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Dark Souls: Is Harder Better?

Dark Souls is announced, and will be even harder than its predecessor. Is this necessarily a good thing? We want to know what you think.

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Nitrowolf25586d ago

i'm hoping reviewers actually give the game a chance rather then quit and complain the games to hard. Demon Soul wasn't even that hard if you actually took your time getting souls and better armor/weapons. I think reviewers were just expecting a get up and go type of game where you can just blast right through the game without having any difficulty.

Blaine5586d ago

Weren't the reviews for DS overwhelmingly positive though? I mean, with a new IP, you never know, but DS was so praised across the board--I think that's the reason I got it in the first place. Oh, also because I wanted to brave the challenge!

As for Dark Souls... What Chug said!

Gonna be one of the best games this gen. :D

Lawliet5586d ago

don't worry it will get 9-10 all over. This time for sure, it is multiplat.

dillydadally5586d ago

To me it all depends on whether it really is harder or if it's just more punishing. No one seems to understand the difference between "hard" and "punishing". I love a good hard game. A game should be challenging. But Demon's Souls wasn't even that hard of a game. Instead, it was a PUNISHING game. It was a cheap game. You open a treasure chest and you get poisoned and don't have anything to heal yourself. You die. You lose everything. You turn around a corner and there is an enemy cheaply placed in the dark in a corner that your auto aim can't lock onto quick enough. You get all the way through a long level, only to get bowled over by a trap you had no reason to believe was there and then have to go all the way through the level again, hoping not to die again or you'll lose everything you worked for.

Why is this good? Why do you want to be punished so much? Do other people just have more time to burn? I would love if it really was harder but less punishing.

Bring on the hard, leave out the repetitiveness of playing the whole level over again, being stressed out you might die and lose all your money, and working through a trial and error level.

AKS5586d ago (Edited 5586d ago )

Some of those whiny reviewers were probably expecting their typical speedrun through the game on "easy" so they could delivery their custody "too short and flawed" hackneyed nonsense and found that the game was kicking their asses. I'd love to see a video of their first encounter with the Flamelurker and Maneaters. LOL! I also hope they were among my invasion victims.

JoySticksFTW5586d ago (Edited 5586d ago )

Uh... please tell me at what point in Demon's Souls this happened? I honestly don't remember this happening.

"You turn around a corner and there is an enemy cheaply placed in the dark in a corner that your auto aim can't lock onto quick enough."

What? First off, use a shield when rounding corners. And second, learn to fight without locking on. You're depending on auto-aim for every encounter? That's why you got dealt with. You lack skill, but cry "teh cheapness!!11!1"

"You get all the way through a long level, only to get bowled over by a trap you had no reason to believe was there"

Again, when did this happen?

You mean the open pit at the very beginning of the first stage? Or the boulder at the top of the stairs near the beginning of the first stage? Or maybe you mean the broken floor boards at the beginning of world 5? Seriously, what supposed traps were you finding at the very end of stages?

I'm starting to think that you really didn't even play this game. Or now you're coming on here crying, because DS broke you down so bad.

I don't mind people saying that they tried DS, and they stopped because it was a bit too hard for them or it's not their thing or whatever.

But don't come on here crying, making up stories through your tears and putting it forth as truth.

Have some dignity, man!

@AKS

The videos of people rage-quitting DS when it first came out were hilarious! I still love watching DS playthroughs :)

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 5586d ago
NoobSessions5586d ago

As long as the difficulty of it makes sense, and its not hard just to be hard, then its great to me. I want that game every once in a while that can truly challenge you.

TheDivine5586d ago

Yea if they wanted to change it i say make it equal with demons souls and have the tendencys effect the difficulty even more so if you die alot it gets easier until you stop dying then progressively harder, let noobs play white, pros black. Ds wasnt hard it just was one the games where you had to learn from mistakes and evrything was skill based.

Kos-Mos5586d ago

You`re absolutely right my friend; "As long as it makes sense."
Playing halo campaign or gears or anything on hard and insane etc. doesn`t make sense.
It`s about what the game was meant to be played on (difficulty) according to the core gameplay.
Adding more and stronger enemies and less life for you makes no sense.
+Bubble

AbyssGravelord5586d ago

"the harder the better" - what she said

Darkfiber5587d ago (Edited 5587d ago )

Why do game "journalists" always have to find fault with everything? They said the game would be harder, and people complain. If they said the game would be easier, people would complain and say that an easier difficulty would take away with what made Demon's Souls so special. If they said it was the same difficulty, they would be either blaming 360 owners for From Software not making the game harder than Demon's Souls because PS3 owners were already used to the difficulty, or that the devs weren't changing the game enough by keeping the same difficulty and that, in a "franchise" so centered around difficulty, the fact that it wasn't increased in the next game is a fault.

