Games Demon Souls / Dark Souls I / II, prepared to die ?

[Doraku]

 

[xi0]

Not to be negative or anything, but isn't this just a Gothic/Victorian Dark Souls? lol...

I mean, for the people who are hardcore about the game, they won't care because it's all about the challenge and grinding and everything. But it's just weird to see so much of this game already when Dark Souls 2 just came out some months ago.

 

[Doraku]

Not to be negative or anything, but isn't this just a Gothic/Victorian Dark Souls? lol...

I mean, for the people who are hardcore about the game, they won't care because it's all about the challenge and grinding and everything. But it's just weird to see so much of this game already when Dark Souls 2 just came out some months ago.

I think people who are getting hyped up about this game is more likely caused by the fact that it is Hidetaka Miyazaki who directs it. Many people complain a lot about DS 2 being inferior to its predecessor and they often put the blame on the so-called "B-Team" of From Software - which isn't entirely true since only Miyazaki and some of the crews left the production team actually. I am a fan of DS 2, but personally I do not think - apart from the recently released DLC - it could match the ambiance of the first game. So I'm kinda pumped to play Bloodborne, regardless of the fact that it only looks like a Gothic remake of Dark Souls.

I heard somewhere Bloodborne isn't going to be as punishing as DS franchise, so I think From Software wants to reach bigger audience with the release of Bloodborne rather than simply making a game that is famously known as being hard. (This pattern can be seen from the fact DS 2 is more noob-friendly than Dark Souls)

Additionally, huge Dark Souls Youtube personalities like EpicNameBro or VaatiVidya also promoting this game so much thus I'm not surprised if Bloodborne gets popular so quickly.

 

[Hardy]

This was prolly posted before, but f it!


Spoilers obviously, and it's some kind of ongoing series.

Also... Ornstein kicks ass

I'm about to finish the first game. I might play the NG+, or just jump to the second game.

 

[Doraku]

I'm about to finish the first game. I might play the NG+, or just jump to the second game.

One thing that I'm kinda disappointed in DS is the lack of new content in its NG+ playthrough. Might as well just jump to the second game.

 

[Josef]

I heard somewhere Bloodborne isn't going to be as punishing as DS franchise, so I think From Software wants to reach bigger audience with the release of Bloodborne rather than simply making a game that is famously known as being hard. (This pattern can be seen from the fact DS 2 is more noob-friendly than Dark Souls)

From the looks of that trailer it might just look like they sold me on it.

It seems like a game that is just waiting to become popular and gather a following, the setting is one I also personally like as a historical one, nice change from Medieval to more recent period. It opes up some possibilities as well imo.

 

[riki]

The official Bloodborne website has updated with info on the Regain system and characters.

 

[Hardy]

One thing that I'm kinda disappointed in DS is the lack of new content in its NG+ playthrough. Might as well just jump to the second game.

Just now I noticed that, as this is the PC version, the DLC is included. So... more game yet

After screwing Solaire's storyline because I didn't kill a fcking bug, I got super pissed and decided to kill every NPC in this game (cause, seriously, screw them). So far I've killed every convenant leader in the game. When I finish the DLC I'll take care of every blacksmith and then kill final boss.

Also, no one cares, but I really like the Paladin's set (except the legs part, that as every medium-weighted legging weights too much for not a lot really... so I'm wearing Xanthous' instead -that has better stats anyway-).

 

[Doraku]

From the looks of that trailer it might just look like they sold me on it.

It seems like a game that is just waiting to become popular and gather a following, the setting is one I also personally like as a historical one, nice change from Medieval to more recent period. It opes up some possibilities as well imo.

It's a nice change indeed... btw if you're interested, you can watch one of the most popular Dark Souls personalities analysis on the gameplay:

Just now I noticed that, as this is the PC version, the DLC is included. So... more game yet

After screwing Solaire's storyline because I didn't kill a fcking bug, I got super pissed and decided to kill every NPC in this game (cause, seriously, screw them). So far I've killed every convenant leader in the game. When I finish the DLC I'll take care of every blacksmith and then kill final boss.

Also, no one cares, but I really like the Paladin's set (except the legs part, that as every medium-weighted legging weights too much for not a lot really... so I'm wearing Xanthous' instead -that has better stats anyway-).

You just recently noticed about the DLC

The final boss isn't that hard, DLC bosses are way harder. by the way, don't kill NPCs in the second game, because it'll make other players invade you more often.

 

[Hardy]

You just recently noticed about the DLC

The final boss isn't that hard, DLC bosses are way harder. by the way, don't kill NPCs in the second game, because it'll make other players invade you more often.

I'm slow :P

Yeah, I know how sins work. I just did it because I had nothing else to do with the game, so I thought ¨Might as well finish everyone and not just the game¨

I also screwed Sieg's quest because I killed 4 plants, instead of 3. So random...

Spoiler

2 steps in the DLC and a boss appears. It was kinda hard, made me use 8 flasks... this game

 

[Doraku]

Finished the 2nd DLC of Dark Souls II. Impression : 7.5 out of 10

Spoiler: Crown of the Old Iron King

The area is massive, but honestly I get fed up with boring humanoid enemies with typical ganking mechanics. Honestly I wasn't too taken aback by this DLC, as I was with the first one. The bosses are cool from lore perspective and I had cool fights with them(except the recolored version of Smelter Demon; same shit, different locations). I love the armor and boss weapons, deffo cooler than the first DLC.

 

[Doraku]

Scholars of the 1st Sin. A huge update most likely, but if there isn't any new content then

 

[Doraku]

Since this is pretty much a From Software thread, I suppose I would post spoiler for Bloodborne here as well.

