That moment might be the hardest I've ever laughed at anything. It's either that or "let's watch a pro". Damnit, I love this place.

@matatat: Haha totally I did the exact same thing. When I'd get to a boss I haven't fought before I'd lay down my sign and do 2-3 runs with someone else to get the moveset down. I mean beating the boss and learning his moves is the real challange - making it through the level over and over again isn't especially engaging.

I'd probably be doing that in Dark Souls 2 but I've seen so much of that game that, when it comes time to play it, I know roughly what the deal is. Something for me to consider with Dark Souls 3.

Hahahahahaha when he tells Patches he's a Cleric and he dies from the spiked bridge being moved. God damn it this has been my favourite video of Dan's stream so far. So many hilarious deaths.

Today's stream was a pretty good stream. Dan met some new friends and did some new things.

Though I will say that after he has played Bloodborne and most of Dark Souls 2, that Dan still doesn't know about stamina management and that both confuses and saddens me.

@toysoldier83: He seemed quite aware, perhaps just instinctively, in his fight against the capra demon. He's definitely getting better though. I look forward to future streams, shits about to get real.

Were we watching the same stream? Cause Dan was constantly getting shield staggered because he wasn't managing his stamina. For example after a successful shield block, he would swing immediately with little stamina, he would also fat roll (which also affects stamina drainage much more) or he keep swinging when the enemy has dodged or blocked. But Dan is learning, in the stream he asked and realized you can't cancel your attacks and thus he will no doubt commit to his swing that he knows will connect and not attack all willy nilly (as he would say). Dan is learning his way through this game, some mechanics slower than others but the man is learning.

@toysoldier83 said:

I mean, Bloodborne probably taught him a lot of bad habits, and he played that game much more recently than Dark Souls 2. Stamina is much less prohibitive in Bloodborne, and you can kinda just mashy mashy your way through a lot of fights because few enemies block in Bloodborne compared to the variety of enemies in Dark Souls with shields, and a lot of the Bloodbourne bosses don't even make a huge effort to dodge and rely more on outdamaging you than anything. Bloodborne kinda rewards just running in there and mashing as long as you know the right moment to dash away before you get wrecked.

Everytime he goes past the claymore in the weapon's menu without trying it makes me sad.

He's pretty much exactly at the point in the game where I stopped playing. If he gets past Blighttown without trying to imagine some way to snap a digital copy of a video game in half, then he's a better man than me.

His memory's a bit shocking but he's only doing this weekly or twice a week so whatever. And I think he's skipping the Claymore because he has his heart set on the Zweehander. Whatever that is.

Man, he now has my favourite weapon. Black Knight for life.

@toysoldier83: I only caught the end of the stream, around when he finally found the door down to capra. I don't doubt that he "Ryckert'd" it up earlier on.

Thanks for the heads up guys! I don't follow twitter so I didn't know this was a thing.

Oh boy do I enjoy this game, and watching Dan actually succeed in it has been great, I've been pleasantly surprised with some of the things in his run through, primarily the Dragon bridge, I'm in the you can do THAT? boat, it took forever for me to realise hang right.

Dan is playing reasonable well, I think Dan dealing with Poison-Toxic/Swinging blades/Archer dickheads will be interested to see, I'm wondering what the archers are going to be nicknamed.

I'm watching the Dark Souls Speedrun from SGDQ 2013, and it's cool to watch someone barrelling through the game at speed.

UPDATE: Sen's Fortress platforming in 1.30 minutes!

It's nice to watch Dan play. At some point the door he's looking for is just off to his right, but he decides to take on Hellkite instead, and runs around the entirety of Undead Burg to get back to that spot(when the door is literally right in front of him, he does enter it and go down to Capra's lair). But on the way he finds a new bonfire and new weapons and items, meets Havel and discovers Darkroot Basin. That's not a complaint! After watching ENB perfectly know the ins and outs of every area, it's fun to see Dan do some real exploration. He hasn't even located the first merchant yet, because he just never thought to take a right turn in that area. And yet he's doing just fine. When he finds out things by accident, like hanging back to get Hellkite to land because he's having a drink or whatever, I'm so stoked.

And next he has The Depths which can either go very quickly or take a very grim turn.

I must have missed a stream did he taken on Pinwheel?

@skullpanda1: I skipped around a bunch in that video, but I don't think he ever made it very far into the bonewheel-infested area.

Yeah, he never saw Pinwheel. Turned around after a couple of frustrating hours, but did most of the stuff in the Catacombs.

@redhotchilimist: @cbirdsong: ok, glad I didn't miss it. Thanks!

"I like being a big fat tough guy."

I thoroughly enjoyed how after Dan did his heel thing and talked a bunch of shit about Havel after running away from him, Havel crushed him and made him lose his souls.

Also, we need a .gif of when Dan became half-man, half-dog.

@shindig: everything past the depths, and possibly including the depths, is just horrible level design top to bottom.

