• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Matthewmatosis: The Lost Soul Arts of Demon's Souls

F

Fisty

Member
Demons is the GOATiest of the GOATs. Can't top the atmosphere and that "new" feeling that permeated almost every aspect of the gameplay. Definitely felt like JRPGs would never be the same after Demons... which is kinda true in some respects.

World Tendancy was fantastic, by the way. Tough to wrap your head around at first, but a great system.
 
T

Toxi

Banned
Fisty said:
World Tendancy was fantastic, by the way. Tough to wrap your head around at first, but a great system.
Click to expand...
It's not really a good system even if you wrap your head around it because you have to intentionally game it to get interesting results.

If you want a better example of how to do World Tendency, look at Dark Souls 2's NG+.
 
I

Izuna

Banned
Keihart said:
i started saying that i agree with the final point of the video about what makes this games great, but i don't agree with stating false things about the combat to fit the narrative about being shallow. The games play more and more like Monster Hunter againts big monsters and like his own version of zelda when agains humoid enemies, wich is far from shallow. Do i need to quote myself because you didn't read?
You did mix weak points with hit stun, both things happen, bosses do react to damage.
Click to expand...

I like to talk about the technical aspect of these combat systems, but before we continue let's be certain that we're on the same page. I'm not defining these things to insult your intelligence, just to make sure we talk about the same things.

Because I don't believe any attack has hit-stun on... any Souls boss I can think of that's not entirely humanoid. At least, in BB, I remember that outside of staggering due to weak points, I could only attack a boss in their recovery frames, and whenever I did I could not finish a string because there was no hit-stun locking the boss in the combo.

If I'm wrong, could you tell me a boss where you can?

I don't believe there is any hit-stun when fighting the bigger bosses (a frustration I have).

As for Monster Hunter, I love Monster Hunter. Fuck at the very least, I love DeS and it's not like I'm trying to claim it has different combat.

FAKEEDIT: also, his point was that dodging was the "one and only defensive action", alluding to how blocking is not useful. It's true, but less of an important criticism of defence options and more of a criticism of IFs. He failed to notice that when making this video. I personally like IFs (how could I like NG2 without them?) but it would be nicer if Souls games had more ways to activate them if it's going to be the only defence.

I did watch the whole video, how you conclude i didn't?[/QUOTE]

I misread when you said you had wasted your time watching it, my bad.

Toxi said:
It's not really a good system even if you wrap your head around it because you have to intentionally game it to get interesting results.

If you want a better example of how to do World Tendency, look at Dark Souls 2's NG+.
Click to expand...

I didn't know about World Tendency until like NG+++ when I went for Plat. It explained why the game appeared to get easier but otherwise, I agree in that it was a fucking bitch to manoeuvre around. It shouldn't have required a guide to understand and make use of.

Character Tendency, or whatever it was called, was legit tho.
 
D

Dr. Benton Quest

Banned
As soon as he started going in on Bloodborne I knew this thread would be a salt mine. I get massively shit on every time I say it's barely an RPG but at least I know I'm not alone now!
 
I

Izuna

Banned
Dr. Benton Quest said:
As soon as he started going in on Bloodborne I knew this thread would be a salt mine. I get massively shit on every time I say it's barely an RPG but at least I know I'm not alone now!
Click to expand...

I'd love it if it didn't have garbage performance and I got lost for 3 months (because doors opening on the other side of the map when you beat a boss is fair I suppose).

I'll revisit if there is ever an update.
 
S

sanstesy

Member
Just watched it and I'm honestly shocked at how close his thoughts align with mine only difference being I'm not a huge Souls fan in the first place for a lot of reasons listed in this video.

Completely agree with the fact that the series became completely unsurprising mechanically. Gameplay variety is quintessential in making some of my favourite games and the Souls series is one of the absolute worst when it comes to this.
 
1

140.85

Cognitive Dissonance, Distilled
Man this makes me so nostalgic. There's a special place in my heart for these games but Demon's will always be the one I remember most fondly.

