I really, really, like your haunted house comparison. It's extremely on-point and something I have not seen other essayists do. It actually confers the game's physicality very strongly while being very brief. I will use that from now on to introduce people to the idea of the game. However, I have one reservation about the Git Gud part. While I do agree completely that the phrase captures the PVP spirit of the game (it being mean in a bullying manner), I don't think that was the origin of the use of the phrase in relation to the game (and I don't think that's what you were saying, either). I only started seeing that phrase being tossed around way after the release of Dark Souls on PC (as a search term on Google, it only gains traction after 2013, which is fascinating). I've kinda always attributed it to the games getting popular on the back of the childishness that is the "Dark Souls is the hardest game ever and only real men can beat it!" mentality. But at the same time, the PVP ethos resonates with the world of Dark Souls itself. The world is so indifferent and unjust in the game that it makes sense for player characters to be able to be mean and/or helpful to each other. That's why the covenants system in the game is so great from a narrative standpoint but is kinda eh from a systems standpoint. You have people dedicated to ruining people's days, people dedicated to fixing those days back up, people dedicated to help people's days go smoother, and so on. They allow that natural roleplaying between players to be enacted in the game. Too bad the matchmaking system for it is not so elegant.
+iDragonarion Talking about things from a narative/systems standpoint, i can't not cry about the changes to bonfire/keeper. In ds1 you had such sense of isolation, with only the bonfire making you feel safe, and(!) making you stronger. And then you encounter the keepers and have a choice to kill them and get stronger but lose the bonfire. Amazing! But in ds2 and ds3 you have the system of teleportation so you lose this whole keeper perspective. Not to mention the loss of great vertical level design. Eeh, ds1 tied up so many things so nicely. Rest in Ripperoni.
UchihaDualStorm I do agree with you on the whole Firekeeper thing. I also don't like that you have to go to that one firekeeper for levelling up. The whole "the champion and the firekeeper are both prisoners of the cycle" thing doesn't sit right with me, especially since both the keepers act very subservient to the player character (very flat characters, but inevitably the ones you talk to the most). As for the teleportation, I'm not sure if that's what caused the bonfires to feel less substantial for me. The few in DS3 that sit nicely between different shortcuts and paths are really effective at being home spots, but the level design just isn't as serpentine and condensed as 1. At this point, I think of DS1 as a great accident where a specific combination of ideas and compromises fell into place to make something wonderful, and the attempts to replicate it fall short because some key things in it were unintentional per se.
iDragonarion + ds3 bonfires are so numerous they've lost tension, i didn't understand why they've done that, especially with teleport in place. If they just made like 60-70% less (fewer?) bonfires and had the boss death spawn a bonfire that would be an interesting change. Just think of Dragonslayer Armour area, it has 3 bonfires in like 30 seconds. :/ I'm sad i don't have a console to try Demons or BB. One day though :)
+UchihaDualStorm On the Narrative aspect, two things: thematically, the First dark souls was about isolation and the third dark souls is about rebirth. It makes sense to have a companion who ushers you through. Secondly, the first Dark souls was near the end of the first age of fire. Fire keeper practices were a big thing that a lot of people became a part of. It has been AGES since then, in which several cycles of light and dark have passed. The concept of a firekeeper is not one that survived and had a lot of followers, especially considering all that you give up to do it. Firekeeping isn't some grand religion, it is a duty and calling that less and less people achieve. DS 2 showed a bunch of old Crones who were teaching 1 firekeeper. The practice has been dieing out for a long time. With all that said: Mechanically, Yes. I much prefer the smaller amount of bonfires with the added mechanic of killing firekeepers to remove safe zones for additional power. Like Shovel Knight where you can destroy Check points to acquire more money to buy powerups, but you lose the ability to skip sections. I love it mechanically, but they have been building up to this since DS 2
McMindflayer About your narrative comment, sure you can make the world backstory whatever, but the end result was that ds1 was far more immersive (subjective ofc) and that is all. ds1 was a sum greater than it's parts. Compared to it ds3 isn't as good, and ds2 just falls flat.
Huh, discussion of the level design is common because it's the best part of the whole series, but I don't think I've heard the haunted house comparison before (beyond people saying Bloodborne has monster closets, perhaps).
Dark Souls as a game has helped me so much as a critic of games and as a person in general. I would sacrifice it all, however, if it meant that people didn't get to use the phrase 'GIT GUD' as often as they do.
The invasion mechanic is actually more of a lore-oriented thing. It's meant to emulate the fact that undead will sometimes try to kill other undead for humanity, without having NPCs constantly attack the player. Basically, if you are an invader, you're character is one willing to turn on another being for gain. And while it can be annoying, I don't think it's fair to deem it a mechanic "designed for trolls.'
That was a great point on how the invasion system naturally draws in a lot of griefers to the game. Some of the community of the game can be toxic, essentially shaming anyone who needs help, which only pushes away new members.
Too many people are hung up on the "Git Gud" critique. Even when it's not a criticism on the game itself but rather on the community surrounding the game. As an avid Souls veteran I think this is one idiom we can do without.
"So where did this snarky, passive aggressive attitude to other players and perceived skill or lack thereof come from?" /v/. Demon's Souls was not like this. And Dark Souls 1 in its early days was also not like this. It all happened when Dark Souls started to get big. Plain and simple.
Yeah I think one of the developers for Demon's Souls said that the multiplayer was modeled after something that happened to him in real life. There was a large hill covered with snow and ice. Cars couldn't get up the hill on their own so the car behind them would push it up and that car would get pushed up by the car behind it in turn. You couldn't talk to the other driver to coordinate, people just did it. You couldn't thank the person who pushed because they couldn't make it up the hill with you. It really makes Demon's Souls much more friendly.
@@ghoulofmetal I don't know, you had bits of this at the time of course, but I think it _really_ took off with DS3. In 1 and 2, I could play with invaders and reliably enjoy the experience, even if I got my ass handed to me. You had the occasional hater, but still. Nowadays, meeting someone that doesn't send you hatemail or points down (because you killed them OR just because "you suck") is an actual event. In my own experience, looks like 95% of the community has casualized disrespect.
@@ghoulofmetal I definitely agree with that. By the time of Dark Souls 2, the devs (at least the B team) had bought into its (undeserved) reputation with the fans and were cramming it full of difficulty with no concern for learning curve. It absolutely was masochistic. Comparing Undead Burg and Forest of Fallen Giants is revealing. Thank god the A team came back for Dark Souls 3.
Just browsing the comments, I see A LOT of backlash over ES' take on "Git Gud", a lot of driven people pointing to how the term is meant to be used as a means of encouragement or to break the mold, a cycle of failure and persevere. But if I had a quarter for ever time the words "Git gud" have been fired at me or someone else ironically, condescendingly, to hand-wave away criticism or just for sake of being an irreverent asshole, I could quite feasible pay off my student loans. I guess I could say I've been a part of this community since the first game, and that phrase doesn't have the noble, existential meaning you may think or want it to mean. More often than not it's the tell of a fanboy looking to club you over the head with their brick of an opinion without having to strain themselves to actually form their own words. It's not that complex. There's a lot more to Dark Souls that's actually worth defending, but getting in a ruff about someone pointing out the "Git gud" mentality has become kind of toxic despite it's intentions, is a not something I'd condone.
"git gud" does mean to have patience, to reflect on your mistakes and better yourself, even to learn from others. If you're butt hurt by someone saying a catch phrase or plain old saying "you suck", that's your loss, your problem, not the one telling you. 'git gud' or criticism in any shape should inspire you to retry and better yourself, not cry in corner. Be proud of how far you've come at the point you failed, learn from what got the best of you and adjust to get even farther next time. That's what it's all about.
+Lennic It is an ambush and it may have worked because the player was careless but do not remove the fact that it was designed to be that way: put a shiny at the end of dead end corridor, put an NPC that will wait for the player to go for the shiny, wait patiently for the trap to trigger The thing is the game is laid all other the place with those ambushes and the fact that you say "very careless play" just illustrate that you got exposed enough to this ambush to be cautious. Now tell me what other game taught you to not go for the shiny ? I can see only one genre that did that and it is survival horror; which was also a "haunted house" leading back to the argument made in this video
+Frédéric Py It's really not an ambush, the enemy is clearly visible and audible long before the shiny is. I didn't even know the item was there for the longest time.
+Frédéric Py I don't think OP was talking about other games, more that the enemy he got "ambushed" by wasn't supposed to be an ambush for that item. he's just a dude that walks in away from that item and is quite visible.
What is an ambush except relying on the asmbushee being "careless"? The basic of an ambush is: hide, make the target in a situation where he lower his guards, attack when trap set in motion. One can say that in this case the player was careless, it remains an ambush nonetheless. One can also realize that the OP said the player was careless only because we speak about Dark Soul Now why does he assume he is careless on this game when in most other games that would be "ah ! the game got you there" ... maybe because Dark Soul often use the ambush with a Shiny trick so often when over games often do not.
He was pointing out examples in the game of said ambushes, but the example at 6:33 isn't an ambush, he literally went back in the level and pulled a big guy with a cleaver in there, he's not supposed to see you go in there unless you run right past his face and ignore him, that's all really. It's sad because that one spot in the game looks like an ambush but NOTHING is supposed happen, if you pick up the item with the hollow alive he doesn't even stand up and push you off, its to keep you guessing
This video made me wonder if you've played the earlier Castlevania games from before the series started taking cues from Metroid, because honestly Dark Souls has always felt like a successor to that era of Castlevania for me. On the NES, Castlevania was much slower and more deliberate - you couldn't run, jumps couldn't be controlled in midair, and your attack animation was just enough of a commitment that you became very wary of the risk. It was very much about repetition and pattern memorization, taking care not to get hit whenever possible, much like Souls. There was good, tight level design with environmental hazards, not the bland corridors of the handheld titles. That's something I've greatly appreciated about the Souls games; it caters to an aspect of Castlevania that everyone from fans to developers seems to have mostly forgotten.
tbh i've always seen the souls community as very open to newcomers, yes they know you'll die a lot and the kind of poke fun at how the game demands you to overcome its challenges, but if people ask for help they typically get it, if they want vague tips in order to not miss something in the game, people usually don't spoil stuff and just give some lose guidelines to whoever is playing. i haven't really experienced a lot of aggression there. even when discussing the lore - even on youtube people tend to respect your opinion and interpretations even if they do differ from their own which seems pretty obvious, but you know, it's the internet, so it most certainly isn't. but who knows maybe i just got lucky so far
I had _never_ connected the dots on Dark Souls and haunted houses. This is a very good insight, that, much like itself, is "Surprising and then obvious"
Loved the haunted house comparison. Really interesting insight on how it messes with player expectations in an interesting way and is something I loved without realizing what "it" was.
