Why does Dark Souls get so much praise?

[SqueezetheFlab]

Yeah, we have so many timing-based combat games with focus on atmosphere and good design, we need more of them half-circle forward + b ultra combo meter fillers with platforming because that works so well in third person games.

I am usually against kick starters, but I would be tempted to throw money at this if it were ever planned.

There have been games like that in the past, albeit linear. GodHand. Devil May Cry (sort of). The Onimusha games. The later installments of Mega Man (X and above).

I would genuinely like dark souls 3 and 2 if the combat had more meat and less wrapper.

I grew up with hard games that forced you to explore and be challenged, so none of that really does it for me anymore. That's what the anecdote was driving at.

The majority of what I do has to be interesting for me to enjoy it, after all the years of RPGs, MMOs, etc. I don't like grinding, or waiting for things to happen. I just want the creamy center of the oreo and not the cookie, though I guess I can understand why the cookie would be the world to you if you've never had it before.

 

[Marik2]

Because it is a game that filled the void for people who wanted something that didn't hold their hand and let them figure out the mechanics through experimentation and discussion.

 

[Fox12]

I just think it's pretty apparent what the immediate visceral appeal of it is.

To me it isn't. I suspected at first that it was a cultural thing where the utility is derived from a social component and that it wasn't intended to be enjoyed by itself as a solo experience. So it was kind of a neat ultra-meta game that I could not enjoy, since the people I interact with don't play many games/.

I also suspected it to be rebellion against the industry in the form of support of a product that is orthogonal to the trend of ridiculously easy games.

Another hypothesis was that it was an inside joke to convince people to buy something that isn't fun. Like chia pet was in the 80's.

Due to work and personal issues, I have been kind of unplugged from gaming culture for the past 5-8 years, so I am not sure what is real anymore.

Um, what? Dude, it's not complicated. People thought it was fun. It was a deconstruction of video game design. It did all the things a game isn't supposed to do, and it worked. It had an awesome metroidvania style map for you to explore. It had methodical, skill based combat. It had an awesome story, with complex characters, that explored themes of existentialism, entropy, death, and personal fulfillment. It had revolutionary level design. The game was simply like nothing we'd ever seen, and people liked it.

If you don't appreciate that, then that's understandable. But don't act like its only successful because of some mass troll campaign. It's an insult to the work and it's fans.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

It's all a function of patience and time, but not skill inherent to the execution.

Having the eye and patience to time/pace your moves in combat while using limited stamina to roll/attack/absorb blows is a skill.

 

[Dalisclock]

I don't consider Dark Souls minimalist like some people. The story is pretty dense. And it was a fascinating story once you dug into it, even with what I said. I'm over it now, though. I don't know if I'd still be as invested if FromSoftware tried it again. The game itself would definitely suck me in, but I don't know about the story and all the text.

I use the word Mimimalist in presenation, not in content. Yes, there's a butt ton of story in the game, but unless you actively go looking for it and comb over all of it, you're only gonna get the really broad strokes of the story. Hell, there's a fairly major plot point(about the Dark Soul) that you will never ever see unless you know where to find it and go far off the beaten track(Doing New Londo without giving the Lordvessal to Frampt), not to mention the ending to Siemeyers Storyline(Try getting to Ash Lake without knowing where it is beforehand and how to get there). Hell, everything after getting the LordVessal is pretty much "Go find great souls" and then depending on you to go look everywhere you haven't been yet, or explored before but then hit the sealed gates(Like say, going all the way through the Tomb of the Giants and then realizing that you can't go any further).

My game clocked in at 70 hours(Iincluding the DLC content) and I had a pretty good idea of where I was supposed to go. I can only imagine the game being a lot longer without knowing what to do after Anor Londo.

I rather liked the game(and was actively engaged for most of my playthrough) and spent endless hours watching lore videos to get more immersed in the world and story, so don't take this as me dumping on it. I'm just saying it could have stood to be a little less opaque telling you what's going on and how to do things.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

I never got why people didn't like Dark Souls 2 much. Apart from the one HUGE flaw of everything breaking way too easily I loved it start to finish and replayed it several times DLC included. I generally stop replaying DS1 after I get the Lordvessel because after that the game turns to crap. The only thing I will sometimes avoid in Demons's Souls is fighting Doran because he scares me..

I started Dark Souls 3 recently (already watched several playthroughs b4 I got a PS4) as a Sorcerer to get the all sorcery spells trophy out of the way. Its pretty much a grueling slog so far as I just beat the Pontif though he was one of the 2 bosses that were actually pretty easy using sorcery. The lake boss being the other one, probably easier if I didn't want to get that spotted whip.

