Dark Souls

Finished DkS1, moved on to 2. For all it's flaws, it's still fun as hell and I have to say I've missed it. Just not gonna bother with pvp, it's a mess.

Oh, and apparantly your saves are only stored locally. Nothing in the cloud or server-side. Lost about 500 hours of game play on 4 characters.
 
I tried playing Dark Souls 2 yesterday. I just can't do it. I think it's an ugly, badly written, badly designed mess with a terrible control scheme.
 
It certainly has its flaws, but I really enjoy it. Hell, I'm starting to like that it differs a lot from Dark Souls 1. Makes me appreciate both games on their own merits.

Not sure what people expected from DkS2 that has them so worked up and disappointed.

Anyway, today was apparantly patch day. The "Scholars of the First Sin", or v 1.10 patch. Obviously not containing all the new stuff, but supposed to include new npc and story stuff, as well as expanded item descriptions for added lore. It will be interesting to see, but I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't get to finish this playthrough in the "old" game.

A bit miffed about the whole "Scholars of the First Sin" deal, I think it's a pretty low blow to the pc community to sell it as a separate game. But I haven't bought the dlc's yet so at least for me it's a lot of new content.
 
Akratus said:
I tried playing Dark Souls 2 yesterday. I just can't do it. I think it's an ugly, badly written, badly designed mess with a terrible control scheme.
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Well, at least stage design isn't that bad.
I actually think it might be better than DS1.
I was impressed by stage design of Iron castle and DLCs.
and healing system is actually good.
but most part of game is broken compare to DS1 though..

Actually, I think for story or writing, DS1 wasn't that good either..
I mean, just compare with Morrowind which has same unkindly story.
While Morrowind's lores and plots are make sense, DS1's plot's and lores don't make sense.
so I think DS1's story is overrated due to it's great

While I didn't played Demon's soul yet, Demon's soul's plot and lores make sense to me.
while both fire and darkness couldn't connected to player him or herself, souls are connected to player.
and while most NPC don't matter of true goal of game in DS1 and 2, main goal of Demon's soul affects other NPCs.
 
woo1108 said:
Akratus said:
I tried playing Dark Souls 2 yesterday. I just can't do it. I think it's an ugly, badly written, badly designed mess with a terrible control scheme.
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Well, at least stage design isn't that bad.
I actually think it might be better than DS1.
I was impressed by stage design of Iron castle and DLCs.
and healing system is actually good.
but most part of game is broken compare to DS1 though..

Actually, I think for story or writing, DS1 wasn't that good either..
I mean, just compare with Morrowind which has same unkindly story.
While Morrowind's lores and plots are make sense, DS1's plot's and lores don't make sense.
so I think DS1's story is overrated due to it's great

While I didn't played Demon's soul yet, Demon's soul's plot and lores make sense to me.
while both fire and darkness couldn't connected to player him or herself, souls are connected to player.
and while most NPC don't matter of true goal of game in DS1 and 2, main goal of Demon's soul affects other NPCs.
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The level design was one of the worst parts of Dark Souls II.

Dark Souls I had a fully realized world that was logically connected and very deeply designed, Dark Souls II was just a bunch of random zones thrown together without a second thought (e.g the fact that you take an elevator up a windmill that leads to nowhere and end up in a Lava castle.)

Now, the writing bit is where it comes to opinion.

Morrowind does have good writing, but so does Dark Souls. The difference is that they present it in different ways, Morrowind lays everything out for you and you get a really full sense of the world and setting and have endless pages of lore to trawl through at your leisure, Dark Souls on the other hand has good lore, but it's hidden away and told through the environment, a Player has to work out for themselves the full picture based off of tidbits provided by the game and implications in the setting around your character.
 