I agree with his overall argument, although I think he's a little too hard on Bloodborne. It's the closest the series has got to recapturing the feel of Demon's.
 
Keihart

Keihart

Member
Izuna said:
Okay, so you don't know what hit-stun is.

I've wasted my time.
Click to expand...

" Hit stun, in fighting games, is the period of time in which a character is unable to do anything beside direction influence and teching after being hit by an attack. The amount of time it takes to recover from being stunned depends on the attack."

from a quick google in case i was in the wrong, wich is exactly what happens to enemies, less to big enemies than small ones ofcourse. this is not hitting weakpoints only

But even if i was wrong about this, the video in the OP still point out things that aren' t true, because enemies do react to damage and do so diferently by weapon types and attack types, they are not just damage sponges. So "all you can do is roll and look for an opening" (wich is his conclusion after this fake exagerated facts) is a pretty big misleading exageration just to push his narrative.
 
I

Isaac Otherworld

Member
I think this might be why Dark Souls III absolutely bored me. I loved Demon's Souls. Dark Souls 1 is my favorite game of all time. Dark Souls 2 had it's problems, but even after beating it I immediately went back to replay it and enjoy a number of different builds. Bloodborne was great in many aspects but feels very stripped down in many ways.

Dark Souls III on the otherhand absolutely bored me. I had to force myself to finished it. All the other games I more or less no-lifed. But this one I procrastinated and put off forever because I just wasn't enjoying it. The world seemed stale and lifeless. The whole thing was overall a matter of "Been there done that." And ultimately there were 0 surprises.

If I wasn't playing with my best friend I might not have finished the game or the first DLC. I can't bring myself to finish Ringed City.
 
F

Foggy

Member
Watching the video was weird. If he wanted to bag on the series' shortcomings, he didn't need to cherrypick from Demon's Souls to do so. Outside of the general thesis, there's precious little examination of the game itself. What a shame.

To say that Bloodborne was "design by committee" is patently absurd.
 
I

Izuna

Banned
Keihart said:
from a quick google in case i was in the wrong, wich is exactly what happens to enemies, less to big enemies than small ones ofcourse. this is not hitting weakpoints only
Click to expand...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOF2PMfyQhI

So supposedly, this is only happening because he can get interrupted out of the healing skill. A cheese specific to this boss. (I was wondering why it was always this boss in your examples).

Hit-stun just doesn't happen on large enemies in Souls. There isn't an instance where a light combo can be completed. It's not just when a boss has begun their start-up frames (which would mean super armour), at any point they will attack through light attacks. Such attacks have hit-stun on non-boss, smaller enemies.

Foggy said:
To say that Bloodborne was "design by committee" is patently absurd.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it wasn't true at all. BB is a lot of things but generic within the Souls franchise it is not.

(it just includes my main problem with DkS with it personally)
 
A

Adam_Vania

Banned
this was weird imo. felt very butthurt. i don't agree that the Souls series is a linear progression to make the perfect game and there are "problems" that get worked on as new games come out. sure it happens but there are also constant experiments. every game is unique in a number of ways and has elements to it that belong to it alone. im not really one for pitting games against each other or trying to force some narrative about estus flasks being great but lifegems being bad. seems kinda dumb and pointless. they are two different things in two different games. enjoy the difference.

also don't agree that combat is not deep. this is hard to fight bc he doesn't provide an example of "deep combat". most action games i played have one or two main attacks all game and that is it. at any point during Souls combat you have tons of options available to you, and your strategy is constantly changing due to the fluid geography of the fight. what other games compare? does this need combos in order to be "deep"?

i do think Demon's is a special entry but i think Matthewmatosis gets really carried away in here. maybe he is trying to be controversial. maybe he made this when he was really cranky. he sounds burnt out, like a guy that binged on too much of a good thing and is pulling it apart for the littlest tiny issues. lol im sure plenty of people here will agree w him.
 
P

Persona7

Banned
benicillin said:
Lost me when he said that Bloodborne has less depth than any of the other games in the series.

Demon's Souls is real good though, one of my favorite games of all time.
Click to expand...

