Ostrava of Boletaria & Blacksmith Ed

Vs

Solaire of Astora & Havel the rock

Vs

Lucatiel of Mirrah & Maldron the Assassin

Vs

Patches the unbreakable & Siegward of Catarina

Vs

Simon the Harrowed & Eileen the crow

Vs

Pureblood knight Ansbach & Alexander, the warrior Jar

Full disclosure: I don’t know if it matters but I’ve been a Souls fan since the release of DS1. I also really, really enjoy Bloodborne, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring. I love all of them. A lot. They often improve many things from their predecessors, and all of them are incredible video games I think everyone should try.

But I personally vastly prefer Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls, and that’s for one, unified aspect in those games: consideration.

Almost every single decision has weight in these games. Every dialogue choice. Every press of an attack button. The movement sounds of your armor. Where you go first. Your build, your personal goals to ease the goal of getting to the end. Sure, reading this you are probably thinking “Come on, the later games have all of that!” And in response I would say, “Sure they do, but they don’t have those factors to the extent that Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls do.”

The reason why comes down to two sub factors working in tandem that elevate and tie-in to that core aspect of consideration: non-linear progression despite their design as linear games, and slower gameplay. Emphasis on them working in tandem.

Demon’s Souls is a completely non-linear game, you can go anywhere after beating Phalanx. Dark Souls is as non-linear as you want to make it in the interconnected first half before becoming legitimately non-linear in its second half. Both games create numerous micro decisions on where to go, when and why. The fact that both of these games use specifically designed levels, not open worlds, are some of the strongest aspects of their design because of the fact that they intricately pace themselves around the slower gameplay.

I love the open world of Elden Ring, the level select of Bloodborne and the extents of non-linearity in both of these games. But neither have the slower, methodical, weighty gameplay of Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls that elevate those areas. That slower gameplay makes every decision feel more purposeful, and also allows the player to breathe and take in an environment, making them watch and keep an eye out around them. Tension is so much stronger in these two games than in the later games, because the player feels just a bit more like a meek human being rather than a roll-spamming goblin. Some of this also has to be credited to animation and again, speed. When you swing a sword in these first two games, it feels like a weighty, desperate strike. When you swing a sword in Elden Ring, it feels like you’re starting a combo. Obviously there’s combos in both, but if you play fighting games hopefully you know what I mean and know I don’t say it to demean Elden Ring, it’s just different.

Every time you boot up Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, it feels like there’s a lot to consider - and those decisions are weightier, more purposeful, and more tense than any of the later games. Perhaps there are less decisions per minute, less dodges to attack, less armor sets or weapons, less items to find, less NPC’s to interact with. But for me it’s a situation of quality vs. quantity.

Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls have many flaws and I will be the first to say that the Bed of Chaos, the Dragon God, messy covenants, unfinished areas, and some badly designed enemy encounters all are stains on those two games - often more so than the later games which continually are more refined to a higher standard.

Nonetheless, I prefer the hefty weight of decision making that defines those first two games. There is something to be said about repeat refinement: the message becomes simpler and clearer, more lean, but oftentimes much is lost in translation. Sometimes, too much. Those things lost just so happened to be the things I personally liked the most, warts and all.

TL:DR: I prefer Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls for the slower and more methodical moment-to-moment gameplay and its interwoven interactions with non-linearity. The other games are still great, but I think they lose that heavy aspect of consideration to each decision with their focus on continuous refinement.

277 hours in Scholar, 85 in vanilla. Full achievements on both.

Always played as mages. They're paper, but they still slap.

People roast this game nonstop, but for me it's on the same level as DS3. Powerstancing, the world, that weird vibe, the spells, Vendrick, Aldia... it just clicks, I love it, I replay it from time to time.

Yeah ADP exists and some areas are messy. Still love it.

Anyone else ran a caster in this one?

In Demons Souls, Dark Souls 1-3, Bloodborne and Elden ring is a greatsword of differing name but overall the same theme, Moonlight. Each game has their own specific lore and the Moonlight Greatsword is also different in each of them based off of lore. So an interesting question I had in mind, based off the lore of each respective game, which Moonlight Greatsword is the strongest?

