GotG Quarterfinals: Dark Souls vs. Red Dead Demption

I think you might be underestimating how many people didn't really find RDR that amazing. While Dark Souls certainly was high on my top 10 in the other gotg thread, I never even considered Red Dead for my list at all. Not because I think it's a bad game or anything, but there were plenty of games I'd easily pick over it. In some way I have the same kinda bewilderment about why people adore RDR so much as many people have about Dark Souls.

Jeff was dismissive of RDR and Vinny loves Dark Souls. You're probably looking at a 30 point swing in favour of Dark Souls just from that alone.

Personally, I kinda agree that RDR is one of the more overrated games of the generation. It's still a great game, but I don't think it's the masterpiece many see it as.

Nah, I think a big majority on this site would put RDR on their top 10 list of this generation, the thread of people compiling their top 10 GotG proved as much. I just think people really, really loved Dark Souls.

And as for what @bobafettjm said: My experience is that "core gamers" (oh, how I hate that expression) in general really loves Dark Souls. To give you an example: Dark Souls will most likely be NeoGAF's GotG, if they do a poll on it. It's by far the most loved game of the generation on that forum, the biggest gaming forum on the internet. So I'm thinking you're just visiting the "wrong" parts of the internet if you haven't encountered a single person who likes the game outside of this community.

I don't think the LOLS series in itself has much to do with this community's love for Dark Souls. You gotta remember that a big part of why Vinny started that series was because of the huge demand for it, and Jeff said on his Tumblr that LOLS was by far the thing GB has done lately that has attracted the most new subs. So there was a BIG demand for this before Vinny started playing it.

I just think DS is the perfect game for core gamers. It's hard, the combat is extremely rewarding and it has a big community of like minded people. That's why a community like this one, where almost everyone can be described as a "core gamer", has such a large fanbase of DS compared to the general public.

Dark Souls man.

OOooo woow, totaly a tough call. RDR should get the praise for the ballsiest/best ending of the generation.

Voted Dark Souls thou. That game is really special and there are not many games like it (for better or for worse).

This is going to be more heated than the Walking Dead vs Last of Us

I love both games but I voted for Dark Souls even after;

RED DEAD BETTER WIN THIS SHIT.

Seriously of all the games that were in the previous round Dark Souls was the only one where I felt I had to cheese just to make forward progress. Video games shouldn't encourage you to break the game systems just to make it to the end. If you're going to accept killing a dragon by making him clip through the game world and call that revolutionary design then I feel bad for you. There may have been glitches in Red Dead but almost none of them interrupted or even affected progress through the main game. All I know is there has not been a spaghetti western experience as fully realized as Red Dead Redemption in the history of games (sorry Law of the West). There have always been difficult games in a dark fantasy setting and while Dark Souls may be one of the most punishing it's not necessarily the best. It may have soul but it doesn't have the heart of something like RDR.

I really, really can't seem to find the appeal everyone here has for Dark Souls.

It is a game that encourage perfect knowledge or perfect memory. There is little in the way of skills if the strategy for beating a boss is "stand behind that wall and clip hit it to death..."; however, every time I hear one of those stories about being killed for a falling rock that you had no way to avoid unless you already knew it was there, it sounds like a terrible way to design a game.

On the other hand, the monsters and setting design seems rather generic: fight Minotaur in a castle, fight skeletons in a cemetery, fight lizard men in a cave, fight dragon in a tower, fight knight armor in a catacomb... There is little there that I haven't seen on a D&D manual.

@mezmero: The game definitely does not require you to cheese. Every single encounter is legitimately beatable in various ways. Just because you can cheese a couple of fights doesn't mean you have to.

I don't even know what boss you're talking about. And the game certainly requires memory for boss patterns etc. but far from "perfect" memory. The biggest requirements for surviving boss fights and encounters in general are caution, patience, paying attention to your surroundings and quick reactions (it kind of also depends on what build you're playing).

And I find the art design in Dark Souls FAR from generic.

@hermes said:

Are you talking about Ceaseless Discharge? If so, that's not a clipping strategy, he was purposefully designed to attack you and leave his tendril behind for a while as it actually makes him beatable. There is no clipping going on unless you count his massive tendril being too big for the small crevice you are hiding in, which is the only place to hide and avoid him.

