☠ Souls Series Symposium ☠

[Xeogred]

I'm still really excited to hit up Nioh sometime, loved the last beta before it released and I know the gameplay is amazing. But yeah, the issue I hear with both The Surge and Nioh is that the atmosphere, level design, and lore/world building is just not up to par with the Souls games at all. I guess Nioh tells a more straightforward story with cutscenes and such which sounds fine to me. But I've never heard too much praise on the levels, when that's usually a big talking point for the Souls games. The Surge just sounds like it becomes a huge repetitive grind at some point, I have yet to hear of anyone that has actually beaten it.

[noiseredux]

y'know what's weird about Dark Souls? They seem to be games that I attempt every couple of years, and even though I always come to the conclusion that they're not for me, I can't help but still be fascinated and read this thread. It's almost like it's always in the back of my mind that I feel like they *could* be for me. Someday. Tastes do change, and sometimes things don't click with you right away and all.

[isiolia]

I finally started playing Dark Souls II and... I kind of hate it. For the first time with a game in this series I'm not sure I'm going to finish it and if I do I know I'm going to just ignore some optional stuff to get it over with.

Depending on how far along you are, you may find it gets a bit better - part of the annoyance is that some of the basic actions scale with stats, so at the start things can feel laggy. It's a different experience though - in part due to changing direction in development and simply making use of already-complete assets, and in part due to just trying to do different things. Offhand, there's a lot more going on with environmental tricks or strategies.

I guess Nioh tells a more straightforward story with cutscenes and such which sounds fine to me. But I've never heard too much praise on the levels, when that's usually a big talking point for the Souls games.

Nioh is, overall, a lot more like making a game more similar to Diablo III or Destiny that happens to play like a fusion of Ninja Gaiden and Dark Souls. That said, just listing influences is selling it short. My point is really more that, unlike some of the other games mentioned, it's not really trying to be a Souls game. The end result is quite different, and really pretty unique.

Map design is often good, but you'll also usually wind up seeing them recycled - whether by unlocking a harder version of the mission with alternate targets, or for side missions/challenges, seeing the same map with different paths blocked off. Nioh incorporates and allows for much more grinding for level/abilities and item level. As such, the whole structure of the game is basically missions you can repeat or repeat harder versions of, and the only thing remotely similar in Souls is leveling up bonfires in DS2.

[Gunstar Green]

I'm just past Lost Sinner in DS2 and I'm not super familiar with the game so I'm not sure how far that is exactly. I've explored down a few paths without getting to their respective bosses though. It's probably the first boss fight that was entertaining (it was neat to see where a few of Slave Knight Gael's moves came from outside of Artorias) though just as visually bland as everything else. I'm kind of bored at the number of enemies that let you get in a single hit here and there all while having the same easy to avoid knight-like pattern.

I think I've got 7 or 8 boss souls in my inventory and I can remember and describe to you maybe three of those fights so I think that says a lot about how I felt about them.

I also just cannot invest myself in the world either which is a big part of why I enjoyed Dark Souls. I don't feel like I'm going on adventure somewhere, I feel like I'm playing a bunch of disjointed levels in a video game. I wrestle with this criticism because I'm trying to think if I would care or not if this wasn't a Souls game.

I really want to love it and will push myself to at least beat the base game parts but it's hard for me to talk about it without going on a rant and sounding like a hater.

I did kind of like No Man's Wharf. A zombie pirate level was a cool idea for a Souls game and I'm playing Scholar of the First Sin so the lighting was better and I actually used the torches. I've explored The Gutter and enjoyed using the torch gimmick there too. Poison is also very threatening for a change without having to be toxic which took me off guard the first time.

The life gems are something I feel weird about. I liked how estus worked in the other games and how the challenge was balanced around it but now that's out the window and we're back to heals forever. It's also nearly impossible to use estus in a boss fight or when you're surrounded by multiple enemies unless you can find a piece of level geometry to hide behind since they made it so slow to drink. I find myself just using life gems most of the time because why not? It makes things feel, I don't know, more generic and less planned/polished maybe? I wonder how the design decision for this went. Did they want unlimited consumable heals from the start or did they make they game and realize that the way things were necessitated the need for something like the life gems and then they made estus more risky to counter-balance them?

[Exhuminator]

I also just cannot invest myself in the world either which is a big part of why I enjoyed Dark Souls. I don't feel like I'm going on adventure somewhere, I feel like I'm playing a bunch of disjointed levels in a video game.

I wonder how much that has to do with change of directors:

Demon's Souls = Hidetaka Miyazaki
Dark Souls = Hidetaka Miyazaki
Dark Souls II = Tomohiro Shibuya, Yui Tanimura
Dark Souls III = Hidetaka Miyazaki, Isamu Okano, Yui Tanimura
BloodBorne = Hidetaka Miyazaki

Maybe the lack of Miyazaki in Dark Souls II is what's missing?

[isiolia]

Maybe the lack of Miyazaki in Dark Souls II is what's missing?

Definitely a major factor, but in addition to that, DS2 apparently had a fairly large change in direction mid development. Far as I know, all of them have ended up changing/scrapping things, as is common in games, but DS2 had a lot more assets already made that simply ended up getting reused. It's probably a root cause of a good deal of it being a bit disjointed.
There's a fan translated version of the Design Works interview here talking about it, though there's an official version out there too (the Design Works books in general have excellent interview sections in them).

The DLC areas, on the other hand, benefited from being done post-release and probably reflect the intentions of the final direction of the game better. It's definitely different than the other entries, and I suspect you'll actually have an appreciation for a lot of it.

[Gunstar Green]

It's definitely part of it and from what I understand the development was very troubled and Shibuya was removed leaving Tanimura to right the ship. From what I've been told the DSII DLC is much improved though I'm not sure I like the base game enough to bother playing it. The DLC was directed solely by Tanimura and he has some fans who would love to see him make his own Souls game from scratch.

[Exhuminator]

all of them have ended up changing/scrapping things, as is common in games, but DS2 had a lot more assets already made that simply ended up getting reused

The first thing I thought of with DeS is that "land of the giants" broken archstone. And these videos:







But yeah, it sounds like DS2 had a very troubled development unfortunately.

[Gunstar Green]

So I'm not just sitting here complaining, I found this short article on reddit the other day which is a pretty fun read about the series artistic influences: https://killscreen.com/articles/visions ... -heritage/

[chuckster]

So I'm not just sitting here complaining, I found this short article on reddit the other day which is a pretty fun read about the series artistic influences: https://killscreen.com/articles/visions ... -heritage/

That was very good, I fell like those three major influences he cited are easy to see in the Souls series, along with HP Lovecraft.