Board 8 > Best Souls game?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Dark Souls 2 is still like a 9/10

Of the four I've played...

Bloodborne > Elden Ring >> Demon's Souls > Dark Souls

Bloodborne hit all the right notes for me. It has, by far, my favorite combat feel, visual style, music, sound design, and story of the FromSoft catalog. The more streamlined leveling system may have initially felt more limiting (magic seems barely viable and isn't split into two alternatives like Intelligence/Faith), but the individual melee weapons are so unique that entire runs can be focused on each. Instead of a DEX or STR run, you can do a Kirkhammer or Chikage run. I love how the game's atmosphere almost festers over time - you start with Victorian Van Helsing inspired locations and enemies that befit a Hollywood movie - and end with eldritch monster gods on the other side of hell. The Old Hunters has three separate bosses that are a contender for "greatest of all time" boss fight. That's fucking insane for one DLC package.

Elden Ring was one hell of an experience that consumed me for two weeks, but I doubt I'll regard it as an all-time favorite like I do with Bloodborne.

Of the four, I'll say that Dark Souls was the only one I didn't enjoy. Apart from Undead Burg and Anor Lando, I can't even recall liking the individual areas, and I had to resort to farming for the Black Knight Halberd to cheese the game because my initial mage build wasn't getting anywhere and I wasn't having fun. I got through Dark Souls because it seemed like a requisite thing to do so as a gamer, and not because I was digging it.

PrinceReva posted...

DS2 is the worst by a country mile, and I'm glad to see there aren't a bunch of edgy contrarians here trying to convince anyone that it's the best.

Might be recency bias, but Elden Ring is easily the most refined and approachable. As much as I love Demon's, DS3, and Bloodborne, Elden Ring got my vote.

Ds2 is easily the best of 1-3. No questions asked. I'd argue that it's the closest thing to elden ring, before elden ring!

It's just that it doesn't hold a candle to bloodborne.

I played Demons Souls first when it came out in my region and its easily the weakest of the lot. Still a good game, but the improvements Dark Souls made were significant. The consumable healing items were terrible, the level design was really not great in some areas (see 4-2s infamous boss run), there was little aesthetic variety in the locations, it ran terribly even by the standards if the series, and the visuals were so muddy I could barely play Tower of Latria during the day. Some of those were fixed by the PS5 version which is the one I actually beat for the first time this year. Some are more fundamental issues. Overall I did enjoy it but the games didnt get great to me until Dark Souls.

I will also say, I think people forget how hyped Demons Souls was at launch among enthusiast gaming crowds, and not just the people who were going wild over the Japanese release. There was so much hype on here, it got excellent reviews (the same as Dark Souls) and it won Game of the Year from two major publications, Gamespot and GamesTM compared to zero for Dark Souls though to be fair that had stronger competition. It was also released just when the PS3 was taking off and was held up as an example of why the PS3 is good, actually. The game never saw the mainstream success that all the others did even after the PS5 remake (which may be more to do with supply in fairness) but in the enthusiast press and on enthusiast forums it always had a lot of hype behind it from the North American launch onwards. That is the whole reason I got it and the whole reason Dark Souls 1 launched pretty strong.

Incidentally, Dark Souls 2 is great and SOTFS is up there with the other classics. The answer to this had to be Elden Ring though, its one of the best games Ive ever played and up there with BOTW and RDR2 as the only AAA games that really use the open world as a genuine space for discovery beyond just ticking things off a checklist.

Dark Souls still king. Elden Ring made a run but it got a bit too exhausting toward the end

foolm0r0n posted...

