3y ago

How does anybody like Dark Souls?

jfc this is the most boring fucking game I've ever played in my life. It's not fun getting one-shotted by something that you don't know about until after its killed you at least once. There's nothing interesting about worldbuilding that's all made up of intentionally vague YoU hAvE tO fIlL iN tHe BlAnKs YoUrSeLf nonsense. There's nothing noteworthy about weapon upgrades that require you to look up a guide to see what's worth investing materials in and what's not.

And already some of you have doubtlessly gone down to comment "lmao git gud". Motherfucker it's not about difficulty. You know what was a difficult fucking game? Sekiro. That game is hard as balls and I absolutely love it, precisely because its designed in a such a way that it fixes everything about Dark Souls that sucks.

In Dark Souls, every single time you rock up to an enemy, you know exactly how you're going to defeat it. You're going to learn the patterns of its attacks, dodge at the appropriate time, and hit it in the intervals between. This is interesting once, but doing it over and over again for fifteen bosses is boring, repetitive bullshit.

In Sekiro they fixed this. Instead of literally just dodging every single attack, you have a dozen different defensive options that you have to learn and apply to different attacks. Instead of knowing how every single enemy encounter is going to go down, you have a bunch of different ninja tools that have different effects that you can experiment with.

And yet the geniuses of the gaming sphere all bashed their head cavities together and decided that SEKIRO was the bad one. The best game in the whole fucking genre, now sidelined because these morons confused a repetitive grind for difficulty. And as a result Elden Ring, which was supposed to be the masterpiece of the whole thing, is just another bland endurance test.

77 comments

I just stopped playing video games after 2010
apart from some multiplayer stuff like tf2
so I don't even know what you're talking about OP
- :gigachad-hd:
  
  I'm not even joking tho
  last 1-player videogame I played was Goldeneye007 for the wii, back in 2011. And even that was because my friends were into the multiplayer
  I pirated skyrim back in 2013? Played for 30 seconds and decided it looked boring as fuck and uninstalled
  Since then it's been strictly multiplayer games and replaying old gamecube/wii titles. Breath of the wild is the only one that I sort of want to play
No Sam, I don't recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass
OP is mad cause he got obliterated by Ornstein and Smough.
It's okay to not like Dark Souls.
I feel like if everyone just took a deep breath and accepted that it's okay to not like Dark Souls we could head off millions of years worth of arguments about Dark Souls.
It's not for everyone and that's oikay.
- yeah but then what would we talk about on gaming subs? poor treatment of developers? gambling mechanics designed to exploit the nuerodivergent? mainstream games with plotlines that reinforce harmful beliefs in our culture? it's easier to just argue about popular games instead.
  
  We could talk about RimWorld mods. I like the one that adds dinosaurs.
And already some of you have doubtlessly gone down to comment “lmao git gud”. Motherfucker it’s not about difficulty. You know what was a difficult fucking game? Sekiro. That game is hard as balls and I absolutely love it, precisely because its designed in a such a way that it fixes everything about Dark Souls that sucks.
In Sekiro they fixed this. Instead of literally just dodging every single attack, you have a dozen different defensive options that you have to learn and apply to different attacks. Instead of knowing how every single enemy encounter is going to go down, you have a bunch of different ninja tools that have different effects that you can experiment with.
Did you try a Magic build? That may be more your style.
Anywho, I do think that what you're asking for out of Dark Souls is something fundamentally different than what it actually is. In my opinion, Sekiro shares far more with older games like Tenchu, the Ninja Gaiden series, & maybe just a little bit w/ Metal Gear Rising than it does with most other games in the "SoulsBorne" lineage. It is at base a "Ninja Game" first & foremost, and I think it really only gets considered as similar to the rest of From Software's catalogue due to shared developer parentage, and similar control formatting.
Conversely, it's well known that the "Souls'" both Demon & Dark, are spiritual successors & reimaginings of the old King's Field games. Now anybody who knows anything about the history of JRPGs could tell you at a glance that King's Field is obviously a console-centric adaptation of old Wizardry & Ultima-style CRPGs, in particular Ultima Underworld. In fact FromSoftware themselves specifically cite the commercial success of the Japanese port of the original Wizardry game for their 1990 pivot to videogames development (previously they made commercial business software). Just as well, Hidetaki Miyazaki has expressed in the past that he draws just as much influence from TTRPGs like Dungeons & Dragons as he does other videogames in terms of his own games design philosophy.
Put another way; although this is rarely addressed in discussions of the games themselves, the "SoulsBorne" series in fact shares a direct "genealogical-design" link with Morrowind & Skyrim. Which I think is probably most self-evident in Elden Ring & reveals the whole game about why that specific game seems to work so goddamn well. They've been perfecting, incrementally, what Bethesda has been fumbling with trying to implement wholesale for the last 20 years; which is the question of how to correctly adapt the Ultima-Wizardry CRPG framework to console gaming.
This also, I think, explains what some of your problem in "getting into" Dark Souls might be. A lot of people try to approach the games like they're action games & get clowned on, they're not. They're Western-Style RPGs that happen to have been developed in Japan, and you need to approach them with that mindset I think, in order to really get any mileage or enjoyment out of them as games.
- Damn, the effortpost looks good on you, comrade :stalin-heart:
- draws just as much influence from TTRPGs like Dungeons & Dragons as he does other videogames in terms of his own games design philosophy.
  It really shows. Old school D&D, before they invented rests and gave everyone a ton of magic powers, was largely about smart use of your resources. You had only so much HP, so much healing, so many spell slots, and you had to stretch that until you could get to a safe spot where you could hole up for 8 hours straight. And the whole time each encounter was using up your resources, so you had to try to be smart and tactical about how you were fighting, what challenges you took on and what challenges you evaded. Dark Souls nailed that deliberate, measured gameplay. Especially early on you've got to be thinking about what you're doing and where you're going so you can make it to the next bonfire before you run out of arrows or estus or whatever. It's one of hte most dungeon-crawly dungeon crawler games out there.
Fking feds dont realise that they dont need political hot takes to split the left
All they need is just some guy posting "hmm um guys i think kirby games suck and you are dumb for liking it"
- Don’t talk shit about Kirby!!! Super star is my shit :wojak-nooo:
  
