I don't know if you've noticed this one recently
But there are a lot of sequels and reboots in the gaming industry today
So praise the Sun for Dark Souls a new IP that's gotten itself a cult following
rapidly gaining in popularity by bringing old-school NES hard into the modern generation of consoles
You know that when a game's tagline is you will die you're in for a good time
But in our excitement over this new franchise if we overlooked something
Are the Dark Souls games actually any good or are they fundamentally?
broken and flawed
Ladies and gentlemen of the internet welcome to deadlock
Vengeance will be mine
Giant dad be my strength
Any
Discussion of Dark Souls has to start with the difficulty the series became famous for bringing old-school difficulty into the modern-day gaming scene
Hey, just because a game is hard doesn't make it a bad game wasn't going to suspect
I would say that the game's extreme difficulty serves to make it one of the most immersive
all-consuming gaming experiences on modern consoles
Forgive your oculus rifts and curved TVs Dark Souls has you in the moment
every moment there are countless other games with incredibly detailed dungeons and castles that I just
Sprinted right through now on my way to the next piece of loot or quest item
I couldn't tell you a thing about the level design, but Dark Souls is burned into my mind
This isn't a game you run through your first time
This is a game you memorize a game that has you paying attention to every floor tile every enemy
placement in every item box
Damn image boxes. I know it's a game with dramatic stakes
you can't get careless which forces you to be aware of every single detail the designers put in and
Isn't that the point of a game to immerse you in another world if so Dark Souls?
absolutely does them which brings me to what I was originally trying to say a
Difficult game is fine
If the difficulty is fair and comes from the gameplay, but Dark Souls is difficult for unfair reasons and that unfairness
ultimately undermines the immersive experience you just described
First you have no idea where to go at any given time which
Provides you a great experience where you're discovering and connecting with a world independent of any obvious
Guideposts except for when it doesn't yes, it's great you get to discover your own path
But when the most essential item in the game also happens to be the most absurdly hidden
Yeah, a little bit of direction a clue
Anything would be nice. I of course I'm talking about the rusted iron ring. Oh, this is gonna hurt. Huh? Oh yeah?
this ring
which enables you to quickly walk through water and
Ability mind you that is necessary for huge chunks of the game can only be found by leaving off an elevator
Onto a somewhat secret platformer leaping into another ledge in a game that is far from a platformer
Let's be honest then climbing up a tower and crouching in a bird's nest so you can be flown back to the tutorial level
Without reading a strategy guide or an online tutorial you would never know this
Same thing with saving solely air and this is the type of obscurity that makes Dark Souls so difficult
Expecting you to figure things out without getting any clue slut can't that also be seen as the beauty of the game
the fact that it breaks gaming conventions
We as gamers are so trained to think and establish patterns
See a red barrel shoot it to make it explode that we find it difficult to break from those patterns
Dark Souls is one of the only games that forces you to do that
Instead of just riding the elevator shortcut like you would in any other game. You need to pay attention to your surroundings
Even then and notice that there's a break in the wall
It's an incredibly subtle clue admittedly
But the developers also know that this is the modern era where people talk online
Get stuck and there are literally hundreds of websites out there to help you out
Think that people would be complaining so much about Ocarina of times water temple if the internet had existed well
I should say high-speed internet had existed during the time
I don't think so sure but that doesn't excuse the game for being sloppy oh
Okay, hey there let's not resort to name-calling
It's true from the first moments of the game for example you get to select your starting gift
Knowing that. This is a hard game
I go with a tiny bee serene whose description says it slowly regenerates health after not seeing my health go up
I read online to find out that it actually increases the amount of health you have slightly
Not that you regenerate health if it's a typo it's sloppy if it's on purpose. It's lying to the player
I get that but again. It goes back to what I was saying earlier that this is a game that breaks conventions
It could have been a typo yes
But even if it wasn't it
hammers home the point from the moment you fire up the game that this is a game out to trick you lie to you and
Ultimately kill you look at another of the starting gifts the pendant
It says it has no purpose, and I sat there staring at the screen the first time
I played this game sat there trying to decide whether or not I should choose that item
Because let's be honest
What game has an item with no purpose?
