How challenging is Dark Souls and what makes it difficult?
353I really find it strange how press and some of the players praise Dark Souls series for its 'difficulty' and hardcoreness - because it really isn't that challenging. Can't help but feel like most of the praise comes from people who are on their first playthrough, struggling through the levels without proper understanding of how to approach the game... because outside of your first playthrough, once you know the rules - the challenge isn't really there.
Sure there are some traps and setups scattered around well crafted levels to catch you off-guard, to challenge you, but its really a one time thing and once you've gone past the first playthrough - the only real challenge that remains are boss fights, because by design that's the only aspect of the game where you get penalized exclusively for your mistakes.
Generally, it is a complex topic to tackle - what makes a game difficult? I'd say one thing for sure, a challenging game should remain challenging even past the first playthrough. When it comes to shooters, F.E.A.R is a perfect example of AI creating a challenge that doesn't fade - sure you know the place where the shootout is gonna happen and you got a decent idea where to expect the enemies, but chances are AI is gonna play very different each time - creating unique situations... sure, you may argue that the same happens in Dark Souls, but ultimately Dark Souls is shallow enough for you to enjoy the raw experience of pressing R1/roll button in a timely manner.
I understand that comparing an RPG to a shooter is an odd choice, so there is an easier comparison, because when it comes to AI prowess and boss gimmicks Dark Souls loses pretty hard to it's closest 'clone' neighbor in form of 'Nioh'. Bosses are fun in Dark Souls, just not really that challenging. The game isn't really deep enough to make you question your decisions... and it probably has never been intended to be deep - which just reinforces my point that Dark Souls, first of all is about the experience, atmosphere of journey.
This brings me back to the topic, as I never really understood why people called Dark Souls super hard, hardcore and very challenging - because it doesn't take much to break the game. Other RPGs have different way to build the difficulty and present you a challenge, advanced AI setups, various buffs and de-buffs that are designed to make you rethink your approach whereas Dark Souls, more often than not relies on clever enemy placement and lack of in-game tutorial to shake you up... which ultimately is brilliant, yet it does not hold up for long.
I'd say that Dark Souls is adventure and it was never meant to be 'hard' by design, its just that in the way to reinforce the atmosphere of loneliness in despair developers took out all of the hits, ultimately leaving new players to learn the rules the hard way. This should explain why everybody who has ever played more than one Souls game insists that the first one is always the hardest.
Feel free to support my misery on Patreon ► https://goo.gl/tL5J8A
Other Videos By neptunusequester
Other Statistics
Dark Souls Statistics For neptunusequester
neptunusequester currently has 398,656 views spread across 22 videos for Dark Souls. Dark Souls has approximately 2 hours of watchable video on his channel, roughly 10.92% of the content that neptunusequester has uploaded to YouTube.