Dark Souls 3 - The good, the bad, and the lazy

[JUMBO PALACE]

znipz

What I'm definitely not saying is that Dark Souls 3 would be a bad game. Why would I waste 50 hours on a bad game? It's every bit as good gameplay wise as its predecessors (well, for the most part). What it isn't is memorable. Pretty much all the environments feel either bland, generic or like I've seen them before in previous installments. The lore feels for the most part like rehashing and treading familiar ground. As a new installment into the series it feels like it's treading water, a feeling further reinforced by all the wallowing in Dark Souls 1 references. Dark Souls 2, for all its faults and wonky level design, at least tried something different, and did evolve the gameplay by things like power stancing and upping the cap of fat rolling.

As for the bosses, I found that most of them become piss easy after your first new game. I just finished new game+ on my tank heavy armor guy, and I absolutely steamrolled through the game without breaking a sweat. Even Nameless King, a boss which I'd previously complained about as ludicrously hard, I died to only once. Not a single other boss killed me even once, and I beat every single one of them on the first try. Even Soul of Cinder I finished with like 6 or 7 Estus left. This has not applied in previous Soulsborne games. Even in Dark Souls 2 there are bosses I still need to watch out for despite having killed them dozens of times.

However, I feel the need to point out that I haven't experienced the online component of the game, and nor will I. I will not entertain Sony's cuntbuggery of locking previously vital parts of the game behind a subscription fee. So the PvP and co-op features have been completely absent from my games, which might explain why I've gotten tired so quickly. But then again, this applies to Bloodborne as well, and it's still my favorite game of all time, and I feel like I could start a new game of it right now.

I understand where you're coming from on a lot of your points. The game definitely has more than its fair share of gotchic cathedrals and architecture. I think we just have a different perspective on a few of these things. I for one really enjoy traipsing around those types of locales and I got excited when there were connections between this game and the first. I do have to concede that it definitely looks like From played it safe with this game, but in my eyes that's a good thing. To me anything that distanced it from DS2 and made it feel more like DS1 was a good thing.

I can't speak to the difficulty of NG+. I beat the game last week and haven't had much time to play. Just been doing some pvp and coop on a few bosses for fun. Personally NG+ doesn't hold much interest to me. I have a ton of time racked up in DS1 but only a small portion of it is NG+ and beyond. I much prefer to simply start a new character to try new builds and equipment.

I guess we'll just agree to disagree on some things! I can see how someone with your perspective on certain aspects would be a little disappointed with the game.

 

[Fappy]

znipz

What I'm definitely not saying is that Dark Souls 3 would be a bad game. Why would I waste 50 hours on a bad game? It's every bit as good gameplay wise as its predecessors (well, for the most part). What it isn't is memorable. Pretty much all the environments feel either bland, generic or like I've seen them before in previous installments. The lore feels for the most part like rehashing and treading familiar ground. As a new installment into the series it feels like it's treading water, a feeling further reinforced by all the wallowing in Dark Souls 1 references. Dark Souls 2, for all its faults and wonky level design, at least tried something different, and did evolve the gameplay by things like power stancing and upping the cap of fat rolling.

As for the bosses, I found that most of them become piss easy after your first new game. I just finished new game+ on my tank heavy armor guy, and I absolutely steamrolled through the game without breaking a sweat. Even Nameless King, a boss which I'd previously complained about as ludicrously hard, I died to only once. Not a single other boss killed me even once, and I beat every single one of them on the first try. Even Soul of Cinder I finished with like 6 or 7 Estus left. This has not applied in previous Soulsborne games. Even in Dark Souls 2 there are bosses I still need to watch out for despite having killed them dozens of times.

However, I feel the need to point out that I haven't experienced the online component of the game, and nor will I. I will not entertain Sony's cuntbuggery of locking previously vital parts of the game behind a subscription fee. So the PvP and co-op features have been completely absent from my games, which might explain why I've gotten tired so quickly. But then again, this applies to Bloodborne as well, and it's still my favorite game of all time, and I feel like I could start a new game of it right now.

I understand where you're coming from on a lot of your points. The game definitely has more than its fair share of gotchic cathedrals and architecture. I think we just have a different perspective on a few of these things. I for one really enjoy traipsing around those types of locales and I got excited when there were connections between this game and the first. I do have to concede that it definitely looks like From played it safe with this game, but in my eyes that's a good thing. To me anything that distanced it from DS2 and made it feel more like DS1 was a good thing.

