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

[praetor]

* 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.

i agree that they tend to look much more "verosimile"/plausible, but i disagree that they are better (especially not "much better"), especially when you take into account the particularly poor ones like 1-2, the whole of world 5 (blighttown is just as frustrating but much less annoying and better done, if that makes sense ), 4-2 is very linear and uninteresting (but very atmospheric), as is 1-4 and all the X-3 except for 1-3 are short, poor, boss-rooms, so it pretty much comes down to 3-1, 3-2, 1-1 and 1-3 being the really good ones, 2-1 being good, while the rest are either poor or above average only because of the atmosphere (like 4-2)

meanwhile, DkS has gems like Sen's, Dukes and the Painted World, and really good levels like The Catacombs, Depths, Burg+Parish, the whole of Darkroot is rather different (for the Souls games) in it's openness, Anor Londo, the nasty (although gimmicky) ToG, New Londo (a pity they never quite finished it). and i think DkS did the "obviously linear" levels much better (like Oolacile township).

the biggest problems of DkS imho are, as someone previously pointed out, it feels like a high fantasy kitchen sink (a feeling greatly enhanced because of the interconnected open world), and the abundance of bonfires in most places make the levels feel more "fragmented" (and thus smaller and more linear)

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.

well, while forcing the player the complete the whole level (apart from the boss) the unlock shortcuts may seem like a better move at first, when you think about it, it's much less rewarding in the "exploration" category and far less interesting. there's nothing like exploring levels and stumbling upon potentially sequence breaking shortcuts that may put you in places you probably shouldn't be in, or suddenly finding a hidden bonfire, or finding shortcuts that maybe weren't even supposed to be there. it also makes boss fights much less tedious (and kinda "allows" the devs the put harder, more interesting bosses in the game). imho more the shortcuts should be better hidden, but it's a much better and less "gamey" system than "unlock shortcut at the end of the level". and let's face it, if you're not a pussy, you know you'll be returning to the skipped area anyway to explore for ph4t l00t and the likes

*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.

i definitely agree (and lots of people prefer DeS purely because of the atmosphere). DkS feels way more ambiguous, much more "here are most of the pieces, you figure it out however you like" which is a nice "parallel" to the gameplay, in a way

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.

and that's why DkS is the better game, and overall more difficult because it doesn't rely on such boring one-shotters to make it difficult (and most of them are fairly boring enemies to begin with. black skellies after the first 1-2 terrifying encounter become lulzy, easily predictable opponents and then not even the black phantom variants will scare you. giant depraved ones will probably always be terrifying (especially the black phantoms) but that's mostly because of the environment you fight them in, and i'll always miss the mindflayers (i guess Latria is the best part of both Souls games ). other than that, only a couple BP variants of some enemies and BP NPCs (DkS is a pretty big step down in this regard) provide a modicum of challenge)

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.

strongly disagree (except for the "longer" parts, but that's only because most of the longer levels in DkS have bonfires midway through so they feel smaller, but they actually aren't). i'm with Karellen here and that's exactly the most lacking part of DeS. the environment feels so tame and easy. what traps? the arrows in 4-1? the exploding lights in 4-2 and 2-2? the barrel in 1-1? again, only Latria feels dangerous, but none of them (except the exploding lights that are so easy to avoid you deserve to die if you get hit ) while in DkS you'll find more traps in Sen's than in the whole of DeS. same thing for ambushes, in DeS they're rarer and more easily spotted. and if you don't snipe-aggro enemies in either game, you'll have more and more difficult "gangbangs" in DkS (like, for example, the beginning of Demon ruins )

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.

again, i disagree. exactly because there is no poise (for you but also the enemies), you'll learn to block and dodge much sooner (which is, imo, much easier in DeS because the enemies are (or at least feel) slower and you are faster) and thus avoid most damage, and you'll spam that R1 since they're staggered from the 1st hit most of the time. makes the combat a bit less interesting, imo (although the poise mechanic in DkS could use some major tweaks, as should the rolling and stamina), and playing DkS with 0 poise is more unforgiving (especially if someone invades you )

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.

please do post them all

 

[Elwro]

taking the Silver Serpent Ring drop to skip most of the Tomb of the Giants

GODDAMNIT. I haven't even heard about the ring and I've finished the game with a few characters

 

[Damned Registrations]

I got it once before by accident... never found it again. And I know that place pretty well, for a while I was making a bunch of new characters by skipping catacombs to kill pinwheel for souls, then running through tomb to grab another 10k worth of proud knight souls (and killing patches for that kickass axe) before climbing back out. I can run through that place blind and naked from end to end, but that ring is some well hidden bullshit.

 

[praetor]

it's near the black halberd knight, where the skeleton archer is in that area (stand where the archer stood, and just drop down the ledge, a bit to the right)

 

[Kanedias]

That Ring is very well hidden, the only way you'd find out about it in your own is if you look up when you're below that part, because you'll see the platform where it rests. Then you need to figure out where to fall down to it. By the first group of enemies past the 1st bonfire, drop down where the skeleton archer is (there's a body with an item marking the right spot) you will fall to the platform that has the Silver Serpent Ring. From there you can roll to another rocky platform, and from this second platform you can fall to the part where Leeroy invades, thus bypassing most of the area. The ring itself increases the amount of souls you get by 20% and it's main boon is that you can equip it after you have killed a boss and still get the bonus souls, this is because you don't get the souls instantly after bosses.

