From Software Bloodborne. Discuss or die!

[Hyperion]

Dont know what is wrong with you but i beat Friede on my first run with astora greatsword.It took about 7-8 tries cause i am rather average Souls player but if you give up on boss on 5th death like some fags in this thread than you just need to git gud or play some other games instead of whining about "not going to put up with that shit" or "not having time for that".

Did it with the same weapon, in approximately the same number of tries. I even posted about it on the DS3 thread, go look up the post if you don't believe me. The weapon art absolutely smokes her in the first phase (which is a joke of a fight, and easier than your average Black Phantom), but the 3rd phase gets needlessly drawn out, because depending on her AI a basic R1 is too slow to catch her after she finishes the neverending (6 or 7 hit?) combo. Not-Laurence was added to one phase just to draw the fight out a bit, and makes the camera a pain in the ass if you lock on (obviously you unlock for that phase to make it bearable) and draw things out further. If anything, he made it easier because he was such a huge, easy target. It would have been better with only 2, more distinct and difficult phases instead of shoehorning a 3rd phase simply for novelty.

LOL. You know what is interesting uniqueness in Souls games? Second phase against O&S

I stand by my opinion that O&S is one of, if not the, most overrated fights in the series at the risk of sounding like a hardass.
Good boss fight? Yes.
Anywhere near the level of difficulty / awesomeness every Souls board (including this one) would lead you to believe? Not even close. Compared to most bosses (especially in latter entries), they're incredibly passive with huge gaps for you to heal through, and relatively low damage for bosses, particularly in the first phase. It's also unfortunate that the rest of the game takes a nosedive after that fight. Do it as a GiantDad and laugh at Ornstein's piddly bitchstick. Trying to kill Ludwig at level 45 with a Kirkhammer +5, on the other hand, was the single most disastrous thing I've ever tried, however, and think I cut 3 years off my lifespan.

Not every area loses its appeal after the first time. The run from Firelink Shrine through Undead Burg-Undead Parish-Depths- Blightown

How is running through 5 areas comparable to one area with a single, distinct art style? Try instead comparing, I don't know, Irithyll Dungeon to Tower of Latria (3-1 specifically), since it was clearly added as a throwback, and kinda failed outside of looking pretty cool, and having irritating screams. Same goes for Profaned Capital while we're at it - cool looking area, huge letdown in its execution since it was too damn small.

Fighting Raime doesnt get boring even on ng+7 cause motherfucker can put some pressure on you.

DS2, and SOTFS in particular, is imo, the pinnacle of the series' gameplay, and as such, shouldn't be compared to the others. I'm still butthurt about the removal of powerstancing. Raime is a bad motherfucker, and my favorite boss of all. As a side note, I think he has the coolest chestpiece in the game, except for maybe Throne Defender. Shame his helm was too skinny on the player, though.

Sir Alonne was too weeby for my tastes.

 

[praetor]

i have to agree with meanwhileinpotatoland: DeS has to be one of the most overrated games ever. don't get me wrong, it's still a good game, and as a whole package it's still better (imo) than DS3 or DS2 vanilla. but as a game compared to the others, it's only strong point is atmosphere. it's not even much of a storyfag or lorefag game. mechanically it's by far the worst, the weapon selection/balance is terrible, the upgrade system awful, and the majority of bosses are horrendous (tower knight, spider, phalanx, adjudicator, idol, offlineMonk, leechmonger, the one in 5-2 whose name i forgot are all just plain bad in every way. the rest range from "awful but at least it looks cool", like Astrea, Storm and Dragon God to "finally a meh fight that doesn't put me to sleep", like penetrator, flamelurker and allant [the only 3 "proper" bosses. still mediocre fights overall]), puzzles/gimmicks or not. and it has, what, 4 good levels, maybe 5? in retrospect, thanks to the overreliance on gimmicks and seriously lacklustre weapon/build variety, it's by far the least replayable Souls game to date, bar none. i had my fill of the singleplayer halfway through my 2nd playthrough (and yes, it was my first Souls game. i didn't play on release, but a couple of months after DaS1 came out and i got a PS3 for both)

