I don't understand why people enjoy Dark Souls/Demon's Souls

[hooblabla6262]

It sounds to me like the OP got stuck early on and decided that it must be because he didn't know all the secrets.
It isn't, unless you mean the secret button on your controller which instantly kills everything.
Cause that's what we've all been using.

-snip snip-

Also, the Guppy speaks the truth

 

[shrekfan246]

Some very basic gaming mechanics such as the poor lock-on system and lack of a pause option really dragged it down for me.

Uh...poor lock-on system? I'm not sure what you mean. I didn't realize it was difficult to click R3(or whatever it is for keyboard) to lock and cancel that lock. Or that it was difficult to simply move the stick in the direction of the target you want to change your lock to. In what way is the lock-on system poor?

I imagine it's probably more an issue with the camera than the actual lock-on feature, but that's just a guess.

Can we just start naming these topics appropriately? Title them "I don't like game X, defend it to me so I can shout you down", or "I'm needing a hot topic badge, popular game is rubbish! Discuss."

Hah. At least then I wouldn't feel the need to click on those threads out of my own morbid curiosity.

OT: You know, I think I've seen the "Dark Souls is so hard guise!" reputation perpetuated more by people who have never or will never play Dark Souls than by the people who are fans of it.

Also, saying roguelikes have different dungeons every time you die and play through again is like saying Diablo or Torchlight randomize their dungeons. You're still getting the same basic tileset with the same basic layout and the same art style every time you go through, the only difference is that every now and then this room is over here! Instead of being where you found it the first time. And "dull, boring" is the last thing I'd call the areas of Dark Souls, while "washed out" in this case appears to mean "not vibrantly exploding with color and garish contrast".

Basically, I'm agreeing with Guppy up there. OP has common misconceptions about the games and appears pretty deeply set on keeping them.

Also, people (admittedly much better at the games than I) have beaten the Souls games at level 1 and (I believe) with the starting equipment. So it's not really about knowing where everything is so you can always have the "best" armor and weapons.

 

[Maxtro]

I liked Dark Souls in spite of it being hard.

I enjoyed the world, the gameplay, building my character.

Some difficulty is nice, but I believe that Dark Souls was too hard. I play games to have fun, not to master them, or get crushed if I don't.

 

[Mr Companion]

Here is a list of "dull, washed out" levels from Dark Souls:

-A massive marble city of the gods perched atop a mountain illuminated by an illusionary sunset.
-An endless sea at the bottom of the world holding up the earth with twisted trees miles high.
-An orange glowing hellscape of strange temples and deformed demons
-A mysterious eerie forest ruled by a matriartrchal cat-bear.
-A creepy, decrepit flooded town of ghosts
-The past where humanity is corrupting the order of the old world
-A bleak painting where the bastard child of god and dragon is hidden away in shame.

Each of these places has a wildly differing aesthetic and the whole game is thick with tension, atmosphere and wonder.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Aye, I actually do think that you're doing it 'rong.

I didn't start playing Dark or Demon's Souls for the difficulty. I actually held off playing Demon's Souls because everyone and their mom were shouting and crying and whining about how unforgiving and stupid hard it was. Turns out that the truth couldn't have been any more different.

Both Demon's and Dark Souls are, to me, gaming bliss. I've even come to the conclusion (after many hours of playing and many a thread on here) that the Souls games are pretty much like Ghosts 'n Goblins or Ghouls 'n Ghosts, with infinite lives thrown into the mix, and some of the more infuriating randomness removed. You need a Iaito blade? You'll always find it there. Right over there. You haven't mastered jumping yet? Well, it's about time to do that or die horribly. Over and over again.

You can play through the whole game with your starting gear, upgraded or not, depending on how rad, masochistic or bored you are. You can play through it with bow and arrow and dagger, with magic or a hammer the size of a small car. My first playthrough was as a rogue, and I very much enjoyed my ride through partially roguelike Souls 1.0 and 2.0... and, no, neither Souls game is anywhere near as crushing, punishing or unforgiving as a proper roguelike - and I like it like that. Your player character will be with you all along, and you can stop putting souls/credits/points into levelling up once you've hit the sweet spot for online multiplayer. You can keep creating characters up to that level and see how you fare, how much fun it is. You can level up to pretty ridiculous levels of having almost everything or everything maxed up, if you want. And the game will still throw the very same enemies and tests at you, killing you in one fall, two hits or ruining your precious gear by having someone throw up all over you.

