The Soulsborne combat debate

Greyfox

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Also it's not right to judge a game like dark souls against god of war. Both are very different and not comparable.

The reason they are been compared is because many on here are claiming soulsbourne does combat better than anywhere else

Retr0gamer

Greyfox wrote: »

The reason they are been compared is because many on here are claiming soulsbourne does combat better than anywhere else

Well I'd put them up with Platinum and while God of War is very enjoyable it really is nowhere near the same level mechanically or with depth. Doesn't have to be either and it doesn't try, because it's not going for that type of game.

Potential-Monke

See, there it is again. People saying Souls games are the pinnacle, but in the same post saying it's personal choice. To ye, they are the pinnacle. To me, God of War was (and Control, but in a different way). Still all personal opinion, but Souls fans take it too seriously and have to ensure everyone knows the Souls games are the the best, and if you didn't like them you either didn't give it enough time or you're not good at gaming. It's very fanboy-ish tbh.

And cinema was mentioned above, still personal opinion. The one film that always comes to mind when I think of the best film I've seen is The Game with Michael Douglas. What it did, was the first time I've experienced that in a film. Similar films before and after may have had a similar story, but as The Game was the first one I saw to do it so effectively, I would rank it above someone else's choice. Neither are wrong.

And I did mention that I don't use Metacritic, for the same reasons as above. All subjective. I did say i might like them if I stuck with them longer, but what's the cut off? How many hours is enough before you can call it quits and move on? I know those games have shortcuts, and I did plenty exploring in the first area with that priest. It frustrated me and I turned it off. Simple as that. Did that with many games tbh. For me, the effort wasn't worth it at the time.

johnny_ultimate

Lads, can't we all just get along and agree on one indisputable fact: that Outer Wilds is the actual pinnacle

Zero-Cool

For the love of Jeebus, if you haven't played Outer Wilds, please buy it right now and play it and clear it and go listen to long plays of the soundtrack while you sleep tonight.

Arcadeheroes

Potential-Monke wrote: »

See, there it is again. People saying Souls games are the pinnacle, but in the same post saying it's personal choice. To ye, they are the pinnacle. To me, God of War was (and Control, but in a different way). Still all personal opinion, but Souls fans take it too seriously and have to ensure everyone knows the Souls games are the the best, and if you didn't like them you either didn't give it enough time or you're not good at gaming. It's very fanboy-ish tbh.

And cinema was mentioned above, still personal opinion. The one film that always comes to mind when I think of the best film I've seen is The Game with Michael Douglas. What it did, was the first time I've experienced that in a film. Similar films before and after may have had a similar story, but as The Game was the first one I saw to do it so effectively, I would rank it above someone else's choice. Neither are wrong.

And I did mention that I don't use Metacritic, for the same reasons as above. All subjective. I did say i might like them if I stuck with them longer, but what's the cut off? How many hours is enough before you can call it quits and move on? I know those games have shortcuts, and I did plenty exploring in the first area with that priest. It frustrated me and I turned it off. Simple as that. Did that with many games tbh. For me, the effort wasn't worth it at the time.

(if you didn't like them you either didn't give it enough time or you're not good at gaming.)

I dont know if the last part is directed at me but I never said you are not good at games , but I still stand by the viewpoint you didnt play enough of the series to understand why the games are so highly praised . You said you played bloodborne for 4 hours and dark souls 2 for 5 hours , thats not enough time for you to experience what the games are all about . Its not fanboyism or an attack. You dont like them its fine . I dont like the beatles , but I know the impact they had on music and the legacy they created can never be rivalled by any modern pop artist . You seem to be mixing up personal games you like and Art forms that had the biggest influence.

Ive already listed all the influences souls had not only on games but console designs , gow wont carry that . But its does not make GOW a bad game but there is a clear seperation between the games you like and the games that have made the biggest impact .

Mario bros 1, Zelda , Demons souls, Minecraft to name a few..

these titles have had a much bigger influence in game design and continue to have a an influence . subjectively I could say sonic adventure 1 is better than mario 64 , lets see how many people would call me wrong :pac:

TitianGerm

I could say sonic adventure 1 is better than mario 64 , lets see how many people would call me wrong :pac:

I think we should call you a ambulance because there's obviously something seriously wrong with you

Arcadeheroes

TitianGerm wrote: »

I think we should call you a ambulance because there's obviously something seriously wrong with you

Hahahahahaha XD

Mr Crispy

I just want some Elden Ring news.

