• Developer - FROM Software
• Publisher(s) - [JPN/ASIA] FROM Software / [NA/PAL] NAMCO Bandai Games
• Director - Hidetaka Miyazaki
• Platform(s) - PlayStation 3 [JPN/NA/PAL/ASIA] / XBOX 360[NA/PAL/ASIA]
• Rating(s) CERO: D / ESRB: M / PEGI: 16

Enter a dark world filled with despair and threaded by hope where your ability to creatively strategize, learn and overcome unpredictable and unique challenges determines your fate. Dark Souls will demand your absolute concentration, unflinchingly punish your mistakes, but reward your ability to learn from death. Each challenge is a mind game met with endless combinations that will test your ability to creatively strategize a way to conquer unimaginable monsters and progress deeper into this bleak and forbidding environment filled with the un-dead.

• Extremely Deep, Dark & Difficult - Unforgiving in its punishment, yet rewarding for the determined - learn to strategize freely and conquer seemingly impossible challenges. You will organically design your own gameplay style by developing your character and continuously trying different strategies to finally achieve successful progression.
• Fully Seamless World - Explore a completely integrated world of dark fantasy where dungeons are seamlessly intertwined, with great height.
• Mastery Earns Progression - Contains 60 hours of gameplay, with nearly 100 uniquely despair-inducing monsters & an incredibly nuanced weaponry & magic spells system, the effectiveness of which is determined by combat situation, fighting style and character attributes. Player success depends on their eventual mastery of how and when to use the magic spells, choice of armor, the number of weapons, the types of weapons, and the moves attached to the weapons.
• Network Play - Players may cross paths with one another, interacting with each other throughout the game even as each player plays their own game. Networked play allows users to cross paths with one another to enhance the single-player gameplay experience without destroying it.
• Flexible Character Development & Role Play - As the player progresses, they must carefully choose which of their character's abilities to enhance as this will determine their progression style. Players can choose to play as a sword master and a wizard, for example.
• Community - See other real players and empathize with their journey, learn from seeing how others died, find and leave messages for your fellow players; helping them or leading them into death.
• Symbolic of Life & Hope - The Beacon Fire is an important feature of Dark Souls for many reasons. Though in gameplay it serves as a recovery and re-spawn point for players whose health gets low, it is also where players can emotionally share experiences with other players, and is the one place in the dark world where players can find a fleeting moment of warmth and calm.

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• 9 / 22 / 2011 [JPN]
• 10 / 04 / 2011 [NA]
• 10 / 07 / 2011 [PAL]
• *10 / 04 / 2011 [ASIA]

• [JPN] *¥ 7,800 - ¥ 9,500
• [NA] $ 59.99
• [PAL] *£ 36.91 - £ 39.99
• [ASIA] *$ 53.90 - $ 64.90

• Covenants - When exploring the game world, specific opportunities will allow the player to ally with a specific person/object. This oath/allegiance system is called a Covenant. It's a new, unique feature to the Dark Souls online experience which adds immersion and anticipation. Covenants could potentially align your character with other players, or create tension and competition as enemies. This system is dissimilar to an "MMO guild", but will allow the game to create a unique gaming experience for each player. Known covenants: Way of White, Princess's Guard, Forest Hunter, Gravelord Servant, Chaos Servant, Path of the Dragon, Warrior of Sunlight, Blades of the Darkmoon, and Darkwraiths.
• Gravelord - Think Demon's Souls was hard? Gravelord intensifies the experience of online gameplay and invasion through sabtoage. Invoking the power of Gravelord ups the difficulty of a random player's world when in a given area. To remove the curse, the affected player must find the Gravelord markings, allowing him/her to invade then kill the caster. The tension this creates will no doubt enhance the challenge of the game.
• Global Servers - According to an early interview, players will be able to connect globally, regardless of game version.