There is also no falling rock that kills you instantly. At the beginning of the game there is a boulder that rolls down some steps as you climb them, but it only takes a small portion of your health and is there to smash a wall behind you so you can get a necessary item. The only other falling thing I can think of is a flaming barrel that an NPC kicks at you as you come towards him, but if you look ahead you can see the guy standing there in front of it. It's easy to avoid.

I also beat a decent number of bosses on my first try simply by being cautious and watching their patterns, so no, there is no need for perfect knowledge or memory. There is need for caution and bad decisions are punished accordingly. You won't be forgiven for making bad decisions, and in almost every case where you die, you will feel it was because you made a bad decision or executed your plan poorly. People don't tout about Dark Souls for being hard but fair for no reason. It's a very fair game.

The .gif of Vinny dying by being kicked off a cliff looks unfair, but the game has you well trained by that point not to just charge forward without looking. Vinny charged and was punished accordingly.

I had to log in on my phone to vote Dark Souls.

Dark souls made me cry in frustration, but Red Dead made me cry from pure emotional anguish from the superb storytelling. I valued both of those moments of tears immensely, but Red Dead had a more lasting impact on me overall.

The point is there's absolutely nothing that discourages you from cheesing. If something works then you just shrug and accept it. Also you can very possibly run into a character build that just doesn't work in a specific circumstance. I'd be shocked if people didn't start over multiple times when that happens even if I didn't. If the game happens to break while you're playing are you saying you're NOT going to take full advantage and cheese it? When these two golems just get stuck walking into each other endlessly and are completely open to attack I'm not going to say "I better turn around and reset the bonfire to make it fair for these enemies." Hell no, I'm going to blast the crap out of these helpless enemies with magic and move on with my game. Don't even get me started on leashing mobs to thin out certain sections.

This is basically the final to me, the only real close call. I'll give it to Dark Souls.

Of course Mass Effect 2 will win, which I enjoyed, but it's not up to either of this selections caliber. Just remember when your voting, that after forming your team to go on your epic suicide mission, you fight a giant terminator made of human bits.

@mezmero: I stopped leashing mobs a long timr ago and now just rush in and hope for the best. Leashing is bettet served as a tool to make encounters more managable while learning enemy positions. its totally possible to run in and do things uncaringly, but the games emphasis on memorization makes that hard for new players and only rewards veterans.

Dark Souls deserves this win. It was just a completely unique and new experience when it came out. Red Dead - while great - was just GTA in the midwest (which is awesome nonetheless but not as profound as Dark Souls.)

Red Dead Redemption by a small margin - a very small margin. I like to think that story in games is becoming more and more important, and while Dark Souls has the more challenging gameplay by far (RDR's gunplay was essentially tap the aim button, tap the fire button, tap the aim button, tap the fire button and the rest of it wasn't difficult in the slightest), Dark Souls did not have a story that pulled me in or made me care. I wanted to get through Dark Souls because it was a challenge and it was interesting to play, but I honestly can't say that I gave two-shits about ANY of the characters in the game, ever. I actually did care about RDR's characters, to some extent.

Completely unique? Sure, if you ignore Demon Souls being the same game, yeah. But if you did that you're a bit thick. This isn't a criticism of Dark Souls, merely of your point.

I'm totally fine with Dark Souls or Mass Effect 2 winning GotG. \o/ They are just THAT good!

There is no way to say this without sounding smug, so here goes anyway; just because you had to resort to cheese tactics doesn't mean the game required it. There are a multitude of ways to approach every enemy in the game legitimately with a variety of tactics that fit an equal variety of play styles. I assume the dragon you are referring to is the red dragon on the bridge in the early game; the entirely by-passable dragon that in no way should have been an impediment to forward progress. The same dragon you could kill by firing a single arrow at it from atop the tower behind him. This was a bug that people exploited because they wanted an easy break, or were incapable of dealing with it otherwise. No one considered the exploitable bug to be "revolutionary design," and it was fixed shortly after release. The only predominant glitches/exploits in Dark Souls are those that actually help you succeed, not interrupt you from proceeding, and many of them were fixed.