Retr0gamer

Potential-Monke wrote: »

See, there it is again. People saying Souls games are the pinnacle, but in the same post saying it's personal choice. To ye, they are the pinnacle. To me, God of War was (and Control, but in a different way). Still all personal opinion, but Souls fans take it too seriously and have to ensure everyone knows the Souls games are the the best, and if you didn't like them you either didn't give it enough time or you're not good at gaming. It's very fanboy-ish tbh.

And cinema was mentioned above, still personal opinion. The one film that always comes to mind when I think of the best film I've seen is The Game with Michael Douglas. What it did, was the first time I've experienced that in a film. Similar films before and after may have had a similar story, but as The Game was the first one I saw to do it so effectively, I would rank it above someone else's choice. Neither are wrong.

And I did mention that I don't use Metacritic, for the same reasons as above. All subjective. I did say i might like them if I stuck with them longer, but what's the cut off? How many hours is enough before you can call it quits and move on? I know those games have shortcuts, and I did plenty exploring in the first area with that priest. It frustrated me and I turned it off. Simple as that. Did that with many games tbh. For me, the effort wasn't worth it at the time.

See we do it because it's for your own good. It's like when trump tells people to drink bleach. And you scream at people not to do it. But there's always people out there that will.

Tl;Dr dark souls naysayers are bleach and hydroxychloroquine maniacs

Souls games are overrated. Sekiro fixed a lot of things wrong with them.

Sekiro is probably my favourite From Software game. Although I have played all three Dark Souls games, I haven't finished any of them. I like the idea of them, I get whipped up into a frenzy and buy them on launch, but I eventually get bored and frustrated after 30 or so hours, which is long enough to get full satisfaction from any game imo. Souls are fairly repetitive. As you get stronger, so do the enemies. The game doesn't vary much throughout.

I like how this Sekiro is streamlined. There is no stats page with tons of numbers with almost no explanation of what they mean or what they would be effective for. I felt overwhelmed by all the items. Whatever I choose, I felt like I could have easily been making the wrong decision. It was a constant nagging feeling that I was doing it wrong, and how else was I to know better given its obtuse instructions and storytelling. When I level up in Sekiro, I simply get more health or more damage. The only optionals are the abilities but that's small enough and contained enough to not have the overwhelming, niggling feeling of indecision. I frankly didn't have the patience to explore different builds in DS. DS outstayed its welcome before I'd be bothered to restart or respec into another insecure build. Also platforming has been largely removed. DS had some awful tightropes that you had to navigate where falling meant instant death. Who the fcuk enjoys that?!

Although some variety in weapons could be nice but that could complicate things if tons of stats had to be introduced.

Sekiro is a true single player game. I hated being invaded in DS. I hated the concept of it. I hated been given the option of have someone join you to fight bosses. It's an easy-mode that is being dangled in front of you. The best part of souls games is slowly progressing through the world. It has metroidvania elements in that regard. I love exploring through new areas. I haven't got the best will power so sometimes I'd avail of online help and I felt like I cheated. It made the game feel cheap and easy. It undermined the difficulty, the hardwork you need to put in and the resulting satisfaction you get from progressing. People always give out about multiplayer games being tacked onto single player games, I personally love all sorts of multiplayer games so I've rarely agreed, but I do agreed with DS. It did not need that aspect and it takes away from my enjoyment of the game.

I love the speed of the combat in Sekiro. I reminded me of Tenchu Stealth Assassin from the very beginning. Probably a big reason why this has resonated with me. That series really deserved a modern remake and this is basically it. Nailing down a few block along with a counter is extremely satisfying. I feel like I'm playing a fighting game. The ability to jump in and out of combat allows you to make mistakes. It allows you to try take on multiple enemies at once unlike in DS, which is often a death sentence. I hated that the main strategy to DS games seemed to revolve around argo'ing or cheesing one enemy at a time until an area is cleared. Sure that's a viable strategy in Sekiro, you can also jump around like a lunatic too.

The story telling in Souls in almost non-existent. I couldn't tell you anything about the plot of any of the Dark Souls games. A bunch of obtuse characters nattering nonsense around bonfires. Someone was saying there's a ton of youtube videos explaining the story; there shouldn't need to be youtube videos explaining a story. The game itself should do that. Sekiro actually had a coherent plot. It actually encouraged me to push on. Something sorely missed from souls.

gimli2112

Arcadeheroes wrote: »

I dont like the beatles

I can only hope you never listened to the White Album.

