Precise timing/dexterity is very important if you want to get anywhere without unfun grinding.
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So probably not my thing… ah well… can’t play them all.
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I know, but isn’t the remaster PS5 exclusive? And Dark Souls was on sale so that forced my hand! Either way, Dark Souls is a much gentler intro than Bloodborne and gives far more info on the controls and how to play.
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I do wonder how this game would have survived in an age before the internet, wikis and livestreams. Or even in the gameFAQs days. Probably a far more niche audience!
True which is probably why demon souls struggled to find it’s audience and dark souls nailed it.
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I don’t get this whole conversation. You never have any need to know what all those numbers mean, and everything you need to play the game is in it.
(An example of a really wiki-dependent game would be something like Darkest Dungeon. That’s the kind of game design I really don’t like. Dark Souls is not that.)
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Souls games don’t need a wiki. Darkest Dungeon sure as heck doesn’t need a wiki. They are both brutally unforgiving games though, and not everyone wants to make the (considerable) effort to plumb their systems by getting beat down constantly.
Right off the bat though, I want to note: grinding in Souls games is usually futile. Focusing on weapons and armour, and upgrading those is always going to have a more pronounced effect.
Read those item descriptions. Every last one.
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I wasn’t suggesting it was in any way necessary to play the game, but it certainly helped foster a community that otherwise wouldn’t exist, and allowed them to hide information in obtuse ways. Complexity is so much more palatable when information is googlable. Still, it is a chicken and egg scenario between technology advancing to the level of allowing such complexity and the internet breeding that depth of analysis.
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I was directing that more towards Benkyo on that one, but you make a good point and it’s worth mentioning that I’ve used the wikis extensively for all of the souls games.
I don’t think they’re required to enjoy a first playthrough, however, and advocate that people avoid using them until they beat the game at least once (barring specific assistance if you hit a wall). The first run through one of these games is an intense, harrowing experience and that’s something you never get back once familiarity sets in.
(For reference my first full run through Dark Souls was a little over 90 hours. My solidarity run last night lasted about 90 minutes and I’ve rung both bells).
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I was thinking specifically of the three bones(? Umbilical cords) in Bloodborne.
I naturally collected them in my first play through but don’t think I would have known what to do with them unless I’d read a wiki. Trial and error sure but a lot of the stuff like the spoiler above are set in a manor that once you have missed your chance and moved further in the game it doesn’t reset. Also there are whole levels that you can just walk straight past in both souls and borne games and be none the wiser. And some of that stuff is GREAT!
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It’s important to remember that the umbilical cords themselves are the key to the penultimate ending in the game. By Fromsoft standards, they’re remarkably easy to figure out - the item lore basically has instructions in it. Getting enough of them though…
But that’s also kind of a fabulous illustration of why there’s no “right” answer to how to enjoy the games. Piecing together obfuscated lore through meticulous observation is a massive part of why these games have these communities in the first place. But not everyone wants to work that hard to figure out what’s going on. And that’s before we factor in the massive challenge they present on top of it all—it’s terrifying trying to seek out the juiciest bits.
Anyway that’s all to say that it’s important to enjoy the game how you want to enjoy it. There’s a rabbit hole miles deep in each of these games, and some folks want to be able to use the stairs, which is great! But I do think it’s worth mentioning early the intangibles a player will miss out on by spoiling certain elements. No other games instill the kind of dreadful wonder and sense of adventure the Souls games provide.
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It’s good to have the option. And the sense of working together on these games down to leaving notes really scratches a particular itch for me.
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Absolutely. I remember when DS1 first released, one of our friends was going so far as to play offline so as to get all the perks of staying human, without any risk of (unscripted) invasion. After their first run they were emboldened and played online, and it blew their minds.
The ghostly forms, the messages, the bloodstains, the jolly cooperation… what a wonderful and unusual way to bring a sense of camaraderie to otherwise lonely, haunted worlds.
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As someone who has terrible manual dexterity (and as someone who tries to get people to play dark souls), Dark Souls does not just reward reaction times - it can also be played very slowly and thoughtfully.
