It’s not the dying.

If you know nothing else about The Souls games, you know that they are difficult and that you will die. A  lot.

So I can accept the dying. What I haven’t been able to accept is my own badness. The wrong decisions, the dumb decisions, the bad strategy I’m using when I know better.

I’ve always sucked at the Souls games I’ve tried, although I do make steady, if a bit slow, progress. I have yet to put enough time into any one of them to “git gud”  as the kids say, I’m not even up to “git competent” yet. But I’m working on it. The amount of time I’ve had to game lately has been minimal so I’ve not played as much as I like, but It seems like each time I load up Dark Souls 3, I have to relearn the patience it takes to play the game. Charging in to an enemy that is facing you, for the most part, will get you hurt. Badly. And you’ve only got so much Estus to heal up with. But every time I sit down, I guarantee I will use that strategy for five minutes or so. Almost like I need to flush it out of my system.

I’ve finally got dodging down pretty good and man, did that take far too long to teach myself. And I should know better. When I was a kid, my first console was an Atari 2600. On the 2600  all the way up into the SNES days, you always died or took heavy damage if something hit you. A few hits meant game over. I knew how to avoid damage back then. It was second nature. Somewhere along the line, damage stopped being so punishing. You got a shield and health that could recharge if you could hide and avoid damage for a few moments. And I like that concept, but it also taught me that dodging is reserved for pussies. It taught me that I can stand in the open and unload a few magazines before ducking around the corner to heal up. It made games easier. That kind of thinking will get you slaughtered in a Souls game.

And navigation is easier as well nowadays. Bioshock Infinite, a game I really liked had a mechanic to had a light appear on screen and float away in the direction you were supposed to be heading. Why? And mini-maps! I don’t mind mini-maps, but sometimes they remove too much of the challenge. But now I’m used to that too. So when I load up a Souls game and there is literally nothing to help you navigate, the game seems hard. But that is how games were when I was a kid as well. How many of us old folks had notebooks full of maps we drew to keep track of where we were in The Legend of Zelda or Metroid?

And while the Souls games are known to be difficult, and make no mistake, they are, I prefer to think of them as being old school. So when I die in a boss fight and then run and fall down a elevator shaft and die and lose 3K souls (which was almost enough to level up this early in the game) because I wasn’t paying attention, I get pissed. At myself.

• Dodging left when I know I need to dodge right? Pissed at myself because that just cost me an Estus flask or my life.
• Needing to dodge left and not realizing I am next to a wall because I paid more attention to the huge monster and not my environment? Pissed at myself Pissed at myself because that just cost me an Estus flask or my life.
• Not looking every direction when walking through a door and getting hit from the corner I didn’t check? Pissed at myself because that just cost me an Estus flask or my life.
•  Swinging my sword when I know I should back off and heal? Pissed at myself because that just cost me an Estus flask or my life.

And here is the thing: I’ve seen other people make these mistakes countless times. Yet I follow along in their footsteps making the same mistakes, in the same locations, with the same results.  Eventually I learn and progress is made, it just takes forever.

“Why would you do this?” you ask. And I reply and tell you that I love the art in the Souls games, I love the way they look. I love the atmosphere, the hugeness of everything, the towering buildings, the immense courtyards, all with branching paths. I love opening shortcuts once I get to the far side. And I love the Dark Souls bell, my second favorite bell ring of all time next to AC/DC’s Hells Bells. I love the music, the vague story tidbits that make you want to hunt down more. But most of all I love the feeling I get when I manage to take down an enemy with good strategy. It doesn’t matter whether it is a boss or some mook, although generally a boss gives more of this feeling due to the increased difficulty. Having a plan and working it perfectly gives a sense of satisfaction that not many other games come close to attaining.

So I move forward, collecting souls, and hammering out progress, inch by inch. I trudge onward, ever onward.