Dark Souls day one fan here. It's true, in the early days the get gud meme was basically a way to mock that strange flock of competitive min/max players who infested an otherwise atmosphere heavy, contemplative game but nowadays... we should have known better, that's my point. Online communities and irony don't go well together. It's easy, for a long time fan like me, to notice the alarming amount of competitive players now that we are at the end of the series. It's awful, sometimes I think that something, somewhere, called out for the pettiest of CoD players.
+Elegant Cat The issue isn't that players want to play competitively. It's that fans of the series like to use "git gud" to silence other players and their criticisms of the game. Tell someone you dislike the Jailers in Dark Souls 3, I DARE you. And those Jailers typically aren't part of PvP, they're an annoying PvE obstacle that slows the game the fuck down as you slowly bait each one out to take out one at a time because they deal an absurd amount of damage by simply having line of sight that doesn't even break when you hit them.
+Helmic Exactly. DS fans are more invested in their game than many other fanbases because of its (perceived) difficulty. Rising up to the game's challenges is a rite of passage that distinguishes you from the rest of the "casual crowd". Unfortunately, that also offers a very convenient defense mechanism for butthurt fanboys who can't take valid criticism: It's not the game that's flawed - you just weren't "gud enough", noob. That often makes conversing with DS fans a rather tedious task.
Chillermushroom that wasn't always the case tho. Nowadays you can find people shit talking theorists, calling them "fags" because they don't agree on the true identitiy of the nameless king. That would have been absurd 2 games ago. And we should accept this because it's ironic? One of the things that initially sucked me into the game was its community. Let's face it, shit is ruined.
+Chillermushroom It also leads to a convenient paradox. You must be "gud" to criticize the game, but if something is beatable then nothing was wrong with it. So you're either a scrub or the game was already perfect since you beat it, losing nuance like a beatable game having frustrating, unfun segments that didn't feel fair. Like Farron Swamp, or Jailers, or Ancient Dragon in DS2. And a lot of people just get straight up harassed for summoning for boss fights. I'm at 300+ hours of PvP, I'll summon for bosses sometimes because it's fun and no one else gets to tell me how to play the game.
+Helmic The Jailers in Dark Souls 3 are probably the number one disliked enemy in Dark Souls 3 by the majority of the fanbase. You're exaggerating the community to the point where it's completely removed from reality. If someone told you to git gud when you said you hated the Jailers, you have my assurance that they were being ironic. And what is this bullshit "silencing" argument. You don't silence people on the internet by saying non-threatening things to them. It's getting to the point where the meanings of silencing and disagreeing are barely distinguishable from each other.
It's funny that I was thinking that Dark Souls and Castelvania were similar and at that exact point in the video, that part of Dark Souls III and Castelvania came out. Hahaha, can you read my mind? Great video, seriously one of my favorite channels on U2ube
"Git Gud" IS genuine advice totally disconnected from the multiplayer though. You even make a point about it in your first video. Challenges may seem insurmountable, impossible. People will feel like progress is impossible. But paying attention and LEARNING will eventually let you traipse through previously lethal areas with grace and ease. Git Gud is the objective of the game as far as the satisfaction it seeks to give you is. I think people are far too sensitive about that phrase. It might not seem like a very helpful response to your cry for help on how to deal with X area or boss on an internet forum, but getting good is a lesson you should learn, and need to learn lest you find yourself stumped at the very next wall the game throws at you.
"Minor" Boss and Story spoilers You showed the final boss and mentioned Anor Londo returned. Those are about as major you can possibly make a spoiler for this game.
+Megal “LobsterFace” obsterFace Game has been out for what, 2 months? Like yeah it should just say "Spoilers" but c'mon anyone who cares already beat the game 5 times.
+fortris Not everyone has the time or financial standing to buy and complete a game in 2 months. Saying to someone they 'don't care' if they haven't completed it yet is just being dickish.
Edit Clicking a video with ANY label saying "Spoilers" whether minor or not when you want to play a game spoiler free is fucking stupid and your OWN FAULT. No, this logic is stupid. I even said the tag should just read "Spoilers" but I guess you don't like reading past the very first sentence do you?
+Megal „LobsterFace“ obsterFace So I've played through more than half the game and neither seems like a spoiler to me. I wouldn't know what it means, except "yay, same world as Dark Souls 1, just... different for most places". So I think "minor" really fits.
+Megal “LobsterFace” obsterFace Also, as far as the last boss is concerned - how do you know it's a spoiler unless you've actually already fought the last boss? In the case of Dark Souls, I really feel like anything at all that is shown is a spoiler, because the entire game environment is about discovery. The last boss is no more a spoiler than showing the first boss.
Thanks for posting! Interesting discussion of 'Git Gud' and I liked the end bit about calling anything the 'anything of anything' instead of actually investigating the mechanics.
I think a good chunk of the Dark Souls community are underestimating one annoying thing about "Git Gud". They're correct in saying that generally, the term is only surface-level dismissive- look deeper and it's meant to convey the idea that anyone can, in fact, join the ranks of the few the proud the people who beat X. Just stop playing like shit and Git Gud. Change up your strategy! Abandon your weaker playstyle and master new techniques! Of course, what that neglects is the fact that if you communicate this way to a player who isn't part of the larger community yet and is just learning the game, they hear this: New Person: Man, I"m getting my ass kicked. Here, lemme show you this. Veteran: LOl scrub git gud. Even if that didn't seem surface-level dismissive of my problems, that's basically communicating in jargon. It's like asking your doctor what's wrong with you and hearing them respond entirely in terms you have no way of understanding. This kind of communication is fine when it's with experienced members of the community who understand what's being meant. But it becomes totally inappropriate and countereffective anywhere else, creating a soft barrier for new players who now not only have to master the game but also have to master the strange, not-very-obvious language of those playing it. Even on this video, the concrete advice is just... lacking. I've seen one person so far offer concrete criticism and advice on Campster's playstyle. More than that, though, I've seen the term "Fat-rolling". Like, think for a second. If I've never played a Dark Souls game (and I haven't, I specialize in communication and not in knowing how to play Dark Souls), what does that even MEAN? The only reason I can guess that it might have to do with a gimped dodge roll due to overburdening is my experience with games like Dn'D or Ironclaw, and even then I don't know if that's what's going on. As a new player, I might have absolutely no idea what's happening or why you're telling me not to do a thing. And apparently that's my fault for being new. Like, all I"m saying is it's one thing to say "look, this means X in our community". It's another thing to expect the rest of the world to instantly understand like we have the power to perceive the meaning of all inside jokes.
Ive been playing since Demon's Souls and god i wish i was blind playing Dark Souls 3. I knew what to expect and i knew the solutions the first time if not the second time around. Just experiencing this makes me appreciate game design and certain horror. Many twisted concepts in a game like this.
I don't know if it's because of the circles I run in, but I rarely see "the dark souls of _____" used in a genuine context unless it's actually an apt comparison, but usually as a joke. That said, I agree with all of the points on the matter.
I can't see "git gud" having anything to do with the pvp aspect of the game when the multiplayer aspect of the game only lets you communicate in incredibly limited ways, which doesn't really allow pvp based slang to really thrive. When I hear the term come up, it is always in connotation of struggling to deal with pve aspects of the game. "Git gud" doesn't really have a meaning in pvp the way it does in pve, because no matter how good you are, even if you can perfectly breeze through the pve aspect of the game, there is always the chance that you get invaded by a player who matches your skill or far outstrips your abilities. Besides that, you usually have an unfair numbers advantage when you do decide to summon help and someone invades you. The one term that I am familiar with in the Dark Souls community when it comes to pvp is "ganking," which does not refer to invaders ruining the day of hapless pve players, but of pvp players who expect to connect with someone wanting a fair fight but instead running into an entourage of phantoms accompanying a player who has no interest in pve but instead wants to only beat invaders. I think you are confusing your prior exposure to the term and possibly your personal frustrations with the game with the usual meaning of "git gud" when it pops up in the Dark Souls community.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought the dark souls series was very castlevainia. Hell I saw a video where someone used castlevainia music (Even from circle of the moon. the castlevainia example in this video.) and it fit so well.
Counter-Strike is the Dark Souls of competitive first person shooters. The more I think about it, the more this makes a lot of sense, actually. They're both heavily focused on their mechanics and controls: DS about taking into account animation times and stamina, CS about weapon kick and varying accuracy by situation. Where other FPS are more about your aim, just getting your mouse over a dude's head in CS will get you nowhere if you can't manage your recoil, if you aren't in a good position for the gun you've chosen, etc.
Maybe you should have compared Dark Souls to Castlevania for the NES instead. In Castlevania, once you commit to a whip or a jump animation, there's no going back. You can't cancel that animation. You attack when you're not supposed to, you get hit. You make a wrong jump into a hole, you're dead. The enemy placement and level design is all about making the player think about their every move. Every mistake made has serious implications for the player, perhaps even moreso than in Dark Souls because the player has no estus to restore their health or shortcuts to the final boss. Instead you gotta find chicken that's hidden in the level. Secrets in the level? Sounds like Dark Souls to me! Both games use the level design to convey horror, a sense that the world they're inhabiting is dangerous and scary. I feel it's just a better comparison than to the later Metroidvania games. Just my 2 cents, accounting for inflation since the 1980s.
I have every achievement in every Dark Souls game, I beat every boss on NG+7, collected every item, armor and weapon, fought battles as Giant Dad and other builds, did speed and challenge runs and consider myself a huge fan. I think your two videos on Dark Souls 3 are awesome, I totally agree with you! :) Another very good critique/review (or whatever) on the topic was made by GheyForGames, who are 3 guys that love Dark Souls and criticise it a lot :)
I don't know how so many people make the mistake of comparing it to Castlevania, but the wrong ones. Well, maybe it's got some big picture level design from Symphony of the Night, but the gameplay and in the moment is all Castlevania 1 for the NES. Low health, limited heals, meticulously placed enemies, long static checkpoints, defensive deliberate movement, it's all there.
I absolutely loved this analysis of dark souls, it is a pet peeve of mine when people call things the dark souls of something As for the git gud mentality, amongst my friends who play dark souls it is used more of an in joke between us, but I personally feel that the online element is quite riveting with it's risk and reward and it doesn't prevent any use of a wiki or player advice on the internet to deal with a boss/area
I suspect that monster was originally intended to jump up from below, as evidenced by facing it down below the bridge later on, unless you killed it up-top, in which case said area below the bridge feels remarkably easy... ...but for whatever reason, the animation was never completed, so now it just "phases in" instead. I could be wrong. It has technically happened before. There is another instance in the Irithyl Dungeons, in the same room you find the keychain, where two of the jailors will spawn in from outta nowhere, though I have no explanation for that one...
Perhaps but acting on "It could be this but it wasn't implemented" makes it impossible to talk about stuff, unless the devs come forward to state something like that it is better to act on what is directly observable.
