Demon's Souls > Dark Souls > Dark Souls 2

Nuff said.

I think they are both equally good. There are just slight differences between the two and people tend to like one or the either apparently.

I like both equally.

Dark Souls is the better game overall to me primarily because it had a clear identity. Dark Souls II is trying so hard to be Dark Souls that it's barley it's own game, all the way down to the lore.

Not the mention the game seems more focused on being mean rather than challenging. Really, everything I think is wrong with Dark Souls II is in the opening cutscene where the old lady basically says "We made a video game where you dye a lot because it's called Dark Souls II."

That being said, is still a really good game. Just fuck the Frigid Outskirts. Worse than 5-2.

Dark Souls 2 is just a carbon copy of Dark Souls without the atmosphere, heart (or lack of) and any of the challenge, skill or learning requirements. The only thing Dark Souls 2 improved upon was the quantity of broken enemy's, cheap instant deaths, re-skinned enemies, non story and borrowed assets. Demon Souls and Dark Souls were they're own games with similarities; Attack animations, death penalties and spells for example. But they were there own distinct games. Dark Souls 2 is just more of Dark Souls. Not "More" , "More of" , Dark Souls 2 is a re-skin they slapped together in an effort to grab every bodies money. Dark Souls is the superior game to Dark Souls 2 (IMO) but I would rather play Demon Souls given the choice.

Yeah, I think that's a pretty safe assumption. For as much as Dark Souls 2 is mechanically superior, it lacks a certain je ne se quois that made the original (and to a similar extent, Demon's Souls) unique. It's a video game sequel rather than an enigma, crafted by designers rather than seemingly out of thin air.

Or, to get less flowery: The boss encounters are uninspired (Oh hey, another large dude with a big sword whom I have to avoid by dodging?) and the level design isn't as strong.

Dark Souls is too oppressive (mechanically, visually, etc.). Dark Souls II eases up on a lot of that oppression, adds more visual diversity, and just makes the whole experience of being in that world more enjoyable. Is it less cohesive? Yes, but it's still a world I'd much rather be in.

I'm not an expert so I can't comment on the quality of the combat. Both games felt similar enough for me not to notice any nuanced differences. That said, I much preferred a lot of the more peripheral system choices in Dark Souls II (teleporting from the start, the new durability system, etc.).

Dark Souls 2 from a game design perspective is better, but in terms of art and story DS1 is superior in every way.

For me, Dark Souls II was a mixed bag of mechanical/technical improvements in certain areas and glaringly noticeable steps backwards/oversights in others.

For every awesome monster, place, weapon move-set, or piece of atmosphere, etc. I can think of, I can come up with some other equivalent that was equally as lame or seemingly unfinished/lazy/tacked-on in its own way.

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy playing DS2 and am currently working through the last piece of DLC, but that's more because, apart from Demon's Souls which I have yet to play due to not owning a PS3 (something I hope to change soon as there's a lot of exclusive content I've been wanting over the years for it that I can now indulge in rather cheaply), I really can't get this type of experience anywhere else and that core identity that attracted me to the first Souls remains more or less functionally intact.

I think the base game of DSII is weaker than the first. However, the DLC is far and away the best stuff I've seen from any of the other games, Demon's Souls included. It debunks the entire "this was made by the B-team, thus inferior" argument people made back in March/April. The "B-team" is capable of creating the best stuff in the series, when not pressured into getting a product on shelves ASAP.

The first Souls game people play is their favorite.

This is definitely a factor. These games are novel experiences, and a big part of that aspect fades on your second Souls game.

@fredchuckdave: Yeah, a lot of the bosses with slow but strong hits seemed to get new players good. I remember seeing a lot of summoners die at Last Giant and the Old King. Occasionally Vendrick as well, which was a little bit annoying since he took longer to kill. That was still my favorite farming spot though, people appreciated the help in the corridor outside.

I prefer the first game. demon's souls is better then both. But all three are great games. In my opinion.

Dark Souls 2 did a lot of great things and made some cool tweaks, but personally for me the original Dark Souls is much better. Dark Souls 2 is a great game, while I'd say the original Dark Souls is generation defining and a personal all time favorite.

