This Old Neon Forum

Kong Wen wrote: ↑27 Feb 2024 16:05 That strategy doesn't just end in your approach to combat, but in your whole approach to character design. One of the complaints people who don't know how to play the game had about it was that you just have to walk around everywhere holding your shield up. Using a shield and then reacting to enemy attacks was indeed one strategy for how to approach the game. If you're terrified, you hide behind your shield. But you could also be an agile hit & runner. You could also be an aggressive great-sword-wielding beast who kills the threats before they kill you. You could also rely heavily (heh) on Poise and thicc armour and just allow yourself to keep getting hit and eating attacks, knowing you're too big a boi for them to affect you. And these are all just the common legit strategies!

Kong Wen wrote: ↑27 Feb 2024 16:05 After playing so many physics-free action games where your character has no weight, no momentum, and can attack so many times per second with a huge club that the action feels meaningless—you're not deciding what to do, how to take down an opponent or solve a problem with combat, just memorizing combos—moving on to a game like Dark Souls where each weapon has its own heft, and each attack you make has its own cost of recovery feels like a true revelation. You can actually be strategic in an action game!

Kong Wen wrote: ↑27 Feb 2024 16:05 There are two Metrovania classics left in this top 16, and Symphony of the Night isn't even the best one. SotN is a good early action-exploring-RPG and a fun world to moonwalk around in, but Dark Souls feels like such a leap forward in action RPG combat and mechanics that it truly is one of the greats.

After playing so many physics-free action games where your character has no weight, no momentum, and can attack so many times per second with a huge club that the action feels meaningless—you're not deciding what to do, how to take down an opponent or solve a problem with combat, just memorizing combos—moving on to a game like Dark Souls where each weapon has its own heft, and each attack you make has its own cost of recovery feels like a true revelation. You can actually be strategic in an action game!

That strategy doesn't just end in your approach to combat, but in your whole approach to character design. One of the complaints people who don't know how to play the game had about it was that you just have to walk around everywhere holding your shield up. Using a shield and then reacting to enemy attacks was indeed one strategy for how to approach the game. If you're terrified, you hide behind your shield. But you could also be an agile hit & runner. You could also be an aggressive great-sword-wielding beast who kills the threats before they kill you. You could also rely heavily (heh) on Poise and thicc armour and just allow yourself to keep getting hit and eating attacks, knowing you're too big a boi for them to affect you. And these are all just the common legit strategies!

Man, none of this even takes into account how the whole faction system worked, and how cool it was that you could summon phantoms into your game to help you—but that even doing that doesn't really make the game "easymode", it's just a completely in-lore way of showing a glimmer of human resilience against the oppressive crushing darkness and hopelessness of the world. Doesn't even take into account Solaire and Siegmeyer. Absolute god-tier game.