It was niche at first and then caught on. It also nearly didn't come out outside of Japan at all.
I knew most of this before, but had just watched this the other day, if you're curious:
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Is Dark Souls overrated?
- Thread starter Baron Dupek
- Start date
It was niche at first and then caught on. It also nearly didn't come out outside of Japan at all.
I knew most of this before, but had just watched this the other day, if you're curious:
Nifft Batuff
Prophet
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It's so niche that now every action games want to be a souls-like. Even gaming journos have the urge to continuously compare new action games with the Souls ones. It is so asinine, that "souls-like" is now a clear tag-indicator of decline (as rogues-like, metroidvania-like, etc.).
Artyoan
Prophet
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Mostly no, its not overrated. It is rightfully referenced as a model for improvement for many reasons. I'll list out some of the reasons I hold it in high regard:
-DS receives most of its praise for its difficulty which is the only area it could be rightfully perceived as overrated. People are missing the point though. The game has a single difficulty which is moderately hard, especially for anyone unfamiliar with how it plays. DS1 is built around the simple concepts of blocking or rolling as a means of defense. Anyone can roll, no matter the build. Moreover, the fact that there is one difficulty allows players to socially reminisce about the same encounters, the same bosses, the same trials. Thats extremely important because by being subjected to the same standard, people can relate in a way not afforded by multiple difficulties. It is an indirectly shared experience and trial by fire.
-To touch on that same point of a standard and high-ish difficulty, Demon Souls and Dark Souls are one of the rare moments that the gaming community has actually insisted on 'playing the right way' so as to maximize the fun of the game to people first experiencing it. That is, to solo a boss and not summon your way through, not to use ranged cheese excessively, etc. Instead of policing and gatekeeping the game from new players, they were attenuating and inviting new players and shaping their mindset in a way beneficial to the game's strengths. This can be overdone of course, but it was very present at the time of Demon Souls and Dark Souls releases.
-The lack of manual saving meant each mistake and each step within the game held a tension to it. You could not undo stepping into a trap by quick loading. You could not save outside of a boss doorstep unless the bonfire was there already. You could not bypass frustration and frustration is an important element of why we come to love certain things in retrospect. You remember the Undead Burg for the same reason you remember Moonbrook in WoW. It took all of the game's mechanics and put them in one space, early in the game, and forced you to experience the frustration of death so as to learn them. You cussed at the time, but you remember it fondly after the fact. You remember it even more fondly because other people got their ass kicked the exact same way for the same reasons as you did.
-No manual saving also meant an appropriate death system and this is the game's more important takeaway for me. Contrary to popular belief, this is one of the most kind hearted death systems ever made. You do not lose anything you've found between the last checkpoint and death. You keep all items, you even keep some shortcuts, you lose 'experience' of which there is an infinite amount and you only lose that if you regress. Respawns and getting back to your place of death are your only real punishment and if you are improving as the game asks of you, that isn't much of a punishment. I have made the point that CRPG's with a death system like this would make so many mechanics such as risky resting, traps, etc so much more meaningful if they couldn't be loaded away so readily. This is what keeps the game tense, with a 'good' frustration, but doesn't let it get carried away with destroying people's resolve like having three lives in Contra or Megaman. You never seriously lose progress. You also have other areas to explore if you can't handle the one you're in.
-Area Design. Everyone references that elevator for good reason. It was perfectly paced. It made sense. It dropped the player right back to a safe area to release the tension. Real, meaningful progress. The game uses verticality and actually allows the player to glimpse areas they haven't reached if they choose to look at the scenery. Exploration made that much sweeter by having locked doors or dangerous paths best noted and left for later, giving each area the potential to never feel quite 'done'. Returning to old areas after you've leveled up and found new gear also helps enhance the sense of progression by smashing that which once caused you frustration.
I could mention the soapstone social aspect, the God-tier tone, environmental storytelling, intentionally vague mystique to the lore, and other aspects but I don't want to go full review.
-DS receives most of its praise for its difficulty which is the only area it could be rightfully perceived as overrated. People are missing the point though. The game has a single difficulty which is moderately hard, especially for anyone unfamiliar with how it plays. DS1 is built around the simple concepts of blocking or rolling as a means of defense. Anyone can roll, no matter the build. Moreover, the fact that there is one difficulty allows players to socially reminisce about the same encounters, the same bosses, the same trials. Thats extremely important because by being subjected to the same standard, people can relate in a way not afforded by multiple difficulties. It is an indirectly shared experience and trial by fire.