To me, Demon's Souls is zen in gaming form, closely followed by Dark Souls. I revised my stance on this one after going back to playing Demon's Souls - after two years - and finding out that, yes, Demon's Souls is just about perfect. Dark Souls is a great game and a superbly excellent ride all by itself, but Demon's Souls is the more rounded, more grounded and more polished piece of art all things considered.

...and, YES - as it's been mentioned/questiond on GT just recently - if you watch the mimics closely, you'll not only see subtle differences in design, you'll actually see them breathe and move ever so slightly.

I've played many a game, but none have come close to the various fulfilling experiences of the Souls games. Is every aspect of them smurfing-glitching-blockhead proof? No! And still, they're far above anything else I've played, and methinks that deserves some gratitude and respect.

 

[GundamSentinel]

The biggest misconception surrounding the series is that people only play it for the difficulty.

I personally love the atmosphere of the series, sure, the difficulty plays a huge part in setting that feeling of dread, but the world these games take place in are a lot deeper than they first appear.

Same here. Don't care much about the difficulty, but what I like is that the game dares to tell a story and build a world without senseless exposition. To me, that gives a better sense of exploration than Skyrim ever did. Not to mention the dark atmosphere and grand locations.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Here is a list of "dull, washed out" levels from Dark Souls:

-A massive marble city of the gods perched atop a mountain illuminated by an illusionary sunset. http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17rqelatg3gf5gif/ku-medium.gif
-An endless sea at the bottom of the world holding up the earth with massive trees miles high.
-An orange glowing hellscape of strange temples and deformed demons
-A mysterious eerie forest ruled by a matriartrchal cat-bear.
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17rqdzngdowqmgif/ku-medium.gif-A creepy, decrepit flooded town of ghosts
-The past where humanity is corrupting the order of the old world http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17rqdvz92smd0gif/ku-medium.gif
-A bleak painting where the bastard child of god and dragon is hidden away in shame.

Each of these places has a wildly differing aesthetic and the whole game is thick with tension, atmosphere and wonder.

Where's the thumbs up or the like button on here? Can't find it.

I'll just go ahead and flag you to let the mods add some glitter and pizzazz to your post, for you deserve it.

Wait. I probably shouldn't do that. OK.

 

[Quicksilver_Phoenix]

Hrm. I'm not sure what you're doing. I've never had problems locking onto Storm Beasts(except for when I try to, I can't lock onto them for my life), or enemies that are in the background. Whenever I use the lock-on system, it snaps to the monster closest to me by default. Unless my camera is pointed directly at another monster, to which it will snap to them. I honestly can't see any problems with the lock system that can't be subverted by simply having the monster directly in your sight when you lock onto them. Even if I do target another monster, all I have to do is flick the stick in the direction of what I want to target and bam, target changed.

Edited for addendum that I left out by mistake.

Heh, i'm not doing anything particularly odd. You must be pretty lucky then. I've a few friends who've joked with me about lock on woes too, so it's not an isolated case.

There's another thing with the lock on actually. When switching lock on targets, there's no easy way to select the one you want in a crowd due to the seemingly random nature of which target it switches to.

These are minor gripes, of course. The games are really awesome.

