I’ve played through most of the soulslikes I put my mind to but I still haven’t played/finished DS1/2.
I started a playthrough of DS1 and got to Quelaag but didn’t actually fight her because I was cursed and wanted to cleanse it first - couldn’t find my way back, unfortunately, and didn’t want to look up guides lol. And now the save is gone, so I’ll have to start over - ie. I probably won’t play anytime soon :D
Haven’t played DS2 yet because I wanted to play them in chronological order.
What about you?
Previously Sekiro the parrying scared me for the longest time. I’m still sure the game will absolutely kick my ass, but maybe not that bad.
Right now… DS2 , the mechanic that punishes you for dying sounds awful, I’m dumb and die a lot on a first playthough so… I’m tempted to skip to 3 and then come back.
The max HP reduction caps at 50% and the items to return back to full are pretty common. There’s also a ring you can find very early in the game that caps the the reduction at 25%.
The game also throws a silly amount of souls at you. IMO DS2 is easier than DS1, a lot longer though, especially if you play all the DLC (and you should).
Wow, a LOT longer? I don’t mind if it doesen’t feel like a drag. Is there good exploration in DS2 in your opinion?
There is some janky stuff that doesn’t really make sense, but overall exploration is one of the strongest parts of the game. A ton of branching paths and optional things to find, much better than DS3 as far as exploration goes.
DS2 was a lot easier to me than other dark souls entries (Didn’t play DLC) which helped soften the blow of that mechanic.
Really? What made it easier in your experience?
I’m not the person you asked, but I can tell you the DS2 punish mechanic isn’t as bad as it sounds. You pop a human effigy (humanity) and it’s gone. You can get a ring that mitigates the effect in one of the first areas, and you can wear 4 rings instead of just 2 like in DS1.
Bosses are generally not that difficult. There’s no noob trap where you end up in Tomb of the fucking Giants early and have to climb back out. You can teleport between bonfires immediately.
There are some tough areas for sure, but you can actually make enemies go extinct by killing them 12 times.
/DS2 fanboy
I’ve read so many complaints about the health nerf over the years that I assumed there was no way to reverse it but leveling up again. I still wanted to play because of how divisive the game is, ha.
I actually enjoyed a lot not being able to teleport from the get go in DS1. It made exploration higher stakes and so very satisfying, It’s what I like the most about the game. Which brings me to ask, is exploration good in DS2?
is exploration good in DS2?
Yes, but not as good as DS1, because they nailed the interconnected world in that game. DS2 is more like branches off from the main hub, and you can access most of them right away or very early. DS1 was built different than the other Fromsoft games. You’ll still have plenty to explore and the DLCs are especially massive, but you won’t have those “omg I’m back at firelink!” moments. It’s similar in the way you go through Catacombs/Tomb, or Duke’s/Crystal Cave, a series of areas that eventually hit a dead end.
I also enjoyed the exploration and the no-teleport in DS1, but due to the (in my opinion pretty slapdash and poor) way the world in DS2 is constructed it would be torture to not have fast travel from the get-go. It’s basically all dead-end areas branching off of a central hub, and without it you would do an insane amount of meaningless backtracking. The world doesn’t connect back on itself like in DS1 (though no other game really does).
There is a lot of secrets to find and stuff like that though, but the joy of just discovering how the areas fit together isn’t there.
I wonder why they didn’t went with the same concept for the map in the other entries. Lore? Because Miyazaki did not direct Ds2 ? Too much a pain in the ass? A shame since it’s so good.
So the production for DS2 was quite troubled. The way I remember it was that Tanimura and Shibuya were in charge of it while Miyazaki was busy with Bloodborne. About halfway through the process the higher-ups decided it was shit and booted Shibuya off, leaving Tanimura in sole charge. The narrative was remade from scratch, characters were revised or redone and existing assets including areas were stitched together best they could to slot into the new game. In its own way it’s an impressive feat, but you can understand why it’s messier than DS1.
I have no idea for DS3 though, apart from that it had a pretty short development cycle, so I’m assuming sacrifices had to be made. Many of the levels themselves are great in DS3, but on the macro level it’s much more linear than DS1 (DS3 is almost just a long corridor). It could also have to do with a shifting of the focus from exploration to tough boss battles.
I agree and feel as though you showcased better reasons than I could articulate. Thanks for your input.
It was personally that I just felt the movement and attacks were a bit more fluid than DS1. Bosses were just easier to me than stuff like O&S that I suffered with in the first dark souls. Still I love all entries and I don’t want to punish ds1 for being less refined in some ways than later entries 🫶🏼
Sounds logical and reasonable, thank you. I don’t mind the combat rythm of Ds1, that said I played the remaster soooo… Take that into account. I find it charming, in a weird way ? I know for example a lot of people would like a bloodborne remaster, or a 60 fps update, but, to me it’s good how it is, maybe is nostalgia as well.
The thing with sekiro is the cooldown between blocking and not blocking is very short so parry spamming is a viable way to learn the timings. Also the game has lots of arm attachment tools to mitigate enemies you can struggle with. Fireworks basically got me through many of the tough fights.
This community has reasured me a couple of times now that it’s not as super hard as I was led to believe, so thanks. And after trying Lies of P now I feel better knowing I can do the thing the game wants me to do. XD
Lies of P and Sekiro. I will get to them at some point, but I don’t get through soulslikes very quickly and they’re not the genre that I play the most either. Fine by me though, there’s all the more chance of getting them on a good deal!
