Dark Souls is The People's sacred cow, and I can't stand it. Dark Souls is the reincarnation of the NES game, and like its spiritual predecessors, it is riddled with problems.
The area in which Dark Souls succeeds is the same one first prodded by The Legend Of Zelda and its contemporaries in 1986: Dropping the player into a mysterious, hostile world, and daring them to conquer it. Much like that game and much unlike later Zelda titles, combat IS the puzzle. Dark Souls found an innovative way to re-implement the old status quo of enemies respawning as soon as a player leaves the screen, and to my overwhelming chagrin, delights in its use.
I have thought long and hard about exactly why I do not love the Souls games that I have played thus far, by which I mean Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2. The truth is that with one simple change, my enjoyment of these games would spike radically: Put a bonfire in front of every boss. I like a challenge from my games, but I am only willing to give my time and effort when I feel like it is being respected, and the long, grueling runs back to bosses in the Souls games are absolutely the biggest obstacles to my enjoyment.
While I'm on the topic of my most subjective grievances, The slow, deliberate, methodical combat present in Dark Souls 1 threatens to put me to sleep. I don't like it Monster Hunter, and I don't like it here. I have long gravitated toward the faster, twitchier action of something like a Devil May Cry or Kingdom Hearts on Critical.
If I need to defend my Souls ambivalence in more objective terms... please consider for a moment how much of the content in Dark Souls feels unpolished or half-finished. Is The Tomb of Giants -actually- a good, well designed area? How about Lost Izalith? Blight Town, perhaps?
Simply put, even if I put aside the things that make Dark Souls "not really for me", I cannot in good conscience laud a game with this many "the bad parts" as the greatest game of all time, or even put it anywhere close. There IS a lot to like here, obviously, but Dark Souls 1 especially is too mixed of a bag.
The area in which Dark Souls succeeds is the same one first prodded by The Legend Of Zelda and its contemporaries in 1986: Dropping the player into a mysterious, hostile world, and daring them to conquer it. Much like that game and much unlike later Zelda titles, combat IS the puzzle. Dark Souls found an innovative way to re-implement the old status quo of enemies respawning as soon as a player leaves the screen, and to my overwhelming chagrin, delights in its use.
I have thought long and hard about exactly why I do not love the Souls games that I have played thus far, by which I mean Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2. The truth is that with one simple change, my enjoyment of these games would spike radically: Put a bonfire in front of every boss. I like a challenge from my games, but I am only willing to give my time and effort when I feel like it is being respected, and the long, grueling runs back to bosses in the Souls games are absolutely the biggest obstacles to my enjoyment.
While I'm on the topic of my most subjective grievances, The slow, deliberate, methodical combat present in Dark Souls 1 threatens to put me to sleep. I don't like it Monster Hunter, and I don't like it here. I have long gravitated toward the faster, twitchier action of something like a Devil May Cry or Kingdom Hearts on Critical.
If I need to defend my Souls ambivalence in more objective terms... please consider for a moment how much of the content in Dark Souls feels unpolished or half-finished. Is The Tomb of Giants -actually- a good, well designed area? How about Lost Izalith? Blight Town, perhaps?
Simply put, even if I put aside the things that make Dark Souls "not really for me", I cannot in good conscience laud a game with this many "the bad parts" as the greatest game of all time, or even put it anywhere close. There IS a lot to like here, obviously, but Dark Souls 1 especially is too mixed of a bag.
Lickiwrath
3 years ago