It hardly requires "perfect knowledge" or "perfect memory." It requires patience, awareness, tactics, and adaptability. The bosses don't even execute patterns (doing actions in a preset order so you know exactly when you need to attack, etc.) What they do have are tells. You need to be able to read the enemy and react accordingly. Vinny's fight with Artorias is the perfect example. He didn't memorize a predetermined pattern, he actively learnedas he fought him and developed a winning strategy over time through experience.

Also, "being killed for a falling rock that you had no way to avoid unless you already knew it was there" sounds like something someone would say if they have never played the game. The only instance I can think of in the game where you would have no way of preparing for a surprise instant death is the first (and only the first) time you encounter a mimic chest. All of the other scenarios (of which there are few) where a rock rolls down a staircase of something like that, there is always context that will prepare you to avoid it if you are paying attention, and they very rarely kill you instantly unless you are at low health or something.

And with the enemy designs...regardless of whether you find them especially original or not still says nothing of their artistic merit. Dark Souls has some really cool looking enemies, and some of the best looking armor I've seen in video games. And the enemy aesthetics aren't necessarily the draw...it's the fact that every time you encounter a new enemy type, you know they are gonna have some way of fucking wrecking you, but you have no idea how. It makes combat really tense and exciting.

I see, so even after I beat the game I still suck because I'm not as fast or efficient as people who play it obsessively. I'm a wizard, and that sounds fucked up.

@bushpusherr: A simple typo "where I felt I had to cheese". That should clear things up. No need to get worked up about it. First impressions are important for every game ever made and if things happened a certain way for me than it did for you then there's nothing I can do about that.

Sorry, but this line is total bullshit. The game is totally beatable at Soul Level 1 (which I did), because you can totally maintain parity with the increasing enemy difficulty by upgrading weapons and armor. There is no reason any character of any build couldn't adjust their tactics to fit a given scenario, unless they are just too stubborn to adapt.

And what discourages someone from cheesing? It's fucking boring. Have fun testing the leash limits of mobs all you like, but realize that all you are doing is wasting your own time. Two golems getting stuck against each other is hardly a major shortcut, you'd think that every boss in the game has a significant exploit the way you talk.

And not sure what about my last response made you think I was "all worked up." Keeping it pretty civil.

I don't think I can vote in this one. Both games could easily take the title. They're both absolutely incredible. I can't do it.

I CAN'T DO IT.

Again, Dark Souls is great, but Red Dead should win this. (although so far I've been wrong almost every time it seems)

Everyone left: vote for Red Dead, we'll get this shit to 50/50!

This is great, the votes keep flip flopping. REAL MATCH!

John Marston has a Dark Soul

I'm going to pull from my 2000 experience and say that people were confused by the ballot. They read the topic and saw Dark Souls and Red Dead Demption. There's a chance that people didn't think Red Dead Demption and Red Dead Redemption are the same thing. It might not be a large number but in a race as close as this, we can't take any chances. We're probably going to have a recount.

I'm going to pull from my 2011 experience and say that Dark Souls is a better game because I still play it from time to time, despite getting it before RDR, a game I don't play at all. Also, I've completed Dark Souls a half-dozen times, and I don't even know where my RDR copy is.

You guys are crazy, RDR was a good game, but it's not Dark Souls damnit. A lot of you people are pointing out stuff in Dark Souls that is just plain wrong/misinformation. I know you guys have no interest in the game whatsoever but you should at least look up some of this stuff properly. Dark Souls gives you a lot of clues as to what's going to happen. If you pay attention to your surroundings, even if you don't know something's going to happen from previous experience or watching something else, you can always find clues as to dangers. All you had to do was look up the stairs before going up to see that there was a huge ball there. The dragon bridge is full of burn marks. All the levels are designed very specifically, and items are placed in spots to make you go there to see or find things.

While we're on this topic, the story of Dark Souls and the characters is also extremely unique and quite amazing. It's a world where you can't trust anything characters tell you, or even item descriptions, you need to watch and learn for yourself what the truth is. Also, each character has a backstory and storyline throughout the game. There's a character where you help them everytime you see them and become best buddies with them, but because you've helped them everytime you cause them to go hollow. Also i'll point out that the endings of Dark Souls are pretty deep themselves, and when you think about them they actually are more the opposite of what they initially seem.

