From Software 'n such

[Obscura]

(Note that "user-friendly" does not mean "easy")

True, but I think it holds in this case, aside from the boss of the first DLC. DS3 was by far the easiest of the three for me. Still my favorite, though.

[Squire Grooktook]

Dark Souls 3 started out the easiest and become the hardest by far for me by the end.

But as we discussed, no two people seem to have the same evaluation of the franchises difficulty due to varying skillsets, playstyles, and builds.

Exception is Demon's Souls which is objectively the easiest though regardless, just measured on boss aggression alone. If you come to it as your first it'll still seem pretty tough though.

I wouldn't recommend DS3 to a newcomer (I don't think it's the best either, Bloodborne is, though DS3 is p.good) just because it goes back to the demon's souls linear world which might be appreciable to some people, but for a newcomer I think the sequence breaking and improvisation possible in DS1's early game make it a more tantalizing experience that assuages the frustration of a first time play where you don't know how the fuck the combat flows yet.

>bu-but demon's souls archstone selection lets you go to the other 5 worlds right of bhe bat!

Sometimes the illusion is important.

[Obscura]

DS3 has a bigger sequence break available right at the start for everyone than DS1 does for anyone that didn't take the master key, though

(3 really is less linear than people think in general, even not counting "early Dancer" shenanigans. Cathedral Of the Deep vs. Farron Swamp, Irthyll Dungeon vs. Anor Londo, and a smattering of optional areas.)

[Squire Grooktook]

True, but like I said I think a big reason that DS1's first half feels unique is both the illusion (everything's juuuuust obscure enough to make a newcomer go "AH HA!" when figuring out an alternate way of progressing...but not too obscure either) and the general way the world is layed out.

Dark Souls 3 (and Bloodborne, to a lesser extent) is like one continuous road forward with a few branches off to the side here and there...until you return for the dancer.

Dark Souls 1 (first half) is layed out more like a Zelda game, if anything. You start out in your hub (firelink) and the rest of the areas surround it and interlink with Firelink and eachother in interesting ways throughout the game (until the second half when it turns into Mega Man boss selection).

Not that that's the be-all-end-all of the experience. Like I said Bloodborne is my absolute favorite and it's world very linear (less than DS3, but more than DS1's first half...I could ramble about some of the interesting little quirks about how BB handles things compared to the other games...). But I do think that DS1's world design is part of what made it easier for a lot of people to get invested in the series.

[Blinge]

Dancer early lets you do like one area that's still gated off because you can't enter the Grand Archives early.

Or can you go all the way to

Spoiler

Dark place + champ Gunny?

But what's the point, you'd just get destroyed in one hit by everything in the garden and forget the bosses!
Souls 1's non linearity is actually viable for most players..

I think starting with 3 is straight retarded.
The only way I can make sense of Obscura logic here is if he was advising somebody who was only ever going to play one souls game and one alone. In that context you could suggest only playing 3.

I wouldn't give that advice personally, I think if someone starts with Dark1 (correct option) then doesn't want to play any more then the series is simply not for them.

[Immryr]

yeah i can't understand anything obscura is saying. the only way ds3 could be considered easier than ds1 is that it's less mysterious and, as necron said, more user friendly. combat wise it's significantly harder.

anyway, i'd agree with blinge and say start with ds1. for me it's the best in the series, mainly for the sense of exploration.

[Blinge]

y'know I think ds1 has a lot of old school appeal, with its abundant sense of mystery. It's a draw for first time players that often gets looked over by crusty veterans and theorycrafters.

Souls 3 lacks that because it's more of a modern polished game.
Although I suppose it makes up for the shortfall in that regard with the NPC quests!

[Sumez]

Also, I wouldn't necessarily recommend starting with the "best" if your plan is to play the entire series. Going from Dark Souls 3 to Demon's Souls is a huge mechanical downgrade. If you're the type of player who is easily spoiled by tight, refined gameplay you might find it hard to go backwards. If you're not too worried about that, then you can't go too wrong with any entry, really.

Somewhat this. I'd only recommend starting with DS3 if you're never planning on playing any other Souls game. And that would be a mistake.

