Anyone play this game?
I started playing it about a week ago, and all you hear about it is true - the game hates you. To say it won't hold your hand is an understatement - the thought of a tutorial repulses the game and only hands out token "Press X to do something vague that we won't explain". Some say that's part of the challenge, but those people have their head stuck so far up their own butt that they might as well check themselves for polyps. The game lacks polish in many areas and the graphics border on bad.
But with that said, once I mastered the huge learning curve and watched a few YouTube tutorials, I have to say that I'm in the zone. The game, for all its faults, is actually quite amazing in about three key ways.
1) The game rewards out of the box thinking - Okay, sure, the game fights dirty; but that road goes both ways. See that humongous demon with the even larger warhammer? If you fight fair and square, that demon will pull out some moves up its abyssal sleeve that no one save a physic can predict, but you know what? You can make the boss fight a joke if you keep going up the ledge above the demon and falling on its head with the point of your sword aimed at his right brain lobe. Or even more hilarious, just kick the massive black knight in adamantine armour off a cliff if he foolishly gets too near the edge. In short, the fights are challenging (and sometimes stupidly unfair), but thinking outside the box can reward you greatly.
2) The game world is superbly designed - The world of Dark Souls is massive, detailed, and varied ranging from standard medieval castle to foggy eldritch forests and traversing through the game makes you think you've travelled many miles far away, only to realize that you've only gone up or down a few stories around the same castle. The verticality and interconnectedness of the game world is inspired. I can think of no other game that pulls off the same thing....and all of this without a single loading screen.
3) The story - Actually, I don't know much of the story; but that's only because the game eschews standard exposition dumps. You slowly piece together the backstory and lore of this crumbling and decrepit world by carefully listening to the few non-hostile NPCs, reading item descriptions, and analyzing the subtle environmental storytelling. I do think the story writers could have been less coy, but they get credit for avoiding massive text or cut-scene dumps (are you listening, Hideo Kojima?)
For those of you who have played, I'm playing as a pyromancer with a heavy emphasis on sword and shield and maneuverability with a smidgen of bow and arrow for range. It's hard to say how far I am into the game given the non-linearity of the game, but I just got to the bonfire before the Valley of the Drakes....which is apparently meant for players far more leveled than I am.
I started playing it about a week ago, and all you hear about it is true - the game hates you. To say it won't hold your hand is an understatement - the thought of a tutorial repulses the game and only hands out token "Press X to do something vague that we won't explain". Some say that's part of the challenge, but those people have their head stuck so far up their own butt that they might as well check themselves for polyps. The game lacks polish in many areas and the graphics border on bad.
But with that said, once I mastered the huge learning curve and watched a few YouTube tutorials, I have to say that I'm in the zone. The game, for all its faults, is actually quite amazing in about three key ways.
1) The game rewards out of the box thinking - Okay, sure, the game fights dirty; but that road goes both ways. See that humongous demon with the even larger warhammer? If you fight fair and square, that demon will pull out some moves up its abyssal sleeve that no one save a physic can predict, but you know what? You can make the boss fight a joke if you keep going up the ledge above the demon and falling on its head with the point of your sword aimed at his right brain lobe. Or even more hilarious, just kick the massive black knight in adamantine armour off a cliff if he foolishly gets too near the edge. In short, the fights are challenging (and sometimes stupidly unfair), but thinking outside the box can reward you greatly.
2) The game world is superbly designed - The world of Dark Souls is massive, detailed, and varied ranging from standard medieval castle to foggy eldritch forests and traversing through the game makes you think you've travelled many miles far away, only to realize that you've only gone up or down a few stories around the same castle. The verticality and interconnectedness of the game world is inspired. I can think of no other game that pulls off the same thing....and all of this without a single loading screen.
3) The story - Actually, I don't know much of the story; but that's only because the game eschews standard exposition dumps. You slowly piece together the backstory and lore of this crumbling and decrepit world by carefully listening to the few non-hostile NPCs, reading item descriptions, and analyzing the subtle environmental storytelling. I do think the story writers could have been less coy, but they get credit for avoiding massive text or cut-scene dumps (are you listening, Hideo Kojima?)
For those of you who have played, I'm playing as a pyromancer with a heavy emphasis on sword and shield and maneuverability with a smidgen of bow and arrow for range. It's hard to say how far I am into the game given the non-linearity of the game, but I just got to the bonfire before the Valley of the Drakes....which is apparently meant for players far more leveled than I am.
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