If you haven't played Order of Ecclesia I strongly, strongly suggest you do if you enjoyed Dark Souls. It's easily the most defensive-minded of the modern Castlevania games (even having a similar backdash mechanic), and has an attack system that limits your ability to just charge in guns/whips/swords a-blazin' and destroy all the enemies in your way. It's much more methodical and defensive overall.
Considering you made comments on the metroidvania comparison (sort of) in regard to Dark Souls 3's world / level design I would highly advise dipping into the first Dark Souls at some point, mainly as a comparison point. The original Dark Souls is far more interconnected and shows a degree of quality world design very rarely seen. It does remind me of a far older game, but I cannot think what. Dark Souls 3 has possibly the best intersecting individual design of the series for small areas e.g. The Cathedral of the Deep and it's weaving paths coming back on themselves from a single bonfire in the Cleansing Chapel, but Dark Souls and its as a whole world (mainly the ways of coming and going from Firelink Shrine) seems to embody this design principle and is all the more impressive for it.
I see everyone else already beat me to it, but seriously man you think "git gud" is passive aggressive? I think it's totally fine, maybe a little regular aggressive (lol as opposed to passive) and it is encouragement for those who are struggling. It lets them know that through proper application of relatively simple techniques they will learn the ropes and achieve mastery over the mechanics. Sorry, love you and your videos for a while now just had to express how tired i am of hearing supposed "adults" complain that memes from 12 year olds are too mean. It's called a joke. It sheds light on the "bad" or "annoying" side of life without being bitter or "cynical" like you said. There is a dark side to life and it is not a problem to acknowledge and understand that it exists. This does not make you cynical. This makes you a realist.
Interesting tidbit for those who haven't played the NES Castlevanias in a while. You have no air control when you jump in those games, the whip has a very slight wind-up to it, and you can't move and whip at the same time unless you do a jump attack.
BTW, if you like Castlevania style games, check out Hollow Knight. One of my favorite games of the last few years and a true successor to the Castlevania gameplay loop of exploration, power-up acquisition and more exploration of all the new areas you can visit. It's even a little bit Dark Souls 1 in that once you acquire a few basic moves you can fight your way through the games many, many zones in any order. Tight controls and a variety of viable playstyles don't hurt either.
I feel like the comparison to Castlevania would've been even better if it reached all the way back to the original Castlevania, which was very much about strategic movement/positioning, environmental awareness, resource management, and "hard but fair" difficulty. Even the variety of the weapons in Dark Souls, with all their different attack patterns and animations that dramatically alter their feel and utility, could be seen as stretching back to the variety of items in Castlevania, which each had different uses based on the path they traveled. There's definitely a lot of similarity between the two series, and imo it only gets more apparent the further back you go with Castlevania.
I do think 'git gud' could be used as a sort of shorthand for something that's hard to really condense easily, which is to say, the process of building up skill in a game through both practice and learning (like watching someone else's approaches to certain situations or literally just looking up information about a particular foe's patterns and weaknesses), but that's sort of a hopeful mindset and probably isn't really in line with how people use it.
+SaiaiChan It sort of is, sometimes. The problem here, as is all over Internet, is that communicating through text is a massive restriction. One far greater then the vast majority realize. It's impossible to say if someone is taunting you, dismissing you, encouraging you or teasing you when all the receiver see is a "git gud" message. For that: tone is required, body language is required. Figuring out a boss, understanding how to beat it and inching yourself closer and ever closer to victory is part of the thrill in Souls games. I can understand those that don't want to rob others of that and turn their victory hollow by helping them too much. Not that typing "git gud" in any way helps a tilting player, who throws themselves at a boss in wild abandon out of frustration, do the very thing you ask of them: calm down, observe, analyze, understand, execute. But that's not something I'd expect most to consider.
I also think that the tightly restrained controls and usage of level design to force planning engagements with enemies kinda reminds me of Castlevania I & III (which I'd strongly recommend over Symphony)
Christian Neihart Well... Then I'll have to kill the old fasioned way. No healing, no Dark Sword, no Estoc, but bowing. Like in the good old Dark Souls 1 days :P
I love this game but I really like your critique of the multiplayer. After playing all three games I'm still not sure if I like the multiplayer or not in all honesty but I definitely agree that mechanically it really seems at odds with the entire Dark Souls experience. People argue that the ability to summon allies is the "easy mode" for new players but by making that open you to attacks the game punishes you for asking for help. Now for me and many of those who love Dark Souls it doesn't make much of an impact, I rarely summon anyone and often get attacked but to me the push to get just one step farther means those attacks don't put me off. However to someone new to the franchise the combination of having trouble with a boss and then getting attacked when trying to summon help is likely to simply discourage them. I've honestly always wondered if the Souls/Borne games and games emulating that style wouldn't be better just keeping the message/bloodstain/grave style mechanics and do away with the actual interactions between players. It's often felt like a game that shouldn't really be co-op to me.
I really liked the last chapter, but I wish you would've brought up classic Castlevania games in the third chapter. The Souls series is much closer to the original set of Castlevania games in the way how rigid movement and weapon movesets relate to methodical level design, each weapon forcing you to approach situations&different enemy types differently. What I find really frustrating is how few people bring up the Souls series dungeon crawler heritage. Not just because of the Wizardry -> Dungeon Master -> Ultima Underworld -> King's Field -> Demon's Souls lineage, but because all that tension, dread, resoursce management (and even many level design concepts) that these games are praised for is nothing new, titles like Wizardry and Dark Heart of Uukrul did the exact same thing back in the 1980s, just with grid based movement, party management and turn based combat.
Git gud isn't always passive aggressive. A lot of times its simple the only advice you can give on a game that relies on failure to progress. Additionally, the multiplayer isn't always at odds with the knowledge-based progress of the rest of the game. The best players spend a while dodging and watching their opponent before attacking. Similar to with the singleplayer, they learn their enemies fighting style.
Regarding invasions, the only way to track down a host's progress is by checking which monsters came out of the closet. It is really fucking important.
I don't think most people invade to be trolls, I invade because it's genuinely fun and one of the most challenging parts of the game. I hate getting invaded because I usually die, but in all honesty I wish I got invaded more. I only got invaded like 3 times and if it was allowed to become a regular mechanic I know I would have enjoyed it more, especially if I won the battle
It's funny I always thought of the castlevania comparison, but for the older games, where everything is placed in a non-obvious place to force the player to slow down and use their skill as much as possible.
I don't think the player invasion mechanic is entirely against the core thread of Dark Souls. Because, even though humans have far greater ranges of moves and far greater ranges of combos and patterns, humans still tend to stick with patterns. It isn't universal, but there is a huge chance that if you study someone enough, then you will see the pattern in their attacks. Just like the enemies in Dark Souls
Honestly git gud was more of an inspiration to keep going and getting better the first time you play a souls game, during demons souls when I saw a git gud message would make me take a step back think and get my bearings back to not rush an area or enemy, take my time to learn what I did wrong and "git gud" in order to progress further instead of quitting like many other people
I want to make an opinion on the first segment of this video. I agree that the attitude with most souls players is embbeded in the "git gud" snarky phrase, but this is the 5th game of a series of others that implemented this same mechanic. I understand that this is your first souls game, however both invaders as most hosts are experienced players. Dark Souls is a community that, like any community and game, has its own views, rules, etc. Most hosts that use embers understand the risk of being invaded, and the new net code favoring hosts that have two summons with them to be invaded equalizes the game (heck! it even puts the host at an advantage with the reduce of estus flasks for invaders). There's also other things that makes invading so important. For starters, without this multiplayer the Dark Souls community would have never grown making an already less digestive game fall into oblivion (maybe we wouldn't have a DaSIII if it wasn't for the success in the pvp system). Secondly it makes the game genuinely fun: I love invading and-though I reiterate my understanding of this being your firsts souls game- the tense involved in the possibility of being invaded while playing the campaign makes for a more interesting experience while making a semengly empty world feel more interactive (you have to remember that invasions have narrative qualities, not only with covenants, but also explaining how time and space works in the world of Dark Souls). Anyway, good video.
Now that the Souls series is officially done with (DLCs aside), there are quite a number of games out now and coming soon that would be silly to say are not obviously heavily influenced by Souls and thus saying they are "Souls-like" games is reasonable. Lords of the Fallen (the earliest example maybe), Salt & Sanctuary, DarkMaus, EITR, Necropolis, Death's Gambit, Nioh... they all do things their own way, of course, be it setting, mechanics, storytelling methods or even viewing perspective (S&S and Death's Gambit being side-scrollers, EITR being isometric and DarkMaus a top-down game) but break them down they are undoubtedly "Souls-like" titles. You are correct that it shouldn't just be applied to "game that is hard" (since those have existed since... games existed, and there are hundreds, if not a digit or so more games that are probably more difficult than any Souls game is, though difficulty is fairly subjective in many cases), but "game that is like Souls" of course it is going to something to bring up until we get enough of these games that it becomes its own genre a la roguelikes/lites, if that ever happens, and therefore mentioning it becomes a redundancy. Like how many FPS games back in the day were called "Doom clones" until the term "first person shooter" was coined and everyone now just uses that.
It certainly helps that "git good" is the single least useful piece of advice. Git good at...what, precisely? Timing or executing the 'right' move correctly only happens after knowing what the correct move to make is, otherwise it's just acting randomly.
Great video my dude. I wonder if you've seen Hbomberguy's videos on the Souls series? I ask because of your statement about 'more focused in defence this makes the game more slow and ponderous'. It's not untrue exactly but Hbomber brings up how the game is really more about dodging and being fast and frenetic.
+Jüri Kallas Dark Souls does have cons, plenty of them - it's not a perfect series and those not blinded by it understand that. Being mad at a meme and how 'everyone is just so mean in Dark souls' isn't one of them.
+TheEvilCheesecake Nah, he seems to be complaining that summoning other players is too much of a risk because it lets invaders in. But normally only one person is allowed to invade your world per summon and their estus use is cut in half. Which means that you'll always have the advantage in numbers and healing items. You also have the option to just ignore the invader and run straight to the boss, once you hit the fog door the invader leaves and the companion stays. It's worth it to mention that most summon signs are placed directly in front of a boss. Invaders aren't really given much of a chance to succeed in this game. I'd say it's a testament to Souls' "tough but fair" mentality not an "awkward exception". First part of the video sounded mad salty.