 

[Ikasury]

i'm sorry what? ?

you don't have to 'know everything' about the game to play it, the point is 'learning', its a game series that emphasizes skill that can only be learned by PLAYING THE GAME, figuring out what combat does what, what effects do what, etc. etc. sure you can 'get' swank weapons and armor and stuff, sure you can 'get' level upgrades and crazy sheninigans that 'help' you live longer, but even having a maxed out character with the most decked outfits/weapons in the game... if you walk in totally haxed the fuck out thinking THAT would keep you alive... ***** you gonna get stomped by a Grey Demon and i'm gonna laugh XD

its not really an 'elitism' thing, it is rather masochistic game play and EXTREMELY frustrating... but oh so fucking SATISFYING when you reach whatever goal you've been trying to achieve... i can't think of a single game otherwise where i can't just grind a few hours, gain +10 lvls on anything and stomp everything... Demon's Souls/Dark Souls it doesn't MATTER what your level/equip/stuff is if you have the skills to pull off the most crazy shit... ever watched the 'full game runs' on youtube, that shit is amazing to watch, especially since its people running the full game from beginning to end in about 2-3hrs... beating it with a BASIC CHARACTER... sure it makes me feel retarded for decking out my characters and trying so damn hard but its damn impressive that its possible...

they still DIE... alot... it not possible to NOT die in these games...

why are they so popular? i don't really know... i just know that occasionally i get this itch to play and i do so, no matter how much time has passed and how much of a rage-fit i threw my console the last time for getting squashed by the goddamn flame-lurker for the 5th fuc- err... *coughs* where was i? oh right, itch to play that is awesome...

plus what the hell do you mean the levels are boring? are you high? yes its the 'same' levels-of-sorts, same areas of sorts, and the same enemies of sorts... but so what?! these levels are HUGE!! and BEAUTIFUL!! AND AWESOME!! what abut them is boring? and the fact you have to actually think about how to get all the hidden items is impressive and very old-school-y...

though i think the thing i love about them most has nothing to do with the 'difficulty' of the games... i honestly just want to get more tidbits about the world and the characters... Demon's Souls has some of the BEST characters and you know next to NOTHING about them... just scraps of information and the few times you meet them, so figuring them out to me is way more fun the the constant dying... Maiden Astraea is a personal fav of mine and what her story 'could' be... the constant guessing fascinate me, like what the fuck is with Avina, a GIANT FUCKING CAT... THAT TALKS... and gives like no fucks... what's with her? why does she have a pact? why is she so creepy yet alluring?

the complete ambiguity in the story/characters is fascinating, not to mention it is NOT afraid to show horrors... the entire atmosphere of the games makes you uncomfortable and unsure about everything, about what you're doing, why are you doing it!! nothing is concrete and everything is cruel... suppose its just another one of those things like Berserk and Evangelion that pique the human fascination with the dark, deranged, and depraved...

oddly i always felt Dark Souls was a lot 'lighter' then the original Demon's Souls... but it is more fleshed out and complete-ish... and there's a weird amount of 'hope' in that game where as Demon's Souls was just soul-crushing... no two ways about it...

simple answer? masochism... that's why!

 

[runic knight]

Here is a list of "dull, washed out" levels from Dark Souls:

-A massive marble city of the gods perched atop a mountain illuminated by an illusionary sunset. http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17rqelatg3gf5gif/ku-medium.gif
-An endless sea at the bottom of the world holding up the earth with massive trees miles high.
-An orange glowing hellscape of strange temples and deformed demons
-A mysterious eerie forest ruled by a matriartrchal cat-bear.
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17rqdzngdowqmgif/ku-medium.gif-A creepy, decrepit flooded town of ghosts
-The past where humanity is corrupting the order of the old world http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17rqdvz92smd0gif/ku-medium.gif
-A bleak painting where the bastard child of god and dragon is hidden away in shame.

Each of these places has a wildly differing aesthetic and the whole game is thick with tension, atmosphere and wonder.

Where's the thumbs up or the like button on here? Can't find it.

I'll just go ahead and flag you to let the mods add some glitter and pizzazz to your post, for you deserve it.

Wait. I probably shouldn't do that. OK.

They even forgot the beautiful crystalline cavern inhabited by golems and giant magic moths, the truly claustrophobic darkness of the crypts and the other levels too. Each one was unique and even the ones I hate most, like the rickety town on the blighted poison swamp, were full of atmosphere and a mix of excitement of discover and dread of what new hell awaited you.

There should be more sparkly in that post quoted.

