So now that the dust has settled a bit - Dark Souls 1 or 2, which is better?

DoubleTake said:
I think I've posted this before but:

Atmosphere:
Demons > Dark > Dark 2

Lore:
Dark > Demons > Dark 2

Plot:

Demons > Dark > Dark 2

PVE:

Dark > Demons > Dark 2

PVP:

Dark 2 > Dark = Demons

Boss Design:

Dark > Demons > Dark 2

Structural Level Design:

Dark > Demons > Dark 2

Aesthetic Design:

Demons > Dark > Dark 2

Technical Aspects(matchmaking, framerate)

Dark 2 > Dark > Demons

For every step Dark 2 takes forward, it takes 2 steps back in areas where Dark and Demons excelled. This is somewthing that is very noticeable and doesn't allow it to be on the same level of the other games even though it is a good game in its own right.
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Spot on for most of this. I would split structural level design into something like level design and world design, though, since in my opinion Demon's Souls actually tends to have better level design than Dark Souls.

Level design: Demon's Souls > Dark Souls > Dark Souls 2
World design: Dark Souls > Demon's Souls > Dark Souls 2
 
You can teleport from the start in DaS II? (only finisehd DeS and DaS 1).
Who thought that was a good idea.
I appreciated the world design of DaS. You open a door somewhere, get up a stair and come out a place you were 10 hours ago and think "that's where the closed door leads to".
 
Demon's Souls is hands down my game of the Generation, I spent like 500 hours on both the us and eu version, it kinda reignited my interest in videogames, Dark Souls is a close second, reminiscent of the spiritual predecessor, yet unique in its own way, Dark Souls II is a brilliant game but somehow lacks the soul of the previous two, anyway whatever choice u make, u will be fine, in the end they all deserve to be played!
 
Dark Souls 1, but I feel 2 gets too much shit over here. It's a great follow-up with some fantastically designed and varied areas.
 
I really enjoyed DS2 but DS1 is better by a country mile (though DeS is still my favourite by a slim margin).

It's all about the world for me - I genuinely felt immersed into the world of Dark Souls, and it felt so cohesive (until the late stages at least) that I just loved exploring it. Dark Souls 2, however, never gave me any sense of exploration and the linear structure of most of the world meant I just felt like I was travelling from one place to the next.

Both amazing games though - maybe play Dark Souls 2 and save the best till last!
 
Pretty easy one for me. Dark Souls 1 surpasses the sequel in almost all aspects.

Level and boss design are almost undeniably better in DkS1, but also smaller things like NPCs and lore come out on top.
I like what they tried to do with Creighton and Pate, but there are just too few interactions with those NPCs and all the others are just kind of... there? Nothing comes close to Siegmeyer's or Solaire's tragic storylines. Well, okay, there's the moment when you enter Vendrick's crypt, but that's really the only single example I can think of.

When it comes to actual gameplay, there are a lot of things that I'm not fond of. Weapon movesets are crazy limited and there's lack of meaningful choice when it comes to weapons. It's like From tried to make every weapon available to every build, which is a huge mistake imo. What's the point in specializing in dexterity or strength, when there are weapon in the game that have the exact same moveset and either an A/D or D/A scaling?
I started multiple new playthroughs in Dark Souls 1, just for the sake of dedicating an entire build to a single weapon. I don't have that desire in DkS2 anymore.

With that being said, the first DkS2 DLC is on par with DkS1 when it comes to areas and bosses.
 
Kinda off-topic but for a beginner who wants to delve into the Soul's world, which game would be a better introductory stepping stone into the series? Would the sequential Demon's --> DkS1 --> DkS2 be the best way to play the series as a whole?
 
Rozart said:
Kinda off-topic but for a beginner who wants to delve into the Soul's world, which game would be a better introductory stepping stone into the series? Would the sequential Demon's --> DkS1 --> DkS2 be the best way to play the series as a whole?
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If you mean difficulty curve, DS2 is the easiest to get into.
 
I would rate them about on par. Both have their distinct advantages and issues. As others have said, DS1 has higher highs and lower lows, while DS2 is more consistent and has an actual working online component which is extremely awesome. People really shouldn't let others fool them, Dark Souls 2 is an amazing game and very much worth playing.

It's been too long since I played DeS but I think I prefer both Dark games over it.
 
Let's wait for the full DLC pack for 2 to come out.

Playing through the first DLC now and it's pretty sweet. Almost done I think, had some tough parts. Wonder what the other parts will bring.
 
I love both games and the entire trilogy.

Dark Souls:

Better lore.
Ability to upgrade, level, repair, etc at bonfires.
Better art direction
Better level design.
Better stamina system. DS2 stamina seems to drain a little too fast.
Better atmosphere and environments.
Better boss and enemy designs.
Better music(DS2 still has a really good soundtrack though, but sounds slightly more generic compared to DS imo).
Difficulty imo is slightly more balanced. Ancient Dragon DS2.........Both are close though.