-To touch on that same point of a standard and high-ish difficulty, Demon Souls and Dark Souls are one of the rare moments that the gaming community has actually insisted on 'playing the right way' so as to maximize the fun of the game to people first experiencing it. That is, to solo a boss and not summon your way through, not to use ranged cheese excessively, etc. Instead of policing and gatekeeping the game from new players, they were attenuating and inviting new players and shaping their mindset in a way beneficial to the game's strengths. This can be overdone of course, but it was very present at the time of Demon Souls and Dark Souls releases.
-The lack of manual saving meant each mistake and each step within the game held a tension to it. You could not undo stepping into a trap by quick loading. You could not save outside of a boss doorstep unless the bonfire was there already. You could not bypass frustration and frustration is an important element of why we come to love certain things in retrospect. You remember the Undead Burg for the same reason you remember Moonbrook in WoW. It took all of the game's mechanics and put them in one space, early in the game, and forced you to experience the frustration of death so as to learn them. You cussed at the time, but you remember it fondly after the fact. You remember it even more fondly because other people got their ass kicked the exact same way for the same reasons as you did.
-No manual saving also meant an appropriate death system and this is the game's more important takeaway for me. Contrary to popular belief, this is one of the most kind hearted death systems ever made. You do not lose anything you've found between the last checkpoint and death. You keep all items, you even keep some shortcuts, you lose 'experience' of which there is an infinite amount and you only lose that if you regress. Respawns and getting back to your place of death are your only real punishment and if you are improving as the game asks of you, that isn't much of a punishment. I have made the point that CRPG's with a death system like this would make so many mechanics such as risky resting, traps, etc so much more meaningful if they couldn't be loaded away so readily. This is what keeps the game tense, with a 'good' frustration, but doesn't let it get carried away with destroying people's resolve like having three lives in Contra or Megaman. You never seriously lose progress. You also have other areas to explore if you can't handle the one you're in.
-Area Design. Everyone references that elevator for good reason. It was perfectly paced. It made sense. It dropped the player right back to a safe area to release the tension. Real, meaningful progress. The game uses verticality and actually allows the player to glimpse areas they haven't reached if they choose to look at the scenery. Exploration made that much sweeter by having locked doors or dangerous paths best noted and left for later, giving each area the potential to never feel quite 'done'. Returning to old areas after you've leveled up and found new gear also helps enhance the sense of progression by smashing that which once caused you frustration.
I could mention the soapstone social aspect, the God-tier tone, environmental storytelling, intentionally vague mystique to the lore, and other aspects but I don't want to go full review.
Lyric Suite
Converting to Islam
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Look, Dark Souls is as great as any game ever got. Now that doesn't mean it is perfect or that it doesn't flaws etc but then there is NO game in existence that is perfect and beyond criticism. If Dark Souls doesn't qualify as great on account of its imperfections then you might as well give up because you are obviously looking for something that is clearly unfeasable.
Games are not like music or literature where a single person has control over everything and so it can happen that a uniquely inspired artist may produce a work that is close to perfection. Like movies, games are big collaborative efforts where the possibility of things going awry on a particular end is always there. More over, unlike works that can be produced by a single artist video game companies don't have the luxury to sit on their product until all the flaws are ironed to perfection (unlike a composer or a writer who can just shelf a work for years if need be until it is perfect). Games are massively expensive and there's only a limited amount of time you can get all the people required to produce them toghether.
Games are not like music or literature where a single person has control over everything and so it can happen that a uniquely inspired artist may produce a work that is close to perfection. Like movies, games are big collaborative efforts where the possibility of things going awry on a particular end is always there. More over, unlike works that can be produced by a single artist video game companies don't have the luxury to sit on their product until all the flaws are ironed to perfection (unlike a composer or a writer who can just shelf a work for years if need be until it is perfect). Games are massively expensive and there's only a limited amount of time you can get all the people required to produce them toghether.
No. Absolutely not.
Dark Souls doesn't have a difficulty slider but it does have extremely variable levels of difficulty that can be selected by.. character building and item choices.
