Here's the thing with grass: Even ignoring that I've seen more RPGs kill themselves by screwing similar systems up than I can count, as you said, "Conceptually" doesn't matter whatsoever once the game is sold. What matters is how the player actually interacts with it. And how the player interacts with these systems is that if the resources the game initially provides are not sufficient, they will either quit or (if they have the option) they'll go and farm until they don't have to worry about it. And if a game requires you to grind or farm simply to continue, then it is wasting the player's time, which is an objective flaw in its design.
when the topic of what is a soulslike comes up I always say it's not any particular element but the sum of it's parts and how everything plays together.
It's worth mentioning that the phrase about time being convoluted isn't incorrect at all. What Solaire is saying is that time is coiled, or folded in on itself. This is literally what is happening in Dark Souls 3, with layers of time being condensed into one space. It's essentially the same as time stagnating, it's just using a different word for it. Convolution in the physical sense, not the conceptual sense.
sure, but when he says "convoluted" how many people connected that to meaning "stagnant" and then went on to connect that to the other parts of the game?
@@AesirAesthetics as someone who played them all, as well, that line always made sense to me. Solaire says more than just that it's convoluted. He explains, from a first person perspective, that time is hard to comprehend, and doesn't work the way one would expect. From his position, and his perpensity for jolly cooperation throughout the twisted timeline, it would be quite difficult to explain exactly why time is complicated.
Really interesting point about having to travel deep down to fight a lot of the main bosses - something I would have never noticed but sure seems it had to be intentional
Something I think Dark Souls did exceptionally well with its width of expression is contrast. Like, just look at Blighttown and Anor Londo as examples here. Both were societies complex enough they housed lots of people and could build things like huge elevators and architecture built into cliffsides and so on. One is a literal shitshow where all the poor and downtrodden lived for so long it literally turned them into a different kind of being than the people up top, even the lower class up-top folks. One is a giant, gilded city of high ceilings and grand art that maybe even had the same process of "becoming something different than human" happen in a completely different direction, making them larger than life in a literal sense. Thematically, these are polar opposites, and them being so tells a story.
Omg, I'm your biggest fan. Lol, dude I love how passionate you are about this series. I share your passion friend, and I wish you the greatest success.
Thanks for all the great analyses over the years! More and more of the pieces come together with time and the hard work from people like you, Lokey, Sophie and Sin, and many more. What a great community :)
Discovered your channel a few years ago with your Silent Hill 2 analysis, I thought it was the best take on the game I had seen and I learned A LOT of things about my favourite game and loved it even more than I already did. I still think it´s the best analysis of that game I´ve seen by far. Then I checked your channel and loved your takes on pretty much everything, every single time I watch one of your videos I always learn a lot about the games I love, like Dark Souls. I think it´s really a shame that, unless you know japanese and have the time to delve into the game´s lore with that knowledge, you never know what to trust about the clues these games give to you. Just one mistranslation in one word can destroy or fundamentally change a theory that seemed to work fine until that very moment. And I really appreciate the extensive amount of work that people like you, sinclair, lokey and more people put into all these hidden details in the translation (among other things) to give us a more accurate telling of what´s really happening in the game. Cheers to you good sir.
Thank you for taking the time to do this!!! The funnest part of going through from softwares catalogue was finding a series I love and hold dear (Kings field) but also seeing what they have/may have taken from each game from the first kf to eternal ring to evergrace, and making a video dicussing that is everything I wanted!
I think the regenerator items break any cruelty found in Demon's Souls with regard to healing. Aside from minor weight concerns there is no downside to always having them on hand and you heal so fast with both equipped, saving grass for bosses. Add to that they're found quite early on and can be obtained as soon as all archstones open up after completing 1-1.
I think the idea that the Moongrass system theoretically allows the developers to be more cruel in their encounter design than the Estus system is somewhat sound, but in practice I don't feel like they end up being that different at their peaks. Cruelty came in many forms in Dark Souls, like being able to enter the Catacombs on launch and chased back by reviving skeletons, bombarded by Toxic Darts in Blighttown, letting the Channeller buff Gaping Dragon, Anor Londo archers, Sen's Fortress traps, Mimic Chests, etc. These encounters with a grass healing system in mind, would be unbelievably cruel for first time players and arguably a more memorable experience, however the solution isn't healing but preparing correctly by bringing the proper status items to traverse these paths, routing through the area differently, or bringing alternate combat options to kill particularly dangerous enemies or avoid/prevent dangerous attacks. When you get hit by Plague in DeS, the solution is to either cure it quickly or not get hit by it and in DaS Toxic functions similarly. The functionality of the healing systems doesn't sway the event itself one way or another. While the Moongrass system has a higher peak for player experienced stress, it comes paired with lower lows. Struggling on a boss and having limited grass means that deaths against tough bosses could just devolve into tedium. Players may end up feeling like they are fighting their own resources more than the boss and lead to suicide runs where they don't use any grass at all just to practice the fight and save on resources or break their flow and go grind for souls to stock up on the resource. For what it's worth I really like the Moongrass system in DeS and I think it complements the game well because DeS is not trying to be an action game, it's a lot more varied than that while Dark Souls is a slower, more deliberate action game with less of the puzzle solving Demon's Souls demanded. The greater focus on action makes combat fatigue a more looming problem, and the Estus system helps alleviate that problem. tl;dr Bloodborne's blood vial system is embarassingly bad
I wonder if making it so that the only place you could warp to is Firelink (and maybe Anor Londo) would have helped with the late game problem? Would decrease the walk back after beating each of the 4 Lords, while retaining the need for interconnected levels...
