1. Learn to FUCKING TYPE

2. I did not say that. If I want to say a game is unplayable. I say the game is unplayable. By your conclusion, half of the NES catalogue would be unplayable.

3. The game has its charm, and the mediocre combat could be overlooked if this wasn't a major obstacle in progressing in the game.

I think we need to take another look at the title of this topic.

"Dark Souls - Opinions"

Opinions are all these posts are. Maybe we agree with them, maybe we don't.
For someone looking to get a feel for this game, both are valuable

No need to get worked up over differences in such opinions.

The Difference between this game and old NES RPGs is that the NES RPGs are actually easier.

I beat Final Fantasy 1 NES no problem, it took me awhile to beat Dark Souls.

Uh what
Yes, the combat is about knowing the enemy. You are supposed to take it slow, there IS a back and forth, unless you mean something completely different from what I am thinking, you get to probe each enemy type to see what openings they have or have not, and try your hardest to take advantage of their attack patterns.
The weapons have no weight on contact? No real feel of hitting when succesfully hitting them yeah, but there is definitely a feeling of weight WHEN HANDLING them, it is not like it isGod of War or Devil May Cry with the weightless comboing and cancelling of attacks in Dark Souls.

And slice through and dice roll? WhaT? There is no such thing in the Souls games at ALL. On succesful contact, the weapons have a set damage that they do, and at different ranges there is a variation. In both Demon's and Dark there is a "sweet spot" with a bit more damage on the weapons.

Also, it IS possible to avoid the boss attacks so that you clear the attack area completely. It is not the fault of the game if you can't do it properly, not on your first try, anyways. It is not the fault of the game, but yours for messing up the dodge.

Riposte has issues, but mainly if the enemy is on a lower or upper plane. That is an issue, yeah. If anything, my issue with it would be that the angle of attack for backstabs is much narrower than it was in Demon's.

Dodging can and will avoid damage entirely, it just needs to be done correctly
You need correct timimg AND direction.. direction is entirely dependant on the kind of swing you are facing; it can be further from the attacker or towards the attacker... every NPC/boss has his technique

No, you are not... unless they made an exception for the very first "tutorial" boss (i don't remember that being the case, but i may be mistaken) I can assure you than in all the rest of the game, a bad timed flask will get you hurt, a lot...

Are we talking about the same game?!
They have weight and inertia (the more heavy a weapon is, the less agile swing you get, and if you miss the recovery time is even worse than after a hit, because you are off-balance) and you also need to take into account the weapon motion versus the environment, because wall and objects can interfere with a correct swing.

Also, there is no dice rolling whatsoever: damage is entirely dependant on stats and resistances (stats at 'X' using weapon 'Y' always gives consistent numbers versus enemy 'Z'), there are no random critical/miss/whatever: if it connects with the hitbox, is always a hit, for you or for the AI

Apparently I played a different game.

Anyway. As unfortunate as it is, this game isn't worth my time. I really liked the story presentation. But the combat *urgh* just wrong.

Just for the possibility that I might give it yet another try.

Is there a way to skip the tutorial? And what character is actually useful in combat. Who doesn't swing his sword like he is drunk or dance around like a fairy. I tried the knight and the wanderer.

You cannot skip the Asylum part.
Any character is useful in combat. If you don't like how broadswords/falchions are used, maybe the club with the barbarian classes? Maybe try the thief class.

Also the classes are just separate for initial equipment and initial stat spread. You can eventually do ANYTHING the other classes can do, since there are no classes, not really. Different styles of character builds, and different equipment loadouts, you are just limited to what equipment your character stats can handle properly. If anything, the stas also just determine what your character can utilize PROPERLY.

I'm not worked about the opinions of others. I'm worked up that I wasted 20$. And even more that some people can't put a sentence together (let alone properly quote).

If others like the game, that is fine. I like weird games too. But that is the shoddiest combat I had in a game since I played Die by the Sword with keypad controls.

Are you sure you are not being a contrarian? Because honestly, other than "Hey I cannot instantly mow down A BILLION MOOKS with the combat, thus it is crap!" I cannot understand. Hell, eventually you CAN and will be able to mow down the basic mooks with ease (just to try that same tactic in another enemy type and get horribly murdered). Demon's and Dark Souls are games where you must at first treat every encounter like a puzzle, find the right solution, and then do it effortlessly. The combat is fluid and weighty at the same time, but you are supposed to time everything carefully. You are not playing as a superhumanly fast and strong half demon or demigod (DMC, GOW) that can cancel an attack into another instantly, and the weapons have a weight to them, so you need to be SURE it is going to hit.

You are not going to do combos in the Souls games.

Edit: Using keyboard or pad? Because honestly, the game was DESIGNED for a gamepad.

...and others, including myself, think the combat is quite good.

That's all I'm getting at.

No one should fault you for disliking the combat, as that is your prerogative.
You just make it sound as if the combat system is objectively terrible, which is an untenable position.

I apologize if I'm being overly picky or misrepresenting your opinion.

Whatever you are experiencing has nothing to do with the character, but only with the current stats and staring equipment... the class selection is mostly for flavour and some minor progress suggestion, but you can shape the hero at your wish, as soon as you start levelling/finding new equip.

How he moves/strike is not related to the class, but only to his armour, stats and type of weapon.... if you want to try something different, DO NOT roll another character: stick with one, complete the tutorial and go to the first zones (usual progression for smooth difficulty curve is: Undead Burg, Undead Parish, Darkroot Garden and so on....); invest your first souls in some alternate weapons (you'll find your first merchant within 30 minutes) and get a feeling for the different movesets You really are playing a different game

My overall feel (I'll put some stuff at the end to help you):

I just sold my copy. It's an engrossing game that was positively frustrating at first. And the problem isn't the game, it's the lack of instructions. They say there's no "hand-holding," but what they mean is "We're going to redefine and invent a million terms and we're not going to tell you what any of them mean."

