#i never finished the DS3 DLCs either so might go back to those at some point

[james-stark-the-writer]

playing the original Dark Souls 2 again (not Scholar) for the first time in forever, the hormones slider in advanced character creation always kills me. Dark Souls 2 was saying trans rights before any other game in the series.

[mattgambler]

My thoughts on Sekiro - Shadows Die Twice

TLDR: I talk about what I liked and disliked about Sekiro and why it in my eyes is probably* the best game From Software has released to date. Which means I also compare it to Dark Souls a lot.

*I havent played Demon Souls or Bloodborne, so I cant really talk about those. As someone who played through all three Dark Souls games as well as several other soulslikes on stream, I always stood by the unpopular opinion that Dark Souls 1 is a good game, but also a vastly overrated one - with one of the most unbearable fanbases out there, right up there with Undertale, albeit for very different reasons. My opinion is of course strongly coloured by my interactions with diehard fans of Dark Souls, both on stream as well as everywhere else on the Internet, but at the end of the day I never hated Dark Souls. I wouldnt have played through all three games otherwise. I *did* hate smaller aspects, like the fact that I ended up entering the tomb of the giants without ever finding a lantern and therefore  being forced to crawl through that place in near complete darkness until I found the emergency lantern in there, simply because I was unlucky enough to have none of the necromancers drop one for me. Or how the curse mechanic in the sewers got me trapped in a place that i already struggled with, but now with only 50% of my original HP. Or the entire “Git Gud” mentality that is so grossly abused to defend poor game design that the travesty that is camera control in the Ornstein and Smough fight looks like a piece of art in comparison. Onionbro and Solaire would weep if they knew. There were other things that I didnt enjoy, like what the Souls games count as a story, but I have an easier time pinning that down as personal preference and something that just isnt for me. Vaatividya makes good videos. The tomb of the giants without a lantern however, that just shouldnt exist in any game, not to mention a game that is glorified to such an extent that it could get its dick sucked every day by a different dude without running out for centuries. Can you taste that sweaty salt yet? Along comes Sekiro, a game by the same dev studio, with the same feel, minus many of the things that I have hated and criticized for several years now. Guess what, I like it.    This isnt a review, Im not trying to tell you if you should buy, Im not telling you that there are no microtransactions in the game or what framerate it isnt capped at. There are tons of videos online that jump-attacked all over that on day 1 of release or earlier. Im telling you why, in my opinion, this game is so vastly superior to Dark Souls that it simply warms my heart. Let me start a list and then never finish it: - You can swim - You can jump - You can talk - You dont immediately die when you fall off a cliff - You cant accidentally walk over a cliff like a moron, at least most of the time. - You can’t simply rely on dodgerolls and invincibility frames all the time - You can understand the story without having to go to Youtube to have it explained to you by someone - You can’t kill strong enemies simply by chain parrying them over and over, or at least it is hell of a lot harder - You can’t simply kill strong enemies by knocking them off a cliff (I think) - You can’t abuse magic for an immediate easy mode - You can’t abuse coop for an immediate easy mode

