I don't get Dark Souls...

[Grimbones]

It's almost unappreciably difficult and unintuitive. I keep giving it chances, and there are times when it is mildly entertaining, but at best it is insanely frustrating, and cruel for the sake of being cruel.

After dying probably 30 times getting to some boss--i bypassed some other ridiculously difficult mob that seemed even more difficult than the boss was, in order to get to him mind you--and dying at him once before, i killed him.

Awesome right? I have 5500 souls. Cool, maybe i will finally be able to level up and do something interesting, but do i go back to the fire to rest just so i have to fight him again? No screw that, i'm sure the game put a freaking fire (save point) after the boss like any other game in existence would have done.

No of course not, but there was an NPC rambling about something useless to me, and upon turning around to face some skeletons standing in my way across a long parapet, i walked over toward them slowly, and a dragon rained down fire upon me, killing me instantly....

There was no forewarning of this happening, and nothing i could do to escape it. I don't get how people can go through something that insanely frustrating and feel like they want to go back for more...? So after all my struggles to kill that boss, i was essentially killed instantly for shits and giggles, real fun. AH YES, another "learning experience"....well it taught me that i no longer want to play the game, so...lesson learned i guess.

The combat in this game is clunky as hell, and so annoying when you go to target someone it may jump to someone 50 yards away on the opposite side of the screen, for no real reason at all...

I get that people like games that are a challenge, but there are so few redeeming qualities about this game. About the only one is that the game is "in depth", but none of that depth is explained to the person playing the game. I find that immeasurably dumb.

Sorry, but there's no chance i'm going to play this game, or any other souls game if that's what i can expect. Thank god it only cost me like 7 or 10 dollars off a steam sale.

To me it's just extremely tedious to have to redo the same things over and over and over and over and over...i don't want to have to farm souls in order to level up in order to advance, that's worse than fetch quests, because if you die during a fetch quest, you do not lose all your progress.

The game basically wants you to save at every single opportunity, and redo everything over and over until you can beat things with such ease that the prior threat is no longer a threat. It's not fun, and i don't understand how anyone can find this fun.

I like a ton of the ideas from this game, but it's just awfully put together...the game tries to screw you over at every turn, and it's unapologetic. Just not fun, please explain how you can find all this stuff interesting...please...

I'm not opposed to difficult games either, Ninja Gaiden was exceptionally fun on xbox all those years ago, but the combat mechanics were tight and aggressive, and you knew when you screwed up it wasn't because of some wonky controls. The controls in this game are so loose and imprecise, even when you use the targeting mechanism, and they do not explain anything to you! People seem to enjoy that too, that's the annoying part, and that somehow defeating it puts you into some elite masochistic level of gaming greatness.

I disagree. I'll listen to counter arguments, but they better not be "play better", "you have to be more tactical", when you get blind sided with instant deaths, there are no tactics involved, that's cruelty.

Locked by request of OP
-ViRGE

 

[Digital Savior]

Sounds like you do understand it it and don't like it. Which is totally fine. The whole premise and design is to be unforgiving and painful. Yes, you could call it clunky, one could also call it deliberate. Every action needs to be exact or you get punished for it.

I played for about an hour and didn't care for it either. Some players love games that provide this kind of challenge.

 

[Falafil]

This video explains the game best:
Overrated?: Dark Souls

This game is kinda like call of duty with swords, since all you're doing is mindlessly hacking and slashing enemies without any meaningful purpose, and there's no feeling of diversity in the gameplay, you're just doing the same thing over and over. What I'm trying to say is, people who enjoy it aren't very sophisticated.

 

[KaOTiK]

Dark Souls is actually not that difficult. It punishes mistakes brutally is all. Most people try and rush through lesser enemies thinking they are just junk to get to the boss. Each enemy in DS can and will kill you if you don't treat the fight correctly.

There are clues in the environment to make you give caution. From burnt bodies on a bridge to other corpses around areas, they are not just for decoration, but are in fact your warning signs.