So, when you get it, read some helpful tips.

For instance, the game lets you select a bunch of a classes. But if you want to not die over and over and over and over, you can select one of four or so.

The game lets you select one of a dozen gifts. All of them are useless b/c you find almost all of them right at the beginning of the game or they're just not useful (like +20 hitpoints out of several hundred -- meaningless, or bombs that you can find almost anywhere). However, if you choose the master key, then you can get into all kinds of places early in the game that give you an edge (read: let you survive occasionally).

So, get a guide or read some stuff online and you'll probably like the game. I really enjoyed it.

I took a break from it for about a month (your fault -- I was playing Arkania -- almost beat Blade) and when I came back, I was just too unskilled to keep going for what I felt was very little reward. You die, you take 30 minutes to get to where you just died, and then you die again. It gets annoying that it takes 30 minutes to try something else. But it's also got some awesome moments.

So, overall, I wouldn't play it to beat it, but it was an exceptional experience. If you like action RPGs and very difficult games, go for it.

If you have a console, those versions are getting cheap fast.


And for help:

Be a sorcerer. It's the strongest character you can for quite a while. Save up some souls and buy some spells from the blacksmith guy on the bottom of the elevator after the tutorial.

Don't bother the skeletons. Instead, after the tutorial, find a way to head up the mountain towards a castle. That's where all the action is. After you have some spells learned and some XP under your belt, go back to the skeles. As a sorcerer, they don't have much you absolutely need. You'll kill everything with your spells.

Also, read some guides. Don't feel bad doing it. The game doesn't teach you crap. So read up.
I agree. The difficulty of the game is built mostly from the shoddy combat. It is annoying, but it also is where the designers wanted to build the difficulty -- it's all in timing and making sure you have the room to perform your animations.

The game is very annoying often, but also has some neat moments. It took me about a week of solid playing before I got good enough and understood enough to know what the heck I was doing.

I'm using a gamepad.

And the combat feels to me as if it was designed exactly not with one-on-one. Parry and blocking is pretty much pointless. So only dodging remains. Roll, attack, roll, attack, roll, attack, roll, drop in chasm.

And most of the time, they put enemies into pairs. So far I haven't seen any mechanic that allows some sort of crowd control. No stunning, no "shield bash". Eg, the skeletons. The only viable tactic has been to hard attack, they fall apart, hard attack, they fall apart, hard attack, they fall apart. Any further tactic is pointless. You cannot really move, as the gravestones restrict all movement or make it flunky. If you miss a skeleton, it has enough time to surround you. Which means some rolling until you get both in a swing again.

I bought the game because I was hoping for challenged, interesting combat. It is the complete opposite. The combat is boring and frustrating. I see or feel no difference in hitting the enemy or thin air (apart from him losing health, which I meant by dice roll). Only if he parries or I hit some architecture the weapon reacts. Oh, and the world architecture does nothing to a weapons swing. It blinks, but that's it. I can still do that bloody pirouette inside a small corridor with no restriction or reduction of damage. And the shield bash is the best. It just GOES THROUGH THE ENEMY. No hit detection what so ever. Also, the fabled kicking and jump attacks. I don't know where they are mapped, but not where the tutorial has put them. Oh, and the manual is useless. "The game was designed for the XBox 360 pad" (which I have) but the instructions ARE FOR KEYBOARDS CONTROLS ONLY.

What I expected was that when the enemy attacks, in a window of opportunity you can either a) parry/riposte or b) quick attack to get the enemy of balance. Then either keep the pressure until he makes a parry or wait for another attack. Also, non standard attacks to take the enemies of balance and follow up upon. That would be good combat!

Dark Souls however, is just some shoddy mess. The original Prince of Persia (the one from the eighties) had better combat than this.

Seriously?!
If you're really dying at each new enemy you must be spectacularly bad at action games. Dying in Dark Souls is normal, but only ever so often when you make a mistake, or during particularly tough fights.

With a decent shield, and enough stamina, you can block every attack, and it's way more useful than the back step for 2 reasons; not all attacks can actually be dodged, especially with back steps (side dodge rolls are actually much better to avoid attacks btw), and you can counterattack immediately after blocking, but not after dodging.
Frankly, you should be blocking most of the time unless you're a rogue or mage type for whom dodge is better.

Also, riposte works perfectly on what it's supposed to work on, as long as you do it properly, and it's typically a 1-hit-kill on most foes. It does require almost perfect timing though.
Of course if you're trying to riposte the attacks of the first boss who's 5 times bigger than you, that's just not going to work, since his attacks have way too much weight behind them to be parried.

Kicking works fine too, it's just forward + light attack. It took me a while to get a hang of it, but once you do it works very well. Of course, like everything else in the game you can't expect to master it right away. Just keep trying without an enemy until you can do 100% of the time.


Enemies only do high damage to you if you don't know how to block/dodge, and you only do low damage if you have a bad weapon. Most enemies can be 1-hit-killed even fairly late in the game with a properly levelled weapon you mastered.

Enemies never spawn out of nowhere. They ambush you a lot, but they're always there beforehand.
There are both shield bash and riposte, but they're mutually exclusive. Most light and medium shields allow ripostes, although it's much easier with a light shield or even some off-hand daggers, while some medium shields and all heavy ones allow shield bashes.

Leave those skeles alone for a while. Head up the mountain (you can access it from the campfire after the tutorial).

Crowd control is done by the multiplayer component. After a little while, you'll find what you need to summon other players and you yourself can be summoned. That's the most satisfaction I had in the game.

You can also crowd-control with some magic missile action. It's shoot, flip back and away, shoot, flip back and away, shoot, etc.