that said, it's still a must play for any fan, however casual. and i'd rebuy it instantly if they released it for the PS4 (0 chance for a pc port), even with just minimal graphical upgrades. and yes, it's definitely critical to take into consideration that it was the first and as such it is arguably the most important and the historical context definitely plays a huge part when trying to asses the game quality in absolute terms... but relative to the rest of the series it's... eh

and like Hyperion up here finds O&S the most overrated fight mechanically in the series, i find Astrea the most overrated "but it's so emoshunahl" fight thematically in the series. the "omg so emotions" is just so cliche`, shallow, pedestrian and shoved in your face. 0 subtlety (and as such, to me, 0 emotional impact). Ceaseless Discharge is several orders of magnitude better in that regard

 

[cvv]

Wow, Ceaseless Discharge? Um.

Look, I agree with your general point. Gameplay-wise DeS is kindda raw compared to the sequels (except DS3, we don't talk about that shit here) simply because From kept refining the mechanics. But looking at it from a different angle - it's just astounding how much got Miyazaki right at the first go. Now we take most of it for granted, like "ofc it had to be that way"...but it hadn't, really. It's been 10 goddamn years of everyone and their parrot trying to copy Souls-likes and nobody got close to even From's first attempt. Pretty telling.

As for the bosses....as was already said: if your mindset is "if it's not a fast knight it's awful" then it's just a personal preference. I completely disagree, I don't get it why would anyone require the same boss type over and over and over again but hey, it's a free country. We could argue about that till we're blue in the face but we'll never go anywhere.

 

[Arnust]

I mean, DeS has a lot of literally turd bosses. But they still do the job because they're hardly offensive (Maneaters can suck a sack of balls though), even fucking Dirty Colossus has a cool little idea behind it be it lore or gameplay wise, and with a majority being a gimmick boss, you hardly ever feel like you're fighting the same shit over and over. Except for Leechmonger-Dinghy Colossus you don't have two bosses in a row that are similar in any real way, and whoever preferring more traditional duel fights, there is a fair bit of them as well, the "real" final boss being one of them.

This has been, for the most part, been followed in other Soulsborne. Even Ds2 which is the one that got the most shit boss wise does this, maybe even better in the gimmick part but worse in the variety aspect.

I think the Boletaria and Stonefang bosses are all pretty damn solid (except for their first one), Idol of Fools is a really atmospheric one well fit into the area's lore and atmosphere even if the fact that it's immortal unless you kill that dreg hidden after an unassuming balcony and having you walk like 1000m to get it done is kind of bullshit, and that it's Pinwheel's sister (way more dangerous really. I won't go over every single boss but my favourite of the game probably is the Boletaria assortment and the Storm King. They are very memorable when they aren't just drab and mediocre.

I, for one, am not one of those who play for the bosses. If you ask me, they've become this myth of them being the peak of the quintessential Souls ball busting difficulty, when they are a relatively minuscule part of gameplay. Their purpose is to be the beads in the thread that is the progression, offering some much needed rest of the quite exhausting exploration and traversal through the levels, to be treated by the set piece of the soundtrack, an at least somewhat cool looking boss, beat them, get a shitton of souls and go home happy. Bosses is when the designers get to release the gimmick valve and can get as creative as they want, in any of the aspects that compose it. It's usually a treat for lorefags as they are usually built up to and have a role in the "story" in a way most NPCs aren't. And designfags get to go on how they are part of player conditioning and yadda yadda.

While I'm not either on the side of the people clamoring obviously non-bosses as the best EVA, Astraea was a pretty awesome moment even despite being fully knowing of the ordeal. It was what DeS did best in a single fight, and that's why it was genuinely great. Even with some reactionary triggers to make the scene less staged and more organic, to not just be PRESS G TO KILL IT ISN'T IT SAAAD other games with this situation really like to do. I do wonder why they haven't really tried to repeat it considering how welcome would it have been with some boss characters not being another fucking duel; I can only think of it happening with Aldia and Nashandra, if you believe that their fights being so passive and relatively simple despite being the finale is intentional, and maaaaybe Gwyn even if that's only in the "story" level.