Quelaag is actually where I got stuck and stopped playing the first time I tried Dark Souls too. In my case I was not cursed, though, I was just regular old bad at the game
if you kill man-eater mildred in the swamp, you can summon her to help you fight Quelaag. takes a lot of pain out of the fight
I don’t super enjoy summoning, unfortunately. I’m definitely not of the opinion that people are somehow playing wrong if they do summon, it just reduces the satisfaction I personally get from the win. I got there eventually though! Just had to accept that not summoning meant I had to get good the slow way
hey thats absolutely fair. once you learn the series the bosses become pretty easy, and in some situations its easier to fight some of them solo anyways. im a sun bro all the way, so i love getting summoned to help people. unfortunately not a whole lot of people seem to need help these days lol.
I may not call upon your assistance myself, but I will always respect the effort to help out those in need
Demon’s Souls is great. I beat both the 2008 and PS5 versions. All the DS games are great. There is some DLC to get also. To me Wu Kong was like Sekiro. It was okay. Lies of P was good. Lords of the Fallen, the new version, is good (currently on NG+2). Bloodbourne was great also. I forgot to play tue DLC, so I bought it but stopped because Elden Ring came out. Elden Ring was good but I actually disliked the open worldness. It took too long to realize that an area was not just souls hard, but I had to come back later when I was stronger. Too much wandering around that is time-consuming. Still an absolutely wonderful game.
I think Bloodborne’s best boss (which is also my personal favorite soulslike boss) is in the DLC! The whole dlc is so so good! This is your sign to go back to it… if you feel like it of course
Sign taken to heart. I noticed I have only one thing to do in Lies of P to get platinum, so I’m going to do that and then go back to Bloodbourne.
Can’t say I’ve put it off for years because it’s still quite recent (came out a year ago), but I’ve been putting off Enotria: The Last Song because of its mixed reviews on Steam. Well, I got reminded of it being on my Wishlist thanks to a recent sale, and while I didn’t buy it it did make me pirate it to try it first.
It’s actually really good so far. It runs well so far for me, though I can’t say whether the performance issues that seem to be behind the mixed reviews were patched or it’s just me having a decent machine.
The theme, setting and art direction is amazing - the Commedia Dell’Arte basis for the lore is super unique and it’s great to play a soulslike that is bright and beautiful for a change instead of the usual grimdark. The story seems intriguing, though I’ve only just played the beginning.
Combat and character building seems deeper and more involved than typical, with both skill trees, four active abilities in combat and a sort of stance change system. I also have to give praise for a very unique and different element and status system that is completely unlike the usual tired fire-water-earth-air and its derivatives.
From what I’ve seen I definitely recommend checking it out, though maybe pirate it first just in case.
I started with Bloodborne, then did DS1, DS3 and Sekiro. Still waiting for the right time to get DS2 and elden ring.
The thing is, my wishlist is so large that whenever I finish a game I can always find something I’m excited about on a good sale. I don’t know when the right time will come…
The only one I might check out eventually is Entoria. The reviews did not make it sound like it would be one I would like so I didn’t buy it.
I’m playing it right now, though only through the first major area so far. It definitely has some jank, but if you can tolerate it I’d say it’s worth playing. I’ll reserve full judgement for when I’ve finished it, but thus far I’m tempted to say it’s worth playing just for the level design, art direction story and lore. The setting and theme is just so unique and interesting, and the game is beautiful.
The combat has a lot of fun things to play with, but perhaps not perfectly balanced. At the end of the day though it’s still a Soulslike so if you can tolerate some AA and jank you get your usual trappings, with a bigger emphasis on parrying than mainline souls games. The loadout system is interesting and getting into the “awakened” state every time you switch loadout (even if you switch to one using the same mask) encourages you to engage with the stance switching mid combat.
I’m having fun so far.
any game that actually has the word “souls” in the title. only elden ring and sekiro so far
Any one that fancies you in particular?
Not really, if I ever manage to pry myself away from Space Station 14 to try anything different, which one of the Souls games would you recommend most?
If you’ve played Sekiro and are somewhat familiar and comfortable with the playstyle, Lies of P could be up your alley. It’s a perfect blend of Sekiro and Bloodborne and is lots of fun.
Apart from that, depending on how much you care about level design and world building, you could go for Dark Souls 3 vs 1, for example. 3 is still a Dark Souls game, but it’s lighter on interconnectedness compared to 1 but feels a little more modern in terms of gameplay.
Lies of P looks interesting, I watched someone play it at a party and it looked neat!
I’ve played most of the big ones.
I guess another crabs treasure? I own it and just haven’t gotten to it because the backlog is big currently.
It looks fun and I am looking forward to when I play it.
I was thinking of Lords of fallen but apparently the developers have come out as mega chuds or something so I’m probably not going to bother now for some mid souls like.
I really want to finish Steel Rising. I love the aesthetic and find the story interesting. I had to uninstall before I had gotten that far into it because I was running out of disk space, but that’s not a problem anymore.
Never put off any of them, I replay (a few runs/NGs) them at about regular intervals (one or two titles per year).
Just like Dooms, and Quakes - which is a bit more often the 20 or so other titles I also (re)play from time to time.
I don’t know why but I found Elden Ring unsatisfying and I walked away about a third of the way through.
I love Bloodborne and Sekiro though and I’m very intrigued by them, but I keep bouncing off. I was always either a shield guy or a mage, and that’s the exact play style they were (perhaps rightly) trying to discourage/remove.
That’s why Elden Ring is great, you can change your play style. I stopped Sekiro because it only encourages one play style.
Agreed but I wish I knew what my problem with Elden Ring is. It just didn’t shine for me and I couldn’t never put my finger on why
![[Discussion] What's a soulslike you've been putting off for years but definitely (wink wink) want to play some time in the future?](https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/58c67c3f-ba0a-4528-a8f7-d85a22ecfa9a.webp){kind=link}