I've really enjoyed seeing your take on the game as an outsiders perspective, also wow I wrote a really long comment about this video. Sorry about that. I don't really agree with your opinions on the invasion system, in particular referring to invaders as trolls comes across as rather harsh to me. Being invaded is a risk you accept by playing the game online and embered, and particularly when summoning (as having summons makes you far more likely to be selected for invasion). You have huge advantages on the invader in DS3 (which is something I personally really dislike), you have double their estus, a near infinite stream of summons to meat shield for you (if you so choose to summon), a sizable hp boost on them from being embered, and while they can hide behind enemies you don't have to chase them into that group if you don't want to. If you make it through the boss fog door they get sent home, and finally you can easily get a seed of the tree of giants (appears periodically on a tree outside Firelink) that causes all enemies to become hostile to invaders as well, stripping away their one advantage. Now certainly it can be annoying to get killed by invaders, but if they're invading you its probably because they find the challenge fun, not because they're especially mean spirited. Even if they are mean spirited so what? They're just another difficulty you have accepted the risk of, and have been given the tools to handle. If they kill you because they're better than you then oh well, Dark Souls is a game where death is a thing that happens, why is dying to an invader so much worse than dying normally? Plus invasions being unpredictable adds some memorable moments to the game, while I pretty much never got invaded in DS3 I can still recall moments in DS1 and 2 where an invasion changed the game for me, such as an invader randomly dropping high end armor for my new character or opening a shortcut for me, or in 2 where an invader showed up and then fell in lava leaving me with a sudden massive income of a million souls. These are moments that without invasions in the game would never have happened, and I feel the experience would be weaker for lacking such encounters (that said I do have a lot of issues with the pvp mechanics in DS3, but invasion existing is a good thing imo). Since you brought up your woes with invasion alongside complaining about the 'git gud' mentality of some fans I will say that I'd point the blame for that mentality more at the marketing campaign for the games (which has often pushed the idea that dark souls is about being a hard game above everything else). I agree that that mentality is both exclusive and annoying and personally would like to see it disappear (though there are people who seem to view it more in a: I just need to keep trying and I will 'git gud', which is better than the dismissive 'oh you need to git gud' if still tied up in annoying language). I did find the haunted house comparison quite interesting, its not a way of looking at the design that I've seen before. The castlevania comparison I have seen (and made myself) before, and I think its especially apt looking at earlier games in the series. While in DS3 the world is largely linear in earlier entries in the series you did get a very metroidvania feel from the world, though instead of new powers to open up paths you would get keys, open shortcuts, or otherwise trigger a new area to open up through an area you might have already explored. Finally I definitely agree with everything said about the 'dark souls of x', in fact I'd be much harsher about it than you were. Calling something the 'dark souls of x' is lazy, reductive, and tells people very little, and its to the point where I generally just ignore people who use the phrase as all it tells me is that they are bad at being a critic.
I tend to agree with you on the git good thing. It can be alphas preying on betas, though that's not always the case. I once went into a pleading stance when invaded and the person waved at me, left me an item, and left. I've also been invaded and basically tea-bagged when they beat me without getting hit. I think the real issue is that some people are assholes and some people are not. This game also helped by letting you find those giant's seeds that sicks the enemies on invaders as well as letting you summon up to 2 people to help. That all said, I've never invaded anyone in 3 games, so that portion of the game is obviously not meant for me.
This was a particularly strong video. Honestly, the last one left me a little wanting and didn't feel like it had a lot of insight. But this one was much stronger. I'd never considered what now seems an obvious connection to Castlevania, and the Haunted house analogy is a very strong way to describe their ambush designs. The Git Gud mantra as it relates to the multiplayer is very apt. Though I think I'm on the side of feeling that ES interprets it more harshly than it's actually meant. The internet just uses different words/phrases to communicate ideas. A phrase like, "I disagree", is reinterpreted in the form, "fuck off, you stupid fat fucking reprobate". Or more simply, "fag". It means the same thing, it's just expressed with different words, lest the response get lost in the veritable sea of text.
If you enjoyed the Metroidvania approach to Dark Souls III, you should definitely go back and replay the first Dark Souls (if you haven't already) - and maybe even Demon's Souls.
I will say in defense of git gud(though I hate it myself) is that when asked for souls advice, I dont know what to say. Your last video pointed out that getting good is a matter of learning from trial and error, so the only advice I can give you is study everything, or in other words "git gud".
Salt and Sanctuary is described as a 2D Dark Souls and it is but has a lot of elements of a metroidvania game, I wonder if the developers noticed a similarity like your comparison to old castlevanias.
I love the Castlevaniacomparison! If you like DSIII's Castlevania-ness, you will really like the first Dark Souls; it's level design is the best in the series!
13:34 runs away, doesn't look to the floor, presses the trap, almost dies... This is not about GIT GUD, tho in your case it is, this is about taking care and don't lower the guard, ffs!
+Lopeta The video was likely from his blind playthrough and this is his first Dark Souls game. The Carthus dungeon from what I remember is fairly early in the game and I think is the first environment that works that way. You're watching someone learn things the hard way, just like everyone else.
From the small amount of footage seen in this video, it really does look like someone who hasn't really been paying attention. There aren't any classes that start with fat rolling, so if new armour or weapons are added and the roll changes so significantly, there is obviously something that happened to cause it.
The more I play DS-3 the more I get the feeling that it's not even based in the same universe as DS1 - just a universe that exists 'elsewhere' with a similar 'rule set' ....Also: It does feel *very* Bloodborne-y! (which I also love) (I've not bothered with DS2 - everything about it screamed "rushed to market publisher cash-in" )
But who actually says Git Gud seriously though? I mean maybe there is this vast well of players all screaming Git Gud that I don't know about but, despite being involved with the souls community for years now, I've rarely seen it used as anything but semi-ironic self-deprecation. Honestly, its disappointing hearing it talked about to death. Its such an easy strawman. Yes, saying Git Gud seriously is douchey. And? If not many people say it, who cares?
+Mike the Man I would recommend taking a look at Wisecrack's video: "Are video games ruining gaming?" In some games, you really don't need to be good, you just need to persevere. For Dark Souls, yes you do need an amount of skill to get through the game, but then there's a level of skill needed to trump a non-AI opponent, and that's a different set of skills irrelevant to beating Dark Souls. "Git Gud" is more usually said by players with a lot of skill to those without, and the fact that the victims are powerless to oppose that is what makes them mad. The only way to oppose it is to become as good, or better than the perpetrator, but that may be hard due to lack of time, or similar passion to the game (casual player who just wants to enjoy the game on his own). I used to be triggered by "git gud", my reason being that I always take people seriously, and would have preferred you say "Get Better at the Game" after you beat me down, but now I just take gamers I dont know less seriously (which is stupid, I care about the gaming community, but dealing with it shouldn't involve treating it less seriously).
+Andrew Chang I guess I understand being salty when someone is a douchey winner, especially in a game as difficult as DS. But the thing is, there will always be douchey trolls on the Internet. And because DS doesn't have a true chat feature, it's a lot harder to get truly harassed. And the thing is, in Dark Souls it's better to take things in stride. I remember invading this wierd looking purple guy with no armor. He ran, so I chased him back to the bonfire where I was promptly wrecked by his two identical friends who had set up a bunch of traps for me. Yes, I could have been frustrated. But honestly, it was hilarious. That's how you have to take DS. Because you will die to stupid stuff.
+Dahras1 I actually never experienced it in Dark Souls, only in the Smash community, and most competitive fpses. Dark Souls pvp is usually honorable or outright hilarious, and the others can be shrugged off due to infrequency, so I totally agree. I just wanna say that "git gud" can be hurtful, and that "victim complex" is very much a blanket term.
+Dahras1 Well, "git gud" is a really succinct way of saying "This is difficult, but just keep practicing, learning patterns, and stay determined." I don't think I've earnestly said "git gud," but "get good" is sometimes just how you beat a game. But. there is a tone difference between "get good" and "git gud," and it's that difference in tone that is the obnoxious internet culture that many are reacting against. And it does exist. I've seen it. This wouldn't be a discussion if it didn't exist. Some people just don't realize that they're making jokes of themselves when they say it.
I'd argue that Bloodborne is more Castlevania than Dark Souls is. Though the level design of DS1 feels far more metroidvania than any of the others. Gameplay-comparison-wise I say BB takes the cake.
I know I'm late to the party, and he had prefaced his earlier video with the fact that he hadn't really played the first Dark Souls. But, I'd like to point out that the odd and far from user friendly multiplayer system was used to serve lore through gameplay. Not arbitrarily introduce a system for rewarding sadists....well, not JUST for the sadists, anyway.
My dude, those aren't spiders. They're hollows (or jail keepers) crammed into a box. And there are monster closets in a couple places. Well, rat closets.
Have you played Salt and Sanctuary yet? Now that's a castlevania game :P though obvious Souls inspired too Btw, the way you talk about games, I really would love you to be on the co-optional podcast and just talk with TB about such :P
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I really, really, like your haunted house comparison. It's extremely on-point and something I have not seen other essayists do. It actually confers the game's physicality very strongly while being very brief. I will use that from now on to introduce people to the idea of the game.
However, I have one reservation about the Git Gud part. While I do agree completely that the phrase captures the PVP spirit of the game (it being mean in a bullying manner), I don't think that was the origin of the use of the phrase in relation to the game (and I don't think that's what you were saying, either). I only started seeing that phrase being tossed around way after the release of Dark Souls on PC (as a search term on Google, it only gains traction after 2013, which is fascinating). I've kinda always attributed it to the games getting popular on the back of the childishness that is the "Dark Souls is the hardest game ever and only real men can beat it!" mentality.
But at the same time, the PVP ethos resonates with the world of Dark Souls itself. The world is so indifferent and unjust in the game that it makes sense for player characters to be able to be mean and/or helpful to each other. That's why the covenants system in the game is so great from a narrative standpoint but is kinda eh from a systems standpoint. You have people dedicated to ruining people's days, people dedicated to fixing those days back up, people dedicated to help people's days go smoother, and so on. They allow that natural roleplaying between players to be enacted in the game. Too bad the matchmaking system for it is not so elegant.
+iDragonarion Talking about things from a narative/systems standpoint, i can't not cry about the changes to bonfire/keeper. In ds1 you had such sense of isolation, with only the bonfire making you feel safe, and(!) making you stronger. And then you encounter the keepers and have a choice to kill them and get stronger but lose the bonfire. Amazing! But in ds2 and ds3 you have the system of teleportation so you lose this whole keeper perspective. Not to mention the loss of great vertical level design. Eeh, ds1 tied up so many things so nicely. Rest in Ripperoni.
UchihaDualStorm I do agree with you on the whole Firekeeper thing. I also don't like that you have to go to that one firekeeper for levelling up. The whole "the champion and the firekeeper are both prisoners of the cycle" thing doesn't sit right with me, especially since both the keepers act very subservient to the player character (very flat characters, but inevitably the ones you talk to the most). As for the teleportation, I'm not sure if that's what caused the bonfires to feel less substantial for me. The few in DS3 that sit nicely between different shortcuts and paths are really effective at being home spots, but the level design just isn't as serpentine and condensed as 1.
