Dark Souls 3

[iconoclast]

The Dark Souls 1 DLC is excellent. Pretty much all of its boss fights are much better than anything in the main game, besides maybe Ornstein & Smough. Manus in particular is still one of, if not the best boss fight in the entire series imo. And Bloodborne's DLC expansion is even better. I thought that game was a little disappointing when it came out since it felt too stripped down and light on content in comparison to DaS1&2, but the DLC beefs it up considerably.

I never played the Dark Souls 2 DLC. I was planning on completing the PS4 version before Dark Souls 3 came out, but that's not going to happen with the early Xbone release.

[Jonathan Ingram]

but I oddly still want to play bloodbourne even though I have no desire for the next souls installment.

That's not odd at all. Bloodborne and Demon's Souls have the strongest sense of identity among these games whereas Dark Souls almost feels like a conveyor belt production at this point.

[Opus131]

Bloodborne and Demon's Souls, but not Dark Souls 1? Does producing sequels retroactively damages the original's "sense of identity"?

Personally, i don't have a problem with "more of the same" if the "same" in question is still good and varied enough. And i mean, this is the same company that gave us how many Armored Core games? Not surprising that they would go the same route with the Souls series.

[Squire Grooktook]

I think Dark Souls 1 has a much more creative, unique, and thematically and atmospherically charged universe than Demon's Souls.

Not that Demon's Souls isn't great, but I feel that if we're talking story and world building, DS1 is the only game in which they really captured lightning in a bottle.

Honestly, I feel disappointed by how many people apparently feel "fatigue" after just 4 games. Cave makes the same danmaku game 30 times in a row with nothing distinguishing each game except slightly different scoring mechanisms per-game, and people are still frothing for another one when they go belly up. From makes huge, atmospheric, and tight adventures with enough mechanical differences to differentiate each one to fans, and suddenly "its worn out" before the flagship title has even finished it's trilogy.

Bloodborne is absolutely amazing to me and is the first game in the series where the combat wasn't just great, but really wowed me and made me want to play it and play it. I feel the franchise isn't even close to worn out, and I'll be happy as long as the quality continues, but that's me.

[Some-Mist]

good to know. I'm not sure I'll give ds1 a go based on the dlc alone, but I think it'd be a good idea to grab the dlc if I choose to give it another go sometime in the future.

you guys are really making me want a ps4 for bloodbourne, and it's apparent from iconoclast post that the dlc is definitely worth it for that too.

now to come up with more reasonso to grab a ps4..

[DestroyTheCore]

honest question: was any of the DLC worth nabbing for DS1 or DS2 even if it meant having to replay through the games again? I kinda don't feel like doing that unless it's really exceptional content.

Dark Souls 1's DLC is amazing. I can say without any doubt that it contains the most fun boss fights in the whole game.

[Obscura]

Yeah, the DS1 DLC is easily the best piece of content in either Souls game.

[Opus131]

I'm not sure I'll give ds1 a go based on the dlc alone

Is there something wrong about the base game?

[Obscura]

I'm not sure I'll give ds1 a go based on the dlc alone

Is there something wrong about the base game?

There's a ton wrong about the base game. The thought of playing the boring hallway-fest that is base-game Dark Souls 1's level design outside of Burg, Parish, Sen's, New Londo, Duke's Archives, and the Catacombs is excruciating.

[Opus131]

Hallway-fest? Is this purely about lack of branching and the like? Because level design in Dark Souls is more about all the clever ways enemies and the environment play against you and less about exploration.

But i mean, no Blighttown? No Great Hollow? No Painted World? No Crystal Cave? Come on, Dark Souls 1 is nothing BUT great areas. Much better than base DS2, though i didn't even find that one to be "excruciating" to go through.

If it is branching you are looking for there other are series to look into. The Thief games for instance. Or most old school FPS. Or any dungeon crawler.