The game does not hold your hand at all and requires you to pay attention to everything. The overwhelming vast majority of games nowadays do so much hand holding that we don't even think to pay attention to stuff in so many cases now. Well DS is not like that and has no problems punishing you for your mistakes.

The combat is quite good, you need good timing to attack and defend yourself. Most enemies have only a few moves and you can learn them rather quickly to dispatch them and not get take any damage.

You have to play the game cautious, running around a corner? You're going to be punished, try and get an extra attack in? You're going to be punished! Going into somewhere you haven't been before or don't know very well, you better be slow and cautious. The WORST thing you can do in the Souls games is not take your time, you will be punished each and every single time if you don't. Oh, one more hit and the boss is dead, I can finish it right now! Boom!, YOU DIED!

Greed will take you nowhere in this game.



All that being said, it isn't a game for everyone as it requires much more from the player than your average game does nowadays. Not saying that in a negative way, but most games are so dumb downed we don't even realize it till a game comes along to make us actually use brains for more than the most basic of things.

 

[Jodell88]

Dark Souls is actually not that difficult. It punishes mistakes brutally is all. Most people try and rush through lesser enemies thinking they are just junk to get to the boss. Each enemy in DS can and will kill you if you don't treat the fight correctly.

There are clues in the environment to make you give caution. From burnt bodies on a bridge to other corpses around areas, they are not just for decoration, but are in fact your warning signs.

The game does not hold your hand at all and requires you to pay attention to everything. The overwhelming vast majority of games nowadays do so much hand holding that we don't even think to pay attention to stuff in so many cases now. Well DS is not like that and has no problems punishing you for your mistakes.

The combat is quite good, you need good timing to attack and defend yourself. Most enemies have only a few moves and you can learn them rather quickly to dispatch them and not get take any damage.

You have to play the game cautious, running around a corner? You're going to be punished, try and get an extra attack in? You're going to be punished! Going into somewhere you haven't been before or don't know very well, you better be slow and cautious. The WORST thing you can do in the Souls games is not take your time, you will be punished each and every single time if you don't. Oh, one more hit and the boss is dead, I can finish it right now! Boom!, YOU DIED!

Greed will take you nowhere in this game.



All that being said, it isn't a game for everyone as it requires much more from the player than your average game does nowadays. Not saying that in a negative way, but most games are so dumb downed we don't even realize it till a game comes along to make us actually use brains for more than the most basic of things.

All of this. If you don't have patience and observation skills then this game isn't for you.

BTW you passed the save point. It's the same you had before beating the boss.

 

[Red Hawk]

All of this. If you don't have patience and observation skills then this game isn't for you.

Putting it that way sounds condescending. I can have plenty of patience and observation skills; I just don't enjoy applying those skills in the way Dark Souls demands of me.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Something else you may not be aware of if you can get your souls back if you don't die before you get to where you previously died. Obviously where you died, migth be a bit of an issue (but I know it can be done as I had a similar occurance with the dragon).

 

[Grimbones]

Putting it that way sounds condescending. I can have plenty of patience and observation skills; I just don't enjoy applying those skills in the way Dark Souls demands of me.

I feel the same way, I also feel its fairly insulting to insinuate that i would not enjoy a "difficult game"--which is why i referenced Ninja Gaiden...very difficult, but also very rewarding and fun.

I find it extremely difficult to believe that most the people who played through dark souls got anywhere in the game without using a strategy guide, or looking up ways to circumvent a dangerous situation...

Basically that's cheating...especially if what you want is a tremendously stressful and strenuous experience.

Also, the game sets up many scenarios where you cannot really take your time ...i ran over a bridge because arrows were being shot at me, then i entered a narrow hallway with a blind turn and was attacking by a skeleton warrior guy from around the corner...Saying that i should take it slowly when i have literally nothing at my disposal other than a shield and a sword is kind of ridiculous.

The game gives you a litany of items and does not tell you what they do, or what you should do with them. There's a lot of trial and error. I hate trial and error games to be honest.

I loved Witcher 2, but there were a couple fights in that game that drove me bananas because it felt like there was only one certain way to beat a boss...this ENTIRE game is like that, and it punishes you.

