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From Software It's another Demon's Souls thread god damnit

pocahaunted

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I actually beat world 4 before venturing into any of the others, aside from 1-1, that is.

You don't need to block that shit if you time it correctly, otherwise you can just dish out some dps.
 

Elwro

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Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
Alright, finished the thing. In any later playthroughs I will do 1-4 last because the way I did it was anticlimactic (Old Monk as the last boss). It's just that I couldn't figure out how to fight Maneater for so long.

To tell the truth, in all worlds apart from the 1st one I found the last levels to be anticlimactic. I expected extended 3rd levels, and I didn't get them.

In fact, I had an epic fight with the Maneaters. I returned to 3-2 on SL 67 in body form and to my amazement saw a blue sign. I immediately summoned the guy even though he had many D and E marks. Turned out he was an archer (I was a sorceror). Fighting the Maneaters as 2 ranged guys was quite thrilling; I was close to death and close to falling quite a few times and we weren't fast enough with dealing damage. We killed them but the guy who helped me died a few seconds before the end of the fight. So I sent him a 'thank you' message and he asked whether I could help him with the same boss :D So, we tried again with the roles reversed. It was only at some point in the fight when I realised that my Crescent Falchion +4 was quite efficient at hacking the beasts. I killed the first one a second after he summoned the second one, which unfortunately knocked me from the bridge using his 'energy shield' attack. But he was already 50% down and the guy managed to kill it himself ;D


...and the Old Monk was some dude with a dagger who barely put up a fight. Hm. Maybe a new player summoned from 3-1?
 

pocahaunted

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Gotta say I loved the concept behind world 3, the Old Monk fight is a pretty neat idea. I managed to get summoned for it about 10 times and ambushed as many unsuspecting players as possible. Overall you are right, pretty much every world ends with anti-climatic fights, except for Boletaria proper. Storm King, Astrea (rather her buttbuddy), Dragon God and the blind dude are all relatively weak moments.
 

Castanova

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Eh, I didn't mind the level 3s that much. I don't know if I was assuming that every "final boss" would be just like the bosses before it but harder. All those anticlimactic fights were actually fairly memorable for me. How often do you have an action game where the final boss of a zone is just some depressed woman that you slaughter?
 

Tripicus

Augur
Joined
Oct 22, 2011
Messages
161
The unfortunate thing with the Old Monk fight is that most players will just let you kill them, just to avoid giving you a hard time. I had one player even say "If I let you kill me, can you help me with Maneater?"

The only world end level I was disappointed in was world 4. It still had a neat feeling of a huge freaking boss, but that novelty wore off quickly. After the False King even the game's "final boss" is anti-climactic.
 

Elwro

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Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
How often do you have an action game where the final boss of a zone is just some depressed woman that you slaughter?
That's right. But the real fight was just against a regular guy with many HPs and a big mace. The concept of the level and of the world itself was great, I agree, and the feeling of achievement when I finally opened that shortcut in 5-2 was fantastic, but the fight itself was boring.

...I guess I just like the game so much I would prefer it to have more extended 3rd levels in worlds 2-5.

Also: is there any sort of light armor good for wizards? I finished the game in wizard's clothes. Is there something better? I only switched to Assassin's outfit for world 5 and that's it. Also, is there any sort of magic protection ring?


I don't like the fact that even if you explore every nook&cranny you still miss out on much of the content if you don't game the world tendencies. That was one of the things they fixed in Dark Souls.
 

Random

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That's right. But the real fight was just against a regular guy with many HPs and a big mace. The concept of the level and of the world itself was great, I agree, and the feeling of achievement when I finally opened that shortcut in 5-2 was fantastic, but the fight itself was boring.

...I guess I just like the game so much I would prefer it to have more extended 3rd levels in worlds 2-5.

Also: is there any sort of light armor good for wizards? I finished the game in wizard's clothes. Is there something better? I only switched to Assassin's outfit for world 5 and that's it. Also, is there any sort of magic protection ring?


I don't like the fact that even if you explore every nook&cranny you still miss out on much of the content if you don't game the world tendencies. That was one of the things they fixed in Dark Souls.

There isn't any armor ideal for wizards unless you actually invest the souls into raising your endurance so you can equip better armor. That way warriors actually get something other classes usually can't have, good armor.
 

