Recent reviews by Saraph

Replayed this in 2024 after having beaten all Souls games, Elden Ring and Sekiro. If I'm being brutally honest, I didn't have such a good time. Since Steam doesn't allow "mixed feelings" reviews, I'm afraid my experience was more negative than positive.

DS1 is definitely great game for its time, but once you start seeing how the games in this genre evolved over the years, its shortcomings start being apparent. Its negatives lie mostly in the fact that even though Demon Souls was the first game, DS1 is still somewhat of a pioneer in the genre. A lot of this game's difficulty isn't so much the actual difficulty itself, but rather having to put up with many annoyances.

So to list some of the negatives:
- Almost every single boss encounter is just bad. You can see how mechanically weak they are. The majority of bosses can be beaten just by running around them and hitting them from the side and they'll be absolutely confused and will not manage to land a single hit in your direction (Gaping Dragon, Iron Golem or Asylum Demon reskins to name a few). Then there are bosses with absolutely terrible design. Capra Demon with chokingly small boss area that discriminates against anyone who doesn't turtle behind a shield 2 random dogs thrown in the fight for a good measure. Gravelord Nito as an extremelly dull boss whose only difficulty is his 6 or so skeletons that can't be permanently killed. Ceaseless Discharge just keeps exploding until you manage to get enough damage in to kill it. Seath the Scaleless is ridiculously easy once you figure out how to kill him, but until you do, enjoy your curse halving your HP. Even the iconic Smough & Ornstein duo is only difficult because there's 2 of them at the same time. Don't even get me started on Bed of Chaos, the absolute #1 winner of almost every ♥♥♥♥ boss tier list of FromSoftware games.
- I can't think of a single boss room before which there wasn't an absurdly long way from the closest bonfire. I don't exactly require Statues of Marika from Elden Ring that spawn you right in front of the fog gate, but to me there's no reason having to spend 3 minutes just getting back to the boss fight. You might argue it's there to have time to properly think about your mistakes from the last encounter, but I don't think that's necessarily true either. I realize my mistake the moment I make it, but still, perhaps being spawned right in front of the fog gate doesn't motivate player enough not to just brainlessly try the same thing over and over.
- Multiple "if you do this, your playthrough is screwed" moments. The absolute #1 offender in this regard is the game automatically throwing you into NG the moment you beat the last boss Gwyn. How the hell was I supposed to know I should've played the DLC before Gwyn? There's not even any old "save" to load, it's now done and over. So getting into the DLC would now require me to at least make it past Anor Londo again. Another one would be permanently losing Firelink Shrine bonfire if you use that Fire Keeper Soul to improve your Estus before you find out that soul could've been used to resurrect the Firelink Fire Keeper (although later I found that having Firelink bonfire wasn't as crucial as I thought).
- To reach the ending, you'll need to have done several steps in a specific order which kind of incentivises to look things up on the internet or wander around aimlessly for hours. For example, if you want to engage the Four Kings boss fight, you need to have killed another boss first, otherwise there's just a black pit you can jump into, but will just kill you with no additional info. When I jumped there and died, I thought "of course I died, what did I even expect?" and brushed it off as not the correct way forward, but later found out it was - I simply didn't complete a prerequisite.
- I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks Demon Ruins were just kind of left unfinished. It's just a huge area with ridiculous running distances and a bunch of Taurus and Capra Demon reskins slapped in there, and Lost Izalith not being much better either.

Still, it's not all bad. The game kept me engaged throughout the whole playthrough and the world design is among the best. I especially liked how so many of the areas then connect you back to Firelink Shrine via various unlocked shortcuts. Thanks to this, even before unlocking bonfire warping, it's not so bad having to travel on foot until then. Overall I had much better time with DS3, but I think I actually like DS1's world design more. The combat mechanics also feel more polished than in DS2.

- it's Sekiro
- it has anime girls
- it's free

The game itself is good, but there's a gamebreaking bug where enemies just stop spawning in some levels, making the game making it literally impossible to progress further into the game. Saw some discussions and this happens to many people, but developers don't seem to care about fixing this.

I loved base game (completed it 3 times with various self-imposed rules) and beat Ashes of Ariandel too, but I just didn't have a good time with this DLC. I defeated the first boss (demon prince) and enjoyed that encounter, but getting through the environment is just nonstop bombardment by rangers and angels, as well as a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of fatty melees with machettes and some ambushers jumping on you from ceiling. It's not the difficulty that bothers me, I can progress through that. I just hated always having to desperately try to find a way while being constantly under siege. At least when you were fired upon in Anor Londo archers or that huge machinery in Smouldering Lake, you could at least close the range and make it stop. Ringed City is giving you none of that. It's designed to make you run constantly. I always just wanted to be done with the zones so I could get to the next boss. If that's how the DLC makes you feel, you know it's a terrible design.

Masterpiece. Best FromSoftware game BY A MILE.

Well made and chill MMO. I don't know what endgame has to offer yet, but I learned not to worry about that too much. I just walk around and cut wood or mine while doing my quest and I'm having a great time. Definitely worth every cent.

I always wanted to play some new ARPG, but not many of them met my expectations because I was always expecting another Diablo or PoE. Grim Dawn's quality is really top notch though. The skill leveling reminds of Titan Quest.

Tried this during a free weekend. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ it was boring. When I finally found something to kill, the combat disappointed me too. So I concluded there's nothing in this game for me.

One of the best benchmark tools around.

One of the best things that happened to PC recently.