Hello Giant Bombers, I'm writing this as a tool that hopefully will be read by those who might be turned off by Ryan and Jeff's opinions on Dark Souls and to see what the game is like for me, someone who didn't play Demon Souls, but learned how to operate in the Dark Souls world and have a great time.

*I am NOT a Demon Souls fanboy, never played it, no ps3. I am not defending a game simply because I like it, I take Jeff and Ryan into consideration with most game purchases and I just think that some of their base opinions (yes, calm down) swayed a little bit too far in the cast, a rare occurrence in the beautiful weekly cast. (castlevania was a good game though)

This may be a weird layout because I don't post my thoughts often, but I'll break the game down a bit.

1) Mentality Shift

This game does not tell you that you are not ready for an area. The game will not tell you that you need fire to kill an enemy. The game will not tell you to run. You need to adapt in order to understand the way this game is played. Master the small things and learn the big things and quickly you will see in the 3 hours that the big are small.

It is okay to use a guide to stop the one time death fighting level 40 mobs at level 1 at the beginning of the game, if that's your thing. Me, I just understood that when I hit a skeleton for 1/100th of his life, its time to go. This happens usually after each major area you accomplish, so realize where the difficulty is too much for your character, its relatively easy to see how much damage you do to the enemies.

Fights ARE avoidable if you are unprepared, even in areas you THOUGHT you can handle. If the game gives you an item before a massive enemy, and you just run up swing your sword and get rocked. . . .

Sometimes, there are just badass monsters chillin the the 'lowbie' zones. Learn who they are and what they look like and how to not attack them or this will be a no souls for you situation, the game never throws you at a brick wall in the pre 15 hour mark.

There is usually more than 1 way around everything. This game is littered with help, tips, secrets, passages, and u can sprint really damn fast. There is usually a way around.

2) Controls/Enemy Placement/Group Attacks:

Dark Souls hosts a very unique control scheme that gives you complete control over the flow of a battle. You've seen how the block(and or roll) mechanic is key and mastering the regeneration of your stamina is taught to you very early on when you need to choose between swinging or quickly saving for a block. What they neglected to discuss was Invincibility during Parry attacks. Also in the early game, when you meet the spear wielding skeletons you learn the emphasis of timing and parry attacks. When a group of 5 mobs attacks you, parry the first and watch as 4 skeletons are poking at you as you murder their buddy while regaining stamina for the next block or fire turd thats aimed for your face. Honestly though, these group attacks are usually avoidable and you can brainpower your way to fighting 2 or 3 at a time.

Learn from your mistakes or die often. If the enemy can parry your quick attack and kill you in one hit, don't quick attack him. Just a little tip by the way, i've found the jumping forward attack to be incredibly useful in many, many situations, experiment will all of your attacks and positioning. I suffered a few death runs to shitty monsters who I usually beat because I played cocky, too close, and got murdered. But with jump attacks, rolling back, and repeating, you put the enemy in your death zone and they actually get scared of you. This being said, what they don't tell you is the reason why the game gives you 100 different weapons is that different weapons are good against specific enemies, good to play around alot-it is a game after all.

3) Gotta go but might finish this later just wanted to say something about 'fuck i lost my 20000 souls'

It matters, but it doesn't. This game is an exercise in learning not in loot whoring, death counting or complaining. What is more important than losing the 20000 souls or the humanities or the anything is the learning from it. Your character will never die forever, he will remain on your console waiting for you to dust him off 5 years from now to make him a deadly warrior god regardless if u have 1000000 souls banked or none. All that you have to do is use what the game gives you, which is a lot more than the bombcasters seem to know and read between the lines to complete something truely old school and fulfilling.

CHECK everywhere, map or no map your brain as the power to remember this relatively tiny world every passage and corridor, and there are many secrets that I would consider to be...not..optional...

