Why is the first half of the game so magical

Honestly seeing how fucking big Skyrim was that was a galaxy brain call.

the first half is better but idk

dukes is fine
DLC is good
tomb isn't too bad and is pretty memorable
painted world/great hollow is pretty good (not necessarily *after* anor londo)

new londo isn't awful but it's retarded that it has zero bonfires

demon ruins post firesage is the only real 2/10 area imo. it's got the ultimate wombo combo of shit area and shit boss

yeah but the first half is a steam roll too if you aren't a noob? so idk that's not good enough reasoning for me.

The second half turns into a jrpg with cringey over the top bullshit

New Londo is really short once you take care of the water, though, and the second half is easily accessible from the Valley of Drakes too.

what's wrong with ds2? the designs/bosses are a little lame but it's pretty fun

If you don't sequence break to make yourself overpowered, or roll for a black knight weapon, no.

For me its Darkroot. Easily the most magical level in the series other than Latria

it's just a very long run back and it feels like the only thing you ever die to is secret dickwraiths or falling off the side because you forgot the layout. the 4 kings also just aren't very interesting once you understand what's happening.

IDK like I said it's not awful. it's pretty cool looking at least.

because the real goal of chosen undead is to find the magical chest

after that there is no reason to quest further

I've never sequence broken ever or used a black knight weapon. what would you even sequence break to get op?

what would you even say is remotely hard in the first half? O&S aren't even that hard past your first playthrough and nothing in the first half is as hard as O&S

>I've never sequence broken ever or used a black knight weapon. what would you even sequence break to get op?
For example: even before you step into Undead Burg, with the Master Key it's possible to take the elevator down to New Londo Ruins, run through the Valley of the Drakes and from there to Darkroot, where you'll find the Grass Crest Shield and a Black Knight with the Halberd. In a matter of 4 min you can get a PVP ready shield and if you're lucky, a +5 tier weapon with a strong moveset.

I don't think they're THAT bad but Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith are definitely worse than most of Dark Souls 2's areas. The others are just fine.

I think the game plays awfully.

>For me its Darkroot. Easily the most magical level

Why do you like it?

Pre-Sen's Fortress the game has so many possibilities. What weapon/build are you using? What items are you going to rush for? Etc. You can do it in myriad ways and the first few hours will seem fun and fresh each way; Anor Londo and everything after it feels like a chore you have to do every playthrough though

>Pre-Sen's Fortress the game has so many possibilities. What weapon/build are you using? What items are you going to rush for? Etc. You can do it in myriad ways and the first few hours will seem fun and fresh each way

What about Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 3?

I think this is why I keep coming back to DS1 as opposed to 2 and 3. First half of the game is dynamite and tons of fun every time since you have so many ways to approach it. I honestly usally drop DS1 replays exactly after finishing Anor Londo since there really isn't much fun to be had after it. It really feels like you are just going through the motions afterwards.

I really hope ER manages to capture some of that feeling that the first half of DS1 has.

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it's "clunky" and "floaty". Characters in 1 and 3 turn instantly and you can backstep and whip your running attack around 180+ degrees. ds2 characters kinda do a janky heel-turn and the dead angling basically is loked to like 40 degrees. It just feels like the cursed undead tries to fight your controller inputs. Plus the deadzones are fucking square for literally whatever fucking reason.

Too locked down. DS2 is slightly better off in this regard since you get the choice right off the bat, but the areas are still linear. The choice feels very static since the best approach is usually to just pick one route and stick with it. Contrast this with DS1 where you can hop all over the place if you know what you are doing and still make meaningful progress.

I still think DS3 is a lot of fun but it literally has fuckall in the way of choice.

I think it works that way so you can lock onto an enemy but attack in the opposite direction.
It's hard to get used to it because weapons in DaS 1 and 3 have insane tracking, especially 1, but once you get the hang of it it makes PVP a lot better.

>I still think DS3 is a lot of fun but it literally has fuckall in the way of choice.

Why was DS3 so linear?

Miyazaki forced to make a second sequel to a game that stood well on it’s own. He put his foot down and said “no more Dark Souls” after 3
But now we’re getting Elden Ring

I don't know the games well enough to say. What's the equivalent of the Black Knight Halberd? Or doing a catacomb run for GS/Gravelord Sword? Or the default scrub option of Elite Knight+Drake Sword?

Beats me. It was either a concious decision that it would always be linear, but I think its more likely that they simply ran out of time. Making areas connect organically and not fucking over the level curve entirerly is likely requires a fuckton of time From didn't have.

Any purported "leaks" on this website should always be taken with a grain of salt, but I legit think there might be some truth to pic related. DS3 has so much unused stuff in it it likely had a pretty hectic development in order to meet the deadline. Best way to minimize the time required to iron out the kinks in a sprawling level was likely to make the path linear instead.

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>Any purported "leaks" on this website should always be taken with a grain of salt, but I legit think there might be some truth to pic related. DS3 has so much unused stuff in it it likely had a pretty hectic development in order to meet the deadline. Best way to minimize the time required to iron out the kinks in a sprawling level was likely to make the path linear instead.

What did Dark Souls 3 do better/worse than its predecessors?

Post lord vessels areas are as good as pre lord vessel. At least most of them. Dukes, New Londo, Catacombs and Tombs, all great. I don’t think a few bad apples like Izalith should spoil the bunch

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I'd say it likely has to do with how unlike in dark souls 2 and 3 and the second half of 1, the first half is designed with the fact in mind that the player can't just teleport between every bonfire from the beginning. It incentivizes designing interconnected levels that loop back around to the hub area and have many spaces in between that fold back into each other since the player is gonna have to walk everywhere. Its probably harder to design than linear levels, so letting the player just teleport everywhere instead means they don't have to worry about it. But that does make it less interesting.