Anyways...

strongly disagree (except for the "longer" parts, but that's only because most of the longer levels in DkS have bonfires midway through so they feel smaller, but they actually aren't). i'm with Karellen here and that's exactly the most lacking part of DeS. the environment feels so tame and easy. what traps? the arrows in 4-1? the exploding lights in 4-2 and 2-2? the barrel in 1-1? again, only Latria feels dangerous, but none of them (except the exploding lights that are so easy to avoid you deserve to die if you get hit ) while in DkS you'll find more traps in Sen's than in the whole of DeS. same thing for ambushes, in DeS they're rarer and more easily spotted. and if you don't snipe-aggro enemies in either game, you'll have more and more difficult "gangbangs" in DkS (like, for example, the beginning of Demon ruins )

It is interesting that I had the opposite reaction, the environment felt much harsher than in Dark Souls, and all areas seemed more dangerous than Dark Souls areas, though I must confess some of it was rather cheap.

1) The holes in Latria. Definitely on the "cheap" side. Instant death, the area is dark, they are hard to see, and they materialize from the shadows two steps away from you. Anyways, they're extremely dangerous traps.
2) The arrow traps in 4-1. They are much more obvious than Sen's ones due to glowing pressure plates, but the damage of the arrows (one of them would obliterate most of my HP) and the fact that 0 poise makes you get stunlocked by them makes them more dangerous in my opinion. Also depending on how you do the level the arrows can come from behind you, so it actually made me check where the hole in the wall was, and I liked having to do that. The only nasty arrow trap in Sen's is the one past the 1st boulder in my opinion, the rest are also obvious and/or less dangerous.
3) Boulders were also more dangerous, especially the ones in 1-1 that come from behind. I did notice that trap so I didn't fall there, but I preferred that kind of design to the easily avoided boulders of Sen's. They're different traps really, the Dark Souls one is simply an enviromental hazard about timing, the DeS one is an actual trap that you avoid by paying attention to the environment.
3) Enemy ambush traps are nastier as a result of the amount of damage enemies do. The nastiest one was the 3rd Reaper in 4-2, there's a Reaper around a corner helped by one of the beam-shooting shadows , and since these shadows respawn as long as the Reaper is alive, if you waste too much time trying to kill them one shadow that you had previously killed will respawn behind you, screwing you up terribly. The nastiness of the trap was reinforced by the fact that the Reaper could do about 80% of my HP in damage with his spell.
4) World 5-2 bears special note, as how hostile the environment was was one of the reasons I loved it so much. I loved the feeling of slowly making my way through the swamp, killing the jellyfishes for their lotus while trying to watch out for Giant Depraved One silhouettes in the distance. If I messed up and aggroed one, fighting them in the swamp was impossible, and dealing with them was a matter of carefully pulling them to the islands, and even then there are some in an island near the middle of the swamp who are very close to each other and if you aggro them, you're most likely dead.

I don't really remember many memorable Dark Souls traps apart from the Mimic and those skeletons at ToG, and most traps only make you waste a flask, they don't really kill you, like the special elevator at Sen's, etc.

I also never had a problem with pulling enemies in Dark Souls, and I often do not use a bow. What part of Demon Ruins? The Taurus Demons? You can pull them one by one by simply walking carefully. Same with the Capra Demons, who have a really small aggro range.

---

Anyways, more specific impressions of DeS, hopefully less disjointed this time:
Enemy AI: I noticed enemies are much worse at punishing you when you heal. Enemies in Dark Souls tend to have an AI that tells them to execute a certain attack to prevent you from healing, for example if you run away and heal Black Knights will always use their fastest attack, the Sanctuary Guardian boss will do a really fast pounce, Gwyn will go on the offensive even more, Artorias will do his thrust attack or jump attack depending on distance, etc. I really missed that. Boss movesets also seem to be much simpler, for example Armor Spider always executes the same pattern over and over, Penetrator only has about 4 different moves, and other bosses seem to have their AI mess up at judging distance. For example both Leechmonger and Dirty Colossus would sometimes execute melee attacks when I was out of range but not far enough to trigger their ranged attacks-

On the other hand, enemies seem to behave a little better when they're idling or engaging you. The Mind Flayers patrol, the king's spies ambush you by dropping from above, soldiers often come walking from other rooms, etc. Most enemies in Dark Souls seem to just be standing there, and there are exceptions but they aren't many. The code is still there, for example I remember that there's an infested hollow patrolling the Painted World's Annex, but I don't know why they didn't use it more. Enemy patrols would improve the atmosphere of Dark Souls, for example those giants in lower Blighttown could patrol the swamp instead of just standing there or something. In fact I remember the first time I saw those giants all standing still in the distance with boulders over their heads, and it felt really silly.

Boss Difficulty: This is related to enemy AI, but wow are bosses easy in this game. Most of the tension is simply due to the fact that you really don't want to die and redo most of the previous area again, it doesn't really come from the bosses themselves. Some aspects of the bosses I liked over Dark Souls, however, mostly the music and the fact that they can really fuck up shields, most enemies in Dark Souls are too easily blockable.

