The Souls Series Replayed
- Thread starter CriticalGaming
- Start date
So you managed to find PS5 in this realm? Kudos and enjoy the haptic feedback goodness it apparently has. I’ve only ever used the DualSense via Steam and really like the feel of the controller itself at least.
I got very, very lucky and got a tip off on a Sony direct PS5 sale just before it happened.
Had to sit in an hour online queue to buy it and was convinced I was gonna get a "sorry, we're out" message at any time. It didn't help that the "time to front of the queue " counter went up a few times either.
So yeah. This was after many failed attempts where I'd hear about a sale, get there ASAP, see one available but "oops, we're sold out. Sorry" the moment I hit the buy button.
It's basically getting that ultra rare drop because the dice just happened to land in your favor just that once
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Doesn't Yurt kill a bunch of Nexus NPCs if you save him, though? Or does that only happen after a certain trigger point?
Anyway, that's why I don't bother with achievements. I had a great time with Demon's Souls and it didn't feel like a grind at all.
Yup that’s the best game plan overall for trophy hunting. Yurt can be released from his cage in Latria 3-2 and he will start killing critical NPCs with each boss the player kills afterwards. If going for Platinum he should be killed immediately after releasing him, or at the very least back in the Nexus before the player kills any more bosses. Otherwise he’ll kill NPCs critical to certain items like rings IIRC.
Actually the problem with Yurt is that if you kill him it will lower your player tendancy.
So what you do is never drop to his platform and never release him until your are ready to start dropping your player tendancy towards black. Only then do you go and release/kill him.
That's the problem with Demon's Souls over everything else. Is that everything MUST be done in a very specific order or you will fuck up your entire playthrough for those trophies. Which means you HAVE to follow a guide because there is no reasonable why to do it on yoru own.
Yeah I recall deciding to start using the wiki after getting the first few trophies, and pretty sure I played offline late NG or early NG+. The trophy roadmap really helped too in terms of not missing quests or items. I think personally the limited spawns of crystal lizards for upgrading weapons had me sweating the most. It was a huge relief that Dark Souls relaxed that function where simply reloading would respawn them at their start point if you missed one, and it only tallied per game cycle if you killed them.
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There's a fair few more connections. Nashandra, Elana, Nadalia and Alsanna are all fragments of Manus. The Earthen Peak of DS2 appears in DS3 as all times and places converge. It's heavily implied the souls possessed by the Great Old Ones in DS2 are the same ones possessed by Gwyn, Nito, Seath and the Witch of Izalith. The Melfanito in DS2 were taught their song by Nito. And Lucatiel and Creighton from DS2 both appear as invaders in DS3 as well.
While DS2 doesn't get as many obvious references in DS3 as DS1 does, I also think there's way more narrative and tonal continuity between them than people tend to pick up on. A lot of things that would go on to be fundamental to the Dark Souls metaplot were introduced in DS2. In particular, a lot of the more obvious pseudo-Buddhist elements were introduced in 2, whereas DS1 is still kind of just a straightfaced Western fantasy story.
So Dark Souls 1 then:
Technically the second game in the "souls" series, Dark Souls if the first game that took the series into popularity. The game took the formula from DEmon's Souls and place it into a more interconnected world and refined a lot of the mechanics from that game. Gone was the world tendancy, weapons and gear were much lower to break though they still had durability which needed repairing, weapon upgrading was much easier, and gone was the world tendancy as well as the half health punishment for death.
Dark Souls remained a difficult game while at the same time removing a lot of shit that was just bullshit from before. There was no reason to punish failure as harshly as the first game did so this ended up making Dark Souls 1 just accessable enough that it began to catch on.
Going from the Demon's Soul remake into Dark Souls 1 is a bit of a challenge due to how clunky the game feels to play compared to the more polished experiences of Elden Ring. It made adjusting to Dark Souls 1 a bit of a pain in the ass, however the slowness of everything made the challenge not so bad. People often praise the game for how interconnected the world is and how everything loops together, a feature that people claim doesn't happen in any other title. But really this is only half true. There are several sections that weave around each other like the Undead Settlement, but for the most part the game is more like Dark Souls 2 than people realize.
After the Undead Perish, the game's levels are pretty linear. Yes they do branch off of Firelink Shrine but they don't typically wind back around on themselves. Andor Londo kind of loops on itself, but not realy much. It's a big illuision that people remember about Dark Souls 1 because they likely spend so much time in Undead Burg during their first playthroughs that it just felt like the game is so interwoven, but that's not really the case outside a couple of shortcuts later.
While DS1 has less bullshit than DemS, it still has a fair share of it. The Toxic spitters as you climb down Undead Burg, though thankfully these dont respawn once you kill them which makes suciding them worth it. Curse is also a big fuck you mechanic which instantly kills you, then upon respawning you have half health, take more damage, and deal less damage. Getting rid of curse requires a special item or the creepy guy at the Belfrey tower just beyond the Gargoyle fight. This sucks because the enemies that inflect curse are way way way far away from the Belfrey tower and you'll likely encounter them way before getting the Lord Vessel which allows you to warp between bond fires. Making Curse unbelievably unfair.