I'd also definitely recommend not starting with Bloodborne, for the same reason Necro mentioned. Having prior "souls experience" makes the game easier to approach and makes you less likely to end up in a loop of farming for blood vials.
That said, Demon's Souls has a similar issue, even if it's not as bad. Like Squire said, it might be the easiest of the series. But in my mind it's the hardest because I started out with it. I'd probably hate going into that one with previous Souls experience and not get the same teethgrinding experience from it.
I'd also rather go from Demon's to Dark 1 and be wooed by the amazing interconnected world design, than the other way around, and let down by the hub structure.

[Marc]

So I completed my playthrough (including Kalmeet), as did my kid. Must admit, despite him having made it so far, I was still pretty astonished to see him enter the final boss area and simply parry it to death. He was a bit excited at being so close to completing it that he skipped the DLC, so he sat down on Saturday to watch me play through the rest of it. Manus beat the crap out of me a few times, so I put the pad down to grab a beer and make the Mrs a brew - by the time I'd finished in the kitchen, he'd decided to help himself and was three quarters through beating him to death on his first attempt.

The discussion above about relative difficulty is quite interesting. I've played 2 through probably more times than 1, so decided to skip that and started 3 straight away. I promptly got the crap beaten out of me. The increase in speed is massive, poise seems utterly broken, and it seems to almost demand you play it more in the vein of Bloodborne than as a straight Souls game. I'm getting used to it now, but it took me a good couple of hours to adjust to its way of doing things.

[Necronopticous]

I'd also rather go from Demon's to Dark 1 and be wooed by the amazing interconnected world design, than the other way around, and let down by the hub structure.

I can definitely see your point, but I did those two out of order and didn't feel let down. More than anything I just remember being floored at how good Demon's Souls was. Also, while I agree that Dark Souls was structurally superior to Demon's Souls, the latter was not without merits of its own. The hub structure of Demon's Souls allowed for its areas to be wildly unique in setting and atmosphere without ever feeling disjointed or compacted, something that the succeeding games struggled to balance with their more open, interconnected lands.

Sumez, don't you have magical rings to craft?

[Blinge]

I SHALL PASS DOWN THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS
I SHALL PASS DOWN THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS
I SHALL PASS DOWN THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS

[guigui]

That's a lot of answers for our beginner okerlo here. Let me add mine, depending on the time you want to invest in the series :

* Loooong time available : play the chronological order : Demons' -> DS1 -> DS2 -> DS3, insert Bloodborne whenever you feel overfed with your shields or want more gore.

* Only 3 months available ? DS1 -> DS3 -> Bloodborne.

* Only 1 month ? Rush through DS1->Bloodborne. Then come back and ask for more.

Of course i strongly advise you to play these games blind. Wikis are full of infos but spoil your pleasure a lot, and are only really useful at very endgame when you want to optimize your run/gear.
Also, the games have lots of mechanics/stories meant to be discovered by the player himself, do not hesitate to ask your questions here ; we know how to answer without spoiling.

[Marc]

I've abandoned III a few hours in, it's the first time this has ever happened to me with a game but the frame rate was making me physically nauseous while playing. Loaded up Bloodborne to see if it was just a 30/60 fps thing and it's apparent from the off that Bloodborne is much smoother, not sure what the hell is going on with III but there's no way I can play through that straight after Remastered.

[Sumez]

Quick question. Should I play Echo Night Beyond following ST:Abyss. Or should I try to dig up a horribly overpriced copy of the first Echo Night first?

[Necronopticous]

Eh, not really. The Echo Night games are an interesting diversion but definitely not required reading. I would recommend saving your money and watching longplays on YouTube. There is no combat, and the puzzles aren’t that particularly challenging (or even particularly interesting), so watching someone else's playthrough is quite close to the full experience in my opinion.

Longplays:

• Echo Night PSX (1998)
• Echo Night 2: The Lord of Nightmares PSX (1999)
• Echo Night: Beyond PS2 (2004)

[Sumez]

I have a hard time seeing the value in watching someone else play a game. But I'm looking forward to experiencing Beyond myself.

[Necronopticous]

That works, too! Definitely want to hear your impressions when you get there.

