>>693315963
no idea, I can't stand souls games

>>693315963
Word of mouth about the difficulty.

Gen Z nostalgia

Tesr

eceleb pcport begging

>>693315963
it was good, unlike the other games when it released

>>693315963
>everyone
It wasn't until 3 that it became known to mainstream gamers (not retarded journalists who use to compare it to everything) otherwise it was a niche average game with a cult following.

>>693315963
No woke shit
Certified game for MEN

>>693315963
Viral marketing, multiplayer, you can pretend you're hardcore for beating it while getting carried by your buddy

>>693315963
A friend told me about it. Didn't think this would become one of my top 10 favorites games.

>>693315963
Many people find it fun to play. Shocking idea on /v/ I know but here we are.

>>693315963
Gaslighting and astro turfing mostly. Just like my little pony it's one of the greatest internet pranks ever played on a large group of people.

>>693315963
One of the few games that didn't fucken baby the player all the time. Also the online implementation were everyone is ''connected'' and you see their ghosts real time is still the coolest thing ive seen in vidya

>>693315963
The amazing atmosphere and setting.

>>693315963
It's the Dark Souls of video games

>>693315963
Journalists for no reason decided that Fromsoft was good eventhough they shat on their previous games nonstop in magazines. Most likely paid off by Sony or Bamco to not say any mean things about it.

Overrated garbage proped up by the media to shit on Skyrim.

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>>693315963
I think people were tired of "games" that were little more than interactive multimedia spectacles
these games give you a challenge, show you almost immediately what happens when you fail, and give you tools to overcome that challenge. that's fun. you know, like a game is supposed to be
and from actually designed failure. too many game "designers" rely on lazy checkpoints. or even worse, save scumming. I think that played a big part. think about how successful roguelikes became at roughly the same time

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This is the Fromsoft game I like replaying the least
>Midroll - I don't get the hate for ADP in Dark Souls 2 as a stat you NEED to level up. Midroll is such an annoying system in Dark Souls 1 I end up being forced to level up endurance every run through so I don't run slow as molasses in any armor. It wasn't a thing in DeS, Dark Souls 2 dropped it and Dark Souls 3 made it basically irrelevant. In Dark Souls 1 I end up putting like 30 points into endurance by the time I reach Gwyn whereas in Dark Souls 2 I stop levelling it at 20. So I usually only put at most 10 levels into it.
>Only two ring slots is really annoying in Dark Souls 1 because they force you to equip certain rings to progress in certain areas
>The difficulty curve in Dark Souls 1 is bizarre. It has this great difficulty curve culminating in Ornstein and Smough which feels like a wall in terms of difficulty. Then you get to the rest of the bosses and you end up going "That's it?" Like Nito just waddles around and occasionally hits you with his orange blade attack. The only hard part about Seath is cutting off his tail because it's often sticking outside of the arena etc. I think this ruins the game to an extent as it makes the rest of the bosses feel kind of like a waste of time.
>I genuinely think several areas are straight up unfinished. Like Demon Ruins/Lost Izalith. Like Ceaseless Discharge straight up hits the player from behind walls and 100% of players just do the cheese strat that kills him instantly. Demon Firesage is just the Stray Demon but orange. Bed of Chaos is just a puzzle which feels like an enormous letdown.
>The game is secretly really linear despite how sprawling it feels. And it takes a really long time to actually get really powerful. Most challenge runs end up using exploits to skip into later parts of the game to acquire powerful weapons/spells in-order to make the rest of the game bearable. Every other Fromsoft game doesn't have this issue.

>>693315963
Word of mouth because the journos who played them wrote the worst guides imaginable, so normies had to talk to each other for once.
Nowadays, everyone is good at this shit genre, so the magic is gone.

demons souls was a revolutionary game.

Borrowed the game from a friend and hated it at first. Couldn't beat Asylum Demon, went back and told him the game was bullcrap and cheated. Keep getting the insatiable itch to go back and beat it. I did, made it to Firelink Shrine, took the detour to blighttown, new londo, and the catacombs, before finally seeing the staircase to Undead Burg that blended in to the wall from my perspective, and the rest was history.

>>693318771
It may have been the first of its kind, but Dark Souls 1 was the most impactful, and in a way, revolutionary

>>693318604
Most of these critiques make me think you've never fucking played it.

>>693315963
Atmosphere of the first one. Ps3 version looked much better than remaster.

i bought it cause i used to buy games that just interested me when i went to best buy. Same thing happened when i got fallout new vegas, just got it cause i liked cowboys and that kind of stuff had no idea what these games were about which just added to my amazement when they turned out to be good

>>693318909
without demons souls, dark souls would never have happened. they invested very little into developing the game and it formed a huge fanbase that surprised fromsoft.

>>693315963
I played dark souls 2 first and I thought it was amazing.

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No idea
I can't even beat the first one

People forget just how dire the shit coming out of the games industry was at the time. The Souls games were a breath of fresh air compared to most of the slop that came out from 2010 to 2015.

