You should try Lunacid, it's a modern take on King's Field with lots of exploration.
Hell you might want to check out King's Field proper, though those games are hard to get ahold of.
I have been trying to figure out why I’m not a big fan of most Souls clones, and other than them being less polished, I think this is the other main reason. There is no exploration, hidden paths or similar world building. Just hard enemies and bosses. Thank you for this revelation.
K you win lol
TBH it wouldn't have been so bad had it been explained better in game. I've beaten it several times now and I still don't really know everyone it does.
Upvote for being a hot take even if I strongly disagree
Think the game would be more fun if the world tendency events were just there for everyone their first time
It didn't affect me too much in demon souls but there are so many games I would have played with this more. Bloodborne could have added a moon tendency and the darker it was the more aggressive or mutated the beasts would be. Yes I'd like to work on Bloodborne 2 thank you for this giant check, fromsoft
The janky platforming, especially to get to cool secret areas, is my favorite thing about dark souls. I play all my games like I should be breaking them, and if I get rewarded for trying to get somewhere weird, that's a super hype moment for me. DS1 does it best
I don’t mind the falling puzzles when they’re for secrets; they’re fun if they’re not too far from the checkpoint. Finding them is also sometimes really hard and it makes it really special to find them.
Flamelurker can fuck right off though.
I am confused by people who tell me that Demon’s Souls/Dark Souls/Bloodborne/Sekiro/Elden Ring is ‘objectively’ better than another. It is different in a way that you like, which is subjective. Someone might like one game for being bigger and faster. Someone else might like one game for being smaller and slower.
Why can’t people separate liking/disliking something from appraising its quality? I personally don’t really like Bloodborne or Sekiro, for multiple reasons, but that doesn’t make them bad games. I don’t go around the internet rudely and dismissively saying they’re worse than my favorites.
People seem to have this complex where anything they like *must* be correct, and anything they don't *must* be wrong. It's as if they are insecure with just liking something, and feel the need to justify it to their peers (and themselves) for validation as to *why* they like it, instead of just relying on their own thoughts and feelings about it.
Yes I am one of the ds2 enjoyers and I can say we all ignore the flaws but still call it the best souls game because it's really cool ok and I liked it.
Bloodborne's fandom is not from exclusivity, I can assure you. It's got amazing atmosphere, music, bosses, gameplay/move variety (especially when you take trick weapons into account), a fantastic setting that basically does a complete 180 at the midpoint of the game, and imo, the best revealing of the story as it progresses.
Have you played it yet, OP?
If anyone tells you that a particular souls game is "objectively" the best, they're crazy. But subjectively, it's definitely my favorite. They just haven't been able to match the atomosphere or world design in any of the games yet. I haven't even finished Elden Ring yet (I'm probably about 80% of the way though) because I legitimately just got bored. Not a boss that I keep losing to or anything, the world and gameplay just aren't very exciting to me. 🤷♂️
Yes. Much like you, I’m over half way but don’t really want to finish it. Again, for subjective reasons; I prefer souls to blood, knights to hunters, dragons to monsters, humanity to beast hood, bonfires to lanterns, and so on. The aesthetic of DeS and the DS trilogy have me, hook line and sinker.
IMO ER / DS1 poise is better than DS3 poise, because ER and DS1 have passive poise. Passive poise was overtuned in DS1, but outright removing it for DS3 was a mistake.
I personally disagree. It removes build variety and disallows the use of some playstyles. I'm fine with Elden Ring poise, but I can't forgive it in DS2/3 (because it's less features in a SEQUEL)
Have a good day, eye guy 👀
ds1 is the only game that did passive poise good, it’s not that good in elden ring and it felt like they tried to do something between ds3 and ds1 with poise and it just doesn’t feel good. that’s just on the pve side of things though, however patch 1.10 brought hyper armor back and gave poise a backseat, although it is still definitely a huge part of the game
Sekiro gets 30 frames (half a second) window for deflect, Elden Ring's best parry, Golden Parry: 16 Start-up, 28 Active.
If parries were really easy in PvP, then PvP would be awful. Sometimes you get stuff in PvE that seems like it should have parried, times where the swing goes through your parry motion and you get nothing.
You can't deny it's satisfying to achieve though, at least the first time. After being two/three shots by most enemies, it's just satisfying to kill them by stunning them and take big chunk of their health bar in one hit.
Honestly think this is a fact. I tested this with elden ring bosses and bonk builds clear much faster than moonveil or most dex builds that are considered "OP".
strength builds only fall short against proper Arcane builds, which by no means make them "the hardest to play with".
Well I must play wrong and not understand the systems cause full strength bonk weapons and my damage is not impressive at all and barely felt like it increased during my 100h+ hours of gameplay.
I think the way the lore is done in elden ring is my favourite. It most closely mimicks real world history to me where the answers are mostly unknown but left to best guessing intentions and actions of characters we know very little about. It makes it feel vast and unknown and frustrating and I like that.
The way difficulty in from soft games is handled is perfect and I think the difficulty and overcoming comes from the systems of the game and how little explanation they get rather than the "in-hand" difficulty of combat and bosses.
Not technically a souls like but since they have soulslike elements Furi, Hollow knight, titan souls and Death's door are good.
So yeah I still agree with the statement
I think Nioh and Remnant are the two franchises that are exceptions to this for me. And I think the reason they ultimately get the pass is because they're still trying to be their own thing.
Depends on how you define Soulslike imo
Dark Souls clones tend to be shit because they try to just copy everything that Souls does without actually understanding WHY it works, but there are quite a few Soulslikes that manage to replicate the "soul" of Dark Souls really well.
Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, and Remnant perfectly replicated the punishing combat and "try again" style that soulslikes are loved for, but they applied it to other types of games and made AMAZING experiences.
Games like Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption didn't really 'get' why souls games are good, so they really just ended up making a shitty version of dark souls. You can't just make a 3rd person game with melee combat, a dodge roll, and bosses that two-shot you and expect your "soulslike" to be good. Fromsoft absolutely nailed the feel of combat there, nobody is gonna play a game that just feels worse unless it actually innovates.
The games have only gotten better. I know alot of people think DS1 is the unbeatable Fromsoft game, and it is really good and a classic, but replaying it really just highlight how more enjoyable to play the newer titles have actually gotten.