 

[Vegosiux]

Here is a list of "dull, washed out" levels from Dark Souls:

-A massive marble city of the gods perched atop a mountain illuminated by an illusionary sunset.
-An endless sea at the bottom of the world holding up the earth with twisted trees miles high.
-An orange glowing hellscape of strange temples and deformed demons
-A mysterious eerie forest ruled by a matriartrchal cat-bear.
-A creepy, decrepit flooded town of ghosts
-The past where humanity is corrupting the order of the old world
-A bleak painting where the bastard child of god and dragon is hidden away in shame.

Each of these places has a wildly differing aesthetic and the whole game is thick with tension, atmosphere and wonder.

Just using snazzy fancy and buzzy words to describe something doesn't actually change it, you know. I am one of those people who found DS simply boring and dull. Uninteresting. Not motivating. It's currently sitting on my backlog and will be getting another chance sometime later, but what you did here is more like how real estate ads will list "cozy" when the property in question is "small and cramped", or "retro look" when it's obvious it hasn't been renovated in decades.

 

[Ikasury]

...and, YES - as it's been mentioned/questiond on GT just recently - if you watch the mimics closely, you'll not only see subtle differences in design, you'll actually see them breathe and move ever so slightly.

i just had to comment on this...

REALLY?! O.O!! someone just stood there and watched a mimic? and it breathed?

*snickers* XD

ohmigawd!! that's freakin' awesome, that small tidbit of detail XD so much love for these games for their odd small details :3

and yes, i agree in a way, just something about Demon's Souls that's a step above, if i put the two next to each other Demon's Souls always wins (i may be biased though since it has Maiden Astraea...) even though Dark Souls is definitely smoother, more stuff, and blindingly beautiful... there's just something THERE about the Nexus that Lordran doesn't have... -.-

and Priscilla is a nice try, but no... fluffy doesn't win the game!

 

[COMaestro]

As for the lock-on, I didn't even know it existed for quite a while. I don't know if it wasn't covered in the tutorial or if I just missed it. I still got though a few stages without it, and man did things seem easy once my brother-in-law pointed the lock-on out to me. I have only played Demons Souls (though I also own Dark Souls) and I was enjoying it very much. Unfortunately I have had to set it aside for the foreseeable future, as my wife and I had our first child who is now 20+ months old and we're due to have another child in December. Lack of a pause button when you may need to get up at any moment makes the game near impossible for me to play. I'll get back to it eventually, but there are plenty of good games that CAN pause for me to play in the meantime.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Heh, i'm not doing anything particularly odd. You must be pretty lucky then. I've a few friends who've joked with me about lock on woes too, so it's not an isolated case.

There's another thing with the lock on actually. When switching lock on targets, there's no easy way to select the one you want in a crowd due to the seemingly random nature of which target it switches to.

These are minor gripes, of course. The games are really awesome.

Switching targets in a crowd definitely is frustrating, I'll not deny that. But I've found it's less random, but more about camera and monster alignment. Whenever you go to switch targets, it switches to the monster that is closest to the one currently locked on to, corresponding to the camera's alignment. Move the camera a bit and it'll change to whatever monster is now closer to the current target(I haven't seen that distance between you and the actual monster matters all that much). My only real problem with locking on is I always feel like I've got a severe case of tunnel-vision.

This is just my experience, of course. But I play Demon's Souls and Dark Souls much in the same way that I play Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, that I prefer to free-cam my fights. Targeting just makes it conveniently easy to keep the monster in my direct line of sight, in front of me. But it wrests away too much of my movement and control for me to actually want to lock on(of course, I use the lock system on other players because only a fool turns their back on somebody capable of backstabbing).

 

[Ikasury]

Here is a list of "dull, washed out" levels from Dark Souls:

-A massive marble city of the gods perched atop a mountain illuminated by an illusionary sunset.
-An endless sea at the bottom of the world holding up the earth with massive trees miles high.
-An orange glowing hellscape of strange temples and deformed demons
-A mysterious eerie forest ruled by a matriartrchal cat-bear.
-A creepy, decrepit flooded town of ghosts
-The past where humanity is corrupting the order of the old world
-A bleak painting where the bastard child of god and dragon is hidden away in shame.

