans when Shadow of the Erdtree releases for Elden Ring but aside from that, the rest of my ER playthrough will be just me and my trusty spirit ashes wrecking everything in our path.

  Maybe it’s age and how it changes how you value the bonds of friendship you make for your lifetime but it’s one of those things where, if I can journey with a friend in the game instead of alone, I go for it.

  You only consciously live this life once before the fire fades. Whatever memories you can create together, do so without relent; for this life has enough betrayal in its Lands Between…

  09/04/2023

  darksouls3, eldenring, friendship, FromSoftware, Life, memories, ron322, twitch, youtube

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