PREPARE TO DIE. AGAIN. IN GLORIOUS 4K.
June 3, 2018 1:53 PM Subscribe
Dark Souls: Remastered [The Guardian] “Seven years on, the price is still being paid. There have been two sequels, an endless array of merchandise, an army of writers and video-makers dedicated to dissecting the game’s mysteries and now Remaster.” [YouTube][Remastered Launch Trailer]
• Dark Souls Remastered: Rekindling Ceremony [Kotaku]
• Dark Souls Remastered: Rekindling Ceremony [Kotaku]
“Save for a few glitches like the ability to gain infinite souls, Dark Souls Remastered keeps most of the original game’s flaws rather than significantly revamping or fixing issues with the original. It’s a phantom copy that’s nearly indistinguishable from the source material. For some, this will be disappointing. What’s the purpose of a remaster if you can already boot up your PC copy, replete with mods that fix performance issues? Why pay for something you already have? I have no satisfactory answer other to suggest that if you have a version of Dark Souls that already works well for you, there might not be a reason to pick up the remaster. Dark Souls Remastered feels more like a means to allow new players to experience the game.”• Dark Souls Remastered: Gently Modifying A Masterpiece [Game Informer]
“Dark Souls Remastered is the way to play the game today if you’re on console, though PC players may have experienced many of the same improvements via Durante’s famous DSFix mod. The most important part of the remaster is the upgrade to 60 fps. Even areas that were notorious for slow chugging like Blighttown run smooth the whole way through (although the zone is still an abomination of toxic poison, ogres, and rickety ladders). Everything looks crisp and clean, and you won’t slow down at an inopportune moment when you’re jamming your zweihander into a disgusting monstrosity’s flesh. For those that experienced the original title on console, these changes alone make the remaster worth the price of admission.”• Yes, Blighttown has been ‘fixed’ in Dark Souls: Remastered [Polygon]
“Blighttown is an area of the original Dark Souls that combined a high degree of difficulty in combat and navigating the environment with a punishingly low frame rate. It’s one of the game’s challenges that often felt unfair, due to the performance issues hobbling your ability to move and fight with the same ease found in other parts of the game. And it looks like it was fixed in Dark Souls: Remastered. Digital Foundry scrutinized Dark Souls: Remastered to see if Blighttown had been improved, and the team came away impressed. You can watch the full video to see it in action. [YouTube] While even an Xbox One X running a backward-compatible version of the Xbox 360 version of Dark Souls would often dip to 20 fps, Dark Souls: Remastered on a base PlayStation 4 maintains its performance of a solid 60 fps throughout Blighttown. This is despite the updated effects and higher native resolution of 1080p. It’s an impressive achievement; you’ll finally be fighting the monsters in Blighttown, not the frame rate.”• Dark Souls Remastered: It's the Dark Souls of Dark Souls Games [Attack of the Fanboy]
“Dark Souls has definitely been remastered on the presentation front, but there is plenty that players will encounter that carries over from the original game. This means that some of the boss cheese and player vs player cheese that was in the original game makes its return for Dark Souls Remastered. I’ve personally played the game numerous times from its original release, and it was somewhat surprising to see some things like certain bosses being able to be easily defeated by glitches that are still in the game over six years later. Is there more that From Software could’ve done with Dark Souls Remastered in terms of fixing things in terms of gameplay? Probably. A lot is still left to be seen, as players jump back into the game on the Player vs Player front we’ll be able to see whether the Dedicated Servers that have been added will hold up, and whether the gameplay from the network test will be representative of the final product.”• Dark Souls Remastered: A Classic Sitting Next to a Forgotten Bonfire [US|Gamer]
“For returning players though, there isn’t anything else brand-new to entice them. Adjustments to movement and exploration, even minor ones like sliding down ladders, haven’t been included. Rolling around in combat, like the original game, is still locked in four cardinal directions, and not the adjusted eight found in later games. Backstabbing will easily connect to opponents online and off, and will feel substantially more powerful here than what someone might find in Dark Souls III. And no, there aren’t any new weapons, adjusted stats (that I could surmise), or other additional content. I contend that there doesn’t need to be, as does Dark Souls Remastered. This release of the game is its own sort of Age of Fire rekindled; it is easily accessible for new and old players alike, featuring an engine purring with a precision it never had. Returning true believers may be a bit disappointed at the lack of new content, but the fact that it is re-released at all and in such good shape is a good indication that some all-timers like Dark Souls can be enjoyed and scrutinized for many more years to come. If this game isn’t already in your collection, it should be, and this is the version to get.”
I've been (slowly, painfully) replaying the game on Remastered (PC) the last couple days.
It doesn't feel any different from the PC version with DSFix. Graphics are the same. Wonky physics are the same. The "quality of life" interface additions from the later games in the series (item hotbar, soapstone writings menu, better equipment UI) are still missing.