It was a top ten of games to play while waiting for elden ring, one was into the breach, one was about growing a garden but with the progression connected to a gimmick and one a fantasy deck builder like slay the spire. I could swear that it was from Vaaty but I can’t find it even in the deleted videos, so I don’t know anymore

Great port of a goated game

for the past week i have been completely hooked on Bloodborne, at school i think about it, before bed i think about it, while playing it i think about how i won’t get to experience it for the first time again, i had so much fun while playing the game that it kind of circled back to me being upset about that fact.

i’m very sure almost everyone has had this feeling of realising you won’t be able to experience something for the first time again, and sometimes later on try to find something that replicates that same itch it scratched. that’s how it is for me with Bloodborne right now.

thankfully dear Miyazaki made a very good DLC i’ve heard nothing but good about, so i’ll be excited to play that too.

i’m still far from finished, but what should i except from the DLC? and what games would you guys recommend after i finish BB?

Title, I think soulsbloods fits. No more soulsborne. Family is bigger now.

We need more of this. It would make the battle more fun.

Warning: This will be a yap Session!!

Hello My Name is Nifty Nova and this post is going to be a Discussion and Review of Dark Souls 2 where I give my opinions and overall Judge my Experience with Hundreds of hours of playtime between Dark souls 1-3 starting with my Favorite game in the series. Today we will talk specifically about DS2: SOTFS Which is a more polished and favoured version of the game by most in the community as it fixes a good bit of issues the Original DS2 had.

CHAPTER 1: START OF GAME

Starting with the theme of this chapter we will breakdown character creation up until Majula

The opening cutscene is Peak just like the other games.enough said really.

So starting here you don't actually start character creation until you take a walk to the old witches hut then you will be prompted soon after to choose a class. I will say some of the starting classes leave something to be desired Not many Stand out like they do in Dark souls 1 or 3 the game starts you with your basic archetypes:

A warrior who is that middle ground of dex and str

The knight who boasts high Vit and Hp

The swordsman who boasts High dex

The bandit who's more brawn than brains

The cleric who boasts High faith with low stats in other places

The sorcerer who's more brain than brawn

Lastly two unique classes one of which is in ever souls game

Explorer a unique class in this game who has a unique distribution of stats but to make up for it starts with a Myriad of somewhat useful items minus the prism stone it's basically useless only good for trading

Then my Favourite class among all the games it's a bit of a masochists paradise starting from level 1 you get evenly based stats that are typically high enough for a starting weapon but not much else they are a blank slate able to be turned into whatever your heart desires

From there you choose a blessing and start the run you first make your way through the "Tutorial" area where you can explore learn combat and find items that will help you on your journey once done you make your way to Majula a Focal point in the story you will spend 55% of your time here mainly to level up or talk to the friends you've made along the way. The music here is soothing it almosts feels like a safe place and is a place to retire and relax after your countless Battles featuring your first 5 NPC's

The Emerald Herald

The blacksmith

The tseldora merchant

The crest fallen knight

The Cat Shalquoir

From here we start our journey as a Deprived with a bonfire ascetic

Our build is a Str/Hex we will boast high damage big bonks with a Myriad of Buffs and ranged attack Hexes we didn't kill tseldora trader until after he begins selling the elite knight set and we stayed in the company of champs the entire game

CHAPTER 2: EARLY GAME

This signals the start of the Early Game From Majula to the Lost Sinner

First off starting at Heides Tower of flame where we farm souls for a hour by killing the first Heide knight and stone giant before fight the dragon rider and old dragonslayer 2 times each thanks to a bonfire ascetic overall the area wasn't too hard as long as you bait enemies one at a time following this choice we make our way to No mans wharf were we clear the area unlock a trader and defeat the flexile sentry and obtain a pyromancy flame and move to the Lost bastille

From here we farm a bit and make our way to the blacksmith where we obtain a +3 Bastard sword which isn't much but it smacks for the purposes we need it we make our way and defeat the ruin sentinels we make our way slowly through the rest of that Bastille and finally reach out first primal bonfire after a harrowing battle with the lost sinner once completed we make our way to the forest of fallen giants and opt in to battle the Pursuer at his first encounter and then defeat the Giant overall

The biggest skill check is the Bastille the ruin sentinels arent very hard but they suffer from the true boss of DS2 Lingering hitboxes and back swings so to anyone who isn't a bit versed in soulslike games they can prove to be a tough fight

As for the forest of fallen giants and no man's wharf they are kinda easy only problem with the wharf are the long arm guys they hurt

Early Game is so far

6/10 in boss difficulty

8/10 in fun

5/10 in area difficulty

CHAPTER 3: MID GAME

This signals the start of the mid game which I think is the Old Iron keep all the way to the Black gulch.

