Souls Thread: Dark Souls, Demon Souls, Bloodborne

[BrunoMattei]

The farther you go from the original the worse it gets.

 

[X Prime]

Also, if Gwyn was as evil as everyone pretends he was, he'd have 0 qualms killing every human and pygmy. Y'know, instead of splitting pieces of his own soul and giving it to worthy humans (who then betray him. Because the unsubtle theme of the games is still, humanity = selfish shits). He's by no means meant to be a saint, but he is meant to be a morally righteous warrior king who's downfall is tragic. Plin Plin Plon. (And everything he does to contain the abyss is shown to be 100% in the right, even if it sucks to be on the receiving end of it.)

See, you're right, but the problem is that the details of things like Ringed City are arguably meant to lead players to think that Gwyn is in the wrong, particularly in how he treated the Ringed Knights. Even though to reach that conclusion you would have to ignore things like Oolacile.

I just do not think the developers are that smart, and the easier explanation is that they just increasingly leaned into "the dark/evil side isn't so bad guys!" as time went on. You know, like every other Japanese franchise.

 

[TheLostMarxBrotherFucko]

As an aside, Dark Souls should have ended at 2. Pre-Scholar 2, specifically.

Hold up, if anything 2 should be removed. I don't hate 2 but, the themes make no sense compared to 1 and 3. Princesses of the Dark, Golem making, and fucking dream walking. 1 and 3 were at least somewhat straight forward. Find corrupt old fucks and kill corrupt old fucks.

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

They're clearly not working together, because their goals are mutually exclusive

You're assuming we know what their actual goals are. @Spud, for instance, presented one alternative; that the serpents are simply trying to get the chosen undead into a position to choose their preferred path, and they don't really care what the ultimate outcome is, only that there is one. There are enough holes in both their spiels that you quickly understand neither is trustworthy. Its possible that neither ending matters and both lead to the same point; even if the Chosen Undead chooses not to link the fire and walk away, some other random undead can come along later and link the fire themselves, restarting the cycle regardless. Either way, the end result is the same; the serpents are playing you, and nothing you did mattered in the long run. Whether you link the fire or not, its all pointless. Linking the fire just delays the inevitable, while not linking it just ushers in the coming age of darkness. Either way, it was all going to end one or another.

 

[Asian tech support]

The Re-Remastered mod v1.0 came out like two weeks ago but I didn't notice until now.

 

[eDove]

All I want is for Bloodborne to come to PC finally, but I have a sickening feeling Sony is having Bluepoint remake it right now.

 

[BrunoMattei]

All I want is for Bloodborne to come to PC finally, but I have a sickening feeling Sony is having Bluepoint remake it right now.

We've been waiting like Fry's dog from Futurama.

 

[no-exit]

Havel look at this parry you fat fuck

 

[WULULULULU]

After coming back from Shadow of the Erdtree, I can safely say:

>Best weapons
>Best lore
>Best outfits
>Best areas
>Best bosses (no Laurence you don't fucking count)
>Best enemy design
This is peak Souls. It all goes downward from here.

 

[Meat Target]

After coming back from Shadow of the Erdtree, I can safely say:
Ver archivo adjunto 6112889
>Best weapons
>Best lore
>Best outfits
>Best areas
>Best bosses (no Laurence you don't fucking count)
>Best enemy design
This is peak Souls. It all goes downward from here.

*ahem*

That's not The Ringed City, you plague-ridden rat.

This is the ideal final boss. You may not like it, but this is what peak Souls looks like.

 

[crowabunga]

After coming back from Shadow of the Erdtree, I can safely say:
Ver archivo adjunto 6112889
>Best weapons
>Best lore
>Best outfits
>Best areas
>Best bosses (no Laurence you don't fucking count)
>Best enemy design
This is peak Souls. It all goes downward from here.

