Dark Souls 1 but it's the DAY ONE Release Version 

Hello everyone, I hoped you enjoyed the video. I didn't get to cover every single change but I think I hit the major bits. If you have any I didnt include, feel free to leave it here in the comments for others to see. See you next time!

Imagine: release build, first time player, master key starting gift, wandering around Firelink, opening doors, wandering into Blighttown, accidentally discovering the Great Hollow, getting max cursed. Now stuck between poison and gravity with a tiny amount of hp. That was my first dark souls experience.

Curse stacking AND no purging stone from the undead merchant is fucking crazy lmao

In all of my time gaming, reading patch notes, learning about old games, I have NEVER seen a patch note admit they were unsuccessful in fixing a bug. That is probably the most insane thing in this video.

I played day 1. A lot of these changes are like weird, forgotten memories. The biggest thing I will never forget are the excessive number of dragon butts.

Let's all take a minute to remember the ninja flipping Havel monsters.

I get it it floats down!

This really took me back. This was the Dark Souls I played. Because the Xbox I had was never connected to the internet, I could never update my game, leaving me stuck with all these unfortunate oversights. Actually seeing how bad it was with hindsight, makes me feel not nearly so bad for using the dragon head infinite souls glitch to power through it. Still, despite my struggles on this version of the game, it still very much holds a special place in my heart.

damn.. I remember getting home from high school after soccer practice, walking upstairs and seeing my older brother playing this game. It had just come out and I never heard of it but there was something so immediately captivating about it, it looked so different from other games.

Wow, that aggro range. This was truly the Dark Souls 2 of Dark Souls 1.

Little fun fact great magic shield was bugged and applied it’s effect to the character. You become immortal as long as it’s up.

4:51 I love the idea of a Hollow shutting the door and leaving you stuck in with seven different enemies. It proves that despite being mindless, they still have some semblence of strategy.

Came here to see curse stacking. Wasn’t disappointed. On my first playthrough I got triple stacked and I wasn’t able to save at firelink. So I was essentially trapped in the depths until I beat gaping dragon while taking no damage on the way or in the fight. I did not have sunbro. What a time to be alive

Here's something important you missed. Important boss drops, such as the ONLY Titanite Slab in the game, or the Leo Ring, only had a chance of dropping, they weren't guaranteed.

It could be that the rumors that DS1 had black phantoms that constantly stalked players who were playing the game before official release might be because there was some server side gravelord covenant testing that was going on before the official release date. This is almost impossible to verify because of the online aspect, but it’s the only thing I can think of that could explain extra non-player-character red phantoms.

As someone who played on release and was active on forums, I can confirm that curse was absolutely a crushing alignment to get early game. Nobody knew about the bird giving the stone, and it was often easier to remake a new character than try to make your way thru the ghosts on a quarter or less hp. At least at the time when we were much newer and lower level from low xp rates lol

You were correct with the arrow colors in sens fortress. That color type is usually used in base models that don't have a texture so they testers know to fix it or add one. Looks like those were small enough that they got missed before the first update.

That curse stacking was ruthless. Since then, I always feared those damn basilisks.

‘You defeated’ was the best victory text ever 💪

From soft is a flawless dev that definitely doesn't need 5 months of post launch patches to make their games actually fair and good

The hollows closing doors to this day is my most and least favorite mechanic. It traumatized me as a kid but now days Id love to see enemies use that complex AI to hinder the player besides attacking

This is coincidentally the way I first experienced ds1 on the 360. Had no idea how bad I had it.

IIRC, the Iron Skin pyromancy was also insanely busted. You'd get some 90ish% absorption to most damage sources and just facetank bosses easily

4:45 A remnant of that: If you skip Burg completely, go to Taurus through Londo->Valley->Havel and then approach the room through the shortcut from Lower Burg, the door spawns open and you still get the closing animation

I was there day 1. I remember they only showed the name of the area once, the first time you visit the space. This and all the other things you mentioned made the game more mysterious and difficult.

The Japanese unpatched version has other differences like slightly different enemy placement in the bridge with the dragon

Lightning zweihander was absolutely busted. Highest AR in the game even with the split damage and no scaling req so all those points dumped into vitality and endurance. OP

Also, in the original version, some enemies had more HP than they have in the final version, such as Hollows, Hollow Warriors, Balder Knights, Giant Skeletons and Stone Knights.

