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Which game from the Dark Souls trilogy is your favorite?


Affinity
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Which game from the Dark Souls trilogy is the best?  

20 members have voted

  1. 1. Which is your favorite Dark Souls entry?

    • 1
      7
    • 2
      6
    • 3
      7


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Personally, I like 2 the most. I know it's considered the black sheep of the series, and I have my flame shield ready, but I was most invested in Drangleic and Vendrick. Also, Majula > other hubs.

 

 

Edited by Affinity
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Tough choice man, 1 has my favorite lore, but 3 has my favorite bosses man... The music combined with characters like Pontiff Sullivan (Hitler with stands) or slave knight gales battles gave me major chills. Im just gonna pick 3 to make it even but I really can't decide.

Also dark souls 2 is really good too

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I suppose 1 had me the most enthralled simply because I played it first. Scholar of the First Sin was how I played 2, so a lot of the objective badness of that game was something I never had to experience. Plus 2's DLCs make up some of the best levels in the trilogy. 3 is my least favorite since I was feeling series fatigue already and the game got very indulgent with references to the first game's world and characters. The mindless pandering really grated on me and I even managed to predict Patches' cameo. Not a bad game by any objective standpoint, just a bad game to play if you're tired of the series and don't care for pandering and referential world building.

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42 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

I suppose 1 had me the most enthralled simply because I played it first. Scholar of the First Sin was how I played 2, so a lot of the objective badness of that game was something I never had to experience. Plus 2's DLCs make up some of the best levels in the trilogy. 3 is my least favorite since I was feeling series fatigue already and the game got very indulgent with references to the first game's world and characters. The mindless pandering really grated on me and I even managed to predict Patches' cameo. Not a bad game by any objective standpoint, just a bad game to play if you're tired of the series and don't care for pandering and referential world building.

This is what always makes me laugh in hindsight.

Dark Souls 2 got absolutely shit on for referencing Dark Souls 1, with people saying stuff like "REHASH. Miyazaki would NEVER do something like reuse Ornstein!", with a lot of the other references to Dark Souls 1 being pretty damn opaque in Dark Souls 2.

I never saw 3 get even a fraction of the shit 2 got for this, and 3 was way worse at relying on Dark Souls 1 stuff for content, even well before you get to straight up just Anor Londo.

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22 minutes ago, Slumber said:

This is what always makes me laugh in hindsight.

Dark Souls 2 got absolutely shit on for referencing Dark Souls 1, with people saying stuff like "REHASH. Miyazaki would NEVER do something like reuse Ornstein!", with a lot of the other references to Dark Souls 1 being pretty damn opaque in Dark Souls 2.

I never saw 3 get even a fraction of the shit 2 got for this, and 3 was way worse at relying on Dark Souls 1 stuff for content, even well before you get to straight up just Anor Londo.

Yup. 3 is the only of the games I played while it was still fairly recent and it was pretty bizarre just how confused the Souls fanbase was at 3. Exhibiting a ton of the changes 2 made that the fans blasted previously. And later on there were countless "I was wrong about 2" videos showing up in my youtube recommends. 

But I suppose that's healthy. Not a lot of middle entries in franchises get their vindication or "retrial" years later. 

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3 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

Yup. 3 is the only of the games I played while it was still fairly recent and it was pretty bizarre just how confused the Souls fanbase was at 3. Exhibiting a ton of the changes 2 made that the fans blasted previously. And later on there were countless "I was wrong about 2" videos showing up in my youtube recommends. 

But I suppose that's healthy. Not a lot of middle entries in franchises get their vindication or "retrial" years later. 

I do think 3 is better than 2, but I always liked 2, which probably helped me deal with 3 a bit more. My confusion was aimed more at the fandom than at Dark Souls 2 or 3.

I never had to eat my words like a lot of people did.

Edited by Slumber
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The first half of Dark Souls 1 is the best for me, Undead Burg, Undead Parish, Blight Town (yes, i do like it), Sen's Fortress, the Painted World, ending in Anor Londo and the fight against Ornstein & Smough. I'm not a big fan of the second half though, while i enjoy the DLC, the final 4 areas i'm not a fan of, especially the unfinished Izalith.

