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So... please explain Dark Souls to me.
10 years ago
General
I picked up a used copy of Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the Original Sin for my PS3 to see what all the damn fuss was about. I knew I was going into a very, very difficult game; I can accept this - for heaven's sake, I've played La-Mulana. I know difficulty.
For the record, I started as a Warrior.
The first thing I noticed was that THE CONTROLS IN DARK SOULS ABSOLUTELY STINK. I feel like the biggest enemy in the game is the damn controller. The camera control is pretty bad, and the targeting system is TERRIBLE. Unless both the player character AND the camera is pointing at an enemy, the targeting system refuses to lock onto them. I find myself just having to absorb blows with my shield while I simply try to wrestle the camera around to the point where I can just TARGET something.
The death system is fairly clever; I don't mind that. I've gotten the impression that the human effigies are in limited supply, so I haven't used any yet; needless to say I'm down to 50% max health already. It's irritating to lose all my souls on death, but far MORE irritating to lose them permanently when I inevitably die trying to retrieve them. I can always hear the fanboys saying "But that's what makes it a challenge!" Duh. I get that. Luna tells me that it's basically a question of "letting go," but I always feel like asking: WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO?! Why should I have to give up the half-hour or more of progress just because the game threw a cheap shot at me or because the camera wouldn't cooperate?! I've been getting reasonably decent at the block, circling and striking mechanics, but only when the game decides I'm allowed to use the targeting system.
I want to explore this game. I honestly do. I want to play through and see the genius that I've heard is within the game. I'm seeing glimmers of it already - I know it's there! - but I'm honestly growing rather tired of the glaring flaws in the game that I feel like everyone else is lauding as "difficulty." I've always despised artificial difficulty in a game - the idea that a developer simply uses lazy AI programming to give the computer an unfair advantage (like in many RTS games) or terrible game mechanics that could have been built better (like the camera control I mentioned).
I don't see that as good game design. It's selling a bug as a feature, and frankly that makes me groan.
But I guess I just haven't made it over the wall yet. DS veterans, please let me know what I'm missing. I genuinely want to enjoy this game, but I feel like the game's shoddy mechanics suck all the agency out of the game. I moved on to Dishonored (which I had also picked up) and enjoyed it much more because I felt like I had control over the situation, for better or worse.
Throw me a bone, folks...
For the record, I started as a Warrior.
The first thing I noticed was that THE CONTROLS IN DARK SOULS ABSOLUTELY STINK. I feel like the biggest enemy in the game is the damn controller. The camera control is pretty bad, and the targeting system is TERRIBLE. Unless both the player character AND the camera is pointing at an enemy, the targeting system refuses to lock onto them. I find myself just having to absorb blows with my shield while I simply try to wrestle the camera around to the point where I can just TARGET something.
The death system is fairly clever; I don't mind that. I've gotten the impression that the human effigies are in limited supply, so I haven't used any yet; needless to say I'm down to 50% max health already. It's irritating to lose all my souls on death, but far MORE irritating to lose them permanently when I inevitably die trying to retrieve them. I can always hear the fanboys saying "But that's what makes it a challenge!" Duh. I get that. Luna tells me that it's basically a question of "letting go," but I always feel like asking: WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO?! Why should I have to give up the half-hour or more of progress just because the game threw a cheap shot at me or because the camera wouldn't cooperate?! I've been getting reasonably decent at the block, circling and striking mechanics, but only when the game decides I'm allowed to use the targeting system.
I want to explore this game. I honestly do. I want to play through and see the genius that I've heard is within the game. I'm seeing glimmers of it already - I know it's there! - but I'm honestly growing rather tired of the glaring flaws in the game that I feel like everyone else is lauding as "difficulty." I've always despised artificial difficulty in a game - the idea that a developer simply uses lazy AI programming to give the computer an unfair advantage (like in many RTS games) or terrible game mechanics that could have been built better (like the camera control I mentioned).
I don't see that as good game design. It's selling a bug as a feature, and frankly that makes me groan.
But I guess I just haven't made it over the wall yet. DS veterans, please let me know what I'm missing. I genuinely want to enjoy this game, but I feel like the game's shoddy mechanics suck all the agency out of the game. I moved on to Dishonored (which I had also picked up) and enjoyed it much more because I felt like I had control over the situation, for better or worse.
Throw me a bone, folks...
NES style trial and error I also feel like is bad design. If the only way I can complete something is to be effectively clairvoyant about where everyone is, then I feel like something is seriously wrong with the design. It was acceptable back in the "we have to extend playtime because we have a tiny cartridge" era, but now? There's no excuse. I want something that poses a real, FAIR challenge, not something where I have to die over and over until I get to that "okay, I understand everything about that area now" point. Why should I have to do that?! I want to get killed because I screwed up, not because the GAME screwed up or because I couldn't see into the future.
The point behind the souls-losing is a point of risk/reward. If you die, you can recover your lost progress, but you have to be more careful. It forces you to learn the area and the enemies well. Although I have very little playtime in DSII, part of it due to all the cheap deaths, so I can't really disagree with you there :P
I don't hate the game, but there are some niggling design choices that just kinda make me wonder "why is this game so popular...?!"