Still waiting on a PC release

Spoiler

by which I mean an efficient, functional emulator, like hell we're ever getting an official PC port

 

[TheLostMarxBrotherFucko]

>Best weapons
>Best lore
>Best outfits
>Best areas
>Best bosses (no Laurence you don't fucking count)
>Best enemy design

>Least amount of weapons
>Most obscure Story telling
>Least number of choices and only for show
>Worst Checkpoint system of all the games
>Late game bosses are a joke and only DLC bosses are good
>Tentacles and Werewolves is the vast major enemy design and types
I don't hate Bloodbourne but it is nowhere near the GOAT considering From Software has abandoned it like Sekiro.

 

[Meat Target]

I don't hate Bloodbourne but it is nowhere near the GOAT considering From Software has abandoned it like Sekiro.

It's solid as a one-off Souls foray into Lovecraftian horror. A sequel would just be a disappointment.

 

[God of Nothing]

*ahem*

That's not The Ringed City, you plague-ridden rat.
Ver archivo adjunto 6118188
This is the ideal final boss. You may not like it, but this is what peak Souls looks like.

Eh?
Gael just feels like a shitter Artorias. I don't even like Soul of Cinder that much, though his concept is probably the best for the final Souls boss. Nameless King is my favorite Souls boss in general. That boss fight just felt really fucking good.

 

[Asian tech support]

It's solid as a one-off Souls foray into Lovecraftian horror. A sequel would just be a disappointment.

Might've mentioned it before but BB feels like there were two competing ideas for the game that just got mashed together. The narrative and worldbuilding worked out fine but I'd love a game that was just Van Helsing werewolves and vampires and another that was just Lovecraftian horror.

I don't think a sequel would be a disappointment, but it would have to take a lot of things into account to avoid the pitfalls DS ran into with its sequels. Most of the intrigue surrounding these games is due to their opacity. Reveal too much and things become very stupid very quickly. Shit, maybe even avoid using the Bloodborne name and let the audience make their own connections. People love the Lordran = the sixth Archstone theory, even if it's a load of nonsense.

 

[LoTex]

I just do not think the developers are that smart, and the easier explanation is that they just increasingly leaned into "the dark/evil side isn't so bad guys!" as time went on. You know, like every other Japanese franchise.

The Darkness was always the natural progression of the world, the age of man. Gwyn trying to stop it was already talked about it badly in DS1 by quite a few characters. I mean even the whole Flame of Chaos is essentially a gigantic metaphor of the bad things that happen when you try to go against the natural order of things.

After coming back from Shadow of the Erdtree, I can safely say:

>Best weapons
>Best lore
>Best outfits
>Best areas
>Best bosses (no Laurence you don't fucking count)
>Best enemy design
This is peak Souls. It all goes downward from here.

According to PS4 game trophies, only 54% of players played past Vicar Amelia, even for FromSoft games, this is abysmally low. 43% of players defeated the Wet nurse, 60% of DS1 players defeated Gwyn. Most people rightfully get bored of the extremely aggressive combat. DS1 is still Peak.

 

[Asian tech support]

According to PS4 game trophies, only 44% of players played past Father Gascoigne, even for FromSoft games, this is abysmally low. Most people rightfully get bored of the extremely aggressive combat.

So less than half of players beat Papa Gas and your takeaway is that players are bored of the aggressive combat?

 

[LoTex]

So less than half of players beat Papa Gas and your takeaway is that players are bored of the aggressive combat?

Check the comment again. I edited the comment half an hour ago

 

[Asian tech support]

Check the comment again. I edited the comment half an hour ago

It's not like the point you were trying to make changed. For the record, I agree with you that DS1 had the best combat.

 

[LoTex]

It's not like the point you were trying to make changed. For the record, I agree with you that DS1 had the best combat.

I mean the fact that more people, at least on PS4, completed Dark Souls than Bloodborne shows that to a certain extent DS1 is more engaging than Bloodborne. My guess is one of the reasons Bloodborne is less engaging to people is the frenetic combat which makes people drop it. After all Bloodborne is the ground zero for the more aggressive combat of recent Fromsoft games that people are complaining about.

It is also worth noting that Bloodborne was released in 2015 while DS1 remastered released on 2018 so buyers had more time to complete Bloodborne than DS1.