Dark Souls 2 isn't the most inspired, but i feel it has a lot of replayability with the sheer amount of weapons and ability to dual wield them freely. I feel the reverse of Dark Souls 1 about this, i think the second half is way better than the first half, but honestly, that can be worse in some ways. I'd say this is the most "pick up and play" of the three and i wish the game had focused less on DkS1 and more on it's own original plot points about the kings.

Dark Souls 3 felt underwhelming, area wise, i think it has more bad than good. It does have the smoothest gameplay of the 3, but that's to be expected from a sequel that came after Bloodborne, although in some ways i felt it was too "Bloodborney", the game puts tremendous value on offense and swinging first rather than the defense and patience of the first game, and in that regard i think the "best gameplay" argument between the multiple entries is valid and doesn't have an obvious answer. How much this game uses DkS1 as a crutch for it's plot is disappointing.

So my vote goes to 1 just because i think the first half of that game until the end of Anor Londo is some of the best video gaming in video games that videos have ever gamed.

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I would rank the games in three categories; Polish, Content, and Nostalgia.

Content: In terms of overall content Dark Souls II: SotFS wins hands-down. Massive DLC's, and the surprising amoung of NG+ content push it far past I and II. Funnily enough despite this being my lowest ranked Soulsborne game I've played it the most by an overwhelming margin (and I agree that Majula is the best hub)
least favourite

Polish: Dark Souls III is by far the most polished. The ability to quick tab to your first spell or item by long-pressing the up or down arrows to name some of the more functional mechanics.
average

Nostalgia: I can't speak for others, but Dark Souls I has a special place in my heart by virtue of it being the first in the trilogy. Mechcanically it's the least polished, has the least amount of content, and has the least polish (e.g. Blightown), but it's still the first.
- favourite

@Affinity Why are you not asking about Demon's Souls or Bloodborne? 

Edited by gjuptonv
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@gjuptonv

Honestly I thought about it, but for whatever reason I decided to just keep it to the trilogy set. By all means, discuss DeS and BB as well. DeS for me feels extremely dated which should come as no surprise. I can only hope that From is willing to remaster it and bring it to the current gen, so that all 5 games may have an updated look and be playable on my PS4. 

Bloodborne, I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I wasn't a big fan. I didn't like the emphasis on offense. The whole mechanic where if you hit an enemy right after you are hit, you recover some health just didn't jive with me. 

Glad to see you enjoyed Majula as well.

Edited by Affinity
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My favorite is 3, it's the most polished and aesthetically pleasing in my opinion, and the twin princes boss fight is a personal favorite of mine. Although I played the games in reverse order so there is definitely some first game bias.

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30 minutes ago, Affinity said:

@gjuptonv

Honestly I thought about it, but for whatever reason I decided to just keep it to the original trilogy. By all means, discuss DeS and BB as well. DeS for me feels extremely dated which should come as no surprise. I can only hope that From is willing to remaster is and bring it to the current gen, so that all 5 games may have an updated look and be playable on my PS4. 

Bloodborne, I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I wasn't a big fan. I didn't like the emphasis on offense. The whole mechanic where if you hit an enemy right after you are hit, you recover some health just didn't jive with me. 

Glad to see you enjoyed Majula as well.

That's fair. I have a soft-spot for Demon's Souls as I played it when I lived at Sick Children's Hospital, but even I have to admit that it's clunky and slow in comparison to the Dark Souls Trilogy. Oh? You're the first person I've spoken to who dislikes the emphasis on offense! Regardless there's still plenty of Souls to enjoy.

Have you tried Nioh?

Oh absolutely! The music, characters, and sense of it being an organic hub unlike DkS III.

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5 minutes ago, gjuptonv said:

That's fair. I have a soft-spot for Demon's Souls as I played it when I lived at Sick Children's Hospital, but even I have to admit that it's clunky and slow in comparison to the Dark Souls Trilogy. Oh? You're the first person I've spoken to who dislikes the emphasis on offense! Regardless there's still plenty of Souls to enjoy.

Have you tried Nioh?

Oh absolutely! The music, characters, and sense of it being an organic hub unlike DkS III.