I can't speak to the difficulty of NG+. I beat the game last week and haven't had much time to play. Just been doing some pvp and coop on a few bosses for fun. Personally NG+ doesn't hold much interest to me. I have a ton of time racked up in DS1 but only a small portion of it is NG+ and beyond. I much prefer to simply start a new character to try new builds and equipment.

I guess we'll just agree to disagree on some things! I can see how someone with your perspective on certain aspects would be a little disappointed with the game.

Personally, I have never really had much interest in NG+ either. I usually just do it for achievements or if I really like a build and want to run through the game again with it. It was more common for Bloodborne since a lot of builds don't really find their identity until near the end of the game (a lot of weapons aren't accessible until endgame). All that said, I have never found any of the games particularly difficult in NG+ (with the exception to a very small collection of Bloodborne bosses that pale in comparison to the hardest cursed chalice dungeon bosses anyway). In fact, I literally one-hit-killed the Taurus Demon in NG+ with my Black Knight Greatsword character in DS1 (plunging attack + Power Within LOL).

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Personally, I have never really had much interest in NG+ either. I usually just do it for achievements or if I really like a build and want to run through the game again with it. It was more common for Bloodborne since a lot of builds don't really find their identity until near the end of the game (a lot of weapons aren't accessible until endgame). All that said, I have never found any of the games particularly difficult in NG+ (with the exception to a very small collection of Bloodborne bosses that pale in comparison to the hardest cursed chalice dungeon bosses anyway). In fact, I literally one-hit-killed the Taurus Demon in NG+ with my Black Knight Greatsword character in DS1 (plunging attack + Power Within LOL).

Sounds like Taurus Demon needs to

Spoiler

git gud

Sorry... I couldn't resist.

My most recent (and current) playthrough of DS1 is a NG+ run with my medium roll paladin build. Power within + sunlight blade + claymore. Got killed a few times at the 4 Kings and put the game down just as DS3 was coming out. I was basically just being too stubborn to admit that it was time to ditch the claymore for something that hit harder. I should get back to that...

 

[Fappy]

Personally, I have never really had much interest in NG+ either. I usually just do it for achievements or if I really like a build and want to run through the game again with it. It was more common for Bloodborne since a lot of builds don't really find their identity until near the end of the game (a lot of weapons aren't accessible until endgame). All that said, I have never found any of the games particularly difficult in NG+ (with the exception to a very small collection of Bloodborne bosses that pale in comparison to the hardest cursed chalice dungeon bosses anyway). In fact, I literally one-hit-killed the Taurus Demon in NG+ with my Black Knight Greatsword character in DS1 (plunging attack + Power Within LOL).

Sounds like Taurus Demon needs to

Spoiler

git gud

Sorry... I couldn't resist.

My most recent (and current) playthrough of DS1 is a NG+ run with my medium roll paladin build. Power within + sunlight blade + claymore. Got killed a few times at the 4 Kings and put the game down just as DS3 was coming out. I was basically just being too stubborn to admit that it was time to ditch the claymore for something that hit harder. I should get back to that...

Claymore + Sunlight Blade is godmode in DS1 though. My main was a Dex/Faith Darkmoon Blade Claymore build. That said, you want fire damage against Four Kings. Easiest way to kill them is to wear full havels, two-hand Quelagg's sword and just zerg with reckless abandon.

 

[Erttheking]

Wait Dark Souls 3 is considered a bad Dark Souls game now?

When did this happen? I barely got to enjoy people liking it before everyone started calling it bad. Ugh, well I guess I should just get used to every non Dark Souls 1 game being considered garbage.

We can at least like Bloodborne right?

There's, at worst, 3 people in this thread who think the game is garbage, and I'm not even sure the number is that high.

And one of those potential haters is Ezekiel, who might as well hang a sign around his neck that says 'Warning: This User 'Objectively' Hates Everything You Love.' I hardly think most of us should be blamed for that.

I think the whole 'Escapist Users are Elitist Who Will Never Be Happy' thing is getting pretty damn played out. We've had 5 or 6 threads fellating this game, but one thread about some issues people have with it while still enjoying it and suddenly the worlds on fire.

