1/30/2012

The SL1 Challenge Diary #1

In which I create Donaldbaine the Pyromancer, acquire my starting equipment and slay the following:

- The Asylum Demon
- The Moonlight Butterfly
- Havel The Rock
- The Bell Gargoyles

Playtime: 7h 33m 46s

As you probably know if you follow this log, I’m a huge fan of the Souls games. I’ve discussed it in various places around the net and bored my friends to death with talk of it in college.

So, what better way to take my fanaticism with this game to the next level than to embark on the Soul Level 1 challenge?

What are the rules of this challenge, you ask? Well…

1. I have to stay at Soul Level 1. No Leveling.
2. Melee Only. No pyromancy, no magic, no miracles, no projectiles or bows.
3. Offline Mode. No helpful notes, no bloodstains, no jolly cooperation.
4. No NPC Summons. Sorry Solaire, I have to do this one solo.
5. Must Kill All Optional Bosses. No one can be spared.
6. Can’t Skip Any Areas. No avoiding Blight Town.

I lack the capture card to take proper screenshots of the game currently, but will try to provide at least tolerable quality photos and pictures sourced from the internet to illustrate my adventure. I’m looking into getting a capture card.
With that in mind, I set about creating my character.

The only class to start at true SL1 is the Pyromancer. Funny if you consider the rule about not being able to use pyromancy. Anyway, I created Donaldbaine the pyromancer and chose the tiny being’s ring as my starting item. The ring grants a slight boost in health. Items like this are going to be important, I can imagine, as my core stats (and therefore things like my health and stamina bar) are not going to increase as I play via leveling.

I worked my way through the undead asylum as usual, and murdered the Asylum Demon with little issue. Once in the firelink shrine, I ran around the back and grabbed the Morning Star. This little beauty has the benefit of being weildable by a poxy level one, and also has an auxillary bleeding effect — after enough hits against an enemy that can bleed, I will critically damage them.

 

Once I made my way to the blacksmith Andres, I promptly upgraded it to +5 quality. I knew the Bell Gargoyles were going to be tough, so I needed more physical defence. The pyromancer’s starting robes are good for poison resistance, but little else. As I mentioned before, my level 1 stats severely limited the range of armour and weaponry I can hold, but I had my heart set on the reasonable defence and mobility of the Elite Knight’s Armour. 

To get it, I had to rush through a dangerous area — The Darkroot Gardens — and grab it from a corpse before two stone golemns sprang to life and ended me. Back at the bonfire, I equipped it. I could wear it all without exceeding my equip limit, but I was sloooooooow.

There was only one thing for it. I would have to get Havel’s Ring.



Havel’s Ring is incredibly useful as it significantly increases your equip load. The only downside to the ring is who you have to kill to get it - Havel the Rock. Havel is an absolute tank, dressed from head to foot in gigantic armour. He’s slow, but he can kill me in one hit. Not only that, but the key to the basement he hides in is located on the corpse of a dead blacksmith past the Moonlight butterfly.

It took about an hour and a half to kill the Moonlight Butterfly. It’s usually a doddle — chuck firebombs at it until it’s dead — but I had to use melee on a boss that for the majority of the fight is airborne. I ran up the watch tower the butterfly rests on and grabbed the basement key.

Back at Havel’s basement, it took only four attempts to take him down, which I’m pretty proud of. On my winning attempt, he landed zero hits on me, and I had him killed with a sucession of macey backstabs. I stuck on the ring and felt immediately the reward; I could now move around breezily wearing the elite knight’s armour. It was time for the Gargoyles.


The gargoyles were torture. The best I could hope to do was knock the first down to near-death before the second would blow me away with its intolerable fire breath. I experienced the usual feelings of wanting to stop, this time magnified by the enormity of what I was doing. Trying to beat this game at level 1? What the hell? But I persevered and after eight or so attempts, over the course of two days, I took them down. I climbed the tower and rang the first bell. 

I feel as though I’m decently equipped to proceed a little futher. With the full Elite Knite Set and morning star +5, and havel’s and the tiny being’s ring, I’m mitigating damage decently and dealing enough myself to hold my own.

I now need to ring that second bell. I’ll post a second diary once I’ve made some more progress.

  1. doctorjonvondoom reblogged this from benjosblog and added:
    something like this.
  2. benjosblog posted this
Currently attending Bede Sixth Form College, in his spare time Ben enjoys referring to himself in the third person, design, obsessively editing the Dark Souls wiki and writing words about games at GGSGamer.

 

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