Death Mechanics and Dark Souls
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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I loved the shit out of demon's souls and dark souls and became hopelessly addicted to both for a period of time. It's the masochist in me.. and the need to feel loved...
This game hates me so much.. i just want it to care... why won't it hug me? Why won't it say it even likes me? if i keep playing with it maybe it will learn to tollerate me!!!
LMAO
But yes. It's rubbing your face in it after you die that generally does get annoying and even infuriating. Though i managed to accept it with these 2 games.
This game hates me so much.. i just want it to care... why won't it hug me? Why won't it say it even likes me? if i keep playing with it maybe it will learn to tollerate me!!!
LMAO
But yes. It's rubbing your face in it after you die that generally does get annoying and even infuriating. Though i managed to accept it with these 2 games.
I have to agree that a death system that just exists to give you a game over screen seems kinda pointless. However for some reason adding the need to get coins, rings, mushrooms Sonic heads, bananas or balloons adds to the experience in my case. I guess that's some sort of brain damage that comes from playing NES and SNES too much...
The thing about Dark Souls is simple. A lot of games have demons to slay. In most games the demons disappear when you turn the game off. Dark Souls, the game itself, is one of those demons.
I like to think of my relationship to that game as an abusive one, I know that game hates me, but I just love it sooooo much I just can't quit it!WWmelb said:
OT: I love that game to bits, and the same thing happened to me after a while. I played and played and died and died, but then after a while it didn't bother me. It was only after that that I actually made progress and only got slightly irritated when I died. I tell you what though, FINALLY killing the bosses and the mini-bosses around the game gives you the best feeling ever.
I have to say you hit the nail on the head. Dark Souls can be an extremely fustrating and annoying game. That is until a macabre smile rents a place on your face and each of the stupid deaths that your character is subjected to (ranging from pressing the wrong button whilst walking along a cliff face to being beaten senseless by weaker mobs who are powered by a nearby soceror) becomes an inside joke that only you get. Then you're in Anor Londo and being invaded by people without a clue where those last 20 hours went.
Difficult game in which it's clear what you need to do better in order to improve (and some way to improve other than dying constantly) = good. Difficult game that just makes you die constantly for no apparent reason = bad. You decide which one Dark Souls/Demon Souls is.
Oh God. Back in the relationship game for you, eh?
I anticipate the upcoming review in which you, once again, claim women are evil.
Also, "I stopped caring" sums up my experience with Demon's Souls as well. I had no investment in it. Or to put it in your terms, the context was just not there. The challenge certainly was there, and I suppose there's gratification in knocking over the big guys, but after the thousandth little guy I knock over, the chore becomes more apparent and it becomes increasingly clear that I'm not controlling a character with thoughts, feelings, and drives, but a series of numbers trying to beat other numbers.
And yet, Binding of Isaac (which someone else brought up) stuck with me. Perhaps it's the brevity, or the style, or maybe I'm actually investing in Isaac due to the setup and his depressive state.
I anticipate the upcoming review in which you, once again, claim women are evil.
Also, "I stopped caring" sums up my experience with Demon's Souls as well. I had no investment in it. Or to put it in your terms, the context was just not there. The challenge certainly was there, and I suppose there's gratification in knocking over the big guys, but after the thousandth little guy I knock over, the chore becomes more apparent and it becomes increasingly clear that I'm not controlling a character with thoughts, feelings, and drives, but a series of numbers trying to beat other numbers.
And yet, Binding of Isaac (which someone else brought up) stuck with me. Perhaps it's the brevity, or the style, or maybe I'm actually investing in Isaac due to the setup and his depressive state.
For me Dark Souls is a game I only play when I'm really pissed off.
98% of the time I can't stand it. But the other 2% of the time when I'm in the special kind of mood, The kind of mood that says "Get in my way and I'll shank you with the shard of a broken duel-shock 3 controller" That's when I can truly enjoy Dark Soul's (and by extension Demon's Souls).
For me the thing I hate most about dying in a game is when after dying a few too many times a message will sometimes pop up that says "DURR HURR You seem to be having some trouble, does baby want to switch to Pussies Mode?" God I fucking hate that, I don't even mind being sent back to a much earlier point in the game as long as its not patronizing about it.
I see the Mario's life system as what it is. Nintendo knows that if they ditched the classic green mushroom 1-Ups, legions of twenty-somethings neck-breads are just going to ***** about the change.
98% of the time I can't stand it. But the other 2% of the time when I'm in the special kind of mood, The kind of mood that says "Get in my way and I'll shank you with the shard of a broken duel-shock 3 controller" That's when I can truly enjoy Dark Soul's (and by extension Demon's Souls).
For me the thing I hate most about dying in a game is when after dying a few too many times a message will sometimes pop up that says "DURR HURR You seem to be having some trouble, does baby want to switch to Pussies Mode?" God I fucking hate that, I don't even mind being sent back to a much earlier point in the game as long as its not patronizing about it.
I see the Mario's life system as what it is. Nintendo knows that if they ditched the classic green mushroom 1-Ups, legions of twenty-somethings neck-breads are just going to ***** about the change.
Two games that did infinite life right:
VVVVVV
Super Meat Boy
Two games that did infinite life wrong:
I want to be the guy
Prince of Persia (2008)
The top two have instantaneous replay -- there is no gap in the music, and you pick up exactly where you left off.
