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Post by kyouki on Sept 25, 2011 6:01:28 GMT -5
I think people will be pretty shocked at how difficult this game is. Even if you have played Demon's Souls.
Remember how in Demon's Souls once you beat 1-1 you had 5 stages to choose from? You could try out a stage, get as far as possible, maybe find some neat equipment, and then when you died back to the Nexus to try another stage and see how that goes.
Well, in Dark Souls, after you get through the tutorial (which you cannot skip, BTW) from the beginning you have access to only two areas:
1) One is full of ridiculously powerful ghosts you cannot even hit (whether by magic or weapon) unless you are cursed, which requires using a rare limited use item. So you really can't even go here at this point
2) The other area is probably meant to be the first place you go to. Up until the first miniboss things aren't too bad, but after that you are swarmed by enemies in tight areas. It's not unusual to be fighting 5 or 6 enemies at once, with several of them having shields you cannot penetrate (in other words, you have to wait until the AI decides to attack before you can do damage to them), and a couple others hanging back lobbing unlimited fire bombs at you. With crossbow enemies on rooftops totally out of range (there are no bows early in the game).
Maybe I'll get used to it, but at this point it seems like a HUGE problem. You can't trick enemies by leading them out one by one like you could in DS, and since enemies can see you from afar you often be in the middle of a fight and some enemy that respawned when you used a checkpoint will stab you in the back. Due to the small pathways and corridors you often get stuck, surrounded by enemies with no way to roll past them. I don't recall fighting such large groups of enemies in DS and I don't think the combat engine is suited for it.
Other changes: -the roll has a very small window in which you are invulnerable. Timing is VERY difficult, especially against minibosses -riposte is now very difficult. The timing window is a bit more lenient, but enemies have very difficult to time attacks... especially if you are used to the timing in the first game -enemies seemingly can "track" you throughout much of their combat animation. The soldiers equipped with axes have a jumping attack that will track you even if you move out of the way after they have jumped -enemies will chase you all over the level once they catch sight of you -lots of ladders to climb, during which you cannot defend yourself from archers
I've also encountered a control glitch. Sometimes when you press R1 no attack comes out and you can keep moving... but for some reason the attack buffers. Next button you press, no matter what it is even if it is BLOCK, you'll attack. Think of how horrible that is, in this game. I have been killed due to this bug and I've had it happen about a dozen times so far.
What made Demon's Souls difficult rather than frustrating was that you had tons of choices. If a level was giving you trouble you had (usually) five others to play around in. Using the thief ring, you could be stealthy and pick enemies off one by one, or rely on magic, if you weren't comfortable with melee. Dark Souls is extremely linear in comparison. You need to finish the Castle Town stage to get to the next one, and so on and so on. If you're stuck in a stage, there is really nothing you can do, and heading back to the "hub" to get to the one other stage you can access means tediously marching through the Castle Town stage all over again, repopulated with enemies.
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Post by kyouki on Sept 25, 2011 7:26:18 GMT -5
God damn it.
Got to the same point with my pyromancer that I got to with my mage last time I played. And again, I am now basically unable to take on these enemies. Same exact enemy now takes 6-8 hits with my axe when he took 2-3 in the previous area. I've still only got 8 charges for fireball, and it does little to no damage to enemies now. And I die in 2 shots. So you can imagine how frustrating it can be to be surrounded by enemies.
I'm convinced I'm doing something wrong. There has to be some other area I can get to now and I just don't realize it. Because it seems pretty ridiculous to walk in a door and encounter enemies that are 3-4 times more difficult.
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Post by justjustin on Sept 25, 2011 9:37:03 GMT -5
Thanks for your impressions, very illuminating. I liked your observation that the new layout of the world really is more linear; harder to go where you want, when you want. That actually cuts out one of my favorite things about Demon's Souls. Depending on what build I wanted to make I'd tackle certain areas first to get an advantage for the rest of the game. Hopefully it's still possible to do this, but it definitely will be different now. I read there's some warping mechanism in the game, either at certain points or using a certain item, and maybe that will alleviate some of the annoyances of backtracking.
Too bad about the other problems with the game. Now I can adjust my expectations to a more reasonable level.
