HPP: On this week's episode of Second Opinion, we try to debunk the myths espoused by Dark Souls lovers and Dark Souls haters alike.
"Dark Souls: Archthrones is like playing a brand new FromSoftware game, and that speaks volumes about just how much good modding can do," says Hanzala from eXputer.
Parrying has been creeping into more games, with almost every high-profile title of the last few years featuring it in some way. Why?
i understand the authors frustration i'm not the best at parrying in games. not that i can't complete a game that requires it but it is a definite harder thing for me than other kinds of techniques in games. which might be the main reason it's so heavily added in games nowadays. want to make your game challenging without having to do a lot of work? just add a parry boss. (what i mean by parry boss is a boss you have to beat by parrying such that their attacks will kill you otherwise)
I always think it's fine as long as such games also have the roll/dodge panic button. But I understand the will to parry, it seems so cinematic in a fight when you pull it off.
Dark Souls 2 remains a divisive entry in the landmark RPG franchise, but Hidetaka Miyazaki believes it led to the success of Elden Ring.
DS2 was fine. While there was a bit of recycling assets or ideas for bosses, it was a bigger more open Dark Souls. The Fume knight boss is one of the hardest bosses in the series until Sekiro and Elden Ring were released.
The problem with Dark Souls 2 was the same problem when a different director takes over for a sequel to an outstanding movie. It typically (there are exceptions) doesn’t have the feel and vision of the previous movie.
I wouldn’t say Dark Souls 2 is terrible. Had Dark Souls 1 never been a thing and we got this, I think it would have been praised more. The problem is it didn’t have the Miyazaki touch to it and felt pretty derivative. The soundtrack is a banger though.
And it will happen in the future when he doesn’t touch them as he is planning on.
I like DS 2, might even be my favorite of the 3. But it's a hard sell, there's so many obscure things you need to do to make it an enjoyable experience. So always find it hard to recommend, but it is worth the trouble.
Not going to deny that a lot of Dark Souls comes down to memorization - how many people ate it to the dragon on the bridge the first time they played the game?
The Souls games changed the way I play games, and for the better. When I first tried Demon's Souls, back when it first started getting a little buzz, I was absolutely turned off by it's obtuseness. I didn't understand that you were supposed to die over and over again, learning from your mistakes. I didn't understand that the skills I developed as a player of the game were more important to my success than my character's stats or equipment would ever be. I walked away from it for about six months. I really had no intention of giving it another try, but on a lark one day I gave it another try. All of a sudden I made a realization about what the game required of me as the player, and I fell down the rabbit hole. Now I consider the SoulsBorne games to be among my very favorites.