Now that all dark souls/demon’s souls/bloodborne games are out (for the foreseeable future?), how would you rank them all, and why? what strengths and weaknesses give them that rank for you?
I don’t know if I can totally rank them, it’s hard for me to remember demon’s souls at this point, and it’s tricky for me to say which game is best, just that dark souls 2 is worst, albeit still very good.
Demon’s Souls had the shrine of storms, the prison of hope, firelurker, maneaters, false king allant, some of the fastest movement, the least broken PvP matchmaking system. Great enemies like all the different skeletons, gargoyles that can actually fly.
Dark Souls had the best world design, sen’s fortress, blighttown, anor londo, painted world, the best tutorial, the best secrets, kalameet, artorias, oreo and smores, kellog, sif, lmao4king. black knights.
Dark Souls 2 had good combination encounters, forced you to fight enemies instead of just skip them or put more effort into skipping them, good use of ranged enemies, shrine of amana, black gulch, undead keep, drangleic castle, and relatively few major screwups. executioner’s chariot, looking glass knight, ruin sentinels, twin dragonriders.
Bloodborne did away with shields, did away with backstabs, had lots of enemy mixup attacks, aggressive enemies, variable hitstun and poise, enemy patrol patterns, almost nonlinear design, great hunter encounters. Ludwig, Maria, gehrman, logarius, shadow of yharnam, ebrietas, mergo’s wet nurse.
Dark Souls 3 has a difficulty curve, tons of great enemy designs that are threatening into the lategame, good use of nonlinear areas and shortcuts, even though it has the most linear progression path overall in the series. Best implementation of backstabbing in my opinion, best enemy AI, best enemy designs. Cathedral of the Deep, Irithyll, farron keep, grand archives, pontiff sulyvahn, champion gundyr, aldritch, dancer of the boreal valley, lothric & lorian, nameless king, soul of cinder.
Dark Souls 1 will always be my favorite, but there’s something to be said for all of them.
Celia Alexis Wagar's CritPoints 