>>693319189
>picture of a computer screen
No wonder you can't beat the game. You're retarded

>>693315963
Vril game about overcoming pain, struggling and achieving greatness in a broken world.

>>693315963
Unga bunga enemies, lonely journey through a bleak, surrealist landscape.
Whats not to like?
The sequels are all shit and so is its predecessor.

>>693315963
Interesting world, difficulty and being unlike any other game at that time. DS1 had a magical feeling that the other games have not replicated.

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I enjoyed Dark Souls 2 and found 3 to be really boring and never finished it.

it's a dungeon crawler with palatable action gameplay

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>>693319340
are you satisfied now?
what difference this really makes is beyond me, but as long as you're satisfied since that's my responsibility and not yours, apparently

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>>693317036
>Also the online implementation were everyone is ''connected'' and you see their ghosts real time is still the coolest thing ive seen in vidya

>>693315963
Its like Monster Hunter, but easier and with shittier combat

The game is hard. And I don't mean simple difficulty of gameplay; the game felt hostile, unforgiving and not forthcoming with information in regards to how to play successfully. You can't pause the game, which is understandable in pve but in singleplayer it feels like an imposition on the player. The levelling system feels extremely stingy, allowing for a single stat point in a single stat rather than multiple points in multiple stats. Even after you "git gud", there is a profound plethora of sheer bullshit to deal with that causes nothing but frustration, and tests nothing but the player's masochism/tolerance for bullshit.
>t. Likes the games

>>693319840
man you have shit taste

>>693320035
Also better levels and monsters that actually fight back instead of standing there and taking it.

>>693320074
Well yeah, he has fromsoft games.

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>>693320074
sure, but the difference between me and most posters here is i actually play video games, even if they are shit, and a big fan of anything with cooperation, drinking with friends is better and so is gaming, simple as

>>693315963
It scratched an itch that everyone had for a dark fantasy game that wasn’t generic hand holding slop

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>>693319373
>Vril game about overcoming pain, struggling and achieving greatness in a broken world.
this, what got me into it late was making out with an arthoe and DS1 is quantum entangled to sex with real beautiful women, the first DS I actually bought and finished tho was 3 but there is just the wikipedia references to the vril wave function collapse that playing DS1 is, DS1 contains so much beyond it's software

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>>693315963
Besides the fact that it's truly an amazing game, it came out at the right time. There was an awful trend going on at the time where every single game coming out was piss-easy. I'm not even a "hard core" gamer but I would buy a new game and play it and it would just feel like the "tutorial section" never fucking ended, and I'd quickly lose interest. Gaming was just kind of becoming shitty, they weren't games they were just bad movies with 0 actual gameplay.... and then Dark Souls comes out and it's 100% videogame. Just fucking wrecks you and tells you to 'git gud'.

The game is alluring as well, and creative. We hadn't seen anything quite like it yet. You WANTED to "git gud" so you could see the rest of the game. "I wonder what the next boss looks like?" "I wonder what the next armor set I get will be?" "I wonder what crazy demonic sword/axe I'll be able to craft with this boss soul?" It was the right game and it came out at the right time.

>>693315963
3D Metroidvanias for the most part were rare and far between and most of them were irredeemably garbage.

>>693315963
biggest factor was probably totalbiscuit who made the little wind of demons souls imports into a storm up until fromsoft released a pls stop importing edition. Then they considered on how to bring their stuff into the west and crapped out a shitty pc port with windows live that people ate up because of the viral marketing the previous entry amassed. Then the pseudo elitists labelled it as a hardcore game in a gaming landscape that was all about treating players as retarded toddlers and it fueled what would become a mass following. Downside is that the community went from one of the nicest and most accommodating ones to a bunch of self-entitled rancid cunts but that's just the price of popularity.

>>693315963
Action slop became unbearable and ruined franchises like Castlevania forever. I had low expectations going into this but found it much more appealing than that piece of shit Lords of Shadows.

>>693315963
The gameplay gave me the same feelings as dragon's dogma with the dark arisen expansion. Both have areas that are connected with each other providing shortcuts between them, and both for the most part allow a large variety of playstyles to play around with

>>693320035
The hard content in mh games are harder than in souls games but the base game is easier in mh than in souls
They are completely different types of games though apart from somewhat similar combat mechanics

>>693318771
>>693319003
>without Dragon Ball there would be no Dragon Ball Z, so ACKSHUALLY Dragon Ball is the important one
and then there's this faggot cunt in every one of these threads

>>693315963
demon's = dope
dark1 = dope
dark 2 = wtf is dis???
bb = dope
dark3 = eh it aight but lmao wtf is dis???
sekiro = dope
elden ring = eh it aight but lmao dis open world ain't it senpai

/v/ had a few threads of people saying good things about demon souls. couple of those and i went to game stop to get a copy. Was automatically sold on the sequel.