[Sumez]

Got some time to finally get through Eternal Ring.

Can't really say a lot that hasn't been said about this game - I'm glad I've played it, but I can't really recommend it to anyone else, unless you really want to see everything From Software has done.

It starts out pretty nice, reminiscent of KF2 even, arriving on this mysterious island, and walking around to discover people who are stationed there, with some story happening and such. Worth pointing out here, that going from PS1 and suddenly playing "King's Field" in 60hz (well, 50) and 480i feels like a massive upgrade, and in general the game is super smooth, so as a proof-of-concept of a KF game running on PS2, it does it job well.
After a short while though, it descends into the same linear progression of completely disconnected areas, reminiscent of both KF3 and DS2. Some of those are pretty cool, but in general the level design is really lacking, with no secrets to be find that I know of, aside from the occasional hidden ring of magic.
As expected, the game really has none of the mystery and gloom from the KF series, which hurts the overall experience, and after a sudden difficulty spike at the limestone cavern and the area following it, it gets really easy.

I know a lot of people had gripes with the ring crafting system, but I never really encountered any problems. It might be because I never made a lot of rings, but I never really needed it either. I made sure to get a healing ring early on, but aside from that I never tried to get a specific ring. I just mixed gems and went with whatever I got, to keep up my ability to fight back. After the library where you get a bunch of high level gems, I made a dark flash spell, and just used that to blast through the end of the game, with little need to engage in actual combat.
I never really made any attribute rings either. I like the idea, but they were never useful, and the other ability rings that you find, which take up the same slots, are way cooler. Especially the one that makes all your projectiles homing.

I might have missed out on some things in the game. I never got enough dragon gems to make a dragon spell, and there seems to be a few loose ends. Namely the sleeping dragon under the ice, the sleeping dragon at the entrance to the limestone cavern (which one hit kills me if I wake it up). And speaking of dragons, the wind dragon at the top of the tower went down in a single hit, so I felt like there must have been more to that as well? Alternatively, the game was just rushed out for the PS2 launch, and all of these were left open by the developers.
The ending was pretty bittersweet, so I guess I'll have to look up if there's another ending at least. Also, what's up with the voice acting for the final boss? I felt like I was fighting Lymle from Star Ocean 4.

[Necronopticous]

Wait...did you go back to the secret dungeon on the first beach?! That's the best part!

[Sumez]

Nope, didn't see any indications of anything being there? I spent ages backtracking twice, once to open the red doors in the water palace, and once to check out what the forest held, and both were extremely disappointing.

[Necronopticous]

There's a mysterious door to the north of the very first beach area (where you start the game). You need to use a light-based attack spell to open it, which locks you out until most of the way through the game. It's the true "final dungeon" and weirdly almost all interesting items in the game are hidden in there. I actually didn't like Eternal Ring very much until after I cleared out that area...it's really a shame that there's not much else to do afterward, because it's the first and only time when I actually felt like my gameplay options had opened up and gotten interesting.

[Sumez]

I'm not sure I want to return there now. Is it really worth it?

I started on KF4 yesterday (but probably won't have time to continue with it until in a couple of weeks).
It feels so good to be back in real KF territory. We're back in dark and gloomy open ended territory with a ton of branching paths for me to explore, without clear cut separations between the areas, and KF4 seems to bring back all the classic elements with some new additions lifted from Shadow Tower (namely equipment weight and durability, though their implications are quite different here).
Curiously though, the game drops some of the small quality-of-life improvements of Eternal Ring, most notably the snappy method of returning to default viewing angle, and the display of item names when you pick up an item - something I severely missed in the earlier KF games, too. I'm glad to see the game forcing your viewing angle to look down on items that you pick up, though. KF3 could really have used that. I also like the idea of needing a tool to take apart barrels to get the stuff inside them, even if constantly switching out your equipment and reequipping a shield is pretty tedious.
I'm also very thankful that the game doesn't have voice acting. Following ST and ER, I was expecting that to be guaranteed.

