Never played this game. Going to play it as a caster, probably a sorcerer

>if you want the game to be hard, then don't level up your character
Nope, I'm not looking to do any silly challenges like those, I hate that shit. I wanna play through the game normally, leveling regularly but keeping it as hard as it can be in a default sort of way.

So what, magic is OP then, what about going a Mace + Shield using Cleric?

Miracles are definitely more balanced than sorcery, with the exception of one or two abilities.Still easier than no magic, but I had fun playing cleric.

Magic is easy and boring.
The game is made with close up battle in mind, not ranged.

If you want to keep challenge up then miracles are just fine to use.
Other sorceries are fine but the magic missiles really make things so easy you don't need to learn combat. It's the same deal with archery, it feels more cheese than gameplay.

The game is sort of made to be played with melee and short range attacks.

GET THE CHAOUSA ZWAIHANDER

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>I wanna play through the game normally, leveling regularly but keeping it as hard as it can be in a default sort of way.
the game isn't really hard by default, the difficulty of these games is really overblown by casuals. my advice is to not summon allies, it makes boss fights unnecessarily easy. and don't kindle bonfires, it gives you more healing potions (called estus) and you shouldn't need them. especially because there are already certain bonfires in the game that are already kindled anyway

additional note: if you decide to go back and play demon's souls, don't use magic because it's even more powerful in that one

Magic is easy mode in 1, mixed in 2, and worthless in 3 unless they patched it. Same with faith. Dark destroys 2 and is worthless in 3.

These are from around release though idk now but I assume ds1 is the same

I'll go for melee for sure then. I figured because 99% of people I see are using some two handed halbert or some shit that melee was broken beyond belief but I suppose that's just two handed only shit.
I'll keep that in mind then. I'll just go for a Cleric build, sounds fun still.

Please stick to God of War and Spiderman ;)

>played the entire souls series before demon's souls
>end up trying some random magic I find on my non-caster
>ridiculously ugly and clumsy casting animation and spell graphics
>hit an enemy with it
>fucking explodes
unintentional hilarity

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Every build IS broken unless you use spears. Spears suck in this game for some reason, they take 3x as long to kill anything and the range is meaningless in the long run.

While this thread is open, I bought this game for Nintendo Shitch and I was having an OK time with it, the game is certainly unforgiving but completely fair difficulty wise. Then I get to the Belltower Gargoyles and I cannot get past, as soon as the second Gargoyle spawns I am fucked. Is there any tricks to this boss, or do I just need to be extremely patient and "git gud"? I can't believe how much harder it is than the shit I've encountered up to this point. I have a one handed weapon and a shield.

Halbred is a drop from the black knight in darkroot garden. It has high stat requirements and requires special mats to upgrade. While it is very strong, it's just one of the very strong things in dark souls. It's mainly a speedrunner thing since you can get it early and it's got high flat damage.

Cleric build is fun but it'll be a while before you can get access to the really good miracles. Out of pyromancy and sorceries, it's the hardest one to obtain the good shit on.

The melee itself is rather well balanced and designed. Weapons have unique movesets that a clever and nimble player will learn to use to their advantage. Slower attacks are useful because they always deliver relatively more damage and because they stagger enemies more.
I recommend testing out all kinds of weapons you discover in the game. Drake Sword and Katanas are just about the only broken melee weapons.
Two handed weapons are overrepresented in Dark Souls 2 and 3 but not 1. Do take a zweihander for a two-handed spin once you have 16 strength.

I had played this at launch and got as far as having killed the fat & thin bosses up in a castle

I want to play all three games now, should I replay it or was I almost done?

Silver Knight Spear or Demon Spear is fun for bullying backstab fishers from distance since their range is actually so high.

Both of the enemies have long cooldowns to a lot of their attacks. Learn to juke them until an opening to attack the other safely presents itself. You can run up close to them since they don't have terribly devastating close range attacks, just the spin.

You should replay and use completely different character, gear and spells than you did last time to improve how interesting replaying will be.
You had the whole later half of the game to beat.

Pure magic is pretty boring, and you'll get your shit rocked if you don't know where to get the necessary items early on. If you really want magic, go hybrid melee/caster.

>If you really want magic, go hybrid melee/caster.
This

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Game nose dives in quality after S&O (fat and thin duo)
Duke archives is okay but it's littered with undead burg hollows but higher damage
New Londo ruins can be a bit rough but overall fun
Tomb of the giants fucking sucks
Lost Izalith and the way down there is honestly the most boring part of the game
DLC area is really good though
You're also going to start to struggle to get any extra soul levels since it gets pretty expensive at that point so it's not got the same level of constant progression as before. I'd still say it's worth doing, especially the DLC zone at least once.

DS2 and DS3 are really different from DS1.
DS2 has bonkers character building, more open level design at the start but suffers in having boring bosses and forgettable scenery
DS3 is fast paced slashy fighting with lots of bosses. Game is incredibly linear and puts a lot in the way of your ability to make interesting character builds so it's pretty awful for replayability or doing stuff that isn't STR/DEX builds.

If the fire breath attack is killing you, you're standing too far away. The wind up animation is pretty long so you'll have plenty of time to circle around when you're hugging them.

Depends on if you still have a mental map of the world or not. It's probably best to just start over, this game is way easier once you've gone through things once.

demon's souls was my first souls game. i thought going magic would be like playing as a glass cannon, because that's usually how it is in RPG's. but because you nuke pretty much everything, and enemies are slow in these games, getting hit isn't a problem. i even had a ring from the very beginning that regenerated MP. and there are items that restore MP as well, it's pretty broken. ds1 remedied it a bit by limiting your amount of casts

just strafe around them when they do their fire breath attack. should be able to get a few hits in when they do that, it leaves them pretty exposed. i felt like this boss was an easier version of the maneater fight from demon's souls

you got like halfway. but you ended around the high point of the base game. you got to see giant princess boobs, that's like your reward. if you replay it, make sure to check out the DLC. the DLC is way better than the base game

Magic is easy if you read guides and wiki to find all the rings, casters, min/max stats, etc. Going there fully blind on first playthrought is suicide. You are not going to have fun.

Magic is actually the easiest way to complete the game outside of summoning phantoms. Even if you're mentally retarded and miss Logan, the shitty spells available to you are completely adequate to finish the entire game. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news even though your post implies that you won't listen anyway. The reason you rarely see magic playthroughs of DS1 is simply because it feels clunky and unfun despite its effectiveness. That being said, I don't care how you play the game.

This. Blind playthroughs are a meme. The game is explicitly about sharing knowledge and helping other players triumph over obstacles. It was never intended to be completed by a solo player acting blind. You should challenge yourself, to be sure, but missing out on interesting content just so that you can say you have a big dick is stupid.

Magic has a weird curve in the game, in the beginning its overpowered but by Sens Fortress and Anor Londo is much less powerful but then later it goes back to being overpowered.

Except magic missiles are directly shoved into your face and well explained to you as well if you choose to start out as caster or buy spells early on.
The PvP-optimized magic hybrid builds are an entirely different subject.