Hidetaka Miyazaki said:

He also confirms that Dark Souls is not just a worldwide game in terms of release, but also in the the online space. He was disappointed that they could not implement an online system for Demon’s Souls where all players could play together, and it’s a pity because the online system was specifically designed such that it did not require direct interaction between languages. For Dark Souls you will be able to play with players all over the world.

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• PS3 [JPN]
• PS3 / XBOX 360 [NA]
• PS3 / XBOX 360 [PAL]
• PS3 / XBOX 360 [ASIA]

• [JPN]
• [NA]
• [PAL]
• [ASIA]

• [NA] Collector's Edition consists of a cheap quality tin case, and digital collectibles. It will include a digital download code for the soundtrack and limited edition artbook. It also includes a behind-the-scenes/making of video. The physical strategy guide has been replaced with a mini, digital version.
• [PAL] Collector's Edition consists of a "digipak" cardboard case. This edition comes with a physical soundtrack, Making Of video disc, digital "guide" and physical artbook.
• [JPN] Collector's/"Award" Edition comes with a fold-out map of the Castle area depicted in demonstrations, and a physical soundtrack. There's been no other information (that I can find) about other goodies.
• [ASIA] Collector's Edition information is scarce, but Play-Asia lists it and shows something similar to the [PAL] edition. My guess it includes more of the same; making of video, soundtrack, some form of artbook, and guide.

• Future Press
• Examiner.com - "Content revealed for the Official Strategy Guide of Dark Souls"
• Order - Amazon
• Order - Bookdepository.com

PREPARE TO DIE LESS
Going into Dark Souls unaided will get you killed. A lot. Even armed with the complete knowledge of the game that this guide will provide, you’re still certain to die at least a few times. But when a gigantic demon takes you by surprise you’ll at least have a chance to not lose everything. This is a true survival guide for a game that’s almost impossible to survive.

Area Guide Walkthrough
The Walkthrough makes use of detailed maps to guide you in exploring every inch of the game’s huge world. Learn the most useful shortcuts and find all of the hidden areas.

Enemy Encyclopedia
Everything you need to know to tackle the game’s army of lethal foes is contained in one easy-to-use reference chapter. Tactics, data and attack details for all enemies will prove an invaluable resource.

Weapons & Equipment
Weapons, Armor and Magic are all covered in exhaustive detail. Full stats, locations, upgrade paths and usage strategies are provided so you can easily compare all of the options when choosing your equipment.

All Items
The complete item lists reveal every last consumable, accessory, upgrading material and offensive item. Quickly discover where to find each one and how to make the most of them.

Everything Uncovered
Discover how to unlock every Achievement or Trophy and learn the secrets of Dark Souls’ unique online multiplayer mode.

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[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFSzkQHm1AY"]

• Full Clip

• Part I
• Part II
• Part III

• Part I

• Part I
• Part II

• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Part IV

• Undead Courtyards Gameplay
• Undead Terrace Gameplay
• Undead Chapel Gameplay
• Undead Chapel Boss Gameplay

• Part I

• Part I
• Part II

• Part I
• Part II

• Magic Using Gameplay
• Belfry Gargoyles / Maneater v.2 Gameplay
• Dragon Attack Gameplay
• Castle Raid Gameplay

• Famitsu 09/07 (Refresh in browser: Famitsu hates hotlinking)

• "My First 24 Hours in Hell"
• "How's Dark Souls Looking on XBOX 360?"

• "Dark Souls is bigger than Skyrim"

• IGN Review Diary, Part 1
• IGN Review Diary, Part 2

moonspeak said:

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RedSwirl said:

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Dreweyes said:

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• Warrior - "Fearless" warrior / Weapons expert / High strength, dexterity
• Knight - "Low-ranking" Knight / High HP, heavy armor / Sturdy
• Wanderer - "Aimless" wanderer / Wields scimitar / High dexterity
• Thief - "Guilt-ridden" Thief / High critical hits / Master key
• Bandit - "Savage" bandit / High strength / Wields heavy battle axe
• Hunter - "Bow-wielding" hunter / Average close range / Magic vulnerable
• Sorcerer - "Sorcerer of Vinheim" / Dragon school / Casts soul sorceries
• Pyromancer - "Great Swamp" pyromancer / Casts fire / Wields hand axe
• Cleric- Cleric on pilgrimage / Wields a mace / Casts healing miracles
• Deprived - Unclothed enigma / Armed with club / Plank shield