Apart from the good graphics and music, I find DS3 to be a huge step backward. Like back to before Demon's Souls in the design department.

90% of the enemies have seemingly infinite stamina, endless combos, and zero recovery frames. The beast on the bridge heading into Ice Burg, kicked my ass endlessly. One shotting me through blocks, hitting me even if I dodged its grab attack, and somehow bending its spine into figure eights to bite me through its own damn torso or when I'm standing far behind it.

Allegedly you can poison it, but I never got that going. I just spammed GSA and GHSA like I've been doing for most of the game so far since every new spell is garbage. Crystal Hail, deep soul, pestilent mercury, and the farron darts are trash. Like you'd need to bury them in an exclusion zone on a remote asteroid and ward them against all forms of life until the universe dies they are such radioactive waste.

Roughly 50% of my deaths so far have come from the simple fact that both me and enemies can attack freely through any wall, pillar, or other obstacle with abandon. There is practically no longer any recoil upon hitting anything solid at all.

I frequently use this to my advantage with charged whip attacks, but only because every enemy I see is doing the same with spears etc. and in one particularly BS instance the Demon King hit me with his fire spray when I was standing like 10 feet back from the far side of the pile of demon corpses. The fire literally just went right through them like it was a hologram or Ceasless Discharge. It was broken back then too but at least back then you couldn't use a halberd spin attack in a narrow hallway with zero repercussions. I also get knocked on the ground and comboed to death before I can move again which is at least plausible and not an affront to the physics engine.

At least my gear is nigh unbreakable this time around. I have repair powder and spell but I can't imagine a scenario where I'd ever use them. Even if I played online and was surrounded in acid surge bukkake I doubt I'd see the red bars move much. Which is good because I love my whips, and this Greatsword of Judgement I just got is sweet. I can use its skills without breaking the damn thing for a change.

After this I plan on starting up Bloodborne which should be a better game from all accounts and the playthroughs I've seen. I liked running DS2 and previous 2 games with no shield so that won't bother me, and the threaded cane looks neat.

DS3 with no shield strikes me as not very fun, but even with one I'm still getting killed while blocking at 100% reduction due to random BS. I mean the roll spam is at a new level in DS3, but so are the enemy combos. I swear I saw a knight do a 6 hit combo, straight into stance charge and then another 4 hit combo plus 3 more attacks as the YOU DIED faded to black. The game is also almost totally linear this time around though the few branches to lead to some large areas.

Honestly if the Battle Arts system wasn't on point I'd probably just stop playing. I may be dealing with the most unbalanced and broken enemies in the series to date but at least its still fun to fight them most of the time. The chaos pyromancers can f right off though they at least seem to obey the rules of engagement established in the series thus far. The dual shotel red eyed skellies that endlessly throw multi bleed daggers, never stop dodging, and tear your ass up relentlessly were my #1 most hated until I got to that bridge. The Ghru berserkers have fallen to #3 with their instagrab and superjump spam.

The NPC invaders are some of the best fights in the series though, so I guess they CAN program decent AI when they feel like it this time around.

This might end up being the only game in the series I don't platinum because getting all the rings and gestures seems to be even more of a pain in the ass than the crap you had to do in Demons's Souls.

 

[SqueezetheFlab]

"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization."~Agent Smith, The Matrix

I think that sums it up pretty well. People complain constantly. They say they hate stress and discomfort and fear. But if we are given it all on a silver platter, with no obstacles overcome to obtain it, there is no sense of accomplishment. It quickly becomes boring.

Developers have been gradually listening to the complainers more and more over the years, making games easier and easier, thinking that's what people want. But they failed to realize that what people say they want is not what they really want.

Prehistoric human existence was a world of misery. Constant threat of fighting with neighboring tribes and invaders. Constant struggle against the harsh environment just to survive. That's how we're wired by evolution. Take away the challenges and everything suddenly feels empty because it doesn't jive with our nature. We want reward, but it is meaningless without risk.

Add in the genius area design and atmosphere, with zones that are not too big or too small (in an era where bigger is always deemed better, even if it sucks), and a fun gear/leveling system that lets you customize your character in any number of ways, and you end up with a great series of games.

You know, this would make for a very interesting philosophical discussion. On one hand I agree with the direct correlation of obstacles and rewards, but on the other it often feels like life is complicated enough by mundane bs. I want to be challenged by interesting and significant things, not bogged down by all the routine crap that still needs to be done all in between them.