IWTBTG makes you press a button to continue, and you WILL know that game over theme better than the whole rest of the game, while POP is almost very good but insists on showing you a cutscene every single time.
Just my 2 cents worth
(and yes, I know that IWTBTG is supposed to be masochistic and this is part of it, but STILL)
VVVVVV
Super Meat Boy
Two games that did infinite life wrong:
I want to be the guy
Prince of Persia (2008)
The top two have instantaneous replay -- there is no gap in the music, and you pick up exactly where you left off.
IWTBTG makes you press a button to continue, and you WILL know that game over theme better than the whole rest of the game, while POP is almost very good but insists on showing you a cutscene every single time.
Just my 2 cents worth
(and yes, I know that IWTBTG is supposed to be masochistic and this is part of it, but STILL)
An attractive young lady not wearing a bra clinging to his leg? Didn't know you'd started having Adventures in Babysitting, Yahtzee.
Then Nintendo can start learning something from Yahtzee reminding them yet again that sitting through introductory dialogues on every single life is take-the-game-back-to-the-store infuriating.ANImaniac89 said:
Yahtzee is spot on about how removing control from the player between death and re-spawn is frustrating. It drove me insane in Final Fantasy XIII, there were loads of parts where death would take you back and make you re-watch a cut scene. Obviously I just skipped them but that took vital seconds, and if no-ones going to actually watch the scene again, what the hell is the point in replaying it every time you die? I just don't understand the thought process there. Of course, for FFXIII that's one of the more minor design flaws.
As for Dark Souls, I sum it up as hours of horrific, mind numbing torture, then you randomly get a very brief blowjob and then it's straight back to torture. But after all that pain and horror, that blowjob feel like the best motherfucking blowjob you will ever have in your life.
As for Dark Souls, I sum it up as hours of horrific, mind numbing torture, then you randomly get a very brief blowjob and then it's straight back to torture. But after all that pain and horror, that blowjob feel like the best motherfucking blowjob you will ever have in your life.
This makes me feel a little less guilty that I haven't bothered with traditional platformers in ages (although Psychonauts had the same lives system as Yahtzee is describing here, and ironically I got it at his recommendation). The last one was Crash Bandicoot Warped back on the original PlayStation, and it managed to be unfrustrating despite having this same lives system because one-ups were so easy to come by that I completely stopped encountering Game Overs around a third of the way in no matter how badly I was doing. And I suspect that was a fluke.
I'm kinda with Yahtzee. For a day or two I was addicted, but in the end there came a point where I just couldn't be bothered with Dark Souls. The game has no payoff what-so-ever.
I like challenging games. I love my manic shooters. When I become good enough to dodge 100 bullets whilst elegantly blasting the s**t out of the enemy, all in beautifully hand drawn 2D graphics, with an unbeatable soundtrack, I almost fall into a high.
But Dark Souls doesn't do any of the sort. I eventually asked my self "why am I bothering? is there going to be any reward in this? Better locations, more amazing music, improved combat? No, there isn't... sod this, back to my other games."
Only reason I keep my copy is in the hope my limited edition rises in value in time.
I like challenging games. I love my manic shooters. When I become good enough to dodge 100 bullets whilst elegantly blasting the s**t out of the enemy, all in beautifully hand drawn 2D graphics, with an unbeatable soundtrack, I almost fall into a high.
But Dark Souls doesn't do any of the sort. I eventually asked my self "why am I bothering? is there going to be any reward in this? Better locations, more amazing music, improved combat? No, there isn't... sod this, back to my other games."
Only reason I keep my copy is in the hope my limited edition rises in value in time.
"Frustration grows exponentially for every second or dialogue box that passes between the player character's death and putting them back in the action, and even something as initially innocuous as "Try Again" starts to feel sarcastic and patronizing the darker one's mood gets."
Oh god this is so true. I recently played through Catherine, which, if you've played it, is quite a frustrating game. Add in the fact that every time you die you see Vincent fall (or get smashed to a spray of blood and bone), the dramatic music, and the "LOVE IS OVER" screen, and it just adds to the frustration. Even playing through Demon's Souls, I've never come so close to breaking a controller out of frustration.
Oh god this is so true. I recently played through Catherine, which, if you've played it, is quite a frustrating game. Add in the fact that every time you die you see Vincent fall (or get smashed to a spray of blood and bone), the dramatic music, and the "LOVE IS OVER" screen, and it just adds to the frustration. Even playing through Demon's Souls, I've never come so close to breaking a controller out of frustration.
I think Dark Souls only works when founded on mutual hatred. Get killed by a bullshit boss, just get angry at it and keep trying. Maybe I just have the world's largest dose of perseverance when it comes to facing a challenge, but I fucking love that game. I never really minded the frustration, that was actually what kept me going. The eventual despair on the other hand, that stopped me every now and then. Damn basilisks.
The difference the online is actually in the single player. Not a separate mode.MonkeyPunch said:Yahtzee Croshaw said:
I... that... what... but...
Double standards ahoy, Captain!
BF3/MW3
I actually thought that Prince of Persia did infinite lives well - when you screwed something up, you turned back the clock to before you messed up. And while I haven't played I want to be the guy, I have seen it played and it seemed to work fairly well.Sargonza said:
Just my two cents.