It's been two months since my last blog so I thought it might be time to post something. I was originally going to post a development blog about my RPG but i still don't have enough to really SHOW yet. However in a few months I may have a bit of a teaser trailer for it soon. (assuming I can create something as simple as that with my very limited experience in video editing)
So instead I decided to post about my experiences in the past few RPG's i've played. A month ago I finally conquered Lost Odyssey after an epic 55 hour journey. I love every bit of that jRPG masterpiece but there isn't much to say about it. It's your classic turn-based RPG and though the story, characters, world and gameplay are all great there isn't anything unique about one players experience from another's.So let's talk about Dark Souls. The famously difficult action adventure RPG that really does impress. Even as harsh a critic as I am I really did enjoy this game and I also think what it brings was massively overdue. A brutally challenging game with some depth to the combat, surprises in the level design and a hold-no-punches approach. This game does the complete opposite of most modern mainstream games. It doesn't force you to play through a long mandatory tutorial teaching you how to press a button on the controller. Instead it throws you straight into the depths of hell and let's you figure it out yourself. Those who learn will survive and those who fail to adapt will die. However i do have to mention another favorite aspect of mine about the game, it does NOT utilize any retro difficulty methods at all. What I mean by that is the game is rarely ever unfair. It doesn't force you to play through huge sections without saves or to defeat 5 bosses in a row without a break. Nor does it have a limited lives system or force you to memorize every detail of a level or enemy. The game very fairly auto-saves constantly without you knowing and when you rest at a bonfire it recharges you health, magic and flask (your heals). I loved how it handled this and it allowed for individual challenges to be difficult alone without having to resort to cheap methods of difficulty like 1 hit kills or anything like that.It is a bit of an exaggeration when people say the game is sooooo haaaaard. Honestly i didn't have too big a problem with the game. It was challenging but rarely had me cursing at the screen or wanting to give up. I die, learned something about the enemy and come back the next time and try something different. In some ways you could almost say it shares a bit of a puzzle element to it. The only thing that annoys me in the game is losing your souls when you die (the currency of the game which also acts as usable experience points). Of course you can retrieve them if you go back to there but the world of Dark Souls is a dangerous place and sometimes even traveling back the short distance of a bonfire to the point at which you died can cause your demise. If you are to die again the previous souls you lost will be gone forever and only the current souls you dropped will be retrievable. This system is a bit annoying but i think it is a bit needed to add that tension into the game. You won't lose every thing when you die but you will lose your Souls which is really something you don't want to lose and so every new corner you turn is a stressful choice as anything could jump out and kill you and send you back.The RPG mechanics are OK but they aren't anything special. Like most action RPG's the game favors warriors the most. The big swords do massive damage and can take down the biggest enemies quite easily, as long as you time your attacks perfectly. Trying to use a rogue-like character and you will find yourself having to be a lot more skilled just to survive from the smaller enemies. When being a mage you are also heavily limited due to the time it takes to cast a spell and the limited number of spells you can cast. (this game uses an odd magic system where each individual spell has it's own counter, there is no MP in this game)The heavy armor is also the only useful armor which again favors warriors. Light armor is great for getting a little bit of extra speed but some of bigger enemies have such powerful attacks that even a single hit could almost instantly kill you with light armor. Although it isn't impossible to defeat the more difficult enemies using a light-weight character, it's just a bit more difficult than it should be. Because of the limited magic and weak light-weight weapons, you would have a hard time playing your first playthrough as a light-weight character. The difference is massively large when switching between a greatsword and a dagger. A dagger might barely even hurt a large enemy and could take 10+ hits to kill while a greatsword would only take 1~2 well timed strikes. So yes, you can pick a dagger but it isn't very smart. (and i fully upgraded most types of weapons and still ended up preferring the greatsword)The weapons and armor however are well designed and each one is unique and somewhat balanced. The game