Anyways I killed Flamelurker, one of the (supposedly) hardest bosses, on my first try with a Halberd +3, and I didn't use too many grasses (about 5 I think, but I had renegerator's ring and adjudicator shield to deal with the weakest damage). The boss was good, don't misunderstand me, but to compare I died countless times against Artorias the first time I faced him. Flamelurker's most dangerous attack was a really fast fire AoE he could do (the faster version of the -I think- two fire AoEs he has) but it didn't do much damage, and I eventually learned how to deal with it. I mostly just ran away and dodged backwards until Flamelurker did one of his heavy AoEs or a jump attack, and I could turn around and punish him on these. He got more aggressive at the end but it just made him easier, as he used the heavy AoE and jump attack more often. Still a pretty cool fight (no bad pun intended).

The rest though...ugh. I heard Penetrator compared to Artorias, and there's nothing more untrue than that. Penetrator has 3 moves plus his signature instant kill, which is easy to avoid. I shortly realized that every time I ran away from him and he got close, he used a certain move to close the gap, a slash that would make him go forward, and it was laughably easy to punish. I would simply run away and wait for him to catch up, and he'd do the same every time.

I always hear about strategies for cheesing bosses, such as hiding in the Dirty Colossus arena and shooting him with magic or something, and I don't even know why people bother. You can simply run around Dirty Colossus and punish him whenever he tries to shoot flies at you, which is easy because the flies have poor tracking. The gimmick of that boss (burning the flies with the torch) was interesting, but the execution was really bad.

There were some good bosses though, Tower Knight wasn't really a difficult fight at all but it was amazing and a vast improvement over the Iron Golem, Flamelurker was fun...I still can't comment on the Maneaters or Allant as I haven't done them (the boss of 3-2, 3-3 and 1-4 are the only parts of the game I haven't completed) but I had watched videos of the Allant fight before I knew I was going to get a console and it looked really good.

Upgrade System: Crap. I didn't really mind the huge amount of different types of ore, but the chunk/pure ores themselves are hard to find and encourage farming/grinding, playing with the horribly implemented tendency system (which basically forces you to go offline) or chasing the crystal lizards. On the topic of crystal lizards, they are unbelievably annoying, and unfitting with the atmosphere as well. This is because they don't really feel like factual creatures, they are instead evil beings only interested in the player's suffering, even at the cost of their own life. Most of them will gleefully jump off cliffs to their death in order to spite you, the player. This is all made worse by the fact that you need the ores they give, and their number is limited, so you can lose them permanently. Also, some pure ores (for example pure darkmoonstone/moonlightstone) only drop from them!

On the other hand, it seemed like the game was balanced around poorly upgraded weapons. This is something I forgot to add when I talked about the difficulty of the game earlier, it does feel harder than Dark Souls to me but then you pass some sort of singularity where your character gets really powerful and suddenly the game gets much easier, and part of the reason is how the game deals with upgrades. Dark Souls demands you to keep your weapons upgraded in order to do decent damage, for example one of the main deciding factors of the difficulty of the Bell Gargoyles is if you have a +5 weapon or not. In Demon's Souls, however, my weapon upgraded to +2 and then +3 at the beginning with the easy ores you get at 2-1 felt powerful, most enemies died to it really fast. Right now my weapon is (I think) Blessed +2, and it's dropping enemies like flies, healing me, and on top of this the 2h r1 moveset gives you constant hyper armor.

Enemy resistances: I love that this time around they matter, in Dark Souls they felt inexistent unless you count the enemies that are immune to fire or the "fuck split damage" bosses of the DLC. They may be a bit too exaggerated in DeS (for example, skeletons are REALLY weak to blunt) but they were mostly fine. I liked it.

Magic: Oh, they had implemented easy mode in Demon's Souls! I didn't know that! Anyways yeah... wow. Magic. Where to begin. In Dark Souls it can get overpowered, yes. This happens mostly at the end, when you get the advanced spells, and if you know what you're doing when building the character's stats and equipment. In Demon's Souls, however, magic is overpowered from the beginning, spells consume mana that renegerates on its own with easily found items (including a ring that the Royal starting class comes with) or with farmable spice items. Soul arrow itself is really powerful and enemies don't seem to know how to deal with magic, there aren't many magic resistant enemies either. And then you get stuff like Homing Soul Arrow (the soulmass equivalent) and Firestorm and bosses simply fall over and die like nothing.

I also hate how shitty the amount of slots you have is. In Dark Souls you can have a lot of spells or miracles and the variation is fun, in DeS you get a pathetic number of FOUR slots for miracles and at most six for spells, and a lot of spells and miracles take up 2 slots so its even less in practice. Also keep in mind that you want stuff like Evacuate to avoid backtracking to archstones...

 

[Castanova]

The Allant fight isn't that great. You can kill him with very little risk of dying just by being quite patient about when you attack him. Which means it's a long, boring fight unless you take risks just because you feel like it. That being said, I like it more than Gwyn in Dark Souls because it felt more epic and Gwyn always seems like a frantic kid with ADHD whipping his stupid fire swords at you.

 

[praetor]

It is interesting that I had the opposite reaction, the environment felt much harsher than in Dark Souls, and all areas seemed more dangerous than Dark Souls areas, though I must confess some of it was rather cheap.