Wow I didn't think you would release another video so soon cause I still haven't even started watching the one about Gwyn. Oh well I guess more content is still a good thing!
Demon's Souls & Dark Souls really are Fromsoftware best games there also what I play regularly more so than Elden Ring but I just keeping coming back to Demon's souls and Dark souls it's not just bosses but it the level design aswell
I think you have a good point here. Ds3 bosses are way better than ds1 (not that ds1 bosses are awful), but ds1 is designed in a way where it's always fun to go through the game again. Ds3 and especially Elden ring have build variety, but both games are missing something that is also important to replay value imo. Idek if it's the world, level design, atmosphere, etc...
@@jeffu_ I agree well I enjoyed DS3 but I found it to be the easist if I'm honest like DS1 I really enjoyed more than DS3 but can understand why as DS3 is alot faster also bosses aswell but felt DS3 just has a identity problem through it tried to be like other rpgs also it was very accessible too but I find DS1 was great because it had challenge and not in its level design but with bosses also and it's little bits of lore
@@AlexanderJoneshttps personally, i struggled with ds3 and found ds1 pretty easy lol. i do agree about ds3 having an identity problem though. i felt like there was too much influence from past fromsoft games and i wasn't a fan of most of the callbacks and fanservice tbh.
I always look forward to your uploads! I know, making these videos takes a lot of time, but that gives me the opportunity to rewatch your older vidoes and i always enjoy them as much as when they came out :D Some, like the King's Field videos and the Sekiro commentary, i've probably rewatched like 5 times each, but i never get tired of listening to your voice. And this one is going to join the playlist!
I think this analysis is a little hard on Gwyn. Not that he isn't a despotic asshole, he is for sure, but that I think his fear of the dark is supposed to be understandable, and sympathetic. After all, we the players are susceptible to believing his propaganda, not primarily because it is effective on its own merit but because we are afraid of the dark as well. Dark is scary, even as it is inevitable.
Great video! Now about that moongrass... Let me start by saying that I agree with the conclusion at the end of the segment. These changes aren't better or worse, they change the experience. Of course, to the degree that the change results in the preferred experience, it could be considered better. But what is preffered is subjective so that's up to the individual. If the desired experience however is one of tension, then using consumable healing items (rather than checkpoint-replenishing ones) may not neccesarily be more effective at achieving that. The reason being that an important ingredient in tension is uncertainty. If you are unsure of what action to take, while having to take action, it often increases the tension in the situation. Using moongrass may seem to create more tension due to the act of commiting resources, but this same commitment also leads to a relief of tension when considering decision-making on whether to go back or press on. The costs have been sunk and the decision seems almost obvious. This lessens the tension and sense of responsibility you feel for your choices and their consequence. Dying, after all, is all the more bitter if you had every chance to go back :)
I love Morrowind and would place it top 5 RPG’s easily, but I wouldn’t call it the king simply because it isn’t intuitive for someone trying to pick it up today. Compared to other classics in their respective genres (Symphony of the Night, for example) I don’t think it gets the title of “king”. More like “cool uncle who went through an edgelord phase” of RPG’s. The Allfather Lloyd of RPG’s, one might say. But that’s just my opinion!!!
been waiting a while for this one. I hope you can buy a boat with all the royalty ad money i give you every night when i go to bed listening to your soothing voice talking about some of my favorite games.
