So, Bloodborne is releasing on March 24th (for North Americans), then March 25th and onwards for the rest of the world. And while I know these threads already exist, I just wanted to talk with you guys about the spiritual predecessors of Bloodborne: that is, the Souls games.

DEMON'S SOULS

The game that started it all. This magnificent gem came out the 5th of February, 2009, and it took almost everyone by surprise, Shu Yoshida as well (who openly admited regret supporting this game until he properly played it).

Not only this game was diverse, had a strong lore and had some unique appeal to it, but also had an interesting entry barrier; one that made most players witness the "YOU DIED" with the Nexus trapping your soul message over and over and over again. However, those who'd force their way, whether with cunning, skill or brute power, through the game would then discover worlds filled with dread but atmosphere, with ferocious enemies but rewarding treasures, and eventually, facing those marvellous designed end-bosses.

This was my second Souls game as I didn't have a Ps3 and could not play it by the time it released, but this was a ride I will never forget. Everything felt so fresh and interesting, I could not put it down and beat it in less than a week. I also played it with some VGC friends eventually and had a blast with it!

So, tell us, did the Tutorial Boss owned you as well?

DARK SOULS

Ahh...one of my favourite games of all time, and the first Souls game I ever played.

I didn't know what I was getting into other than that I was going to be owned hard. Or so the advertisements made it look like that. And when I put this bad boy into my console, I couldn't stop playing. I felt annoyed, I felt angry, I felt sad. I was being killed over and over and I was thinking that maybe, I was too useless at this game. But I overcame my fears, and after hours and hours conquered the game. I never expected to like a game so much, that (at least for me back then) came out of nowhere. Oh, but I did. To this day, I still think Dark Souls has the best dungeon design ever conceived in a game; it was so damn great I still can remember every nook and cranny in my head, as I got the map imprinted into my mind by the time I finished the damn thing. But not only that, everything else, from gameplay to music, is ace. This is one of the rare cases of which I'm totally inmersed into a game, burning in anguish as I want to discover more of it but keep getting owned because of my own faults.

This is a masterpiece, and personally, injected into the seventh generation more life as it offered a fresh, new breed of something unique.

So, anyone owned Orstein & Smough on their first try?

DARK SOULS 2

A strange proposition, indeed. Instead of going for the "more of the same" thing, which in my eyes would have been completely acceptable after how awesome Dark Souls 1 is, Dark Souls 2 tried to be different by combining tons of elements of Dark Souls and Demon's Souls together. The "nexus" was there, but so was the pseudo-"open world" nature. Leveling up required the female character, but yet you could teleport at Majula at any moment as long as a bonfire was at your side. There are tons of examples of this mix, and so this is the weirdest Soul game in my opinion.

However, let's get it out of the way first: this is not Demon's nor Dark Souls level. Once we can clear that up, Dark Souls 2 is another brilliant game, one that does not shy showing its flaws (and there are some quite flaws in its design) and that tries offering some unique twists to the already established formula (not so unique anymore after two games!). But I had a blast playing this, nonetheless. My biggest complain is that the difficult is, at times, cheap. It's not something organic, like the previous games, but rather, they throw in a lot of enemies in cheap places so that it lead to cheap deaths. Not cool, but hey, other than that, there's interesting lore to discover again and tons of interesting places to visit.

Was I the only one surprised when you reah Memory of Jeigh?

So, VGC, what do you think? What's your favourite game? Do you like this series?

I love this series and Dark Souls is my favorite game of this series (also one of my favorite games of all time).

when are reviews coming for bloodborne? this will be my first ever from software game

Dark Souls is one of the greatest, if not, the greatest game I ever played.

The game is undoubtedly hard at first, and the controls take a little while getting used to. Despite the game being frustrating at first, something about it is addicting, and while it is hard, it never feels cheap.

The combat system is just amazing, requiring you to pay attention to your enemy's movements, and to know what button to press at the right time.

The game's world is also massive, with a bunch of branching paths you can take, with optional items and bosses you can find along the way. The world is essentially a 3D version of Super Metroid's and Castlevania: SOTN's world.

The music is also amazing, with my favorite tracks being the themes of Four Kings, Sif, and Gwyn, Lord of Cinder.

The game also has a very interesting story, which is never directly told to you in full depth, only making it that much more mysterious.

I could go on, but the bottom line is that Dark Souls is a masterpiece. I've yet to play Demon Souls and Dark Souls II, but I'm looking forward to the day I do play them, and I'm especially looking forward to the day I play Bloodborne.

The Souls series is one of the best of last gen and all time. Absolutely fantastic gameplay in all 3 games, I was completely captivated. Started with Demons back when it came out and I remember the number of hours I put to best level 1-1, remembering how persistent I was to conquer it, while at the same time confused by its difficulty, getting weary of repeating the whole thing all over again every time I die. But then I opened up my first shortcut, I beat my first boss, I realized how critical the shield is, I understood the mechanics and the gameplay - then I found myself lost in soul form for so long. Dark Souls was equally beautiful, and I really enjoyed DS2 as well. This series stands among the best of the best.

I'm pretty sure they will start to drop tommorrow. 

I thought Demon Souls was the hardest, followed by Dark Souls, followed by Dark Souls 2, they have been getting easier and easier.  My favorite is Dark Souls and my least favorite is Dark Souls 2 because I hated those boss fights where your fighting multiple enemies of the same enemy, it just felt lazy, and as a whole I didn't like the bosses as much as Dark Souls.  Also I hated that the world didn't feel connected like it did in Dark Souls.

Wow thats soon, Sony and From are pretty damm confident they have a masterpiece in theyre hands if theyre gona allow reviews to come 1 week before launch. If the review scores end up beeing what I expect them to be (around the 90 mark) this could boost sales a lot, but if reviews are lackluster (and for a game this hipped anything on the 85 meta and down will be lackluster) it could harm sales big time.

hm.. I think Dark Souls had some questionable design decisions, like the tiny Capra Demon arena and many places in which the games lighting itself doesn't reveal the next platform you have to jump to - very dependend on other players texts guiding you instead of keen own observation

therefore I favor Demon's Souls by quite a bit

Sometimes you do live up to your name wright. I love this series i was really happy when Demon's Souls made it big not just in Japan and Asia, but also the west. I got the Asian version which was released months before the west before anyone started talking about it.

Demon's Souls is probably one if not my favourite game ever. It was so new, fresh and is the hardest of the soul series. It also has the best lore in the series (IMO).

Dark Souls was great as well and Dark Souls 2 although they're lore kind of got messed up.

Yes, the tutorial boss owned my as in Demon's Souls but i got one back in another playthrough.

No, Orstein & Smough is a hell of a boss fight although it was so much fun i helped alot of people take them down .

Not really because again i just didn't get into Dark Souls 2 lore much.

Also I really like the series co-op/ multiplayer mode really unique and so much fun.