>>693320035
>>693320157
>>693321715
MH was locked away on a kiddy console until recently. The rise in popularity for MH could have started a decade earlier than it did, but at least the series finally made it.

>>693315963
good gameplay

>>693318604
>I don't get the hate for ADP in Dark Souls 2 as a stat you NEED to level up.
the hate comes from the fact that it becomes a blatant top choice to level and makes dodging inconsistent>>693318604
>It wasn't a thing in DeS, Dark Souls 2 dropped it and Dark Souls 3 made it basically irrelevant.
Dark Souls 3 did the great thing of standardizing iframes across mid and light roll to tightely design enemy attacks and aoe around them.
This is the opposite of the ADP system

>>693318604
>The game is secretly really linear despite how sprawling it feels
You've never played Dark Souls 1.

Dude on fire yo
shit cray

>>693322710
>t. whitest guy on 4chan

>>693315963
There wasn’t anything like it at the time (except Demons Souls). Back then if you talked about fantasy action RPGs it was either mindless click-to-win grindfests like Diablo 2 or games with easy combat where bosses die in 3 hits like Zelda.

>>693322360
>the hate comes from the fact that it becomes a blatant top choice to level
So like endurance? It's just an objectively better version of resistance that you barely need to level up to max out. The problem I have with endurance is you need to invest arguably more points into it than any attacking stat in-order to avoid waddling around in the best armors. In my last playthrough I only needed 28 str in-order to kill Manus in 10 hits but I needed 40 endurance to midroll in the Giants set. I also still needed Havel's ring too. This wouldn't be an issue if the game didn't have only 2 ring slots.
>>693322574
>Uhm actually you can technically get to blighttown early (if you picked a specific thing in chargen) therefore the game is actually secretly non-linear
>Except most of the levels are hard locked off until you place the Lordvessel including all of the best equipment and armors.
>The game has a single direction open to you at the start with a clearly well designed difficulty curve but you can technically beat one boss early by reading the wiki and going down a path with much harder enemies.

>in DeS after beating the first boss you can get to almost every level right at the start and acquire any equipment you want, it's really fun to replay as it encourages playing levels out of order.
>In Dark Souls 2 75% of the game is open to you right at the start and you can even get absurdly powerful using bonfire ascetics
>In Bloodborne once you beat Cleric Beast and Gascoigne the game gradually opens up and you unlock large parts of the game world with individual paths beginning and ending in every direction. You can also comfortably beat the game with some of the starting weapons/armor.

>>693315963
It's the closest to what people back in 2011 wished Zelda was, with the exception of puzzle dungeons.

Fuckers who played this over 1k hours and complaining that it's too easy are unhinged losers.

>>693315963
The reputation of Demon's Souls that was spread by word of mouth, and the fact it had been a PS3 exclusive but Dark Souls would be multiplat.

>>693323858
DS1 is much easier than some of From's other games. Like Sekiro is by far their hardest game objectively. DS1's hardest boss is Ornstein and Smough. Ornstein and Smough would be like a miniboss in Sekiro in terms of difficulty.

>>693315963
It standing out in the era of hand holding game design as other have already mentioned.
Unique Multiplayer that incentived community collaboration right before all game were analyzed to their raw data on release day.
Art Style that stood out for drawing more upon Medieval Italian and Classical Greco-Roman than standard Anglo-French Fantasy
Kino trailers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1780AqAa20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNpLhv21BS0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93LFz_j5fQA

>>693324023
Sekiro's difficulty was a progression of Dark Souls' difficulty. When people played each game for the first time there was no prior frame of reference, and it was only when experiencing the next game with more difficult action that the previous titles were retroactively seen as easy.

>>693324196
The main thing that makes it so challenging is in Dark Souls the game encourages you to use things to make fights easier. Like miracles or sorcery or items. Or just exploring and levelling up first. With Ornstein and Smough you can even summon Solaire to make the first half of the fight way easier. Sekiro has none of that you either are good enough to beat the boss or not. You can unlock certain tools to make certain fights easier (like the fireworks stuns the bull) but From often throws fights at you where the only solution is to just get good.

>>693323858
Going back to DS1-3 after playing Elden Ring is an absolute cakewalk

>>693324558
Elden Ring was pure unfun but I agree.

>>693315963
Good reviews. Demon's Souls' reputation helped too.

>>693324138
That first trailer made me realize, the way you were meant to deal with the hellkite drake is to summon two dudes to help you, and in turn you were rewarded with the PvE covenant.

