This is such a funny comment since I'll watch dark souls boss fights from time to time because I enjoy the music and the art style and it's comical how a tiny lil guy and his toothpick of a sword, slashing the legs or ass of some monster 50 times his size, kills it after 20 hits. It's hardly satisfying once you think about it, lol. I've never seen a shield used in any dark souls game, either. Having this huge, climactic battle with a legendary monster and you see the guy roll around a thousand times is very funny. š
Edit - guys, it ain't that serious. I'm not reading your comments about the intricacies of shield use in dark "side roll" souls, lol. The games are too long and too difficult, anyway. OP says they don't like god of war. God of war is my favorite but I'm not arguing with anybody else about it. If you wanna sink a thousand hours into the dark souls/eldin sagas, be my guest. The games are cool but have goofy elements just like anything else. Have fun. āļø
I've never seen a shield used in any dark souls game
Just impossible if you have watched any normal Souls gameplay. The vast majority of players use a shield. Maybe you are looking at specific streamers that use specific strats or challenge runs
If you watch some random YouTuber play a souls game for the first time you probably will see a shield, but most content creators who focus on souls game are probably not going to use a shield unless it's a small shield for parrying.
Sword and shield are the meta for most playing dark souls. It's mainly the very good people (who also make a lot of videos) that go without shields and dodge roll all the attacks.
Having just finished DS1 for the first time, without a shield, it's not super difficult, just a bit harder as you have to time your response to enemy attacks better
I feel like sword and shield was playable in DS1 and in every other sequel bosses always emptied your shield stamina by the 3rd hit of their 15 hit combo
I mean, you still have to get out of there, but as someone who played DS3 with a sword and shield, it's still really helpful. If you miss a dodge but you're holding the sholed button you get to roll away Scott free still. You're not supposed to just tank the whole combo.
Artorias shield my beloved. Most balanced shield between, stat requirements, defenses and weight. Also it stability was so dam high it was havel shield but way lighter and with less requirements.
Only really true for DS2 where stamina regen is paltry. Enemies do a lot of stamina damage in DS3 but you are much faster and regen stamina much more quickly
just for giggle i would like to see some statistics regarding this,wondering if i am in small percentage of idiots who never used shield because i considered them weak š
It depends on the game i dont like blood borne or dark souls 3 because they punish you for using a shield. I just dont got reaction time to parry and roll like that so i use a shield and bonk.
I think ds3 my issue was i tried and tried to get past the first few bosses and just could not. This was when it was new and at that stage in the game I couldnt find a way to progress and couldn't dodge so i just never went back to it.
Which was annoying as hell if i got a good poise build I excel in those games like i beat blue smelter demon and fume knight my first try but couldn't get past the ds3 tutorial bosses LMAO
Shields are great in Souls game but they are not that fun to use and some people find the game too easy with one. The hardest boss in Elden Ring can easily be cheesed with a dedicated shield poke build
Also Sekiro is another Fromsoft game that was designed with parrying/deflecting instead of dodging as its primary defensive tool. It has that āepic boutā feel
Itās totally fine to not like a game but to critique it based on things that are just flat out untrue is disingenuous. The first game is like, an eight hour game. Too long?
My issue with magic is that itās useless until you dump enough exp into it (which youāre gonna get from dodgeroll-light) and even then, the gameplay is dodgerolling for 30 seconds until you get enough space to cast the fuck you spell. Plus finding the best spells usually requires an annoying level of meta game knowledge and cheese. (Which Elden Ring made an even worse problem than the Souls games by being open world)
Hell, Iāll look into it myself, I admit Iām mostly going off years old first impressions. Though specifying speedrun tactics doesnāt fill me with confidence regarding the cheese allegations. And also, I guess even if magic is viable, the gameplay doesnāt really feel different enough from the hack and slash builds to beat the repetitiveness allegations.
If it helps, think of the game similar to Elder Scrolls because Souls is an old school style action RPG that rewards new game plus and variety builds. Quest change based on in world decisions as well. I understand that you might still not like, but if you're willing to give it a second chance, the community 8s way more helpful than in the past. Also, if you're struggling the games have coop and people always ask if you jeed help and even drop weapons, money, and items for you.