Dark Souls 2 is still like a 9/10

i absolutely agree with that. i had a blast! it was so much more straightforward to figure out what to do and where to go. it's why it's so hard to pick a favorite

i just remember when it came out, everyone was looking so hard to figure out how it connected to DS1

because the storytelling of the series is so infuriatingly vague it took like a month for people to figure out the two games weren't actually related at all. all of the shared character models were coincidental, etc. the collective disappointment was heavy

the world/level design was a little weak, but it was super fun to play and the gameplay was improved. the series has been incrementally improved every time, so in some ways the best souls game is always the most recent one

Dark Souls 2 is very narratively connected to Dark Souls 1, in a way that becomes extremely obvious on a second playthrough. Then SOTFS and Dark Souls III basically go OKAY EVERYBODY HERES WHAT THE STORY OF THE SERIES IS.

right, but that wasn't expressed anywhere in the game.

they're on a completely separate continent that doesn't link with the fire or any of the themes of the rest of the series

i think if they had just come out and said the games weren't directly related dark souls 2 would have been much more beloved. i like it when things tread new ground- you just shouldn't pitch it as a narrative sequel. everyone just felt punked or like they had the rug pulled out from under them

like, why did they put ornstein's model randomly in an early zone and have it mean nothing? maybe they invented a reason later, who knows

i will admit, i played the original DS2 so don't know what narrative stuff they added for scholar of the first sin

Ahh, I see. Well the whole reveal at the end of the game is that you link the fire, and Aldias whole deal in SOTFS is that he is working to break the cycle which sets up the story of Dark Souls III which is the most straightforward of all of them. Also I think its generally believed that at least parts of Drangleic are Lordran Its weird and unclear how the geography lines up. Whether or not Old Dragonslayer is actually the real Ornstein is debatable, but it would make sense if hes there as the DS1 version was an illusion and IIRC the real Gwynevere was the founder of Heide.

the more time that passes the more ridiculous dark souls 2 haters look. literally remember at the time one of the big complaints was that the game 'punishes you too much' by reducing your Max HP when you die. a mechanic which is now featured in 3 out of the 4 games with "Souls" in their title. out of those, Dark Souls 2's health mechanic is the most forgiving one; it only reduces your hp by a small % with each death, but allows you to completely refresh it with a single consumable which you find all over the place.

that being said I do agree that dark souls 2 should not have been the sequel to dark souls 1. it should have been demon's souls 2. feels incredibly obvious; both games have a hub world that splits off into four separate dungeon paths. once you clear all four of the main branches, you unlock the endgame section. the ability to warp directly into any of the previously reached archstones or bonfires without needing to walk everywhere. it's a huge difference which sets them apart from the dark souls 1 'interconnected world on a loop' philosophy.

the main thing that dark souls 2 builds onto the classic demon's souls formula is that there's just a ton more content. like, way more. I do understand that the game has a bit of filler but I also think if you removed all of the filler areas there would STILL be an incredible number of well designed areas, and they did manage to make it so that the most important areas in the game are usually the ones that got the attention they deserve. shulva and the brume tower in particular are some of the best dungeons, and they're balanced around the end game. this extends the amount of content you can enjoy while playing the game after you've reached the point where you should be most satisfied with your completed build. eleum loyce is a bit of a mixed bag with some incredible moments but more 'this is just annoying' sections than any other dungeon in the game.

(this change would also make dark souls 3 into the actual dark souls 2, which makes a lot more sense, because it's basically intended to be as directly influenced by dark souls 1 as possible...)

Dark Souls 2 is the worst one because of Adaptability.

I've seen people call Elden Ring "Dark Souls 2 2" and you know what? They're right.

Dark Souls 2 has atrocious hit boxes where you'll be taking damage *well* outside of any attacks, and the PVP only makes it worse with invaders somehow getting the advantage and porting around you. Gonna finally hit their back for the critical? Actually, they're on *your* back now, smacking *you* with a critical hit. Couple that with all of the artificial difficulty (too many enemies for the sake of enemies, narrow spaces during encounters, etc) and pointless mechanics that fortunately didn't last beyond that game and it's clear why it's the black sheep. I owned that game for nearly a decade before finally beating it, and I don't know that I'm glad to have done it. It's reason number 1 while I won't play another FromSoft game that isn't directed by Miyazaki.

