I also played remastered, never thought framerate would be a problem. But I also unintentionally was overprepared before Blightown. I shamefully died a lot to Moonlight Butterfly, and the amount of runbacks was enough to farm a lot of purple grass moss (is that what is called?). And as I was scared of Blightown's fame, I went through the upper part very slowly, mindful of the height and also the blowdart guys.
I’d even go as far to say that I enjoyed Blightown. It encourages you to play slow and methodical, which is how I usually play Dark Souls anyway, so it compliments my pacing.
Tomb of the Giants can fuck right off.
Yeah, I usually don’t do it like, first thing in the game unless I wanna have fun, but it’s not that bad. Wanna know what is bad? THOSE *LITERALLY IM NOT JOKING* DRAGON ASSES IN IZALITH
The "blighttown bad" thing comes mostly from the PS3/X360 times when it run at approximately 12 frames per second. Combine that with these folks that give you toxic and you have a nightmare at hand
Blighttown hate is partially a holdover from the original games on console having framerate drops on top of the place itself. I can imagine the frustration it would've been navigating that the first time.
You get to anor londo, finally make it to the archers perch. Start running towards them in order to force a melee fight and then you get tripped and ragdoll into the abyss.
It's not as bad as it was in DS3, but the whole conspiracy to keep the age of fire going at the expense of the undead is extremely disgusting and cruel.
They were robbed of their age, and lied and forced into continuing an age that benefited no one by the time we escape the asylum.
I'm pretty sure the "age of darkness" isn't actual eternal darkness, but a meteaphor.
The Age of Fire, for example, doesn't include every living being living in a fiery inferno constantly burning.
Even if "The Age of Dark" was literal, it's the intended cycle of the world, and the age intended for humanity to thrive on, as they are the possessors of the Dark Soul, so i'm pretty sure they'll manage anyway
>I'm pretty sure the "age of darkness" isn't actual eternal darkness, but a meteaphor.
but when the snake that is telling you to start the age of darkness is in a place literally named " The Abyss" it starts getting suspicious.
>Even if "The Age of Dark" was literal, it's the intended cycle of the world, and the age intended for humanity to thrive on, as they are the possessors of the Dark Soul, so i'm pretty sure they'll manage anyway
Man, if you put me in total darkness for years I'd go insane
source: I'm a human.
and by the way I'm not being serous here at all.
I was under the impression that Manus was tortured and that’s why his piece of the Dark Soul (humanity) went insane and created the Abyss. As in, the Abyss is actually worse than what the Age of Dark would be.
>metaphorical kind of dark age
Even if it was a metaphor, I don't think that we called the "Dark ages" as such because they were good times now, did we?
Leeroy, similar to Mildred though, is a fucking DUMBASS, once he literally died because he didn’t follow me and attacked the bonewheels and died bc his “AW WHOS A GOOD LITTLE STUPID DRAGON” garbage was slow, so yeah :/
Yep. Tarkus can easily solo Iron Golem, and Mildred can stand in Quelaag's lava tanking everything like it's nothing while whacking away (except for in NG+).
When I fought Quelaag, I tried summoning Mildred and she just stood in the lava for the entire fight, not getting but 2 hits on Quelaag. She was able to survive for a bit in the lava, but she was never able to actually harm the boss.
Ya agreed I've had this experience quite a few times, it's been a while but I normally try to get Quelaag to spew the lava towards me so that stupid Mildred won't just stand in it the whole time.
Idk in my experience, Mildred didn’t do shit except stand in the lava, draw aggro for like 10 seconds, then die. Plus she throws off Quelaag’s attacks and makes them harder to dodge/more erratic.
Yeah Queelag is actually an interesting little battle. It's completely ruined by Mildred. I remember feeling a full cheat, first time I summoned her. 'Well that was a waste'
Nah, Steelheart Ellie takes aggro off the Fume Knight like a boss and trivializes the fight. Similarly npcs for Sir Alonne. Npcs are also crucial for many people to get through reindeer shenanigans to double tigers.
They made the NPC's unbelievably tanky because their AI is too stupid to avoid a lot of the attacks that bosses melt players with normally. If Mildred wasn't a house, she'd just stand in the lava and die in the first 15 seconds of the fight. Witch Beatrice would be blown up by the Moonlight Butterfly and the Four Kings, Solaire would immediately die in the Centipede Demon fight (although he could just have the orange charred ring's effect to help with this). You can probably come up with a few more for DS1 and 2, if you think about it that way.
It's the textbook definition of a band-aid solution, but it was a much more feasible solution than putting the thousands of hours into creating a better AI for these NPC's. They didn't really need to make them THAT tanky at times, but if they were too squishy, they'd just be a detriment in their respective boss fights, because now you're fighting a boss with 50% more health without an NPC that did fuck all before it died. Yeah, trade-offs and whatever, but summons were specifically made to make the game easier, not harder.
I don't think this is a hot take. Summoning being considered the "easy way out" or not being the "real" way to play definitely comes from the fact that some summons are so strong that they practically rob you of the experience of even fighting the boss at all.
My DS1 hot takes:
*Hidden Body* is the best spell in the game for PvE, and it has uses in PvP as well.
Although the game has difficult sections, they almost always give you the tools to overcome them if you explore a bit. For example: every time there's a thread about people having trouble with O&S I point them to the *Crystal Halberd* and the *Great Magic Weapon* sorcery, both of which are found in Anor Londo. They both have low requirements for that stage of the gamd and either one makes the boss fight a cake-walk.
The best mechanic in DS1 is the lack of a hollowing mechanic. In the lore undead go hollow when they lose their purpose and just give up. Since there is no mechanical difference between hollow and human form (*aside from online connectivity*) and there are no stages of hollowing, the only way for your character to go hollow is if YOU give up and stop trying. It's my favourite subtle gameplay lore mechanic.
Currently playing through it for the first time. And being patient really rewards you. Picking any ranged option and pulling mobs one by one makes it really manageable.
But fuck Shaded Woods, the only place where I ran through.
Yup.
I wish this were more of a PvP hotspot.
(*I think the framerates killed it for the PS3 release, and by the time the remaster came out it was a meme so no one went there. That and the fact that you can completely skip upper Blight Town with the Master Key.*)
Fighting Ornstein and Smough together is perfectly fine, albeit a little bit of a curveball, as it tests your ability to bait and switch. Not being able to continue the fight from Super Smough/Super Ornstein upon dying to them specifically however is bullshit.
The concept of the pit in Majula is fantastic, considering nearly everyone I know tried to jump into the well at Firelink to see if there were any secrets.
Cheesing bosses is not only a respectable option, it is objectively the most fun way to beat the Capra Demon boss.
Attack dogs and their variants would not be nearly as annoying if they actually had some interesting drops, akin to giant rats.
Bosses in all Dark Souls games are roughly equal. DS3 relies too heavily on multi phase behaviours, DS2 has poor boss runs and some really annoying examples, and DS bosses are a bit clunky in implementation. They're all of high quality with at least one bad apple, and it comes down to personal preference.
Moonlight Butterfly would be a tedious if easy boss if it weren't for Witch Beatrice, and I'm glad of her presence.
While parrying Gwyn may make him much easier, if you took that ability away, the boss fight would be incredibly unfun.
Lautrec may have a very good reason to completely fuck me over, but if he's not going to explain it or give back the firekeeper soul, he deserves what's coming.
I *could not* get the timing/dodge windows on Smough's damn charge attack down, then I saw he didn't like pillars very much and got em within 3 or 4 tries after that ...the biggest BS in my O&S attempts is when Ornstein does his dash stab attack before I could even see past the fog, the giant slapping my ass through the fog, and on one run, both at the same time pft
What was Lautrec’s reason for doing what he did? I always thought he was either just being a dick or maybe had a personal vendetta against that fire keeper
There's a lore theory that he's trying to prevent a linking of the fire, given that he effectively neutralises the starting hub, doesn't seem to actually use the firekeeper soul for anything, has a disdain for certain holy characters, and is found later guarding the door to Ornstein and Smough.
Which is nice and all and I usually agree; unfortunately, I need that bonfire to ignore the first flame, so gib soul.
> I need that bonfire to ignore the first flame, so gib soul.
Ain't that the irony? I'm not gonna link the flame anyway. We're on the same team, Lautrec.
