>>3458780
no other games like it at the time, so it basically had no competition for what it was trying to accomplish. even normal guys are enamored by the promise of a really hard game.

>>3458782
Dark Souls 1 wasn't a "really hard game", unless you mean no handholding = hard. You can poise tank the whole game, and the boss movesets are all very basic compared to later games.

>>3458780
>no other games like it at the time
Yeah, 2010 was a bit different.

Maybe it's telling that Metroid and Castlevania, two series that Dark Souls is somewhat remniscient of, took turns towards being more like movie games.

A game without handholding and cutscenes was revolutionary then lol. The difficulty and obscurity led to people talking about it, sharing hints and theories, which probably contributed to the popularity.

>>3458788
i agree but it was definitely its perception at the time. the enhanced version was called "prepare to die edition" and everything.

>>3458788
It was hard compared to everything else that was coming out at that time. It came out in the era of ubishit, walking simulators and braindead cover shooters.
Handholding was the name of the game back then so it was refreshing to have a game that didn't treat you like a retard.

>>3458788
>BUT IF YOU LOOK UP GUIDES AND YOU KNOW HOW TO BUILD YOUR CHARACTER AND AND AND
if you didn't play blind and you used any summons at all, you didn't beat the game.

>>3458789
Dark Souls was basically the Igavania of its era, and it got a lot of people into that style of game. Even if it's slightly janky at times and totally fell apart at the end (in 'vania fashion) it totally shifted the paradigm back towards hard. It's been a helpful way to vent frustation, because if all the games we were ever going to get past 2010 were David Cage games and Cut the Rope, I think there would have been a violent revolution by now.

>>3458789
>took turns towards being more like movie games.
I'm guessing you're referring to Other M and Lords of Shadow, jesus christ I want to forget.

>>3458780
Because it's the pinnacle of slop. Slop incarnate, generic dungeons. Incredibly snail pace movement to artificially lengthen game play. Controls are a buggy mess but passed off as difficult, contrived nonsense in place of story but passed off as mystery. It was the perfect storm for normies to eat up. It parades itself as le deep difficult mystery but it's as shallow as a rain puddle. Sovlless slop, peak reddit.

It spawned an entire subgenre of slop carbon copies. That's how you know it's slop because it was so easy to replicate. If it was a real master piece you couldn't capture it's essence even if you wanted to. That's the nature of lighting in a bottle

>>3458851
1/10 bait and i don't even like the game that much

>>3458780
why did game of thrones? midwits think grim=deep.

>>3458780
it was one of the few action RPG's available on PC at the time
Demon's Souls came first but it was a PS3 excusive normies and posers didn't get to try it, there is a reason why faggots like OP always post Dark Souls 1 when talking about the beginning of souls series popularity

>>3458788
>the game isn't hard because Havel build exists and the latter games are harder
Nice argument retard

>>3458788
Not hard my ass, I put all my points on resistance because I didn't read build guides. Fuck you.

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>>3458871

>>3458780
Open exploration in a really well connected world. Actual difficulty instead of modern handholding. It's a game instead of a bullshit story.

>>3458931
I played through Stranger of Paradise without using abilities because Lightbringer removed the entire 2 bars of MP you get.

360 era handholding over-tutorialized design was out of control so the prepare to die advertising campaign hit perfectly
People forget that microsoft immolated itself with the Kinect, it seemed like the 360 and all of its amerifat design trends were seen as the permanent future of games

>>3458966
>just consoletard things

>>3458788
>you can poisetank the whole game
Most people don't because playing that way requires being a huge faggot.
>later game boss movesets try harder
Yeah that's the problem with those games and why none are as good as the originals. DkS bosses all had some kind of environmental gimmick not just some arbitrary fuck-you combo chain to memorize.

>>3458987
At the time, PC was dominated by WoW

>>3458788
It's mostly difficult in the same way Demon's Souls was - you have to pay attention to what's going on. This was a revelation for a lot of people used to a generation of hand holding. It also means the Souls formula is diminished with each game because you now know their tricks which is why whatever your FIRST Souls game was is the most memorable one.

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>>3458826
>It was hard compared to everything else that was coming out at that time
Not everything. You can possibly find many games during that era that is harder, but those games don't appeal to the modern hardcore gamer unlike 15 or so years prior.

>>3458780
Mostly 3 things:
1. It has Nice aesthetics and 'deep lore'
2. It actually provides some sort of challenge If compared tô other mainstream games
3. Complementarily, It requires you to actively play the game, instead of Just guiding you through It.