I've seen this idea passed as fact, but I find it very weird considering it has been stated that the project that eventually became DeS had both first and third person perspectives from the start.
tl;dr-- Amazing video, holy shit. There has been an absolute glut of DS1 retrospectives in the last year, to the point that they're all saying mostly the same popular talking points. Like, I don't think those essayists and reviewers are being disingenuous and just regurgitating points while having never played the game, but rather that there has been this silent consensus on what all can be said about DS1. SO, I didn't watch this video at first because my brain was like "I cannot handle another hour long video about Dark Souls, saying the exact same thing." I wish I had watched this sooner, because this is such an amazing video. Obviously there are points where I disagree, but I haven't seen anything that unites Gameplay, PvP, Aesthetics, Exploration, and Lore so comprehensively in one video. I'm big on the Pvp aspects of the game, so there's a lot there that never gets covered in terms of mechanical depth between PVE and PVP balancing. I think Matthew Matosis' video may be the most PvP experience a lot of people have had with DS1, but there's so much to it. ANYWAY, there are parts I disagree with, but I haven't had a video blow my mind and get me really thinking about the mechanics critically, and how exciting the whole design is in, like... Three years? I guess your video is kinda like when an actor reads a poem you love, and the make it absolutely new and challenging and exciting. That's how I feel about Dark Souls right now, having watched this. Maybe I'll go off on where I disagree later. But for now, this just feels good. Fantastic video.
17:54 i've always wondered why so many games now have some kinda "funny" sidekick/quirky character. honestly, it's worse than an overly edgy character imo.
Man can't believe Dark Souls is 11 years old now. I get so surprised when I see people that haven't played it. DaS has probably been one of the most popular non-mainstream/big developer/publisher/console manufacturer games of the decade. And without a doubt the most influential game since it's release, period. It has been talked to death about, and I would have assumed that everyone that was interested would have given it a try by now, but the zoomie younglings are getting older I guess. I don't think there is a single player non-strategy game that I have replayed more than DaS. Never gets old. Every time I play a new FROM game, I go back and play DeS afterwards, I always get the itch. To me, together with DeS they are still FROM's Miyazaki era masterpieces (both 5 star games). ER is great despite some mechanical blunders it still carries over from BB(?), DSIII and even Sekiro (4 stars), DSIII and Sekiro are OK-ish for a single playthrough (3 stars). DSII is the only outright stinker (1 star). Haven't played BB, seems great, on ER's level, but from what I gather it seems with BB they changed the pace of the game away from the slower and methodical combat of DeS and DaS which I love. Also, DaS has the best poise system when it comes to PvE.
I feel this discussion lacks mentioning Ever Grace. It is clear DS´s Gameplay is a refinement of Ever Grace´s. Even thought King´s Field is the obvious souls predecessor, Dark and Demon´s souls gameplay is closer to Ever Grace´s. Other than that, great video as always
I couldn't find an interview where any dev specifically talked about it as an influence and since I havne't played it myself, I wasn't confident in bringing it up :)
I see what you're getting at with the Moon Grass thing, but I can't say I've ever actually felt that in Demon's Souls with how incredibly easy it is to get effectively limitless healing in that game. Unless I kill Patches for no reason, I just about always have more Full Moon Grass than I could ever need less than half way through the game, and it just eliminates all of the tension for me. The encounter design could be crueler, but that cruelty doesn't amount to much if it doesn't have any consequences. Something similar could be argued for Humanities in DS1, since those are a full heal, but they're far scarcer than any of the upper tiers of Moon Grass and later games dropped them entirely. As weird as it is to say, I think Lifegems in DS2 were a substantially better execution of the idea of Moon Grass. Their slower healing means that unless you can avoid taking damage for quite a while, they aren't as practical as Estus mid-combat, so for most people they don't trivialize fights the way Moon Grass can.
The moongrass system worked again in DS2 with lifegems. I find lifegems tricky but it works especially when estus makes you stay put in one place. It's also fascinating early game I had to sparingly use lifegems and focus more on estus, so lifegems were highly valued more than the estus in my playthrough. As I get better, I barely need either in DS2 but I found it a interesting change.
Is fromsoft really contracted to develop more playstation exclusives? I still wonder where this voice came from, if it's confirmed or if it was just a rumor back in the days. Can someone verify?
The video was made 2 years ago and I haven't followed up on the contract since then. This was the case before Deracine came out and I'm not sure if it counts. Any case, Sony still has some exclusives contracted (which From might be able to buy themselves out of) But, the final wirnkle is that that was during JapanStudio's era, and Japanese corporate culture is very relationship cetnered. Sony basically lost all of their most talented JapanStudios staffers and the hgiherups were pilphered by other companies like NinjaTheory. So whether or not anything will ever come of this contract is up in the air.