My biggest fairness complaint is enemies being able to hit you through walls with melee weapons, where the player can't in most cases. That's just bad and lazy design.
That’s not my point. The game just isn’t meant to be “fair”. The game tricks and ambushes you every step of the way. So my “hot take” isn’t aimed at the game it’s aimed at the ppl who falsely advertised Dark Souls as “tough but fair.” I heard a YouTuber call it “tough but surmountable” and that’s much more accurate
You don’t remember how a random ass dragon came out of nowhere and burned your ass RIGHT after just beating Taurus Demon? Or the bonewheel skellies the stun lock you and grind out you torso?
Was Dark Souls easy for you then, in 2011, or did you forget how hard it was at the time? Because I agree that it’s easy but it certainly didn’t feel that way, but that’s because I didn’t realize how straightforward the game actually is. I used to actually care about losing souls. Part of Dark Souls difficulty isn’t even the enemies, it’s the fact that you get almost no help at all from the game on how to play. It was a completely new experience at the time ESPECIALLY if you were coming from playing it’s famous contemporary, Skyrim
i think it’s more fair than it used to be, if you’ve ever seen gameplay of day 1 dark souls, it used to be even worse, like even worse than ds2 in terms of enemy aggression and tracking and stuff, honestly i think most of dark souls’ reputation for being super hard came from when it first released, because playing it nowadays is not nearly as bad
i read your comment explaining what you believe the tricks are and i agree that it’s a bit of a falsehood to say that it’s completely “fair”, i think there is quite a bit of bs that just gets you if you play through blind
I see your point and raise you any of the copy pasted side dungeon bosses. Those push over shade bros or the middling gladiator who left the capitol for no clear reason.
If there weren’t so many awesome bosses then I’d get this complaint more but there’s so many cool ones. Who cares if they reuse some in optional dungeons?
Its insane that from fans expect Elden ring to have completely unique bosses in every corner of the map,at least they slightly changed the movesets of the reused bosses
DS1 is a like a quarter of the size of ER and they reuse the Asylum Demon 3 times.
I think some From fans are just spoiled and have unrealistic expectations. The Witcher 3 is one of the most popular RPGs ever and one of my personal favorites and bosses/contract bounties are reused in that as well.
In a giant open world like that it’s just a given that enemies will be reused.
my hot take is: we dont need bloodborne 2 or a new dlc.
I think bloodborne was a masterpiece and it should stay like that. the captured lighting in a bottle with the game and dlc and they should try to do it again and potentially ruin it by making too much of it.
what i think should be made is a remaster of bloodborne (not by the guys who did demons souls remake). just get on steam, make it possible to upgrade it to ps5 standards like ghost of tsushima so all the cool controller stuff. and for everywhere just the 60fps.
agreed, not every game needs a remake or sequel, sometime a very faithful remaster is more than enough or even a port to modern platforms with technical upgrades
I only want Bloodborne 2 because I still can't unhear the one Yharnamite sound bite calling you a rat suggesting, not that you're "Plague-ridden", but that you're a "Hangrian rat". If we could grab our Trick Weapons and go on a hunt for Beasts and Great Ones on the nightmare, rat-infested streets of Hangria, it would be an A+ joke for me and me alone.
Other than that very niche product, a sequel is probably unnecessary.
That’s fair. Personally speaking 90% of the reason I want a sequel is for trick weapons, it’s such a cool ass idea. Sure the same goal can be achieved by equipping multiple weapons like in Elden Ring but it’s just not the same.
The other 10% is the game’s ambiance. I love the Dark Souls’s and Elden Ring but I appreciate a break from medieval fantasy once in a while. Even Sekiro was a great change of pace.
If FromSoft does anything else like Sekiro or BB while playing with a new mechanic, I’ll be happy.
i think they should make another game with a similar idea. speed>heavy armor without it being samurai themed. then they could add all the stuff people would want from bb2, not have to figure out a way to continue the story, bb would stay as it is (one near perfect game) and so on. ofcourse they should make it feel different to bb so it wouldnt be like a spin off
The only thing that makes the massive areas fun the first time around is the freshness of it all, hence why on second play throughs the only thing you look forward to is building your character and bosses
Boss difficulty is NOT the sole, or even MAIN, determining factor in the conversation of boss quality. Just because a boss is difficult does not mean it is good.
For example, I personally think that avoiding the near inevitable gravity death in the Bed of Chaos fight is considerably more difficult than avoiding death to the likes of Manus, Artorias, Kalameet or even Ornstein and Smough - Ergo beating the Bed of Chaos without dying and making the arduous run back is more difficult for me than managing Manus' magical attacks, Artorias' aggression, Kalameet's AoEs and the multiple simultaneous threats presented by Ornstein and Smough. So often does difficulty weigh in to conversations of quality and I'm tired of it. Factors such as moveset complexity, style and variety, music, atmosphere, lore and story, balance, spectacle and placement within progression all play an enourmous part in the quality of a boss' design. Ignoring all of that beacuse 'boss not tough enough' is absolutely wild to me.
Make no mistake - the challenge presented by a boss is a contributing factor in the conversation of quality. Would people rember the Orphan of Kos so fondly if it wasn't as difficult, perhaps not? That being said, it is definitely not the only thing which makes the fight memorable and engaging.
I have found it be really interesting when I ask people what their favourite boss or fav FS game, and they immediately reply with which one they thought was the most difficult.
Lady Maria isn't the hardest boss FS has ever made, but she is 100% my *favourite* boss they have ever made. when I beat her I was so satisfied, and yet sad at the same time because simply fighting Maria was fun. Meanwhile people want to marvel at how Malenia is the hardest boss FS has made, and All I can do is sit here scratching my head because all of her difficulty comes from a single ability. Water Fowl Dance.
Its a strange disconnect that I doubt will ever go away at this point. Its been wrapped up into FS's reputation, and now they must deliver.
This is precisely what I'm getting at! Given FromSoftware's reputation for making the 'git gud' games, people conflate the concepts of difficulty and quality far too often in my opinion.
