Zero Punctuation: Dark Souls 2 - Prepare to Die Again

The Dead Singer

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Silentpony said:
Nomanslander said:
Silentpony said:
why is a game like this that waste your time so much considered the be-all, end-all of games...
It is what it is, I'm afraid DS just can't help being that awesome. Obviously the bigger something gets, the more hate it'll generate from the naysayers. But... look at it this way... Yahtzee was one, and now he isn't. So riddle me that.

;)
And I maintain Yatzhee had gone soft. Yatzhee from two years ago would have eviscerated this game, comparing it to those God awful early NES and SNES games and their arcade-milk-you-for-quarters gameplay. You know, the ones that nostalgia blinded games mistake as good when really they were just old. Hell, why not go play Milon's Secret Castle if the idea of an obtuse game is so thrilling.
This is just like when he reviewed Gears of War 2, said it was good then a year or so later played an actual good game and had to concede the point he was simply starved on quality and mistook the urine shining off of GoW2 as gold. Something similar will happen to these Dark Souls games. Everyone(Yatzhee included) is simply too used to hold-you-hand CoD games, so anything even remotely different is seen as the second coming of Christ. And when all the hysteria calms down, people will admit the gameplay/story/setting/characters/enemies weren't all that good. And I will ask "Then what IS good?" and no one will have an answer.

And then a Sonic game will come out.
Oooooooooooooooooooh, bitterness... I can almost smell the tears. Delicious.

One question tho, I'd like to know, what exactly is it "Obstuse" about the series? Serious answer, I'd love to know.
 

Ishal

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Oct 30, 2012
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Silentpony said:
Nomanslander said:
Silentpony said:
why is a game like this that waste your time so much considered the be-all, end-all of games...
It is what it is, I'm afraid DS just can't help being that awesome. Obviously the bigger something gets, the more hate it'll generate from the naysayers. But... look at it this way... Yahtzee was one, and now he isn't. So riddle me that.

;)
And I maintain Yatzhee had gone soft. Yatzhee from two years ago would have eviscerated this game, comparing it to those God awful early NES and SNES games and their arcade-milk-you-for-quarters gameplay. You know, the ones that nostalgia blinded games mistake as good when really they were just old. Hell, why not go play Milon's Secret Castle if the idea of an obtuse game is so thrilling.
This is just like when he reviewed Gears of War 2, said it was good then a year or so later played an actual good game and had to concede the point he was simply starved on quality and mistook the urine shining off of GoW2 as gold. Something similar will happen to these Dark Souls games. Everyone(Yatzhee included) is simply too used to hold-you-hand CoD games, so anything even remotely different is seen as the second coming of Christ. And when all the hysteria calms down, people will admit the gameplay/story/setting/characters/enemies weren't all that good. And I will ask "Then what IS good?" and no one will have an answer.

And then a Sonic game will come out.
Ah... quite the Nostradamus we have here.

How convenient that just when Yahtzee's opinions don't align with your own, that's when he's gone soft.

Perhaps him being used to "hold-your-hand" games is the issue. I don't think so, but let's assume it is. How does that make his claims and views any less valid? Retro games and nostalgia gazing isn't so great, I grant you, but you know what those games had to do that others now don't? Be games. Due to limited technology and budgets, they had to find ways to tell their stories through the environment. It just so happened that diegetic storytelling was the way to do that, and due to their interactive nature, they did this exceptionally well. Better than anything else. Now that technology and budgets have improved, games are trying their hardest to emulate movies, books, and anything else other than themselves in a desperate effort to be recognized as art. "Please Mr. Ebert! Take us seriously! Pretty please!"