Yeah, it kind of went against all instincts I had as a gamer, in that my health is low I need to retreat and recover. I was never really able to flip that mindset. I did really enjoy the gothic tone the game had, and the Hunter's Dream was a nice hub (not quite on Majula's level though). Also...those spider enemies with human heads. Just another reason to dislike the game. LOL

As for Nioh, I have not. It was on my radar when it was releasing, but I somehow skipped over it, and just never went back to playing it. I have a massive backlog, and just didn't get it. Some day I'd like to venture into the game, especially now that there's a sequel looming.

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1 minute ago, Affinity said:

Yeah, it kind of went against all instincts I had as a gamer, in that my health is low I need to retreat and recover. I was never really able to flip that mindset. I did really enjoy the gothic tone the game had, and the Hunter's Dream was a nice hub (not quite on Majula's level though). Also...those spider enemies with human heads. Just another reason to dislike the game. LOL

As for Nioh, I have not. It was on my radar when it was releasing, but I somehow skipped over it, and just never went back to playing it. I have a massive backlog, and just didn't get it. Some day I'd like to venture into the game, especially now that there's a sequel looming.

That's fair. Bloodborne does try to combat that by making blood vials cheap, immediately available, and in the most common group of dropable items. Agreed; those spider enemies are almost as bad as NPC hunter foursome.

Again fair. I hadn't heard about the sequel until now, looking forward to it! Though I still need to play the original.

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Go in to Nioh thinking "This is Ninja Gaiden inspired by Dark Souls" rather than the other way around. 

It's absolutely a great game, and the best Souls-like to come out, but it has its own things going on. 

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Wha, seriously ? Dark Souls 2 got  dunked on because of a very few references ? Sheesh, they must had a surprise for Dark Souls 3.

I love them all, but I have my favorites and my least favorite.

Dark Souls 2 is my favorite personally, simply because it of three things, almost every build is viable, you can go wherever you want, except the final zones, obviously, and finally, it does it's own things lore wise that I absolutely loved, like the implied reincarnations that are nowhere to be seen, like a lot of other things, in Dark Souls 3. And don't talk about Ladder-man please. :(
I enjoyed Scholar of the first Sin, and Aldia of couse, well all love Aldia. And the DLC's too.
I repeat myself, but I love Dark Souls 2 do his own new things in every way, contrary to DS3, who count too much on DS1.

Dark Souls 3, my problems with it are, you have less fun with weapons, dual-stancing like in Dark Souls 2 is gone, and it's sad, magic sucks, except maybe pyromancy, and my big problem, it is linear, and the only way to make it a tiny bit not so linear is to kill that one NPC so you can try or succeed to beat that one late-game boss can spawn on you. Yay.
It doesn't make it a bad game, it's still awesome. Just nitpick land. Oh, and there's that issue about changing how damage were dealt compared to DS2 don't know what they were thinking.
The DLC... ah, could be better, and could be more. imo. Painting of Ariendel was way too short, and pandered too much on DS1 nostalgia, and. But hey, it was pretty, and the final boss of the DLC was cool.
I loved the Ringed City, even though, again, could have been more, but mein goth, the final boss of the series, and that music, mwah !

Dark Souls 1, it's simple, it's the first adventure. The adventure that hate your ass, seriously, replaying it, the game is mean, everything you gain or achieve, you deserve it. Sen's Fortress, Ornstein and Smough, those final rushed level, those are hard as hell and tedious as hell compared to the rest of the series.
Though it did not aged well, wow, the only thing that aged well is Gwynevere, eh.

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1 > 3 >2

I really love 1. Maybe it's because it was my first one, idk, but i really like most of its areas, boss fights, everything. Undead Burg and Anor Londo remain my favorite areas in the series. Even the last third of the game, which many think isn't as good, is still great IMO. I love the duke's archives.

Dark Souls 3 is really good as well, but it's a bit lacking compared to the first one IMO. Dark Souls 2 is just not that good to me. After beating it, I never felt like playing it again. I feel like its world design is really bad compared to the other Souls games, its boss fights are easy and unmemorable (its difficulty most comes from generic enemeis, which is IMO bad level design), and its combat is just too slow. It really feels like a B team game to me.

