☠ Souls Series Symposium ☠

[MrPopo]

The game's parry window is actually fairly generous, and the way the system works if you fail the parry timing by going early you still will block the hit (which isn't as advantageous to you, but still involves you not taking a sword to the fight). The other thing is that most enemy attacks are pretty well telegraphed. I've found that many big enemies are best managed by baiting out their attacks by swinging in until they parry you; it makes it more obvious what the timing is on their attack.

[Gunstar Green]

Demon's Souls has been conquered and with it the final piece of the Soulsborne puzzle for me. Since it's difficult for me to talk about without comparing it to the others I guess I'll just give my semi-official 2019 list of "Souls" games from least loved to most loved.

5. Dark Souls II: Probably no surprise to anyone given my whining and moaning earlier in the thread. Demon's Souls has given me better perspective on what they wanted this game to be, and I do think they made a concerted effort to try and take a few elements of the game back towards Demon's Souls and away from some of the changes to the formula in Dark Souls. The problem is a lot of those things aren't implemented in the best ways. For every improvement it makes on the formula it has two half-baked ideas. The world design doesn't interest me as much as the others and something about the combat feels stiff and off. I think part of it has to do with the animations and part of it is the inferior sound design. The most damning part for me is that very few of the bosses stand out. Most of the humanoid bosses (before the DLC) have the same easily defeated swing, swing, swing move set and the creature bosses are uninspired, my favorite probably being the flaming stagecoach which is gimmicky but it was at least memorable.

But I don't want to continue being negative as there are things I really enjoyed. Some areas like Dragon Aerie were still a joy to explore. The characters are some of my favorites, and I wonder how much differently I would feel about the game if it had the more developed storyline that got cut back, especially in regards to the Emerald Herald who was just an annoying version of the Maiden in Black in the final game. The torch mechanic is cool and I wish it would have been used to its fullest. There are a lot of great looking armor sets and weapons and the variety of viable builds is probably wider than any other game in the franchise. The DLC also makes up for some of the shortcomings in world and boss design. I would have loved to see a Dark Souls 2 that Yui Tanimura had the time to polish and redo entirely.

4. Dark Souls III: It's hard for me to put this here because I really do love this game, but it's also the game in the franchise where you can tell it really was time to quit. DS3 is basically a refinement of everything that came before it, for better or worse. It's also a love-letter to those things with almost everything being a reference to something that's come earlier, with a special affinity given to Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1. This makes sense in the context of the game, everything crumbling together in a ball of ash as the world faces unavoidable entropy. The meta-narrative even seems to be asking the player if sequels have a point or if they're just a meaningless, endless cycle like the game itself. Graphics-wise it's beautiful, combat-wise it's the most evolved of the Dark Souls trilogy, though some of the positive steps forward Dark Souls 2 made it steps away from, possibly because Miyazaki was at the helm again or possibly due player reactions to the second game, who knows? The bosses are some of the most challenging and aggressive in the series, especially the phenomenal DLC which gives an infamous character a wonderful little plot and ends in a finale that satisfies me if this is truly to be the last game to bear the name Dark Souls.

I personally feel it does enough to stand on its own, but as a celebration of the franchise I also enjoy the nods and re-imaginings of what came before it. From the beginning to the final boss this was a game crafted for those who have enjoyed the franchise from the beginning and it's a fitting place to end. It's a game that still manages to be incredible even while it seems to be admitting to itself that it's gone as far as it can go and has exhausted its setting.

3. Demon's Souls: I honestly wasn't expecting I'd be putting this above DS3, but here it is. Obviously the most innovative game in the series as it single-handedly invented what has become a sort of mini-genre. Demon's Souls is dripping with atmosphere, well designed and believable locations, unique boss encounters that are as much spectacles that you earn as they are challenging. There are a few areas that still needed streamlining, but it still stands out not only as one of the most experimental, but one of the most fully realized installments in the series. Demon's Souls was a game that was deemed a failure before release which freed up Miyazaki to create the game he wanted to play, risk-free. I don't think any other game in the franchise manages to be so purely original, and the fact that they keep mining it for ideas says a lot about it.