The original does the two most important things better which is why I couldn't consider 2 as an equal game. The world and bosses. Perhaps because these were two of the biggest failings (failings in the sense that it didn't live up) I could never hold the sequel up to the original. The world in the first game is just so amazing. I mean the first time you take the elevator down from the undead parish and all the sudden your like "oh shit, this is firelink shrine" is awesome. As it's been said before the interconnected world is really a marvel. All that of that helps to lead to the atmosphere just being superior. The world they built for one and the atmosphere that came from it was just something that would be hard to stand up to.

And the bosses, in Dark Souls 2 they just simply weren't as memorable and cool. With too many of them just resorting to throwing multiple enemies at once. I can still remember each boss from the original, while for 2 I can maybe think of half of them. When it came to actually fighting them you had two types, either circle strafe to the right and swing or hang back and hit. The first games bosses made for much more interesting fights.

Than throw in little things like the music, lore and characters being more interesting and well thought out in the original and I'd have to say it's a better game. Granted I still love both.

I'm surprised it took this quick to close out the thread. Good to know there are still people with great taste out there!

I liked Lords of the Fallen before it was cool.

I think I've decided... Demon's Souls > Dark Souls = Dark Souls II

The Dark Souls games are better than each other at different things, though I don't feel like playing the first one again after Dark Souls II. It's more limited. The lack of analog in evades, the fact that soul levels can't be reallocated like in Dark Souls II and Demon's Souls (with the false king) and probably more things that I can't remember. Also, the 30 fps cap is hard to get used to, and the animations and cloth are too rigid. Plus, I've already played it 30 to 35 times.

Both are pretty fucking awesome.

I think Dark Souls 2 is better mechanically with the way it refined and expanded on the combat system, crafting, covenants, and online play. The original was more memorable, there are more cool moments that happen and I had never experienced a game like that before, however 2 was better mechanically.

I like DS1 and DS2 A lot, I think DS1 is a better world as everything feels connected in a really cool organic way. DS2 feels like a hub with lots of paths but it plays better.

I think that this criticism is rather unfair. If there is something I learned about the souls game nerrative that it is very subliminal and much is left for the player to "read between the line" and figure things out for themselves.

If you remember, a lore fact that comes up very early on about that the nature of the curse is that it makes you go mad and lose your memory in the process as pointed out by the various NPC's and is the central theme for the Lucatiel quest line.

Given that and the fact that your character is the Chosen Undead and that you are being referred to directly by the Emerald Herald as the "bearer of the curse" it's then not that far fetched to assume that you are also slowly losing your mind and forgetting things so the main character must be treated as an "unreliable narrator." Given that I think that it's not that The Old Iron Keep was directly connected to Earthen Peak but there is a considerable distance between the two but nothing really important happened while traversing the distance between locations and your mind just erased that while keeping the important events, or there is the possibility that something eventful could have happened on the journey, but given the nature of the curse you simply forgot.

I think that Dark Souls 2 does a lot of things better than the first. The wider range of viable weapons and playstyles is a big improvement over Dark Souls 1 and the game feels more accessible at the start, but I don't like the second games love for just throwing lots of enemies at you at once in order to arbitrarily up the difficulty. I don't know, perhaps it's just me and the very different place I'm in right now in my life, but there have been so many more times I've nearly given up on DS2 than DS1 out of frustration. I think the difference is that that despite it's very obvious flaws, I love Dark Souls 1 whereas I simply think Dark Souls 2 is a very good game.

It is exactly this.

Which is why I think Dark Souls II is better overall.

I think Dark Souls is better than 2 (but Dark Souls was my first completed souls game so I may have a soft spot for it) That said I still really like Dark Souls 2.

Oh good, someone already said it.

@kvel2d Holy shit that first gif is so cool! I knew the hitboxes were better in DS1 but that was Nuts!

this feel more like "who is your true love?" question

Not really, I played all on release date since Demon's and Dark Souls is my favorite by far.

I think Dark Souls 2 had some cool moments/areas and the things they did mechanically were nice, but it definitely wasn't as memorable as the world of Dark Souls 1. Dark Souls 1 felt way more cohesive and had a lot more intense moments that barely made sense but were awesome nonetheless. Dark Souls 2 had some interesting ideas but in the end just felt like an also-ran.

