Well, to start with let me say that Dark souls isn't a hard game...it's a tedious game. Do you like tedious games that feel like a grind from start to finish? It's not an unfair game either...it just requires you to guess correctly which way to attack something or to die a few times until you work it out. Most of the enemies are obvious...just dodge roll around like a spaz and then backstab or peck them to death when you get an opening. Thats it really...thats the entire game summed up from my perspective. The bosses get more and more HP which means you spend more and more time pecking...boring plain and simple.
I think I read each post enough to see that no one has yet mentioned Demon's Souls.
While there are a couple things about Dark Souls that I love, and are in fact better than its predecessor to me, the huge majority of the game falls short of it IMO.
I don't wish to list every reason why here, but if you hadn't even considered Demon's Souls I would definitely recommend you start there.
As for Dark Souls, I never considered it difficult or tedious. One thing it has over Demon's Souls is that grinding levels was NOWHERE close to as time consuming or repetitive due to the differing of the methodology. In Demon's you basically farmed the reaper or the mantas for HOURS on end just to be able to be able to use your chosen loadout properly.
In Dark Souls, you don't really need to do that at all, but if you feel like it you can go to one area and kill a few npcs in a min, repeat for an hour or so to gain a ton of levels.
The penalty for death in Dark, is basically nothing. In Demon's you lose half your HP, which you can boost to only 25% loss with a ring, but you gain attack power and move quieter...which makes the game easier.
If you need to grind in either game you are playing it wrong. In a new game of Dark Souls you'll get to around level 70-75 with little issue, more than enough to see you through the game. Haven't played Demon's Souls in a LONG time, but i can't remember griding being mandatory there either, in any sense. Well, perhaps for some upgrade materials, but that's about it.
I like bleak games, monster games, zombie games whatever. But usually there's a mild amount of hope. A drive to win. Dark souls is basically only bleak. You die, and find your body again, and get your xp again, or if you fail you lose it. Any unspent xp is lost, your important human-attribute points are gone. It's not a restart, it's gone. Just gone. it's punishing for the sake of punishing. a three hit combo, that's the game. Guitar hero could do that.
Dark souls is actually less punishing than most games, it just masks it well.
If you die in most other checkpoint based games you lose everything you collected since then.
If you die in Dark souls you can keep any items you found AND have a chance to regain even your souls
It's a shame then, the one thing they advertise and they dont even do it properly. "prepare to die, a lot". A checkpoint death does mean you get to do over, dark souls means backtracking, or losing your xp
A checkpoint death means you get to do it over and you will have to backtrack to where you died and you lose anything you gained since then. A Dark souls death means you get to do it over and you will have to backtrack to where you died and you keep most of what you lost + you have a chance to recover the rest
no, that's not entirely true. you don't backtrack. you reprogress. that's not the same. It's playing the game, retrying. Backtracking means wading through fucking miles of land to find your loot and THEN continue. It's a lot less fun, because the constant threat of "if i fuck up I just lost 2 hours worth of xp". It;'s a lot less fun, because it can mean having to go to an area you're not yet ready for. It's a lot less fun, because you may have been traveling the lands, and just died, only to have to walk fucking half an hour just to get your gear. There's a character element here too, and it just breaks if you have to take the exact same steps after death, just to find your money. "oh I died just then, that's number 400! guess i'm a really special little snowflake, let's just find my corpse and cuddle it, or else he'll get lonely" what kind of fucking character momentum is there. It's not "yeah i'm ready to beat this ugly monster down! *fails, rewind* Yeah I'm ready to beat this ugly monster down!" it's more like "ugh i fucking died again, let me get my gear, again, let me then try again, again." It's a bleak and depressing game already, but without the element of end, it's just rubbish. The entire evil end gets nullified anyway, seeing as you apparently are impossible to die anyway.