RDR is a great game, but it's still just another open world game. One that'd done well admittedly, and with a unique setting and fairly good story, however it's still yet another game in that genre. Dark Souls is more of an emerging genre, one that people seem to enjoy and are taking ideas from and using in other games, and that's why i believe Dark Souls should take this more than Red Dead Redemption.

Biggest Myth about Dark Souls? Its just so hard you'll cry, people who like it are just masochistic.

I'm no gaming god, but Dark Souls was not hard. Super meat boy is purposely hard, Dark Souls just requires you to become good at the fighting mechanics (god forbid). At no point did I die multiple times for the same reason, as it always VERY obvious why you died, so the next time you can adapt. 90% of the game you don't die in the first place because you play cautiously, and try and discover what this new fucked up enemy is about. I'll admit some boss fights are hard and seem unfair, and require 'cheesing', but hard boss fights is every game ever.

The game is about mechanics, its a GAME, its not a film you can just watch. That's the reason its so fresh and people love it.

Yeah. Not to take anything away from Dark Souls. But, yeah.

Dark Souls.

It is the only game I can remember that has made me want to go out of my way to get better at it by learning attack patterns and the like. Other games that would've lead to frustration, Dark Souls made me want to get better at the game

@amyggen: When I said I hadn't encountered a single person that enjoyed it I meant off of the internet, as in real life. I have noticed a lot of people who love it outside of Giant Bomb on the internet.

But can you ride a horse in Dark Souls or shoot a six gun?

Also, turning down the auto-aim settings in RDR made the combat more difficult and interesting in a way that is similar to what everyone says is so great about DS.

Read Dead.

RDR is an excellent game that comes close to being completely ruined by Rockstar's poor storytelling habits. Dark Souls has its problems, but it never pissed me off the way RDR did. I'll admit it's not completely fair to judge a game by it's cutscenes, but Rockstar is so in-your-face with it that I think it's allowed in this case.

I voted Dark Souls, but being able to shoot your horse in the back of the head while riding is almost enough to make me regret my vote.

You guys are wrong. DS was utterly beloved here long before Vinny started to play it. People were always crazy about it, begged the crew to play it, wanted Rorie to join so he could play the Souls games, loved it when Ryan played it for two hours on the Welcome back, Tricaster-show. And other places do have the same love for DS as a big part of the GB community has. Yes, since 2011, the rows of DS fans have grown, but it has not much to do with Vinny doing this feature.

At the same time, people were always critical of Jeff dismissing both RDR and the Souls games. Him hating great games has become somewhat of a running gag if you haven't noticed. I doubt Jeff swayed anyone's opinion on those games.

Since I agree with you, and have also been "wrong" a bunch of times, I'm going to say that everybody else is wrong.

M'kay.

I really don't like the misconception that Dark Souls is 'all about memorization' or that you'll die in the game from something that was unavoidable (unless you had already played through said section).

It's dumb. There is never a moment where that is the case. The closest things are the dragon bridge at the start of the game and the 1st time you encounter a mimic. Even then, however, both have tells that it is going to happen. You see the dragon way early on in the game -- and the mimics will look slightly different (I forget how) from other chests.

Other than that though nothing in that game is going to be you just memorizing stuff.

IMO, I think anyone who is doubting Dark Souls needs to watch VInny's fight with Artorias in the last Dark Souls playthrough. It is absolutely a perfect example of an incredible encounter and what Dark Souls is all about.

ps: The ceasless discharge you can cheese if you want. It's the only boss where something like that is really possible though.

RED DEAD

While I love me some RDR (it has one of the best endings in video game history I think) I just have to give it to Dark Souls.
For some reason it has profoundly hit me in a way that makes it the undisputed Game of the Generation for me. Maybe it is the combat, the tough but fair difficulty, the art style or maybe the sparse way it tells the stories contained in the game. And man, the stories... while RDR has a brilliant story that everyone who play the game get to hear, DS has so many great (and depressing) stories hidden away.
This guy does a great job with shedding more light on those stories. Spoilers, of course....

But even though I voted for DS, I'll be happy if RDR wins. Both games are on my top five of this generation.

The name Rockstar more than makes up for that, though. It's become a selling point.