flex wood wrote:I was pretty close to picking up Xcom: enemy unknown the other day with my credit but realized I probably wouldn't end up playing it at all.
Really? That's a shame, excellent game.
I played it for awhile on ps3 when since it was free with plus but it's just one of those games that I know I want to play but would just end up being neglected in my backlog so I am going to not bother to pick it up until I know I'll play it.
Stark wrote:One of the ones I liked, my friend put in front of the ore seller: "Visions of chest..." or something like that
Ugh, the female jokes are terrible lol.
Gonna check out the first sometime now?
Oh yeah, totally juvenile, but I admit I laughed.
Yeah I definitely am. I actually have played the first one to a point (not very far admittedly) on PS3 and I eventually bought it in a Steam sale, so I have it there now.
Let strength be granted, so the world might be mended...so the world might be mended.
MrPopo wrote:The original Demon's Souls had the "give your weapon temporary magic damage" item called Sticky White Stuff, which you could use in the messages.
Stark wrote:One of the ones I liked, my friend put in front of the ore seller: "Visions of chest..." or something like that
Ugh, the female jokes are terrible lol.
Gonna check out the first sometime now?
Oh yeah, totally juvenile, but I admit I laughed.
Yeah I definitely am. I actually have played the first one to a point (not very far admittedly) on PS3 and I eventually bought it in a Steam sale, so I have it there now.
Beating the final boss was one of the most satisfying things I've gotten through in awhile.
Also Crystal Cave... just... hilarious. You'll see.
I've come to realize that Demon's souls is best souls.
Dark 1 just had so much cut from the game that it just bugs me about how many pointless dead ends there are (looking at you ash lake), the removed storyline with Oscar and looking back most of the game just feels half baked.
Dark 2 is definitely the best for multiplayer out of all three games hands down. I just mostly take issue with how the entire game seems to just funnel you through it without any real need for exploration. It just seems to have no real open areas to explore besides the gutter aka blight town 2 and the forest of fallen giants, which isn't even a forest it's a damn castle. The game seems to take some of it's map design from modern fps' it seems like.
Now Demon's, it comes off as a fully fleshed out game even though it seems to be missing a level. The atmosphere is pretty much perfect throughout. I guess the only thing I can say is a major draw back from the game is that it is definitely the hardest of the bunch.
I'd be interested in hearing others thoughts or someone to tell me why I'm wrong.
I'm surprised so many people like Demon's Souls the best. I always considered Demon's to have by far the worst over-arching game mechanics in the series: Soul Form and World Tendency. Getting locked out of half your health over 1 death just makes the difficulty feel artificial, and especially in a game with a healthy amount of trial and error. World Tendency far too often locks the player out of content as well as punishes the player just for utilizing their full health in human form. So much about these mechanics makes the difficulty in Demon's just feel less creative by comparison.
The armor mechanics in Dark Souls were also a massive improvement over Demon's. The inclusion of Poise and the new mobility/weight levels greatly diversified the armor customization. The new stagger mechanics made utilizing strength weapons far more rewarding as they became much more reliable than they ever were in Demon's. In Demon's nearly every enemy in the game had at least an unbreakable animation or was entirely immune to stagger (like the Giant Depraved Ones in the swamp). The sheer randomness that came from this (as well as how punishing it was for laggy weapons) made the combat in Demon's just feel more frustrating out of randomness than was really necessary.
Overall I would say that the difficulty and mechanics in Demon's just feel unrefined compared to later installments. Armor systems are much better in DS1 and DS2. Character attributes are much more lopsided in Demon's, Faith and magic builds were much less disproportionately powerful in DS1 (although in DS2 hexes are completely overpowered right now). Hallowing after death is handled much better in DS2 as it very gradually modifies the difficulty instead of instantly laying down a huge penalty on the player. So much has gone into the Dark series to make it an overall more even gameplay experience than Demon's is.
Now, I will defend some aspects of Demon's. The characters and the dialogue in Demon's are probably still the best and most memorable in the series. The art direction in Demon's is probably on par or a touch better than DS1 and vastly superior to DS2. Overall Demon's had the most personality and uniqueness in its presentation and atmosphere compared to DS1 and DS2, which started to feel a bit more high-fantasy (DS2 especially).
People remember Demon's very fondly but I would argue that it just has too many apparent flaws and prototypical elements to be considered superior to Dark Souls.