Now, some ideas simply don't fucking work, have strange executions, are ill-placed, overly contrived, hard, easy or broken, most of that happening because half-ass and rush, but eeeven then another of the aspects will be doing its job. We simply can't have an Artorias, Maria, Astraea or Fume Knight, that'd be quite unrealistic and mske them only more dreaded, but they sure could go all-in more for some concepts, work a bit more on the spectacle especially considering now there's the tech for it.

Albeit if you ask me, the WORST boss fight in the series, which is a fucking insult to the term, is the Ancient Wyvern at Archdragon Peak in Ds3. (Haven't played BB) It's do embarrassingly bad, it's worse than any of the other dragons, gimmick bosses, "the boss is the arena" bosses, and it doesn't even have anything to it, it's just a fucking dragon- excuse me, WYVERN, an oversized version of the one you saw ONE HOUR INTO THE GAME and likely a couple more times depending on play order, and the execution of the gimmick is have you through one of the shittiest levels on the game for a bit and then having you one-shot it in an added pretty pathetic showcase of the janky hitbox es having you move like five meters through the air horizontally to meet the head attack animation well. It's just a mistery to me why is it a boss when it could just be an encounter like the one later in the same level with the exact same dragon.

- On the other matter, I'm pretty sure just alone The Surge, Salt and Sanctuary, Nioh and -eurgh- Lords of the Flaccid aren't THAT far from it and overdo it in some aspect. Nioh gets praise from bloody everywhere and is held above Souls general in aspects like Combat and whatever else, The Surge's sprawling huge levels with actually believable but also tight level design, or S&S's, uhh, not really having anything to do with it. Oh, and LOTF has a knack for looking better than even Ds3 years before it, pity for the little personality.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Dark Souls 2 is better than Demon's Souls.

It's only January 5th and we already have the Crown of Most Moronic Post of the Year.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

Finally got my grubby mitts on the Chikage. Gonna dick around with it a bit and see what I make of it. Noooot too sure that I'd be opposed starting over if it proves to be arse. I donno, it just seems like Bloodborne is geared much more towards strength and arcane builds than skill and bloodtinge but that might just be me being a massive sperg about it.

Guns are fun though so, hey, that's one point of merit towards bloodtinge.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Finally got my grubby mitts on the Chikage. Gonna dick around with it a bit and see what I make of it. Noooot too sure that I'd be opposed starting over if it proves to be arse. I donno, it just seems like Bloodborne is geared much more towards strength and arcane builds than skill and bloodtinge but that might just be me being a massive sperg about it.

Guns are fun though so, hey, that's one point of merit towards bloodtinge.

Chikage rocks nigga. It just rakes some getting used to since you deal with the life drain in trick mode. Make sure you invest in Bloodtinge to get max benefit.
Skill has some great weapons as well such as Blades of Mercy, Burial Blade, Beasthunter Saif or the Rakuyo.

Chikage is probably the only katana that's worth being seen as cool. Takes a bit more skill to use compared to other weapons. You must properly manage the HP drain. Have to beat a challenging boss to earn.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

I had said boss down to below 5% four times before I finally got him. Felt pretty good.

Got a question about the Burial Blade though: Won't the bloodtinge-heavy build I'm currently running have an impact on its effectiveness? I was planning to stick to about 25 skill and pushing bloodtinge.

 

[cvv]

Apparently the chikage boss can be cheesed pretty easily, I remember ENB showing the strats. And yeah, everyone on Youtube is cumming their panties about chikage, best weapon ever and such. Me, when I get my PS4 my first run will be either with the circular chainsaw or the logarius wheel. Those seem to me like by far the coolest weapons.

 

[sullynathan]

DragoFireheart I'm serious. Dark Souls 2 is better than Demon's Souls is a lot of ways, including the DLC's just makes Dark Souls 2 a much better experience than Demon's Souls could ever be.

