Dark Souls 3 (JP version)

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takenoko
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Dark Souls 3 (JP version)

Post by takenoko »

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... fNDq8WKIat

I'm doing a blind playthrough on my Youtube channel. It'll show that I'm live streaming when I'm on. It'll eventually get added to the playlist above.

First, non-spoilery impressions. It's a pretty good sequel to Dark Souls 1. You can tell that it's a lot more of a direct sequel than Dark Souls 2 was, which was headed by a different team in From. Which is both good and bad. There's a strong sense of "you liked this thing in Dark Souls/Demon's Souls, so here it is again". Which is an oversimplification, since it's also amazing with the new stuff that it adds. The monster designs are still top notch and interesting.

The boss fights are also a mixed bag of both amazing and stupidly hard. Which leads to my other point of this post. I'm starting to see a terrible trend of From Software perceiving itself as a company that makes hard games. The reason people like Dark Souls 1 is because it's a very well designed game, but fair. And with Bloodborne and now Dark Souls 3, it's starting to seem like they're feeding into the small percentage of masochists in the crowd. With Dark Souls 2, most of these ridiculously unfair fights were relegated to optional areas. But first Dark Souls 3, the first boss you fight is actually pretty darn challenging and non-optional. No tricks. Just git good.

It's borderline unfair. One of the enemies in (maybe) an optional area is the worst thing I've seen in a From Software game. He
Spoiler
hides in corners, and will grab you, then he'll sit on you clawing your eyes out. Then he'll try to grab you again to repeat. If he doesn't, he jumps in the air and lands on you. It's fucking annoying.
Some other bosses have instant kill attacks. And that's never fun. I tend to be a bit of a glass cannon in these games, but come on. I should be able to take at least 2-3 hits from a boss before dying. It feels like these are bosses from a DLC zone. It's supposed to be cranked to 11, since it's a side area. But the main game should be hard but fair, and it doesn't seem like the designers knew where to draw that line this time.

Like Bloodborne had real problematic enemies. Like the exploding brain ladies and the Rom fight are terrible. Or Ebrietas with her one hit kill dash. And almost all the bosses in the DLC aren't fun to fight against (for me). I just worry that From is iterating in the wrong direction.

Some random complaints before I get to my final thoughts. I might have missed something, but the NPC storylines seem on par with Dark Souls 2, pretty weak and not fleshed out. The areas are a lot better designed than Dark Souls 2, but suffer from too much junk and noisy design of Bloodborne. But it still feels pretty linear, despite some areas meeting back upon themselves. It just doesn't feel like a whole world the way Dark Souls 1 does.

I'm not done with Dark Souls 3. I'm stuck on a boss, which shouldn't be surprising considering the tone of this post. I hate to be negative, since some of the callbacks are amazing. I'm loving some of the new mechanics in the game (although I'm not really using the new weapons technique system). Like, I play these game for the moment to moment surprising experiences. And there's definitely a lot of that. One of the monsters
Spoiler
looks like a designer went "what if Sadako from The Ring was mixed with a spider", it's nightmare fuel
. In between the moments of frustration, I do have a lot of fun.
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Re: Dark Souls 3 (JP version)

Post by Kogashi »

Hmm, I'd have to disagree with your characterization of where they went with Bloodborne and the difficulty in that. While the brain ladies who cause frenzy were unfair and not fun to face off against, Bloodborne I feel was more an attempt to use a Souls like game set up, only with somewhere between Armor Core and a character action game like Devil May Cry 3, or Ninja Gaiden. And really, if you were to ask me, combining the two is not that great of a leap.

While Dark Souls 1 is a much slower game, I found when playing it, that it wasn't so much a matter of being fast or slow, it's conviction, and how deadly hesitation is. If you are going to attack, step forth and hit the enemy. If you need to dodge, know you're going to dodge. Do not second guess yourself on 'oh, should I know? should I wait? OH NO!', do not panic and jump the gun. Only dodge roll when you know you can escape, only hit when you know you will hit. And that's a play style you see, to a less punishing degree, in Character Action games. Those games are about the confidence of motion, of blurring together actions and movement so your chain of attack never ends, dashing around the screen as the enemies unleash their storm of attacks, and pulling it all off with style.

