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I'm still confused about people not loving Dark Souls 3.
Is it as awesome as DS1? Of course not, but that's like the only bad thing I can say about it.

DS3 is alright (talk about damning with faint praise )

It's well-crafted, but the 'greatest hits' vibe of alluding to various things from the older games without a strong lore connection felt tired to me. That's arguably resonant with its broader entropic themes, but I found it instead reinforced the notion that the series was on its way out; more mechanically refined than ever, and more structurally cohesive than DS2, but too derivative to stand out in the same way that DeS and DS1 do.

Dark Souls 3 rules.

Also: ARMORED CORE VI has an hour slot at Taipei Games Show starting later this week!

https://www.gamesradar.com/fromsoftware ... ext-month/

Very excited to see what we have in store for us.

It's a boring rollspam-and-mash-R1 simulator.

Stamina cost for rolls was reduced dramatically, but ALL other stamina costs are unchanged. This means that blocking and shields are now worthless garbage. It also means that you aren't penalized for bad rolls, and are generally encouraged to mash the button without thinking. Rolling is extremely OP. Base DS3 roll with no modifiers is comparable DS1 ninja flip, but at a much lower stamina cost, and doesn't receive any penalties until you reach 70% equip load. For some insane reason, DS3 actually punishes you for having a lower equip load; if you drop to 25% or lower, you lose access to roll-poise. It always to your advantage to wear the heaviest armor that doesn't cross the 70% threshold. You might think that Quickstep would be even more OP, and it kinda is, but in DS3 Quickstep is only available on weapons that are really really terrible. Speaking of that...

R1 is also OP. DS2 and DS3 both take a really bizarre approach to weapon design whereby nearly every weapon gets a guaranteed 2-hit R1 combo on stunnable enemies. This is a big problem for balance because it means that in all cases, standing R1 is your weapon's most damaging attack, and renders the rest of the moveset worthless. It also means that small/fast weapons are pointless, because they have no benefit over larger weapons, and as a result, horizontal reach is almost the only thing that matters when selecting a weapon in DS3 (realism!). In DS2 this was accounted for, universal (and much stronger) poise reined in the power of R1 attacks while increasing the value of stronger attacks, and R2 attacks were better across the board and more capable of combos. Fast weapons could lay on many hits while larger weapons could juggernaut and break poise, it wasn't perfect but it at least tried. DS3 is so bad it forces me to say nice things about DS2. DS3 heavily nerfed both poise and R2 attacks, while buffing R1 even further. There's almost no reason to ever even think about pressing R2 in DS3, let alone things like backstep attacks or rolling attacks. Rolling attacks in DS3 are those things you do by accident because you were mashing the OP roll.

There's no real build or playstyle variety because your defensive option is always the same (mash roll without even looking at the screen) and your offensive option is either mash R1, probably with a sword because they are better than everything else, or run away and spam one of 3 flavors of generic projectile. Did I mention spell variety also sucks in DS3?

The bosses are mediocre generally speaking. Aldrich is only highlight I can think of. Otherwise it's a lot of generic filler. Abyss Watchers will never not piss me off because it has a kind of interesting first phase, and then the second half is just shitty Artorias with like 1/5 of Artorias' moveset. Sulyvahn stands out in my mind mostly because his AI is so broken that it's trivially easy to get him to do nothing but slowly walk towards you until he dies. Who else? Twin Princes does the whole "nothing personnel" gimmick which is funny, but otherwise he's so boring he'd fit right in with DS2 bosses. Then there's the final boss, "Gwyn but easier and less interesting, and also without any story relevance". And the DLC final boss, "You guys liked Artorias, right? Well here's Artorias for the umpteenth time"

Dark Souls 2 has a lot of problems, but it at least had ambition to be a great game. Dark Souls 3 proudly wallows in being a soulless pandering cash-grab sequel that brings nothing to the table. Its highest narrative moment is when it describes itself as a rotten tattered piece of trash that needs to be burnt away and replaced with something of value.

yeah you're being cynical to the point where your points are worthless re: the ds3 bosses.
'gwyn but easier and less interesting' - nah. just nah.