One major thing that was also missing -- the orange soapstone writings. I didn't encounter any other than the fixed "tutorial" ones. None in Firelink Shrine, none in Undead Burg. I know online was working because I could see summon signs and even get invaded, and I could see "ghosts" and bloodstains, but that kinda-vital part of the experience was MIA.
posted by neckro23 at 2:25 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
It doesn't feel any different from the PC version with DSFix. Graphics are the same. Wonky physics are the same. The "quality of life" interface additions from the later games in the series (item hotbar, soapstone writings menu, better equipment UI) are still missing.
One major thing that was also missing -- the orange soapstone writings. I didn't encounter any other than the fixed "tutorial" ones. None in Firelink Shrine, none in Undead Burg. I know online was working because I could see summon signs and even get invaded, and I could see "ghosts" and bloodstains, but that kinda-vital part of the experience was MIA.
posted by neckro23 at 2:25 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm interested in this, but first I want to finish Repeatedly Stepping on Rakes: Remastered.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:28 PM on June 3, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:28 PM on June 3, 2018 [10 favorites]
I know I'm an outlier, but I've just never been able to get into Dark Souls. Maybe it is because I started with Dark Souls II, that game resonated far more than the others in the series. I've had numerous people communicate to me that Dark Souls II is not canon, but I just enjoy playing, living, walking around in that universe more.
This looks interesting and I've heard good things, but I also already own Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition on Steam, not sure I'm looking to double-dip, at least not on the PC. I might consider the Switch (depends on how well it is ported) because the idea of having a Dark Souls game on the go is appealing to me.
posted by Fizz at 2:31 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
This looks interesting and I've heard good things, but I also already own Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition on Steam, not sure I'm looking to double-dip, at least not on the PC. I might consider the Switch (depends on how well it is ported) because the idea of having a Dark Souls game on the go is appealing to me.
posted by Fizz at 2:31 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm interested in this, but first I want to finish Repeatedly Stepping on Rakes: Remastered.
I could never get a handle on that one.
posted by Celsius1414 at 2:34 PM on June 3, 2018 [11 favorites]
I could never get a handle on that one.
posted by Celsius1414 at 2:34 PM on June 3, 2018 [11 favorites]
I'm interested in this, but first I want to finish Repeatedly Stepping on Rakes: Remastered.
Joke #2: Total shovelware.
posted by Celsius1414 at 2:34 PM on June 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
Joke #2: Total shovelware.
posted by Celsius1414 at 2:34 PM on June 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
I am glad Dark Souls exists and that so many people get so much from it. I will never play it because it's a perfect storm of things that drive me insane in games
posted by GallonOfAlan at 2:38 PM on June 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by GallonOfAlan at 2:38 PM on June 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
I love this game, it probably saved my life, and it is the first title I platinumed (all achievements on PS3). But... I'm not buying the remaster. I just don't need to play it any more. I'm not sure I could. It would never be new or fresh. I can close my eyes and revisit any area, any fight, with any build, and replay it with nigh perfect fidelity in my imagination. I'm just not sure what I'd get out of it.
On the other hand, I still like tuna sandwiches.
Nevertheless, I'd be very excited for a Demon's Souls remaster, and would buy it. Even though the later games are almost undeniably better, I feel there's a freshness and rawness to Demon's Souls that kind of got polished away. It's a flawed work of art, and it's ... charming in a way.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:57 PM on June 3, 2018 [6 favorites]
On the other hand, I still like tuna sandwiches.
Nevertheless, I'd be very excited for a Demon's Souls remaster, and would buy it. Even though the later games are almost undeniably better, I feel there's a freshness and rawness to Demon's Souls that kind of got polished away. It's a flawed work of art, and it's ... charming in a way.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:57 PM on June 3, 2018 [6 favorites]
I have never been able to put real time into this series, which bums me out a little because I love the weird atmospheric feel of them, the tense gravity, the bizarre dada elements of character design, the world building that I mostly only know by reputation. The best I did was about a dozen hours in Demons' Souls, and then probably three or four in Dark Souls, and I failed at attempts to go back to either and had the good sense not to try out II or III given that track record.
I don't blame the games; they are what they are and what they are has clearly very strongly resonated for a ton of folks. But I think I am too prone to frustration with difficulty that's based on a need for constant discipline, which seems like the nature of the series: it's not that most of the things you have to do in the Souls games are hard individual, but you have to keep successfully doing the things you need to do and not get lazy or sloppy or reckless because a failure of that discipline can mean a very quick trip back to your last bonfire to try it all again. And I have a hard time getting up that degree of concentration and performance under other than ideal conditions.
Repeatedly Stepping on Rakes: Remastered
Eh, that one's a bit of a sideshow.
posted by cortex at 3:05 PM on June 3, 2018 [7 favorites]
I don't blame the games; they are what they are and what they are has clearly very strongly resonated for a ton of folks. But I think I am too prone to frustration with difficulty that's based on a need for constant discipline, which seems like the nature of the series: it's not that most of the things you have to do in the Souls games are hard individual, but you have to keep successfully doing the things you need to do and not get lazy or sloppy or reckless because a failure of that discipline can mean a very quick trip back to your last bonfire to try it all again. And I have a hard time getting up that degree of concentration and performance under other than ideal conditions.
