Dark Souls... (warning to those who like the game)

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Eh, to some degree I'm not the best one to judge difficulty, as I'm often told. Most of those older NES games are easy to me too at this point. My definition of "difficulty" is a bit warped. However, it's still very true that the Souls games are alot tougher than most other "major" games nowadays.


That all being said, difficulty is, to a point, very subjective, as you say. Somewhat depends on the exact skillset of the player. For me, something like Terraria is, well... Terraria is fun enough, but I found it *way* too easy and got bored after taking everything down. However, if you were to put me in, say, a modern FPS full of sniping and all of that stuff, well.... it'd be like a fail montage. That sort of game requires patience and me *not* going berserk. Derp would occur. Others wouldnt have that issue though.

Though I do think anyone can become good at any game with enough effort. The important bit is wether they really want to or not. As I dont like modern FPS games, I'm not bothering with those (well, that particular type of FPS game... something like the upcoming Doom game might be different!). I can understand something like the Souls games not catching everyone either.

Now that being said, did you ever consider maybe looking up a walkthrough for the sections of the game that were specifically giving you difficulty? It can be a good way to spot tactics that you may not have thought of. Some enemies and areas in the Souls games require a relatively unusual approach.

Like that Seath is immortal until you destroy a crystal in the boss fight, a fact you learn from the surrounding level after the game forces you to lose an initial encounter (an NPC tells you), after which he is not so much of a threat if you are particularly careful of a specific damage type. Having difficult with different bosses can be from personal skills. Another boss would spawn harder enemies if you went to certain areas, a guide warning this made the fight easier.

There's definitely a misconception about Dark Souls being incredibly difficult, which isn't really helped by Bamco's marketing campaigns around the sequels. It's a game that punishes errors severely, and as such you need to be cautious -- or better, engaged! The one thing I associate most of all with the game is that intense concentration, that focus on your character and your surroundings. It puts the pressure on but rarely puts you in a situation where you can't do something to avoid damage. Encounter design is top notch, and that's where Dark Souls 2 failed. That and the world design in general, something which the first game managed with unmatched confidence.

I love the variety of weaponry available, too, and the feeling of wielding heavy weapons is perfect; I'm a big fan of standard greatswords (not ultra) and the feeling of heft and impact is perfect.

The bonfire system is perfect. The distance between two bonfires is essentially a 'level' in which you begin with a set amount of estus, and although you stand to lose souls by dying, you never become less powerful than you were before you began. There are often other things you can do if you're stuck on one area, and soul escalation is designed so that you never lose too much relative to what you will gain if you pass an area.

I will add that the system by which you strength bonfires and increase estus provision undermines this and I tend to ignore it. And the PvP system is, despite being a neat idea, possibly a case of misplaced priorities. The rest of the online connectivity (messages, co-op support and so on) is fine though.

Well, I am almost sure that is not common to fall in love with the Souls games at first sight. This happened with most people I know that enjoy the games now (and some of them are actually hardcore fans), including me.

As some people said here one of the things that bothered me the most was how the game was slow, since I first thought of it as an action game where I needed to do the basic roll>combo>roll>combo setting that is what most action/hack n slash games basically are these days. However, enjoying a Souls game goes waaay beyond this. It took me a while to learn and my favorite game of this style is Bloodborne basically because of this. It is much faster and straight forwarded then the Souls games. From what I have seen Dark Souls 3 might change this really soon and I hope it does because the games is looking awesome.

So… Well, not sure if this is what you’re doing, but if it is, stop trying to see the Souls franchise as action games with battles that are full of cinematic moments and stuff like this. Learn how the game works and play carefully. I cannot remember the amount of times that I saw a room with apparently nothing wrong with it (or those ones with obvious enemies at the center of it) that you simply learn to feel completely sure that it is hiding some kind of trap if you just rush into it. Those moments are some of the best things of the franchise. You will not simply rush through the game, you will be carefully because you know it is a world full of actual danger and this makes a lot of sense if you stop and think about it.

Only thing I didn't like about Souls is, once you felt like you had the mechanics mastered, the game got easier. That is part of the reason I quit at what felt like the middle of the game. The game just got so frustratingly easy, and I hated that.

Plus, they placed a lot of good gear near the beginning, so if you started with the master key, you were set up for the beginning.

Don't even get me started on zweihander builds...

That is the only things that I didn't like, but I absolutely love everything else (so I guess I am being hypocritical by typing this due to a previous post, but eh)

Ah yes, this bit, I understand this bit. I dont like it when that happens either. I tend to lose interest.

This actually is why I compared it to the original Castlevania, because that game was JUST like that: Once you'd gotten the hang of movement, your weapons, and enemy patterns, everything became easy. Particularly after you realized what the Holy Water weapon could do (extremely OP sub-weapon). The stuff coming at you never differed or changed in any way, and once you'd done a level a few times, well, you'd only die there if you did something really bloody stupid, the sort of death where you go "Why in the world did I jump into that? I knew it was going to be there, it's always there, that was dumb".

I'm fine with it in Castlevania because that game is very short. NES game and all, they all were short. Doesnt really have time to get old. But the Souls games... are very long and have RPG elements. They do get a bit old when the difficulty starts to fade.

I think OP needs to git gud

If you need to pause for a bit you can either just stay at a bonfire (enemies won't harm you there and you can reset the area if something is chasing you) or quit out of the game, it autosaves all the time, like everytime you pick something up or kill an enemy, so when you reload the game you're exactly where you left off. Just make sure you see the little flame in the corner flash and you're good to go.

As for your other complaints, the game rewards patience and exploration, if you go slow enough, if you take enough time to learn the combat (which does take some time, it took me months before I could get good enough to beat the first few bosses) you'll learn to love the game. It's not a game that you can just speed through on your first try. There will be parts that will frustrate you and may seem impossible but once you get past it the feeling is amazing.

Also the music is awesome, it isn't overwhelming but it adds to the atmosphere. The boss music in particular is glorious.

For me this game is one of my favourite in the last decade and definitely in what I would consider my top ten. Some of the things you call flaws I think are by design and to its benefit. The lack of map is excellent and I think having a map would be to its detriment. It encourages exploration and makes you work to get to where you need to go, yet still gives you the tools to make that easier in lieu of just giving you a map or showing you an objective marker (what I consider to be one of the worst things in modern gaming). I often think of how much better games like Skyrim would be without the game constantly showing you markers where to go, and instead you had to take notice of what NPCs told you and using things like roads, landmarks and environmental clues. I understand some people like these things in games, which is why they are so commonplace but realise that others preferences differ.

I think anyone who says there isn't any music in Dark Souls probably has not played much of it. There is in fact tons of in game music that is used to punctuate specific parts of the game such as boss fights and the occasional peaceful moment. It is more impactful to use the music in this manner, rather than having music constantly playing. It's not even as if Dark Souls is particularly unique in this regard as most modern games do this, so I don't know why you would single out this game for it.

The lack of pause I don't consider a flaw either. I would agree that it's annoying at times, and I can see why people would want one. It is a deliberate part of the design that reinforces that you are never safe and you have to remain vigilant and requires that you secure an area before leaving the game whilst it is still running. The game is designed around it anyway, it's not like you'll ever lose progress because you suddenly need to leave immediately; the game autosaves constantly so you can just exit the game at any time.

All these things considered, even though I think Dark Souls is one of the greatest games of the decade it's not a game I would recommend to everyone. It requires a player looking for a certain specific type of experience that is by and large not fulfilled by many other titles.