From Software Dark Souls 3

The point is that DeS, DaS and BB are the only masterpieces of the series. BUT a bold and inspiring shit like DaS2 sometimes is better than a competent but ultimately forgettable crap like DaS3, which makes the later the worst in the series.

 

While i don't think DS3 is "shit", more like extremely disappointing, i agree with you, you can see the Miyazaki pedigree in those 3, i don't really think he "directed" Dark Souls 3, probably had more of a supervisor role.

 

Both DeS and Bloodborne are massively overrated, and BB in particular suffers from a lot of the same mechanical issues as DS3, but it gets a pass because of its presentation.

 

Why are they overrated?

 

Are you asking what I think is overrated about them?

In simple terms, DeS is a very rough game with a really stupid healing system, tons of bad bosses, and some very questionable levels.

BB has a similarly stupid healing system (which is all the more puzzling because the Dark Souls games did it much better), a combat system which encourages dumb R1 mashing even more than DS3's, mostly mediocre bosses in the base game, and a major dip in quality towards the endgame, not dissimilar to DS1. It's also really easy, and on the rare occasion it becomes hard, it does so in a really stupid and cheap way.

I think I wrote a long post about BB in the relevant thread back when I first finished it, if you're interested in a more elaborate reasoning.

 

What's so rough about DeS? Besides some QoL shit, the combat was already excellent, game runs well on PS3, overall level design is much better than DS3, the NPC's are much better, the soundtrack is better, of course some levels and bosses will be worse than others, but that's the same for any game in the series and imo the best bosses of DeS trumps DS3 bosses, although the bosses of the latter are most refined mechanically, the aspects around them are lacking, i'll try to exemplify:

I said a couple of posts before how i disliked the copypasted

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Storm Ruler

gimmick, and not only because it was copypasted, the execution was much worse, in DeS you had that giant flying manta ray god called "Storm King" in a very atmospheric open arena, it gave such an epic feeling when you find the sword and overcome the enemy with such overwhelming power. In Dark Souls 3, it's just a regular big boss in a regular arena that had no reason to use this gimmick again.

 

DeS is a flawed gem, just like DS1. IMO it deserves all the praise it gets.

I don't think anyone is really overrating BB, for example I haven't seen a single post anywhere claiming it's the best in the series. Didn't play it myself but afaik the community was massively disappointed with the PvP and chalice dungeons. Still, I've seen a few playthroughs by ENB and Cowboy and it felt fresh and inspired, especially the DLC. I could absolutely believe it was directed by Miyazaki himself. With DS3 it's straigh up out of the question.

 

cvv nailed it.

It doesn't matter if DeS is full of bullshit, or if DaS1 endgame is shit, or if BB vial mechanic is broken. What matter is those games dared to innovate in meaningful ways both gameplay and themes/setting-wise, in a way the others in the series, and most games nowadays, failed to replicate. It doesn't matter that DaS3 is the most polished technically if in the end it's the less ambitious and most souless of the bunch, and will be forgotten by anyone a couple months from finishing it.

 

I should have loved Bloodborne (I've been playing Souls since the Asian version of DeS and I dig the victorian aesthetic/lovecraft inspired stuff), but when I got around to playing it I couldn't stomach it. It ran very poorly and by then the Souls formula was already stale as fuck. I couldn't get further than a couple of hours.

I'll always love Demon's Souls because it was a brave game that broke a lot of new ground. People who overthink it and overanalyse the mechanics are missing the point entirely.

 

DeS is rough in the sense that it's very hit and miss in most of its aspects (except for the uniformly excellent art direction ), which makes sense, given that it's the first game in the series, and the most experimental. Level design is good (1-1, 1-3, 3-1, 4-1) until it's bad (2-2, 5-1) or mediocre (2-1, 3-2, 5-2). Bosses can be really good, like Flamelurker, really bad, like Armored Spider, and a lot are just weird gimmicks not executed particularly well. Unfortunately From never really learned how to design good gimmick bosses for the Souls combat system.

The Storm King example actually works for my purposes, because I consider it to be a truly awful fight. Not only does it waste your time with the small mantas, but then you're forced to wait until the boss circles over the sea. There's nothing fun about avoiding its attacks or using the sword to hit it. I would consider it on par with Bed of Chaos in terms of awfulness if it had a similarly long corpse run. Yhorm, in comparison, is at least to the point, and somewhat threatening.

