Dark Souls

[Oblivious]

If you have Steam, and you love crazy difficult single player RPGs, GET THIS GAME. Best game I've played in ages. I'd put this game above most anything I've played in the past five years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3HdfzC7Shg

 

[redbaron]

I played it on the x360, definitely agree. One of the best games I've played ever.

 

[Cognisant]

I lost +50,000 souls last night.

Heartbreaking.

I'm up to that dragon-slayer and executioner tag team.
Tough bastards.

 

[Cognisant]

http://digitalpimponline.com/strips.php?title=avw&id=148

If you haven't played the game, it's like that, and yet you'll enjoy it

 

[Words]

I've played Demon Souls years ago. I had the sturdiest armor(Brushwood was it?), two of the strongest swords(Demonbrand and another), and I was about to face the final boss. I didn't. It's about to end. No motivation. Often happens.

 

[eagor]

I've played Demon Souls years ago. I had the sturdiest armor(Brushwood was it?), two of the strongest swords(Demonbrand and another), and I was about to face the final boss. I didn't. It's about to end. No motivation. Often happens.

i played demon souls, my character was strength and stamina based dual wielding dragon bone smashers...good times

 

[Cognisant]

I'm up to that dragon-slayer and executioner tag team.
Tough bastards.

Still fighting them, in the latest attempt I walked in with a head full of plans, switched my shield for the moonlight butterfly one hoping to get some cheap hits in before they're upon me, the dragonslayer closed the distance in under two seconds, I didn't switch back fast enough, three seconds later I was dead.

I'm convinced this boss fight is designed to be a giant "fuck you" to anyone without xboxlive.

 

[Jennywocky]

Still fighting them, in the latest attempt I walked in with a head full of plans, switched my shield for the moonlight butterfly one hoping to get some cheap hits in before they're upon me, the dragonslayer closed the distance in under two seconds, I didn't switch back fast enough, three seconds later I was dead.

I'm convinced this boss fight is designed to be a giant "fuck you" to anyone without xboxlive.

See, that's where I'd just get bored and quit. Sigh. I don't really like games where you are just expected to beat yourself up for hours on end until you do something perfectly correctly. I think the last game I played where I invested so much time was when a guy at college convinced me to invest in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out on the SuperNintendo (I think). Oh my. I had all the patterns memorized, and I did beat the game... but never again.

Dark Souls sounds cool but even more frustrating. I don't want to get sucked in!

 

[redbaron]

Still fighting them, in the latest attempt I walked in with a head full of plans, switched my shield for the moonlight butterfly one hoping to get some cheap hits in before they're upon me, the dragonslayer closed the distance in under two seconds, I didn't switch back fast enough, three seconds later I was dead.

I'm convinced this boss fight is designed to be a giant "fuck you" to anyone without xboxlive.

@Cognisant

I killed it on my second attempt playing offline. Just back-pedal around the room with shield up and Ornstein will chase after you. After you block or he whiffs an attack, switch to two-handed and get in a hit. Out of curiosity what weapon/shield combo and build are you using?

I was using the Black Knight Greataxe on my first kill. On my next one I used a Divine Gargoyle's Halberd. If you have it, you can use any variation of a high-level spear. Spear+10, Lightning/Divine/Fire Spear all works. Being able to attack with a shield up is a huge bonus. The fight will take longer this way since it doesn't deal as much damage as two-handing a weapon with really high base damage, but as long as you're patient you'll have no problems.

If you have one, try to use a Greatshield, it will stagger Ornstein on one of his specific attacks when you block and gives you a free hit. The high stability really helps with Smough. I used an Eagle Shield + 5 for the high lightning resist.

Also, don't even go near Smough until Ornstein is dead. Just keep baiting out Ornstein who is faster. When Smough gets close just keep manoeuvring away, don't worry about attacking until you're out of his range and can attack Ornstein again.

So basically the easiest way to win the fight is:
- Greatshield
- High-level Spear OR weapon with high base damage that you can two-hand
- Don't worry about Smough, just kite him around the room and whittle away Ornstein when he leaves an opening

Might take a few goes, even though I killed it on my second attempt it still took me 4 attempts on my next character. I haven't played up to this point on NG+, if I remember to update here I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[del]

PC or console version?

I ask because I've heard iffy things about the PC port.

 

[redbaron]

Console, I can't imagine playing it on PC.

 

[Publius]

Dark Souls is a wonderful, wonderful experience. Best game I have played in years, it gripped me like nothing else ever has, except maybe Planescape Torment.

 

[FancyCorndog]

The 'Souls' games, Demon's Souls and Dark Souls were very enjoyable for me.

In INTP terms, these games are heavily dependent upon thought before (each) action. They also involve character building, or choosing between different 'set-ups' for a character and optimizing it - this is theoretical in nature and something that I've always been strongly drawn towards in video games.

I got the 100% Platinum Trophies for both games, I'm pretty proud of that.

