Complaining that FromSoft has milked the same combat system across several titles when that's pretty much how Japanese developers operate seems to be another case of "it's only bad when FromSoft does it".
That's not entirely correct
In fact, it is fairly common for long running japanese game franchises to heavily change their gameplay between entries
Even when that doesn't happen, these subsequent games usually strive to refine their predecessors systems
And in that regard, From has held the unique honor of refusing to fix objective issues in their combat gameplay with each new entry (some elements even getting progressively more egregious) and still getting massive success and worse praised as having excellent combat design
You still seem unable to crasp that your preferred style is neither objectively superior nor desirable in any way when it comes to FromSoft games.
But I've never claimed I would prefer that From games had DD or DMC combat
My view has always been that, From combat design is overall mediocre but this was acceptable in those first 3 Souls games, only because it held equal (if not less) importance than the "adventuring" and "immersive" aspects - but the more focus they place on the acion component, the more the combat's problems become self-evident and the more they bring down the experience
My preference would be that if indeed more action is the way From wants to go, then at least they should try reconsider what what works and what doesn't, enchance the former and discard the latter
But the fact that 7 games later their solution to patch these issues was essentially pouring oil onto the fire by doubling down on the retarded elements and people still applaud this, gives me little hope From will ever rethink their design and try to innovate any time soon
I explained many times that the game's complexity in FromSoft games is entirely on the other end of the equation.
And I've explained many times you why shouldn't have one without the other
You shouldn't have enemies with a high degree of complexity and leave the player with overly simplistic tools, because ultimately it isn't very engaging for the player to deal with (as his choices are almost binary) and it creates a very obvious imbalance in risk/reward - not to mention the whole "though but fair" design motto ends up being just bullshit
Besides, From's mechanical design regarding enemies isn't anything special
from my point of view i consider the combos that are actually there to be superflous and uneeded (and my eyes were already glazing over the DD2 combos you linked to)
Redundant is the last thing DD2 combat moves are
A fact which can be observed in those videos, particularly the cyclops one
And while their combat systems can't really be objectively compared, it still can be easily argued that DD2 "craftmanship" regarding it's combat is superior to ER
After all, game design is fundamentally about meaningful interactivity/reactivity
The fact DD2 action design manages to possess far more distinct yet consequential combat choices than ER, proves just that
And i wouldn't be surprised if this was intentional, given action games with combos etc have a long history behind them, so one can even see Demon Souls as being an attempt to go against the grain when it first came out.
I don't think so
From didn't expand DeS combat because - 1) they hadn't that many resources for the project ; 2) the game really didn't need it
If it was however, then it would be a simple case of taking a retarded stance just for the sake of contrarianism...
