Demon Souls / Dark Souls

[Chindie]

I picked up the remaster.

I've completely forgotten how to play Dark Souls 

I blasted through to the gargoyles, playing more aggressively than I ever played originally, thanks to Bloodborne I think, but getting to the gargoyles I'm literally struggling more than I ever did playing this the first time around.

I've somehow got worse at the series despite playing more recent titles much more successfully.

[jacketspuds]

Playing the remastered actually reminded me of how much I loved the first Dark Souls. If anything, bizarrely I think that DS3 is my least favourite. It's very close though between that and SOTFS and it might be swayed by the fact that DS2 was the first one i played.

[Chindie]

I've now blasted through the Gargoyles, Butterfly, Capra (first time kill!) and Gaping Dragon.

I'm now at the point that, every other time I've played the game, it did my head in. Blighttown.

[penguin]

Blighttown was horrendous mostly for the frame rate drops though, I assume this has been fixed in the remaster?

I am tempted to pick it up, just as an excuse to play it again if anything.

[Daweii]

8 minutes ago, penguin said:

Blighttown was horrendous mostly for the frame rate drops though, I assume this has been fixed in the remaster?

I am tempted to pick it up, just as an excuse to play it again if anything.

Blighttown has been fixed in the remaster. 

[Chindie]

Blighttown done.

My problem with that area every other time I played the game was the horrendous performance coupled to the further increase in the difficulty/annoyance of the enemies. You had an entire area where the difficulty bumped up again, but also an area where the frame rate was near unplayable.

So with the remaster, the performance problem is gone. Totally. And as a result I didn't have any issues getting through it. It's still an annoying area - lots of narrow walkways, convoluted path down that's half hidden and full of dead ends, and most of the enemies in it are irritating in some way, be that poison dart snipers in the darkness that you can't see easily, brutes with big health bars, poison effect attacks and knock backs or little hard to hit dogs that breathe fire.

But without the absolutely dire performance, it's fine.

Took Quelaag down at the first attempt.

Then promptly died to Ceaseless Discharge (oooer).

[Chindie]

Sif and Iron Golem down. Sif the hardest fight so far I think, mostly due to the double spin attack being able to wipe me out. Eventually got my eye in and nailed it though.

Iron Golem I should have beaten first time out. I had clocked the tells and so on pretty much instantly, and had whittled him down to the point he was perhaps 1 or 2 attack strings from being beaten. Then he did that grab move. That move might be the most bullshit thing I've seen in a Souls game. The hit box on it is just bollocks. It gets you miles away from where it realistically should be able to. In this case it somehow managed to grab me when I was stood behind its right leg. I got it on the second try, where bizarrely I had 3 grabs miss me when they absolutely should have got be each time.

On to Anor Londo...

[Chindie]

Prescilla, Ornstein and Smough, Seath and Nito down.

Anor Londo wasn't too bad. O&S was a difficult fight, took about 6 attempts (would have been less I think but I had 2 runs where I lost connection right in the middle of the second phase). Mostly about patience really - I just kited them on circuits of the arena and tried to land hits on Ornstein when I could. Second phase was just hit and run.

Nito wasn't too hard either, got him in the second try after the first was **** by a glitch - I was somehow knocked behind some scenery that I couldn't get out of and just had to let him kill me. On the other hand, Tomb of the Giants can go **** itself.

Seath went down at the first attempt, I just pumped arrows into him. Getting to the fight is more difficult than the fight itself.

Hoping to have the lot done by the weekend. Quite enjoyed it so far.

[Chindie]

Steay Demon, Four Kings, Ceaseless Discharge, Fire Sage demon, Centipede Demon and Bed of Chaos down. 

Four Kings was easy. Seems to just be a DPS challenge, and gives you ages to heal as and when.

Ceaseless Discharge was done on the second attempt (actually third, including the earlier time I aggroed him). Again just managed to hit so hard he just went down.

Both the demons went at the first attempt, the fire age not even landing a hit. The uchigatana tears through them.

Same for Centipede Demon. Biggest issue there was actually landing hits on it, once you do hit it you batter it.

But then there is Bed of Chaos. That fight is bullshit. In theory it's piss easy. 3 hits and it's dead. Unfortunately, it's completely random as far as I can tell as to whether you beat it. That final run, I was swept aside 5 or 6 times until I got lucky. There's not even a pattern. I have to say I fluked it. Got the lucky run. One of the worst boss fights I've ever done.