So, why is it that the common consensus says storytelling in games is shit? Maybe critics are tired of games presenting "choice" and "interesting characters" only to pull the rug out from players by retconning the narrative and changing those characters. Maybe they're tired of shit being locked behind paywalls that sell themselves as "story driven experiences" but are priced and retailed as 60$ games. Maybe, critics and reviewers realize the medium they are involved in and see a title that embraces said medium, they show it due respect and enjoy it. There is a trend around the Souls games where people say things like, "I tried to go back to Skyrim, but the combat was so boring." and the ever popular, "Dark Souls ruined other games for me, I can't play them anymore." I never really understood these statements. But they keep happening. Yahtzee called Dark Souls, "The best Castlevania game" in his Let's Drown Out series. Why is that, I wonder? Why do so many other critics, reviewers, and content creators say similar things? Maybe it's because what ever the Souls series does, it satisfies a taste that many people have.
 

TilMorrow

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Under_your_bed said:
Hey, he said that Souls 2 was "easier for the noobs". As a noob to the Souls series, is it a good idea to do 2 first to get the hang of it and then do one? Any veterans got anything to say?
Tbh to get a good grip on how to play Dark Souls 2 easily at the start, you have to play Demon's Souls to get how the leveling and health hollowing system works and then Dark Souls for how to handle weapons and game mechanics. Then you waltz into Dark Souls 2 and realise that poise has changed and you have to master weapon controls and boss mechanics all over again. :D
 

ToastyMozart

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Vicioussama said:
Ne1butme said:
Before you play it on Steam, better get some of the mods installed. The base PC version is pants. Check NexusMods.com
It's not "pants" it's just mediocre. It's 720p and 30 FPS for most people who aren't graphic whores isn't a big deal. The game plays just as well on the PC as it does on console (But better actually cause the FPS is stable in ALL areas if your PC isn't garbage unlike PS3 and 360 where the frames dip).
I'd say a game restricting your resolution options and locking to 30Hz is grounds for serious criticism of the porting job.
The framerate, some people might be willing to look past, but being forced to use 1280x720 on a 1920x1080 screen is reeeaalllly noticeable on a computer monitor, especially since you're sitting much closer.

Having proper resolution options in a 3D game is pretty much mandatory for a platform with tons of varying display types, TV's are generally just either 720 or 1080, but there are computers running at crazy numbers like 1366x768 and 5400x1920. It'd suck to shell out for a 4K monitor and be forced to play at 720 because they didn't feel like allowing it.

It's like if the game could only output sound through the PS3's HDMI port, regardless of you having the system set up to output via the optical port. It'd be a stupid limitation that you'd expect the devs not to impose, because it makes no sense, and limits your use of the system.
 

rorychief

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Woke up today and defeated Seath the Scaleless, felt the pangs of apprehension that this awesome game would soon be drawing to a close, used impromptu Mothers day run as excuse to pick up DS2, Commenting online about how deliriously excited I am to finish up. :) Hells Yeah.

Also, I have no idea how to respond to fevered Dark Souls haters when they turn up in forums, though I always feel compelled to try as if I'll be the one who teaches them how to appreciate it. It's like if they were born with mutant tastebuds that render chocolate so as to taste like shit, and i know as someone with unimpaired sensory intake can never give an argument that would rearrange the disastrous mix up in tastes.
 

Azure23

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Dragonblade146 said:
And yet.. Console version is still just as fun, and I preferred it on the console with Dark Souls. I can't be the only person that seems to think that.
Right?
Really? Is it so impossible to enjoy the base game without any mods?
lol
Totally agree, I still pvp in the burg and haven't run into a single hacker on ps3. They're pretty much all over the Xbox and PC versions by now. Worst you have on ps3 is people using the megamule, which is IMO, fine for creating pvp builds. Which is the only thing people are doing in the first Dark Souls right now.
 

Manfred

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ToastyMozart said:
Vicioussama said:
It's not "pants" it's just mediocre. It's 720p and 30 FPS for most people who aren't graphic whores isn't a big deal. The game plays just as well on the PC as it does on console (But better actually cause the FPS is stable in ALL areas if your PC isn't garbage unlike PS3 and 360 where the frames dip).
I'd say a game restricting your resolution options and locking to 30Hz is grounds for serious criticism of the porting job.
The framerate, some people might be willing to look past, but being forced to use 1280x720 on a 1920x1080 screen is reeeaalllly noticeable on a computer monitor, especially since you're sitting much closer.

