Matthewmatosis - The Lost Soul Arts of Demon's Souls - General

It's a video about how the Souls series has changed over time since Demon's Souls, for better and for worse. [video=youtube;Np5PdpsfINA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np5PdpsfINA[/video]

Matt is so well-spoken and informed in his opinions. Even if I disagree with him on something (which is very infrequently), his rationale as to why he holds that opinion makes me feel like I have the wrong opinion afterwards.

despite enjoying every soulsborne game by far myself, I found myself agreeing to almost everything he said in the video. In Dark Souls and Demon Souls, a lot of bosses had their own gimmicks which not only made them fun and refreshing to fight against, but also distinguish them from each other. To name a few from Dark Souls, Taurus Demon is the first boss most player encounter outside of the tutorial, and it puts you in a narrow path against a giant boss, with archers shooting at your ass. Capra Demon had you getting rushed by the boss and the dogs. The Gargoyles is pretty much Maneater 2.0 Bed of Chaos is, well, Bed of Chaos and a lot other bosses like Ceaseless Discharge, Seath and Priscilla all had their own gimmicks. Meanwhile, O&S is considered as one of the best boss fight in the whole Souls series, and it was also somewhat a gimmick fight as it was a duo boss with different second phrase depending on who you kill first. and then we get to DkS2, 3 and Bloodborne, where most bosses had cool visuals and music but had the same fight in between them. While it is still fun and exciting, it is kinda disappointing to see the series gone from having actual different boss fights to bosses with different patterns.

[QUOTE=jason3232;52391200]despite enjoying every soulsborne game by far myself, I found myself agreeing to almost everything he said in the video. In Dark Souls and Demon Souls, a lot of bosses had their own gimmicks which not only made them fun and refreshing to fight against, but also distinguish them from each other. To name a few from Dark Souls, Taurus Demon is the first boss most player encounter outside of the tutorial, and it puts you in a narrow path against a giant boss, with archers shooting at your ass. Capra Demon had you getting rushed by the boss and the dogs. The Gargoyles is pretty much Maneater 2.0 Bed of Chaos is, well, Bed of Chaos and a lot other bosses like Ceaseless Discharge, Seath and Priscilla all had their own gimmicks. Meanwhile, O&S is considered as one of the best boss fight in the whole Souls series, and it was also somewhat a gimmick fight as it was a duo boss with different second phrase depending on who you kill first. and then we get to DkS2, 3 and Bloodborne, where most bosses had cool visuals and music but had the same fight in between them. While it is still fun and exciting, it is kinda disappointing to see the series gone from having actual different boss fights to bosses with different patterns.[/QUOTE] What are you talking about? The bosses in Dark Souls 2 had a ton of variety, maybe even moreso than in 1.

I love that he mentioned that the series has been fucking awful at reiterating its improvements. It's always been my biggest problem with these games. The ladders are fucked. I feel like every fucking game they do something different with the ladders, and every game the ladders have good qualities and fucking shit qualities. If they had just kept all the good parts with the ladders, we'd have perfect ladders at this point, but nope, the ladders are still fucked. Funnily enough, Dark Souls 2 has the best ladders, and that's the worst one. [editline]23rd June 2017[/editline] There's absolutely no reason why Dark Souls 2 has a better inventory system than DaS3 or BB [editline]23rd June 2017[/editline] Man say what you want about DaS2 but that game did a lot QoL shit right that the later games just refused to fucking copy for some reason

[QUOTE=Dunsparce;52391357]I love that he mentioned that the series has been fucking awful at reiterating its improvements. It's always been my biggest problem with these games. The ladders are fucked. I feel like every fucking game they do something different with the ladders, and every game the ladders have good qualities and fucking shit qualities. If they had just kept all the good parts with the ladders, we'd have perfect ladders at this point, but nope, the ladders are still fucked. Funnily enough, Dark Souls 2 has the best ladders, and that's the worst one. [editline]23rd June 2017[/editline] There's absolutely no reason why Dark Souls 2 has a better inventory system than DaS3 or BB [editline]23rd June 2017[/editline] Man say what you want about DaS2 but that game did a lot QoL shit right that the later games just refused to fucking copy for some reason[/QUOTE] I think the think that disappointed me the most when I played DaS3 was the fact that they went back on what I think was the best change in DaS2, which was that almost every weapon in the game had the same moveset in the off-hand as it did in the main hand. It made a huge variety of weapons that would otherwise never be viable actually be viable because you could pair them with a fast weapon that compensated for their weaknesses, and it enabled a bunch of really dumb, cool builds. [editline]22nd June 2017[/editline] Also DaS2 is the best game in the series and I don't care what anyone says. Fight me.