I can see both sides of the argument (not about the Beatles where you are clearly wrong) I wouldn't consider myself a good gamer, average at best. One thing I often felt about Bloodborne was there was no sh***y deaths. In fps games you'll get beaten by better players but sometimes it's just bs, the division 2 drives me insane when an npc pops up from nowhere and kills me or I get stuck in a door and killed. With Bloodborne a death always seemed to be my fault, something I could learn from and do over and over again

Zero-Cool

Sekiro is the only Souls game I haven't played it, still on my list but hearing "It's all about Parry, not about dodge" makes me hesitant. I loved sword & board with dodge in the Souls games, never used magic or parry so not sure if I'd feel the same love for Sekiro. Will definitely pick it up at some stage but but that's the one thing slowing down my purchase.

gimli2112

I couldn't parry to save my life (literally) in BB but once I got used to it I made a build specifically for it. I think parrying in BB was a lot easier than in Souls though.

Retr0gamer

Zero-Cool wrote: »

Sekiro is the only Souls game I haven't played it, still on my list but hearing "It's all about Parry, not about dodge" makes me hesitant. I loved sword & board with dodge in the Souls games, never used magic or parry so not sure if I'd feel the same love for Sekiro. Will definitely pick it up at some stage but but that's the one thing slowing down my purchase.

It's a completely different game. Parry and combat are handled a lot differently.

Retr0gamer

I do t get people giving out about the story in the souls games. I just play them and ignore the flavour text. There's enough story in the environment and npc chats that you get a gist of it and can immerse yourself further if you want to.

It's pretty much how the whole of the very first dark souls and demons souls is meant to be played. The whole point of the story is you are being lied to and can find the truth if you wish to dig deeper.

gimli2112

given I never follow the story and that there's no cut scenes to skip I was in the same situation I am with every game, not knowing what is going on. I'm still not sure what FF7 is all about

Penn

gimli2112 wrote: »

given I never follow the story and that there's no cut scenes to skip I was in the same situation I am with every game, not knowing what is going on. I'm still not sure what FF7 is all about

*gimli playing The Last of Us*

Wait, if my character is The Last of Us, who the hell is that person?!

gimli2112

Penn wrote: »

*gimli playing The Last of Us*

Wait, if my character is The Last of Us, who the hell is that person?!

ha it's actually one of the few games I totally got into the story. I don't think I've ever been so invested in the game characters. A bad ending would have affected gimli in real life

Zero-Cool

Retr0gamer wrote: »

The whole point of the story is you are being lied to and can find the truth if you wish to dig deeper.

I think that's the best explanation about any of the Souls games stories.

Arcadeheroes

Using environmental storytelling can be just as powerful if not more powerful than having to sit through a dialogue tree with an NPC while he tells you everything for 10-15 mins and brings the game to a halt till he finishes.

Without being told everything upfront and using envoirements to tell the story , fans can speculate and find hidden story arcs throughout that fantasy world and come up with a bunch of theories about what really happened to certain game characters . The likes of VaatiVidya and EpicNameBro were making story content years after dark souls release because after your first playthrough , the deeper you dived into what NPC were saying you started to notice a much bigger picture and just how alive the soul series world is.

Other games that have done this so well is Silent Hill 2 , Shadow of the Colossus and Ico . Sometimes words dont need to be spoken.

Not sure how you can describe the method of storytelling as powerful. It's current method doesn't convey the story to me very well, if at all. But I don't have a huge problem with that. Mario 64 hasn't got much of a plot and isn't known for it's story telling but it doesn't matter. I do have a problem people claiming the story telling is excellent in DS, when it clearly is not, if it has serious issues conveying it. The environments are fantastic and do allude to a past but it stops there. A 3rd party explaining it is a failing. I'm trying to think of a fair metaphor but I can only come up with an unfair one; it's like a book with every second page missing.

Dcully

Its rather funny seeing the same people in here saying get good as the ones saying to me many moons ago that simracing is just too hard to be fun.
I dont enjoy souls games but i do enjoy simracing, go figure.

Retr0gamer

You don't have to understand it for it to be good storytelling. Not everything is Metal Gear Solid or Mass Effect where everything has to be explained in long drawn out conversations that interrupt the flow of the game.

Souls games you don't need to understand everything. And sometimes not knowing or having a bit of mystery is far more effective than being told everything. And if you do want to know more part of the fun for some people can be unraveling the mystery behind what it all means.