Having proper resolution options in a 3D game is pretty much mandatory for a platform with tons of varying display types, TV's are generally just either 720 or 1080, but there are computers running at crazy numbers like 1366x768 and 5400x1920. It'd suck to shell out for a 4K monitor and be forced to play at 720 because they didn't feel like allowing it.

It's like if the game could only output sound through the PS3's HDMI port, regardless of you having the system set up to output via the optical port. It'd be a stupid limitation that you'd expect the devs not to impose, because it makes no sense, and limits your use of the system.
The point, as it were, is that the console version is also locked to 720p and 30 FPS, so the steam version is literally better in every possible way, even if not fully utilizing the graphics potential of a powerful gaming PC.

You could certainly criticize them for not including the option to increase it, but the engine was designed to only ever run on consoles, and tweaking it's settings, as the mods do, causes bugs: For the first few versions of the mod, messages and some in-game text didn't display properly. And even to the present version, ladders can glitch or players can fall through terrain. The engine was heavily optimized to run the way it did; changing it would have taken ages, and I can't blame From for choosing to release their first port with fewer bugs, rather than better graphics options. You would criticize them for it either way, and I don't need to mash the game up against a rock and see how pixelated it gets to enjoy a game.
 

Zendariel

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May 15, 2012
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Manfred said:
ToastyMozart said:
Vicioussama said:
It's not "pants" it's just mediocre. It's 720p and 30 FPS for most people who aren't graphic whores isn't a big deal. The game plays just as well on the PC as it does on console (But better actually cause the FPS is stable in ALL areas if your PC isn't garbage unlike PS3 and 360 where the frames dip).
I'd say a game restricting your resolution options and locking to 30Hz is grounds for serious criticism of the porting job.
The framerate, some people might be willing to look past, but being forced to use 1280x720 on a 1920x1080 screen is reeeaalllly noticeable on a computer monitor, especially since you're sitting much closer.

Having proper resolution options in a 3D game is pretty much mandatory for a platform with tons of varying display types, TV's are generally just either 720 or 1080, but there are computers running at crazy numbers like 1366x768 and 5400x1920. It'd suck to shell out for a 4K monitor and be forced to play at 720 because they didn't feel like allowing it.

It's like if the game could only output sound through the PS3's HDMI port, regardless of you having the system set up to output via the optical port. It'd be a stupid limitation that you'd expect the devs not to impose, because it makes no sense, and limits your use of the system.
The point, as it were, is that the console version is also locked to 720p and 30 FPS, so the steam version is literally better in every possible way, even if not fully utilizing the graphics potential of a powerful gaming PC.

You could certainly criticize them for not including the option to increase it, but the engine was designed to only ever run on consoles, and tweaking it's settings, as the mods do, causes bugs: For the first few versions of the mod, messages and some in-game text didn't display properly. And even to the present version, ladders can glitch or players can fall through terrain. The engine was heavily optimized to run the way it did; changing it would have taken ages, and I can't blame From for choosing to release their first port with fewer bugs, rather than better graphics options. You would criticize them for it either way, and I don't need to mash the game up against a rock and see how pixelated it gets to enjoy a game.
I feel like voicing this makes me sound like a broken record... buuut the steam version does cause issues to some people even modded, and games for windows live causes lots of pain to others, so while it has its upsides, it's not better in every way. Also according to people it has more hackers than console versions.
 

CelestDaer

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It took me way too long to realize which 'missable character' he was talking about.
Who actually becomes half-way important halfway through the game... for a reason that took me a couple of play throughs before I even realized I'd missed the other HALF of the glaringly obvious hinting when you meet...
Captcha: which restaurant has lunch combos at blah de dah? 'I don't know that...'
 