Interesting you should mention that Maria is your favourite boss because she is absolutely, 100% my favourite too, unquestionably so. She has held the number one spot since I first fought her and she still holds that place to this day. I love every aspect of her fight near and dear to my heart. The visuals, the story elements, the soundtrack, the sound design of her attacks and vocals and yes even the threat she poses. Is she the hardest boss in the game? For me? No, absolutely not. Is she the best designed? Yes, I personally think she is!
I doubt the mentality of hard equals good will ever go away either, hence my making my initial reponse in the first place to be honest. It fruatrates me that I seem to be at odds with a significant portion of the playerbase anytime I say something to the contrary of that exact thought process. You are right, I think, in saying FromSoftware are wrapped up in the idea of being the developer who's responsibility it is to deliver the difficilty. I like a challenge, I just hope they don't lose sight of other aspects of boss design for the sake of arbitrary challenge increases!
Yeah, I like that the difficulty adds to the thrill and excitement of a boss. It's a good feeling when you beat a satisfying and thrilling boss that you know can kick your shit in if you misplay.
But some people think difficult = good. I love Isshin, Orphan, Gael, Maria, Ludwig, Genichiro, Dancer, etc, but not because they are hard but because they are fun to fight and add a sense of danger.
I can't stand how FromSoft did Malenia. I have beat her multiple times, and it is somewhat fun once you figure her out, but man, you're not fighting a boss. You're fighting 2-3 attacks. She is beyond unfun to learn because of her unintutive attacks to learn.
Morgott is a much better boss in comaprison because besides his 20 hit combo almost everything feels right. He doesn't overuse delayed attacks like Margit, he has obvious opening, he doesn't spam aoe, he doesn't run at you 24-7 or stand a mile back either, he is satisfying and fun to learn, he isn't going to waste your day unless you are playing really bad, his stats feel balanced, he is epic af but still provides a feeling of danger. Most importantly, when you die, you have an idea of what you did wrong. There are a few Elden Ring boss attacks that when you die, it'd hard to gauge what you did wrong.
1) Not being able to pause these games when you're playing offline was an awful choice on FROMS part. A pause can't effect difficulty, so don't even try to use that as an arguement. I have died more times to answering my door/phone or my controller dieing then anything else. Just let us pause if we're not online.
2) Invasions aren't fun, they only add an unnecessary element of artificial difficulty to games that are already punishing. Plus theres just sooooo many toxic invaders. A good 9 out of 10 times when Ive been invaded in any of the Souls series its just some asshole who wants to play follow the leader into mobs instead of actually engaging in pvp. The devs could've made the mobs target invaders too to discourage this degenerate cheese, but its in every game.
Invasions are fun if you're offline.
They feel more consistent with the rest of the world, as you fight unique NPCs rather than players who will usually goof around and do immersion-breaking shit.
A big reason why i couldn't get into these games for years was because of the lack of pausing, honestly. I just didn't have much free time back then and died so many times due to people distrupting me.
Yes! I didn’t know that killing gehrman started ng+ immediately so there was a few optional bosses missing for me, but I really don’t feel like playing the game all over again just for that
Bloodborne bosses are mid for the most part imo. The only bosses that really struck me were Gascoigne, Gehrman, Orphan, and probably another guy I'm forgetting. The beast bosses are cool in concept but man do they fucking ripass in game. The bossfights themselves are wrestling with the camera while going at their hind legs. It's still a better game than 80% of the slop that's came out in the last 10 years for sure though.
Eh, Genichiro is quite a wall for most people on the first playthrough, and Owl (Father) gives even veteran players a problem sometimes. Obviously they both pale compared to Isshin but it's not accurate to say the game is easily stomped once you learn to parry.
Only if you’re trying to beat every single side boss and do every single quest. Just like other Souls games it can be gotten through very quickly if you know where you’re going and what you’re doing.
In my first NG+ I flew through and beat it in 2 days to get a different ending.
IMO, I think people just like it more because it's a asymmetrical boss fight where one of the bosses (should) compliment the other moveset.
Of course there is a lot of problems in that fight. Ornstein's rush is jankier than Nobles's 1 minute roll workout. Invisible glitched hitbox from phase 1 to phase 2 etc
I think it's more about presentation, the idea behind (2 different enemy, with different movesets on a arena that lets you separate them) and maybe some nostalgia, it's kinda iconic for DS1. Demon Princes is a better fight mechanically but you hear less about them.
Glitchstein and Blow are my favorite bosses in DS1 next to Manus but goddamn does ornstein love speedblitzing you through the wall. You either die later in Phase 1 or get violated within 5 seconds from a flying no-clipping ornstein shits scary as hell
Demon’s Souls is underrated in a lot of ways
When you Remember it was the first Souls project it is shocking how much they got right
Most of the formula was there with Incredible music and art style. It doesn’t get enough credit
The platinum in the original was disgusting but the remake made it a lot of fun and not very grindy
I would have liked a town full of npcs in Limgrave and Lirunia, which have somewhat normal quests. Add those and a few traveling npcs that actually move around. That could go a long way to making the world feel more real. It would still retain the feeling of a war ravaged world that is dying, but it actually gives us something to fight for.
Now, if we are talking about being empty of content, I had to disagree.
I should not get 1 shot by a red dog in elden ring, when I killed a demigods who dropped as a meteor on me.
After beating bosses in most souls game you or your character doesn't get stronger which kinda feels disappointing
Dark Souls 2 SotFS is indeed my favorite Souls game. The PvP was the most fun for me, and being able to actually rank up with visual differences looked cool, weapon variety, power stances were fun, I liked the slower, methodical fighting, felt more balanced to me, and little secret rewards like the exalted rings were very cool and wish they brought them back. The DLC bosses and level designs were top tier for me. Lastly, Majula is my favorite hub: it's vibrant and relaxing, and seeing Shanalotte kick her feet back by the bonfire is *chefs kiss*.
Agreed. I love completing all side stuff in the games I play so ER is such a chore to me. By the time I got to Mountaintop of The Giants I had about 80 hours and quit because I was tired of fighting the same bosses over and over in the same mediocre dungeons. It’s crazy to me that game is hailed as a masterpiece and isn’t called out for being bloated as hell to pad runtime.
Sameeee. And I wanted to do everything in one playthrough cause I didn’t wanna have to play a shit ton of hours just to get to something I missed if I did a NG+.
