“Souls-like” games - memorise attack patterns, the game. Not hard, just tedious.
“Tactics” style games, just don’t see the fun in that sort of game.
Sony’s bread and butter for the last 20 years, the ultra-linear handholding cinematic hold-forward-to-win games. Just watch a direct-to-digital movie if you want to watch a terrible D-grade tier movie.
Persona, Ace Attorney etc type games. Just literally do not see the appeal in these at all.
I agree with your critique of souls-likes, but there was something really special about the original Dark Souls that none of its successors really captured. This was before they decided that “ultra-hard” was a good selling point and the attack patterns were far more simple. The atmosphere and difficulty were still there, but they made sense and fit with the rest of the game and its ideas very cohesively.
Not sure if anybody will understand this, but it’s like the difference between spicy food that’s spicy because it has peppers and spicy food that’s spicy because they added a bunch of artificial stuff. Spicier usually means tastier, because it has more of the flavorful peppers. But in the case of, for example, Dark Souls 2 or Elden Ring, it’s like they just added a bunch of capsaicin (difficulty) without including any more flavors of the peppers. The difficulty is beyond the degree to which it was artistically meaningful in the original Dark Souls.
Yeh I get you. It’s like when turning the difficulty up in a game all they do is make enemies take more damage to kill and do significantly more damage when they hit you. That’s just crap. Difficulty increases should be about more than that, like better AI and more/different enemies.
I love you for the spice metaphor (which I have to use all the time on friends who gift me hot sauces), but did you really think DS2 was harder than the original? It’s my favorite, and it’s because of the combat being ‘slower’ and the open vistas of the world appealed more than the first game. Hell, it introduced bosses that you didn’t even need to dodge if you learned which way to move during their windups.
I did find it more difficult than DS1 but, as in my metaphor, in a more artificial way. I’m thinking of the nerfed rolling frames (before you level ADP), more difficult parry timing, far more multi-opponent bosses, and especially the way that dying will reduce your max health. Any of these on their own would be totally unremarkable, but all together it feels like there was much more explicit focus on adding things to make it more difficult (which I believe was also reflected in the marketing of the games).
I also think that the atmosphere and artstyle of DS1 was much more serious and unique, whereas DS2 has comparatively much more ghoulish cartoony vibes, which just made it feel incongruent. Eg: the undead are now green and less scrawny, making them seem more like generic goblins rather than how they were in DS1. I just feel like there was an overall shift in the focus to be less about the unique world and its story and more about a Ghosts 'n Goblins -esque rage game.
I don’t think Dark Souls 2 is the most difficult in the series but I think it’s the first one where the difficulty started to feel unfair and like it was missing the point.
Basically here’s the vibes I get from each game:
DS1: A somber and holy journey
DS2: Ghosts 'n Goblins but 3D
DS3: Killing cool bosses is so cool
ER: All of the above
Ah, I sort of forgot about the slowly reducing max health. I think that and the different parry timing (the best mechanic in all the games, baby baby) made me quit it the first time I played. I don’t even remember it bothering me in the second time I tried, maybe because I had played elden ring and dark souls again at that point and didn’t try to horde items.
Pre-edit edit: Wait, I remember now. I played the game the way it was ‘meant’ to be played, with a giant weapon and just beating everything up before they could get me. I remember telling my friend that the openings in the boss attacks felt like they were specifically designed around the giant weapon timings. It just made everything easier.
Ace Attorney is more of an interactive visual novel than a game and should be treated as such more than a normal video game. The appeal is the wonderful cast of characters that you get to know throughout the chapters and trials, and solving the cases for yourself.
“Souls-like” games - memorise attack patterns, the game. Not hard, just tedious.
Are people memorizing attack patterns? This one comes up a lot and I don’t really get it. The boss does a thing and I react, which is how most real time combat games are, I think?
I guess something like Skyrim you mostly just stand there and trade blows.
Yes, that’s how you’re reacting to the boss or any other enemies in games. You know that they do attack x, y, and z and then are vulnerable for 2 seconds, or which moves are parry-able to stun them, etc. Enemies in games have set move lists, and they have pre-set patterns and weak points etc.
For example when you see a skeleton you know exactly which moves and attacks patterns it has, and when to block/parry/strike to defeat them.