The areas/enemy groups follow predictable rules, and can be treated like individual puzzles (they have specific paths that they follow, and you can sit somewhere forever if nobody can see you/no enemies patrol that route). Once you have found everything in an area, you really don’t have to go through it again except as a thoroughfare to another area. So that super hard guy who has a chest behind him? You only have to beat him once, then you never really need to go back there again.
If you go towards a strength build and use the large weapons, the game is much more simple and becomes more about timing your first strike to get a monster stunned so you can finish them off before they hit back, rather than the extremely difficult dance of parries.
Another option is to use a build that has a 100% block shield - regular enemies will bounce off of your block, leaving them open to counter attack. Strong enemies will bat away your shield after a few strikes, but taking one strike on the shield so you can roll or circle around them will give you a breather and allow you to get used to their rhythm.
Cheesing hard enemies with a bow is perfectly acceptable. You’ll gain the skills to defeat them later, for now just find a place they can’t climb and shoot them from there. Also single enemies can be pulled out of a crowd by shooting them, so you don’t have to deal with the whole swarm at once.
Also, thinking about ‘death’ more like how death in a platform game is treated rather than the game over screen of an adventure game. ‘Whoops, alright I’ll try something different’.
A final point is that the game often locks away later game content purely by putting a super strong enemy in the way (but still allowing you to walk right over there as a low level nothing). If it’s too hard right now - just leave it for later. No need to exhaust yourself in getting beaten over and over.
Hope that convinces you to play??? It’s really gooood. Believe meee.
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I have only played Demon’s Souls (despite owning Dark Souls and Bloodborne), and only about half of it (babies and games that do not allow you to pause do not mix), though I loved what I played.
The game is difficult, but is more of a trial and error game than anything requiring perfect coordination. As @Sagantine mentions above, you can make a build that uses a shield and use blocks and dodges rather than precision based parrying. Bows and some spells can damage from a distance. It is all about learning an enemy’s pattern and style of attack and adapting your strategy to defeating them.
Some should just be engaged at range, other just need a block and counterattack, still others dodge behind them and backstab.
@KIR2 - Technically it was a PS3 exclusive, until now since they ported it to PS5. I may pick it up whenever I get around to getting a PS5, as I would love to finish it someday.
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Demon’s Souls is a wonderful, unusual gem of a game, with atmosphere that’s never quite been achieved in the series since (hotly contentious, I don’t even believe that).
And I kind of hate it. Happy I played it. Will probably play the remake. Will probably kind of hate it again.
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This is madness.
Take, for example, a really simple player aid that they could have implemented, but didn’t: a track record of what happened each time you chose to interact with a piece of furniture, perhaps simplified into a ratio. Preserves the mystery, lets you learn by trial and error, provides a basic courtesy that just about every competent roguelike has provided for the last decade. Nope. It’s a wiki dependent game, because it doesn’t provide these basic quality of life features.
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Ok 2 hrs into the demon souls remake (never played the original in any earnest). I have so many questions that I may start a new soulsborne thread.
It’s very “pretty” and handles like it was made by fromsoft.
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I suppose that depends on what you expect from out of the game then. I did just fine without. Had a blast.
[EDIT] This comes off a little dismissive for my taste. To elaborate on that a bit, I mean I was able to enjoy Darkest Dungeon, not in spite of the lack of comprehensive player aids, trackers, etc., but because of it. I think their design (or perceived lack of, in this case) was absolutely a conscious choice and bolsters the theme/atmosphere as the primary reason to dive in. It’s a game that actively forces a player to advance in a way that might make them (particularly if experienced with the genre) uncomfortable.
Also I contend it isn’t fair to call Darkest Dungeon a Roguelike. It might seem like splitting hairs, but I consider it a DRPG first and foremost, with Roguelite elements carefully woven in.
That’s my experience going from DS1 (Switch) without paying to online, to DS3 on the Series S, with online enabled. It’s such a living world. And after restarting as a Knight rather than a Cleric I’m loving it (weird bonfire placement though).
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