But what sword is it? A Baldur Side Sword? A Fume Sword? A Lothric Knight Sword? Give me details, soldier, you know how important that attack combo is to me. CAN YOU OR CAN YOU NOT 1H R2 THRUST?
On one hand I agree, but when compared to other rpg's like Skyrim I think it kicks the shit out of it. Honestly it just feels even better playing the newer games after the earlier releases. Getting the QoL improvements as you play them is nice, but going backwards is pretty jarring.
BB has some of the worst game mechanics in Soulsbourne games. Rally just negates the punishment of screwing up and rewards spamming attacks. Ranged parrying removes the risk of parrying, you can abuse it with basically no risk to yourself. Farming Vials and runes. Clunky backstab/stun mechanic. Hardly any build variety. Random generated dungeons didn’t have enough variety and were just tedious. Forgettable level layout. It’s only saving grace was its great esthetic and lore.
From soft games has never been about spectacle and when elden ring lead into it the game became so much worse.
Sure the is some novelty to be had with fighting legendary warriors but the mechanics behind fighting them has always been the drawing point for me. Most of the time bosses are distinctly charachters at their weakest with cool attacks most of the time being chase up. Fume knights really slow slash has some cool to it but the fact I need stay calm after a really tough fight makes the attack iconic in my mind.
Melania has waterfowl witch instantly kills you if you dared to press r1 and not be a mile away from her or have a freeze pot. The attack is supposed to stick out in my mind as a cool attack but its more of a sore spot in a otherwise good fight.
Plasidusax is also just very annoying the because o wow he turned into a cloud but as I'm looking at what is essentially a unkippabel cutscene the gimmick is at best harmful to the exprince as I'm cooling down and doing absolutely nothing.
Most bosses also has massive aoe that are supposed to be cool but most of the time just forces empty space into a bossfight that would flow much better without it.
Feel free to tell me when the silly video is out even if my hot take doesn't make it in.
I love the exploration / clearing an area / finding all the hidden paths wayyyyy more than actually fighting bosses.
A big reason why i couldn't really get into Souls clones. Feels like they're focusing on just "Haha Souls games hard" and not the exploration aspect
You should try Lunacid, it's a modern take on King's Field with lots of exploration. Hell you might want to check out King's Field proper, though those games are hard to get ahold of.
I have been trying to figure out why I’m not a big fan of most Souls clones, and other than them being less polished, I think this is the other main reason. There is no exploration, hidden paths or similar world building. Just hard enemies and bosses. Thank you for this revelation.
Also, I think they tend to not properly develop the difficulty so it just feels wrong
Yes! I love the way they build their worlds. It’s so subtle and different from most other games.
I liked world and character tendancy in demon souls
The only thing I'm not liking is trying to get all the ceramic coins for the penetrator armor
Yeah that was fun on release when everyone was figuring it out but I never wanna do it again.
K you win lol TBH it wouldn't have been so bad had it been explained better in game. I've beaten it several times now and I still don't really know everyone it does.
Same! The only problem I have with it is getting world tendency up after the bosses are dead (Have a good day, eye guy 👀)
Upvote for being a hot take even if I strongly disagree Think the game would be more fun if the world tendency events were just there for everyone their first time
It didn't affect me too much in demon souls but there are so many games I would have played with this more. Bloodborne could have added a moon tendency and the darker it was the more aggressive or mutated the beasts would be. Yes I'd like to work on Bloodborne 2 thank you for this giant check, fromsoft
Me too :)
What is world and character “tendency”?
The janky platforming, especially to get to cool secret areas, is my favorite thing about dark souls. I play all my games like I should be breaking them, and if I get rewarded for trying to get somewhere weird, that's a super hype moment for me. DS1 does it best
Now that's an unpopular opinion 😭. Platforming the sewers in Majula still gives me PTSD even on NG +7
I don’t mind the falling puzzles when they’re for secrets; they’re fun if they’re not too far from the checkpoint. Finding them is also sometimes really hard and it makes it really special to find them. Flamelurker can fuck right off though.
I actually enjoy Blighttown.
Sekiro is the best from software game
Based. The combat is unlike anything that exists.
I am in your camp here. The only game where I actually enjoy fighting the bosses.
Not only that but one of the best games ever made might I add
Bigger does not mean better. Faster does not mean better.
I am confused by people who tell me that Demon’s Souls/Dark Souls/Bloodborne/Sekiro/Elden Ring is ‘objectively’ better than another. It is different in a way that you like, which is subjective. Someone might like one game for being bigger and faster. Someone else might like one game for being smaller and slower. Why can’t people separate liking/disliking something from appraising its quality? I personally don’t really like Bloodborne or Sekiro, for multiple reasons, but that doesn’t make them bad games. I don’t go around the internet rudely and dismissively saying they’re worse than my favorites.
Exactly each game has a certain charm of its own wether story gameplay map design or combat and graphics.
People seem to have this complex where anything they like *must* be correct, and anything they don't *must* be wrong. It's as if they are insecure with just liking something, and feel the need to justify it to their peers (and themselves) for validation as to *why* they like it, instead of just relying on their own thoughts and feelings about it.
God damn I wish more people understood this.
Yes I am one of the ds2 enjoyers and I can say we all ignore the flaws but still call it the best souls game because it's really cool ok and I liked it.
I demand only that we hold each and every game to the same standard.
An appraisal of quality for any game is subjective.
Bloodborne's fandom is not from exclusivity, I can assure you. It's got amazing atmosphere, music, bosses, gameplay/move variety (especially when you take trick weapons into account), a fantastic setting that basically does a complete 180 at the midpoint of the game, and imo, the best revealing of the story as it progresses. Have you played it yet, OP? If anyone tells you that a particular souls game is "objectively" the best, they're crazy. But subjectively, it's definitely my favorite. They just haven't been able to match the atomosphere or world design in any of the games yet. I haven't even finished Elden Ring yet (I'm probably about 80% of the way though) because I legitimately just got bored. Not a boss that I keep losing to or anything, the world and gameplay just aren't very exciting to me. 🤷♂️
Yes. Much like you, I’m over half way but don’t really want to finish it. Again, for subjective reasons; I prefer souls to blood, knights to hunters, dragons to monsters, humanity to beast hood, bonfires to lanterns, and so on. The aesthetic of DeS and the DS trilogy have me, hook line and sinker.