doesn't really rely on having to always find a stronger weapon, instead you may find a new weapon that has a different move set and deals a different type of damage but isn't necessary stronger than your current weapon. The only way to get stronger weapons is to use the smithing system to improve them with items dropped by enemies. It also has a creative enchanting system allowing you to add fire, lightning and magic damage to weapons, as well as some other effects. (however these come at a cost since they usually lower other parameters of the weapon)The game has you constantly switching between weapons and tactics to take down new foes and this is what makes the game feel fun all the way through. it never gets boring or repetitive. Even the grinding is actually pretty fun, since it doesn't take long to get what you need once you know how to or where to get it. It's a decent size world with 80+ hours of gameplay on a single playthrough. Now the game isn't perfect, there are quite a few flaws, mostly in design. Some levels are a bit sloppy and cheap in that falling off cliffs and ledges can kill you all too often. As well as a few lazy bosses who just spam the same move over and over, or some of the really large bosses which you don't even really have to fight but instead have to attack a certain object in the room to kill them. However most of the bosses were pretty decent challenges but could have been better. The multiplayer system isn't really worth mentioning. It experiments with non-direct multiplayer with the exception of invading players which are quite annoying and practically force you to stay in your Hallow form most of the game. (although luckily there isn't much downfall to this unlike in Demon's Souls)Some things that really did irritate me though were:- Capra Demons (i despise these things, most weren't too hard but some, especially in Sen's Fortress were a huge pain in the ass)- Blighttown (terrible level design + sloppy Havok physics = a frustrating level)- Invading players are a huge pain early in the game as there is absolutely nothing you can do to avoid getting killed, possibly at a very inconvenient time and location.- Odd distribution of souls in enemies. Some easier enemies drop more souls than some of the more numerous and difficult enemies do.- Areas such as New Londo Ruins that have too many enemies in a small area are really difficult due to getting your attacks interrupted when getting surrounded by too many enemies. It's not a combat system that allows you to survive against a large amount of enemies at once. It's best with one-on-one combat.- Ranged combat rarely works since magic/crossbow doesn't target very far and the longbow is difficult to use.- There are a few large enemies and mini-bosses that can EASILY be killed at a distance with a bow without even confronting them which is incredibly boring.Well that's all i got for now. Feel free to comment about the game and post some of your most challenging parts. Also if you haven't played the game and you like action adventure games, definitely* give Dark Souls a try. It's a refreshing experience in a market full of lazy linear action games. You can get the game on Steam, Xbox 360 or PS3. (despite what people say, the PC version is just fine. I'll admit that it could have included a few more common PC options but having a lack of control over the max FPS and internal 3d effects doesn't in any way change the experience of the game. Also the game can get a bit buggy and laggy when using the "fix" mod which allows you to change these things. Honestly it's better without it. When not using it, it is probably one of the most stable PC games i've ever played. It never crashed once, or had any errors messages at all. )* = denotes a terrible habit of mine.
Hey, I just bought that on amazon! Hope I don't have to buy a new controller…
EDIT: On a related note, I recently bought a game called Dragons Dogma that's basically a mix between the The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Dark Souls, and Shadow of the Colossus. I've been loving it so much, that I decided to buy it again, with all the DLC and new content, also known as Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen. I highly recommend this game.Did you buy it on console or PC? If you got the PC version… you probably should get a controller. (a 360 controller) then again i am pretty sure that the game does have keyboard controls which can easily be mapped (xpadder) to any other controller (since the game doesn't accept other controllers).
I used to have a blog about this game.
It used more or less the same words.I added stuff to my first post. :P
EDIT: And death, I was just joking about how I might break my current one out of frustration with the game because of the difficulty.I added stuff to my second post. :P
You don't use an adapter with PS3 controllers when using them on PC. You just plug it in via USB and rock whatever mapping program you got that works. I'd personally use Xpadder, but I don't have to use it anymore since I have the 360 adapter.