Dark Souls Review

[Gustaran]

I managed to finish the game during my vacation. What a great game this is, I had loads of fun trying to overcome the challenges. It's a pity that I had to play most of the game offline, due to no internet connection avaiable (that mostly means no messages, because I hardly played the game unhollowed

The game has the habit of sending an invader to kill you just when you spent your precious humanity to Reverse Hollowing before a difficult fight, so being offline might have been a blessing in disguise.

I also needed internet help in Blighttown, to find the swamp bonfire and the boss. Almost went mad there.

Blighttown with the poison is madness.

*I missed all the Prepare to Die expansion content. I also missed the Painted World of Ariamis and the Ash Lake (and the return to Undead Asylum). So, I think I'll do another playthrough to see these areas.

That is quite a lot of content, especially the DLC and the Painted World. BTW, I wonder what kind of player you have to be to find the return to the Asylum without looking it up...

Overall, awesome game. Easily on my top-10 games that I've ever played. I'll buy DS2 as soon as the GotY edition comes out and I'm holding myself only because of the whole issue regarding compatibility between the original and the GotY edition (what a mess that seems).

You probably know that already, but Dark Souls has a predecessor on PS3 ("Demon's Souls") which I personally like even better than Dark Souls. So if you need some "Souls"-action until the release of the "Scholars of the First Sin" edition, it could be worth getting your hand on a PS3 and playing through the game. You might never forget the "Tower of Latria" level...

[Gustaran]

I just stumbled across the news on a gaming site that the current Dark Souls speed record is 49 minutes and 55 seconds for the whole game.



http://www.twitch.tv/kahmul78/c/5909155

[Gustaran]

The reworked Dark Souls 2 "Scholars of the First Sin" edition is now available. Along with improved graphics the mob placement has been tuned as well.

Is anybody planning on picking this up? I feel it's more fun if you can chat about how difficult it is while playing.

[Ichabod]

The reworked Dark Souls 2 "Scholars of the First Sin" edition is now available. Along with improved graphics the mob placement has been tuned as well.

Is anybody planning on picking this up? I feel it's more fun if you can chat about how difficult it is while playing.

I want to buy it too. Hopefully it works on my computer. I really don't know what's the difference between directx 9 and 11, so I'm afraid that I'll buy a game I can't run (since each version of the game is a different product ot be bought that cost the same).

Now that I think of it, this rework thing is such a dick move by the company that I feel like boycotting them because of it and not buying the game that I'd really want to, otherwise. There's simply no way to justify doing what they did and I'd feel bad about just closing my eyes to it.

[Gustaran]

Now that I think of it, this rework thing is such a dick move by the company that I feel like boycotting them because of it and not buying the game that I'd really want to, otherwise. There's simply no way to justify doing what they did and I'd feel bad about just closing my eyes to it.

You are talking about the upgrade path?

The thing is: If you buy just the Steam key on Ebay, you can get the complete game plus all 3 DLCs and the DirectX11 upgrade for ~25 Euros (which is dirt cheap IMHO).

I think the criticism comes from season pass owners who already own the game and all DLCs. According to the comments, the upgrade to the improved graphics DX11 version costs 15 Euros in this case. On the one hand, I agree with you that it would be certainly more customer friendly to make this free, especially for the season pass owners and retain savegame compatibility.

On the other hand, I feel there are much worse examples out there: Evolve is selling a single monster for 15 Euros and 4 hunters at ~8 Euros a piece, some single League of Legends skins cost more than 20 Euros, recycled multiplayer shooter maps are in a similar price range, etc...

So while I don't consider it a cool move by From Software, I don't feel it's incredibly outrageous either, especially if you compare it to certain DLCs from other games. And they did rework the graphics and changed the mob placement after all, which is a certain amount of work (maybe not worth 15 Euros, but it doesn't have to be free either).

[SevenSpirits]

Well, I was really angry when I heard they were releasing a "new edition" of a game I already paid for, but it turned out not too bad. One thing to remember is that the price of a game goes down over time - the newness has value. Most of the content in Scholars of the First Sin is old - it's the base DSII game, but arguably most of the VALUE of SotFS is in the new stuff that has not depreciated yet. I paid $20 for the upgrade to SotFS, and having now played for about an hour, I think it's reasonable, if a little high. I'm sympathetic to the fact that they have to redo more stuff for the console versions and sell it separately there, and having the price discrepancy between the PC upgrade path vs the console upgrade path be too high would also piss people off.

As I mentioned, I played a bit of it. The SERIOUSLY revamped enemy placement, way more than I expected. Not just new enemies, but completely ripping out old enemy configurations and replacing them with different ones. I can't tell yet if I would say it's an IMPROVEMENT for a new player, as I'm not getting a real new player experience. From a veteran perspective I can tell you that I love it because it's kind of a new game. The information I had learned about how to do each area is now somewhat obsolete, which means I get to learn new information, which is fun. I can also say that it seems clearly harder. I'm not sure why they made it harder - maybe they figured their audience was mostly people who had already played DSII? - but they did. (And I like it.) All that said, don't expect the systems to be different or anything. The changes so far are all just level design changes.

Overall I would recommend it, but FROM did use up a little bit of my goodwill towards them. But I was way more pissed about the initial DSII release being available for consoles a month before PC, than I am about this.

[Ichabod]

Okay, you convinced me, I'll buy it!!

[SevenSpirits]

My best guess for checking whether you can run the directx 11 version is:

1) In the start menu, type dxdiag and hit enter.
2) It will display system information. Look for where it says which version of directx you have. You need 11.
3) You need a 64-bit OS. Where it says "Operating System", look for it to say 64 bit and not 32 bit.

Notes:
You might be able to get DirectX 11 from microsoft's website if you don't already have it. I don't know.
You might specifically need windows 7 or 8 64 bit. Windows Vista 64 bit might not be good enough. I don't know.

[sunrise089]

DX11 should run on Vista. Not sure about every update though.

[Gustaran]

I can also say that it seems clearly harder. I'm not sure why they made it harder - maybe they figured their audience was mostly people who had already played DSII? - but they did.