  Kirby by definition, sucks 😏
It’s not fun getting one-shotted by something that you don’t know about until after its killed you at least once.
then pay attention so you know about it before it kills you. there are very few true surprises, mostly its stuff that you blunder into if you're not watching out.
There’s nothing interesting about worldbuilding that’s all made up of intentionally vague YoU hAvE tO fIlL iN tHe BlAnKs YoUrSeLf nonsense.
some people like to interpret
There’s nothing noteworthy about weapon upgrades that require you to look up a guide to see what’s worth investing materials in and what’s not.
literally any upgrade is acceptable, it doesnt matter which you choose.
That game is hard as balls and I absolutely love it, precisely because its designed in a such a way that it fixes everything about Dark Souls that sucks.
Yeah, surprisingly when they spent 5 years making 4 other games in the genre in between Dark Souls and Sekiro, they learned a few things about making games in that genre. surprising :shrug-outta-hecks:
And yet the geniuses of the gaming sphere all bashed their head cavities together and decided that SEKIRO was the bad one.
I've literally never heard this opinion once in my life and I've been a fan of the Souls games since 2012. I've always said that Sekiro is obviously the best one
- then pay attention so you know about it before it kills you. there are very few true surprises, mostly its stuff that you blunder into if you’re not watching out.
  Very often what I'm talking about is a combo attack that stun locks you until death while fighting a boss. Your only chance to dodge it is after you know it exists, and unless the AI bugs out and it whiffs the attack you're not going to know about it until after it's killed you with it at least once.
  Yeah, surprisingly when they spent 5 years making 4 other games in the genre in between Dark Souls and Sekiro, they learned a few things about making games in that genre. surprising
  If they learned about the genre, why do they keep doing the same shit in DS 2, 3, Bloodborne and Elden Ring? Why is Sekiro the only one where they seem to have done something different?
  It is possible that I'm just surrounded by wierdos who don't like Sekiro.
  
  What fights are you getting combo's to death in? Bosses in DS1 don't really combo that much. The biggest offender I can think of is Artorias with his triple sword slam, but that's not even really a combo, just repeating the same move over and over
  
  Very often what I’m talking about is a combo attack that stun locks you until death while fighting a boss.
  idk, attacks in dark souls 1 are all so telegraphed its hard to understand what you mean. in elden ring sure, maybe theres some stuff like this because the game is designed to be legit hard and expects you to die a lot. but in dark souls 1 there are very few things which can kill you at no fault of your own. everybody winds up their windups before attacking lol
  If they learned about the genre, why do they keep doing the same shit in DS 2, 3, Bloodborne and Elden Ring?
  I'd say they clearly applied a lot of what they learned in Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring. Dark Souls 2 is the only one that kind of regresses from a game design standpoint and that's because it wasn't made by the main team.
i like when the floor message says "touch but hole"
- okay I liked this part too
Personally I like Dark Souls because it rewards curiosity, patience, obsessive experimentation, anticipation and of course jolly cooperation
It juggle multiple vibes and themes while maintaining a coherent gameplay design, and the narrative hints at an entire universe just out of sight and actually rewards you if you're paying attention lore wise
The controls give your character a weight and solidity that makes combat FELT, instead of that vague feeling where your character is just a ghost sliding across some polygons
The "grind" as you call it is a testbed for different play styles, a way to build experience, get certain timings down, build anticipation and create some consequences for impatience and recklessness, which compliments the "weighty" feel of your player character
Level design is quite literally genre defining, music subtle and perfectly timed for maximum effect
It's a damn good game, and DS2 is even better
- DS2 is even better
  Hexers of the world unite!
Nobody likes dark souls there are only various levels of delusional stockholm syndrome esque defense of it
- one of the worst gaming takes ive ever seen
  