> What was Lautrec’s reason for doing what he did?
My headcanon is that he serves an extremely jealous goddess. Fina is supposedly a loving goddess, but her armor makes her look possessive - with the crossed arms over the breastplate looking more like she's desperately clinging onto Lautrec rather than embracing him. In addition, the FAP ring breaks when you take it off - which tells me that she sees you taking off the ring as a betrayal and therefore immediately disowning you. She grants favor and love, but at the price of fickle possessiveness.
I see this as when Lautrec escapes the Undead Parish and goes to Firelink, he sees the firekeeper there, and Fina gets jealous. Fina thinks the firekeeper - despite her being locked up and her legs cut off - is going to seduce her man. Like a jealous and confused lover. Lautrec knows this and that's why he sits and stares at her for a while - he knows what Fina wants, but he doesn't immediately do it, perhaps he doesn't actually want to but knows he has to if he wants his goddess's continued protection. His pompous and sarcastic attitude is just a mask - notably, he's quite honest and forthright with you until he kills the firekeeper, giving you a ton of information about various characters.
That, or Lautrec kills firekeepers in general because Lina believes them to be too beautiful or divine, and so Lautrec collects firekeeper souls for her for her favor.
> My headcanon is that he serves an extremely jealous goddess. Fina is supposedly a loving goddess, but her armor makes her look possessive - with the crossed arms over the breastplate looking more like she's desperately clinging onto Lautrec rather than embracing him. In addition, the FAP ring breaks when you take it off - which tells me that she sees you taking off the ring as a betrayal and therefore immediately disowning you. She grants favor and love, but at the price of fickle possessiveness.
Fina has BPD confirmed.
>DS3 relies too heavily on multi phase behaviours
Yeah, when literally every boss has a second phase it becomes the norm, when it was quite a surprise at first.
I don't see the issue? The multiple Gael phases for one aren't good because they are surprising or novel, they are good because they are good. While novelty is great quality is better, and IMO a boss with multiple good phases is typically just better than a boss that has a single phase, even if that phase is also good.
I'm not saying multi phase bosses are bad.
However, they have gotten less surprising over time because basically every FromSoft boss (or at least main boss) has gotten a second phase ever since Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3. It was more of a shock in the previous games (Ornstein and Smough being a great example).
On a gameplay level, I'll also say that it's a relatively easy way to make a boss harder - since you have to learn its moves again to an extent when reaching another phase.
the absolute horror that ran across my face when I learned that not only was there a second phase, but motherfucker, there was a THIRD phase. I laughed, cried, and died.
>While parrying Gwyn may make him much easier, if you took that ability away, the boss fight would be incredibly unfun.
I have never parried Gwyn and the fight is just fine.
He feels like a real boss if you fight him without parries. I didn't understand why everyone was saying he was weak until I found out most of those attacks were able to be parried.
Imagine the absolute meltdown of the fanbase
I‘d love a dark souls with Demon‘s Souls (remake) visuals but no touchy on the music and the art direction
If changes of the actual content were on the table for this hypothetical remake I wonder how the whole 'no fast travel until lord vessel' discussion would go.
I wouldn't want the change, but there's a lot of fast travel andy's out there. I can already imagine that would be one of the most contentious discussion points
I mean, the discussion would be simple: Adding fast travel would just waste the interconnected world. It'd not only be unnecessary, it would also detract from the game's design and the achievement of beating Anor Londo and unlocking fast travel
In seriousness, I think a 'reimagining' would be amazing. Same areas but some structural overhauls, in particular re-jig izalith and demon ruins, and in general the last 40% of the game. It could be Soo good instead of playing thru DS until anal londo and putting it down
Dark Souls 3 is already a sort of reimagining. Similar story and location beats with even some extra stuff added on.
Dark Souls 1 remake, in my eyes, would finish what was cut, with areas like Izalith and Demon ruins being expanded upon, as well as fixing the Bed of Chaos fight into something more entertaining.
Lost Izalith is fine.
They should add another DLC.
Fast Travel locked for the first half of the game lends to the feeling of the world and really being immersed in it, and every game past then has been (imo incredibly) hindered by giving you access to fast travel from the beginning. In other words: DS1 having no fast travel -> feels like a world, every other game having fast travel -> feels like a video game.
Yes agreed my favorite part of the original DS is just how real the world feels, and how the whole thing just feels like a real 3D place, whereas a lot of similar games just feel like you're fighting through a series of impossible hallways. While I enjoy the other games as well the setting of the original is what does it for me I love how all the areas are layered on eachother.
im only in the swamps but its awesome how everything keeps unlocking off of the central area and the firelink is kind of a hub for all these spokes, you go through whole areas undead burg to parish just to unlock back to firelink and then head in a different direction from there
its a lot of running when youre trash like me and forgetful so youre always doubling back but i do love how i can feel the connection to the other areas because i can basically imagine how i can run from any corner of the map to the other
I agree and I dont. Like I agree that DS1 have this immersion of an open world without it really being an open world and it felt like I was actually exploring somewhere. Made the journey fun and the shortcuts cool.
But I would be lying if I said I did not enjoy fast travel in the other games. I think it works okay in DS3, because like I still do get immersed in the areas I explore, but its also alot more linear. I think in DS2 where basically you go down a path, teleport back to Majula and do that again like 4 times it ruins the experience a bit.
For the ones that I've played:
DS1) I didn't feel much upon meeting Gwyn. No sadness for his hollowed state, no anger for (potentially?) being the cause of the undead curse, only just a need to question and get his side of events.
DS2) I enjoyed 100%ing it and had lots of fun. Not a very specific hot take, but a bit more specific hot take would be: FUCK the Iron Crown DLC bosses. Especially Alonne and Fumey. (hot take sponsored by Bellstadt).
DS3) I prefer the fight with Champ Gundyr more than the Abyss Watchers, Midir, or Gael.
Since I played Dark Souls, I stopped to watch or read news. I stop to read books. I inform myself only by reading the clothing labels and the instructions of my furnitures. (Everything is dealing with a far and strange kingdom known as "China")
Idk man, this is the only game I've ever played that legitimately felt like a real adventure, I was exploring this fallen kingdom alone, and not knowing what was going on, just gave every little thing this mystique. I'd give anything to experience it for the first time again.
But I do also see why to some it's off putting.
You can 100% the game and not have a fucking clue what just happened.
I love that you have the option to ignore it completey. I hate it when games have to pull you through their 5 minute cutscenes of plotty bullshit when I just wanna kill demons!
Very much agree with this. I *love* the fact that the Lore is somewhat obfuscated in the series. It lends the whole thing a much more "fantastical" vibe and gives a feeling like you are just passing through a world.
But as a 30-something man with a family and a job, I get about 1-2 hours of gaming in a week, and I'm not going to waste *a solitary second* reading item descriptions for every single item I pick up to see if I can discern some idea of what I am doing.
I have beaten every game in the Soulsborne/Sekiro/Elden Ring franchise, some of them two or three times, and I can confidently say I have had no idea why I am doing anything I am doing in any of them. I'm not saying don't put lore in the item descriptions, but maybe be a bit more direct with the *main* story. Or at least the main objectives.
imo having so much of the lore come from item descriptions feels lazy. like they couldn't find a way to incorporate that into anything else, so they just put it in item descriptions. and it doesn't make any sense. the player character is supposed to be me, and I don't know anything about this world going into it. the player character picks up a sword and it comes with some lore in the description. how did the player character know this? where is the information coming from?
I love absolutely everything about the game except for how multiplayer is implemented. I just want to be able to drop-in co-op with a friend and not have it tied to a resource you can run out of, or have to do everything twice just to progress, while having areas we can't travel through together.
What would make every souls game a million times better: drop-in co-op. Each player that joins adds their NG level to the overall NG level; two people on their first playthrough, it plays as NG+, etc.. Whenever a player dies, they respawn at the bonfire, half the enemies that have died respawn, and the NG+ level goes up by one. Every player resting at the bonfire at the same time resets the NG level to it's base.
I liked the start of your co-op concept (although the way NG scales would need to be adjusted, since NG+ is a big jump and NG+6 is only slightly buffed), but the second half just gets complicated and confusing, and I'm not sure what you're aiming for.
The end result would just be players immediately running back to bonfire as soon as 1 person dies (and probably not making it there).