I don't think level design of Darksoul was good;
What's the point of Painted World of Ariamis or Ash lake?
And there is almost no hint for entering those places.
I know they are related to lore, but they make me hard to think DS1's world design is good.
I also think they did poor job on world design of DS2, but stage itselves are not bad.
Thanks to usage of traps, way of locating enemy, etc, overall stage design for gameplay are not bad at all.
What they done wrong is enemy design.

For writing, while succeeding fire is main goal of game, there is no reason, no consequence and motivation for player to succeed or let the dark come.
why should I do? and what are they? I don't know.
I can build my own lore of Darksoul. but since the main feature of main goal means nothing, it's all meaningless.
but for Demon's soul,
becoming demon or let the beast slumber means something.
.
while fire of Darksoul mean nothing, soul of Demon's soul means a lot.
it is only you who cares about succeeding fire other NPCs don't care about that.
but almost every npcs in Demon's soul cares about soul and demon.

In short, Darksoul's main feature which is important for story, lore and connection between game and player is broken.
so I can't think writing of Darksoul is good.
 
I will agree with Painted World of Ariamis, it was originally a test level that they decided to shoehorn into the game. Ash Lake on the other hand was a "secret" level, you aren't supposed to go there for the completion of the main story, it's just an incredibly cool side area that you aren't supposed to find normally.

Your complaints about the story are where it gets a bit tricky, if we just stick to the normal main plot that most players go through on their first run, here are your motivations throughout the game:

-You are Undead, destined to never die and eventually hollow.You are also trapped in a prison, forever.
-A mysterious Knight frees you from this prison, essentially saving you from an eternity in a cell.
-You eventually find the Knight, who tells you that he's letting all the Undead out of the aslyum in the hopes of fulfilling a prophecy, he then dies of his injuries
-You now have two motivations here
-Motivation A: You do as he says in the hopes of fulfilling the prophecy (The Fate of the Undead will be revealed to the player)
-Motivation B: Or, you might not even be interested in the prophecy but decide to carry out the dying wishes of the man who freed you from an eternity locked in a cell.
-Eventually, when you have rung the two bells of Awakening and completed the "prophecy" Kingseeker Frampt awakens and tells you what you must do next
-Frampt explains that it is your fate to succeed Lord Gwyn in Linking the Fire (Gwyn being the God of Gods in this world.)
-Linking the Fire provides several motivations and reasons as to why it's good:
-1: You are perpetuating the Age of Fire, which has been running for the last 2000 Years and has been an age of prosperity
-2: By linking the Fire, you are stopping an Age of Dark overcoming the world, at this point you don't really know what that entails, but the Gods seem to think it's a pretty bad thing so you should probably avoid it.
-3: Linking the Fire will end the Curse of the Undead, and free all the Undead from their horrible fates, allowing them to die in peace.
-Frampt then tells you that to reach Gwyn and Link the Fire, you must find the Lordvessel in Anor Londo
-You travel to Anor Londo and acquire the Lordvessel.
-Frampt then explains that for the path to Gwyn and the First Flame to open, you must collect the Souls of Lords and place them in the Lordvessel.
-You then travel around Lordran, kill the beings holding the Souls of Lords, and place the Souls in the Lordvessel.
-The path to the First Flame opens
-You slay Lord Gwyn and take his place in Linking the Fire
-Linking the Fire then perpetuates the Age of Fire for another 1000 years and cures the curse of the Undead, but it seems everything is doomed to repeat itself as the flame will eventually fade.....

Now, there's more to it than that (what with all of the Darkwraith Kaathe, Dark-Lord and Age of Man alternate plotline.) but in reality, it's very unlikely that a player will encounter the alternate story line or reveal the truth behind the Dark and it's connections to Humanity and the Dark Soul without guides.

That's just the barebones motivations, more details can be found throughout the game to reinforce the story.

I don't really see what the issue with that is? A solid set of motivations, plot and an interesting setting.
 
