The Joys of "Game Over" *why I <3 Dark Souls*

[Nero D. Ace]

So yesterday, I made a post asking just what the hell happened to game design? It was a long post, and I'm sorry I made 46 people read that wall. I know, I deserve a special place in hell for that.
 
Since I'm already heading there, another great wall shouldn't hurt.
 

"Okay, it won't be THAT great."

 
So I was streaming through E3 when the Dark Souls 2 interview came on. I giggled like a school girl and glued my eyes to the screen, ready to see the kind of tricks and surprises awaiting me in this gruesome franchise.
 
The thing that probably surprised me the most was how the player didn't die once in the whole demo footage.
Huh.
 
Strange coming for a game which has built it's legacy on how brutal it is towards players who don't take it seriously and are prone to more quick triggers than rational thinking. It's almost as if they wanted the public to think that ... the game wouldn't let you die that much.
 
I know, I know. I'm being paranoid. I most likely am. The director of the franchise IS supervising so I shall place my faith in him and believe that the core gameplay is still solid.
 
But it made me wonder about one thing for sure - The players stance towards "Game Over".
 

"Damn! Why'd that suicide bomber rush me like that!? Fucking Cheeser!"

 
I'm not gonna lie to you. I've done my fair share of rage quits.
 
No matter how hard I try, that one fucking platform is just too far away and the checkpoint is really far back and the guy just doesn't jump high enough.
No matter how quick I am, that fucking AI bot snipes me within 2 seconds of moving out of cover.
No matter how carefully I move, those god damn aliens cheat and swarm me in one turn and kill all my soldiers.
 
It's hard. It makes you really feel bad at times. I can't even finish a damn video game. How can I do anything in life? I really suck.
 
But ...
 
It is BECAUSE it is that fucking hard that when you overcome it, you feel like the bad-ass that your video game counterpart is.
 
And that is why I love the shit out of Dark Souls.
 
I mentioned a while back how I fell in love with the Legend of Zelda. I started off thinking it's too childish, dismissed it, learned more about it later and praised it and when I ran out of shit to do, decided to get into the franchise out of sheer boredom and after a while had the most fun of my life playing it.
 
It's almost the same with Dark Souls, except replace the words -
Childish with Generic.
Dismissed with Dissed on.
Praised with Laughed at.
Boredom with Lack of PS3 titles. and
Fun with "GOD DAMN FUN!"
 
Bear with me on this, but I need to once again, describe my initial impressions of the game. I woke up (as my character - A female redhead knight) in a tutorial dungeon, killed some really low level minions with a broken sword, found out I was "undead" and got some better gear while meeting a guy who gave me a healing potion after encountering a boss i just KNEW i wasn't meant to fight.
 
Then, I did the iconic thing of the game - I traversed the white light ...
 

 
... and I came right on top of that boss I had run by earlier ...
 

 
I didn't know what to do for a whole 2 seconds. Then, I remembered a tutorial message from earlier. "Leap attacks do extra damage".
 
I instinctively jumped off the cliff and pressed the light attack button as i was falling through the air. To my amazement, my sword hit him for a walloping 50% damage. He was slow and I was fast. Through simple kiting techniques and his low health, he was dead in 20 seconds.
 
20 minutes into the game and I was making it my bitch. I was a natural. The best gamer in the world. No one else was as good as video games as me. I don't know what they're talking about. This game is EASY.
 
Oh, how arrogant I was.
 
Another 20 minutes later, hell would begin for me. I reached the ACTUAL first level, fought some actual minions and died after getting cocky and taking on 5 of them at once.
 
No problem, I thought. Lucky shots. I'll just take them one at a time.
 
Even with that tactic, I was making slow progress. I was using up my healing potions at an alarming rate compared to other RPG's and these enemies would do a lot of damage when they hit me.
 
Slowly, I made my progress through the Undead Burg and encountered another white light. Memory told me that I should be wary for white lights are not to be trusted.
 

"Ahem, not THAT memory."