Elwro

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There isn't any armor ideal for wizards unless you actually invest the souls into raising your endurance so you can equip better armor. That way warriors actually get something other classes usually can't have, good armor.
Thanks for the info!

I started another character, a female Knight. I'm enjoying the fact that I have two female-only armor sets, one of them the Binded one. I have to say that so far soloing the bosses in pure melee has been quite rewarding.
 

Tripicus

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Oct 22, 2011
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I was never a fan of how much an impact heavier armor made on characters, so I always avoided crossing that half way equip weight margin. The inability to upgrade armor makes armor not that beneficial for PvE, especially in NG+, as I never noticed the damage reduction being all that substantial. Especially compared to increased mobility.
 

Cowboy Moment

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So, I'm currently playing Demon's Souls. Finished 1-1, 1-2, 2-1 and 3-1, currently at Flamelurker. Thus far the game is more or less what I expected, a rougher and less refined Dark Souls with discrete levels and a more oppressive atmosphere.

Flamelurker is the first challenging boss, and is very fun, although those pillars and bones in his room keep screwing with the camera. What's not so fun is having to farm souls/grasses in order to fight him, that's certainly one area where Dark Souls' system is much better. I suppose that's also why the other bosses were such pushovers.

Don't have a very good grip on the world/character tendency mechanics yet. I do like the Soul Form/Human Form tradeoff much better than Undead/Human in DS, except for one thing - the fucking sound effects. I love the walking/rolling sounds in Souls, especially with heavy armor on, and it's fucking bullshit that they're not present in Soul Form. Tried playing more as a human because of this, but got invaded by some faggot, who played like shit, but had way more grasses than I did apparently, and won through attrition. Next time I'll just quit.

Enjoying myself thus far, although the grind is very annoying.
 

LivingOne

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May 5, 2012
Messages
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What's not so fun is having to farm souls/grasses in order to fight him, that's certainly one area where Dark Souls' system is much better. I suppose that's also why the other bosses were such pushovers.
True about the grasses,although in the long run you'll find the other,opposite problem the estus flasks were meant to solve:expect to finish the game with hundreds of them as enemies in the Boletarian Palace drop plenty of them.
Also agree about the bosses,but if you think those were pushovers you should see the ones in 4-1 and 4-3.

Don't have a very good grip on the world/character tendency mechanics yet. I do like the Soul Form/Human Form tradeoff much better than Undead/Human in DS, except for one thing - the fucking sound effects. I love the walking/rolling sounds in Souls, especially with heavy armor on, and it's fucking bullshit that they're not present in Soul Form. Tried playing more as a human because of this, but got invaded by some faggot, who played like shit, but had way more grasses than I did apparently, and won through attrition. Next time I'll just quit.

Enjoying myself thus far, although the grind is very annoying.
It's a bit long but in short:Black world tendency makes enemy strongers(but you get more souls/rare drops),makes appear more black phantoms npcs and primeval demons and triggers some events.You get it with deaths of npcs/you in human form(wich means you could 'farm' your own deaths to,say,unlock a gate by getting pure black tendency).

White world tendency makes enemies easier and gets you some events.You get it by killing bosses,black phantoms and mini bosses(like those two dragons).

More here.

Character tendency slightly changes your attack/hps in ghost form.
 
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praetor

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Vhoorl
^yeah.. that's why it's "optimal" to first go "all white" (both char and world) since killing bosses has a "+1 white world" effect, get all there is to get, farm for those stones to become human (or dupe them if you don't feel like wasting hoooouuuuuurs) and then just suicide a couple dozen times in the nexus
 

Castanova

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So, I'm currently playing Demon's Souls. Finished 1-1, 1-2, 2-1 and 3-1, currently at Flamelurker. Thus far the game is more or less what I expected, a rougher and less refined Dark Souls with discrete levels and a more oppressive atmosphere.

Flamelurker is the first challenging boss, and is very fun, although those pillars and bones in his room keep screwing with the camera. What's not so fun is having to farm souls/grasses in order to fight him, that's certainly one area where Dark Souls' system is much better. I suppose that's also why the other bosses were such pushovers.