Dark Souls 2

Slightly better gameplay.
Better online and matchmaking.
More weapons, armor and literally everything.
More enemies and bosses(I think).
Soul Weapons seem....better.
Menus imo are more organized and intuitive.
Ladder climbing is better(lol).
I actually didn't mind the teleporting, but I guess that is subjective.
I liked the multiple bonfires. Quite a bit of them were hidden actually and for me gave some incentive to explore the levels for them.
Awesome cloth physics.



Yeah, admittedly, Dark Souls had a little more "soul" to it, but I think both games are EXCELLENT. DeS is amazing also. The atmosphere was unprecedented and the music was amazing. I think it was ahead of it's time.
 
They're both great games but I opt for Dark Souls 2 because the mechanics are better -it runs extremely well on PC and this is exceptional when you consider how bad the first game was ported- and it's far, far less cryptic than the first game.

I've skimmed through the critiques of DS2 by the diehards and I don't agree with them. I thought the environments and sense of scope were as great as the first game. I will agree that there were some weak bosses (Covetous Demon, Lost Sinner, Royal Rat Vanguard, Prowling Magus) but there were weak bosses in DS1 as well (Moonlight Butterfly, Ceaseless Discharge, Priscilla, Gwyndolin) and everyone says the final boss in both games is incredibly easy.

I didn't mind fighting a horde of enemies at once. Almost every time this happens the enemies in question are very weak and die in 2-3 hits or less depending on your stats and weapon.

Can't we all agree that DS1 and 2 are like Megaman 2 and 3? Both good but it's up to individual preference.
 
Dark Souls . A better crafted experience that relies less on the "more is harder" approach. I also felt that it flowed much better as a game, as the level design and exploring the world just feels more natural.

Not that Dark Souls 2 is a bad game, it's great, it's just Dark Souls is better.
 
DS1 had more soul. The atmosphere and level design was much better, though not without a few lapses like Izalith. It did have some copy paste bosses and fps issues, so it could've done with a lot of extra polish definitely. DS2 fixed a lot of things and it's a more even experience, but unfortunately more bland too. DS2 should've been much better than what it ended up being. It felt like they went quantity over quality. It had too much DS1 stuff copy pasted and the new stuff didn't stand out on its own.

PVP is terrible in both, for slightly different reasons. DS1 had massive problems with connections failing most of the time, and pvp revolved around roll bs and poise breaks. DS2 fixed the sign connections but pvp is much more laggy and the lag can be abused to no end with some weapons and tactics. Most of DS2 pvp revolves around buffs, spells and 1hr1 spam, unless a monastery scimitar is in play. But all this doesn't matter since soul memory will throw you against an overleveled havel monster gank squad that will stunlock you to death after the first laggy hit. The pvp is pretty much anything goes, which usually means super high level and the most broken equipment, or just outright cheating. DS1 at least had some sort of honorbro dueling at lvl 100-125, but in DS2 you'll fight against lvl 200+ cheese builds most of the time. The whole pvp duel scene in both games is pretty much tacked on and broken, and the game mechanics don't truly support any kind of balanced pvp.
 
Same level of quality

DS 1 has some strenghts and some weaknesses, same for DS 2 but overall they are similar quality

I have fond memories of Dark Souls 1 being the first souls i tried but i can't say Ds2 is worse
 
If you were to really go the whole way and take a look at From's predecessors and spiritual successors to this "type" of game, Dark Souls II is perhaps right next to King's Field III as the weakest entry From has produced. In fact, both Dark Souls II and King's Field III can draw the same sort of criticisms about them regarding level design, pace, and tone, all of which seem like significant steps back to their direct predecessors.

Like how King's Field II is the best of its subseries, Dark Souls is the best of the Souls games to me. They both have very well thought out interconnected worlds, their increase in features over their previous games gives them a big boost in variety and depth, and both are solid Metroidvania-ish experiences.
 
eot said:
Dark Souls

By a lot.

There's barely any excitement around the DLC for DkS2, that tells you a lot.
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Nevermind the fact that Dark Souls 1's DLC was announced side by side with the PC release.

Ysiadmihi said:
Yup.

This is a better (or should I say, actual) example of a hitbox problem:

ibiaw74FqlYe3.gif
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Ever notice how it looks like he's gonna throw the shield horizontally and not vertically and howthe hitbox seems to be about as wide as the shield is???
 
I liked Dark Souls 1 a lot more, even though Dark Souls 2 refines a few things like menus and inventory, etc.

I double dipped on both. PC version of the second one was good (psssst don't tell FROM but I'd probably triple dip if there was a PS4 version).

The first one held my attention a lot longer, though. I'm not even very interested in DS2 DLC.
 
