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I mean it's true that "nothing happens" storywise in dark souls, since the whole experience is about visiting the ruins of a dying civilisation. Everything has already happened, and you get to guess how and why by exploring the aftermath.
It's kind of stupid to complain about this lack of action when it's the very purpose of the setting though.
Not just the save system, but the overall lack of quality. Dark Souls was a literal B-game, trash, but edgy reviewers and streamers at the time decided to market its difficulty (which was really bad design and poor production values and not by design) as a gimmick, because of 2 reasons:
1) Reviewers at the time were beginning to be seen as filthy casuls and gamers had began losing trust in them. So they needed to support "huuuuurd cooooore" gamez like that shit in order to pretend "they are real gamers".
2) Streamers on the other hand, have no value in normal difficulty games, because then people won't be watching them play. Their interest is to hype up "huuuurd coooore" games, a) because people unable to beat them would rather watch others play and b) because people who are stuck in difficult games would watch streams for hints and walkthroughs.
That is why the fad was hyped up, but eventually gamers were tired of that shitty formula and realised the emperor had no clothes, therefore it stopped.
I mean it's true that "nothing happens" storywise in dark souls, since the whole experience is about visiting the ruins of a dying civilisation. Everything has already happened, and you get to guess how and why by exploring the aftermath.
There are multiple, relatively elaborate NPC quest chains in every Dark Souls game and you have a choice about whether to behave civilly and honorably with the characters you meet (and help them or figure out what motivates them) or just kill them for souls and loot. This isn't an emergent gameplay either, but a running theme in the series; all the NPCs you meet are generally aligned with one of these two perspectives and the invader PvP mechanics enforce it as well.
I think that the narrative is maybe overrated, some people praise that a cryptic and fragmented story is somewhat revolutionary but it is just the narrative style you expect for games like dungeon crawlers and metroidvanias, it is just the best and most appropriate for the game design.
The difficulty is also overestimated, Dark Souls 1 is not a difficult game if you just use an appropriate combination of stat choices and gear (the problem is that you do not have a proper manual explaining this features), at the beginning there are high level monsters that are not meant to be beated at first. Just like in almost every action rpg.
For example, one day one guy was complaining that he cannot beat Ornstein & Smough while playing without armour, it is clear the reason, without armour, even if you can dodge better, you do not have poise, without poise every light attack from Ornstein will stagger you and you will receive the attacks of the two bosses, so if you do not play perfectly almost every mistake is guaranteed fail. With more poise and electric resistance you can make mistakes while dealing with Ornstein and being able to recover after them.
Compare to other third person action rpg like Risen or Witcher 2 that may be also considered with a similar difficulty. However it is very comparable to some Castevania games in some features, but they are more difficult. I think that people claim Dark Souls as a very difficult are used to very different types of games.
I think the combat system is not so good, the manual targeting system is a bit archaic. But if the idea is to fight enemies one by one when possible is understandable. It is not difficulty, just takes some time to get used to the control design. However I think a first person perspective would be better for this idea (i recommend the game Elderborn, it is an action game about the idea of dark souls mechanics in first person).
The best of Dark Souls and why it is one of my favorite games is the level design, the different biomes, the interconnections, verticality and being able to appreciate it without an automap is very immersive. I think that maybe the definitive game for me would have been this level design, but with more environmental interactivity (and first person perspective for my personal preference for immersive games) like the Arkane studios games like Dark Messiah.
Dark Souls was a product of its time(although arguably that "time" is still the present). You need to understand that half the reason why that game became as big as it did was its release date. In 2011 streaming and generally internet video content was booming. Walkthrough, speedruns, letsplays, didyouknows and many more were either starting or peaking but at the same time this was happening in the middle of the 7th gen of consoles, which lets be blunt here was shit(relative to the 6th and 5th gen). Games at the time were being primarily designed for the absolute bottom of the barrel first-time casuals and as a result all these rising internet stars had basically nothing to work with. FFS even survival horror like Dead Space just straight up drew a line on the ground to show you where to go. Who would watch walkthroughs or guides for a game that has a straight up GPS built in? Never mind the fact that 60% of games were trying to visually ape COD so most things did not even look distinct, never mind the gameplay.
Then came Dark Souls a game designed like a middle market 6th gen game but in the clothes of a 7th gen tittle. For many it was the first time they played a game that featured actual gameplay. It actually demanded from the player unheard things such as pattern recognition, exploration and occasionally some mild out-of-the-box thinking! Simply put in more ways than one it seemed like a completely new and fresh take on the stale action RPG genre. The streamers loved it because it actually had content to stream, youtubers loved it because there was actual demand for walkthroughs, guides and secrets within the game and journos, in a rare moment of sanity, just rode on the hype train instead of fighting it.