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Post by Warchief Onyx on Sept 25, 2011 9:39:29 GMT -5
I really don't get what's so weird about the 360 controller design. I really don't care about the asymmetrical layout of the sticks. What I care about is the primary method of control being where I can easily access it. In older controllers, this was the D-Pad. Now the left stick has replaced the D-Pad's general location on the Xbox (and GC and DC) line of controllers instead of being kinda out of the way like on Sony's controllers. This isn't a big deal on the Wii Classic Controller as the D-Pad is the primary method of control for most of the games you'd use it for (I hate playing N64 games on the thing, but I think that's due more to the N64 controller being a unique little snowflake than any drawbacks of the Classic Controller's design). But between the positioning/clumsiness of the sticks and the shoulder buttons/bizarre button-trigger hybrids on the PS3 controller, I can't play FPS on Sony controllers at all.
I'm also a lefty so that hand's dominance may play a factor in it. But I just find the Xbox controllers infinitely more comfortable for anything that isn't a fighter.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2011 11:18:12 GMT -5
The placement of the sticks on the 360 controller is certainly odd, but I don't see how it would ever cause an actual issue when using one. Left thumb, right thumb, just like on the PS2 / PS3 / Gamecube / etc.
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Post by kyouki on Sept 25, 2011 19:36:19 GMT -5
Thanks for your impressions, very illuminating. I liked your observation that the new layout of the world really is more linear; harder to go where you want, when you want. That actually cuts out one of my favorite things about Demon's Souls. Depending on what build I wanted to make I'd tackle certain areas first to get an advantage for the rest of the game. Hopefully it's still possible to do this, but it definitely will be different now. I read there's some warping mechanism in the game, either at certain points or using a certain item, and maybe that will alleviate some of the annoyances of backtracking. Too bad about the other problems with the game. Now I can adjust my expectations to a more reasonable level. Japanese blogs I have been reading have said the game is closer to "King's Field running on the Demon's Soul engine" than "Demon's Souls II" and having put some time into the game I can see that. King's Field typically gave you the illusion of freedom but was really quite linear (especially the PS2 game). To get to area B you had to first get through A, then you'd get a key in B that would allow you to get to C which is in A somewhere. I really miss the layout in Demon's Souls. I agree with you 100%. It was great stress relief to take a break from a tough stage and explore your other options. I've sort of got used to the combat (it doesn't feel quite the same as in Demon's Souls), but it is still glitchy. They seriously need to fix the buffer bug... it started happening more and more the longer I played, to the point where it was happening multiple times per combat. There are teleportation items, but (so far at least) they only allow you to warp back one bonfire/checkpoint.
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Post by evilakito on Sept 25, 2011 21:52:53 GMT -5
I really miss the layout in Demon's Souls. I agree with you 100%. It was great stress relief to take a break from a tough stage and explore your other options. I've sort of got used to the combat (it doesn't feel quite the same as in Demon's Souls), but it is still glitchy. They seriously need to fix the buffer bug... it started happening more and more the longer I played, to the point where it was happening multiple times per combat. This is kind of disappointing to hear. In many previews, Dark Souls is being hyped as a challenging, but perfectly fair game, where failure is always your own fault and not the fault of the game's cheapness. However, the buffer glitch that you've described kind of destroys that notion. Hopefully it won't be a long wait for a patch that fixes it. I was actually kind of excited about having one big, interconnected world this time around, but you do bring up good points about the hub-world structure. It really saves you from tedious back-tracking and allows you to take the Mega Man approach of tackling things in the order that you feel comfortable with. Not to mention the fact that due to the massive scale of the stages, the game world in Demon's Souls never really felt all that disconnected anyway. When I first bought Demon's Souls, I never really expected to finish the game; I just merely felt that it would be fun to see how far I could get. However, since it wasn't nearly as hard as everyone hyped it up as being, I played to completion and it ended up becoming one of my favorite games. Going into Dark Souls, I already have the expectation that I'll be able to finish the game, and because of that, I sort of fear that the added difficulty will be an exercise in frustration rather than a compelling challenge.
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Post by kyouki on Sept 25, 2011 22:28:32 GMT -5
On a basic level the game is very similar and it's fun exploring and finding new equipment. But there are just far too many enemies in far too narrow platforms. It might just take some time getting used to- I played Demon's Souls as a mage (though halfway through the game I focused more on melee), and I don't think playing Dark Souls as a pure mage is viable (early on anyway) since magic doesn't do much damage and you are limited to 30 (mage) or 8 (pyromancer) castings in between checkpoints. Sounds like a lot, but by the time you get to the second area of the Castle Town, enemies are taking 2-4 blasts to take down.