I wish more games were like Dark Souls with storytelling because most cutscenes or exposition in games is boring and breaks the flow of the game. Dark Souls gets what it needs to get across to the player without taking them out of the gameplay.

Arcadeheroes

Deleted User wrote: »

Not sure how you can describe the method of storytelling as powerful. It's current method doesn't convey the story to me very well, if at all. But I don't have a huge problem with that. Mario 64 hasn't got much of a plot and isn't known for it's story telling but it doesn't matter. I do have a problem people claiming the story telling is excellent in DS, when it clearly is not, if it has serious issues conveying it. The environments are fantastic and do allude to a past but it stops there. A 3rd party explaining it is a failing. I'm trying to think of a fair metaphor but I can only come up with an unfair one; it's like a book with every second page missing.

The story is told when you talk to NPCs , Items descriptions and by the envoirements. You only have to watch VaatiVidya videos to see how incredibly crafted dark souls story is told , while many would see that as a cop out , its really up to the player if they want to seek the answers to the questions they have .

recyclops

Zero-Cool wrote: »

For the love of Jeebus, if you haven't played Outer Wilds, please buy it right now and play it and clear it and go listen to long plays of the soundtrack while you sleep tonight.

ive tried on three seperate occasions to play this and i just cant be arsed, dont know why it could be im lazy but i am just not getting drawn into the game at all

Retr0gamer

Retr0gamer wrote: »

You don't have to understand it for it to be good storytelling. Not everything is Metal Gear Solid or Mass Effect where everything has to be explained in long drawn out conversations that interrupt the flow of the game.

Souls games you don't need to understand everything. And sometimes not knowing or having a bit of mystery is far more effective than being told everything. And if you do want to know more part of the fun for some people can be unraveling the mystery behind what it all means.

I wish more games were like Dark Souls with storytelling because most cutscenes or exposition in games is boring and breaks the flow of the game. Dark Souls gets what it needs to get across to the player without taking them out of the gameplay.

We'll never agree in this case. Imagine coming out of a film without understanding what happened.



People love being dropped into a world without being told anything. I get that. Call it world building or whatever you want. Games do not have to have a coherent plot. Just don't say this has good storytelling because as you say yourself, it is a mystery, that can be unraveled by a 3rd party usually.

Retr0gamer

Deleted User wrote: »

We'll never agree in this case. Imagine coming out of a film without understanding what happened.

2001: A Space Odyssey and Save the Green Planet spring to mind and I love those films dearly. In the case of Save the Green Planet what first appeared to be a bizarre mish mash of genres and inconsistent tone was actually a lot deeper when I took the time to think about it.

I think David Lynch fans might have something to say about that as well.

Deleted User wrote: »

Just don't say this has good storytelling because as you say yourself, it is a mystery, that can be unraveled by a 3rd party usually.

Similarly, and I don't know how to say this without being antagonistic but I'm not, I think it's a bit rich to tell people it's bad storytelling because you didn't understand/appreciate it.

Storytelling isn't just the story that's being told, it's also the way it's told and Dark Souls I feel is unique and very clever in how it uses it's mechanics and also it's obtuseness to enhance its story. It's something I think is lost in the sequels which use the same storytelling devices but is kind of obtuse for the sake of it rather than it actively enhancing the story.

I think that gets to the whole point of why Souls fans are so defensive of the series. It's like finding a great TV series, telling your mates about it and then them watching designated survivor instead of the Wire. You want to share the experience with other people but it's tough to get other people on board when there is a lot of misinformation about the game scaring people away. Then you also have to deal with people saying the game is awful.

There's always people out there that for some reason like dreadful games. I got in a facebook argument recently with Sonic Adventure 2 fans who are quite clearly deranged if they think that game is good and the fans of Legend of Dragoon baffle me. But Dark Souls is objectively not a bad game. You might not get it, you might not understand it, you might not have the patience for it but to call it bad is just wrong. Same with Sim Racing. The level of execution in those games is beyond me and I don't have the interest in cars others would but I wouldn't call them bad.

And I'm not being holier than thou because I've been on the wrong side of history before. Even recently I hated FF12 since release. I didn't get the game and was baffled at how well loved it was. Tried it again with the recently rerelease and you know what, I was wrong. It's a fabulous game. And why did I hate it before? I was up to my eyes with college work and didn't have the patience for it so critical pathed it and didn't take my time with it. The reason I didn't like it was entirely my fault.