Good video, great points and topics! However, it became really annoying and distracting to hear the boss soundtracks in the background. It made it hard to focus on your voice while hearing the intense music at the same time. Just a little critic :)
Please, Please! Go check the announcements on steam under Dark Souls. Check the discussion with 760+ comments. All being ignored by FROM. Your one of the only ones I know who is passionate about these games with a good following. ADDRESS THE FACT THEY TO DOWN MULTIPLAYER a couple months before releasing Elden Ring. Then lied. And have ceased to update the player base. You. The content creators need to call them out or it will never stop. They just keep not caring. Because the content creators don’t seem to mind. But it will be the death of Souls as we know it if nothing is done. 🙏
You must feel like kind of a jerk knowing that, as they always do, they've been quietly working on a fix for the PC servers the entire time and are close to rolling out that fix.
Yeah all these years later and dozens of video essays later…I still think wasting the player’s time by deleting their progress is a terrible design decision. It may be good for the psychology of “gamers” to feel tension and accomplished, but in terms of broader life, it doesn’t make for a good addition to it. It doubles down on the aspects of games that make them time-sinks and “achievement simulators”, both traits that make avoiding video games a good idea for a happy, productive life. And this is coming from someone that has been gaming since I was 7 years old in 1988. Thankfully Elden Ring makes this aspect nearly moot since you can ride in on Torrent and snag your runes back in most cases. Wasting the player’s time and calling it “difficulty” has always been a cop out.
if that's how you feel, why do you even play video games? Why dont you just watch movies if you're so hellbent on not having your time wasted by pesky game direction?
@@AesirAesthetics do you honestly stand behind that ridiculous straw man of what I wrote? You do realize that almost no games deliberately delete player’s progress as the soulsborne games do, right? That we learned a long time ago that that giving a player 3 lives and then sending them back to the beginning was anti-fun? I understand the games are popular (though I doubt this particular mechanic is solely responsible for that). But to say that my comment was “all game direction is a waste of time” is insanely disingenuous. I swear, half the time content creators interact with anyone who isn’t praising everything they say, they get all juvenile and defensive. You can have a game exactly like dark souls without the mechanic of losing all your souls on a second death and most people wouldn’t even notice. The only real difference is some amount of frustration and time not wasted. As I said, in Elden Ring, it’s quite rare to lose all your runes and it hasn’t seemed to diminish the popularity in the slightest (if anything, it’s higher).
![Gwyn's Story • Dark Souls Translated (Lore w/ Lokey) • [The History of From Software]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8SylLKMnaGE/mqdefault.jpg)
![Gwyn's Story • Dark Souls Translated (Lore w/ Lokey) • [The History of From Software]](/img/tr.png)
Will i ever stop watching these retrospectives, probably not
:)
Here's the thing with grass:
Even ignoring that I've seen more RPGs kill themselves by screwing similar systems up than I can count, as you said, "Conceptually" doesn't matter whatsoever once the game is sold. What matters is how the player actually interacts with it. And how the player interacts with these systems is that if the resources the game initially provides are not sufficient, they will either quit or (if they have the option) they'll go and farm until they don't have to worry about it. And if a game requires you to grind or farm simply to continue, then it is wasting the player's time, which is an objective flaw in its design.
It was fun farming humanity in the depths cause the maze like sequence of the sewers and the surfing section made it fun.
when the topic of what is a soulslike comes up I always say it's not any particular element but the sum of it's parts and how everything plays together.
It's worth mentioning that the phrase about time being convoluted isn't incorrect at all. What Solaire is saying is that time is coiled, or folded in on itself. This is literally what is happening in Dark Souls 3, with layers of time being condensed into one space. It's essentially the same as time stagnating, it's just using a different word for it. Convolution in the physical sense, not the conceptual sense.
sure, but when he says "convoluted" how many people connected that to meaning "stagnant" and then went on to connect that to the other parts of the game?
Pedantic.
@@AesirAesthetics as someone who played them all, as well, that line always made sense to me. Solaire says more than just that it's convoluted. He explains, from a first person perspective, that time is hard to comprehend, and doesn't work the way one would expect. From his position, and his perpensity for jolly cooperation throughout the twisted timeline, it would be quite difficult to explain exactly why time is complicated.
Really interesting point about having to travel deep down to fight a lot of the main bosses - something I would have never noticed but sure seems it had to be intentional
Something I think Dark Souls did exceptionally well with its width of expression is contrast. Like, just look at Blighttown and Anor Londo as examples here. Both were societies complex enough they housed lots of people and could build things like huge elevators and architecture built into cliffsides and so on. One is a literal shitshow where all the poor and downtrodden lived for so long it literally turned them into a different kind of being than the people up top, even the lower class up-top folks. One is a giant, gilded city of high ceilings and grand art that maybe even had the same process of "becoming something different than human" happen in a completely different direction, making them larger than life in a literal sense. Thematically, these are polar opposites, and them being so tells a story.
