Why does Dark Souls get so much praise?

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

To put it in very simple terms - because it's well designed.

Most AAA games these days are a combination of poor design choices based on a checklist of what's popular in gaming and what sells. Dark Souls is an exception.
When you look at all those AAA games that are almost universally praised as best or among the best in their genre you'll see that it's largely for the same reason. For example Portal, Resident Evil 4 and Arkham Asylum. Superbly designed games. That's rare these days. As much as I think that The Witcher 3 is the best game ever made, I'm not blind to its obvious design flaws. They just don't bother me. But the existence of those design flaws is why there's a lot of people who just don't like the game.

 

[SqueezetheFlab]

In the combat thread, I generally explained why it's acclaimed so much, but this video I remember seeing a while back elaborates pretty nicely on what most people who enjoy the series think -


I very much agree with the "Whole being greater than sum of its parts", because it's true. There are definitely some individual things that other games do better, but nothing I know of really comes together into such an elaborate and grand package as the Souls series. Closest I can think of would be MGS, but even then it's apples to oranges. Both great, but for different reasons.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

'Git Gud' elitism. Its something one of those types of gamers can lord over others of that type. I view Dark Souls fans the same way I view 40k Tournament players; do whatever you want, just don't get any on me.

 

[Trunkage]

I like Dark Soul but there are problems and they can be seen more clearly as the series progresses.
Firstly, PvP is always bad if you don't put plenty of hours into it.
The spread out lore is problematic as you can easily miss it.
They try to make these boss look like they are important without giving you the reason why they are there. Most seem to be there as a test to make sure you are strong enough.
Endless talk about the fire and the dark.
No endings, its just cyclical. You cant make choices. Nothing you do means something. They don't explain the choices.
After a while you realise that it should be more like a Cthullu-esque where there are monster that you cant kill. You should just bear it. After three games, the monsters are not imposing anymore because you have defeat so many before.

The problems were in DS1 but after three versions of the same thing, they are more like glaring issue. Like after a year of being in a relationship, there are minor things that your partner does that used to not matter, but after a thousand times, do.

 

[RaikuFA]

I think part of it was timing. These games came out at the peak of over tutorialized, corridor shooters. People were sick of it. Then comes this game with high difficulty insane bosses and lore you had to look for.

 

[Pheo1386]

I can see where you're coming from; I'm a massive fan of classic games such as mega man and Sonic the hedgehog and they will always have a special place in my games collection. I do, however, feel surprised that a fan of old school challenge and minimalist storytelling would miss what Dark Souls has to offer. In my opinion, the Souks series are the only modern games that successfully carries the challenge, imagination and easy-to-learn, difficult-to-master gameplay of classic 90's era gaming into current gen successfully, as other attempts are generally unsuccessful or cheap.

That's my opinion, however, and as a self confessed souls addict I am most definitely biased.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Again with the combo thing. There was a thread like this--in fact, the very one you copied--the was wondering about combos. It is not that type of game. It has never been that type of game. If that is what you are looking for, you are playing the wrong game. You are asking for features that would feel out of place where wearing heavy armor actually slows you down, not allows you to run on walls and to a triple flip with a great sword one handed.

As for the story, it's not fan speculation. It's pieces of a puzzle that you put together. Yes, there are parts where fans are guessing--who Gwyn's lost son was before III came out, what's the deal with The Lost Sinner in II--but there is plenty of story that is hard, solid fact in the game. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Dark Souls has the most solid story out of all of the Souls games (expect Demon's Souls, because I've never played it).

 

[Just Ebola]

'Git Gud' elitism. Its something one of those types of gamers can lord over others of that type. I view Dark Souls fans the same way I view 40k Tournament players; do whatever you want, just don't get any on me.

Oh, you mean the same way 99% of people regard furries? But hey, when you're right, you're right. The dedicated fanbase to the series, the hours worth of lore videos, the ravenous search to uproot secrets and meaning before anyone else? No one gives a shit about those, it's all about lording it over and imaginary group of newcomers that get bullied away from the series by a pack of elitist sun bros!