Also, because this game has zero storyline at all, i got really bored and really tired of it really quickly.

Edit: Also, greed will get you nowhere in the game? That's a lie. First of all, i figured out i could just charge through to the boss by dual wielding my club and just lunge jumping at them...Also, the game bait's you into making mistakes....that's not greed, that's just exploration and progression, and the game beats the hell out of you for no reason.

If i was able to get past that dragon, which i probably could after dying another few times to figure out exactly what i needed to do, i knew there would be another obstacle waiting to castrate me around the corner for no good reason. Not fun, not even remotely. This game seems to revel in the players failure for pointless reasons.

 

[Digital Savior]

Dark Souls is actually not that difficult. It punishes mistakes brutally is all.

All of this. If you don't have patience and observation skills then this game isn't for you.

You guys are covering what applies to you. Brutally punishing mistakes is what makes it difficult. Being 'Perfect' is not easy.

Attuning 'skill' to patience and observation indeed implies difficulty. Not everyone shares the same skill or skill levels. What is easy for you can vary from the OP.

 

[Grimbones]

This video explains the game best:
Overrated?: Dark Souls

This game is kinda like call of duty with swords, since all you're doing is mindlessly hacking and slashing enemies without any meaningful purpose, and there's no feeling of diversity in the gameplay, you're just doing the same thing over and over. What I'm trying to say is, people who enjoy it aren't very sophisticated.

I basically agreed with the video for the most part. There are things that i disagree with, like having no map is fine, but that's about one of the only things i didn't understand.

I feel like people who enjoy it feel like they are somehow superior gamers because they like to be beaten over the head repeatedly and humiliated over and over.

I will say, i like call of duty, but it's a shooter, and its pretty straight forward. This game just blind sides you at every single opportunity and you die and you get to start over again.


Thanks for telling me about retrieving souls, but what's the point if you can just re-farm anything. All that's doing is saving you some time--problem is, the game didn't point that out, you did, and somebody probably told you that.

 

[Grimbones]

All of this. If you don't have patience and observation skills then this game isn't for you.

BTW you passed the save point. It's the same you had before beating the boss.

I have tons of patience, what i don't have patience for is being blind sided by deaths because of cruel game design...and then all your patient gameplay is just wiped away, and then you have to be patient again, and then get past that point, and then get blind sided again, and then have to be patient again, and then get past that point and get blind sided, and the cycle continues.

It's not patience, it's learning from "mistakes"...but the mistakes are typical progression in any other game in the world. There's almost never any warning either.

I'm not saying i won't give this game another chance, i'm saying there's very little value in the game for me if the trend continues, and it probably will. I just don't get what's fun about being humbled by something you cannot possibly have any knowledge of before you get there.

Care to explain that part of it? Or are you only good at being a smartass? Because i'm excellent at that also.

 

[Grimbones]

You guys are covering what applies to you. Brutally punishing mistakes is what makes it difficult. Being 'Perfect' is not easy.

Attuning 'skill' to patience and observation indeed implies difficulty. Not everyone shares the same skill or skill levels. What is easy for you can vary from the OP.

What i was doing was not a mistake, it was walking over a bridge toward some enemies, and getting hit by some unexpected flying crossfire. That happens constantly. How is trying to advance in the game a mistake? I wasn't even approaching the bridge overly aggressively, because there were 3 skeletons and i wanted to try to pull them one or two at a time.

If it was real life, i would just have said, you know what there's a giant flying dragon in this village, i think i'll go somewhere else, but becoming a hermit in the forest was not in the cards for this game, you either progress or you're wasting your time. When progression is punished brutally at every single corner, it gets tiresome.

It's just funny to me how people seem to condemn others for not enjoying being constantly punished. It'd be like getting a ticket every time you exceeded the speed limit, or accidentally drifted out of your lane on the highway. There's no way to avoid that stuff, it happens. It's part of life. Trying to move through a game to get to the next part is also part of gaming, and it's cruelly punished.