But it has been confirmed by the designers that know the pendant truly has no use
It's just there as another trick turning the established gaming trope of the seemingly useless
Item that somehow becomes important later on on its home ok fine
Point being this lattice and portal line to you different because she's an unreliable narrator
NPCs and Dark Souls lied to you fun. It's that sort of world
I buy it, but the inventory screen being flat-out wrong
That's truly unfair even for a game that breaks conventions
Because a player needs something to let them know what the rules of the world are I?
want to be a
Pyromancer and obviously I see that the intelligent status for magic abilities so for my first seven levels I dump my
Experience points into intelligence after not seeing any improvement in my character
I read online to find that pyromancy despite it being about fire like spells
Actually has nothing to do with intelligence, and then I should be leveling up dexterity instead
Thanks Obama, and don't even get me started on the items humanity perhaps the most crucial
Gameplay mechanic affecting everything from your stats to the way NPCs treats you and I'm left to basically reverse
Engineer to figure out what the hell the programming in the game is all about
That's where the difficulty comes from all the sources that are unfair to the gamer
But even if you inserted a halfway-decent
Tutorial and a bit more direction into how to get and use some of these essential items at the time of when you need them
What are you left with?
lackluster
fighting mechanics
Wow
being trapped in that game really made you angsty toward it huh I
Was watching egoraptor sequel IIST video on ocarina of time and something occurred to me
Dark Souls has the same problems people think ocarina is incredible and that z-targeting for fighting is
Super exciting and immersive, but in the end that fighting boils down to time
wasted time waiting for the enemy to attack
Or to drop their guard so you can attack Dark Souls is the same way?
Lock block hit block block hit or if it's a boss run around behind
It smack smack smack smack smack them smack run around from the area of effect. Spell kicks in that's practically every single
Enemy in the game map I would argue that there's a little more variety than that but even if there wasn't that?
Is a real experience Gerard Dark Souls is a game perhaps the only game in recent history to make
death matter
For those of you watching who don't know when you die in Dark Souls you lose all your souls or
Experience points that you've accumulated since your last check point and the game forces you to start all the way back to your last bonfire
It is a punishing system
So of course you're gonna keep your shield up constantly and take lots of time with every fight you encounter
Waiting for the right time to strike because death matters it may just be one of the most realistic
fighting systems in a game ever
There is this
Unbelievably frustrating section called sen's fortress that has you platforming your way all the way to the top walking narrow pathways
Avoiding traps dealing with these real the obnoxious enemies
And you finally get to the roof only to see this giant in the distance and I stood there
Watching it move
Calculating whether or not this creature posed a threat to me
Because if I died at that point I would have to go back to the first bonfire
I was at and start all over again
But that Gerard is fear that is stakes, and that is good game design
Design that gets you to care about what happens to your character, so then what did happen man? I?
Died when a giant hidden behind me through an explosive Boulder
cheap dead man
cheap dead. perhaps
But in those moments where I was frantically trying to find the next bonfire well on fire those were perhaps the most
Engaged I had been in a game in a long time and at the end of the day what?
Qualifies as a good game to me. It's a game
That's immersive and makes me feel something is darksouls immersive. You betcha
We talked about that at the beginning, but does it give you the feels?
Absolutely because you're given so little information it keeps you hungry for the next clue as to
What the heck is going on in this world?
But ultimately it doesn't tell you anything in the end all right Wyatt. You this is my closing arguments
Even though it doesn't tell you all that much in the end
That's what's so exciting it lets the player come up with their own interpretations
Which is resulted in a vibrant and active fan community?
Dark Souls is challenging not just from a difficulty sense
But very much like a complex piece of art. You chew on it. You think about it digest. It discuss it
It's an empty vessel that the player gets to fill in this game is truly a rollercoaster of emotions
You're tense practically the whole time you get frustrated you rage quit
You come back you learn you get better and finally you triumph, and the sense of achievement is incredible
But beyond just gameplay there are moments that are legitimately
Shocking fearful even moments that I found incredibly sad
I don't think I've ever wanted to give up on a fight more than I did with SIF the great wolf
Once this little creature started limping around the arena
That attention to detail
Couldn't be in a game anyone would consider sloppy
couple those things with incredible enemy design and an atmosphere that is just
Oppressive the whole game, and you have maybe not what many people would call a fun game
But you have an incredibly rewarding one
But a game still has to be playable and enjoyable to play in order for it to be good Matthew
Players shouldn't have to reverse act the programming algorithms to figure out the effects of items or stats
And they certainly shouldn't be lied to about what an item does by the inventory screen?
Combat shouldn't be this repetitious laud
and it should be all worth something the ending of Dark Souls is the modern-day equivalent of
Congratulations a hard tedious slog that results in an ending that isn't satisfying and doesn't bring you any closure you
Compared the game to an empty vessel that players fill in I caught the reverse by the time
I finished the game with the lackluster boss fight and obtuse endings. I was the one feeling left
Wow
That was a really depressing ending
like Dark Souls
Ladies and gentlemen of the internet we have reached
Deadlock now the decision is in your hands who is number one and whose number none
Click on the person you think argued at the best or click the link in the description to cast your vote and settle this debate
once and for all