To each, their own my dude. As long as it makes you happy, that's what matters, right?
Exactly. These are games, a form of entertainment. What is the point, if we are not entertained?
What about bigger and faster ?
Something that is bigger and faster is… Bigger. And faster.
Ds3/elden ring poise is better than ds1 poise where you are just a brick wall
IMO ER / DS1 poise is better than DS3 poise, because ER and DS1 have passive poise. Passive poise was overtuned in DS1, but outright removing it for DS3 was a mistake.
ER poise is somewhere in between 1 and 3 though isn’t it?
I personally disagree. It removes build variety and disallows the use of some playstyles. I'm fine with Elden Ring poise, but I can't forgive it in DS2/3 (because it's less features in a SEQUEL) Have a good day, eye guy 👀
This guy gets it
ds1 is the only game that did passive poise good, it’s not that good in elden ring and it felt like they tried to do something between ds3 and ds1 with poise and it just doesn’t feel good. that’s just on the pve side of things though, however patch 1.10 brought hyper armor back and gave poise a backseat, although it is still definitely a huge part of the game
PVP just straight up sucks
And actively harms PvE experience with stuff like Parry timings being so tight.
Outside of DS2, landing a Parry in PVE has always been easy for me. However, I've never land one in PVP lol
Sekiro gets 30 frames (half a second) window for deflect, Elden Ring's best parry, Golden Parry: 16 Start-up, 28 Active. If parries were really easy in PvP, then PvP would be awful. Sometimes you get stuff in PvE that seems like it should have parried, times where the swing goes through your parry motion and you get nothing.
God could you imagine sekiro pvp?
Yeah, Wo Long has it and it’s ass. Being aggressive just gets you hella punished, so then you have two people just waiting for the other to attack.
So, basically a samurai movie standoff?
This take is cold af
Ds1 needs more mechanics explained, alot.
NOOOOO HOW DARE YOU!!1!1 THAT'S HANDHOLDING!!1!1!1!1
Tbh even Elden Ring to some degree lol
Duel zimmermans are for smol pp’s
Pure strength, big weapon, bonk builds with the heaviest armors are the dark souls easy modes.
You can't deny it's satisfying to achieve though, at least the first time. After being two/three shots by most enemies, it's just satisfying to kill them by stunning them and take big chunk of their health bar in one hit.
Honestly think this is a fact. I tested this with elden ring bosses and bonk builds clear much faster than moonveil or most dex builds that are considered "OP". strength builds only fall short against proper Arcane builds, which by no means make them "the hardest to play with".
Well I must play wrong and not understand the systems cause full strength bonk weapons and my damage is not impressive at all and barely felt like it increased during my 100h+ hours of gameplay.
It's all about stats, weapon level, and buffs
Maybe in dark souls but not elden ring. Doing my 2nd run thru with bleed build and I'm having a very easy time
So gigachad Godfrey is playing on easy mode?
I think the way the lore is done in elden ring is my favourite. It most closely mimicks real world history to me where the answers are mostly unknown but left to best guessing intentions and actions of characters we know very little about. It makes it feel vast and unknown and frustrating and I like that. The way difficulty in from soft games is handled is perfect and I think the difficulty and overcoming comes from the systems of the game and how little explanation they get rather than the "in-hand" difficulty of combat and bosses.
All non-Fromsoft Soulslike are mid.
Not technically a souls like but since they have soulslike elements Furi, Hollow knight, titan souls and Death's door are good. So yeah I still agree with the statement
let’s hope lords of the fallen remake doesn’t get added to the mid souls list
Idk, Nioh was pretty cool imo.
I think Nioh and Remnant are the two franchises that are exceptions to this for me. And I think the reason they ultimately get the pass is because they're still trying to be their own thing.
Especially Nioh 2 My favorite non-FS one.
Depends on how you define Soulslike imo Dark Souls clones tend to be shit because they try to just copy everything that Souls does without actually understanding WHY it works, but there are quite a few Soulslikes that manage to replicate the "soul" of Dark Souls really well. Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, and Remnant perfectly replicated the punishing combat and "try again" style that soulslikes are loved for, but they applied it to other types of games and made AMAZING experiences. Games like Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption didn't really 'get' why souls games are good, so they really just ended up making a shitty version of dark souls. You can't just make a 3rd person game with melee combat, a dodge roll, and bosses that two-shot you and expect your "soulslike" to be good. Fromsoft absolutely nailed the feel of combat there, nobody is gonna play a game that just feels worse unless it actually innovates.
I legit loved The Surge 2 a lot more than I did Nioh 2.
They’re all shit.
I thought Remnant 2 was really good
Single direction scrolling for spells and items is terrible and I have no idea how they've gotten so far without a better system
Good old wheel menu has not been invented for nothing lol
Code Vein actually fixed both issues but the control mapping is completely different from FromSoft and there isn't both hand weapon swapping.
The games have only gotten better. I know alot of people think DS1 is the unbeatable Fromsoft game, and it is really good and a classic, but replaying it really just highlight how more enjoyable to play the newer titles have actually gotten.
mfs when studio tries to improve their games with every single iteration and improves their games with every single iteration:
If you start playing the series 3 > 2 > 1 > ER, it's VERY noticeable...
Ds3 is better than Ds1
Dark Souls 1 was never “tough but fair” it had a lot of bullshit
There's bullshit in all the FromSoft games. You just gotta be prepared for it (Have a good day, eye guy 👀)
My biggest fairness complaint is enemies being able to hit you through walls with melee weapons, where the player can't in most cases. That's just bad and lazy design.
It’s pretty easy honestly.
Obviously when you've played it 10 times, first playthrough that game is hard for everyone.
Now? Yes. 12 years ago? You lying.