Whine whine whine. The game isn't even that hard. All attacks from enemies are avoidable if you are good enough. If you do get hit, you are usually dead in 2 or 3 hits. You know what other game kills you in 2 or 3 hits? Mario. That's right, that little kiddy game you played when you were 4 years old has the same difficulty as Demon's Souls. Both games are based around the concept of playing each level over and over and through trial and error, figuring out how to best beat the level, where to go and when to go there, what attacks to use on which enemies, etc etc. Oh but Mario even had a limited amount of lives, and Demon's Souls has unlimited lives. Hey guess what, Mario is harder!

Grow a pair and stop bitching that the game doesn't hold your hand like every other game out there these days. No one had a problem beating games like Mario (and much harder ones) back in the day, why is it such a big deal now? Most 8 hour games these days hold your hand so much that they never want you to die, because it would interrupt the flow of their made-for-tv-movie quality story.

frjoethesecond5586d ago

The reason you see these conflicting views is because everyone has a different opinion. Some will want it to be the same others harder etc.
The reason it seems, for people complaining no matter what the situation is because those with a problem speak the loudest and those who are happy will say very little.

Therefore people always complain because the complaints drown out the positive views.

AKS5586d ago

Well said. Almost every modern game is ridiculously easy. Give us our few games with some actual challenge and leave the difficulty alone.

I've been a gamer for many years, and the old school games were much harder. Try Shadow of the Beast 2, Battletoads, and others and then try to tell me Demon's Souls was too difficult. DS's difficulty was one of the best things about it.

JD_Shadow5586d ago

I agree that games need to be more challenging and engaging.

However, what you may not have gotten is that there is a such thing as genuine challenge, in that the challenge fits the environment and is balanced in such a way that it puts your knowledge of the game's mechanics to the test, and cheap difficulty, in which the game is padded with difficult things that leave you with no way to deal with the dangers and the risk being too high for the reward. Cheap difficulty is when you just add difficulty for the sake of being difficult, or if you put in a game mechanic and don't ever give the player any way to defend against it, or which leaves them wondering what in the hell they could've possibly done about it.

You want the genuine challenge. You don't want the cheapness. Thing is, the definition of what qualifies as one or the other varies from player to player. But it can be blatantly obvious at some times when a game is more difficult than it has to be, or when something is facerolling you. And you can tell when someone is just whining one way or the other, and when there is a legit gripe about something being way too difficult or way too easy.

AKS5585d ago (Edited 5585d ago )

Demon's Souls is an exemplar for difficulty that is NOT cheap. When a player dies, it's almost always because of the player's lack of skill or a mistake the player made. There is indeed some trial and error to the gameplay, but that's how it should be if you're exploring haunted dungeons and unknown, cursed territories. Every enemy can consistently be defeated by improving your skill.

For an example of the opposite (i.e., extreme cheapness), check out many of the modern fighting games, especially that bastard Seth in Street Fighter or Jinpachi from Tekken.

rob_gamestribe5587d ago

Erm, we weren't whining. We were asking whether or not people enjoy a more challenging gaming experience, and if so, why. Apparently you do, so well done.

Darkfiber5586d ago

I was simply pointing out that no matter what From Software said about the difficulty in Dark Souls, there would be an article saying that it's the wrong thing to do. You and I both know that; that's just how these things work. Devil's Advocate creates controversy, which in turn leads to more discussion and, dare I say, more site traffic.

AKA5586d ago

Sometimes harder is better but a well balanced paste is much better and that why this game is great "if is like DS"
I guess i forgive from S. im getting this bb day one .

Enate5586d ago (Edited 5586d ago )

A well balanced pace is only susceptible to one's personal experience with the game. Not everyone is as good as the next man. I think its important to find that right amount. An if the first game had it right there is no problem giving the people that experience again. I believe Dead Space's team had this right when the kept the difficulty right where they had it just about.

Every game isn't about trying to see if they can make you throw a controller through a window. An not every experience needs to be that way. Some people have to realize that dying in one hit doesn't make it fun for everyone.

AKA5586d ago

I was talking about Demons souls
we are in a Dark Demons news after all.

Gamer_Z5586d ago (Edited 5586d ago )

Harder! Dude I could barley handle the first one =/
haha but i guess thats what made it fun.

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