It does though. Seems like they streamlined it to appeal to the casual mainstream PS4 audience. Or maybe they just had a low budget and tight deadline and had to make deep cuts.
 
Z

Zaventem

Member
Persona7 said:
It does though. Seems like they streamlined it to appeal to the casual mainstream PS4 audience. Or maybe they just had a low budget and tight deadline and had to make deep cuts.
Click to expand...

Deep cuts with the most non dlc bosses and areas in the series? If your only definition of deep cuts is the amount pf armor and weapons in the game you should hate demons souls.
 
1

140.85

Cognitive Dissonance, Distilled
Foggy said:
Watching the video was weird. If he wanted to bag on the series' shortcomings, he didn't need to cherrypick from Demon's Souls to do so. Outside of the general thesis, there's precious little examination of the game itself. What a shame.

To say that Bloodborne was "design by committee" is patently absurd.
Click to expand...

He does a 2-hour examination of DS here: https://youtu.be/LLItPEpkK7A
 
S

Strings

Member
Undersells so much of what Dark Souls and Bloodborne brought to the table (removing the mana bar + estus flasks, transforming weapons, etc). It's extremely irritating in an otherwise well-handled video...

Outside of his comments on the combat system. Wtf.

Isaac Otherworld said:
It'd be interesting to see HBomberGuy talk about this video. He made a big stink about MM's Dark Souls II critique in his own DkS2 video and has called Bloodborne genius for stripping out many of the role play options, focusing all on combat. He also has come out strictly against immersion, calling Dark Souls 2 better than Dark Souls 1 because it's less immersive.
Click to expand...

Eugh, that Dark Souls 2 response video was abysmal / nonsense. There are ways to defend that game, but it ended up as like the biggest, most unintentional takedown ever.
 
I

Isaac Otherworld

Member
It'd be interesting to see HBomberGuy talk about this video. He made a big stink about MM's Dark Souls II critique in his own DkS2 video and has called Bloodborne genius for stripping out many of the role play options, focusing all on combat. He also has come out strictly against immersion, calling Dark Souls 2 better than Dark Souls 1 because it's less immersive.
 
G

ghibli99

Member
Although the lore and situations don't really hit me when I'm playing these games, watching videos like this and reading about them later gives them a huge impact. I do like DeS and BB slightly more than DkS1 as entire packages, but they're all very close.
 
N

NewGame

Banned
Beautifully articulated my feelings about the series.

My heart is truly gold, I won't let the losers on the internet take it from me.

Umbasa.

BLOODBORNE AND DARK SOULS STIIINNNNKKKK
 
J

jviggy43

Member
I can't agree at all with his argument about the unique boss encounters. On paper I'm always ok with the idea but in the Soulsborne series, theyre all pretty much the worst bosses in the game and the actual implementation of the idea iis pretty awful. While I may not hate some of them I can't think of a single boss encounter with a unique encounter that I would say was a "good" fight.
 
R

Rhanitan

Member
I don't like how presumptuous he is about the developers abandoning their creative vision to appeal to the masses. Maybe they just learned from past experiences on how to make more enjoyable boss fights and did it because they simply wanted to.

He doesn't touch on how bad the majority of the boss fights in demons souls are and just cherry picks a couple shining examples of unique boss fights that didn't turn out bad.I feel you can do this with most souls games if you want to.Like for example I could just point out deacons of the deep and the ancient wyvern from dark souls 3.

The complaints about rolling don't make sense to me. It's one of the main mechanics and all the different enemy animations you encounter keep it varied and new. It's like complaining about jumping too much throughout the mario series.

I love demons Souls to bits and it has my favourite music and atmosphere out of the series but every time i go back to it there is no question that the boss fights and game play have only improved since. Maybe i'm just a narrow minded fan though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
M

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
Rhanitan said:
I love demons Souls to bits and it has my favourite music and atmosphere out of the series but every time i go back to it there is no question that the boss fights and game play have only improved since. Maybe i'm just a narrow minded fan though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Click to expand...
No, it's correct. Demon's Souls is amazing but it has the weakest bosses by far, gameplay-wise.
 