 
So I cross the light, there's no boss there. Just a bunch of skeletons on top of a tower chucking arrows at me. We'll see to that now, shall we!?
Righto, skeletons are dead, that wasn't too hard of a boss fight, there's the exit right over there. I'm already halway across, jolly ho ... wait, what's that ... it looks like ...
 

 
OMG! IT'S A BULL! HOLY FUCK! IT'S RUNNING RIGHT TOWARDS ME! I DIDN'T SIGN UP FOR THIS! WHY IS THE GATE CLOSED!? WHY CAN'T I GO BACK!? 
 
After much whining and bitching, I turned around to face the beast, thinking that as a knight, I could surely block, wait for his stamina to fall and then counter. Yes! I am a knight! A brav ...
 

"Oh bugger."

 
This went on for quite a while, I would kill all the respawned minions, travel to the boss gate, fight (or at least attempt to) and die.
Over ... and over ... and over ...
 
I grew quite demoralized. Why was this game so fucking unfair? Difficulty is one thing but the ability to die in one hit is absolutely fucking ridiculous. Fuck this. I don't want to play anymore. This game DOES suck.
 
And there I left it. For half an hour.
 
Fuck me if I'm gonna let a video game beat me. Who does this "Dark Souls" think it is? It's code, art and design mixed together. All I need to do is study the patterns an ...
 

"Oh, come on!"

 
Then, I did my saving grace, the one thing that ensured I would not be stuck on that boss forever. I connected to the internet. Messages started appearing everywhere - tips on what the enemies weaknesses are, what items I should take, what route is safe, I started seeing phantoms of other people who were online and playing.
 
Look at all that bad ass armor. Look at the size of that sword. Is that what lies at the other end of this boss? If they can do it, so can I!
 
Right, I should do that jump attack bonus damage I did with the tutorial boss and make sure I roll between his legs and not block and swing carelessly. I should conserve my potions. Set my sword on fire so it does bonus damage. Check. Check. Check. Right, here we do, Bull! Your ass is min ...
 

 
Oh, that didn't go as planned ...
But! I got his life all the way down to 20%
And I learned most of his moves. He's mine next time!
 
See, the thing about Dark Souls is ... no matter how many times you die, no matter how many times you have to traverse the same area to face the boss, the key part is -
 
You're always learning.
You're always practicing.
 
On your way to the boss, you've swung your sword 500 times. You've learned how to block and when to block. You've learned the timing on how to parry other swords.
 
And by the time you've mastered that shitty, un-upgraded Longsword, you've begun to get inside the minds of your enemies. You know how these minions behave, you know what they want.
They think that you're the prey from which they steal humanity. They're wrong.
 
You're the hunter. They're the prey. They're the fodder for you to practice.
 
For after all that practice and all those attempts, when you finally face that boss when you are ready, that is the moment ...
 

 
... when you BECOME the boss. You just faced the most difficult adversary of your life. It was tough, needed multiple attempts, but you prevailed.
 
Ah, I'm finally starting to get into the way of things now. I think THAT was the hardest part of the game. I'm sure it'll be more like Zelda from now on till th ...
 

 

-----------------------------------------

 
So that was my story.
 
Now to the topic - Game Over's aren't technically "Game Over's" anymore. At least not in the places that get them done right. In a game where you get that screen, you're supposed to keep on trying and improving your skills until you get to a point where you can do anything.
 
Compared to games which give Game Over screens as a result of badly placed AI, unfair difficulty spikes or just downright broken mechanics (I'm looking at you, Black Ops 2 on highest difficulty), these games get it right.
 
If you're perfect at a game from the get go, what's the point of the experience? What did you take away from all the time invested in it? What did you learn?
 
I can't say for all of them but from my time with Dark Souls, I learned -
Skyrim dragons are worms, yo.

[lemmingllama]

For one, let me just say that I enjoy your walls of entertainment.

 

Now down to business. I wholeheartedly agree with you. Game overs are sometimes more fun to play through, and finally beating that level is really awesome. This is why I go back and replay games like Mario, Duke Nukem, or Cosmo.

 

One bad thing about game overs are when you need to traverse a ridiculous distance to get back to where you died. Bloody annoying when you get 24 levels into some awesome platformer then one bad misclick leads you back to level one.