I haven't played any of the other Souls games before 2, but it's cool to see that people have some good opinions for either game. It just goes to show that each game is great in its own way. I think the general consensus is that 2 is a more refined game than the others, and that makes it better in some ways, but that 2 suffers from a less cohesive world structure and the high bar set by its predecessors, so that makes it worse in some ways.

Also, the DLC for 2 trumps all of these!

you guys are crazy if you think demons souls is the best one

Having played all 3 Souls games in the order they were released in for multiple hundreds of hours each I think Dark Souls is better than both Demon's and DSII.

Demon's Souls is the best in terms of going with a certain atmosphere and setting and sticking to it.

Dark Souls has the best lore, best characters, interconnected world and introduced the covenant system. It has some massive flaws as well such as some of it being barely finished but its positives outweigh its negatives so much that it's a textbook example of a flawed masterpiece. The Prepare to Die Edition DLC massively improves upon the base game and really showed the game as all it could be.

Dark Souls II explains its systems better and is mostly an iterative sequel to Dark Souls with a "more is more" philosophy. Sadly its combat system somehow feels more inaccurate and floaty than in the previous games and its world and characters are barely interesting. It also returns back to a hub system of sorts which I think is far inferior to the interconnected world of the previous game. Much of the dark and mysterious atmosphere of the previous two games simply isn't present and the covenant system from Dark Souls which had so much potential for growth is not improved and expanded upon at all. This and other odd mistakes which had already been solved in the DLC of Dark Souls such as boss weaknesses and behaviour made it clear long before I saw the credits roll that some of the key people who worked on Dark Souls did not work on DSII.

But to be clear, DSII being worse than Dark Souls does not mean it's a bad game. Otherwise I wouldn't have bought the game twice or spent hundreds of hours playing it.

The carry limit never should have been removed. It discouraged carrying too many recovery items, arrows/bolts and backup weapons, especially if you wanted rocks and loot. The world tendency made the game more tense and made not dying more rewarding. Unless you killed yourself in the Nexus, like all the cowards.

World tendency could be completely ignored with no real detriment to gameplay. It was not a good game mechanic. Carry limits are bullshit. Dark Souls Uber Alles.

Read my edit. Carrying 999 arrows is lame and makes things too easy. Equipping lots of different giant weapons during a fight is bullshit. It can make corrosive spells useless.

Demon's Souls was also way better at managing lots of equipment. The storage in the Nexus divided them by types.

You can carry all the arrows in the world and you'll still get your ass handed to you... Though Demon's Souls did have the better item management system.

But these are just small nitpicks about the mechanics, and that's not really what matters to me. Dark Souls was one cohesive world, one that felt like an adventure to explore. Demon's Souls was a collection of levels that felt disjointed, especially considering you had to jump back and forth between the different areas. That's why I prefer Dark Souls; it is a masterpiece of environmental story telling, world building, and level design.

Also, FUCK CARRY LIMITS.

I feel like the things they improved on in Dark Souls 2 were the things important to me in the series. I at no point feel like going back to Dark Souls 1 nor did I ever want to marathon through it like I did Dark Souls 2. I still every once in a while playing Dark Souls 2, however, and have probably played it way more overall.

It seems absolutely bizarre to me that people want to rank these games so much, though. Maybe its more weirdness with the community built around them? "You have to play this way or you're doing it wrong, also Dark Souls 2 is worse than Dark Souls 1, and also I'm a hipster and think Demons Souls is the best. Praise the sun."

The art direction and world structure were both vastly inferior in Dark Souls 2. DS2 seemed to be kind of a lost mish mash of ideas from the first two Souls games. That being said, I don't think DS2 is a bad game at all, its just not as "perfect" as Dark Souls, and its not as enigmatic as Demon's Souls when we were all truly lost learning the systems, wondering what mystery we might unravel next. So I'd say Dark Souls 2 is so far the weakest entry in the series both technically and spiritually.

