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(This is really just me talking/ranting about my gaming experience. Feel free to ignore it.)
I used to poke fun at Seiya from 'Overly Cautious Hero', now I realize I am him. My hyperactive paranoia, and lack of time to barrel head first into unexplored terrain, didn't "turn" me into a munchkin; for all my disdain of power gamers as a DM, I am one when I fire up my console. But can you blame me! The controls for the OG game (I can't speak for the remastered version) are crusty and the bosses are busted; starting out you can barely lift your shield without sucking up your endurance like a weeb does ramen. Meanwhile even the low-level canon fodder are basically the Tasmanian devil if he was made of chainsaws and ate nothing but PCP; so, yeah, I'll be a basic bitch and spend two days off binge-playing myself into a mini boss, thank you.
I ground for so long in the Undeadburg and Undead Parish sections of the game that I amassed an endurance of level 21 (with a general level of 24); and I still fat roll like a motherfucker!
You would think, at level 21, with the default armor, my undead ass wouldn't have the velocity of a continent, but, apparently, you have to just max out the stat altogether to move faster than a concussed banana slug. But it's not all bad. Because my strength and vitality are neck-and-neck at 17, and my sword and armor are maxed, I'm basically a wrecking ball with legs.
'Dark Souls' really is like a game of chess. Once I memorized the areas, I took my sweet time baiting and slaying NPC's piece meal, running away, recouping endurance, and, what I found was that endurance is the slut stat; it's the one that gives you the most bang for your buck.
You wannuh shank a bitch more than two times before dropping into a wheezing fetus on the ground?
Endurance!
You wannuh moon walk out of some BBEG's hit box with enough wind left over to book it back to the nearest bonfire?
Endurance!
Endurance is what keeps your shield from dropping and your sword swinging, so all those broken swash-buckling ghouls (you know the ones!)? You can just spam them back into a casket.
As for Dex? Intelligence? Faith!?
I was able to slap around the Gargoyle twins like it was my life's calling ; they were dead by the third try! And they would have been coffin-fodder sooner had I known that, once activated, the fuckers stick around; meaning, between the fog wall and the boss arena, you've got no time to equip your gear, then agro the sumbitches, before they start swinging, so, by the third try, I electrified my broad sword before stepping through the wall, and pretty much sashayed around the bosses, swatting all their HP away. I had more trouble with these bastards!
It occurred to me that the reason the NPC's were so broken was precisely because the game developers favor munchkin game play; they expect and encourage min-maxers to min-max; to play the game slow and steady and take your time. 'Dark Souls', contrary to every speed runner's twitch channel, isn't a game designed to be bested in a matter of days. It's a slow, technically-methodical dungeon crawler that demands multiple, small installments of your time to curb any control-snapping hysterics in the player.
Remember when video games weren't a source of income? When they were just a fucking hobby? That's what 'Dark Souls' goes back to, the days of punishingly difficult but casual game play. I actually really love this game, now, mostly because it's so hard, which forces me to be patient, precise, and to think systematically. The game demands memorization to survive. It demands you to be ridiculously cautious, but rewards risk-taking.
Would I like a story that even tries to present itself, instead of making me hunt the remotest reaches of the globe for even the most basic elements of functional story telling, like 'Who? What? Where? When? And why?' Sure. But the physical game is enough to keep me entertained. If I wanted story, I'd play 'Bioshock' or 'Dragon Age'.