At this point, I think of DS1 as a great accident where a specific combination of ideas and compromises fell into place to make something wonderful, and the attempts to replicate it fall short because some key things in it were unintentional per se.
iDragonarion + ds3 bonfires are so numerous they've lost tension, i didn't understand why they've done that, especially with teleport in place. If they just made like 60-70% less (fewer?) bonfires and had the boss death spawn a bonfire that would be an interesting change. Just think of Dragonslayer Armour area, it has 3 bonfires in like 30 seconds. :/ I'm sad i don't have a console to try Demons or BB. One day though :)
+UchihaDualStorm On the Narrative aspect, two things: thematically, the First dark souls was about isolation and the third dark souls is about rebirth. It makes sense to have a companion who ushers you through. Secondly, the first Dark souls was near the end of the first age of fire. Fire keeper practices were a big thing that a lot of people became a part of. It has been AGES since then, in which several cycles of light and dark have passed. The concept of a firekeeper is not one that survived and had a lot of followers, especially considering all that you give up to do it. Firekeeping isn't some grand religion, it is a duty and calling that less and less people achieve. DS 2 showed a bunch of old Crones who were teaching 1 firekeeper. The practice has been dieing out for a long time.
With all that said: Mechanically, Yes. I much prefer the smaller amount of bonfires with the added mechanic of killing firekeepers to remove safe zones for additional power. Like Shovel Knight where you can destroy Check points to acquire more money to buy powerups, but you lose the ability to skip sections. I love it mechanically, but they have been building up to this since DS 2
McMindflayer About your narrative comment, sure you can make the world backstory whatever, but the end result was that ds1 was far more immersive (subjective ofc) and that is all. ds1 was a sum greater than it's parts. Compared to it ds3 isn't as good, and ds2 just falls flat.
Huh, discussion of the level design is common because it's the best part of the whole series, but I don't think I've heard the haunted house comparison before (beyond people saying Bloodborne has monster closets, perhaps).
Bloodborne is one big monster closet.
Dark Souls as a game has helped me so much as a critic of games and as a person in general. I would sacrifice it all, however, if it meant that people didn't get to use the phrase 'GIT GUD' as often as they do.
"Git gud" should be a crime, punishable by tongue removal.
I love it. "Changing the way we talk about Video games is the 'Dark Souls' of talking about Video Games". Perfect! Another amazing video
The invasion mechanic is actually more of a lore-oriented thing. It's meant to emulate the fact that undead will sometimes try to kill other undead for humanity, without having NPCs constantly attack the player. Basically, if you are an invader, you're character is one willing to turn on another being for gain. And while it can be annoying, I don't think it's fair to deem it a mechanic "designed for trolls.'
Dark Souls is the Rogue of third-person action games
+SrMeechio HOLY SHIT IT IS!
That was a great point on how the invasion system naturally draws in a lot of griefers to the game. Some of the community of the game can be toxic, essentially shaming anyone who needs help, which only pushes away new members.
Too many people are hung up on the "Git Gud" critique. Even when it's not a criticism on the game itself but rather on the community surrounding the game. As an avid Souls veteran I think this is one idiom we can do without.
"the game avoids teleporting bad guys in just behind you"
Apparently you've never fought the dogs in this game whilst running
+Realthx that's not teleporting that's just you running past them
+Realthx "Avoids monster closets" Dark Souls loves monster closets.
+Flailmorpho Man the dogs are the biggest load of shit in this game, the hitbox for the bite is so stupidly wide and long.
TheBritishGeek use your shield...why are you attacking when they are?
Flailmorpho >useing a shield
What are you a casual?
The dogs are bullshit, don't try and pretend they are not. It would help if poise worked properly.
Dark souls is the Micheal Jordan of difficulty.
Michael Jordan is the War and Peace of people.
"Look Son, a straight sword user."
"What a fa--"
"Shh, don't say anything. Just black crystal out."
Try to keep your equipment load below 70% tho.
Otherwise your roll gets really bad... like in most of these clips.
This was excellent, especially your last point. You explain things so well, I thoroughly enjoyed this series. Nice job!
"So where did this snarky, passive aggressive attitude to other players and perceived skill or lack thereof come from?"
/v/.
Demon's Souls was not like this. And Dark Souls 1 in its early days was also not like this. It all happened when Dark Souls started to get big. Plain and simple.
Yeah I think one of the developers for Demon's Souls said that the multiplayer was modeled after something that happened to him in real life.
There was a large hill covered with snow and ice. Cars couldn't get up the hill on their own so the car behind them would push it up and that car would get pushed up by the car behind it in turn. You couldn't talk to the other driver to coordinate, people just did it. You couldn't thank the person who pushed because they couldn't make it up the hill with you. It really makes Demon's Souls much more friendly.
it might be because of the "prepare to die" campaign.
@@ghoulofmetal I don't know, you had bits of this at the time of course, but I think it _really_ took off with DS3. In 1 and 2, I could play with invaders and reliably enjoy the experience, even if I got my ass handed to me. You had the occasional hater, but still. Nowadays, meeting someone that doesn't send you hatemail or points down (because you killed them OR just because "you suck") is an actual event. In my own experience, looks like 95% of the community has casualized disrespect.
@@ghoulofmetal I definitely agree with that. By the time of Dark Souls 2, the devs (at least the B team) had bought into its (undeserved) reputation with the fans and were cramming it full of difficulty with no concern for learning curve. It absolutely was masochistic. Comparing Undead Burg and Forest of Fallen Giants is revealing. Thank god the A team came back for Dark Souls 3.
@@Furymgs3 DS1 on Xbox 360 was pretty damn toxic. Darkroot was like a CoD lobby.
Just browsing the comments, I see A LOT of backlash over ES' take on "Git Gud", a lot of driven people pointing to how the term is meant to be used as a means of encouragement or to break the mold, a cycle of failure and persevere.
But if I had a quarter for ever time the words "Git gud" have been fired at me or someone else ironically, condescendingly, to hand-wave away criticism or just for sake of being an irreverent asshole, I could quite feasible pay off my student loans.
I guess I could say I've been a part of this community since the first game, and that phrase doesn't have the noble, existential meaning you may think or want it to mean. More often than not it's the tell of a fanboy looking to club you over the head with their brick of an opinion without having to strain themselves to actually form their own words. It's not that complex.
There's a lot more to Dark Souls that's actually worth defending, but getting in a ruff about someone pointing out the "Git gud" mentality has become kind of toxic despite it's intentions, is a not something I'd condone.
"git gud" does mean to have patience, to reflect on your mistakes and better yourself, even to learn from others.
If you're butt hurt by someone saying a catch phrase or plain old saying "you suck", that's your loss, your problem, not the one telling you.
'git gud' or criticism in any shape should inspire you to retry and better yourself, not cry in corner.
Be proud of how far you've come at the point you failed, learn from what got the best of you and adjust to get even farther next time. That's what it's all about.
This is the Dark Souls of commentaries.
This is The Shining of comments.
The Haunted House comparison was on fleek
6:33 that's not even an ambush though, thats very careless play and unintentionally got the big guy to chase you down there
+Lennic It is an ambush and it may have worked because the player was careless but do not remove the fact that it was designed to be that way: put a shiny at the end of dead end corridor, put an NPC that will wait for the player to go for the shiny, wait patiently for the trap to trigger
The thing is the game is laid all other the place with those ambushes and the fact that you say "very careless play" just illustrate that you got exposed enough to this ambush to be cautious. Now tell me what other game taught you to not go for the shiny ? I can see only one genre that did that and it is survival horror; which was also a "haunted house" leading back to the argument made in this video
+Frédéric Py It's really not an ambush, the enemy is clearly visible and audible long before the shiny is. I didn't even know the item was there for the longest time.
+Frédéric Py I don't think OP was talking about other games, more that the enemy he got "ambushed" by wasn't supposed to be an ambush for that item. he's just a dude that walks in away from that item and is quite visible.
What is an ambush except relying on the asmbushee being "careless"? The basic of an ambush is: hide, make the target in a situation where he lower his guards, attack when trap set in motion.
One can say that in this case the player was careless, it remains an ambush nonetheless. One can also realize that the OP said the player was careless only because we speak about Dark Soul
Now why does he assume he is careless on this game when in most other games that would be "ah ! the game got you there" ... maybe because Dark Soul often use the ambush with a Shiny trick so often when over games often do not.
He was pointing out examples in the game of said ambushes, but the example at 6:33 isn't an ambush, he literally went back in the level and pulled a big guy with a cleaver in there, he's not supposed to see you go in there unless you run right past his face and ignore him, that's all really.
It's sad because that one spot in the game looks like an ambush but NOTHING is supposed happen, if you pick up the item with the hollow alive he doesn't even stand up and push you off, its to keep you guessing
I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking DS is the new castlevania.
This video made me wonder if you've played the earlier Castlevania games from before the series started taking cues from Metroid, because honestly Dark Souls has always felt like a successor to that era of Castlevania for me. On the NES, Castlevania was much slower and more deliberate - you couldn't run, jumps couldn't be controlled in midair, and your attack animation was just enough of a commitment that you became very wary of the risk. It was very much about repetition and pattern memorization, taking care not to get hit whenever possible, much like Souls. There was good, tight level design with environmental hazards, not the bland corridors of the handheld titles. That's something I've greatly appreciated about the Souls games; it caters to an aspect of Castlevania that everyone from fans to developers seems to have mostly forgotten.
tbh i've always seen the souls community as very open to newcomers, yes they know you'll die a lot and the kind of poke fun at how the game demands you to overcome its challenges, but if people ask for help they typically get it, if they want vague tips in order to not miss something in the game, people usually don't spoil stuff and just give some lose guidelines to whoever is playing. i haven't really experienced a lot of aggression there. even when discussing the lore - even on youtube people tend to respect your opinion and interpretations even if they do differ from their own which seems pretty obvious, but you know, it's the internet, so it most certainly isn't. but who knows maybe i just got lucky so far
I had _never_ connected the dots on Dark Souls and haunted houses. This is a very good insight, that, much like itself, is "Surprising and then obvious"
Loved the haunted house comparison. Really interesting insight on how it messes with player expectations in an interesting way and is something I loved without realizing what "it" was.
Also, the video says 'spoilers' in the title. If you're upset that something got spoiled for you, that's categorically a YOU problem.
Dark Souls day one fan here. It's true, in the early days the get gud
meme was basically a way to mock that strange flock of competitive
min/max players who infested an otherwise atmosphere heavy,
contemplative game but nowadays... we should have known better, that's
my point. Online communities and irony don't go well together. It's
easy, for a long time fan like me, to notice the alarming amount of
competitive players now that we are at the end of the series. It's
awful, sometimes I think that something, somewhere, called out for the
pettiest of CoD players.