That guy who almost never dodges a single thing in full havel just spamming attack and drinking estus like it's coca cola :
Doesn't experience the same thing as that guy :
Magic in DeS, Arcane in Bloodborne, full armor poise tank, buffed curved swords (start with scimitar/falchion, upgrade to painting guardian sword) or pyromancer in DS1, pure sorcery or buffed rapier in DS2, tWINblades consecutive hitting buff build in DS3 (hard to find a video that shows the full one here, with pontiff+old wolf+beacon this shreds literally anything to the point where you don't give a shit about being hit and drinking estus like a spammer because nothing will outlast your healattack spamming), all souls games can be played with the most minimal of effort if you will it. Just a little more hidden than selecting the difficulty slider on first run in other games. But in terms of gameplay impact.. any of these builds are equivalent to a legitimate easy mode.
Artyoan
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You're talking about specific builds that weren't hammered out til well into each game's life and was likely the first time experience of a very small percentage of people who played it the first time. My point remains, the difficulty provided a constrained experience enough to make the social dynamic of discussing it unique to a game with a higher, singular difficulty. Which is also why it can make for good letsplay style watching if someone is for some reason into that.
SumDrunkGuy
Guest
What a flamboyantly gay thread. Is OP's scheme to orchestrate some massive circle jerk?
Zanzoken
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I have never understood why people love Dark Souls. I remember trying it at one point and being immediately turned off by a number of things.
I don't think I spent more than a couple hours with the game, so maybe these criticisms aren't all fair. But honestly that was all the patience I had to suffer through its bullshit.
Ultimately I'm left baffled why Dark Souls is considered the pinnacle of ARPGs, as opposed to Gothic and Gothic 2, which are flawed in their own ways but still exponentially better RPGs than any Souls-like.
- Clunky controls and animations: Animations are slow and plodding and your character moves like he weighs 400 pounds. There is also a distinct lack of reactivity from enemies when you hit them. I suppose you adapt to it over time if you have the patience, but a portion of the game's difficulty comes from the fact that it doesn't feel smooth or responsive to pick up and play.
- Limited saving, respawning enemies, and cheap traps: I am grouping these together because they work in conjunction to create what I call "fake difficulty". So you start at a bonfire and begin to proceed through the level. You fight some hollows. You walk some more. Then you meet a new enemy type, let's say a Black Knight, that you haven't seen before. Since the game's combat is heavily predicated on memorizing enemy attack patterns, odds are this Black Knight kills you. You restart at the bonfire. You fight the same hollows again, which are basically trash mobs at this point. You walk to where the Black Knight is again. You die again. Repeat until you finally beat the Black Knight. Then you get to the next new enemy. And you die. Now you have to fight the hollows, the Black Knight, and this new enemy. Repeat ad nauseam. By this point, unless you are a turbo autist with the stomach for doing the same shit over and over and over again, you are bored and frustrated. Then as a special FU, the designers throw in a trap that you have very little chance to see coming. Dead again, blech.
- Corridor like levels: The levels have branching paths, but have a very serious case of the "series of corridors" type design that a lot of games are criticized for. It feels very claustrophobic and it's easy to get trapped in a corner or stuck in a wall and give up a cheap death. And again, unless you're willing to autistically play these levels dozens and dozens of times, their maze-like structure makes it somewhat easy to get lost and wander into a group of enemies you're not ready for. Cue more death and annoyance.
- Art design: A lot of people consider this one of the game's strengths, but I've always felt it was visually uninteresting, in addition to being ugly. Maybe that's by design but when everything is just kind of dark and drab it hampers exploration, contributes to the difficulty of navigating through the levels, and makes the game seem even more boring and uninspired.
- Lack of purposeful narrative: You are a sentient undead locked away in prison, until a knight of some kind comes along and lets you out because... reasons? Then you just kind of plod along fighting monsters fulfilling some kind of vague prophecy. You aren't told why you should do this or even what is supposed to happen if you succeed. It's a very weak narrative hook that doesn't really give you or your player character any strong motivation to want to move forward in the world.
- Lack of purposeful worldbuilding: People always praise the game's subtle worldbuilding, but again, I don't really get it. The opening crawl is some generic fantasy crap about dragons, fire, lords, and some kind of epic battle. Then we're told the fire is dying and now there's a bunch of hollows in the world, one of which is the player. But otherwise the world seems devoid of purpose and feels very static. Why are all these creatures, monsters, and other enemies here? Why are they trying to kill us? What's the point of all this in terms of the in-game universe itself? I don't think the game does a good job answering those questions. Of course it makes sense from a meta, video game standpoint... the designers needed to put a bunch of shit in the game so the player would have things to fight and kill. But it's nothing like the amazing worlds in other RPGs that draw you in and make you feel like you've been transported to a place that's living and breathing on its own.