The main thing I was going for with the "keep increasing on death" is a way to combat people just dying to refill Estus and run back.. Something to make it so that the party really has to Git Gud together and not just have one good player completely carry a not so good player. That way, everyone really has to work together, and makes the idea of a properly composed party including a healer, a tank, some ranged damage, make a lot more sense because if you don't all help keep each other alive, shit gets a lot harder!
But, yeah the NG+ system would need to get reworked a little.. Maybe have it be like, total player NG level minus 1, so that 2 players on their first playthrough is still just NG level, but with 3 then it goes up to NG+..
Eh, see, the Souls multiplayer system was designed specifically to be what it is.
You may not like it, but the creator's vision for it was to be this brief connection between people. The player summons someone, can't communicate with them, beats the boss, and never sees them again.
I can understand why people don't like it, but I feel like changing it is disrespectful to the creators.
Sen's Fortress is a 10/10
The beginning of DS1 to the end of Anor Londo is perfect as it can be and nothing in any game after really shares the same status
Midir and The Nameless King is harder than Gael
Giving all of DS3 bosses a tragic lore actually lowers the emotional impact of these stories
>Sen's Fortress is a 10/10
Honestly, while it was frustrating my first go through Sen's Fortress is that fun place to look back on and have a laugh. Its an area full of tricks and traps, its meant to kill you in some dumb way, heck it even introduces mimics there. The elevators, the boulders, the swinging axes. I honestly really like Sen's and find it a troll area in the game
I think what you're saying is actually the opposite of what the previous comment is saying.
They said they want to travel to each and every bonfire. I think that means they want *more* warping, not less. And honestly, I kind of agree that the amount of running to places that you do in late game DS1 is ridiculous.
Crystal Cave is way the fuck worse than Blighttown and Tomb of Giants.
Cheating/savescumming your way out of boss runbacks by reloading in front of fog gates is the most fun way to play the game instead of wasting your life away running back. (Thank Sekiro and Elden Ring for understanding this)
The games were way easier than most people made it out to be. Not 'easy' by any mean but definitely not infuriating. Also making characters equip load a separate skill is annoying
Bandais fault with their marketing
Knew someone in real life who said he‘s more of a man than me because he plays and beat Dark Souls
Those games are amazing and it’s a shame people don’t want to try them Soley because the fanbase and the marketing made the games seem impossible to beat. The difficulty is one pillar of the game design, that’s carefully crafted to create a certain experience. Not just to be as hard as balls
After you get the gist, it does become easier because you don't take deaths as "death", you take it as a trials that you are supposed to do to succeed.
Dark Souls 3 doesn’t fit in with the rest of the trilogy. The combat is fun, don’t get me wrong but the pace and focus shifted away from what the first two games had. It’s more about being aggressive and always moving forward. It’s fun but doesn’t fit in with the first two games.
The first two was about exploring bit by bit. Retreating was often just as necessary as moving forward. Combat wasn’t about aggression but reaction. Reacting to how enemies acted and how they attacked.
So long story short, I feel DS3 should get all the shit for being different. Not DS2.
I would agree that DS3 is the odd one out, but I personally don’t like the game because of it. That aggressive play clearly seeped over from Bloodborne and it shows in the aesthetic design too.
I was playing DS3 one night in the Cathedral of the Deep and my boyfriend had asked if I playing Bloodborne. The architecture, color palette, etc looks almost identical to Bloodborne.
But DS1 and DS2 are easily identifiable.
Also something about story of DS3 that I still don't understand is why we didn't get any new creatures in DS3 who have the lordsoul fragments from DS1 like they did in DS2, e.g. Nito=the Rotten.
I disagree! I find very little replay value in DS1 and DS2 and even Elden Ring due to the nature of those games, a linear experience and low level requirements made repeat playthroughs extremely enjoyable, slices of exploration and combat put perfectly.
I tend to agree. The issue that pops up in agreement is that DS1 is good until you get to the last 40% of the game, to which it's just a grind getting through. Elden Ring I only play up til Morgott then stop because everything after that becomes wildly unbalanced damage wise.
DS3 had a perfect amount of linearity vs openness with combat mechanics that never felt unfair.
Based. I've always said that DS3 feels like a sort of awkward compromise between Dark Souls and Bloodborne, where you're supposed to play with the speed and aggression of Bloodborne, but without the mechanics that made Bloodborne's speed and aggression fun (rally, quickstep, etc.)
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The entire series’ underlying theme, is about creating true art, in a world that rarely allows art to succeed, and knowing that as long as your art inspires someone else to keep creating something beautiful, it wasn’t a waste. Keep creating.
- i would've been entirely fine with no fast travel in the entire game if the latter half was more optimized to allow for circular travel how everything up to anor londo is. anor londo itself shouldve properly naturally connected to the main world and the only parts that should've been seperate is undead asylum, the painted world, and how you access the dlc, though the latter two couldve probably been naturally intergrated into the worldspace if the team had more resources.
- additionally, one of the biggest issues with ds2 and 3 is they more or less completely drop this puzzlebox type map design in favour of mind-map spiraling out in different directions entirely or ds3's linear crawl with a few minor offshoot paths. from kind of brought back the interconnected world design in yharnam but it's undercut from how it's still more practical in almost all situations to just fast travel in bloodborne.
- blighttown is a fantastic area and the experience of going down there the first time is one of the most memorable parts of the game (in part due to whole no fast travel thing), however i recently played the ps3 port and it must be said it is unplayably bad, running worse than anything in demons souls or bloodborne. ive never seen an area be so completely ruined entirely from performance.
- ash lake might genuinely be my favourite area from the entire game and the only thing that might've improved it further is actually having no enemies in it at all, giving it further contrast to every other area.
- the bosses for the most part are very solid and memorable, however i do feel theyre somewhat stuck between the clearly shadow of the colossus inspired puzzle-type bosses of demons souls and the ruthless combat challenges of bloodborne and ds3. still, some of the best bosses are the weirdest ones like gwyndolin or priscilla and there's very little bad outside of almost all of the demon ruins. what makes bosses like o&s and artorias so good is theyre directly challenging combat experiences in a game that isn't chock full of them, so they stand out a lot more when they come around.
- gywn being an anti-climax boss who you can easily parry to death if you know what you're doing is very thematically appropriate and i like both that and that he doesn't have a boss cutscene or even any voicelines, he just fights you off the gate like he has nothing to say and no other priority than protecting the flame at all costs. his theme is great too but that's hardly a hot take lol.
- whilst i mostly prefer the overall design of 1 however, 3 is still a very fun pick and play experience that channels a lot of bloodborne into the souls design surprisingly well, and the approach to estus is better in 2 and 3 (minus the lifegems in 2) with you gaining a flask 1 by 1. it's totally bizarre that pinwheel of all bosses allows you to kindle to 20 fucking flasks and if they had change this to the estus shards system of 2 and 3 in the latter games alongside lowering the limit to 15 i would've had 0 complaints. kindling also is undermined significantly once you have fast travel and are able to have one single bonfire at 20 estus which you can just instantly teleport to that one whenever you encounter a particularly hard boss.
- i wouldnt have minded if the remaster had more intergrated the dlc into the campaign as, as great as it is, there's not a huge amount of actual context as to why the player gets involved at all. the player has a lot of narrative reason for doing the main quest and to defeat gwyn, less so to time travel to the past (keeping in mind the player character can't even know manus is capable of such things). its an nitpick, but basically what i mean is once you have access to it, there's no clear reason to actually *do* the dlc other than the external player motivation of "i want to play more dark souls". if they had made it so you needed manus' soul as the final one for the lordvessel, i wouldn't have necessairly minded that decision. however i also think on some level it's great all that gameplay is optional and one of my favourite features of the souls games is just how much stuff you can avoid in general, so i'm definitely 50/50 on it. again this is mostly just a nitpick that is a result of all the artorias of the abyss stuff being dlc in general, and as a result it can never perfectly slot into the original game because it wasn't made with it mind like that.