The Painted World was a very excellently realized level. It was hardly "shoehorned" in. You gotta go through several steps to unlock it, and you're given an opportunity to avoid it, so getting trapped should never feel like an accident nor should you feel unprepared for the trials it puts you through. It's a breath of fresh air in terms of its atmosphere and art and building design, and it adds to the lore no less than any part of the game. It paints a picture (pun actually not intended) about the way various cultures could treat the halfbreed offspring descendants of the dragons, since the Age of Fire despises the dragons, gives further insight towards the NPC that most would simply look at as a free karma cleanser, and altogether it just feels like a much less frustrating, even more tragic, and far more realized version of the Valley of Defilement from Demon's Souls. It really always breaks my heart to have to kill Priscilla any time I want to collect every weapon, so no matter how many souls I'm skipping out on, I much prefer running past her and leaving her alive (a unique aspect only she possesses, as a boss) when I complete the level. It's a great level.

Same can't be said of the Demon Ruins nor Lost Izalith. They're functionally decent in their design and layout, but they offer so little in terms of lore development of the game. In that sense, despite how barren it is, Ash Lake is far superior to those 2 spots, even for a "secret level".

But in all earnestness, Demon's Souls too had a great story that it both presented to you as well as let you discover on your own. The alternate endings weren't one hidden and one obvious, unlike Dark Souls, but much of the world and the motivations of the characters and how things became the way they are and what it has done to the inhabitants of these lands and what some of them will do with that are for the player to discover, and the game offers no hints on how to do that. Unlike Dark Souls, where one murderous NPC will inconvenience the player temporarily by disabling a single save location until you can track him down and reactivate it later, when you unsuspectingly unleash the murderous sneak in Demon's Souls, he never comes off as creepy and he makes his gratitude feel genuine, and after a brief period of time CRITICAL NPCs suddenly start dying, permanently, and that decision will haunt you for the rest of the game. That addition was a stroke of genius that, combined with the game's much better inventory design (not being able to hoard a weightless menagerie of items because carry weight mattered) turned an already challenging game into a fight for resource conservation and true survival, if you let Stockpile Thomas get killed, a mistake you cannot undo nor fix at a later date. Dark Souls had no equal nor rival in this sense, and that was just ONE character who could make your life a living hell. Sure, confronting him didn't have the same flare as Dark Souls with a fractured stone that could allow you to invade his world, and indeed Demon's Souls did not suggest to EXIST within "overlapping worlds", but its characters just had instances of being far more realized, at times. Consequently, so did its world and story. It just felt more complete and well-thought-out.

Dark Souls was by no means bad, but I can understand why someone who experience Demon's Souls first might come away from its spiritual successor feeling somewhat disappointed. It really didn't live up to its older brother. It could step out of its shadow, and doing so you couldn't help but notice that it stood on its own very well, but if you took note of that shadow, you couldn't ignore how much larger it was...
 
I played Darksou 1 for more than 600 hours; and I read many references and guesses about story of DS1.
I'm not talking about story of Darksoul as a gameplay, I'm just talking about story without gamplay.
as a gameplay, Darksoul1's story is good.
but there aren't enough information or plot for story.

and I think Painting world itself is good. only bad thing for the stage is how to enter it.
can you figure out how to enter there without any walkthrough or luck but reasoning?
and many plots for the stages are cut like
Shiva's betrayal and huge role for Pricsilla
this make me think that Darksoul 1 story is actually broken and unfinished.

and for Ashlake, it's poor place.
no boss, no story, not much interaction and hard to know the place is exist.
why should we go there? and why the hell a dragon is alive
I actually know it's not real ancient dragon
but there is no plot for the place.
 
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Man, you're just whining for the sake of it. Don't like it? Fine. But there's plenty story, plot, motivation, lore, what have you. It's presented in a rather unique way, but if you're interested in it it's there all over the place. For most fans, it's this unique way of telling the story, or rather encouraging you to find the stories of the different places and people, that makes it stand out from other games that force a story down your throat.
 
woo1108 said:
I actually know it's not real ancient dragon
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Actually, it is. The Dragon Covenant dragon IS a real ancient dragon, and so is the Gaping Dragon. Both are still-living actual dragons. The Age of Fire didn't extinguish EVERY living dragon, but it took the control of the world away from them, and they were almost entirely extinct following it. Almost, but not entirely.
 