Onto the DLC...

[Chindie]

Sanctuary Guardian, Artorias and Kalameet down.

Guardian took 3 attempts. I was doing great damage but also taking hits, the lightning attacks I kept being clipped by and then I started messing up the timing on the wind attack that was just finishing me off. Finally got a lucky run.

Artorias also took 3. I expected this to be harder really. Again was doing great damage, but got hit while healing a couple of times that did me in. The victorious run was near perfect - he caught me once on the tail end of his forward charge. I kinda felt like this was one I got the pattern of instantly, and became a fight where you gambled when healing was safe when he was at distance. Get it right and you heal when you like, get it wrong and he punishes hard.

Kalameet was 4 attempts. Again was doing heavy damage, again I managed to clock the pattern quickly. The issue here was his long straight fire attack. Each death came from it. He actually started the third fight with it and completely **** me, in the final run he didn't really use it and I managed to dodge well and got a good run with the attacks he used, repeatedly doing the slow fire sweep that's easy to dodge and otherwise mostly doing his physical attacks. 

Manus to go, then on to Gwyn. I'm expecting Manus to give me trouble. From what I know he's hyper aggressive and doesn't give you much leeway, which is exactly the kind of fight I dislike in the series. But we'll see. Either way, I'm finishing Dark Souls at last.

[Chindie]

And done.

Manus was easier than expected and went down on the second attempt. I would have had him at the first go but 2 hits from death he did his mass magic attack when I was right on him and had no chance. Second time around no real trouble, I was able to withstand his physical attacks bar the overheads and then it was just hit and block.

Gwyn I also nearly got in the first go. I managed to fluke 3 parries on the trot and was picking him off as well with hits between his swings, but again at the death he did his grab attack and followed that with the leaping strike as I got up before the shield was raised. Second time I only got 1 parry in but reverted to really strict hit and run tactics and took him down with only a couple of wobbles.

I was also going through a few of the trophies and got nearly all of the weapon upgrade ones, only a couple that I couldn't do as I couldn't get the necessary upgrades in the playthrough that I could see. I'm tempted to try to platinum it, my only concern being getting the few tail weapons I missed. Otherwise I reckon it's doable.

Great game all in all though, now that it consistently works. I'm glad to have finished it finally.

[Chindie]

Platinumed.

It's remarkable how fast you blast through the second run. The difficulty seems to come from ramping up the enemies' damage, which basically means you absolutely fly through the early game and you know exactly what beats to hit. It also means though, in the late game, it gets significantly harder as your power level doesn't boost as fast as the enemies does the game goes on. It's a nice balance.

I struggled a bit more on a couple of bosses, notably Gwyn, who when I finally did best him again I did with the party method which was satisfying.

All in all an incredible game.

[Chindie]

I was given Dark Souls 2 for Christmas.

I dunno what it is, but it just isn't as good as any of the others in the Soulsborne series. I know it was made without Miyazaki, but even so it's just... Ugh. It doesn't feel as good, it doesn't look as good, it doesn't have the great art design, it doesn't have the atmosphere, it doesn't have that cohesive feel... It feels like a cheap knock-off.

Saying that it's still not a bad game, but it's just so far from the series at it's best it's bizarre.

[Czechlad]

Yea dark souls 2 was filler because Miyazaki was making bloodborne, and Fromsoft wanted something to hold the dark souls crowd over. 

It's not a bad game by any means. In terms of pvp, it was the best imo. It had the widest variation of weapons and spells you could use. Plus with all the dlc, the world is massive. I'd still recommend playing ds2. I had fun with it. 

[Chindie]

I'm enjoying playing it but not like I enjoyed any of the others. There's just a myriad of issues with it that kill in a death by a thousand cuts style.

The biggest issue is the hit boxes. For a series so reliant on little margins, where a fraction of a second is the difference between being nailed by a game ending strike and a battle winning opening, it's really irritating to clearly dodge an attack and have the game literally warp your character to an attack animation that clearly missed you by miles, or have you take damage from something that was literally nowhere near you. I fought the Rotten the other day, I dodged it's grab attack to the extent I was actually to its left and behind it's arm, it's arm having missed me by miles. I was warped into it's grab animation regardless. Which is bullshit.