Since the director was not involved with DS2 it comes as no suprise. I had a lot of fun going through DS2, but there were areas that weren't just challenging but outright uninspired and poor, like Earthen Peak. The bonfire layout was clumsy and confused - some areas had excessive bonfires, some had them in the most bizarre locations (like the one in the Iron Keep, at the bottom of a ladder). And the world was so split in three directions it may as well have been linear. Its a good hybrid of the two previous games, but less than the sum of its parts.

So it seems most people agree Dark Souls offered a better experience and Dark Souls 2 sacrificed some of the original games charm to improve on some other areas.

Both have their merits, but IMHO DS1 > DS2

Dark Souls is way better. I just couldn't get into the lore, characters, story, etc. of Dark Souls II. It felt inferior in almost every regard.

Dark Souls 2 is less interesting than Dark Souls, the enemy design isn't as good and none of the bosses match the originals. The world doesn't feel as connected, and the fast travel means that you never have to learn the ways to areas and you never find cool short cuts which show you how the world all interconnects. Dark Souls 2 is a good game but Dark Souls is special. But maybe that's just me.

I thought Dark Souls 1 was more interesting overall and a more incredible experience the first time through, but that's not saying Dark Souls 2 is a terrible, or mediocre game. It's just more of the same, slightly more polished in some parts of the gameplay but mildly less interesting.

I'm certainly not burned out on the souls games yet, more new souls stuff to play is still very fun.

Obviously it is subjective. I think the order you played the games in will influence a lot, as well as the type of player you are. I think Dark Souls overall has a better story and is more enjoyable for people who play solo and don't care much about PVP. Counter-intuitive as it may seem, I think Dark Souls is also better for people who do nothing but PVP thanks to the lack of Soul Memory.

I think Dark Souls II is better for more middle-of-the-road players. The combat is much more polished and there is more variety of viable builds. If you do PVP casually and like to experiment a lot, then DS2 is better thanks to Soul Vessels, Bonfire Ascetics, and the varied approach to PVP in the covenants.

Both are great though.

Here is how I've sorted things out in my mind after playing a whole lot of Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 2.

Dark Souls 1 was my first Souls game so there is going to be some bias here, but overall it had better NPC characters, lore, atmosphere, and level design in the vanilla game. The DLC features the best area in the game with the game's two best bosses (Artorias and Manus).

Dark Souls 2 is a mechanically better game. Some bosses have hit box detection issues (really annoying), but the majority of the mechanics are better implemented in Dark Souls 2. The atmosphere is there (Drangleic Castle, Shrine of Amana, Dragon Aerie, and the DLC areas), but Dark Souls is just better. Level design is pretty poor with the exception of The Lost Bastille and the DLC areas.

Dark Souls 2 has a lot more bosses than Dark Souls 1 and it got a bunch of it wrong, but it has more mechanically interesting boss fight. The reason Artorias was such a great fight in Dark Souls 1 is because it's a single humanoid that could keep up with the player and match their melee attacks. Dark Souls 2 gives you Sir Alonne (fast) and Raime (slow) with their melee abilities surpassing Artorias.

I was disappointed that Dark Souls 1 had so few humanoid fights. I was happy to see Dark Souls 2 fix that. People complain that all the humanoid fights in Dark Souls 2 are the same, but that's only because they don't have an appreciation for their melee mechanics and probably summoned help. I fought every boss by myself with my two handed Uchigatana style so I had to learn how to dodge everything and appreciate the nuanced i-frame dodge timing.

I should point out that while Dark Souls 2 had boss fights that were mechanically more interesting, Dark Souls 1 still had cooler boss designs and lore around them. Dark Souls 1 got it right with the intro video. It gave them the opportunity to hype up the Lords so you knew the whole time who you were going to fight and what you were aiming for.

In every possible way yes, and I originally both anticipated and thought changes in DS2 seemed superior to the first in ways. It took playing a bunch of it to realise that something special was missing that the first one had. I do eagerly await Bloodborne sooo damn much, seems to be doing all the right things.

@golguin: I always found the "monster" bosses in all the souls games cool looking but not fun to fight. The humanoid enemies allowed for a more versatile approach while the big monster bosses ended up as hit-and-run ankle scratching. In addition, fighting humanoids was a lot less buggy with hit detection.