Combine that with the buffer thing, and it can get very frustrating. I haven't read anyone else complaining about this, so it could be a very isolated glitch that I am just unlucky enough to have hit.
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Post by killer on Sept 26, 2011 3:49:30 GMT -5
Kind of torn on this one. Demon's Souls was one of the very few games that made me want to get a PS3 so this would seem like an instant buy. But my 'HD' platform of choice and the way the game is setup present me with another hang-up: I'm not big on gaming online and certainly don't want to pay a subscription fee for it and it seems with these games, you're missing out on damn near substantial stuff if you're playing offline.
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Post by kyouki on Sept 26, 2011 4:01:03 GMT -5
I dunno, I'm playing Dark Souls offline right now and having a good time. It was cool seeing the ghosts running around in Demon's Souls, and exciting getting invaded every once in a while, but I honestly don't miss that much at all right now.
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Post by Sketcz-1000 on Sept 26, 2011 4:11:49 GMT -5
Thanks for the comment about online. When I first started Demons Souls I had a great net connection, but moving house it's now pretty awful, with router crashes, slow speeds and random hang-ups.
In Demons, there were several points where I relied on helpers to get me through - for example I took a bunch of guys up to the final boss and let him grab them to drop their soul level while I hacked away with my sword. The battle would have been considerably tougher without bait.
Are there areas in Dark Souls that feel like that? Like you need a buddy watching your back?
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Post by kyouki on Sept 26, 2011 5:36:07 GMT -5
Hmm, it's hard to say. I didn't use any help in Demon's Souls, but Dark Souls is much harder in my opinion.
In Demon's Souls I never had much trouble with the stages, other than 4-2. It was the boss fights that I usually got stuck at. With Dark Souls, the stages themselves are giving me a lot of trouble.
On the other hand, it is impossible to play online right now and I am managing to make decent progress. The bosses I have fought so far were pretty doable without any help but we'll see what happens going forward.
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Post by kyouki on Sept 26, 2011 6:20:14 GMT -5
Just as an update, I'm about 5 hours in now and the game is EXTREMELY linear.
If you choose the key as your starting gift you'll have three areas to choose from, but two of them are basically impossible for a starting character to survive. One features ghosts that you cannot even damage unless you are cursed, and the other features club wielding monsters that are just way too powerful to fight... even with my level 13 pyromancer with a +2 weapon!
So the only possible route thus far through the game is: Castle Town > Castle Town Parish > Fight Boss
If you check out blogs of people who are playing this game, they are taking the same exact route... because there really is no other option. There is a tough miniboss you can fight in the church that allows you to pass through to another area to fight a different boss, but I don't think fighting that miniboss is even possible if you don't get some of the equipment later on in the Parish.
I found an interesting blog in Japanese where the guy was complaining about how hard the game is to start as a mage, since you run out of spell charges so quickly and have to rely on weapons, but in order to use decent weapons you'd have to spend all your souls on STR and SKILL... so then what's the point of even creating a mage then?
...
I really go back and forth on this game. It loses a LOT of the appeal of the first game. I feel like I'm playing Ninja Gaiden at times, it's so linear and combat-focused.
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The buffer glitch is TERRIBLE. I just died because of it after fighting a bunch of tough as shit battles, so now it's back to the beginning again to hike all the way back to the church. God damn it, how did this game get released in this state? Online still doesn't work by the way. It's weird, the longer you play the more often it glitches up. Parrying gets glitchy too. Sometimes you'll time it right, it'll play the parry sound, but you just get a regular attack out of it.
Also, the world is hardly seamless. Most areas are separated by elevators, and I suspect the game is streamed while you are riding these.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2011 6:20:33 GMT -5
Thanks for the comment about online. When I first started Demons Souls I had a great net connection, but moving house it's now pretty awful, with router crashes, slow speeds and random hang-ups. In Demons, there were several points where I relied on helpers to get me through - for example I took a bunch of guys up to the final boss and let him grab them to drop their soul level while I hacked away with my sword. The battle would have been considerably tougher without bait. Are there areas in Dark Souls that feel like that? Like you need a buddy watching your back? That's kind of odd. The final boss doesn't even hit you in Demon's Souls. He just sort of walks into your attacks.
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Post by kyouki on Sept 26, 2011 6:28:42 GMT -5
I think he probably meant the last boss of Boletaria.
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