I remember getting it for Christmas in 2011. What a good time it was! It did kick my ass, since I was only 8 then, but I was incredibly immersed by the atmosphere. It's so nostalgic for me and has probably had a substantial impact on my life. I've beaten it around 9 times since then. I remember I used a combination of the uchi + zweihander for my first build.

It's been ages since I've played DS1. Most are hazy memories of my exact experience. But when you started talking about the enemies aggro from farther, and even closing the door in that one room? That took me back instantly. Was that something they stopped doing??? Watching this video has taught me that I only played the original patch. That explains so much.

One of the main differences I remember is the Giant in Sens that would throw bombs, would actually throw them ahead of where you were running, so if you just went in a straight line It would nail you every time.

Thanks for the effort! I enjoyed this a lot!

It makes perfect sense that a game that spawned souls-like genre would be so much harder on day one of its existence compared to later versions.

I just wanna see all them summon signs lighting up the ground. Games that bring us all together makes me tear up

It's so odd that most of this stuff I remember so clearly; I was on the battlefield fighting those fliping havels in Darkroot, I remember being chased to the ends of Lordran by a group of hollows, and I remember the pain of the dragon butts. I never got cursed more than once though, my brothers taught me to use the master key and skip the depths. When I made the switch from my old PS3 game to my PC PTDE game, I remember feeling a little confused, as if stuff was kinda different, but I couldn't place my finger on it. Thank you for pointing out all this stuff, I thought I knew more about my favorite game.

I love your videos! The narration style -- it's awkward; yet charming and full of character.

I played this game on release, and man I loved how difficult it was because it was different than other games at the time

I just replayed the vanilla dark souls 1 on a ps3 about a year or so ago, and yeah, it is definitely a wild experience.

I think the reason the Flip Ring originally used to work with a limit on 50% equip load - as well as the amount of souls dropped - is because originally in Ps3 Demon's Souls you only had light/fat weight divided by the 50% cap, maybe they implemented those values to the ring, unaware of the implications of combining it with a ring that increases the maximum equip limit until they patched it down to a 25% cap. And about those soul drops: yeah, that was pretty much the same souls you'd get from enemies in Demon's Souls if you were in neutral to white world tendency. Other thing, now unrelated to DeS, you could mentioned, is that when you were streaming, for some reason the Soul Dupe glitch that replaced the Dragon Breath one used to have a more strict timing to pull it off, and that somehow got more frames to work with nowadays. It's kind of curious how the original version used to be so similar to his prototype predecessor in many aspects (even the dragon breath glitch has a Spell equivalent there) and through patches by possibly player feedback ended up evolving time to time into it's current state and managed to become itself the "daddy" of the franchise and fed fromsoft for over a decade now. I actually want to see if I can get my hands in a copy of the original game to test it out and see what else has changed since then. Also funny [ 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐃𝐄𝐅𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 ] message. Is just playing the 1.00 version of the game enough to warrant a "#challengerun"? I want to jump into that wagon.

My first playthrough of DS1 was on v1.0 - all the way thru. I remember getting omega cursed in the depths and not knowing how to get cured, the dragon head glitch, the ninja flip ring, ahhh, good times. I remember discovering that the zweihander could stagger the gargoyles and going nuts haha. Great video!

Amazing video. I'd say it absolutely does explain the reputation the game has, especially compared to other games from its time.

picked this game up when i was 15 and i never regretted it had around 2000 hrs on my xbox 360 i wish i could go back. im 26 now and getting back all those memories makes me nostalgic

My first playthrough was on an unpatched disk, you hit on pretty much everything I remember from that playthrough. The congaline of Capra Demons as you approach Demon Ruins I'll never forget. Some other fun stuff was the permanent gravelord infection in the painted world, which was extra fun since outside of the dupe glitch it was the best place to farm souls. You touched on lightning being stronger but I just want to reiterate how absolutely bonkers the infusion was. A lightning Zweihander had like 750 AR which meant for minimum stat investment you could outdamage full strength and dex builds. Fog ring prevented you from locking on to the person at all which was insane. And Gold-Hemmed Set had better defenses than every medium set of armor in the game, even stuff like the Elite Knight Set.

