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Dariush • 7 years ago

The forgettable soundtrack, the laughable, forced, -inyourface-, fanservice and that terrible hub area made it a much less enjoyable game for me...

GMotive • 7 years ago

I have to admit, despite the stellar reviews, I'm still reluctant to buy this. The punishing difficulty that is mentioned in the first paragraph of every review and bit of promotion is my sticking point. I don't necessarily have a problem with games being hard, even very hard. I have completed numerous games on their hardest difficulty and enjoyed the experience, but in every case, that has been after having played at least once for the story and to learn how to play the game well. If you dropped me into The Last of Us in survivor mode or Bioshock Infinite in 1999 mode with no supply purchases, or Uncharted on crushing difficulty, I would have quit out of frustration and missed wonderful gaming experiences in the process.

If the game had a difficulty adjustment, which seems an odd omission for a modern game, which would allow for less skilled players like me to learn the game on a less punishing difficulty while acquiring the skills needed for the harder ones, that would probably be enough to put me over the edge. Or a really good sale, so that when it inevitably gets overly frustrating, I would feel less sting over wasting the money.

Faiz Azfar • 7 years ago

Well to be fair, playing the Last of Us on grounded or survivor actually made it sooo much more fun, and I had a totally different experience. I completely get your point of view, and I am similar. Sometimes however, in games like the last of us and the witcher 3 for example, higher difficulties completely change the experience for the better.

michael bailey • 7 years ago

The thing that makes Dark Souls different to Bioshock is that Bioshock's 1999 Mode was created to twist the intended mode and make it harder.

Normal mode = how the game is intended to be played.
All the harder modes are simply twists to add extra challenges and add longevity to the product.

Dark Souls doesn't have a "hard mode", it has NG+ and ++, +++.
The additional new games sometimes include new enemies/additional ones but it takes the Destiny approach of adding lots more health.

Dark Souls is not a hard game, it is purely a game about timing and rolling, similar to Mario or Crash Bandicoot. The difference is between a platformer and Dark Souls is that Dark Souls has unnerving imagery and is more graphic in how the player is punished.

I have completed Dark Souls I and II with 100% achievements. It was not "hard" it was mostly a game of learning, memory and pushing the boundaries of what the game can accept. The "hard mode" in Dark Souls II is to complete the game without dying or using a bonfire, you acquire rings that hide your weaponry. I genuinely could not be bothered with that but some players relish it and make youtube videos. :)

I never completed the Mario games or Sonic because those games were harder than Dark Souls. [Prepares for Downvotes]

GMotive • 7 years ago

Perhaps your experience with the series makes it seem easier to you than seemingly every other outlet that reports on the game. Different skill sets make for different perceptions of difficulty. I find the Sonic and Mario games to be among the easiest platformers. The challenge for those isn't finishing the games, it's in completing them with all coins or stars. It was their competitors - Contra, Ghouls and Ghosts, Battletoads, Mega Man, that were the brutally difficult ones, and those are what the references to Dark Souls series brutal difficulty level make me think of.

In any case, my point was that it might be less off putting for new players that lack your experience to have a lower difficulty level on which to learn the game, or for those who want to play it for the story and atmosphere as opposed to the (as reported by most players and news outlets) extreme challege involved. I'm a big fan of having difficulty level adjustments in nearly all games. It makes more games more accessible to more people, which is good for gaming and good for gamers.

A lower difficulty setting wouldn't hurt those who don't want to use it, while it would help newbies like me. It's a basic feature that has no downside, and thus, it's absence is something I find strange.

I'm not afraid of challenge. I just don't like reaching frustration leven before I get the chance to acquire the skills needed for success.

liotinedario • 7 years ago

i'm playing it right now. I just slained Yhorm. Gotta say, the soundtrack is completely forgettable and it's a pity since the game is really solid and much, much better than DS2 wich i consider a mediocre mess of terrible enemy placement and no artistic consistency. Overall it's a solid 8, for me, would have been easily a 9 with a better soundtrack. Ds1 OST was just on another level.

Lost in the Schwartzwelt • 7 years ago

I really love the fact that Dark Souls relented and made direct connections. It's a bittersweet thing of course, because every revisited character and location is more ruined/tragic than ever, the sort of fan service only From would try.

Briosh • 7 years ago

i have to confess. every time i play DS3 i have an urge to play Bloodborne again... I've been a fan since Demon Souls and i have to admit that for me, Bloodborne is the best souls game ever.

liotinedario • 7 years ago

i have to get my hands on a ps4, hell!

passerby • 7 years ago

yea good game thnx for the honest review since updat it's runing smoothly just get the game -38% https://goo.gl/dv6gMS

The King of Kats • 7 years ago

to me, dark souls 3 is a 10/10 game, because when i review a game i try my hardest to give it a fair chance by making the good out way the bad, and to me 1 or 2 framerate dips isnt going to make me give the game a 9.