Sometimes it's ok to admit you are wrong or don't understand something.

Unless it's Legend of Dragoon and then you are objectively wrong.

Zero-Cool

recyclops wrote: »

ive tried on three seperate occasions to play this and i just cant be arsed, dont know why it could be im lazy but i am just not getting drawn into the game at all

You obviously haven't tried hard enough or spent enough time or are good at gaming.





jk

Retr0gamer

Retr0gamer wrote: »

2001: A Space Odyssey and Save the Green Planet spring to mind and I love those films dearly. In the case of Save the Green Planet what first appeared to be a bizarre mish mash of genres and inconsistent tone was actually a lot deeper when I took the time to think about it.

I think David Lynch fans might have something to say about that as well.



Similarly, and I don't know how to say this without being antagonistic but I'm not, I think it's a bit rich to tell people it's bad storytelling because you didn't understand/appreciate it.

Storytelling isn't just the story that's being told, it's also the way it's told and Dark Souls I feel is unique and very clever in how it uses it's mechanics and also it's obtuseness to enhance its story. It's something I think is lost in the sequels which use the same storytelling devices but is kind of obtuse for the sake of it rather than it actively enhancing the story.

I think that gets to the whole point of why Souls fans are so defensive of the series. It's like finding a great TV series, telling your mates about it and then them watching designated survivor instead of the Wire. You want to share the experience with other people but it's tough to get other people on board when there is a lot of misinformation about the game scaring people away. Then you also have to deal with people saying the game is awful.

There's always people out there that for some reason like dreadful games. I got in a facebook argument recently with Sonic Adventure 2 fans who are quite clearly deranged if they think that game is good and the fans of Legend of Dragoon baffle me. But Dark Souls is objectively not a bad game. You might not get it, you might not understand it, you might not have the patience for it but to call it bad is just wrong. Same with Sim Racing. The level of execution in those games is beyond me and I don't have the interest in cars others would but I wouldn't call them bad.

And I'm not being holier than thou because I've been on the wrong side of history before. Even recently I hated FF12 since release. I didn't get the game and was baffled at how well loved it was. Tried it again with the recently rerelease and you know what, I was wrong. It's a fabulous game. And why did I hate it before? I was up to my eyes with college work and didn't have the patience for it so critical pathed it and didn't take my time with it. The reason I didn't like it was entirely my fault.

Sometimes it's ok to admit you are wrong or don't understand something.

Unless it's Legend of Dragoon and then you are objectively wrong.

Fair enough. David Lynch is a great example. I think Twin Peaks is irritatingly obtuse mysterious nonsense. Kinda like a popular game series' story telling. We seem to agree on how the story is told in DS. I simply don't like that. It's as if the game requires multiple play throughs to get the most of it. I think that's very flawed in a medium that requires 40 odd hours to do one play through.

I don't think DS are bad games, they are good. Just calling them unarguably (I think you meant that tongue in cheek) the pinnacle is hard to agree with. They have obvious flaws to me.

Retr0gamer

Unarguably great games is what I meant.

Saying it's the pinnacle is up for argument. You can't state that. Too many great games out there and there's plenty of great character action games and action RPGs up there with Dark Souls.

And Dark Souls definitely isn't perfect. Every game has flaws. DS1 has Lost Izalith and Capra Demon. Bloodborne has a few duff bosses. And DS2 has DS2.

As for the story requiring multiple playthroughs? Kind of through. It takes a lot of work to get the full story but I never had to look into it. I was perfectly happy with what I got out of the story of every souls game in one playthrough. I didn't really need to know more and if I did sure I could explore it more or look to Vaati or other youtubers. I actually think fully having everything explained to you ala the god awful codex entries in Bioware games is detrimental to game narrative. You don't need to know. In the souls games you don't need to know the full story. In fact not knowing the full story is part of the experience. Imagine if pulp fiction told you what was in the briefcase? It could negate the mystery of the briefcase, change the mood of the story and ultimately that's not what the film is about. It's not important. It's about each character's journey. Similarly Dark Souls the most imporant thing in the story is the players journey.

It's like a Murakami book. You don't need to know what happens or need to understand the full story. It's about the emotions you take out of it.

Greyfox

Arcadeheroes wrote: »

You said you played bloodborne for 4 hours and dark souls 2 for 5 hours , thats not enough time for you to experience what the games are all about .

