Board Thread:Dark Souls/@comment-25106727-20140626034651/@comment-32.216.84.208-20140712010334

This game itself isn't hard. Once you get the hang of the controls and how to fight, most enemies are not too much of a problem. Once you figure out the tricks, the boss fights are not that hard. Once you go through an area once, you know whats there and are not surprised by anything, and you just grind through it each time. Once you upgrade and get good weapons, it isn't hard. What makes this game hard is the trial and error, and it's very loose controls, combined with an incredibly squishy character. Your characters defense capabilities hardly matter. It's much more important to focus on not getting hit, and healing if you do, than it is to be super defensive and have lots of health because that hardly benefits you. The animations and loose controls make it so that you have to wait and leave yourself open to attacks. You have to go through a lot of trial and error, but once you figure it out, each area is pretty simple, with some exceptions.

What I'm saying is, it's hard because the game limits you, not because it is challenging and difficult. For example, games like the original Megaman games had incredibly tight controls to the point where you could move pixel by pixel if you wanted. Everything that happens to you in a Megaman game is your own fault, it is very rarely the fault of the game's design if you die to some bullshit. But they were still fairly hard games. Dark souls is not like that. Rather than having complete control of you character, you kind of guide them almost. Most of the time you die in dark souls because you just don't now what to do, or an enemy unexpectedly destroys you out of nowhere. So you respawn at a bonfire and go back to where you died to pick up your souls and try something else, trial and error. But once you know what to do, it's easy. You could follow this guide to the T on your first playthrough and have no trouble at all getting through the game, because you would know what to do without having to go through the trial and error.

However, a game like Megaman teaches you through it's level design how to play. Dark Souls doesn't aside from the tutorial in the asylum. Nothing else in the design of the game teaches you anything about how to play. It is literally, "here you go, we told you the controls go figure your own shit out." Obviously that appeals to a lot of people considering the popularity of the game but it isn't necesarily amazing game design. It has an incredible amount of content and tells you jack all about any of it. Combine that with what I honestly think are bad controls, and you get Dark Souls. Go through the same area and fight the same enemies 400 times until you figure it out, then you know what to do and it isnt a challenge anymore.

You can make a hard game without making a game that completely limits the player from the very beginning. Perhaps it's because they decided to use the Havoc engine that I feel the gameply is so loose, because I also think that the newer Sonic games (that the engine was made for) are very loose as well. But none of this matters because it is Dark Souls and if you don't like it, "the game isn't for everyone, it's a unique and challenging experience" or whatever.

I don't know, this might not have made much sense or probably rambled on a bit but I've wanted to vent about DS too for a while now. I haven't played anywhere near 50 hours, and I do like what I've played so far but I don't really know if I want to continue much further or even complete a playthrough. I have mixed feelings on the game but I must say it really is a totally different experience from any other game.