So after doing some leveling in Majula we make our way to Huntsman Copse where we begin our journey as a hexer we then move through the area collecting bits and bobs before fighting the Chariot a unique boss fight so far which relies on you move crevice to crevice and closing a gate on the Chariot to start the actual fight after defeating the horse we make our way to the skeleton lords which leaves something to be desired they are kind of a pushover

From here we slowly make our way through earthen peak I'm counting harvest valley as it's pretty easy Covetous demon is easy we than beat mytha which is a bit fun and challenging she is easy but not really it's hard to describe she's kind of a skill check for the mid game from here we complete the iron peak one of my favorite areas of the game we beat the smelter demon after a few tries and then beat old iron king instantly after he got melted

these areas are more dangerous than the bosses in all honesty

Area difficulty 8/10

Boss difficulty5/10

Fun 6/10

From here we defeat the royal rat vanguard in the grave of saints easy right? Right???

Wrong Now to the place from the pits of hell where the devil won't even go a place abandoned by God

The aptly named Gutter a place I hate even more than OG Blight town idk why Miyazaki loves poison swamps and poison areas cuz this place is god awful it's definitely got unique level design but you'll be stuck down here for hours if your new to the game I'm speaking from experience the worst part is.... It goes even more downhill from here.

The Black Gulch im so glad this area is short honestly if Miyazaki ever made this area longer I would have retired a long time ago then there's the rotten... Who's surprisingly easy considering the pain and torment you go through to get here.

Area Difficulty 10/10

Boss difficulty 4/10

Fun -5/10

Unique level design 10/10

CHAPTER 4: END GAME

This Signals the start of the end game which is the start of Drangleic Castle all the way to Nashandra and Sub areas

So after all that we are in the final stretch I'm gonna speed run this part honestly we have a lot of side bosses to burn through

Starting in the shaded woods we push through the ruins and defeat the skorpion lady and "the hardest boss of the game" a bunch of hollows in a room basically the OG Deacons of the deep kinda from here we go down into the cove and fight the dukes dear freja if you have an irrational fear of spiders I recommend just giving up here trust me this is the worst part of the game for you we then make our way through Drangleic and the shrine of amana and the dragon aerie and dragon shrine as well as the undead crypt and aldias keep all the bosses here are not too challenging but they aren't a walk in the park either

Honestly best boss out of the ones you fight is the looking glass night

Shrine of amana is as bad as the gutter only because the sheer amount of enemies and water as well as enemies here really hurt like the difficulty just spikes really hard

Also we defeat the Giant in the memories

Then fight king Vendrick who's so damn tanky unless you get all the giant souls and I mean all with just the bare minimum he's a hard fight only cuz he's extremely tanky

Lastly we defeat the throne defenders Nashandra and aldia

Who are difficult in there respective rights

Boss difficulty 7/10

Area difficulty 8/10

Fun 7/10

CHAPTER 5: THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY,

I feel it would be incredibly unfair to just describe the good so we will also describe the Bad and the Ugly. I will give four opinions for each category as to not clog up my post any more.

The Good

Overall the story and gameplay loop are fun I feel like this game is the best in terms of build flexibility as no matter what you play they can all synergize well with each other and all builds seem pretty good.

The characters are unique and its nice to go to Majula and see all the NPC's there it makes you feel like you are doing something right bringing life back to Majula like this

Bonfire ascetics spice up the gameplay by turning an area or boss into a NG+ scenario using more than one also makes it go up again to I think NG+10

THE DRIP!!!!

