I'll never figure out why "a simple grid inventory" seems to be outside of BioWare's ability to conceive.

Eventually I just learned to ignore the NPCs with the golden nameplates. I didn't know going in that they were backer content, but after about three of them I started to realize that they were, and therefore weren't important to the story, world, or sidequests.

I took a 6 month break after finishing the damn Undead Asylum at the start. It wasn't all that hard, I just got fed up with the controls and was like, "Nope, this game isn't for me. I'm gonna go play Guild Wars 2." Then I got bored of GW2 and came back to Dark Souls, fell in love, and went, "Wait, why did I stop…

Regular version Amygdala gave me no trouble at all, mostly because the Threaded Cane is just made for fighting that thing. You can just hang out under the boss and swing and 90% of the time you're going to hit an arm.

The Defiled Chalice is NASTY. It took two bosses I had relatively little trouble with in previous encounters—the Watchdog and (possible spoiler)—and made me curse their names for hours on end. It's a terrifying experience.

I started with the PC version, so when I eventually played the PS3 version and got to Blighttown, I finally understood what people meant when they complained about the frame rate. The poor game basically curls up in a ball and cries itself to sleep there.

Yahar'gul is just… a boot stepping on the player's face. Forever. I don't hate it, though, now that I know where all the asshole bell ladies are.

The stats are all really straightforward, but you do kind of have to go looking in the games to have them even vaguely explained to you.

I've been thinking more about the Souls games and why I like them, even though sometimes my back aches because they make me get all tense and twitchy.

Bloodborne is definitely a faster, more aggressive game. At least the way I feel about it right now, I don't know if I ever want to go back to the Souls games' pace. Bloodborne feels so damn good to play, especially when things are going well. I've seen people compare Bloodborne combat to ballet, and it feels like…

As did my pedantry and weird obsession with this series!

It most certainly does, which is why it's so weird that Ben Kuchera wrote an article to refute it. It's like I was reading opposite world Polygon or something.

Just remember to stick with it! The cane really does feel weak at first. You're probably going to want to stick with cane mode for most of the early bosses—it's faster, so you can do damage more quickly with it—and use the whip mode for groups of enemies or to keep enemies away from you. About the time I beat Vicar…

Oh yeah, you're 100% right. What I meant was I've always loved the idea of World Tendency, but the execution was just needlessly obtuse. Insight's not quite the same thing, but it's so much easier to control and understand.

You do, in fact! You gain an Insight point just for seeing a boss. So if you die to the Cleric Beast, you have definitely gotten your first Insight.

The Threaded Cane is everything I've ever wanted in a Souls weapon, so I've been rolling with that this whole time (close to the end now). It started weak, but after some upgrades and leveling Skill (and some blood gems), it just tears shit up. I really adore the whip form's range and spread, too.

Amazon France lists rumored games like crazy. They've been right a few times, which the news reports about that pointed out, but those news reports also ignored the slew of times Amazon France has been wrong. It's a stopped clock situation.

Sony's Japan Studio co-developed it, like Demon's Souls (which is still a PS3 exclusive). The chances of it coming to PC are, sadly, slim to none.

The game autosaves constantly. Every decision you make, every success and every failure, is saved pretty much immediately. That means you also can't take it back if you decide to kill a friendly NPC.

The article was on Forbes, not Polygon. In general, Polygon has good takes on the Souls games, if nothing else. Even Ben Kuchera wrote an article that tore down the Forbes one Andy Tuttle mentioned.