... I’m getting a little unfair here, I know. I actually think coop is a cool feature, even though I personally never used it and even the multiplayer pvp invasions are an original and interesting concept, although I’m not personally into it. Magic is cool too, although poorly balanced and therefore in my opinion less interesting. The reason I added those last two points to my unfinished list is not because I dislike them, but because of the lately relevant “does Sekiro need an easy mode” controversy. Especially the most elitist diehard fans of the souls franchise strongly disagree with the addition of an easy mode, which is funny... ... given that Dark Souls 1 has several. Personally I dont think Sekiro NEEDS an easy mode, but it sure wouldnt hurt anyone. I personally wouldnt have minded playing on a lower difficulty, I had three or four bosses greatly overstay their welcome before I finally managed to smash their asslike faces in. ...but Im rambling. On a surface level, just looking at the feel of combat, movement and overall story coherence Sekiro is already miles ahead, but I can understand that it therefore feels less like a Souls game and that not everyone will like that. I can understand and respect that. DarkSouls 1, as well as 2 and maybe even 3, have a couple of features that I greatly appreciate and that partly even surpass Sekiro in my otherwise overly critical eyes. Dark Souls 1 has the best and most memorable map in my opinion. Dark Souls 2 has incredible DLCs, especially Frozen Eleum Loyce was awesome and beautiful, with the minor exception of that retarded snow zebra area and how you would respawn *before* the loading screen to get there again instead of after. I also liked the Pursuers concept a lot, as well as the idea of despawning mobs if you killed them often enough. I dont remember much about DS3, it was okay as far as Im concerned but I enjoyed it the least out of the three, probably because of burnout as I had played through all three (blind) in a row. Im mentioning all of this because I want to clarify that in my eyes Sekiro is not THE TIMELESS MASTERPIECE NOBODY WILL EVER SURPASS that Darksouls 1 is often celebrated as. But in many ways it is headed in a direction that makes more sense to me than “if you are not enjoying it then you are doing it wrong and you should maybe think for once”. (Not that Sekiro streamers werent told exactly that just the same) Let me tell you, there were many instances in Sekiro where I also didnt think, didnt consider every possible option the game had given me, honestly Im pretty sure I sucked most of the time, in the eyes of your usual GITGUD-Bro. But I struggled, I improved, I succeded, and I had a way better time during it all, even though I did the same shit in the Souls games as well. Just without falling off edges in waist-high water every 10 minutes, or being invaded by some bowing edgelord, or losing 50% of my max hp as punishment for dying to the wrong enemy. There is this myth going around online that Dark Souls might be a harsh mistress, but at least a fair one. The one spreading that rumour must have been the Bed of Chaos herself, because that is nothing but horseshit. Sekiro isnt exactly fair all the time either, there are many moments in the game that feel all too familiar in their GOTCHA nature. Like how the game conveniently places the key to one of the hardest areas of the early game in your path so you go check it out just to get crucified there by Lady Butterfly and a special drunkard, just for you to learn after finally breaking both of them that you would have had a way easier time if you had simply ignored that area and soldiered on on your original path. Sure, one could have simply abandoned that area and returned later, but how many of you did? I sure didnt. The game likes to oneshot-kill you if you fail to dodge the wrong attack, be it a giant carp, a giant snake, or a giant TERROR man. Even worse, in Sekiro you cant even get your souls back! You die, you lose 50%. ALso 50% of your cash. Suck it. Im not particularly happy about that myself and Im not sure what the motivation behind that design decision was, but you take the good with the bad, right? Another thing that Sekiro does that I dont understand is how the game has you collect loot. Every time you kill an enemy you need to hold a button to collect. You can kill several in an area and then grab everything at once if they arent too far apart, but at the end of the day it eludes me why From Software didnt simply go for autocollecting instead. It’s not a big deal (even though I would forget about picking up loot every now and then) but at the same time it isnt adding any enjoyment to the game either, no matter how hard I try and emphasize with whatever a gamer who likes this might possibly think. It is not hard, its is not really relevant,  and I cant think of a single advantage it has over autocollecting. Maybe holding that button is supposed to feel rewarding? I consider it meaningless at best and tedious busywork at worst. At the same time the game introduces a stealth system that actually means something, while at the same time keeping it both well integrated as well as completely optional. Im truly impressed by how that is even possible. I also like the immortality mechanic, that results in you only truly dying if you go down twice, and even refreshes that revive if you kill enough enemies inbetween deaths. It doesnt help that much, as it doesnt refill your estus fl.... healing gourds, but it allows for a little bit more practice against tough enemies before you die, a little bit more lenience while exploring in an area where it is easy to fall, a little bit more standing power in a world where a giant carp can simply eat you. I appreciate it and it is far from making the game anything close to easy. Its more like an extra gourding flask. I could keep going and praise this (surprisingly satisfying enemy style and variety given the setting) or criticize that (less replayability because of fewer possible weapons and builds), but at the end of the day my opinion is crystalclear - Sekiro is stunningly beautiful, very enjoyable, hard as fuck, and while I have heard people say that “it is not a true soulslike”, I have to shrug and agree. It is better.

[fume-knight-of-shovelry]

Thoughts on Dark Souls 3

(Note: I made this right after I finished the base game back in April. I just wanted to clean this up and get it published while going through my drafts. This only applies to the base game.)

All right, first off, I’m going to clarify that I love Dark Souls 3 and have not played Dark Souls 1 (was too young when it came out to play an M-rated game).

That being said, Dark Souls 3 has some serious issues. I know Fromsoft will never see this, and in all honesty most companies should ignore everything on tumblr (otherwise BioWare’s future games would be awful, awful, awful and Overwatch would be doomed). I still wanted to verbalize this, though.

1: The Bosses

I cannot be the only person who thinks that, ironically, Dark Souls 3 has more “Armored Knight” bosses than Dark Souls 2.

I mean, if we compare the bosses, there are 32 in Dark Souls 2.