S

Sami+

Member
Isaac Otherworld said:
I think this might be why Dark Souls III absolutely bored me. I loved Demon's Souls. Dark Souls 1 is my favorite game of all time. Dark Souls 2 had it's problems, but even after beating it I immediately went back to replay it and enjoy a number of different builds. Bloodborne was great in many aspects but feels very stripped down in many ways.

Dark Souls III on the otherhand absolutely bored me. I had to force myself to finished it. All the other games I more or less no-lifed. But this one I procrastinated and put off forever because I just wasn't enjoying it. The world seemed stale and lifeless. The whole thing was overall a matter of "Been there done that." And ultimately there were 0 surprises.

If I wasn't playing with my best friend I might not have finished the game or the first DLC. I can't bring myself to finish Ringed City.
Click to expand...

I actually think it's really fitting that this post is paired with a Drakengard avatar (that art is dope, btw, do you have the source?) since atmosphere and immersion are similarly what make Yoko Taro's games so interesting. I could never really get behind the argument that the later games in the series are superior to Demon's Souls purely because of the mechanical improvements - sometimes the complete package is more important and it's for that reason that I'm not surprised to see some Taro fans on here say they prefer NieR Gestalt to Automata (although I don't agree personally). The shift in gameplay quality isn't nearly as massive as NieR's but it's a similar conversation imo.

Edit - Oh also I just want to say that his comment about Demon's Souls being less concerned with making you feel like a big man is one of the biggest reasons I love it so much. The moral gray area is a lot less interesting in the sequel games, as good as they are.
 
A

Anura

Member
Honestly, I hated Demon Souls for essentially the same reasons he liked it. I found the bosses an absolute boring slog to fight and not that interesting from an atmosphere perspective. Keep in mind that I'm someone who A) tends to prefer gameplay over all else and B) played DeS after all the others.
 
B

B-Genius

Unconfirmed Member
Really good commentary.

I would love to see World Tendency return in some form.
The term "dynamic difficulty" really doesn't do it justice. I think there's a ton of unexplored potential there.

Also very much agree about the need for more surprise and variety in boss fights.

Yes, the characters are carefully and lovingly designed.
Yes, they have some fantastic looking attacks and interesting "heat-up" states.
But recent entries have definitely been over-saturated with the typical combat scenario.

It really pays to have at least a few bosses like Maiden Astraea, Old Monk, Micolash, etc. among the more typical fights.
Some characters may have interesting backstories and cool Soul descriptions.
But those that really stick with you are the ones that make you, the player, a part of their story and draw you in to the world.
 
J

jviggy43

Member
Dr. Benton Quest said:
As soon as he started going in on Bloodborne I knew this thread would be a salt mine. I get massively shit on every time I say it's barely an RPG but at least I know I'm not alone now!
Click to expand...

Wait really? BB is probably my favorite game of all time but there are people that would get upset about that? Because as good as it is the lack in true builds is absolutely a fair critique.
 
Z

Zaventem

Member
B-Genius said:
Really good commentary.

I would love to see World Tendency return in some form.
The term "dynamic difficulty" really doesn't do it justice. I think there's a ton of unexplored potential there.

Also very much agree about the need for more surprise and variety in boss fights.

Yes, the characters are carefully and lovingly designed.
Yes, they have some fantastic looking attacks and interesting "heat-up" states.
But recent entries have definitely been over-saturated with the typical combat scenario.

It really pays to have at least a few bosses like Maiden Astraea, Old Monk, Micolash, etc. among the more typical fights.
Click to expand...
We keep getting knock offs of these every game and i don't see why people enjoy it. Personally i would rater they didn't include it at all. Dark Souls 2 and 3 both of "old monk" boss fights.
 
K

KittenMaster

Member
jviggy43 said:
Wait really? BB is probably my favorite game of all time but there are people that would get upset about that? Because as good as it is the lack in true builds is absolutely a fair critique.
Click to expand...
The few builds BB has play very differently from each other at least, especially the weapons with unique movesets that belong to particular stat distributions. It might be weak in an RPG sense but the options and variety are there.
 