If i die in, say Skyrim, I try a different approach. I plan, I execute skill. I win or lose and retry. A dark souls death means first: going back to wherever you lie, same boring old road, getting your stuff, and then trying to either leave, or continue. It's not a reset, it's not a plan, it's like getting your trousers out of a tree every time you fuck up, and a bunch of ugly girls are cheering in the background. And if you fail to retrieve said trousers, they vanish, and you have to walk home in your pants.
A checkpoint death is nowadays usually a death that means a small demerit, like losing money (gta, bioshock, borderlands), or having to restart a mission (games like prototype (you do reset, but your stats stay the same, it's a partial rewind). The few games that truly abide by the hardcore checkpoint deaths are games like skyrim (quicksave does kinda nullify it) or perhaps call of duty, and if you play those campaigns you are one of the few, and I'd respect you for it, but there's no xp element. Nor a actual plot besides "yeah i'm gonna shoot those guys for not speaking english"
Almost like "yeah I'm gonna stab that guy because it's a bad guy - dark souls" I did get lost on the finer details, apparently there is some sort of why behind the monsters or something. ( sometimes you do play a game just to kill dudes, like CS, tf2, or l4d. but there's a valid reason to do so. Kill the terrorist, or rob a bank, Blow up the enemy base because that's your job, or defend your capture point because your livelihood depends on it, kill the zombies to survive, eat the survivors because you are hungry,and they are noisy and rude. it's still more valid than ds's entire plotline imo)
dark souls does not just reset your checkpoint. IT resets your character except for items and gear, you lose all your money/xp/whatever. You could have farmed for a day straight and have gone to at least 400 different areas, but you die and it's gone. all of it. unless you haul ass through dangerous territory, often in bossland which means HAVING to redo the boss or losing gold. A true checkpoint would mean your stats are saved from that point out. but if you save with a millions souls, and you die, they're all gone. poof. It's just a stupid way to force a players hand.
As for the role playing/blocking thing you keep bringing up, later in the game, blocking without a heavy set of armor on, will not help you at all (4K for example) and you will need to get rolling. Also, if you have anything to do with PvP at all, you will find that just blocking your opponents attacks will lead to your swift demise. It is only really just the start of the game where all you need to do is block-hit-move to go on.
I blocked enemy attacks with a light shield from the start of the game to the end of the game. Those knights on the way to the final boss, I blocked their attacks with a measly level 5 light shield. If you just lower your shield in-between attacks, your stamina fills up really fast.
crispskittlez said:
When you say a dex-based character shouldn't be able to block larger attacks, it feels like you're supporting genre conventions for no solid reason other than "this is the way it's been before, so why stray from it." As for the PvP elements, I'm right there with you that it's not entirely balanced. Being ganked by groups of players equipped with much better gear who are obviously farming other players is not fun or balanced, and I really hope DS2 is better balanced for it. Also, it shouldn't be sad that Bayonetta has a large variety of playstyles supported when games with more characters/player created characters don't have as much. It just makes it sound like Bayonetta is really good. (which it is from what I remember about it)
I'm not saying you have to stick to conventions. I'm saying all melee characters in DS play too similarly because you can block with any melee character. I shouldn't be able to block the knight's triple sword attack with a light shield. What's the point of using a big shield when such a small shield blocks so well? Bayonetta is considered by most the best hack and slash ever made.
Dungeon Crawlers are subsets of RPGs, anyway, and Dark Souls does indeed fall under the bold portion of the definition. There are structured decisions that players make in DS, potentially without even realizing it, while taking responsibility for being the chosen undead in the story. That definition mentions nothing about how much agency the player has over their character or the story, and any game can have varying amounts while still being an RPG. Disregarding player stats and required skill, every game I've previously mentioned is also covered by that definition, and it's such a broad definition in the first place. That's why there are so many sub-genres, because defining everything by things like 'RPG', 'Shooter', or 'Adventure' leads to so much overlap between gameplay mechanics, individual player preferences, and possibility spaces, that two games that seem barely similar on the surface can still be shadowed by the same genre.
