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King of Solomon posted:Extremely incorrect. Listen man, I like item burden too, but I can be objective and recognize when I'm being a biased weirdo
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Dec 29, 2020 00:40
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feelix posted:Listen man, I like item burden too, but I can be objective and recognize when I'm being a biased weirdo Nah, the idea that DS1 is better than DeS is just so absurd it's basically a joke. Item burden is bad. So is a straight-up third of DS1.
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Dec 29, 2020 00:41
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feelix posted:And then the Dark Souls 2 defenders will reply to my dunks instead of the actual in-depth accurate criticisms of their game being posted, because they don't have any substantive retort to the latter or different people like and value different things
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Dec 29, 2020 00:45
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"is dark souls 2 the best/worst dark souls" is the dark souls of discourse
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Dec 29, 2020 00:45
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Dark Souls is not a sequel to Demon's Souls
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Dec 29, 2020 00:50
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Simply Simon posted:Dark Souls is not a sequel to Demon's Souls Not directly, no, but I think it's more than fair to call it a spiritual successor.
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Dec 29, 2020 00:52
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King of Solomon posted:Not directly, no, but I think it's more than fair to call it a spiritual successor. in this idiotic loving discussion
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Dec 29, 2020 00:55
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Simply Simon posted:then why didn't you Because saying "actually, DS1 is a spiritual successor to DeS" is pedantic bullshit and I'd rather respond to the dude's take.
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Dec 29, 2020 00:59
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Most people don't write out the full name when they're talking about DS so it's easy to forget that it goes Demons Souls then Dark Souls: the Squeakuel so I think it's understandable when people assume it's a sequel
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Dec 29, 2020 01:00
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Dark Souls is, in some aspects of gameplay, better than Demon's Souls. In some aspects, it's worse. In addition to having a lot more obviously unfinished content, several of its mechanics exist for unclear reasons, which are given more context in Demon's Souls. There are also some mechanics in Demon's Souls, like stealth, which are so diminished in Dark Souls as to be superfluous and were eventually removed from the series because no one made use of them. On top of this, Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are simply trying to accomplish different things. Demon's Souls is far more tighter and claustrophobic. There's less light, you can't see as far, and the change in mechanics from archstones to bonfires changed the rhythm of the game from one about endurance and management to one that prioritizes exploration and secret-finding. Whether you think these changes are good or not, they are fundamental changes in the way that the game is structured, and given the way that both Bloodborne and the two sequels elaborated on the changes made in Dark Souls, it was clear that the various leads on these games were trying to accomplish an entirely different aesthetic with the Dark Souls games than with Demon's Souls. Saying that Dark Souls is objectively better than Demon's Souls is like saying that the movie Alien is objectively better than Aliens. One is a horror movie, one is a dark action movie. The difference between Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1 is similar, and I say this as someone who hates Aliens and really likes Dark Souls 1.
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Dec 29, 2020 01:12
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Anyway the reason I waded into this thread again in the first place is because IronicDongz posted:remnant is a perfectly serviceable 3rd person shooter that is really barely anything like dark souls at all minus having a bonfire mechanic I would agree with this if it wasn't trying so very, very hard to be rogue-lite Dark Souls. The hub, the dragon heart, the control schemes, the upgrade mechanics, the way that dragon bosses drop special items if you cut off their tail--it's trying very hard to be Dark Souls, but then it stabs its own self in the dick by making everything procedurally generated, so that you're just playing BB's chalice dungeons for the entire game. It's fine, I'll give it that. It's a big block of undifferentiated Game and I've heard the online mechanics are fairly robust so it's an all right co-op game, but where finishing Souls games make you feel as though you've surmounted obstacles, finishing Remnant feels like you've finished a chore.
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Dec 29, 2020 01:21
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The stupid transitions are bad, but they're not why DS2 is bad.
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Dec 29, 2020 01:50
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DS2 isn’t bad but I don’t give enough of a gently caress to type an essay as to why. Quit making GBS threads up the thread arguing about an old rear end video game. It’s a divisive game, the arguments have been had years ago.
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Dec 29, 2020 02:14
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Happy Hedonist posted:DS2 isn’t bad but I don’t give enough of a gently caress to type an essay as to why. Quit making GBS threads up the thread arguing about an old rear end video game. It’s a divisive game, the arguments have been had years ago. But not everyone in this thread was here for arguments made years ago.