[Some-Mist]

I'm not sure I'll give ds1 a go based on the dlc alone

Is there something wrong about the base game?

it's just that the interest in replaying the entire game again is pretty low and I'd have to be in the right mood to hop back in. afaik you have to get somewhat far to get to the DLC content? if not, that might help me muster up the courage to try and truck through it again once I'm done with the current game I'm playing.

in the end it's mostly burn out. I spent a pretty large chunk of time on the asian version of DeS that by the time the US version came out, I nabbed the 100% achievements in 3 weeks or so. played enough of ds1 to get a gold trophy and then one playthrough of ds2. psnprofiles

[Opus131]

honest question: was any of the DLC worth nabbing for DS1 or DS2 even if it meant having to replay through the games again? I kinda don't feel like doing that unless it's really exceptional content.

They are. Both for DS1 and DS2.

[Obscura]

Hallway-fest? Is this purely about lack of branching and the like? Because level design in Dark Souls is more about all the clever ways enemies and the environment play against you and less about exploration.

But i mean, no Blighttown? No Great Hollow? No Painted World? No Crystal Cave? Come on, Dark Souls 1 is nothing BUT great areas. Much better than base DS2, though i didn't even find that one to be "excruciating" to go through.

If it is branching you are looking for there other are series to look into. The Thief games for instance. Or most old school FPS. Or any dungeon crawler.

The crystal cave is fucking horrible, and probably the second worst area of the game after Lost Izalith.

Painted World is pretty great; I'll give you that one. I forgot about that area entirely.

It's not about lack of branching, it's about areas like Anor Londo or Tomb of Giants or Demon Ruins or Lost Izalith or The Depths that are absolutely insistent about throwing basic melee enemies at you one at a time, usually from directly in front of you. Whereas something like, say, Duke's Archive or Undead Burg use their shapes to put the player under pressure from multiple angles, which creates much more interesting combat situations.

(Also, the first two Thief games are two of my favorite games of all time.)

[Blinge]

Opus this is about the 10th time Obscura has had this exact rant, reasoning with him is useless. Every thread becomes the same argument.

Anyway if a game has 2 "hallway" areas that'll be enough for him to say:
"wtf the entire game is pointless garbage shit tier level design not worth pissing on it's COMPLETELY full of hallways. Trust me I am the absolute authority on level design, every point you make is futile before my towering intellect."
"omg soft area denial *beats off* UNHFFFF PLEASE FIRE YOUR PROJECTILES ON ME FROM AFAR WHILE I'M TIED UP. every area must be like this or the entire game is bullshit and anyone who likes it a moron!!"

Oh and Ds2 DLC is the best DLC for any game I've ever seen. I'd recommend getting them all in a sale or something.

[Opus131]

No game can be said to be truly perfect in every respect, and the usual constrains of time and funds can always mar or tarnish what might otherwise have been a more consistent experience.

That said, i found Dark Souls to be of extreme high quality all the way through. Some areas were better than others and in places you could tell they had to rush things but frankly it is hard for me to complain considering this is among the best games i've played in almost a decade. I really felt like i used to back in the 90s, when almost every other game was a classic, which is a rare thing this days.

BTW, there were some places which were actually meant to be a bit straightforward, at least in my opinion. I think the simplicity of Anor Londo was intentional considering what came before. Almost as if the developers wanted you to soak in on some nice open scenery after the hell that was Sen's Fortress. Other places had to be streamlined a bit due to some specific challenge inherent in that area. Tomb of Giants comes to mind. I don't know whether it would have been feasible to make something like Sen's Fortress except where you couldn't see anything.

[Ed Oscuro]

Dark Souls 2's DLC is integral to the game if you get the SotFS edition.