• Blessing of the Goddess - Consumable item that fully restores HP and clears negative effects.
• Black Firebomb - Thrown item that creates a powerful blaze. Start with 10.
• Telescope - Used to see distant objects, threats, scenery and enemies. Considered a "key item" and can be used more than once.
• Pendant - An item filled with "blocked memories".
• Humanity's Twin - Obtainable from other Black Phantoms. Possibly used to restore character's Humanity.
• All-purpose Key - A Master Key that can open any door with SIMPLE locks. Not obtainable in the game world.
• Ring of Life - Increases maximum HP by a small amount.
• Ring of the Aged Witch - Current usage/benefit unkown.

V_Arnold said:

Character creation:
You are free to decide what class you are going for. In the first ten-fifteen hours of gameplay, you will unlock every single spell and/or starting weapon/armor vendor. The one class that is last unlocked this way is the Pyromancer: if you want lethal magic, he is one of the safest bets you can get. You are not locked to anything! You can alter your stats later on, you can equip any weapon that your stats allow to do comfortably so, and you can cast spells as long as you have the required faith/intelligence/casting item). To cast spells, you will need to set your talisman(cleric)/wand(sorcerer)/glove(pyromancer) to your secondary weapon slot, and upon switching on it, the Attack will be the cast of your selected spell.

Starting item: Master key is a useful and otherwise unobtainable accessory that lets you open some basic locked doors, so it is pretty much a good starting item, one that you will not regret to choose.

Stats and combat information:
The combat is very simple and straightforward once you familiarize yourself with how it works. Basically, your health (determining stat: Vitality) reaches zero, you die. You have a second, green slot (determining stat: Endurance) which depletes if you perform action such as blocking an attack, rolling, jumping, attacking (heavy attacks are more exhausting than simple attacks). If you decide to block an attack with one weapon or two weapon equipped, the amount of damage that will get through is the attack's damage minus the reduced amount of your weapon's "physical block". The shields are way more effective if you plan on blocking a lot (which you should), quickly reaching the 90-100% block damage reduce area where you really take no damage if you block. The two main melee/ranged combat stat is strength and dexterity. Straightforward weapons such as maces require no high dexterity, and bows require no strenght - the others require a healthy, balanced towards one or other mix of the two. Increase these if you plan on engaging close quarter/ranged combat - which you will, believe me, unless you are insanely good and a tactical mastermind at the same time - then feel free to equip only spells.

Parrying and finding openings: Just as when you miss your hit, you are vulnerable for counterattacks, so does your opponents. Everything is fair game for them just as for you. The two main thing is: after you block a hit from an opponent, you can usually hit back with a fast attack, and it will connect. You can parry also, which is hitting the (LT on 360, ?? on PS3) button just once he is swinging towards you with his weapon. After this, a sound effect confirms your parry, and a normal attack will be a cinematic attack with increased damage - usually killing any normal mob if your weapon is upgraded properly (see more on this later). While you are engaged in a parry cinematic, you are IMMUNE TO ALL INCOMING DAMAGE SOURCES! Meaning that sometimes it can very easily save you - but it will be your risk to take.

Equiping more than one spell: For example, you start out with Soul Arrow (30 charges) as a Sorcerer, but once you buy more Soul Arrow spells, you can equip more (how much? Determining stat: Attunement. -11: 1 slot. 12-13: 2 slot, ...). Sorceries scale with your Intellect, and Miracles scale with your Faith. All spells scale with strenghtening your catalyst (wand, trinket, glove, etc) - or in Pyromancy's case, that is the main source of improvement, rather than relying on a sole stat.