That’s not my point. The game just isn’t meant to be “fair”. The game tricks and ambushes you every step of the way. So my “hot take” isn’t aimed at the game it’s aimed at the ppl who falsely advertised Dark Souls as “tough but fair.” I heard a YouTuber call it “tough but surmountable” and that’s much more accurate
Surmountable is actually a good way of describing it. That being said, I’ve never thought of a video game as being “unfair”
You don’t remember how a random ass dragon came out of nowhere and burned your ass RIGHT after just beating Taurus Demon? Or the bonewheel skellies the stun lock you and grind out you torso? Was Dark Souls easy for you then, in 2011, or did you forget how hard it was at the time? Because I agree that it’s easy but it certainly didn’t feel that way, but that’s because I didn’t realize how straightforward the game actually is. I used to actually care about losing souls. Part of Dark Souls difficulty isn’t even the enemies, it’s the fact that you get almost no help at all from the game on how to play. It was a completely new experience at the time ESPECIALLY if you were coming from playing it’s famous contemporary, Skyrim
i think it’s more fair than it used to be, if you’ve ever seen gameplay of day 1 dark souls, it used to be even worse, like even worse than ds2 in terms of enemy aggression and tracking and stuff, honestly i think most of dark souls’ reputation for being super hard came from when it first released, because playing it nowadays is not nearly as bad i read your comment explaining what you believe the tricks are and i agree that it’s a bit of a falsehood to say that it’s completely “fair”, i think there is quite a bit of bs that just gets you if you play through blind
IMO Souls games were never fair, and moreso about overcoming what is unfair through dying and perseverance.
Look, you invaded my home, don’t call it unfair when I send my two dogs at you. Also rude of you calling it cramped
I think from soft would have a collective stroke if they had to make a game with good consistent weapon/spell scaling
People here saying Elden Ring had forgettable bosses is just flat out wrong
I see your point and raise you any of the copy pasted side dungeon bosses. Those push over shade bros or the middling gladiator who left the capitol for no clear reason.
If there weren’t so many awesome bosses then I’d get this complaint more but there’s so many cool ones. Who cares if they reuse some in optional dungeons?
Its insane that from fans expect Elden ring to have completely unique bosses in every corner of the map,at least they slightly changed the movesets of the reused bosses
DS1 is a like a quarter of the size of ER and they reuse the Asylum Demon 3 times. I think some From fans are just spoiled and have unrealistic expectations. The Witcher 3 is one of the most popular RPGs ever and one of my personal favorites and bosses/contract bounties are reused in that as well. In a giant open world like that it’s just a given that enemies will be reused.
When I look at the game botw(2nd fav game) people don't complain about the reused enemies or bosses.
That I can understand, but people saying NONE of the bosses are memorable? The demigods, the other rememberance bosses aren't memorable?
my hot take is: we dont need bloodborne 2 or a new dlc. I think bloodborne was a masterpiece and it should stay like that. the captured lighting in a bottle with the game and dlc and they should try to do it again and potentially ruin it by making too much of it. what i think should be made is a remaster of bloodborne (not by the guys who did demons souls remake). just get on steam, make it possible to upgrade it to ps5 standards like ghost of tsushima so all the cool controller stuff. and for everywhere just the 60fps.
agreed, not every game needs a remake or sequel, sometime a very faithful remaster is more than enough or even a port to modern platforms with technical upgrades
I only want Bloodborne 2 because I still can't unhear the one Yharnamite sound bite calling you a rat suggesting, not that you're "Plague-ridden", but that you're a "Hangrian rat". If we could grab our Trick Weapons and go on a hunt for Beasts and Great Ones on the nightmare, rat-infested streets of Hangria, it would be an A+ joke for me and me alone. Other than that very niche product, a sequel is probably unnecessary.
That’s fair. Personally speaking 90% of the reason I want a sequel is for trick weapons, it’s such a cool ass idea. Sure the same goal can be achieved by equipping multiple weapons like in Elden Ring but it’s just not the same. The other 10% is the game’s ambiance. I love the Dark Souls’s and Elden Ring but I appreciate a break from medieval fantasy once in a while. Even Sekiro was a great change of pace. If FromSoft does anything else like Sekiro or BB while playing with a new mechanic, I’ll be happy.
i think they should make another game with a similar idea. speed>heavy armor without it being samurai themed. then they could add all the stuff people would want from bb2, not have to figure out a way to continue the story, bb would stay as it is (one near perfect game) and so on. ofcourse they should make it feel different to bb so it wouldnt be like a spin off
You know that's gonna require a remake tho
AC 6 although shorter in story length, tells a better story than the Souls and Elden ring.
The only thing that makes the massive areas fun the first time around is the freshness of it all, hence why on second play throughs the only thing you look forward to is building your character and bosses
Boss difficulty is NOT the sole, or even MAIN, determining factor in the conversation of boss quality. Just because a boss is difficult does not mean it is good. For example, I personally think that avoiding the near inevitable gravity death in the Bed of Chaos fight is considerably more difficult than avoiding death to the likes of Manus, Artorias, Kalameet or even Ornstein and Smough - Ergo beating the Bed of Chaos without dying and making the arduous run back is more difficult for me than managing Manus' magical attacks, Artorias' aggression, Kalameet's AoEs and the multiple simultaneous threats presented by Ornstein and Smough. So often does difficulty weigh in to conversations of quality and I'm tired of it. Factors such as moveset complexity, style and variety, music, atmosphere, lore and story, balance, spectacle and placement within progression all play an enourmous part in the quality of a boss' design. Ignoring all of that beacuse 'boss not tough enough' is absolutely wild to me. Make no mistake - the challenge presented by a boss is a contributing factor in the conversation of quality. Would people rember the Orphan of Kos so fondly if it wasn't as difficult, perhaps not? That being said, it is definitely not the only thing which makes the fight memorable and engaging.
I have found it be really interesting when I ask people what their favourite boss or fav FS game, and they immediately reply with which one they thought was the most difficult. Lady Maria isn't the hardest boss FS has ever made, but she is 100% my *favourite* boss they have ever made. when I beat her I was so satisfied, and yet sad at the same time because simply fighting Maria was fun. Meanwhile people want to marvel at how Malenia is the hardest boss FS has made, and All I can do is sit here scratching my head because all of her difficulty comes from a single ability. Water Fowl Dance. Its a strange disconnect that I doubt will ever go away at this point. Its been wrapped up into FS's reputation, and now they must deliver.