Vicioussama

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ToastyMozart said:
Vicioussama said:
Ne1butme said:
Before you play it on Steam, better get some of the mods installed. The base PC version is pants. Check NexusMods.com
It's not "pants" it's just mediocre. It's 720p and 30 FPS for most people who aren't graphic whores isn't a big deal. The game plays just as well on the PC as it does on console (But better actually cause the FPS is stable in ALL areas if your PC isn't garbage unlike PS3 and 360 where the frames dip).
I'd say a game restricting your resolution options and locking to 30Hz is grounds for serious criticism of the porting job.
The framerate, some people might be willing to look past, but being forced to use 1280x720 on a 1920x1080 screen is reeeaalllly noticeable on a computer monitor, especially since you're sitting much closer.

Having proper resolution options in a 3D game is pretty much mandatory for a platform with tons of varying display types, TV's are generally just either 720 or 1080, but there are computers running at crazy numbers like 1366x768 and 5400x1920. It'd suck to shell out for a 4K monitor and be forced to play at 720 because they didn't feel like allowing it.

It's like if the game could only output sound through the PS3's HDMI port, regardless of you having the system set up to output via the optical port. It'd be a stupid limitation that you'd expect the devs not to impose, because it makes no sense, and limits your use of the system.
Seem I have a 1920x1080 monitor and I don't think it looked bad at all. I don't think it looked as good after modding it, obviously, but it didn't look bad. Certainly not worse than the consoles. And if you're going to determine a game is a terrible port because it doesn't look as good as YOU want it to, you come off as a shallow person. You ignore that the substance is still in tact and the gameplay is still great and functions well on the control scheme they openly said was best to play it with. Not making it uphold to visual standards, yet functions fine with a control scheme and does not crash or have any gamebreaking problems, I'd say that makes it a mediocre port. What would make it a great port is if they had improve the graphic quality for the system it's on and made a better attempt at using the default control scheme of the system it's on, but it works well enough so I say it's mediocre. What makes a bad port is a completely non-functioning or one that's so buggy and problematic that it can't even be played with any control scheme. I'm just so fucking sick and tired of seeing people complain about DkS1's port as if it was the worst port to ever grace PC. It's clear they have no memory of the terrible ports prior. FFVII, GTA IV, Saint's Row 2, Borderlands, a slew of the CoD games, etc.

Uncle_Brainhorn said:
Vicioussama said:
It's so sad how easy Dark Souls 2 is... and how they casualized the series :|
Seeing as most people disagree you just come off as trying to brag.
Most people where? I have seen some people who are either BRAND NEW to the series or people who are beating DkS2 praising it over DkS1 because DkS1 they couldn't even get passed the Taurus Demon. No joke. And we could objectively prove DkS1 was harder on release if you want. First, let's talk about the patching they recently did. They just nerfbatted a lot of bosses and enemies. They were already fairly easy as more people have beaten DkS2 in the same time than (proportionally) those who beat DkS1. And no, DkS1 never nerfed their enemies,

darksouls.wikidot.com/game-patches

sick of people claiming DkS1 got nerfs to difficulty when the patch notes even prove you otherwise. It nerfed players and the most it did to nerf "difficulty" was patching it so ghosts/skeletons gave souls (they used to not) and rearranging the Capra Demons in Demon's Ruins to be less asshole-ishly placed (cause before you'd try and pull one and would pull almost all of them and on a narrow path you had no chance).