Agreed, although Shrine of Amana has put everything into perspective, for me. I thought the Depths were decent, mind. Credit to Dan making it through without being cursed. Blighttown (through the front door) will be a test of patience.

*bump*

Informal poll: Will Dan ever make it through Blighttown?

He sure took a long break, glad he started again.

I bet he'll make it through Blighttown easily. He figures this stuff out, like when he ran into the bonfire at the end of the last stream. I don't know if it's intuition, luck or level design, but even when he doesn't ask chat for help he seems to stumble over bonfires. If anything, I'm afraid the Dark Souls 3 release is gonna put a stop to his playthrough.

Dan did a new episode? I was worried he would give up on Dark Souls after the drought of games had ended.

@redhotchilimist: I think a lot of it comes from him not being afraid to take risks. He's impatient, but keeps trucking (rolling) on.

I can't remember the last time I took the front door to Blightttown. He'll make it through because those toxic dudes don't respawn. They're the only significant danger (aside from the fat fellas) and the swamp's got plenty of goodies.

I'm so glad he started streaming this. I got Dark Souls years ago, but never actually cracked it open, at first out of backlog issues, and then out of nerves. But after time with Don't Starve, Spelunky, and Crypt of the Necrodancer, I broke many bad habits, and opened up to playing hard games in chunks of exploration rather than ceaseless conquest. It's okay to die if I accomplished X, or Y. Watching Dan fat roll his way around the game made me realize nothing looked impossible. Challenging, yes, and sometimes unfair, but all doable. That got me to finally load it up.

I beat Smough and Ornstein on my seventh try yesterday. Sif was the hardest fight I've had so far. I love my gosh-darned Silver Knight Straight Sword.

@john_wiswell: It's a hard fight because that game was not built to fight two bosses at the same time.

@humanity: It definitely shows! The camera killed me half the time.

Ahh yes, the camera in all Souls games is legendary.

Just watched the Blighttown video. Dan sure loves him some Ladder Kombat.

I feel like Dan has actually been doing pretty good at the game so far. I see no reason he wont get through, he might die a lot, probably due to poison/toxic shit, but I absolutely see Dan beating the whole game.
I mean, you did see him beat the Gargoyles right?

Blighttown shouldn't be too much of problem when it doesn't run at 10-20fps. And running the game 60fps seems to break some of the AI pathfinding and scripting, making the game easier at certain points. At least that's my impression after rebuying the game on PC recently.

Okay, that ended in the right spot. I never found the framerate to be too bothersome and, in some cases it made the moving platforms look cooler. Best of luck, Dan.

It's no wonder why Dan stopped playing and doesn't look like he's ever going back to it. He skipped 2 of the best bosses just because he was lazy by summoning two players while he stands in a corner and taunts the chat. What's the point of even playing if you don't want to fight the bosses? :(

Dan skipped bosses just to anger fanatic dark souls fans, but honestly he didn't miss out on much. Gaping dragon is a shitty boss. It's supposed to have different attack patterns but all I ever see is it running to a wall in a straight line and occasionally standing up and then slamming down. Bell gargoyles are more fun but that is mostly because you have to fight multiple enemies. Not all dark souls bosses are masterpieces like some make them out to be.

The best part about Dan playing Dark Souls is Dark Souls fans getting mad about how he plays it. I mean hey, I like Dark Souls, but some of those people take these games WAY too seriously.

I don't care how Dan plays the game, and I care even less about the alleged "angry fanatics". It's just a boring thing to watch when you skip the difficult bits, which is why it doesn't bother me that he stopped playing.

Plus there's only a million other playthroughs to watch by now.

I did not know he did this, but holy crap that's wonderful. Gonna have to track that part down.

@icemo: Gaping Dragon is my favorite boss next to O&S. That boss turned that game around for me.

Damn you all! I saw a bump in the thread and thought he put out a new episode.

Yeah that's what I don't get, if people don't like the way he's playing it, and no judgment towards those people but, just don't watch it? Why stick around with your arms folded going harumph? I mean I know that's like questioning the very core of the internet really but still.
I'm a fan of the way Dan plays it, when I get into a game I am very one minded about the way I approach it, if something works for me I stick to it and don't branch off, so I have great fun watching people play things in a way that varies from me, and the more varied the better! And Dan sure doesn't play it like me at all haha.

Got my hopes up for a new episode. Just finished a run of this at 18 hours. Makes me wonder what the hell I was doing for the other 60 in my first playthrough. Hopefully there's some downtime in the release schedule for Dan to come back to this.

@jackelbeaver: Gaping dragon does look cool and that cutscene is great. I just don't think it goes after the player enough which makes it a boring fight. Or maybe I'm wrong for wanting harder boss fights.

@icemo: My first time I was stuck on that boss for a while. I blitz the boss now, but my first time it took me a while to figure that boss out.