I shall now say unkind things about Dark Souls.

[daveman247]

"It's not your kind of game" is no excuse for bad design.

Thing is, apart from the total lack of story, it's exactly my kind of game.

i guess... But that would totally change how the game is. The levels are built AROUND the bonfires. With the various shortcuts etc.


I havnt got too far either, and so far the bonfires have been in pretty good places. Theres usually one near (Or a shortcut) quite close to the boss.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Yeah I really love the design of the game it's kind of fantasy mixed with photorealism and looks great.

Yeah i like how EVERYTHING looks evil. Which fits the story i made up for the game (since i was a bit lost on what as actually happening.)

Am i on the right lines thinking your character is exploring hell? Everything wants to kill you, yet you cant die. And your "hollow". The idea fits i think.

Well it certainly does seem like hell haha.

You are cursed with the darksign (which means you can't die and you will eventually go 'Hollow' which basically means the mindless undead that attack you.) These undead are reviled in the outside world (as they eventually will be very dangerous) and so they are locked up in the Undead Asylum at the 'end of the world'. You character escapes and learns of a prophecy which they then proceed to fulfill and the story basically takes off from there.

 

[daveman247]

Well it certainly does seem like hell haha.

You are cursed with the darksign (which means you can't die and you will eventually go 'Hollow' which basically means the mindless undead that attack you.) These undead are reviled in the outside world (as they eventually will be very dangerous) and so they are locked up in the Undead Asylum at the 'end of the world'. You character escapes and learns of a prophecy which they then proceed to fulfill and the story basically takes off from there.

Ah, i see. I like my idea more though Exploring hell, collecting souls and humanity. All the non hostile people still being a bit mental... It all fits!

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Well it certainly does seem like hell haha.

You are cursed with the darksign (which means you can't die and you will eventually go 'Hollow' which basically means the mindless undead that attack you.) These undead are reviled in the outside world (as they eventually will be very dangerous) and so they are locked up in the Undead Asylum at the 'end of the world'. You character escapes and learns of a prophecy which they then proceed to fulfill and the story basically takes off from there.

Ah, i see. I like my idea more though Exploring hell, collecting souls and humanity. All the non hostile people still being a bit mental... It all fits!

Yeah the story is pretty minimalistic so I don't think there much problem in interpreting how you want hehe.

 

[Shuguard]

If you need some assistance OP or need questions answered i'm willing to give advice just drop a PM and we can chat on ventrillo or back and forth PM's whichever you prefer. I recommend reading up on the dark souls wikispaces for strategies and a walkthrough if needed. The capra demon is tough in the beginning, but imagine the game getting worse and that is what will happen.

 

[Therumancer]

The point of the design was to make things fairly tedius, and to punish you for failing so to speak, if you can just rez and keep zerging the bosses it would become like any other game.

To be honest a lot of the challenge of Dark Souls is simply the frustration, and that you tend to make mistakes when you start to get annoyed.

That said I really didn't play much of this one (I put more time in on a Friend's copy of Demon's Souls) the reason why is simply that I couldn't play as a mage anymore, since magic was too much of a finite resource... and well, my handle is "Therumancer" for a reason.

That said, some of those bosses were intended so that if your not a really hard core player the best solution is to show in in a condition to summon other players. All of them can be beaten solo, but it's far easier with help.

I will also say that I have mixed opinions about the entire "tough but fair" thing as I've felt that some of the sequences with dragons and such were anything but. Ditto for the way some of the fire bombers can spawn in places where you can't see them but they can attack you. If you die enough times you can anticipate all the possibilities, but I still think the game can be pretty bloody arbitrary, and that goes for both Dark Souls and Demon's Souls.

 

[dancinginfernal]

I agree with everything you said, and still adore the game and it still remains my 2011 Game of the Year.

God damn, once you become skilled at that game it's legitimately difficult to put down the controller.

 

[Jazoni89]

I preferred the atmosphere, and level design of Demons Souls much better. It felt more coherent to me, and less repetitive compared to Dark Souls.

Plus Demons Souls, even with how difficult it was, it still felt beatable and fair. Dark Souls was far too hard for it's own good most of the time.

 

[repeating integers]

God, I hate that kind of game design. Halo CE was bad with this too (good otherwise, but the checkpoints... (ノಠ益&#3232ノ彡┻━┻ )

Yahtzee had a good quote on the subject. "We know I'm awesome, stop MAKING ME PROVE IT!"