Don't have a very good grip on the world/character tendency mechanics yet. I do like the Soul Form/Human Form tradeoff much better than Undead/Human in DS, except for one thing - the fucking sound effects. I love the walking/rolling sounds in Souls, especially with heavy armor on, and it's fucking bullshit that they're not present in Soul Form. Tried playing more as a human because of this, but got invaded by some faggot, who played like shit, but had way more grasses than I did apparently, and won through attrition. Next time I'll just quit.

Enjoying myself thus far, although the grind is very annoying.

Flamelurker can be beat 100% of the time with no risk to you by exploiting a pathing problem with one of the bones in the room... obviously that takes the fun away from the boss but it's an option if you get too frustrated with the grind.
 

Cowboy Moment

Arcane
Joined
Feb 8, 2011
Messages
4,407
So, I'm currently playing Demon's Souls. Finished 1-1, 1-2, 2-1 and 3-1, currently at Flamelurker. Thus far the game is more or less what I expected, a rougher and less refined Dark Souls with discrete levels and a more oppressive atmosphere.

Flamelurker is the first challenging boss, and is very fun, although those pillars and bones in his room keep screwing with the camera. What's not so fun is having to farm souls/grasses in order to fight him, that's certainly one area where Dark Souls' system is much better. I suppose that's also why the other bosses were such pushovers.

Don't have a very good grip on the world/character tendency mechanics yet. I do like the Soul Form/Human Form tradeoff much better than Undead/Human in DS, except for one thing - the fucking sound effects. I love the walking/rolling sounds in Souls, especially with heavy armor on, and it's fucking bullshit that they're not present in Soul Form. Tried playing more as a human because of this, but got invaded by some faggot, who played like shit, but had way more grasses than I did apparently, and won through attrition. Next time I'll just quit.

Enjoying myself thus far, although the grind is very annoying.

Flamelurker can be beat 100% of the time with no risk to you by exploiting a pathing problem with one of the bones in the room... obviously that takes the fun away from the boss but it's an option if you get too frustrated with the grind.

Thanks bro, but I just killed it straight up. Very fun fight, definitely one of the better ones in both Souls games. I understand why people compare it to Gwyn, but it felt different to me - the primary difficulty of Gwyn is finding opportunities to heal, while against Flamelurker healing is easy, it's attacking safely that's hard. Am looking forward to killing him in melee without a shield someday.

Continued impressions:

While bosses are quite easy overall compared to Dark Souls, regular enemies feel significantly harder. A third through 1-1, you fight a blue eye knight, a type of enemy which only became commonplace much later in the game in DS. Mind Flayers are nasty as fuck. Those rolling wraiths in 4-1 are kinda tricky as well. Also, the AI seems much more unpredictable to me, making for some nasty surprises even from shitty fodder enemies.

Speaking of bosses, as easy as Dragon God was, I much prefer him to Bed of Chaos. No idea what the fuck the point of Adjudicator is, that was just weird. Phalanx is stupid and easy, Tower Knight was pretty decent, no idea why they decided to dumb him down to Iron Golem in DS. Ditto for Fool's Idol, I liked the concept of those paralysis traps - again, dumbed down to Pinwheel for reasons unknown. Armored Spider I don't really get, just kinda oneshot it without understanding what was happening.

Stonefang Tunnel in general kinda sucks. Mostly boring enemies that nevertheless take long to kill, full of samey looking caves and mineshafts, and I don't understand the point of that whole area with the bearbugs at all. Thankfully the third archstone is just the boss, so it's short, and Flamelurker's coolness makes up for the rest of it. Boletarian Palace looks and plays well, but nothing spectacular. Tower of Latria is awesome, ditto for Shrine of Storms. I just love how the latter looks and feels. Haven't been to Valley of Defilement yet, since I'm told it's supposed to be Blighttown 2.0, and I'm not eager to be poisoned all the time.

By the way, is it just me, or do poise and poisebreak work differently in DeS? Something that keeps fucking me over is how an attack that staggers an enemy normally will not do so while they're in the middle of certain attack animations. In a sense it's good for balance, because it makes heavy weapons less overpowered, but it's hard to adjust, and I don't know how this system works exactly.

So anyway, my next stop is 1-3, primarily because I want to stock up on grasses before venturing into 3-2, and afterwards I guess I'll have to stop putting off 5-1.

As an aside, does anyone know why From didn't include multiple lock-on targets for certain (large) enemies in Dark Souls? Because it seems to work very well in DeS, and would help on quite a few bosses in the former.
 
