Dark Souls Six: Darkest Souls

[NuclearKangaroo]

its "analog" not "analogue" you filthy casual!

 

[Fsyco]

I disagree. Saying that Dark Souls has a plot is like saying that Halo as a plot. Sure it does... outside of the actual game.

You're the kind of person, that needs a giant, black screen with white text stating "THIS IS THE STORY SO FAR" every 5 minutes, right? Otherwise, you would know that Dark Souls has a story and Halo has a story. All you need to do is actually pay a minimum amount of attention. As it "actually be awake"

The plot of Dark Souls is like the plot of Debbie Does Dallas: A flimsy formality used to string a series of things together that are the core of the experience. Also like Debbie Does Dallas, none of the characters are particularly interesting. I've gotten about halfway through the game, and I'm totally with Zira. I paid attention to all the stuff, I read the lore on the wiki, and yet it still doesn't feel very engaging. Mostly it's just boring. Sure, combat is pretty fun, but the 'go and fulfill the Prophecy by collecting the Foretold McGuffin' story is really, really uninteresting. The characters have no personality, and I don't really get any sense of story from the environment the way everyone else seems to. It all seems like generic ruined fantasy stuff. I totally get the 'the plot seems like it's happening outside of the game' feeling.
Maybe I'm just not the target audience, though. I don't really understand why people attempt to achieve states of loneliness and despair. When I got lost in Dark Souls, I didn't go "Gee Willikers, this sure is atmospheric!", I got frustrated and consulted a walk through and a map.

 

[softclocks]

Edit: Dark soul's difficult? I struggled way more with games like La-Mulana and Rogue's Legacy.

You're the kind of person, that needs a giant, black screen with white text stating "THIS IS THE STORY SO FAR" every 5 minutes, right? Otherwise, you would know that Dark Souls has a story and Halo has a story. All you need to do is actually pay a minimum amount of attention. As it "actually be awake"

Pretty much this.

I haven't gotten to play Dark Souls 2 yet, but as far as 1 goes there was definitely a plot, as well as an overall theme/motif.

There aren't a lot of characters in the game, but they all feel and sound unique. Crestfallen Knight was amaaaazing.

More than just good graphics, which it had, hands down some of the best stuff I saw on the PS3 or 360, the game had incredible atmosphere. I'm glad we were at the very least given ONE roleplaying-game that could do without forced narrative/constant exposition from every single character in the game.

 

[Robyrt]

The plot of Dark Souls is like the plot of Debbie Does Dallas: A flimsy formality used to string a series of things together that are the core of the experience. Also like Debbie Does Dallas, none of the characters are particularly interesting. I've gotten about halfway through the game, and I'm totally with Zira. I paid attention to all the stuff, I read the lore on the wiki, and yet it still doesn't feel very engaging. Mostly it's just boring. Sure, combat is pretty fun, but the 'go and fulfill the Prophecy by collecting the Foretold McGuffin' story is really, really uninteresting. The characters have no personality, and I don't really get any sense of story from the environment the way everyone else seems to. It all seems like generic ruined fantasy stuff. I totally get the 'the plot seems like it's happening outside of the game' feeling.
Maybe I'm just not the target audience, though. I don't really understand why people attempt to achieve states of loneliness and despair. When I got lost in Dark Souls, I didn't go "Gee Willikers, this sure is atmospheric!", I got frustrated and consulted a walk through and a map.

The most interesting plot bits in Dark Souls are locked away so far that you probably can't find them on your current playthrough. Without giving away too much, the 'go, Chosen Undead, and fulfill the Prophecy' storyline is something you are expected to roll your eyes at and reject, because it is largely a lie. By breaking the rules and rejecting the main quest line, you can draw the attention of certain other NPCs who stand to gain from your disobedience.

That being said, I agree that the obscure story is ultimately to the game's detriment. If you have a unique and cool idea that changes everything about the game, I should find out about it at the end of the game, not halfway into New Game Plus. Demon's Souls was even worse in this regard, with the single most important revelation buried inside an item description.

 

[Fsyco]

The plot of Dark Souls is like the plot of Debbie Does Dallas: A flimsy formality used to string a series of things together that are the core of the experience. Also like Debbie Does Dallas, none of the characters are particularly interesting. I've gotten about halfway through the game, and I'm totally with Zira. I paid attention to all the stuff, I read the lore on the wiki, and yet it still doesn't feel very engaging. Mostly it's just boring. Sure, combat is pretty fun, but the 'go and fulfill the Prophecy by collecting the Foretold McGuffin' story is really, really uninteresting. The characters have no personality, and I don't really get any sense of story from the environment the way everyone else seems to. It all seems like generic ruined fantasy stuff. I totally get the 'the plot seems like it's happening outside of the game' feeling.
Maybe I'm just not the target audience, though. I don't really understand why people attempt to achieve states of loneliness and despair. When I got lost in Dark Souls, I didn't go "Gee Willikers, this sure is atmospheric!", I got frustrated and consulted a walk through and a map.

The most interesting plot bits in Dark Souls are locked away so far that you probably can't find them on your current playthrough. Without giving away too much, the 'go, Chosen Undead, and fulfill the Prophecy' storyline is something you are expected to roll your eyes at and reject, because it is largely a lie. By breaking the rules and rejecting the main quest line, you can draw the attention of certain other NPCs who stand to gain from your disobedience.

That being said, I agree that the obscure story is ultimately to the game's detriment. If you have a unique and cool idea that changes everything about the game, I should find out about it at the end of the game, not halfway into New Game Plus. Demon's Souls was even worse in this regard, with the single most important revelation buried inside an item description.

You can go ahead and tell me, there's no way I'm doing a second playthrough. I know it has something to do with the cartoonish snake-thing being evil and something involving a fire.
Honestly, I vastly preferred Metal Gear Solid 4's 9 hours of cut scenes to the Dark Souls method. At least those cut scenes were interesting and had large amounts of plot happening. At least when the bosses told you their life stories in their death throes it gave you some backstory. Every time I fight a boss in Dark Souls I'm just like "well that looked interesting". Having the story told through item descriptions isn't quite the same.

 

[Branindain]

While I laughed at the comic, it's my experience that Souls games are actually getting slightly easier as they go along. DS2 seems easier if you don't partake of the self-flagellation options (Deprived class, Covenant of Champions, Bonfire Ascetics). And the ability to repair the ring that saves you from losing your souls when you die is going to make the late game way less terrifying.

Oh, and to Zira; good story? No. Good characters? I find them intriguing enough. Good graphics? Technically no, but the vistas are striking. But what it has in spades is exploration. Every area is a maze, and every time you turn a corner you find something interesting. Sometimes the interesting thing wants to rake your face, sometines it's a cool item like my beloved miracle-casting chime shield, sometimes it's something you just can't figure out. That's why I love the game, and since that isn't on your list at all clearly we just like different things. Possibly neither one of us has to be objectively wrong?

 

[Qvar]

It's not "the plot" by itself, it's the whole lore. Because you will never understand the plot in full if you're only playing it once. You will (probably) never meet Kathee, and thus you won't know how Frampt was (probably) lying to you the whole time about restarting the age of fire. You (probably) won't even know that Gwyndolin was behind all of it and Gwynevere was just a placeholder illusion.

Hell you may not even know what does the "bad" ending means, because you don't know who the pygmy was.