+Elegant Cat The issue isn't that players want to play competitively. It's that fans of the series like to use "git gud" to silence other players and their criticisms of the game. Tell someone you dislike the Jailers in Dark Souls 3, I DARE you. And those Jailers typically aren't part of PvP, they're an annoying PvE obstacle that slows the game the fuck down as you slowly bait each one out to take out one at a time because they deal an absurd amount of damage by simply having line of sight that doesn't even break when you hit them.
+Helmic Exactly. DS fans are more invested in their game than many other fanbases because of its (perceived) difficulty. Rising up to the game's challenges is a rite of passage that distinguishes you from the rest of the "casual crowd". Unfortunately, that also offers a very convenient defense mechanism for butthurt fanboys who can't take valid criticism: It's not the game that's flawed - you just weren't "gud enough", noob. That often makes conversing with DS fans a rather tedious task.
Chillermushroom
that wasn't always the case tho. Nowadays you can find people shit talking theorists, calling them "fags" because they don't agree on the true identitiy of the nameless king. That would have been absurd 2 games ago. And we should accept this because it's ironic? One of the things that initially sucked me into the game was its community. Let's face it, shit is ruined.
+Chillermushroom It also leads to a convenient paradox. You must be "gud" to criticize the game, but if something is beatable then nothing was wrong with it. So you're either a scrub or the game was already perfect since you beat it, losing nuance like a beatable game having frustrating, unfun segments that didn't feel fair. Like Farron Swamp, or Jailers, or Ancient Dragon in DS2.
And a lot of people just get straight up harassed for summoning for boss fights. I'm at 300+ hours of PvP, I'll summon for bosses sometimes because it's fun and no one else gets to tell me how to play the game.
+Helmic The Jailers in Dark Souls 3 are probably the number one disliked enemy in Dark Souls 3 by the majority of the fanbase. You're exaggerating the community to the point where it's completely removed from reality.
If someone told you to git gud when you said you hated the Jailers, you have my assurance that they were being ironic.
And what is this bullshit "silencing" argument. You don't silence people on the internet by saying non-threatening things to them. It's getting to the point where the meanings of silencing and disagreeing are barely distinguishable from each other.
It's funny that I was thinking that Dark Souls and Castelvania were similar and at that exact point in the video, that part of Dark Souls III and Castelvania came out. Hahaha, can you read my mind? Great video, seriously one of my favorite channels on U2ube
"Git Gud" IS genuine advice totally disconnected from the multiplayer though. You even make a point about it in your first video. Challenges may seem insurmountable, impossible. People will feel like progress is impossible. But paying attention and LEARNING will eventually let you traipse through previously lethal areas with grace and ease. Git Gud is the objective of the game as far as the satisfaction it seeks to give you is. I think people are far too sensitive about that phrase. It might not seem like a very helpful response to your cry for help on how to deal with X area or boss on an internet forum, but getting good is a lesson you should learn, and need to learn lest you find yourself stumped at the very next wall the game throws at you.
Feeling my blood pressure rise just watching this. {Salty Signal}
"Minor" Boss and Story spoilers
You showed the final boss and mentioned Anor Londo returned. Those are about as major you can possibly make a spoiler for this game.
+Megal “LobsterFace” obsterFace Game has been out for what, 2 months?
Like yeah it should just say "Spoilers" but c'mon anyone who cares already beat the game 5 times.
+fortris Not everyone has the time or financial standing to buy and complete a game in 2 months.
Saying to someone they 'don't care' if they haven't completed it yet is just being dickish.
Edit Clicking a video with ANY label saying "Spoilers" whether minor or not when you want to play a game spoiler free is fucking stupid and your OWN FAULT.
No, this logic is stupid. I even said the tag should just read "Spoilers" but I guess you don't like reading past the very first sentence do you?
+Megal „LobsterFace“ obsterFace So I've played through more than half the game and neither seems like a spoiler to me. I wouldn't know what it means, except "yay, same world as Dark Souls 1, just... different for most places". So I think "minor" really fits.
+Megal “LobsterFace” obsterFace
Also, as far as the last boss is concerned - how do you know it's a spoiler unless you've actually already fought the last boss? In the case of Dark Souls, I really feel like anything at all that is shown is a spoiler, because the entire game environment is about discovery. The last boss is no more a spoiler than showing the first boss.
Thanks for posting! Interesting discussion of 'Git Gud' and I liked the end bit about calling anything the 'anything of anything' instead of actually investigating the mechanics.
I like that ending bit about game criticism, nice work
I think a good chunk of the Dark Souls community are underestimating one annoying thing about "Git Gud". They're correct in saying that generally, the term is only surface-level dismissive- look deeper and it's meant to convey the idea that anyone can, in fact, join the ranks of the few the proud the people who beat X. Just stop playing like shit and Git Gud. Change up your strategy! Abandon your weaker playstyle and master new techniques!
Of course, what that neglects is the fact that if you communicate this way to a player who isn't part of the larger community yet and is just learning the game, they hear this:
New Person: Man, I"m getting my ass kicked. Here, lemme show you this.
Veteran: LOl scrub git gud.
Even if that didn't seem surface-level dismissive of my problems, that's basically communicating in jargon. It's like asking your doctor what's wrong with you and hearing them respond entirely in terms you have no way of understanding.
This kind of communication is fine when it's with experienced members of the community who understand what's being meant. But it becomes totally inappropriate and countereffective anywhere else, creating a soft barrier for new players who now not only have to master the game but also have to master the strange, not-very-obvious language of those playing it.
Even on this video, the concrete advice is just... lacking. I've seen one person so far offer concrete criticism and advice on Campster's playstyle. More than that, though, I've seen the term "Fat-rolling".
Like, think for a second. If I've never played a Dark Souls game (and I haven't, I specialize in communication and not in knowing how to play Dark Souls), what does that even MEAN? The only reason I can guess that it might have to do with a gimped dodge roll due to overburdening is my experience with games like Dn'D or Ironclaw, and even then I don't know if that's what's going on. As a new player, I might have absolutely no idea what's happening or why you're telling me not to do a thing. And apparently that's my fault for being new.
Like, all I"m saying is it's one thing to say "look, this means X in our community". It's another thing to expect the rest of the world to instantly understand like we have the power to perceive the meaning of all inside jokes.
Ive been playing since Demon's Souls and god i wish i was blind playing Dark Souls 3. I knew what to expect and i knew the solutions the first time if not the second time around. Just experiencing this makes me appreciate game design and certain horror. Many twisted concepts in a game like this.
I don't know if it's because of the circles I run in, but I rarely see "the dark souls of _____" used in a genuine context unless it's actually an apt comparison, but usually as a joke. That said, I agree with all of the points on the matter.
I still remember the classic article describing Dragon's Dogma as the Dark Souls of Fantasy RPG's.
I can't see "git gud" having anything to do with the pvp aspect of the game when the multiplayer aspect of the game only lets you communicate in incredibly limited ways, which doesn't really allow pvp based slang to really thrive. When I hear the term come up, it is always in connotation of struggling to deal with pve aspects of the game. "Git gud" doesn't really have a meaning in pvp the way it does in pve, because no matter how good you are, even if you can perfectly breeze through the pve aspect of the game, there is always the chance that you get invaded by a player who matches your skill or far outstrips your abilities. Besides that, you usually have an unfair numbers advantage when you do decide to summon help and someone invades you. The one term that I am familiar with in the Dark Souls community when it comes to pvp is "ganking," which does not refer to invaders ruining the day of hapless pve players, but of pvp players who expect to connect with someone wanting a fair fight but instead running into an entourage of phantoms accompanying a player who has no interest in pve but instead wants to only beat invaders.
I think you are confusing your prior exposure to the term and possibly your personal frustrations with the game with the usual meaning of "git gud" when it pops up in the Dark Souls community.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought the dark souls series was very castlevainia. Hell I saw a video where someone used castlevainia music (Even from circle of the moon. the castlevainia example in this video.) and it fit so well.
Never thought about this game being like a haunted house. That's a rad comparison!
Counter-Strike is the Dark Souls of competitive first person shooters. The more I think about it, the more this makes a lot of sense, actually. They're both heavily focused on their mechanics and controls: DS about taking into account animation times and stamina, CS about weapon kick and varying accuracy by situation. Where other FPS are more about your aim, just getting your mouse over a dude's head in CS will get you nowhere if you can't manage your recoil, if you aren't in a good position for the gun you've chosen, etc.
10:03 Wait, there's a NON-alarming number of evil possessed suits of armor?
He said an alarming number...made me laugh
I can guarantee you that when people use "git gud" or "pc masterrace" it's either 100% irony or 100% douchery.
+Ronin11111111 The problem is it can be difficult to tell.
TheEvilCheesecake That's stupid.
+Ronin11111111 maybe you should git gud at reading youtube comments.
TheEvilCheesecake See? I'm right, 100% douchery.
+Ronin11111111 no it was irony, can't you tell?
Maybe you should have compared Dark Souls to Castlevania for the NES instead.
In Castlevania, once you commit to a whip or a jump animation, there's no going back. You can't cancel that animation. You attack when you're not supposed to, you get hit. You make a wrong jump into a hole, you're dead. The enemy placement and level design is all about making the player think about their every move. Every mistake made has serious implications for the player, perhaps even moreso than in Dark Souls because the player has no estus to restore their health or shortcuts to the final boss. Instead you gotta find chicken that's hidden in the level. Secrets in the level? Sounds like Dark Souls to me!
Both games use the level design to convey horror, a sense that the world they're inhabiting is dangerous and scary. I feel it's just a better comparison than to the later Metroidvania games.
Just my 2 cents, accounting for inflation since the 1980s.
I have every achievement in every Dark Souls game, I beat every boss on NG+7, collected every item, armor and weapon, fought battles as Giant Dad and other builds, did speed and challenge runs and consider myself a huge fan.
I think your two videos on Dark Souls 3 are awesome, I totally agree with you! :)
Another very good critique/review (or whatever) on the topic was made by GheyForGames, who are 3 guys that love Dark Souls and criticise it a lot :)
Excellent timing, I just finished the game like 5 minutes ago and was taking a break before NG+
I like the Dark Souls of Idea Channel Episodes for a discussion of what it means to be the Dark Souls (or Kafka) of a genre or body of work.
I don't know how so many people make the mistake of comparing it to Castlevania, but the wrong ones. Well, maybe it's got some big picture level design from Symphony of the Night, but the gameplay and in the moment is all Castlevania 1 for the NES. Low health, limited heals, meticulously placed enemies, long static checkpoints, defensive deliberate movement, it's all there.
Doom 4 is the Dark Souls of Halo
I absolutely loved this analysis of dark souls, it is a pet peeve of mine when people call things the dark souls of something
As for the git gud mentality, amongst my friends who play dark souls it is used more of an in joke between us, but I personally feel that the online element is quite riveting with it's risk and reward and it doesn't prevent any use of a wiki or player advice on the internet to deal with a boss/area
One line about teleporting enemies in behind you...Well the boreal valley has one on the bridge. That thing literally gets poofed in on you. :P
+Adalore Two words: Twin Princes
Well that is a presented enemy gimmick vs a "Monster closet" which was the topic at hand.