It's not whether you can find parts of Dark Souls that fall under the bolded sections, it's that Dark Souls' primary focus is not on said bolded sections of the definition. Yes, I will agree that DS has some role-playing, but it's not the focus of the game. Just like Mirror's Edge has some shooting, but it's not a shooter. Wouldn't you agree that you categorize a game by what it focuses on (by what you do most in the game)? What you do most in Dark Souls is hack and slash, not role-play.
barbzilla said:
Sorry to interrupt here, but I'd have to say that Dark Souls is more of an RPG than most games that get categorized as an RPG, seeing as how in Dark Souls you can make choices to sway the entire story one way or the other, meanwhile in 90% of what I see called RPGs these days, you go through a linear story line where you are fed narrative (often with your character speaking their own mind without any input from you, or you having only one or two options to push that typically don't really represent what is about to be said).
I do know that there are some out there that manage to really make an experience that feels like you are walking in someone else's shoes and running their life, and that is great. But, saying Dark Souls isn't an RPG because there isn't a spoken narrative for you to explore is just false when something as simple as choosing to kill something can change your entire path from bringer of light, to bringer of darkness.
Most RPGs aren't RPGs. Most JRPGs are basically point and click adventure games with a combat system thrown in. Telltales' games are more of an RPG. Dark Souls focus is on combat, not role-playing. That is why it's not an RPG. Whereas the focus of Mass Effect is on role-playing, and shooting second. That's the difference.
I'm of two minds about the game. The first and most obvious point is that the game is, by literally any metric poorly designed. You can get lost easily and even if you take all the precautions you will die unless you have access to special knowledge (that is, you have already died to some trap or another OR you consult a well constructed walkthrough). To put it simply, the game does everything it can to inconvenience you at every possible turn. But, this leads neatly to the second point.
You see, Dark Souls has this stigma of being considered "Difficult" and the stark reality is that the game isn't actually hard at all. Any fight you might encounter and any trap you might come across is trivial as long as you know how to deal with it. And that's where the game takes a sharp turn. You start the game as your chosen class and blunder your way through the easiest section of the game where even the boss is easily defeated. Then the game throws you into a place where the first group of enemies you fight can murder you. And as your death count rises, you start to learn things. For example, those hollow spearmen have the easiest attack to parry in the game and once you know that, any hollow spearman you encounter becomes little more than a minor roadblock. This goes on and on as you learn how to efficiently kill each enemy. The first black knight I ever killed I basically cheesed by running away throwing firebombs as I ran and now I just look at them as loot pinatas.
The fun of Dark Souls is not in the dying or the difficulty or any of that hogwash people throw out there; the fun is in learning. Each time you die you can figure out something that ensures this time around you'll make it at least a few steps further. And, by the end, you'll beat the game using some trusted weapon and shield and perhaps some magic here and there and think to yourself that you discovered the only way to play the game. Then you go online and find that you just found one way to play; there are lots of others. And then you go and play again with a different weapon and find that you have to learn a whole new set of things.
Sorry to interrupt here, but I'd have to say that Dark Souls is more of an RPG than most games that get categorized as an RPG, seeing as how in Dark Souls you can make choices to sway the entire story one way or the other, meanwhile in 90% of what I see called RPGs these days, you go through a linear story line where you are fed narrative (often with your character speaking their own mind without any input from you, or you having only one or two options to push that typically don't really represent what is about to be said).
I do know that there are some out there that manage to really make an experience that feels like you are walking in someone else's shoes and running their life, and that is great. But, saying Dark Souls isn't an RPG because there isn't a spoken narrative for you to explore is just false when something as simple as choosing to kill something can change your entire path from bringer of light, to bringer of darkness.
Most RPGs aren't RPGs. Most JRPGs are basically point and click adventure games with a combat system thrown in. Telltales' games are more of an RPG. Dark Souls focus is on combat, not role-playing. That is why it's not an RPG. Whereas the focus of Mass Effect is on role-playing, and shooting second. That's the difference.