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

I've seen people call Elden Ring "Dark Souls 2 2" and you know what? They're right.

Absolutely true.

What do you guys think about Elden Ring as someone's first Souls game?

Waluigi1 posted...

What do you guys think about Elden Ring as someone's first Souls game?

It's one of those cases where there's no actual issue with starting here and it'd be a great point to do so, but it makes it hard to go back.

I think it is both the perfect entry point and also not a good representation for the rest of the series.

It's less that it's hard to go back and more that Elden Ring simply has wider appeal. I've seen many people who don't like the other games but like this one because when they get stuck on a boss there is so much other stuff to do, or ways to level up or cheese fights etc. It's not a universal "get into the series" but it's the one that should be recommended unless the person truly despises open worlds.

MariaTaylor posted...

(this change would also make dark souls 3 into the actual dark souls 2, which makes a lot more sense, because it's basically intended to be as directly influenced by dark souls 1 as possible...)

3 has a totally different level design though, very unlike 1. It's more like Bloodborne.

But all the games blend into each other. They always take the best of the previous and try some new things. That's what makes the series so good. Everyone has their favorite for whatever reason, but you can't deny they're all great. Elden Ring somehow put in so much that it's everyone's favorite.

ok I just finished Dark Souls 2

that was a pretty underwhelming last couple fights

Only played Demon Souls and Bloodborne so I voted for Bloodborne

I've played Dark Souls and I'm currently playing Elden Ring, but that's probably also the biggest contenders, but I don't think I can say for sure before I've finished Elden Ring. Both are very great though (I've also played a little bit of Demon Souls, but I wasn't really caught by it and never got around to finishing it.)

foolm0r0n posted...

They always take the best of the previous and try some new things. That's what makes the series so good. Everyone has their favorite for whatever reason, but you can't deny they're all great.

Yeah it's an incredible franchise and I agree that all of the games are pretty great in their own way. Even my least favorite one, which is pretty clear to me, I have played it plenty just because it has a really well designed online experience.

Some of the features I don't enjoy about Dark Souls 3 were "needed" to attract a casual fan base who would continue to play the game over a long period of time. Now the launch of Elden Ring might have killed the player base, I'm not sure, I haven't personally checked yet. But the fact that even very recently you could still easily, and almost INSTANTLY get invasions in Dark Souls 3 kinda spoke for itself. I was willing to accept the bad things just for the fact that it was still possible to play the game with other people after so long.

As much as I love Bloodborne, and I wouldn't change Bloodborne, the reality is that you can't find any kind of invasions or online play without going to a dedicated message board like the tomb prospectors or the hunter's bell and finding people to play with.

And even if I don't like many of the bosses in Dark Souls 3, they are still sitting in a league of their own, an order of magnitude above some of the crap you find in other games where you just spam the square button until the enemy HP Sponge finally dies.

Anyway that's a bit of a ramble but I think at this point finding a topic where I can vomit a wall of text about Bloodborne (or the Souls games) is one of the few ways to draw me anywhere near the Post New Message button....

People get lost in the Dark Souls 2 hate sometimes and forget that being the worst Souls games still makes you better than basically anything else in the genre.

Like am I gonna play DS2 or fucking....Lords of the Fallen? Code Vein? The Surge?? Get the fuck outta here.

MoogleKupo141 posted...

ok I just finished Dark Souls 2

that was a pretty underwhelming last couple fights

I'm a Throne Watcher/Defender apologist but the real final bosses are in the DLC

Throne Watcher and Defender are awesome, but severely undertuned. They were one of the most challenging boss fights in my Soul Level 1 run. The problem is that in a normal run you are so powerful that they are too easy to defeat, and you can't really get a sense for what the actual boss fight mechanics are. In fairness, this problem applies to a lot of the endgame and final bosses in pretty much most of the Souls games.