Bloodborne, is about motion, it's about not standing still and waiting for enemies but about running towards them, dashing behind them, ducking under their swings or backing away from AOE attacks only to step back forward and cut into them. Even when not dodging or attacking, you're expected to keep moving, to slowly circle your enemy, keep pace with them. That, I feel, is what Bloodborne's major strength was. For me, a lot of the boss fights felt amazing, especially the closer to human Hunter like bosses, as like fighting against an NPC, especially the one on the Astral Clocktower in the DLC.

... But hey, that's me. Dark Souls 3 looks amazing, and I really look forward to it if only for the lore aspects of it as I skipped DS2 due to hearing bout it's lacking lore, but also cause holy crap giant spider level x_x.
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Re: Dark Souls 3 (JP version)

Post by takenoko »

>Bloodborne I feel was more an attempt to use a Souls like game set up, only with somewhere between Armor Core and a character action game like Devil May Cry 3, or Ninja Gaiden. And really, if you were to ask me, combining the two is not that great of a leap.

I dunno, I really don't feel like the strength of these games is the twitchy non-stop action. Granted, I'm probably biased towards thinking of the overly difficult DLC bosses.

>Bloodborne, is about motion, it's about not standing still and waiting for enemies but about running towards them, dashing behind them, ducking under their swings or backing away from AOE attacks only to step back forward and cut into them.

Yeah, that's all fine, till you get to enemies that have too much poise to be stunned by a flurry attacks. Or enemies who have grab attacks that interrupt yours. I'm fine with most of the humanoid fights in Bloodborne. It's just some of the giant monster fights feel really bad to me.

>... But hey, that's me. Dark Souls 3 looks amazing, and I really look forward to it if only for the lore aspects of it as I skipped DS2 due to hearing bout it's lacking lore, but also cause holy crap giant spider level x_x.

Dark Souls 2 is fine. Some of the DLC areas are some of the best content I've played in a Souls game.

I also finished 3 a few days ago if people want to watch my playthrough. It's probably not very entertaining, but I do try to find all the items that I see in the game. I play it offline, and man is it a great feeling to find an illusory wall by myself. I highly recommend playing offline for that reason alone.

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Re: Dark Souls 3 (JP version)

Post by Kogashi »

If the enemy doesn't get stunned from a flurry of attacks, then hit it a couple times and back off. IF the enemy ha a grab attack, learn where it hits and dash through it. Least that's how I dealt with the game, and think the only boss I actively disliked for being cheap or too over powered was Bloodstarved since it gained a poison cloud that made getting in and hitting it a few times that much harder... then I remembered I have molotovs...

Again that's my feeling. While I have some problems with Bloodborne and how it plays it's more that some areas (the forest) are actively frightening enough that it made me for a while want to not play it. And before anyone thinks I went axe and spun to wun (as oppose to spin to win), I ran Pistol and Cane Whip through out most of the game, switching to Pistol and Blades of Mercy once I got them.
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Re: Dark Souls 3 (JP version)

Post by takenoko »

Did you play through the DLC for Bloodborne?
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Re: Dark Souls 3 (JP version)

Post by Kogashi »

*nods nods* Had easily one of my favorite bossfights, the one at the top of the Astral Clocktower. I admit, the final boss of the DLC... got annoying, but still, I had a lot of fun with Bloodborne when it wasn't scaring me so much with it's atmosphere and it's locations that I feared picking it back up.
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Re: Dark Souls 3 (JP version)

Post by takenoko »

Alright. I mean, there are a bunch of bosses in the DLC that I don't care for, but the one in the Astral Clocktower is definitely good.

Ludwig's got to be the worst boss though. His dash move has almost no wind up, and can one shot you. And his drop from the ceiling move can do the same, and whether I was able to run away or dodge it felt like pure luck. At the point where I know what the danger is, but is helpless to do anything about it, that's where I feel the boss design is no good. Plus even if he doesn't do that, he has plenty of combos that can kill you if you're not careful. So while I may have every tool in my belt necessary to flawless avoid Ludwig, to me, it felt like it became a matter of luck whether I survived to the second phase of the fight.
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Re: Dark Souls 3 (JP version)

Post by takenoko »

I did. It was heck of hard, but cool. I'm not loving 3's DLC as much. It's fine for the most part, but it's also short and the bosses don't seem that great.
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