  Sigh looks like we got another one, when will the pain this series has caused end??
A friend gifted me Dark Souls: Prepare To Die edition on Steam
I gave up after about 5 minutes because the controls felt weird
- I gave up after about 5 minutes because the controls felt weird
  I mean there's a term for that, it's called "Not even trying."
  :shrug-outta-hecks:
  
  :downbear:
  
  Nah, "not even trying" would've been never playing the game at all. This was "trying and not liking"
- Did you use a controller? Keyboard controls are straight ass, so if that's what was putting you off it might be worth another shot
I tried the first one for like 20 mins. It didn't run very well, the controls were pretty mediocre, I remember having to fight the fucking camera like in Shrek 1 xbox (2001), and it was, above all else, boring. None of the others looked any better. Then thanks to capitalism there's 100's of clones. very cool
- i always see this camera criticism but ive never had an issue with it at all. what the fuck are y'all doing with your cameras???
Yeah, honestly I always felt weird whenever I told anyone "I'm just not interested in Dark Souls". It just... doesn't look fun? 2 dead bastards in clunky suits of armor slowly hacking away at each other and if you fuck up once by getting clipped on the back swing of a sword swing then you lose a good chunk of the last 2 hour's progress and you die in one shot? Minimal dialogue and direction from NPCs? Yeah I'll pass
If I want cool fighty action I got Yakuza and if I wany compulsively perfectionist gameplay I got Cook Serve Delicious 2.
- “I’m just not interested in Dark Souls”. It just… doesn’t look fun? 2 dead bastards in clunky suits of armor slowly hacking away at each other and if you fuck up once by getting clipped on the back swing of a sword swing then you lose a good chunk of the last 2 hour’s progress and you die in one shot?
  Shame, cause it's so much more than that
  
  :deeper-sadness:
  
  That... still looks like the same thing to me. It's a wolf, not a dead bastard in armor, but the gameplay is still fundamentally the same. Slowly rolling around while some big bastard swings a sword the size of a ladder around
- Minimal dialogue and direction from NPCs?
  It's like Waiting for Godot with violence!
Absolutely GOOD post.
I play extremely hard games, I love a challenge. I beat Masters level twitch streamers in Apex Legends using the mozambique as a primary weapon.
Dark Souls is so boring. Even the basic ass enemies are just timers that insta kill you for not waiting around. You wait 10 or so seconds until he does the one (1) move where he can be hit one (1) time. Then you stand back for 10 seconds until he does it again. On the third time he dies.
You can't sneak in a second, risky, high skill attack. Or you just die.
Dark Souls is peak Japan-brain: The hardest part is dealing with how bored you are during most of it, because it punishes you for trying stop being bored by making you more way more bored than you already were. Eventually you learn to endure the baseline level of boredom because you know it can only become more boring. Even the exciting parts are exciting because you are desperately trying to avoid a massive dose of boredom.
- what
- Did you like not level up your health at all when you played. I've never been one shotted by any enemy in any game in the series unless I'm speed running through the game as a level 10 naked lady
- So wait to establish your opinion as valid you said you're good at a totally different game that's multiplayer and therefore requires a completely different mindset while playing? Why?
  You can absolutely build your character in such a way that you can tank hits from monsters to get a second attack in.
  Not every game is made for everyone. It's weird that everyone seems to have to have a strong opinion on souls games instead of just not playing games you don't like
i feel like you hate dark souls and love sekiro for the same reason why i hate sekiro and love dark souls
In dark souls if i got stuck on a boss i can change up my playstyle, maybe roll a different build or weapon and use whatever
in sekiro if i got stuck i can basically only git gud
- Sekiro has one play style and it’s “Parry or die” and I suck at parrying
  
  Sekiro fans parrying away their chances of getting a social life
souls games are horrible and everyone who likes them either has a terrible taste or is desperately attempting to overcompensate their irl failures by succeeding in "hard" videogame challenges
- i like it in dark souls when the cute knight characters tell me they like me and want to be friends :3
- Some people just like complicated rule sets that allow for complex character builds.
  Plus the atmosphere design is top notch. Video game writing is usually shit, so instead of that the souls games just go with an immersive vibe instead of getting bogged down into specifics.
  Think of it as a video game version of a tabletop campaign. Youre given a weird fantasy world, a bunch of rules to experiment and make a character to with, and some really good monsters to use your build against.
  Idk it's just fun to me and nothing really scratches that itch except ARPGs, but those are usually more RNG focused with randomized loot while souls game let's you hyperfocus on an exact build.
  desperately attempting to overcompensate their irl failures by succeeding in “hard” videogame challenges
  Also lol. Same bullshit people say about TTRPG fans. "Oh you failed at real life so you need escapism." What a chuddy thing to say.
  The world's a fuck. Let me get immersed in something instead of thinking about plague and Nazis constantly.

77 comments