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Kanedias

Savant
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Messages
574
In DeS poise does not exist. To fix the potential issue of the game becoming too easy as a result, they implemented a lot of hyper armor - enemies have several moves that grant them infinite poise for the duration. For example, the Mind Flayers can be staggered in one hit, but if they're casting a spell you can't interrupt them at all unless you kill them.

This also applies to players as well, in DeS armor was much less useful than in Dark Souls because the pieces do not grant any poise, plus they can't be upgraded. Some weapons give you hyper armor in certain attacks, however. The Dark Souls system is more consistent, though the lack of poise adds another layer of difficulty to DeS.

As for multiple lock on points and such, I honestly have no idea. There are several flaws in DeS and the game feels less polished and less balanced -grinding, grasses in general, blatantly overpowered things like Thief's Ring, Second Chance, high level grasses, etc.- but it also does some things much better than Dark Souls and I don't know why they changed them. Area design feels better overall as well, though I feel that's because they didn't have to worry about the areas connecting with each other like in Dark Souls.

On another note, I will get a PS3 in about a week or so, I can't wait to play the game.
 

Castanova

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So anyway, my next stop is 1-3, primarily because I want to stock up on grasses before venturing into 3-2, and afterwards I guess I'll have to stop putting off 5-1.

5-1 is pretty decent actually. It can get quite frustrating if you accidentally fall off one of the rooftops or if you let one of the giant trolls kill you. It's 5-2 that's shit. The goal of 5-2 is basically just to run through as fast as possible because it's just too damn annoying to actually explore the level.
 

dunno lah

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I think certain bosses like Phalanx and Old Hero could've been a lot more difficult if their concept was changed.
Like, in ng+ and beyond, the phalanx would've kept it's scraping spear and the old hero wasn't blindfolded/blind.
 

Cowboy Moment

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Huh, so every final stage aside from 1-4 is just a bossfight?

I'm basically done, only have 1-4 left.

Valley of Defilement is kind of bad, honestly. Boring, tedious, and annoying, either looks bad or it's impossible to see anything at all. And I say this as someone who really likes the upper part of Blighttown. First two bosses are perfectly forgettable and easy; Maiden Astraea is a very cool concept with weird execution - maybe it would've been better to force the player to attack her while dodging a much more powerful Garl Vinland? As it was, I just parried Garl to death in under a minute and that was that. I will say one thing though, that one black phantom with a meatcleaver in the middle of the 5-2 swamp killed me more times than any boss except for Flamelurker. Fuck that guy, seriously.

Shrine of Storms continued to be awesome, with piss easy bosses. Those dudes with scythes in 4-2 were probably one of the hardest parts of the game thus far. My only complaint about Shrine is that 4-2 was a bit too linear, and had that weirdo snail area before Old Hero.

Second archstone in Tower of Latria looked amazing and had great atmosphere, but was disappointingly easy after the mindflayer fuckery of 3-1. Gargoyle AI simply didn't seem up to snuff to make them threatening. I expected them to hit and run a lot more, and attack me from the air, but instead they would land some distance in front of me and die easily, as they're pitifully ineffective in straight-up combat. Man-centipedes, while creepy, were absolute pushovers as well. Thankfully Maneater was somewhat of a challenge, but I disagree with the opinion that it's better than Gargoyles in DS. Again, mostly due to AI deficiencies, as it's really easy to split them up; and in any case, since they have exactly one threatening attack (the pounce), killing the first one before the second one spawns isn't that difficult. I do like the idea of them spawning on a timer much more than based on health, makes it one of the few Souls bossfights which encourages the player to take risks. Old Monk was significantly easier than the two mind flayers on the staircase.

When I stopped playing I was in front of the Blue Dragon in 1-4, and thus far the level is very nice, would have been nice to get this level of challenge from all the final stages.
 

Tripicus

Augur
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Oct 22, 2011
Messages
161
I don't know. I'm on the opposite end, I found Blighttown disappointing after Valley of Defilement. I think the lack of visibility was part of it. The only thing I had issues with was the camera in the town part of 4-2. But yes, the bosses were a let down. Although Leechmonger was one of the first bosses I was fighting to kill when I first played the game after 1-2, and had difficulties with it at the time. And ditto on the meatcleaver guy. Major pain in the ass.