 

[zebrax2]

Different stroke for different folks

There is really no reason for us to justify this game for those that dislike/don't get it. It's just not for you. It's wrong to assume though that because you can't do it everyone else must be cheating.

 

[Grimbones]

Different stroke for different folks

There is really no reason for us to justify this game for those that dislike/don't get it. It's just not for you. It's wrong to assume though that because you can't do it everyone else must be cheating.

Why not justify it. I would justify any game that i loved every day of the week, constantly. It's wrong for you to assume that i "can't do it" also, it's more of a, don't want to do it, because i "don't see the point in it" type of thing. If i really wanted to dedicate my life to playing a game that i did not find rewarding, i could. I just don't.

 

[PowerYoga]

I wouldn't describe the game as difficult. It's punishing but in a very technical way. I don't understand why people handle the game like happy gilmore and don't bother trying to learn how to counter and to remember where stuff is. If you aren't observant then many many things in the game will pass by you or seem extremely difficult: which is the problem with today's gamers.

I thought the game was very difficult at first as well. Then I realized it's a very technical game that's full of things that require you to learn and adapt to, as well as have specific counters to. You can't god-of-war your way through the game. The only thing that comes at you without warning in this game are the near invisible cliffs: everything else has hints and various hints in the environment to warn you. Most people just don't pay attention to it and then scream "OMG SO CHEAP WTF" when there's a line of charred corpses or broken floors leading right up to the trap.

Once you get good at the game, the only thing that surprises you are new game mechanics which you will adapt to easily. Or you can just level up a few times and put some padding on your mistakes so it doesn't hurt so much.

 

[Falafil]

I basically agreed with the video for the most part. There are things that i disagree with, like having no map is fine, but that's about one of the only things i didn't understand.

I feel like people who enjoy it feel like they are somehow superior gamers because they like to be beaten over the head repeatedly and humiliated over and over.

I will say, i like call of duty, but it's a shooter, and its pretty straight forward. This game just blind sides you at every single opportunity and you die and you get to start over again.


Thanks for telling me about retrieving souls, but what's the point if you can just re-farm anything. All that's doing is saving you some time--problem is, the game didn't point that out, you did, and somebody probably told you that.

It's just one of those bandwagon effects.

Take the movie Inception, it had an enormous and relentless marketing campaign, you were told how it's targeted at the intellectuals, how "it's not a movie for everyone", and the goal of this was to convince simpletons that understanding the plot makes them intelligent, and that anyone who didn't like it was because he's too stupid to understand it. The result was everyone watching it saying it's a masterpiece to prove how smart they were, and they ignored the fact that the film had no character development, cohesive plot, or emotional engagement, it was just a heap of dull action sequences that drag on and on, and in between them pseudo-intellectual exposition that had no life to it.

Same thing with Dark Souls, it had a huge marketing campaign, with every major reviewer paid to praise it, or as IGN put it "Dark Souls will eat Skyrim's face". You were told how it's not "dumbed down" like most games, how it's for the hardcore gamers that can take a challenge unlike most of the "newbs and kiddies". Suddenly every thirteen year old wanted to to play it to prove he's some kind of manly gamer, and then he gets bragging rights for how he's elevated above dumbed down crowd. The result here was people ignoring the fact it's a boring and repetitive game that consists of nothing but an endless and pointless grind mixed with clunky controls.

 

[Grimbones]

I wouldn't describe the game as difficult. It's punishing but in a very technical way. I don't understand why people handle the game like happy gilmore and don't bother trying to learn how to counter and to remember where stuff is. If you aren't observant then many many things in the game will pass by you or seem extremely difficult: which is the problem with today's gamers.

I thought the game was very difficult at first as well. Then I realized it's a very technical game that's full of things that require you to learn and adapt to, as well as have specific counters to. You can't god-of-war your way through the game. The only thing that comes at you without warning in this game are the near invisible cliffs: everything else has hints and various hints in the environment to warn you. Most people just don't pay attention to it and then scream "OMG SO CHEAP WTF" when there's a line of charred corpses or broken floors leading right up to the trap.