Iāve played and beaten the souls games plus bloodborne. I think my problem is they just arenāt the type of game I want and it only took me 4 games to figure it out.
For comparison, Sekiro is probably my favorite game of all time, so I suppose I canāt pretend that simplicity/repetitiveness in combat system is my true criticism. I suppose it would be more accurate to say I just donāt like the system itself enough to keep repeating it.
That said, I havenāt given up on ER in theory, thereās a part of me that loves the lore and worldbuilding and character design that absolutely wants to get through it, I think I just needed a nice long break away from dodgerolling. (Thereās still gonna be a part of me that wishes it played like Sekiro, Iām sure, but every game canāt be the exact game you want)
Gonna have to disagree. Elden ring has the most varied movesets of the entire franchise. With only human enemies and almost no bosses that can be backstabbed.
Heck most bosses have backup attacks that swing behind or to the sides of them if you play too close.
Especially towards the end most builds end up using a lot of special weapon abilities and spells. The combat has very little backstabbing in my experience and some of the best encounter design of the series. Many areas have grouped enemies to discourage this, ranges enemies on high places. The entire game is about overcoming its increasing challenges
For me most the fun of the game is figuring out the best way to dodge and punish all the enemies flawlessly
So maybe I am missing out because I didnāt get far enough through ER. And I personally donāt care about backstabbing, though I realize I tacked onto a comment about it. But when you say varied movesets Iām skeptical that really makes it feel any different than dodgeroll-light-dodgerolling through Black Gulch with a longsword and ankle slashing Vordt.
I will admit the combat can be rather one note in terms of being hack and slash. But I think they did a good job mixing it up.
Adding weapon ashes gives each weapon a unique ability that uses mana, and I felt that did a lot for gameplay. I also think they did a good job giving weapons types different movesets, varying between two handed and one handed as well, some weapons even have fully unique attack animations.
I do see a lot of peoples points about being hard to get into. It starts out a little slow and rough before your builds come together. Itās also a lot more satisfying to master something than to repeatedly die, so the start is arguably the worst part until you get good enough to outplay the enemies
The movesets definetly encourage a variety of dodging, but they had to go crazy on some movesets to do that. Some attacks you run to dodge, some roll, some jump. Some attacks you can jump and counter attack while dodging. Thatās the fun for me, but it took hours of experimenting to get to that
That's what I don't get. I've never played any of them, so maybe I'm wrong, but watching people play them, they don't actually look hard. Not properly anyway. They look like what you said, you just have to learn the attack pattern, and then wait for ages until there's an opening between attacks, you hit once, then go back to waiting. Compare it to something like Ninja Gaiden which requires good mechanics and reaction time to be able to play well. Ninja Garden is hard to beat because the enemies are talented. Souls games are hard to beat because a single enemy hit does 70% HP. There's a difference.
You contradict yourself in your comments by saying Souls games aren't hard to beat and hard to beat.Ā
Surprise surprise, some people like learning fast paced boss moves with extremely high punishment for not learning it.Ā
If you haven't played it, I don't think you really earn the privilege of having a worthwhile opinion on how hard they are. Jump into Eden Ring and tell me me how easy Malenia, Starscourge Radahn, and the final boss are lol
Ninja Garden is hard to beat because the enemies are talented. Souls games are āhardā to beat because a single enemy hit does 70% HP. There's a difference.
That better? And no, Iām not going to do that. Iāve watched videos of it, and it involves walking in circles around the boss for 5 minutes before hitting her once, then repeating the process, while occasionally dodging a hit with a delay to trick you. It sounds boring as shit.
And then if you try different and varied tactics like ranged/magic, there are players who look down on you and say "you aren't playing the game the real way" or "that's playing on easy mode" They'll be really condescending with back-handed compliments. They also love "Melee takes more skill and is harder".
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u/Jack-Castle- Aug 19 '26
Souls. Souls like. The fucking lot of them