Repeatedly Stepping on Rakes: Remastered
Eh, that one's a bit of a sideshow.
posted by cortex at 3:05 PM on June 3, 2018 [7 favorites]
Repeatedly Stepping on Rakes: Remastered
Eh, that one's a bit of a sideshow.
Umph. That one hurt.
I've used up my MetaTalk for the week but someone needs to create a thread for the most egregious pun. We have so many. And this one bites hard. And I think it's worth further discussion.
posted by Fizz at 3:09 PM on June 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
Eh, that one's a bit of a sideshow.
Umph. That one hurt.
I've used up my MetaTalk for the week but someone needs to create a thread for the most egregious pun. We have so many. And this one bites hard. And I think it's worth further discussion.
posted by Fizz at 3:09 PM on June 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
I've spent a good chunk of my week playing the remaster. It's an all time favorite for me. There's been a million fine toothed combs run over the game's world and its history, but at the end of the day Dark Souls puts you into a world that you can neither understand, nor save.
Dark Souls is like the made-up games a friend of mine in middle school used brag about being the only one who had, from his made-up uncle who worked at Nintendo.
"And there are a bunch of gods, and you can join all their religions and pray to them and perform their miracles, but you can also kill most of them, like the half-spider goddess of fire -- well, all the gods are gods of fire -- who absorbs the sickness of her worshipers and is barely alive, and far below her is a lost city overrun with demons shaped like a giant UFO, and the necromancer God who lives in a giant coffin far below the catacombs, and from there you can see the lake that the giant trees that hold up the world grow out of, which you can get to through a hidden wall behind a hidden wall in a poison swamp, and at the heard of the world is a prison for the god Gwyn, who has a huge daughter who's really just an illusion made by his youngest son who is half snakes, and, like, Gwyn has gone crazy trying to relight the flame that powers the world, and, like, everyone is zombies because the flame in the center of the world is dying, but not really zombies exactly..."
posted by Rinku at 3:25 PM on June 3, 2018 [13 favorites]
Dark Souls is like the made-up games a friend of mine in middle school used brag about being the only one who had, from his made-up uncle who worked at Nintendo.
"And there are a bunch of gods, and you can join all their religions and pray to them and perform their miracles, but you can also kill most of them, like the half-spider goddess of fire -- well, all the gods are gods of fire -- who absorbs the sickness of her worshipers and is barely alive, and far below her is a lost city overrun with demons shaped like a giant UFO, and the necromancer God who lives in a giant coffin far below the catacombs, and from there you can see the lake that the giant trees that hold up the world grow out of, which you can get to through a hidden wall behind a hidden wall in a poison swamp, and at the heard of the world is a prison for the god Gwyn, who has a huge daughter who's really just an illusion made by his youngest son who is half snakes, and, like, Gwyn has gone crazy trying to relight the flame that powers the world, and, like, everyone is zombies because the flame in the center of the world is dying, but not really zombies exactly..."
posted by Rinku at 3:25 PM on June 3, 2018 [13 favorites]
"...and you can get a giant crow to carry you back to the tutorial area if you jump off an elevator in the right place and get a weird doll in the room where you start the game that lets you go into a giant painting that was made to imprison a giant furry half dragon girl who doesn't want to fight you, but you can, and she's invisible, and you can cut off her tail and it becomes a dagger you can use, you can do that to all the dragons, even the dragon God whose religion can turn you into dragon, kind of, and there's a ninja who sells you samurai swords, but you have to be a worshipper of the cat who guards the forest where a wolf with a giant sword in its mouth guards the grave of a knight who knew how to walk in the abyss, which is evil, and you can get to the abyss early and meet a weird dog faced snake who wants you to let the fire in the middle of the world go out, and everyone's different copies of the game together are a giant multiverse -- no, don't walk away, I swear, my uncle gave it to me..."
posted by Rinku at 3:36 PM on June 3, 2018 [12 favorites]
posted by Rinku at 3:36 PM on June 3, 2018 [12 favorites]
Also, you can probably play the game for 50-60 hours and find out barely any of that.
posted by Sebmojo at 3:41 PM on June 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Sebmojo at 3:41 PM on June 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
If you've bounced off the game because of its difficulty, you should give coop a try, ignoring the macho contingent of fans who believe that things like coop and shields and armor are not the real dark souls experience.
posted by Pyry at 3:49 PM on June 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Pyry at 3:49 PM on June 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
Yeah people have been banging on about this for a good while, and it's good that there's something right up their respective alleys, but everything I've seen sets this up as the equivalent of pulling teeth for me personally. I had to put down Hellblade after a few hours as it was just agonising (and, apparently, draws a lot of inspiration from the Souls games [whether that's true or not]).