Bloodborne gives Dark Souls 1 a run for its money, though. 

My overall ranking is like Dark Souls = Bloodborne > Demon's Souls = Dark Souls 3 > Dark Souls 2.

Edited by Nobody
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1 was my first, but I like both 3 and Bloodborne over it. I feel they are more consistently good, while DS1 falls off quite hard after Anor Londo as most people observe. I don't hate DS2, and I also never criticised it for the "references" that it had.

To be honest, even though I've beaten it multiple times since its shorter, Demon's Souls is very much a product of its time and I would find it on par with DS2. Still, I had some fun most recently with just dumpstering the game with overpowered magic.

Nioh is also very good.

Edited by Edgelord
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On 6/27/2018 at 4:53 AM, Edgelord said:

Magic in DeS is so insane. I thought I was really clever when I came up with the Light Weapon/Blueblood sword combo.

Then I learned it was like, the top rated build on the DeS wikidot for a long time shortly after DeS came out, purely because everyone was already like "Well duh. Blueblood is amazing, Light Weapon is amazing."

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My favorite game in the trilogy is Dark Souls 2.

I love how it expands the story/lore, showing respect for first Dark Souls yet still being able to stand on its own and then some. NPC dialogue is topnotch, although this is the case for all three games. I love the variety of locations, there are many and they are all visually distinct. Perhaps the locations feel less "connected" than the two other games but I personally believe that Dark Souls 2 is supposed to take place over a larger area. It has the best gameplay of all three, especially the delightfully obscene amount of platforming to be had. It has area gimmicks that are actually fun and not tedious. DLC is amazing, probably the best parts of an already great game. The only place where I think the game actually suffers is the music, aside from some standout tracks it's rather uninspired.

Regarding the Scholar of the First Sin update, while I love it, I do not think it was as necessary as many fans claim it was. The base game was absolutely fine on it's own, though the general consensus was that it wasn't good (at least by die-hard fans, which I assume anyone who has played at the very least all three Dark Souls games is) and the update only improved the game a little, yet the fans acted as if it were a gift from the heavens. Sure, FromSoftware rearranged the toppings on a cake and added a nice strawberry on top, but it's the same flipping cake! It was always good! No amount of toppings can make a bad cake edible! Has anyone had disgusting baked goods? There is no saving them!

Sorry for the mini rant.

 

 

The original Dark Souls takes second place, and it's a close one too.

Well, as far as story/setting/lore go it gave us the foundation for the Dark Souls "universe", and it was good enough (or vague enough but I like it like that) that it kept people talking about it for years. I love it, and it's part of what makes the game so good. As far as areas go, while it doesn't have the numerical advantage of Dark Souls 2, it makes up for it by having the most visually interesting locations and it really feels like you are travelling in an actual world since everything is connected and you can basically see all the areas from anywhere. It does have a couple tedious locations to travel through, but even those parts manage to be at least somewhat enjoyable, except Tomb of Giants which I consider to be actual poor game design. All-in-all though, playing through the locations, fine-tuning your character and fighting enemies and bosses is fun, so gameplay gets a pass. It has my overall favorite music of all three games, but I'd say none of them have stellar soundtracks as a whole. Oh, the DLC is very good too.

 

 

And finally, in third place, Dark Souls 3.

This is the most disappointing game in the trilogy for me, but it is not by any means bad. Just... not as good. I found most of the locations rather boring, both in terms of visuals (well, it can be pretty at times but it's not that varied) and in terms of gameplay. There were too many large open spaces with little in terms of platforming or paths to take, like being on a guided tour of sorts. That or the small and uninspired Catacombs of Carthus and Demon Ruins. I do like the Bloodborne-like movement/combat, but that can only go so far when the level design doesn't hold up. The bosses were pretty fun though. In terms of story, it relied too much on the first Dark Souls for my liking, as some of you have already mentioned. It's like a Dark Souls rehash in that regard, and not its own thing. Most of the music tracks suffer from having too many things going on at the same time, leaving everything rather indistinct, though this is a common Dark Souls problem. I haven't yet played the DLC, so I can't judge it there.

 

 

Anyway, in case any of you were wondering, I played and beat all three games as they were released.

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