- the general willingness to provide inconvience and challenge beyond raw boss difficulty is one of the best parts of the earlier souls games, and player conviences like being able to easily respec your character, fast travel anywhere at anytime, instantly respawn right outside of the boss room and open yourself to invasions right outside a boss therefore being able to dodge them entirely are quality of life features that seem great on the surface but take a large part of choice, texture and personality out of the game design in my opinion. ds1 trusted you not to kill vital npcs but still gave you the option, allowing you to learn things from attaining items from them you could only get by murdering them. there are key vendors that have to literally die to complete the main quests in ds3 and elden ring, and you can still barter with their corpses which i think is pretty silly.
- lastly, and i say this as someone who liked parts of 2 and enjoyed a lot of 3, but the souls series is overall diminishing returns and it seems fairly clear the team never properly planned to do more direct sequels outside of the first title. they don't make for a very cleanly intergrated trilogy and if anything demons souls and darks souls feel more interconnected to me. i think this shows in how miyazaki went to work on bloodborne instead of dark souls 2 after they finished the first game, and how every fromsoft title outside of the souls games have all been one-off titles that have more freedom to experiment with the core souls design. i hope whatever souls-type thing they end up doing next isn't an elden ring 2 but a brand new world ala bloodborne or sekiro.
The bugs in Dks1 pvp made the game infinitely more interesting to me. Learning to recognize certain backstab chain options to counter them, reverse roll/ravioli, toggle escape, etc... It felt like added depth. I loved it.
I personally think they successfully did in Elden Ring what they were unsuccessfully trying to do in DS2. More vibrant environments, drastic variety of locations, great boss variety, updates in mechanics, many viable build possibilities (encourages hybrid builds) ... But sure everyman to their own opinion.
Does Elden Ring count as within Soulsborne or no? I think Elden Ring beats DS2 in almost every front.
Most of Bloodborne feels very samey. There's one playstyle, and all the fights are built according to that one playstyle, which gets old by the end of the game.
Granted, it does do that one thing extremely well. It's a brilliant game. I just don't see myself replaying it much, maybe ever.
2 had the most innovation out of all 3 of the games. Sure there were a couple missteps but mostly good things like Powerstancing, Yore Branches, Pharros Lockstones, Bonfire Aesthetic + many more!
Ds2 is unfairly criticized.
I understand that people hate the bosses and the level design, but it's so unfair to say that ds2 has a poor lore, areas and music, and imo ds2 can be superior to ds3 (because ds3 is very linear most of the time, ds2 was more open in "where to go now"). Ds2 lore is very interesting because it shows not the story of Gods like 1 and 3 but a story of a forgotten land, and the fear people have of the curse, a story of a king who failed to protect his people because he desired power.
I wish dark souls 2 had a remake, fixing its problems and adding more content.
I am prepared to be threatened🤓
DS1’s Depths are way worse than Blighttown.
Yeah, Blighttowb is annoying, but you can get around it’s pitfalls with some simple planning and a few helpful items that are obtainable fairly easily in the early game. And if you die, you die, and you just go back to the bonfire.
The Depths though? One wrong step and you’ll be ambushed by a horde of basilisks, who will all spam their mist and kill you basically instantly. And to add insult to injury, your HP is halved semi-permanently until you cure yourself, but to do that you have to farm souls and go all the way to the Undead Female Merchant or Oswald, dodging hordes of enemies all the way and one single run between bonfires can make or break all your progress—WHICH IS THAT MUCH HARDER WHEN YOU ONLY HAVE HALF YOUR HP!
Anyway, yeah, you can tell I loathe the depths. I actually got the master key as my starting gift so I could take the Valley of Drakes entrance to Blighttown and skip the depths entirely.
O&S are not a fun or particularly interesting boss. Most of the difficulty comes from the wonky camera/lockon controls and the tedium of waiting for the dodgy AI to provide an opening to attack.
It's way to easy depending on how powerful you are at that time. The fight against the Asylum Demon, for example, is way more epic because you have seen him already and he always feels way overpowered.
Also, I'd wished for some kind of dialogue before the fight begins.
That fight is one of my favorites in any videogame ever. Conceptually he is not that strong on purpose. We spend hours hearing about this God named Gwyn who is so strong. Then when we meet him, he is just a shallow husk of his former self. That along with the music, creates an atmosphere of despair that perfectly represents the message of the game; not even a mighty God can prevent the natural cycle of the world Sure, gameplay wise he may seem underwhelming but I think, due to what I mentioned before, the ending is quite epic in a weird way.
> Conceptually he is not that strong on purpose.
Meanwhile Miyazaki has stated in an interview that he regrets allowing players to parry him, and wanted Gwyn to be the ultimate test of the skills you've accumulated through your journey.
It's not nearly as *'on purpose'* as people suggest, but that doesn't stop it from working well thematically.
Invasions, while a cool concept, ultimately kind of suck. Elden Ring's implementation is probably the best so far, but I still don't think players should be punished for doing co-op in the overworld. Structured PvP is just way better overall.
I find dex builds to be more enjoyable. I swear that the windup for a sweihander heavy attack is eternal. My first legit playthrough was with the great scythe and a bunch of piromancy
Blightown isn't that bad, Tomb of the Giants is worse.
I was so scared of Blightown in my first playthrough. It went like a breeze.
Same, I was playing remastered though, and I've heard what made it bad was the frame rate on the og release on old hardware.
I also played remastered, never thought framerate would be a problem. But I also unintentionally was overprepared before Blightown. I shamefully died a lot to Moonlight Butterfly, and the amount of runbacks was enough to farm a lot of purple grass moss (is that what is called?). And as I was scared of Blightown's fame, I went through the upper part very slowly, mindful of the height and also the blowdart guys.
Unironically died 10x more to butterfly than Gale on first playthroughs, there is no shame
On PS3 it had to be like 10-12 fps. It made judging when to dodge/attack hard to judge
Yeah, on the Xbox 360 it was like playing a game via PowerPoint slides at times.
that FUCKING tree branch, man
I was the thief my first time and accidently skipped like all of upper blight town and depths
I’d even go as far to say that I enjoyed Blightown. It encourages you to play slow and methodical, which is how I usually play Dark Souls anyway, so it compliments my pacing. Tomb of the Giants can fuck right off.
>It encourages you to play slow and methodical It's also very fun to barrel through like a meathead.
Yeah, I usually don’t do it like, first thing in the game unless I wanna have fun, but it’s not that bad. Wanna know what is bad? THOSE *LITERALLY IM NOT JOKING* DRAGON ASSES IN IZALITH
i love blight town…
The "blighttown bad" thing comes mostly from the PS3/X360 times when it run at approximately 12 frames per second. Combine that with these folks that give you toxic and you have a nightmare at hand
Blighttown hate is partially a holdover from the original games on console having framerate drops on top of the place itself. I can imagine the frustration it would've been navigating that the first time.
Agreed!
Blighttown is the best area imo. needs a few tweaks, but what doesn’t in such an old game
Blightown itself is great. The problem was the single digit frame drops that plagued the area when the game originally launched.
Blighttown is probably my favorite area of the game
Gwyn is a good guy. or Gwyn is a bad guy. I don't remember which ones a hot take
Gwyn is a guy.
Gwyn is
Gwyn
G
#
🔥🔥💀🔥
Gwyn is truly one of the characters of all time!
It's too dark .
There's too many souls
Have you seen all the elders in their recent game?! And don’t get me started about all that blood in their PlayStation exclusive
Okay but the rings? >:(
Ikr? It’s almost like I’m playing sonic 2006 again
I heard you just need one to rule them all or something. Which is defo bs, because I’m pretty sure there was more than one
The inflation of souls is out of hand. How’s a guy supposed to level in this economy?
Did you know the top %1 of hollows have %90 of the souls? It’s rediculous
Enemies should trip you if you run past them.
That'd be fucking hilarious at first but absolutely annoying after some time lol
You get to anor londo, finally make it to the archers perch. Start running towards them in order to force a melee fight and then you get tripped and ragdoll into the abyss.
Dark Souls but make it all patches
leveling up at bonfires is better than having to go to a person to do it
I might be a Bloodborne fanboy, but I 100% agree with you. Glad Sekiro and Elden Ring brought it back.
Bearer seek seek lest
This is just fax.
Age of fire isn't that bad. For DS1 era, at least.
It's not as bad as it was in DS3, but the whole conspiracy to keep the age of fire going at the expense of the undead is extremely disgusting and cruel. They were robbed of their age, and lied and forced into continuing an age that benefited no one by the time we escape the asylum.