This, as usual, likely comes down to whether you played DeS as your first Souls game, but I do think it comes up somewhat short when stripped of the "first in the series" excuse. I will say though, that in the context of BB and DS3, I appreciate that it's an actual adventure game and not just an edgy combat simulator.

You won't see much of that on the Codex, but in the quagmire of stupidity that is the larger Souls community, it's actually a fairly popular belief. That in itself would be fine, but those people are absolutely incapable of acknowledging any of the game's many flaws. Also, I get extremely triggered every time the Lovecraft inspiration is discussed, especially given that BB actively subverts it, and essentially stars benevolent aliens with tentacles.

In any case, the point remains that much of the criticism of how DS3's combat plays out applies just as easily to Bloodborne, and no amount of gothic horror window dressing can change that.

Finally, can we drop the fucking retarded Miyazaki cult? The man directed DS3, it says so in the credits. He did a shitty job of some parts, just as he did in his previous games, and likely only made the game because Namco wanted to milk the cash cow even further. But hey, if this makes you so butthurt, then note that Tanimura was co-director, maybe you can blame all the bad on him again.

 

And you bet your favourite dildo I will.

Also, it's not about whether or not Miyazaki did a good job or a shitty job. Nobody here thinks he's more infallible than the fucking pope. We've discussed the shitty parts of DeS and DS1 repeatedly, that shoud've been your hint. It's whether he left his imprint on the game. When Scott made Prometheus it was an abortion of a movie but it was still very clearly a Scott movie. DS3 is a both shitty and outsourced.

 

What game in the series isn't hit and miss? The difference is that Demon's, Dark and Bloodborne are more in the hit side of the balance, i can't say the same for Dark 2 and 3, i don't even remember remember most of the levels of Dark Souls 3 and i beat it much more recently, i remember that fucking swamp, but only because it was awful.

There were only 2 gimmick bosses in DeS if i remember correctly and they were great, Storm King in particular was very creative and a lot of people love it, can't say the same for Yhorm, who is just a upgraded version of The Last Giant and Giant Lord, so, if you like fighting the same shit over and over i can understand why you like it. Also, i have no idea what you mean with "is at least to the point", what point?

And if anything, Dark Souls 3 is the definition of edgy combat simulator, because the combat itself is the only thing done well in the game.

It's no retarded cult mate, you can see a lot of similarities between DeS, DaS and BB, they're masterpieces and he is the common factor, Dark Souls 3 is clearly not his baby, it's more like Tanimura was thinking "what i'd do if i was Miyazaki" all the time and they put Miyazaki there as director because of Dark Souls 2 controversy, maybe a Bandai Namco request for marketing purposes; he probably even directed some segments or aspects, but it wouldn't even be possible for him to put all his efforts on Dark Souls 3 while doing Bloodborne at the same time, and it's clear that he doesn't have the same enthusiasm for making sequels of his games.

 

Pretty sure miyazaki was (fully) involved, and it's exactly the reason why the game is shit.

They improved so many things with Dark Souls 2 and he just took and reverted all of it back to shit + ruined the gameplay with bloodborne-ish r1 spam, infinite rolls etc.

 

Are you saying DeS and DS1 are shit too then?

This. To the letter.

 

No, i'm just saying that if they didn't try to copy bloodborne into ds 3 and let the Dark Souls 2 team do their thing, it'd be a much better game.

Dark Souls 1 is good but it's his last good game.

 

Oh I agree with that.

It's funny Miyazaki said DS3 followed closely the DS2 design. Because that'd be actually great if it was true.

 

Miyazaki cultists denying the cult exists while desperately twisting themselves into knots to explain how the horrible, horrible DS3 couldn't have possibly been made by their god-emperor. Thanks for proving my point for me, bros.

Bro, I'm sorry but you're a delusional fanboy, and exactly the kind of person I had in mind when calling DeS overrated. You know you've gone off the deep end when you honestly believe Storm King is a great boss. Or that DeS only has two gimmick bosses, I bet you have some excellent definition of a gimmick boss to go with that (Dragon God, Old Monk, Adjudicator, Old Hero, Storm King and Maiden Astraea at minimum, by my count).

