World design kinda supersedes “level” design here though. By that I mean, “levels” are for games that simply don’t have world design. Action games, platformers, multiplayer shooters, etc.
The Souls Series Replayed
- Thread starter CriticalGaming
- Start date
I disagree. Because the level is the areas you actually walk through.
World design and level design become interchangable in an open world context because the world is basic the only "level" in the game, like a Far Cry or whatever. But that's not the case in Dark Souls, there are clear paths that make up the level that have nothing to do with the world itself. The catacombs for exmaple are a string of paths that make up the level leading down the tombs. Whereas Sins Fortress does the opposite, actually being paths that lead onto the roof where you cross a door after the giant to be in Andor Londo.
People say that DS2's level design problem is that you go through a tunnel and suddenly you are in a lava area or a city or a posion swamp and it doesn't make sense. But at the same time you climb a fortress and through a door is a giant city below you? I found it just as jarring and hinting at it because you can see it in the background sometimes is not enough of a buffer. I forgot Andor Londo is so early until I stumbled into it after that Iron Giant fight. I remember thinking it was later in the game for some reason.
It's all personal preference though and there is nothing wrong with enjoying the layout of DS1 for whatever reason. For me I don't really have those attachments and I feel like a lot of the reputation of DS1 comes because it's best levels are in the first portions of the game. Meaning most people play these "good" parts more than they get to places like Izolith and beyond.
True, if we’re not considering the game world to encompass the playable spaces through which we progress. Otherwise, open “world” would lose meaning, since it’s meant to describe a playable space. I chalk it up mostly to the terms to describe these things being used too loosely. Maybe maps are a happy medium.
As for Anor Londo, isn’t it actually on the other side of a mountain? Like, other than when fast travel is unlocked I thought the harpy ride is the only way to get there. It kinda ties into how camera trickery is used to enhance a sense of scale in these early games, but even within those limitations there’s a string of logic stitching it all together. Generally that’s where DS2 lost a lot of people in this respect because it often blatantly seemed to abandon that.
It also leads into why I’ve been impressed with ER’s world, because it fully realizes these previous attempts. It naturally takes longer to get around initially, but there’s so many grace sites it’s never been easier or quicker to get where you need to afterwards.
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Yeah the issue between DS2 and the others wasn't that there's logic to things. They're all riding the same timey-wimey worlds are merging handwave.
In DS1 or DS3 you can see Anor Londo, or Lothric, or whatevers and walk a mostly logical path to it.
In DS2 you go through a door in a swampy valley windmill village and walk 16 feet and suddenly you're at a castle in a towering volcano top. (If I was making Elden Ring I'd have had a hard time restraaining myself from putting a teleport to Mt Gelmir in the Windmill Village lol). Its the sort of transition you can cover up with various things indicating you're either magicking or crossing a much vaster distance, but they didn't do anything of the sort.
In DS1 or DS3 you can see Anor Londo, or Lothric, or whatevers and walk a mostly logical path to it.
In DS2 you go through a door in a swampy valley windmill village and walk 16 feet and suddenly you're at a castle in a towering volcano top. (If I was making Elden Ring I'd have had a hard time restraaining myself from putting a teleport to Mt Gelmir in the Windmill Village lol). Its the sort of transition you can cover up with various things indicating you're either magicking or crossing a much vaster distance, but they didn't do anything of the sort.
Maybe someone will discover just that, if you kill all the crazy dancers and hit an illusory wall on a windmill 200 times or something. It wouldn’t be far fetched since there’s already teleports as it is. Would be a chuckle-worthy Easter egg.
I mean, that's all part of the Same route to the Bed of Choas/Witch's Soul. The other 3 are: a big confusing magic building/bullshit death drop crystal cave, The Flooded ghost ruins and the Catacombs/Super Dark Cliff area/Baby Skeleton area.
So 1/4 lava area/routes.
Apparently the original DS2 premise was to be a big expansive world(like you're explore an entire "continent") with more area connections between them. But due to the dev cycle being so fucked and the PS3 not being able to handle much, a lot of that got scaled back and the areas they had kinda complete got "polished" and stitched together.
Thus why you have shit like the infamous windmill elevator and why the Iron Keep is so.....shit. Not even joking, the Iron keep was originally supposed to be a full on weapons factory and a lot of that shit got cut for time and instead feels like some wierd fucking Dark Souls meets Super Mario level.
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I liked that though, because the "off" logic of it all made me really feel like I was in a strange world and it helpped emerse me into the game. Not too mention the break in logic made it so that the zones surprised me by their locations and it wasn't predictable. Can it be disjointed feeling? Sure, but the experience it left me with was worth the trade off imo.
Now comes the part of the thread where everyone hates me.
Dark Souls 2.
Full disclosure. Dark Souls 2 was the very first souls game i ever tried to play. I got the scholar edition on Xbox One a number of years ago and played through a good chunk of the game, but PC gaming took me away.
