Fuck it. Time for an ego boost as I pick this post apart.
Precisely. While le Codex edgtards are busy being too cool for school and acting super hardcore hype has become the measure of what is or is not considered to be a great game anymore, mostly courtesy of a group of people who seem to be a rather impressionable bunch, provided one hits on all the right spots. And mind you, this has nothing to do with whether MGR is a bad game or not. I'm not saying that it is, and i'm not really picking on this game in particular, just the attitude that surrounds it.
Have you ever considered that the vast majority of people on the codex who play MGR are fully aware it has flaws, and (probably) none of them actually think it's their favorite game? Have you considered that keeping in nature with the game's style, we're using hyperbolic hype language because it was a memorable over the top experience?
Sorry, I meant, MGR DA BEST, U TOO OLD AND STUPID TO GET IT
Take Dark Souls for instance. Is it a great action game? Absolutely. Is it completely flawless and possibly the best game ever? Well, not exactly.
Right. I honestly cannot think of a single person who genuinely thinks DS is flawless. I also don't think you're in any position to tell somebody that Dark Souls can't be their favorite game.
For starters, the writing in the game is kinda shit. "And then, as the prophecy foretold, the two bells shall be rang. And then, a giant bird shall fly you away from the asylum. And then, you shall defeat the last boss, so sayeth the prophecy mind you lel". Right, ok. That shit just seems a bit too "meta" for my tastes.
So the writing in a game where the actual story exists in the background to everything else isn't the greatest? Coolio. By the way, the real writing of the game is in the item descriptions and NPC dialogues, and frankly, those are all somewhere between fine and great. There's enough flavor combined with mystique to intrigue all but the most jaded.
But yeah, obviously story is not the focus of DS at all.
So now we are into the game, and everything feels like a MMO.
Before we continued, let's define core concepts shared across many MMOs. Then let's see if Dark Souls has /any/ of these things.
- A large, persistent massive multiplayer online game. Nope. You can have a max of like 3 people in your world at once. You can also completely opt out of multiplayer by staying hollow.
- Quests assigned by NPCs. Nope. There are NPCs, and some minor storylines involving them, but at no point are you ever tasked with "killing x rats" or the likes.
- Direct communication with other players by design. Not really. There are messages you can leave, but you don't know who they are from or anything like that.
- World events influenced by the community. Nah
- Crafting. Only if you count upgrading your weapons,
- Player driven economy. Not even close.
- Instances with repeatable bosses that drop randomized loot. Nah.
So pray tell, how can this game feel like an MMO when it shares nothing in common with MMOs other than possessing RPG systems?
Plot? Fucking WoW had a more detailed plot with the whole Defias shit. You have to piece out whatever you can from listening to poorly written (and possibly poorly translated) dialog coming out of characters who are basically just your typical animu stereotypes (except not as gay). The whole shtick with the game being so super hardcore that even understanding what the fuck the story is requires you to play detective is bullshit. The whole thing is a bluff. They are trying to make a non-existent plot seem deep and interesting by sheer force of attitude alone.
Subjective. Sorry that you want tomes of high-school level text spoon fed to you between fetch quests. Sorry that examining the environment, item descriptions and reaching your own conclusions is too rough for you.
So ok, the game is basically WoW with actual twitch combat (and levels designed around twitch combat. A big saving grace considering the MMO design). Is it good in that respect? Ho sure, particularly in terms of execution.
See above on how this has nothing to do with WoW. The combat systems aren't even remotely comparable other than being third person.
Is it perfect? Well, now. The game is amazing at the beginning but begins to become a bit too easy after a while (i'd say right after Anor Londo). The system is simplistic and easy to exploit and souls are too plentiful towards the end, and once you know what to do the game really loses a lot of its luster.
Yes, it is often agreed that the game's actual flaws begin after Anor Londo. Coincidentally, that is where the dev team ran out of time (see Bed of Chaos, Lost Izalith, Gwyn).
As for Souls being too plentiful, Soul Level doesn't effect player power too much. The real reason why the game feels so easy is that you should now have great equipment at this point, AND you're good enough at the game to defeat O+S, so your skill as a player is significantly higher than it was before. Btw what is "the system" that is easy to exploit?
Now, those and other flaws don't make the game "shit". Once you go that route you cannot help setting yourself for disappointment because there's no such thing as a "perfect" game. Never has, never will. Being discriminating doesn't mean being a pedant, which is basically what a lot of Codexers have become. But at the same time, just because you like to masturbate to the game doesn't mean knee jerk hyperbole can replace objective criticism. Hype is a very fickle thing to base an opinion upon. A few years from now, Dark Souls will finally look "dated" and all the Skyway trolls will suddenly come out of the wood work, telling us that the game is shit, over analyzing every little flaw and being a sour little shit. It's like there's no middle ground here.
Right. See, this is why almost nobody calls the game flawless. Just like how Fallout, Planescape, Arcanum and every other codex favorite isn't even remotely close to flawless.
Also, yes, some renowned trolls like Skyway jump to conclusions in their attempts to shit on a game. That's how things have always been, it's nothing new for either the codex nor the internet.