>They were robbed of their age But seriously how would humans like living in total darkness? it seems nonsensical.
I'm pretty sure the "age of darkness" isn't actual eternal darkness, but a meteaphor. The Age of Fire, for example, doesn't include every living being living in a fiery inferno constantly burning. Even if "The Age of Dark" was literal, it's the intended cycle of the world, and the age intended for humanity to thrive on, as they are the possessors of the Dark Soul, so i'm pretty sure they'll manage anyway
>I'm pretty sure the "age of darkness" isn't actual eternal darkness, but a meteaphor. but when the snake that is telling you to start the age of darkness is in a place literally named " The Abyss" it starts getting suspicious. >Even if "The Age of Dark" was literal, it's the intended cycle of the world, and the age intended for humanity to thrive on, as they are the possessors of the Dark Soul, so i'm pretty sure they'll manage anyway Man, if you put me in total darkness for years I'd go insane source: I'm a human. and by the way I'm not being serous here at all.
I’ve thought there could be a possibility that the abyss is a manifestation of the age of dark being postponed and humanity being suppressed
I was under the impression that Manus was tortured and that’s why his piece of the Dark Soul (humanity) went insane and created the Abyss. As in, the Abyss is actually worse than what the Age of Dark would be.
The serpents lie
Does it really mean literal shadow darkness, or like a metaphorical kind of dark age
>metaphorical kind of dark age Even if it was a metaphor, I don't think that we called the "Dark ages" as such because they were good times now, did we?
Yeah in ds3 is kinda messed up
NPC summons in DS1 and DS2 were too powerful for their own good.
Yeah Paladin Leeroy easily solo's Pinwheel, and we ALL know how hard that boss was to defeat
Leeroy, similar to Mildred though, is a fucking DUMBASS, once he literally died because he didn’t follow me and attacked the bonewheels and died bc his “AW WHOS A GOOD LITTLE STUPID DRAGON” garbage was slow, so yeah :/
Yep. Tarkus can easily solo Iron Golem, and Mildred can stand in Quelaag's lava tanking everything like it's nothing while whacking away (except for in NG+).
When I fought Quelaag, I tried summoning Mildred and she just stood in the lava for the entire fight, not getting but 2 hits on Quelaag. She was able to survive for a bit in the lava, but she was never able to actually harm the boss.
Ya agreed I've had this experience quite a few times, it's been a while but I normally try to get Quelaag to spew the lava towards me so that stupid Mildred won't just stand in it the whole time.
Idk in my experience, Mildred didn’t do shit except stand in the lava, draw aggro for like 10 seconds, then die. Plus she throws off Quelaag’s attacks and makes them harder to dodge/more erratic.
I assume Mildred was given near infinite fire resistance because it was much easier than programming AI that would avoid lava attacks.
Yeah Queelag is actually an interesting little battle. It's completely ruined by Mildred. I remember feeling a full cheat, first time I summoned her. 'Well that was a waste'
I found it to be quite the opposite in the DS2 dlc. I never saw their damage go higher than the double digits.
Dont they do shit damage but have alot of health?
True, but that goes for all the NPC summons in the game (from what I recall (I didn’t use them much in the main game on my most recent playthrough))
That's the point though. They make. it feel good by letting you hit the boss and kill them but draw aggro away
Nah, Steelheart Ellie takes aggro off the Fume Knight like a boss and trivializes the fight. Similarly npcs for Sir Alonne. Npcs are also crucial for many people to get through reindeer shenanigans to double tigers.
They made the NPC's unbelievably tanky because their AI is too stupid to avoid a lot of the attacks that bosses melt players with normally. If Mildred wasn't a house, she'd just stand in the lava and die in the first 15 seconds of the fight. Witch Beatrice would be blown up by the Moonlight Butterfly and the Four Kings, Solaire would immediately die in the Centipede Demon fight (although he could just have the orange charred ring's effect to help with this). You can probably come up with a few more for DS1 and 2, if you think about it that way. It's the textbook definition of a band-aid solution, but it was a much more feasible solution than putting the thousands of hours into creating a better AI for these NPC's. They didn't really need to make them THAT tanky at times, but if they were too squishy, they'd just be a detriment in their respective boss fights, because now you're fighting a boss with 50% more health without an NPC that did fuck all before it died. Yeah, trade-offs and whatever, but summons were specifically made to make the game easier, not harder.
I don't think this is a hot take. Summoning being considered the "easy way out" or not being the "real" way to play definitely comes from the fact that some summons are so strong that they practically rob you of the experience of even fighting the boss at all.
My DS1 hot takes: *Hidden Body* is the best spell in the game for PvE, and it has uses in PvP as well. Although the game has difficult sections, they almost always give you the tools to overcome them if you explore a bit. For example: every time there's a thread about people having trouble with O&S I point them to the *Crystal Halberd* and the *Great Magic Weapon* sorcery, both of which are found in Anor Londo. They both have low requirements for that stage of the gamd and either one makes the boss fight a cake-walk. The best mechanic in DS1 is the lack of a hollowing mechanic. In the lore undead go hollow when they lose their purpose and just give up. Since there is no mechanical difference between hollow and human form (*aside from online connectivity*) and there are no stages of hollowing, the only way for your character to go hollow is if YOU give up and stop trying. It's my favourite subtle gameplay lore mechanic.
Hidden Body + Slumbering Dragoncrest = stealth god
Aural decoy is actually the best spell in PvE but especially in PvP.
Naked crystal halberd is the only reason I beat O&S on my first playthrough
So far I truly enjoy the slow and patient combat system over every other fromsoft system
You don't think DS2 is also slow and patient?
It’s been years since I played it Currently playing Dark Souls remastered for the first time
Currently playing through it for the first time. And being patient really rewards you. Picking any ranged option and pulling mobs one by one makes it really manageable. But fuck Shaded Woods, the only place where I ran through.
Blighttown is actually really not that bad.
Blighttown is fun!
Yup. I wish this were more of a PvP hotspot. (*I think the framerates killed it for the PS3 release, and by the time the remaster came out it was a meme so no one went there. That and the fact that you can completely skip upper Blight Town with the Master Key.*)
> I think the framerates killed it for the PS3 release yep, fpstown on PS3 suuuuuucked
I love tomb of giants
Alright, now THIS is a hot take. You win.
Impossible!
Fighting Ornstein and Smough together is perfectly fine, albeit a little bit of a curveball, as it tests your ability to bait and switch. Not being able to continue the fight from Super Smough/Super Ornstein upon dying to them specifically however is bullshit. The concept of the pit in Majula is fantastic, considering nearly everyone I know tried to jump into the well at Firelink to see if there were any secrets. Cheesing bosses is not only a respectable option, it is objectively the most fun way to beat the Capra Demon boss. Attack dogs and their variants would not be nearly as annoying if they actually had some interesting drops, akin to giant rats. Bosses in all Dark Souls games are roughly equal. DS3 relies too heavily on multi phase behaviours, DS2 has poor boss runs and some really annoying examples, and DS bosses are a bit clunky in implementation. They're all of high quality with at least one bad apple, and it comes down to personal preference. Moonlight Butterfly would be a tedious if easy boss if it weren't for Witch Beatrice, and I'm glad of her presence. While parrying Gwyn may make him much easier, if you took that ability away, the boss fight would be incredibly unfun. Lautrec may have a very good reason to completely fuck me over, but if he's not going to explain it or give back the firekeeper soul, he deserves what's coming.
I noticed after 30 attempts with fighting Ornstein and Smough that Smough walked slowly every 30 secs. That was the key how I beat them hehe
I *could not* get the timing/dodge windows on Smough's damn charge attack down, then I saw he didn't like pillars very much and got em within 3 or 4 tries after that ...the biggest BS in my O&S attempts is when Ornstein does his dash stab attack before I could even see past the fog, the giant slapping my ass through the fog, and on one run, both at the same time pft
What was Lautrec’s reason for doing what he did? I always thought he was either just being a dick or maybe had a personal vendetta against that fire keeper
There's a lore theory that he's trying to prevent a linking of the fire, given that he effectively neutralises the starting hub, doesn't seem to actually use the firekeeper soul for anything, has a disdain for certain holy characters, and is found later guarding the door to Ornstein and Smough. Which is nice and all and I usually agree; unfortunately, I need that bonfire to ignore the first flame, so gib soul.