Dunno how to get sulyvan to do that. I guess the boss is good for me because i didn't figure out an exploit?
by the by i can't stand sulyvan. he cuts me up

DS3 was a pretty uninspired rehash of the previous 3 games, but my only real mechanical issue was the hilariously broken poise. It just had no real ambition, it was just checking boxes. I barely remember any of it and Steam tells me I logged over 42 hours (I also played it on PS4).

Based on purely technical merits it's a better game than DS2, but it also doesn't have a fraction of the atmosphere or ambition.

Ah, the well balanced opinion.
Lander manages to express himself without his head up his ass. No idea how he does it. We could all take leaves out of his book.

There were times playing through 3 where I felt the game was a real love letter to the fans. A farewell love letter.

Never played a mage in 3 but I don't know what the spell variety complaint is about - isn't all souls magic just variants on soul arrow and the homing orbs? i remember 2 having others but they were such shit damage there wasn't any point.

I can't get over the level of vitriol and shit-slinging people do over souls games, myself included. A few seconds scrolling an Aris DS2 stream and the chat is a never-ending ream of "this game sucks LUL" "trash game"
it really never ends. It seems this particular group of sub-humans has different opinions to chumpsfarm, eh?
From couldn't really win on boss design. The two complaints, indeed a big complaint about ds2 was " all the bosses are big armour dude."
Then you show any boss to someone that isn't Artorias or Alonne and the internet says "trash boss"
what do you do with that.

mmm gamer opinions

Remember: You can't fix stupid.

Turns out it's really, really hard to make a good boss with the souls combat engine that isn't a large humanoid enemy. The engine shines in 1vs1 combat against enemies with similar movesets to your own.

Also, just have to point out that most of the bosses people really like/remember from Souls games are large humanoid enemies. The only exception I can think of is Kalameet.

My issue with Dark Souls 2's boss design (I kinda love DS2 btw) is not the overabundance of humanoid bosses. It's the general quality of those bosses overall. DS2 was, as mentioned, very ambitious. It set out to make a lot of balance changes and provide a ton of content compared to base DS1 or Demon's Souls. And overall, it did succeed in places. The back half of DS2 is far better than the front half and feels very polished. The DLCs are fantastic. There are some excellent bosses here and there. It's just a shame that the frontloaded part of the game is where all the really shit enemies (ogres) and bosses are found. Those people who say "DS2 sucks because it only has large dudes in armor as bosses" are probably not talking about Velstadt, Pursuer, Burnt Ivory King, Sir Alonne, Looking Glass Knight or Fume Knight. DS2's issue is they kinda tried to make too much content for the game. The result is some absolutely fantastic areas (like the pirate cove or the sunken city from the DLC) and some really shit ones (rat graveyard and just dull areas in general in the early game.) There are a lot of bosses in DS2. Some are excellent and some are not so good. The same was true for Dark Souls 1, but the shitty content in DS1 was mostly gated in the final third of the game. DS2 gives you a lot of its shittiest content fairly early on, and improves the longer you play.

Plus there's the fact that some of the improvements DS2 made to DS1 are found in more subtle areas like build variety and gameplay rebalancing. Stuff that people either won't care about, won't notice or won't prefer because it's different from DS1. I personally love the rebalancing DS2 gave to shields and the expanded build options with scaling Pyro and Hex. Not to mention the elemental forging upgrades. Having a new stat you have to pump to make your dodge roll and potion drinking faster is one of those decisions that's almost universally certain to piss off players coming from the old games, however. It didn't bother me after I realized you just pump that stat to around 20 and you're fine. Leveling in DS2 happens often and you can reach a high level fairly easily compared to DS1 and especially compared to Demon's Souls.

The purchasable healing gems were probably put in there for players (scrubs) who cried about the lack of non-estus healing in DS1. But the way they chose to address that "complaint" makes DS2 too easy when you understand it. That's my biggest complaint about the core gameplay, really. I always have a stack of 99 lifegems and the cost/benefit on restocking is trivial.

I bought DS2 when it launched. I went through various phases. First I loved it, then I hated it, then I thought it was mediocre and now I kinda love it again, but with full recognition of its many faults. DS2 doesn't make a good first impression because of the way its content is arranged relative to DS1 and DeS, which front-loaded their gameplay with the best bits and hid their shitty content at the end.

