I've always found the Uncharted 4/The Last Of Us/God of War 2018 to all be decent, but all those games are kinda lacking in imteresting gameplay and are basically the video game equivalents of "Oscar bait"
I've always found the Uncharted 4/The Last Of Us/God of War 2018 to all be decent, but all those games are kinda lacking in imteresting gameplay and are basically the video game equivalents of "Oscar bait"
Dark Souls. Just the whole series.
:so-true: I can't wait to learn yet another attack pattern and press the dodge key at the exact right time!
I love From Soft games so much, but I can totally understand where you're coming from OP. Fanbase is extremely gatekeepy and toxic as well.
I love the Armored Core series. Been sort of left out for a very long time. :sadness:
Man me too. I used to spend so many hours tinkering with the mech builder and then painstakingly painting each component.
I've taken some rather obvious inspiration from that series for my own work.
Still one of the coolest game cinematics ever made
That's the exact cinematic I hoped it was. It moved my soul.
Maybe the next game is another armored core? I have heard rumor of that
I know next to nothing about it except a hint of maybe. Even the maybe seemed vague. :sadness:
The fanbase of that one also leaves me wary
"lol git gud lrn2play scrub, this is a REAL GAME for REAL GAMERS, yes I am way too proud of having mastered an arbitrary and useless skill"
I mean is it even really developing a skill? That's the part of the Souls fanbase that drives me up the fucking wall. The AI in those games is the most barebones script, once you learn the patterns you're golden. The timing windows you have to react and avoid attacks are gigantic once you know them, deaths come from "I didn't know this was gonna be here" as apposed to clearly telegraphed but strict attacks. The combat doesn't really have room for expression outside of what you equipped prior to a fight, and even a lot of that comes down to "I'll make the game more difficult on purpose for the sake of doing so." The crux of fashionsouls is that, outside of your main weapon, the gear you've picked up in your playthrough and the choices between them doesn't matter. They might as well be color pallets.
Compare it to any decent shmup like Deathsmiles or Crimzon Clover, where a lot of your deaths will also come down to "oh fuck, I didn't know the boss could do that!" and bullet patterns tend to be static, or follow simple rules (like having to move horizontally to "stream" tracking bullets across the stream). Dealing with positioning, reacting to attacks and changing tactics is more interesting because of the score mechanic and intensity of the encounters. Do you choose to bomb because it's safer, or hold onto them for end of run bonuses? Do you edge closer to the boss to rush it down faster and get out of an annoying phase, or do you milk it for more points despite it being dangerous? Do you not give a shit about going for the perfect run and just wanna turn off your brain for 30 min? And what you develop in one of these games transfers to others in the genre. As a fighting game player, I don't think there's a ton that meaningfully transfers into that genre. You're certainly not circle strafing and healing constantly in Tekken.
And yeah, the fanbase doesn't even really want you to get into their games. You ask a Melty Blood player how to scratch your ass and they'll send you a small dissertation. You ask a Souls player what gear is good for PVP and they'll mail you anthrax. Good on them too, I wouldn't want people I care about playing these dogshit games.
FWIW, I'm pretty lukewarm on Darksouls, though I did like Sekiro.
I do like the feeling of going from getting demolished by a boss, to improving but still dying a lot, to clowning on them.
Now, the fanbase is hot garbage, their multiplayer elements are trash, and the games have some issues besides, but the feel of learning a pattern and finally '''gettin gud''' is pretty nice.
Sounds like shmups have a similar feel; that gameplay cycle certainly isn't unique to Souls-likes. Its also what I like about what I'd consider some of my favorite games, like Enter the Gungeon. Though I haven't really been able to get into shmups or fighting games really.
I guess the main complaint I'm trying to convey is after you get to "clowning them", that's kinda it as apposed to other games that can give that feeling and allow you to go further.
Acquired taste, I didn't grow up with either and it wasn't until I was in my early 20's where I even understood the appeal. It hit me when I was playing DJ Max Portable 3 on a work break, and I would "go through" rhythm games by like, clearing every song once and then just moving on. I got stuck on a version of this song for like, days and I kept trying to get through it, and once it "clicked" it felt magic. It wasn't like I just beat an arbitrarily hard boss, not only did it feel great to get the flow of that song down, but other songs were easier to clear "for some reason" after. It's what showed me the reward of "getting gud" beyond just coping with the mechanics of an individual fight in a souls game, for example. My view of the entire medium changed over the course of a lunch break, I'll never forget it.
But that's a lot to ask for and takes time that not a ton of people have. I don't think everyone has to enjoy games like that. I think that Dark Souls is a 1/5 game for a ton of reasons, but that "get gud" mentality is one of the reasons I despise it the most. It's the fucking demiurge of video game accomplishments. There's a world beyond what those games offer and associating the process of growth, personal development, and the social relationships required to progress both with "have you considered not getting strafed by the dragon on the bridge lel" is putrid.
Ah okay, that makes sense. And I'd agree, that the 'getting good' process is pretty overemphasized by people, but I also haven't had any other 3D game that gives the same vibe. The only games that give me that same 'in the zone, conquering the timing' feel are 2D games.
I guess I don't really get the same 'feel' from rhythm games (probably partially because I'm very picky about music). And funnily enough, I enjoyed shmups when I was young, but I find them very repetitive today, probably just because I don't have the time or focus for them these days.