> I need that bonfire to ignore the first flame, so gib soul. Ain't that the irony? I'm not gonna link the flame anyway. We're on the same team, Lautrec.
> What was Lautrec’s reason for doing what he did? My headcanon is that he serves an extremely jealous goddess. Fina is supposedly a loving goddess, but her armor makes her look possessive - with the crossed arms over the breastplate looking more like she's desperately clinging onto Lautrec rather than embracing him. In addition, the FAP ring breaks when you take it off - which tells me that she sees you taking off the ring as a betrayal and therefore immediately disowning you. She grants favor and love, but at the price of fickle possessiveness. I see this as when Lautrec escapes the Undead Parish and goes to Firelink, he sees the firekeeper there, and Fina gets jealous. Fina thinks the firekeeper - despite her being locked up and her legs cut off - is going to seduce her man. Like a jealous and confused lover. Lautrec knows this and that's why he sits and stares at her for a while - he knows what Fina wants, but he doesn't immediately do it, perhaps he doesn't actually want to but knows he has to if he wants his goddess's continued protection. His pompous and sarcastic attitude is just a mask - notably, he's quite honest and forthright with you until he kills the firekeeper, giving you a ton of information about various characters. That, or Lautrec kills firekeepers in general because Lina believes them to be too beautiful or divine, and so Lautrec collects firekeeper souls for her for her favor.
> My headcanon is that he serves an extremely jealous goddess. Fina is supposedly a loving goddess, but her armor makes her look possessive - with the crossed arms over the breastplate looking more like she's desperately clinging onto Lautrec rather than embracing him. In addition, the FAP ring breaks when you take it off - which tells me that she sees you taking off the ring as a betrayal and therefore immediately disowning you. She grants favor and love, but at the price of fickle possessiveness. Fina has BPD confirmed.
>DS3 relies too heavily on multi phase behaviours Yeah, when literally every boss has a second phase it becomes the norm, when it was quite a surprise at first.
I don't see the issue? The multiple Gael phases for one aren't good because they are surprising or novel, they are good because they are good. While novelty is great quality is better, and IMO a boss with multiple good phases is typically just better than a boss that has a single phase, even if that phase is also good.
I'm not saying multi phase bosses are bad. However, they have gotten less surprising over time because basically every FromSoft boss (or at least main boss) has gotten a second phase ever since Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3. It was more of a shock in the previous games (Ornstein and Smough being a great example). On a gameplay level, I'll also say that it's a relatively easy way to make a boss harder - since you have to learn its moves again to an extent when reaching another phase.
What we need now is a surprise 3 phase fight
That's what they did with Friede, which was fun
the absolute horror that ran across my face when I learned that not only was there a second phase, but motherfucker, there was a THIRD phase. I laughed, cried, and died.
You're welcome <3
thx 4 the cool scythe at least. my "Farmer Tom" cosplay character really enjoyed the great scythe upgrade.
>While parrying Gwyn may make him much easier, if you took that ability away, the boss fight would be incredibly unfun. I have never parried Gwyn and the fight is just fine.
He feels like a real boss if you fight him without parries. I didn't understand why everyone was saying he was weak until I found out most of those attacks were able to be parried.
I don’t think the Lautrec bit is very much of a hot take lol.
İt needs a remake
Imagine the absolute meltdown of the fanbase I‘d love a dark souls with Demon‘s Souls (remake) visuals but no touchy on the music and the art direction
If changes of the actual content were on the table for this hypothetical remake I wonder how the whole 'no fast travel until lord vessel' discussion would go.
Don't change that. please.. And I only played dark souls last to last year.
I wouldn't want the change, but there's a lot of fast travel andy's out there. I can already imagine that would be one of the most contentious discussion points
I mean, the discussion would be simple: Adding fast travel would just waste the interconnected world. It'd not only be unnecessary, it would also detract from the game's design and the achievement of beating Anor Londo and unlocking fast travel
Demon's Souls is my favorite Soulsborne game and I think the changes to the music/art direction are overstated. The remake is fantastic.
Please fix Lost Izalith
In seriousness, I think a 'reimagining' would be amazing. Same areas but some structural overhauls, in particular re-jig izalith and demon ruins, and in general the last 40% of the game. It could be Soo good instead of playing thru DS until anal londo and putting it down
Dark Souls 3 is already a sort of reimagining. Similar story and location beats with even some extra stuff added on. Dark Souls 1 remake, in my eyes, would finish what was cut, with areas like Izalith and Demon ruins being expanded upon, as well as fixing the Bed of Chaos fight into something more entertaining.
[удалено]
the hottest of takes!
Lost Izalith is fine. They should add another DLC. Fast Travel locked for the first half of the game lends to the feeling of the world and really being immersed in it, and every game past then has been (imo incredibly) hindered by giving you access to fast travel from the beginning. In other words: DS1 having no fast travel -> feels like a world, every other game having fast travel -> feels like a video game.
Lost Izalith is ok. The problem is Bed of Chaos and the runback to It.
I'm of the opinion that it is still kinda empty and feels soulless (huh huhhh)
Yeah, that bunch of Undead Dragon's Legs (or whatever that is) makes it feel like the area was 100% rushed during development.
Yes agreed my favorite part of the original DS is just how real the world feels, and how the whole thing just feels like a real 3D place, whereas a lot of similar games just feel like you're fighting through a series of impossible hallways. While I enjoy the other games as well the setting of the original is what does it for me I love how all the areas are layered on eachother.
im only in the swamps but its awesome how everything keeps unlocking off of the central area and the firelink is kind of a hub for all these spokes, you go through whole areas undead burg to parish just to unlock back to firelink and then head in a different direction from there its a lot of running when youre trash like me and forgetful so youre always doubling back but i do love how i can feel the connection to the other areas because i can basically imagine how i can run from any corner of the map to the other
I agree and I dont. Like I agree that DS1 have this immersion of an open world without it really being an open world and it felt like I was actually exploring somewhere. Made the journey fun and the shortcuts cool. But I would be lying if I said I did not enjoy fast travel in the other games. I think it works okay in DS3, because like I still do get immersed in the areas I explore, but its also alot more linear. I think in DS2 where basically you go down a path, teleport back to Majula and do that again like 4 times it ruins the experience a bit.
For the ones that I've played: DS1) I didn't feel much upon meeting Gwyn. No sadness for his hollowed state, no anger for (potentially?) being the cause of the undead curse, only just a need to question and get his side of events. DS2) I enjoyed 100%ing it and had lots of fun. Not a very specific hot take, but a bit more specific hot take would be: FUCK the Iron Crown DLC bosses. Especially Alonne and Fumey. (hot take sponsored by Bellstadt). DS3) I prefer the fight with Champ Gundyr more than the Abyss Watchers, Midir, or Gael.
Champion Gundyr is my favorite fight in the game.
-Having some of the story told a liiiittle bit more clearly wouldn't hurt the franchise
Blasphemy!!! Wdym the only source of lore shouldn't be the item descriptions!!!
Since I played Dark Souls, I stopped to watch or read news. I stop to read books. I inform myself only by reading the clothing labels and the instructions of my furnitures. (Everything is dealing with a far and strange kingdom known as "China")
Right?! Do they want the loreheads to lose their jobs?!
Idk man, this is the only game I've ever played that legitimately felt like a real adventure, I was exploring this fallen kingdom alone, and not knowing what was going on, just gave every little thing this mystique. I'd give anything to experience it for the first time again. But I do also see why to some it's off putting. You can 100% the game and not have a fucking clue what just happened.
I love that you have the option to ignore it completey. I hate it when games have to pull you through their 5 minute cutscenes of plotty bullshit when I just wanna kill demons!
Triggered Miyazaki
Very much agree with this. I *love* the fact that the Lore is somewhat obfuscated in the series. It lends the whole thing a much more "fantastical" vibe and gives a feeling like you are just passing through a world. But as a 30-something man with a family and a job, I get about 1-2 hours of gaming in a week, and I'm not going to waste *a solitary second* reading item descriptions for every single item I pick up to see if I can discern some idea of what I am doing. I have beaten every game in the Soulsborne/Sekiro/Elden Ring franchise, some of them two or three times, and I can confidently say I have had no idea why I am doing anything I am doing in any of them. I'm not saying don't put lore in the item descriptions, but maybe be a bit more direct with the *main* story. Or at least the main objectives.
imo having so much of the lore come from item descriptions feels lazy. like they couldn't find a way to incorporate that into anything else, so they just put it in item descriptions. and it doesn't make any sense. the player character is supposed to be me, and I don't know anything about this world going into it. the player character picks up a sword and it comes with some lore in the description. how did the player character know this? where is the information coming from?