The design of everything is a bit... amateur I guess? The first game has excellent art design, even where it went into the goofier stuff it still looks good and well thought through, almost universally. Whereas here... It too often verges from astoundingly generic, to just a bit crap. The world feels too disjointed as well. The other games manage to feel fluid, even where you clearly move from one type of area to another it feels like a real world, with mostly natural transitions. Even where there are hard cuts, things like the drop below Firelink Shrine, it makes some sense in this world. In 2, there's hard cuts everywhere, obvious 'hidden' load points etc. And a lot of it just isn't as nicely thought out as the first game. It's also surprisingly ugly.

The difficulty feels off as well. Obviously the series is hard, it what's made the game's name, but here the difficulty feels cheap. So many levels are just littered with enemies that force you to either fight multiple enemies at a time over and over, or force you to situations where you face enemies and projectiles. Areas like Black Gulch just suck, in a way that feels really cheap with the ridiculous poison statues. This extends to bosses as well. The solution to making the bosses difficult is either multiple enemies (cos Ornstein and Smough was awesome, right guys?! Yeah it was. But that was well designed, and unusual) or have enemies that hit obscenely hard with ludicrous hit boxes and dumb timings. Something like the Smelter Demon is just silly. I'm not ashamed to admit I died to that boss more than any I have died to in any of these games. I was killed by it more times than Mariah got me in Bloodborne. When I beat it felt like I fluked it. No matter what I did, changing load out, changing approach, I would get hit by some ridiculous hit box. I would dodge his stab attack one time and have it completely miss, another, with same timing and positioning, he gets me. I would dodge under a swipe with ease 10 times, a then get nailed somehow despite noting changing. At least with Mariah the difficulty mostly came from the fact she was hyper aggressive, fast and had awkward attack strings (until the fire phase, which is bullshit). Smelter on the other hand, has 4 attacks, they are fairly slow and basic, but it hits ridiculously hard, has broken hit boxes, mixes up timing on those hit boxes at random, and has a constant damage aura of you get near him. That's just dumb. It's hard in a really cheap way.

Saying all this I've still enjoyed it. The games have that appeal few others have. But it's clearly the black sheep of the family. The one failed it's GCSEs.

[Daweii]

54 minutes ago, Chindie said:

The biggest issue is the hit boxes. For a series so reliant on little margins, where a fraction of a second is the difference between being nailed by a game ending strike and a battle winning opening, it's really irritating to clearly dodge an attack and have the game literally warp your character to an attack animation that clearly missed you by miles, or have you take damage from something that was literally nowhere near you. I fought the Rotten the other day, I dodged it's grab attack to the extent I was actually to its left and behind it's arm, it's arm having missed me by miles. I was warped into it's grab animation regardless. Which is bullshit.

Are you levelling up Adaptability? 

Dark Souls 2 tried something new and that is Adaptability. This stat raises several things, but the most important one is Agility, and Agility grants the player a greater number of invincibility frames. 

Unlike other Soulsborne games you don't have a set number of iFrames, infact you actually start with way less iFrames than normal. So if you're getting hit while rolling it's likely because your Adaptability stat is low. 

[Chindie]

15 minutes ago, Daweii said:

Are you levelling up Adaptability? 

Dark Souls 2 tried something new and that is Adaptability. This stat raises several things, but the most important one is Agility, and Agility grants the player a greater number of invincibility frames. 

Unlike other Soulsborne games you don't have a set number of iFrames, infact you actually start with way less iFrames than normal. So if you're getting hit while rolling it's likely because your Adaptability stat is low. 

Yes, I'm about 15 adaptability. It doesn't seem to make much difference.

The hit box thing is so bad I've actually changed the way I play. I'm tanking with a great shield, something I've never done in the series.

[Daweii]

15 Adaptability won't make much difference. 

105 Agility which you get at around 30-35 Adaptability gives you 13 iFrames which is the same amount as a Dark Souls 1 fast roll. 

That said the best option is likely to adapt yourself and play differently. Adaptability was an interesting experiment, but ultimately a failed one that will likely never appear in another Soulsborne game (assuming they make another).

[jacketspuds]

Play as a hexer build. Apart from a couple of bosses it is a really good setup for DS2. I also find using a Rapier makes the game much easier as well.

I really enjoyed DS2, and subsequently SOTFS, but probably because this was the first one I played in the series and it got me hooked to FROM games.

[Chindie]

I've played every game as a melee character. Never really got the magic (though frankly never looked into it - the extent of my using magic in the hands was collecting all the spells for the platinum on the remaster).

If I ever replay 3 I might try that as a mage.