The most common pitfalls in combat:
-Chain hitstun: If you engage 4-5 opponents by going into a room where they are, chances are that you will have to block the first, then the second, then the third, and by the time you blocked all (and ran out of endurance to act), the first mob will already start his second attack. Do not do this. Plan ahead by having always a path open for a small retreat - you will be comfortable with faking a retreat than hitting back, if the mob's weapon and behavior is compatible with this playstyle - but do not engage more than 2 mobs together unless you are really, really good, or simply are overgeared and confident. See: death section
-Falling down: Yep. Everyone can be tossed down from a cliff/building. If you have no wall behind your back, you will be pushed down even if you block, however slightly. Blocked and connected attacks push everything, you can kill and you can be killed by being pushed down on such places. If any mob dies while you are nearby, you will gain the soul from its death, but any potential loot gained will be lost if he falls to the Void.
-Forcing parry too much: The mobs have a tendency to sometimes switch it up, attacking more faster or slower than usual. So parry only when you are sure that the attack that is coming is at the speed that you anticipate. Sometimes it is much easier to just block the hit and counterattack immediately.

Roll > Block: Especially with bosses, their hits are HUGE. They can deplete your stamina by 50% with one hit if you decide to block - and if that attack has a followup, you will be toppled sooner or later, with no option to counterattack. Find the pattern, roll if you can, cause that costs less endurance than blocking the hits. This is not always the case in tight spaces and non-bossfights, but you will know it in time.

About Bonfires, Death and Humanity:

Bonfires:Bonfires are like Save Points. While you can save anywhere if you quit the game, the Bonfires are the place where you will be resurrected once you die. At the bonfire, you can replenish spells (automatic), decide to learn new spells (or set the spells you already know to your slots, to be more precise) (non-automatic), refill Estus Flasks (automatic, they are the healing potion of the game), level up (non-automatic), Kindle Bonfire (non-automatic, has a cost of 1 Humanity and a requirement of being in Human form, see later) which doubles the Estus Flasks regained in this bonfire, and reverse hollowing (non-automatic, cost 1 Humanity, turns you to human form). If you reached a point where you will most likely stay for a while, go for it, and reverse Hollowing, Kindle, then enjoy having more potions starting from here.

Death: If you die, you lose all collected Souls, and you lose your humanity points. If you were Human upon death, you will lose your human form, and be a Hollow again. If you can succesfully run back to your corpse (marked by a green flashing stuff on the ground), you can regain your lost humanity points and souls, but you will NOT revert back to human form. If you die again, the souls and the humanity points will be lost permanently, and a new green flashing stuff will appear, in the place you last died. If you fall off from somewhere, your "corpse" will appear in the last valid and reachable position in the map, nearby to the place you died.

Humanity: Humanity is a farming-heavy stuff, basically. Humanity exists in two forms. One is items, that can be stored, are not lost upon death (such as "Humanity" and "Twin Humanities"), other is Humanity in its active form. You can randomly(to be confirmed) get active humanity points while you play, you can get active humanity by killing invading Spirits (other players with humanity). You can only be invaded if you are in Human form. You will gain more chance to have loot from enemies with every new humanity point you have. It is around 125 percent with 2 humanities, and around 145-150 with 8 points, will post proper points later. You can check this in the stat screen. The increase is present even with Hollow-form, so you need not spend point on being a non-hollowed if you just want to farm and does not want to get invaded/invade. Humanity is a requirement for kindling and reversing hollowing process, and Rats have a quite good chance of dropping it, so do not worry about it too much, you will have your chance to get LOTS of it.

About item upgrades:

There are several kinds of Item Improving methods, but this guide will only cover the most basic one - the others just require a different item, and the process is the same. If you are with the blacksmith or have the toolbox needed, you can repair and/or improve your armor/weapon. Titanite Shard (can be bought for Souls by the blacksmith OR can be found on almost any enemies randomly, low chance drop) is used to turn into a "Longsword" for example into a "Longsword +1". It scales, so you will spend 1, then 1, then 2,2 shards per upgrade, and for +5, you will need 3 shards. The improvements are higher damage usually, you can check the stat differences by toggling the stat screen on the upgrade process. Upgrading armor gives you more resistance aswell, in addition to the armor/stability benefits.

