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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Dark Souls is overrated, it simply isn't fun

There's no such thing as overrated. But I agree I don't like the franchise.

I got Bloodborne for free on PS Plus, and I played a good 5-6 hours. The combat feels good, as you said when you die you feel as though it was your fault. But.. that's it. The lack of clear narrative or motivation gets old realllllly quick and I'm just not a fan of the series.



There's only 2 races: White and 'Political Agenda'
2 Genders: Male and 'Political Agenda'
2 Hairstyles for female characters: Long and 'Political Agenda'
2 Sexualities: Straight and 'Political Agenda'

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I'm not sure where I stand on it yet - I'm 20 hours into my first playthrough and am in Anor Londo. Most of the time I haven't actually had much difficulty with boss fights; I've usually killed them on the first or second attempt. I've also done some optional areas, like Darkroot Garden/Basin, the Catacombs (I hate the wheel skeletons), and the Painted World (entirely accidental - I didn't realise what the painting did!).

I have had difficulty with things I consider to be cheap placement rather than 'difficult', but that might just be a reflection of frustration. For example, I'm currently stuck on the Silver Knight archers in Anor Londo - I'm told by a friend who's done Dark Souls multiple times this is a common area of frustration. I've tried a few different strategies but can't get passed just yet.

Broadly, I love the interconnected level design, atmosphere, art design etc, but find the game a little too obstinate in places. Sen's Fortress, with its booby traps and difficult enemy placement (i.e. across bridges you needed to cross with swinging blades) was pretty much the sum of my experience so far. I admired the design of the level in many ways, loved the atmosphere and enemies, but found the repetitive, tough reversal pretty dull. I get that's intentional - it's designed like the games of the mid to late 80s, which would be difficult by way of making sure people spent a long time playing them. One issue I have is that I've heard so much about difficult, intimidating bosses and as I've said, they've very rarely troubled me - being cautious, choosing your window and healing regularly gets you through fairly easily. The other issue for me with Dark Souls is I'm repeatedly trying the same thing over and over and I have so many other options for my gaming time, I'm not sure if it's worth sticking with. I have limited time for videogames and like to feel like I'm making concrete progress - an hour with Souls might simply leave you stuck on the same section.

My friend said if I can get through Anor Londo then the final stretch is a bit more open-ended - he said I'll have some choice in how I go about the next chunks of the game, so I'll make some more attempts to finish Anor Londo tonight and again on Sunday. I'm glad I've stuck with the game this far, but I'm not sure if I've got the patience for the rest of the slog - especially with so many other games competing for attention.



Dark Souls is a masterpiece in my opinion.

What a wonderful trilogy.



git gud



Dark Souls ushered in my gaming renaissance. I started to hate the direction the gaming industry went with overproduced AAA games filled with cutscenes, waypoints, quick-time events and checkpoints. Dark Souls is gaming at its purest, with an amazing amount of depth, freedom, and atmosphere.

Ultimately it's a matter of taste but if you've been gaming for over 2 decades, it's easy to see Dark Souls as an oasis in a desert full of shit games.



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mZuzek said:

It's true, though. Certain games aren't meant to be "fun", in the same way that certain movies, for example horror films, aren't meant to be either. Movies, games, books or whatever else, can entertain us in several different ways, and that can often mean not fun.

As for Dark Souls, well... I'm no fan, either. I tried getting into it twice, and I hated it. I hated the difficulty, yes, but specifically my biggest issue wasn't with the trial-and-error nature of it, but rather with how extremely punishing the game is. You often lose up to 20 minutes of progress each time you die, and on top of that you also lose all the experience you got, which you can only recover by making it back to where you died - which is one reason to make you more eager to "just get through" the backtracking, on top of also wanting to do it asap because you don't wanna waste a lot of time replaying stuff you already did, and well, ultimately it leads to you dying again and losing even more progress. It's a completely toxic gameplay loop. I stopped playing at the (apparently infamous) dragon bridge, because that was the point where I died twice in a row to things I couldn't avoid without prior knowledge, and lost far too much progress for me to bother investing again in a game I was simply not enjoying in any way (and this was my second time playing it, the first time I quit even earlier).

I very much dislike all the culture that's been created around this game, the "IT'S HARD" thing, because it is hard in all the wrong ways, and actively wants the player to quit playing. Well guess what, I did quit. It's the modern day equivalent of oldschool games giving you a "game over" and sending you back to the beginning, it's just bullshit. I love me some hard games, and have beaten my fair share of them, but I can only appreciate difficulty if it's well made, and Dark Souls' wasn't.

I very much agree.

Difficulty is fine with me; punishment and frustration masked as difficulty are not.  Old games did it to seem longer but that's not a trick I can accept in today's environment.

I've had enough of games that make me replay entire levels or archaic save mechanisms that waste my time.  That's not difficulty, it's just punishment.  I don't play games to NOT enjoy myself, so I have zero interest in mechanics designed for that very function.  



 it wasn't meant to be fun it was meant to be challenging



I agree the entire genre isnt fun. I tried playing these type of games and the cheap deaths just frustrate other than make me a better player.
Ashen is the only game i actually enjoyed mainly due to its art style and openworld setting and quests, so in other words the things that make it different from the Souls genre.
I know gamers enjoy hard games but these games arent hard in a skilled way. If you can't beat a boss? Than farm spirit orbs and level your character until you do. Its how i made progression and it bored me.



OK so now i've finished Dark Souls 2 and what i was most curious about was that everybody seems to think it is a step down from DS1. There is no doubt that DS2 is a lesser game, and actually quite tedious at times. Who on earth thought it was a good idea to make the health-bar shorter and shorter after each death

Think this video summarize it very well
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR3hbaKTVBs



I just always put the focus on getting all of the items in a certain area and not on killing all of the enemies,i get my souls from killing bosses and helping others kill bosses and really the most fun i have in these games is with helping others out.