1) The holes in Latria. Definitely on the "cheap" side. Instant death, the area is dark, they are hard to see, and they materialize from the shadows two steps away from you. Anyways, they're extremely dangerous traps.

that's why i said "only Latria..." nothing in DkS is as awesome as 3-1, and i doubt anything in DkS2 will come close (hopefully i'm proven wrong). it's simply one of the best levels in gaming. ever

2) The arrow traps in 4-1. They are much more obvious than Sen's ones due to glowing pressure plates, but the damage of the arrows (one of them would obliterate most of my HP) and the fact that 0 poise makes you get stunlocked by them makes them more dangerous in my opinion. Also depending on how you do the level the arrows can come from behind you, so it actually made me check where the hole in the wall was, and I liked having to do that. The only nasty arrow trap in Sen's is the one past the 1st boulder in my opinion, the rest are also obvious and/or less dangerous.

as you pointed out, those are really obvious, so imho faaar less dangerous (despite them doing more actual damage). having them being both better hidden and doing more damage would've just made them cheap (as in "you didn't know they were here? now you loldie"), not more difficult/dangerous (and since there is poise, but nor everybody will have it since half the sets are light no-poise, you can't really balance the game around everybody having it)

3) Boulders were also more dangerous, especially the ones in 1-1 that come from behind. I did notice that trap so I didn't fall there, but I preferred that kind of design to the easily avoided boulders of Sen's. They're different traps really, the Dark Souls one is simply an enviromental hazard about timing, the DeS one is an actual trap that you avoid by paying attention to the environment.

again, making it much more obvious but more damaging doesn't make it more dangerous and/or difficult (quite the contrary, imho, in a game like Souls where patience and observation is encouraged and rewarded).

4) Enemy ambush traps are nastier as a result of the amount of damage enemies do. The nastiest one was the 3rd Reaper in 4-2, there's a Reaper around a corner helped by one of the beam-shooting shadows , and since these shadows respawn as long as the Reaper is alive, if you waste too much time trying to kill them one shadow that you had previously killed will respawn behind you, screwing you up terribly. The nastiness of the trap was reinforced by the fact that the Reaper could do about 80% of my HP in damage with his spell.

if you take that long to kill the reaper, you're underleveled/equipped but it's one of the few (maybe only) ambushes in DeS that is somewhat dangerous (there's also that obvious trap with loot guarded by the invisible assassin near the 2nd reaper)

5) World 5-2 bears special note, as how hostile the environment was was one of the reasons I loved it so much. I loved the feeling of slowly making my way through the swamp, killing the jellyfishes for their lotus while trying to watch out for Giant Depraved One silhouettes in the distance. If I messed up and aggroed one, fighting them in the swamp was impossible, and dealing with them was a matter of carefully pulling them to the islands, and even then there are some in an island near the middle of the swamp who are very close to each other and if you aggro them, you're most likely dead.

i hate 5-2. there's barely any loot worth getting, and after the first time you go through the level it's just bothersome, annoying and irritating. fuck that shit. and you just easily pull/fight the depraved giants+shaman on the islands near the slugs, there's enough room to manouver there. unless you mean the cluster of 4-5 depraved giants guarding that tiny island with worthless loot. 'cause fuck that. and i wouldn't really say any of those 2 are "traps" or "ambushes" 'cause you see both a mile away in an open space

I don't really remember many memorable Dark Souls traps apart from the Mimic and those skeletons at ToG, and most traps only make you waste a flask, they don't really kill you, like the special elevator at Sen's, etc.

since we're lumping "traps" and "ambushes" together... there's the assassins/dogs ambushes in lower Burg (can fuck you up pretty badly the first couple of times with all those backstabs and bleeding), the holes in the Depths that lead you to the curse frogs (can panic many a novice when they see the curse meter rising, until you realise the build up is so slow and frogs so easy to kill), the 2nd butcher in the depths while not particularly dangerous was pretty memorable , the whole upper blighttown is a giant trap that encourages the player to be on the constant move (unlike everything before it) with the sniper toxic darts that killed many a player (quite cheap, imo, but not something you'll forget easily), the whole of Sen's is a maze of pure hostility (sure, individually they may not pose much of a threat, but here the whole is more dangerous than the sum of it's parts), the skellie wheels (especially in the Painted world) griefed many to no end, the heavy knight with the ambushing hollows before Priscilla (nothing like fighting the big fella only to get staggered by the little ones and then die by the next swing), the vow of silence trap with 2 crows ambushing you dangerously near a pit of death, Patches' first asshole move in the Catacombs with the rolling bridges, speaking of the Catacombs, that's one giant area of constant skellie ambushes dangerously near big (and often lethal) falls and (invisible) holes in the ground (that won't kill you but will lead to more ambushes ). and i'm sure i forgot some from Oolacile

all that said, i'd really like if the devs upped the ante a bit and took some inspiration from Severance when it comes to traps leading to phat loot.

I also never had a problem with pulling enemies in Dark Souls, and I often do not use a bow. What part of Demon Ruins? The Taurus Demons? You can pull them one by one by simply walking carefully. Same with the Capra Demons, who have a really small aggro range.

yeah, meant "pulling" by "sniper-aggroing" but couldn't remember the word (and since i do it 99% of the time with bows, that's what first came to mind ). the point was that without pulling (which you can do just as easily in DeS), there are more/better/more dangerous "gangbangs" in DkS (and other than BP giant depraved ones in 5-2 [and iirc there's a group in white tendency 5-1 near istarelle], no gangbang in DeS felt dangerous or difficult)