If you hit a Stone Wall, with an unkillable (or so it seems) boss and nothing else to do:

- Make sure you are using the right weapons. Every weapon (at least every weapon type, but there are further differences even withing same weapon types) has a different attack animation, hitbox and attack length, recovery lenght. Make sure you are using one that you are comfortable with, can feel the limits easily, and does not get stuck in the enviroment too much. This is very important on bossfights too - you need to know the spacing of your weapons and attacks to properly counterattack after you roll out of danger on bosses.
- If you feel that you have the proper weapon and armor, upgrade them! Upgrading only costs souls (and once you meet the blacksmith, you can buy enough titanite shards to upgrade every basic item you want) if you have the upgrade indegriends, and it will have an immediate effect. You will oneshot mobs that needed two hits, two-shot mobs that needed 3, etc. It scales well, and upgrading armor means you will survive more hits, basically.
- Grind a few levels. Make sure to adress your problems in this grind process: if you need that more endurance for one more roll, or faster roll (Endurance increases the amount of armor you are capable to wear without being slowed down or having a longer roll animation), increase that in these levelups. If you need more health, increase the Vitality. If you have a fancy new potential weapon, but need more strength, increase that. Set a midterm goal that keeps you going on.
- Practice, if all else fails. Make sure to reach the boss with no humanity activated and too much souls, and just roll, evade as much as you can, and try to memorize their attack's distance, recovery time and speed. You will see the openings.
- Wander around somewhere else. Maybe you need to clear another area first. Dark Souls's world is vast, after all.

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DARK SOULS is now out in North America! To consolidate, in the next day or two I will be de-cluttering this post so I can add more information. I've added a "mini-guide" written by GAF's V_Arnold. It wouldn't fit in the OT without some tinkering with the content there, and for convenience I'd rather not have a link. There's just so much information, so I hope it's not becoming too much. Enjoy!

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The original OT can be found here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=445115

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The second OT can be found here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=447857

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Infinite_Daremo said:

People have found a way friends can co-op together.

Heres how:

1. At least one of you must be alive
2. You must be in 10% range of your friends level e.g a Level 30 can only play with players levelled 27-33.
3. Place down your soul sign where your friend is waiting (You must NOT have killed the boss in this area)
4. Wait 20-30 seconds, if your friend does not see the sign, put the sign down again, this puts you on a different server. This will require communication on Skype or some other form.
5. This can take anywhere between 1 and 10 mins. It hasn't worked for some people though.

Notes:
Make sure you both have the same NAT type
If you find your friends summon sign and he re-placed it (It will happen a lot) wait until the new sign appears as you will get locked out in an endless summon loop waiting 5 mins for it to tell you the summon failed.

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The third OT can be found here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=448930

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Dyno said:

Started playing this again for a bit last night but I'm a bit lost with where I should go next. The Undead Burg and Darkroot Gardens are totally cleaned out.

- I've cleared out The Depths but that boss

Spoiler

Gaping Dragon

seems way too hard for my current level.

- The New Londo Ruins seem tough and I only have two Transient Curses.

- The Catacombs should probably been attempted with a Divine Weapon. I have a +5 weapon that would be suitable but I need to find a piece of Green Titanite.

I have the Master Key and once found a gate that lead to a new area with some big ogre-like creatures. Valley of the Drakes? I don't remember where to go though.

Any suggestions on where to head out next?

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Foliorum Viridum said:

NG+ is making me realise how small the world is when you're powerful, haha. In about an hour I've rang both bells!

I never did NG+ in Demon's Souls so it says a lot that I'm jumping straight into it in this game.

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From Software will be releasing a set of Dark Souls custom themes next week. On the 13th, PS3 owners will be able to download four free themes: Way of White, Princess's Guard, Warrior of Sunlight and Dark Wraith.
This batch will be followed on the 21st by Path of the Dragon, Gravelord Servant, Forest Hunter, Darkmoon Blade and Chaos Servant.