I'm not playing that card, I've honestly just been avoiding the majority of Dark Souls 3 threads because of how slowly I'm moving through it, and I was just caught off guard when I clicked on this one out of curiosity.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Personally, I have never really had much interest in NG+ either. I usually just do it for achievements or if I really like a build and want to run through the game again with it. It was more common for Bloodborne since a lot of builds don't really find their identity until near the end of the game (a lot of weapons aren't accessible until endgame). All that said, I have never found any of the games particularly difficult in NG+ (with the exception to a very small collection of Bloodborne bosses that pale in comparison to the hardest cursed chalice dungeon bosses anyway). In fact, I literally one-hit-killed the Taurus Demon in NG+ with my Black Knight Greatsword character in DS1 (plunging attack + Power Within LOL).

Sounds like Taurus Demon needs to

Spoiler

git gud

Sorry... I couldn't resist.

My most recent (and current) playthrough of DS1 is a NG+ run with my medium roll paladin build. Power within + sunlight blade + claymore. Got killed a few times at the 4 Kings and put the game down just as DS3 was coming out. I was basically just being too stubborn to admit that it was time to ditch the claymore for something that hit harder. I should get back to that...

Claymore + Sunlight Blade is godmode in DS1 though. My main was a Dex/Faith Darkmoon Blade Claymore build. That said, you want fire damage against Four Kings. Easiest way to kill them is to wear full havels, two-hand Quelagg's sword and just zerg with reckless abandon.

Ahh, fire, good tip. I'm sure I could go home and give the Kings the business after work but that's what's charming about Dark Souls. The last time I played I made a few poorly times rolls and the game punished me for it.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

I cant speak for everyone but my comment was just coming from a place of me casting a critical eye, which I think is the stance a lot of Escapists take. Being critical doesnt mean I hate the game, its just me trying to be objective.This is Dark Souls and even at its worst it blows away most other games in terms of great mechanics.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Yeah, Demon's is still the best Souls game in my opinion. Gameplay is a lot simpler and a little chunkier, and some of the bosses tend to boil down to gimmicks, but the world, level design, aesthetic, atmosphere and style are incredible. It feels whole and deep and complete. Not talking from nostalgia either, I only picked it up last year.

I do like DkS3, it's a very good game, but it's just not doing it for me on some level and it pains me to say I doubt I will put more than 200 hours into it at this point. PvP is way simpler than I'm used to in both DkS1 and DeS and feels like a major step down from the high-speed tech-heavy backstab counter punish mindgames of the first two Souls games, but I guess this is the kind of gameplay that was always intended. I think it's better designed as a system overall so the disciplines and techniques of PvE and PvP aren't so vastly disparate, but the skill ceiling and elegance of the game has suffered for it.

World design is fairly tasteful but it's just kind of bland. I feel like they used up all of their best surreal dark-fantasy ideas in Bloodborne (a game I still really need to play). It just doesn't have the personality and richness of DkS1 or Demon's. A lot of the designs didn't do it for me either. The Abyss Watchers felt really out of place, whereas they would be right at home in Bloodborne.


I dunno, those aren't my final thoughts, just what I'm feeling right now. We'll see how the game shapes up with a few patches and a little more content down the road.

In what order have you played the Souls? I'm just wondering because I started with Demon's, and there are still things I like about Dark Souls more in terms of world design, combat, upgrading items, health recovery, etc. Not everything, but enough to think that certain aspects were refined a bit more or changed for the better.

Dark feels more like an adventure to me, whereas Demon's felt a little gamier (in a good way other than loading screens) with the hub design. I do still like the distinctive design of each world in Demon's, as well as the variety of bosses. It also felt deeper and more malleable with things like character and world tendencies, but those could also be considered double-edged swords.

Basically one could say that's what's so appealing about this series, is that all the games are similar in feel, with enough design variety to stave off boredom for far longer than most other IPs.

 

[OuendanCyrus]

I actually don't mind the story of Dark Souls 3, it's simple enough and gets the job done, really. You're absolutely spot on with the poise issue, every single enemy can stun lock the shit out of you and it's one of the most frustrating aspects of the game. I feel like Dark Souls 3 is trying too hard to be Dark Souls again, as in after the criticisms of Dark Souls 2, the devs got scared of trying out new stuff and just wanted to please the fans again by borrowing many, many things from both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, which isn't a bad thing. but I wanted to see more unqiue stuff.

