| danasider said: You're definitely entitled to your opinion, but I agree that this is a point we disagree on. Dark Souls (and Bloodborne/Demon Souls) is about figuring things out for yourself, sure. But that is just a small part of it's allure. The exploration of everything from the world to the gameplay systems is put on the gamer instead of the game as a means of getting you into the mindset that you have to play with a critical mind. You have to worry about death around every corner unlike other action games that arm the player with loads of hp and god like powers. The higher threshhold of difficulty is just as defining of the vision as the "figure it yourself out" style of game play. These things are used to ramp up the adrenaline and make the player really pay attention to the game's environments, enemy patterns, etc. Prepare to Die is the series slogan for a reason. The developers want you to face challenges, dig deep, and overcome them, even knowing full well you are going to face failure a lot before finding that success. And the payoff is unlike anything in other games. It's not only adrenaline pumped ride, but the payoff is relief and pride. I'm not saying I don't enjoy other action games, but I have enjoyed them a lot less after Bloodborne, because I don't get that feeling when fighting a boss. In fact, there are a lot of games I don't even die in at all or only a few times so any sense of significance to how you play is diminished. And with games, how to get through content is more important than what the content is, because gameplay is the most important defining feature of the medium. So is the level of immersion, another thing which would be severely affected by the change of flow due to giving player's relief. So yeah, that sense of dread/adrenaline/relief and that payoff would be ruined since the risk and impact of dying would be lessened. Options aren't a terrible thing...unless it goes against the integrity of the developer's design and vision. Handicaps in a game like Dark Souls is exactly that, because how to get through the game is way more important than getting through the content. If it were played with those "accessibility options" (though I'd argue that is a loose term for basically completely changing the gameplay in a case like this), the player wouldn't even be playing the same game. But that's just my opinion. |
Yet how do optional difficulty options ruin your sense of pride when playing at the highest or recommended difficulty level. Why would it bother you that other people can start at a lower difficulty. Personally I didn't feel and pride or sense of achievement getting past that ridiculous boss guarding the path to the under city. It was simply frustrating having to come back from firelink shrine every time, or the other bon fire later. I don't enjoy repeating the same action over and over just to get to where I left off before. It does not heighten my adrenaline, just my frustration level. Difficulty options can also mean more checkpoints.
I enjoyed exploring the world in Dark Souls, sparring with Tower knights, going places I wasn't really equipped for yet. I did not enjoy the bosses much at all. Yet I grinded the spider queen for a while in co-op to meet the level requirement for equipment I wanted to use to continue exploration.
Anyway what wa the developer's vision when it comes to dying a lot. Nobody knows, yet not everyone has the same skill level or understanding of game mechanics. 10 deaths, 100 deaths, 1000 deaths to get to the next bonfire? What is the optimal number of deaths to 'enjoy' the game as intended. It's all flexible, as in any rpg. They always depend on how much time you have to put into it. Is it sensible to say that if you don't have 60 hours to dedicate on a game that you should not buy it? Is there an optimal time you should spend on a game to appreciate it as intended? Some people will finish it much faster than others, who gets the intended experience? Flexible difficulty options are never a bad thing imo. Better yet if the game slightly adjusts the difficulty behind the scenes to serve each player the intended number of deaths and game length.