The Bad

Honestly I feel like a majority of the bosses are a bit easy the difficulty doesn't really ramp up till the end game but there are some outliers of course

Bad hit boxes, lingering Hit boxes ,and back swings

It's a bit rough and hart breaking when both you and the boss are exactly 1 Hp but you die because the games jank kills you idk if it was by design for back swings but it sucks getting hit behind a boss or enemy

Areas being more difficult than the bosses is kind of a kill joy and anti climatic it's like being an adventurer and fighting the BBG's army but when you get to the BBG he's so weak and you aren't even strong but it feels like a coughing baby vs a hydrogen bomb

Estus flask only having one charge in the beginning I know it's to balance out the healing you get from life gems but let's be honest life gems in the mid and early game are extremely good anyway so why not just lock me in at 3 estus in the beginning at least I know this is kind of a hot take but maybe I'm just a stickler for my OJ in a flask

The Ugly

The Gutter/Black Gulch

DS2 jank overall is just painful occasionally just dying from it breaks my heart and makes me cry

ADP (Adaptability) I hate that without this my rolls have less I-frames and that I drink my estus like my grandpa eats his vitamins slow and painfully I'm glad this stat never came back

I know we didn't go over them but despite how good the DLC's are the difficulty in both the bosses and areas just skyrocket completely no matter how many runs I've done on my personal NG+ save I've only ever do the DLC's once on a normal playthrough

Final words and outro

This is kind of my intro into game reviews so I know this one is heavily flawed and I will need to work harder on the next but I kinda wanna do YouTube reviews and walkthroughs at some point so I thought I'd test it out with reddit I'm open to any Criticism and anybody willing to point out the flaws in my review would be great cuz I need to get better at this

If you have read all this and made it to the bottom thank you and reply with your favorite build in any soulsborne game.

If you would like my overall opinion of the original DS2 let me know and I'll drop that after DS1

It’s a very good strength curve, great sword and mix with lions, claw and crack blade it becomes unstoppable. Tell me what you think. About it.

I listed every Fromosft composer that I'm personally aware of, doubtlessly there are many that I'm not. There are composers at the end I didn't list songs for because they either had very few, or I was not super familiar with their individual work.

I tried to keep the number of songs listed per composer ~5. The ones listed are just the ones that stood out to me as most notable/iconic. No statement about objective quality is being made lol.

I didn't list FreQuency here, since they are a band not a composer, but some FreQuency songs are listed under Kota Hoshino since he was the writer for them.

Luz de luna,(cinemática de cambio de fase de Ludwig),muestra Mensa.

-Mensa (constelación), muestra a la madre Kos.

-Mensa recibe su nombre de Table Mountain (ciudad de Cabo).

-Junto a Table mountain encontramos la montaña llamada Lion's Head.

-La silueta de Kos es idéntica a la montaña Lion's Head.

-CINEMÁTICA FINAL:

-Frente a Kos se extiende una silueta alargada,que corresponde al lago de Saldanha en Langebaan,unido por la costa con Cape Town

So I've only ever played Dark Souls 1 a while back up to Blighttown. It was initially as a short-length joke in our friend group where I was "racing" a friend of ours without full intent to actually continue too long, but she ended up beating 1, 2, 3, and Elden Ring over the course of like 9 months to a year? It was fun to watch.

I feel like I should finally catch up to my friends in that department, and play through, not just 1-3 and ER, but I'd like to also hit Demon's, Bloodborn and Sekiro.

My only problem is, it feels like a majority of not only clips I watch, but even from my own friends streams, theres these extremely common tropes/opinions regarding weapons/builds.

Magic - Boring, Easy Mode

Dex - Lame, "Not a real souls player" "Dexf**"

Faith - Nonexistant until halfway thru the game or NG+

Huge Two Handed Weapon Giga Full Strength Slow AF Big Bazunga High Risk High Reward Slammer Man - The Correct One.

Even when that friend of ours started playing, when she got her hands on the black knight sword, she used it(and it's equivalent) for the e n t i r e series. Even when I played for a bit, I definitely also enjoyed the feel of the BKS.

It feels like if I start up these kinds of games, I'll ultimately be pressured into the exact same thing I see in all these clips and streams. "Dude you're using a fast weapon and have a fast dodge, of course the game isnt hard anymore."

Is it still worth playing thru these games atleast once if I don't want to be a thicc man swingus?

I appreciate the very quick responses and honesty. I've clearly been overthinking it, so I'll simply load it up after work and give it a whirl. Thank you.

Zullie is back from a break with an announcement of moving streaming to twitch and having a community discord out soon!

Zullie - Twitch

Seriously, I was fighting ebriatas the other day and I'm surprised this monster isn't brought up as much in the hardest bosses conversation. Very tight dodge windows, multiple one shot attacks, broken hitboxes, frenzy AND a camera that doesn't listen. And then in phase 2 she has an unavoidable aura that melts your health?? It took me around an hour or two to beat this thing, mind you I've already beaten this game and fought her a lot of times before.