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:56 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:56 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
and I failed at attempts to go back
I see what you did there.
posted by RolandOfEld at 4:04 PM on June 3, 2018
I see what you did there.
posted by RolandOfEld at 4:04 PM on June 3, 2018
If anyone thinks Dark Souls is hard, play as a sorcerer and co-op every boss. You’ll breeze right through the game.
posted by Automocar at 4:14 PM on June 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Automocar at 4:14 PM on June 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
I'm really tempted to get this for a fully functioning and lively co-op scene with new players, but... eh... I've recently played through the entire series, and don't feel like paying 20 bucks for the exact same SP experience again. I really wish it had been an actual FROM title, and they'd put in some new content. That would've been day one for me.
posted by codacorolla at 4:22 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by codacorolla at 4:22 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
I have never been able to make Dark Souls combat intuitive, but somehow despite never having made it past the Taurus Demon the first time, this came out and I was instantly like--sure, this seems like a great idea. I'm probably still going to be terrible. There is something weirdly reassuring about being bad at Dark Souls, like it's okay, I'm going to still technically be playing Dark Souls for the rest of my life. I haven't given up. I'm just taking a break.
I could probably have made it further with co-op but that wasn't so easy to do by the time I got to the original before, well past its peak, I guess. And even now it's like... it's not that I want to be more hardcore? It's that I want to actually develop the feel for how the combat works, and having someone else kill stuff for me while I flail wildly trying not to die doesn't seem like the most helpful way of getting better. But I still think that the purchase of the original, and now this one, will probably be worth it, because beating the final boss of most games doesn't have quite the same ooomph of beating the tutorial in Dark Souls. I just want to get to the point where I can run into danger without my brain screaming NO DON'T DO THAT YOU'RE GOING TO DIE because rational me knows that's not the end of the world.
posted by Sequence at 4:34 PM on June 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
I could probably have made it further with co-op but that wasn't so easy to do by the time I got to the original before, well past its peak, I guess. And even now it's like... it's not that I want to be more hardcore? It's that I want to actually develop the feel for how the combat works, and having someone else kill stuff for me while I flail wildly trying not to die doesn't seem like the most helpful way of getting better. But I still think that the purchase of the original, and now this one, will probably be worth it, because beating the final boss of most games doesn't have quite the same ooomph of beating the tutorial in Dark Souls. I just want to get to the point where I can run into danger without my brain screaming NO DON'T DO THAT YOU'RE GOING TO DIE because rational me knows that's not the end of the world.
posted by Sequence at 4:34 PM on June 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
It bums me out a little that the Switch version still doesn't have a release date other than "Summer 2018". I hope it doesn't get delayed. But I won't be too bothered if it does, I've still got Bayonetta to play when I'm feeling masochistic. (No, not that kind of masochistic.)
posted by tobascodagama at 5:01 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by tobascodagama at 5:01 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
...why does anybody say sorcerer is easy, I can't hit the broad side of a barn half the time even when locked on, oh my god. I need to go back to hitting things with pointy things, my brain at least kind of understands that even if I'm bad at it.
posted by Sequence at 7:00 PM on June 3, 2018
posted by Sequence at 7:00 PM on June 3, 2018
There's a bug with regards to orange soapstone messages from players. They took the servers down for maintenance, so hopefully it'll be fixed.
For anyone playing online, the remaster changed player matching from the original's Soul Level-only calculations. Similar to DS3, player matching now relies on the highest Weapon Level weapon ever picked up. So be careful about which weapons you pick up in the early game.
posted by dragoon at 7:04 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
For anyone playing online, the remaster changed player matching from the original's Soul Level-only calculations. Similar to DS3, player matching now relies on the highest Weapon Level weapon ever picked up. So be careful about which weapons you pick up in the early game.
posted by dragoon at 7:04 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
and you can get a giant crow to carry you back to the tutorial area if you jump off an elevator in the right place and get a weird doll in the room where you start
Wait, you can? I started Darin Souls maybe a year or two ago and stopped at the spider queen boss because I kept dying and somehow I hadn’t picked up that ring that makes it easy to walk through mud and stuff. It got so annoying to keep dying and keep having to slog through that mud to get to her that it tipped the balance and made everything suddenly not fun at all.
Now that I’m out of school (and unemployed) I’ve thought about starting a new DS game, but ehhhh.... but I might pick it up again if I can make my current game more bearable.
(Anyway, MGS:V was free through my girlfriend’s Xbox live account, so that’s been taking up the little game energy that I have.)
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 7:06 PM on June 3, 2018
Wait, you can? I started Darin Souls maybe a year or two ago and stopped at the spider queen boss because I kept dying and somehow I hadn’t picked up that ring that makes it easy to walk through mud and stuff. It got so annoying to keep dying and keep having to slog through that mud to get to her that it tipped the balance and made everything suddenly not fun at all.
Now that I’m out of school (and unemployed) I’ve thought about starting a new DS game, but ehhhh.... but I might pick it up again if I can make my current game more bearable.
(Anyway, MGS:V was free through my girlfriend’s Xbox live account, so that’s been taking up the little game energy that I have.)
