tomb of the giants is mostly solid. duke's archive/crystal cave is pretty hit or miss for me honestly and i absolutely loathe new londo ruins and all of the demon ruins/lost izalith. plus you have lame bosses like seath and bed of chaos who are really gimmicky and the demon trio, one of which is one rehash and the other 2 bosses you're fighting the camera the whole time. even nito is a little disappointing.

i don't think the second half is bad but IIRC it was rushed in development and you can tell it doesn't have the same care put into it as the first part of the game.

Nito is one of my favourite bosses. One of my favourite designs/arenas in the whole series. I also think Seath is a great boss, don't really get the hate there. Bed of Chaos is annoying but I appreciate it conceptually and like that they tried something different. All the bosses prior though do kinda suck but I also like that you can literally just skip all of them. Either way I think that with the DLC, the "second half" becomes much stronger, and if you just leave the bad areas until last, it's much closer to (imo) "the last sixth of the game sucks". Either way, the majority of the game up to Dukes Archives + Oolacile is incredible. Also at that point of the game I've already usually done all of the catacombs, tomb of the giants, and new londo, so to me the only bad endgame is Izalith, which i rush through.

"I have three broken dualshock 3 controllers and right now am forced to use a very dodgy sixaxis held together with duct tape. " You can use the ps4 controller, innit?

well sure if you do all that stuff early the 'second half' is much earlier, but then you have some very uneven pacing by incorporating it into (in my opinion) the best part of the game. there's just no way for me to get around the weaker parts of the game although i can see why you like it.

i should probably re-visit the game and see how i feel. it's admittedly been a long time.

Maybe you'll have a change of heart like Gyro. I play through DS1 at least once a year, but usually more tbh. It's just too good.

"You can use the ps4 controller, innit?"
Yeah you can but the functionality sucks. The PS button doesn't work with a Dualshock 4 on a PS4 and it bothers me way too much

yeah i'm basically going off memories from like 4 years ago. my tastes have changed dramatically since then.

damn i might just hook up my ps3 and do a whole series playthrough.

I recently bought the whole trilogy on PS4 so I might play all 3 again soon. Despite the fact that I played through 1 again on the Switch as recently as October.

might skip 2 tbh. i really like the dlc but i'm so lukewarm - even sour at points - on the rest of the game

2 might be my most hated game of all times but I hate skipping sequels doing a series playthrough more

Album Rating: 4.5

on this playthrough i ran seath over. he's honestly way too easy and his attack pool leaves a lot to be desired but i like him and the lore on him, and the arena is cool. bed of chaos is just hot fucking garbage. didn't die to it once on this playthrough but still a poorly executed boss concept. new londo ruins is actually a friggin great area. now that i'm here again and taking my time to explore it all, it's definitely a standout to me. going back through blighttown and ash lake is a joy as well. saving catacombs and tomb of the giants for last. i love the former, dislike the latter. tomb of the giants has some 'TROLLLOLOL' bs in it and a pitch black area just isn't especially fun imo. after you meet up with patches tho i do think the area improves considerably.



also ds2 is excellent. i get why people dislike it, especially since it followed up dark souls, but it has a lot to love (and admittedly a lot to hate). one thing i hate about it is how most enemy encounters are gank nonsense. density of enemies is atrocious in that game, and the scholar edition ruins ng+ with a stupid amount of red phantoms, plus they do shit like ruin the lost sinner fight (the best fight in the core game imo) by adding in 2 pyromancers midway through the battle. utterly baffling game design. i also hate how earthern peak leads into iron keep. plus heide's tower of flame leading to no man's wharf makes little to no sense. connectivity definitely sucks in that game but there's a good bit of fun to be had regardless. for me, the absolute biggest letdown are the bosses. the bosses in the core game are like 90% shit. pursuer and lost sinner are the only two that stand out to me as great. the rotten is a guilty pleasure too, and i'd say darklurker but the run to him is hot fucking garbage so i've only ever fought him twice in my 7 playthroughs.

