Seriously, I'm 9 hours in and feeling like I made a mistake buying it. I played, and finished Demon's Souls in 2009, and thought it was an amazing game, but I am really not liking Dark Souls.

I miss being able to choose which area you wanted to take on next. It gave me a sense of freedom, and if I was having a particularly hard time with one area I could just go try a different one. So far in Dark Souls, I am slowly plodding through a mostly linear (I'm free to choose my path, but one is clearly the correct path) castle with uninteresting enemies, and almost no motivation. In Demon's Souls I had to seal away the old one, but in Dark Souls, I have no clue what I am supposed to be doing other than ringing 2 bells because some random guy said I should.

Also the boss music is very underwhelming. I enjoyed the soundtrack of Demon's Souls enough that I have it on my iPhone, but so far the music in Dark Soul's has been totally bland.

I don't know if I'm going to continue playing if the game continues how it has. I might just replay Demon's Souls, or New Game+ it to get my fix.

What do you guys think? Was anyone a huge fan of Demon's Souls, and not really liking Dark Souls?

Wait, so the open world makes the game less open than before?

That's lame. I figured they'd let you choose between at least four or five areas at any given time, like in the previous game, just with the areas being physically connected. Maybes it opens up more later?

@Icemael: In theory they do but unless you got some insane weapon theres pretty much just 1 route you can take and if you have that insane weapon you will cut through that 1 route with ease :/

The way I see it, this game is simply less arcady than Demons. Even the movement and controls are more stilted, but I find it still to be perfectly serviceable and fun 50 hours in (similarly to how Rorrie described it in his article). My suggestion is to go at it from a different mindset than Demons, even though they are so similar they are surprisingly different.

My main concern about Dark Souls was it's potential to be simply more of the same. Though I feel I prefer the structure and atmosphere of Demon's Souls I'm still pleased with the changes they made with Dark Souls if for no other reason than it being different. They could have simply made a new Demon's Souls campaign (at the risk of being called DS 1.5 :P) but I'm not sure that would have been what we really wanted either.

Much prefer the open world in Dark Souls. The connecting hubs were cool in DS, but you still needed to beat the first area to make progress in that particular world. Both games are ridiculously epic, though.

@Asurastrike: I have to agree with you so far. At this point I'm only continuing to play the game because it's punishingly difficult, not because I'm really enjoying it. I can't let Dark Souls beat me that easily.

There plot is thin at best...I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to be doing at this point. There is little to no documentation about any of the items I'm finding, forcing me to turn to the internet for advice about what in the world I'm supposed to be doing with this stuff. You're also right about the game being quite linear, at least so far. Sure, there are "choices", but one direction presents instant death while the other direction at least promises many, prolonged trial-and-error deaths.

Dark Souls has it's moments and there are elements in it that make it interesting and fun, but the other 90% of the time I'm banging my head against a brick wall trying to progress. To top it off, I'm now past the Taurus Demon and have acquired exactly one piece of upgraded armor and not a single usable weapon or other upgrade besides a mediocre shield I found in the first ten minutes of the game. Not good.

To top it off, I'm now past the Taurus Demon and have acquired exactly one piece of upgraded armor and not a single usable weapon or other upgrade besides a mediocre shield I found in the first ten minutes of the game. Not good.

I agree that It's a bit of a bummer how heavily the game funnels you till' you ring the second bell. I mean, the game does eventually open up and allow you the freedom to do whatever like Demon's Souls, it just takes longer.

I like dark souls a lot better than demon souls. I didn't really like the level-based play.  
 
I feel like dark souls is open enough to give you plenty of options; even before the 2nd bell. Also I love the feeling of seeing something crazy in the backdrop and eventually making it there hours later. 

@MB said:

@Asurastrike: I have to agree with you so far. At this point I'm only continuing to play the game because it's punishingly difficult, not because I'm really enjoying it. I can't let Dark Souls beat me that easily.

There plot is thin at best...I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to be doing at this point. There is little to no documentation about any of the items I'm finding, forcing me to turn to the internet for advice about what in the world I'm supposed to be doing with this stuff. You're also right about the game being quite linear, at least so far. Sure, there are "choices", but one direction presents instant death while the other direction at least promises many, prolonged trial-and-error deaths.