B

B-Genius

Unconfirmed Member
Zaventem said:
We keep getting knock offs of these every game and i don't see why people enjoy it. Personally i would rater they didn't include it at all. Dark Souls 2 and 3 both of "old monk" boss fights.
Click to expand...

It's funny, because at the run up to Dark 2 release, everyone was crazy about the idea of Looking Glass Knight and how it was a throwback to Old Monk. Post release that boss was all but forgotten.

Perhaps it was the lack of surprise (BNE using it as a marketing tool), flawed implementation, or simply the fact that it wasn't anything new.
My point isn't that we need 1-2 "invasion boss" characters per game. It's that we need some more original twists and meaningful encounters.

I would argue that while Micolash is annoying as all hell to fight, he is a meaningful (not to mention memorable) encounter in the world of Bloodborne.
While the orthodox 1v1 fight is core to this kind of game, it doesn't hurt to have a bit of variety.

In Japanese there's a nice convenient term known as "merihari".
This can essentially mean "modulation" or "full-bodied", and is often associated with music/sound, which is why Matthew's point about Gwyn's theme in Dark 1 is important.
If the entire soundtrack to DS was melancholic piano, it would probably be pretty boring.

It's important to have both the "meri" (reduction; the fall; Astraea) and the "hari" (tension; the swell; Artorias).
 
M

MrCow

Member
Raven117 said:
Yup. Agree whole-heartedly.

Man...I still remember the ps3 in those days. 09. Not alot of RPGs were out. I hear ATLUS is bringing over a game and to read about it online sounded like something i would NOT be interested in.

I googled it up, and that's actually how I discovered NeoGaf. As they had an import thread that was raging positive.

I wanted something to play, so while in between jobs, I forked over 70 bucks for the collectors edition in the hopes of something great.

UPS came on that rainy Tuesday, and I threw it in. 4 hours later and not through 1-1 I was hooked beyond belief and took to the internet to discuss.

There were not many people who picked it up that day, but NeoGaf was here waiting on us. It felt like we had stumbled on a secret. A game that was bizarre, cryptic, difficult... The community was unified without any of this "git gud" stuff. It was all of us trying to make sense of this thing.

It was a special time and it served as a reminder of why I bother to pick up a controller in the first place.
Click to expand...

i discovered the game through NeoGaf but otherwise had about the same experience as you, it was such an amazing experience at the time.

Something different from all the games i have played before, it really evoked a feeling of exploration or adventure. This is for me what gaming is all about and it was something that i had not felt since my first games as a kid.
 
A

Adam_Vania

Banned
Rhanitan said:
I don't like how presumptuous he is about the developers abandoning their creative vision to appeal to the masses. Maybe they just learned from past experiences on how to make more enjoyable boss fights and did it because they simply wanted to.
Click to expand...

yeah he has this narrative w this video and its a easy lazy narrative. as if game makers aren't game players themselves, as if they are not supposed to listen to their audience, etc. "creative vision" shouldn't be an albatross around your neck. it is ridiculous to say because they started doing things a certain way they must always do it that way otherwise they are "abandoning their creative vision". this is s dumb and anti-creative position to take.

it also runs counter to his other claim (i dont agree with) that the Souls series should be a linear progression of a single style and they should be honing these systems in every game trying to make each new game the best iteration of that one style. fwiw i dont agree w this weird fundamentalist way of looking at a creative process cos it discounts experimentation as "aberrations" and retroactively imposes the writer's narrative onto a far more fluid and complex multi-year multi-team production process.
 
P

Piers

Member
Another good video but the rate he's putting them out isn't justifying his Patreon, and he can't just rely on games he's specifically 'feeling' to create good content either. Other titles are starved for his interesting thoughts and analysis, but it seems like he's deliberately walling himself off his real potential because of his jaded outlook.
 
H

horkrux

Member
Fisty said:
World Tendancy was fantastic, by the way. Tough to wrap your head around at first, but a great system.
Click to expand...

