Topic: Soulsborne Series Thread

So DSII has 42 bosses with DLC, and the ones I listed were part of the original 32 from the main game, so it's not as egregious as I first thought. I guess I was much more disappointed that they were so obviously referencing DSI, and when they weren't the bosses weren't that great anyway (with exceptions). Once I'm done with Demon's Souls I'll probably feel differently about DSI, because the first 3 bosses have a clear lineage between the games (the 4th boss, however, did not).

@Losermagnet I think Miyazaki was working on Bloodborne after DS1, and a different team/director worked on DS2, so I don't even count DS2 as part of the series lol(Come at me! )

But man, why is Sekiro the only game without dlc, apart from maybe Demon Souls? I'm so saddened because their DLC is usually the best work they do, and base game was already so good!

Anyway, what are you guys most excited about in Elden Ring? For me, it might be the idea that you can tackle the whole game(without interruption?) with a friend and explore the world and hopefully be surprised by many cool vistas and enemies encounters.

@JoyBoy lol, DSII is definitely the outlier in the series. It's a mix of references and ideas (some good, some bad) that doesn't always come together for me. I like to think I'd enjoy it if I played it again, but I'm not sure. Majula's still great I guess lol.

I cant imagine what Sekiro DLC would've looked like. Maybe memories via the Buddah statue, similar to Hirata Estate? Strange it didn't get any extra content. It won GotY didn't it?

I didn't know Elden Ring would be full co-op. That's pretty cool. One of my favorite things about this series is the almost Metroidvania style maps that, instead of blocked progress through items acquired normally through the story, have enemies and tricky terrain that stop your progress. I want to see how an open world design will effect that.

Almost done with Demon's Souls (at least I think). Some thoughts:

-it's nice to see where it all started. It may sound critical to call it a rough draft, but that's kind of the sensation I get. It's clearly it's own thing, but there's hints of Dark Souls and even Bloodborne in parts.
-While I wouldn't say it's an easy game, for me it's probably the easiest Souls game. Dragon Lord killed me the most at 12 times, but then it jumps down to 3 deaths with the Flamelurker, and the remaining 12 bosses I've fought so far have only killed me once - or not at all. This is made up for by the areas being fairly challenging though.
-World tendency is a bit obtuse but really intriguing and once I get back to the game I'll be more cognizant of it. The fact that it can change the area you're in if the tendency is pure white or black is an intesting mechanic.

Since I'm playing the PS5 remake I think I may even watch a lets play or something once I'm done to compare the two. Bluepoint has done an impressive job but, much like Shadow of the Colossus, I'm wondering if some of the aesthetic of the original release was lost in the remaster.

@Losermagnet The PS5 version is much less gray and dreary. It's actually quite beautiful looking. Bluepoint's work is top notch.

@Ralizah The gray and dreary is the aesthetic that I was wondering about 😂 It was a pretty popular look for games in 2009. Not that I'm complaining Bluepoint made it more visually appealling; I'd rather they make better use of color and lighting (why bother remaking the game otherwise?). But it is a difference between versions that I have a small curiosity about.

For real though I love Shadow of the Colossus on PS4. That is one of the my favorite games from the last several years.

@Losermagnet How would you rank the original Dark Souls in terms of difficulty? I remember defeating most early bosses first or second try((except for Capra Demon, lol) since I first played DS3. So it might just be you are so experienced in all these new boss fights that you steamroll the old ones.

@JoyBoy I'm definitely better at playing these games than when I started, so that's part of it. The other contributor I think is Demon's Souls' level structure. Since the 5 areas are attached to the Nexus hubworld you can play them in any order (or go back-and-forth) and, rather than have one area dramatically more challening than the others, each area has weaker enemies in the first portion followed by a fairly easy boss, then it increases the difficulty for the next part until you reach a moderately hard second boss. After that second boss it's usually a short walk to a "chapter end" style fight. So, if by chance you find yourself stuck halfway through an area, you can warp to another and you may even find it really easy at first. Level up, go back to what was blocking your progress, and make em say "Matte". Easy peezy.

To answer your question about Dark Souls - I remember it being hard when I played it but mostly for the environments. Blighttown, Tomb of the Giants, those Anor Londo archers? Buh! The DS1 bosses are all comftorbally fair to me. Compared to say DS3 which has a good selection of easy to "super boss" difficulties. Thinking about this reminds me that when I played DS1 I hated attacking with the shoulder buttons and I swapped R1 with square lol. I essentially R1 spammed the whole game.