The following could count as “Dudes in Armor”:

The Pursuer

The Looking Glass Knight

The Ruin Sentinels

The Old Dragonslayer

Velstadt, the Royal Aegis (who is awesome)

Vendrick (who’s naked, so maybe it doesn’t count?)

The Dragonriders/The Twin Dragonriders (counting these as two bosses)

Throne Watcher and Throne Defender

The Gank Squad (okay, only two of them are in armor, but we’ll just count these guys/girls/whatever)

Sir Alonne (who is awesome)

Fume Knight (who is super awesome)

Burnt Ivory King 

So that’s...thirteen bosses out of 32, twelve if we exclude Vendrick. Of the 23 bosses in the vanilla game, 10 of them are dudes in armor (9 if you exclude Vendrick).

Let’s compare that to Dark Souls 3. Of the 19 bosses, the following could be counted as “Dudes in Armor”:

Iudex Gundyr (or, at least, his first phase)

Vordt of the Boreal Valley (he’s got the behavior of an animal, but still counts)

The Abyss Watchers

Pontiff Sulyvahn (who is a great boss)

Dancer of the Boreal Valley

Champion Gundyr

Lorian, Elder Prince, and Lothric, Younger Prince (okay, only one of them is in armor and the boss is badass, but c’mon, they count)

Nameless King (phase 2)

Soul of Cinder

So, that’s 9 out of 19.

So 47% of the Dark Souls 3 bosses are armored knights, while 37% of the Dark Souls 2 bosses are (counting the DLC and excluding Vendrick: it’s 40% if we count the base game without Vendrick). So, percentage wise, I’m mostly splitting hairs since the difference doesn’t seem substantial (although 10% is nothing to ignore, so we’ll have to wait and see how the DS3 DLC shapes up).

While the overall quality of the non-knight bosses in Dark Souls 3 is better compared to those in Dark Souls 2 (Prowling Magus, Blue Smelter, and Royal Rat Vanguard, I’m looking at you), I still feel a bit disappointed in the buildup to the bosses in DS3. Plus, there aren’t all that many optional bosses, and, except the entirety of the Archdragon Peak area, most of these optional bosses aren’t well-hidden.

Remember exploring the now-unlocked areas in the Lost Bastille and coming across the Gargoyles and the Bellkeeper covenant, or finding the Darklurker at the end of the Pilgrim questline? There aren’t too any bosses like that in DS3. The DLC might fix this, though.

The Lords of Cinder are quite good, but two exceptions stand out; Yhorm and Aldrich. While Yhorm’s fight is a love letter to a Demon’s Souls boss, it still feels like it embodies a critical flaw in the game; sacrificing interesting or innovative ideas on the altar of nostalgia. Aldrich is appropriately horrifying and a gut-punch to DS1 players, but after the initial shock, goes down without too much trouble. On the other hand, the Soul of Cinder is an epic love letter to Dark Souls 1 and 2, and many of the other bosses are excellent additions to the Souls boss repertoire, there are still plenty of disappointments (Deacons of the Deep, Crystal Sage, Ancient Wyvern, and the Greatwood [arguably]).

So, in conclusion, while the bosses are excellent, I hope the DLCs do a bit more to hide the optional ones, increase the number of optional ones, and diversify the boss lineup.

2: The PVP

I’ll be careful about blanket statements, but the PVP seems to have overall been received much more poorly in Dark Souls 3 compared to Dark Souls 2. Part of this is flaws in the covenant design, but a lot of it is the core design choices of this game and how they differ from before.

Let’s start with the positives. The absence of Soul Memory is an obvious plus, making it much easier to find appropriately-leveled and geared friends and enemies. The online connectivity is the best it’s ever been, with fewer instances of game-based lag, and generally smooth hitboxes even for notoriously problematic weapon classes. Covenants once again offer a place for players to carve themselves out in the world, and the differences between some of them lead to far more creative gameplay then we’ve ever seen before. Increasing the number of possible players in a world leads to even more chaotic brawls.

Unfortunately, there are a slew of negatives to go along with this.

For one, you can no longer be invaded in areas where you have cleared a boss; while I can understand the desire to make an area permanently “safer”, this means that end-game players are left in the lurch for areas to PVP in.

[NOTE: As of the original time of writing this, the arenas were not yet announced. With the presence of arenas, this issue has been largely addressed.]

All weapons in a weapon class have identical movesets. This makes it more fair when it comes to predicting possible attacks and helps unify weapon balance, but robs the ability of some weapons to stand out based on their specific moveset (Santier’s Spear, anyone?), meaning that good weapons are determined by stats alone and there are far fewer viable options.