I generally agree with the bits and pieces of discussion I skimmed through, especially Opus13's post immediately before mine. There always was a lot of crap, and it was hard to avoid, but lots of stuff really beat the average or at least differed from it; that's starting to feel rare, even if it means that the average quality of console productions is better than they once would have been, they also are becoming more anodyne. Seriously, how much difference is there between Skate on 360 and Red Dead Redemption? There's a lot of reasons why; one is simply that many games are starting to look much alike. Here's an off-the-wall comparison for you: Lords of Shadow vs. Dark Souls. Lords of Shadow released about a year earlier; more importantly, it usually uses a different fixed chase-camera perspective. The original Dark Souls enrivonments often look a bit rough, but I'm still fond of a lot of the artistic and progression choices (not the early run around the Burg so much as the transition to Sen's Fortress and beyond, but even if the architecture in the Burg leaves something to desire, the clever design behind it is praiseworthy still). In two chapters I've found LoS has no shortage of artistic aspiration or diversity, but it also is bogged down with a profusion of very staid video game conventions breaking the presentation (to name one: A lot of Tomb Raiderish architecture and checkpointing, which often is bad for pacing; to name another: tightrope acts, mounts for puzzle-solving, the QTEs...). As far as I've gone into it, DS2 seems to be at least as high in quality as its predecessor, and more consistent, but the breathtaking change of tone from Sen's to Anor Londo, or the visit to the Painted World, are highlights DS2 struggles to match. A lot of the problems I have with the original game (the underdetailed forest is a sore spot, and I mostly prefer DS2's variant) are mainly due to the original last-gen platforms and the apparent lack of resources.

Both games aspired to challenge convention in slight but important ways. Lords of Shadow is interesting as, in part, it hearkens back to an older style of game design, given the usual semi-fixed camera makes more a more controlled arena in addition to the visuals. In many places it works, but to a modern gamer's perspective it often feels too limiting, the differences to the many other ledge-shimmying simulators too slight to notice. Just as importantly, a chunk of the "modern" stuff that you wouldn't find in Rygar, Devil May Cry, or Dark Souls limits its appeal. (This hodgepodge, seemingly driverless design may be explained by comments about the work environment at MercurySteam, the developer.) Beyond this there are many other easy targets for praise or criticism (details of the combat system, the collectibles, the myriad other systems and so on) but I'll leave them off as irrelevant.

[evil_ash_xero]

I've been playing the JP version of this. Thus far, it seems like it's going to be a great game. WAY better, than Dark Souls II. However, I do not like the amount of bonfires. At the same time, I am used to it, having been playing SotFS recently.

[ryu]

I think the amount of bonfires is fine.
For the most part I like Dark Souls III a lot. Really, if it wasn't so damn

Spoiler

linear

it would most likely become my favorite game in the series. For now I'll have to see how it'll hold up across subsequent playthroughs. But I'm far from being there.

[Cagar]

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[Strider77]

So it's more

Spoiler

linear?

BTW... do we really need a spoiler on that?

[ryu]

I posted it openly on another forum and got a complaint about spoilering

[Marc]

That has me worried. I thought this was billed as a return to the DS1 school of design?

[Shepardus]

Northern? With some cold area mechanics through the entire game?

I never thought of this before but damn that'd be cool (no pun intended). Hell, you could even reuse the bonfire mechanic and it'd make sense in a game with a cold setting.

[evil_ash_xero]

That has me worried. I thought this was billed as a return to the DS1 school of design?

The level design is very good. Some of the best, in the entire series.

But as with Bloodborne, you can't really go to 5 different places at once. You're on more a of a set course, with a few options, here and there.

[mastermx]

I'm torn between getting the PS4 or PC version of Dark Souls III. My specs aren't amazing, but I've always preferred my games in 60fps.

Specs:
Intel i5 650 3.2gz
Radeon 7870
12gb ram

My CPU is a huge bottle neck. I wish there was a PC demo that would let me test it out.

[iconoclast]

I've been playing this a ton since I downloaded it. So far I've done one complete playthrough, went half way through NG+, and then I did a Soul Level 1 run (boss spoilers). I've got 80+ hours logged between my two characters fwiw.

I'm not going to write a whole review because really, it's just more of the same, but more polished. The level design is great, the art design is incredible (the art in the Souls games alone puts From's artists lightyears ahead of any other game developer imo), the boss fights are mostly great (I even like the gimmicky ones - they're far better than their closest analogues from the previous games), etc.

One of my favorite things about this series is the sense of discovery, exploring all of the environments, and finding secrets, and I think they made that more rewarding in this game than in any of the previous ones. Before, searching through everything would usually net you a ton of crappy items that you'll never use, but in DS3, there are more important items to find in each area. There's stuff like Estus shards and bone dust fragments that strengthen your Estus, tomes that you bring to the NPC trainers to unlock new spells, ashes that you bring to the merchant to unlock new items to buy, and of course lots of equipment to find.

