Multi Soulsborne Discussion

[GwJumpman]

Just started playing Sekiro recently (only other Souls games I've completed are DS3 and Bloodborne; partially played Elden Ring) and I'm honestly having a blast with it. I played Lies of P last year and really liked the parry mechanic so Sekiro relying on it felt really nice to get into because I already had a little muscle memory from Lies of P.

I got as far as the rematch against that guy that kicks your ass in the beginning of the game and it was a 3-phase fight and it felt so satisfying that by the time you beat the whole fight you're basically able to be untouched in the first 2 phases through good parrying which you'll naturally get the hang of by just repeating the fight. It definitely gives the player the feedback that they're improving, not just getting lucky with cycles and attack or something.

 

[Smacktard]

Just started playing Sekiro recently (only other Souls games I've completed are DS3 and Bloodborne; partially played Elden Ring) and I'm honestly having a blast with it. I played Lies of P last year and really liked the parry mechanic so Sekiro relying on it felt really nice to get into because I already had a little muscle memory from Lies of P.

I got as far as the rematch against that guy that kicks your ass in the beginning of the game and it was a 3-phase fight and it felt so satisfying that by the time you beat the whole fight you're basically able to be untouched in the first 2 phases through good parrying which you'll naturally get the hang of by just repeating the fight. It definitely gives the player the feedback that they're improving, not just getting lucky with cycles and attack or something.

I love this game so fucking much. It's one of my all-time favorites. It really challenges you to get good at the game, and when it finally clicks, there's nothing more rewarding and satisfying.

I almost dropped it when I first played it because I couldn't figure out the mikuri counter move (or whatever it's called). It just didn't "work" for me. The sparring partner they have at the beginning is super helpful. Fought against him for a bit, figured out how it worked, and was able to get past that first big block.

 

[Spiner202]

Do NOT do this. If it happens, let it happen organically. IMO the most difficult part of the game is the very beginning, up until you finally beat Pursuer. After this, enemies don't pose as much of a threat.

There's a better guide (IMO) that just lists what to pick up/do when and where. It's less wordy, more action-oriented. No thinking, just "do this, do that next, do this". I don't have it handy but if you search around I'm sure you can find it.

Just an update on this strategy: it seems the guide I'm using loosely recommends it all the time. I'm taking a different approach - I am going to grind only to the point of making sure I can buy the items they recommend. For example, there is a ring that you can get that increases the amount of souls each enemy drops by 20% - I had no idea that existed and it was worth grinding out some enemies over and over to be able to get it.

But I'm definitely not doing each enemy encounter 10 times. Even with how much I've done so far, I'm about 4 hours in and haven't hit the first boss yet, so I need to pick up the pace.

 

[Spiner202]

I think Heide's Tower of Flame might be the best location in DS2. There's something about the simplicity and the scenery of it that I really enjoy. I love the slow, lumbering enemies that are super powerful. I also think it's a good example of a brighter setting that really works (since the next few sections are all super dark).

 

[Smacktard]

My favorite thing about DS2 is the varied environments, and how there are unnerving and challenging areas that are more than just grimdark.

That said, I hate traversing that area for the same reason you love it

 

[Spiner202]

I forgot how insanely long and complex DS2 is. I'm just about to start doing the Ancient Memory stuff. There are so many things that are unexplained on how to do it.

The game is not too difficult if you are over leveled, abuse summon signs, and have the best weapons/armour in the game fully upgraded

I imagine I still have about 10 hours worth of my NG run left (once you include the DLC?) and then I can move on to NG+!

 

[Spiner202]

It turns out that in my previous attempt at DS2, the only DLC I ever played (and didn't beat) was the third one. I've finished the first DLC and am on the second one. The part leading into the second Smelter Demon fight is the most "Dark Souls" section I've ever seen. It's literally just a gauntlet of high-damage enemies. I don't think DS2 on the whole is too unfair, but this section was just made to be frustrating.

 

[Smacktard]

I disagree that that section is the most "Dark Souls" -- I think it's the opposite. Instead of the carefully considered enemy placement of DeS and DS1, it's just random enemy spam to artificially make that section more difficult. FWIW you can run through all of it without stopping to fight and not get hit.

The 3-person gank squad is the worst part of the game though. I saved all of my healing items the whole game and used every single one up there.