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 7:06 PM on June 3, 2018
Haha I just noticed the autocorrect typo, but I’m leaving it.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 7:07 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 7:07 PM on June 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
"Darin Souls" is the canonical name of the player character now.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:25 PM on June 3, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 7:25 PM on June 3, 2018 [6 favorites]
shapes that haunt the dusk:
Wait, you can? I started Darin Souls maybe a year or two ago and stopped at the spider queen boss because I kept dying and somehow I hadn’t picked up that ring that makes it easy to walk through mud and stuff. It got so annoying to keep dying and keep having to slog through that mud to get to her that it tipped the balance and made everything suddenly not fun at all.
It can get worse. My first play-through, after being stuck on Queeleg for a while I explored around some, and ended taking the hidden detour down the hollow tree to Ash Lake. It's one of the nastier places in the game, with tons of tricky platforming and basilisks. The basilisks kept cursing me, which normally reduces your max health to half of your normal max... but I was playing the un-patched version, where curses stack up to 3x, so I was running around with 1/8th normal health. Which... is bad. I was already under-leveled, so a couple of hits from almost anything would kill me, and I didn't have any items to get rid of the curse.
Once I realized I was never going to beat Queeleg with 1/8th of my health, it came to accept that the only way to win was to find a way to fix my curse. It was bad enough that I thought about giving up on the game for good (it was a rental,) but it was a Saturday and I didn't feel like studying, dammit, so I pushed through...
I realized the only way through was to push back the same way I came. It took hours of pain to climb down through Blighttown, between the slowdown, death traps and pitfalls. I didn't know about the shortcut back, so it took me almost as long to climb my way back up as I'd spent coming down, and all it took was a couple of hits from one of the mutant rat-people, and I was back at the bonfire by the poison lake. But I pushed through it, dying over and over again in the process, and eventually I made it to a higher bonfire, and then another one.
It took me hours to finally make it back to the starting area, dying over and over again because I couldn't get more than a tiny sliver of health... And then I pushed up to the Undead Cathedral ( I didn't know about the shopkeeper yet,) and finally made it to the priest that sells purifying stones. Me and my now-wife cheered... and then I immediately turned around and spent another two hours climbing back down again.
That probably sounds like utter, painful drudgery, but by the end of it I had a feeling of accomplishment that few, if any other games have given me. It was one of the best times I've had with any game, ever. I probably got a C on the test (I don't even remember what class it was,) but, you know priorities.
Dark Souls is for me personally the greatest game series of at least the last decade or so. The first game though, I think is particularly special, and not just because it was my first (although I'm sure that adds to it too.)
The world design is probably the single best I've played in a game of that type. It managed to take the interconnected world design of 2D Metroidvania games like Symphony of the Night, with all the hidden passages and verticality, and made it work, somehow, in a three-dimensional game that didn't even have an in-game map or fast-travel (at least for most of the game.) The lack of warp points in particular is a ballsy move, as it makes the game more time consuming and less accessible, but it also leads to memorable challenges like the one I described above, that just aren't possible with more approachable and "modern" gameplay.
When you were stuck in the bottom of Blighttown, you really felt like you were stuck in the bottom of Blighttown, and you couldn't just teleport across the map as soon as you got bored. That, combined with the lack of a map, forced you to form a complex map of Lothran in your head, and it's a testament to the game's brilliant world design that doing so was as involving as the actual gameplay.
I don't think any 3D game has done verticality as well as the original Dark Souls. There are layers upon layers, and when you go deeper, it feels like you're uncovering another layer of history: impossible castles stacked upon foundations so big that sad little villages are built, hanging from them. And below that, crumbling volcanic ruins inhabited by demons, and even further below, at the base of the earth, a strange, mythic lake of ash, where great trees stretch up into a false sky high above. There's a real sense of scale, not just in terms of space, but in terms of time, that I can't remember any other game making me feel.
This is turning into a long, rambling comment, so in conclusion: If you haven't played Dark Souls and it sounds interesting, give it a shot: the remaster is probably the best place to start. And if you got frustrated before, and you're in a situation where it's not out of the question to play video games for hours at a time: give it another go, it's worth it.
posted by Green Winnebago at 10:48 PM on June 3, 2018 [15 favorites]
Wait, you can? I started Darin Souls maybe a year or two ago and stopped at the spider queen boss because I kept dying and somehow I hadn’t picked up that ring that makes it easy to walk through mud and stuff. It got so annoying to keep dying and keep having to slog through that mud to get to her that it tipped the balance and made everything suddenly not fun at all.
It can get worse. My first play-through, after being stuck on Queeleg for a while I explored around some, and ended taking the hidden detour down the hollow tree to Ash Lake. It's one of the nastier places in the game, with tons of tricky platforming and basilisks. The basilisks kept cursing me, which normally reduces your max health to half of your normal max... but I was playing the un-patched version, where curses stack up to 3x, so I was running around with 1/8th normal health. Which... is bad. I was already under-leveled, so a couple of hits from almost anything would kill me, and I didn't have any items to get rid of the curse.
Once I realized I was never going to beat Queeleg with 1/8th of my health, it came to accept that the only way to win was to find a way to fix my curse. It was bad enough that I thought about giving up on the game for good (it was a rental,) but it was a Saturday and I didn't feel like studying, dammit, so I pushed through...