But holy crap this game is sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow. It's been two other titles since I played KF3, but I don't remember any of the other KF games being this slow. We get the run button back, but it barely increases your walking speed to anything acceptable, while the default is a slow crawl. The KF games are famous for being slow of course, but I always felt that the run button mitigated that, since backtracking was always snappy. Not so in this game! I'm pretty sure this is why I never made it very far last time I tried playing the game.

I started out the game dead set on avoiding the first instant death trap that I remember falling into 2 or 3 times over last time I played. But I must have been thinking of Shadow Tower Abyss, because the starting area wasn't what I remembered. I dropped my guard the moment I noticed a large part of the HUD missing due to the game surprisingly being adjusted for PAL video, making it probably one of the earliest European video game releases that don't have huge, ugly black border on the top and bottom of the screen. So while I was more focused on adjusting the aspect ratio of my CRT TV (which has a really nice feature to compensate for the squashed PAL images) I blissfully walked right into the aforementioned instant death trap...

[Blinge]

most notably the snappy method of returning to default viewing angle

Hold L2 and R2 at the same time.

I also like the idea of needing a tool to take apart barrels to get the stuff inside them, even if constantly switching out your equipment and reequipping a shield is pretty tedious.

Ah, Yeah while the pickaxe is probably the first weapon that can do this, most of the weapons in the game can. I think they just have to do enough of a certain damage type? Also you need enough power behind the hit or it won't break.
I remember watching the souls expert streamer lobosjr just flail around with weak hits until concluding that the hit detection is bad

[Sumez]

Hold L2 and R2 at the same time.

Yes, that's the one I'm talking about. Worked perfectly in Eternal Ring, so it's strange that they returned to the KF2/3 way of doing it with KF4.

[Blinge]

Oh what, I thought that worked in KF4 aswell.
select, L3 or R3 not do anything?

[Sumez]

It works in KF4, it just doesn't work as well. You need to hold down both buttons until the angle is done slowly panning back, and then you need to release them at the same time. It feels much more responsive and organic in Eternal Ring. It just feels better - Hard to point out the exact differences without analyzing exactly how it reacts to button presses.

They changed how it works it in Shadow Tower too, but ER definitely had the better solution.

[Necronopticous]

I'm not sure I want to return there now. Is it really worth it?

Since you've already started King's Field IV it's probably not worth going back to Eternal Ring for any reason. It is pretty interesting, though. If, for some reason, you ever play Eternal Ring again, definitely prioritize that secret area. You get two awesome new weapons and support rings that let you attack multiple times per swing and light your weapon on fire, for Christ's sake.

But holy crap this game is sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow. It's been two other titles since I played KF3, but I don't remember any of the other KF games being this slow. We get the run button back, but it barely increases your walking speed to anything acceptable, while the default is a slow crawl. The KF games are famous for being slow of course, but I always felt that the run button mitigated that, since backtracking was always snappy. Not so in this game! I'm pretty sure this is why I never made it very far last time I tried playing the game

I had the same feeling when I first started King's Field IV. It's especially jarring because Eternal Ring was sped way up. I came around pretty quickly, though. I was so wrapped up in the mood of the game that I was usually happy to take my time going through an area. There's not a whole lot of backtracking required in King's Field IV, or at least I never felt annoyed by it in the way that I did with King's Field III. In the end the game felt like it was the right speed to me.

[Blinge]

It's also a terrible dungeon more maze like than anything in the game, barely any distinguishing features and enemies that spawn in behind you/ doing massive damage to your arse before you can turn and deal with them.

[evil_ash_xero]

I always find this thread fascinating.

I'll pop in time to time, and see if there's some news on Shadows Die Twice, or whatever. And you guys are talking about King's Field.
I totally respect that, but I just always find it odd.

Why don't we shake things up, and talk about Metal Wolf Chaos? RICHARD!

Also, are there any good Armored Core games on the PS2 or whatever? I look into reviews of those games, and they're all crap, except for some old ones. But I don't really want to have to look at PS1 polys, unless I have to.

[Necronopticous]

I haven’t played any of their mech games yet. I’m somewhat curious but generally have zero interest in mech shit. My plan is to give the new one a try whenever it finally comes out and see how that goes. If I have fun with that, I’m sure I will go back.