As far as able bodied/minded people go, I feel like the greatest challenge in life at least in our society seems to be maximizing the ratio of both time and money in your favor. Usually it's either one or the other, but to have both means attaining the greatest level of personal freedom and enjoyment.

 

[Carton of Milk]

wow i'm glad to find someone else who doesn't get this series.


I said recently that Dark Souls represented a lot of things i hate in games and someone told ne that, without hyperbole, this was the worst opinion on any game they'd ever heard.


I'm 38 and like you i feel a lot of been there done that in Dark Souls gameplay. I don't like the concept of boss fights anymore for a start. yay fight the same enemy 20 times to figure out how to beat it and supposedly be happy it took you 4 hours of your day to beat it. If i played 30 mins in any game nowadays and i've made zero progress, nope, moving on to something else. Not a fan of backtracking endlessly to figure out what you need to do next either. Been there, done that. Bought and Returned the t shirt.

And yes this style combat is outdated as hell to me.

The art design is nice though.

I'm cool with its success now but when i played the first dark souls i got ACTUALLY angry because i couldn't understand why a game i disliked so much in almost every way could get so much praise.

But then i remembered we don't all have to enjoy the same things.

 

[Vigormortis]

Well... I was here for that stuff too, you know.

Fair 'nough. I should have noticed your join date was 2010, which was roughly the year the whole "Half-Life 2 sucks and you're all stupid for liking it" threads reached critical mass.

In fact, we had a 'Why don't people realize Half-Life 2 sucks donkey dick' thread here only a couple of months ago. It got locked, if I remember correctly.

Really? I guess old trends die hard around here. Especially if they're antagonistic.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

The reasons why the game is gets praise: The story telling, the world building, the combat system, the death system, the pvp system, the exploration.

For me it's mainly the world and the stories which you discover while fighting through that world. The combat system isn't ultra fancy but it's very damn good. It keeps it simple but pulls it off very well. No lags, delays or wonky movement. It's crisp and that's fine.

 

[Helter Skelter]

Because it's a series that ranges from absolutely stellar, to just "Much better than most other games"?

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

It's all a function of patience and time,

a rarity in current AAA state

I get the lack of hand-holding being an attraction nowadays, although I suppose that having grown up with games that forced you to guess about everything (often due to horrible graphics), it doesn't really impress me.

again a rarity in current AAA state

am I missing something? Is it the fact that games have recently gotten stupidly easy (Batman, Witcher, etc.) and this game offers some form of difficulty?

and again a rarity in current AAA state. i really think you've hit the nail on the head for me. it's not that this is amazing, it's just that it's not often you come by it, so that's why I've forgiven its shortcomings.

Why can't we have games like this, but with much more complex combat? Put physics into swings, add REAL MOMENTUM AND FORCE! Like some of the other new games are doing (chivalry, war of the roses, etc.). Let characters climb. Make platforming a viable option. Simply add more COMPLEXITY to the EXECUTION in the game. The character development can stay the same and I would be happy.

sign me up

 

[BarryMcCociner]

Fan speculation? Do you know what speculation means?

I'm sorry but "you just don't get it" doesn't even begin to describe the problem with that point. See, sometimes there's information in the background. Not every plot detail needs to be explained to you. Sometimes you need to take a step further in order to fully understand a story and hash things out in your own mind. For instance, I'm just re-reading 1984, and one of the worst things this book (which I love) does is that it actively gives you too much explanation. Winston is constantly asking the question "Is Ingsoc actually at war with Eastasia and Eurasia, or do they actually dominate the whole world and the war is simple propaganda?" This shouldn't be painstakingly sounded out for the reader, it should be a question that is subtly implanted in their mind that they ask themselves.

The same goes for most of the observations Winston makes, rather than him telling us early on that one of his neighbors is too intelligent to not be "vaporized" (go missing and have his name stricken from public record) by the state, Orwell should have simply had that character disappear at some point, leading the reader to ask themselves where this character went and whether or not that is important to the story.

Not every plot detail needs to be made abundantly clear, there is such a thing as non-verbal storytelling. Information can be made clear to an audience through things as simple as color usage and character design.

And as for no puzzles? You can't just make an example of a puzzle then say that doesn't count. That's obtuse and you know it.

And your point about the combat, you know you can make anything sound stupid, repetitive and boring if you use that kind of language, right?

Witcher 3, search for red smears in the grass, read bestiary entry, apply oil to sword, drink potion, use sign, dodge, strike, strike, occasional potion, occasional sign, occasional strike, keep going, repeat until your beard reaches your knees.