There's this one Redditors who managed to get the early copy of the game and finished it. This is going to be a little bit spoiler-y, so I don't recommend you to read it if you want to be 100% spoiler free. There's nothing in the text revealing anything about the story though, so it's not a major spoiler.

Spoiler: Bloodborne

I've finished the game once, taking me roughly 45+ hours. I received one of what looks like at least four endings judging by the hidden trophies. New game plus starts immediately after the ending and makes some sort of sense thematically. I absolutely love this game.

I'll post a few interesting things (nothing too spoilery) based on what you guys seem to be most concerned about.

At the start of new game plus I currently have 14 unique trick weapons. Interestingly, there are more that I am yet to acquire as there is a gold trophy for collecting all of them. In my first playthrough I have managed to get two of them to 10+ which is the highest level.

The blood gems are an interesting mechanic to add both buffs and debuffs to weapons. Primary weapons can hold up to three different ones as you upgrade them, each slot allowing a certain shape of gem. Gems can be quite simple, for example adding +10% general attack power or a little more complicated. The cursed blood gems seem to be more powerful at cost to some other aspect of the weapon, so maybe a huge increase to arcane damage but also a decrease to the weapon durability.

I have about 12 off-hand weapons/items, again not all of them as there is also a gold trophy for all of these. I found having a torch in one of the two slots to be indispensable. Not only does a torch light up and show off the beautiful world design, some enemies are also visibly frightened of the flames.

I have found roughly 19 FULL sets of clothes and armour (yes, there are some light armour sets). There are also some unique pieces that for now at least don't seem to belong to a set. Some of these outfits look stunning and cool as hell. A lot of them have practical uses. The White Church outfit has a very high poison resistance, good for certain areas and bosses. The Ashen set complete with Grey Wolf cap - as seen in some promotional material - has a high frenzy resistance. I guess frenzy seems to be the equivalent of Dark Souls' curse mechanic.

As for beast mode, this still remains a mystery. Certain items and runes (think rings) can give your 'beasthood' stat a buff, and then hitting and killing enemies gives this bar a boost. I managed to max it out, which wasn't easy, but then nothing seemed to happen. I'm thinking that this is something that the day-one patch will expand upon, probably being connected to online.

In terms of magic, there are a few items that I have found that can be used like magic. These cost silver bullets to use. I won't spoil these but I found one or two to be especially useful. You need a high arcane stat to use these items. Arcane also increases the enemies' drop rates, e.g. for blood vials, bullets and blood gems. Enemies also rarely drop items such as poison antidote and molotovs etc

Overall I think this game is a masterpiece and even after finishing it once I feel like I have only began to scratch the surface.

Now I am getting more pumped to play it. Hopefully it delivers.

 

[Jammin]

I'm pretty stoked for it too.

It looks like dark souls but even more creepy horror-ish. Which sounds perfect to me. Dark Souls/Demon Souls didn't seem like they were really going for that and they were already pretty freaky to play. A full blown horror game like that should be terrifying.

 

[Doraku]

I'm starting Bloodborne as the Professional right now, this game looks so freakin' awesome! will add another impression later after I defeat couple bosses, perhaps tomorrow.

 

[Jammin]

I'll be getting it tonight, probably. The digital download is like 30 gigs and that takes a while on my connection.

All the reviews I've read are outstanding. The only thing people have a problem with is the loading times to get to the central hub. Which is apparently 40 seconds. Everything else seems good. The metacritic score is sitting at 93 with 35 reviews tallied.

 

[Doraku]

Okay, I've beaten like.. 6 or 7 bosses? I think the first three or four bosses aren't relatively hard, it's just you need to get used to this new combat mechanics especially if you are used to Dark Souls's combat mechanics; thankfully I managed to defeat them in my 2nd or 3rd try. I am really digging the level design of the game, it looks so good, and imho it is better than Dark Souls 1's level design.

What I don't like is how the loading screen is so unnecessarily long, and in a game where you're expected to die a lot, it's pretty much a huge turn-off for impatient people or people who don't have much time to play the game.

 

[Jammin]

That is the same thing I'm reading in all the reviews. There was news today that a patch is expected in the near future that will do some optimization to help the load times and address some frame rate hiccups that appear.

They really need to get that after death load time at least down to 20 seconds because I'm going to be seeing a lot of it.

I played Demon Souls and Dark Souls. Loved both. Never completely beat either. Instead those games beat me. The odds are fairly high Bloodborne is going to do the same and I'm cool with that but getting killed by a boss over and over is bad enough without being left to do nothing but wallow in shame and despair for 40 seconds.

 

[Doraku]

Yup, I barely notice any frame rate dips during my playthrough, but I guess that might be a huge problem for some players. I heard that if you store the game in SSD, it would load faster, but I only have physical copy so I haven't tested it yet. I wish the patch would arrive this week while the hype is still going.

Oh? Personally I like Dark Souls the most because gameplay-wise it was incomparable to any other Western Action-RPG. Dark Souls II is arguably the easiest of all three, and imho it's easier than Bloodborne as well. I hope you're going to successfully complete this one and just remember that patience and observation are always rewarded in From Software games. \o/

 

[Jammin]

I'm intend to try.

I never played Dark Souls 2 since it was a PS3 and PC only at a time when I was looking for PS4 games to play. I forget how far I made in Demon Souls but in Dark Souls I made it to the bain of my existence that Fire Boss "Ceaseless Discharge"(such a terrible name). That guy crushed me like a grape a truly obscene number of times.

---------- Post added March 26, 2015 at 07:16 PM ---------- Previous post was March 24, 2015 at 09:53 PM ----------

Good lord Doraku, how have you beaten 6-7 bosses already?

I've put a little time into Bloodborne now. Like 4-5 hours and I'm still working on the Cleric Beast.