I think it's fantastic in theory, but the way it was executed was pretty terrible. Problem is that it would probably have to be a lot deeper, but with their approach of streamlining the fuck out of this series while making it more linear, I don't see it ever making a comeback.
Which is a shame, because I'd like to see it again. It's basically one of the few things that still make Demon's Souls stand out from the rest of the games.
 
M

MontlyCure

Member
Demon's Souls is by far my favorite game of the series and might be my favorite game of all time. The game is something special and it kept me hooked until I did everything I could do. Dark Souls is a great series and Bloodborne is a great game, but they just didn't have the same impact on me as Demon's Souls. I think it really has to do with the crazy systems Demon's Souls introduced. To this day I think the changing world tendency was an amazing system. It was so mysterious in the early days and seeing the game world react in such a way made it interesting, especially with the items or events you could only see in pure black/pure white tendency. Also being summoned as the Old Monk for the first time was such a strange, but incredible moment once you realized what was happening, as the only way to invade someone else's world was to do it by choice up to that point.

I guess for me the lack of any really crazy systems to dive into is responsible for my declining interests in the subsequent games. I truly hope whatever is next from Miyazaki and his team is something as fresh and crazy as Demon's Souls.

The video was great as well.
 
D

DorkLord54

Member
Dr. Benton Quest said:
As soon as he started going in on Bloodborne I knew this thread would be a salt mine. I get massively shit on every time I say it's barely an RPG but at least I know I'm not alone now!
Click to expand...

The Souls games are barely RPGs to begin with, so to me BB is just cutting off the fat to get to the meat.
 
A

Alo0oy

Banned
Dr. Benton Quest said:
As soon as he started going in on Bloodborne I knew this thread would be a salt mine. I get massively shit on every time I say it's barely an RPG but at least I know I'm not alone now!
Click to expand...

Barely an RPG compared to what though? Other Souls games or RPGs in general? Because BB certainly gives the player more role playing opportunities than the vast majority of RPGs out there.

DorkLord54 said:
The Souls games are barely RPGs to begin with, so to me BB is just cutting off the fat to get to the meat.
Click to expand...

They are actually more RPG than most RPGs. In the very classic role playing sense.
 
A

antennaehead

Member
Another great video from Matthew which I absolutely agree with. I always find community fixation on difficulty in Soulsbourne series a bit frustrating personally. I didn't enjoyed Demon's or Dark Souls because they were very difficult (although it was part of the charm), and I certainly didn't enjoyed some of the latest bosses in series because they were designed to be difficult, but not necessarily interesting or fun.
Demon's Souls has the best bosses in the series, hell, I struggle to think about any other game with such a variety of different and unique bosses - from multiplayer-centered Old Monk to blind Old Hero, from gigantic Storm King to easy, but very imposing to new players Phalanx, and so on. I don't mind gimmick bosses, I'm not here for some crazy challenge but mostly for the adventure.
While Dark Souls wasn't as good as DeS in terms of bosses, I do feel that the location design was top notch. I'm not talking about interconnected world (it was great), I'm talking about unique gimmicks in most of the DaS locations - darkness in Tomb of Giants, necromancers in Catacombs, invisible floors in Crystal Cave, ghosts in New Londo, etc. What uniqueness Dark Souls lacks in bosses, it makes up in locations.
And while they certainly have its moments, other games in the series - while being more challenging, polished or simply prettier - never quite reached the heights of Demon's or Dark Souls.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Dark Souls Creator Miyazaki Explains Why FromSoftware Likes the Apocalyse So Much
40
4K
skneogaf replied
Has Sony shared any sales data from Demon's Souls (PS5, 2020)?
2 3 4 5
247
17K
EDMIX replied
[Washington Post] - 5 reasons ‘Elden Ring’ is the easiest Souls game to get into
Opinion
21
3K
Certinty replied
Hidetaka Miyazaki talks Armored Core 6 with IGN
News 2
69
6K
Kokoloko85 replied
Demon Souls Reviews | The Remake
News 2 3 4
182
17K
IbizaPocholo replied
Top Bottom