>>693318604
>midroll
if you're wearing armor you're doing it wrong. you're supposed to wear just enough armor to get the poise you need to trade blows and that's it. you only need 40 poise to tank at least one blow, so most people wear havel's ring and supplement with a few pieces of armor, not enough for a full set. there's no reason you can't have a fast roll, enough poise for most situations, and swing big.
>two ring slots
yeah, it's a good criticism, especially when most people will do what I said above and use havel's ring. if you remove the FAP ring it will break and you only get one per playthrough, kinda lame.
>difficulty curve
eh they're gimmick bosses is why.
>unfinished areas
yeah sure seems that way. even though it's unfinished, it's mostly a 8/10 all the way through. I never dread having to go to demon ruins or any of those unfinished areas. it's just another level to go through.
>game is secretly linear
it's not, though. the only main progression walls are bells --> lordvessel and that's it. anything after the lordvessel can be done in any order. everything prior to it can be done in any order with the exception of sen's fortress. the only other requirement is lordvessel for the DLC.
>long time to get powerful
nah, by the time you hit anal rodeo you can get the silver knight straight sword, the best sword in the game. before then, it's a crapshoot whether you'll get a black knight weapon. if you really want you can pump strength at the beginning and go demon hammer from the start, but you still need upgrade materials. I say anor londo is the bottleneck because by then you should be able to hit twinkling titanite weapons to max and regular weapons to +10. there are certain weapons you can get earlier that are quite good, like the lightning spear in sen's fortress but failing that you can use consumables like resins to do extra damage.

>>693315963
My friend recommended it to me and even helped me through it and i cant thank him enough. Truly a one of of a million game.

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>>693315963
Friend whose a massive souls fans bullied me int playing Demon's Souls OG and Dark Souls 1 prepare to die after he bought me a steam key.

Love the series since.

>>693325479
>if you're wearing armor you're doing it wrong
>You're supposed to ignore a core mechanic of the game even though this wasn't an issue in any other Fromsoft game. In DeS it's just 50% encumbrance and there were only like 10 armor sets. In Dark Souls 2 it was 75% and it was actually hard to hit the upper limit. Bloodborne even only had fastroll.
>yeah, it's a good criticism, especially when most people will do what I said above and use havel's ring. if you remove the FAP ring it will break and you only get one per playthrough, kinda lame.
Whenever I play Dark Souls 1 I use Havel's ring for 99% of the game and just swap out the other one. The FAP ring is too risky to use because you're swapping out ring 2 depending on level (Like the rusty iron ring for wet areas, the abyss ring for four kings, the lava ring for Lost Izalith etc). This was also an issue they fixed in Dark Souls 2 by having 4 ring slots and they balanced it by making it so rings had carry weight.
>the only main progression walls are bells --> lordvessel
>anything after the lordvessel can be done in any order.
While that is true the lopsided difficulty curve ends up making the bosses after O&S feel pointless. 75% of my playtime ends up being to get past that one boss and after that despite half of the game remaining I end up sweeping through it anyway.

This wouldn't have been as big of an issue if they didn't structure the game in such a way that you need to go through a very specific series of events in a specific order. They noticeably avoided doing this in DeS where you have 5 mutually exclusive directions to go in. And they avoided doing this in Dark Souls 2. Sekiro even went for a hybrid approach where they had modular level paths alongside a sprawling hubworld. I genuinely think at this point the reason why Dark Souls has such a linear structure in comparison to all of the rest of their games was a compromise due to making such a layered seamless world.

>>693315963
It's a cozy adventure game where you stab stuff. Why wouldn't it be popular?

Souls games are best enjoyed in winter with a hot apple cider and a blanky.

>>693315963
Meme difficulty
Soundtrack
Lorefags
It's a bit of a twist on western fantasy

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>>693317036
>hop on Bloodborne again for spooky season fun
>forgot my save was corrupted and had to start over
>think I won't see many white specters of beginner players on a nearly decade old game
>still see folks in starter gear running around aplenty, like it was in the old days
Feels good to know it's still getting players

>>693321981
the Demon's Souls threads were the best threads on /v/ at the time and I didn't even play the games until Dark Souls on pc

>>693325479
>nah, by the time you hit anal rodeo you can get the silver knight straight sword, the best sword in the game
It takes so long to get there that whenever I replay Dark Souls 1 I end up slotting into the same build every time. Usually a strength one because they place two really powerful STR weapons in two early areas. (The Zwei and Claymore) and you can sweep most of the game with them. While you could use the Uchikatana it requires murdering the Undead Merchant (or joining a covenant and spending a shitton of souls) which is something I generally prefer not doing.

This isn't an issue in DeS for example as I can for instance get Demonbrandt as early as World 1-1 by just murdering Ostrava and killing Old King Doran. You can also get the Dragon Knight Sword by beating one of the main bosses then going straight to World 1-4. And upgrading it to level 5 makes it one of the strongest weapons in the game. This sort of thing really encourages replayability.