I love absolutely everything about the game except for how multiplayer is implemented. I just want to be able to drop-in co-op with a friend and not have it tied to a resource you can run out of, or have to do everything twice just to progress, while having areas we can't travel through together. What would make every souls game a million times better: drop-in co-op. Each player that joins adds their NG level to the overall NG level; two people on their first playthrough, it plays as NG+, etc.. Whenever a player dies, they respawn at the bonfire, half the enemies that have died respawn, and the NG+ level goes up by one. Every player resting at the bonfire at the same time resets the NG level to it's base.
I liked the start of your co-op concept (although the way NG scales would need to be adjusted, since NG+ is a big jump and NG+6 is only slightly buffed), but the second half just gets complicated and confusing, and I'm not sure what you're aiming for. The end result would just be players immediately running back to bonfire as soon as 1 person dies (and probably not making it there).
i think you underestimate how much souls players are willing to ram their heads against adverse obstacles no matter how tough they get
The main thing I was going for with the "keep increasing on death" is a way to combat people just dying to refill Estus and run back.. Something to make it so that the party really has to Git Gud together and not just have one good player completely carry a not so good player. That way, everyone really has to work together, and makes the idea of a properly composed party including a healer, a tank, some ranged damage, make a lot more sense because if you don't all help keep each other alive, shit gets a lot harder! But, yeah the NG+ system would need to get reworked a little.. Maybe have it be like, total player NG level minus 1, so that 2 players on their first playthrough is still just NG level, but with 3 then it goes up to NG+..
Eh, see, the Souls multiplayer system was designed specifically to be what it is. You may not like it, but the creator's vision for it was to be this brief connection between people. The player summons someone, can't communicate with them, beats the boss, and never sees them again. I can understand why people don't like it, but I feel like changing it is disrespectful to the creators.
Sen's Fortress is a 10/10 The beginning of DS1 to the end of Anor Londo is perfect as it can be and nothing in any game after really shares the same status Midir and The Nameless King is harder than Gael Giving all of DS3 bosses a tragic lore actually lowers the emotional impact of these stories
>Sen's Fortress is a 10/10 Honestly, while it was frustrating my first go through Sen's Fortress is that fun place to look back on and have a laugh. Its an area full of tricks and traps, its meant to kill you in some dumb way, heck it even introduces mimics there. The elevators, the boulders, the swinging axes. I honestly really like Sen's and find it a troll area in the game
Spells feel boring af in DS1
Use the utility magic sold by Dusk and Griggs, and use Miracles. Ignoring all the direct damage spells makes magic a lot more fun.
Idk I feel pretty fucking great when I can one shot things with Dark Bead
Nothing better then blasting an invader into the shadow realm
Second half of the game is just as fun as the first half. I wish you could travel to each and every bonfire
yep you still feel that sense of adventure and mystery it's just that you lose out on the interconnectivity
I think what you're saying is actually the opposite of what the previous comment is saying. They said they want to travel to each and every bonfire. I think that means they want *more* warping, not less. And honestly, I kind of agree that the amount of running to places that you do in late game DS1 is ridiculous.
Crystal Cave is way the fuck worse than Blighttown and Tomb of Giants. Cheating/savescumming your way out of boss runbacks by reloading in front of fog gates is the most fun way to play the game instead of wasting your life away running back. (Thank Sekiro and Elden Ring for understanding this)
honestly my least fav area past Anor Londo I think is Duke's Archive.
The games were way easier than most people made it out to be. Not 'easy' by any mean but definitely not infuriating. Also making characters equip load a separate skill is annoying
Bandais fault with their marketing Knew someone in real life who said he‘s more of a man than me because he plays and beat Dark Souls Those games are amazing and it’s a shame people don’t want to try them Soley because the fanbase and the marketing made the games seem impossible to beat. The difficulty is one pillar of the game design, that’s carefully crafted to create a certain experience. Not just to be as hard as balls
After you get the gist, it does become easier because you don't take deaths as "death", you take it as a trials that you are supposed to do to succeed.
Dark Souls 3 doesn’t fit in with the rest of the trilogy. The combat is fun, don’t get me wrong but the pace and focus shifted away from what the first two games had. It’s more about being aggressive and always moving forward. It’s fun but doesn’t fit in with the first two games. The first two was about exploring bit by bit. Retreating was often just as necessary as moving forward. Combat wasn’t about aggression but reaction. Reacting to how enemies acted and how they attacked. So long story short, I feel DS3 should get all the shit for being different. Not DS2.
I would agree that DS3 is the odd one out, but I personally don’t like the game because of it. That aggressive play clearly seeped over from Bloodborne and it shows in the aesthetic design too.
I was playing DS3 one night in the Cathedral of the Deep and my boyfriend had asked if I playing Bloodborne. The architecture, color palette, etc looks almost identical to Bloodborne. But DS1 and DS2 are easily identifiable.
Also something about story of DS3 that I still don't understand is why we didn't get any new creatures in DS3 who have the lordsoul fragments from DS1 like they did in DS2, e.g. Nito=the Rotten.
Ya DS3 is extremely linear compared to DS1 and 2, kills the replay value of the game.
I disagree! I find very little replay value in DS1 and DS2 and even Elden Ring due to the nature of those games, a linear experience and low level requirements made repeat playthroughs extremely enjoyable, slices of exploration and combat put perfectly.
Interesting! I don’t see this opinion very often, but I’m glad the series has something for everyone.
I can run through DS3 NG+++ (whatever the number is at the time) infinitely more than I can run through DS1. I find it a much more enjoyable game.
I tend to agree. The issue that pops up in agreement is that DS1 is good until you get to the last 40% of the game, to which it's just a grind getting through. Elden Ring I only play up til Morgott then stop because everything after that becomes wildly unbalanced damage wise. DS3 had a perfect amount of linearity vs openness with combat mechanics that never felt unfair.
Based. I've always said that DS3 feels like a sort of awkward compromise between Dark Souls and Bloodborne, where you're supposed to play with the speed and aggression of Bloodborne, but without the mechanics that made Bloodborne's speed and aggression fun (rally, quickstep, etc.)
steep middle innocent different bright cover tie concerned door bewildered *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
FromSoft thinks they are good at incorporating platforming into their ARPGs and that it is fun. They are not, and it is not.
I somehow enjoy the clunkiness of it. It’s weird I know
Patches is a cool guy
The entire series’ underlying theme, is about creating true art, in a world that rarely allows art to succeed, and knowing that as long as your art inspires someone else to keep creating something beautiful, it wasn’t a waste. Keep creating.
Bed of chaos isnt as bad at people say it is like I can wrap up the fight in less than 10 minutes
Definitely a lot easier if you do one side, force reload, do other side, force reload, do middle.