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Dec 29, 2020 02:19
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Happy Hedonist posted:DS2 isn’t bad but I don’t give enough of a gently caress to type an essay as to why. Quit making GBS threads up the thread arguing about an old rear end video game. It’s a divisive game, the arguments have been had years ago. Much like Dark Souls, the fighting will continue until the world collapses upon itself quote:But, on the other hand, the game does not stop having themes because they had to cut out Oolacile and put it back in as DLC, or because the archstone that led to the Northern Lands is broken, or because Smoldering Lake is an empty pit with several giant crabs, a worm, and giant arrows that keep you from waiting around long enough to realize that the area sucks. This is true, the idea of Smoldering Lake as Ash Lake, the cool secret mythic area with gravitas but on fire and smushed into the demon ruins is really cool but also really lovely to actually go through RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Dec 29, 2020 |
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Dec 29, 2020 02:23
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Lol it’s only 6 years old. Jesus, this year has completely hosed up my ability to approximate time.
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Dec 29, 2020 02:27
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Djeser posted:Dark Souls is, in some aspects of gameplay, better than Demon's Souls. In some aspects, it's worse. In addition to having a lot more obviously unfinished content, several of its mechanics exist for unclear reasons, which are given more context in Demon's Souls. There are also some mechanics in Demon's Souls, like stealth, which are so diminished in Dark Souls as to be superfluous and were eventually removed from the series because no one made use of them. On top of this, Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are simply trying to accomplish different things. Demon's Souls is far more tighter and claustrophobic. There's less light, you can't see as far, and the change in mechanics from archstones to bonfires changed the rhythm of the game from one about endurance and management to one that prioritizes exploration and secret-finding. I don't think Dark Souls started the trajectory towards Bloodborne and DS3. Yes, Demon's souls is much more horror-themed, but I disagree that the pace of the gameplay is very different from DeS to DS1. It's still very tense and scary, and the lack of warping even makes the exploration scarier and harsher in a way, because you're loving stuck in Blighttown when you finally make it down, and that's scary. The pace of the combat is not changed at all (I've heard people say that DeS is actually faster, I can't really tell). Both the world design and the atmosphere in DS3 and Bloodborne are a mix of DeS and DS1, while the action focus is brand new, so I don't think you could argue that DS1 started the trajectory towards DS1/BB. I don't think any of the games in the series deserve to be compared to the piece of garbage brain dead waste of a franchise 'Aliens'. DS3 and Bloodborne are action sequels, yes, but they are not bad like Aliens. And if DS2 is bad, it's not because it's too action-y.
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Dec 29, 2020 02:31
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RBA Starblade posted:Much like Dark Souls, the fighting will continue until the world collapses upon itself Smouldering Lake looks and plays like poo poo. the idea isn't innately bad but they pulled off like no part of it. the outside bit is just another big flat swamp in a game that has lots of that already and will go on having more. at least it doesn't slow you down. the indoor bit is just pure out-of-time asset reuse, it's Carthus with different lighting and enemies from Farron and previous games. that bit and catacombs actually make me wonder if there wasn't supposed to be proc gen dungeon elements in the game at some point like in Bloodborne.
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Dec 29, 2020 02:36
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feelix posted:I don't think Dark Souls started the trajectory towards Bloodborne and DS3. Yes, Demon's souls is much more horror-themed, but I disagree that the pace of the gameplay is very different from DeS to DS1. It's still very tense and scary, and the lack of warping even makes the exploration scarier and harsher in a way, because you're loving stuck in Blighttown when you finally make it down, and that's scary. The pace of the combat is not changed at all (I've heard people say that DeS is actually faster, I can't really tell). Both the world design and the atmosphere in DS3 and Bloodborne are a mix of DeS and DS1, while the action focus is brand new, so I don't think you could argue that DS1 started the trajectory towards DS1/BB. In Demon's Souls, boss runs are endurance runs. There's a couple where you can find a shorter route, or at least the most optimized route, after exploring the level, but generally you will still have a long run-up to a boss. Dark Souls, since it breaks from the archstone structure, allows for a lot shorter boss runs. The longest in the game is probably getting to Nito from the Tomb of the Giants. The longest in DS2 might be getting to Freya from the bonfires in Tseldora, and in DS3...probably Deacons of the Deep? I don't remember a particularly long bonfire-to-boss run in that game. Bloodborne's is probably getting to Shadows of Yharnam from the lamp at the top of the Forbidden Woods. There's generally a trend in the Soulsborne games from gameplay where the priority is endurance to gameplay where the priority is smaller chunks that demand higher performance. Tanking becomes less and less of a strategy, and the tactics are more about optimizing your current strategy as opposed to having a huge box of tools. I'm not making a judgement about