And then if you want to, objectively, we can compare the rage threads for bosses with DkS1 in the first week with those of rage threads of DkS2. DkS1 bosses got a lot more rage. Taurus, Capra, Ceaseless (most never knew of the cheese strats and had to fight him openly having to dodge perfectly to avoid damage, aka real skill), Moonlight Butterfly (yes, even the butterfly, remember, people didn't know about Beatrice on release or how to dodge the attacks butterfly did), Quelaag, Gwyn, S*O, etc all had rage threads and a great number. The only bosses not really raged about were Iron Golem and Pinwheel. Compare that to DkS2. The only ones I see raged about are Lost Sinner, Ruin Sentinels, King Vendrick, Ancient Dragon, and Smelter Demon. Those are the 5 I've seen the most rage about in Dark Souls 2 forums. Lost Sinner is the ONLY ONE of those that's required. Though, in fairness, most prolly won't realize that Ruin Sentinel's are skippable their first play through. The others? King Vendrick's a joke. Most of his attacks are fairly slow compared to others in the souls series and swing so wide or over your head that you can dodge the attacks easily. Sometimes without even having to hit the dodge button. Same with Smelter. The worst thing about him is his DoT that's around him. Still not much and easily circle strafed/hump the leg to dodge most attacks. As for Ancient Dragon? Sure everything can 1 shot you, but his movesets are the EXACT SAME ONES as the Guardian Dragons prior to him. And even slower windups than their attacks. Anyone who got hit by him was just bad. And if you are that bad, you can still get a Gyrm Greatshield and two hand it as basically any class and 100% block his only real threat, his fire attack from above.

People who think DkS2 is harder than DkS1 are usually people that are comparing DkS1 after they put hundreds of ours into it and know ALL the fights well with their blind play through of DkS2, are people who are brand new to the series and thus don't realize what it was like with bosses you couldn't circle strafe to victory, or are just so happy to finally have a new souls game that they have blinded themselves with their fanboy vision (btw, I will fully admit to being a fanboy of the Souls series, but I won't blind myself to disappointing boss designs and level design, and no, level design is not the same as the environment design, DkS2 does have cool looking places,but poorly laid out for the most part).

I can go on also about how the limited respawning enemies aids only the bad players who refuse to learn and adapt and about how the bonfires are thrown about so plentiful that it makes most levels forgettable (DkS1 and DeS you never had it as easy to skip areas as it is here, sure places like 1-1 and 5-2 have shortcuts that bypass most the level, but they are shortcuts opened way at the end of the level when you've basically beaten it, and DkS1 there was on average 1 bonfire per zone, in DkS2 there's an average of about 3) or about a lot of things that make DkS2 easier than its predecessors. And I have seen a lot of people say "so? you only need impose personal challenges and it gets hard again" and I'm like "you shouldn't have to inflict a personal limitation to make the game a challenge on release for your first play through..." this game has design decisions that go against the very essence of the series that Miyazaki set up.

Though, don't get me wrong, I'll criticize the hell outta DkS2, but I don't think it's a bad game or that it's ALL easy. I think the regular enemies are a substantial step up in unique movesets and threats and variability to the previous souls games. I think the combat system had substantial improvements, especially for dual wielders. I think that the changes to healing make it a lot more punishing to heal mid fight or at inopportune times and I like that. I think that the weapons and item variety that's actually enjoyable and viable (as in substantially viable, like a real option to consider that works well) is better than previous games (comparing DkS1 cestus to DkS2, DKS2 are actually usable without being a joke). SO ya, it does a lot right, but it does a lot wrong too. Things they could patch out like limited respawning enemies. But there are things they can't really fix like the level design and world design being connected so poorly :\

Zendariel said:
I feel like voicing this makes me sound like a broken record... buuut the steam version does cause issues to some people even modded, and games for windows live causes lots of pain to others, so while it has its upsides, it's not better in every way. Also according to people it has more hackers than console versions.
You are definitely right it's not better in every way. But those who have had problems with GFWL are the minority and it's not even a Souls problem, it's a GFWL problem and it's gone soon anyways.

as for hackers. Proportionally Xbox360 had the same number of hackers as PC cause it was easy as hell to hack with the 360 compared to the PS3 (not that the PS3 is unhackable, nothing is). But yes, they are a problem with PC too. But that's not a flaw with the port, that's a flaw with the community being assholes like that. That's a human flaw.