And it seems to present the idea that our environment can and does impact us, even down to our physiology.
Omg, I'm your biggest fan. Lol, dude I love how passionate you are about this series. I share your passion friend, and I wish you the greatest success.
:D
yeah, what that guy said!
Thanks for all the great analyses over the years! More and more of the pieces come together with time and the hard work from people like you, Lokey, Sophie and Sin, and many more. What a great community :)
Glad you enjoyed :D
More to come!
Most powerful intro yet!
🥰
Looks like I am making popcorn at 6 in the morning. Thank you for the video Aesir!
Enjoy! :D
I’ve been playing demon souls for the first time and it’s refreshing playing a non open world soulslike after Elden ring.
@@RaxiazRedux I wish they scrapped mountaintops of the giants or consecrated snowfield and made another castle on the level of Stormveil.
@@RaxiazRedux yeah that was one of the most amazing first playthroughs I've ever had but now I really feel no urge to play through it again.
Bloodborne was the peak of Fromsoftware
Demon's Souls*
Discovered your channel a few years ago with your Silent Hill 2 analysis, I thought it was the best take on the game I had seen and I learned A LOT of things about my favourite game and loved it even more than I already did. I still think it´s the best analysis of that game I´ve seen by far. Then I checked your channel and loved your takes on pretty much everything, every single time I watch one of your videos I always learn a lot about the games I love, like Dark Souls.
I think it´s really a shame that, unless you know japanese and have the time to delve into the game´s lore with that knowledge, you never know what to trust about the clues these games give to you. Just one mistranslation in one word can destroy or fundamentally change a theory that seemed to work fine until that very moment. And I really appreciate the extensive amount of work that people like you, sinclair, lokey and more people put into all these hidden details in the translation (among other things) to give us a more accurate telling of what´s really happening in the game.
Cheers to you good sir.
I just saw your other video yesterday. So back to back fresh content from my favorite channel on a long weekend off from work, it's pretty dope.
:D
Thank you for taking the time to do this!!!
The funnest part of going through from softwares catalogue was finding a series I love and hold dear (Kings field) but also seeing what they have/may have taken from each game from the first kf to eternal ring to evergrace, and making a video dicussing that is everything I wanted!
I think the regenerator items break any cruelty found in Demon's Souls with regard to healing. Aside from minor weight concerns there is no downside to always having them on hand and you heal so fast with both equipped, saving grass for bosses. Add to that they're found quite early on and can be obtained as soon as all archstones open up after completing 1-1.
THANK YOU FOR BRINGING UP KINGS FIELD!!!!! Not many people even know about those gems of games.
👉👉
I cannot wait to devour this video which is know is gonna be epic, the Gwyn video already was so I know I'm gonna be in for a great time.
Enjoy :D
I think the idea that the Moongrass system theoretically allows the developers to be more cruel in their encounter design than the Estus system is somewhat sound, but in practice I don't feel like they end up being that different at their peaks. Cruelty came in many forms in Dark Souls, like being able to enter the Catacombs on launch and chased back by reviving skeletons, bombarded by Toxic Darts in Blighttown, letting the Channeller buff Gaping Dragon, Anor Londo archers, Sen's Fortress traps, Mimic Chests, etc.
These encounters with a grass healing system in mind, would be unbelievably cruel for first time players and arguably a more memorable experience, however the solution isn't healing but preparing correctly by bringing the proper status items to traverse these paths, routing through the area differently, or bringing alternate combat options to kill particularly dangerous enemies or avoid/prevent dangerous attacks. When you get hit by Plague in DeS, the solution is to either cure it quickly or not get hit by it and in DaS Toxic functions similarly. The functionality of the healing systems doesn't sway the event itself one way or another.
While the Moongrass system has a higher peak for player experienced stress, it comes paired with lower lows. Struggling on a boss and having limited grass means that deaths against tough bosses could just devolve into tedium. Players may end up feeling like they are fighting their own resources more than the boss and lead to suicide runs where they don't use any grass at all just to practice the fight and save on resources or break their flow and go grind for souls to stock up on the resource.
For what it's worth I really like the Moongrass system in DeS and I think it complements the game well because DeS is not trying to be an action game, it's a lot more varied than that while Dark Souls is a slower, more deliberate action game with less of the puzzle solving Demon's Souls demanded. The greater focus on action makes combat fatigue a more looming problem, and the Estus system helps alleviate that problem.
tl;dr Bloodborne's blood vial system is embarassingly bad
I wonder if making it so that the only place you could warp to is Firelink (and maybe Anor Londo) would have helped with the late game problem?
Would decrease the walk back after beating each of the 4 Lords, while retaining the need for interconnected levels...
Great video, as always!