I won't argue that Dark Souls does have a heavy focus on combat, but at what point do you get to make that decision that game A has more going on with the story so it is an rpg, while game B wanted more action.... Dark Souls is an RPG in every sense of the word. There is lore, there is character customization, there are important choices for you to make that drive the narrative, and you have to take a much more active role in the game world than you do in most games considered RPGs. There is no way you can say that Dark Souls isn't an RPG period. At the same time, I won't tell you that Dark Souls isn't a Dungeon Crawler Hack and Slash, because it is (are you starting to understand how genre blending works yet?). Dungeon Crawling is just the type of environment in the game, and hack and slash could be considered to be the base combat system, but that doesn't detract from it being an RPG (also, this game is a bit too tactical for hack and slash, I'd lean more towards action based RPG).
I.... what? Who are you to dictate that? Especially when the history of RPGs in both electronic and pen & paper stretches back more than 30 years. The focus of RPGs don't have to primarily be on simply roleplaying, and I guess it's a bit of a misnomer for that. The micro gameplay in Dark Souls in action, but the macro gameplay is RPG, and since the macro is the overarching mechanics and gameplay, then an RPG it shall remain.
It'S almost the same, except it gives you more of an incentive to walk back exactly to where you died while in pure checkpoint games you lost everything since the last save anyways so you might as well do something else.
dark souls does not just reset your checkpoint. IT resets your character except for items and gear, you lose all your money/xp/whatever. You could have farmed for a day straight and have gone to at least 400 different areas, but you die and it's gone. all of it. unless you haul ass through dangerous territory, often in bossland which means HAVING to redo the boss or losing gold. A true checkpoint would mean your stats are saved from that point out. but if you save with a millions souls, and you die, they're all gone. poof. It's just a stupid way to force a players hand.
That's over-exaggerated. It drops your money on the floor. It's compareable to Diablo, only less extreme because in Diablo you also lost your gear.
True, if you never spend any souls and accumulate a million unspend souls 2 deaths might cost you more than a checkpoint death. But then i would also say it's kind of your fault. If you truly needed those souls you would have spend them on stats/upgrading your gear ages ago.
I won't argue that Dark Souls does have a heavy focus on combat, but at what point do you get to make that decision that game A has more going on with the story so it is an rpg, while game B wanted more action.... Dark Souls is an RPG in every sense of the word. There is lore, there is character customization, there are important choices for you to make that drive the narrative, and you have to take a much more active role in the game world than you do in most games considered RPGs. There is no way you can say that Dark Souls isn't an RPG period. At the same time, I won't tell you that Dark Souls isn't a Dungeon Crawler Hack and Slash, because it is (are you starting to understand how genre blending works yet?). Dungeon Crawling is just the type of environment in the game, and hack and slash could be considered to be the base combat system, but that doesn't detract from it being an RPG (also, this game is a bit too tactical for hack and slash, I'd lean more towards action based RPG).
Whatever you do most in a game is what the main genre is (which is why Mirror's Edge is a platformer and not a shooter). Combat takes up the vast majority of Dark Souls. Dark Souls isn't tactical. Dark Souls fans blow everything about the game out of the water. The enemy AI is too poor for the combat to be tactical. Other hack and slash games like DMC and Bayonetta are more tactical than Dark Souls (even something like Heavenly Sword is more tactical). Dark Souls was so disappointing as I heard how hard it was and how great the combat system was, and the game was easy and the combat was nothing special (the game's enemies never force you to use anything more than block and light attack whereas Bayonetta's enemies force you to get good and use the dodge offset mechanic). Everything is so telegraphed in Dark Souls if you pay attention from enemy attacks to traps, I didn't get hit by one trap in all of Sen's Fortress and I wasn't using a guide of any kind.