You know, people talk about Dark Souls being unfinished, but having recently played Demons's Souls, it's very obvious that wasn't finished either.

Boletaria Palace (Small King Archstone) is the only Archstone with 4 levels and a dedicated level leading up to the Archdemon, the others are just two levels then an archdemon Boss Room (Latria being the worst case of this, 3-3 is literally just a staircase then small boss room.), that reeks of rushing and unfinished level design to me. Not to mention that they cut an entire Archstone due to time constraints and provided a bullshit reason as to why it was locked off. The Sixth Archstone being unavailable also provides a plot hole: The Land of the Giants was the first place to be overrun by Demons and all attempts to fight back were failed (This is stated lore), so we can assume then that there are several Demons and presumably an Archdemon present there,which provides a problem seeing as our character must destroy all Demons to be allowed to the realm of the Old One, The Monumental outright says this.

There's the problem I have with you SnapSlav, I can fully see that Dark Souls has flaws, and acknowledge them, but I don't believe they impede the overall game too much at all, and I thoroughly enjoy every part of the game despite it's flaws, and as hypocritical as it is, I'd say Dark Souls is one of the purest gaming experiences I've ever had, but still I do not claim it's flawless and perfect in every way as you do with Demons's Souls.
 
But that's where you're wrong. Demon's Souls IS a finished, polished game. Boletaria Palace was deliberately designed to be unique from the rest of the worlds because it was effectively the "end game" area. So of course it ought to be designed a little differently. Each Archdemon was little more than a boss arena and a small space to prepare before the fight. This was consistent with each and every Archdemon... except the False King. This wasn't a shortcoming or the result of rushing or an unfinished game. This is because the False King WAS the Lord of Cinder of Demon's Souls. He was the final boss (and a way superior fight). The encounter you meet when you enter the Old One is more thematic than any kind of true boss fight... though it IS a boss, it's the easiest in the game very deliberately. Like facing Quelaag's sister if you have the ring that allows you to speak to her after killing Quelaag, and she unsuspectingly mistakes you for Quelaag and you have to listen to her pitiful existence of eternal agony, realizing that you just slaughtered her guardian and left her all alone for the rest of eternity. When you face that sad, misshapen blob that was once human, and you listen to his reasoning for why he unleashed the Old One, it really hits you in your heart. All of those efforts of Prince Ariona Allant to try and rescue his father from the clutch of the demons. All those trials that the Twin Fangs underwent and the tenacity to which Biorr defending his kingdom and its people in the face of the fog. All that tragedy, and you see the source of it before you, and it all makes sense. That was very deliberate, well-crafted game design.

I think you're confusing my stance on the games because of how I choose to address criticisms for one or the other. I keep saying, repeatedly, that I LIKE Dark Souls, but that I must rank it second best next to its big brother, because Demon's Souls was simply BETTER. Far from perfect, as I've also repeatedly mentioned, because I feel that the UI improvements in DkS were wonderful, but not all the improvements were good ones, like the addition of Poise, the removal of Mana, the broken Darkwood Grain Ring, etc. Just because I agreed with one thing woo said doesn't mean I agree with him that Dark Souls was at all unfinished. Far from it. I ADORE how completed the game was, and how it took begging and pleading for a FULL YEAR before the creator finally caved and decided to include DLC for the game, because he believed a finished game should be finished upon release. I admire that (and incidentally, I wasn't among those begging for DLC, but I wasn't against it) and I wish more developers and directors and designers had that integrity. I wish more people let their games speak for themselves. Not unending cutscenes. Not droning exposition. Gameplay. Polished, finished, magnificent gameplay. Dark Souls did exactly that, and I love it for that. Demon's Souls simply did that too, but slightly better.