On that note, Whips, Scythes, and Lances are essentially nonexistent or so poor as to be unviable choices (with the lone exception of Friede’s Great Scythe). Gone are the days when dual bleed whips were a viable strategies and the Grand Lance’s running attack was the terror of tight corridors.

And now, we come to poise. Whoo boy, poise. “Working as intended” memes aside, poise is a difficult issue to pin down. Making it too strong leads to the death of fast weapon builds and the overabundance of tanks. Unfortunately, the opposite occurred, and for a long time after launch, fast straight swords (Estoc and Dark Sword spam) ruled the meta, and running heavy armor was essentially worthless. The situation hasn’t been fixed, but people have adapted a bit.

Lastly, we need to address the covenants, which are the worst they’ve ever been. Never mind that some of the rewards are worthless or poorly placed (Mound-Makers get Warmth? Really?). For weeks after launch, auto-summon covenants (Blue Sentinels/Blades of the Darkmoon and the Watchdogs of Farron) weren’t working at all, making levelling up in these covenants a near impossibility. The Blue Sentinels/Blades of the Darkmoon were hit particularly hard by this, given that there are no rewards for joining the Way of the Blue and thus people didn’t have much incentive to equip it, further killing the chances for “Bluebros” to get summoned.

Perhaps in anticipation of this, much like how covenant spells were available in NG++ from Chancellor Wellager in Dark Souls 2, some enemies drop covenant items. While they shouldn’t drop regularly enough to disincentivize online play, the drop rate for some items is inexcusable. I never want to see another Silver Knight again; far too many hours were wasted hunting for Proofs of a Concord Kept, and it’s only marginally better for Wolf’s Blood Swordgrass and Pale Tongues.

That being said, the positive from above are worth noting, and being able to swap covenants instantly and keep progress is a welcome and overdue boon.

3: The Levels

I’ll preface this by pointing out that the levels in Dark Souls 3, mostly, are vast, interconnected webs with shortcuts, interesting navigational tricks, and clear connections to other areas. From the tower in Farron Keep, for example, you can see the Undead Settlement, the High Wall of Lothric and Lothric Castle, the Cathedral of the Deep, and (maybe) Irithyll of the Boreal Valley. The areas make good use of verticality and looping-back to feed into a growing sense of comfort with the ins and outs of a place of exploration.This is all fantastic.

However, in terms of the sheer variety, Dark Souls 3 feels like it drops the ball. A few too many areas have the ambiance of a cathedral (sections that stand out in particular include parts of the High Wall of Lothric and the entirety of the Cathedral of the Deep, excluding the graveyard portion), to the extent that once you get to areas like Lothric Castle, I was a little sick of grand arches and choir chambers. Plus, almost every area you visit has already been colonized, inhabited, or otherwise has some continuous sentient presence. The primary reason areas like the Untended Graves stood out, aside from the genuine creepiness of the whole place, was the sensation of isolation that wasn’t really present when tearing through the Undead Settlement or Irithyll of the Boreal Valley.

In addition, some areas are of baffling length given their placement. The Road of Sacrifices feels poorly paced; besides the section with Corvians at the beginning, one can essentially bolt in a straight line from Anri and Horace to either of the two connecting areas. Though the Consumed King’s Garden and Smouldering Lake are optional, these areas have the distinct sensation of halting at awkward times. The Garden has a few wandering abyss-snake dudes and some confusingly-placed Cathedral Knights, but ends after a single shortcut. The Smouldering Lake is a confusing mess of tunnels that can be skipped by…running in a straight line from the entrance, if one is ballsy enough. Sure, deactivating the ballista is an interesting operation, as is finding all the goodies, but the Lake does feel like a strange tribute to DS1’s most hated area. Anor Londo made a little bit of sense as a beloved an important area from DS1, but Lost Izalith?

Unfortnately, the Profaned Capital does not have “it’s optional” as an excuse. After the confusing but rewarding hell of the Irithyll Dungeon, an area with the tagline “Profaned Capital” brings to mind something more like Lothric Castle, but instead is a very fast L-shaped pathway towards a boss that sacrifices interesting mechanics for nostalgia, with an optional hellswamp.

On that note, the amount of poison in Dark Souls 3 feels a little overbearing. Farron Keep on its own is worse than any previous poison zone, and even if they’re short, the Consumed King’s Garden and the swamp section of the Profaned Capital feel like an extra kick in the nuts.