Old Monk is generally another player if you're online. However, most other players just seem to take to rolling over and dying. I'm horrible at PvP and never had an issue.

I think in Demon's Souls they should've left the Thief Ring to being just in 5-2. That ring is just way too useful, to be so readily available.
 

Karellen

Arcane
Joined
Jan 3, 2012
Messages
327
So, I too have been doing a proper playthrough of Demon's Souls now. I really like how the ambience of the world is more consistently medieval, versus Dark Souls being more of a high fantasy kitchen sink. Especially Tower of Latria has wonderful atmosphere. That's really the biggest thing Demon's Souls has on Dark Souls.

The game feels a bit easier than expected after the first few hours. The bosses don't seem quite dangerous enough, even if you're in Soul form; it's like they just don't do enough damage to really put you down, or pursue effectively when you retreat. I even killed Flamelurker on my first try on my SL 20 knight using the godlike Crescent Falchion from 4-1. I'm not saying it wasn't a good fight, but I could easily heal the whole time, whereas in Dark Souls I was killed by a lot of bosses before I could even land a blow on them. It'd have been totally different if there wasn't so much room and convenient pillars to hide behind to prevent him from charging - I was actually expecting the guy to be all :smug: when I did that and bust those pillars like all the bosses in Dark Souls do, but as it is, I could just whittle him down bit by bit in relative safety.

The dungeons are great, but so far not as terrifying as the best (or worst) of Dark Souls. They're much like larger versions of the early dungeons of Dark Souls, and especially 4-1 was fantastic, but I'm kind of waiting for the game to up the ante - more brutal environmental disadvantages, traps, pitfalls, cramped spaces, mazes and closed return paths to make you feel lost. The locations are large and fun to explore, but I miss the dizzying descents to dark, forbidding places that Dark Souls has, with the game continuing to try and outdo itself the deeper you go. 2-2 had some of that, but it's a far cry from the horrors of being underleveled in the Tomb of the Giants and having to try really hard just to find a way back out.

Finally - is it just me or is the World Tendency system just plain terrible?
 

praetor

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The dungeons are great, but so far not as terrifying as the best (or worst) of Dark Souls. They're much like larger versions of the early dungeons of Dark Souls, and especially 4-1 was fantastic, but I'm kind of waiting for the game to up the ante - more brutal environmental disadvantages, traps, pitfalls, cramped spaces, mazes and closed return paths to make you feel lost. The locations are large and fun to explore, but I miss the dizzying descents to dark, forbidding places that Dark Souls has, with the game continuing to try and outdo itself the deeper you go. 2-2 had some of that, but it's a far cry from the horrors of being underleveled in the Tomb of the Giants and having to try really hard just to find a way back out.

yeah, there's really really little in the way of that. 5-1 is kinda nice in that regard but it's basically a slightly different "beginning of blighttown" (the planks and stuff), 5-2 is "the environment against you" (as Cowboy Moment pointed out, fighting the meatcleaver black phantom in the swamp can be pretty nasty) but it's mostly really annoying. i imagined you finished Latria, or you'll have some decent challanges in 3-2 (black phantom mindflayers on narrow staircases), but nothing really comes close to the darkest and toughest of DkS (and even the nastiest traps of DkS traps feel like children's toys when compared to the secret traps of Severance :))

Finally - is it just me or is the World Tendency system just plain terrible?

the idea is kinda cool (and pretty nicely narratively integrated. and coupled with the char tendency it's 100 times better than most rpg's lulzy "alignment systems"), but the execution is pretty derp
 

Kanedias

Savant
Joined
Sep 29, 2013
Messages
574
So, I have been playing DeS, nearly finishing a playthrough now. Impressions:

* Areas are much better done than DkS ones. I love the interconnecting areas of Dark Souls, but it seems that not having to worry about connecting them all made them focus more on level design or something. The areas are really enjoyable, large without being empty, and they look more verosimile. By this I mean that for example the castle looks like an actual castle, every room seems to have a purpose (thanks to amazing attention to detail) and the enemies fit right in (even more so than Dark Souls ones) which reinforces the feeling that the areas don't revolve around you.