On the other hand, enemies seem to behave a little better when they're idling or engaging you. The Mind Flayers patrol, the king's spies ambush you by dropping from above, soldiers often come walking from other rooms, etc. Most enemies in Dark Souls seem to just be standing there, and there are exceptions but they aren't many. The code is still there, for example I remember that there's an infested hollow patrolling the Painted World's Annex, but I don't know why they didn't use it more. Enemy patrols would improve the atmosphere of Dark Souls, for example those giants in lower Blighttown could patrol the swamp instead of just standing there or something. In fact I remember the first time I saw those giants all standing still in the distance with boulders over their heads, and it felt really silly.

yeah, black knights were meant to be patrolling the whole world, but for some reason that got scrapped but at least they could've made more&better patrolling enemies (like the mindflayers you mentioned). i really really hope enemies in DkS2 will be less static

Boss Difficulty: This is related to enemy AI, but wow are bosses easy in this game. Most of the tension is simply due to the fact that you really don't want to die and redo most of the previous area again, it doesn't really come from the bosses themselves. Some aspects of the bosses I liked over Dark Souls, however, mostly the music and the fact that they can really fuck up shields, most enemies in Dark Souls are too easily blockable.

well, if they upped the ante with the stamina/guard breaking attacks coupled with the plethora of unblockable "grab attacks" that a lot of bosses now have, it would've been a much more difficult game (and there's the fact that plenty of smaller, easily available shields have really good stability in DkS and are quite easy to upgrade, while in DeS for PvE almost everyone rocked the knight or purple shield)

There were some good bosses though, Tower Knight wasn't really a difficult fight at all but it was amazing and a vast improvement over the Iron Golem, Flamelurker was fun...I still can't comment on the Maneaters or Allant as I haven't done them (the boss of 3-2, 3-3 and 1-4 are the only parts of the game I haven't completed) but I had watched videos of the Allant fight before I knew I was going to get a console and it looked really good.

yeah, the difficulty of bosses in DeS is vastly overrated, and some (like maneaters) are difficult because of the restricted environment. if you fought them on the belfry like the gargoyles, they'd likely be easier than the gargs. and Allant, if you play it carefully, will be a very very easy fight

Upgrade System: Crap. I didn't really mind the huge amount of different types of ore, but the chunk/pure ores themselves are hard to find and encourage farming/grinding, playing with the horribly implemented tendency system (which basically forces you to go offline) or chasing the crystal lizards.

yeah, but some fanboys defend it by claiming that DkS was dumbed down! it wasn't, they just removed the unnecessary parts (farming, since you'll find enough ores to upgrade each weapon path once fully per playthrough and the retarded "diversification" of basic ores (bladestone, sharpstone etc..) since you would (and sometimes could!) only use the ore that would give you the bonus for your build anyway). it was just more tedious, not more complex (at least not in a good way)

Enemy resistances: I love that this time around they matter, in Dark Souls they felt inexistent unless you count the enemies that are immune to fire or the "fuck split damage" bosses of the DLC. They may be a bit too exaggerated in DeS (for example, skeletons are REALLY weak to blunt) but they were mostly fine. I liked it.

i wish they differentiated more (and hope they will do in DkS2) between slashing/piercing/blunt damage so that you need to have a couple of weapon types at your disposal (and some elemental damage dishing for physically resistant foes), and particularly regarding player armours (f.e. even 0poise light cloth armours having more blunt defence than most/all heavy plate armours and stuff like that). but there's plenty of "resistant shit" in DkS (the golems, the fire statues, the ) but i would've definitely like if those resistaneces (and some weaknesses) were more pronounced (and other than almost everything being weak to fire and skellies to blunt, can't remember much of it in DeS)

Magic: Oh, they had implemented easy mode in Demon's Souls! I didn't know that! Anyways yeah... wow. Magic.

yeah, magic is easy-mode in both games, it just takes a bit longer to be it in DkS (and after a certain while it arguably becomes even more OP than in DeS, imo). and let's not forget the pyros that are accessible to everyone regardless of stats! although the "reintegration" of pyros within Int magic in DkS2 makes me a bit sad (hopefully there'll at least be some oolacile-like catalyst for pyromancies so that at least a "partial-hybrid" pyrodex is viable )

 

[dunno lah]

Any of you beat all 3 BP enemies at once in 1-4(melee only, ofc)? I've tried but freakin Oolan bitch always remains standing ..

 

[praetor]

Any of you beat all 3 BP enemies at once in 1-4(melee only, ofc)? I've tried but freakin Oolan bitch always remains standing ..

now that you mention it, no i have never tried it (and probably never will 'cause whenever i muster some will to replay DeS i can only think of how they improved almost everything in DkS and switch to that within 10mins)

but imagine a similar/same encounter in DkS... instead of the boring black knights, the Kiln would have only BP forms of NPCs decked in the gear of the 4 knights of Gwyn (or the 4 of them in their "regular" forms at the same time. hello gangrape). that could've been pretty cool

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I killed those three at once first time I was there. I assumed you couldn't pull them one by one...

Anyway, I finished the game, was quite good overall, although I liked it less than DkS. Mechanically, they're very similar, with DkS generally being more polished and balanced - estus flasks/limited spellcasts are much better than grasses/spices (would be close to perfect if Rite of Kindling didn't exist), poise is a great addition that makes heavy armor actually useful (although it makes heavy weapons a bit too powerful), and DkS combat feels a bit more consistent in general, with less trial and error. I hope they bring back multiple lock on points on enemies in DkS2, it worked very well in DeS.