Album Rating: 4.5

also in agreement that nito and his arena are awesome. love everything about it. tend to save either him or four kings for last because i adore both of those fights. second half of the game is honestly really strong (at least it feels that way to me right now). saved a good bit of blighttown, ash lake, new londo, catacombs, duke's archives, and dlc for the latter half. i got lost izalith over with asap so i could go back to enjoying the game. so our preferences vary slightly there lol. i'd rather the game drag for a tiny bit just after the midway point and then get back to the superb stuff to finish the game off strong.



and yeah, replaying this after so much time, i have to concede that this is the best souls game. i basically disagree with all my earlier complaints about it, save a few mostly minor gripes.

totally agree about the ds2 bosses. they're awful for the most part. there's so many big humanoid warrior dudes and most of them play the exact same. then you have a handful of monster bosses that are total pushovers, or completely forgettable. i'm having a hard time even thinking of them beyond like one or two.

factor in garbage level design, mediocre world design, large enemy density, gank fights and an ugly art style and wow i dislike the game the more i think about it.

the best thing it has going for it is the combat still shits on most RPGs and it has a ton of weapons and armor.

I'm weird and I basically never finish these games on a high note. When I get to the end I just do all the tedious shit before the final boss and wrap it up in a very disjointed way. Idk why it's just what I do

I personally hate 2's combat and animation work. It feels so laggy and slow. Reaction times feel stunted. It's such an incredibly massive step back.

Album Rating: 4.5

oh damn i forgot about looking glass knight, which actually might be the best boss in the core game lol. but yeah still, there are a lot of bosses and like 15% of them are great and the rest are just mediocre to complete shit. as for world design, i do think majula is an amazing hub, drangleic castle is pretty sweet, forest of the fallen giants is a good intro level and one of the better ones for level design. heide's is cool too, even if short and largely uneventful. beyond that though, yeah the level design isn't astonishing. some of it is just downright awful, like the pit, brightstone cove, doors of pharos, etc.



also idgaf what anyone says, blighttown is AMAZING. i usually just go through the entrance via valley of the drakes and quickly jump down to the boss, but this time through i came back and went through the main entrance. i would say this is one of my favourite fromsoft levels and it's extremely undeserving of the hate. it's the first area in the game that really puts everything you've learned to the test. death constantly looms, just one false step in any direction, making walking around in itself exhilarating, and the architecture is awe inspiring if you take a step back and look at the whole area and how it all connects. the framerate dip from the initial launch was terrible but now that i get to experience it in 60fps it's a blast.

Album Rating: 4.5

i'm also in agreement that ds2's animation delays are beyond dumb. ds1 feels considerably slower when compared to 3 but it's still fair and intense a lot of the time. 2 has the worst hitboxes in the entire series and the time it takes to attack and drink estus (which recovers slow as balls) is a joke. one thing i do hate about ds1 though is the lack of omnidirectional rolling. i keep trying to roll diagonally when locked on to enemies and bosses and it never works out obviously lol. and not being able to sprint towards and away from enemies while locked on (at least not nearly as effectively) is a hinderance, although a part of me feels like if you had that level of utility the enemies and bosses in this game would be mostly trivialized.

I've never actually noticed the lack of omnidirectional rolling. I don't know if I've ever rolled diagonally haha

Majula is a good hub, just a pity it's in a game I hate so much.

Album Rating: 4.5

I always wrote off royal wood as a meh area. In my mind it was just a straight path to Artorias with nothing interesting along the way, but it's actually a friggin sick level. I like the pockets of the abyss you can see, and how you can hear thunder and lightning the further in you go. Cool enemy design too.never paid much attention to the scissor wielding enemies before but they're kinda funny and actually have cool combo.

Whole DLC area/story is a great way of doing time travel.

Album Rating: 4.5

Despite having sif down in the chasm of the abyss, I remember it being kind of shitty. Maybe I'll like it more now tho, I ended up enjoying tomb of the giants after all