So yeah while Nashandra and the Scholar are also disappointing, I don't think this is a feature that is unique to Dark Souls 2. The real King Allant fight, Mergo's Wet Nurse, the Moon Presence, Nashandra, the Scholar. Gwyn has presentation and style on his side but I think he's considered to be relatively easy. Only the final boss of Dark Souls 3 is, mechanically speaking, challenging enough for a fully realized endgame build.

MariaTaylor posted...

Gwyn has presentation and style on his side but I think he's considered to be relatively easy

On New game+ and above, Gwyn is the only boss in Dark Souls 1 that doesn't give you a clear window to heal. He's relentless with his attacks, his fire eats through shield stamina and your health and the HP buff he gets from 2nd playthrough makes him more tanky so he's not very easy. At least not easy by base Dark Souls 1 standards. I'd actually call him one of the hardest boss in the game outright if he didn't stagger from heavy attacks.

Gwyn was so easy tho. Just parry

Count me in the "NG+ Gwyn is no joke" team. Admittedly, I basically never parry (not out of a self-imposed challenge or anything like that - I just suck at it), but he's relentless and imposes a lot of stamina and health pressure with fire attacks.

And yeah Dark Souls 2 DLC is miles better than vanilla (which is still pretty good). I agree that the final few fights in vanilla are underwhelming, but the DLC is anything but - the final mandatory fight of each of the 3 DLCs is fantastic, and a worthy, difficult spectacle to end the game on a good note.

I pretty much never parry, either. Learning the timing for each enemy attack seems not so fun

However....

I do make an exception from time to time. Gwyn was one of them

I played Dark Souls 1 on PC on stream. I played with Mouse and Keyboard and did a lot of parrying.

PrinceReva posted...

Dark Souls 2 has atrocious hit boxes where you'll be taking damage *well* outside of any attacks, and the PVP only makes it worse with invaders somehow getting the advantage and porting around you. Gonna finally hit their back for the critical? Actually, they're on *your* back now, smacking *you* with a critical hit. Couple that with all of the artificial difficulty (too many enemies for the sake of enemies, narrow spaces during encounters, etc) and pointless mechanics that fortunately didn't last beyond that game and it's clear why it's the black sheep. I owned that game for nearly a decade before finally beating it, and I don't know that I'm glad to have done it. It's reason number 1 while I won't play another FromSoft game that isn't directed by Miyazaki.

Hmm. I don't know what happened! I thought the netcode and pvp mechanics in dark souls 2 were the best in the series. The combat felt less overwhelming and the tricks less obscure. Super smooth frame rates were glorious as well, especially once they fixed the durability bug

I spent a lot of time dragon dueling on that lava bridge

I will grant that it's been a long time since I've played it, so my memory is probably off

My experience was subjective, but by the time I got to dark souls 3 (after des, ds1, 2, and bb) it felt like I had eaten too much candy directly out of the bag and needed a break

Now the launch of Elden Ring might have killed the player base, I'm not sure, I haven't personally checked yet. But the fact that even very recently you could still easily, and almost INSTANTLY get invasions in Dark Souls 3 kinda spoke for itself.

I was able to do a decent amount of invading people specifically in the bell towers while I was playing DS2 on Xbox this past week, so I bet theres still plenty of people playing DS3 too.

I was feeling kinda burnt out on Souls by the end, but maybe Ill check out the DS2 dlc stuff after seeing all this praise

The bell towers are genius, I really wish there was a multiplayer focused area like that in ER. That's definitely the biggest negative right now - the game doesn't have much multiplayer itself, but it still pulled people away from the previous games. So there's a bit of a multiplayer void.

I have started to get blue ring summons recently though which is great. I just miss having 5 summons from 3 different factions all duking it out like mad.

Yeah I hope they figure out invasions for the DLC or a sequel - there should absolutely be auto-invasion areas like in past games, and I really do miss the covenants.

