You've heard them. It's the weasel phrase used as a catch-all answer to every critique. Like the jerk of a knee, or the blink of an eye, it is damn-near instinctual at this point.
"Git gud."
Go. Fuck. Yourself.
Dark Souls reputation for difficulty is mostly illusory. Besides the aforementioned gank? It relies on mobs early; even if you try to parry and riposte (
which is nothing like an
actual parry and riposte), you're likely to get knocked around after your invincibility frames cancel. This creates a glacial pace, as you try to run/position yourself in an advantageous spot, since luring enemies is somewhat unreliable.
Hollows are so small and thin that you need to rely on the lock-on, which defaults to "computer picks what it wants." It also does that after you turn off the default.
The camera? That's truly the boss you're fighting. It occasionally conspires with the lock-on, and you'll find yourself dodging
into an attack.
Sometimes with larger enemies, I'd dodge-nutmeg them, hit R2, and...nothing would happen. Half stam, but nada. Used two controllers to test it, too.
Certain bosses are only difficult because they get into an RNG spasm and spam the same attack over and over as you're standing up to recover (lookin' at you, Centipede Demon).
Getting to run and jump feels like a broken Ubisoft game.
This is all to say that I was a reverse-gaming xenophobe. I knew nothing about From Software, but once I found out they were a well-regarded Japanese developer, I thought mechanical competence was a given. But this game feels like it isn't finished. Which is understandable for something rushed out the door to make an initial deadline...but not an excuse you get to use for a remastered version.
Maybe I could overlook those flaws for a breathtakingly pretty landscape, but...this is a fairly ugly game. I couldn't care less if I never see the Catacombs, or Undead Burg, or Lost Izaleth, or Sen's Fortress, or Blightown ever again.
Maybe even that would be worthwhile if the bosses lived up to build-up. They mostly don't. Y'know how people bemoan the Watcher Knights in Hollow Knight as RNG garbage? Ornstein and Smough are that fight in 3D. Bed of Chaos shits the bed. Four Knights were mostly a DPS check, Nito is only notable as an homage to Legion, and Gwyn has a glass jaw. I was actually shocked at how easy the end of the game was. And eff off for making me kill a limping doggo, FromSoft.
Maybe the spaces in-between would make all of the difference if they had any rhythm or feel. But the game is too interested in cheap-killing you with gank deaths, thin/slippery ledges, mobs, etc. I spent 70 damn hours in this game. I'm sure that half of those were retraversing from some sort of bullshit gank, soul grinding, humanity farming (you're welcome, Solaire), being lost in a sewer (a map is not a next-gen feature), or just observing attack patterns from new enemies while Hollow so I could go back later.
I probably spent a good 10 hours alone mindlessly soul grinding on the big knights in Anor Londo. I'd intermittently go back, since the environment was tolerable and the enemies were at least fair.
There was one moment - one - where I truly thought the game would become something greater. Heading down from Andrew the blacksmith, through Darkroot garden, into the basin, you see a hydra-dragon in the mist, and a castle to your right. In that moment, I thought I got to the Bionis' Knee, to the moment where shit was about to get real.
But it never did.