In the end all this turned what would have otherwise been a slightly above average action RPG into a monolith. I still remember how people were unironically talking about the sense of accomplishment the game gave them, how immensly deep and intricate the lore is or how the combat is just one of its kind. Hell, even I parroted that "acomplishment" bullshit in my own video review
(which I will not link purely to spite people who dont know how to use YT search feature)
.
Most of the praise came from a place of ignorance. The supposed "ultra-difficulty" was half the product of a nonexistent tutorial and half the product of people trying to play it like Oblivion. I vividly remember this one l letsplayer who made a 110 part series out of playing the game and, I shit you not, about half of that was him being stuck in undead burg/parish because not only could he not find his way out he also for several episodes did not realize he needs to spend his souls or upgrade his gear or just in general try something other than charging in and spamming R1(like occasionally blocking or rolling). He was far from the only one, a ton of others did the exact same shit.
The story praised for its depth was usually only as deep as the community made it out to be as the subsequent games proved that its significantly dumber than anyone initially assumed. Never mind the fact that half the "open to interpretation lore" came about as a result of Miyazaki cutting shit but never replacing it with anything. Worst example being Bloodborne which was half-assedly recut into an entirely different story like 5 months before release.
Point being that if the game came out at any other time it would not be nearly as successful. We dont even need to go too far into the past or future to see how it would turn out. Demons Souls is essentially just Dark Souls but exclusive to PS3 and that game flew under the radar so hard that almost no one cared until Dark Souls retroactively popularized it. Same with any subsequent "souls-like" game, they all received some minor attention but quickly dropped off the radar even when they were genuinely good(like Hellpoint or Nioh). Even its spiritual predecessors (Kings Field and Shadow tower) were mostly ignored and garnered attention only retroactively after DS became big.
Realistically if the series succeed purely on merit it would have died with DS2. So to answer OPs question: Yes, Dark Souls is overrated and always has been.
Hmmmmno you can't really put dark souls success under the tag of "fluke".
Demon's Souls didn't "fly below the radar" and was already one of the very few good games on ps3. But -and I suspect I was far from the only one to have done so- people were just selling their console after the first two years of absolute nothing (MGS4, Resistance, Uncharted... these were the "hits" of this console...), and the press coverage of this game was almost null while shit like batman arkham asylum would get a lot of attention, and I don't think I need to tell you why press coverage and attention is kind of important to sell your game. Demon's Souls was the kind of games that made you buy the fucking thing.
Dark souls success lasted a decade and, considering the wait for Elden Ring, is still well alive today. Despite all the clones it sprouted and all the games it influenced here and there (the last star war action game for instance).
You didn't write a single word about Dark Souls main strength, which is the absolute intricacy between game design and storytelling, which is a huuuuge part of its success. Everything feels consistent from beginning to end, and the fact that the xp you get as a player matters more than the xp of your character (sl1 speedruns anyone ?) is an illustration of this. Not many games manage to pull this off. Playing this game feels like visiting a painting and all that. And the fact you barely mention it just confirms the general impression that your post gives, which is that you're goddamn clueless.
I never wrote anything about it being a fluke. Just because I am not fellating it does not mean I am dismissing it entirely. I am simply pointing out that a massive chunk of its long lasting success is and was due to timing. Had it been released in 2005 on PS2 it would have ended up as a fairly well received game but definitely would not spawn a multi generational franchise.
Dark souls success lasted a decade and, considering the wait for Elden Ring, is still well alive today. Despite all the clones it sprouted and all the games it influenced here and there (the last star war action game for instance).
It lasted so long because despite so many claiming to make "souls-like" games they always end up producing an inferior product or they are "souls-like" in name only. Carrying over the stamina bar and limited healing options does not make your game a "souls-like" but the absolute majority of "souls-likes" are literary nothing more than that.
Its more or less the same situation as with Diablo, where that game has effectively spawned its own action-rpg genre but most games in that genre are still called "Diablo-like" or "Diablo clones". Why? Well, its in the name: Because they are clones and in many cases just inferior clones of the original idea. Hence why the "clone" and "-like" descriptors remain in use(or at least were predominant until recently).
Compare that to shooters. Why are those not called Doom-clones or Wolf-clones, when so much of their DNA comes from those two games? Because eventually shooters stopped just aping Doom and started branching out. Not only did they built on top of the Doom formula but they also branched out in their own unique directions(for better and for worse), so by the 2000s the term "doom-clone" was completely phased out because it was no longer accurate for most shooters.
Dark Souls is in the same position as Diablo was. A lot of imitators but very few even remotely comparable.
