Maybe you thought the original Dark Souls was too hard. Maybe you thought it was too dreary. Maybe it looked boring. For whatever reason, plenty of people missed playing it the first time around. Dark Souls Remastered is out and it’s a great excuse to check out the series for the first time or to give it a second chance. Here are some things you should know before you play.
If you’re a series veteran, you know the drill. Dark Souls Remastered is a near one to one experience to the original game. But if you’re new, there’s some important things you should know:
Stay Calm
Defeat is a fact of life in Dark Souls. You’ll have some pretty tragic and sudden failures while playing. Embrace the messiness and keep pressing forward. Try not to get angry. You’ll improve with each new attempt and eventually kick a lot of arse.
Don’t Worry About Your Starting Class Too Much
There are 10 different classes to choose from when rolling a character, each with different stats and equipment. Choose what you think looks fun. You’ll eventually start upgrading the stats you like for your playstyle. However, be aware that picking the Thief automatically grants you the Master Key, which can be used to unlock many different doors throughout the game.
Pick A Good Gift
You’re also given the choice of a few items at the start. You can pick up the aforementioned Master Key, which can be useful, but there are some other choices too. If you want to make early boss fights easier, take the Black Firebombs. Both the rings are useful. The Old Witch’s Ring will allow you to talk to an NPC later in the game. The Tiny Being’s Ring boosts your health, which is helpful at the start of the game.
What Do These Stats Mean?
When you level up, you get to choose which stats to increase. Here’s what they all do:
- Vitality: Increases your max HP
- Attunement: Increases how many magic spells you can carry
- Endurance: Increases stamina and the maximum weight you can carry
- Strength: Allows you to wield strength-based weapons and increases damage of STR weapons
- Dexterity: Allows you to wield dexterity-based weapons and increases DEX weapon damage and casting speed for magic spells.
- Intelligence: Allows you to use sorcery spells and increases damage of INT weapons and spells
- Faith: Allows you to use Miracle spells and increases damage of FAI weapons and spells.
Use The Right Stat For The Right Weapon
All equipment has minimum stat requirements to use effectively. They also “scale” with certain statistics. For instance, a katana will usually scale with Dexterity. That means if you want to do more damage, you need to upgrade that stat. Take a close look at your favourite weapon to check what stat it uses.
Pick Up Your Souls
As you fight enemies, you collect souls that can be used to level up. If you die, you lose them all but can pick them up again if you run back to where you died. Make sure to grab them; if you die a second time without picking them up, you’ll lose all your souls.
Rest At Bonfires
Dark Souls’ bonfires are iconic at this point, and for good reason. They act as checkpoints where you can level up and restore health. When you die, you’ll return to the last bonfire you rested at. Keep a lookout and rest at a bonfire whenever you can.
Restore Your Humanity
As you play, you’ll gain “humanity.” You can then use it to restore your human from at a bonfire. You need to be human if you want to summon other players, so keep that in mind.
Keep A Shield Handy
While I don’t recommend relying on your shield too often, it’s still good to have one around. Equip it in your off-hand and use it if you feel overwhelmed. Once you learn attack patterns, ditch it and dodge instead.
Watch Your Stamina
It might be tempting to dodge roll all over the place or spam attacks, but you’ll run out of stamina quickly if you do. Do your best to leave enough for an emergency dodge. Otherwise, you might hack and slash only to get smacked when the enemy retaliates.
Two-Hand Your Weapon
If you change your stance, you can hold your weapon with both hands. It will increase your damage and help you use weapons even if your Strength stat is below requirement. Combine this with well-timed dodges and you’ll beat up bosses nice quickly.
Learn To Parry
If you’re not two-handing a weapon, you can use your off-hand to parry attacks. The timing changes a bit with each enemy, but it’s still pretty generous. Don’t be afraid to parry attacks, even from bosses. If you succeed, you can counter with a critical attack.
If You’re Interested In Magic, Try Pyromancy First
Magic builds require stat allotment that can be tricky to grasp on a first playthrough. Luckily, there’s always Pyromancy. Unlike Miracles or Sorcery, Pyromancy spells have no minimum stat requirements. All you need is Pyromancy Flame, which you can get either by selecting the Pyromancer class at character creation or finding an NPC named Laurentius in the Depths.
Be Sure To Attune Your Spells
If you do use magic spells, remember to equip them when you’re at a bonfire. Using the Attune option in the menu will let you slot spells into your action bar. The amount of slots is tied to your Attunement stat. If you want to hold more spells, you’ll have to dump points into that stat.
Equipping Too Much Slows You Down
Your Endurance stat determines your “carry load,” which determines how much armour and weapons you can equip before moving slower. For instance, if you only have 8% of your total load, you’ll dodge roll nice and fast. 50 per cent or higher, you’ll basically belly flop. Try to keep your equipment load low if you can.
