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It's Dark souls 10 anniversary

fork

Guest
And not a single game since which would've overall improved upon it. The best we got were a couple interesting games that improved one aspect or two, but ruined everything else. But almost everything was even worse than that, amateur trash and cash grabs.
 

The_Mask

Just like Yves, I chase tales.
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The land of ice and snow.
Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
One of the best games I've ever played in my life.

I think I still remember going human to face the Gargoyles and while I was preparing, I realized that my nervous breath was in the same rhythm with my characters'.

What a game... what a game...
 

Silva

Arcane
Joined
Jul 17, 2005
Messages
4,778
Location
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
No.

Bloodborne is great, but it's significantly slightly worse than the first two thirds of Dark Souls.
There, corrected for you.

DS1 last third is awfully bad. Like, drop the game twice before regaining the strength to come back again and face that last third, bad.

Bloodborne has the better overall progression, with less cheesy builds, and it's own surprise map twists to boot (Darkwood shortcuts into Yharnam the same way Parish does into Firelink Shrine).

Besides having the best expansion in the series in Old Hunters. :smug:
 

The_Mask

Just like Yves, I chase tales.
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The land of ice and snow.
Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
There, corrected for you.
Please don't start. Give us this day when we celebrate 10 years, then tomorrow we can start the argument again. We both know they're equally awesome at the end of the day, but just give us these 24h, okay?

As compromise, I promise we won't bitch when BB gets its 10 years.
 

Machocruz

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Hyperborea
As much as Demon's is the milestone game for me, can't argue this wasn't where the phenomenon really began. One of those games you wish you could play for the first time again. And while I like much about DkS2, they never again got it as overall right. (BB is instant classic status too, but I don't consider it part of the Souls series)
 

curds

Magister
Joined
Nov 24, 2019
Messages
1,098
Completed Dark Souls for the first time only last year. Played it shortly after released on the 360, but I was young, stupid and impatient, and never played past the parish.

Easily the greatest game I've ever played. Much more than the sum of its parts, but it's parts are all great too. Amazing atmosphere, satisfying combat, simple but effective and meaningful character progression, wonderful art direction, music, writing and voice acting. Great level design but genius world design. And one of the only mainstream, popular games to be released in god-knows how long that respected the players ability to figure shit out on their own. No, it's not as hard or cryptic as many would make it out to be, but there's no quest makers, no point-of-interest filled world map, no journal: it's all up to the player to discover shit on their own.

Fork is right: none of it's sequels or clones even came close to the magic of Dark Souls.

Genius game. And yes it is a role-playing game.
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
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Messages
22,506
And not a single game since which would've overall improved upon it. The best we got were a couple interesting games that improved one aspect or two, but ruined everything else. But almost everything was even worse than that, amateur trash and cash grabs.
Bloodborne was nice.
 

curds

Magister
Joined
Nov 24, 2019
Messages
1,098
Japanese devs made a western-style action RPG that shits on anything made by actual western action RPG developers.
 

cruel

Cipher
Joined
Sep 17, 2014
Messages
857
One of the most important games in my life. The amount of experiences and emotions it gave me is amazing: first time in Catacombs, Blighttown, first time seeing Hydra, struggling with Gargolyes, fighting Queelag with +1 weapon, total despair in Depths after Bassilisk curse, the New Londo experience, seeing Firelink after going back from Blighttown, another total despair in Tomb of Giants, etc. Masterpiece.

DS1 last third is awfully bad. Like, drop the game twice before regaining the strength to come back again and face that last third, bad.

Please stop with this 'last third' stuff. The game has ONE area that sucks and is clearly unfinished: Lost Izalith. That's it. All other late-game areas are fine. That's hardly close to 1/3 of the game, more like 1/10 or even less.
 

OctavianRomulus

Learned
Joined
Aug 21, 2019
Messages
480
One of the best games ever. One of the overlooked things about the game is the level design. Vast, non-linear and somehow you don't get lost.
 

curds

Magister
Joined
Nov 24, 2019
Messages
1,098
One of the best games ever. One of the overlooked things about the game is the level design. Vast, non-linear and somehow you don't get lost.
One of the best things about DS1, and one of the things that was lacking in the sequels.

Lordran felt more like a real place than Drangleic or Lothric, while also having better level design from a purely gameplay perspective, too.
 

TheHeroOfTime

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Nov 3, 2014
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S-pain
The level design of the original Dark souls is amazing at first glance, but the more you play it the more you realice that some sections aren't that well designed and are a pain in the ass to travel through. Like going back to Firelink shrine from Queelag's lair after defeating her. Or wasting time holding the running button in Anor londo or Lost Izalith (I understand why this happens in Anor londo, is a way of showing the player the magnificent and the amplitude of the place as the glory realm of giantesque creatures and Gods. But Lost izalith is a lost case). After getting the lord's vessel the game becomes easier to traverse, but also it becomes worse because the remaining levels are way less interesting than the first ones. In the sequels, levels become more interesting by its own thanks to losing the need of interconnect them, in a similar way to Demon's. But bonfire's placement is overall weaker in both DS2 and DS3, making the shortcuts more irrelevant than in Demon's and Dark souls, making the overall level's traverse less engaging.

That's why my favourite level design type is Demon's souls one. Each level is separate, each level is divided in sections that are connected between them, but there's only one checkpoint/warp on each section, making the exploration of the levels more interesting (if you die, you start from scratch) and the shortcuts very valuable. 1-1 from Boletaria's palace is a great example of this design philosophy.
 

OctavianRomulus

Learned
Joined
Aug 21, 2019
Messages
480
The level design of the original Dark souls is amazing at first glance, but the more you play it the more you realice that some sections aren't that well designed and are a pain in the ass to travel through. Like going back to Firelink shrine from Queelag's lair after defeating her. Or wasting time holding the running button in Anor londo or Lost Izalith (I understand why this happens in Anor londo, is a way of showing the player the magnificent and the amplitude of the place as the glory realm of giantesque creatures and Gods. But Lost izalith is a lost case). After getting the lord's vessel the game becomes easier to traverse, but also it becomes worse because the remaining levels are way less interesting than the first ones. In the sequels, levels become more interesting by its own thanks to losing the need of interconnect them, in a similar way to Demon's. But bonfire's placement is overall weaker in both DS2 and DS3, making the shortcuts more irrelevant than in Demon's and Dark souls, making the overall level's traverse less engaging.

That's why my favourite level design type is Demon's souls one. Each level is separate, each level is divided in sections that are connected between them, but there's only one checkpoint/warp on each section, making the exploration of the levels more interesting (if you die, you start from scratch) and the shortcuts very valuable. 1-1 from Boletaria's palace is a great example of this design philosophy.

You could also make the argument that you die so many times that you can't help but memorize each section. But even after all these years, I still remember most of it.
 

NoSoup4you

Learned
Joined
Mar 18, 2021
Messages
123
Thank you for saving gaming, Dark Souls, if only briefly. I simultaneously feel old and also surprised that it's only been ten years. Man, they managed to shit out a lot of knockoff games.
 

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