whether that's good or not. It's simply different, and that means it will appeal to different people for different reasons. For instance, item burden is to a point in Demon's Souls: it's a limiting factor on how much you can carry with you, and a way to force the player to limit their toolset (which increases tension, as you don't have every item at your disposal) and as a way to get them to return to the Nexus more often. Your item weight functions as a non-replenishable resource to force you to strategize for long-term trips. The problem with item burden is that it was far more onerous than it should have been, and with the way that Demon's Souls did item drops, it was very easy to find something and then lose it because you weren't watching your item burden. While that suits the thematic function of item burden, it's also just not fun as a player to lose out on something because you forgot to give all your rocks to Stockpile Thomas. Another good example of how things changed in Dark Souls as a series is the use of durability. Durability refreshing at bonfires was introduced in 2 and carried over to 3, so they clearly thought it was a good decision, and it lines up with the way that the series increasingly focused on short but highly challenging chunks over longer levels where the danger was most due to attrition and scarcity. While this change is more evident in Dark Souls 2 and 3, it's also visible in its early stages in Dark Souls. Demon's Souls levels often had one or two shortcuts, and gaining access to those was what compressed distance within a level. Dark Souls atomized that a little more, by allowing levels to have multiple checkpoints, instead of just one. Anor Londo imo is set up like a Demon's Souls level, but in addition to the various shortcuts you unlock, you're also finding bonfires through exploration. If you poke around below the elevator, you discover the Darkmoon bonfire; once you get past the archers on the ramparts you find the bonfire that Solaire is chilling at. This is a step toward segmenting the levels more heavily, which is elaborated on in Dark Souls 2 and 3, instead of returning to the one level, one archstone system from Demon's Souls. Again, the fact that there's a difference between these things does not mean one is better and one is worse, though you are free to think that depending on what you find good or bad in video games. But the fact that there is a difference in philosophy means that comparing them directly, as if they are attempting to provide the same experience, is fundamentally flawed.
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Dec 29, 2020 03:05
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skasion posted:Smouldering Lake looks and plays like poo poo. the idea isn't innately bad but they pulled off like no part of it. the outside bit is just another big flat swamp in a game that has lots of that already and will go on having more. at least it doesn't slow you down. the indoor bit is just pure out-of-time asset reuse, it's Carthus with different lighting and enemies from Farron and previous games. that bit and catacombs actually make me wonder if there wasn't supposed to be proc gen dungeon elements in the game at some point like in Bloodborne. My running Smoldering Lake conspiracy theory is that some sticky note that said "PROFANED CAPITAL = IZALITH" got lost and someone went "oh no, we forgot to put in Izalith but we have all these pyromancy assets!" and that's why the Demon Ruins are a bunch of copy-paste blocks from Carthus with a ton of DS1 demon models just heaped up everywhere
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Dec 29, 2020 03:08
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feelix posted:And then the Dark Souls 2 defenders will reply to my dunks instead of the actual in-depth accurate criticisms of their game being posted, because they don't have any substantive retort to the latter Which "actual in-depth criticism" has been unchallenged? I'm seeing a lot of people calling various parts of the game ugly, but that's not really a deep dive into the flaws of the game. I'm not going to get into a debate about someone's subjective tastes when it comes to DS2 or the other games, either. I find parts of DS2 ugly and those may or may not be the same as other people, but I find parts of DeS, DS1, Bloodborne, and DS3 ugly, too. Sekiro is the only visually flawless game. We've had plenty of debates here and in the other interchangeable Souls threads about the pros and cons of the various mechanics in 2 and the other games but I don't see them being dragged in here yet.
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Dec 29, 2020 03:25
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I just don't agree that the sum of differences between DeS and DS1 is in the direction of the action sprints of BB/DS3. Playing DeS and DS1 felt generally the same to me in terms of tension, which certainly wouldn't happen if DS1 was less tense, because I was already familiar with the mechanics. The only boss run I can remember where you have a real chance of dying is Old Hero, all the others are just annoyances because you can run past enemies. I also forgot to mention how I don't think that stealth is some lost mechanic from DeS. Stealth boils down to 1) making running past enemies less annoying 2) it is correct to wear the thief's ring in Shrine of Storms. The fact that the Ring of Fog isn't strongly helpful in certain areas in DS1 isn't some big erosion of a major mechanic. Your claims about how DS1 is a step on this trajectory to DS3/BB are just too selective, and for every one you make, I can make one that shows that DS1 is actually further from BB/DS3 than DeS is. DS1 is the game with the best options for tanking. DS1 is the only game without warping at the start. I don't even know why you're talking about durability, because you can in fact repair every time you get to an archstone, the only difference is the soul cost and the inconvenience of it.