Each of these places has a wildly differing aesthetic and the whole game is thick with tension, atmosphere and wonder.

Where's the thumbs up or the like button on here? Can't find it.

I'll just go ahead and flag you to let the mods add some glitter and pizzazz to your post, for you deserve it.

Wait. I probably shouldn't do that. OK.

They even forgot the beautiful crystalline cavern inhabited by golems and giant magic moths, the truly claustrophobic darkness of the crypts and the other levels too. Each one was unique and even the ones I hate most, like the rickety town on the blighted poison swamp, were full of atmosphere and a mix of excitement of discover and dread of what new hell awaited you.

There should be more sparkly in that post quoted.

Valley of Defilement... i don't think there's a single place in a video game that has as much mindfuck, RUN AWAY!! and screaming involved from me... its just downright creepy, not only just killing you with its mere presence, but thinking about what happened there... *twitches*

Qualaag's lair, freaky spider domain had this same feeling too ;; just the range of places and environments in each game and the between them is astounding and very atmospheric... very good at setting the tension of 'you will die' indeed... and the realization that 'dying' isn't the worst part T.T

 

[aba1]

One thing I really liked about the series is that nothing levels up with you. In skyrim it never feels like you are making any real progress because everything gets stronger as you are but in Demon souls I can really feel the difference as I go through the game because when I go back a few levels I can just clean up because I have leveled up so much.

 

[DanielBrown]

Personally I fucking love medieval themed settings and RPGs. Mix them togeather and I can't resist.
I don't like challenges so much though, so in both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls I cheated... Though I did complete Demon's Souls 1 ½ time before I found out about the cheats.

No cheat could help the cheap deaths though, and even with maxed stats you were still weak as a twig, so the "difficulty" didn't exactly go away.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Personally I fucking love medieval themed settings and RPGs. Mix them togeather and I can't resist.
I don't like challenges so much though, so in both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls I cheated... Though I did complete Demon's Souls 1 ½ time before I found out about the cheats.

No cheat could help the cheap deaths though, and even with maxed stats you were still weak as a twig, so the "difficulty" didn't exactly go away.

At Soul Level 516 in Demon's Souls, the only boss I couldn't kill within 5-10 seconds was Storm King, simply because you have to use a very specific weapon against it. Put on some halfway decent equipment and use a decently powerful weapon and you're not really a twig anymore. It's no longer simply defending yourself, so much as the game is defending itself from you.

Put on Brushwood Armor and even Flamelurker, lauded as easily the most difficult boss in the game(he's not) stands little chance.

 

[Quicksilver_Phoenix]

Switching targets in a crowd definitely is frustrating, I'll not deny that. But I've found it's less random, but more about camera and monster alignment. Whenever you go to switch targets, it switches to the monster that is closest to the one currently locked on to, corresponding to the camera's alignment. Move the camera a bit and it'll change to whatever monster is now closer to the current target(I haven't seen that distance between you and the actual monster matters all that much). My only real problem with locking on is I always feel like I've got a severe case of tunnel-vision.

This is just my experience, of course. But I play Demon's Souls and Dark Souls much in the same way that I play Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, that I prefer to free-cam my fights. Targeting just makes it conveniently easy to keep the monster in my direct line of sight, in front of me. But it wrests away too much of my movement and control for me to actually want to lock on(of course, I use the lock system on other players because only a fool turns their back on somebody capable of backstabbing).

I can't say that i've had quite as smooth an experience with lock ons but, as you said, the game is about experiences. I'm sure plenty of people have had experiences either way.

I do use the lock on a lot for normal enemies, as I find it makes rolling to avoid attacks vastly easier. It's pretty much useless for any large bosses though. Using it on, say, the Tower Knight or Sif pulls your camera skyward when you're close, making it very hard to see what's going on.

 

[Praetox]

I'm not entirely sure why I enjoy it so much. Could be the challenge, the world, the creatures, the lore, or how they all just mesh together. Whatever it is, I love the game. Thankfully, modders have turned the PC version from a stinking pile of crap into pure awesomeness