I started Dark Souls! I‘m playing the switch version, which is giving me a particular kind of nostalgia. I grew up with just n64, so I played a good few downgraded ports of PS1 games. The compressed audio, inconsistent framerate and all that just take me back, I’m sincerely enjoying that. It was really good to play demon‘s first because all of my knowledge transferred over perfectly. I’m going for the same build so far: knight, big shield, winged spear, soul arrow as my secondary. This build feels like Zelda 1 to me, blocking stuff with the shield, stabbing forward, magic is kinda my sword beam. I just beat the big furry boss with the hammer on the parapet and I'm having a good time exploring around figuring out where to go next.
Fun dark souls story, spoiler tagging just in case, why not:
||So I beat the gargoyles and rang the bell. It seemed like a dead end after that, so I'm thinking about where to go next. I had explored around firelink earlier and knew there was a boneyard and a ghost town. I got mega killed by the bone brigade trying to tiptoe through the catacombs, so I figure ghost town it is. At this point I can kill a ghost in four strikes and they move pretty slow. I struggled my way through, dying here and there, touching my bloodstain, upgrading my stuff, you know how it is. And then I reach another dead end. I need some kind of key. I'm stumped because to my memory I had checked all the places. But then I remember the room past the blacksmith that I had noped right out of when I saw some big dude shooting lightning. I was able to not-quite-chumpify lightning lad, a modest victory, and find the forest past him. So it turns out that was where I was supposed to go all along, but I did a bunch of accidental grinding and I'm at a nice level that I'm not getting dunked on but not feeling over-powered either. And bonus, I found a bunch of cool gear just a little ways into the forest. It was a fun tension and release experience.||
I'm having fun! Dark Souls is good. I bet it would do pretty well on a poll of best games in some forum somewhere, I don't know.
omg I love hearing about your blind playthrough where 50 zoomers aren't telling you every move to make
@"kyleprocrastinations"#p129142 I like what you're doing here. I like playing pretend with my hardware and kind of idealistically framing a port in a way that I can enjoy. vis-à-vis you are comparing the Switch port of Dark Souls to something like the N64 ports of Mega Man Legends or Rayman 2, haha.
@“treefroggy”#p129475 literally exactly those two games lol
@“kyleprocrastinations”#p129476 I always say Mega Man Legends is secretly a King's Field / Armored Core … ;o)
I picked back up Dark Souls II after getting stuck on a boss about 25% of the way in. (I was feeling inspired after rewatching parts of Noah Gervais's incredible essay on the topic.) Turns out, the reason I was stuck on a pretty ho-hum boss was because I was trying to play a dodge build but didn‘t know you had to level adaptability! I dumped like 5-10 levels into it and suddenly could roll better. What a weird choice! I guess it’s not too big a jump from having a number that controls your damage to having a number that controls your invincibility frames, but it really messes with the “game feel” in a way that maybe feels self-sabotaging.
It's so hard to just play _Dark Souls II_ without getting caught up in the culture war. Anytime I find myself confused or annoyed by something (like the above), I wonder if that means I'm siding with the antis (and who wants to do that!). I then find myself contrarian-liking the jank. I'm not sure how I feel about the game overall (compared to the othersthat, it's still great in the context of all games), but this is definitely the Insert Credit approved _Dark Soul_.
Some of the boss runs really suck (including the one I'm about to mention), but there's one hilarious part where you open a door to a hallway to a boss and suddenly get rushed by 20 dinky knights. Getting through them to get to the boss is a chore, but it's one of those moments where you can just hear the cackles of the developers.
Is there a name for the Tetris-effect-adjacent feeling your brain gets after playing one of these? There's such a familiar rhythm of pulling an enemy, baiting an attack, dodging, and punishing the whiff. That dance is so deeply engrained in my brain after how ever many hundreds of hours that it feels like I could do it in real life.
I‘m slowly and joyfully progressing through Demon’s Souls on RPCS3.
