☠ Souls Series Symposium ☠

[Raz]

1. How did you initially react to the first Souls game you played?
I played (what I assume to be) very little of the first Dark Souls game. I just played it the same way I played the first Castlevania game (be slow and cautious, examine what you're about to enter very thoroughly), and I had a lot of fun with it! I've mostly played Dark Souls II.

3. If you do enjoy this series, what are the reasons why?
The themes of horror and difficulty reminds me of the Castlevania and Ghouls n Ghosts series of games, and it felt like a modern version of those games.

4. What's your greatest and/or worst memory of playing a Souls game?
Best would be figuring out the Pursuer's pattern and beating that enemy the next bazillion times it decided to show up. Worst would be encountering swarms of spiders (spiders scare me).

5. What's your preferred build and weapons style?
Light armor for easy rolling, and switching between melee and magic depending how far away the enemy is.

6. Do you believe the Souls games have been influential on modern gaming, or do they stand alone?
Seeing more games that claim they are inspired by Dark Souls is proof enough for me that they at least influence indie developers.

7. What's your opinion(s) of the various DLC packages available?
I haven't played any of the DLC, but I will say that I prefer waiting for a version of a game that includes its previously released DLC on disk.

8. Do you believe the reputation of extreme difficulty in this series is warranted or overstated?
I believe it is challenging, but I wouldn't call it extremely difficult. There's certainly harder games than this.

9. Which Souls game do you believe is the best thus far?
The one I've played the most of is the second game so I'm going to go with that, but I have a good feeling that if I played any of the other games more I would switch my pick to whatever that may be.

I still feel like I've barely played this series because I haven't beaten the ones I've played, and that I've only played two of the games (Dark Souls I & II).

[MrPopo]

Knowing you... I'm assuming you already own most of these games?

Yeah you know me. I own Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Dark Souls II on PS3. I own Dark Souls III on PC. I don't have a PS4, so I haven't bought Bloodborne yet.

Bloodborne is nice for having a very different setting. It's really deep into the cosmic horror, and I found it much creepier than the other games. It's also a seemingly subtle but in practice huge gameplay change of removing the shield in favor of using gun parries. I ended up having to change up my entire playstyle, and the adjustment took a while.

[Xeogred]

Popo likes fat armors.

[PartridgeSenpai]

All this talk of Souls-likes is making me really wanna try another, but I just know it's gonna make me so angry and rage quit eventually that I know better than to go out and buy Bloodborne or something

[laurenhiya21]

The Dark Souls series seem interesting to me, but I haven't played any because I am a wimp. It's honestly a bit intimidating to me when the games are commonly said to be really difficult, since I do not like a lot of difficult games. I do not like having to do things over and over again, especially when it's not clear on how I need to improve so I can finally progress. If I can very quickly get to where I died in a game or if I know what I did wrong, then it's not so bad, but I don't find that to be the case in a lot of the difficult games I've played.

That being said, I do already own Demon's Souls so I most likely will give it a shot sooner or later.

[MrPopo]

Popo likes fat armors.

Havel all day long.

[Exhuminator]

That being said, I do already own Demon's Souls so I most likely will give it a shot sooner or later.

Even if you don't like it or finish it, I hope you give it a shot soon. I'd enjoy your opinions on the game.

[MrPopo]

The thing about the Souls games is that when you die you generally have a very good idea of why you died. "Oh, I charged forward and got blindsided." "Oh, that attack can't be blocked and needs to be dodged." "Oh, that's a dragon."

[Kuruwin]

1. How did you initially react to the first Souls game you played?

Unless i remember wrong Demon's Souls was one of the reasons i bought PS3 Slim and i got into the setting pretty much right away. I had love&hate relationship with it though just like i had with first Dark Souls because of it's many problems which includes the horrendus lock on system that get's you killed all the time. I do still remember it fondly for the better parts and Boletarian palace is one of my favorites levels of all time.

2. If you do not enjoy this series, what are the reasons why?

Like i said i have love&hate relationship with these games. They are not perfect products like some make them to be and have made me gone berserk several times.

3. If you do enjoy this series, what are the reasons why?

Music,atmosphere and combat. The combat system in these games are far from perfect but it still enjoy how these games play.

4. What's your greatest and/or worst memory of playing a Souls game?

Best moments probably really are those moments when you finally beat boss after sweat induncing fight and the worst memories comes from when you get through a shitty fight.

5. What's your preferred build and weapons style?

Dark Souls 2 is the only game in the series that really let's you experiment and i loved that i was able to try out things and i ended up sticking with "paladin character". On the other games i pretty much played pure melee.

6. Do you believe the Souls games have been influential on modern gaming, or do they stand alone?

Of course they and i'm sure that someone gave good answer to this question already (i prefer answering first and then seeing what others said)

7. What's your opinion(s) of the various DLC packages available?


I only played the second games DLC and i did like the type of content they made but i didn't really care about any of the DLC levels. Tended to be more frustrating than fun.

8. Do you believe the reputation of extreme difficulty in this series is warranted or overstated?

Way overstated. These games can be tough for sure (especially if you do everything by yourself) but for the most part you can get through the levels with relative ease if you just take things slowly. I'm pretty sure that i had much more trouble playing Ninja Gaiden on the XBOX than i had with any of these games. I think it's mostly because of the fact that these games make you backtrack that people have the illusion that these games are harder than they are.

9. Which Souls game do you believe is the best thus far?

Demons Souls and Dark Souls 1&2 are my favorites and i can't pick one to be the best one because all of them have their strong and weak points.

10. If you could make one change to the Souls formula, what would it be?

I might answer this later.

[Xeogred]

The Surge continues to look pretty cool. Still a B-grade clone, but one that certainly looks worth checking out and more interesting than Lords of the Fallen:


But Nioh definitely comes before that.