If your playing a game for 3 hours and you have not got any enjoyment then you need to stop playing the game as 3 hours is a decent attempt and developers should not be expecting more time to be given

TitianGerm

Greyfox wrote: »

If your playing a game for 3 hours and you have not got any enjoyment then you need to stop playing the game as 3 hours is a decent attempt and developers should not be expecting more time to be given

There's people in the PlayStation thread who say you should put 30 hours into Days Gone because that's around the time it starts to get decent. I so wanted that to be a smash hit

gimli2112

a hear if you're playing a game for 30 hours and not enjoying it you should have been doing something else about 20 hours ago
I got into Days Gone immediately if anything the longer it went on the worse it got but still really enjoyed it

nix

The way i look at people who constantly complain about Dark souls like games after only playing like 1% of the game is no different than someone watching a movie for 5-10mins, not liking it, turning it off and then constantly harping on about how bad it is based on those 10mins.. It's just dumb.. That goes for any genre of game/movie or whatever, not just Dark souls..

Now i wouldnt expect people to play through an entire game just so they can get to the end to call it sh!t, but you really should put some time and effort in before throwing in the towel. Some games are a lot longer than others, so the amount of time spent on a game to know you like it should vary, so id say a good gauge would be 25% of the game. Thats roughly the least amount of time id put in before packing it in or not, You should have the experience then to make the right decision for you.

I don't actually stop playing games at all these days now myself as ive played enough games to usually know if id like it and do enough research before hand before committing. Although i did want to stop playing Control recently as i wasnt enjoying the game, but i knew it was short so just hammered through to the finish.

Arcadeheroes

Greyfox wrote: »

If your playing a game for 3 hours and you have not got any enjoyment then you need to stop playing the game as 3 hours is a decent attempt and developers should not be expecting more time to be given

Playing 3-5 hours of a 70-100 rpg is not putting a decent attempt into a game though . 3 hours of bloodborne barely gets you to cleric beast which is only the tutorial boss, so ya for sure you can say nah Im not putting 70-100 hours of my life into this but you cannot say you gave it a proper go and whatever opinion you have is automatically invalid since you missed like 98% of the content in the game.

this is not the equivalent to when FF13 fans said you need to play at least 25 hours before the game opens up and becomes open world .

It be like me stopping a movie 30mins in and going ya its crap . it makes no sense.

johnny_ultimate

[Deleted User] wrote: »

We'll never agree in this case. Imagine coming out of a film without understanding what happened.

I think there are very fine lines when it comes to this. Obviously something can be vague or mysterious to the point of frustrating, but done well I think it can be one of the most potent types of storytelling.

One of my favourite films from the past decade is Upstream Colour. First time through it I couldn’t really grasp the precise details of the plot, but was left with a lot of strong emotional responses, striking visual and the curious ways images and moments linked up to each other. It was a really powerful experience but again in ways I couldn’t precisely articulate immediately. So I sat down, had a ponder, read up on it, and watched it again. Then I could figure out the film in a much deeper way.

There’s only a few films that have hit me that way (Godard’s Goodbye To Language being another) but it’s a hugely rewarding sensation. I don’t think the Souls games hit that same level (I’m also in general not a big fan of dense ‘lore’), but they do capture some of that essence of images and ideas that hit even when the details are ambiguous. Actually think Sekiro is possibly a bit less interesting for me in that respect because the story is a bit more straightforwardly told.

Tbh though I’m not sure any game yet quite reaches as deep as the best ‘mysterious’ or ‘difficult’ films do. Kentucky Route Zero, the end of Outer Wilds, INSIDE or indeed some From games are some that do to some degree.

noodler

Jesus, just because Dark Souls and it's brothers don't spoon-feed you the story doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the style.

I'm with Retr0, let every other game have 15 minute cut scenes or massive chunks of exposition.

Greyfox

Arcadeheroes wrote: »

Playing 3-5 hours of a 70-100 rpg is not putting a decent attempt into a game though . 3 hours of bloodborne barely gets you to cleric beast which is only the tutorial boss, so ya for sure you can say nah Im not putting 70-100 hours of my life into this but you cannot say you gave it a proper go and whatever opinion you have is automatically invalid since you missed like 98% of the content in the game...

It be like me stopping a movie 30mins in and going ya its crap . it makes no sense.