I can't stand the way LOTS of things impeded Mercenaries II: World in Flames, but it was the finished package of the game sucking because of a totality of failures that leads me to say it's bad. I hated lots of the changes from Ninja Gaiden to Ninja Gaiden Sigma but those didn't take an otherwise game and lower it to anything short of excellent; it was just an excellent game with problems I took note of. Dark Souls has problems Demon's Souls didn't, and more of them, and that's why I prefer the predecessor to the successor, because it was better. But just because the combat was broken (and let's be honest, it WAS and still IS) doesn't mean it rendered the game unplayable. Just because the interconnected world made me realize how small the levels were didn't make me hate the game. Just because some covenants were less involved and kinda pointless compared to others doesn't mean I wanted to shelve my copy of the game and never touch it again. Dark Souls has objective, definitive problems, but that doesn't negate all it's got going for it. It's a great game. It's just inferior to a better game. I think that should be a no-brainer to anyone who takes a moment to think. Sonic & Knuckles good. Sonic 3 & Knuckles better. Simple as that.
 
You can't say Demon's Souls was totally finished and polished, there's a whole Archstone that had to be cut from the game.
 
That's just you trying to see it that way, not that it's actually that way. Besides, even if it were, ideas get scrapped and left on the cutting room floor all the time, and sometimes visible remnants of those changes remain quite often even in the finished product, but that doesn't make it "unfinished" because a sign of something removed remains. As for why the archstone was there:

The story behind the 6th archstone is that it leads to the northern lands. (presuming you aren't one of the people who believe the northern lands is where the nexus resides anyway.) The northern lands are inhabited by giants…there is a picture of them somewhere on this wiki (which significantly shows some human sized dwelling alongside the giant ones, implying their cultures were relatively friendly), not sure where I saw it though.
Boletaria was once at war with them, and the northern lands were the first to fall to the fog prior to Demon's Souls taking place.
However, it is postulated by some that the giants were allies of the the humans (Boletarians) in the same way that the mine dwellers in Stonefang and the people of the White Lady in Latria were, given the scale of the constructions in some of the areas of the game and the size and grandeur of the Nexus. This means it is possible that demonic influence was what caused the giants to turn against the humans, and the beginning of the war.
Either way, the stone was destroyed to prevent a demonic invasion from the other side.
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Just like Dark Souls, the story and design of the world where the lore was creatively embedded in the very game's environment itself was just as finished, just as polished, and just as deliberately designed. You repeating that Demon's Souls was incomplete because a sixth archstone was visible in the Nexus but could not be accessed is like saying Dark Souls was incomplete because a DLC was developed for it later. Neither could be further from the truth.
 
I understand that they added lore to retrofit the cutting of the area, but there clearly was intention to include it: The Archstone is shown in the Monumental Cutscene and is actually in the Nexus itself.

Not to mention there's a bunch of unused content for that area and a modder has actually managed to access the unfinished area which would have been the Sixth Archstone.

http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/unused-content
 
And this is any different than all the cut character storylines from Dark Souls? It's different from the alternate Bed of Chaos that would have been an actual boss instead of a gimmick that the game director himself admits was a terrible idea? it's different from all the unimplemented items and enemies and armor and weapons and locations from Dark Souls? It's a finished and polished game and Demon's Souls is clearly an unfinished and unpolished game because... why? Because you just want it to be? Because that seems to be what this all comes down to. Between the two of us, it just seems that the one who wants to hate on one of the games and not for any tangible reasons is you, not me. I like both games, but I recognize that Demon's Souls is the better title. You just seem to be taking every opportunity to fire shots at Demon's Souls, even when those very same criticisms could be levied against Dark Souls, but for some convenient reasons, they don't apply in your eyes.
 
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