 

[default]

Yeah, Demon's is still the best Souls game in my opinion. Gameplay is a lot simpler and a little chunkier, and some of the bosses tend to boil down to gimmicks, but the world, level design, aesthetic, atmosphere and style are incredible. It feels whole and deep and complete. Not talking from nostalgia either, I only picked it up last year.

I do like DkS3, it's a very good game, but it's just not doing it for me on some level and it pains me to say I doubt I will put more than 200 hours into it at this point. PvP is way simpler than I'm used to in both DkS1 and DeS and feels like a major step down from the high-speed tech-heavy backstab counter punish mindgames of the first two Souls games, but I guess this is the kind of gameplay that was always intended. I think it's better designed as a system overall so the disciplines and techniques of PvE and PvP aren't so vastly disparate, but the skill ceiling and elegance of the game has suffered for it.

World design is fairly tasteful but it's just kind of bland. I feel like they used up all of their best surreal dark-fantasy ideas in Bloodborne (a game I still really need to play). It just doesn't have the personality and richness of DkS1 or Demon's. A lot of the designs didn't do it for me either. The Abyss Watchers felt really out of place, whereas they would be right at home in Bloodborne.


I dunno, those aren't my final thoughts, just what I'm feeling right now. We'll see how the game shapes up with a few patches and a little more content down the road.

In what order have you played the Souls? I'm just wondering because I started with Demon's, and there are still things I like about Dark Souls more in terms of world design, combat, upgrading items, health recovery, etc. Not everything, but enough to think that certain aspects were refined a bit more or changed for the better.

Dark feels more like an adventure to me, whereas Demon's felt a little gamier (in a good way other than loading screens) with the hub design. I do still like the distinctive design of each world in Demon's, as well as the variety of bosses. It also felt deeper and more malleable with things like character and world tendencies, but those could also be considered double-edged swords.

Basically one could say that's what's so appealing about this series, is that all the games are similar in feel, with enough design variety to stave off boredom for far longer than most other IPs.

I started with DkS1 when it came out for PC, then played DkS2 and bought a PS3 for Demon's Souls around two years ago. No question that certain things in Dark Souls were changed for the better, that's a given. Estus is a way better system than having two full stacks of 100% healing grass. Combat and control felt tighter in many ways. Level design was extremely impressive for the most part. Balance was a little better in some ways. But Demon's Souls has this atmosphere, direction and structure that wins out for me. It's much more focused and feels more polished and complete. I do agree that Dark Souls feels more like a cohesive world, and it's brilliantly put together but it's no secret that DkS1 drops off in quality after Anor Londo. Demon's Souls feels finished and deliberate right up to the ending, and I really prefer polished, focused experiences regardless of length. While it's more limited and simple it's also more potent, if that makes any sense. For example, comparing Blight Town to the Valley of Defilement is just no contest in terms of level design, theming and visual style. Fool's Idol is a far more interesting, freaky and intimidating bossfight than Pinwheel. There has never been any home base since that could even put a patch on the Nexus. Even out of the gimmicky puzzle bosses I feel that Dragon God is a lot better designed and executed than Bed of Chaos.

On that note I much prefer the art direction in DeS as well. Dark Souls has an orange/brown/green low fantasy twisted corruption kind of feeling. Demon's Souls has a blue/grey/red ethereal, misty quality. It's still low fantasy, but it's more elegant and surreal. I prefer the lore in DeS as well as an overall concept with the demonic colorless fog and the fall of King Allant. And nothing has topped the ending of Demon's Souls, with the Old One surfacing from the strange, misty ocean to lie in the shallows, with white birds encircling the impossibly huge swords impaled through its hide hundreds of feet in the sky.

At the end of the day Demon's Souls just resonates with me a lot more than Dark Souls. Don't get me wrong, I still have well over 1000 hours in DkS1 but Demon's is the more compelling and rich experience for me.

 

[My name is Fiction]

The hatred of shield players continues to irk me.
They seem to have doubled down on the bullshit invincibility frames of dodge-rolling to my chagrin. Dodging shouldn't have I-frames, it should be a simple matter of "Did the attack line up with you?"
The lore is the most straightforward of the series. YMMV on whether you think that's a good thing.