Oh but it is, i think its silly to claim otherwise as time is important to most people. Nobody has time to spend 20 or 30 hours on EVERY good RPG that's out there before enjoying it, if anybody makes a game that takes 20 hours to start enjoying it they need to learn how to make better games. With films after 30 mins you should only continue if there is some things about the film that you like.

nix

Greyfox wrote: »

Oh but it is, i think its silly to claim otherwise as time is important to most people. Nobody has time to spend 20 or 30 hours on EVERY good RPG that's out there before enjoying it, if anybody makes a game that takes 20 hours to start enjoying it they need to learn how to make better games. With films after 30 mins you should only continue if there is some things about the film that you like.

Not every game does that though, but if you're jumping into a new game type you havent played before, its gonna be bumpy at first until you learn how to play that type of game and that process will consume time, but you can then carry that knowledge/experience into other games like it..

Like Dark souls, you will get wrecked at first until you learn what to do and what not to do, that experience then carries over into its sequels, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Nioh, Ashen, the surge etc

Its silly to think because you cant be bothered to learn how to play a game, that thats bad game design :rolleyes:

And nobody is saying you should spend 20 hours to learn how to play a game, they're saying you should play that much to properly experience what the game is offering before deciding whether its for you or not..

Arcadeheroes

Greyfox wrote: »

Oh but it is, i think its silly to claim otherwise as time is important to most people. Nobody has time to spend 20 or 30 hours on EVERY good RPG that's out there before enjoying it, if anybody makes a game that takes 20 hours to start enjoying it they need to learn how to make better games. With films after 30 mins you should only continue if there is some things about the film that you like.

Sorry the whole time is important thing is an excuse . Many people have jobs , school , looking after their families and have beaten the souls games multiple times and had no problem despite being busy.

with each installment we all started on ground 0 at a level playing field and had to overcome the same hurdles. when demon souls came out I was in music school and still beaten it in the middle of my music test.

Im not asking for people to play 20-30 hours but 3 hours is nothing , You missed out on the majority of the game so you automatically have no opinion on how good or bad or overrated a game is period.

I find it funny though when people say is I dont have the time , but they have plenty of time playing Call of Duty Warzone or Fornite for thousands of hours , God of war which took me 50 hours to finish but I finished Sekiro is less time (43 hours )

There isnt exactly alot of games out these days that are 5-10 hours in length . the majority of AAA games range from anywhere from 30-100+ hours so if you have the time for them I think you can manage alittle more than 3 hours before throwing in the towel playing any of the from software games.

Robert ninja

Arcadeheroes I think you're spot on especially about the no time for it etc but it's still completely fine to drop a game if you find it not fun after X hours.

gimli2112

Arcadeheroes wrote: »

I find it funny though when people say is I dont have the time , but they have plenty of time playing Call of Duty Warzone or Fornite for thousands of hours , God of war which took me 50 hours to finish but I finished Sekiro is less time (43 hours )

personally the reason I won't invest time into something that's not grabbing me is because I want to play COD or something else I actually want to play.
There's certain genres I just won't enjoy and specific games I don't like but that doesn't mean they're bad games, just not for me.
Being crap at COD never stopped me.

Greyfox

Arcadeheroes wrote: »

Sorry the whole time is important thing is an excuse . Many people have jobs , school , looking after their families and have beaten the souls games multiple times and had no problem despite being busy.

If your 3 hours into a game and its only ok you should give it more time but if after 3 hours its just constant frustration your better off putting on a fun game instead. I understand that most people love the game after they got use to it but it doesnt mean everyone will.

Arcadeheroes

Greyfox wrote: »

If your 3 hours into a game and its only ok you should give it more time but if after 3 hours its just constant frustration your better off putting on a fun game instead. I understand that most people love the game after they got use to it but it doesnt mean everyone will.

Thats not my argument though , my argument is people who have played so little of a game but then say the game is overrated crap . To be little something because someone does not understand it or like it is really just sheer ignorance .

Ive already said multiple times there is absoutely nothing wrong not liking bloodborne , or any of the souls games . its perfectly fine. but to tarnish the game and spread misinformation is what I will never agree with .

Its like when someone says I dont like Nintendo games because they look like games for kids . its ignorance .

a point I brought up in a previous post is I dont like the beatles but they are probably the most important band in the world to rock and pop , but Im not gonna come out and say ya their entire catalouge of music is crap .

again I have to stress this , the issue is not if someone played 3-5 hours and gave up . its when people play 3-5 and experienced 1% of the entire game , drops it , goes to forums and writes negative things they never gave a proper chance to experience for themselves and have a reader glance over who may be interested in trying it out and get scared off from it entirely .