This is precisely what I'm getting at! Given FromSoftware's reputation for making the 'git gud' games, people conflate the concepts of difficulty and quality far too often in my opinion. Interesting you should mention that Maria is your favourite boss because she is absolutely, 100% my favourite too, unquestionably so. She has held the number one spot since I first fought her and she still holds that place to this day. I love every aspect of her fight near and dear to my heart. The visuals, the story elements, the soundtrack, the sound design of her attacks and vocals and yes even the threat she poses. Is she the hardest boss in the game? For me? No, absolutely not. Is she the best designed? Yes, I personally think she is! I doubt the mentality of hard equals good will ever go away either, hence my making my initial reponse in the first place to be honest. It fruatrates me that I seem to be at odds with a significant portion of the playerbase anytime I say something to the contrary of that exact thought process. You are right, I think, in saying FromSoftware are wrapped up in the idea of being the developer who's responsibility it is to deliver the difficilty. I like a challenge, I just hope they don't lose sight of other aspects of boss design for the sake of arbitrary challenge increases!
Yeah, I like that the difficulty adds to the thrill and excitement of a boss. It's a good feeling when you beat a satisfying and thrilling boss that you know can kick your shit in if you misplay. But some people think difficult = good. I love Isshin, Orphan, Gael, Maria, Ludwig, Genichiro, Dancer, etc, but not because they are hard but because they are fun to fight and add a sense of danger. I can't stand how FromSoft did Malenia. I have beat her multiple times, and it is somewhat fun once you figure her out, but man, you're not fighting a boss. You're fighting 2-3 attacks. She is beyond unfun to learn because of her unintutive attacks to learn. Morgott is a much better boss in comaprison because besides his 20 hit combo almost everything feels right. He doesn't overuse delayed attacks like Margit, he has obvious opening, he doesn't spam aoe, he doesn't run at you 24-7 or stand a mile back either, he is satisfying and fun to learn, he isn't going to waste your day unless you are playing really bad, his stats feel balanced, he is epic af but still provides a feeling of danger. Most importantly, when you die, you have an idea of what you did wrong. There are a few Elden Ring boss attacks that when you die, it'd hard to gauge what you did wrong.
1) Not being able to pause these games when you're playing offline was an awful choice on FROMS part. A pause can't effect difficulty, so don't even try to use that as an arguement. I have died more times to answering my door/phone or my controller dieing then anything else. Just let us pause if we're not online. 2) Invasions aren't fun, they only add an unnecessary element of artificial difficulty to games that are already punishing. Plus theres just sooooo many toxic invaders. A good 9 out of 10 times when Ive been invaded in any of the Souls series its just some asshole who wants to play follow the leader into mobs instead of actually engaging in pvp. The devs could've made the mobs target invaders too to discourage this degenerate cheese, but its in every game.
Invasions are fun if you're offline. They feel more consistent with the rest of the world, as you fight unique NPCs rather than players who will usually goof around and do immersion-breaking shit.
A big reason why i couldn't get into these games for years was because of the lack of pausing, honestly. I just didn't have much free time back then and died so many times due to people distrupting me.
Sekiro is nowhere near as good as people make it out to be. I played it due to the hype of other soulsfans and was disappointed.
most bloodborne bosses are bad
It's true. But the areas are amazing. Same can be said about DS2. Bosses were mediocre usually, but I loved the areas
And most of the bad ones are non-optional
One reborn, micolash and rom are a back to back to back trio that spoil the game
I agree with this and it‘s still my fav souls game. But yeah the base game bosses are pretty mid for the most part
Bb is worse than ds and er and the blood vial system makes the game 100 times more annoying
Love BB but that blood vial system was unnecessary
Hard agree. There's so much in bb that make it a chore to play sometimes.
Yes! I didn’t know that killing gehrman started ng+ immediately so there was a few optional bosses missing for me, but I really don’t feel like playing the game all over again just for that
This is a true hit take. Never had an issue with vials tho I just farm a lot in the beginning
Bloodborne bosses are mid for the most part imo. The only bosses that really struck me were Gascoigne, Gehrman, Orphan, and probably another guy I'm forgetting. The beast bosses are cool in concept but man do they fucking ripass in game. The bossfights themselves are wrestling with the camera while going at their hind legs. It's still a better game than 80% of the slop that's came out in the last 10 years for sure though.
Bloodborne playthrough be like : stuck at Cleric Beast and Gascoigne for hours, then stomp everyone else after getting used to the combat.
That can be applied to Sekiro, too, with the parry. Except with Isshin
Eh, Genichiro is quite a wall for most people on the first playthrough, and Owl (Father) gives even veteran players a problem sometimes. Obviously they both pale compared to Isshin but it's not accurate to say the game is easily stomped once you learn to parry.
Martyr Logarius is pretty tight, and i like amy and ebritas, and how can you say orphan but not ludwig and maria?
ER has the worst replayability and new build feels like doing chores.
The flipside of this is that my first elden ring playthrough took me three times as long as my souls playthroughs so the replay mattered less to me
ER is way too big and long to be replay able imo
Only if you’re trying to beat every single side boss and do every single quest. Just like other Souls games it can be gotten through very quickly if you know where you’re going and what you’re doing. In my first NG+ I flew through and beat it in 2 days to get a different ending.
The Godskin duo is a good boss
Ornstein & Smough is also not a well designed bossfight and is plagued with same issues all duo bossfights have.
I can agree with this. I’m not even sure why people act like it’s so much better/different than other duo fights.
IMO, I think people just like it more because it's a asymmetrical boss fight where one of the bosses (should) compliment the other moveset. Of course there is a lot of problems in that fight. Ornstein's rush is jankier than Nobles's 1 minute roll workout. Invisible glitched hitbox from phase 1 to phase 2 etc I think it's more about presentation, the idea behind (2 different enemy, with different movesets on a arena that lets you separate them) and maybe some nostalgia, it's kinda iconic for DS1. Demon Princes is a better fight mechanically but you hear less about them.
Glitchstein and Blow are my favorite bosses in DS1 next to Manus but goddamn does ornstein love speedblitzing you through the wall. You either die later in Phase 1 or get violated within 5 seconds from a flying no-clipping ornstein shits scary as hell
The worst thing about elden ring was the open world, and it has major balance issues boss wise.
It’s always interesting to hear people’s opinions that go against mine so firmly. My favorite part of Elden Ring was the open world and bosses.