I realized the only way through was to push back the same way I came. It took hours of pain to climb down through Blighttown, between the slowdown, death traps and pitfalls. I didn't know about the shortcut back, so it took me almost as long to climb my way back up as I'd spent coming down, and all it took was a couple of hits from one of the mutant rat-people, and I was back at the bonfire by the poison lake. But I pushed through it, dying over and over again in the process, and eventually I made it to a higher bonfire, and then another one.
It took me hours to finally make it back to the starting area, dying over and over again because I couldn't get more than a tiny sliver of health... And then I pushed up to the Undead Cathedral ( I didn't know about the shopkeeper yet,) and finally made it to the priest that sells purifying stones. Me and my now-wife cheered... and then I immediately turned around and spent another two hours climbing back down again.
That probably sounds like utter, painful drudgery, but by the end of it I had a feeling of accomplishment that few, if any other games have given me. It was one of the best times I've had with any game, ever. I probably got a C on the test (I don't even remember what class it was,) but, you know priorities.
Dark Souls is for me personally the greatest game series of at least the last decade or so. The first game though, I think is particularly special, and not just because it was my first (although I'm sure that adds to it too.)
The world design is probably the single best I've played in a game of that type. It managed to take the interconnected world design of 2D Metroidvania games like Symphony of the Night, with all the hidden passages and verticality, and made it work, somehow, in a three-dimensional game that didn't even have an in-game map or fast-travel (at least for most of the game.) The lack of warp points in particular is a ballsy move, as it makes the game more time consuming and less accessible, but it also leads to memorable challenges like the one I described above, that just aren't possible with more approachable and "modern" gameplay.
When you were stuck in the bottom of Blighttown, you really felt like you were stuck in the bottom of Blighttown, and you couldn't just teleport across the map as soon as you got bored. That, combined with the lack of a map, forced you to form a complex map of Lothran in your head, and it's a testament to the game's brilliant world design that doing so was as involving as the actual gameplay.
I don't think any 3D game has done verticality as well as the original Dark Souls. There are layers upon layers, and when you go deeper, it feels like you're uncovering another layer of history: impossible castles stacked upon foundations so big that sad little villages are built, hanging from them. And below that, crumbling volcanic ruins inhabited by demons, and even further below, at the base of the earth, a strange, mythic lake of ash, where great trees stretch up into a false sky high above. There's a real sense of scale, not just in terms of space, but in terms of time, that I can't remember any other game making me feel.
This is turning into a long, rambling comment, so in conclusion: If you haven't played Dark Souls and it sounds interesting, give it a shot: the remaster is probably the best place to start. And if you got frustrated before, and you're in a situation where it's not out of the question to play video games for hours at a time: give it another go, it's worth it.
posted by Green Winnebago at 10:48 PM on June 3, 2018 [15 favorites]
I only got cursed in the Depths, and only once, so my trip back was much less painful, but it was still awesome. At the time it was basically unthinkable for a full-priced console game to do something like that to its players, and it still kind of is (not even Demon's Souls was so cruel!), and I loved every second of it. I really hope whatever From does next does away with fast travel entirely.
I haven't bought the remaster yet, but only because I've already spent hundreds of hours in Lordran. 60 frames per second in Blighttown is tempting, though...
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 5:58 AM on June 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
I haven't bought the remaster yet, but only because I've already spent hundreds of hours in Lordran. 60 frames per second in Blighttown is tempting, though...
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 5:58 AM on June 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm glad people enjoy Dark Souls, but I've bounced off it every single time I've tried it, and I'm not sure I'll try again at this point. If I want to do futile tasks over and over again, repeatedly getting set back, becoming incoherent with rage and wanting to throw heavy objects against the wall...I'll go back to grad school.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 6:39 AM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 6:39 AM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
Somehow I love very hard games in 2D, and hate them in 3D. I have no idea why this is. I wish there were a 2D Dark Souls, like a Castlevania-esque explorer/platformer with a combat system as deep as fighting games.
posted by vogon_poet at 3:43 PM on June 4, 2018
posted by vogon_poet at 3:43 PM on June 4, 2018
Now that I think about it, it may just be that I'm left-handed and therefore extra-clumsy at managing the camera and/or aiming using the right analog stick.
posted by vogon_poet at 3:46 PM on June 4, 2018
posted by vogon_poet at 3:46 PM on June 4, 2018
well now I'm back to farming souls at the iron keep bridge so I can 100% Dark Souls 2, you fuckers
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:04 PM on June 4, 2018
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:04 PM on June 4, 2018
Somehow I love very hard games in 2D, and hate them in 3D. I have no idea why this is. I wish there were a 2D Dark Souls, like a Castlevania-esque explorer/platformer with a combat system as deep as fighting games.
Oh wow, vogon_poet, I'm about to make your day. Have you not heard of Salt & Sanctuary!?! It is exactly that. It is a gorgeous Dark Souls game except in 2D and it has a very similar aesthetic and story. It is available on PC, Vita, PS4 I believe.
