Post by Friendly Person :) on Apr 17, 2016 5:45:04 GMT -5
Seems like I'm not the only one playing this game. I've only had about 25 hours or so to throw at it, but I was wondering what everyone's initial impressions are. Personally I find it to be far inferior to the original Dark Souls, inferior to Demon's Souls, but vastly superior to both Dark Souls 2 and Bloodborne (in fact, this game has made me rethink Bloodborne). At times I find this game infuriating beyond belief (I was stuck on Pontiff Suhlyvahn for 2 days), but on the whole it actually has traces of that thing that I talked about in my mechanics thread. That's right: this is the first Souls game since Dark Souls 1 to actually have a trace of a SOUL!
There are those "small things" that really make me love the game. Stuff like being able to end the game before fighting the second boss, or running away from the giant monster on the bridge to the snow city, or teaming up to take down the fire demon (that part was so friggin' awesome!). It has more of that feeling like you're experiencing something rather than playing a game. It doesn't come close to Dark Souls 1 in that regard, but after BB and DS2 felt so devoid of the heart that made the first DS so great, it's really fantastic to see some of that here.
But holy crap, do I spend a good deal of time wanting to pull my hair out! The thing I hated most about Bloodborne was the devolving of enemy attack patterns from something clear and identifiable to 'flail around like a lunatic'. Consider that in Dark Souls 1, the pinkies were the only enemy with an attack like that, but the whole purpose was that pinkies themselves were very weak, both in terms of HP as well as any of their other attacks. Hence, you let your guard down, and then got destroyed for it. But with Bloodborne's "faster" paced gameplay, several enemies now have attack patterns where they just go nuts. I'm not saying it's impossible to learn and deal with this new pattern, it's just that the challenge from Demon's Souls and Dark Souls (and even Dark Souls 2) was one of deliberation over execution. If you got hit, it rarely feel like you were being punished for missing a millisecond-wide dodge window. More often it was because you got too greedy and overextended yourself.
Enemies with this type of attack patterns are my biggest complaint with Dark Souls 3. They only make up perhaps 10-20% of the enemies I've encountered, but when I encounter them, it's an exercise in frustration (I've notice this especially seems to be the case with enemies that use spears). Take A CERTAIN BOSS. The first time I entered the chamber he destroyed me in a single combo after I got off one hit. Future attempts to parry resulted in promptly getting my s*** pushed in so hard that my eyes saw brown, so it came down to learning the split-second tells and rolling at just the right time. It became a fight exclusively about execution.
Contrast this with Ornstein and Smough. There was so much you could do in that fight in terms of manipulating their placements because of how each boss moved. If your execution was flawless, you could i-frame through everything with no problems. But if you're the average player, there's a variety of ways that you can approach it beyond simply perfecting the execution. I had less of a problem in Bloodborne because it's a spin-off. Letting this leak into Dark Souls 3 is annoying.
Then again, Dark Souls 3 will keep me busy for a good amount of time. This one point aside, I'm having a lot of fun exploring around. No doubt I've missed a bunch of stuff, which is great because I intend to come right back after finishing my NG+7 DaS run (which I'll resume once I finish my first DS3 run). The boss variety is pleasant so far, and the environments themselves are huge and full of fun things to discover. I dunno about you guys, but this is the most fun I've had with a souls game since Dark Souls 1. I'm glad too, because even though I'm not sure I buy into the whole 'this is the last souls game' thing (hello Star Ocean 5!), I don't think I want to go through another one. In my opinion Dark Souls 1 is one of the greatest games ever made (for all that it's utterly unfinished), but the formula is becoming too familiar. Dark Souls 3 is probably the best I could have hoped for in terms of everything that's happened to the franchise between now and DS1, but that's no small praise. I look forward to playing more of the game, and I hope everyone else is enjoying it too.
There are those "small things" that really make me love the game. Stuff like being able to end the game before fighting the second boss, or running away from the giant monster on the bridge to the snow city, or teaming up to take down the fire demon (that part was so friggin' awesome!). It has more of that feeling like you're experiencing something rather than playing a game. It doesn't come close to Dark Souls 1 in that regard, but after BB and DS2 felt so devoid of the heart that made the first DS so great, it's really fantastic to see some of that here.
But holy crap, do I spend a good deal of time wanting to pull my hair out! The thing I hated most about Bloodborne was the devolving of enemy attack patterns from something clear and identifiable to 'flail around like a lunatic'. Consider that in Dark Souls 1, the pinkies were the only enemy with an attack like that, but the whole purpose was that pinkies themselves were very weak, both in terms of HP as well as any of their other attacks. Hence, you let your guard down, and then got destroyed for it. But with Bloodborne's "faster" paced gameplay, several enemies now have attack patterns where they just go nuts. I'm not saying it's impossible to learn and deal with this new pattern, it's just that the challenge from Demon's Souls and Dark Souls (and even Dark Souls 2) was one of deliberation over execution. If you got hit, it rarely feel like you were being punished for missing a millisecond-wide dodge window. More often it was because you got too greedy and overextended yourself.
Enemies with this type of attack patterns are my biggest complaint with Dark Souls 3. They only make up perhaps 10-20% of the enemies I've encountered, but when I encounter them, it's an exercise in frustration (I've notice this especially seems to be the case with enemies that use spears). Take A CERTAIN BOSS. The first time I entered the chamber he destroyed me in a single combo after I got off one hit. Future attempts to parry resulted in promptly getting my s*** pushed in so hard that my eyes saw brown, so it came down to learning the split-second tells and rolling at just the right time. It became a fight exclusively about execution.
Contrast this with Ornstein and Smough. There was so much you could do in that fight in terms of manipulating their placements because of how each boss moved. If your execution was flawless, you could i-frame through everything with no problems. But if you're the average player, there's a variety of ways that you can approach it beyond simply perfecting the execution. I had less of a problem in Bloodborne because it's a spin-off. Letting this leak into Dark Souls 3 is annoying.
Then again, Dark Souls 3 will keep me busy for a good amount of time. This one point aside, I'm having a lot of fun exploring around. No doubt I've missed a bunch of stuff, which is great because I intend to come right back after finishing my NG+7 DaS run (which I'll resume once I finish my first DS3 run). The boss variety is pleasant so far, and the environments themselves are huge and full of fun things to discover. I dunno about you guys, but this is the most fun I've had with a souls game since Dark Souls 1. I'm glad too, because even though I'm not sure I buy into the whole 'this is the last souls game' thing (hello Star Ocean 5!), I don't think I want to go through another one. In my opinion Dark Souls 1 is one of the greatest games ever made (for all that it's utterly unfinished), but the formula is becoming too familiar. Dark Souls 3 is probably the best I could have hoped for in terms of everything that's happened to the franchise between now and DS1, but that's no small praise. I look forward to playing more of the game, and I hope everyone else is enjoying it too.