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>>693315963
it is perfect

>>693326397
>if they didn't structure the game in such a way that you need to go through a very specific series of events in a specific order
not sure what you mean, you just need to ring the two bells. you can do them in either order. if you start with the master key, you can go immediately to blighttown. if not, well then you either have to take the scenic route through the burg or you can still drain the water in new londo from the start and get to the valley of the drakes that way. after you get both bells you can go straight to sen's fortress and ignore the rest of the game until you've got the lordvessel.
>>693326990
>it takes so long to get there
see above, it shouldn't take that long at all. you go to blighttown, kill quelaag, go back up with homeward bone, go through valley of drakes to darkroot garden and up the parish, kill gargoyles. then turn around and go back to sen's fortress, kill the golem. that's 3 bosses minimum. you just have to know where to go.
>builds
well if you're not rolling for a black knight weapon early on then you can get the morning star, club, straight sword, and at least a few other good weapons if you're willing to grind for them like baldur's side sword. if you drained the water in new londo, you can get the very large ember before you even go to sen's. the only bottleneck at that point is upgrade materials, and you can grind for those too.

>>693327932
For example if I want to replay the game and build an int character I need to wait until 75% of the game is done to acquire the moonlight greatsword since it's after Ornstein and Smough. So prior to that I need to slug around another weapon that I'll then abandon for it. Very often I'll pick up weapons in Dark Souls 1 where I'd go "man it'd be cool to use this" but I never do because it takes so long to acquire it that it's not worth investing in it stat wise. I might as well just use one of the early game weapons like the Zwei or Claymore and fully upgrade it and use it for the entire game.

In Dark Souls 2 if I want to use the Moonlight Greatsword I just need to get to Brightstone Cove Tseldora, which only requires 2 or 3 levels beforehand to get into. And after that I just need to burn a bonfire ascetic and beat The Duke's Dear Freja's NG+ version. And after that I get it. Once I've beaten The Duke's Dear Freja's NG+ version I still have a good 75% of the game left where I can actually use the weapon properly. It ends up feeling really fun to replay as my prior knowledge of the game is rewarded. This is proper non-linearity. In Dark Souls 1 by comparison it feels like most of the game is over by the time you finally pick up some of the coolest weapons.

Dark Souls 2 also encouraged NG+ playthroughs by remixing every boss fight and adding in black phantoms that only appear in NG+.

>>693315963
Interesting world to explore, grounded combat. Damn, there still isn't another game like DS1.

>>693327567
Why does your Dark Souls looks like AI slop?

>>693315963
Live stream, speed trannies and idiocracy

Isn't the case anymore thanks to normies finding out about it and cheatengine but when it first came out you were a badass if you were a low level darkwraith and terrified new players trying to progress. Now everyone studies wikis and wants people to invade them which is gay.

>>693315963
Nihilism. ds1 helped get out of that state of mind.
I still remember you brotha, sending me a fren request after I summoned you for help, then telling me to change my queelag blade for claymore, which I didn't pick up because I was running for my life from the dragon. You would always join my world whenever both were online, exorcising ghosts in new lando, A true anonymous brethren.

>>693330967
matchmaking being tied to weapon upgrades became a thing specifically thanks to subhumans like you. thanks for nothing nigger

>>693315963
The hype from Demon's Souls which escalated further with the petition scoring a PC port.

>>693315963
Elden Ring, unironically. Not that it was exactly niche before, but, since ER every normie on earth has played this fucking game

>>693315963
Right place at the right time.

It came at a time when the industry was dumbing down their games to the point even a toddler could beat it blindfolded(I.e., journalist tier), then suddenly a game that was unforgiving came along which gained a cult following slowly building up with each subsequent release, then after the dark souls 3 it reached enough followers to reach into mainstream and exploded in popularity from there

>>693316413
You mean 2

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sequel to demon souls
>this niche japanese import game that managed to get release in the US is getting a sequel??????holy shit!!

>>693321995
Monster Hunter was on the PS2 and the PSP before going to Nintendo. It just goes to whatever was the most popular console was in Japan at the time. World pushed the series into the eyes of many because of graphics and making the game easier. If World looked exactly like the rest of the series prior, a lot of people would’ve ignored it

>>693315963
FOMO

>>693332616
name 5 people who said that exact sentence.

>>693315963
Dark Souls (1) and Demon's Souls had pretty shit combat, but that wasn't the draw. The draw was the feeling of accomplishment, the world, the level design, the fact that the games gave you freedom to explore and rewarded that exploration without retarded open world bullshit. If combat is more your bag, Bloodborne is a much better combat focused game because you aren't going very far until you learn to get up in a mother fucker's face during fights with zero protection.
The Souls series also aren't hard games, they are punishing games. You know how to win, you have the tools to win, but YOU fucked up and get slapped for it. The second and third title, however, introduced outright bullshit segments that cheapen the games. ER is chock-full of bullshit segments and bosses. ER is king of bullshit because enemies are either laughably easy or have stupid long AoE spam combos that just melt stamina so blocking is pointless (so why even have the option).

Dark Souls and Demon's Souls are just great examples of overall video game design. DS2 had HINTS of genius scattered about but shat the bed kinda hard in enough ways to keep it on the bottom of the pile. DS3 felt like they just wanted to put out another title and it was kinda forgettable.
Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne do it right.