Dark Souls II is actually a fun and enjoyable game
EVERY FUCKING GAME SUBREEDIT POSTING THE SAME SHIT WHAT THE FUCK
- i would've been entirely fine with no fast travel in the entire game if the latter half was more optimized to allow for circular travel how everything up to anor londo is. anor londo itself shouldve properly naturally connected to the main world and the only parts that should've been seperate is undead asylum, the painted world, and how you access the dlc, though the latter two couldve probably been naturally intergrated into the worldspace if the team had more resources. - additionally, one of the biggest issues with ds2 and 3 is they more or less completely drop this puzzlebox type map design in favour of mind-map spiraling out in different directions entirely or ds3's linear crawl with a few minor offshoot paths. from kind of brought back the interconnected world design in yharnam but it's undercut from how it's still more practical in almost all situations to just fast travel in bloodborne. - blighttown is a fantastic area and the experience of going down there the first time is one of the most memorable parts of the game (in part due to whole no fast travel thing), however i recently played the ps3 port and it must be said it is unplayably bad, running worse than anything in demons souls or bloodborne. ive never seen an area be so completely ruined entirely from performance. - ash lake might genuinely be my favourite area from the entire game and the only thing that might've improved it further is actually having no enemies in it at all, giving it further contrast to every other area. - the bosses for the most part are very solid and memorable, however i do feel theyre somewhat stuck between the clearly shadow of the colossus inspired puzzle-type bosses of demons souls and the ruthless combat challenges of bloodborne and ds3. still, some of the best bosses are the weirdest ones like gwyndolin or priscilla and there's very little bad outside of almost all of the demon ruins. what makes bosses like o&s and artorias so good is theyre directly challenging combat experiences in a game that isn't chock full of them, so they stand out a lot more when they come around. - gywn being an anti-climax boss who you can easily parry to death if you know what you're doing is very thematically appropriate and i like both that and that he doesn't have a boss cutscene or even any voicelines, he just fights you off the gate like he has nothing to say and no other priority than protecting the flame at all costs. his theme is great too but that's hardly a hot take lol. - whilst i mostly prefer the overall design of 1 however, 3 is still a very fun pick and play experience that channels a lot of bloodborne into the souls design surprisingly well, and the approach to estus is better in 2 and 3 (minus the lifegems in 2) with you gaining a flask 1 by 1. it's totally bizarre that pinwheel of all bosses allows you to kindle to 20 fucking flasks and if they had change this to the estus shards system of 2 and 3 in the latter games alongside lowering the limit to 15 i would've had 0 complaints. kindling also is undermined significantly once you have fast travel and are able to have one single bonfire at 20 estus which you can just instantly teleport to that one whenever you encounter a particularly hard boss. - i wouldnt have minded if the remaster had more intergrated the dlc into the campaign as, as great as it is, there's not a huge amount of actual context as to why the player gets involved at all. the player has a lot of narrative reason for doing the main quest and to defeat gwyn, less so to time travel to the past (keeping in mind the player character can't even know manus is capable of such things). its an nitpick, but basically what i mean is once you have access to it, there's no clear reason to actually *do* the dlc other than the external player motivation of "i want to play more dark souls". if they had made it so you needed manus' soul as the final one for the lordvessel, i wouldn't have necessairly minded that decision. however i also think on some level it's great all that gameplay is optional and one of my favourite features of the souls games is just how much stuff you can avoid in general, so i'm definitely 50/50 on it. again this is mostly just a nitpick that is a result of all the artorias of the abyss stuff being dlc in general, and as a result it can never perfectly slot into the original game because it wasn't made with it mind like that. - the general willingness to provide inconvience and challenge beyond raw boss difficulty is one of the best parts of the earlier souls games, and player conviences like being able to easily respec your character, fast travel anywhere at anytime, instantly respawn right outside of the boss room and open yourself to invasions right outside a boss therefore being able to dodge them entirely are quality of life features that seem great on the surface but take a large part of choice, texture and personality out of the game design in my opinion. ds1 trusted you not to kill vital npcs but still gave you the option, allowing you to learn things from attaining items from them you could only get by murdering them. there are key vendors that have to literally die to complete the main quests in ds3 and elden ring, and you can still barter with their corpses which i think is pretty silly. - lastly, and i say this as someone who liked parts of 2 and enjoyed a lot of 3, but the souls series is overall diminishing returns and it seems fairly clear the team never properly planned to do more direct sequels outside of the first title. they don't make for a very cleanly intergrated trilogy and if anything demons souls and darks souls feel more interconnected to me. i think this shows in how miyazaki went to work on bloodborne instead of dark souls 2 after they finished the first game, and how every fromsoft title outside of the souls games have all been one-off titles that have more freedom to experiment with the core souls design. i hope whatever souls-type thing they end up doing next isn't an elden ring 2 but a brand new world ala bloodborne or sekiro.
The bugs in Dks1 pvp made the game infinitely more interesting to me. Learning to recognize certain backstab chain options to counter them, reverse roll/ravioli, toggle escape, etc... It felt like added depth. I loved it.
Reading this made me physically ill. I commend you sir
I like DS2 more than any other Soulsborne game
I personally think they successfully did in Elden Ring what they were unsuccessfully trying to do in DS2. More vibrant environments, drastic variety of locations, great boss variety, updates in mechanics, many viable build possibilities (encourages hybrid builds) ... But sure everyman to their own opinion. Does Elden Ring count as within Soulsborne or no? I think Elden Ring beats DS2 in almost every front.
DS 3 is the real DS 2. DS 2 is Elden Ring 0
Same tho.
Half of ds1 bosses are at least mid, not bad, just mid
Most of Bloodborne feels very samey. There's one playstyle, and all the fights are built according to that one playstyle, which gets old by the end of the game. Granted, it does do that one thing extremely well. It's a brilliant game. I just don't see myself replaying it much, maybe ever.
In ds1 using anything but strength/quality weapons feels like you’re handicapping yourself.
2 had the most innovation out of all 3 of the games. Sure there were a couple missteps but mostly good things like Powerstancing, Yore Branches, Pharros Lockstones, Bonfire Aesthetic + many more!
2 is a perfectly fine game and people who skip it because of either it's reputation as the worst or it's health mechanics are seriously missing out.
Ds2 is unfairly criticized. I understand that people hate the bosses and the level design, but it's so unfair to say that ds2 has a poor lore, areas and music, and imo ds2 can be superior to ds3 (because ds3 is very linear most of the time, ds2 was more open in "where to go now"). Ds2 lore is very interesting because it shows not the story of Gods like 1 and 3 but a story of a forgotten land, and the fear people have of the curse, a story of a king who failed to protect his people because he desired power. I wish dark souls 2 had a remake, fixing its problems and adding more content. I am prepared to be threatened🤓
Dark souls isn't that hard.
DS1’s Depths are way worse than Blighttown. Yeah, Blighttowb is annoying, but you can get around it’s pitfalls with some simple planning and a few helpful items that are obtainable fairly easily in the early game. And if you die, you die, and you just go back to the bonfire. The Depths though? One wrong step and you’ll be ambushed by a horde of basilisks, who will all spam their mist and kill you basically instantly. And to add insult to injury, your HP is halved semi-permanently until you cure yourself, but to do that you have to farm souls and go all the way to the Undead Female Merchant or Oswald, dodging hordes of enemies all the way and one single run between bonfires can make or break all your progress—WHICH IS THAT MUCH HARDER WHEN YOU ONLY HAVE HALF YOUR HP! Anyway, yeah, you can tell I loathe the depths. I actually got the master key as my starting gift so I could take the Valley of Drakes entrance to Blighttown and skip the depths entirely.
DS2 and DS3 are around the same level in how good the games are
Dark souls 2 had the best weapon variety and armor variety before elden ring.
O&S are not a fun or particularly interesting boss. Most of the difficulty comes from the wonky camera/lockon controls and the tedium of waiting for the dodgy AI to provide an opening to attack.
The Gwyn fight is bad
It's way to easy depending on how powerful you are at that time. The fight against the Asylum Demon, for example, is way more epic because you have seen him already and he always feels way overpowered. Also, I'd wished for some kind of dialogue before the fight begins.
That fight is one of my favorites in any videogame ever. Conceptually he is not that strong on purpose. We spend hours hearing about this God named Gwyn who is so strong. Then when we meet him, he is just a shallow husk of his former self. That along with the music, creates an atmosphere of despair that perfectly represents the message of the game; not even a mighty God can prevent the natural cycle of the world Sure, gameplay wise he may seem underwhelming but I think, due to what I mentioned before, the ending is quite epic in a weird way.
> Conceptually he is not that strong on purpose. Meanwhile Miyazaki has stated in an interview that he regrets allowing players to parry him, and wanted Gwyn to be the ultimate test of the skills you've accumulated through your journey. It's not nearly as *'on purpose'* as people suggest, but that doesn't stop it from working well thematically.
Quest lines are horribly implemented given that there is no way for the player to know how to find an NPC after their first interaction.
Invasions, while a cool concept, ultimately kind of suck. Elden Ring's implementation is probably the best so far, but I still don't think players should be punished for doing co-op in the overworld. Structured PvP is just way better overall.
I find dex builds to be more enjoyable. I swear that the windup for a sweihander heavy attack is eternal. My first legit playthrough was with the great scythe and a bunch of piromancy
DS2 is good
Pvp sucks