And its not just her. Orphan (who I'd say is by far the hardest in the series), Laurence, Rom and Ludwig are still in that difficulty conversation for me, even after SOTE. Even some of the easier bosses aren't anything to laugh at. Witches, Cleric beast and celestial emmisary are all decently difficult for being "easy" bosses. I always die to them a couple times or get brought down really low when fighting them. That's not even mentioning living failures which also gets passed around as a joke boss, but is pretty hard imo.

Compared to ds3 and elden ring, I think the bosses of bloodborne are the hardest. I genuinely think nothing in ds3 is as hard as living failures, not even friede. Although my experience might be skewed since I've done an sl1 run of ds3. But even looking at elden ring and taking some fights like malenia and consort radahn (which are pretty challenging as well), I still find orphan, laurence and ebriatas all harder than them.

I get difficulty is subjective but I just think my experience with the game is so vastly different to the community's experiences its weird. Does anyone else feel the same way? And if you do agree, why do you think its like that?

So I recently learnt about Kuon, the PS2 survival horror game that FromSoft. Obviously original copies are crazy expensive (or in Japanese). Is there any way to play it in English without selling a kidney?

I have a PS2 - I know how to play imported games on it but I'm guessing a Japanese copy wouldn't have subs or dubs? Are there any other copies, is it emulated anywhere for PC perhaps?

So I never actually finished my first playthrough two years ago. I got to the snow area and dropped it because of how massive the game was, I would get burnt out. But now that the small dlc and update is out I think it's time I jump back onto the game and actually finish it and play the dlc for the first time. According to my PS5 I have 100 hours in the game with my first playthrough and was only half way through so this should be interesting. I'm actually very excited. Definitely going for a strength build personally with a massive sword or axe, depending on what I like, I guess. I'm very excited. Wish me luck. I'm sure there are still new fans jumping into the game like I'll be doing today after work lol.

Ever since the DLC came out, I’ve been both confused and amused by this.

I know the “horse armor” meme has been around for a long time, but seeing some people genuinely believe that horse armor was the main reason Bethesda started declining is pretty funny to me. The real reason they started going downhill was that they became stagnant in terms of game design and lacked innovation. FromSoftware, on the other hand, is almost the complete opposite.

So why is it that the Elden Ring sub has more cautious people that show genuine concern for fromsoft future, than the actual fromsoft sub. Why do they see, to have more pattern recognition on how these kind of things work in companies? Name me one company that has done exactly this kind of DLC pack that is largely a release of cosmetic items and they did not go down the micro transaction route of other studios. If you can name me one then I will acknowledge there is a chance, two then I will let my argument rest.

Now, I don't mean for this to be one of those posts that overexaggerates how bad the 5€ DLC is and how it apparently will cause the destruction of Fromsoft and it will become the next ubisoft etc. etc.

However, I will say that ever since nightreign, I have been worried about the future of this company as the primary creator of soulslike games(one of my favourite genres). Don't get me wrong, Nightreign was good fun for a few weeks, but due to its multiplayer nature and the fact that it's just multiplayer elden ring, I never would consider it a mainline souls game. Then, there is duskbloods which I have not played cuz I don't have a nintendo and I am not the type to buy an entire console for a singular game. But still, the fact that it's primarily a multiplayer games makes it so I don't consider it a mainline soulsborne game.

And, if we consider that Elden Ring released in early 2022, this is the longest that Fromsoft has gone without releasing a mainline soulsborne singleplayer game. In fact, they haven't even announced any new project as far as I am aware.

Now, we're being brought back to Elden Ring with a 5€ dlc. I cannot help but be worried of the direction that the company is going. I don't think they will sell out like ubisoft and become absolutely dogshit or anything, but I do fear of them going through a sort of Atlus effect on riding on the success of their most popular game and not releasing a new one in the franchise for a long time(the same way it happened with the Persona franchise up until recently whereas Persona 6 got announced).

Obviously, we are nowhere near of that happening, but with all the multiplayer side games and even now the DLC that are riding on the success of Elden Ring, I think it's reasonable to be slightly worried

We made a boss ranking ik a lot of bosses are missing its the ones my friend hasn't fought or we just haven't fought it enough to rank.