- Lack of non-combat gameplay: If you remove combat there's literally nothing to do in these games. You spend 99% of the game either fighting, on your way to a fight, or taking a brief rest at a bonfire to level up.
- Limited saving, respawning enemies, and cheap traps: I am grouping these together because they work in conjunction to create what I call "fake difficulty". So you start at a bonfire and begin to proceed through the level. You fight some hollows. You walk some more. Then you meet a new enemy type, let's say a Black Knight, that you haven't seen before. Since the game's combat is heavily predicated on memorizing enemy attack patterns, odds are this Black Knight kills you. You restart at the bonfire. You fight the same hollows again, which are basically trash mobs at this point. You walk to where the Black Knight is again. You die again. Repeat until you finally beat the Black Knight. Then you get to the next new enemy. And you die. Now you have to fight the hollows, the Black Knight, and this new enemy. Repeat ad nauseam. By this point, unless you are a turbo autist with the stomach for doing the same shit over and over and over again, you are bored and frustrated. Then as a special FU, the designers throw in a trap that you have very little chance to see coming. Dead again, blech.
- Corridor like levels: The levels have branching paths, but have a very serious case of the "series of corridors" type design that a lot of games are criticized for. It feels very claustrophobic and it's easy to get trapped in a corner or stuck in a wall and give up a cheap death. And again, unless you're willing to autistically play these levels dozens and dozens of times, their maze-like structure makes it somewhat easy to get lost and wander into a group of enemies you're not ready for. Cue more death and annoyance.
- Art design: A lot of people consider this one of the game's strengths, but I've always felt it was visually uninteresting, in addition to being ugly. Maybe that's by design but when everything is just kind of dark and drab it hampers exploration, contributes to the difficulty of navigating through the levels, and makes the game seem even more boring and uninspired.
- Lack of purposeful narrative: You are a sentient undead locked away in prison, until a knight of some kind comes along and lets you out because... reasons? Then you just kind of plod along fighting monsters fulfilling some kind of vague prophecy. You aren't told why you should do this or even what is supposed to happen if you succeed. It's a very weak narrative hook that doesn't really give you or your player character any strong motivation to want to move forward in the world.
- Lack of purposeful worldbuilding: People always praise the game's subtle worldbuilding, but again, I don't really get it. The opening crawl is some generic fantasy crap about dragons, fire, lords, and some kind of epic battle. Then we're told the fire is dying and now there's a bunch of hollows in the world, one of which is the player. But otherwise the world seems devoid of purpose and feels very static. Why are all these creatures, monsters, and other enemies here? Why are they trying to kill us? What's the point of all this in terms of the in-game universe itself? I don't think the game does a good job answering those questions. Of course it makes sense from a meta, video game standpoint... the designers needed to put a bunch of shit in the game so the player would have things to fight and kill. But it's nothing like the amazing worlds in other RPGs that draw you in and make you feel like you've been transported to a place that's living and breathing on its own.
- Lack of non-combat gameplay: If you remove combat there's literally nothing to do in these games. You spend 99% of the game either fighting, on your way to a fight, or taking a brief rest at a bonfire to level up.
Ultimately I'm left baffled why Dark Souls is considered the pinnacle of ARPGs, as opposed to Gothic and Gothic 2, which are flawed in their own ways but still exponentially better RPGs than any Souls-like.
Overrated. The best in the series was Demon Souls and it’s never got any better. Literally no significant improvement was made on the formula, typical Japanese development I suspect.
I haven’t played nearly any action oriented RPG’s yet to make a judgement compared to those, but DS hardly qualifies as an RPG to begin with.
I haven’t played nearly any action oriented RPG’s yet to make a judgement compared to those, but DS hardly qualifies as an RPG to begin with.
curds
Magister
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Zanzoken
Yes, if you are clad in heavy armour and have low Endurance. Lightly equipped characters move very swiftly.
Fair point. Some like it, some don't. Nothing wrong if you don't. However in the early game, super tough guys like black knights are never directly in your way, and are easily avoidable until you are stronger. You never have to fight them over and over.
Can't think of many, if any traps in DS1 that aren't telegraphed in some way before you step into them.
It's a dungeon crawler, not an open-world game. But again, no problems if that's just not to your taste.
A noble knight finds somebody afflicted with the same curse he is, yet still sane, locked away in a prison of insane undead. Why would he not free you?
Yes, you are. Just not immediately, but still relatively early in the game.