Once you get good at the game, the only thing that surprises you are new game mechanics which you will adapt to easily. Or you can just level up a few times and put some padding on your mistakes so it doesn't hurt so much.

I'm beginning to think you guys are just in denial or completely blind to a number of very obvious design decisions that involve archers blasting you in the back when you are facing other people...Or have you needing to get into cover to avoid some damage, and then get jacked from the side where someone was hiding around the corner.

This game is not your child, you do not have to defend it so blindly. It's really actually quite embarrassing.

Most of you guys also tend to ignore my specific scenarios in your defense of the game also...just kind of generalizing about lack of skill and the fact that i must not have enough knowledge...as if knowledge would have somehow prevented a dragon from melting my face off, when the prior time i encountered him he did nothing at all. Stuff like that, specific scenarios...

Then you act as though you did not have trouble in those specific scenarios--and that bothers me more than the game itself. Holier than thou types. Keep preaching, though, whatever.

 

[Grimbones]

It's just one of those bandwagon effects.

Take the movie Inception, it had an enormous and relentless marketing campaign, you were told how it's targeted at the intellectuals, how "it's not a movie for everyone", and the goal of this was to convince simpletons that understanding the plot makes them intelligent, and that anyone who didn't like it was because he's too stupid to understand it. The result was everyone watching it saying it's a masterpiece to prove how smart they were, and they ignored the fact that the film had no character development, cohesive plot, or emotional engagement, it was just a heap of dull action sequences that drag on and on, and in between them pseudo-intellectual exposition that had no life to it.

Same thing with Dark Souls, it had a huge marketing campaign, with every major reviewer paid to praise it, or as IGN put it "Dark Souls will eat Skyrim's face". You were told how it's not "dumbed down" like most games, how it's for the hardcore gamers that can take a challenge unlike most of the "newbs and kiddies". Suddenly every thirteen year old wanted to to play it to prove he's some kind of manly gamer, and then he gets bragging rights for how he's elevated above dumbed down crowd. The result here was people ignoring the fact it's a boring and repetitive game that consists of nothing but an endless and pointless grind mixed with clunky controls.

I actually really loved Inception. I did not love Napolean Dynamite. I did not love District 9. I did not love No Country For Old Men..none of those movies i found novel, even though they were hopelessly glorified.

I do agree with your secondary points though. I have always considered myself a "gamer" and have done so basically my entire life, and when people preach to me about how all the games that come out now are dumbed down, and that i must be a moron because i cannot understand the conceptual genius of the game, i get angry. There's a very narrow slope between a game being tough and fun, and a game being boring and torturous. I would never play an MMO where a character i created had a chance to have permadeath for the exact same reason, not worth the anguish.

Original Everquest is one of my favorite MMO's of all time, it's not a kiddie MMO, strangely enough, i also loved WoW....I guess i just like what i like....

I do not understand the praise for Dark souls. It's a wretchedly horrible grind fest...thank you for at least responding, I feel like i am taking crazy pills when people cannot see faults with the game. I point out the clunky combat, they say the combat system is great...i give the name of a vastly suprerior combat system (Ninja gaiden) on a similarly difficult game, and it's ignored.

A friend really thought i would love the game, and i wanted to love the game, it had promises of being a good game, i even really loved the idea of starting out the game as "THE DEPRIVED", but then i got into the game and found that i was just basically going to be a crash test dummy, and i got bored.

It's not that i don't appreciate where it's coming from, it's that i see the writing on the wall, and I really don't want to subject myself to that sort of mental anguish. I have enough of that crap losing matches of Hearthstone.

 

[Grimbones]

I guess i just want to know, is this game high on your greatest games of all time list? Because that would explain a lot. I think i just don't like this game because there is no freedom to do basically anything....

I love games like Red Dead Redemption, any Elder Scrolls game, fallout 3....bioshock, WoW, Warcraft 3...etc....

Edit: I mean, as far as Dark Souls goes, i feel like i am just so far behind in the game and i've been playing it for 3 hours or so. Like i'm in some incredible hole and there's no way of climbing out of it.

