That would be amazing, but I excluded voyage to arcturus from my hypothetical Appendix N because it would kind of override any other influence with how engrossing and memorable it is
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Tulpa you know just what to say to a feller
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I started a replay of Dark Souls 2 yesterday as Deprived and made it to Ruin Sentinels. Itâs my first time playing SotFS and I havenât touched it since doing two playthroughs when it came out in 2014. Iâm enjoying it a lot. Itâs still bad in all the ways that I vividly remembered (flatly lit, disorienting, boring lore and NPCs, barebones enemy attack patterns) but that also hasnât mattered to the overall experience much, so far?
The soul/item economy, routing and tactics in DkS2 are engaging in a way that they usually arenât for me when replaying a Soulslike. Instead of breezing through the early game running circles around everything I find myself mobbed by lots of quick little dudes who obstruct narrow paths or interrupt me from behind when I try to cross fog gates. To pick up the Fire Longsword I couldnât just run in and open the chest: I had to clear out the little valley and then throw a firebomb at the turtle guy obstructing the path. Itâs not generous with Estus shards so I have to decide when itâs worth using lifegems. The Pharros Lockstone/Fragrant Branch economy adds a lot of additional risk/commitment points to the routing, as does the fact that you can choose one of three early-game bosses to skip. Overall I always felt actively engaged with planning for what to do next.
Some of that is SotFS being fresh to me, but the idea of having a mod-like âreshuffle things to spice it upâ expansion is also a good idea unique to DkS2.
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Itâs hard for me to remember the original item positions as Iâm used to Scholar at this point, but I think for example the ember you get at the start of the Lost Bastille was originally hidden with the areaâs blacksmith in a secret room. Considering that you need the ember for weapon upgrades I would definitely consider this a good quality of life change. But other than that much of the changes are as you say a reshuffle.
It will be interesting if/when developers will acknowledge how much pc randomiser mods etc extend their gamesâ life and potentially include their own mod style options in game. I know a recent update for Bloodstained included a randomised mode option.
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my favorite little change in the Scholar version is early on in Forest of Fallen Giants when you climb a ladder after the first bonfire into an open two-level arena. In the original version, three soldiers immediately rush you and chase you around while a fourth stands on the second level and shoots arrows at you. It teaches you crowd control while under fire, a valuable skill in this game but i didnt like the way they threw you into it. In the Scholar version, the archer is replaced with a bomb-tosser who has less reach, and there are now dozens of soldiers âplaying deadâ all over the arena floor who only attack when you come close. It adds some atmosphere to the area (since youâre in a battle-ravaged fort full of zombie soldiers) and is a less severe version of the challenge that allows a less methodical player to get in trouble on their own.
my least favorite little change is in the same area, there used to be a passive Heide Knight, but theyâve all been relegated to Heideâs Tower of Flame (except one who i guess did some serious crimes because you find him in Sinnerâs Rise). I think that was a mistake, it was cool to run across all these wandering knights chilling in the wild and have the option to challenge them.
You can find posts in this very thread where i bagged on it but 2 is one of my favorites in the series now! Scholar version helped, but its specific jank and design interests grew on me a lot. I kind of think of it like, all of the games are spiritual successors to Kingâs Field, but DS2 feels the most like a direct sequel.
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playing Bloodborne, just wanted to vent about how this is my favorite soulsborne game from an aesthetic/plot/setting perspective while being my least favorite mechanically
im up to the one reborn fight which is supposedly very easy but always pisses me off to an embarrassing degree itâs where the issues with the game come home to roost. annoying run up to the boss, repeats a gimmick from a previous game (tower knight) but itâs omg harder git gud lol!, itâs an ugly mass of limbs where i canât even tell whatâs hitting me half the time, does a fucking stupid amount of damage per hit, can attack rapidly from all angles completely neutering the quickstep dodge, and if i try to run around the arena i run into the most fucking inept stupid mechanical choice Fromsoft has ever made in putting âjumpâ and âdodgeâ on the same button
i stall out at this part of the game more than any other. donât enjoy mergoâs loft, never beaten ebrietas, only completed the dlc once because I hate fighting Ludwig (who has a lot of the same problems!)
cool game but i just flat out do not enjoy most of it from rom onward. Gonna push through this time and then it might go back on the shelf for good tbh
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OR is a joke once youâve downed the projectile-spewing whatever-they-ares in the upper sections of the arena, but itâs been awhile since I touched the game last so I may be missing something here (?)