Dark Souls has it's moments and there are elements in it that make it interesting and fun, but the other 90% of the time I'm banging my head against a brick wall trying to progress. To top it off, I'm now past the Taurus Demon and have acquired exactly one piece of upgraded armor and not a single usable weapon or other upgrade besides a mediocre shield I found in the first ten minutes of the game. Not good.

your past the first boss, here's a cookie. Maybe when you have pushed past lets say the gaping dragon or Queelag or killed the Red drake without using a glitch can you say you have tried the game. The first boss is more linear as it is more of the tutorial boss like in demon's (The blob with spears). Once you have gone to smithy will you have a choice on where to go next. there are 2 places that i know of that are not suicide at that point and most of the people i have seen have skipped the second choice as its more of a side area for farming and finding items. This Game is not going to give you a hand out, and you should have known this from the start. If you liked Demon's Soul then you should have tried playing it with daggers only (No shield / magic) and see how far you got. The plot was thin as shit in demon's also. "Seal the great one" Who is this great one, and why do I have to seal it as I was perfectly fine before being a ghost who can resurrect himself. Screw dieing and staying dead. Let that old one stay so I am immortal. <-- was my thoughts throughout the game. The game is linear but so is any other game. This is open world as it lets you chose when to go where, just sometimes the choices involve you dieing alot more or taking more skill and patience to go through as your gear and weapons are not as good as they could be upon entering the area. I went through 4 bosses with the same weapon and armor i started with till i changed to the drake sword because I was tired of hitting for 30-40 damage.. Now i have a plethora of weapons to choose from and have a different piece of gear for each slot because I think it looks cool. Dont put down the game till you have pushed at least into the halfway point and have seen some actual gameplay at work. I am from when i last started a good 33 hours in and am farming the gaping dragon for souls just so I can use all the things i have picked up before i move on and ATM I am loving the game. Sure its not demon's but I wasnt looking for another demon's i was looking for something that would give me the same accomplishment that demon's gave me and I have found it and so have many others.

@Resident4t: Resident4t The area with gargoyles, is that Anor Londo? I cannot find it anywhere where it has info on the internet. I haven't explored it yet, but is it the place where the gate opens when you ring the second bell?

Also back on topic, I am absolutely loving Dark Souls. For me I love the new change having the Nexus completely removed. I agree that it was more self explanatory in Demons Souls but I am constantly researching on the internet about what to do etc on Dark Souls, and I don't mind that, its quite interesting. It definitely felt a little linear at first before ringing the 2nd bell, but I got quite the satisfaction when I opened the links to areas and doors that connected and created shortcuts (surprisingly a lot of satisfaction). But yeah I love how Dark Souls is structured now, but I do agree it tends to get a tiny bit tedious when your at Firelink Shrine and you want to get to Demon's Ruin (ceaseless discharge location), but I pull through and change my mindset to 'its going to be fun' haha.

Damn you guys are making me worried that i won't like Dark Souls. I loved Demon's Souls but some of the things you say here are a bit alarming.

Only got the game yesterday so these are my first impressions but... Yeah, I'm not enjoying Dark Souls as much as Demon's Souls. For me it feels like you sometimes die because the game is being a bit cheap! I have 12 hours game time, currently trying to do the catacombs area as I couldn't beat the boss in blighttown and the ghosts area suck balls, it really does. I've not researched anything as I was aiming to play through once mostly blind (though I did see some things on the Japanese streams before)

So yeah, in the stupid catacombs, the skellington idiots are really annoying. I made it to a hole a fair way down and there was a cutscene with a fat skellington who said something (I forget), after the cutscene ended I was surrounded by a dozen respawn skellingtons who had followed me down and instantly ganked me. I then switched the PS3 off without quiting the game.

i agree with the open world thing, its really isnt open world. I loved demon souls too and to begin with i hated dark souls. But after 6 hours I'm getting back in to it. Maybe you should switch up your class thats what i did.

@MB: I respect your opinion, but I really don't think you should be judging the game when you have barely started playing it. The Taurus demon is still what I would consider the "tutorial" section of the game.