Check out The Surge. It has all the "gameplay" you could eat and zero feeling or atmosphere or anything else, really. You'll love it.

Played the Surge, it doesn't scratch the Souls itch.

Champ Gundyr sucks btw

No. The various poop monsters in Demon's Souls suck, The storm beast sucks, maiden astrea isn't even a real boss. Champion Gundyr is actualyl playable at the very least.

I mean, DeS has a lot of literally turd bosses. But they still do the job because they're hardly offensive (Maneaters can suck a sack of balls though), even fucking Dirty Colossus has a cool little idea behind it be it lore or gameplay wise, and with a majority being a gimmick boss, you hardly ever feel like you're fighting the same shit over and over. Except for Leechmonger-Dinghy Colossus you don't have two bosses in a row that are similar in any real way, and whoever preferring more traditional duel fights, there is a fair bit of them as well, the "real" final boss being one of them.

i literally felt like I was fighting the exact same monster multiple times do to the low build variety in Demon's Souls. You ingrates talk so much shit about Dark Souls 3 when no other Souls game has only one worthwhile weapon in it. Demon's Souls is the only game in the entire franchise that you can get one weapon that allows you to clear nearly every enemy and boss throughout NG+ and onwards.

 

[Arnust]

I actually really like Gundyr and Champion Gundyr even more. The set piece is amazing, it's fast but not TOO fast, big but not humongous. I like that he seems almost out of a fighting game with his combos, kicks, stomps and punches, and to me it's one of the few times Dark Souls 3's accelerated rythym actually worked for me. It's hard to chug and his mix of delayed, long range, and extremely fast short range doesn't make it do that rolling is as incredibly straight forward as it is with most bosses like Sulyvahn or even the Soul of Garbage.

And he's got this interesting role in the story considering Ludleth, the Untended Graves-Modern Firelink, cycles and the Fire Keeper. There's a pretty cool relationship between it and the player character. Pity all the game gets to show any of that is a tiny area and done loose dialogue.

I don't think he's a very good introductory boss though, I can't see what's the lesson with it besides "git gud xD", it's apparently parrying- in the firs boss of the game never to be encouraged again?

 

[Talby]

Ludwig is a great boss fight and it's really satisfying when you finally beat him. I got really good at his first phase to the point where I could clear it quickly with no damage, but get destroyed in his second phase. Ludwig and Orphan of Kos are the two DLC bosses that stand out as some of the best in the game. Maria is good too although I beat her first try.

 

[Jaedar]

Unlike the Chikage, the Bloodletter only drains life once when you transform it.

The lifedrain is also completely negated if you hit an enemy with the transformation attack.

Maria is good too although I beat her first try.

Maria best boss in all of soulsborne.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

Guess I'm too much of a spaz to settle for just one weapon and given that I'm already WAY too deep into bloodtinge to go back... I'm just gonna restart and dick around with another build I had in mind. Gonna be interesting to try other weapons and not be stuck with the threaded cane for 20 hours.

I know that rerolls are a bit meh as a concept in any game made by Fromsoft but I don't think it'd be unreasonable to grant one reroll, should you wish it, after going into NG+.

 

[cvv]

I know that rerolls are a bit meh as a concept in any game made by Fromsoft

What, why? Soul Vessel was probably the best improvement of the entire DS2. I'm now slowly getting to max NG+ in DS1 and it sucks so much you can't change your build. Sure you can slowly bring all your stats to 60 or more but levelling is super sluggish from SL150 up.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

The community is a bit divided about rerolls. The git gud crowd claims that you should just stick to your build.

My belief is that rerolls within reason is an okay thing to have since it lets you correct faults in the build you created when you were a newbie... or reroll it full stop to try something new. Seems like a win-win to me.

 

[Silva]

I hated rerolls in DS3.

I like the way DS2 did rerolls better, limiting it and at the same integrating it to the world better.

 

[Ivan]

it undermines the weight behind your choices. you strip all of the power behind choices. you live and learn

I don't remember how re-rolls work in DS b/c I never fucked with them. Could you guys remind me?