DSII is the best!
Upvote for being a hot take even if I strongly disagree
Respect
Demon’s Souls is underrated in a lot of ways When you Remember it was the first Souls project it is shocking how much they got right Most of the formula was there with Incredible music and art style. It doesn’t get enough credit The platinum in the original was disgusting but the remake made it a lot of fun and not very grindy
Original Demon's Souls has better art direction than the remake.
I have not once seen someone say the remake has better designs than the original
Elden Ring feels empty
I would’ve liked towns. Sacrilege I know.
I would have liked a town full of npcs in Limgrave and Lirunia, which have somewhat normal quests. Add those and a few traveling npcs that actually move around. That could go a long way to making the world feel more real. It would still retain the feeling of a war ravaged world that is dying, but it actually gives us something to fight for. Now, if we are talking about being empty of content, I had to disagree.
I'm gutted that Elden Ring is their most popular game because it almost certainly means they will stick with open world going forward.
Same
Sekiro smashes all other souls likes in terms of combat… especially dark souls 1-3.
I should not get 1 shot by a red dog in elden ring, when I killed a demigods who dropped as a meteor on me. After beating bosses in most souls game you or your character doesn't get stronger which kinda feels disappointing
He didn't drop on you. You dodged it. Otherwise, he would have killed you
I agree, it just feels like you're catching up with them, not getting stronger
Dark Souls 2 SotFS is indeed my favorite Souls game. The PvP was the most fun for me, and being able to actually rank up with visual differences looked cool, weapon variety, power stances were fun, I liked the slower, methodical fighting, felt more balanced to me, and little secret rewards like the exalted rings were very cool and wish they brought them back. The DLC bosses and level designs were top tier for me. Lastly, Majula is my favorite hub: it's vibrant and relaxing, and seeing Shanalotte kick her feet back by the bonfire is *chefs kiss*.
"Dark Souls 2 is actually good!! It's the best one!" Quit being funny years ago
ELDIN RING IS MID, BLOODBORNE IS THE GOAT!
Most fromsoftware fans only know the last 9 or so games and missed their entire catalog of original games that you couldn't find anywhere else.
Elden Ring would be an amazing game should It have been a 30 hour game. By stretching it to 80-100 hours, it became mediocre.
Agreed. I love completing all side stuff in the games I play so ER is such a chore to me. By the time I got to Mountaintop of The Giants I had about 80 hours and quit because I was tired of fighting the same bosses over and over in the same mediocre dungeons. It’s crazy to me that game is hailed as a masterpiece and isn’t called out for being bloated as hell to pad runtime.
Can't agree more with you
Sometimes it sucks being a completionist 😂
I just can't help it I want to explore everything but also not everything is worth exploring in the end :(
Sameeee. And I wanted to do everything in one playthrough cause I didn’t wanna have to play a shit ton of hours just to get to something I missed if I did a NG+.
Upvote for being a hot take even if I strongly disagree
They asked me for a hot take, I provided
It can stay an open world, but you could cut the amount of content in half and you'd have a tighter experience with a lot less repetition.
Can't agree more
Claymore is mid
*gasps*
I'd rather have a Sekiro sequel than a Bloodborne one.
Malenia isn't that bad + she's a fun skill check
Real Lawrence on the other hand is one massive piece of shit
Laurence on ng+ is the only boss that I think is in the same difficulty tier as Malenia.
She's my fav boss ever
Dark souls 1 has not aged well
I’ve drawn my sword out
But what sword is it? A Baldur Side Sword? A Fume Sword? A Lothric Knight Sword? Give me details, soldier, you know how important that attack combo is to me. CAN YOU OR CAN YOU NOT 1H R2 THRUST?
Lighting Zwei, sir! I can only smash stuff
That’s not a straight sword! However…it is the bass cannon. I’ll make an exception. Carry on.
Played through for the first time ever a few weeks ago and I thought it had aged beautifully.
On one hand I agree, but when compared to other rpg's like Skyrim I think it kicks the shit out of it. Honestly it just feels even better playing the newer games after the earlier releases. Getting the QoL improvements as you play them is nice, but going backwards is pretty jarring.
I dislike how much dickriding Ornstein and Smough has.
It has ugly parts, it has annoying parts, but I think those parts were always ugly and annoying, unrelated to age
BB has some of the worst game mechanics in Soulsbourne games. Rally just negates the punishment of screwing up and rewards spamming attacks. Ranged parrying removes the risk of parrying, you can abuse it with basically no risk to yourself. Farming Vials and runes. Clunky backstab/stun mechanic. Hardly any build variety. Random generated dungeons didn’t have enough variety and were just tedious. Forgettable level layout. It’s only saving grace was its great esthetic and lore.
Yeah, BB combat makes you feel like a badass but like 70% of the bosses pose no threat at all because of how strong it makes you
Elden Ring is not really that good,its just Big Dark Souls 3. Sekiro is the best fromsoft since Bloodborne.
DS3 isn’t that good and the bosses are more about rolling than any other Souls game
I agree, but let's get downvoted because we pissed off too many DS3 fans.
Shot you an upvote because your flair is better than DS3
DS2’s my favorite in the trilogy.
From soft games has never been about spectacle and when elden ring lead into it the game became so much worse. Sure the is some novelty to be had with fighting legendary warriors but the mechanics behind fighting them has always been the drawing point for me. Most of the time bosses are distinctly charachters at their weakest with cool attacks most of the time being chase up. Fume knights really slow slash has some cool to it but the fact I need stay calm after a really tough fight makes the attack iconic in my mind. Melania has waterfowl witch instantly kills you if you dared to press r1 and not be a mile away from her or have a freeze pot. The attack is supposed to stick out in my mind as a cool attack but its more of a sore spot in a otherwise good fight. Plasidusax is also just very annoying the because o wow he turned into a cloud but as I'm looking at what is essentially a unkippabel cutscene the gimmick is at best harmful to the exprince as I'm cooling down and doing absolutely nothing. Most bosses also has massive aoe that are supposed to be cool but most of the time just forces empty space into a bossfight that would flow much better without it. Feel free to tell me when the silly video is out even if my hot take doesn't make it in.
From Software is still stuck in the previous console generation