I really really love it. I love the way it looks, I love the way it plays, I love coming back to it after Dark Souls because a lot of those skills have transferred over and I feel like I am free to just enjoy what's here after the growing pains in understanding how these games work.
So far I've finished 1-1, 1-2, and 2-1. Have made some progess into 2-2 and 4-1. Thinking of getting into 3-1 next just to explore a bit. The structure in this one with the individual levels within each larger zone is so good, I love having these dense smaller environments to explore. It's so cool.
>
@“sabertoothalex”#p129539 I am free to just enjoy what’s here after the growing pains in understanding how these games work.
Well said, I feel the same way. It's starting to feel a bit like the dragon quest effect where you can play all of them after you learn how to play one. You drive the car the same way, but it takes you to different places.
And yeah, demon's structure really works well. I love that roguelite feel where you have a home base to return to after going on a run.
as someone wholly burnt out on nearly every single souls game at this point, the one I‘ve played the least (but still burnt myself out on) is of course Bloodborne. Aside form Elden Ring DLC, after that, the only souls game I will look forward to revisiting is an eventual enhanced emulation of bloodborne… of all the sequels post DKS1, it is by far the closest to Dark Souls 1 and Demon’s Souls.
>
@“deepspacefine”#p129512 Is there a name for the Tetris-effect-adjacent feeling your brain gets after playing one of these? There’s such a familiar rhythm of pulling an enemy, baiting an attack, dodging, and punishing the whiff. That dance is so deeply engrained in my brain after how ever many hundreds of hours that it feels like I could do it in real life.
This was definitely my Dark Souls 2 experience. It invaded my brain and the rhythm of my halberd poking enemies was all I could think about during waking hours.
I finished it and was free for a couple weeks but now I'm elbows deep in Dark Souls 3 and it's happening again. But I just hit an obnoxious boss that is way harder than everything else i've encountered and I feel pretty good about leaving the game alone for a while.
Dark Souls 1 felt like a good challenge, but I could still walk away. But something about 2 really got a hold of me. It's more generous towards the player in a lot of ways.
@“Andy B”#p129614
@"Andy B"#p129614 I had it so bad when I played _Dark Souls I_! All though back then (true story) it wasn't the combat rhythm I hadn't figured out yet, it was the death animations. I was walking up the steepest hill and felt like I was recreating that one death animation where your guy takes a half step forward and then falls to one knee and then falls over and dies.
How do you find DS2 more generous to the player? I'm stuck against bosses that can ~1 hit me because I'm too cheap to return to human form, so Im not feeling much generosity right now.
this video rules
really put things I still didn't understand about bloodborne into perspective for me
really makes me wanna play the game again.
not gonna purchase a PS4 or PS5 just to do that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ4W5Fc9Wmw
>
@“deepspacefine”#p129628 How do you find DS2 more generous to the player?
Plentiful bonfires, infinite health items, fast travel, and npc summons are everywhere. It's very interesting how some people consider it the most difficult one, but for me it was the first souls game I mostly breezed through.
@“Andy B”#p129692 Yeah, even with the caveat that Dark Souls Uno reuses bonfires a good bit more through shortcuts, it does feel like Dark Souls II breaks its levels into bite-er sized chunks. Perhaps in recognition of the Nearly Too Many Dudes that populate its levels. I haven‘t noticed the npc summons, not out of philosophical aversion, but because I can’t figure out how to summon in this one. I think this one balances being more generous as a justification for being more hostile in other ways (adaptability, hollowing, increased enemy count + harrowing boss runs, slower healing). This feels very in line with the overall risk-reward mentality.
Also -- VINDICATION -- after being stuck for a few days on a boss I knew I could beat fully hollowed (and but I kept dying at the 1/3 mark), I finally prevailed. I used the human effigy after the first few deaths and wasted it to stupid deaths, so was stubbornly hollow as punishment. Classic "beat head into wall until wall yields" experience. Although weirdly I've become an occasional shield user. Is that okay? Will my parents disown me? I haven't used a shield past since my first dozen or so hours in one of these.