Easy_D said:
Nevermind the fact that Dark Souls 1's DLC was announced side by side with the PC release.
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That and any possible expansions were planned to be focused on unfinished ideas, and Artorias of the Abyss contains a lot of dropped ideas from the main game. Dark Souls II's DLC came after the producer said there would be no DLC of any kind, only for an about face just before launch.
 
I feel the mechanics have progressively gotten better. Demon's Souls had stuff like world tendency and item burden that were not really at all enjoyable. Also the PVP was rather broken with infinite and really fast healing and the animations are so much worse than the Dark Souls games (especially II which has godly animations). DaS improved on that by removing many of the bad mechanics and introducing the bonfire and Estus system. DaS II improved even further with better PVP matchmaking, and thus much less lag, and maybe the best animations ever.

While I acknowledge that DeS has the worst mechanics. The level design, boss design and atmosphere are just so great that it was the best game to me. Between DaS and DaS II, I find that the first game may have higher highs, but it also has much lower lows, both regarding bosses and levels. While the game has better world design and story/lore, the previous point, along with the much improved PVP, pushes II ahead for me.

I think I often see people argue that Dark Souls is slightly more than the sum of its parts, while II is slightly less than the sum of its parts. I can agree with this and see why, for people who really value how everything about a game comes together, this More-or-less-than-the-sum-of-it's-parts-ness, for lack of a better word (we really need to coin a term for this quality), DaS comes ahead. But for me, the sum of the parts of DaS II are just so much higher than the sum if of the parts of DaS that even if I is better than the sum of its parts, and II is worse, II still comes out ahead.
 
Dark Souls 1 by a fucking huge margin. Dark Souls 2 was still a great game and better than most, but for me it was far behind the beast that was Dark Souls 1.
 
While there's the expected usual hyperbole posts arguing Dark Souls II is far worse than it actually is, I'm glad to see the general opinion is finally willing to acknowledge they just don't like it as much rather than having to slander it as an abortion of gaming. Hopefully with time people will dip into a more reasonable reception than the usual all-or-nothing approach of a new game where it is either the greatest game in 20 years or the worst piece of garbage you wouldn't receive a blowjob for if you had to play.
 
I can't say that I've enjoyed Dark Soul II so far.

Dark Souls, on the other hand, while a flawed game, was a game that became much more than the sum of its parts. It made up with something else for every area in which it was lacking. Dark Souls II felt completely "meh" right from the start for me.
 
Man, my post got quoted a lot of times.

I still stand to what I said.
 
ChipotIe said:
not since Monastery Scimitar got its frame 1 parry back

nothing is more satisfying than a twitch parry
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it was a joke on Riposte's name >_>


That said if you want to talk, I do think I liked the insta-lock invincible animations of DS better than the loosey escapable vulnerable animations of DS2. Yes, the latter required more skill, better timing and makes sure the mechanics aren't quite as easily exploited as in the first two games, but still... Also, the camera shake and stronger sound design also made the canned animations of the earlier games more impactful and satisfying.
 
I think the best way to describe how I feel about Dark Souls 2 is that while it's a great game, there always feels like there's something missing. Something feels missing in the graphics, something feels missing in the boss design, something feels missing in the story, and so on.

I really like the Robocop -> Robocop 2 analogy as well.
 
They're both equally good overall, but 1 wins on side-content and the way its world is sewn together. The ending really ruins it for me though. 2 is good all the way through but doesn't quite reach the same peak the first game did, but I like the lore better in DS2, especially how it's presented to you towards the end.
 
DS1 probably.

A lot of critiques on DS2 rely on rose-tinted glasses for DS1, but DS2 suffered from an inferior level design (albeit the area design is much more consistent and it didn't have areas like Lost Izalith) and sequel fatigue (after 200+ hours of pvp in DS1 I "only" played DS2 for about 100 hours or so)
 
Taruranto said:
DS1 probably.

A lot of critiques on DS2 rely on rose-tinted glasses for DS1, but DS2 suffered from an inferior level design (albeit the area design is much more consistent and it didn't have areas like Lost Izalith) and sequel fatigue (after 200+ hours of pvp in DS1 I "only" played DS2 for about 100 hours or so)
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I solo'd both games. I just don't care for Co-Op that much. I would like a Dark Souls game that has really good PVP like Dark Souls 2 BUT has really good (preferably roll-back based) netcode. Maybe Bloodborne can finally achieve this but I dunno. Japanese Developers just aren't good at netcode (excluding Arcsys).
 
As other have said, the dust hasn't settled at all. We're still missing two thirds of DLC and there have been major rebalance patches recently.
 
dark souls 1 is better by a large margin. especially with dsfix on pc.

the hitboxes on 2 are so bad i just cant. its worse than lag.
 
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