 

[smackababy]

I guess i just want to know, is this game high on your greatest games of all time list? Because that would explain a lot. I think i just don't like this game because there is no freedom to do basically anything....

I love games like Red Dead Redemption, any Elder Scrolls game, fallout 3....bioshock, WoW, Warcraft 3...etc....

Edit: I mean, as far as Dark Souls goes, i feel like i am just so far behind in the game and i've been playing it for 3 hours or so. Like i'm in some incredible hole and there's no way of climbing out of it.

The secret to Dark Souls: dying means nothing. If you die, just use it as a learning experience as to why you died.


And the video posted about is pretty awful. "Oh, when I mash inputs I don't get what I want. I can't roll because I am running and jumping and that means the controls are bad."

 

[Grimbones]

The secret to Dark Souls: dying means nothing. If you die, just use it as a learning experience as to why you died.


And the video posted about is pretty awful. "Oh, when I mash inputs I don't get what I want. I can't roll because I am running and jumping and that means the controls are bad."

Dying means something to me. I'm 27, i have a full time job...time is money, time is valuable...I just gave it another shot, i found my body, got past the dragon, ran up some stairs, started slowly creeping my way toward something else, weakened the skeletons was in the process of killing off more skeletons before trying to kill some giant armored wolf creature, when some "dark spirit" got summoned into the game, and i apparently couldn't even do damage to it..so i ran around and ran up a tower and at the top of a tower was a gigantic armor clad warrior with an 8 foot long sword that knocked me down long enough for him to hit me with it again and kill me...fun stuff...fun fun stuff.

Please tell me what the valuable lesson was there? Don't run from enemies you can't kill? find a way to kill them? Face the giant mob with his 7 skeletal minions head on? Don't pussy foot around, and when you die with 8600 souls on you, don't die near a giant sworld wielding guy so you can lose them all?

Basically i just wasted another 30 minutes of my life...

 

[Daverino]

There's a difference between 'I didn't like it' and 'overrated.'

I didn't like it means it didn't suit your taste. Fine.

Overrated means that, for what it is, there are better things out there relative to how well people think it is.

If you think of DS as overrated, you need to go out and find an example of a game that does the same thing, but better. And show that that example is considered to be critically worse than DS. I do not think there's an example out there, so DS is not overrated. You can still not LIKE DS, and that's cool.

 

[TheSlamma]

Why not justify it. I would justify any game that i loved every day of the week, constantly. It's wrong for you to assume that i "can't do it" also, it's more of a, don't want to do it, because i "don't see the point in it" type of thing. If i really wanted to dedicate my life to playing a game that i did not find rewarding, i could. I just don't.

lol, dedicating your life to it?

I have 82 hours total in the game and I got every achievement the game has. That means I beat it twice back when I played it and I'm not that good of a gamer.

Maybe you just need to stick to plants vs zombies or something of similar difficulty? Sorry but DS just ain't THAT hard.

 

[TheSlamma]

This video explains the game best:
Overrated?: Dark Souls

This game is kinda like call of duty with swords, since all you're doing is mindlessly hacking and slashing enemies without any meaningful purpose, and there's no feeling of diversity in the gameplay, you're just doing the same thing over and over. What I'm trying to say is, people who enjoy it aren't very sophisticated.

it sold 2.4 million copies world wide total

COD made ONE BILLION DOLLARS IN ONE DAY

That author and yourself might want to rethink what 'overrated' means.

 

[Grimbones]

it sold 2.4 million copies world wide total

COD made ONE BILLION DOLLARS IN ONE DAY

That author and yourself might want to rethink what 'overrated' means.

It's people like you that i hate, arrogant, completely in love with themselves. I never claimed the game was overrated. Never. I said it was not fun. Not fun at all. Gaming skill is irrelevant when it's a game about learning from your mistakes. It's a game about enduring countless deaths. If that's fun, more power to you. To me, that's not fun. Nor is it something i plan to waste anymore time on...so at this point, continue to post if you wish, I really could care less. Just not worth the torture...

Also, i did name a similar game. Ninja Gaiden, people keep ignoring that though, so whatever.