Yeah, this. Utility magic is as fun as ever in DS3 thanks to its great level design. Here's a video I made showcasing exactly that shortly after the release in 2016.

This was my impression of the game too. I'm not sure what I feel about DS2 honestly, but I know even the beginning of the game with the slightly cringey old woman who beats it into that yes, you're going to die repeatedly, we get it. The more low-key you start the earlier games, even the first couple of King's Field games, felt more natural.

Look out for my book - Nuanced Dark Souls Opinions And Me (This Sort of Thing Is My Bag, Baby) - at all good bookstores. It comes with a free +1STR bonus due to excessive word count.


In fairness, you could present Aris' chatbox with any subject matter and find someone willing to shit on it in the name of chaotic neutrality. Gandhi huh, selfless bitch


I feel that as well. It started out as a vitrolic dislike of differences in early-game feel, encounter design, etc, but has eroded into a vague desire to give it a real chance sometime. The OG / Scholar split doesn't help, since opinions are all over the place on which makes the best first-play impression, which is better overall, yada yada.

And yeah, the low-key thing is an understated but critical element. The series from 2 onward took on that strange protagonist framing of "Lowly [vaguely backhanded descriptor], the time of [important event] is upon us. Despite thy [synonym for inadequacy], venture forth unto great trial and retrieve [thing of note] that ye may overcome thine [innate shitness] and [fix the world] in so doing."
It's an odd corruption of the chosen one device, making the player seem important while also browbeating them into the ground for being a total scrub.

There's great power in letting a character's lack of importance / competence / anything really, speak for itself through gameplay.

It REALLY doesn't help that the 360/PS3/DX9 version of SOTFS is different than the PS4/XBONE/DX11 version.

I personally think the DX9 version of SOTFS is the best version of DS2 (the 360/PS3 versions capped out at 30 fps). It includes the extra characters and boss fights but keeps the superior original enemy placement. The DX11 version of SOTFS does have slightly better item placement for giving the branching paths a bit more heft, and it's nice having the DLC keys hidden organically throughout the world, but the updated enemy placements are fucking awful in a lot of places.

SOTFS DX9 > vanilla > SOTFS DX11, but YMMV and all that.

The original enemy placements in DS2 are what you want. The majority of my time spent in DS2 is based off the xbox 360 version and later the xbox 360 version of Scholar of the First Sin edition. Which use the original enemy placements. You do not want the "improved" placements, which make such wonderful decisions as placing fuckoff fire dragons and ogres absolutely everywhere. The Ogres are bad enough when you only see them in around 3 zones in the game. They're bad enough then. You don't want to play a version of the game that adds more Ogres. Ogres are tied with giant rats as the single worst enemy in DS2, in my opinion. Their hitboxes make no fucking sense and the way you have to fight them is boring and stupid.



So my recommendation would be to play any version of DS2 that has the original enemy placements + all of the DLC. This is one of those games like Bloodborne where you really want all of the DLC. The Sunken King DLC is a 10/10.

I mean to be fair Gwyn is very exploitable if you just spam parry, which is kinda similar to my complaint about Sulyvahn. But I maintain that DS3's final boss is a much worse version of Gwyn. Gwyn's relentless aggression made for a standout finale because it was in stark contrast to the slow and careful pace promoted by the rest of the game. DS3 final boss being aggressive means fuck all because everything is aggressive in DS3, on account of DS3 trying really hard to be Baby's First Bloodborne but-without-any-of-the-things-you-liked-about-Bloodborne. Am I supposed to praise him because he recycles assets for his entire moveset?

Anyway, I'm not the one being cynical. Dark Souls 3 is one of the most cynical games I've ever played, and certainly the most cynical one to bear From's logo. I'm just describing what it's like to play it.


People aren't great at articulating their ideas. But you should at least try to meet them halfway. You don't need to be a mind reader to understand that Artorias and Dragonrider are very, very different things despite both being "big armour dude". People are complaining because DS2 bosses are often extremely similar to one another and usually very repetitive. Something DS2 has in common with DS3.

From could and did win on boss design, btw. One need merely look at Sekiro, Bloodborne, Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1, and in fact much of their library of non-Souls games. Even Elden Ring has plenty of good bosses, it just has 5 pointless waste of time bosses for every 1 fun one (Bear, Bearer Of A Health Bar ). DS2 and 3 have uniquely sucky bosses compared to other From games.