Is any of the souls games flawless ? no absoutely not . but they are far from bad games

I don't think there is anything wrong dropping a game after 3 hours. It's enough time to get a feel for the mechanics. I think I put less time into Doom Eternal before dropping it.

Retr0gamer

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Unarguably great games is what I meant.

Saying it's the pinnacle is up for argument. You can't state that. Too many great games out there and there's plenty of great character action games and action RPGs up there with Dark Souls.

And Dark Souls definitely isn't perfect. Every game has flaws. DS1 has Lost Izalith and Capra Demon. Bloodborne has a few duff bosses. And DS2 has DS2.

As for the story requiring multiple playthroughs? Kind of through. It takes a lot of work to get the full story but I never had to look into it. I was perfectly happy with what I got out of the story of every souls game in one playthrough. I didn't really need to know more and if I did sure I could explore it more or look to Vaati or other youtubers. I actually think fully having everything explained to you ala the god awful codex entries in Bioware games is detrimental to game narrative. You don't need to know. In the souls games you don't need to know the full story. In fact not knowing the full story is part of the experience. Imagine if pulp fiction told you what was in the briefcase? It could negate the mystery of the briefcase, change the mood of the story and ultimately that's not what the film is about. It's not important. It's about each character's journey. Similarly Dark Souls the most imporant thing in the story is the players journey.

It's like a Murakami book. You don't need to know what happens or need to understand the full story. It's about the emotions you take out of it.

I couldn't help but laugh that you choose to reference Murakami of all authors. An ex gf of mien was mad about him but I couldn't for the life of me get into him. Each to their own

Penn

noodler wrote: »

Jesus, just because Dark Souls and it's brothers don't spoon-feed you the story doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the style.

I'm with Retr0, let every other game have 15 minute cut scenes or massive chunks of exposition.

I think presentation is key. If a game has long cutscenes, they need to be very well acted, written and presented to keep you engaged. If a game barely has any cutscenes and expects you to seek through NPC dialogue and scattered notes or item descriptions etc, they need to be engaging enough to make you want to piece together the story yourself.

Both are valid ways of telling a story, one is just more passive than the other, and relies on the story being presented to you, whereas the other requires active engagement and interest to want to find the story.

Potential-Monke

Re: the time aspect, I don't use the excuse of not having enough time, I use the excuse of I could spend my time better doing something else. They're obviously good games, oeople do like them, for all the reasons mentioned above. But I disagree that 3-5 hours on those games is not enough. As ye said, there's feck all story, so all you're really doing is fight, die, repeat, which you're supposed to do for 20+ hours before you can say you gave it a good go. Which is nonsense imo. As mentioned above, if the gameplay mechanics don't grab you within 3-5 hours, it's not a game for you. And it's unfair, for want of a better word, to label people who do that as people who didn't give it enough time.

There's still elitism, which is still the crux of the problem. Very few people who have enjoyed the games have said 'Ok, you didn't like it, so be it'. Nearly everyone defends it, makes sure you know you're missing out on great combat, an excellent but vague story, etc, blah. It's the defence of it is fanboyish. Some mentioned cinema as another example, like stopping a film after 30 minutes and complaining it was crap. Should I continue to watch after the first 30 minutes of Birds of Prey? I was pretty sure at that stage it was crap, regardless of what was coming afterwards. Save for Margot Robbie doing a full frontal masturbation show, I won't ever watch the rest of it.

I too don't like the Beatles, not my thing, never was. But as you said, I agree they did something for the music industry. I had to google what the Souls series did for gaming, when throwing it into the same league as Mario, Minecraft, etc. I don't think it did as much as those other legendary games. It had 'difficult but fair combat' (bullet hell players might have already got that), a new way to save that respawns enemies, a story that needs to be found if you're interested, and many different locations in the same smallish maps. But that's me reading it as not a fan. If it did more, I'm open to correction. Just don't think it belongs up there with the actual game changers. Probably hit a nerve there...

gimli2112

I agree with a lot of what you said but I do think it was a game changer. A whole genre of games are now described as Soulsborne. I'm not a huge fan of the series BB aside. When Remnant from the Ashes was described as a Soulsborne game my interest was piqued. When someone said it was Bloodborne with guns all I heard was white noise and the next thing I knew I was playing it.
It's probably my favourite game of last year, flaws and all.
I bought it solely due to the connection with From Software type games.