These questions are all answered rather clearly over the course of the game, if you play more than a few hours.
Yeah, most of your criticisms are explained by this. If you just didn't like the basic gameplay and feel, then, whatever. People like different things. But most of what you said is just not correct, tbh. If someone only played the first couple of hours of Gothic 2 they may have similar complaints; "oh, some generic plot about me being the chosen of gods and having to slay dragons (*actually true, though). Oh, great now I'm picking turnips. Oh, the combat is slow and clunky because I haven't levelled up. I keep getting killed by tough enemies blocking my path."
curds
Magister
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DS1 perfected the formula of Demon's. Then, yeah, it all went downhill from there.
Sjukob
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I've only ever played Dark Souls 1, I liked it but I don't think I want to experience something similar again. I think my two biggest gripes with it are stats and combat. I frankly don't understand why do the series even have stats and leveling. Personally, I would rather have the player choose one of the premade classes with set skills and stats that do not rise throughout the game, and have the progression handled via equipment scattered in the game's world: barbarian might be really good with a two hander, but not so great with a shield and heavier armor, knight is great with one handed weapons, shields and heavy armor, but has worse footwork than barbarian etc. Then you can have some equipment, paths, bosses and other things be unique for each class to add some replayability. And as for the combat - it's simple, I would've liked it to be more nuanced, feel like more like a pure action game, I think it would be easier to handle it once you remove the stats from the game. I'm just give you a rought idea of what I have in mind.
I actually wanted to give Sekiro a go at some point, because I thought that it did not have stats in it and was strictly an action game, but then people told me that it actually did and I gave up on the idea. Frankly, I would take Severance over Dark Souls and it's alikes any day, because it does what I want better and I would've liked to see games that would try and improve on it's formula.
No, it lost the tighter more varied level design of Demon Souls and just added more pointless bloat.
Also, :brofist: for Sjukob knows how the class system should be done. That would be an example of a good innovation.
SumDrunkGuy
Guest
It's overrated in the context of From's resume. Dark Souls 2, Bloodborne, and Demon's Souls were all better. But in general it's one of the best games of it's time.
They told you wrong. You unlock perks and moves, combat tools, and get a strict power-up after every main boss. Compared to the DS games it feels much more like standard action brawler progression. Give it a shot on sale or something, it's great fun.
Great Deceiver
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Play Sekiro. There's only a superficial veneer of RPG-lite elements, no "builds", no stats, no overlevelling content. Just git gud.
Lyric Suite
Converting to Islam
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Git gud scrub.
Max Damage
Savant
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Dark Souls isn't perfect, but as a fan of RPGs, action games, and dungeon crawlers, I appreciate how it tries to combine all into singular experience, presentation and music is also top notch (for the most part). Combat, while isn't deep in particular, is satisfying, and exploration makes it stand out compared to many other games. Also, how many other games let you kill enemies by throwing literal shit at them? :D
Video games are the only form of arts (please, don't hesitate to indulge in a debate about the nature of art and whatnot) where retards won't hesitate to completely ignore the big picture, pull out their magnifying glass and actively look for individual flaws, stains and scraps. Not only do insignificant flaws pop out, it also conveniently allows them to pretend that deliberate design choices, which make perfect sense in the overall design direction, are actually flaws or oversights etc.
Imagine for a second having to listen to a baboon claiming that il caravaggio was an overrated hack because if you actually zoom in enough on the calling of St Matthews, you might find out that some shadows are inconsistent with the source of lighting.
Can't you baboons fuck off already ? Dark Souls, and pretty much all of the games made with this formula, is about exploring the picture, the painting almost, of a dead world filled with monstrosities, in a contemplatory journey alternating decaying beauty and growing darkness. It's a unique fucking take on the notion of odyssey, told in a unique way, including unique (and right out genius) intertwinings of single and multi player experience, presenting consistent worlds through gameplay only (or almost). It doubles down on the single/multi player confusion by offering the players as a community the occasion to put the pieces together and try to build a narrative, with their own imagination and the material laid in front of them. It has never been and will probably never be done again, and it's one of the most brilliant and original ways of handling the specificity of this medium that I've seen. It also capitalises on the wide web and the gears of collective intelligence from our day and age.
It literally pushed the industry forward in an age when the norm was Uncharted or Batman Arkham Asylum automatic gameplay, flat and unoriginal cinematographic narration. It fucking transcended this moron-infested industry.
