Posted May 23, 2014
I ... Just ... All right, I've just played it a bit over 4 hours now, so I feel like I've finally given it a fair chance - with a controller, no less. The game itself is kind of fun, with combat having a lot of weight behind it which makes it quite satisfying. I've honestly not seen much of story to speak of, and while it's nice that you can piece it together from stuff like item description and the half-crazy dialogue, I have very little incentive to actually attempt to do that - I've not really seen anything interesting about it so far.
But I digress, it's gameplay that's important, right? So yeah, gameplay. It's good. I like how the weapons and especially their attack arcs behave, that's very nice. I also like the possibility to switch between one-handed and two-handed weilding, very neat idea, and some of the primitive 'combos' are interesting enough. What I do not understand are these things:
a) Where's the fun in repeating already memorized? So far, I have spent like 8 attempts to take down the gargoyle boss thing. The game was pretty much a breeze until then, this being a massive difficulty spike that just kind of ... Happened. So yeah, I fight the boss, I'm being careful, keeping my distance, learning its tells - 3 deaths. Me actually trying to utilize what I have learned - 4 deaths. The last death was the OTHER gargoyle which just sort of emerged all of the sudden, and BOTH of them suddenly using an attack I have never encountered in the game before. So yeah, that was the last death ("But it's your fault when you die!" my ass, I could have only predicted that if I seen a youtube playtrough.) Now I'm actually okay with that, I'm used to repeating boss fights from other hack and slash games so meh - what just constantly riles me up is that I repeatedly need to go trough the same set of enemies to get there. Some would argue that I learn the game better that way, but I never take damage - they're just an annoyance which slows every replay of the boss by good 5 minutes or so. It's like watching a 5 min long cutscene before I'm allowed my another go - and that's just an excercise in patience, not fun gameplay in any way. Well-designed games make me ragequit. Dark Souls made me leave in disgust while expecting another slog trough the same set of opponents.
b) What's the point of obscuring information? Now, I get games which don't hold your hand, but Dark Souls deliberately doesn't tell you anything. Oh yeah, "It's up to you to figure out" - that basically either means wasting loads of time with trial and error or booting up Dark Souls wiki, yet my experience is that the moment I'm forced to use a guide or walktrough, I will stop enjoying a game. Sooo... Yeah, I hope my mistake was not building my character wrong, because the game sure as hell won't tell me (lvl 17 or so Warrior, focused on Dex, Str and Vit)
So... Yeah. I no longer think it's terrible, just... Lacking. There doesn't seem to be much to do, and there doesn't seem to be much of interest to be found (and if there is, it's barred by the monsters with tons of HP that my weapon barely cratches). I do like the world design tho, especially how you keep unlocking paths connecting you to the previous locations, and then unlock paths FROM them. That's really cool.
But I digress, it's gameplay that's important, right? So yeah, gameplay. It's good. I like how the weapons and especially their attack arcs behave, that's very nice. I also like the possibility to switch between one-handed and two-handed weilding, very neat idea, and some of the primitive 'combos' are interesting enough. What I do not understand are these things:
a) Where's the fun in repeating already memorized? So far, I have spent like 8 attempts to take down the gargoyle boss thing. The game was pretty much a breeze until then, this being a massive difficulty spike that just kind of ... Happened. So yeah, I fight the boss, I'm being careful, keeping my distance, learning its tells - 3 deaths. Me actually trying to utilize what I have learned - 4 deaths. The last death was the OTHER gargoyle which just sort of emerged all of the sudden, and BOTH of them suddenly using an attack I have never encountered in the game before. So yeah, that was the last death ("But it's your fault when you die!" my ass, I could have only predicted that if I seen a youtube playtrough.) Now I'm actually okay with that, I'm used to repeating boss fights from other hack and slash games so meh - what just constantly riles me up is that I repeatedly need to go trough the same set of enemies to get there. Some would argue that I learn the game better that way, but I never take damage - they're just an annoyance which slows every replay of the boss by good 5 minutes or so. It's like watching a 5 min long cutscene before I'm allowed my another go - and that's just an excercise in patience, not fun gameplay in any way. Well-designed games make me ragequit. Dark Souls made me leave in disgust while expecting another slog trough the same set of opponents.
b) What's the point of obscuring information? Now, I get games which don't hold your hand, but Dark Souls deliberately doesn't tell you anything. Oh yeah, "It's up to you to figure out" - that basically either means wasting loads of time with trial and error or booting up Dark Souls wiki, yet my experience is that the moment I'm forced to use a guide or walktrough, I will stop enjoying a game. Sooo... Yeah, I hope my mistake was not building my character wrong, because the game sure as hell won't tell me (lvl 17 or so Warrior, focused on Dex, Str and Vit)
So... Yeah. I no longer think it's terrible, just... Lacking. There doesn't seem to be much to do, and there doesn't seem to be much of interest to be found (and if there is, it's barred by the monsters with tons of HP that my weapon barely cratches). I do like the world design tho, especially how you keep unlocking paths connecting you to the previous locations, and then unlock paths FROM them. That's really cool.
