Bloodborne, Sekiro, Dark Souls III, and Dark Souls Remastered are four of my top ten games of the decade! Strange, considering I was afraid to play the series when Dark Souls came out in 2011.

Yeah Dark souls got me kinda pissed at it when it came out,did not play it again after that between 6 months and a year and when i picked it up again i suddenly did understand how to play it and had a great time .

I think I mentioned this flow in the past on this thread, but: 

1 - Played Demon's Souls back in 2011 for fun, but then started working for VGC as a reviewer so I had to put it down. Didn't play Dark Souls when it came out. 

2 - Played Bloodborne in 2015 right when it came out despite not even knowing at the time that it was Souls Adjacent. Loved it, but only after I forced myself to beat it once (I didn't much care for it on my first attempt). 

3 - Immediately tried playing Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First sin and HATED it. slow, sluggish, felt weird, but at the time I chalked it up to simply being not as fast as bloodborne.

4 - Played Dark Souls III and loved it. It wasn't AS fast as bloodborne, but it was still great and it felt like what I wanted out of a fantasy action game. 

5 - Played Dark Souls Prepare to Die on Ps3. Didn't much care for it. HAted half the areas and bosses, just thought it was too clunky and awkward and a little TOO obtuse. 

6 - Tried playing Dark Souls II again, still didn't like it. Gave up before reaching the first boss.

7 - Got platinum on Dark souls III, loved every second of it again. 

8 - When Dark Souls Remastered came out, I Gave it another shot. This time, without the hiccups of shitty framerate and a bit of knowledge about the game's obtuse nature and better online/quality of life improvements, I beat the game and fell in love with it. 

9 - Sekiro came out and I loved it instantly. Beat it twice, lent it to my brother, got it back,and got platinum. Absolutely loved this game. 

10 - Forced myself to play Dark Souls II and platinum it while hating every second of it. Not a good game, but I had platinum for Bloodborne, III, Remastered, and Sekiro, it would feel wrong to not also have Dark Souls II platinumed. 

I tried Dark Souls II multiple times, and each time approaching it with a fresh perspective. The first time I tried it, it was a disappointment becuase it wasn't as good as what would become my favourite game of the past decade. The second time was after beating it's sequel once. I tried I, then came back to II eventually having gotten platinum on all the other games (With me learnign to appreciate I's clunkiness once I beat it) and I still felt it was bad. 

All the other ones took me a bit of time to fall in love with sans Sekiro, so I figured I just needed to approach II in the right way. It was disappointing after bloodborne, disappointing after III, and even disappointing after the arguably clunkier and uglier and more obtuse original. something about it just felt wrong. Off. Bad. I do not understand why people like it and defend it. 

It is in my special hall of fame of 'games I hate in franchises I love', alongside Final Fantasy XIII, Mega Man X7, Mega Man (Original), Assassin's Creed Unity, Grand Theft Auto IV, Guitar Hero III, and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. 

*Looks at Blasphemous at the end*


.... For shame.

Lords of the Fallen is the only one I've played.

*sees everyone has a low opinion of Lords of the Fallen