Topic: Soulsborne Series Thread

I have played my first 5 hours of the game (PS4) and I'll keep on playing in a while. Everywhere I go I just find so much stuff to discover. The enemy designs and places that I have seen are fantastic. Personally I haven't had any performance issues, but it's too early to judge that.

Part of me is wondering if I should just play it after I get my copy, but part of me figures that I should hold off and beat DS1 first, since it might be hard to go back to a game with older mechanics.

I gave it a go. Tried the tutorial boss a couple of times by restarting, couldn't beat them, so I just moved on. Hope I haven't missed out on like a vital reward that would make the opening hours so much better!

The next set of enemies in like that crypt or whatever before going into the actual first proper area, including the sort of mini-boss you fight to go into the first area were surprisingly easy.

The enemies in the actual first proper area don't seem so bad, either, like in terms of the enemies you just bump into around the area. I picked the hero and blocking seems kinda OP, you don't even need to time it really. Just hold up your shield, let them hit into your shield, wait for that white flash indicator and hit the heavy button, near enough one shots everything with the base axe I started with. Even works on bosses (although it doesn't one shot them).

However, I already feel sorta stuck/lost? Like in each direction there seems to be some sort of insurmountable wall I can't overcome. Whether it is that Knight boss, or the Sentinel, or the dragon or just getting completely overwhelmed by soldiers or endlessly respawning skeletons.

My hope would be I could like eventually find a direction I could progress down, then when I got so far and died, I would just go in a new direction, but I am never making it far enough to get to new sites of grace or whatever to plant a flag of progress. I am getting very few drops, losing all my runes because of the death and just constantly going back to the same place again, so I can't really make any progress at all. I have been at work all day. so I might sleep on it, try when I am fresh tomorrow and see if I get on better with it.

Oh and I've also been killed by invasions twice already in like maybe two hours. Can I turn these off? Because I didn't intentionally or knowingly turn them on (haven't tried summoning other players or whatever) and they are ***** annoying.

Well, I went for playing offline, so that avoids the invasions, @Pizzamorg .... I'm just wandering around the world with no idea where to go now, though, so if anyone has any ideas, pass them on

How do I choose online or offline? I wasn't given a choice, so I assume it must have defaulted to online? Where do I go to turn it off? Or do I literally need to unplug my PC from the internet?

Well, it was in the options before I started playing .... Just a second, I'll check in the in-game menu System, then network & you can change it anytime, @Pizzamorg

Thank you!

No problem, @Pizzamorg ... Now, which way is anything when you get out into the world?

All this reminds me of why I almost never buy AAA games for the PC on day one.

Why bother when they usually launch with a bunch of bugs and you'll be able to pick it up in sale after the patch drops?

So, I just defeated 3 bosses (4 if I count a certain hidden character). The bosses have been pretty engaging battles as usual and I did have to farm levels for one of them. Thankfully I found a great area to level up to level 40 in no time.

So I made it to Margit, got them about half of the way down on my first try and died. I've read you should be at least like level 25, I think I was 18? So I didn't bother a second attempt, I decided to go back into the world and grind it out.

It is weird, because levelling is sort of painless (assuming you don't die) and painful at the same time. The fact that everything in the game uses the same currency, means you can either focus on levelling up quite fast but then having no money to basically buy anything or buying something, but knowing each item is a level lost effectively.

What makes this worse, is this isn't some sort of looter. You can fight your way through a tough dungeon and only have crafting items to show for it, by the end. I seem to get barely any tangible stuff I can just equip straight away. And I get the fun should be discovering the world, fighting crazy monsters, not just the reward, but there is still a real sinking feeling every time you fell some tough foe and literally get nothing other than the currency, and then they respawn like a second later too...

And if the game does finally give me a weapon, for some reason it is better than like the next four weapons I get over the several hours after that. It sorta feels like you have to use vendors to progress your gear, but then you do that and you can't level up...

I dunno, since everything respawns like almost the second you kill it, maybe later on I'll just be drowning in this stuff (assuming I don't die).

