Dark Souls II - But Anyway, Back To Dark Souls II (Jimpressions)
Because tangents and chimp noises are the best way to discuss a game.
Dark Souls II - But Anyway, Back To Dark Souls II (Jimpressions) (YouTube)
Comments (3)
"...so back to Dark Souls 2." :D
I've been an avid gamer for 40+ years, and I've really, really tried to enjoy Souls/Borne games and just cant. The art design is beautiful and original, the lore (what I know of it) is just the sort of thing I would like, but at this stage in my life, I just don't have the time to fight the same clump of enemies 60 times to memorize exactly what I need to do, and given the other things I could be doing with my time, the "reward" for accomplishing that - even in games as beautiful as these - just isn't worth it. I understand the joyous dopamine rush of "getting gud" in a video game, but that's a secondary part of the experience for me. I love to experience an interactive story, enjoy the creativity of the developers and feel integrated into the flow of the game experience and these games almost arrogantly refuse to allow that.
I also enjoy tight combat mechanics. That's a separate issue from making the game ABOUT dying over-and-over until you've precisely memorized patterns to progress. No doubt, the play mechanics in Souls/Borne are tight and well designed. But there are plenty of games with tight combat mechanics that don't necessarily require you to fight the same enemy 30-40 times as an essential feature of the game. Horizon and the new God of War come straight to mind - in fact the controls in those two games are even better, IMO. The key difference is that if you want some reasonable challenge, but not so much that it ruins the flow of the narrative and immersive experience of the characters and game's world, you can do that in other games that also have well-designed game play mechanics. AND if you want to die over and over learning all the precise timing you'll need so you can get that big dopamine rush instead, those games allow you to ratchet up the difficulty level quite a bit - God of War in particular.