Wow I didn't think you would release another video so soon cause I still haven't even started watching the one about Gwyn. Oh well I guess more content is still a good thing!
I am a machine 🤖
Beep beep, only make video
Thank you for making this. I love your style of analysis.
Glad you enjoyed it! :D
Another amazing watch! Thank you for such quality work!
Demon's Souls & Dark Souls really are Fromsoftware best games there also what I play regularly more so than Elden Ring but I just keeping coming back to Demon's souls and Dark souls it's not just bosses but it the level design aswell
I think you have a good point here. Ds3 bosses are way better than ds1 (not that ds1 bosses are awful), but ds1 is designed in a way where it's always fun to go through the game again. Ds3 and especially Elden ring have build variety, but both games are missing something that is also important to replay value imo. Idek if it's the world, level design, atmosphere, etc...
@@jeffu_ I agree well I enjoyed DS3 but I found it to be the easist if I'm honest like DS1 I really enjoyed more than DS3 but can understand why as DS3 is alot faster also bosses aswell but felt DS3 just has a identity problem through it tried to be like other rpgs also it was very accessible too but I find DS1 was great because it had challenge and not in its level design but with bosses also and it's little bits of lore
@@AlexanderJoneshttps personally, i struggled with ds3 and found ds1 pretty easy lol. i do agree about ds3 having an identity problem though. i felt like there was too much influence from past fromsoft games and i wasn't a fan of most of the callbacks and fanservice tbh.
Magical Forests have always been my favorite levels to explore in video games
:)
I always look forward to your uploads! I know, making these videos takes a lot of time, but that gives me the opportunity to rewatch your older vidoes and i always enjoy them as much as when they came out :D
Some, like the King's Field videos and the Sekiro commentary, i've probably rewatched like 5 times each, but i never get tired of listening to your voice. And this one is going to join the playlist!
thank you :)
I think this analysis is a little hard on Gwyn. Not that he isn't a despotic asshole, he is for sure, but that I think his fear of the dark is supposed to be understandable, and sympathetic. After all, we the players are susceptible to believing his propaganda, not primarily because it is effective on its own merit but because we are afraid of the dark as well. Dark is scary, even as it is inevitable.
vid starts at 3:35
Amazing that this lokey guy has extracted a special story many times longer than the entire written text of the game itself
Great video! Now about that moongrass...
Let me start by saying that I agree with the conclusion at the end of the segment. These changes aren't better or worse, they change the experience. Of course, to the degree that the change results in the preferred experience, it could be considered better. But what is preffered is subjective so that's up to the individual.
If the desired experience however is one of tension, then using consumable healing items (rather than checkpoint-replenishing ones) may not neccesarily be more effective at achieving that. The reason being that an important ingredient in tension is uncertainty. If you are unsure of what action to take, while having to take action, it often increases the tension in the situation.
Using moongrass may seem to create more tension due to the act of commiting resources, but this same commitment also leads to a relief of tension when considering decision-making on whether to go back or press on. The costs have been sunk and the decision seems almost obvious. This lessens the tension and sense of responsibility you feel for your choices and their consequence. Dying, after all, is all the more bitter if you had every chance to go back :)
Wowowowow, an excellently composed essay, Aesir! A great way to look back and consider these games. Well done!
I love the shots from the king of all RPGS (Morrowind) being spliced in.
I love Morrowind and would place it top 5 RPG’s easily, but I wouldn’t call it the king simply because it isn’t intuitive for someone trying to pick it up today. Compared to other classics in their respective genres (Symphony of the Night, for example) I don’t think it gets the title of “king”. More like “cool uncle who went through an edgelord phase” of RPG’s. The Allfather Lloyd of RPG’s, one might say. But that’s just my opinion!!!
I find it amusing when people take Kaath and Aldia at their word, as if either of those two are credible.
I'm so fucking hyped to watch this
enjoy!
been waiting a while for this one. I hope you can buy a boat with all the royalty ad money i give you every night when i go to bed listening to your soothing voice talking about some of my favorite games.
not yet, but it helps pay rent :)
@Hidetaka Miyazaki i make videos about your games master Miyazaki 💪
Plz give me a shoutout in the Elden Ring dlc🙏
good video I don't necessarily agree with everything but it was well put together and offered a different perspective on the game I haven't seen yet
can I know the source of demon souls development and how have they done the backstabs ?
I've seen this idea passed as fact, but I find it very weird considering it has been stated that the project that eventually became DeS had both first and third person perspectives from the start.
oh BABY
oh yeah!
Something something Dark side…we have cookies. Thanks for paying this off.
Thanks for listening
Game has a killer soundtrack
true dat
Thanks for the vid
glad you liked it :)
tl;dr-- Amazing video, holy shit.
