With the current sale I'm tempted to try it myself, but I'm a bit hesitant with all the GFWL rumors flying around.
Maybe I'll just wait for a sale on the second one.

I'm glad I could make you laugh. No disrespect to police offers was intended. I'm met some officers that were total dicks but most of them were good people trying to help.

Thank for agreeing with me about death screens. When I die in a game I just wanna get back in the action. Not to have a huge fuss made of the fact that I'm human and mistakes. On top of being mean overblown game-over screens break the flow of action and me out of the game's grove. Valve did best. You fall over, you hear your heart flatline. Then you just click the left mouse button and it's time to kill again!

Dark Souls isn't as difficult as it's reputed to be. You die a lot but the deaths aren't very painful*. If you can beat an average difficulty 8 or 16 bit console action game, Dark Souls will not be beyond you. The question is more if the game will hold your interest long enough to complete it.

Fenixp mentioned playing Dark Messiah Might & Magic on highest difficulty and I'd consider that a far greater challenge.

* Unless you're being reckless and carrying a large sum of unspent souls. You'll hate yourself if you lose them, but in the end all you'll have wasted is time.

:-P Problem is that I find it easy to see appeal in most games, even if I don't enjoy them. I understand why people enjoy games like Modern Warfare and their multiplayer. I understand why people enjoy MMORPGs. I understand why people like turn-based strategy games. I might not be a fan of any of those, or just flatout not like them, but I understand why people like them. I have a very difficult time wrapping my head around the hype Dark Souls got tho. I just find it very difficult to see what's so great about the game.

Don't even get me started on that, it was a faster quickload! And it wasn't immersion breaking! I wish more games did that...

Oh yeah, when it comes to information, the markers are a very good idea - except only some appear, seemingly at random. I would still like the game to just ... You know ... Give me the option to find the information I need properly.

I'm fairly sure I've red somewhere that GFWL is going to be removed from Dark Souls. Can't be arsed to google it now. At any rate, if it's not, this would be your last chance to play the game.

Definitely, the game gets tough as nails then - even the cheap kicking tactic stops working because you leave yourself open and upleasant things happen when you leave yourself open. However, I have enjoyed that game being difficult, because its combat system was just about the best thing since the sliced bread. I can't claim the same for Dark Souls combat system.

And ... You know ... I could save my goddamn progress.

The latest update is saying absolutely nothing on the matter. Namco is still exploring options.

I wont pretend to be any great shakes at gaming. I recently surprised myself by completing the first levels of Shinobi 3 and Vectorman. For the most part those old Genesis games are to hard for me. The only one's I've had any real luck with are Gunstar Heroes and the Sonic games.

I just put in 80 hours into it. My first go lasted 40 and I got nowhere, then I started over and got farther in half the time. Getting your sea legs for the game makes a big difference, and so does knowing enough about how the game works to get off to a good start.

It is always hard, and times frustrating to the point thinking something is impossible until you figure out something weakness. (I still think the ornstein smough fight is as close to being impossible as one could get without being so) I really wasn't sure I wanted keep playing it 4 hours in, but I changed my mind pretty quick after that.

I personally found going it blind, not worth it and promptly youtubed this https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkofHfJ25Hvu10h5OjvhFIQPEQArhwkBf

The Gargoyles were really tough once the second one came out. I played the game spry from the bulk of it, which helped me keep some distance. If something isn't going down without a lot of hits, then it can be a good idea to get your levels up. I know I put off the undead asylum as long as I reasonably could the second time through. The stray demon boss fight is a workout, and it was difficult to spend 15 minutes running and hacking away at something that can kill you in one hit. A lesson is if you can't kill it easily, just come back to it. You can waste so much time trying to kill something too soon. Like the first headless demon. There is a door right behind him to the forest, which leads to many places, and has some really good farming areas.

There are also situations where locking on to an enemy is a horrible idea. Maintaining the camera is more work, but rolling works different, and is much more rigid when you have a lock.

There are areas I saw in the walk throughs that convinced me I didn't want to bother with, but I think the game does have its payoffs. There will never be any story to speak of, but success feels like accomplishment, and there are some very unique gameplay mechanics using the internet in a way it typically hasn't been used.

Though you got about a month to enjoy the game before the GFWL thing goes down, and there hasn't been spit for news on the issue from any developer about any games since February. At one point I think Bandai did say they would be addressing the situation, but then backpedaled to "Exploring options."

And as and FYI, anyone that is playing it on PC should be using the DSFix unless they enjoy looking at a 1024x768 render being upresed

Oh, of course you can't pause the game, so I just lost to a phone call! The only reason I'm still playing is because I don't want my 6EUR go to wate.

You're saying that you want one of two changes:

A) all boss fights to be exactly the same, so that they are predictable and you can beat them on your first try

or

B) to restart right before the boss fight so that there is no repercussion to dying.

I sort of see what you are saying, but I think that would take a lot of the challenge out of the game. Even games like Super Mario Bros. on NES make you play through the whole dungeon again if you get killed by bowser at the end of the level.

I have all 3 games from the Souls series, I personally like the level design (as you described in the OP), music, graphics, and overall atmosphere. I don't remember a story in there, but I don't think it needs one.

No, the bosses are awesome

From what I have played, there was no repercussion to dying anyway. As I said, I have managed to get to the boss without taking any damage multiple times. At that point it was as if the game has shown me a longass cutscene as some sort of reprecussion to dying with the only difference of me not being able to go and take a piss in the meantime, and I think you can see why I'd find that irritating.

Not to mention that there's very little repercussion to dying anyway.

At any rate, no, I'm not sayng I would like anything changed. Obviously, people enjoy doing this. I'm just trying to understand why.

OK, I see. I've felt the same frustration at a few games recently, yet you look them up online and people make every excuse in the book as to why the game isn't at fault and it's just the player being retarded lol...

I personally really enjoyed the atmosphere of DS, that and the lack of hand-holding is what makes me consider it a great game of the recent generation.

Repercussions in death are more about slowing you down, and creating fear of overextending yourself than they are about ending the game, or making further progress impossible. I tended to be very conservative with humanity (once I learned what all it did) I was chronically afraid of building it up knowing I could lose it all in a couple of bad moves, and getting more humanity is a lot more work than getting more EP.

There is also the hope of getting it all back, as long as you don't screw up. Overall I found the approach to death to have some stimulating dynamics. While it wasn't all that traditional, I think it is an interesting approach somewhere in between death ending your game, and games where you have absolutely nothing to lose.

What? No, it isn't. Hell you can't backstab half the enemies due to size/shape differences.


It would be hilarious if you could backstab the giant drakes and the rats though.

All right, I have to admit, the game is kind of growing on me in a very stockholm-syndrome kind of way. And only as long as I play it in short bursts so the monotony doesn't kick in.