I know, it’s not quite as cool any more. Twitch Plays Dark Souls is ‘technically’ cheating its way through the game but you know what? I don’t care. I think this make things far more interesting. Why? Because it’s actually achievable now. Twitch Plays Dark Souls has a legitimate chance of finishing the game.
And they just took down their second boss.
The boss in question is the Taurus Demon. Those of you who have played the game will remember the sheer terror of initially encountering this bastard on atop the Undead Burg. Much tougher boss encounters are yet to come but at that stage in the game? He feels almost impossible.
But first you have to get to that boss, which is difficult enough in itself — especially for a rag tag group of people playing via the medium of Twitch.
Patrick Klepek already put together a great explainer on precisely how Twitch Plays Dark Souls is gaming the system, but here are the Cliff Notes: they’ve found a way to pause the game intermittently and then ‘vote’ on the best move forward.
If you watch the following video of Twitch Plays Dark Souls heading towards the earliest Dead Burg bonfire you’ll get an idea of how this looks in real-time: staccato movements, weirdness. Functional but not how one would normally play this video game!
This is how it looks in the actual stream:
To the boss fight itself.
Twitch had actually come insanely close to beating the Taurus Demon beforehand but failed at the very last second. Most Dark Souls players can relate — you might have a couple of these insanely close battles before attaining true mastery and absolutely blitzing your way to victory.
But that’s altogether more tricky under these Twitch related circumstances. Simply put: every boss battle is going to have to be a grind. These guys are going to be taking a lot of hits, they’re going to be using a lot of Estus Flasks.
The technique Twitch seems to be using for these boss battles — and it makes total sense so far — is the use of magic and long range attacks such as firebombs. It’s a simple strategy: maintain distance, use your shield wisely and throw fireballs and firebombs at every opportunity.
Twitch eventually found themselves trapped in a corner, and was taking heavy hits, but somehow managed to get themselves in a situation where it was possible to hit firebomb after firebomb. Eventually, they pulled off the impossible.
This is truly incredible stuff.
You can watch the ‘real-time’ video of the fight in action below.
But the real Dark Souls starts here goes the saying. Which boss battle is next? I’m guessing the Gargoyles next to the first bell tower. This is a massive, massive step up and I seriously have my doubts. I’m not sure it’s possible. It’s a boss battle that really requires speed and I’m not sure Twitch Plays Dark Souls will be able to get the job done.
But what do I know? I didn’t think they’d make it out of the Undead Asylum.
Comments
9 responses to “Twitch Plays Dark Souls Took Down Another Boss”
I said this on Twitter, but they beat the Taurus Demon more legitimately than I’ve ever bothered to. I always just cheese it with the drop attack (which probably requires more immediate precision than fighting it head on, thus why they didn’t bother).
ME TOO T_T
There’s no such thing as cheesing in dark souls. If you can find an easy way to beat a boss, you’re awesome.
Goddamn it Twitch plays Dark Souls better than I do…
I wonder if they have managed to level up at all. This could end up being an SL1 run.
I’ve given up caring. They have turned DS into a turn based strategy game with a pause button….which makes it no longer Dark Souls but a highly modded version of the original. When you have to mod something to the point where the essence of the game is removed then its quite frankly pointless….and proves nothing…except that if you turn dark souls into a turn based game even Twitch can beat it……….
what would you prefer? they turn DS into a walking-into-a-wall simulator?
“Try using a plunge attack”. LOL
Dammit, now they’ve got further than I ever did.