>>693321852
congratulations your tastes are correct. you may hang this post on your wall

>>693315963
Demon Souls was a sleeper hit but it was PS3 exclusive. Fromsoft wanted to make a sequel or port it but they couldn't, so they made a game that was sort of like a spiritual sequel and sort of like a re-"mix".
It was highly anticipated and Fromsoft capitalized on what gamers were saying about Demon Souls in their marketing for Dark Souls.

Those games were really fucking good. Their success was 100 percent organic.

>>693315963

I asked for a modern action videogame that had a level of difficulty similar to a Nes game.
People recommended me this.
I loved it and played it for 300 hours between december 2015 and march 2016. I have never touched it again, but I still have good memories of it.

I have a huge itch about replaying Demons Souls and Dark Souls 2, while I probably won't play DaS1 again for at least 10 more years and I really don't care about DaS3

>>693315963
People who hadn't played real games thinking a Katamari Damacy clone was hard.

>>693315963
After the launch of Skyrim, i found skyrim very boring. the combat was to easy and exploration was discouraged since quests just handed you everything. And all the best gear could just be mined and forged without much effort. I was looking for just about anything else to do.

Then Dark Souls 1 released, and soon after Dragon's Dogma 1. I completely ignored skyrim for 10+ years, and put thousands of hours into DS and DD.

>>693328743
NTA but at this point I just plan my weapon routes ahead of time in all ouls games.
Also you can say that about the Moonlight Greatsword but what about The Thorned Greatsword? That requires me to slug through the entire front half of the game to get to.
I think a better way of looking at souls weapons falls into two categories.
1. Optimizing for moment to moment usage
2. Finding an early game equivalent of the weapon you want later and using that till you get your weapon.
The first type is very much what you should do in a game like Demons Souls.
The miners in world 2? Magic or Pierce Damage
Skeltons in World 4? Magic Damage
Everything in world 5? Fire Damage
Find what the games gives you and use it often and well like the Crescent Falchion but never get attached
The Second is not a problem in any souls game besides like DS3 or if you want to use greatbows, you just need to accept that your using a proxy untill its time o get the real thing, all souls games can support you having like up to 3 maxed weapons easily.

>this convo about weapons
reject high tier weapons faggotry, embrace daggers and clubs (the most broken weapons in the series especially if buffed with resins or sticky white stuff or spells)

>>693315963
picture this:
>It's 2011
>every not indie game is insultingly easy
>with insulting levels of handholding
>gaming industry had just reached the breaking point of no longer having gamers as the come demographic, but drooling normalfags.

>then comes a game like the good old days
>a game that doesn't hold your hand
>doesn't patronize you
>that trusts you to find the solution on your own
>with uncompromisingly dark aesthetics and story.

That's it. I said this 13 years ago: "If Dark Souls had come out 5-ish years earlier it would've been just another game". And I was objectively correct because Demons Souls is nearly identical but (((Sony))) and that game came and went like a fart in the wind outside it's niche fanbase. But because the industry was such utter dogshit at the time (how innocent we were), it made DaS1 look like Ocarina of Time.

Dark Souls 1 came in at the right time, that's all there is to it.

>>693319937
are you gonna make a case for yourself or just gonna post >le epic btfo meme

>>693315963
>Word of mouth praising the game as difficult during a time where games were becoming notoriously piss easy
>The only other enjoyable action RPG on the PS3 was Skyrim
>Meme culture and reaction vids hitting the mainstream that further promoted the game's sometimes hilarious difficulty
It was released at the right time to capitalize on a changing gaming market and new viral marketing.

>>693319840
the difference is you're a filthy phone poster and too lazy to post a proper screenshot. So why would we bother engaging with you when you won't do the bare minimum?

>>693320680
This is the answer.
/thread

Every game was rushing "forward" with fast action paced combat and DeS/DaS basically kicked you on the mouth every time you tried that shit. It was amazing. I still remember watching that Bartholomew trailer for the Prepare To Die edition a hundred times.
The people showing the game to friends and watching them die had almost as much as fun as when they are playing the game, just by witnessing that. It felt "fresh".

Prepare to die edition ruined video games forever.

It was something new and intricate at a time when every game that was coming out was "hold right trigger to kill things, kill everything in the corridor to proceed"

I liked Demon's Souls

>>693315963
Dark Souls is one game I never expected would become normie-core. But at this point many people just play it simply because it's popular and want to like be part of something. Like all those sycophants and parasocial people see their favorite streamer playing it all the time and so they go and play it too.

The launch trailer looked really cool to me as a 12 year old

>>693315963
Solid gameplay.

>>693315963
The increase in homosexuality and transsexualism

>>693315963
I saw a video clip of someone in the elite knight armor fighting his way through some part of undead burg that was covered with vegetation and I thought "that shit looks cool and I wanna play that game."

>>693315963
It's the ultimate game of all time.