Trailer.
posted by Fizz at 4:40 PM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
Oh wow, vogon_poet, I'm about to make your day. Have you not heard of Salt & Sanctuary!?! It is exactly that. It is a gorgeous Dark Souls game except in 2D and it has a very similar aesthetic and story. It is available on PC, Vita, PS4 I believe.
Trailer.
posted by Fizz at 4:40 PM on June 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
but at the end of the day Dark Souls puts you into a world that you can neither understand, nor save.
I know this isn't what you meant, but there's something meta about the fact that you only have one save per character, and not only can you not save, per se, you can't even pause with [ESC]
why does anybody say sorcerer is easy,
It's not easy - but it makes certain hard parts of the game much easier (and other hard parts much harder) - especially towards the end. I've finished I, II and III (still working on ringed city) as a sorcerer because that's pretty much what I play in games and its fair to say that certain fights require a lot less twitch-based playing when you can nuke from orbit, as it were. But you're still a glass cannon (or just basically glass early on) and Manus in the DLC will still make you hate him with the power of a thousand burning, burning suns. And don't get me started on the Crystal Sage in III. Easiest fight in the game, my shiny be-robed posterior! I had to hide behind a corner and throw darts at his clones.
posted by Sparx at 5:06 PM on June 4, 2018
I know this isn't what you meant, but there's something meta about the fact that you only have one save per character, and not only can you not save, per se, you can't even pause with [ESC]
why does anybody say sorcerer is easy,
It's not easy - but it makes certain hard parts of the game much easier (and other hard parts much harder) - especially towards the end. I've finished I, II and III (still working on ringed city) as a sorcerer because that's pretty much what I play in games and its fair to say that certain fights require a lot less twitch-based playing when you can nuke from orbit, as it were. But you're still a glass cannon (or just basically glass early on) and Manus in the DLC will still make you hate him with the power of a thousand burning, burning suns. And don't get me started on the Crystal Sage in III. Easiest fight in the game, my shiny be-robed posterior! I had to hide behind a corner and throw darts at his clones.
posted by Sparx at 5:06 PM on June 4, 2018
And if you got frustrated before, and you're in a situation where it's not out of the question to play video games for hours at a time: give it another go, it's worth it.
Alright, I'm thoroughly convinced! Honestly, it's enough even just to know that other people had trouble with that spider boss. I think that's a funny thing about Dark Souls, at least for me: I can put up with the crushing difficulty, but where it lost me was in the feeling that I had done something stupid other people hadn't done. It makes me think that the biggest challenge of it all is feeling like you have to live up to some standard, which probably defeats the purpose of the game. I think you just have to stop judging yourself by what you imagine everyone else expects of you, and just push past your own hurdles as you come to them.
Oh my god, Dark Souls helped teach me the key to happiness.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 5:54 PM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]
Alright, I'm thoroughly convinced! Honestly, it's enough even just to know that other people had trouble with that spider boss. I think that's a funny thing about Dark Souls, at least for me: I can put up with the crushing difficulty, but where it lost me was in the feeling that I had done something stupid other people hadn't done. It makes me think that the biggest challenge of it all is feeling like you have to live up to some standard, which probably defeats the purpose of the game. I think you just have to stop judging yourself by what you imagine everyone else expects of you, and just push past your own hurdles as you come to them.
Oh my god, Dark Souls helped teach me the key to happiness.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 5:54 PM on June 4, 2018 [3 favorites]
But you're still a glass cannon (or just basically glass early on) and Manus in the DLC will still make you hate him with the power of a thousand burning, burning suns.
Yeah, I had it recommended to me just on the basis of my not being any good at this, and like--the DLC isn't even on my radar. My enormous stretch goal right now is that I'd be really, really happy if I can manage to kill the Taurus Demon before the end of summer without relying on a summon to do it for me. So I think I keep getting advice that isn't necessarily terrible advice about different things to try, but I think people who have a lot of experience with these games sometimes forget how ridiculous stuff like this sounds when at the place I am right now.
I have presently switched over to Wanderer as a start but mostly my current project is not so much "kill the Asylum Demon" yet as "actually land this plunging attack once" and "die in this fight without having accidentally used an estus flask when I meant to attack and/or dodge".
I do wonder if, left-handedness or otherwise, there's just something about my brain that does not agree with video game controllers very well, because this is definitely not the only game I find challenging on that score, but it is the one where that difficulty most directly impacts my ability to make it past the tutorial stage.
posted by Sequence at 3:15 AM on June 5, 2018
Yeah, I had it recommended to me just on the basis of my not being any good at this, and like--the DLC isn't even on my radar. My enormous stretch goal right now is that I'd be really, really happy if I can manage to kill the Taurus Demon before the end of summer without relying on a summon to do it for me. So I think I keep getting advice that isn't necessarily terrible advice about different things to try, but I think people who have a lot of experience with these games sometimes forget how ridiculous stuff like this sounds when at the place I am right now.
I have presently switched over to Wanderer as a start but mostly my current project is not so much "kill the Asylum Demon" yet as "actually land this plunging attack once" and "die in this fight without having accidentally used an estus flask when I meant to attack and/or dodge".
