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[s0]

The magic of demons souls when it came out was how aggressively counterintuitive it could be if you were used to "normal" action rpgs/hack n slash games. It starts with the barbarian being the weakest class, obscure mechanics like world tendency, there is no linear exp curve, heavy armor is useless, challenges (mostly) cant be overcome through pure stats, it poses as a linear game but is actually exploration heavy and so on. This is lost today, not just because most people played the "friendlier" sequel dark souls first but also because the souls series is too popular to still confound expectations. /musing

[JWK5]

I think Demon's Souls, other than Bloodborne, did the best at really making you feel the environment not just travel through it. I mean, even more so than the more graphically defined castles in DKS3 for example, Boletaria is just saturated with desolation. You can feel it, you get that real sense that there was life there that is now gone.

I think in the transition to bigger, prettier wold building the Souls series stepped away a bit from really cementing the mood the games convey. Bloodborne has it, though. Bloodborne, though much more graphical than Demon's Souls, still kept a tight grip on pushing the feelings of desolation on the player.

To me, that is what the Souls games are about: desolation. The feelings of places forsaken, vibrant life lost to the decay of hubris. Demon's Souls has it in spades.

[Tumetsu]

Finally beat OoK and rest of the game.

My verdict of the game: I have to say this is probably best soulsborne game. New setting, lore gameplay etc. tie into very neat experience. Of course there is still some minor things I didn't like which I mentioned here already and DkS3 has some nice quality of life improvements over BB but I think this game outshines DkS3. I especially liked how streamlined both mechanics and setting were compared to DkS.

It was wild ride and took about 45 hours (with probably 10-15 hours fighting OoK and Laurence haha). Now I can go to read  Lovecraft short story collection I bought few days ago...

[SousaVilla]

One thing that stuck with me when thinking about this is how dks3 has so many build variety, which would imply more replayability, but I have played and want to replay bloodborne more than I could say for dks3. I dont know why, but I had more fun playing it, the atmosphere was amazing and the game managed to feel unique, while dks3 is so uninspired in some parts, like the setting and the fanservice was dragging it down. I wish the new soulslike that from is working is set in another universe, instead of a dks4 or bloodborne2.   

[s0]

all the build variety in the world doesn't matter when parts of the game feel like mediocre rehashes. for a game to be replayable, it has to be playable first. 

[Tumetsu]

I think BB had much more "coherent" setting and lore whereas DkS' got a bit too vague and bloated after first one. This makes BB's lore more interesting to me and I think the story telling improved from earlier games in BB.

However, I think that DkS (1&3) had far more interesting and memorable npcs with interesting quest lines. I was slightly disappointed in the story lines of characters in Oedon Chapel, for example the story line of sceptical man.

Equipment and gear were spread better over the whole game in DkS games (in BB most of arcane and bloodtinge stuff you get relatively late in the game). To me BB felt actually less linear due interesting optional areas than DkSIII but I'll have to see if that impression changes on my second run.

[s0]

BB is less linear in my opinion.

[SousaVilla]

Equipment and gear were spread better over the whole game in DkS games (in BB most of arcane and bloodtinge stuff you get relatively late in the game). To me BB felt actually less linear due interesting optional areas than DkSIII but I'll have to see if that impression changes on my second run.

One thing to keep in mind is that old hunters made the game less linear, and dks3 still has at least one other dlc to improve it in that aspect.

As a side note, dks3 pure faith has similar problems to bloodborne arcane, you'll have huge problems dealing damage early. At least late game arcane is a lot more interesting than Faith in dks3.

[s0]

it was already less linear even before old hunters. in fact i don't even think it's all that linear. in comparison to the older souls games maybe, but there are still meaningful different paths you can take. in dks3, excluding optional areas, there are only 2 meaningful decisions, namely killing the dancer early and choosing whether to go to the cathedral or farron keep first.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

hey guys -- aside from the fact that you can open some cool (and rarely optimal) shortcut doors after completing linear levels, dark souls 1 is pretty linear too. If you replaces each of the 1side lock doors with a teleporter it would have dks3's layout, basically.

the most nonlinear dark souls game is... 2, with the very liberal upgrade mats and star (des's, except with different difficulty/level curves, right?) map structure.

[s0]

uhm.. no?

right off the bat there are 4 areas you can go to if you have the master key. there are multiple areas you can approach from different directions, including the undead burg. you could theoretically kill sif and the 4 kings before you do anything else. after you get the lordvessel, the game branches out into 4 more paths (more like 3 and a half because you can go to new londo early). there are also a whole bunch of skips, some intended, some not. dark souls 3 never does that.

[s0]

the most nonlinear dark souls game is... 2, with the very liberal upgrade mats and star (des's, except with different difficulty/level curves, right?) map structure.

liberal upgrade mats = nonlinearity? the heck.

by that logic, demon's souls the most nonlinear because it's the easiest and you can unlock the potential of your build very early if you know what you're doing.

[Alevice]

demsouls is the most nonlinear tho

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

the most nonlinear dark souls game is... 2, with the very liberal upgrade mats and star (des's, except with different difficulty/level curves, right?) map structure.

liberal upgrade mats = nonlinearity? the heck.

don't be silly. in any game with rpg mechanics, for a 'normal' playthrough (somewhere vaguely near the effective bandwidth for making a powerful character, not gimmick hard mode runs and skips) you're heavily constrained by when and how u can make your character strong.

[s0]

"gimmick hard mode runs" lmao

and no im not "being silly", you are making up a bullshit definition of nonlinearity that no one ever uses to suit your argument.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

if progress in an rpg is path thru your character being more powerful, a linear game is one where there's only one path to do that, and a nonlinear one is where there's many. it's not a very bold way to use the term (matches the way people call final fantasy games linear, and skyrim nonlinear, when elder scrolls games have very direct main quests), and it's descriptive of why a lot of normal people bounce off dark souls  

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[s0]

nothing in souls games is gated by levelups. i don't think it's even mathematically possible to kill the final boss with a party of level 1 characters in a final fantasy game. levelups are incidental to progression but do not define it. nonlinearity = the amount of freedom you have in what order to experience game content. end of.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

nothing in souls games is gated by levelups. levelups are incidental to progression but do not define it. nonlinearity = the amount of freedom you have in what order to experience game content. end of.

dum. I understand saying that my description doesn't match yours, but it's silly to totally disregard it. why is upgrade level the primary control of how quickly bosses die? Why do pvp players match up based on soul level instead of how many areas they've been to?

[s0]

what does pvp have to do with nonlinearity in the PVE portion? you're arguing that the "average" player is going to play through the game in a linear fashion, but i don't see why a designed feature that is objectively there should be disregarded simply because not everyone uses it or because it changes the difficulty curve of the game. another example: most people don't bother 100%ing GTA, assassin's creed and other open world games. doesn't mean those games don't have a collectathon element to them.

you're just wrong about dks1 being as linear as 3. sorry.



P.S. soul level matching is actually an extremely flawed system precisely because souls games de-emphasize the importance of levelups somewhat and character progression itself is less railroaded. they tried to fix it in dks2 withs soul memory but it turned out even worse.

[s0]

also im grumpy and tired today so sorry for being more aggressive than usual lol. just blowing off steam by Arguing On The Internet.