 

[OrpheusTelos]

I actually have yet to play Dark Souls, to go off topic. I've kind of been on the fence about it. I think the emphasis on lore (a rather unique approach to narrative)and the atmosphere look really neat, and I'm always up for a good action-RPG, but I'm not terribly fond of high difficulty to begin with. I suppose I'll probably try it one of these days, but I'm not sure if I'm going to make it very far. xD

 

[daveman247]

haha that took me by surprise too. Luckily i found a glitch and killed it in two seconds

Running to the fog gate and then making it fall off the cliff is not a glitch, that's intentional. Unless you meant something else, then I'm curious to hear about it. On almost all my characters I've had quite a lot of trouble with it. Only on my witch it was really easy, because I could kill it in three hits by the time I got that far.

Yeah thats what i was talking about. It was intentional? That seems a bit weird...


Actually, a lot of the bosses you can beat by making them fall off a cliff...

 

[Feylynn]

The Capra demon fight is the perfect example of everything I consider wrong with the game. Every other fight gives you time to see its moves or to learn from an ambush, the Capra Demon is mostly bullshit luck to live through the initial dog assault, unless you happen to have really high poise armor by this point in the game for some reason.

In any other game I'd call the respawn system bad design and needless padding, but I can't do it here, because unfortunately I have made the mistake of being stupid on the internet and asking for something more 'retro' and unforgiving like a complete moron. So this means I basically agree with you, but can't throw stones because I asked for it, and through perseverance actually came to enjoy the design once it stopped kicking my ass.
(Misleading, it still kicks my ass occasionally... "While it's not kicking my ass")

Also, point to the graphics, but I actually like the aesthetics. A bit of anti aliasing and resolution wouldn't hurt.
I like that it wastes your time in most scenarios, it's actually the games only real narrative strength. Every other enemy in the game is a player that tried to do what you are doing, but died so many times their will broke and they rage quit. It's entirely bullshit sometimes, but the game does provide you the tools to make souls back extremely easily and if you spend what you can often it doesn't become to big of a problem.

The other story reason I like Dark Souls is it guilted me into being a good sister for a dying giant-spider-girl-demon. It was actually a really touching moment and the Ancient White Spider is probably one of my favorite characters ever.

 

[ImSkeletor]

I hate Dark Souls. Its a painful, repetive, ugly, DIAS game(Do it again stupid.) However, I guess its just a love it or hate game. The same things I despise are things others love.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

Try doing it in an... elevated state.

The game becomes loads creepier, and 10x more intense.

 

[V TheSystem V]

I re-bought Dark Souls recently, and now that I'm actually making progress (just beat Ceaseless Discharge) I am really enjoying it and wanna play more! It is annoying having to run for five minutes to get your souls back after dying, but if you know what's going to attack you, then those 5 minutes are no problem whatsoever.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I was gonna let everything you just said pass,... untill you started talking about how much the visuals sucked.

Different strokes, I guess, but I fucking loved the visual design of this game. Everything about it felt weird, twisted, and creepy, which only amplified the sensation of a mad world that simply wants to kill you. It had enough of a knights/castle type fantasy design to feel grounded in reality, but altered to such a degree that it feels totally unique, and above all, fucked up.

The real problem I had with Dark Souls was that ultimately you don't get a sense of gratification from defeating tough monsters and Bosses anymore. You defeat one tough Boss, there'll be a tougher one after him. You defeat that guy, and an even stronger monster takes his place. And after you defeat him... You get my point. You never reach a point were you feel like you've properly achieved anything, because the rabbit hole keeps going deeper and deeper, constantly revealing tougher challenges. This is the main appeal of the game, but in every game you should atleast get a sense that you're gaining some ground.

And the fact that the game lacks a direct narrative and characters means there's no real emotional engagement or drive beyond "Fuck, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die".

The game simply wore me out, and I stopped short of defeating The Bed of Chaos. Which is a lot more threatening than its name might suggest.

 

[MPerce]

All valid points. Yet I still love the crap out of it.

And I've only run into the "tons of walking and fighting easy people just to get killed by the boss" thing once or twice. There is almost always a shortcut from the bonfire to the boss that you can unlock the first time you get there, like the ladder in Undead Burg or the the cage elevator in that one level I can't remember the name of.