Remember how I mentioned that zeldas fire temple shortcut is railroaded? Well this is why. Once you progress enough throuhh undead burg, youll find a key to lower undead burg, and you have to mentally map the level to remember the way to there. So in THIS case. The shortcut isnt just something you use because its the obvious only way forward. But its something you have to connect with the knowledge you have of where the door to lower undead burg is, and APPLY that knowledge with PURPOSE to progress. YOU just figured your way forward. The game didnt make it the only way. And dont get me wrong, im not even saying its that hard to figure out. But it is undoubtedly a unique, layered and MOST importantly meaningful use of a mechanic as simple as a shortcut.

See how much use DS1 gets out of one fucking shortcut? Thats why its the king of shortcuts. And I laid all this out, without mentioning the OTHER shortcut in undead burg that serves an almost similar function in getting you to Sens Fortress, if you remember how everything is connected.

Dark Souls doesnt just make you mentally map, it also makes it so rewarding and natural by making you use shortcuts over and over again to familarize yourself. It is why the game does not need a map, and also why having a map would destroy the game because it would just make a shortcut another marker to go to.

This is exactly the same reason why in MiO even when I got the map, i barely used it because the shortcuts are SO good that you know the world like the back of your mind.

I wish I had time to go into the specifics of every shortcut, but Ive already droned on WAAAAy too long for a thread nobody will read.

So ill just quickly and briefly mention that almost every shortcut in this game is two way like the DS1 example I gave, and that the Elevator is the most obvious two way shortcut to a shortcut, which makes it less of a shortcut but like an intermediary shortcut to get you to shortcuts.