How To Understand and Enjoy Dark Souls and Elden Ring if You Hate Them

Playlist:
• Dark Souls, Elden Ring...

[@SolonGaming]

I am really sorry for the closed comment section. I swear it wasn't me. KZbin somehow decided by itself to close the comments of this video and i realised it just now. I removed the restriction and you can now freely comment.

[@TomBombadill85]

Ay it's no problem big bro, I knew the video was gonna slap. I didn't know you were gonna go in on those, "git gud." Tubers but man I'm glad you pointed out how much the fanbase sucks off these games to the point of neglecting very obvious contradictions that even go down to the fundamental game design that they continue to flaunt around as if you and the boss have the same hp or moveset or speed or tracking spouting off that it's fair to then immediately say you must die and loose progress on it to get further in the fight in an already steep slope of action economy consisting of two buttons. I feel bad sometimes cause I know a majority of people want to feel like they earned merits from these titles but fundamentally there is no depth to the combat that progressively gets harder as you have more variations to compete against it with. The windows of attack I'd also like to say is intentionally chosen to extend playtime cause there is no other explanation for the logic that went behind maliketh the black ballerinas moveset or melania blade of waterfowl dance, they literally move to a different plane of elevation to extend the fights duration when the player charactercannot. The game is the human version of a monkey on a typewriter because only if you had infinite time could a monkey finish writing Shakespeare and a fromsoft fan could finish elden ring without guides, it is completely disingenuous to say that it is competent design and I completely agree with the sentiment that people only flock to videos and opinions like those because they require validation for the only thing going on in their lives at the moment. It's truly a sad thing, but thanks to you there's now an objective criticism that lays it bare for those who haven't already decided that they were the number one best gamer in the world after beating one souls game.

[@reign1594]

​@TomBombadill85 lmfao. Needing a guide for this game is so real. The games are heavily flawed, but I'm a fan who can actually acknowledge its flaws. Some parts of the world are "flawed" intentionally (blighttown, swamps), but the parts are much more apparent. Here's an example, elden ring tried to make its open world feel interactive, but it failed in the second half(snowy mountaintops), and the hidden doors. I'm not sure when people started glazing this hard, but the game obviously has flaws.

[@reign1594]

​@@TomBombadill85 To fix these games, they could add more depth to the story(through more character dialough/interaction, more meaningful cutscenes), all for more more clear cut questlines(you know what I mean), and most important part, balance between bosses and the player. Some bosses feel as if they're not actually meant to be in the game(malenia water fowl), and this can be annoying as I don't like to waste hours if I'm not actually progressing, even if I like the game.

[@reign1594]

​@@TomBombadill85 That being said, I will continue to enjoy these games, but I will never fail to call out the others fans, they suck these games off relentlessly.

[@robiocraft2383]

@@reign1594 Those are valid criticisms, I think if Elden Ring incorporated some social/quest/rpg aspects from Elder Scrolls series, for example, it would truly be the perfect game

[@og_mante5138]

The “GitGud” community ain’t gonna like this one😂

[@timekeeper2538]

No we do not, particularly because the criticisms aren't valid.

[@robiocraft2383]

Git Gud in this context literally translates to "trial and error", so why is it bad exactly. I don't get it.

[@PS2_Best_Era]

The "it's just not for you, bro" is such a bad faith non-argument. You don't hear them say "the game's not good, it's just one for you" when someone says they love the game, do you? Of course not. Only when you criticize the game do they try to appeal to your personal tastes to discredit what you have to say about the game. A bunch of lying hypocrites, the whole damned lot of them.

[@SolonGaming]

Haha. I mean technically they are not completely wrong. It takes low intelligence, low self respect, low standards and a meaningless lifestyle to worship these games. In the next part i will be analysing their psychology. We will get to see why they REALLY LOVE these games so much. Spoiler Alert: It's not because of their quality.

[@robiocraft2383]

@@SolonGaming Can't wait for that, I mean it isn't inherently bad to enjoy something that is trial and error, take for example learning to play a song on a musical instrument, the same kind of strategy applies, or weld two pieces of metal, or drive a car, so on and so on. It will take a lot of trial and error, patience and memorisation to become good at many things in life which frankly many people aren't cut out do things like this as you might've lead to believe in the video, let alone enjoy them. you make it seem as if repetition and memorisation is unintelligent and anyone is able to do. In addition, souls titles are an action rpg genre, therefore it should be critiqued by an action game standards rather than different game genre standards for the sake of making them look less intelligent. Besides that, there's plenty of intelligence required for learning and application of knowledge in these games, not to mention strategizing your builds and spells for each boss/enemy encounter. It takes intelligence to play these games because you have to strategize to waste less time next time, it takes high standards to recognise there arent as many high quality games in the industry at the scope of Elden Ring, it takes a meaningful lifestyle to be able to afford to make time for such deeply gratifying journeys, because time is a luxury and using it should be reserved for things you enjoy. Lastly, I think people enjoy these games because it's a mix of two things, particularly, their personality + the quality of the game. it shouldn't have to click for everyone and I don't see why it should be considered bad for those who do. I also think playing devils advocate for the soul series of games is beneficial, especially now that Elden Ring's DLC is releasing and more people are joining in, because it opens a discussion and engagement around these games, improves the flaws and highlights the high points, perhaps just makes people think more critically in general.

