in my last post, I started a list of grievances against Dark Souls games to countermand all the ‘Dark Souls is perfect’ nonsense that gets tossed around. In this post, I’d like to start with the difficulty of the games. The first game is noted for its difficulty and it is hard. Fuck the people saying it’s not. I had to stop watching the Oxtra playthough because Ellen was like, “It’s not difficult; it’s methodical.” While hefting a zweihander before going to Blighttown and ten levels or so more than you’d normally be at this point. With someone giving her tips before each area and boss. Rory from RKG said the same thing playing Dark Souls with Krupa guiding him every step of the way. Cut to the third game and Rory complaining that the third game is much harder than the first game. Yes, because Krupa wasn’t guiding him every step of the way.
People in the Oxtra chat saying it’s gatekeeping to say the games are difficult. It’s not. They are hard! I agree that anyone can beat them–if I did, so can anyone else–but I also don’t blame anyone for quitting. The qualifiers that Krupa put on anyone beating the game were something like grinding, careful dedication, and reading the wikis (community). Rory did joke that having a Daniel really helped. Well, yes. But the people in the chat saying it’s not that hard…first time I played the original game, it took me nearly 150 hours to beat, including DLC. Now, I can do it in 30 or so hours and that’s because I like to grind a lot and fuck around. So, yeah, the games aren’t hard for me now, but the first time? I found the first game nearly impossible.
My point is that for most people going into the games, they don’t have any of the knowledge we have now. Or rather, back when the game first came out. Even trying it out now, though, probably most people aren’t Googling it before going it or watching tons of Let’s Play. It’s fucking hard if you try to go it alone as I did. If I knew anyone trying to play the game, I’d give them as many tips as they wanted to keep them moving along.
I’m not saying it hasn’t been relatively easy for Ellen, but she’s doing that thing that so many of us do in assuming that her starting point is the same for everyone without realizing all the ways in which she’s already ahead. She did acknowledges disabilities, but then quickly continued. And, she’s watched a ton of it being played so of course she’s not going to find it as difficult. In addition, every time she died in a boss fight, she blamed everything but herself. Also, she’s really good at games in general so I didn’t doubt she was going to be fine with Dark Souls. But most people don’t have a Zwei ready to go at this point. In fact, she wouldn’t have known it had existed if Luke hadn’t told her about it.
Anyway. The first game is hard, but the difficulty level peaks in the middle with Ornstein and Smough. The DLC ramps it up several levels, which it’s well known for. The DLC is considered the crown jewel of the game and held as the gold standard for DLC. Which, I think, is part of the problem. The second game released to mixed reviews. Let’s face it. There was no way it was going to live up to the first game. It had the unenviable task of succeeding a beloved niche game that had rabid fans. It had to innovate, but not stray too far from the formula that made the first game so beloved. I didn’t play the second game because I hated the first game by the time I was done with it, and then they announced a remake of the second game. When the Scholar of the First Sin came out, I was curious for whatever reason. I decided to replay the first game to gear myself up for the second and much to my surprise, I was able to go through the game more quickly.
Scholar of the First Sin immediately felt comfortable. There were positives and negatives from the get-go. Positive–fast travel from the start. This is a hill I will die on. Bad, the dev team took to heart the ‘this game is difficult’ thing without really understanding what that meant. They just threw mob enemies at you willy-nilly and I was not down with that. Also, there’s a weird durability bug on the PC which makes your weapons degrade rather quickly. They fixed it for the most part, but there are still parts of the game where you have to have two decent weapons because one will give out before you find the next bonfire. The settings in general are not as gorgeous as in the first game, but there are a few such as Majula that are breathtaking.
The DLC for this game is where FromSoft started taking the ‘difficulty’ thing too seriously. As I’ve said a million times, I always play as a caster the first time I play a FromSoft game. Going into the DLCs of SotFS as a caster was a huge mistake and I ended up hating the DLCs with all my heart. There is a fine line between ramping up the difficulty and just making it flat-out bullshit. The invisible reindeer bit? The biggest of the bullshit. The thing is, most hardcore Dark Souls fans love the DLCs of the second game, which is why I say I’m not the target audience for the games. I hated the DLCs of the second game. i rushed through them, summoning for every boss because I just didn’t give a fuck. I’ve since gone back and soloed the bosses that are meant to be soloed, but not the ones meant to be co-oped because fuck those bosses. Or rather, fuck those runs. And, yes, the invisible reindeer are on one of those runs.
Let’s talk about the third game which I am playing now. Not at this moment because I’m writing this post, but that’s my game at the moment along with the original game. I have my beloved Lorian’s Greatsword +5 and by the way, shoutout to the people still playing the games and being amazing summons. To be fair, anyone willing to be summoned at this point especially for the late-game/DLC bosses is bound to be pretty fantastic. I ran into summons who had specific builds for the boss they were being summoned for, which made cake out of stale flour. Yes, I’m mixing my metaphors badly. So what?
I have more to say, but I’ve run out of steam so I’ll leave it there for now.