[QUOTE=Geikkamir;52391347]What are you talking about? The bosses in Dark Souls 2 had a ton of variety, maybe even moreso than in 1.[/QUOTE] Even though dark souls 2 had a number of original bosses, it also had a problem of reusing ideas a lot which made it feel repetitive and lacking variety. Instead of making one really good horde boss, for example, they made four - Royal Rat Vanguard, Prowling Magus, Skeleton Lords and maybe the big spider boss with all the little spiders, if you count that. The idea behind the fight gets diluted by spreading it out across multiple encounters instead. I much preferred the Deacons of the Deep in DS3 as a horde fight, even though it was a trivial encounter, because it was the only one really like that in DS3 (other fights did feature several enemies, notably abyss watchers, but those didn't really behave the same way as a "horde boss.") On the other hand, when I walk into a room in DS2, kill a bunch of rats and that's it boss done, I'm just thinking: "Why did they even put this in the game?" Apart from horde bosses, there is also a lot of usage of multi-enemy fights (Sentinels, Twin Dragonriders, Throne Watchers and Gargoyles) and Duels (Dragonrider, Old Dragonslayer, Pursuer, Velstadt, Lost Sinner). Maybe if they had done less bosses and refined each concept more, it wouldn't feel so diluted. I think the most memorable fights (for me) in DS2 are the ones which have unique concepts that aren't reused - the Skeleton Chariot and the Looking Glass Knight - not counting the DLC, which I haven't touched.

He put into words the way I felt about every souls game after one, everything just felt like, "oh i know this part/oh I know this boss's gimmick" once you got to grips with all the ways every game shook up the gameplay/items and you were more comfortable with the core game and could see it more for what it is. To be fair Dark Souls was my introduction to the souls series and the way he feels about Des is how I feel about DaS, it was a very unique fantasy adventure that hooked you with a immersive world where you were familiar with enough of it to make you feel comfortable, but it at the same time there were so many novel fantasy elements that made it feel alien at the same time, it kept you guessing about what was going to come next and made you want to explore more. Some of that magic was lost in Das2/3 when they focus too much on how the sequel has to feel like dark souls and the games share the same ideas for areas, like matosis said, heres the poison swamp, here's the really dark area, here's the swamp, here's the fiery area.

[QUOTE=Geikkamir;52391347]What are you talking about? The bosses in Dark Souls 2 had a ton of variety, maybe even moreso than in 1.[/QUOTE] Nah. DS1 uses a concept once or twice before discarding it, DS2 runs it's boss design into the ground with reuse. The worst bosses (aside from the fucking Bed of Chaos) in DS1 are the Asylum/Stray/Firesage Demons because they're essentially the same thing. The difference being Asylum doesn't have magic and the arenas are progressively more awkward to fight in. DS2 recycles boss concepts from previous games (Hey, it's the Belfry Gargoyles, only there's six of them now!), and repeats boss designs across bosses. Smelter (twice), Pursuer, Lost Sinner, Looking Glass Knight, Throne Watcher and Defender, Fume Knight, Burned Ivory King. All dudes about twice your size with greatswords. There's some variety in their movesets but the concept of "Big dude with a greatsword" is run into ground in that game. There are a lot of good, even great, fights in DS2, even among the overused ideas, but variety isn't one of DS2's strong suits.

[QUOTE=Geikkamir;52391372]I think the think that disappointed me the most when I played DaS3 was the fact that they went back on what I think was the best change in DaS2, which was that almost every weapon in the game had the same moveset in the off-hand as it did in the main hand. It made a huge variety of weapons that would otherwise never be viable actually be viable because you could pair them with a fast weapon that compensated for their weaknesses, and it enabled a bunch of really dumb, cool builds. [editline]22nd June 2017[/editline] Also DaS2 is the best game in the series and I don't care what anyone says. Fight me.[/QUOTE] I didn't like DaS2's boss fights or story, but some of the combat stuff like powerstancing was really creative and is way cooler than paired weapons, which are just trick weapons from BB.