Another thing I love is the lack of "always open" shortcuts which actually forces you to do the area and fight the enemies. In Dark Souls there are too many ways to skip content, such as the drop behind the Butcher in the Depths, taking the Silver Serpent Ring drop to skip most of the Tomb of the Giants, etc. I much prefer shortcuts that require you to complete the area to open, rather than simply knowing the trick.

A problem that some DeS areas have, however, is the lack of shortcuts. 4-2, for example. The area is fairly long, you're against nasty ambushing enemies, there are plenty of ways to fall to your death, and if you die, you need to do the whole thing again. I'm all for punishing players for dying, but this was too much. They should have at least let you unlock a shortcut to the boss. 5-2 is in the same boat, it does have a shortcut, but the area is insanely long, you get to the shortcut at the very end, and to open it you need to walk on an extremely narrow ledge while being attacked by annoying mosquitoes. If you fall there, you're at the beginning, so you need to do the whole thing again.

--

*While DeS is the clear winner in level design, the lore of the game is much worse than Dark Souls's. The story is simple, it's narrated to you, and the game doesn't seem to give it that much importance. This is a shame because the atmosphere, as I said before, is incredible, it would be nice if the lore reinforced it. Dark Souls is worse atmosphere wise, but the setting is both detailed and subtle, even item locations often tell you more about the world. In DeS, however, item locations are mostly random, the lore doesn't seem ambitious enough to go past "serviceable", and there are a lot of facepalm-worthy mistakes, such as a contradiction in Ostrava's dialogue (he says Biorr was the one who fled Boletaria to warn the world, when it was Vallarfax) and the fact that Yurt is locked in a cage....but when you enter it, it becomes an elevator to proceed with the level.

--

*The best for the last....difficulty. Everyone always seems to want to compare the two games, some people claim Dark Souls is harder, other people claim it's Demon's Souls.

DeS is both harder and easier than Dark Souls, in my opinion. It's generally harder, but the grass system and general unbalanced items and spells offset this increased difficulty and cause the game to be easier than Dark Souls. If you don't rely on them, however, expect a very hard time.

First, the game's lethality is through the roof. Plenty of enemies one shot you, some of them through your shield. For example, I did 4-2 quite early, found the Black Skeleton, and since it wielded katanas I thought I could block them. Serious mistake, he one-shot me through the shield, taking all my HP and all my stamina. This is only an example, but a lot of enemies are capable of doing insane damage. In this regard, the game feels less fair than Dark Souls, which also has difficult enemies, but less instant death moves.

Areas are more unforgiving, longer, traps deal more damage and most of the times they kill you outright, there are more enemies which ambush you and they attack in groups more often, then there's things like the fact you can't roll in the swamp, etc.

The lack of poise also contributes to making the game harder, you can be stunlocked, your attacks can be interrupted as if you had 0 poise, etc. The way the game handles the lack of poise is by adding a lot of hyper armor, which makes the combat a bit more trial and error, as you slowly figure out what moves grant hyper armor to enemies (which varies from enemy type to enemy type). In Dark Souls once you figure out how the poise system works, you're set.

Now, the cheese. It comes in too many forms to count, but from the Thief Ring onwards you'll have access to multiple ways of cheesing enemies. The Thief's Ring makes enemy aggro ranges ridiculously tiny, which allows you to pick them off one by one, you can run away and make them de-aggro easily, which drastically lowers the difficulty of the game, as DeS is all about hard levels and easy bosses.

To give another example, in my playthrough I was using the Crescent Axe, and I discovered that in this game knockdown doesn't grant the enemies any sort of immunity. This let me cheese enemies in absurd ways, for example with the Meat Cleaver Black Phantom I could pancake her over and over and over, and my stamina would regenerate faster than she could stand up.

The grass system is awful. It further decreases difficulty because it feels like playing Dark Souls with unlimited divine blessings. The worst that can happen is that you'll have to endure some tedium to farm the stupid grasses, but they heal a lot and you can use them stupidly fast. I guess this is the reason so many enemies one shot...if you do not get one shot, 99% of the times you can instantly munch a grass and go back to 100% HP. This makes the few challenging bosses the game has, like Flamelurker, really easy as long as you have enough grass, because you can keep munching it until the boss dies. Really boring.

Anyways I have more opinions on more specific things, but this point is already quite a long and disjointed mess as it is, so I will post them later.
 
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