I really don't why people keep making these threads. "I don't like X, make me like it!" Or "I don't understand why X is so popular, can you make me understand, I would do a bit of research and draw a conclusion myself, but whenever I start to do that the room starts spinning, please spoonfeed me your reasoning and send help, I'm beginning to feel fai-"

Why waste time pursuing an understanding of something you have no interest in/repulses you? I don't badger strangers to explain to me the appeal of MLP, I find the obsession with it off-putting and disturbing. All the more reason I don't try to pick the brains of those who somehow enjoy such things.

 

[DeadProxy]

There's a lot of walls of text in this thread and a Ctrl+F of Zelda turned up nothing, so that's gonna be my big reason.

It's pretty close the Zelda game play with an all grown up setting, which for some reason doesn't get all that much love from what I can recall. Only other game that comes to mind is Darksiders 2, which was basically Zelda with darksiders plot/skins.

They likely grew up with some of the 3D zelda games and really enjoyed the focus of sword play offset by tools, while also having a nice colourful world to explore that eventually turned to a dark apocalypse world. Those people then grew up and got their hands on the more powerful consoles and got to play a game that reminded them of the good old days, while also not being limited to the "Casual" crowd that nintendo was pandering to during demons/dark souls release times.

If there are more popular games that feature sword and board tactics prior to Dark souls but after Ocarina of Time, then I could be wrong, but this is mainly why I enjoyed Demons/Dark Souls, and really liked Darksiders 2, even if it followed the Rule of 3 way too strongly.


Oh, short little edit, but there is absolutely "Combos" in the Dark Soul games. Some weapons can combo into their strong attack, and depending on the direction of your last swing, your strong attack will start a couple frames earlier or later than you might want. It's not deep, but with how frame perfect the game can get, like with stun locks, or OTGs, the timing needed to know and master them is all the depth you need in a game that can kill you in 3 basic attacks.

 

[RedDeadFred]

'Git Gud' elitism. Its something one of those types of gamers can lord over others of that type. I view Dark Souls fans the same way I view 40k Tournament players; do whatever you want, just don't get any on me.

Ya, people play the games not because of any merits in design, but entirely so they can tell others that they're not hardcore like them. Why bother posting if instead of adding anything constructive to the conversation, you simply insult people because they dared to enjoy a series you don't like? Bad day?

OT: The combat is more about tactics than reflex skill. I like that you don't have to have amazing reaction times for dodging attacks when you can simply be patient, assess the situation, and solve it like a puzzle. You say there aren't any puzzles, but I'd argue that enemy placement and movesets are the puzzles.

Then there's the lore and atmosphere. Fighting Artorias for the first time after learning about his fall to the abyss and fighting his companion, Sif, on a previous playthrough was one of the best moments in gaming for me. The games have lots of moments like these. And the back drop... wow. Some of these are truly stunning. I didn't expect to be so wowed visually by a game that game out 5 years before I finally got around to playing it, but the vistas in these games are spectacular.

Ultimately, everything comes together for me into a near perfect experience. I have minor gripes and the second game definitely doesn't seem as good as the first (the hitboxes seem a bit wonky in this one), but overall, I can see why the series as received such acclaim even though I'm only half way through it.

 

[Dalisclock]

'Git Gud' elitism. Its something one of those types of gamers can lord over others of that type. I view Dark Souls fans the same way I view 40k Tournament players; do whatever you want, just don't get any on me.

If it makes you feel any better, I've recently gotten into DS while playing it for the first time and I still hate the "Git Gud" attitude. I dislike elitism in general but the whole "Git Gud" thing is one of the reasons I took 3 years between purchasing it and actually playing it(my backlog didn't help).