Upgrade Your Gear
Throughout your journey, you’ll find Titanite shards and chunks that you can give to blacksmiths to upgrade gear. You’ll find Andre the Blacksmith near Sen’s Fortress, and there’s another blacksmith hiding below Firelink Shrine. Visit them to buff your weapons as often as possible.
Talk To Everyone
Dark Souls has some really neat characters and side quests. When you meet someone, talk to them until they start repeating their dialog. That’s usually enough to have them move to their next location and continue their storylines.
Explore Every Nook and Cranny
Dark Souls levels have a lot of hidden items, merchants, and special enemies. Check everywhere and really take time to search your surroundings. You’ll find gear, shortcuts, and useful bonfires to rest at.
If A Chest Looks Strange, Hit It
Chances are that oddly placed chest is a Mimic, a monster that will chomp your face off if you open the chest normally. You can either fight it or use an item called a Lloyd’s Talisman to calm it and earn the loot inside.
Avoid The Graveyard At First
A lot of new players leave Firelink Shrine and head towards the graveyard. It’s full of skeletons that can’t be killed unless you have a divine weapon. Beyond that, you can’t even fight the final boss down there until later in the game. Head towards the Undead Burg instead.
It’s OK To Ask For Help
When you’re in your human form, you’ll be able to summon friendly players and NPCs using magical signs on the ground. It’s fun to beat the game by yourself, but if you’re stuck, don’t be afraid to summon someone. Eventually you’ll meet a cool dude named Solaire, who will give you an item to leave your own summoning signs so you can help folks too.
Don’t Give Up, Skeleton!
Part of the joy of Dark Souls is being surprised and learning new things. These tips should help you get your bearings, but it’s up to you find your own path through the game. Don’t stress the small stuff. Embrace chances to learn and grow. Make mistakes, get up and keep going. You’re going to do great.
Comments
12 responses to “Tips For Playing Dark Souls Remastered”
Chose a knight as a starting class and fat-rolled all the way to Havel. It took half an hour to stab his ass, only for him to get lodged behind a wall. Now I have no Havel Ring and I’m fat rolling everywhere.
Would love to play through again… but I just can’t.
Tips for playing Dark Souls 1 remastered on pc:
1. Don’t.
Snap.
I heard all the problems from the original PC game are still in the Remastered PC version.
That, and you still have to pay money for it (where as say, Skyrim the Legendary Edition was free to PC players if they already had it).
So it’s a bug fix that isn’t a bug fix that you have to pay money for?
Choose master key and nakie run to glory.
Seems like there aren’t many oce players.
I’ve played through ds2 and 3 to the tune of thousands of hours.
Now that the remaster is out I’m enjoying my 2nd playthrough of dark souls.
Loving every minute. It’s such a different atmosphere than the other games. I especially like that I don’t know every book and cranny, and am remembering things I’d forgotten about.
I’ve also saved part of the DLC for this playthrough.
I did this for dark souls 2 also, I didn’t play the sunken city dlc for about 2 years after it dropped.
Call me crazy, but I’m a patient person and I like to save optional parts of games for a rainy day.
The remaster is everything I expected. Looks lovely, plays beautifully (save for the obvious jankiness) and adds some minor but helpful improvements.
Plus it’s really cool to have all the souls games on one console , aside from demons souls but I’m not holding my breathe for a remaster of that. Oh well, a gal can dream.
Currently have 4 chars on the go in the remaster all to play with different people and the final one for myself in a solo run.
Glorious, melancholy Dark Souls! My only tip would be: don’t over extend yourself. If you’ve collected a decent number of souls, you may want to walk back to your previous bonfire than risk pushing on to the next. Yes, enemies will respawn, but the strongest emotion this game creates is the self-disappointment at losing a big swag of souls, knowing full well it’s your own fault.
I like how the Stats tip glosses over ‘Resistance’ much like the actual game 🙂
Loving playing this with such a large community again, the Bells are constantly tolling, can always find summons, and people have come together again, PRAISE THE SUN!
I never finished the original DS, finished Anor Londo and then had some things happen and never managed to get back to it, but longing the remaster.
Good tips overall.
It runs far better than when i first got DS1, only experiencing slowdown once and i’m about 50% through the game. I didn’t realise that i actually missed some areas!
It’s been quite fun to run through using a faith build this time, the healing and buffs are so legit =D
1. Only use shards for armour if you cant use it for the weapons you use.
2. Any weapon upgraded can be used to beat the game. Starting long sword rules!
3. Kite enemies.
4. There is no shame in cheesing a boss or enemy.
5. If its your first time playing equip a shield and keep it up every time you explore a new area. It will save you from an arrow/lightning bolt/fireball/poison dart/ambush when entering the unknown.
6. Use the right shield for the right boss. You get easy access to 80% block on fire/lightning/magic. Makes the difference between a blocked hit that can be countered and a hit that needs an estus to heal.