#DARK SOULS 1 SERIES#

The problem is, there is no way for you to know where to go next and then not get stuck on some kind of dead end after a while. The game gives you some options: The Valley of Drakes, New Londo, The Catacombs and then The Tomb of the Giants, or Darkroot Garden and then Darkroot Basin. After completing Blighttown (whose door is just a random door you run past at the start of the game), I simply didnвЂ™t know where to go. The whole thing feels very clunky and awkard, nevermind non-immersive due to all goofy looking character collisions. Most of the time you will just roll into NPCs if you are trying to dodge. This sounds like utterly terrible design already, right? Well, he also has two dogs that attack you on sight. You cannot dodge properly, you will be stuck at some wall if you try to roll away, and his attacks are probably unblockable for you at this level. This boss fight consists of a little boxy area and a demon that wields two huge machetes and has an immense reach. When it comes to terrible bosses that is designed to just kill you instead of being challenging in some shape or form, you cannot forget the first encounter with the Capra Demon. There may be a lore reason for the creature act the way it acts, sure, but that doesnвЂ™t excuse the truly abysmal design. This whole fight got me thinking вЂwhat was the point of that?вЂ™ There is neither challenge nor enjoyment in that fight, it feels utterly pointless. It shoots you some projectiles from afar, then rests its head on a stone for you to whack it with whatever melee weapon you have. The Moonlight Butterfly is a similar affair. It is just designed badly, there is nothing else that can be said about it. The heads come down and you play whack-a-mole for a while, which can take a very long time for such an uneventful fight. This fight is not tense, not difficult, and not frustrating it is just boring. Take Hydra, for example: If you are trying to kill this creature with melee weapons, you are in for a long and boring fight. This one is completely appalling design-wise and it does not make the game вЂchallengingвЂ™ in any way, it just makes it frustrating. That is not like an ambush, or falling down a hole you didnвЂ™t see because you were careless, those are fine. After killing the ice creatures, I ran up to the Hydra boss only to fall down a pit under the water and I simply had no chances of knowing there was one. There are lots of them, but the one that stood out to me the most was the pit in the lake where the Hydra boss resides. Next up is the unavoidable, cheap tricks to get you killed when you are playing it for the first time. So, вЂshieldless playвЂ™ is not very viable if you didnвЂ™t play Dark Souls 1 before and you feel punished for refusing to use a shield. I finished both DS 2 and DS 3 without a shield, but in this game, especially if you are playing it for the first time you HAVE TO use a shield since there are attacks that you wonвЂ™t be able to dodge no matter what as in some areas there is not enough space to dodge properly and you end up rolling in your place or move very little towards a direction and get hit anyways (Catacombs and New Londo comes to mind). I get that it is designed to be claustraphobic and oppressive, I really do, but it just doesnвЂ™t work in a game like this.

The first problem with Dark Souls 1 is that, in most environments, there is not enough space to fully utilize the combat mechanics. This could be very well understandable if it was the first game in the series, but it is not, as that game is DemonвЂ™s Souls, the first Souls game that I played, and it is much more robust compared to DS1 in these regards.

#DARK SOULS 1 SERIES#

But, contrary to the popular belief, as a person who had never played Dark Souls 1 after finishing DS 2 and 3 and had never played it before and whose opinion is not affected by вЂrose tinted nostalgia glassesвЂ™ in any shape or form, I can safely say that in so many ways this game feels like a proof of concept: It is both mechanically and design-wise so inferior to the other two games in the series the whole thing was an appalling experience for me. In terms of atmosphere and thematic cohesion, this might be very well true. In most gaming circles, Dark Souls 1 is hailed as a timeless masterpiece, and the best game of its s eries.

Dark souls 1