So I played it on PC and I loved it. Dark Souls 2 is a game I would rank higher than Dark Souls 1 easily. However I only played the Scholar of the First Sin edition so I don't know what the original DS2 was like. But I really really like DS2 full stop.
The biggest change that I really enjoyed with DS2 is the fact that if you kill and respawn the enemies in an area enough, eventually they stop spawning entirely (like 10ish times I think). This allows a lot of things, one playthrough I did something I called the "extinction event" in which I killed everything in the game until it stopped coming back for more. I put it on Reddit a long time ago too. It was fun, grindy but fun.
More importantly I think DS2's respawn system is much more forgiving to players. Because eventually you can ram into the level enough that the game will stop spawning the enemies and you end up with these clean run backs to bosses or deeper into a zone. I know this system got a lot of shit, but honestly I can't understand why and only see it as a net possitive for the series. Though it is never used again.
Majula is a great hub and a great intro into the game's world. Again like Dark Souls 1, you have tons of different areas you can go right out of the gate, though some are harder than others obviously. There is some remarks to be said that each branching path is just a linear path until reaching an end boss before you have to go take another path, but that's true for most of the other games as well. The game doesn't feel as much of a real world due to weird location logic so that's valid, I can't really argue that and I wont. But I will say that I don't mind the level layout because you guys know I don't value exploration that much in my games.
The combat is I think where DS2 struggles. Adapability is stupid, and the hit boxes on attacks is even worse. That's really unfogivable and I can see people hating the game strictly for this. However since this was my first Souls game I didn't notice the hit boxes being as much of a problem because I just got use to how you have to handle avoiding shit in the game. For me it's fine and feels less janky than Dark Souls 1.
Enemy design does suffer, there are a lot of dudes in armor in this game. However I find the fights with dudes in armor to be the best fights. Big monsters tend to be a gimmick most of the time in which you find the safe spot to stand and hit the monster until it dies. Dudes in Armor are nimble enough and dynamic enough that you actually have to out play them, which it where I think Dark Souls combat shines.
Dark Souls 2 is a lot better than people make it out to be. It's more Dark Souls and really doesn't change all that much from the first game. It just tweaked some systems that were really polarizing for people but that's typically what sequels do anyway right?
Dark Souls 2.
Full disclosure. Dark Souls 2 was the very first souls game i ever tried to play. I got the scholar edition on Xbox One a number of years ago and played through a good chunk of the game, but PC gaming took me away.
So I played it on PC and I loved it. Dark Souls 2 is a game I would rank higher than Dark Souls 1 easily. However I only played the Scholar of the First Sin edition so I don't know what the original DS2 was like. But I really really like DS2 full stop.
The biggest change that I really enjoyed with DS2 is the fact that if you kill and respawn the enemies in an area enough, eventually they stop spawning entirely (like 10ish times I think). This allows a lot of things, one playthrough I did something I called the "extinction event" in which I killed everything in the game until it stopped coming back for more. I put it on Reddit a long time ago too. It was fun, grindy but fun.
More importantly I think DS2's respawn system is much more forgiving to players. Because eventually you can ram into the level enough that the game will stop spawning the enemies and you end up with these clean run backs to bosses or deeper into a zone. I know this system got a lot of shit, but honestly I can't understand why and only see it as a net possitive for the series. Though it is never used again.
Majula is a great hub and a great intro into the game's world. Again like Dark Souls 1, you have tons of different areas you can go right out of the gate, though some are harder than others obviously. There is some remarks to be said that each branching path is just a linear path until reaching an end boss before you have to go take another path, but that's true for most of the other games as well. The game doesn't feel as much of a real world due to weird location logic so that's valid, I can't really argue that and I wont. But I will say that I don't mind the level layout because you guys know I don't value exploration that much in my games.
The combat is I think where DS2 struggles. Adapability is stupid, and the hit boxes on attacks is even worse. That's really unfogivable and I can see people hating the game strictly for this. However since this was my first Souls game I didn't notice the hit boxes being as much of a problem because I just got use to how you have to handle avoiding shit in the game. For me it's fine and feels less janky than Dark Souls 1.
Enemy design does suffer, there are a lot of dudes in armor in this game. However I find the fights with dudes in armor to be the best fights. Big monsters tend to be a gimmick most of the time in which you find the safe spot to stand and hit the monster until it dies. Dudes in Armor are nimble enough and dynamic enough that you actually have to out play them, which it where I think Dark Souls combat shines.
Dark Souls 2 is a lot better than people make it out to be. It's more Dark Souls and really doesn't change all that much from the first game. It just tweaked some systems that were really polarizing for people but that's typically what sequels do anyway right?
We won't hate you...
I dunno, I think it's like Final Fantasy games where the first game you play is your favorite. Though DS2 is not my favorite, that game comes later.
Soooo…kinda sounds like you just refused to level up your *ahem* adaptability!