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Dec 29, 2020 03:39
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Fog ring in DS1 is pretty good, just annoying to get. It totally trivializes the Archives for example
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Dec 29, 2020 03:45
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Yeah I like it as a secret to make replays easier, not as a nearly-required mechanic. That's what I meant by "strongly helpful" -- it's clear that Shrine of Storms was meant to be played with it on, not just nice to have
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Dec 29, 2020 03:47
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feelix posted:I just don't agree that the sum of differences between DeS and DS1 is in the direction of the action sprints of BB/DS3. Playing DeS and DS1 felt generally the same to me in terms of tension, which certainly wouldn't happen if DS1 was less tense, because I was already familiar with the mechanics. The only boss run I can remember where you have a real chance of dying is Old Hero, all the others are just annoyances because you can run past enemies. I'm really trying to not get bogged down in the weeds, but it feels like each time I bring something up you have an objection to some side example I brought in. So, durability. Sure, you could make durability in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls work like it does in 2 and 3 by just repairing every time you return to the Nexus. But that wasn't my point, my point that the way that durability has changed over time is an example of how the intended experience has changed over time, as a comparison to item burden. Item burden was a part of the intended experience of Demon's Souls, but not of Dark Souls. That Dark Souls dropped item burden entirely, made levels have more checkpoints, put a hard cap on Estus, and gave you a way to repair weapons at every checkpoint instead of just at the hub, is evidence to me that they wanted to change the texture of the game. If Demon's Souls and Dark Souls play the same to you, that's great, but they do not do things in the same ways, they are not trying to be the same game, and one is not objectively superior to the other. And whether or not one of them was, it wouldn't invalidate the things that Dark Souls 2 has to say about the nature of sequels, which is what all this was about in the first place. When Dark Souls 2 makes commentary on the nature of derivative works, it's not saying they can't be good, it's saying that by nature they are derivative. And not in the vernacular sense of being shabby imitations--although Dark Souls 2 has a lot of things which are explicitly meant to be shabby imitations of former glory--in the literal sense of being derived from some other thing. The lore in Dark Souls 2 is a telephone game version of Dark Souls 1 lore. Things from the first game are old, forgotten and lost. No one's sure if Lightning Spear or Heavenly Thunder was the original miracle. The Name-Engraved Ring has names of forgotten gods on it. The Great Old Ones are going through the motions of the Lords whose souls they've inherited. The Ancient Dragon is an imitation of dragons, golems are imitations of giants, Nashandra and the others are lost fragments of Manus. This poo poo isn't "uh actually the Earthen Peak elevator is good because hollowing is like dementia so it's not supposed to make sense". That Dark Souls 2 has things to say about sequels is not some squinting-at-pixels, trying-to-explain-the-piano-in-the-Gutter-textures type thing. The game says it directly to the player, over and over. Honestly I'd say the only themes DS2 is more obvious about than ""Recapturing Past Glories Is Futile" are "Desire Leads To Suffering" and "Accept Things As They Are". "Kings Are Bad" probably counts too.
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Dec 29, 2020 05:54
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Djeser posted:"Kings Are Bad" probably counts too. That one's a series-long theme really 
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Dec 29, 2020 06:00
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The Ivory King seems alright. Like yeah he went and beefed it but his sacrifice did inspire Alsanna to ignore her dark impulse to seek out more powerful souls to latch onto and instead channel her power into holding back the Old Chaos, which apparently she was able to do at least long enough for it to finally cool down and die off by DS3.