 

[Spiner202]

I disagree that that section is the most "Dark Souls" -- I think it's the opposite. Instead of the carefully considered enemy placement of DeS and DS1, it's just random enemy spam to artificially make that section more difficult. FWIW you can run through all of it without stopping to fight and not get hit.

I think we are trying to say the same thing, but with different terminology

Anyways, I beat him and the following boss, which capped off the second DLC. I started the third one this morning. Seems like the two items needed to pick up for the platinum are very early in the DLC. I really should truck along and beat the bosses (like I did in the first DLC), but I honestly haven't loved any of the DLCs so far in comparison to the base game.

 

[Smacktard]

I really didn't like the DLC in DaS1 and 2 either tbh, except for the Artorius fight. I remember liking the DLC in DaS3 more. The boss fights there were pretty awesome. The final DLC boss is one of the best souls fights I've ever had.

 

[Spiner202]

It is likely that I will platinum Ds2 today or tomorrow (just starting my NG++ play through, but it shouldn't take too long), so I'll throw out some random thoughts on this game:

• Drangleic Castle is the logical conclusion to the game to me. It already takes a while to get there, but the game feels unnecessarily long and all of the parts after the castle suffer for it. For clarity, I don't think the actual sections of the game after the castle are bad, but it's a slog to get through them
• My favourite areas are: Majula, Heide's Tower of Flame, Iron Keep, Drangleic Castle, and Dragon Shrine
• Least favourite areas are: The Gutter, Black Gulch, and Shrine of Amana (only because of the enemies; the actual location is incredible)
• I don't really have any least favourite bosses, but my favourites are: The Pursuer, Executioner's Chariot, and Old Iron King
• The platinum seems a bit excessive. You can get everything except for a handful of spells/hexes/miracles/etc in NG. You get a couple more trophies in NG+ and then the remaining ones in NG++. But there's really no point to NG+/NG++ except to make you play the game again.

 

[Spiner202]

I'm about 12 hours into Dark Souls 3. Again, here's an assortment of thoughts about this in comparison to DS2:

• This game looks incredible. It obviously has been surpassed by modern games, but the step-up from DS2 to DS3 is very noticeable. This leads to my next point:
• The environments are so much nicer and more varied in DS2. Everything in DS3 feels like it's in grey-scale (I've only just finished Catacombs of Carthus), and even though you could describe each level up to this point differently, they feel the same. Compare this to DS2, where you start off with a forest, a Greek-looking vista, and then goes on to tons of different looks. This might relate to the fact that DS2 doesn't feel like 1 big level the same way that DS3 does. I really wish DS2 looked as good as DS3.
• I can't remember if I commented on this on GW or just on Reddit, but it's incredibly noticeable how much faster DS3 is. I've played both games before, but it was years apart, so it's much clearer now that I'm playing them back-to-back. The faster pace works in Bloodborne because you can regain some of your health, but I prefer the slower approach of DS2
• The enemy mobs feel way more unfair in DS3. It seems like there are more enemies clustered together, in longer passages between bonfires, and their movesets are insane. Half of the enemies will attack 4-5 times before relenting. It feels much less fair than DS2.
• As a result of the above, I'm finding this harder. I know the DS2 guide that I followed suggested killing enemies over and over to be overleveled, and it does not recommend that for DS3, but the combination of the twin blades being very hard to use (since I'm so used to using a shield), and the mobs of enemies mean that I'm dying way more often.
• DS3 feels a lot denser. By this I mean that there are more NPCs, more quests, more random paths to take and so on. I've mentioned before that, without a guide, I missed fairly significant parts of DS2, and it's clear that I missed an even larger portion of DS3 on my first play through.

Most of this sounds critical of DS3, but the truth is that it's still very fun. Even though it sometimes feels like a totally different game than DS2, they both clearly belong to the same family of games, which has very tight and fun gameplay and awesome levels and bosses. I'd guess that I've got a long way to go before the plat, so I'll see if any of this changes.

 

[Smacktard]

Seems like we had entirely different opinions on DS2 and 3. I found trash mobs in DS3 to be really easy and low threats. DS2 trash mobs fucked me up, but the bosses were super simple (apart from Pursuer the first time you fight him).

DS2 does have much nicer, varied environs though. I love that the most about the game, but I do think the combat and bosses in DS3 are so much more enjoyable.