 

[Asita]

I grew up with hard games that forced you to explore and be challenged, so none of that really does it for me anymore. That's what the anecdote was driving at.

The majority of what I do has to be interesting for me to enjoy it, after all the years of RPGs, MMOs, etc. I don't like grinding, or waiting for things to happen. I just want the creamy center of the oreo and not the cookie, though I guess I can understand why the cookie would be the world to you if you've never had it before.

I think then that you missed the point being driven at when people say that Dark Souls gives you an experience. The difficulty is not in and of itself the experience. It's that the difficulty reflects on an aspect of the story, making it more than just the sum of its parts, much like resets and the constant choice to kill or give mercy to any given encounter in Undertale. In the case of Dark Souls the difficulty and the stress it causes the player reflects the overwhelming despair of the dying and seemingly hopeless world in which the game takes place. More than that, however, it integrates the respawn system into the high concept of the setting. As an undead you cannot truly die, but when they lose their sense of purpose and drive, they go hollow. They either keep on pushing against seemingly insurmountable odds or they give up and lose themselves. The difficulty is not itself a selling point, rather, it is how the difficulty and resultant frustration meshes with the narrative to create a story that simply cannot be as effectively told in non-interactive mediums.

The same principle applies in a Nuzlocke run for Pokemon. The self-imposed limitations of the Nuzlocke run largely remove the interchangeable nature of the pokemon at your disposal and not only practically mandates that you use pokemon that you wouldn't ordinarily use, but also creates a stronger emotional connection to those game characters. It's not uncommon, for instance, for participants to hate that they had to add a given pokemon to their party and get choked up when it "dies" later in the game. In a weird way, it better reflects the philosophy that the protagonists are supposed to embody than the rules of an ordinary run do. That is what it means for gameplay to give you an experience. Not that it is difficult, not that it doesn't hold your hand, but that the gameplay actively helps to tell the story.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

In addition to all that's been said in favor of the game, I really do think that DS is a franchise that you truly benefit from playing right at release. The sense of wonder and exploration is much higher and the buzz within the community makes for a different experience than trying it months or years later. Dark Souls (to me) is at its best when you have that dichotomy between the oppressive and nihilistic nature of the story and world combined with the teasing and mildly dirty messages left by players on the ground.

Also, not everyone has to like the same stuff. It's no one's job to prove one side wrong and the other right.

 

[Bawsto]

In addition to all that's been said in favor of the game, I really do think that DS is a franchise that you truly benefit from playing right at release.

I've played every Souls game well after its release date and I absolutely adore the games. It's something to consider, but it's not core to what makes them great games.

 

[CaitSeith]

In addition to all that's been said in favor of the game, I really do think that DS is a franchise that you truly benefit from playing right at release.

I've played every Souls game well after its release date and I absolutely adore the games. It's something to consider, but it's not core to what makes them great games.

With the bugs and glitches that happen in the first weeks, I'm pretty much against playing any AAA title right at release. But I agree that playing Dark Souls online when there's lots of players gives a slightly different experience (faster to summon other players and be summoned, more messages, more bloodstains, more freaking invasions, etc...)

 

[CaitSeith]

Almost every single message is spam, and often they will prevent you from interacting with objects, such as switches and bonfires.

Wait, that's not true. When being able to read a message or interact with an object in the same place, the game prompts you the object as the default action.

 

[Dalisclock]

In addition to all that's been said in favor of the game, I really do think that DS is a franchise that you truly benefit from playing right at release. The sense of wonder and exploration is much higher and the buzz within the community makes for a different experience than trying it months or years later. Dark Souls (to me) is at its best when you have that dichotomy between the oppressive and nihilistic nature of the story and world combined with the teasing and mildly dirty messages left by players on the ground.

Also, not everyone has to like the same stuff. It's no one's job to prove one side wrong and the other right.

The downside of playing at release is the fact that a lot of games nowadays feel unfinished when they launch. At best they have a couple DLCs which add new areas and story and content, but now you have to buy them separately when you could just wait for a complete edition and get everything.

The worst case(and this happens even more often) are bugs that somehow didn't get caught by the QA department(and sometimes major ones, like a bonfire crashing the game). BTW, did they ever fix that hacker problem DS3 was said to have or is FROM still acting like it's not their problem?

In both cases, it feels like it makes more sense just to wait for the complete version to drop and then buy it. Presumably then you get the entire package the way it was meant to be, with fewer bugs and less content, for the same or even lesser price then you would have paid orignally.

And if game companies don't want people feeling cynical about this stuff, maybe the games should be complete and relatively bug free at launch.