Dark Souls

[Symmetric-XBA]

So... how many times have you died so far huh? While this game has a reputation of being hard beyond belief, do you think that such a difficult game is worth it? originally ralli posted up a point of view that I agree with somewhat and that is that gamers today are kind of soft and that most of the time if we keep agressivly attacking the same challenge over and over again, eventually persistance will prevail, however, where do you think the line should be drawn between fun, challenging, and outright controller smashing hard?

originally some copies of dark souls were leaked and instead of banning people for playing it the devs did something I thought was pretty clever. The devs created a character that had every stat maxed out, was the highest level for an enemy, and had a set of amazing armor and weapons, and after they created it, they sent this enemy out onto the servers with one goal in mind. Kill every single person who was playing dark souls early. It would travel around, find people who were playing the game before the release and one hit kill everyone. after the release the character was taken off the servers (this has me flash back to south park's WoW episode with the sword of a thousand truth's lmao).

While I think this is a clever way to combat people playing the game early and spoiling it for others, there have been talks in the industry where to combat piracy and early playing that if you were caught playing the game early and you happened to die, that your entire save file would be deleted thus forcing you to start over from the beginning. now how badly would dark souls be if that happened now? lol

what are your thoughts? how many stains did you leave so far on the grounds of dark souls? how many controllers have you broken or thrown through the tv out of a fit of anger and rage? lol

[Variation-XBA]

I can't even tell you how many times the first skele's killed me.

I just wrote my review on it and it's a FANTASTIC game, it's just not for everyone (myself included cause I'm terrible at it).

It's been many years since I've done the 'try and bend controller in half' thrashing on my controller.

[xBlackmagic20x]

I love it I have a 35 Deprived and a 39 Wanderer. I love the game. Boss fights are epic and challenging.

[RalliArtEvo]

IMO its not nearly as hard as it's made out to be. It's definitely challenging, but not because it's cheap or anything, but because fights actually require some thought and strategy. The vast majority of the time when you die, it's because you did something wrong like having a bad strategy or just simply not blocking enough and trying to go all out hack and slash. This is generally why most newbies die over and over and end up giving up. Blocking is REALLY important along with timing attacks when openings present themselves. I will admit that I haven't played Dark Souls yet and my impressions are based on Demon Souls, but the same tips apply.

These games are true "gamers games". There's no hand holding at all and if you do something stupid, you're gonna die. But IMO the game never feels "cheap" like many games usually are on high difficulties. Believe me, when you finally best a boss you've been trying to beat, you'll feel a true sense of accomplishment. Unlike most games today where it's more about trying over and over again until you get lucky, if you don't adapt and learn from your mistakes and pay attention to the way enemies behave, then you'll NEVER beat many enemies in the game.

[Symmetric-XBA]

IMO its not nearly as hard as it's made out to be. It's definitely challenging, but not because it's cheap or anything, but because fights actually require some thought and strategy. The vast majority of the time when you die, it's because you did something wrong like having a bad strategy or just simply not blocking enough and trying to go all out hack and slash. This is generally why most newbies die over and over and end up giving up. Blocking is REALLY important along with timing attacks when openings present themselves. I will admit that I haven't played Dark Souls yet and my impressions are based on Demon Souls, but the same tips apply.

These games are true "gamers games". There's no hand holding at all and if you do something stupid, you're gonna die. But IMO the game never feels "cheap" like many games usually are on high difficulties. Believe me, when you finally best a boss you've been trying to beat, you'll feel a true sense of accomplishment. Unlike most games today where it's more about trying over and over again until you get lucky, if you don't adapt and learn from your mistakes and pay attention to the way enemies behave, then you'll NEVER beat many enemies in the game.

so it seems I'll have to abandon my usual stratagey of just running in full tilt swinging away huh? lol reminds me of the times of halo "there goes brent..." lmao guess it's time to adapt to a new stratagey.

[Shawn-XBA]

I am all for a challenge, however if I have to play the same part over and over again to beat it, I will get bored with it very fast. I don't play on the hardest levels of games, I don't enjoy the game as much. I would much rather play on an easier difficulty, die less, and in turn have more fun playing. That's just me though, I've always been that way with games.

[Ainokeatoo]

So... how many times have you died so far huh?

Demons Souls, total, over seventy five times... I actually kept a tally because I picked it up due to the difficulty of the game knowing I'd die. A friend of mine last night bought the game for me (along with bringing over a larger hard drive as a present for my birthday, epic winning) and I've died only on the bosses so far. Though, this is half cheating since I know exactly what to expect with the mobs and bosses what with playing the first game and all.

[RalliArtEvo]

so it seems I'll have to abandon my usual stratagey of just running in full tilt swinging away huh? lol reminds me of the times of halo "there goes brent..." lmao guess it's time to adapt to a new stratagey.

ya, you try that strategy, you'll get nowhere fast lol. But I know you have the skill to handle it, you just have to go in with the mindset that it's not a hack n slash game, using your shield/weapon to block is one of the most important things to learn.

[Symmetric-XBA]

I'll keep that in mind when I start to tackle this game lol. It seems that tactics and luck play a more important role than blind rage and agression lol. I'm looking forward to this "sense of accomplishment" you speak of when it comes to the boss battles as it's something that I really haven't felt in a long time. Here's a question to ponder, do you think that there is a new generation of what could be considered a "hardcore gamer"?

[Ainokeatoo]

I'll keep that in mind when I start to tackle this game lol. It seems that tactics and luck play a more important role than blind rage and agression lol.

Trash mobs (aka everything that isn't a boss or just below that) require more timing than anything, especially at the beginning of the game. You'll die a lot, a "lot" at the beginning of the game because you need to get used to the pace of the trash. The only mobs that really require any sort of strategy, are maybe the elite trash (knights etc) and the bosses. But, on the other hand, it's very possible to kill a few things through blind rage and aggression. :)


Here's a question to ponder, do you think that there is a new generation of what could be considered a "hardcore gamer"?

There always is and always will be. Things change over time and new "titles" get adapted in relation to whatever is new. The kids these days recognize the 1337 CoD and Halo people, before this those hardcore gamers were the ones at LAN tournaments playing CS. Each generation deprived of the experiences of the previous generations will always adapt the "Hardcore gamer" mentality to whatever is relevant to what they grow up playing.

But to us oldies, we still have our Pong, our Sonic, our Duke, our Doom, our Wolfenstein, our Invaders from Space, etc.