How would you rank the games you've played so far?
For me it's: DS1 > DS3 > DeS > DS2

 

[Spiner202]

Seems like we had entirely different opinions on DS2 and 3. I found trash mobs in DS3 to be really easy and low threats. DS2 trash mobs fucked me up, but the bosses were super simple (apart from Pursuer the first time you fight him).

The first Pursuer fight is brutal, but I also think that's why he's so fun when he shows up as a random enemy later in the game, because he's still difficult but more beatable.

DS2 does have much nicer, varied environs though. I love that the most about the game, but I do think the combat and bosses in DS3 are so much more enjoyable.

How would you rank the games you've played so far?
For me it's: DS1 > DS3 > DeS > DS2

Bloodborne > DeS > DS2 > DS3

I'd say DeS and DS2 are very close to one another and could probably go either way.

 

[Spiner202]

I've now hit the grinding portion of the NG play through on DS3. In other words, I've beat the entire game other than Soul of Cinder.

This grind seems significantly worse than DS2. In that game, you just had to farm 30 sunlight medals, but in DS3, you have to farm for 6 different covenants, all with varying drop rates. I put in about an hour yesterday and only got 3 sunlight medals, so I fear I have a long road ahead of me.

That said, my initial play through of DS3 years ago was evidently less complete than DS2, as I got 3 trophies along the way on this one (apparently I never beat The Nameless King the first time around; interestingly, I found the Twin Princes to be the much harder boss this playthrough).

 

[Spiner202]

I've now hit the grinding portion of the NG play through on DS3. In other words, I've beat the entire game other than Soul of Cinder.

This grind seems significantly worse than DS2. In that game, you just had to farm 30 sunlight medals, but in DS3, you have to farm for 6 different covenants, all with varying drop rates. I put in about an hour yesterday and only got 3 sunlight medals, so I fear I have a long road ahead of me.

Finished the grinding yesterday, and can confirm, this is much worse than DS2. I think I spent somewhere around 12ish hours grinding for covenant items to drop? The only redeeming factor is that because there were 6 different covenants to grind, it wasn't as repetitive as doing the same thing for all 12 hours.

I'd still say the grind for inputting the same cheat code in thousands of times for GTA Vice City was a worse grind than this one.

 

[Smacktard]

I'd still say the grind for inputting the same cheat code in thousands of times for GTA Vice City was a worse grind than this one.

wat

 

[Spiner202]

wat

Here's the trophy/how it works. In short, there's a certain "criminal" rank that you earn based on various destructive acts you can perform in the game. The trophy is for achieving the top rank, but they clearly didn't properly assign the point values. There's no legitimate way to earn this trophy other than grinding out one of these destructive acts. The method used involves bringing several helicopters to a roof and entering the cheat code for blowing up all nearby vehicles. The website says you earn 210 points each time you do it, which would require entering the code more than 4,000 times, but in practice, sometimes one of the helicopters will de-spawn or fall off the roof, and it's easier to just keep entering the code at a lesser point value rather than rounding up more choppers.

In the Definitive Version of Vice City that came out a few years ago, they kept this trophy but changed the scaling so that it wasn't as bad, but if you bought the PS2 port from years ago, all you could do was grind.

There is another method to earning the trophy, but I had a tough time executing it, and went with the more boring but reliable method.

 

[Smacktard]

Rockstar are the absolute WORST when it comes to trophies.

 

[Spiner202]

I'm early on in my Dark Souls 1 attempt, but I'm tempted to say this game hasn't aged as well as the two following it (I'm sure this is just an instance where I need to git gud though). I'm currently in the Depths and attempting to fight a dragon boss.

This game has an absolutely glacial pace to the gameplay. I have beaten Demon's Souls and I even said earlier that I like the slower gameplay of DS2 to DS3, but I feel like I'm doing something wrong here. I reduced my equipment load, but everything from my rolling to my weapon swing speed to drinking estus flasks just feels way too slow. As far as I'm aware, there's not much I can do other than increase my equipment load or change weapons, but I'm using a pretty tanky weapon.

I initially decided not to use a guide, and I'm still holding to that in the sense that I'm not following it step by step, but I've had to consult it due to getting lost a few times. I also must have missed where it tells you what kindling a bonfire does. I guess I did it at Firelink Shrine but had no idea, so I just assumed that you get double estus flasks at Firelink Shrine only. At least now I know to do it at every bonfire.

On a related note, having no fast travel is insane. I believe you get this ability later, but boy is it brutal running between them once you've cleared an area and then need to get back to an old one.

