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Crash4654 t1_iyea1wk wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Dark Souls in a nutshell. by ChallengerKamika

I mean it's not really any different than mario.

Did you know the npc enemy with the highest kill count in the world is the very first Goomba in super Mario bros 1? Because he's there's there explicitly to teach you that touching them is bad and stepping on them is good. From there you start to learn the worlds. Sure the first time you're running through you get hit by a random hammer from a hammer bro. But the second time you know he's there so you live a little longer but you don't know the pattern so he gets you again. The third time you watch more and learn that the pattern exists but with a bit of randomness to it and then you learn he jumps up and down platforms, you die again. The fourth time you know everything he can do and put it into practice and might make it, might not depending on your skill and patience. Or you might get lucky and have a fire flower and kill him before he can kill you on your first try.

Dark souls does that exact same thing just with a healthbar and stamina attached. Every time you die and redo an area, you know what's there in the exact same spot every single time, just like mario. The zombie in the corner doesn't get you anymore because you're ready for him. You get the backstab on the big enemy or avoid him completely because he's not worth it. You find the spot where the enemy can't hit you so you can heal in safety, or you know you're going to be shot at so you shield up to prevent damage.

Maybe at first you panic dodge because you don't know whats coming, after a few tries you learn that an over the shoulder hold strike is preceded by the enemy leaning back so you time your dodge just once, giving you more attack chances. You learned that going for 3 hits instead of 2 or 1 is more risky and leaves you open so you stop getting greedy.

This is so much longer than I intended but I just want people to know it's not really that bad. It seems unfair but much more often than not it's one of the more fair games out there.

Yeah, every so often there's an enemy that just surprises you out of nowhere and feels like bullshit, but then again, super Mario had lakitus throwing spinies randomly at you too, and you figured out how to work around them too.

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[deleted] t1_iyen7ap wrote

Comparing dark souls and Mario seemed irrational til I read this. Beautifully said. While I agree my sentiment towards the Souls genre is the exact same.

I own Bloodborne, Ashen, Elden Ring, Nioh, Nioh 2, etc etc… I’ve dropped countless hours, looked up articles, guides, play throughs, the whole nine yards. Those games just aren’t it FOR ME

Even Mario has a more user friendly approach to its games. Even if you aren’t particularly skilled you get to enjoy a decent amount of the damn game.

Games are for enjoyment, I rate games accordingly. Games like Mario are easily enjoyable as numbers show. When I look at the sales of Elden Ring vs. the percentages I can find of people who’ve actually beat it…. I can only imagine the Creator being fine with the majority of their consumers not truly getting to see or appreciate their work. To me that’s just fuckin stupid.

Like making a painting you have to get LASIK surgery to see. Like chopping up the audio of a song and making you put it back together before getting to hear it. Souls games are like, here’s a really beautiful and expansive game… but you have to die and retry hundreds of times before you get anywhere. I work full time, and have a social life, these games really don’t seem tailored around that.

To say all of that:

If YOU like those games… cool. I don’t. I’ve tried and tried and tried and just really fucking don’t lol.

I like them so much I contemplated getting a PC to use difficulty mods just so I could actually experience the game.

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[deleted] t1_iyenfjw wrote

And even then… none of what I said would matter if they allowed an accessibility slider to make the game reasonably beateable. Note I said “reasonably”

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