I am loving this game far more than Demon's Souls, myself. Really enjoy the verticality of the levels, the intricate level design with the shortcuts and bonfires, it all feels way more like a real world than Demon's Souls ever did. I have been very lucky with item drops as well. I got a Demon's Axe from Taurus, a Boar's helmet from the armored boar, and the Gargoyle's Tail Axe from the Belfry Gargoyles, as well as spears, halberds, zweihanders, falchions, various rings, complete armor sets etcetera. I feel completely showered with loot compared to Demon's Souls at this point.

Having rung the first bell, I can now go towards the Sewers, go to the lower regions of Undead Burg to hunt the Capra Demon, Blight Town, The Forest or Anor Londo. All vastly different from one another.

I'm about 35 hours in and this might be my favorite game of all time. I think this game is a good step forward from Demon's Souls. I'm not sure how you say you're feeling funneled...this game is far more open than Demon's was. The first bell is obviously your first objective...but how is that any more funneling than your first run up to the Phalanx? From there you can go to the Catacombs, back to the Asylum, down to the sewers, to New Londo Ruins, or to the Darkroot Forest.

Additional path connections:

There is SO much more choice in this game compared to Demon's Souls it is ridiculous, and the cool part is that a lot of it connects back to each other in really cool ways, making it a lot easier to get between areas later in the game. Saying this game is more linear than Demon's Souls is completely absurd.

All I really miss is the hub world sort of thing. Die and go back to a safe place with all the merchants and everything. Seems like I'm one of the few.

Oh and I'm also hating the fact that I'm trying to get thru the Catacombs and getting 0 souls from killing those skeletons over and over again. So you die and its like..oh well that was all for nothing because I didn't even hoard a bunch of souls with that life.

In my experience there have typically been a few pathes available to me. Yes, in the early going it is pointing you in one direction by putting enemies you just cant beat on the other pathes but after some time, I found myself having to choose where to go based on my levels, knowledge of the area, and confidence. I love it

I personally HATE this game and LOVE it at the same time... but I have a feeling that if I don't stop playing it I'm going to have a heart attack in my twenties... I have NO issue repeating a boss fight or a challenge 1232141231 times. My ONLY issue with the game is that if I don't reach my blood stain and die I lose EVERYTHING! Last night I lost 15 humanity points and around 30,000 souls, considering that I am still early in the game, and I lost my cool and wanted to destroy my TV, PS3, and the freak'n controller. Now, this situation as happened several times already where I have a good amount of souls and humanity and through a stroke of bad luck I get killed. Therefore, I will not play it because I don't think its healthy for me.

I felt the same. 200 hours later I was pretty impressed with how much better Dark Souls actually is. The freedom is there...it's called choosing the Master Key as your gift. Balance is improved across the board in both PVE and PVP, particularly post-patch.

You CAN choose where to go. there is a part later where you can do four levels in any order. It's less up in the air as Demon's Souls, but to be fair it was incredibly hard to try some of the areas out of order on your first play through in that game as well. I've S-ranked both games and I must say Dark Souls is a significant improvement. Though some o f the online aspects are a bit more glitchy, but I blame Namco-Bandai for that.

@dead_eye_sam: 30k souls? man up and take it. That's literally nothing. I've lost well over 300k before, you just shrug it off and move on. Losing humanity sucks harder, but it's nothing you can't get back.

The game opens up more after you ring the first bell. You'll have several areas you can explore (without instant death) before you go down to ring the second bell.

Keep playing, the open world is fantastically intricate.

@Oni:Huh... 300k huh. My lose isn't bad after all... I'm thinking I'm going to do a lot more farming and leveling my character and see if I can fine better equipment than I have now instead of just upgrading it before the next boss fight (the moonlight butterfly).

@dead_eye_sam: Don't discount weapon/armor upgrading. Some of the early armor can get you very far indeed. When fully upgraded, the Elite Knight armor set is one of the best in the game. I forget where you find it, might be Darkroot Basin near the hydra, not sure though. Or maybe it's near the moonlight butterfly where you get jumped by 3 stone giants. I think it's there but not sure. And upgraded weapons with B or higher stat scaling get really good once your main stat (strength or dex for melee) is around 40ish.

@Asurastrike: I agree with you 100%. I really liked having my options and being able to choose between different worlds and environments.

@handlas: Nope, I agree with you on the hub world as well.

