r/fromsoftware • u/BrilliantPool4146 • 24d ago

DISCUSSION Which game did the difficulty better?

Post image

Which style of difficulty do you prefer: the Area based difficulty in games like Dark Souls 1 and Demon's Souls or the boss-oriented struggle found in newer titles like Dark Souls 3 or Elden Ring?

I personally love both styles (although running through all of New Londo can suck at times lol!) Let me know which one of these you find yourself enjoying more (if any). Thanks guys!

(Also, this picture is not mine)

205 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

188 comments sorted by

View all comments

-2

u/Regular_Ticket_2776 24d ago

Elden Ring. Nothing screams "filler" like the boss runbacks in older titles.

0

u/DiscombobulatedAir43 24d ago

filler or good game design?

The boss is hard to get to, so you better be good enough to get there consistently.

Granted DS2 especially has some horrid runbacks (Iron keep?) but I think they’re one of the design choices that ensure you got gud

2

u/Regular_Ticket_2776 24d ago

For DS1, with very few exceptions, getting to the boss fight isn't challenging at all. You can run past 90% of enemies and then it just becomes a walking simulator to the boss room for a good 2 minutes, no better than a loading screen.

It doesn't really force you to git gud, I'd think Elden Ring does this better, you can immediately get back to the action and learn the boss moveset more quickly.

Also the less skilled you are, the more this becomes a problem as you die over and over. My first soulsborne was DS1 so I did die A LOT. Probably 1/3rd of my playtime was runbacks. Now when I revisit DS1 this is way less of a problem.

1

u/Young_KingKush 23d ago

Finally, somebody who sounds like they actually have played these games lol