There has been an absolute glut of DS1 retrospectives in the last year, to the point that they're all saying mostly the same popular talking points. Like, I don't think those essayists and reviewers are being disingenuous and just regurgitating points while having never played the game, but rather that there has been this silent consensus on what all can be said about DS1.
SO, I didn't watch this video at first because my brain was like "I cannot handle another hour long video about Dark Souls, saying the exact same thing." I wish I had watched this sooner, because this is such an amazing video. Obviously there are points where I disagree, but I haven't seen anything that unites Gameplay, PvP, Aesthetics, Exploration, and Lore so comprehensively in one video. I'm big on the Pvp aspects of the game, so there's a lot there that never gets covered in terms of mechanical depth between PVE and PVP balancing. I think Matthew Matosis' video may be the most PvP experience a lot of people have had with DS1, but there's so much to it.
ANYWAY, there are parts I disagree with, but I haven't had a video blow my mind and get me really thinking about the mechanics critically, and how exciting the whole design is in, like... Three years? I guess your video is kinda like when an actor reads a poem you love, and the make it absolutely new and challenging and exciting.
That's how I feel about Dark Souls right now, having watched this. Maybe I'll go off on where I disagree later. But for now, this just feels good. Fantastic video.
FIRST! damn, UA-cam actually notifying me correctly for a change lets gooooo
Interesting seeing all this rot and stagnation talk in a video written before Elden Ring.
:)
cuz of scarlet rot?
17:54 i've always wondered why so many games now have some kinda "funny" sidekick/quirky character. honestly, it's worse than an overly edgy character imo.
God damn those entry requirements, brb.
Can we expect a DS2 video some day?
probably.
Though, I imagine it would be pretty different from this
@@AesirAesthetics "probably" is good enough for me to wait even years. Hopefully this potential video will be fair. Thanks for the reply
Man can't believe Dark Souls is 11 years old now. I get so surprised when I see people that haven't played it. DaS has probably been one of the most popular non-mainstream/big developer/publisher/console manufacturer games of the decade. And without a doubt the most influential game since it's release, period. It has been talked to death about, and I would have assumed that everyone that was interested would have given it a try by now, but the zoomie younglings are getting older I guess.
I don't think there is a single player non-strategy game that I have replayed more than DaS. Never gets old. Every time I play a new FROM game, I go back and play DeS afterwards, I always get the itch. To me, together with DeS they are still FROM's Miyazaki era masterpieces (both 5 star games). ER is great despite some mechanical blunders it still carries over from BB(?), DSIII and even Sekiro (4 stars), DSIII and Sekiro are OK-ish for a single playthrough (3 stars). DSII is the only outright stinker (1 star).
Haven't played BB, seems great, on ER's level, but from what I gather it seems with BB they changed the pace of the game away from the slower and methodical combat of DeS and DaS which I love.
Also, DaS has the best poise system when it comes to PvE.
I feel this discussion lacks mentioning Ever Grace. It is clear DS´s Gameplay is a refinement of Ever Grace´s. Even thought King´s Field is the obvious souls predecessor, Dark and Demon´s souls gameplay is closer to Ever Grace´s.
Other than that, great video as always
I couldn't find an interview where any dev specifically talked about it as an influence and since I havne't played it myself, I wasn't confident in bringing it up :)
Silent hill 4 analysis when?
Me: "Why do this"
Me: "Yussssss AA bringing the DS pain"
lol
I see what you're getting at with the Moon Grass thing, but I can't say I've ever actually felt that in Demon's Souls with how incredibly easy it is to get effectively limitless healing in that game. Unless I kill Patches for no reason, I just about always have more Full Moon Grass than I could ever need less than half way through the game, and it just eliminates all of the tension for me. The encounter design could be crueler, but that cruelty doesn't amount to much if it doesn't have any consequences. Something similar could be argued for Humanities in DS1, since those are a full heal, but they're far scarcer than any of the upper tiers of Moon Grass and later games dropped them entirely. As weird as it is to say, I think Lifegems in DS2 were a substantially better execution of the idea of Moon Grass. Their slower healing means that unless you can avoid taking damage for quite a while, they aren't as practical as Estus mid-combat, so for most people they don't trivialize fights the way Moon Grass can.
I quite like the slow healing effect of the lifegems.
Not a big fan of those in general, but that much was great :D
The moongrass system worked again in DS2 with lifegems. I find lifegems tricky but it works especially when estus makes you stay put in one place. It's also fascinating early game I had to sparingly use lifegems and focus more on estus, so lifegems were highly valued more than the estus in my playthrough. As I get better, I barely need either in DS2 but I found it a interesting change.