Fairness is an interesting thing about these Souls games too, a lot of people use the phrase "tough but fair" when talking about the Souls difficulty and that is also not true and has never been true. Souls games fuck the player more often than not due to poor enemy design and/or placement, terribly punishing mechanics, and unexplained consequences. Demon's Souls gets harder the more you fail, unless you KNOW to play in soul form with 50% of your max health at all times. Dark Souls doesn't get harder for each death, but there are lots of bad enemy placements in and status afflictions that the player can't reasonably deal with resulting in unfair difficulty spikes.
All that being said, Dark Souls has a wonderful level variety and enemy variety until the late game where generic lava levels start to be the norm. And everything does feel very slow in this game compared to later titles by Fromsoft, which helps make these games retroactively easier. Though the later half of the game does feel rushed with lots of copy/pasted enemies, spammed bosses like Capra Demon and Taurus Demons, which makes the ending areas feel like you are just avoiding as much as possible before reaching bosses.
Getting to some areas and bosses can be a pain because a lot of it is very obtuse which I really don't understand why FromSoft has such a boner for this quest design. It's not challenging to give the player no information, it's not fun to miss zones or quests or not knowing you need a special ring equiped to fight the Four Kings. It's just bad design. And it makes me wonder if this studio is prone by some sort of laziness affliction because from this game onwards the later stages of every FromSoft game from here on out has a lazy back half that can feel really bad to play.
Dark Souls 1 is not my favorite, the clunky sluggish combat, obtuse mechanics, and lack luster back half leave this one just disappointing.
Technically the second game in the "souls" series, Dark Souls if the first game that took the series into popularity. The game took the formula from DEmon's Souls and place it into a more interconnected world and refined a lot of the mechanics from that game. Gone was the world tendancy, weapons and gear were much lower to break though they still had durability which needed repairing, weapon upgrading was much easier, and gone was the world tendancy as well as the half health punishment for death.
Dark Souls remained a difficult game while at the same time removing a lot of shit that was just bullshit from before. There was no reason to punish failure as harshly as the first game did so this ended up making Dark Souls 1 just accessable enough that it began to catch on.
Going from the Demon's Soul remake into Dark Souls 1 is a bit of a challenge due to how clunky the game feels to play compared to the more polished experiences of Elden Ring. It made adjusting to Dark Souls 1 a bit of a pain in the ass, however the slowness of everything made the challenge not so bad. People often praise the game for how interconnected the world is and how everything loops together, a feature that people claim doesn't happen in any other title. But really this is only half true. There are several sections that weave around each other like the Undead Settlement, but for the most part the game is more like Dark Souls 2 than people realize.
After the Undead Perish, the game's levels are pretty linear. Yes they do branch off of Firelink Shrine but they don't typically wind back around on themselves. Andor Londo kind of loops on itself, but not realy much. It's a big illuision that people remember about Dark Souls 1 because they likely spend so much time in Undead Burg during their first playthroughs that it just felt like the game is so interwoven, but that's not really the case outside a couple of shortcuts later.
While DS1 has less bullshit than DemS, it still has a fair share of it. The Toxic spitters as you climb down Undead Burg, though thankfully these dont respawn once you kill them which makes suciding them worth it. Curse is also a big fuck you mechanic which instantly kills you, then upon respawning you have half health, take more damage, and deal less damage. Getting rid of curse requires a special item or the creepy guy at the Belfrey tower just beyond the Gargoyle fight. This sucks because the enemies that inflect curse are way way way far away from the Belfrey tower and you'll likely encounter them way before getting the Lord Vessel which allows you to warp between bond fires. Making Curse unbelievably unfair.
Fairness is an interesting thing about these Souls games too, a lot of people use the phrase "tough but fair" when talking about the Souls difficulty and that is also not true and has never been true. Souls games fuck the player more often than not due to poor enemy design and/or placement, terribly punishing mechanics, and unexplained consequences. Demon's Souls gets harder the more you fail, unless you KNOW to play in soul form with 50% of your max health at all times. Dark Souls doesn't get harder for each death, but there are lots of bad enemy placements in and status afflictions that the player can't reasonably deal with resulting in unfair difficulty spikes.
All that being said, Dark Souls has a wonderful level variety and enemy variety until the late game where generic lava levels start to be the norm. And everything does feel very slow in this game compared to later titles by Fromsoft, which helps make these games retroactively easier. Though the later half of the game does feel rushed with lots of copy/pasted enemies, spammed bosses like Capra Demon and Taurus Demons, which makes the ending areas feel like you are just avoiding as much as possible before reaching bosses.
Getting to some areas and bosses can be a pain because a lot of it is very obtuse which I really don't understand why FromSoft has such a boner for this quest design. It's not challenging to give the player no information, it's not fun to miss zones or quests or not knowing you need a special ring equiped to fight the Four Kings. It's just bad design. And it makes me wonder if this studio is prone by some sort of laziness affliction because from this game onwards the later stages of every FromSoft game from here on out has a lazy back half that can feel really bad to play.