I.... what? Who are you to dictate that? Especially when the history of RPGs in both electronic and pen & paper stretches back more than 30 years. The focus of RPGs don't have to primarily be on simply roleplaying, and I guess it's a bit of a misnomer for that. The micro gameplay in Dark Souls in action, but the macro gameplay is RPG, and since the macro is the overarching mechanics and gameplay, then an RPG it shall remain.
What I meant was most video game RPGs are not RPGs. Pen and paper RPGs are RPGs. But ever since JRPGs came out, any game with a level up system magically became an RPG. If you added in random battles and turn-based combat to The Longest Journey, it wouldn't be an RPG yet JRPGs are exactly that and considered RPGs. Leveling up and customizing combat skills/abilities/spells/etc. is an extension of the core role-playing in pen and paper games. Just having leveling and character customization does not mean anything when the core role-playing isn't present. In Final Fantasy, Cloud will do and say (outside of combat) whatever he is scripted to do and you have no say, it's missing that core role-playing. You can play DnD at max level, never level up ever, and you're still role-playing. Leveling is not a required element of an RPG thus character leveling does not make a game an RPG. Dark Souls' macro gameplay is combat/action. Everything you level up, you do for combat purposes (to get better at combat), that's a telltale sign Dark Souls is not an RPG. The game is completely revolved around combat. Even the majority of the game's NPCs are merchants.
If you want to get down to the very base root as you seem to imply. Dark Souls is still a Role Playing Game. You choose a Role, you play that role, and it is a game. So now, tell me how it isn't a RPG.
If you want to get down to the very base root as you seem to imply. Dark Souls is still a Role Playing Game. You choose a Role, you play that role, and it is a game. So now, tell me how it isn't a RPG.
There's a different between playing a role and role-playing because if there wasn't then just about every video game is a role-playing game. Playing the role is just about what every video game is as well. You play as Mario in Mario, you play as Batman in Batman; you don't role-play as them. The key to an RPG is the role-playing. In Super Mario Brothers 2, you choose a role, play that role, and it is a game yet not an RPG. Choosing a role isn't even important to an RPG. You can play DnD with a pre-made character given to you by your DM with no choice whatsoever because after getting that character, you then ROLE-PLAY as that character. In Mass Effect, you are forced to be Commander Shepard, even if the game only had one Commander Shepard (in physical appearance) and only had one class to play as, it is still an RPG because of the role-playing. An RPG already has a core role-playing experience in place and stuff like customizing character appearance, choosing a character class (or playstyle), and leveling are just extensions of the already in place role-playing.
Dark Souls was so disappointing as I heard how hard it was and how great the combat system was, and the game was easy and the combat was nothing special (the game's enemies never force you to use anything more than block and light attack whereas Bayonetta's enemies force you to get good and use the dodge offset mechanic)
There are enemies late in the game that grapple you which can't be blocked. After the Capra Demon, blocking alone isn't going to save you. You need to be able to dodge or figure out some other way to respond to boss attacks (you can't beat 4K or O+S by blocking alone).
Then comes PvP and this is where everything you learnt thus far goes out the window. It is no longer about memorizing the attack patterns and blocking until you get your chance. Other players are unpredictable and now it is up to you to try and counter them on the fly. This is where the combat gets deep. At this point, knowing how your sword swings and how to attack players without being locked on becomes important.
Unfortunately, PvP can be bypassed completely and it is somewhat imbalanced with twinked characters hunting complete noobs. This is the one downfall that DkS had that I hope will be alleviated in DS2.
In Devil Survivor, stats effect combat only, and it's an RPG. In WoW, stats effect combat only, and it's an RPG. In GW2, stats effect combat only, and it's an RPG. In Pokemon, stats effect combat only, and it's an RPG. And then there are RPGs where stats effect more than just combat, etc. Dark Souls may not fit your definition of RPG, because you're defining it too narrowly/incorrectly.