I legit was playing OSRS, was wondering where the music was coming from. Man of culture. Loved the video!

Extremely cool video, Dark Souls 1 honestly has the most interesting patches of any game I’ve seen

No wonder I remember this game being way harder, used to play it on my PS3 but couldn't update since we had no wifi at the dorms hahaha

The use of Autumn Voyage from OSRS at the beginning and Faron Woods from Twilight Princess was such a nice touch.

Man, you deserve the like by the gameplay, but also by the music's used in background, so great music's

Never forget my first playthrough I started as a thief and I thought Havel was the first boss and proceeded to die like 30 times to him

I downloaded it on my ps3 as soon as it was available, as I loved Demon's Souls. Played with my brother, who was visiting me, and a good friend for hours. They were so amazed with the design, combat and bosses.

Aah man, the memories. 2011 was wild for games. was waiting for Skyrim and decided to give this a go. Remember the game running at -1000FPS in Blighttown and getting stuck in the catacombs for 9 hours cause i went there before getting the Lordvessel. Wouldn't trade those memories for anything, though.

Great video man, seriously well done, also your voice is very relaxing and easy to digest.

Great vid dude, absolutely lost it when the butterfly floated down.

5:26 my neurons activated but you were 1 step ahead. its like when a character says one piece in a movie and you lose the ability to take it seriously for 12 minutes

Holy crap this is a funny video! I showed all my coworkers in the office the part where the moonlight butterfly floats down and everyone was laughing

i remember all of this q_q remembering all that so much that when friends joined in during the first PC release on GFWL i was already laughing at them for having it easy, lol the curse stacking was extra fun for the Seath bossfight. Really showed you why SO MANY cristallized people were in that room :D

Lovely to watch this video remembering the difficulties from back them. Curse was indeed the Dark Souls of status alterations, what a nightmare. However, it also comes back with the nostalgia of booting it up during release week, and seeing Facebook cluttered with doubts, questions and more doubts. If I remember correctly, we didn't have guides per say, but only RU-vid no-commentary walkthroughs of people trying and erroring like yourself.

I'm surprised you didn't mention that you can't lock on to the ghostly forest NPCs in the release version. I honestly think it was a pretty cool design choice and I was sad when it was changed. Although magic and bow users probably rejoiced, lol

And it floats down xD I always get the kick out of this

Great video! Pretty crazy how different the game used to be.

Everything about Pinwheel suggests you should fight him before Anor Londo but the path too him is too hard to get through at low level

Day one release version of games is always the scariest, I know from playing the launch version of dl2 for two months straight

Shame there was no mention of the hollow soldier's shield being insanely good, 60 stability at +0, 78 when maxed. Only 6 less than Havel's

My brain zeroed in on the Donkey Kong Country music. You combined 2 of my all time favorite games. Top man.

Your voice matches the music so nicely. Not sure why but it’s a very comfy vibe. Keep up the good work!

Yo you totally had my whole office dying when you said that bit about the butterfly floating down

I'm one of the very few who played this game before any patches (heck, I remember being excited for this game when it was only known as Project Dark, since I was a huge fan of Demon's Souls at the time), and I remember being so confused that they took so long to nerf the Dark Wood Grain Ring. _Flipping Havels, flipping Havels everywhere,_ in PvP, sometimes using unpatched TWoP (dark times...). I made good use of the ring in the meantime though. :^) As for the stackable curse effect, I actually had no idea. I never got cursed much before they patched that, I guess. That's pretty hilarious. Also, I sadly never got to try the dragon headstone souls-duping glitch, as I simply didn't know about it at the time before it got patched out, but, the remaster has a soul-duping glitch that's even easier these days, and it still works to this day. And yeah, I remember how limited the warp points were back then, but, I didn't mind it, since I loved how interconnected the level design was. It was forgivable back then, but, we're definitely spoiled by the modern FromSoftware games these days. This video brings back a lot of memories, so kudos. What a fun idea for a video. My theory on why it was so unbalanced back then was that FromSoftware were still getting their bearings, and were a very niche studio back then. It wasn't until they were noticed through word of mouth and Dark Souls' growing popularity that they felt they had to put more effort into quality assurance. lol

great music choices!