Dark Souls 1 is not my favorite, the clunky sluggish combat, obtuse mechanics, and lack luster back half leave this one just disappointing.
That's fine. There is a level of charm despite the bullshit, but i think what keeps people into these games is the rush you can get when overcoming the bullshit. I wonder if the games would have the same reputation if not for the garbage difficulty.
The rush seems very phyrric to me when you have bunch of crap in the way. I can get my rush from elsewhere and be a lot more fair. Or drink a whole bunch of cans of Surge.
As for reputation, then it would have just kind of faded. Had the difficulty been more fair, there wouldn't been as many people posing and exaggerating about how hard the games are. The only reason DF got so much notoriety, is because this was the time when a lot of games were easier or just plain easy compared to the sixth generation. You still had your hard games every now and then, but those were mostly niche titles. Then of course you got those who never bothered to play on the harder difficulties of games they bought, if options were available. Sometimes I feel like during the seventh generation arguments over games becoming too easy or being catered "too much" towards casuals got way over exaggerated. Some parts they are right on, in other parts people were just playing wrong. Plus, nostalgia goggles are already setting in for people still stuck in the PS2 and PS1 era. Ignoring the part where there were plenty of games with bull crap difficulty or going overboard with it, just so you can only rent a game for a few days.
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Idk…it’s a weird phenomenon that is only exacerbated by human beings’ elaborate brain chemistry and neural network. A lot of people would just say fuck it right off the bat, while another subset is only more intrigued by that which isn’t presented at face value. FROM gained their rep by the games as they are, and they’ve only grown in popularity so they must be doing something right. But also, yeah the amount of jank in the games is highly overlooked and forgiven. Fortunately there’s been an inverse correlation there as the games get more popular though.
I think the challenge accounts for maybe a bit more than half of why the games are increasingly popular. People like hidden details and a sense of discovering things, intrigue, etc. and that’s something they’ve always excelled at. The adage of Show, don’t tell is often used to describe good film making, but it could be augmented for games as Play, don’t say. There is extremely little downtime in FROM games in terms of interactivity; where so many other games insist on elaborate cutscenes, walk n talk, or other trendy bs gameplay gimmicks of the year where gameplay serves the narrative, FROM has kinda transcended all of it and done their own thing.
Having said that, even their own formula is showing age, and they’ll have to make further adjustments in the future to avoid becoming victims of their own success.
I disagree, I still think the world design is really good in Dark Souls. The game is layered in a way that most games aren't, and it's great seeing some huge structure or something way in the distance and then a couple hours later finding yourself in it. Like, I just realized today that you can see the Centipede demon boss arena from the cliff outside of Quelagg's domain. Or the first time I worked my way through Blight town and took a couple elevator's up and found myself back at Firelink was pretty great too. And the game is full of moments like that, where you will find a new connection to a level you've been in, and it gives a lot of freedom for the player to decide what path they are going to use to progress through the game.
It's Dark Souls use of verticality that set it apart from other games of the time.
What are you even talking about? There's one lava area in the game, that's it.
Iirc there is the ceaseless discharge area, centipede demon, and a horrible run to the bed of chaos. The back half of darks souls is pretty bad.
World design is great, but that's not level design. I think that is the illusion that Dark Souls pulls off very well, it teases you with backdrops of future locations and then surprises you when you emerge from a cave, or tunnel, or castle, or whatever and find yourself in that location you saw a long time ago. It makes the world FEEL cohesive and that's awesome. However that world design is not level design and people I think link them together in their minds because they feel the same, but that's not really true.
Like I said, the game is interwoven in the first couple areas, and some zones loop back upon themselves kind of. Like Andor Londo's rooftops eventually lead the player down into one of the big castles itself which opens a door short for you to go outside before going to fight O&S, these shortcuts are cool but they don't really interweave between levels, they are merely shortcuts so the player doesn't have to do the whole zone over again to fight the boss (sometimes).
That being said, the levels are still cool and mostly well designed. But every souls player knows that Lost Isolith is dogshit. There is a reason why after O&S you get the ability to warp between bonfires. Once you can warp the level "connectivity" looses all meaning and value. This is one of the reasons why people don't dig DS2, because there isn't really a chance to explore before you can just warp around. I'll get to that when I do that game because I'll tell you right now I think DS2 is better than DS1.
Yeah, but it's all part of the same continuous area. You can't say the late game is full of lava levels when only the Bed of Chaos zone has lava. There's no lava in any of the other zones that open up once you get the Lord Vessel, nor, in fact, anywhere else in the game. It's not really that much longer than the Catacombs/Tomb of Giants or New Londo/Darkroot Garden either.
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The copy/pasta Taurus demons in the lava field was the only real egregious thing there to me. I guess they were good for farming though. Other than Bed of Chaos I still enjoyed that area as it kind of had an ancient Incan/Myan feel to it (I’d love to play something set in this era, like maybe a survival game or something). It also looped back nicely to an early game area.
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