Nitrium • 7 years ago

Honest Trailer for this is out: https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Aaric Runyan • 7 years ago

A bit annoyed game seems good but i got it because you said it was running smoothly started play an hour ago frame rate is all over the place and lagging like crazy hope they fix it because i want to play it. Also it not my pc it is powerful enough to play it.

Do you have the machine that can handle it in the 1st place?

HailPaimon • 7 years ago

It has a memory leak problem. Pain in the butt.

Aaric Runyan • 7 years ago

Pleas read my comment fully before posting if you had you would have your answer yes it is.

Sebastien Morin • 7 years ago

You have a keyboard problem nonetheless...

AtlasRedux • 7 years ago

Well, clearly it isn't if you're having framerate issues. Don't ever believe the recommended hardware.

Guest • 7 years ago
Aslatiel • 7 years ago

The thing is, the conosle version cant keep up with the 30fps on many occasions. You will have frame dips that go below 20, and that tends to happen at certain bossfights. If you take that into account, then yes, it is worth losing a full point. The same frame dips happen on PC sometimes, but because of the 60fps base it just goes to 40 or something like this.

Guest • 7 years ago
Aslatiel • 7 years ago

And the Review was made before the patch

burben • 7 years ago

I don't know if you've ever played a game at 60 FPS, but it is a massive difference. 30 FPS looks choppy and slower by comparison. It doesn't require squinting to notice it, because it affects the entire screen, as well as input delay. And who cares if it lost a full point. The score is completely arbitrary. It's what he wrote that counts.

Nagu • 7 years ago

Personally, I prefer knowing a framerate drop is the game's fault and
not the hardware. I like my games to actually work when I play them, and
you have a lot better chance of bugs being found and fixed when
graphics card drawing styles aren't a variable.

That, and
whenever I watch or play 60fps it always looks like everything is being
fast-forwarded at the 1.25X setting, causing a kind of uncanny valley
effect for me, personally.
I'm pretty sure there's a science behind the reason why film sticks to the 25-30fps to explain this phenomenon, something to do with the way the brain processes motion visually and motion blur. So whether or not 60fps looks better for you is entirely up to how fast your eyes are and whether or not they're hurt by a lack of visible motion blur between static images.

Guest • 7 years ago
Lost in the Schwartzwelt • 7 years ago

Frame rate while watching video matters less because it's a passive experience, but it really impacts how a game feels to play. This is even more true for any real-time action games, be they 3D or 2D.

In many games with 30 FPS there is a feeling of slowness and delay, and nowhere have I experienced this disparity more than with DS2 vs SOTFS; that higher frame rate improved my experience more than any other change Fromsoft made.

burben • 7 years ago

no actually its a 100% improvement. Basic math. You can tell the difference in every game, and I'd say the only game where a high framerate isn't *essential* is turn-based. A game like Dark Souls is improved drastically with twice the FPS. 10%...lol that's a new one.

Chris JT • 7 years ago

I agree....I notice INSTANTLY whenever a game is in 60fps and it's always better for it.

Nagu • 7 years ago

Math, but not biology.

The film industry didn't settle on a standard rounding to 30fps because of image quality concerns nor data size. The average human eye processes roughly 30 frames each second and simplifies differences between them with motion blur. The human eye is likely not going to see the frame in between the two frames it actually sees, but it will notice a stronger afterimage in the motion blur. Whether that's perceived as fluidity or not noticed at all is entirely dependent on the actual speed your individual eyes refresh at. If you're sitting at a 35 fps eyes, you'll be singing about 60, but if you're at 28 you will never notice much of a difference, if at all, between the framerates. And that means you've doubled the processing load and data filesize for nothing.

Lost in the Schwartzwelt • 7 years ago

The mind does not process in FPS, silly.

Chrome • 7 years ago

Just a note, but there is a massive difference between a non-interactive movie and an interactive game. The 30 vs 60 fps argument is mostly for gaming, and falls heavily in favor of the latter, since when you actually *play* a game with a higher framerate, trust me, you will know the difference and how much better it feels.

People keep forgetting the difference between movies and games. It's the responsiveness that matters.

Guest • 7 years ago
burben • 7 years ago

Obviously you don't play games at 60 fps or higher then, or you're a troll. Comparing framerate to polygon count is a false equivalency. Twice the amount of frames=gameplay that is twice as smooth. It ultimately doesn't even matter what the human eye can detect. You can feel the heightened responsiveness in the gameplay regardless. You can also clearly tell the difference between 60 and 120 FPS. It's evident that you don't own a 120 hz monitor, or you would never have said that. Also, a 1% improvement? Where are you even getting this from? You're talking out of your ass.