For me personally everything past the DLC clocktower fight is a slog; from the sewer sharks to the whale detritus that stomped me for hours just for the sole glory of saying IâM THE BEST and then wondering why I didnât put that time into something else
This resonates with me except Vicar Amelia is my stalling point. Just horrible camera and no clear strategy indicated by the pattern of the fight. The world and creature design is neat but a lot of the best stuff comes very late (Nightmare of Mensis, Cainhurst Castle)
Bloodborne has so many cool weapons but theyâre all locked behind the midpoint of the game. You cannot make a reasonably distinct build until youâve already committed to one of the earlier weapons and playstyles. What is the point of having a different build at the beginning when it will barely matter until youâre 10-15 levels in at the earliest any way? It seems designed around community-made character builders and preparatory knowledge about what your route through the game and item locations are going to be.
I also never found the chalice dungeons engaging because PCG levels that are divided from the main game are not what I come to Souls-likes for.
Rally is a decent mechanic but the parry felt really weird and unintuitive to me. Logarius was a cool boss.
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This is a problem theyâve always had and never solved, torn between giving weapon types as loot and an economy built to hammer you with its scarcity. Theyâve consistently moved towards plenty; each game has had easier access to non-max-tier crafting resources.
Some bad fixes could be:
- Allowing easier respec (damages the weight of player build choices and the permanence of XP)
- Unlocking more weapon types on a post-complete New Game file (only serves players who are already working around this)
- Allowing more weapon selections from the start (theyâre beyond a reasonable build selection count in the Dark Souls games already, and it destroys their reward economy)
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See i like Amelia because the strat for her is dodge to get behind her, and exploit her weaknesses (flame, serrated, numbing mist). but eventually the game starts developing ways to make getting behind the enemy unviable. because Fromsoftâs project since 1994 has been âmake an action game where you canât just win by circle strafingâ and they apparently only figured out with Sekiro by making the pro strat âstand still, unless you need to walk over to where the other guy just jumpedâ
Rally is a cool idea that effectively just stops working once enemies get to that point, because you canât tell where a hit is coming from, and everything does so much damage.
and while iâm on one, why the hell cant you respec in this game? That should be like making cutscenes skippable or providing a camera sensitivity setting at this point, if you have a skill point system that could lead to an unwinnable game you provide a respec option. Even if itâs a limited one. DS2 lets you do it like 6 times in one playthrough if you want, itâs great!
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the games are all certainly flexible enough that you canât get yourself in an unwinnable game re: statsâ bloodborne most of all, even
i like not having respecs! i wish it was harder to do in ds3
Harder to do than a hidden area/npc with an extremely limited item you can only practically get in pvp. ok
i sincerely dont know how anyone whoâs not a gaming superhuman can play through Bloodborne successfully without dumping at least 30 points into vitality it feels mandatory
i dont like that Fromsoft turned to hyper balancing and limiting player options to extract difficulty. make the game hard but breakable and let players impose their own challenge, imo. Thatâs why the first 3 Souls are my favorites
The longer the series has gone the more Iâm convinced Demonâs is the one thatâs aged best. Sound design, tone, weapon movesets and boss design have just never been beaten in subsequent Souls.
I liked Sekiro a lot although itâs more of a Tenchu/Rhythm Heaven mashup.
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Demonâs Souls has some real lightning in a bottle energy. there are a lot of little things you could âfixâ about it (and the sequels did to varying degrees) but none of those things get in the way of it being excellent
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âŚoh yeah youâre right lol, i thought i remembered being able to do it a whole bunch of times. forgot how hidden the place was too
i do think i wish you couldnât do it at all, butâŚ
I guess like, i found the idea of putting too many points into resistance funny back when i first played 1, but as they get harder and donât provide an escape hatch for your bad build like the drake sword or respec, itâs less funny
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I think Bloodborne is a step towards a lot of Sekiro; they gave up a lot of RPG customization to make a tighter action game â itâs always easier to make enemies faster, harder, meaner when you have a better picture of what the player will be able to do, how theyâll be able to dodge, how fast hey run, etc. Maybe Bloodborne gives the player just enough rope to hang themselves â certainly I donât get anything out of an âArcane Buildâ that relies on consumable ammo to fool yourself that youâre a mage.
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