I suspect that monster was originally intended to jump up from below, as evidenced by facing it down below the bridge later on, unless you killed it up-top, in which case said area below the bridge feels remarkably easy...
...but for whatever reason, the animation was never completed, so now it just "phases in" instead.
I could be wrong. It has technically happened before.
There is another instance in the Irithyl Dungeons, in the same room you find the keychain, where two of the jailors will spawn in from outta nowhere, though I have no explanation for that one...
Perhaps but acting on "It could be this but it wasn't implemented" makes it impossible to talk about stuff, unless the devs come forward to state something like that it is better to act on what is directly observable.
If you haven't played Order of Ecclesia I strongly, strongly suggest you do if you enjoyed Dark Souls. It's easily the most defensive-minded of the modern Castlevania games (even having a similar backdash mechanic), and has an attack system that limits your ability to just charge in guns/whips/swords a-blazin' and destroy all the enemies in your way. It's much more methodical and defensive overall.
Considering you made comments on the metroidvania comparison (sort of) in regard to Dark Souls 3's world / level design I would highly advise dipping into the first Dark Souls at some point, mainly as a comparison point. The original Dark Souls is far more interconnected and shows a degree of quality world design very rarely seen. It does remind me of a far older game, but I cannot think what. Dark Souls 3 has possibly the best intersecting individual design of the series for small areas e.g. The Cathedral of the Deep and it's weaving paths coming back on themselves from a single bonfire in the Cleansing Chapel, but Dark Souls and its as a whole world (mainly the ways of coming and going from Firelink Shrine) seems to embody this design principle and is all the more impressive for it.
and here we are, 4 years later, freely using the term souls-like just like rogue
I see everyone else already beat me to it, but seriously man you think "git gud" is passive aggressive? I think it's totally fine, maybe a little regular aggressive (lol as opposed to passive) and it is encouragement for those who are struggling. It lets them know that through proper application of relatively simple techniques they will learn the ropes and achieve mastery over the mechanics. Sorry, love you and your videos for a while now just had to express how tired i am of hearing supposed "adults" complain that memes from 12 year olds are too mean. It's called a joke. It sheds light on the "bad" or "annoying" side of life without being bitter or "cynical" like you said. There is a dark side to life and it is not a problem to acknowledge and understand that it exists. This does not make you cynical. This makes you a realist.
Interesting tidbit for those who haven't played the NES Castlevanias in a while. You have no air control when you jump in those games, the whip has a very slight wind-up to it, and you can't move and whip at the same time unless you do a jump attack.
It drove me up the wall when people called Stephen's Sausage Roll the "dark souls of puzzle games".
Errant Signal, you're the fucking best.
BTW, if you like Castlevania style games, check out Hollow Knight. One of my favorite games of the last few years and a true successor to the Castlevania gameplay loop of exploration, power-up acquisition and more exploration of all the new areas you can visit. It's even a little bit Dark Souls 1 in that once you acquire a few basic moves you can fight your way through the games many, many zones in any order. Tight controls and a variety of viable playstyles don't hurt either.
I feel like the comparison to Castlevania would've been even better if it reached all the way back to the original Castlevania, which was very much about strategic movement/positioning, environmental awareness, resource management, and "hard but fair" difficulty. Even the variety of the weapons in Dark Souls, with all their different attack patterns and animations that dramatically alter their feel and utility, could be seen as stretching back to the variety of items in Castlevania, which each had different uses based on the path they traveled. There's definitely a lot of similarity between the two series, and imo it only gets more apparent the further back you go with Castlevania.
I do think 'git gud' could be used as a sort of shorthand for something that's hard to really condense easily, which is to say, the process of building up skill in a game through both practice and learning (like watching someone else's approaches to certain situations or literally just looking up information about a particular foe's patterns and weaknesses), but that's sort of a hopeful mindset and probably isn't really in line with how people use it.
+SaiaiChan It sort of is, sometimes.
The problem here, as is all over Internet, is that communicating through text is a massive restriction. One far greater then the vast majority realize. It's impossible to say if someone is taunting you, dismissing you, encouraging you or teasing you when all the receiver see is a "git gud" message. For that: tone is required, body language is required.
Figuring out a boss, understanding how to beat it and inching yourself closer and ever closer to victory is part of the thrill in Souls games. I can understand those that don't want to rob others of that and turn their victory hollow by helping them too much.
Not that typing "git gud" in any way helps a tilting player, who throws themselves at a boss in wild abandon out of frustration, do the very thing you ask of them: calm down, observe, analyze, understand, execute. But that's not something I'd expect most to consider.
I also think that the tightly restrained controls and usage of level design to force planning engagements with enemies kinda reminds me of Castlevania I & III (which I'd strongly recommend over Symphony)
Seed of Giants is the bane of Invaders.
Not if you want to use "Dead again" ;)
***** jokes on you, I can cast Vow of Silence
Christian Neihart Well... Then I'll have to kill the old fasioned way.
No healing, no Dark Sword, no Estoc, but bowing.
Like in the good old Dark Souls 1 days :P
I love this game but I really like your critique of the multiplayer. After playing all three games I'm still not sure if I like the multiplayer or not in all honesty but I definitely agree that mechanically it really seems at odds with the entire Dark Souls experience. People argue that the ability to summon allies is the "easy mode" for new players but by making that open you to attacks the game punishes you for asking for help. Now for me and many of those who love Dark Souls it doesn't make much of an impact, I rarely summon anyone and often get attacked but to me the push to get just one step farther means those attacks don't put me off. However to someone new to the franchise the combination of having trouble with a boss and then getting attacked when trying to summon help is likely to simply discourage them. I've honestly always wondered if the Souls/Borne games and games emulating that style wouldn't be better just keeping the message/bloodstain/grave style mechanics and do away with the actual interactions between players. It's often felt like a game that shouldn't really be co-op to me.
I really liked the last chapter, but I wish you would've brought up classic Castlevania games in the third chapter. The Souls series is much closer to the original set of Castlevania games in the way how rigid movement and weapon movesets relate to methodical level design, each weapon forcing you to approach situations&different enemy types differently. What I find really frustrating is how few people bring up the Souls series dungeon crawler heritage. Not just because of the Wizardry -> Dungeon Master -> Ultima Underworld -> King's Field -> Demon's Souls lineage, but because all that tension, dread, resoursce management (and even many level design concepts) that these games are praised for is nothing new, titles like Wizardry and Dark Heart of Uukrul did the exact same thing back in the 1980s, just with grid based movement, party management and turn based combat.
Git gud isn't always passive aggressive. A lot of times its simple the only advice you can give on a game that relies on failure to progress. Additionally, the multiplayer isn't always at odds with the knowledge-based progress of the rest of the game. The best players spend a while dodging and watching their opponent before attacking. Similar to with the singleplayer, they learn their enemies fighting style.
Regarding invasions, the only way to track down a host's progress is by checking which monsters came out of the closet. It is really fucking important.
I don't think most people invade to be trolls, I invade because it's genuinely fun and one of the most challenging parts of the game. I hate getting invaded because I usually die, but in all honesty I wish I got invaded more. I only got invaded like 3 times and if it was allowed to become a regular mechanic I know I would have enjoyed it more, especially if I won the battle
It's funny I always thought of the castlevania comparison, but for the older games, where everything is placed in a non-obvious place to force the player to slow down and use their skill as much as possible.
I don't think the player invasion mechanic is entirely against the core thread of Dark Souls. Because, even though humans have far greater ranges of moves and far greater ranges of combos and patterns, humans still tend to stick with patterns. It isn't universal, but there is a huge chance that if you study someone enough, then you will see the pattern in their attacks. Just like the enemies in Dark Souls
Honestly git gud was more of an inspiration to keep going and getting better the first time you play a souls game, during demons souls when I saw a git gud message would make me take a step back think and get my bearings back to not rush an area or enemy, take my time to learn what I did wrong and "git gud" in order to progress further instead of quitting like many other people
I want to make an opinion on the first segment of this video. I agree that the attitude with most souls players is embbeded in the "git gud" snarky phrase, but this is the 5th game of a series of others that implemented this same mechanic. I understand that this is your first souls game, however both invaders as most hosts are experienced players. Dark Souls is a community that, like any community and game, has its own views, rules, etc. Most hosts that use embers understand the risk of being invaded, and the new net code favoring hosts that have two summons with them to be invaded equalizes the game (heck! it even puts the host at an advantage with the reduce of estus flasks for invaders). There's also other things that makes invading so important. For starters, without this multiplayer the Dark Souls community would have never grown making an already less digestive game fall into oblivion (maybe we wouldn't have a DaSIII if it wasn't for the success in the pvp system). Secondly it makes the game genuinely fun: I love invading and-though I reiterate my understanding of this being your firsts souls game- the tense involved in the possibility of being invaded while playing the campaign makes for a more interesting experience while making a semengly empty world feel more interactive (you have to remember that invasions have narrative qualities, not only with covenants, but also explaining how time and space works in the world of Dark Souls). Anyway, good video.
Now that the Souls series is officially done with (DLCs aside), there are quite a number of games out now and coming soon that would be silly to say are not obviously heavily influenced by Souls and thus saying they are "Souls-like" games is reasonable. Lords of the Fallen (the earliest example maybe), Salt & Sanctuary, DarkMaus, EITR, Necropolis, Death's Gambit, Nioh... they all do things their own way, of course, be it setting, mechanics, storytelling methods or even viewing perspective (S&S and Death's Gambit being side-scrollers, EITR being isometric and DarkMaus a top-down game) but break them down they are undoubtedly "Souls-like" titles. You are correct that it shouldn't just be applied to "game that is hard" (since those have existed since... games existed, and there are hundreds, if not a digit or so more games that are probably more difficult than any Souls game is, though difficulty is fairly subjective in many cases), but "game that is like Souls" of course it is going to something to bring up until we get enough of these games that it becomes its own genre a la roguelikes/lites, if that ever happens, and therefore mentioning it becomes a redundancy. Like how many FPS games back in the day were called "Doom clones" until the term "first person shooter" was coined and everyone now just uses that.
It certainly helps that "git good" is the single least useful piece of advice. Git good at...what, precisely? Timing or executing the 'right' move correctly only happens after knowing what the correct move to make is, otherwise it's just acting randomly.
Great video my dude. I wonder if you've seen Hbomberguy's videos on the Souls series? I ask because of your statement about 'more focused in defence this makes the game more slow and ponderous'. It's not untrue exactly but Hbomber brings up how the game is really more about dodging and being fast and frenetic.
The first part of the video sounded really salty.
