TurkeySoul wrote: eminusx wrote: TurkeySoul wrote: he said
i said
I 100% see your point and I'm also in 2 minds about this. I'm basing it on my first playthrough. I did like all the hidden bits and pieces in the game and also spent about 100 hours on first play through (and I did look a few things up).
Finding gaps and holes etc was very enjoyable and I explored each zone thoroughly. I did think a few things could have been a bit more obvious though.
The bonfire in Sens was one. I'm glad you found it. Wish I had. I would have been fine with it being off a ledge where it was if it didn't have a guy throwing bombs at you so as you're running past and don't even notice the gap. I didn't even notice it the first couple of runs through and eventually looked online for where the bonfire was as I thought I'd searched every nook and cranny and couldn't imagine the whole place not having one.
The other bit was going back to Asylum being such an important part of the game which gives you probably your only titanite slab and the key to painted world. Even if you find the nest making you wait like a minute before anything happens means most players would completely miss this. I did find this, waited in nest for like 20 secs and got out cos nothing happened.
Having two illusiary walls to get to the hollow.. Every time I've done blighttown online there never seems to be anyone who has left a message of illusiary wall ahead and expecting 2 is not something an average player would try.
Not warning you that using a fire keepers soul would just give you souls. I don't remember the text being very obvious to hand it in to someone or you wouldn't get re-enforced flask. I read it and used it and then wondered why my flask wasn't re-enforced.
Not having a way back from anor londo without back tracking through sens was also mega annoying which is why I suggest blacksmith telling you which zones to look for embers in as the knights and boss are cakewalk with a strong weapon but are incredibly hard when you haven't upgraded properly (well on first playthorugh anyway, not now I can backstab properly).
I guess I think that items can be well hidden but whole zones should be a bit more obvious to find.
Having said all that I think I will try DkS2 without looking anything up and have a feeling I will find 90%+ of everything there is to find.
A lot of finding everything is knowing how the game 'thinks'. In DkS2 if I arrive in a dead end that seems like it shouldn't just be a dead end then I will hit walls. If an action does something I will wait a full minute for something to happen etc etc...
I just can't help but feel that I would have been able to do the full playthrough without internet help if I had known that and I imagine most players are in the same boat. A lot of things are just too obscure to find.
Sens bonfire, I saw the gap after I'd legged it to the mid level platform
Its all designed in excess, to test you and see if you'll go the extra mile that other games will never ask of you, most things in DS are designed to throw you off the scent. a) waiting far longer for something to happen (snuggly) than you usually would, so you give up. B) weve all seen invisible walls before that we have to break through. . . but two...in a row?!?!?!? surely not!! :-)
Backtracking through Sens, the reason you have to back track is because Sens is essentially a big puzzle, so going through the puzzle in reverse is a great idea, negotiating the axes in reverse, thats why the placement of the enemies makes a difference, because you need to think about them differently than you did 'going up'. The first serpent mage guard at the first set of swinging axes, she could easily be your downfall, so you gotta be careful, again building the tension. . .lesser games or designers would miss this sort of opportunity, thats why DS is so special.
Returning to the Asylum, seeing a 'soul' up on the roof immediately made me think there was a way up there, then I found the stair, and the nest. In the nest, It seemed likely that if they'd go to the trouble of making a point of you pressing a button to curl into a ball then it probable has some significance. . .so I just left it a while.
The painted world, lets face it, the Painting itself is a bit of a centre piece, and it too has a button prompt when youre in front of it. I had a look through my items to see if anything fitted either the cold look or feel of the painting or the even word 'painting' and then used it.
There once was an abomination who had
no place in this world. She clutched this
doll tightly, and eventually was drawn into
a cold and lonely painted world.
I do know what you mean about things being well hidden, but if you look at any of those points ive just made, if you got rid of those you'd just be trundling from A to B, which is pretty boring really, especially for an adventure game. Like John Lennon said, Life's what happens while youre making other plans. . .well, I reckon in gaming it stuff like this that IS the gaming experience, completing a game is just the result, its how you get there that's important, thats the real game.
Like you said, you just need to get into the Miyazaki mindset and learn how the game 'thinks', then you start to question everything, turn over every stone, investigate every nook and cranny. . .thats playing the game :-)
by morte Wed Mar 20, 2013 11:46 pm