>>693318604
>complaining about putting points into end, the stat that gives you more stamina ie more swings before you have to stop
>complaining that armor slows you down instead of just not wearing armor if you don't want to be slowed down
>complaining about a conscious design choice to make the player ever so slightly weaker than they would be in two whole areas of the entire game (one being merely a boss arena)
the thing about the difficulty and the unfinished areas is fair, but
>complaining that it takes even the slightest effort to get "really powerful" when the game is already easy

>>693318604
>Bed of Chaos is just a puzzle which feels like an enormous letdown.
Bed of Chaos among many unique moments in the game, was fun and interesting and part of what makes the game memorable. Not everything has to be homogenized conveyor belt content.
>it takes a really long time to actually get really powerful.
zoomer issue, but I get it especially with Dark Souls. But it belongs to the theme of hopelessness and scraping by.
>Most challenge runs end up using exploits to skip into later parts of the game to acquire powerful weapons/spells in-order to make the rest of the game bearable.
Challenge runs and spoiling your game with tutorials and exploits is yet another zoomer issue.
A game enticing you to explore high risk areas for high reward on the other hand is satisfying game design, a rarity in modern games.

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>>693345606
>complaining about putting points into end, the stat that gives you more stamina ie more swings before you have to stop
>complaining that armor slows you down instead of just not wearing armor if you don't want to be slowed down
This was a problem exclusive to Dark Souls 1 that Fromsoft corrected in all of their other games. Every other Fromsoft game was far more reasonable
>DeS
There is no midroll. The difference between fast roll and fat roll is just 50% encumbrance. Most of the time I barely level it up.
>Dark Souls 2
Same thing as DeS only it's 75. Barely level it up
>Dark Souls 3
It has midroll but it's barely different to fast roll. Has the exact same animation timing. Barely level it up
>Bloodborne/Sekiro
Completely got rid of fat roll as a concept only has fast roll
Dark Souls 1 is the only Fromsoft game where I end up levelling endurance to an absurd degree. I always end up levelling it more than my attacking stats because of this bullshit. Like in my last run I was able to end Manus in 10 hits at 28 str but I needed to level up my END to 40 to midroll in the giants set and I still needed Havel's ring. It's retarded.
>complaining that it takes even the slightest effort to get "really powerful" when the game is already easy
It's not effort it's time. The game's pacing requires you to complete the majority of it's content before you get access to the good stuff. It's a problem invented by Dark Souls 1. DeS, Dark Souls 2 and so forth don't have this issue.
>>693345980
>Bed of Chaos among many unique moments in the game, was fun and interesting and part of what makes the game memorable. Not everything has to be homogenized conveyor belt content.
We know Bed of Chaos was cut content as there's actually a model left in the game files of a bipedal version
>zoomer issue
No it's an issue exclusive to Dark Souls 1

>>693324138
>bartholomew
It's like that song was made just for the game kek
Truly a match made in heaven
>Oh my God, please help me
>Neck deep in the river, screaming for release
>He says, it's mine to give but it's yours to choose
>You gonna sink or swim, you gonna learn the truth
>No matter what you do your gonna learn the truth, sayin'

>Ate the bread that once was a stone
>Fell from a cliff never broke a bone
>Bowed down to get the kings overthrown
>Now I'm all alone, and the fires grows
>And I'm all alone, and the fires grows

>>693315963
Marketing about how it’s only for hardcore gamers. That’s literally it.

>>693316318
Of note; dark souls released the same year as Portal 2, Deus Ex HR, Witcher 2, LA Noir, Skyrim, and Arkham City.

>>693320043
>The game is hard.
Stopped reading there. You’re a casual with limited experience in Videogames, get off this board. All games are hard compared to CoD.

>>693320680
>We hadn't seen anything quite like it yet.
t. Never played DMC or NG or anything outside of EA and Ubisoft games.

>>693347225
Yeah, there's a bunch of FUD being spread when people talk about that period. In the year before we had RDR, ME2, SC2, Call of Pripyat, Bioshock 2. Some of these games weren't difficult, but they weren't "easy" either. Plus this whole story that the industry was in the gutter is absolutely delusional and a fucking lie.

>>693347543
That's because they argue in bad faith. They think that people playing DMC or NG were doing in the "easy" mode just because you had that option, so it's "unreliable". If you played Souls back then, then you played in the hardest difficult, so that suddenly attaches "value" to the experience. lol
It's the whole "holier than thou" attitude that the Souls fanbase got infamous for, but disguised.

>>693346398
>wear one of the heaviest armors in the game when you can just not wear armor
>"why should I have to level up the encumbrance stat if I want to wear the heaviest armor with no penalty?"
and midroll isn't even bad mechanically, nor is it bad design wise since you're trading evasion for durability (and the incredibly overpowered poise only das has)

>>693344084
what's the difference?

>>693348572
It has the Artorias DLC.