Maybe you just need to git gud at interpreting videos.
+Canadish Cus ugh, i mean it's a souls game, it can't have any cons.
+Jüri Kallas Dark Souls does have cons, plenty of them - it's not a perfect series and those not blinded by it understand that. Being mad at a meme and how 'everyone is just so mean in Dark souls' isn't one of them.
+TheEvilCheesecake But this is, like, the Dark Souls of videos to interpret.
+TheEvilCheesecake Nah, he seems to be complaining that summoning other players is too much of a risk because it lets invaders in. But normally only one person is allowed to invade your world per summon and their estus use is cut in half. Which means that you'll always have the advantage in numbers and healing items. You also have the option to just ignore the invader and run straight to the boss, once you hit the fog door the invader leaves and the companion stays. It's worth it to mention that most summon signs are placed directly in front of a boss. Invaders aren't really given much of a chance to succeed in this game. I'd say it's a testament to Souls' "tough but fair" mentality not an "awkward exception".
First part of the video sounded mad salty.
Oh how I would love to hear your take on Rogue!
This is the dark souls of videogames
I've really enjoyed seeing your take on the game as an outsiders perspective, also wow I wrote a really long comment about this video. Sorry about that.
I don't really agree with your opinions on the invasion system, in particular referring to invaders as trolls comes across as rather harsh to me. Being invaded is a risk you accept by playing the game online and embered, and particularly when summoning (as having summons makes you far more likely to be selected for invasion). You have huge advantages on the invader in DS3 (which is something I personally really dislike), you have double their estus, a near infinite stream of summons to meat shield for you (if you so choose to summon), a sizable hp boost on them from being embered, and while they can hide behind enemies you don't have to chase them into that group if you don't want to. If you make it through the boss fog door they get sent home, and finally you can easily get a seed of the tree of giants (appears periodically on a tree outside Firelink) that causes all enemies to become hostile to invaders as well, stripping away their one advantage.
Now certainly it can be annoying to get killed by invaders, but if they're invading you its probably because they find the challenge fun, not because they're especially mean spirited. Even if they are mean spirited so what? They're just another difficulty you have accepted the risk of, and have been given the tools to handle. If they kill you because they're better than you then oh well, Dark Souls is a game where death is a thing that happens, why is dying to an invader so much worse than dying normally? Plus invasions being unpredictable adds some memorable moments to the game, while I pretty much never got invaded in DS3 I can still recall moments in DS1 and 2 where an invasion changed the game for me, such as an invader randomly dropping high end armor for my new character or opening a shortcut for me, or in 2 where an invader showed up and then fell in lava leaving me with a sudden massive income of a million souls. These are moments that without invasions in the game would never have happened, and I feel the experience would be weaker for lacking such encounters (that said I do have a lot of issues with the pvp mechanics in DS3, but invasion existing is a good thing imo).
Since you brought up your woes with invasion alongside complaining about the 'git gud' mentality of some fans I will say that I'd point the blame for that mentality more at the marketing campaign for the games (which has often pushed the idea that dark souls is about being a hard game above everything else). I agree that that mentality is both exclusive and annoying and personally would like to see it disappear (though there are people who seem to view it more in a: I just need to keep trying and I will 'git gud', which is better than the dismissive 'oh you need to git gud' if still tied up in annoying language).
I did find the haunted house comparison quite interesting, its not a way of looking at the design that I've seen before. The castlevania comparison I have seen (and made myself) before, and I think its especially apt looking at earlier games in the series. While in DS3 the world is largely linear in earlier entries in the series you did get a very metroidvania feel from the world, though instead of new powers to open up paths you would get keys, open shortcuts, or otherwise trigger a new area to open up through an area you might have already explored. Finally I definitely agree with everything said about the 'dark souls of x', in fact I'd be much harsher about it than you were. Calling something the 'dark souls of x' is lazy, reductive, and tells people very little, and its to the point where I generally just ignore people who use the phrase as all it tells me is that they are bad at being a critic.
I tend to agree with you on the git good thing. It can be alphas preying on betas, though that's not always the case. I once went into a pleading stance when invaded and the person waved at me, left me an item, and left. I've also been invaded and basically tea-bagged when they beat me without getting hit. I think the real issue is that some people are assholes and some people are not. This game also helped by letting you find those giant's seeds that sicks the enemies on invaders as well as letting you summon up to 2 people to help. That all said, I've never invaded anyone in 3 games, so that portion of the game is obviously not meant for me.
This was a particularly strong video. Honestly, the last one left me a little wanting and didn't feel like it had a lot of insight.
But this one was much stronger. I'd never considered what now seems an obvious connection to Castlevania, and the Haunted house analogy is a very strong way to describe their ambush designs.
The Git Gud mantra as it relates to the multiplayer is very apt. Though I think I'm on the side of feeling that ES interprets it more harshly than it's actually meant. The internet just uses different words/phrases to communicate ideas. A phrase like, "I disagree", is reinterpreted in the form, "fuck off, you stupid fat fucking reprobate". Or more simply, "fag". It means the same thing, it's just expressed with different words, lest the response get lost in the veritable sea of text.
If you enjoyed the Metroidvania approach to Dark Souls III, you should definitely go back and replay the first Dark Souls (if you haven't already) - and maybe even Demon's Souls.
I will say in defense of git gud(though I hate it myself) is that when asked for souls advice, I dont know what to say. Your last video pointed out that getting good is a matter of learning from trial and error, so the only advice I can give you is study everything, or in other words "git gud".
but guitar hero has literally the same difficulty as dark souls. dark souls is all about learning by repetition and so is learning songs. :D
Salt and Sanctuary is described as a 2D Dark Souls and it is but has a lot of elements of a metroidvania game, I wonder if the developers noticed a similarity like your comparison to old castlevanias.
It's weird that you mentioned the haunted house-like design but didn't bring up the chameleon spell, which makes you participant of those scares.
There actually is a little leaderboard for one of the covenants in the game. Bloodborne had one as well.
I love the Castlevaniacomparison! If you like DSIII's Castlevania-ness, you will really like the first Dark Souls; it's level design is the best in the series!
13:34 runs away, doesn't look to the floor, presses the trap, almost dies...
This is not about GIT GUD, tho in your case it is, this is about taking care and don't lower the guard, ffs!
+Lopeta The video was likely from his blind playthrough and this is his first Dark Souls game. The Carthus dungeon from what I remember is fairly early in the game and I think is the first environment that works that way. You're watching someone learn things the hard way, just like everyone else.
From the small amount of footage seen in this video, it really does look like someone who hasn't really been paying attention. There aren't any classes that start with fat rolling, so if new armour or weapons are added and the roll changes so significantly, there is obviously something that happened to cause it.
This comment... I don't know what to say.
George doesn't understand memes confirmed
Dark Souls is the Citizen Kane of video games.
10:22 thus the castlevania anime was prophesized a year in advance
The more I play DS-3 the more I get the feeling that it's not even based in the same universe as DS1 - just a universe that exists 'elsewhere' with a similar 'rule set' ....Also: It does feel *very* Bloodborne-y! (which I also love)
(I've not bothered with DS2 - everything about it screamed "rushed to market publisher cash-in" )
But who actually says Git Gud seriously though? I mean maybe there is this vast well of players all screaming Git Gud that I don't know about but, despite being involved with the souls community for years now, I've rarely seen it used as anything but semi-ironic self-deprecation.
Honestly, its disappointing hearing it talked about to death. Its such an easy strawman. Yes, saying Git Gud seriously is douchey. And? If not many people say it, who cares?
+Mike the Man Excuse me "trigger" is my trigger word you have triggered me now fucking apologize or I WILL call the RUclips police and scream rape.
+Mike the Man I would recommend taking a look at Wisecrack's video: "Are video games ruining gaming?"
In some games, you really don't need to be good, you just need to persevere. For Dark Souls, yes you do need an amount of skill to get through the game, but then there's a level of skill needed to trump a non-AI opponent, and that's a different set of skills irrelevant to beating Dark Souls.
"Git Gud" is more usually said by players with a lot of skill to those without, and the fact that the victims are powerless to oppose that is what makes them mad. The only way to oppose it is to become as good, or better than the perpetrator, but that may be hard due to lack of time, or similar passion to the game (casual player who just wants to enjoy the game on his own). I used to be triggered by "git gud", my reason being that I always take people seriously, and would have preferred you say "Get Better at the Game" after you beat me down, but now I just take gamers I dont know less seriously (which is stupid, I care about the gaming community, but dealing with it shouldn't involve treating it less seriously).
+Andrew Chang I guess I understand being salty when someone is a douchey winner, especially in a game as difficult as DS. But the thing is, there will always be douchey trolls on the Internet. And because DS doesn't have a true chat feature, it's a lot harder to get truly harassed.
And the thing is, in Dark Souls it's better to take things in stride. I remember invading this wierd looking purple guy with no armor. He ran, so I chased him back to the bonfire where I was promptly wrecked by his two identical friends who had set up a bunch of traps for me. Yes, I could have been frustrated. But honestly, it was hilarious. That's how you have to take DS. Because you will die to stupid stuff.
+Dahras1 I actually never experienced it in Dark Souls, only in the Smash community, and most competitive fpses. Dark Souls pvp is usually honorable or outright hilarious, and the others can be shrugged off due to infrequency, so I totally agree. I just wanna say that "git gud" can be hurtful, and that "victim complex" is very much a blanket term.
+Dahras1 Well, "git gud" is a really succinct way of saying "This is difficult, but just keep practicing, learning patterns, and stay determined." I don't think I've earnestly said "git gud," but "get good" is sometimes just how you beat a game. But. there is a tone difference between "get good" and "git gud," and it's that difference in tone that is the obnoxious internet culture that many are reacting against. And it does exist. I've seen it. This wouldn't be a discussion if it didn't exist. Some people just don't realize that they're making jokes of themselves when they say it.
I'd argue that Bloodborne is more Castlevania than Dark Souls is. Though the level design of DS1 feels far more metroidvania than any of the others. Gameplay-comparison-wise I say BB takes the cake.
I know I'm late to the party, and he had prefaced his earlier video with the fact that he hadn't really played the first Dark Souls. But, I'd like to point out that the odd and far from user friendly multiplayer system was used to serve lore through gameplay. Not arbitrarily introduce a system for rewarding sadists....well, not JUST for the sadists, anyway.
My dude, those aren't spiders. They're hollows (or jail keepers) crammed into a box.
And there are monster closets in a couple places. Well, rat closets.
surely you should of matched the colour of the dark souls logo to the text
Great review.
Talking about fairness as an enemy clips through the floor...
Have you played Salt and Sanctuary yet? Now that's a castlevania game :P though obvious Souls inspired too
Btw, the way you talk about games, I really would love you to be on the co-optional podcast and just talk with TB about such :P
Have you redone your graphics? They look super nice :)