 

Either way, increasing the difficulty of games would also increase the amount of fun. This is why I typically play single player games, if it has multiplayer then it isn't likely to be difficult

[Dark_Angel13]

I laughed so hard at most of this, especially the courages moments and then the you are dead screens hahaha. I have to agree with you though that a challenge in a game and those constant defeats is what usually makes people rage quit but for me if its a challenging game and not one that's clearly been fucked up in the AI department then I usually enjoy the challenge.

 

Your walls of text arent horrible either, this one I actually read all of it! hahaha. Agree with llama too that most single player games are generally harder then multiplayer ones and for Skyrim if you turn the difficulty RIGHT UP! You really do feel like the wimpy little guy at the start of the game instead of the random prisoner who can one hit everything with his fists haha. I enjoy the challenge in a game, as long as it is a challenge! and not just some fuck up on the games part that you have to try and deal with

[† Emotional Outlet]

A lot of old school Nintendo-hard games are built on that concept--you're going to die a lot and the only way you're going to be able to get past anything is if you die eight thousand times at the same part so you can memorise the patterns.

 

My little brother is especially good at that sort of thing, to the point he can play rhythm games despite his lack of musicality. In the end it's still a game and there's still a pattern, even if he can't grasp the rhythm in the same way a musician would.

 

I agree sometimes the difficulty it seems like an extremely artificial construct. Like how am I supposed to know stepping on that block would blow me to little pieces? But I know it for next time--maybe in a fit of exaggerated caution, I discover I can trip explosive blocks without killing myself, or I might catch a little detail like a small, out of the way symbol that always seems to be by the blocks. In the end I'm better for it.

 

I'm not much of a rage quitter because I accept I'm terrible at anything involving any measure of dexterity and timing, and the frustration is mostly with how terrible I am instead of how terrible the game is. I've watched people play difficult games enough to know that it's practise and dying repeatedly at the same part to the point of sarcastically mimicking the boss's pre-battle speech.

 

That said, I personally don't enjoy Nintento-hard games and others cut from the same cloth, haha. I understand the concept behind them and their worth, it's just not an enjoyable experience for me. I play for the story and characters, not necessarily a gameplay experience. (But obviously I won't go into an arcade or fighting game looking for a compelling story, haha.)

 

If me dying eight million times is impeding story progression and I can't just griiiiiiiiiind myself to the point where I can overpower bosses with brute strength, I will unabashedly turn down the difficulty. I'll come back later at a higher difficulty, but right now I want to see how the game ends.

[DrumRoll]

what part are you up to?

 

I've got up to the part where....bugger, I can't remember the name of it but its like a massive library.

 

Stopped playing DS though. Loved the hell out of it and hated its guts at the same time.

 

However, it did have SO many moments where I was reduced to this. 

 

[spoiler]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXuCeZyPfmM

[Nero D. Ace]

I finished it way back, just after the first announcement of Dark Souls 2.

 

It was after I finished it only, and started playing other games again that Dark Souls wasn't HARD. It was normal. This was the way games used to be - proper difficulty curve, good enemy A.I. and an option to choose between stats vs. dexterity.

 

I ended up playing and finishing the game multiple times, each time with different classes and following different "routes". Ex.

 

In my first playthrough, I made a very "tank-y" build that could block, block and block forever and once the enemy revealed an opening, slice through and take them down in as few shots as possible. This was my "STATS" build.

In my second play, I made a build that was really fast and could roll everywhere, a lotta focus on stamina and speed. This guy couldn't block anything and had to be careful to avoid any kind of damage. This was the "DEX" build.

 

Also, since I had finished the game once before, I could take a different route and do things differently than my first run.

 

It sorta reminded me of Mega Man where I could have gotten a certain power earlier and it would have made all the difference in the world in a certain area. And in terms of stats, it certainly put those numbers in when they mattered. 

 

I might do another "wall" later about story vs. gameplay and what it means for games as they used to be compared to what they are.

[hellzism]

This is one of the games I enjoy most on the PS3.

Fell in love with and played it multipule times.

Though, like you it one of those game I rage over it and quit for a year then came back to play it.