Tying dodge roll to a stat isn't bad by itself. But your dodge roll is really bad at base, much worse than even DS1's fatroll, and there's no visible change when you raise your AGI stat. On top of that, very often 1 point in ADP makes no difference to your character at all because you aren't at an AGI breakpoint. So the player is dumping hard-earned XP into a black hole for the vague and invisible promise of their roll getting marginally better. A player would be weird if that didn't piss them off, honestly.

This is a larger problem in DS2 not limited to rolling: your character at base level is absolutely terrible at everything and needs to level up to around 25 or so just to be at the level of competence of a DS1 character. No one starts with a shield except the class that starts with no weapon, so you can't dodge or block for a long time at gamestart and this feels really fucking bad for the player. When you do get a shield, it's identical no matter which class you picked at start, so this makes the classes feel even more same-y. When they don't feel same-y, it's only because they're incompetent at something all the other classes can do just fine. The Warrior class starts with the worst weapon out of all the classes, that's not a joke, that's Dark Souls 2's idea of game design. The Sorcerer class starts with 3 STR, which is annoying as fuck. There are a grand total of three (3) weapons and zero shields in the entire game that a level 1 Sorcerer can wield one-handed. You might say, "Ah but the Sorcerer is a devoted spellcaster who shuns all physical combat!" But here's the thing, the level 1 Sorcerer also cannot wield ANY sorcery tool in the game other than his starting equipment, and can only cast the most basic spells, including one to buff the weapons that he can't wield. So every Sorcerer player starts out Dark Souls 2 by spending their first 5 levelups on STR so they can use basic items, and then another 10-ish levels on ADP to make their roll work, before they even think about improving their spellcasting, and this is why they hate the game. The player has to invest enormously into stat points before their character even reaches a minimum level of usability.

The first 2 hours of DS2 are the hardest, because your character can't do anything. Then you buy one of the best shields in the game from the very first shop, get access to unlimited lifegems, and coast effortlessly through the other 95% of the game. Except Shrine of Amana, the one excellent area, but people bitched about that place so much that From opted not to include any good level design in DS3 lol.

Despite my dunking on DS2's bizarre ideas, at least it had ideas. I'll take DS2's lively incompetence over DS3's soulless mediocrity any day. In DS2 there are glimmers of greatness. The Gutter may be terrible, but there's an ambition to it that goes way beyond what similar areas in DeS and DS1 did, you can imagine the truly great level that The Gutter might have been, had it been executed properly. There's nothing like that in DS3. You just have discount-Catacombs, discount-Izalith, discount-Latria, discount-Blighttown, and so on, never with any attempt to do anything interesting. It feels like dark souls made by a committee of bureaucrats.

That's something I loved, actually. The warrior starts with a shit weapon, yes. But he also starts with a decent armor set and a shield. All you have to do to "patch" your warrior is find or buy any weapon and swap. This is another area where DS2's ambition shines through, imo. It's all about giving you a very specialized start that then forces you to go into the world and complete the set. Pick the Knight (I think that's the name,) and you'll get an awesome armor set and a fantastic weapon, but no shield. Grab a shield and you're good to go. Although some starts are more complete than others, most are incomplete in some area and that's deliberate. I think it's awesome, honestly.

One aspect of original Dark Souls 1 that I kinda didn't enjoy is how every origin felt the same. All the starts had fairly well-rounded stats and gear to begin. I would usually take Pyro just because the armor set was slightly rarer and you got an early Pyro spell. No matter what run I was doing (unless it was int based,) I could take Pyro no matter what.

Dark Souls 2 makes you think about what start you want to take, because of the stat distribution. There's a merchant just past the tutorial who will sell you weapons and armor, and you can grab some free weapons before even reaching the Emerald Herald. One of which is a mace, which are OP in DS2. The sorc start is the most restrictive one IIRC and you can still use a knife for backstabs until you get some levels.

The way you described leveling sounds annoying, and probably is for many players. But those concerns are really trivial the more you play DS2. Why? Because you level super fucking fast in DS2. The "souls inflation" in DS2 is quite mild compared to DeS and DS1. Those 10 levels in ADP come fast. The first 20 or so levels improve your gameplay experience dramatically, but they also don't take long to achieve.