I agree with you partially Aurastrike, it was nice to be able to move around in each world finding a few pieces of swell gear and then come back to finish earlier worlds. That's how Demon's Souls was structured and it worked pretty well. However, being a huge fan of Metroidvania games, I couldn't help at only look at the positive side of the changes in Dark Souls. The interconnected world felt like it had more sense of place, and while the options were more limited, they were still there for you to explore openly while providing a slightly more perspective narrative.

While they could have made DS 1.5 and I probably would have enjoyed it, I'm glad they were able to make a new game structure that still feels like its part of the Souls universe. I never finished Dark Souls though, got to the last soul I needed (Seath the Scaleless) and could not get any help online so I gave up. I finished Demon's Souls twice (NG+) but that was a much easier game in my opinion, other than those twin ManEater gargoyles. Fuck those guys.

@Wipeout: Seath is easy man, just run up to his side tentacle, smack it, let him back off and repeat the process. Least I never had serious issues with him. I felt Demon's Souls was a lot harder, particularly in the bosses department, a lot of them were pretty hard even if you know what you're getting into. Dark Souls' bosses are mostly not that difficult once you've figured them out. Also I think the change to Estus is a huge improvement that really allowed From to tighten up the game design a lot more.

@Oni:Yeah I did find the Elite Knight Armor but I felt that it makes my rolling EXTREMELY slow and heavy so I decided to just keep using my original heavy leather armor. Yes it is in the Darkroot Garden. I am spending a good bit of time in Darkroot Garden because it is a decent place to farm. Each run is about 2500 souls killing 3 giants separately (avoiding the trap with the Elite Knight Armor). Also, found out that you can cheese out the drake sword by shooting arrows at the dragon's tail from under the bridge. I think I'm going to back track and do that lol.

I agree that I liked Demon's Souls better but for different reasons. #1 the weapons you could craft from the bosses in Demon's Souls were actually cool looking and good. In Dark Souls its pretty clear the lightening spear crushes everything, making it pointless to even bother crafting any weapons at all. #2 Being alive is pretty much pointless, thus ruining the cooperative portion of the game. Yes its still helpful if you really cant beat a boss, but why risk being alive and getting invaded when I can just have full health while dead? Having that half health bar invited more people to join other peoples games as everyone wanted to be alive and it made it more important to beat the bosses with other people. There was this constant goal of making sure to stay alive, now I really don't give a shit to bother with it, I just stay dead. #3. During my experience the connection was awful. Demon's Souls hardly ever disconnected me from people and it certainly never just straight up wouldn't let me join someones game. For whatever reason Dark Souls constantly kicked me off the servers, or removed people randomly from my game. It was really annoying. Now this isn't to say I hated Dark Souls, I played it for 60 hours, but Demon's Souls was the better game in my opinion.

@dead_eye_sam: Did you kill Havel yet, the big dude at the bottom of the tower in Undeadburg/Darkroot Basin? He drops a ring that gives you an extra 40 equip burden, making wearing heavy armor more feasible. Also, if you join the forest covenant behind the big door, you can kill a guy and get a ring that allows max movement speed and fast flips instead of rolls at 50% equip burden or lower, which is awesome in combination with Havel's Ring.

@CJduke: If you think Lightning Spear is honestly that good you must still be at a pretty low soul level, once you get into NG+ it'll lose its usefulness quickly. Once you get around 30-40 str/dex, B> scaling weapons will far outclass it. Some of the weapons from boss souls are very good; quelaag's furysword/chaos blade for dex builds, golem's axe for Str build, true greatsword of Artorias (from a +10 broken sword handle) for Str/Int/Faith builds, Ornstein's spear, moonlight butterfly horn for Int, etc. Lightning weapons have their uses but they'll also start to lose in power at higher levels. Also keep in mind that splitting damage over physical and lightning means that it'll get reduced by two defence stats. Pure physical damage, even if the total is somewhat lower than the lightning/fire and physical damage of an elemental weapon combined, can still do more damage, depending on what you're fighting. But you're not entirely wrong, you can easily cruise through NG with a Lightning Weapon+5. Personally, I found a Lightning Scythe +5 to be effective well into NG+, as it had over 600 combined damage. But now that I'm rocking a 40 strength dude, it's Black Knight Greataxe+5 all the way.