And you're talking about corridors and lack of cutscenes. Imagine, for a second, complaining that the level-design and art direction actually contribute to all of the above, without even realising how incredibly dumb you read, because as I wrote you've put yourself so close to the insignificant scale that you don't see the big picture anymore.
In a word, you're a prig.
What truly irritates me here is the blatant and cringeworthy attempt at setting your standards apart from the mass. You're supposed to do this with shit like COD and WoW, not actual masterclasses, dumbo.
Imagine for a second having to listen to a baboon claiming that il caravaggio was an overrated hack because if you actually zoom in enough on the calling of St Matthews, you might find out that some shadows are inconsistent with the source of lighting.
Can't you baboons fuck off already ? Dark Souls, and pretty much all of the games made with this formula, is about exploring the picture, the painting almost, of a dead world filled with monstrosities, in a contemplatory journey alternating decaying beauty and growing darkness. It's a unique fucking take on the notion of odyssey, told in a unique way, including unique (and right out genius) intertwinings of single and multi player experience, presenting consistent worlds through gameplay only (or almost). It doubles down on the single/multi player confusion by offering the players as a community the occasion to put the pieces together and try to build a narrative, with their own imagination and the material laid in front of them. It has never been and will probably never be done again, and it's one of the most brilliant and original ways of handling the specificity of this medium that I've seen. It also capitalises on the wide web and the gears of collective intelligence from our day and age.
It literally pushed the industry forward in an age when the norm was Uncharted or Batman Arkham Asylum automatic gameplay, flat and unoriginal cinematographic narration. It fucking transcended this moron-infested industry.
And you're talking about corridors and lack of cutscenes. Imagine, for a second, complaining that the level-design and art direction actually contribute to all of the above, without even realising how incredibly dumb you read, because as I wrote you've put yourself so close to the insignificant scale that you don't see the big picture anymore.
In a word, you're a prig.
What truly irritates me here is the blatant and cringeworthy attempt at setting your standards apart from the mass. You're supposed to do this with shit like COD and WoW, not actual masterclasses, dumbo.
Falksi
Arcane
Been playing these three Soulsfathers this past few weeks and having a blast on them...
We hear about Ghouls & Ghosts a lot, and The Immortal to a lesser degree, but I find it amazing how Blades of Vengeance never gets talked about. It is essentially 16-but Dark Souls, and underrated beyond belief.
We hear about Ghouls & Ghosts a lot, and The Immortal to a lesser degree, but I find it amazing how Blades of Vengeance never gets talked about. It is essentially 16-but Dark Souls, and underrated beyond belief.
Ryzer
Arcane
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- May 1, 2020
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- 8,047
This one is a legitimate complaint and popped crap like Dark Souls 3 which is a long corridor the entire game.
Also he is entirely right about the non-existent storytelling and the illogical and static world.
It pushed nothing forward, it created a genre called "Souls-like" with games that go from good to plain awful. All of them have an overabundance of rolling/ dodge making the combat absurd and like he said 0 narration and low effort writing.
Just because other games have cliché writing doesn't mean they should entirely scrap it.
Dark Souls was released at the right time, but by far games like Dragon Dogma are much better all around.
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It pushed the whole industry forward and thank god we don't have to suffer through games like Uncharted or Batman Arkham anymore.
He is right about the non existent storytelling because he's purposefully pretending not to see, to accept or literally doesn't understand that it's the very fucking point of the game.
Just like you'd be right to state that the shooting mechanics in Prey (2017) suck. Doesn't make it a smart criticism.
So I'll retort yet again : to criticise the story of the soulsborne games without even acknowledging that it, at least, and for once, tries to tell it through the gameplay from beginning to start, is disingenuous at best, malicious at worst.
He is right about the non existent storytelling because he's purposefully pretending not to see, to accept or literally doesn't understand that it's the very fucking point of the game.
Just like you'd be right to state that the shooting mechanics in Prey (2017) suck. Doesn't make it a smart criticism.
More like cliché design but then again, it's not even that it's cliché, it's that it doesn't take the specificty of the medium into account at all. It's basically saying "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do of this interactive medium", it spats cinema over gameplay with little to no cohesion between the two and call it a day. CRPGs, since the 90s for the most part, have at least tried to make use of it through their c&c. That's why, I thought, we all agree to say the genre is a cool genre of video games.
So I'll retort yet again : to criticise the story of the soulsborne games without even acknowledging that it, at least, and for once, tries to tell it through the gameplay from beginning to start, is disingenuous at best, malicious at worst.
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