And for the sake of it I'd say the hardest bosses out of the whole series for me were (in no order) Sin from DS2, Sister Friede from DS3, and The Demon of Hatred (Sekirol.

@Losermagnet Oh that's interesting, I didn't know Demon Souls was structured like that. That definitely should make it more forgiving.
I like that about the souls games, when you're stuck on a boss or something there is usually always some different path to take, a new area to explore and you come back later. Elden Ring will bring that to a whole other level, I can only imagine.
Will be interesting to see how they scale that game in terms of difficulty. It's confirmed there is an easy to follow linear path you can take which will progress the story, that should go from sorta easy to very difficult towards the end. But how will they treat the overworld? I hope it's super dangerous, that some places, if you get there early, your only option is sneaking, might be awful lol I really hope that world is well designed.

Sister Friede... I don't need to play that dlc ever again I agree with those bosses, besides ds2 of course. I'll add the Midir to the list.

@JoyBoy that's one of the things I really like about the games too. Reminds me of a few anecdotes from my first Dark Souls playthrough:

-When I first got to Firelink Shrine I didn't notice the path to the Undead Burg until after struggling to explore both The Catacombs and New Londo Ruins. So my first impression was that the game was like impossibly hard, but since I did that I had a few extra levels on my character and the Undead Burg was a bit easier at first.

-The Titanite Demon guarding the entrance to Darkroot scared the hell outta me. Smooshed me once and I noped right outta there and did something else. Just as you said - I took a different path and when I came back beat him easily.

i'm a little ashamed to admit that I couldn't beat Sister Freide without summoning Gael to help. But I won't be having a rematch anytime soon lol. She is probably the boss that challenged me the most. Midir is really challenging, but such a good fight. He was the first boss where I started tracking the number of deaths I sustained (eight in his case). Sin on the other hand I rarely see on "hardest boss" lists yet he's cheap and hits like a truck. I was shaking when I finally beat him.

I have skipped a few bosses from these games, though not all intentionally. I never found out how to access the Old Hunters DLC in Bloodborne (if anybody knows please let me know, I never did find out lol) so no Orphan or Ludwig. And I knowingly skipped a good chunk of the DS2 DLC bosses (Blue Smelter Demon and Lud & Zallen namely).

@Losermagnet Oh wow, you didn't play Bloodborne DLC? Your boss difficulty ranking might soon change
You can acces the dlc only after you defeat Amelia. You can then pick up something from a messenger in the Hunters Dream. After this you go to Cathedral Ward,(where al the npc's gather) take the left door out and there you can actually now see the enormous alien creature(forgot the name) which is normally invisible. Let yourself be grabbed by it and you're in.

I love those bosses in the DLC, definitely one of my favorites in the series. The music is also really good and fitting.

@JoyBoy ah, thanks for the explanation. I never would've found that because I avoided those monsters as best I could. This means my first playthrough will be on New Game+ so it'll be extra spicy 😝

Dark Souls is on sale for $20 on the eshop 😲 I'm kinda tempted to double dip. Since I have NSO I could actually benefit from the online interactivity.

I beat Demon's Souls last night. I'm give it a few days and I may do a more detailed write up.

Let me know if you need any help, or do ps4 and ps5 not talk to each other?

As to Ds1, yes it's very fun on handheld, but also very playable on the big tv. It's 30fps but it's solid.

@JoyBoy Will do, thanks bud 😁 i reckon they'll work together but I'll look into it.

I'm undecided on Dark Souls for Switch. I mentioned it was on sale to my wife which resulted in me getting the sideways angry look and a "_{but you already own that game}" lol. She's just teasing me, but it's true. Is the button swapping troublesome? It's reversed from the PS4 version isn't it?

@Losermagnet If the wife gets angry it might not be worth it

I don't think so? The problem switch owners had with it was that they didn't change the button layout. We are used A to confirm, not B. So the setup is the same as a PS4 controller.

@JoyBoy oh I get it. Going from the PS to the Switch does throw me off sometimes for that reason, but it sounds like it wouldn't be a problem since it's formatted like the PS controller.

Yeah if I made the wife mad that'd be a boss fight where I'd die and respawn out on the curb 😝 jk. But yeah, I think I'll let that one pass me by.