You didn't write a single word about Dark Souls main strength, which is the absolute intricacy between game design and storytelling, which is a huuuuge part of its success. Everything feels consistent from beginning to end, and the fact that the xp you get as a player matters more than the xp of your character (sl1 speedruns anyone ?) is an illustration of this. Not many games manage to pull this off. Playing this game feels like visiting a painting and all that. And the fact you barely mention it just confirms the general impression that your post gives, which is that you're goddamn clueless.
The thread is called "Is Dark Souls overrated?" not "What makes Dark Souls good". Just because I am not answering two different questions at once does not mean that I dont have an answer to both, just that I am focusing on the one asked.
You didn't write a single word about Dark Souls main strength, which is the absolute intricacy between game design and storytelling, which is a huuuuge part of its success. Everything feels consistent from beginning to end, and the fact that the xp you get as a player matters more than the xp of your character (sl1 speedruns anyone ?) is an illustration of this. Not many games manage to pull this off. Playing this game feels like visiting a painting and all that. And the fact you barely mention it just confirms the general impression that your post gives, which is that you're goddamn clueless.
The thread is called "Is Dark Souls overrated?" not "What makes Dark Souls good". Just because I am not answering two different questions at once does not mean that I dont have an answer to both, just that I am focusing on the one asked.
That doesn't convince me one bit. Can't tackle the subject without giving a proper analysis of what people praise about the game, which is what I wrote i big part. And you completely ignored it.
Ravielsk, if Dark Souls had somehow happened back in 2005 on the PS2 and presumably as a launch title for the 360 (since it came out on both the 360 and PS3) it likely would've done very well.
Demon Souls flying under the radar at first can be chalked up to the PS3 not being the leader of the pack in the console race, and Sony (Shuhei Yoshida hated the game) dropping the ball on the game. Although the game had caught on before Dark Souls came out; I hadn't played a Souls game at the time, but I remember hearing a whole lot of bitching about how having interconnected levels would ruin the game...which is kind of funny now since it sounds exactly like how people are talking about the open world with Elden Ring. You on the other hand are painting a picture of Demon Souls being released on the PS2, one of the best selling consoles ever; and maybe as a launch title for the new big system when there wasn't much on it. It's also now coming out the year before Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, as people are waiting for that game.
In 2005 just replace Let's Plays and YouTube videos with a giant Wikipedia page, and extensive TV Tropes pages talking about everything.
Whether it was overrated or not, it was very much needed.
I wouldn't say any DS game was particularly hard, compare it to a game like The Immortal and it's a cakewalk, but it did provide a challenge, which many games of that era didn't.
It helped halt the decline of casual retardation, and for that it deserves big credit.
Demon's Souls didn't fly under the radar. It sold out everywhere. I remember having a difficult time finding a copy, and I'm pretty sure there were articles on it selling out and being a hit early on.
Lance McDonalds series of cut content and any site that catalogs cut content. Especially the ones based on the network test version of the game that was released on October 2014. Bloodborne itself released in march 2015. So unless From software was using some uber years old built to do a network test the cut content points to a very different game. Funnily enough most of it is still accurate of the retail release but communicated much more poorly, creating strange gaps in the story that did not exist there previously.
Lance McDonalds series of cut content and any site that catalogs cut content. Especially the ones based on the network test version of the game that was released on October 2014. Bloodborne itself released in march 2015. So unless From software was using some uber years old built to do a network test the cut content points to a very different game. Funnily enough most of it is still accurate of the retail release but communicated much more poorly, creating strange gaps in the story that did not exist there previously.
that's it bro? couple cut enemies,items, one unused doors and some old voice-lines are suppose to point to some heavy and late-stage development reshuffles of entire game/plot? What are those strange gaps in the story? BB plot is pretty straightforward actually. Some retard found magic ketchup in ancient ruins and decided to inject it despite his master objections. Shit happened, everyone dead or mad - have some "The Shadow over Innsmouth" in the dlc cause we like Lovecraft.
Every single game they released since DeS had more cut content than BB with DS2 getting complete reboot in the middle of development. DS1 second half is unfinished mess while DS3 got fuckton of mechanics gutted and huge changes to the plot & bosses locations.
BB network test version was actually pretty polished and similar to the released one. If you are looking for
half-assedly recut into an entirely different story like 5 months before release
then DS2 is the right answer. That network-test version from late 2013 feels and plays almost like an entire different game with lighting engine and fuckton of mechanics left on the cutting room floor. Not to mention the whole time-traveling aspect of the story getting the boot.
People look to much in to the cut-content and take that leaked "Project Beast" trailer as a version of the game that could be instead of it being just a concept video and internal trailer.
Sekiro is probably their most polished release with Bloodborne right behind it.
