Dark Souls

[Deathhappens]

Aaand that's the game (until I go back into the DLC). Soul of Cinder was an interesting boss but fuck whoever decided his arena needed to be full of hills and dodge-blocking rubble. Ironically the hills mostly worked against the boss in any case since it made all his Farron Flashswords and some of his regular greatsword moves miss, but it made his spear phase even more cancer to fight against.

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Oh hey Motoi Sakuraba did the music for this? I should've known already but this was pretty far from his usual fare (except perhaps for the bombastic opening theme). Great music all around though, pity it's almost impossible to listen to during the actual game (most of the good tracks are in boss fights and even if you had the leisure to listen to them they're usually muted by all the boss noises).

Great game, definitely won't be replaying though. Felt a lot easier than Elden Ring, though maybe it's just a matter of build and/or size of the game overall.

[eddyak]

Nah, Elden Ring was just built with a lot more bullshit that'll kill you.

DS3: You can perfectly dodge through 90% of the attacks in the game, and the other 10% can be avoided with proper positioning and distance control.

Elden Ring: Here's a thirteen hit combo that does 40% of your HP with every hit, a completely unpredictable splash of toxic bullshit and also a cloud of gas that'll poison you while it does half your health in damage even if you dodge out of it with perfect timing, enjoy regretting your decision not to use Bloodhound Step lmao

[Zurvan]

DS3 is easier because stamina management is easy as shit and few bosses are genuinely challenging, though at least none are just bullshit.

Speaking of challenging, get in the DLC right now mister. It's no Old Hunters but 2 arguably 3/4 bosses are good and challenging.
The PVP boss sucks tho.

[Deathhappens]

Oh, I got both DLCs when I bought the game. Snowfield is a piece of crap, haven't gotten around to finding the Ringed City yet.

[Deathhappens]

And so, today I found out prism stones don't work for checking lethal drops in DS3. The hard way.

[eddyak]

I'm 99% sure they do, you might have just landed wrong or been missing a bit of health.

[Deathhappens]

No, it was a completely lethal drop (elevator shaft in Ariandel next to painter lady), the stone was just floating somewhere in midair.

Speaking of which I somehow or other got myself through all of Ariandel's shit to Friede and died a bunch of times. My very best attempt was foiled by "haha wouldn't it be funny if we mapped kick to the attack button" with maybe 100hp left on the boss, so now I'm doing something productive while waiting for a new controller (joke).

[Skull]

Speaking of lethal drops, I will forever remember the funniest death I ever had so far in DS3. It was in the Undead Settlement just after you beat the Balrog looking mini-boss alongside Siegwart. I was exploring the area pretty full of myself and climbed the wooden building via sprinting through it. On the top floor I completely did not notice there were two Big Berthas waiting for me and as I was sprinting past them, one swung its giant mace and yeeted me perfectly through an open window and to my death as I plummeted to the courtyard below with the fall damage being what actually killed me.

I wasn't even mad. I just burst out laughing once I registered what had happened.

[Deathhappens]

Took me a second to figure it out but yeah Big Bertha is a perfect mame for those fucks.

Their hammer slaps though, wish I could've used it back when I first got it.

[Deathhappens]

Beat Friede lol. Sif wannabe died easily and now all I have left to do is Ringed City. I'm waiting on a friend to co-op together though and I've been getting steadily ahead so I think I'll park the game for awhile.

[Nanaya]

Ringed City is cool. What a great boss to send off the series.

[Kamera]

Yeah, I don't think any video game franchise has delivered that kind of finality as elegantly as the Dark Souls series has.

[Spinach]

Nah, Elden Ring was just built with a lot more bullshit that'll kill you.

DS3: You can perfectly dodge through 90% of the attacks in the game, and the other 10% can be avoided with proper positioning and distance control.

Elden Ring: Here's a thirteen hit combo that does 40% of your HP with every hit, a completely unpredictable splash of toxic bullshit and also a cloud of gas that'll poison you while it does half your health in damage even if you dodge out of it with perfect timing, enjoy regretting your decision not to use Bloodhound Step lmao

This design is because you were supposed to use other methods of avoiding damage instead of just hitting roll. The team at From saw players using the roll button to solve every problem like in the video of someone using the square hole for every single block in that shape matching game and decided that wasn't the kind of game they wanted.

[Deathhappens]

I'd believe that, except as a card carrying "biggest shield I can carry" style (ab)user I'm fairly convinced Fromsoft hates shields a lot more than rolls. Elden Ring isn't as bad as DS3 (with a whopping total of 3-4 good shields, one DLC) but most bosses will analdevastate you if you try to rely on blocking and the hardest boss in the game straight up makes them useless by healing off of them. Unless you mean some other form of avoiding damage like running around or (in ER) jumping, which aren't really viable for most encounters.

[Kamera]

I tried shield only run in ER, using that flamethrower shield. It was pretty much easy mode on 80% of content. That shid is broken with how much posture damage it got.

[Spinach]

I'd believe that, except as a card carrying "biggest shield I can carry" style (ab)user I'm fairly convinced Fromsoft hates shields a lot more than rolls. Elden Ring isn't as bad as DS3 (with a whopping total of 3-4 good shields, one DLC) but most bosses will analdevastate you if you try to rely on blocking and the hardest boss in the game straight up makes them useless by healing off of them. Unless you mean some other form of avoiding damage like running around or (in ER) jumping, which aren't really viable for most encounters.

Here's the secret about Elden Ring

This one is insane watch out, ok here it goes

Spoiler:

They want you to use all of the defensive options and not just pick one to use while ignoring the rest for your entire playthrough

[Deathhappens]

All defensive options are viable, but some are more viable than others.

[Nanaya]

Just roll and iframe everything. Or Bloodhound step if you want swaggidy swag. Shields are fun(Buckler the goat) but years of DS has conditioned me to mostly only care about the one that gives you a stamina regen increase(Not that sword and board with a great shield and poking is weak or anything). Erdtree Greatshield was, for a time, pretty good for a laugh(in pvp) though.

[Deathhappens]

I actually started a new ER playthrough as a sorcerer yesterday (only fair to post about it here since I first posted about DS3 in the ER thread) in anticipation of the DLC, not sure if everything is easier than I remember or if I'm just doing things out of order.

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Erdtree Sentinel still dies though, that's non-negotiable.