Happy Gamings,

I think particularly Jeff and Ryan have lost the mentality of taking on a real challenge in a game. It probably happens for some people when they grow older and priorities change. When I hear Ryan talking about how he plays games on easy (games that already ARE easy) just to get the achievements, for example, I'm just as puzzled as they are when they hear about how much people love Demon's/Dark Souls. I'm incredibly bored when I play games on easy or even normal these days. There is just no challenge anymore and it often keeps me from getting immersed into a game. It's casual gaming what they are looking for, in a true sense ... even with games like Modern Warfare, Gears etc.. They are looking for instant and short rushes of joy. They want to be eased into a game, carefully led through it and be done within a short time - and there's nothing wrong with this either. Sinking their teeth into something is not really their thing anymore it seems.

Excellent post. If I can add a couple things...

One thing I think a lot of people think coming into this game is that since they are experienced gamers, they are going to die less that the rest. Sure, that might be true, but less than the rest still equates to crazy amounts of dying. People get so frustrated by dying that they don't see the benefits of it. You now know the enemy locations, the attacks they use, etc. Use it to your advantage.

Also, people tend to rush after dying to get back to their spot to regain their souls. Your souls aren't going anywhere, take your damn time. I can't tell you how many times I died when I first started playing Demon Souls on the trivial enemies all because I was rushing to my blood stain. In the end, I wound up losing everything because I wasn't careful.

Finally, if you want a good starting class - go with the Sorcerer. He gets a nice bolt spell and you an then level him up to whatever you want after you start. The classes are all about beginning survivability and that bolt spell will get you out of a lot of troubling situations. It 1 hit kills a lot of early mobs, 2 hit kills the rest.

Hope my additions helped anyone that needed it.

@CptBedlam: Well I dont think they are entirely aversive to a challenge its just that Dark Souls takes the idea of a challenging game to the Nth degree. Considering their job consists of playing tons of games for purposes not entirely related to having fun, if they are going to spend their free time playing a game they are most likely going to choose one that they will enjoy and be able to get through. It also doesn't help that people focus on the soul crushing difficulty of the game but not the immense feeling of triumph you get when you finally topple that obstacle that caused you to die dozens of times over that past hour.

Jeff and Ryan should not get anywhere near games with real challenge like Dark Souls, plain and simple.
 
Seriously more than once have I heard Ryan say something like "yeah I'm playing the game on easy because there was no achievement for playing it on normal or hard", so it is clear that challenge doesn't factor with him anymore, he's in for the stupid achievements and to have his hand held every step of the way from the start with no consequences to death.
 
Also they always whine about animations taking too long and leaving you vulnerable, rolling away breaks any attack animation and so does blocking, I really don't know what their problem with that is.

I don't know, but I kinda feel that only those of us that grew up on games where you had to figure shit out for yourself are truly ready to play DS. I mean, these days there's big headlines, glowing weakspots, and button prompts that take all of that discovery out of gaming. Sure it's proven to be successful to the industry, but anyone that has gotten used to that hand holding are not going to be ready when Dark Souls doesn't offer you that helping hand.

I mean, as a kid my brother and I would rent a game for the weekend and half of the fun was to discover everything for yourself. I'm excited to actually get my hands on DS and figure everything out again for myself.

Their is a large amount of discovery in Demon's Souls (and I'd assume Dark Souls) and I think that is something that is very interesting about the game. The only time i thought things were too rough in Demon's Souls was some of the boss fights like the Flame Lurker or the Maneaters. Also world tendency and upgrading weapons were a pain to manage for me.

I know Jeff and Ryan have a tendency to just skip tutorials. I feel like that is a no-no, and kind of makes it evident that maybe it isn't the games fault you don't understand what's going on. Sometimes a game having a learning curve is a good thing. Some people say adding RPG elements to a game is a good idea, but what if your progression in a game wasn't on a meta level, but instead you actually learning about the world your in, understanding the mechanics of a game and how using them can come to your advantage. That I think is far more interesting than unlocking more agility by X amount of EXP. I think many fighting games, and games like Vanquish and Bayonetta start off some what difficult, but you learn, you get better and its something you achieved.

