Originally Posted by
Raype
Okay, so Dark Souls.
It's alright.
But I can't help but shake the feeling that it's coming off as a mod of Demon's Souls rather than an actual sequel.
Like, not a half assed mod that you can't swing an undead cat around without hitting of course, but one of those really cool ones that come along once in a while which completely alters the game.
The game is clearly running on the same engine, the controls are extremely similar (and the one or two instances where they aren't happen to be terribly implemented IE jumping). The weapons are identical, and they even seem to have changed stuff at the last minute to try to distance this game from Demon's but well... "You can also use a grindstone to repair weapons" (there are no grindstones. This game uses "repair powder". Yes, even the NPCs can't tell which one they're in). There's a lot if ideas but they seem so far from being realized it's like someone who's still learning how to properly make a game. Maybe it changes, but thus far things like "covenants" simply seem to be a dumping ground for trash drops and a sink for souls. I haven't really seen any quantifiable benefit from any of the ones I've gotten into.
And so far the areas I've seen were: A prison for the undead, an abandoned post-raid castle, a swamp, a subterranian city filled with water, and a grassy mountain. It all just seems a bit too familiar. I never thought I'd be advocating an ice level, but dammit they brought this on themselves. Variety, y'all.
The new nexus is terrible. It's a cluttered ugly mess. Things are not where they logically should be. The area really doesn't appear lived in. And it's so bland it hurts. Really not digging it. Demon's had a big open room filled with people hanging out literally on the precipice of hell. People were going about their days worshipping or pounding on an anvil. And those big empty spaces were mostly for show. Dark? People are more spaced out, not that there's much reason to talk to anyone since you can manage everything from a menu now. Just find a fire and presto, automatic blacksmith, shop, and leveling service. It's a good thing too, the nearest blacksmith is 10 minutes from the "nexus". The lack of a good hub really takes away from the characters. Speaking of which, most of them are pretty blatant copy paste jobs.
Not sure how to feel about the one big persistent world. In theory, I should really like it. In practice it leaves me staring at a few different areas and hoping to stumble over the one that I'm supposed to do next. And usually dying not because I'm doing poorly, but simply because I'm so horrendously underleveled for this boss that I die in short order. To make matters worse, I frequently get my hands on keys with no real indicator of which lock they fit. And it may be in a different area entirely. Trial and error might be what this series has thrived on, but this is one area I'd like it to be left out of. The master key sounds like it'd be a good fix for that. 'course it also means you'll be more lost as to which area is "next" since you're sequence breaking like a motherfucker.
To make it worse, they're often only giving the illusion of choice. A lot of those "alternate paths" just lead to dead ends or loop back onto an area you already cleared. Or happen to dump into a zone filled with enemies 10-20 levels higher than you. Possibly complete with a miniboss of some kind.
The boss designs appear to be where all the budget went. Almost all of the enemies I've seen so far (in both "archstone" equivalents) are basic enemies, which also happen to be copied straight from Demon's souls in some cases, right down the to the character model. As for the bosses, they're a bit too similar. The tutorial boss is a big slow moving clunker with a club who you "fight" once, then return later to beat it easily. This happens in the span of 10 minutes and you don't "die", you merely run. The last boss I fought seemed to be a straightforward gargoyle. Then the other one showed up. Since we've already seen the Maneater, I saw it coming. The Maneater was an infuriating boss fight that I enjoyed simply because of how dickish it came off. But in this case I had gained a lot of levels trying to find the correct next boss in the sequence (see: able to do decent damage and take more than 2 juggled hits) I proceeded to 2 hand my axe, lop off the first one's tail, then beat him to death with it before the second one even hit the ground.
The plot is just as minor as it was in the last one. Perhaps even moreso. Corpses are just put wherever, with no real intent to lay out a story of some kind.
Oh, and the interface. Somehow it manages to get everything wrong. Why can't I compare my gear in the shop? Even Demon's Souls let me do that. The fuck, man?
It's been reminding me a lot of Demon's Souls, but sadly it seems to be doing it in a bad way. It's not so much "oh wow, this is awesome just like when...." as it is "Oh so it's like that...." and since Demon's feels like it did some of this better, that really seemed to hurt my impression here.
But hey, I'm having fun with it and will likely sink a huge chunk of my life into it. It likely won't leave my PS3 until I've completed it at least once. And if it does come out of that disc tray, it'll likely be popped back in before it even has time to cool off.
Although I can't seem to stop feeling like this game focused too hard on copying the Dark, but forgetting to also maintain the Soul.
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Vagrant Wizard
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