I thought it'd be clear from context, but Yhorm is more to the point because it doesn't waste your time. You go in, pick up the sword, and kill him in like 5 hits. I think you also misunderstood me, I agree that DS3 is the definition of an edgy combat simulator, and I was praising DeS for being more of an adventure game.

Anyway, given that you're delusional enough to actually believe DS3 was all Tanimura (or some other convenient scapegoat), I doubt there's any kind of rational argument I can make to convince you of anything.

 

If the next Miyazaki's game is just as soulless, drab and uninspired as DS3 I'll be more prepared to believe he focused equallly on BB and DS3, which were developed at the same time, and simply burned out.

Right now I feel pretty safe in my belief he paid more attention to one game than the other and left DS3 largely for his co-directors. If not for any other reason than that there are no co-directors listed for BB.

 

Only Dragon God i would classify as a pure gimmicky boss, the others have gimmicks but also are fair fights. And i like them very much because the gimmicky aspect makes them feel distinct, makes the game unpredictable. In Dark Souls 3 they took the second boss phase gimmick and applied in every fucking boss, completely destroying the purpose.

I don't get this, if you don't want to "waste" time, what's the purpose of playing video games to begin with?

Yes i did.

It wasn't all him, if it was all him we'd get something in the vein of Dark Souls 2, which would be better. Miyazaki probably gave the direction, but his vision for games are not something simple or easy to replicate, it needs his total attention, and i honestly don't believe he wanted to make a Dark Souls 3(or any sequel) and was already doing Bloodborne, but From can't refuse the money now that Dark Souls exploded, so we got a product without soul, made by committee.

 

Yeah, I remember getting to these areas again and thinking "man, what did they think putting these drab as fuck areas here?". Serious, Forest of Sacrifices > Farron keep > Cathacombs must be the worst level sequence in the series. That swamp must be made of puke from all the players enduring it.

 

Looking back I kindda "liked", in a perverse way, the swamp. At least it was confusing and produced a sense of danger and tension. Which DS used to be all about.

Yes, so bad was the drabness of DS3 level design I actually appreciated the area that was intentionally designed to be annoying as fuck.

 

wtf are the muhyazaki retards on about? Tanimura was in charge of the prototype while Miyazaki was directing BB, after BB was done (iirc he wasn't even that involved with the DLC) he was full time chief director on DS3 (obviously by his own volition as he's the motherfucking president of From) with Tanimura taking a more minor role (iirc being the game mechanics and/or online lead or something like that). and yes, afaik, he's on record that he dislikes doing sequels so the phoning it in for the shitty DS3 is understandable. but it's also entirely his fault and his alone. and i seriously doubt there's something in the contract with Bamco that they could force him to do the third sequel when he wasn't involved at all with the 2nd. they both signed a contract for 3 games (and naming the directors for each was highly highly unlikely something written in it). he fucked up, deal with it

and yes, DeS taken out of the context of when it was released, it's the 2nd worst Soulsborne game (purely mechanically) after DS3 for a multitude of reasons already mentioned. of course, judging it outside that context would be a bit unfair (but understandable for a deeper mechanical analysis) and i maintain it's a masterpiece even though mechanically it's nowadays so bad i just couldn't get past 1-1 out of boredom for the past couple of replays in the past 2-3 years. considering the advancements in the sequels, it just has not aged well (other than the still superb art/atmosphere)

 

Where are you getting these details from?

 

interviews with the man himself. google is your friend. i may or may not be wrong about Tanimura being in charge of the prototyping phase, but i'm 100% sure Miyazaki took over pretty early (when the prototype was done at the latest) as lead

 

Boys can we have less brownosing of a famous developers? Miyazaki is that bastard who would prepare ambush and watch how a character would get his bloody nose. He's just not a complete jerk and allow some window in remote location where a character would be able to see the ambush.

Of course two other directors were co-developing to get skills, and to help him considering he was in higher position and had much less time to concentrate on one project. Such are perils of rising in corporate positions.

Dark souls was co-produced by Miyazaki thus he was able to take risks with design and development.