Memorizing attack patterns IS how you’re reacting though. How many of the bosses can you walk in and just wipe the floor with on the first try? You learn that a pull back to the right means you need to dodge left, now; a dash to the right means waiting two seconds, jumping, then dodging towards them; etc., etc.
I know for certain that when I go replay elden ring the only reason I can clear the tree sentinel as soon as I leave the cave is because I know just how to react to the boss’ “thing.”
How many of the bosses can you walk in and just wipe the floor with on the first try
A pretty good amount, though that’s confounded by playing lots of similar games over the years. But, like, I see the boss lift his weapon way up and I go “I bet he’s going to swing. I should get out of the way.” Sure, there is an element to “I’ve seen this before - I know if I run behind him after the big butt stomp I can hit him easily”, but that’s hardly unique to fromsoft.
What sort of games don’t have enemies that you learn their moves? Like, you play Baldur’s Gate 3 and you learn “ok, that wizard has Sleep prepared, I should keep my HP up.” Or you play Hades and learn “ok, these guys like to charge but then take a second to recover”. This complaint is not unique to souls-likes but I don’t know if I’ve heard it brought against any other game.
It’s not unique to from soft games, but it is literally the entire games “difficulty”. They usually just give them extreme levels of health and make them do tonnes of damage so you have to make few mistakes in recognising and reacting to the patterns.
Its a big reason why I don’t care about single player action games.
It’s not a complaint to me, personally, but I can see how some folks might not like it. A similar feeling for me would be the way racing games are designed, with npcs having 5-10% extra acceleration, while you have 5-10% greater top speed, meaning that you have to be far better at keeping your speed up, which entails learning each race track very well compared to just being good at racing in general.
As to the bg3 or hades, yeah, completely agree. Using enemy patterns against them is one of those things where having played other games in the past means you can play this game better. Elden ring though, specifically adds in false timings and ‘gotcha’ mechanics that punish dodging at the wrong time, or in the wrong direction. It’s much more blatant than in the dark souls games. Melania and her butterfly dance, margit and his golden hammer swing, pause, swing, the crucible knight and his sword dragging on rocks AND his double tail swing and so on. Those aren’t bosses you just walk in and fight well the first time (well, margit is such a git, so maybe him).
“Souls-like” games - memorise attack patterns, the game. Not hard, just tedious.
“Tactics” style games, just don’t see the fun in that sort of game.
Sony’s bread and butter for the last 20 years, the ultra-linear handholding cinematic hold-forward-to-win games. Just watch a direct-to-digital movie if you want to watch a terrible D-grade tier movie.
Persona, Ace Attorney etc type games. Just literally do not see the appeal in these at all.
I agree with your critique of souls-likes, but there was something really special about the original Dark Souls that none of its successors really captured. This was before they decided that “ultra-hard” was a good selling point and the attack patterns were far more simple. The atmosphere and difficulty were still there, but they made sense and fit with the rest of the game and its ideas very cohesively.
Not sure if anybody will understand this, but it’s like the difference between spicy food that’s spicy because it has peppers and spicy food that’s spicy because they added a bunch of artificial stuff. Spicier usually means tastier, because it has more of the flavorful peppers. But in the case of, for example, Dark Souls 2 or Elden Ring, it’s like they just added a bunch of capsaicin (difficulty) without including any more flavors of the peppers. The difficulty is beyond the degree to which it was artistically meaningful in the original Dark Souls.
Yeh I get you. It’s like when turning the difficulty up in a game all they do is make enemies take more damage to kill and do significantly more damage when they hit you. That’s just crap. Difficulty increases should be about more than that, like better AI and more/different enemies.
I love you for the spice metaphor (which I have to use all the time on friends who gift me hot sauces), but did you really think DS2 was harder than the original? It’s my favorite, and it’s because of the combat being ‘slower’ and the open vistas of the world appealed more than the first game. Hell, it introduced bosses that you didn’t even need to dodge if you learned which way to move during their windups.
I did find it more difficult than DS1 but, as in my metaphor, in a more artificial way. I’m thinking of the nerfed rolling frames (before you level ADP), more difficult parry timing, far more multi-opponent bosses, and especially the way that dying will reduce your max health. Any of these on their own would be totally unremarkable, but all together it feels like there was much more explicit focus on adding things to make it more difficult (which I believe was also reflected in the marketing of the games).
