Souls reviews and discussions

S

Seattleite

Well-known member
It's no secret that I LOVE this series. Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne... All of these games I absolutely adore from start to finish and there's no series I'd rather be spending my time on, 90% of the time. While I'm entirely inclined to just sit around gushing about how much I love these games, though, that's not entirely productive. Any of you that have played through the games, I'm interested in your reviews. Full reviews, of course, are my preference. The positives, the negatives, the neutrals, anything of interest. But I'd be happy with trivia, questions, one-paragraph opinions... I'm not going to hide it, I just want to talk about these games, and I'll take whatever I can get.

Seriously, let's talk Souls.

 
Well I never really touched the series until I played Bloodeborne which I loved so much I beat it 4 times before returning to any other series. I ended up picking up the first Dark Souls from the steam sale and the first thing I noticed was it felt much easier due to it's slower pace. I haven't played very far at all (only a little passed the Asylum Demon) so I expect that to change but I'm so far liking it.

 
Well, the older Souls games *do* have a slower pace... Can't say if they're actually easier since I don't have a PS4 and haven't played Bloodborne. They tend to focus on complexity in their encounters rather than speed, and it will get hard later on. But here's a few notes, since you're coming from Bloodborne:

1. The parry works like Bloodborne's gun, except that it's usable less often and if you fail you're eating that attack you were going to deflect. But on the bright side, the window is also larger.

2. You don't regain your health by hitting enemies right after being hit, you have to use your Estus, heal miracle, Humanity or Divine Blessing to regain health.

3. You can block a lot of things that don't look blockable.

4. Your armour works totally differently. In DS2 and Bloodborne, the armour reduces enemy damage by 10+0.1*Defence%. So 50 defence means you take 85% damage, 100 defence, 80% damage and 200 defence, 70% damage. In Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, they use a vastly superior system (in my opinion... hate percentage resistances) where damage is just divided by 0.01*Defence. So 50 defence, 200% damage, 100 defence, 100% damage and 200 defence, 50% damage. It also provides a stat called "poise", allowing you to take small amounts of damage without being staggered or stunned.

5. If you don't need points in your primary stat, don't forget that points in vitality and endurance are never wasted, but points in resistance are always wasted.

6. Never turn off the music, it's got the best music in the franchise.

7. KILL THE DOGS FIRST.

 
Well for me the easier part comes from having more time to gauge and react to enemy actions due to the slower pace. Bloodborne was very see-it-and-react-fast-or-take-the-hit. I'm still trying to figure out the Estus refill thing since not all camp fires seem to fill them.

KILL THE DOGS FIRST.
Click to expand...
lol that didn't change from bloodborne I see XD

Thanks for all the other tips though. Especially about the armor and the stats. One of my biggest problem with games like these is constantly worrying about what my stats will do in the long run and it helps to not go in completely blind.

Bloodbornes armor almost didn't make much of a difference. I did a few quick tests and took a hit for the same enemy both with my best armor and no armor and the health bar took only about a centimeter more off. And for stats, after about 50, both vitality and endurance seemed to lose their immediate benefits. Whether that's part of the diminishing returns on the attribute itself, due to my level being over 100, or some combination of both I can't say. I really should look into that some more.

 
All bonfires restore Estus. Most restore to 5, but any attended by a fire keeper (IE: Firelink Shrine) restore to 10. Also, the thing that says "kindle" at a bonfire means "make this bonfire also restore to 10", and is a good investment if an area is kicking your ass. Also, there's a soft cap of 40 on all stats. It still provides benefits, just reduced.

And yeah, Bloodborne's best armour provides, like, 400 defence. That means it only cuts damage in half. Now, half damage is good but... That's the best in the entire game. It should be a LOT more than that. Here, it's only about 400 as well, but that's 1/4 damage, you take WAY more than 1x damage without your armour on and you can totally take 20% damage or less without even having to go all munchkin on it. So the armour really, really matters. (Improving it, less so. Improve weapons, then armour. And never improve shields unless they take twinkling titanite.)

 
I have a lot to say about all 4 games, but really the best way to sum up my thoughts is to say that, while it does have the best souls-style gameplay of the three, Dark Souls 2 feels the weakest of the three souls games so far (not counting bloodborne because I don't count that as a souls game). It has a story that feels like fanfiction from the first (let's blame all the weirdness on Aldia and Seath again), the bosses are boring and repetitive (how many times did we need to fight Smelter, Dragon Rider, Nashandra, and giant wolf/tiger bosses?), and the Emerald Herald felt like a forced recall to the Maiden in Black from Demon's. Oh, let's not even get started on rebalances. So much senesless rebalancing. The story was only interesting when it was referencing something from Dark 1, like Manus, Seath, or Artorias. I'm just glad that the weapon upgrade system is starting to make sense, albeit a lot of the upgrade paths suffer more severely from the same issues it had in Dark 1, mainly being the utility of weapon effects in combat.

Here's to hoping Dark 3 does something amazing, otherwise I'll be hoping to see the "spiritual" sequel to bloodborne that goes multiplat.

 
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