Playing through Dark Souls Remastered right now, nearing the end. I originally played through Dark Souls 3 and then Bloodborne, and with the remaster out, I thought I'd give this a spin since I enjoyed the other two.
This isn't necessarily a thread to shit on Dark Souls 1, but this has aged poorly. The level design is pretty poor after Anor Londo and is by no means complimented by the stiff controls of the character in some cases.
As for combat, it's not all bad. It can be somewhat fun if it plays in your favour and you near the end with stronger weapons, but half the time I feel as though I've been crippled tremendously. Let's use Seath the Scaleless for instance. The boss room is rather large, but so is the boss as he fills the majority of the room. Now, try to move around this boss who fills the majority of the room and also dodge his attacks which fill the majority of the room. It's hard to do so when player movement is so damn stiff. I really don't want to mention the part of Dark Souls where, upon dying to a curse, you are permanently at half health until you cure yourself with a purging stone, that which costs souls (you just lost these in a boss room).
This may seem like a rant thread, and maybe it is. But I feel like this game is put on a pedestal, when in fact it really is flawed and has aged poorly compared to its successive games. I still enjoyed this game, but man, this was the worst experience in the Souls series so far, and I'm put off from playing Dark Souls 2 now. :(
TL;DR:
This is how I feel:
"I wouldn't say the level design is poor, but I wasn't blown away either even as a huge fan of the series, it was certainly above average though. Compared to other modern games, it looks masterclass because of just how brainless most games were back then, and generally still are from the mainstream. Biggest problem is the game straight up sucks after Anor Londo and it feels worse to play in general, especially with that archaic 4 way movement.
EDIT: changed stuff in OP, removing what I no longer believed to be true after reading much of the thread and replies. Though I do still sit in the camp that the game drops in quality after Anor Londo. Otherwise, the game is still exceptional.
This isn't necessarily a thread to shit on Dark Souls 1, but this has aged poorly. The level design is pretty poor after Anor Londo and is by no means complimented by the stiff controls of the character in some cases.
As for combat, it's not all bad. It can be somewhat fun if it plays in your favour and you near the end with stronger weapons, but half the time I feel as though I've been crippled tremendously. Let's use Seath the Scaleless for instance. The boss room is rather large, but so is the boss as he fills the majority of the room. Now, try to move around this boss who fills the majority of the room and also dodge his attacks which fill the majority of the room. It's hard to do so when player movement is so damn stiff. I really don't want to mention the part of Dark Souls where, upon dying to a curse, you are permanently at half health until you cure yourself with a purging stone, that which costs souls (you just lost these in a boss room).
This may seem like a rant thread, and maybe it is. But I feel like this game is put on a pedestal, when in fact it really is flawed and has aged poorly compared to its successive games. I still enjoyed this game, but man, this was the worst experience in the Souls series so far, and I'm put off from playing Dark Souls 2 now. :(
TL;DR:
This is how I feel:
"I wouldn't say the level design is poor, but I wasn't blown away either even as a huge fan of the series, it was certainly above average though. Compared to other modern games, it looks masterclass because of just how brainless most games were back then, and generally still are from the mainstream. Biggest problem is the game straight up sucks after Anor Londo and it feels worse to play in general, especially with that archaic 4 way movement.
EDIT: changed stuff in OP, removing what I no longer believed to be true after reading much of the thread and replies. Though I do still sit in the camp that the game drops in quality after Anor Londo. Otherwise, the game is still exceptional.
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