The stability stat beyond 60 is a exponential boost in efficiency. Like those hilarious "shield meta" videos where im pretty sure the only reliable way to break guards is boulder heave.
Everything less than fat roll is 15 I-frames but with no poise at the moment its ok.
TBH a return to an old school poise system will hurt the game more.

 

[My name is Fiction]

Cons:

- PvP is weak in this game. If your build doesn't involve having a fast hitting weapon or something that has a broken hitbox meter ... good luck. It's a spam fest, without strategy in most cases. Also I rarely see fight clubs but rather gank fests instead now a days.

- Invaders have it really bad. Host can summon up to 3 phantoms, can get a Blue Sentinel to save them, can use Seed of the Giants to make enemies hostile to invader, phantoms can heal as well, but worst of all ... invaders come in with less health and estus flasks.


- NG+ doesn't add anything new whatsoever. Unlike Dark Souls II changing enemy location and adding new challenges to the mode, Dark Souls III only raises the difficulty up by a slight margin. Only add ons are +1 and +2 rings.

- Exploitation. Holy crap dude ... i've seen level 9 players already have end game gear with end game weapons and armor. Once they level up, they're going to have a huge advantage over most of the players in PvP or in PvE co-op.

- Hackers. On the PC, if a hacker so much as touches you- chances are, From Softwares ban bot will consider you a hacker due to the sudden increase of souls / corrupted items and autoban your account. Fix this crap immediately From Software.

- Variety in spells (pyromancies, hexes, miracles, sorceries, ect) is lacking. Sure the spells are really cool overall, but there's not that many for each build. We need more spells to feel satisfied, so hopefully the DLC offers more spells period.

- Way too much rolling and stamina recovery. This applies for both PvE and PvP since anyone can roll 10x or more with little to no punishment in doing so. Come on guys, cap the amount of rolls a player can do since it gets really repetitive.

Been awhile :^)

In terms of pvp the "DPS Fest" is abit hyperbolic. While no poise exists as of yet [sub]thank god[/sub]
You can now exit hitstun with a parry, meaning R1 spamming can be actively suicidal. The true combos the game does have do too much damage but thats just a matter of balancing. Lest not forgo the tools we have to make silly 700 AR weapons with no use of hypermode no less.

While this game will probably be remembered as "Ganksouls 3", if they made a session a red left from not still be top invade priority you wouldn't be forced to fight ganks or enter a zone they don't operate.
Also summons can't enter with ember health boost while reds can! 30% health boost with the right build and that mysterious damage absorption stat means you can have effectively 3000 hp when you invade. Just kill the summons one at a time.

The like the NG+ difficulty spike because its not insane, its gradual. You can't enter it with a build the game decides isn't "Hardcore" enough. [sub]Example would be bloodborn[/sub]

Upgrade level effects who you can connect too so reaching said weapons for low sl pvp is harder than ever.
What I like is at SL 60 you can compete almost every build.

Were you surprised too when you found a darksouls 2 spell in 3? I was. 2 kinda spoiled us with experimental spells.
With all the golden sorceries and boulder heave i'm pretty happy but i can see people being abit underwhelmed.
Definitely if you wanted miracles to be good. Kek.

Roll punishes are harder to execute but luckily we have delay-able heavy attacks.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I began really enjoying it only toward the latter parts of my NG+ run. Personally, I think DS2 was better for the most part in most ways that matter. I preferred the boss fights, the areas, the NPCs and the "story" or characters. F.ex the end boss at least had personality and purpose. DS3's is just generic end boss #3.

The Good:
- The mana bar/ashen estus. Makes spell casting much better and not needing multiple cards for spells is great.
- The combat is still there.
- Nice mix of armour and weapons
- Most weapon arts are not useful, but there are some really great ones.
- The password co-op matchmaking for playing with friends, ignoring levels and playthru cycles. It's much much better. It's still a completely horrible and shit system, but it's 10x better than before. Gone from complete shit to slightly less shit.
- I like that everything is in firelink shrine. no more warping to and fro for Ornifex, straid, mcduff, etc, etc.