Finished the Demon's Souls remake. Was quite good. I remember ppl saying it was one of the easier souls games, but it definitely didn't feel like that to me. Bosses yes, due to their limited move set, but the going from point a to b and actually surviving was pretty tough.

Now I see Ds2 going for just 5,-... Still not sure if I should go for it xD

@JoyBoy i missed your post originally - congrats on the Demons Souls playthrough (and presumably getting a PS5 lol). That's a fair assessment that the areas are challenging. They were no cake walk. What order did you play through the archstones? I went Boletaria - Stonefang - Valley of Defilement - Tower of Latria - Shrine of Storms (returning to Boletaria off and on). Sometimes the runs between bosses were absolutely killer. Specifically between the Adjudicator and The Old Hero, that was rough.

Elden Ring is coming soon. HYPE

I didnt plan on this happening, but I have almost completed my NG+ run of Bloodborne. I just picked it up one day and didn't put it down. I played the Old Hunters DLC for the first time too, and I recorded how many times I died to all the bosses. I won't put the whole list here but some highlights were:

My first roadblock was Micolash. Yes, one of the bosses considered to be the worst/easiest in the game wrecked me. Part of this is because during my first playthrough he got stuck in an animation loop and I beat him without having him fight back. So this was my first legit time fighting him. What kept killing me was this arcane laser attack during his final phase. If it connected it would one-shot me. Once I knew I could dodge it by stepping forward he was done. He got me 4 times, and I would rank him as my least favorite boss.

Old Hunters is hard. Definitely one of the hardest areas i've gone through in any Souls game. The Fishing Hamlet in particular was brutal. Surprisingly The Orphan of Kos wasn't as hard for me as Ludwig or Laurence. Orphan got me 5 times while Luddy and Laury got me 6 each. Also the Orphan was just a really good, tense fight. It was almost always a satisfying back-and-forth (kind of like Gael from DS3). The other two would smoosh me pretty frequently.

I'm significantly better at these games now. Shouldnt really be that surprsing but I found BB really hard when I first played it. I'm the type that likes to put on heavy armor and hide behind a big shield so it's very counter to my playstyle. But in NG+ I finally got it. I was parrying, nailing visceral attacks, dodging out efficiently, etc. The best evidence of this were my fights with Martyr Logarius and Ebriatas. They wrecked me more times than I can recall before. This time I one-shotted Logarius and got Ebriatas on my second attempt.

I still don't quite understand the story, but I'm getting there. So mankind discovered a Great One through the labyrinths under Byrgenwerth, formed the Healing Church and based their religion around it, began the consumption of its blood which then in turn led to the curse of beast-hood and the creation of Hunters. I guess my questions are: How does the Orphan play into this? Isn't the Fishing Hamlet also cited as the origin of the blood curse? A Fishman says as much when you first enter, muttering "Byrgenwerth" and cursing them. How are these connected? Did the Church think that through the consumption of the Great One's blood that they would ascend or evolve? Reminds me a bit of the Obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Anyway I'm just spitballin', any and all input is appreciated 😁

@Losermagnet Thanks! I have difficulty remembering the exact order in which I played through the game. But looking now at the places you mentioned, I seem to have done so in a very similar order as you have. Might check my trophies later, maybe they'll reveal how it went.

But really, like you, I started with Boletaria, and again, i'm pretty sure I chose the same order as you but I went back and forth between al the levels so many times that it's all a big blur really. You have all these "levels" within each of the areas, and I would clear maybe the first 2 and then I go on and check out a different area and so forth, letting the difficulty guide me.

Adjudicator and The Old Hero, huh... I don't know the names of these areas and bosses very well, so I'm looking them up as I'm typing... Omg yes! I died soooo many times... haha. I remember the first instant I got there I was doing well, got pretty far in but died which is normal and told myself to return later. But when I came back, stronger than before, and more experienced I can only hope, I just got obliterated. Again and again I died.
You remember that cliffside? There are some skeletons, 1 archer(I think), and beyond 2 strong skellys, and meanwhile all those flying stingrays are shooting at you. I died too many times there..

Elden Ring HYPE indeed. Did you stay clear of any spoilers? I haven't watched anything beyond that developer "playthrough" and skimmed through someones network test at the time and I saw more than I wanted so I decided to let it rest.

Congratz on BB! I'll have to comment on that later!