 

[Cherry Cola]

See, that's where I'd just get bored and quit. Sigh. I don't really like games where you are just expected to beat yourself up for hours on end until you do something perfectly correctly. I think the last game I played where I invested so much time was when a guy at college convinced me to invest in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out on the SuperNintendo (I think). Oh my. I had all the patterns memorized, and I did beat the game... but never again.

Dark Souls sounds cool but even more frustrating. I don't want to get sucked in!

Yeah the scary part about Dark Souls is that it works, it's even refreshing. They've effectively created an action combat system that's pretty much the best out there, combining it with RPG leveling. Works great because you struggle in the beginning, and really feel like you get tons stronger later on when you start owning a lot of stuff and you're all like "hell yeah I cut through em so smooth now" whereas in fact yes you get stronger, but it's your actual combat skill at swinging swords and learning enemy behavior that matters most. Tends to become evident at the start of it if a second playthrough is made.

 

[TheScornedReflex]

I want this game. No, need this game!! Someone should send me an ISO and save me downloading one .

 

[TheManBeyond]

My little brother just bought this game yesterday and it's pretty cool, it reminds me a lot of a game i loved for my dreamcast, i think it was called Draconus.
Fucking hard, i've died like 200 times?, i killed the undead burg merchant and decided to restart it becuz i couldn't kill the goddamn gargoyles with the shitty standard sword. I'm to blame for paying attention to some stupid guy in youtube saying the uchigatana was the best sword ever = no dragon sword. Youtube trolls who mislead innocent minds should be banned.
Anyway now i have it. Sadly i used all my gold resine for killing that taurus demon and now i have none for the gargoyles -.- goddamn karma

 

[Reluctantly]

I found this game a bit too frustrating, so I hacked it and maxed out my points. Then it was more fun.



Seriously though, how is this game so popular when you have to die so many times just to kill one boss, and sometimes the mini-bosses take many deaths to kill too. 0.o
It kind of reminds me of the old-school mmorpgs where they were hard as shit and you'd die a lot and every time you died you'd lose some experience too. Ugh...sometimes I'd reset to a bonfire just so I wouldn't lose all my shit after killing a boss...and then I'd have to kill all the same enemies again. I just couldn't keep playing. Hacking was the only way to motivate me to play again.

 

[Hadoblado]

PC or console version?

I ask because I've heard iffy things about the PC port.

They're all true. I bought this on steam and regret it. Unplayable.

 

[TheManBeyond]

Ehm, for me it's the opposite. I don't usually like mods, they kinda take away the essence of the games and make it whatever. FPSs mods are cool once a while tho.
On Dark souls: well you just have to know certain aspects of the game and get used to it and then it will be much "easier". Also with the drake sword the difficulty reduces a lot, at least for the beginning part, then you enjoy it much more.

 

[Reluctantly]

They're all true. I bought this on steam and regret it. Unplayable.

There's a bunch of mods that fix the problems by the way. You have to update the microsoft app that it uses to connect online or it won't launch. I also had to use x360ce to get full functionality of my controller... the game works, but it is a pain to get it working on pc.

 

[Jaffa]

They're all true. I bought this on steam and regret it. Unplayable.

I'm the same. The PC port was terrible. I got about 15 minutes played time before switching off and uninstalling.

I hear DS2 is better.... But still not great.

 

[TheManBeyond]

hahaaaaa!, killed that goddamn iron headless thing, gonna burn the amazonas down there.

 

[Cognisant]

I found this game a bit too frustrating, so I hacked it and maxed out my points. Then it was more fun.

Sacrilege.

I pity you for you will never know the satisfaction of true achievement.

Seriously though, how is this game so popular when you have to die so many times just to kill one boss, and sometimes the mini-bosses take many deaths to kill too. 0.o

If it were easy, why fight them?

 

[Reluctantly]

Sacrilege.

I pity you for you will never know the satisfaction of true achievement.

I don't really feel achievement playing video games. I play for the escape into and the experience of alternate worlds or as a way to delve into imaginary worlds that evoke my imagination.

If it were easy, why fight them?

It was too hard though.
*Sometimes I'd get knocked off a ledge and die and lose my previous souls.
*Sometimes the AI would get a lucky combo and then I'd get hit many times or I'd drink those potions only to get killed trying to drink it.
*When you die, everything respawns. This is very annoying when all you want to do is practice fighting a boss.
*Even when I'd kill a boss I'd go back to the previous bonfire because chances are that if I didn't, I'd probably die and lose all the souls I had just gotten...
*There's no instructions for anything in the game. I had to figure everything out.
*There was one part at the beginning where I couldn't figure out where to go and tried different paths, but they were all way too hard. I watched a video online and found the staircase hidden in the background to start the game off after the raven dropped me off. That was a bad sign from the get-go.

Basically, it's not that I had a problem with it being hard, but more that it was completely unforgiving when I made mistakes; I learn from mistakes and prefer games that don't punish severely for making them. It made the learning process seem not worth it.


But hey, if you're the kind of masochist that likes putting in a lot of time for little progress, enjoys lots of repetition, and feels a sense of achievement from putting up with all that, then I can see why you would like this game.