Tomb of the Giants is my favourite vacation spot

Tomb of the Giants is one of the best areas in the game. Come at me.

Seriously though, I thoroughly enjoyed the Tomb, but it seems like the DS and GB community consensus is that it's one of the worst areas in the game. I'll agree that some of the areas and enemies post-Crystal Caves don't stack up to the rest of the game, but just watching Vinny play through the Tomb convinced me to get Dark Souls and play the hell out of it.

Why do you not love the Tomb? Love the Tomb.

I don't understand the Tomb hate. I think it's a great kick in the balls to any new player that arrives without a light source. It's a very imposing place. The view to Ash Lake and Lost Izalith is a great way to show how everything connects.

You should already have that necromancer head lamp by the time you get there. At least every time I played one of them would drop that lamp. I'd say Lost Izalith is the worst area in the game, that area is just wholly bland.

Because a lot of the enemies are immune to magic and it's dark as hell, making for a very tedious part of the game.

It's nowhere near as bad as Blight town, but still, I didn't enjoy that place at all.

I have no love for Tomb. But I really enjoyed Sen's Fortress. It felt like some old school video game ass video game shit.

I think the Tomb is great. It's intimidating, but I understand why a lot of players don't like it. I came late to the party on Dark Souls but it was before the 1.5 patch that made the game more forgiving. You have to remember that skull lanterns weren't guaranteed drops before 1.5, I don't think, so the Tomb was just a giant "haha you're fucked" to a lot of people.

That's not to say some of the enemy encounters down there don't suck because they absolutely do. There's no space to really dodge so you have to block a lot of feral skeleton attacks and pray that they don't bust out the hundred hand slap E. Honda style. Dark Souls is at its best when it's challenging but fair, and parts of the Tomb really aren't fair.

I did Tomb of the Giants before Crystal Cave, and I did not mind it at all.

But, but, those feral skeleton dog monster things are the bane of my Dark Souls existence.

Nope.

I love that area in the same way I love Blighttown and The Depths. These levels are so beautifully ugly and uncomfortable and they invoke a fascinating sense of desperation and disorientation. I just loved the intensity.

That is exactly why I loved the TotG even more in vanilla Dark Souls. Getting cursed and lost in The Depths, the maddening descend into Blighttown and being surrounded by pitch black darkness in the TotG were probably the most intense Dark Souls experiences. These are the kinds of gaming moments that stick with me for years to come.

I'd be a lot more into the design elements of Blighttown if the framerate didn't tank while going through there. From a technical perspective, it's pretty awful

People don't like it because it's not designed well. The area is more frustrating than challenging. They took the 4-2 area from Demon's Souls and decided to turn off the lights. Even with a light source it's quite frankly boring and a nuisance to traverse.

Compared to the rest of the game it's probably the laziest and worst designed "dungeon" out there. At least Blighttown and the Depths have character. I can see people not minding it, but for anyone to say that out of the entirety of Dark Souls that is their favorite area? Let's be serious.

I like it, if only for the fact that so few games actually have any truly pitch-black areas in them where you can't even see something that's directly in front of you. Usually, even the "dark" areas in most games can easily be traversed without too much trouble, but TotG pretty much requires you to have some sort of light source in order to even be in there. Assuming you don't have the Sunlight Maggot (and I think that most first-time players generally wouldn't), it creates a pretty tense and suspenseful area when you're forced to keep pulling out your lantern, giving up one of your hands in the process.

Really? Lazier than just making the floor invisible?

I love the pitch black. I love how helpless you feel in an incredibly hostile environment. Having to manage defense/offense with being able to see (ala Doom 3) is super exciting for me. I never really knew where I was until I had explored the whole thing, which was refreshing for me. I love exploring and feeling like I'm in a place I've never been, and the Tomb nails that atmosphere.

It's not my favourite area, but it's very far from my least.

I like Tomb of the giants, but it's the scariest area in the game imo. I wouldn't hang out there, myself.

Yes because if you just stand still for 2 seconds you clearly see the sparkle indicating where you have to go, not to mention the plethora of signs if you're playing online. In Tomb of Giants you literally cannot see and even lanterns don't alleviate this issue that well - not to mention that the entire place is a maze of sorts just to make it that much more annoying.

I wont say that I love it , but definitely one of the most intense moments I had in Dark Souls and Im thankful for that (aka most people are whiny little boys/girls who cant stand being scared of the unkown)

There's something amazing about how From Software's level design in the Tomb of the Giants works to control the pace of the gameplay. I have a feeling those who really dislike the Tomb were resistant to that.

Each to their own. I honestly loved it. Especially on my first playthrough ... without any light source until you find the skull lantern in the pit (vanilla Dark Souls). I don't think there is anything lazy about this area. There are lights on the walls of the area as well btw. They even glow for some time when you don't have the lantern out.

The tombs were fucking intense