The main difference lies in structure and world/level design. While DkS takes its world design from Metroidvanias (I played SotN recently and the similarities are extremely obvious), DeS is more like a set of dungeons with a central hub. For me, this made the game a bit too linear and constrained. Souls' level design is pretty linear in general, but in DkS this is remedied by the fact that areas are interconnected, so there's usually quite a few places you can go at any given time. In DeS, you pick a world, and that's it. There's a few little side areas, but usually nothing substantial (one exception being Boletarian Palace, with the Mausoleum, Yuria, Miralda, etc). Sometimes, despite linear progression, the level design is good enough that it doesn't matter (3-1), but usually it's not. Some of the obviously linear levels can be good in their own right (Shrine of Storms as a whole), but overall I felt like the game lacked breadth.

Dark Souls had a great feeling of adventure and exploration, and having everything compartmentalized into archstones in DeS took away most of that. For me, at least, Dark Souls scratched the Gothic itch, the feeling of danger and wonder from being able to walk into high-level areas right from the start. There is very little content gating in DkS, it takes 2 minutes to get from the starting area to New Londo, and no fucks are given. in DeS, on the other hand, worst I can do to myself is go into 4-1 or 3-1.

I'm not really opposed to straight-up dungeon-crawls (which is what I feel DeS' worlds are), but they need to be a bit more elaborate than Stonefang Tunnel or Shrine of Storms. I really liked the atmosphere and enemy design in the latter, it was simply too linear. I would have liked it more if the worlds were, say, composed of 4 distinct areas each, interconnected and explorable in arbitrary order, and each would require its own set of objectives to be fulfilled before the boss could be fought.

All of that said, DeS is pretty great, and heartily recommended. I do believe they've improved the formula in DkS, and am looking forward to DkS2 more as a result.

 

[Kanedias]

I just finished it myself.

More thoughts:

3-2 in general: Amazing level, mostly due to the excellent atmosphere. The gargoyles suck, however. They are really bad enemies with simple movesets and an annoying tendency to fly away, especially the crossbow-using ones. I can see why flying enemies were "nerfed" in Dark Souls and they made it so they can fall to their deaths, the flying mechanic in this game is ridiculously annoying, with enemies that simply refuse to land. I prefer the silliness of seeing a winged enemy plunge to his death rather than having to watch these flapping assholes deal with their ground-phobia. The Black Phantom Mind Flayers were also really nice and scary, I heard complaints of the area you fight them in but it was fine for me, their attacks were still avoidable if you paid attention and planned the fight well.

Maneaters: they were actually quite nice, managed to get them first try but their melee moveset is fun to fight against and the fact that a second one comes down keeps things tense. The narrow platform where you fight them sucks, however. Also, whose idea was it to make them able to fly around? I'm not talking about when they fly up in place in order to cast spells, I mean when they simply leave the arena and refuse to come back. I wasn't even using the Thief's Ring! Ridiculous. The second one would fly around, come back, throw one Sonic Wave spell, and then take off again, not letting me attack, and it did this little cycle no less than FOUR times in a row. Anyways, flawed but enjoyable. Probably the most challenging boss in DeS, if only because of the instant death risk and the fact that fighting two at once is really hard.

Old Monk a.k.a. The Great Grass Wars: Such a good idea, such a bad execution. Where to start? the boss summoning a player and possessing him in order to fight you is great, or would be if the PvP in this game wasn't bullshit... and I say this as someone who enjoys Dark Souls PvP very much, despite its flaws, and has PvPd for hours on end.

So on the stairs up you need to deal with Man Centipedes and two respawning BP Mind Flayers. Not only does this add tedium if you die on the boss, but it can deprive the invader of the pleasure of killing the host, as I could be one shot by the Mind Flayer's sonic explosion spell. How did I find out about this? By fighting a Mind Flayer perfectly, getting interrupted mid swing by the unskippable boss cutscene, and coming back to see that my swing was cancelled by said cutscene (when it should have knocked down the mind flayer), and I got (surprise!) one shot by that spell. Yes, the cutscene plays randomly depending on when the other player invades you, which makes the presence of those extremely dangerous enemies very cheap.

Then we arrive to the fight proper, and to the silly PvP of Demon's Souls. Did you ever fight someone with duped Divine Blessings in Dark Souls? exactly the same. The boss-invader can heal to full at any time by abusing the broken grass system, and there's no way to stop them because grasses are as fast as DkS Divine Blessings. At most you will be able to backstab them, which will cause them to simply run away and use another grass, and so on until you miss the backstab and they're back at 100% HP. Finishing off a player that doesn't want to die is incredibly hard in this game.

I was treated to a really "fun" fight against someone who could 3 shot me with a katana and grassed constantly, and I lost only because I didn't really want to use up all my grasses. The fight was clearly going nowhere, it was in a state of constant draw as we both healed ourselves to full at every chance. The second time I attempted it, the player was much better and played honorably, and never healed at all. I also didn't heal out of respect and I had a fun, challenging fight, and ended up winning.

1-4 a.k.a. Go Away Dragon: My first impression of the level upon seeing the dead dragon and the three black phantom knights was "oh, nice atmosphere". Then a live dragon appeared and everything went downhill from there. I don't know how From Software manages to mess up dragon design so much. There's a visible improvement from DeS dragons -> Hellkite -> Kalameet, however.

