PixlBit

I can understand only liking the series for PvE. I was like that with it for a long time. It took DS3 to pull me out of my shell in that regard. I honestly am not big on invading and co-op, but Red Soapstone 1v1 battles are like drugs for me at this point. I've sat outside of the Pontiff bonfire PvPing for more time than I'd care to admit. Co-op/invading is fun for a bit, but I find that it loses its luster pretty quickly for me.

I guess I took particular offense with his belief that the combat isn't that deep. I mean, it's just objectively false considering there's an entire meta game when it comes to PvP. So many of the patches they make to the games are specifically for the PvP meta to limit OP builds that begin ruining the meta.

I do fully agree that level design, imagination, and cohesive world design is of great importance for the PvE portion of the game and I also agree that the games got pretty safe after Dark Souls 1. I actually think 2 tried to shake things up a bit, but kind of missed the point in some regards. The DLC, while great in its world design, has boss fights that are just hard for the sake of being hard, nearly to the point of being unfair especially after the huge trek it takes to just get there. The whole game fell victim to the "add more enemies to the boss fight" to up the ante. Similarly, 3 did that with the whole multi-phase fights. There's a degree of laziness to it that is undeniable.

I think it's a bit of both and bit of not having publishers there to keep things on track and in check. In the case of Yooka-Laylee, it does seem like using Unity might've been a bit of the problem as well. It expects to work in a certain way and it's not quite as precise as having your own custom engine as they did back in the N64 days. Plus there's no doubt that having Nintendo's input and oversight helped immensely.

I do think Yooka is one of the more successful Kickstarters (though Shovel Knight is probably the overall best one, hands down). The game wasn't horribly delayed and it mostly delivers on what it promised. It's not perfect and it needs some clean up, but it was pretty much what I was banking on. Like I said, hopefully the patch gets it to where it needs to be and it's nearly as solid of an experience as the classics that inspired it.

There's definitely some rough edges to Yooka-Laylee. The notes for the upcoming patch sound really promising though. I think they are ironing out most of what you mention here and near anything I had a complaint about as well. It's clear the game wasn't quite ready when they released it and I do wish they would've held it back a few more months to iron out all the kinks before pushing it out the door to meet their (already delayed) release date.

I understand why they did it though, especially with the various other Kickstarter failures that likely made them hypersensitive to another delay. I hope the patch does the game the good it deserves and that they are doing well enough to refine the experience in a sequel.

Watched the video and I guess I'd say that I generally disagree with the critiques of the newer games. I agree that Demon's Souls brought something totally new to the table, but in my opinion each progressive game further refined the series and each offers some variations on the core hook to make them individually unique.

For instance, Dark Souls 3 is my favorite of the series. I believe it to have merged the nuance of the Souls games with the speed and aggression of Bloodborne. It's a fascinating world with superb immersion and the combat and gameplay feels the tightest of the whole series. Demon's Souls has lots of great stuff, but it's also incredibly rough around the edges, and frankly, it's tough for me to go back to it.

I do believe they put a wrap on the series at the right time though. I don't think we need the series to be annualized, and I love what they were able to accomplish with Bloodborne by establishing a brand new universe. I'd love to see them do that again and give us another fresh world to fall in love with.

I also do think that the video is incredibly PVE-centric in its views. It shortchanges the combat system quite thoroughly by only looking at its application in PVE. Having played literally hundreds of hours of PVP, I can tell you that the combat is incredibly deep and nuanced and there's a whole lot more to it than just timing rolls. Just having all of the options of multiple melee attacks, magic, pyromancy, faith, projectiles, items, etc, on top of the crazy build varities, there's so much that someone can bring to a fight that it makes the system much deeper than is credited in the analysis.

I can agree that the games have certainly gotten very roll dependent in the PVE, but one could argue the older games were best played in that fashion too. Most bosses are super easy once you figure out how to exploit rolling iframes. I won't disagree that Demon's Souls was much more imaginative when it comes to bosses and I think it goes without saying that the newer games have certainly adhered to a very particular boss formula that has gotten a bit tired when you look at where things started.

All that said, I think every game in the series has its own unique flavor, and generally speaking I love all of them near equally. I just don't have the same pedestal that others seem to have for Demon's Souls. It's a fine game and I totally appreciate what it brought us, but it's the one I've played the least and have the least interest in going back to.

Hey look BoxBoxBoy! is on sale, totally grabbing that!

Wow, that's an awesome find! I actually have the art book and soundtrack that came with that, but I don't have the strategy guide and external box that holds it and the game. I've looked to pick that stuff up, but it's just too pricey. Maybe I too will get lucky and find it on a shelf one day!

Guess I should shelve the new gamer tag I was planning on switching to, xXx_danknugsnipermcfatcock666_xXx.

Love both, but Metroid has the edge. It's a series that has been consistently fantastic (I'm ignoring Other M for all our sake, though I'd argue it's a passable game and better than all the 3D Castlevania games). Metroid Prime and Super Metroid are among the best games ever made and are 2 of my personal favorites.

Dawn of Sorrow is amazing though as is SOTN. Generally, I think Castlevania was smart to borrow the exporation elements of Metroid and fuse them with the traditional Castlevania stuff. The end result of that fusion has been highly successful and I think it deviates enough from Metroid that I could easily play both series back to back and not feel fatigued.

There's something about Zelda games that's just completely engrossing. Whenever I play one, it's on my mind until I finish it up. The Souls games live in that same mental space for me and engage me very similarly. They're not totally similar, but something about that third party action style in a world that's unfolding as you progress makes both of them resonate extremely well with me.

Also, I have incredible nostalgia for Zelda. I've been playing it literally my entire life. The first game I loved was Zelda 1 on the NES and I've beaten that game more times than I can remember. I played it straight up until I got A Link to the Past, and I played that straight until I got Ocarina of Time, so on and so forth. At this point I'm so vested in that universe that it just tops anything else almost by default.

Chose Zelda, but I love all of those franchises almost equally. I just like Nintendo games, I can't help it goddammit.