Sounds like a skill issue to me. But "git gud" is mostly directed against people who say dark souls is too hard, and should be made easier. Its a reaction to hearing people say the thing you like should have the reason you like it changed.
Yeah I was gonna say this. It's annoying, almost every modern game is so easy now. You can pick up any Ubisoft/EA open world game and stomp through it on the hardest setting, if you come to a series famous for being difficult and complain about how it should be changed of course people are going to dismiss you pretty flippantly.
Yup full of gatekeeping and other toxic bullshit
You're not wrong, I honestly wish the most toxic part of the fanbase wasn't the loudest but I also think they're a vocal minority and are greatly outnumbered by casual fans and sunbros who are happy to help anyone with the game via co-op
:praise-it: That's the whole point of joining a gank squad in jolly cooperation, so you don't have to git gud or handle your own shit, us sunbros believe in helping everyone with overwhelming force
I don't consider myself good, let alone gud, I'm just a big dummy who likes hitting things with a big sword and it's fine if people don't like the games but what's not fine is the worst people who play the games ruining it for new players
The devs clearly aren't on their side given that solo invasions haven't been a thing since Dark Souls 2 but they do remain the loudest part of the fanbase
I've had far more positive interactions with other players in game than negative but far more negative interactions than positive with other players on the internet but most of the playerbase doesn't talk about the games, I'm more terminally online than most and I've never been on the :reddit-logo: for any Souls game so if I had to guess most players don't even read youtube comments let alone reply
The point I'm trying to make is that you can see the best of the playerbase in random co-op, helping people feels good and that's infinitely better than "gitting gud" in my book, whether I'm representative of the fanbase or not
Me but unironically
I mean if you don’t like that gameplay loop I respect it but that is the exact reason why I like dark souls. It’s the same reason I like Kingdom Hearts.
I love how all criticism of Dark Souls machinics boils down to "wow I actually have to remember stuff and PRESS BUTTONS!? So much for cinematic gameplay"
MFs go watch a movie then lmao
For me the gameplay just feels really binary and uninteresting. Every boss is exactly the same - dodge, attack during the opening, repeat. There's no combos to learn like in a Devil May Cry, there aren't environmental puzzles like in Zelda, there aren't a bunch of gadgets to experiment with like in Sekiro. Just dodge and hit, dodge and hit, dodge and hit.
I mean, you have to play past the tutorial, experimentation is in weapon selection and the magic system, if you don't want to dodge learn how to parry or invest in tank builds
And level design alone surpasses anything found in Zelda
I've beaten DS 3. The weapon selections giving you different power attacks pale in comparison to games that actually focus on having a meaty combat system, magic is slightly more interesting - at its best it just lets you skip stuff by pressing the "I win" button but most of the time it's just useless.
Parrying in Dark Souls is the weakest mechanic by far, because the games are incredibly inconsistent about telling you what can and can't be parried - like a lot of those games' bullshit, you end up having to use a guide because if you fail a parry it's impossible to tell if you failed it because your timing was off or if you failed it because that particular attack can't be parried.
Then there's the fact that the game's design is antithetical to actually practicing parries and dodges and testing different magic spells in the first place. If walking back to the boss takes several minutes every time you die, practicing becomes a massive test of patience because fuck that. There's a few bosses right by bonfires but it should be every boss.
Also: boy I sure can't wait to walk through poison swamp #357 this game sure is more well designed than fucking Zelda! Imagine playing a game where you know which direction to go in order to progress the story won't catch me doing that cringe shit LOL
There's more to weapon selections then power attacks, using magic requires critical thinking not just spamming, parries are easy to practice just walk two feet past most bonfires, there's literally only three swamps in the whole trilogy, and I'd stack Anor Lando and the Boreal Valley against the best Zelda can come up with
Devil may cry hasn't been good in decades and it's a bummer because I loved that game
Same. I want to love it so much, just let me explore the world, but I just don't have the patience for all the frustration.
I played Severance: Blade of Darkness in like 2001. It was pretty amazing for the time in many ways (realtime physics, shadows, water reflections, dismemberment, 3D blood physics). It took a lot of ideas from Zelda gameplay like 'z targeting' and put that into a medieval fantasy setting with some realistic gore. It even had a mod scene spring up when only the demo was released because the main game code was in python and could be edited directly (in the demo!). It was a niche game with a niche community that made some cool stuff like new campaigns and features such as using the torch to cook dismembered body parts so you could eat them for health.
So when I finally got around to checking out DS1 on PC I was a bit underwhelmed. I had heard so many good things about it, the innovation and the hardcore gameplay, the unique multiplayer interaction, etc. I tried to get into it and 'be cool' since it was all the rage. I did enjoy exploring the world, but it was such a chore to do so. I eventually made it through most of the locations before I just got tired of it. I crafted a nice sword, but everything in the game just began to feel like such a chore. The lack of fast travel (I was probably getting close to unlocking it) combined with all the location knowledge needed to avoid a quick death when going between locations just kinda ruined the exploration vibe that had kept me somewhat interested. I felt like it was enough for me.
The most upsetting aspect of the gameplay was the lack of interesting move-sets. There's some variety, but it's entirely weapon dependent so it just feels really limiting. Compared to Severance which had at minumum 3-4 base combos (depending on character) for a weapon type plus unique power combos for almost every weapon, DS just seemed very weak. Like if you're gonna make a game that's mostly about melee combat, then don't have like only 2-3 moves you can do with a weapon. It's so repetitive after a certain point.
Something something Sekiro