 

[cvv]

The community is a bit divided about rerolls. The git gud crowd claims that you should just stick to your build.

The git gud crowd is retarded because I've never seen them criticizing anything about any Souls games, even if it was broken, bad or phoned-in. It's basically people who don't believe in improvement. Well, retards.

it undermines the weight behind your choices. you strip all of the power behind choices

It absolutely does if it's unlimited and effortless. As was already said, the system in DS2 was great - you got only 8 charges per playthrough - too many IMO, I'd prefer 2 or 3, but better than none. And some of them were not in plain sight.

 

[Arnust]

Rerolls only are a way to capitalize on build diversity, lmao. There's literally nothing wrong with it. "Capitalizing your decisions", as for leveling the wrong stat or overshooting a requirement. You can't experiment because you might fuck your character literally forever. This is a bit less grave in Souls because of the games being decently replayable and not that complex with their leveling. It's still impactful if you need to do a more complicated process, spend a resource or at certain milestones in the game. That it's present but limites is pretty stupid but it's better than nothing.

Let's go over them across the games, not accounting Cheat Engine:

- DeS: Letting yourself get killed at the final boss of the game a shitton of times with a degree of RNG and having to do over and over one of the most tedious segments of the game (if you don't kill the Blue Dragon, which is bullshit). Iirc you could also lose levels when killing yourself with enviromnental deaths when invading a world or getting yourself Soulsucked by another player. ALl of the options drain your last leveled stat so you're in for a long while at any decently high leveled character.
- Ds1: None whatsoever
- Ds2: Soul Vessels with limited pickups per NG cycle, but Ascetics can be used to have effectively infinite ones. Full effect, you can respec at the Firekeepers as soon as you get your first Soul Vessel.
- BB: No idea
- Ds3: *cracks knuckles* Only five respecs per playthrough, shared with the amount of respecs to the Character looks, at Rosaria quite damn far the beaten path, tied to Darkwraith Covenant. For some stupid reason, the only other motivation for PvP besides getting even more Embers you probably have stacks of already is the five uses of the tokens to respec. You actually don't need to join that Covenant as Tongues are the default reward for invading with the Red Eye Orb, but you will need to abandon your own current one anyway. There ARE some pickups in the PvE game, three total, but that's it. They're also a supperrare drop from Darkwraiths, which I'm not even going to count because fuck that. This all is considering that most of its gameplay systems are highly whimsy and really focusing in the more whacky builds can have you dealing literally no damage, especially in the later segments of the game and DLC. "Better than nothing" characterizes this one.

As was already said, the system in DS2 was great - you got only 8 charges per playthrough - too many IMO, I'd prefer 2 or 3, but better than none. And some of them were not in plain sight.

http://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Soul+Vessel
12, actually. Not like you'll ever need or find them all. You can do some neat stuff with it like unlocking the trader NPCs that need you having a stat minimun and thencoming back to your wanted stats.

 

[Jaedar]

BB: No idea

Iirc bb has no respec whatsoever.

 

[Silva]

No respec in BB, Demon or DS1. This shows what the best games are.

 

[Silva]

 

[80Maxwell08]

So I honestly doubted I would come back to this last time I played it but after watching CJacobs's LP of it on youtube where he was just walking through everything in the early game, I decided fuck it. I bought the game again through PSN since the only physical copy that had the DLC on it have the X and O buttons switched around, which is incredibly fucking annoying as someone who already owned the chinese version, and tried again. 5 hours later, I'm at the area with Darkbeast Paarl gathering materials and getting the Tonitrus. I think I've finally fallen in love with this game. I'm doing the third floor of the first chalice dungeon you can get to, at least what I think is the first one, and fighting more bosses solo. Once I got the hang of parrying I actually started to have fun.
EDIT:Beat the fire hound and got another chalice. No idea what to do with this now. Guess I'll go do Hemwick now.

 

[Silva]

You can go to Hemwick by day/before night falls. Only found out this in my 10th or so playthrough.