In the traditional understanding of a role-playing game, one is taking on the role of another person (or thing) and "living life in their shoes". The motivation for people to say that Dark Souls is not a role-playing game is that it's not about "walking a day in the shoes of the undead savior of Lordran", it's about the fun of combat and the fun of exploring a beautiful, interesting, and dangerous world. One doesn't explore the CHARACTER of the undead savior in the way a true role-playing game does.
Mechanically, one can certainly claim that Dark Souls is a role-playing game, and check off the checkboxes that have been deemed to define the genre. But Dark Souls does not fit within the *spirit* of a role-playing game, since it's primarily about combat mechanics and exploration (aesthetics), not about character determination.
I say it depends on the mindset of who plays it. Thanks to almost nothing about your character being predefined you have enourmous freedom to act out a character on your own. On the other hand if you just play the game it isn't much of an RPG
Anyways, the discussion is rather pointless thanks to everyone thinking differently about the definition of RPGs and also because there already is another thread about that exact same question.
In Devil Survivor, stats effect combat only, and it's an RPG. In WoW, stats effect combat only, and it's an RPG. In GW2, stats effect combat only, and it's an RPG. In Pokemon, stats effect combat only, and it's an RPG. And then there are RPGs where stats effect more than just combat, etc. Dark Souls may not fit your definition of RPG, because you're defining it too narrowly/incorrectly.
In the traditional understanding of a role-playing game, one is taking on the role of another person (or thing) and "living life in their shoes". The motivation for people to say that Dark Souls is not a role-playing game is that it's not about "walking a day in the shoes of the undead savior of Lordran", it's about the fun of combat and the fun of exploring a beautiful, interesting, and dangerous world. One doesn't explore the CHARACTER of the undead savior in the way a true role-playing game does.
Mechanically, one can certainly claim that Dark Souls is a role-playing game, and check off the checkboxes that have been deemed to define the genre. But Dark Souls does not fit within the *spirit* of a role-playing game, since it's primarily about combat mechanics and exploration (aesthetics), not about character determination.
that's quite the definition of RPG you have there. however you run into the problem that by that definition Pokemon, WoW , and GW2 aren't "true" RPG's also. witch is perfectly fine i mean you can have these games exist and not be RPG's.
If you want to get down to the very base root as you seem to imply. Dark Souls is still a Role Playing Game. You choose a Role, you play that role, and it is a game. So now, tell me how it isn't a RPG.
There's a different between playing a role and role-playing because if there wasn't then just about every video game is a role-playing game. Playing the role is just about what every video game is as well. You play as Mario in Mario, you play as Batman in Batman; you don't role-play as them. The key to an RPG is the role-playing. In Super Mario Brothers 2, you choose a role, play that role, and it is a game yet not an RPG. Choosing a role isn't even important to an RPG. You can play DnD with a pre-made character given to you by your DM with no choice whatsoever because after getting that character, you then ROLE-PLAY as that character. In Mass Effect, you are forced to be Commander Shepard, even if the game only had one Commander Shepard (in physical appearance) and only had one class to play as, it is still an RPG because of the role-playing. An RPG already has a core role-playing experience in place and stuff like customizing character appearance, choosing a character class (or playstyle), and leveling are just extensions of the already in place role-playing.
Yet all of the things you mention are present in Dark Souls, so please tell me how Dark Souls isn't roleplaying. I have yet to see you refute one single point anyone makes, you just go on to talk about mass effect every time, and how that is role-playing.
There are enemies late in the game that grapple you which can't be blocked. After the Capra Demon, blocking alone isn't going to save you. You need to be able to dodge or figure out some other way to respond to boss attacks (you can't beat 4K or O+S by blocking alone).
Then comes PvP and this is where everything you learnt thus far goes out the window. It is no longer about memorizing the attack patterns and blocking until you get your chance. Other players are unpredictable and now it is up to you to try and counter them on the fly. This is where the combat gets deep. At this point, knowing how your sword swings and how to attack players without being locked on becomes important.
