Andrew Andrew said:
I'm playing the shitty PC port as well. I haven't gone back to see exactly where the run message is but it was probably in a place where my read message button wasn't working since game controller support works so well, not. I eventually found a program to auto map everything. I'm kind of with you in the reason I'm beating it. I'll beat just so that I can honestly call it a shit game. So it has until then to convince me. A good game would prove me wrong.
The worst part, I can't quite call it shit. I
did have fun with some of the combat, I loved the weapon variety, the upgrade variety was okay (though most of it is useless unless you're planning for a specific purpose) and while it was the only game location that struck me, Ash Lake was really quite pretty. I just wish they were in a better game, possibly one without a Vancian magic system.
Oh, you're using the DSfix patch, right? Please say yes. Anyway, I didn't know this while I was playing, but apparently it lets you keep saved game backups. I don't know how, or how convenient it might be, but it might be something to look into.
Burst6 said:
NeutralDrow said:
Huh. You know, I came into this thread expecting to agree, but while I agree that Dark Souls explaining barely anything was very much to the game's detriment, it does teach you how to run. I don't think it teaches you how to jump, but it also doesn't tell you that jumping is fairly worthless (it's only for crossing small gaps, not for, say...going over inch-high obstructions), so it balances out in a stupid kind of way. But yes, I do agree that the penalty of death is too high, and for pretty much that reason. Losing all your humanity and souls the second time you die doesn't make the game harder in a meaningful sense, it just makes it more frustrating and tedious.
Of course, there was nothing that drew me into the game's "atmosphere," no story, no meaningful characterization, and it somehow reversed a quarter-century of my RPG instincts by making exploration horribly annoying and unfun...particularly bad for a game that doesn't tell you where anything is and apparently expects you to visit every corner in the game a minimum of three times if you want to even think about finding everything, so I think I hate the game more than you did. I did beat it, but only out of pure passive-aggressiveness. Since Dark Souls' NG+ philosophy almost offends me, and I played the shitty PC version ("Dark Souls: Failed to Invade" edition, as youtube put it) so anything involving PvP was out of the question, I had no desire to keep playing longer.
I never understood why people complained that losing souls was too much. After a little while the amount of souls you gain by just progressing through the game are nothing and leveling up needs either boss souls or a bit of farming. Most humanity comes in the form of items that you don't lose when you die and humanity is pretty useless anyway unless you're looking for rare items or you have a special humanity weapon ( or you rely on white phantoms for everything) . I ended up with a massive hoard of humanity that i had no use for by the end. Dying doesn't really waste that much time either as most of the time you can open up a convenient shortcut and just sprint past all the enemies to the boss.
That's the problem. "A bit of farming" becomes absolutely horrendous when you have to do it all over again because you slipped and forgot just how fast that demon could attack you, or mistimed a parry, or went too far afield before heading back to the bonfire, or didn't use a homeward bone the instant you beat a boss, subsequently fell off a very poorly-drawn cliff, lost 80000 souls and five humanity in an instant, and through further mischance died again on the way to reclaiming them. Souls are important, and it's hardly a "little" while before they stop being so; leveling is one thing, but repairs, item shopping, and the all-important equipment upgrades also require increasing amounts. And the worst part is that there's no goddamn reason for it, unless there's a hardware limitation. Why do the souls disappear after the second death? The only way that makes sense is a hardware limitation or to discourage people from grinding, the latter of which can hardly be the case in a game that is basically grinding and rote memorization in purest form.
Humanity is also hardly useless if you want to kindle new bonfires, have any kind of decent item discovery rate, advance in a number of covenants, or do absolutely anything online or summoning-related...in other words, literally pretty much
everything involving the covenants. Since humanity is rarely gained spontaneously, NPCs are a limited resource, and only a couple of enemies in the game drop humanity, and because death is omnipresent, humanity items don't last long.
And the only truly convenient shortcuts require either the Master Key (the tower to Darkroot Basin, the door to the valley below Firelink) or the Lordvessel, with maybe a passing mention to the moss lady's sewer for the thirty times one has to fight the Capra demon. Otherwise, there's still a slog to get anywhere, and even enemies that can be sprinted past can kill you easily if you misstep.
The game has a story. It's pretty minimalistic, and it's scattered around everywhere, but i like it. It has a sort of mystery to it that if you can piece it together becomes very atmospheric. The characters are similar too. A lot of the NPCs you meet have short story arcs. Some are really short, some are decently long and can span a level, and some span the whole game. I like a lot of the characters. They don't say as much as other games, but they do pack a large amount of personality into their words.
That's the problem, it's minimalist to the point where you don't even matter. There's certainly lore aplenty, but none of it has any connection to you ('cept maybe the DLC, I suppose, but the game didn't say how to do that, so I missed it). The bosses you fight have identities and histories, except in the context of the game, when they're just obstacles. The areas have mysteries and stories, except in the context of your actions, when they're just there to hide stuff you might want and give you a chance to go from one place to another. The MC has no personality of their own, and is hinted in the beginning to just be J. Random Schmuck who's more talented than the scores of Chosen Undead who've already failed and by coincidence happens to be the only undead in the world who's genuinely immortal. I always have to contrast Dark Souls to Soulbringer, a game that used a similar approach but gave the MC a speaking role and made most of the discoverable world-building lore explain how things got the way they are, how they relate to what you're doing, and hint at things to come, rather than the DS method of explaining why things are the way they are ten hours after it could possibly matter, if it ever did. I could see random factoids like Ceaseless Discharge being the son of the witch of Izalith, that not all pyromancy comes from the Great Swamp, or literally anything about the Painted World being great to include in a tabletop RPG, but not in a limited video game where you play a blank slate.
The only NPCs I noticed who had story arcs were Solaire, who was eminently ignorable after he gives you the white soapstone, and Siegmyer, who was the only exception to my bitching and I actually liked, possibly because I could interact with him more than once (okay, Solaire was actually twice).