Guest • 7 years ago
Chrome • 7 years ago

It's not the visuals alone which determine the difference, which is what you seem to be trying to ignore. The responsiveness of a higher framerate/refresh rate is what makes the difference - There is less time between an input and the result.

It's especially noticable in competitive games. When you've gone 120hz, you won't want to go back.

Nagu • 7 years ago

However, when you're creating an illusion of motion through static images, the brain will be expecting motion blur that simply won't be there if you do the full 60. Yes, the brain will perceive the motion as being fluid, but any motion with a small distance that approaches that exact 60 will feel EXTREMELY uncomfortable, as the brain perceives an object moving without any motion blur, causing it to mistake it for being an afterimage, resulting in depth perception illusions and discomfort.

Of course, for people with existing depth perception problems that experience motion sickness, the breaking of the illusion of motion will be a godsend and they will sing the high praises and demand that everything be that way.

AtlasRedux • 7 years ago

Holy lord, you're dumb! No, 30FPS and 60FPS is a MAJOR difference! I get seriously dizzy playing games that goes down to 30FPS, and Dark Souls 3 is no exception. I had to skip my dreams of playing it in 4K, since after 15 minutes of 35FPS I was ready to vomit.
So I went down to 2K, now have a 55-60FPS and it's smooth as butter.
If you can't experience the difference, something is severely wrong with you.
Tales of Zesteria was nearly unplayable for me because of the 30FPS lock.

Nagu • 7 years ago

I think that's your own issues with motion sickness causing you to perceive the lack of motion blur as being "smooth" when in fact it's simply your brain not even bothering to try to perceive gameplay as fluid motion.

Of course it's much better to you, but that's because at 30fps you may as well have been trying to watch a stereoscopic 3D movie with one eye closed. Understand that what you experience is not the norm for most people, despite those like you being a very vocal minority when it comes to this subject matter. And it would be a lot easier to sympathize if such individuals quit acting as though this is a "no-brainer" and would at least ACKNOWLEDGE the POSSIBILITY that maybe, just MAYBE the rest of the world DOESN'T suffer from motion blur sickness. I understand that the format greatly improves YOUR experience, but please don't act as though everyone else is stupid for being capable of enjoying things at 30fps.

Guest • 7 years ago
AtlasRedux • 7 years ago

People, pretty sure this asshole is a troll by now.

AtlasRedux • 7 years ago

Nope. This is very common actually. Many people can't stand playing any games below 45FPS. TotalBiscuit being one of them. Some people are simply more sensitive than others, you moron.

Guest • 7 years ago
Doug Adkins • 7 years ago

You can still be trolling while maintaining a semblance of civility. It's called sealioning, after this comic:
http://wondermark.com/1k62/

android19 • 7 years ago

It was super linear. Yes, there were four paths to go down, but each of those paths was a straight shot to the end. There was no interconnection of the areas like there was in DS1, and that made Drangleic feel less like an actual world and more like just a series of levels. And if you can't see or feel the difference between playing at 30 and 60... That's kinda sad.

BJ Von Giblstein • 7 years ago

With DS3 being playable in less than 24 hours, and being someone who already bought the season pass months ago, since it has been out for weeks now with people already speedrunning it in less than 90 minutes I gotta say I'm really not looking forward to DS3 anymore. Though I pre-purchased it on Steam, I feel like the last person to actually get it. The hype is just gone and I'm just left feeling empty about this game that I was really excited for weeks ago.

BJ Von Giblstein • 7 years ago

First off, at no point did I ever watch a single speed run, or any video in fact of DS3. It's just the idea that people where out there enjoying it at an earlier release that had me feeling left out. Since it had been out for WEEKS before we got to play it I kind of just didn't look forward to it anymore. I didn't enjoy the idea that it could be beaten in under 90 minutes, especially that soon. Even though I was playing for the first time, I didn't feel like I would get to enjoy it with everyone on day one.

BenMS • 7 years ago

If you are excited for a game, and have managed to spoil that excitement for yourself, you literally only have yourself to blame. I didn't watch a single thing or read a single review or click on any news stories about it and I'm having a great time.

AtlasRedux • 7 years ago

NEVER FUCKING PREORDER ANYTHING, why the fucking hell do people still preorder?! It's a digital fucking product, it doesn't run out of stock and you can handle the goddamn download after release.

JPMcMillen • 7 years ago

Well, my plan is to avoid watching any LP or speed runs of DS3 along with doing my best to stay away from every DS3 Wiki out there. So far I've managed to avoid every game play video except that first one Jim did, but that's the very beginning of the game so I'll see that soon enough.

DamZe • 7 years ago

The 1.03 patch seems to have fixed a number of poor performing areas in the game! Jim could you retest some of the areas that gave you trouble with this new patch and update the review with your findings?