>>3458845
Man, 7th gen gaming was a special kind of hell.

>>3459003
lol there's no "dominated" with PC games, this is why you are a consoletard.

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>get into Dark Souls only in 2018 after the remaster release
>late to the party, so there are guides everywhere
>get havel + fap rings, then forest guardian set (later change it to havel)
>backup save and save scum until the undead burg black knight drops his sword
>look up locations of all early twinkling titanite lizards
>3 shot every boss
ngl, I was kind of disappointed at how easy it was, I then skipped straight to DS3 and that was an actually good action game with no cheesy BS

>>3459096
lol

>>3458987
PC was a fucking wasteland in 2011, nobody saw its comeback beyond being the mmo shutin machine coming

>>3459129
>just AAAtard things

>normies
What does this actually mean anymore? And what is the opposite of a normie? What qualities makes a normie and what qualities make a non normie? It’s become a term that is utterly meaningless even though it began as a term was was mostly meaningless. If normie means the average normal person this is wrong because the average person has never even heard of dark souls. And the average person who plays games would liekly think dark souls too hard. So who are these normies this thread is referring to

>>3458780
It is and always has been a normalfag game.

>>3459096
Kek I got angry, this is a great format for bait

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>>3458871
The asoiaf books were well regarded in the western fantasy book circle well before the show. Martin was considered a genius storyteller for the genre. There’s nothing midwit about the series. I’m not even sure what would make a series popular for “midwits.” This seems to just be another meme term to insult people who are not part of the “correct” fandom or for people who like to enjoy entertainment casually. As if liking different games and pouring hours into them makes someone more intelligent compared to a normal person who plays on a console every now and then enjoying games casually and not like a fantastic because they have a normal life outside of their time they spend playing games.

>>3459004
This, I was around for Demon souls release and this was exactly why it got so much notoriety.
At first, people were raving about dying and difficultly and whatnot but outside of getting used to combat system(which could be cheesed with the soul arrow spell and to a lesser extent rapiers/spears+shields) it was mostly the first game in a while where players couldn't just hold forward while looking at their phone until they heard they character take damage or the combat BGM start.

Also that it had secrets, like the dragon horde in the first world, shortcuts, hidden NPCs, world tendency, a lot of worthwhile stuff to explore and discover - instead of pointless achievement farming content.

>>3459144
Ah, I forgot to say this, but one of the main advice points back then was "Stop running, walk."
People were so conditioned by boring power fantasy masher trash that they had to be reconditioned (if they had ever played games before the ps3 era) to not blindly sprint around corners and blindspots or rush into obvious traps/groups of enemies.

>>3459141
>As if liking different games and pouring hours into them makes someone more intelligent
In short it's a cope for losers without real achievements etc

>>3458782
This, the entire industry was trending hard to cinematic/movie games and DaS was in the complete opposite direction

>>3459141
Lol, asoiaf was read by strip mall hobby shop neckbeards just like wheel of time or sword of shannara. No normalfag adult would have been caught dead with that shit.

>>3459131
Enjoy your deer hunting games, the sub AAA PC market from the mid 2000s to 2012ish was horribly crunched by retailers dwindling down to basically just walmart. They didn't have the shelf space for classic sub AAA PC genres like city sims or tycoon games anymore and the devs all saw bloodbaths

>>3459171
Yeah, games had scripted impressive looking scenes and setpieces, but they lacked impact because player involvement had to be minimal for them to work.

Then Dark Souls came out, and it didn't even have background music for the most part. Only a couple of bosses had cutscene reveals, even the final boss just comes at you. It's more about what the player experiences, not what devs want players to experience, if that makes sense. More personal and engaging in that way.

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>>3459144
>>3459149
which also explains why demon's souls was still very much a niche success carried by word of mouth. dark souls was when it REALLY exploded and even the media caught on.

disgusting consoleslop. i remember uninstalling after the graveyard because the controls and ui were complete and utter garbage. i never understood the hype it got. every video of this series looked so fucking stupid. some heavy armored knight wielding some absurdly large weapon just casually rolling around some giant boss.

>>3458788
This. That was all just marketing which made normies think it was some kind of skill test, who are clearly here judging by the replies.