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Because you were spoiled by Yea Forums into thinking the second half is bad. You're retarded, the game is still pretty solid, you just lose interest in it because you will never be able to go through the game blind ever again.

Idk, they all had some sort of gimmick that soured me on the whole thing (needing a light source, respawning skellies, invisible pathways, etc). Doing that shit after Anor Londo (which aside from the archers, was a very "fair" level) felt awful

Well I don’t know about that, although there is bondfire teleporting the bonfires after Anor Londo are spread pretty far apart and you still have to walk grand distances to explore within the areas themselves, which are huge by the way

The light source is cool though
Respawning skeletons and invisible crystal pillars are annoying I’ll give you that, but they’re not the entirety of the area and chances are you won’t be going back and forth between the crystal place. The light rocks help in that area too

The thing is the levels themselves can be interconnected within themselves but the point is how those levels connect with each other. Yes you still walk a lot in the second half but theres less places that branch off into other places and at the end of each area imagine not being able to teleport back out and having to walk the same way back instead of continuing on and finding that the whole thing loops back to an earlier area.

>What did Dark Souls 3 do better/worse than its predecessors?
It's the only one in the trilogy that gets better in the second half

Miyazaki couldn't top the first half and so decided to design his next three games around the philosophy of the second half, hence the inferiority of Bloodborne and Dark Souls III.

the game probably sold like shit at first when souls was still a niche genre ie before the youtubers and the epic "le hard souls" meme appeared

Or how about the fucking zweihander just sitting in the shrine, or the short catacomb skip to get the grave lord greatsword, or using a bow to get the drake sword or just getting lucky and getting either the black knight sword or great sword in the burg, or even then just using black firebombs on the asylum demon for the great club, or just boosting faith to join sun covenant for the spear
My God there are a lot of ways to get op early on, even more than I'm mentioning right now

No idea since Izalith is the only bad area in the second half. Archives live up to everything you've heard about it, Tomb of the Giants has a unique gimmick fitting its area boss, Catacombs does Tomb Raider better than Tomb Raider, and the New Londo Ruins have based Four Kings. Also the Great Lords are the only bosses in the base game outside of O&S that provide any challenge.

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Warping and it's clear that everything past the second bell was rushed.

Also Anor Londo itself isn't as good as what came before it

Dark souls 3 is in sale right now in ps4 . Do you think its worth it? How does it stands to dark souls one or bloodborne, those are the ones ive played

Because you're too retarded to have your own opinions so you just mindlessly parrot shit you read on Yea Forums

How the fuck are the Archives wind?

It was a slow burner anyway, so nothing really changed.
That first wave of players was really dedicated to get trough it, I even know someone who beat it with m&k which I found impossible even with the fixes.

This. On first playthrough the whole bit from Irithyll to the Twin Princes is a lot of fun. Not much replay value though

It's the highest place in the game world and in Crystal Caves you walk on invisible paths/on air so it kinda is the air/wind dungeon.

because that's when the level design shits itself. This is why I don't replay the dark games and just stick with demon's/bloodborne, no bad levels

lol

Bbecause fast travel was unlocked. Not simply because of the mechanic; but because now they could design the second half as a one-way trip that the player would just TP back from at the end. A series of paths that terminate and reset.
The first half is all traversible and designed to be navigated and fought through both ways, which makes the world feel more full and expansive because it had to work from all angles and directions.

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the first parts are in daylight, the late game areas are all indoors and gloomy. but at least they are shorter, except for the archives.

dukes archive can suck a fucking dick

dude BOOKS, LMAO
dude PRIESTS THAT SHOOT MAGIC MISSILES FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROOM, LMAO
dude REVOLVING STAIRCASES THAT NEVER ACTUALLY GO WHERE YOU WANT THEM TO, LMAO
DUDE, A DRAGON FIGHT YOU HAVE TO DIE TO, LMAO

Terrible bosses aside (and I do mean all of them in that zone) Izalith was a fantastic area. One of the most atmospheric and awe-inducing chunks of the game for me. Reminded me of the Lost City from Thief 1. Fallen lava underground kingdom aesthetic is cool.

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because it's only a meme and second half is good

Yeah, it's unfortunate we never got anything like that again in Souls. Iron Keep was more like a generic Shrek-style "evil lava castle". When I saw the pre-release pictures for DaS3 with the giant worms and bleeding sun above the ruins crumbling into lava I thought we might have it, but the only remnant of whatever that was supposed to be is the Dreg Heap.

>you will never experience anything similar to your first blind run of dark souls ever again

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I unironically had just as much fun with the last half of DS1 as I did the first, and didn't even think there was a budget problem until Yea Forums bitched endlessly about it.

Duke's Archive, Painted World was great. Only the lava maps felt sort of weird, but it was legit horrifying to see a field of burning ground and massive stomping legs as far as the eye can see, ready to fuck you up.

Most people put Painted World as part of the first half since it's pre-Lordvessel. It's also widely agreed that's one of the tightest-designed levels in the entire game. I don't recall anyone saying it's bad.

I was still in community college. I was so naive and full of hope. I want to go back.

Going down through Demon Ruins into Izalith for the first time was great and felt like I was descending into hell. Every subsequent playthrough it just feels like a slog though. I'm inclined to be a little bit less harsh on it because of that but its not a good area gameplay-wise.

You forgot DUDE BUFFED CRYSTAL ARCHERS LMAO and DUDE UNSTOPPABLE TELEPORTING PRIESTS LMAO.
I actually liked the staircase fuckery but putting the avelyn on a bookshelf that can only be reached by leaping off the stairs mid rotation was bullshit though. Although compared to getting the blue slab in the crystal caves that isn't too bad either.

For me the level design just becomes lamer after that point. There are still some fun bosses but that's about it.