Anyway, for the OP, for me, I went in not sure what to think and just wanting to see what the fuss was about. I generally like the combat(The last RPG I played was The Witcher so I guess I came in with low expectations), but what really got me interested was the world and how everything fit together. Even though the world isn't particularly big, it feels big and diverse with connections everywhere and a very good sense of where things are in relation to each other(the fact you can see a fairly large chunk of the game from the firelink shrine, including places you won't go for a long time, is pretty awesome)

The lore and story is also quite interesting, but the downside of that is that you pretty much have to have an OCD level of commitment to ferreting it all out. Or you just go watch the "Prepare to Cry" videos which have already done the work for you. I ended up just breaking down and watching those long before I finished the game because I realized just how seldom the story and gameplay interact with each other(almost like the story is in one room, the gameplay is in another and there's a window connecting the two). Not to mention the fact that almost all of the story happened long before the PC arrived on the scene and you're pretty much just piecing it all together as you go and putting a bow on it(or not). However, I'm generally fine with the minimalist style of storytelling. In fact, it reminds me a lot of ICO/Shadow of the Colussus, which has almost no story at all and yet it works. I also perfer the subdued style of stoytelling to FFX(which was one of the other recent RPG's I played) where I felt railroaded through the world and many terrible cutscenes and horrible dialogue that did little service to what should have been a good story.

One thing that comes to mind while talking about this is that a lot of people have a tendency to talk about how the game is SO HARD. It's really not, at least not in the way that I Wanna Be The Guy is hard. It's difficult but not insurmountably so and figuring out how to proceed is half of the appeal. Granted, a decent chunk of the difficulty, especially in the early game, comes from the fact the game doesn't explain much to you. It took me hours before I realized I could jump.

However, it's not entirely "Tough but fair" either, because a couple places are just cheap. The Capra Demon(you know which one I mean), the Bed of Chaos and the invisible pathways in the Crystal Cave are all frustrating as hell. I don't think I'm particularly good at these types of games and I've done well enough working my way through my first DS playthrough.

Still not a fan of the PVP though and I wish there was a way to turn it off completely. Though I do enjoy annoying griefers when they try to invade me, so it's not all bad.

 

[Terminal Blue]

There is little story (sorry, fan speculation doesn't count),

You're confusing "story" for "exposition". In any other medium, this would be extremely silly. A lot of important elements in many films are things you have to figure out for yourself from contextual clues.

In video games, and particularly in RPGs we've gotten so used to being fed exposition all the time that, for me, it's kind of refreshing to have a game which just gives you none at all.

The other thing I'd say is that you seem to be viewing the game as a fighting game, so your version of difficulty is having to pull off complicated button pressing combos. I would say Dark Souls is much more like Rogue or later rogue-likes like Nethack or ADOM than it is like street fighter (note: I'm not saying it actually is a rogue-like, the term is bastardised enough already). What I mean is that part of the difficulty is patience. You're doing the same thing over and over again, but eventually you will make a mistake.

That's how old RPGs worked and how they were difficult. The difficulty wasn't in figuring out the button combos or twitching, but in developing method and patience.

 

[SqueezetheFlab]

There's a lot of walls of text in this thread and a Ctrl+F of Zelda turned up nothing, so that's gonna be my big reason.

It's pretty close the Zelda game play with an all grown up setting, which for some reason doesn't get all that much love from what I can recall. Only other game that comes to mind is Darksiders 2, which was basically Zelda with darksiders plot/skins.

Darksiders 1 and 2 had quite a few puzzles and 2 was very platform heavy, which supplemented the combat.

Zelda had plenty of puzzles and other gameplay elements other than combat as well.

What bothers me with DS is that it basically is its combat and, due to player health, along with stuns/frames, you are restricted to a very small set of attacks given weapon along with the restrictive, sluggish movement (as you had mentioned).

Boss fights exacerbate this due to large health pools, so that on most fights it feels very mindless and repetitive. Dark Souls 3 is very much guilty of this, especially on NK/oceiros.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

I mean, I have kind of a love hate relationship with Dark Souls. It's got problems upon problems and I sure as hell don't find it perfect like some people do (and side note, probably one of the most defensive and shitty communities of all time,) but I think you're being a bit facetious by pretending like you can't even grasp why people like it.