>>693348116
>and midroll isn't even bad mechanically, nor is it bad design wise since you're trading evasion for durability (and the incredibly overpowered poise only das has)
It's again a thing only in Dark Souls 1 that necessitates investing heavily into a stat in-order to compensate. The fact I can kill the hardest boss comfortably with only 28 in a skill but need to invest 40 in-order just to midroll in one of the best sets in the game (with Havel's ring no less) is absurd. Especially since this isn't a problem in every other Fromsoft game. It's only Dark Souls 1 this is an issue in. It's a big reason I really don't enjoy replaying Dark Souls 1 as the first thing I do every single run is put 10-15 points into endurance just so I can actually wear armor before I start putting points into anything else.

Like I said before the drama around ADP in 2 is absurd to me because ADP starts having diminishing returns around 20. Whereas Endurance in 1 requires such constant level ups that you need to essentially babysit it every level up. ADP also controls poise so it's like a better Endurance/Resistance in 1 stat and doesn't require anywhere near the same degree of investment.

>>693348906
what's bad about it in particular?

for me it was the dark fantasy setting and the inscrutable lore

>>693348992
I don't know, NTA. I liked it.

>>693348954
What armor are you using? I just beat the game with 25 endurance wearing the elite knight set and wolf ring to facetank everything it was bretty easy. Heavy armor is for trading blows if youre gonna play passive just equip lighter shit so you can lightroll.

>>693347225
Dark Souls didn't release to massive critical success like those games though. It sold only like 1-2 millions, which is big for such small budget game, so it got a sequel. Even by the time Bloodborne was released it was getting bigger but still niche.

Dark Souls came out in 2009 and by 2014 it was still below 5 millions but between 2015 and 2020 it sold like 20 millions. 2015 was the exact year when the series went mainstream probably because of streamers and the likes of PewDiePie turning it into a meme, not to mention the anticipation and hype for Dark Souls 3. And then came Elden Ring and took the industry by storm with insane crazy sales.

>>693315963
So what made Dark Souls so popular? It was streamers.

>>693315963
Watching people play Elden Ring got me into them. I started with DS1 and I've beaten all 7 soulsbornekiroring games since 2022, all of them multiple times, all bosses solo/melee. They've taken over my brain, I love them.

>>693315963
Boredom?>>693316561

>>693350272
>So what made Dark Souls so popular? It was streamers.
>The funny PvP moments videos on youtube
>The whole reason ENB and later Vaati got popular
>Recall that his DaS series got me into Northernlion
It wasn't streamers just yet but the youtubers who later became streamers of burned out.
Also the Souls Games, especially DaS and DS2 (in a different more direct way), are fantastic for mulitplayer and at the time being community driven experiences.

Like the FNAF craze, people started to watch other people play and get recommended stuff. The game alone is trash compared to other mainstream titles of the time but it formed a cult large enough to sustain itself.

>>693315963
I'm a Skyrim baby. I played Western RPGs for the first time on Xbox 360 with Fable 2, Two Worlds, DA: Origins, and Skyrim. I had only heard of Dark Souls at the time but didn't know what it was. DS2 came out shortly after so I bought it and loved it. Dark Souls 1 went free to play on Games with Gold so I got it then and thought it was even better than 2.

>>693351529
>The game alone is trash compared to other mainstream titles of the time
like what, duke nukem forever? literally nothing that came out in 2011 was better than ds1 and the only game that had any lasting presence was skyrim

Dark Souls had a horror theme as a melee game.

>>693351529
Its really incredible it did so well when it came out the same year as Witcher 3, Bloodborne, and MGSV

>>693315963
Literally that knight armor on the cover, I thought it was really cool

>>693315963
Ironically DeS memes in 2011 made me picked up the game for cheap. Nobody knew what demon souls was. I still liked it better than DaS.

>>693315963
I got it for free on xbox live. Thank fuck I did because I wouldn't have tried it otherwise.

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130 KB JPG

>>693315963
Mexican here.

My half Japanese cousin told me about demon souls. He's also the one that introduced me to Mother, monster hunter, ico, final fantasy 5 etc...

Cafe tacvba was known in Japan in the 90s. We used to listen to them back then. Great band.

It was designed for multiplayer. This means regular gamers could play it solo and enjoy the difficulty.
Sort of unintentional success.
It's also took world design from really good metroidvania that games still don't copy. FFS all you have to do is have elevators and corridors to pull this off but they need realism that nobody asked for.

It's decent and I got to play bloodborne because of it so it gets a pass even thought Demon's is better from nearly every stand point.

Demon's = irrelevant by the time it became playable
Dark Souls = 10/10
Dark Souls 2 = 5/10 - obvious no effort cash grab pvptards like for ganking
BB = stuck on dead system but it's parry faggotry anyway
Dark Souls 3 = 10/10 - some absolute bullshit difficulty and needed better world connectedness
Sekiro = 0/10 - shouldn't even be listed with the rest, nothing about it is similar
Elden Ring = 10/10 - biggest complaint people have is it has too much content