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Dyno said:

Started playing this again for a bit last night but I'm a bit lost with where I should go next. The Undead Burg and Darkroot Gardens are totally cleaned out.

- I've cleared out The Depths but that boss

Spoiler

Gaping Dragon

seems way too hard for my current level.

- The New Londo Ruins seem tough and I only have two Transient Curses.

- The Catacombs should probably been attempted with a Divine Weapon. I have a +5 weapon that would be suitable but I need to find a piece of Green Titanite.

I have the Master Key and once found a gate that lead to a new area with some big ogre-like creatures. Valley of the Drakes? I don't remember where to go though.

Any suggestions on where to head out next?

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Thagomizer said:

MAKE IT HAPPEN FROM PLEASE OH PLEASE

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Thagomizer said:

MAKE IT HAPPEN FROM PLEASE OH PLEASE

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sublimit said:

http://andriasang.com/comzad/dark_souls_themes/

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Dyno said:

Started playing this again for a bit last night but I'm a bit lost with where I should go next. The Undead Burg and Darkroot Gardens are totally cleaned out.

- I've cleared out The Depths but that boss

Spoiler

Gaping Dragon

seems way too hard for my current level.

- The New Londo Ruins seem tough and I only have two Transient Curses.

- The Catacombs should probably been attempted with a Divine Weapon. I have a +5 weapon that would be suitable but I need to find a piece of Green Titanite.

I have the Master Key and once found a gate that lead to a new area with some big ogre-like creatures. Valley of the Drakes? I don't remember where to go though.

Any suggestions on where to head out next?

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oracrest said:

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BarnabyBigsbyJones said:

I still have no idea how summoning works in this game. My friend and I were in the Duke's Archives last night, neither of us had killed the boss there. He's SL58 and I'm SL63, neither of us could see each others summon sign.

Trying to figure it out because I have some equipment from a character of his.

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Tomat said:

Reposting this from the last thread in case anyone has any insight:

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Awesome Animals said:

Four |OT|s later and I'm on the...Capra Demon

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edbrat said:

Completed this last night, continued on but am now thinking I might reroll and stay low level as the most fun I had was cooping / invading on my first run through. I assume coop opportunities are reduced significantly on second runthroughs?

Any other reasons in favour of a second run (don't care about trophies)? Already past the taurus demon and must admit I feel pretty overpowered and my gear isn't even all that (c. level 80, pyro maxed, queelags fury sword / lightning spear maxed, crimson set maxed, hollow shield maxed).

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Tomat said:

Reposting this from the last thread in case anyone has any insight:

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BackdoorBeauty said:

I would buy a Sunbro sweatshirt instantly.

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sublimit said:

http://andriasang.com/comzad/dark_souls_themes/

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Alienshogun said:

Aww, none for 360?!

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TheThunder said:

Post more fan art

That should be the goal of this OT

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sublimit said:

http://andriasang.com/comzad/dark_souls_themes/

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Tomat said:

Reposting this from the last thread in case anyone has any insight:

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shiroryu said:

Yay, OT4! And awesome fanart to boot.

Took out Gaping Dragon, 25k souls?? Is the Poisonbite Ring from Oswald a good thing to spend on to laugh at poison in general?

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Foliorum Viridum said:

I'm watching this 1hr20 speedrun on Youtube now I've finished the game and it's insaneee.

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Tomat said:

Just invaded someone's world via summon sign.

I'm confused.

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Thagomizer said:

Poisonsbite+Iron Ring is good for the swamp, and Bloodbite's good for PvP.

Also, lol at Rhea and Gwyndolin make-out screenshot.

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shiroryu said:

Equipping the poison bite ring actually poisons you 40% of the poison bar, lol (which then drops slowly afterwards). So that's where the 'bite' comes from?

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Alienshogun said:

Aww, none for 360?!

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