There are things I think were implemented badly, by the end of the game I had more healing than I knew what to do with. Not every boss fight is a home run even though the majority of them are memorable. The game is sometimes too dark for its own good, which of course adds to the creepiness and horror but there were only a few parts of the game where I thought, "wow, this really looks incredible." Exploration does tend to feel more like old-school dungeon crawling because of this, and you can't really go too far off the beaten path with the majority of the levels being very linear. Then there's the tendency system which lost a lot of its purpose without being online, and while interesting conceptually maybe isn't implemented the best here.

The Nexus hub is something I liked more than I thought I would, while the Mega Man style of level selection does in a way make things feel more video-gamey, the otherworldly aspect of the Nexus itself helped to keep my immersion in check. Being able to pick which way you want to go did create a bit of an uneven difficulty curve, making the challenge very front loaded. By the time I was able to beat my second or third boss I was quickly steamrolling through the rest of the game, though I can probably blame my previous experience for a lot of that. This also isn't an issue that's unique to Demon's Souls, with only DS3 and Bloodborne having pretty even difficulty curves at the cost of being more linear games.

Overall Demon's Souls is a half-forgotten classic and anyone who views it as beta-Dark Souls is doing themselves a disservice by skipping out on it.

2. Dark Souls: In many ways, Dark Souls is Demon's Souls 1.5 but in other ways its an entirely different beast. The interconnected world changes the feel immensely, and the sense of adventure you get by carefully making your way from bonfire to bonfire, feeling more and more lost as you go, trying to piece together the bits of lore you find along the way, only to somehow stumble your way back home is a feeling that in my opinion is unrivaled among its siblings. The estus system limiting your healing makes conquering the areas very satisfying. The combat is refined from the previous game and some of the fat is cut out, like the tendency system. The game is very lax in how it punishes death since being hollow is not nearly as much of a problem as losing most of your health in spirit form in Demon's Souls. I guess From Software realized this too, as health penalties would return in the later games. There are still risk-reward aspects to being human in Dark Souls, but if you're not planning on summoning help then there's really not much reason to run around as a human.

I could gush about Dark Souls for a very long time so I'll talk about the things I don't like instead. I'm a little torn about how it lifts some things from Demon's Souls wholesale. On one hand they were bringing this game to a wider audience who hadn't experienced it, on the other hand they could have come up with new ideas that played with gamer's expectations. Ultimately it does bring enough new experiences to the table that this isn't a major issue. The game also has a weak second half. After you place the Lordvessel there's a definite change in how you explore. Fast travel is a thing now so you never feel isolated and lonely again. The lord soul areas are all roughly around the same difficulty so like Demon's Souls if you can stomp one you can stomp all of them. Demon's Ruins and Lost Izalith are of course the product of rushed design and are one of the most unfinished feeling parts of the entire franchise.

Ultimately Dark Souls made me feel things other games never had. By the end of it I felt like I had gone on this grand adventure. I felt tired and beaten by the trials that were put before me and I wanted more.

1. Bloodborne: I'll probably go back and forth over whether this or Dark Souls are my favorite, probably for all eternity, but Bloodborne is simply the complete package. It's the most polished game with the most mysterious and detailed gothic horror world. It has the best feeling combat with the most interesting weapon set. It's got some of the most vicious and challenging bosses with Orphan of Kos still being a nightmare for me to this day. That challenge however is managed by a very well considered difficulty curve. Every moment playing this game filled me with a sense of dread. I don't normally feel afraid of video games, but Bloodborne's atmosphere and intensity had me on the verge of screaming several times. It's a thrill ride.

My complaints like the blood vial system being a step back from estus, and how accessing the game's true ending might be a little bit too esoteric, are so minor that they're almost not worth mentioning. Bloodborne is the pinnacle of what this type of game has to offer. I don't have much else to say because I have so few complaints.

[MrPopo]

Sounds like someone needs to pick up Sekiro.