The bad:
- I'm sick and tired of projectiles that move in mid air, enemies that use aimbot and have what feels like crazy high poise/infinite stamina.
- Very linear but still confusing on first playthru where to go. frequent dead ends after bosses.
- Some enemies are very cheap. Relentless attack, ridiculous range and silly high HP.
- A handful of bosses are cheap too. Dancer, Princes, Nameless. They do too much damage, too fast to heal at any range. They can be beaten of course, but that doesn't stop them feeling cheap as fuck.
- On the subject of bosses, many of them have cheap insta-kill attacks too. Fill whole screen with instadeath fire. Great.
- The two phases thing gets tiring after a while.
- Straight swords seem to outclass everything else, by a large margin.
- Everything seems that little bit shittier compared to 2. Weapons and scaling are all weaker, magic is weaker and slow as hell.
- They ruined my partizan
- what happened to hexes??

TBH those are minor criticisms. There are major flaws, some by nature and others by design. The fact that the game is PvE and PvP is fucking shitty. I cannot opt out of PvP and the game will inevitably be balanced around it. My PvE experience will be nerfed because of pvp balance which irks me no end. The invalid data/softbanning going on is crazy. They should NOT ban people from playing a full priced game PERIOD, ever, for any reason. Again, PvP is to blame and also the fact that I can't just play with friends, you have to be on their servers. The tragedy is that this utterly horrid design is intentional. They create the fucking problem and ban the players because of their crap system.

It makes it sound like I hate it. I don't. It's a very good game, despite its many flaws and issues. the combat is still great and some boss fights are really good. When you get in the dodge, swish, stab zone, it's at its best. Irithyll is by far my favourite zone in the trilogy, beating out my previous fav, Anor Londo. The town's streets and ambience is wonderful.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

To everyone commenting on removal of powerstancing, it's still present, but in a different form. Yes, the way it was before is no more, but it's replaced with dual weapons. Dhrang hammers/spears, the dual katana, dancer's swords, etc. They're unique now relative to other weapons. Powerstancing wasn't the most useful thing before TBH. It was an okay gimmick and had some interesting combinations, but having a weapon in each hand is *much* more useful for the different capabilities rather than just 10% more dmg.

With dual wielding, you can have one slash, one thrust. One slow, one quick. One standard, one for shield break/split and so on. Different elements, range/melee, I think it's just much more tactical.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Another thing just hit me a couple of days ago: the balance of stamina consumption of dodging versus stamina consumption of blocking is completely fucked. Even the biggest shields will get taken out in 3-4 hits from even remotely powerful enemies, whereas dodging takes so little stamina the game turns for large sections into the cartwheel olympics. This, combined with the game's influences from Bloodborne, ie. faster enemies, more grab attacks, more fast boss attacks that take away 70% of your health and so on, means there's rather little difference in how each build plays. I've played the game with a dex build, a pyromancer, and a tank. And the experience was more or less the same gameplay wise each time. Sure, pyro can chuck a few fireballs every now and then, but all the enemies close distance so much faster than previous games it hardly transforms the gameplay experience entirely. Inevitably it all boils down to a pattern of dodge -> couple of hits in -> dodge -> couple of hits in -> etc.

 

[Silence]

So the later criticisms all come to 'I'm not that good at the game, it's the game's fault'?

Good to see that some things never change.

Spoiler

git gud

 

[LordBaztion]

Wait, they removed poise? wtf it was the most unique feature its gameplay has
I have only played a bit but I consider really bad design choice to give you a boss in the first minutes of the game. It is just a lazy tutorial and disuades new players. I suppose their purpose was (besides being lazy with the tutorial) to fill that marketing puchline of prepare to die.

 

[The White Hunter]

I think DS3 is actually going to end up my least favorite Dark Souls game. Not saying I think its bad, just a step back and a clear sign that the series needed to end. Specific issues off the top of my head:
1. Bosses are piss easy. Say what you will about 2's "dudes in armor" but at least I felt threatened. Having just beat Abyss Watchers I would still call Gundyr the hardest boss in the game

The difficulty spikes significantly in the boss department. You're not really far enough to have experienced it, but once you encounter Pontiff the game gets much harder imo.

To be fair everything in Dark Souls 1 up to and including Ornstein & Smough is pretty easy. Capra Demon was a bit annoying first time but not because of the boss himself.

OT: I am yet to pick it up, looks fun to me but being PC-only at present I really can't be arsed to deal with the hacking bullshit on top of the usual griefing and cancerous community.