I mean at its core what it boils down to is that its a game where you get to be a knight and slay a dragon but you ACTUALLY have to overcome the odds being stacked against you like a knight slaying a dragon. It's got a lot more going on for it than just that, but if I had to cut it to a one line pitch that would be it.

Again, whether or not you PERSONALLY like it or the way it plays is subjective. I just think it's pretty apparent what the immediate visceral appeal of it is.

 

[K12]

Why does Dark Souls get so much praise? Because it's really fucking good!

Depth =/= complexity. In fact, I would say that complexity is a bad thing unless it leads to greater depth.

Dark Souls combat is probably the best mechanical example of depth with relatively little complexity that I can think of. It hasn't got that many different elements but all of them matter (weapons all feel different to use rather than just having a huge long list of different + or - or % effects which ultimately just boil down to DPS) and all of them combine so that small tweaks, in the way that enemies fight or constraints from the environment mean you have to try a different approach and work out when it's safe to attack and how.

You seem to have missed the whole atmosphere, exploration and level design aspect which are often praised as highly or more highly than the combat. Exploration is actually what you're spending most of your time doing, the combat is because you're exploring an hostile world that's fallen into insanity and barbarism. The story is told through the environment with bits and pieces here and then, it's like fitting puzzle pieces together rather than reading a flow chart and it's never fully complete. You don't need monologues or cutscenes to tell a story and the actual plot of the game isn't the most interesting part.

Agency is another important aspect that feeds into both the story and combat. You can engage with the story as much as you want, obsessively looking for every new scrap of lore to try and piece it together or ignore it all and just kill everything. In the combat, you can mould your own play-style rather than choose from a handful or pre-set ones the game designers thought of and this will significantly affect how you play. It's always amazing to me how varied people experiences of boss fights are due to this. It took me nearly 3 hours to kill the Abyss Watchers the first time round and I killed The Dragonslayer armour on the first attempt, several people I've spoken to had almost the opposite experience.

 

[SqueezetheFlab]

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.

 

[bjj hero]

To put it in very simple terms - because it's well designed.

Most AAA games these days are a combination of poor design choices based on a checklist of what's popular in gaming and what sells. Dark Souls is an exception.
When you look at all those AAA games that are almost universally praised as best or among the best in their genre you'll see that it's largely for the same reason. For example Portal, Resident Evil 4 and Arkham Asylum. Superbly designed games. That's rare these days. As much as I think that The Witcher 3 is the best game ever made, I'm not blind to its obvious design flaws. They just don't bother me. But the existence of those design flaws is why there's a lot of people who just don't like the game.

I put it down to Demon Souls and the first Dark souls being different from other titles around at the time.

I do think dark souls had far more problems than people admit though. It was far from polished.

The net code was awful. PVP, which was forced on you, was a mess. I looked forward to this feature until I saw how poorly it was executed. There was so much lag, it reminded me of playing quake II on a 56k modem in the 90s. You swing for enemy players and miss as they were no longer there due to lag. People in front of you would appear behind you to backstab. "I dont need to block that, he is out of range"... no he is in range, the game hasn't caught up. We can play Streetfighter with split second timing over the net. Massive games of battlefield 4 with loads of players, destructable environments and vehicles? No worries. 2 guys with basic commands fight in a field? Pre broardband levels of lag.

Inexcusable.

The there is the ai which was terrible. I got through the first area with the skeletons waiting for them to jump to their deaths like lemmings. I also thought sheilds were useless for over 4 hours as nothing signposted the generic skeletons as a high level area...

So I disgree over it being well designed. They may have since addressed these issues as I didnt play another souls game.

 

[Asita]

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.

As linked earlier in the thread VaatiVidya actually has a video that rather neatly addresses the core question of the thread.


If you don't feel like watching the whole 12 minutes, please just give the first three a shot, because that's the part that illustrates how the gameplay of Dark Souls tells a story through experience. Not experience points, but by making the player experience something about the world that is represented by the game.