Being ‘original’ doesn't count for anything when the thing that is so original is nothing at all. In fact, being original has nothing to do with being good. I don't hate DS2, but it's obviously the product of people who had only a relatively superficial understanding of what Dark Souls ought to be. I don't know what's so special about the mechanics, either. It's just a kind of half-way between Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. It's nothing we hadn't seen before.
How is being original in locations and world building, not being original in anything at all?
Aside from that again DS2 of all 3 DS games, has the best campaign.
Funny you mention not understanding what DS ought to be, because that's exactly what happened to From with DS3 (or even Bloodborne).
The mechanics are the most robust of any From game (aside from King's Field 4).
Yes, it's relatively less interesting, I should have said. But no repeated levels? Seriously? A location recycled from the original game followed by two missions in a row both in the same place? Oh, well, I guess that doesn't count, unlike the original which had... uh... Strange Bedfellows? Thief's campaign was a more nuanced experience and doesn't really go against its own mechanics. It's an ‘immersive sim’, not just a pure stealth game. People always favourite sequels for being ‘refined’, but I'm sceptical of it. In most cases, those refinements remove part of what made the originals so interesting. Thief 2 omitted the odd things that enhanced the experience and gave us nothing but the same. There's less of the strange, supernatural locations and instead just more large buildings. The overall experience of the game is what matters, you can't just take any part of it in isolation as the signifier of quality. Especially with games like Thief, which have more of a focus on a story or a setting, rather than just raw mechanics.
The maw of chaos was just a segment of one larger mission. And it highligths how T2 improves things upon T1. My guess with Casting the Joint and Masks is that they were 1 full mission but it probably was too big so they decided to split into two. T1 also had return to the cathedral.
T1 does go against it's self on considerable ocasions. Also imerse sims aren't a genre, but rather an aspect conferred by the game's mechanics and open ended content. Thied is very much a pure stealth game.
Yeah T1 has some pretty memorable moments, but I find myself replaying T2 far more. T1 overall quality troughout the entire game is kinda all over the place, while T2 never at any point drops the ball as hard as T1, an in fact for the most part the quality of each level superior to the one before until the end.
T2 didn't gave nothing similiar to T1. The switch to a more techological setting, was a very good decision and also necessary (otherwise the game would've been a rethread of the first).
Finally Thief games do not focus more on storyfaggotry than any other aspect. Their focus is on the challenge provided by the gameplay and level design.
Expansions are secondary by definition. If a sequel is essentially the same as the original, it's less important by default. Always. The original will always be the purest form of that idea, both in its creation and one's own personal experience of it. And Doom 2, while it adds things, also loses others, and overall comes out to something that can't make as much of an impression as the original did.
Sequels being worse than the original installements is the exception in videogames.
In the first game the devs have an idea, but it's with further work on that idea that they can realise it's potential. You can see that most of those games I listed as well as in Thief.
Yes Thief's development was a rocky one, it was only late in development that the devs had the idea to make it a game about evasion rather than confrotation. That's why there are things in T1 that do go against that principle (specially in the last chunk on the game).
And yes, DS2 is very consistent. Consistently mediocre, that is. Seriously though, I suppose in its way the quality is actually more consistent than the first game, but only by being so average. DS1 at times was better, and then at times bafflingly stupid. Dark Souls overall as a series is rather overrated, really. I like Demon's Souls much more.
You're getting it tough.
DS1 is the one whose quality is more consistent across the whole game.
However DS2 lows migth be as bad as DS1 lows (although even in lows the quality is mediocre and not bad), but DS2 highs far surpass any of DS1 highs
I really DeS as well - I think DeS and DS2 are the best games From has made in these last 10 years. So it's kinda difficult for me to say between the two which one is best, but I would say DS2.
That game just has some of the best content From as ever produced.
And so what if you can break the systems? I didn't know how to break it the first time I played the game, so I'd argue that it's fine.
You really don't have to analyse them to figure out a way.
Fallout system was so rushly designed (to be fair they wanted to use another system, but unfortonately things didn't work out), that any player that reachs a high enough point in the game naturally breaks.
What's the problem you ask?
Simple. As a consequence the last act of the game is a walk in the park.
Well, that's not really an achievement when most RPGs now aren't RPGs. But what does that even mean? Is Pokemon better than Fallout? Baldur's Gate? Grimoire? Your mother? In my experience, Pokemon is just a game full of boring trash encounters. That's it.
When I said most RPG's, I was even referring to older ones.
What does that mean?
Easy, a game with good gameplay is a good game. Regardless of the quality of the other aspects.
And Soul Silver has also as fun and relaxing campgain (the best of the franchise). So overall it's solid game.