It's also worth mentioning that the OST is by far the best in the series imo. I've played all of the previous games for probably 100-300 hours each, and I can't recall a single song from any of them besides the Demon's Souls opening theme. But in DS3, almost every boss theme really stood out to me, and the main menu theme is fantastic. And I especially like how the music gets more intense once the boss enters its second phase.

Negatives:
* It's shorter than Dark Souls 1 & 2 (but longer than Bloodborne & Demon's Souls). This is only a slight negative though because all of the content is very high quality, which is something that definitely cannot be said for the previous games (Dark Souls 1 especially)
* New Game+ could be better. There are some new items to find (higher quality versions of the same rings), but all of the enemy placement is the same. I was hoping that Dark Souls II would be the start of From putting more effort into NG+, but nope.
* The framerate can get pretty bad (on the Xbox, at least). Apparently there's going to be a patch that addresses the performance when the game is officially released in NA, so we'll see how that goes.
* I guess it's pretty linear, but I don't care.

If it's not already my favorite game in the series, I'm almost 100% certain that it will be by the time they're done with the DLC.

[captain ahar]

One more week, kids! I can't wait for it, I've been going through great pains to try and be as spoiler free as possible. It's been difficult. Thinking maybe I should do another tour of Bloodborne or DS1 to pass the time...

[Immryr]

yep, I'm excited, spoiler free and have also been playing dark souls 1 again. this time through I haven't just been running past all of the enemies though and it's been leading me to think a lot about linearity in souls games. what I've found during this play through is that I enjoy the game a lot more up to O&S than I do afterwards, and I don't think it's because a lot of the late game areas are rushed and weaker than the early ones, although that is true.

I think there are basically two types of non-linearity in souls games..... or maybe three. the first being exemplified by dark souls 1 before O&S where you have quite a clear, linear route of progression but a deeply interconnected, honeycomb level design allowing for a lot of possible ways to approach it.

for example you can go burg - Taurus - past the rats and pig - gargoyles - depths - blighttown - quelaag, this is I suppose the intended route, but if you want (or if you just don't know where you're going) you can skip the depths and blighttown by going through dark route basin and the valley the drakes. even this second option can be approached in a couple of ways, either by going to the basin from andre's bonfire, or by going down havel's tower in the burg. then there are more options if you have the master key like skipping Taurus and going straight to the gargoyles via valley of drakes, or going immediately to the bottom of blighttown and approaching everything backwards.

I think this is my favourite kind of non-linearity in souls games, I also think the lack of fast travel is very important for this to work and that the master key is a great idea.

then you have the type of non-linearity exemplified by demon's souls, dark souls 1 post lord vessel and kind of dark souls 2, where you have a bunch of different places to go and you can choose the order you tackle them. the levels themselves have multiple paths through and short cuts to open but no real interconnection with the other levels. for me this type of design worked best in demon's souls where they made no attempt to connect it into some kind of cohesive world map. the fun in multiple play throughs here is in deciding which order to tackle the levels in so you can get whatever weapons or spells you want early on. for me though this ends up feeling slightly disjointed when you try and make it part of a cohesive, connected world map.

bloodborne is sort of an odd duck, it kind of falls into the second category but is kind of it's own thing. in someways it's a very linear game, but it has a crap load of optional areas. the fact that you only need to kill 7 bosses to complete bloodborne is pretty insane when you consider just how many bosses are in the game.


so..... yeah..... while I love all of the souls games dark souls 1 will probably always be my favourite just because of the first half of the game. the lack of fast travel and the deeply interconnected areas make it magical on a first play through where you're just completely lost then suddenly find yourself in a familiar area you were in several hours ago, but also gives you a lot of flexibility on repeat play throughs.

[Squire Grooktook]

Very insightful post Immyr.

The "non-linearity" of the post Lordvessel part of the game might be as much if you only care about pure action, but the interconnectedness of the world is essential for the sense of adventure and exploration of a large world. Without it, you're essentially playing a Mega Man game with choose your robot master and fight your way through.

[Cagar]

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