Man, this takes me back...

Awesome idea, dude. I enjoyed that immensely 👌

4 years ago I played the trilogy for the first time, my brother played it years before me and I always watched him play but eventually decided to venture myself into these games, as he said, the first time is going to be your best experience, and indeed it was. Played them countless times after that but it can't give me the feeling like when I played them the first time, only a handful of games gave me the same experience, its rare. Especially Dark Souls 2, I know its like the black sheep in the community but for me its absolutely mindblowing and my favorite from the franchise.

that character creation track takes me back some time man

good video! glad this was in my recommended

The whole office really loved that one

I seem to remember in the original version being able to 1-hit kill the dragon on the bridge with an arrow from the black knight tower nearby.

When I first played about a year after release my first run still had the heavy flip and dragon soul tricks! The lore-relevant warps only (DM Knightess explains the bonfires tended by the Keepers are special because they are linked)

Demon's Souls was my first souls game, so I was very excited when I got Dark Souls on my PS3. I always wondered why the people I watch on RU-vid these days seem to have a much easier time with certain things than I remember. I even booted it up to do another playthrough about a year or so ago, and was really confused why some things seemed so much harder/longer than I expected (my PS3 was not connected to the internet), but now I know why. Cool video :)

My friends would always tell me I was crazy for saying that on original release there were fewer warp locations and at some point they added more. I’m glad you show us definitive proof.

On this version you can use the strong magic sheild spell from the duke's archives and be invincible for 15 seconds (yes I timed it) and reach past ng+7 without problems and yes the spell can stack.

Ty for the RuneScape music original dark souls nostalgia blast

I don't recall most of this, having played the game so often, but do remember the horror of being double tapped by the curse frogs and finding my way through new londo. I often wondered whether the undead lady and Oswald selling a purging stone was a later addition or something I overlooked, thx for clearing that up.

I love this game so much, I don't think that any game since has managed to make its way into my list of all time best games.

Interesting video. I fell in love with souls with demons souls back on ps3 as I stumbled upon it about 6 months before dark souls released. Ended up loving it so bought every other souls game day one. Amazing games. I DO remember being warned about the curse though!! I was always SUPER ALERT when I would see those weird smoke frog things. I played these games blind so that tip from I believe IGN review? (could be another website review) was indeed helpful.

Thanks for the OSRS sound track ❤

Excellent video with cool info. Game sounds much harder back then

I have always played the original version because i played a... "Special" version of the game because, where i live, it was the only way to get the game

We used to start a new character after being cursed a bit.

The RuneScape music in the background is a nice touch.

Super fascinating.

...well, now I feel foolish.

Hello, I have played this game since the 1st release and I think I know about those "invincible" invaders, I have personally experience that in undead burg in 2011, they were just other players that used the bottomless box glitch allowding they're fresh new character to use all the items and equip store in the bottomless box even from the other character files, also no weapon level matchmaking like in the remastered means that you could get invaded by overleveled players with max level weapon and armor, other than that some weapons and stet up were stronger in 1st release like hollow soldier's shield, black knight greataxe and as you mention it the dark wood grain ring, I hope I was helpful and sorry for my broken english i'm Italian😅.

Idk if u started this conceptual trend, but man its interesting. Great video bro.

Love the binding of issac track around the 15 minute mark

I played day 1 and I am honestly kinda shocked at how much changed I didn't notice lol. But the slow leveling I definitely remember and was the main reason it took nearly a month of constant play to beat haha.

If you were not the fastest Havel alive, you would have turnes hollow playing this version. Great video!

Thank you for taking on this burden. Great vid

I remember the disk version on 360 had really bad humanity drop rates. Especially on the rat farming. I remember spending hours to get enough humanity to retry O&S

Dark Souls was my first Souls game and I always thought I just sucked at it, which was why it took me over 100 hours to complete my NG run. Given that I played it in its first month of release, maybe a good portion of that time was spent dealing with some of these issues. And thank you for confirming that I didn't imagine that Lost Izalith used to be carnage city with all the aggro'ed demon butts

“Dark souls one is my favorite game in the series” subscribed instantly

Gotta admit the dragons head glitch was a helluva lot of fun.