Anyways I hate the dragons (except Kalameet) because they're what I call scenery enemies, they just stand there providing an environmental hazard and don't really interact with you, and it's really silly and ruins the atmosphere. At least the Hellkite comes down and fights you, even if his moveset and AI is incredibly buggy... these DeS dragons simply stand there ignoring your attacks until they die.You have to be patient and pump them full of arrows (and I would have needed more than 100, probably, because my dex was low), and they don't even react to them. Anyways I saw that the arrows did minimal damage so I simply avoided the fire and progressed with the level, and the problems started.

The person who thought it was a good idea to put the blue dragon in the entrance of the castle deserves a date with a Mind Flayer. I ran past this dragon and he kept spamming fire, causing hilariously bad screen shake during my fight with BP Ostrava, ruining the atmosphere of that long elevator, and ruining the atmosphere of the Allant boss battle.

The boss introduction, arena design and music make that fight simply amazing. I think it's on par with Gwyn, though what Gwyn's fight conveys is different; the fight with the False King is epic and climatic (which doesn't mean it's better). There was a slight problem, though...The fucking troll dragon kept breathing fire outside, roaring at the top of its lungs, and sometimes even causing screen shake during the False King boss battle. Complete and utter bullshit.

Anyways, as for the boss mechanics themselves, I found them to be good, probably the most enjoyable boss in Demon's Souls, except for the fact that if you die you need to go through the level again, past the dragons, and past that long elevator. I did die once, one shot by the AoE when I thought I was safe, before I realized I could interrupt it.

I agree with Castanova about the difficulty of the boss, it's easy if you simply back away and wait to dodge his charge or interrupt his AoE, but my damage wasn't that high so it was taking forever, and the fight gets much more difficult if you fight him head on, taking risks.

The damage, if hit by the actual sword (as opposed to the wind ripple thingies caused by his sword) was extremely high, and this was the case for nearly every enemy in the game. I said this many times before, but on this game damage is much higher than in Dark Souls, and I think that's the biggest difference in difficulty between the two games...in DkS it's common to die due to being damaged by an enemy and then punished when you heal, this doesn't happen here, instead of that, you die outright, often one-shot or stunlocked, due to the silly damage enemies do. It makes you play more careful, but it's not really fair.

I still don't think the game is harder than Dark Souls, I don't know why I always hear that from so many people, including some of the famous DkS youtubers.

Boss Difficulty Conclusion: Extremely easy, disappointingly so. I knew they were easier than DkS bosses, but I never expected this.

Vanguard (tutorial): 2 deaths, the boss I died the most to. I got him on my 3rd try.
Phalanx: 0 deaths
Tower Knight: 0 deaths
Penetrator: 1 death
False King Allant: 1 death
Armor Spider: 0 deaths
Flamelurker: 0 deaths
Dragon God: 0 deaths.
Fool's Idol: 0 deaths
Maneaters: 0 deaths
Old Monk: 1 death (against a player)
Vanguard (Shrine of Storms): 0 deaths
Adjudicator: 0 deaths
Old Hero: 0 deaths
Storm King: 0 deaths
Leechmonger: 0 deaths
Dirty Colossus: 0 deaths
Maiden Astraea: 1 death (I fell on the swamp while fighting Garl Vinland)

6 deaths in total. I died more to Artorias than to the entirety of Demon's Souls bosses. Sure, when I fought Artorias I may not have had the same experience I have now, but this game was also the first time I ever used a controller, so yeah...

I died several times on the levels themselves, however, and would have died more if it weren't for Second Chance. For example in 1-4 I got ambushed by one Claymore Red Eye Knight and one Imperial Spy, and the Spy got me from behind and made me get hit by the Claymore of the Knight, which popped my second chance instantly, from 100% HP (told you the damage was high).

Item Burden: An absurd mechanic, I'm glad it's gone. Extremely broken, too, because you can't see what it is that you're picking up, so it can lead you to lose items permanently. For example, in the 1-1 tendency event, if you pick up the Brushwood Set and you don't have room for it, you lose it because the items fall on the floor and they won't be there anymore if you go to the Nexus and then back. Apart from this, it only causes you to waste a ring slot sometimes , it doesn't really add anything.

Sound: The amount of DeS sounds they reused for DkS is hilarious. The funniest one, in my opinion, was how the sounds the Old One makes when it moves were used for the Ent's attacks in Dark Souls.

--

Oh, by the way, I didn't get any ending yet because I still don't know if I will start another playthrough or keep playing that character and unlocking more tendency events.

P.S.: 5-2 is still one of my favourite levels in the Souls series, next to Latria. I simply love the atmosphere and design of that swamp.

 

[Kanedias]

Sorry for the double post, but I started a new character and I have a couple more things to add (and I can't edit my previous post). I wanted to do a low level challenge, SL 30 this time, especially because I heard that level is nice for co-op and invasions. I thought I'd build the character around the Makoto, because it doesn't scale.

Anyways...

Backstabs, Knockdowns, etc: So apparently last playthrough I was an idiot and didn't figure this out: when you knock an enemy down either by using a heavy weapon, backstab, riposte or whatever, you can hit them while they're on the ground and actually do damage. That's silly, it made the fights against the skeletons much easier, and it would have been nice to know when I fought the guy with the katana in the Old Monk boss fight. I had seen you could keep using the "pancake" r2 of the axe over and over again but I didn't think it would also work for normal swings and for any type of knockdown including BSing. The fact that enemies are immune when standing up in Dark Souls may be less realistic, but it's certainly more balanced.