I don't hate you. I honestly admire a lot of things about Dark Souls 2, I just really hated playing parts of it. The fact you lose up to half your health bar upon repeated dying and have to use a limited(if not terribly difficult to find) consumable to get back to full strength and what feels like really clunky controls in comparison to how the enemies move(who can fucking pivot mid-attack to smack you) made it really painful for me to get through it. I can forgive the really bizarre and awkward world design(the Windmill elevator, ahem) though a lot of the level design is not good(Iron Keep is fucking awful and no I am not taking questions) because I know it was a very ambitious project that had to be stitched together from what was done because they were so far behind schedule. I admire the fact they tried to tell a different story then Dark Souls 1 and Demons Souls. I have plenty of complaints but trying to be it's own thing isn't one of them. I'd still rather play Dark Souls 3 over 2 because I had a lot more fun playing Dark Souls 3.
I still hate the fact you can(and will) be invaded at any time and there's nothing you can do to avoid it other then pulling turning off your wi-fi to cut the connection(and boy did I that a lot. I think I pissed off a lot of invaders that way), and that's not counting the mandatory NPC invaders. However, I don't mind the "deplete the enemies" mechanic, unlike a lot of people because I abused the shit out of that in some areas. I wouldn't have gotten to Sir Alonne to fight him without basically emptying out the area between the start and the boss room(or maybe didn't want to). I probably wouldn't have beaten the game if i hadn't abused that mechanic. I never said I was a good Souls player, just a determined on and I have no shame of using any tactic that fucking works to win. There is no honor in Souls and I'm fine with that.
I pretty much always call Dark Souls 2 my least favorite Soulsbourne game and I stand by that. It's not bad, but there were enough low points for me to make me never want to play it again. Of course, the irony is that Elden Ring feels like a do over for Dark Souls 2 in that everything that DS2 was trying to accomplish, Elden Ring actually pulled off to some extent or another. That doesn't mean ER is perfect(it has notable flaws) but given the choice between the two, I'd pick ER, bloat and all, any day of the week. I had no urge to ever replay DS2 but before ER and ER just cemented that even further.
Did you not play Demon's Souls? In that game the standard way to play is with 50% hp. You just have to train yourself to think that 50% hp is what your hp should be and level HP accordingly. It's a purely psychological effect imo. It doesn't look good and isn't a great system because punishing failure with more likelihood of failure is never a good way to do things.
i feel like a lot of sequels suffering from a weird bloat of systems in order to make them feel "bigger and better". I mean Horizon FW has that issue with all the weapons, and all the special attacks and none of it is anything you need. God of War's all had that issue except God of War 4 because that game was a reboot of the franchise and is different enough that I wouldn't call it an expansion of anything from the original series. But I'm willing to bet the new God of War will have systems that are just there for the sake of being "improved" in a sequel.
Exactly why I said that. We are not even going to get into fighting games on this part. That in itself is an entirely different beast. All I ask from Ragnarok is more weapon variety (not that it was bad but they can't do the same three weapons again alone), a jump button, making the classic controls the default options or as a secondary option (instead of a Dark Souls control scheme), and don't have enemies do that stupid sliding thing where they clearly were nowhere near you during the running and attack animation.
I played a couple levels of Demons Souls but ran into some wierd issues where my controller didn't want to cooperate with me and it only seemed to affect that game and that game alone(like my active weapon would just swap out for no explicable reason, which is really deadly in a fight) and since it was on the PS3, which no longer works, I had to wait to get a PS5.. It didn't help that I had a bunch of other Souls games to play(because I'd only played DS1 at that point) so I never really got back to it.
I'll probably tackle DeSR in a few months once my urge to play a Souls comes back after ER. Unless the ER DLC drops then DeSR will have to wait some more.
But yeah, I'm aware that 50% is bacially your standard Health Bar in DeS and everything else is just a bonus(especially since being human is basically a notable drawback and hard to even get in Demons Souls). I agree that Dark Souls 2 does not feel like that though. It feels more like you're being punished. Though really, a lot of things in DS2 felt like they were there just to punish you and little other reason. I haven't felt like that in any other Souls game but Dark Souls 2 felt like the game actively despises me in a way the other games don't.
It's why I want to like DS2 a lot more than I actually do. If some of the clunkiness had been smoothed out, if the game didn't fell as punishing at every damn turn, I think I would have had a better time going through it then I did. And don't get me wrong, I really liked the DLC areas and if most of the game had been on that level of quality I think I'd have a much better opinion of it in general.
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Atreus is awesome and I do not mind playing as him, as long as it's done right, and doesn't go on for too long. He is more than "BOI".
I know the feeling. I've only played 3 FF games, 8 being my first and favorite; apparently, that's an unpopular opinion. Granted, having only played 8, 13 and a about an hour of 7 (in that order,) my opinion means jack shit in the scheme of all things FF.
I dunno, I think it's like Final Fantasy games where the first game you play is your favorite. Though DS2 is not my favorite, that game comes later.
What the hell even was Adaptability?? It felt like they were convoluting they upgrade system for convolution's sake, which is what 99% of DS2 felt like.
Maybe after this, I will do a thread playing every FF game in order.