Also some games are meant to be played a different difficulties, games like Halo, Vanquish, Bayonetta, Uncharted, and Gears of War all gave an interesting challenge when played on a higher difficulty. But something like Just Cause 2 or Saints Row isn't really all there when it comes to shooting, so those games just get frustrating on higher difficulty.

I haven't played either but what you're saying is exactly the way I perceive the games - and it makes me giddy. Good post, can't wait until friday.

I don't know, but I kinda feel that only those of us that grew up on games where you had to figure shit out for yourself are truly ready to play DS. I mean, these days there's big headlines, glowing weakspots, and button prompts that take all of that discovery out of gaming. Sure it's proven to be successful to the industry, but anyone that has gotten used to that hand holding are not going to be ready when Dark Souls doesn't offer you that helping hand.

I mean, as a kid my brother and I would rent a game for the weekend and half of the fun was to discover everything for yourself. I'm excited to actually get my hands on DS and figure everything out again for myself.

Jeff and Ryan just needs to get better at gaming. That's usually the community advice for people who make topics about games that beat them down.

I wish people wouldn't focus so much on the difficulty and sense of accomplishment as THE selling point. It's like Jeff said, that just seems like a byproduct, but not enough of a hook to get most gamers interested.

Personally, what made me stick with Demon's Souls in the first place wasn't the challenge, but rather how fascinating the world was. It's just a beautifully haunting game full of bizarre creations, unique game systems and secrets to uncover. I get the same feeling of restrained design and sense of beautiful isolation that I get from something like say, Shadow of the Collossus. It's subtle and smart.

If it weren't for all these other virtues, I might have been scared off playing the game, well before I got a chance to realize the inherent joys of its difficulty.

This holds true for Dark Souls as well.

That thing with the dragon just smacks to me of old school gaming. It's the stuff you hear only in hearsay and you have to try it out for yourself. Kinda like the stuff you would talk about at the playground during recess.

"Hey, have you tried shooting arrows at that dragon's tail? If you do, you can kill it, and you get a cool new item" You know, stuff that the majority of people would not even think about, but it's in the game for those that might try it.

Pro tip, as you get older you get more impatient. I've found myself wondering what happened to me lately, as I used to love games that took forever to do anything, where I could micromanage every small detail about a game, and get lost in a storyline. These days though, after I purchase a game I "believe" I should love, I realize after getting bored with it in an hour that unfortunately my taste in games must just be changing. I seem to need more of an immediate gratification now, at least a faster moving game that pushes the user further on. I attribute this to getting older, and being a 'veteran' gamer who has played everything out there.

So I can relate to Jeff and Ryan's views on this game, and games like it. Do I love games like this still? Yes, but it is more of an appreciation for what it is. I'll play it, but I'm sure I'll get tired of it after 10 hours like I did the first one.

So no, I don't think Jeff and Ryan need to get "better at gaming" like someone mentioned above, and I don't think it has anything to do with 'kids these days can't handle a long, slow video-game'. It has to do with patience, and I believe patience is the first thing to go as a gamer gets older. At least in my experience. Dissing Ryan because he wants to play easy-mode? Challenges are one thing, ramping up difficulty by turning x, y, and z values higher then normal has always been a dumb way to increase difficulty....so I don't blame him for easy-moding most games these days.

It sounded like some of jeff's frustrations were from just not finding the right path to take. I stumbled across all the areas that he mentioned when I was exploring after finding undead burg. I can definitely see why that would make someone drop the game if they didn't know there was somewhere easier to go. Especially when you have the master key. So many hidden paths that it unlocks lead straight to your death. Although I can't see him or Ryan liking it either way. It's just not the kind of game that's for everybody. Hopefully Brad finds a way to enjoy it though.

fuckum dawg-- this is easily one of my favorite games ever but it's certainly not for everyone. I did the exact same thing as Jeff when I first jumped into the game, so I can totally see where he's coming from. Those ghosts must have killed me 20 times. I wonder if he'd be singing a different tune if he had stumbled upon that staircase to Undead Burg like I eventually did after about a half hour.

oh, and that bell you just heard? totally me