>
@“deepspacefine”#p129782 Although weirdly I’ve become an occasional shield user. Is that okay? Will my parents disown me? I haven’t used a shield past since my first dozen or so hours in one of these.
Of course.
...
...you are talking about the Grass Crest Shield and it stays on your back the whole time, right?
(...I kid, the only unusable shield in one of these games is the one in _Bloodborne,_ even _Sekiro_ has limited use shields that are super powerful and cool to use).
Dark Souls II is the best game to co-op with 1 or more friends the whole entire way through.
Sen‘s Fortress rules. I love feeling like Indiana Jones. The dark souls sense of humor is on full display here. Getting killed by one trap, burning that into my memory for the next trip, then falling for a trap in the next room. But then eventually I was using the traps to kill the snake men. In most games I would never question where the endless boulders are coming from, but in souls of course there’s a giant on the roof manually dropping them. It‘s the honesty of it all. I was delightfully surprised to see some light platforming, too. I also learned how cheesy you can get with arrows. If a snake man is gonna shoot lightning at me from across the room while I’m trying to cross a narrow bridge and dodging pendulum axes, that dude deserves to get sniped. Now that I‘ve invested some upgrades on a bow, I figure maybe I can go back to the dragon from the early game and shoot at it from underneath. Dark souls was like, "Nice try, kid. Here’s a little prize for thinking that would work, but we‘re gonna go ahead and refill this health bar." It’s great design to give you such a videogamey goofy good time with Sen‘s Fortress right after trudging through the swamp. So far the swamp is the only area to get me shouting, “Oh come on!” At least in demon’s I could save the swamp for last when I was all leveled up and could steamroll through. Once I‘m feeling kitted out, I’ll scoot back through there and say what's up to CEASELESS DISCHARGE.
I‘m close to the end of Dark Souls. Here’s a little criticism sandwich on compliment bread (why do people say “compliment sandwich”? Or are you supposed to have two criticisms surrounding one compliment? Whatever, I like the way I'm doing it.) Thanks for indulging my little game diary in this thread.
My favorite zone:
>!
I love the painted world! The snowy castle aesthetic is great; snow levels are some of my favorites to look at in general. After having such a positive experience with Demon‘s Souls, I was very pleased to find a Demon’s-style self-contained sequence in here. And this was one of the only areas where I didn‘t die through to the end. The optional boss helped. I’ll choose pacifism when presented, why not! Just sneaking around carefully and finding all kinds of cleverly hidden treasure is a good time.
The negatives:
>!
My complaints have to do with the npc storylines and how your actions affect their conclusions in hidden ways. I understand that this encourages replays, but I still don‘t like seeing my buddies have unsatisfying or sad endings. I guess that’s also part of the point, it‘s just activating a FOMO for me. Related to this, when I fought the hammer guy and spear dude, I killed the spear dude first and locked myself out of getting his spear. I kinda would’ve liked to try that spear.
General thoughts:
>!
What‘s become clear about Souls games and why I like them is that they’re giving me some of the feelings I used to have about, like, Majora‘s Mask and MegaMan 64 when I was a kid. The great, scary unknown is out there for me to explore. I have a lot more lived experience now, so old Zeldas don’t give me that exact feeling anymore, but the Souls games kinda scale with my experience by being bigger, scarier, and more mysterious and so they bring me back around.
In summary, game's real good; the only problem is I want to play it again.
@“kyleprocrastinations”#p130447 a truly blind playthrough of dark souls feels so rare. glad you're enjoying
@“treefroggy”#p132111 mostly blind at least. I peek at fextralife when I‘m deciding on what equipment to use and I want to see the upgraded stats. But for the most part I’ve been figuring out where to go and what to do on my own steam. But now that I‘m in the endgame, I’ve been looking up how the npc storylines could have gone and where to farm titanite slabs.