I'm liking the interconnectivity of the world, but it makes the monotony of the world even more obvious. I mentioned that DS2 has a better variety of environments than DS3, but it feels like DS1 has been entirely one place so far - I guess that is the tradeoff of interconnectivity.

 

[Elusive]

Just gonna leave this here for yall. I watch this at least twice a year and it always leaves me in the mood to start up a new build in DS2.

Scrolled fast to the bottom to reply and I see happy souls..

My heart is warm

I love souls 1 remastered till the bitter end.
Souls 2
3

I just love souls 1.it had a story. It sold it. And I loved it. Even put the dark sign on me.

 

[Spiner202]

I'm early on in my Dark Souls 1 attempt, but I'm tempted to say this game hasn't aged as well as the two following it (I'm sure this is just an instance where I need to git gud though). I'm currently in the Depths and attempting to fight a dragon boss.

This game has an absolutely glacial pace to the gameplay. I have beaten Demon's Souls and I even said earlier that I like the slower gameplay of DS2 to DS3, but I feel like I'm doing something wrong here. I reduced my equipment load, but everything from my rolling to my weapon swing speed to drinking estus flasks just feels way too slow. As far as I'm aware, there's not much I can do other than increase my equipment load or change weapons, but I'm using a pretty tanky weapon.

I initially decided not to use a guide, and I'm still holding to that in the sense that I'm not following it step by step, but I've had to consult it due to getting lost a few times. I also must have missed where it tells you what kindling a bonfire does. I guess I did it at Firelink Shrine but had no idea, so I just assumed that you get double estus flasks at Firelink Shrine only. At least now I know to do it at every bonfire.

On a related note, having no fast travel is insane. I believe you get this ability later, but boy is it brutal running between them once you've cleared an area and then need to get back to an old one.

I'm liking the interconnectivity of the world, but it makes the monotony of the world even more obvious. I mentioned that DS2 has a better variety of environments than DS3, but it feels like DS1 has been entirely one place so far - I guess that is the tradeoff of interconnectivity.

I just beat the game last night and am beginning my NG+ play through. I ended up giving in and using both a guide and the souls duplication glitch. This is the only Souls game of the 5 I've played now where I needed to use a glitch. I probably could have beaten it without the souls dupe, but it was equally as difficult as any of the other games even after doing it, so it would have taken much longer.

I also realized the two reasons the gameplay felt so slow: (1) the equipment load system is different from the other games; there are trigger points at 25% and 50% of load, compared to one trigger point of 70% in the other games; (2) the weapon I was using (Zweihander) was actually just a slow weapon. There are faster ones.

In any case, there are some areas of the game I really liked (Lost Izalith and Ash Lake were probably the coolest). I was a bit surprised to see certain things like Anor Londo - I guess DS3 just remade some sections of DS1. The opening areas of this game are pretty similar/monotonous, while the later areas mix up the colour schemes and types of area better. The bosses are interesting - I think DS2 did a better job. People complain that most of the DS2 bosses are just humanoid characters, but the slower combat is more suited to those characters, whereas the faster pace of DS3 is better suited for larger monster-type bosses.

Unlike DS2 and 3, I'm not actually sure what I did to progress the game. The guide I followed felt very random after the Second Bell of Awakening, and I didn't feel like the game itself gave much clear instruction either. DS3 is pretty much all linear, and while DS2 has a few paths, they mostly come from Majula or the Shaded Woods, so it's pretty easy to figure out where to go. By contrast, I legitimately thought the Second Bell of Awakening was going to be in the Catacombs based on the description the guy at Firelink Shrine gives you (he says one is above and one is below, and the Catacombs are much easier to find than Blighttown).

I wouldn't say I outright dislike DS1, but it's clearly the worst in the series to me, and the most surprising thing is that I find Demon's Souls much more playable than this. IMO the only advantage DS1 has over DeS is that there is no world or character tendency.

 

[Smacktard]

It's so funny that we both have such different opinions of DS1. For me, DS1 had some of the best bosses in the series. There were some annoying ones, but I thought they were way better than most of what DS2 has to offer, and definitely better than anything in DeS. I also liked how dense the world felt and how the areas are all interconnected. It's definitely obtuse or cryptic, and it's good to have some basic advice or guide going into it. I didn't find it any more cryptic than DS2 though