I do wonder if, left-handedness or otherwise, there's just something about my brain that does not agree with video game controllers very well, because this is definitely not the only game I find challenging on that score, but it is the one where that difficulty most directly impacts my ability to make it past the tutorial stage.
posted by Sequence at 3:15 AM on June 5, 2018
The biggest problem with the DkS games on the Sony platform is the reliance on the right thumb for the camera AND for extremely important jumping and dodge-rolling. If the controller had pinky triggers, a great deal of teeth gnashing would have been eliminated. There are people who have mastered "claw grip" which hurts my hand AND my brain.
Those of y'all who got stuck very early on -- that was me, too. I fought the Taurus demon dozens of times, possibly a hundred, before I won. I wouldn't even make it through the 'burg half the time. My problem was that it took an outrageously long amount of time to map what I was seeing enemies do in terms of attacking and movement to having to respond to those things specifically. I kept trying to push X to win, and Dark Souls will not let you do that.
No one says that Dark Souls is a rhythm / dancing game, but it really kind of is. Learn your opponent's dance moves (they are all discrete and well telegraphed) and learn how to dance in between those moves and you will triumph.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:03 AM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
Those of y'all who got stuck very early on -- that was me, too. I fought the Taurus demon dozens of times, possibly a hundred, before I won. I wouldn't even make it through the 'burg half the time. My problem was that it took an outrageously long amount of time to map what I was seeing enemies do in terms of attacking and movement to having to respond to those things specifically. I kept trying to push X to win, and Dark Souls will not let you do that.
No one says that Dark Souls is a rhythm / dancing game, but it really kind of is. Learn your opponent's dance moves (they are all discrete and well telegraphed) and learn how to dance in between those moves and you will triumph.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:03 AM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
No one says that Dark Souls is a rhythm / dancing game, but it really kind of is. Learn your opponent's dance moves (they are all discrete and well telegraphed) and learn how to dance in between those moves and you will triumph.
Honest question: Doesn't this apply to fighting games like Street Fighter/Smash just as well, don't good players know the frame reads for reaction play/dancing? Doesn't this also apply to the Strategy genre as well, once you've played a bit of course, insofar as a given race tends to do X or Y after Z so your reaction is key? Ditto for FPS games where I could kill a Grunt in Halo with a sniper headshot based upon what I could expect him to do next?
I'm being pedantic, sure. But isn't this like... a life principle as well as a thing that applies to Dark Souls (which it completely and truly does, really)?
/PuttingTheMetaInMetafilter
posted by RolandOfEld at 6:19 AM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
Honest question: Doesn't this apply to fighting games like Street Fighter/Smash just as well, don't good players know the frame reads for reaction play/dancing? Doesn't this also apply to the Strategy genre as well, once you've played a bit of course, insofar as a given race tends to do X or Y after Z so your reaction is key? Ditto for FPS games where I could kill a Grunt in Halo with a sniper headshot based upon what I could expect him to do next?
I'm being pedantic, sure. But isn't this like... a life principle as well as a thing that applies to Dark Souls (which it completely and truly does, really)?
/PuttingTheMetaInMetafilter
posted by RolandOfEld at 6:19 AM on June 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
The biggest problem with the DkS games on the Sony platform is the reliance on the right thumb for the camera AND for extremely important jumping and dodge-rolling. If the controller had pinky triggers, a great deal of teeth gnashing would have been eliminated. There are people who have mastered "claw grip" which hurts my hand AND my brain.
I tried Dark Souls on PC with both a controller and a mouse, and the mouse seemed so much easier it almost felt like cheating (there's no such thing as cheating in Dark Souls - take ANY advantage you can get). With mouse control of the camera, you have so much greater situational awareness that traps are much less of an issue and it's so much easier to keep track of where the enemies are as you are dodging or fleeing or trying to get behind them or whatever.
posted by straight at 10:55 AM on June 5, 2018
I tried Dark Souls on PC with both a controller and a mouse, and the mouse seemed so much easier it almost felt like cheating (there's no such thing as cheating in Dark Souls - take ANY advantage you can get). With mouse control of the camera, you have so much greater situational awareness that traps are much less of an issue and it's so much easier to keep track of where the enemies are as you are dodging or fleeing or trying to get behind them or whatever.
posted by straight at 10:55 AM on June 5, 2018
I tried Dark Souls on PC with both a controller and a mouse, and the mouse seemed so much easier it almost felt like cheating
For most games on my PC, I'm always in favour of mouse/keyboard but Dark Souls was one of those games where I absolutely needed a controller, it just felt better, especially for rolling around on the ground. Maybe I should reconsider and try it the other way around, maybe I didn't give it a proper chance.
posted by Fizz at 4:56 PM on June 6, 2018
For most games on my PC, I'm always in favour of mouse/keyboard but Dark Souls was one of those games where I absolutely needed a controller, it just felt better, especially for rolling around on the ground. Maybe I should reconsider and try it the other way around, maybe I didn't give it a proper chance.
posted by Fizz at 4:56 PM on June 6, 2018
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