I know people like the ability to turn them off but I kind of need the unpredictability to have it be fun at all. Not only is it too tempting to disengage from, but even if I want to let invaders in for solo play I have to use a gold finger item (which doesn't even get consumed) and THEN activate the tongue. After every death or area transition. Also, this removes the ability to use my ash summons which are pretty crucial for some of the rougher areas! It's awful so I just don't do it. It needs to at least be a perma-toggle.

foolm0r0n posted...

The bell towers are genius, I really wish there was a multiplayer focused area like that in ER. That's definitely the biggest negative right now - the game doesn't have much multiplayer itself, but it still pulled people away from the previous games. So there's a bit of a multiplayer void.

I have started to get blue ring summons recently though which is great. I just miss having 5 summons from 3 different factions all duking it out like mad.

Agreed. I've had a few blue ring summons, but nothing has captured the multiplayer high of the bell towers in ds2.

MoogleKupo141 posted...

I was feeling kinda burnt out on Souls by the end, but maybe Ill check out the DS2 dlc stuff after seeing all this praise

bring Warmth if you can. should be possible even on a minimum attunement build by simply equipping a Ring that gives you spell slots. all three of the DLC areas are proper dungeon crawls and the value of being able to stop, rest for 30 seconds, and heal yourself up without using Estus is pretty helpful. buying 99 life gems is another solution. normally I'd cast Warmth and then use a life gem to get my health back up quickly between encounters, and save my fast estus healing or my slightly less fast life gem healing for restoring HP during combat.

it's also been a while since I've played but if I remember correctly most of the enemies in all three DLC areas have pretty good resistance against magic and faith builds, but they are susceptible to physical attacks as well as dark damage. I know in Shulva if you're running any kind of spell build it's pretty much worth it just to make one of the weapons that scales your Intelligence stat as physical damage because the enemy resistance to magic damage is so high. miracle builds have to rely on hexes and dark weapons.

I got a demon hammer almost immediately upon starting the game from the birds, so my build is like entirely strength based

the biggest issue Ive had is the hammer breaks pretty fast. I had to be finish off the scholar of the first sin with a couple throwing knives because the hammer wore out

but yeah, maybe Ill try out a spell slot ring so I can warm up. Ive put no points in the magic stuff at all. Just smashing.

the cool/interesting thing about pyromancy in dark souls 2 is that it scales with int and faith but it doesn't have requirements from either. this means that spell and miracle builds can both incorporate pyromancy into their rotation, but it also means that builds with NO magic investment at all can still use a +SpellSlot ring and make use of certain pyromancy. either for utility functions or other reasons.

there should be a vendor that sells repair powder especially if you're at/near the end of the game. also what I normally try to do on a NG file in any souls game is to have a weapon that upgrades with titanite and a different weapon that upgrades with either twinkling titanite or dragon scales. that way I can have two different fully upgraded weapons for use while exploring and they don't compete over resources while progressing through the game. that way if your durability starts to get low you can equip a different weapon.

While Dark Souls II is my least favorite, I think I'd still put Brume Tower as the best area and Fume Knight as the best boss fight. Leyndell potentially surpasses Brume Tower, but nothing in Elden Ring touched Fume Knight.

Dark Souls II DLC as a whole is arguably the best stretch of Souls content

I think DS2 is great. I have lots of memories of exploring that world, like heading down the well for the first time, going into the giant memories... Burnt Ivory King is still my favorite boss fight in the series.

I still voted Elden but DS2 deserves more credit than it gets.

HanOfTheNekos posted...

Gwyn was so easy tho. Just parry

Yeah I admittedly haven't done NG+ but base game Gwyn was easier than a lot of regular enemies, and was certainly the easiest boss in the game. Honestly I assumed that was the whole point!

Kenri posted...

but base game Gwyn was easier than a lot of regular enemies, and was certainly the easiest boss in the game

the absolute disrespect in a game that features pinwheel as a boss