Is fromsoft really contracted to develop more playstation exclusives? I still wonder where this voice came from, if it's confirmed or if it was just a rumor back in the days. Can someone verify?
The video was made 2 years ago and I haven't followed up on the contract since then.
This was the case before Deracine came out and I'm not sure if it counts.
Any case, Sony still has some exclusives contracted (which From might be able to buy themselves out of)
But, the final wirnkle is that that was during JapanStudio's era, and Japanese corporate culture is very relationship cetnered.
Sony basically lost all of their most talented JapanStudios staffers and the hgiherups were pilphered by other companies like NinjaTheory.
So whether or not anything will ever come of this contract is up in the air.
@@AesirAesthetics I figured as much, thanks for the reply and great video as always :>
Praise the sun my guy \[T]/
:)
Estus is great
Moongrass gang
19:10 lol
;)
King's Field is the best!!!
ye
They will bring Kings Field back. Just you wait and see folks, its gonna happen. :)
I doubt it.
King's Field was Naotoshi Zin's baby and they've gone on record saying they don't want to touch it without his involvement
@@AesirAesthetics I suppose that makes sense, I had no idea about that. Still, in my restless dreams, I see that game.
@@Kane.JimLahey. me too ;-;
Good video, great points and topics! However, it became really annoying and distracting to hear the boss soundtracks in the background. It made it hard to focus on your voice while hearing the intense music at the same time. Just a little critic :)
sadly Dark Souls does not have that much relaxing music :(
Best game.
I could listen to you talk about anything
:D
I really appreciate these, thanks again! Grass > Estus
so long as there is a grass to defend, I will be there 😤
One hundred
As the great dj khaled would say, “another one!” And the world is better for it thanks for the uploads lately
Glad you're enjoying :)
algorithm
:)
Please, Please! Go check the announcements on steam under Dark Souls. Check the discussion with 760+ comments. All being ignored by FROM.
Your one of the only ones I know who is passionate about these games with a good following.
ADDRESS THE FACT THEY TO DOWN MULTIPLAYER a couple months before releasing Elden Ring. Then lied. And have ceased to update the player base.
You. The content creators need to call them out or it will never stop. They just keep not caring. Because the content creators don’t seem to mind. But it will be the death of Souls as we know it if nothing is done. 🙏
Didn't they make some announcement a few days ago?
You must feel like kind of a jerk knowing that, as they always do, they've been quietly working on a fix for the PC servers the entire time and are close to rolling out that fix.
The red dragon can get f..ked on my Ng+ it just does not jump down and does that stupid one shot fire attack. Other than that game slaps.
I'll pay an extra two hundred to not have it NOT voiced by that hack. Please, God Almighty.
Nice soviet union joke
Yeah all these years later and dozens of video essays later…I still think wasting the player’s time by deleting their progress is a terrible design decision. It may be good for the psychology of “gamers” to feel tension and accomplished, but in terms of broader life, it doesn’t make for a good addition to it. It doubles down on the aspects of games that make them time-sinks and “achievement simulators”, both traits that make avoiding video games a good idea for a happy, productive life. And this is coming from someone that has been gaming since I was 7 years old in 1988.
Thankfully Elden Ring makes this aspect nearly moot since you can ride in on Torrent and snag your runes back in most cases. Wasting the player’s time and calling it “difficulty” has always been a cop out.
if that's how you feel, why do you even play video games?
Why dont you just watch movies if you're so hellbent on not having your time wasted by pesky game direction?
@@AesirAesthetics do you honestly stand behind that ridiculous straw man of what I wrote? You do realize that almost no games deliberately delete player’s progress as the soulsborne games do, right? That we learned a long time ago that that giving a player 3 lives and then sending them back to the beginning was anti-fun? I understand the games are popular (though I doubt this particular mechanic is solely responsible for that). But to say that my comment was “all game direction is a waste of time” is insanely disingenuous. I swear, half the time content creators interact with anyone who isn’t praising everything they say, they get all juvenile and defensive.
You can have a game exactly like dark souls without the mechanic of losing all your souls on a second death and most people wouldn’t even notice. The only real difference is some amount of frustration and time not wasted. As I said, in Elden Ring, it’s quite rare to lose all your runes and it hasn’t seemed to diminish the popularity in the slightest (if anything, it’s higher).
theres far more to learn from elden ring than dark souls 1.
Autodisliked for the plug in the beginning, not sorry I'm not sorry.
boooo!
DARK SOULS! I've been waiting for this one!
Do you have a twitter? I've been recommending your vids there to some people.
yes, I'm @AesirAesthetics on there
there's another AesirAesthetics who's a recovering heroin addict, beware that you go to the right one