I’ll start with a few:
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I’m not surprised at all to see a soulslike being polarising. Some people absolutely love them, but I think you find out pretty quickly if they’re not for you!
I used to dislike dark souls. Recently I tried it again - I struggled but I finally got the hang of it!
I think the hardest is to know what to do. I figured out I was struggling because I kept going in zones I was not expected to go yet.
Also it’s such a big shift compared to what I was used to. You have to wait for the right opportunity to attack rather than going in there and relying on reflexes.
I tried it for a few hours and my review was “not telling you how to play the game doesn’t make it hard, it makes it badly designed”. I get that a lot of people like that, but I was just not having fun as I wandered around confused to be killed again.
Yeah exactly. Here follows some spoiler for those who have never played Dark Souls
spoiler
Once you escape from the asylum you can get to the catacombs right away. I did that and got my ass kicked so I figured I was not supposed to get there first.
So I went up towards the upper Bell. Which I did ring. But then afterwards it looked so clear to me, especially as you unlock the shortcut to Firelink : yes ! The other bell must be down in the catacombs! So I headed there.
I struggled a lot to handle all the monsters. I kept going until the valley where you face skeletons on wheels and the black Knight. I figured “no something isn’t right, I don’t think the game is supposed to be that hard. There are tips on the ground about using a divine weapon but I don’t even know how to get one.”. I read a post online and figured I went the wrong way… Once again
Once I fixed that and went the right way things got significantly easier. I heard how some players literally got down to the catacombs from the get go and somehow managed to get to the boss door only to be met by a yellow fog that can’t be passed, and how they struggled to get back to firelink without getting killed…
The bottom line is that I think you need to have someone telling you where not to go to really enjoy Dark souls. Because its not obvious whether you die because of your incompetence or just because you were not supposed to be there right now. I wouldn’t say its bad design though - but it’s not for everyone for sure
I guess I can’t say its objectively bad because so many people enjoy it, but a game where I can’t even tell if I’m playing it correctly is definitely not for me
I remember trying dark souls once in like 2014 and calling it quits after like 1.5 hours. People love them and I wouldn’t ever want to take that away from them, but for me the game’s design was just so hostile toward the player.
Same for me, around 2017
I posted another comment about having pretty much this exact experience myself!
People hate this opinion but I felt like the controls and animations were horrible. Feels like trying to control a fighting game through an excel spreadsheet to me. Maybe that’s something that’s improved in the series since then, but I was always baffled when people told me the action was good
Did you play on PC? Apparently the original port was really badly done.