My Damage: So the Makoto is doing a stupid amount of damage, making the game much easier. For example, the unupgraded Makoto can take around 70-90% of a Reaper's HP bar in one (really fast) two handed hit. Last time I played the game I had a Halberd and then a Crescent Axe upgraded to +3/+4 for a lot of areas (probably the majority of them), so that may be why I felt some worlds like 4-2 were so hard.

 

[Elwro]

I wasn't even able to get Makoto in my playthroughs. Good for you that you could!

Missing out on stuff is one of the reasons I don't like the way the tendency system operates (not the idea itself)...

 

[dunno lah]

Yeah, but it is entirely possible to get all world tendency items in a 1st playthru(if one was aspie enough). DaS had that "cut tail and get weapon" system from the bosses which absolutely prevented you from doing so in a 1st playthru.

Edit: Well...if one was really aspie enough, perhaps he would just go after the tail first to weaken the boss and, to his surprise, getting a weapon out of it...

 

[praetor]

Yeah, but it is entirely possible to get all world tendency items in a 1st playthru(if one was aspie enough).

meh, not that aspie. suiciding in the nexus after each boss to prevent "accidental" black tendency shifts isn't that aspie, imo (although that's what i did on my 2nd, not 1st playthrough so on 2nd thought i guess yeah, doing it on the 1st would be pretty aspie )

 

[dunno lah]

Yeah, but it is entirely possible to get all world tendency items in a 1st playthru(if one was aspie enough).

meh, not that aspie. suiciding in the nexus after each boss to prevent "accidental" black tendency shifts isn't that aspie, imo (although that's what i did on my 2nd, not 1st playthrough so on 2nd thought i guess yeah, doing it on the 1st would be pretty aspie )

Trust me, I would've gotten Makoto and DBS on my 1st playthru if I could play online.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Kanedias, personally I found Flamelurker to be the best bossfight. I got to him pretty early in the game (only having completed 1-1, 1-2 and 2-1), had a pretty shitty weapon, a kite shield that didn't block his explosions very well, and not a lot of grasses. This made for a pretty intense fight, which worked really well with the aesthetics of it, the way he becomes more aggressive and burns brighter as his health goes down, and the great music.

I really loved the atmosphere of it too, a strange combination of adventurous and lonely, fighting this strange monster at the bottom of some forgotten ruin, like something pulled from those early sword and sorcery short stories, with a tinge of Souls' melancholy. Kinda wish more of the game evoked that.

 

[dunno lah]

4-2 and 5-2 both have that same, strong sense of adventure and lonesomeness. If From made Old Hero and Dirty Colossus tougher, you, Cowboy wouldn't be saying that last sentence of yours...

 

[Rolk's Drifter]

I got it once before by accident... never found it again. And I know that place pretty well, for a while I was making a bunch of new characters by skipping catacombs to kill pinwheel for souls, then running through tomb to grab another 10k worth of proud knight souls (and killing patches for that kickass axe) before climbing back out. I can run through that place blind and naked from end to end, but that ring is some well hidden bullshit.

Haha I've seen this happen to a few youtubers. It's funny how it works but sometimes it seems the better a player is the more likely they are to miss the obvious stuff. The ring is actually very visible if you follow the 'normal' path through. It's pretty much the first thing you'll see after the second bonfire. I never actually figured out where to drop from but I did find that you can jump up to the ring from the path.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

4-2 and 5-2 both have that same, strong sense of adventure and lonesomeness. If From made Old Hero and Dirty Colossus tougher, you, Cowboy wouldn't be saying that last sentence of yours...

Maybe 4-2, but 5-2 is just a huge annoyance. Making Dirty Colossus harder would only add to that.

Also, Old Hero is easy because there's no shortcut.

 

[Kanedias]

Old Hero is actually fairly challenging if you don't use Thief's Ring. He's not that hard to dodge but he deals a ton of damage and can one shot you easily. He also runs really fast and aggroes you every time you hit him. If you use Thief's Ring he simply doesn't attack you unless you're very close when he gets pissed and roars.

His AI is kind of iffy, though. The "blind" AI was much better done in the Gough fight in Dark Souls. The concept of the Old Hero fight is good, I'd like that kind of fight revisited for Dark Souls 2. Just add the new AI, less HP bloat, and a fucking shortcut.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Is Blue Blood Sword any good for PvE?

 

[dunno lah]

Is Blue Blood Sword any good for PvE?

Yes, definitely. But it requires leveling up for it to be good. It scales with 5 stats and is also enchantable. But I used it mostly because it looked cool. Imagine cursed weapon+2h-r1 stunlocking in PvP too...

 

[DragoFireheart]

Funny: I got invaded in 1-3. Almost beat the invader but lost. No biggie since it was extremely close to the beginning.

I put down my summon sign so I can regain my humanity and guess who summons me? The guy that invaded me. We kick the shit out of Penetrator.

 

[dunno lah]

Funny: I got invaded in 1-3. Almost beat the invader but lost. No biggie since it was extremely close to the beginning.

I put down my summon sign so I can regain my humanity and guess who summons me? The guy that invaded me. We kick the shit out of Penetrator.

Hey, have you tried comparing BSS from DkS with the Penetrator's Sword? Do they both have extra dmg from thrusts compared to other straight swords?