Dark souls is only hard if you intentionally make it hard by ignoring the tons of bullshit added in to make it easy (summons, including AI ones, poise, pyromancy/miracles, shields, consumable weapon buffs, etc) it also isn’t “tough but fair” as spergs like to say lol Miyazaki is on record as stating it’s just hard to make it feel inhospitable and that is why you will have open a door and take axe to the face moments

>>3459281
Hard is "I have to react faster than how long it takes to check my snap chat(back then Twitter), post a few tweets/make a comments in the chat, pause my streamer, and look back up to see which direction my character was is facing if the gane doesn't automatically lock on to any threats for me".
Pretty bullshit that a game wouldn't give you enough time to be socially connected.

>>3459174
gibberish

I think it's understated how influential Youtubers and let's plays were when it came to a game's popularity in the 2010s. Dark Souls spread through word of mouth and because content creators need to fill a niche that no one else is, Dark Soul was pretty avaliable to pick up and introduce to a new audience. People also forget that motherfuckers also unironically used to have a "gamer" culture and beating (Or even just owning a copy) would earn you "SICK GAMER CRED".

>>3459096
>late to the party, so there are guides everywhere
Next time you bait, remove this line and you'll get much more retards seething.

>>3459714
The guide usage is why it's good bait

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>>3458780
I heard it was the hardest game around but actually worth playing. So I started playing and fell in love the atmosphere and music. As much as I enjoy the game, it is generally shit at being a game. You cannot beat your first souls game without a guide.

>>3459843
Huh?
>Go up and go down to ring the bells
>Talk with ugly fuck serpent
>Go to Anor Londo
>Collect big souls
>Fight gwyn
>The end

And for all these steps there are npcs telling you where to go

>>3458831
you didn't need a guide to know that full havels was op you moron

>>3458831
literal retard

>>3459096
Yall call it bait but this was me in 2013? Ds2 wasnt out yet and I had to watch a playthrough step by step to learn how to actually play the game. After that i did it on my own 2 or 3 times. Since then ive beaten every souls game within 72 hours of release. ER took 6 days tho.

U guys are talking big shit but are u even playin the games? The last 3 spuls games I beat before there were complete guides on the internet. That is a feeling you cannot trade.

>>3459080
You are wrong. On both counts

>>3459133
Normie post.
Keep seething. You will never have a soul.

>>3459974
based psychic

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>>3459843
only if you're a retard. listen to the NPCs

>>3458780
It got popular due to the reputation of being LE HARD even though it actually isn't really that hard as >>3458788 points out.
The thing is, beyond the difficulty YOU DIED meme, the game is amazing. Absoultely incredible in a way that imho none of the sequels matched.
Just because it got popular doesn't mean you can't enjoy it, anon.

>>3458780
It used to be a niche console game for weebs. Then it was released on PC bringing in the reddit basedboy WRPG audience

>>3458788
It's only hard relative to the standard AAA fare of 2010, which is to say it isn't piss easy. Compared to console games of the 8-bit era Darksouls is pretty easy, but I'd say the difficulty is really well balanced - it's challenging without being frustrating, which is why the game was commercially successful. If it was actually difficult it would've only had traction as a niche hit with a small minority of masochistic gamers.

>>3461764
It's a RPG, so difficulty is basically optional. Get good gear, level up, use consumables, summon allies, ask internet for advice, and boom! They beat the game, and it was probably satisfying because for once they couldn't just turn the difficulty down.

No difficulty select means everybody had the same challenges, which is good for the community, sharing their war stories.

>>3458780
>3d
>easy to control your character
>don't have to read shit
>you can pretend dying every 10 minutes is part of the game and not you being filthy casual
>can brag about playing it later

>>3459141
>The asoiaf books were well regarded in the western fantasy book circle well before the show
yes by the same kind of pretentious midwits who think grim equals deep.
>There’s nothing midwit about the series.
Holy shit you can not be serious this is the series is written by mr but what's his tax policy himself, it's written by the king of midwits.

>>3459172
>or sword of shannara
Don't you dare compare sword of shannara to that garbage

>>3458780

Dark Souls wasn't famous just for being difficult, but for using difficulty in the right way, to promote player immersion and create a sense of accomplishment. The lack of handholding worked well with the level design where you were incentivized to explore. There was punishment for failing, but you could also reclaim your souls, and every level gained or upgrade found was permanent. The bosses were designed to be difficult your first few tries but easier once you understood their attack patterns. The key here is that they didn't just give into sadism or number bloat, it was fine tuned to allow for challenge without feeling impossible.