The larger problem I have with the level design is actually less the level design, and more the world design with respect to player choice. Dark Souls 3 is pretty much a linear shot the whole way through, with only two notable diverging points; whether you kill the Deacons of the Deep before clearing the Catacombs of Carthus, and whether you kill Aldrich or Yhorm first. Technically, one can also get to Lothric Castle early by fighting the Dancer of the Boreal Valley before Vordt, but you can’t ­­a­ actually get to the Lorian and Lothric, or even the Grand Archives, early. In comparison to Dark Souls 2, where you could not only choose which area to go to first (within a limited framework), but also which boss you could fight first, the restriction feels more than a little unwelcome.

That being said, most of the game’s areas are very well-designed. As mentioned, Irithyll Dungeon is a confusing, claustrophobic, terrifying and unforgiving environment, and the Cathedral of the Deep offers plenty of shortcuts (developer-made or otherwise) to make navigating the well-designed building easier. Archdragon Peak is of just the right size for an area so off the beaten path, and the Grand Archives are a fantastic final wall to throw up in front of players before the end of the game, involving heavy vertical as opposed to horizontal travel. And especially in comparison to Dark Souls 2, as mentioned above, even if the player has less choice in where to travel, the ways those areas link up is much more fluid and interesting.

On an unrelated note that I couldn’t think of any other place to put, the lack of differences between NG and NG+ and beyond are noticeable. In Dark Souls 2, new enemies and items were very common and the difficulty jump was noticeable. In Dark Souls 3, there are new rings, and that’s pretty much it. It’s a small issue, but combined with the lack of build variety, really hurts the game’s replayability.

4: The Story

The story is the part that hurts the most for me personally. While the characters and plotlines introduced in this game can be genuinely interesting, there’s no way to beat around the bush. Far too much of the story feels like it’s directly repeating Dark Souls 1.

While some of my complaints are to do with the dropping of interesting threads and characters from Dark Souls 2 (in the base game, there are a handful of items and areas referencing it, and the only enemies that carry over are the fucking poison bugs; even Yhorm turns out to not be a Dark Souls 2 Giant, although he’s implicitly related to the Giant Lord), I’m actually mostly frustrated because it means that the genuinely interesting threads from Dark Souls 3 get dropped. The entirety of material relating to “The Deep” ends up a dead end, Lothric itself feels like it’s repeating Lordran and Drangleic in uninteresting ways (even if that’s a theme of the series), and some of the most interesting original areas (Irithyll of the Boreal Valley, the Grand Archives) turn out to be connected at the hip to key elements of Dark Souls 1 that take over the new plotlines. Several new characters are essentially repeating roles from previous games, either in new coating (Lautrec for Leonhard), or even with the same appearance (Siegmeyer and Siegward [while I love both of them, the latter feels a little too much like silly fanservice at first]), and some of the new characters don’t…really go anywhere. Greirat finds an old woman’s bone and…dies after a while? Cornyx and Karla don’t go anywhere, although Karla has enough interesting questions to excuse her case.

And even for a Souls game, some of the material feels like such a tiny amount of substance is given to it that attempting to make connections is more frustrating than interesting. How on earth did VaatiVidya get enough material to make videos on the Angels of Lothric and Londor when very few items make any substantial connections? Again, what on earth is going on with Sulyvahn, the Church of the Deep, Carthus and more?

That being said, there are some excellent storylines and questions that pop up, and many of the previous callbacks enhance the story of the original Dark Souls. Again, the Untended Graves pops out as a positive, adding a great deal not only to the game’s story, but extending the importance of a seemingly silly character (Ludleth), and several storylines pan out in interesting ways. In general, the purely original elements of the story and characters stand out as great; some of the previous tie-backs fall comparatively flat.

Conclusions

Vocal people were spending the last 2 years whining about Dark Souls 2 and the developers tried so hard to recapture Dark Souls 1 that it kind of feels like DS3 fell flat in both respects. Genuinely good aspects from the second game were discarded for reasons that really aren’t clear, although they deserve props for learning from DS1′s mistakes and what DS2 didn’t do well.

I feel like Dark Souls 3...doesn’t really have its own identity. It blends elements from the previous entries very, very well but I genuinely think the story is too hung up on DS1, even with the excellent references to DS2 (Shield of Want and theories regarding Eleum Loyce being the Profaned Capital/Irithyll, anyone?).

Dark Souls 3 is an excellent game. At the same time, it feels like it’s trapped in an identity crisis between the first Dark Souls, and, occasionally BloodBorne.