The biggest surprise for me so far, is at least in this current zone, the game honestly isn't that hard. Like it is harder than the games I usually play, for sure, and something like Margit or the Tree Sentinel poses a far greater challenge than your random Joe out in the world, but really I've died far more often to being overwhelmed than I have to anything else. All of the mini bosses I have found at the end of like the mini dungeons (I think I have faced maybe about five of them?) have been like surprisingly easy.

And since I know that if I have no intention of buying anything levelling up is a surprisingly painless experience, kill a giant or two and I am ready to level up again. And those giants - and really most world enemies - are surprisingly easy to take down when you are on horseback. As such, I don't feel utterly defeated because I lost to Margit. I guess if I am like level 40 and still can't beat them I will check back in...

I dunno whether it's because I really made myself nervous in my own head at this being impossible, but most of the time it is actually just fine. The shield counter thing is crazy OP, although it is awkward AF to control, Torrent feels kinda OP too, the wolves and the companions all really help a lot, too.

The game runs fine for me, but I'm running it on PS5 so I guess thats a best case scenario. Occasionally I notice a dip in frames and it's obviously not as visually impressive as the Demon's Souls remake, but I have no complaints.

I went with a lady prisoner character named Baroness 😎 and I'm finding that my default spell is slow but my most powerful attack. I think I'm playing this game a bit too much like BB. I'll see a heavily armored horseback knight and think "lets go kick its ass" only to get completely destroyed. I need to focus more on exploring and leveling up. I want to replace my Estoc too, but I havent found a good weapon to switch to. One small complaint - the timing for the dodge roll feels just slightly off to me. Again, thats prolly on me cause i just ran through NG+ Bloodborne

@roy130390 was one of those bosses Margit? That dude wrecked me. Probably the most challenging opening bosses for me since Gascoign.

I imagine so, @Losermagnet ..... Should we ask how you chose your girl's name? Anyway, I finally got to that castle! Where's anyone else?

Playing this on PC.

The level of shadow flickering and pop-in in this game is nuts on the low graphics setting. With that said, after all of the horror stories about the game running at 15fps on modern video cards, the fact that the framerate isn't tanking at low settings on my piddly, 7-year-old GPU is a relief. Haven't set up the steam tools to track fps, but it feels fluid. Definitely 50fps+ the majority of the time.

How many gamer incel jokes will this inspire, I wonder?

@Losermagnet Yup! That guy was the one that made me level up a bit. He's a really tough boss, I barely managed to survive.

@Ralizah Haha I didn't even think about it. Maybe you are the first to think about that and we are witnessing internet history in the making .

Is it normal for the ps5 fans to change pitch when I move the camera around?

@BruceCM im also at castle stormveil now - but im gonna go goof off and level up a bit. I barely beat Margit at level 16, and was able to jump to level 21 afterwords. As for the name - I never know what to call my character in these games. They always get called something else anyway, so I usually pick a character name from a book or movie. In this case I was listening to Baroness on the way home from work yesterday and I thought it had some nice overlap with the GI Joe character Baroness. But with all the critical hits I've been landing on enemies I should've called her Back-Stabby Abby.

@Ralizah ha!

@roy130390 it was a bit strange because I fought a few mini bosses in ruins that i took out handily, then I got to him and had to rethink my life plans.

LOVING- the color palette, the open world, crafting items, lots of NPCs it seems.
UNSURE-the music (does anyone else get a little 'Blade Runner Blues' from the overworld theme?), the steed, my Estoc (criminyjimjam I hate this thing lol).

Back-Stabby Abby sounds like a great name, @Losermagnet ..... I just stuck to calling mine Lucy, like I always do, lols How many goes did you take at Margit? I'd just levelled up to 18 & upgraded my weapons before that one & it still took a few! (OK, maybe 10?)

@BruceCM I'm not ashamed to admit I lost count on the losses to Margit. Maybe 20. He really whooped me. My regular attacks did nothing so my assumption is 1) i was really underleveled. 2) he was resistant to thrust attacks. 3) i'm not very good lol. Or 4) some combination of those.

I actually equipped my staff as my right hand weapon and moved all but one of my potions to magic restoration and killed him with spells, dodging his attacks as best I could. It felt great to beat him.

I found the Uchigatana, so happy that I can swap out my estoc finally.

@VoidofLight is it really noticeable? Mine doesn't as far as I can tell. I have mine set to performance mode....maybe that could influence it?