Unfortunately, PvP can be bypassed completely and it is somewhat imbalanced with twinked characters hunting complete noobs. This is the one downfall that DkS had that I hope will be alleviated in DS2.
I beat 4K so easy, I never had more than 1K out at a time. O+S I played in co-op. The problem is boss battles shouldn't be the only challenge in the game. I don't care about PvP in any game unless it's balanced and DkS is not balanced so I didn't even attempt to get into it plus it was laggy. Plus, I don't think the battle system is nearly that good as it is reliant on a lock-on system so you can't block properly unless locked-on because you can't backpedal or strafe with a shield up and not locked-on. I expect when a game is said to be hard that it is hard (or at least a challenge) but Dark Souls was easier than most games I've played on PS3. And, I shouldn't have to do PvP to get a challenge or for the combat system to start showing depth.
barbzilla said:
Phoenixmgs said:
barbzilla said:
If you want to get down to the very base root as you seem to imply. Dark Souls is still a Role Playing Game. You choose a Role, you play that role, and it is a game. So now, tell me how it isn't a RPG.
There's a different between playing a role and role-playing because if there wasn't then just about every video game is a role-playing game. Playing the role is just about what every video game is as well. You play as Mario in Mario, you play as Batman in Batman; you don't role-play as them. The key to an RPG is the role-playing. In Super Mario Brothers 2, you choose a role, play that role, and it is a game yet not an RPG. Choosing a role isn't even important to an RPG. You can play DnD with a pre-made character given to you by your DM with no choice whatsoever because after getting that character, you then ROLE-PLAY as that character. In Mass Effect, you are forced to be Commander Shepard, even if the game only had one Commander Shepard (in physical appearance) and only had one class to play as, it is still an RPG because of the role-playing. An RPG already has a core role-playing experience in place and stuff like customizing character appearance, choosing a character class (or playstyle), and leveling are just extensions of the already in place role-playing.
Yet all of the things you mention are present in Dark Souls, so please tell me how Dark Souls isn't roleplaying. I have yet to see you refute one single point anyone makes, you just go on to talk about mass effect every time, and how that is role-playing.
Dark Souls doesn't have that "core" role-playing I've been talking about this whole time. Leveling and character customization are just extensions and not role-playing in and of themselves. You can take leveling and character customization out of DnD and it's still an RPG through and through. You don't build your character's character, you just build them stat-wise and appearance-wise.
Okay, now I get where you are coming from, and why I've had such an issue seeing it. I did build a character, a background, and a mythos for my character. So for me it was a true role-playing experience. So, just because you didn't bother doing that, it wasn't a Role-Playing experience for you. Thank you for breaking that down for me finally, and we can now agree to disagree based off of our own experiences. Cheers m8!
I would liken Dark Souls to essentially being Metroid with swords.
There is a heavy exploration element. You're expected to figure out where to go for yourself...it doesn't hold your hand and give quest markers or extremely detailed plot instructions.
The story is a little light. Also like Metroid Prime, you can play the game from start to finish and ignore most of the story, you'll only really get into it if you look around. But the story that is there is fantastic, once you've found it.
My greatest complaint is the controls. 99% of the time, they work perfectly...and then there's that one instance where they just fuck up royally. Now, that does happen with a lot of games, but combined with Dark Souls' difficulty level it made for some really frustrating moments. I wouldn't pass the game over from this single complaint though.
As for the difficulty level, yet, it's harsh, but it's fair, and it's actually really rewarding. It's not hard in that you need perfect technical skills in regards to playing the game, more like you just need to be extremely careful about how you go about doing things. Think ahead and tread lightly, basically. Also, be ready to play dirty: dodging so that enemies you're fighting fall off ledges is a great way to instantly kill tough enemies, for instance.
Finally, and this is just a piece of advice. When you start, you'll be given a selection of items to start the game with. Take the Master Key, which basically is a low-level key that is not consumed upon use, early on, it will unlock all kinds of shortcuts and treasure rooms.
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