I also think that the atmosphere and artstyle of DS1 was much more serious and unique, whereas DS2 has comparatively much more ghoulish cartoony vibes, which just made it feel incongruent. Eg: the undead are now green and less scrawny, making them seem more like generic goblins rather than how they were in DS1. I just feel like there was an overall shift in the focus to be less about the unique world and its story and more about a Ghosts 'n Goblins -esque rage game.
I don’t think Dark Souls 2 is the most difficult in the series but I think it’s the first one where the difficulty started to feel unfair and like it was missing the point.
Basically here’s the vibes I get from each game:
DS1: A somber and holy journey
DS2: Ghosts 'n Goblins but 3D
DS3: Killing cool bosses is so cool
ER: All of the above
Ah, I sort of forgot about the slowly reducing max health. I think that and the different parry timing (the best mechanic in all the games, baby baby) made me quit it the first time I played. I don’t even remember it bothering me in the second time I tried, maybe because I had played elden ring and dark souls again at that point and didn’t try to horde items.
Pre-edit edit: Wait, I remember now. I played the game the way it was ‘meant’ to be played, with a giant weapon and just beating everything up before they could get me. I remember telling my friend that the openings in the boss attacks felt like they were specifically designed around the giant weapon timings. It just made everything easier.
I’m not complaining about the Ghosts 'n Goblins series though, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts is one of the best games ever
Ace Attorney is more of an interactive visual novel than a game and should be treated as such more than a normal video game. The appeal is the wonderful cast of characters that you get to know throughout the chapters and trials, and solving the cases for yourself.
Are people memorizing attack patterns? This one comes up a lot and I don’t really get it. The boss does a thing and I react, which is how most real time combat games are, I think?
I guess something like Skyrim you mostly just stand there and trade blows.
Yes, that’s how you’re reacting to the boss or any other enemies in games. You know that they do attack x, y, and z and then are vulnerable for 2 seconds, or which moves are parry-able to stun them, etc. Enemies in games have set move lists, and they have pre-set patterns and weak points etc.
For example when you see a skeleton you know exactly which moves and attacks patterns it has, and when to block/parry/strike to defeat them.
Memorizing attack patterns IS how you’re reacting though. How many of the bosses can you walk in and just wipe the floor with on the first try? You learn that a pull back to the right means you need to dodge left, now; a dash to the right means waiting two seconds, jumping, then dodging towards them; etc., etc.
I know for certain that when I go replay elden ring the only reason I can clear the tree sentinel as soon as I leave the cave is because I know just how to react to the boss’ “thing.”
A pretty good amount, though that’s confounded by playing lots of similar games over the years. But, like, I see the boss lift his weapon way up and I go “I bet he’s going to swing. I should get out of the way.” Sure, there is an element to “I’ve seen this before - I know if I run behind him after the big butt stomp I can hit him easily”, but that’s hardly unique to fromsoft.
What sort of games don’t have enemies that you learn their moves? Like, you play Baldur’s Gate 3 and you learn “ok, that wizard has Sleep prepared, I should keep my HP up.” Or you play Hades and learn “ok, these guys like to charge but then take a second to recover”. This complaint is not unique to souls-likes but I don’t know if I’ve heard it brought against any other game.
It’s not unique to from soft games, but it is literally the entire games “difficulty”. They usually just give them extreme levels of health and make them do tonnes of damage so you have to make few mistakes in recognising and reacting to the patterns.
Its a big reason why I don’t care about single player action games.
It’s not a complaint to me, personally, but I can see how some folks might not like it. A similar feeling for me would be the way racing games are designed, with npcs having 5-10% extra acceleration, while you have 5-10% greater top speed, meaning that you have to be far better at keeping your speed up, which entails learning each race track very well compared to just being good at racing in general.
As to the bg3 or hades, yeah, completely agree. Using enemy patterns against them is one of those things where having played other games in the past means you can play this game better. Elden ring though, specifically adds in false timings and ‘gotcha’ mechanics that punish dodging at the wrong time, or in the wrong direction. It’s much more blatant than in the dark souls games. Melania and her butterfly dance, margit and his golden hammer swing, pause, swing, the crucible knight and his sword dragging on rocks AND his double tail swing and so on. Those aren’t bosses you just walk in and fight well the first time (well, margit is such a git, so maybe him).
This.