I won't deny playing a soul level 1 character feels terrible. But unless you're on a challenge run (in which case, you deserve the pain) then it doesn't matter. By the time you kill your first boss, you will have a shield, multiple weapons and obtain more than enough XP to place your ADP at a solid level. The first major level has an 80% physical damage resist shield most characters will be able to equip with minimal investment. And it's free.

I think the Dark Souls 2 hate gets kind of overboard, but I understand. Because there are people who pretend the game has zero problems. But I think the From 'b' team's attempt to make a great game was completely sincere and the game, for me, hits more than it misses. I find DS2 the most replayable of the "Dark Souls" trilogy of games. I probably have more play time in DS2 than any other Souls game, both because the game is hella long and because I've replayed it so many times with new builds. I don't really get tired of playing Dark Souls 2 thanks to the massive variety in ways to play, all aided by early persistent hub. It's not as realistic as Firelink, but all the quick-warping definitely speeds up gameplay on subsequent new starts.

Ah yes the DS1 great boss battle that is casually jog to bosses' side, roll one attack, dish out big punish.
With such classics as Taurus Demon, Iron Pushover, and big ass demon three times.
Nito who basically can't hit you
Seath and 4K who can be beaten by standing under their nutsack and spamming attack


Bed of chaos "that doesn't count that's just a one off!!!"
Ceaseless discharge and centipede demon

I don't really see simplistic bosses as a detriment in a Souls style game. Sure you want those big memorable bosses that test all of your skill, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with a few bosses along the way that's just about solving a puzzle, or testing one specific skill. Something like the Friede three-for-all is a little obnoxious because it's really three bosses that aren't particularly tough on their own, but having to do all of them in a single go is where the real attrition comes in.
Not saying that nailing it doesn't feel awesome though.

Going good faith with my arguments is too damaging to my sanity so i have to be more of a shitter.
I fcking love DS1 so much, but most of the bosses are trash if we apply the same reductive lens that Jack applies to DS3

Capra is fucking cool though. Get doggo'd, son!

Yeah, while mostly I agree with Jack's overall point, DS1 has a ton of garbage-tier bosses. If it wasn't for the DLC...

FROM are great at boss battles, too, which is part of the reason why DS3 feels so phoned-in.

DS3 has some really amazing boss battles, I don't know what you're all on

The only thing people care about in these games are the bosses.

I just like explorin' and shit, man.

The first time I play a new From game I play it really slow. Like enjoying a scotch. I'll never get to play it a first time again, and I want to explore as much as feels natural.

Then yeah it's the bosses. Sometimes I do just feel like revisiting areas and going slow. There are a lot of peaceful moments in between all the murder.

Heck yeah exploring. Nothing codifies adventure like experiencing a high-fidelity From world for the first time, drinking in fresh vistas, forging through places you know you're not supposed to be, and growing your character into a real warrior.

Also, did anything come of that Armored Core Taipei Game Show thing? All I've been able to find is this ~20min interview with Ogura, which ended up being a big nothing. Essentially just a verbal recap of the presser material they put out shortly after the announcement trailer.

I went back for another DS1 run the other night, and after long binges of Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3, it’s kind of hard to appreciate it as much as I used to. It’s slow, clunky and feels like a relic of its time now.

The quality of life improvements are massive in the newer games. They are so much more fluid overall and it makes a huge difference when it comes to enjoying the core combat.

I don’t really get the hate for DS3. It definitely straddles a line closer to Bloodborne and I am OK with that. Best bosses in the DS games as well, IMO.

Funny my experience was the exact opposite. I was amazed just incredibly good the game was (despite the fact I was already well aware of it), and I think replaying it after playing most other games in the series only helped cement how much stuff they just nailed already in the second game, and haven't really been able to recapture as well since, even though I love all the games.

Question for both of you: Which one was your first?

Played Demon's Souls on release, fell in love, preordered Dark Souls the moment it was possible.

This was me, too. Demon's Souls still plays the best to me, but Dark Souls has the best world.

Unless we count Bloodborne, which takes both titles handily (although I haven't tried Sekiro yet).