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Dec 29, 2020 06:08
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Djeser posted:I'm really trying to not get bogged down in the weeds, but it feels like each time I bring something up you have an objection to some side example I brought in. So, durability. Sure, you could make durability in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls work like it does in 2 and 3 by just repairing every time you return to the Nexus. But that wasn't my point, my point that the way that durability has changed over time is an example of how the intended experience has changed over time, as a comparison to item burden. Item burden was a part of the intended experience of Demon's Souls, but not of Dark Souls. That Dark Souls dropped item burden entirely, made levels have more checkpoints, put a hard cap on Estus, and gave you a way to repair weapons at every checkpoint instead of just at the hub, is evidence to me that they wanted to change the texture of the game. If Demon's Souls and Dark Souls play the same to you, that's great, but they do not do things in the same ways, they are not trying to be the same game, and one is not objectively superior to the other. My intent is not to say that your examples are invalid, it's that there are plenty of other, very big and major, examples where DS1 is further from DS3/BB than DeS is, such as no warping and poise. I think that DeS and DS1 are about equally distant from DS3/BB, so it is incorrect to say that DS1 is the first step towards them.
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Dec 29, 2020 06:30
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I think there's a lot of ways that Dark Souls represents a transition point in the series between Bloodborne and DS2/3 and Demon's Souls, but luckily I don't care about whether it does or not, because that's a tangent you went on so that you could slip in a sick burn on the idea that Dark Souls 2 has themes about sequels.
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Dec 29, 2020 07:07
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Shulva is probably the single best designed level in any souls game. I'm blown away every time I go through it.
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Dec 29, 2020 07:54
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All three Dark Souls takes place at the end of time at the end of the world. Time and space are broken, just listen to what Solaire goes on about. No time passes in each zone, there's always twillight in Majula, next to midnigth in Things betwixt, and bright midday in Heide. Worlds and times warp and collide. Still no really good explanation for the elevator, but maybe the Iron Kings people just needed a way to get down to Earthen Peak that just crashed into their world.
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Dec 29, 2020 08:05
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There's a good explanation for the Earthen Peak elevator: it was a mistake. Someone goofed and they didn't have the resources to fix it. They have specifically admitted there was a miscommunication about how the two levels were supposed to connect.
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Dec 29, 2020 09:39
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The Earthen Peak transition is absolutely a mistake. I know that I have brought the dementia argument before, but that’s just me trying to find a way to like The Thing everyone points at as The Proof That DS2 Is Bad, even though most people would agree that DS2 isn’t “bad” they just don’t like it as much as DS1. That said I still cannot hate the surreal effect that mistake brings, even if I know it all comes from my read of it.
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Dec 29, 2020 13:00
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i am tim! posted:The Earthen Peak transition is absolutely a mistake. I know that I have brought the dementia argument before, but that’s just me trying to find a way to like The Thing everyone points at as The Proof That DS2 Is Bad, even though most people would agree that DS2 isn’t “bad” they just don’t like it as much as DS1. Its ok to like things like that. I honestly never gave it thought when I first played it. I honestly like Dark Souls 2 a lot because the environments look so pretty to me. Majula and the Blue Water with the sunlight in Heide's tower of Flame just look gorgeous.
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Dec 29, 2020 16:17
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I went all the way through Shulva for the first time the other day. It is a good and unique area that I mostly enjoyed, though the bosses were a bit easy at the end of the NG run. I started Brume tower last night and the starting view of it and the fire tower and the lava fields is just fantastic. There are mysterious flaming skeleton bonfires that whisper emo lyrics and nuke rooms, and way too many admittedly pretty cool looking double axe knights. I've never cared about the earthen peak elevator to be critical of it because my experience of ds2 isn't negatively affected by it. DS1's interconnected world is cool but it also isn't what makes DS1 great for me, so its sequel not having it is also fine. This thread reminds me of the text version of Mauler trying to argue with HBomberguy through 60 hours of video. The point shifts from "is ds2 good/bad or better/worse" and becomes "please stop talking about this, at best you change some minds and some people stop liking a game perhaps?" and that's a pretty miserable goal.
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Dec 29, 2020 17:49
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With facts and logic I will prove conclusively that DS2 is bad. Your objections are wrong because they don't match my opinion
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Dec 29, 2020 18:03
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Simply Simon posted:With facts and logic I will prove conclusively that DS2 is bad. Your objections are wrong because they don't match my opinion Finally, someone said it. Thank you
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Dec 29, 2020 18:07
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Facts and logic skipped town ages ago. In fact, it seems like its been an.. Eternity.
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Dec 29, 2020 18:28
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Your favorite NPC in these games, who you escort through their quest like a boyscout helping an old woman through a crosswalk, wouldn't want us to bicker and argue like this.
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Dec 29, 2020 19:06
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Who else plummeted to their death as soon as they reached the gutter? The first time I played I couldn't see anything and made a misstep.
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Dec 29, 2020 19:08
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