[@SolonGaming]

​@@robiocraft2383 You are wrong about a lot of things but don't worry, i have the perfect videos coming out soon for people like you.

[@robiocraft2383]

@@SolonGaming I’m sure you’re trolling at this point for clout generation. You are scraping for any criticisms regarding technical aspects and then tie in arguments about subjective matters to pad it out and on top of that try to shame the whole playerbase for enjoying them because it’s not your cup of tea.

[@andrewporter1868]

@@robiocraft2383 Trial and error is only necessary for perfect blackboxes which by definition cannot be reasoned about. You get rewards and punishments which reveal more about the blackbox until nothing about it is hidden through exposure and practice which collectively constitute what everyone calls "experience". All games, for this reason, are actually perfect blackboxes and thus a matter of trial and error at least at first since appearance doesn't always conform to reality, and you have a system that you necessarily can't reason about since you're encountering it for the first time. Skill, however, consists of two kinds: uncomposed and composed acquired virtues. The uncomposed is the acquisition of fundamental behaviors that are very flat and ideally general in their intrinsic effects... like rolling, and attacking. The composed consists in the application of your understanding of uncomposed virtues and permuting them (along the axis of time) with the ultimate end of achieving mastery, the intrinsic effect of which is perfect freedom under the particular constraints. Anything sufficiently deterministic will eventually no longer need the use of the intellect to reason out and will just become intuition over time, but anything that continuously varies without destroying the foundational virtues will always keep you on your feet. Now let's compare Dark Souls to a game like Minesweeper. Dark souls is like Minesweeper but if you removed all the numbers from the board. This makes every subsequent move an unavoidable 1 in 2 chance of clicking a mine, or a safe square, removing all skill from Minesweeper. Congratulations: you've just made modern gambling, err, uh, Modern "Gaming" (you see what I did there?). Am I the only one who finds it funny that Minesweeper has more depth than Dark Souls as a game? It's absurd!😂 Go play some Minesweeper! You'll like it more than Dark Souls. See for yourself. It's no wonder that people today get this absurd notion of "risk-reward" as what constitutes gaming over reward-punishment as the actual system behind true games. _Gambling_ is where risk-reward comes from. Reward-punishment is for learning acquired virtues: the reward tells you what action is good, and the punishment tells you what action is bad. Risk is merely a judgement of an apparent or actual danger of losing some good that one already has, or can have but is capable of being lost. There is far too much focus on this by anyone who mentions "risk", and not enough focus on good and bad behavior done by the player.

[@pretty-white-lamb]

Thank you for making these videos, it's exactly what I was looking for and they articulate my problems with the franchise very well. I'm looking forward to the next part - the psychology of why people rate these games so exaggeratedly is the most interesting part to me. I'd like to see more comparisons with truly good action games like Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden too. It's good you're enjoying FF7R so much. I wish I could play it but I can't really justify buying a ps5 atm. It's a shame quality games like that aren't getting as much attention as FROM's cheesy gimmicks. People criticise other games for being too simple "movie games" with more focus on cinematic presentation over deep gameplay, but the cinematic presentation is about the one truly superb things about these "Souls" games I can see, except with artificial difficulty and stress (there's a specific use of the term "difficult" in English that I think describes the difficulty of these games best, e.g. we say "she's being difficult" or "he's a difficult child" to describe someone who is being awkward and frustrating to deal with ... it's a difficulty of stress or patience, rather than a difficulty of skill or challenge). Call these games bloated movie games though and the fanboys get very angry.

[@ant.l.2990]

Yes these games are knowledge-checks 100%, that's why you can beat these games on a fckn dance-pad. It is not a skill check. You literally don't need hands for these games. Even though I am a fan, I have to acknowledge that.

[@user-ku2hr8bo7d]

I don't know a lot of action games are like that you just have to memorize the patterns of your enemies and find a way to do damage after you dogge or block or jump if possible, souls are just action games at their simplest forms.

[@SolonGaming]

​@@user-ku2hr8bo7d Not even remotely true. Good action games are skill based. The skills being: reflexes, quick thinking, depth perception, strategizing and more. Basic memorization is not a skill. You can still play these games by trying to memorize everything, but that would mean you never acquired the skills they were trying to teach you and if that's how you play them, that's on you.

[@user-ku2hr8bo7d]

@@SolonGaming if you stragize why would you need quick thinking and how is seeing a skill (depth perception)?also what if you memorize and use the skills then you would be unstoppable in any action game except ones that have attacks that are way too fast for you to react to then you just have to kill the enemies as fast as possible

[@SolonGaming]

​@@user-ku2hr8bo7d Strategizing doesn't mean everything needs to go exactly as planned. Sometimes you will have to change your plans accordingly, whether it's because the enemy was underestimated and you want to conserve or the opposite being the enemy was overestimated therefore deciding to play around delivering the final blow way faster. That's where the quick thinking come into play. Depth perception is the ability to see things in three dimensions (including length, width and depth), and to judge how far away an object is. It helps with everything, jumping platforms, aiming far, swapping enemies by gauging distance etc. It's pretty much using your eyesight and understanding physics to judge all your surroundings. ''what if you memorize and use the skills then you would be unstoppable in any action game except ones that have attacks that are way too fast for you to react to'' Every attack has some kind of indication before it happens or else it would connect with you in literally ZERO time therefore being 100% unavoidable. That means every attack can actually be dodge by memory alone. Just memorise the indicators before the attacks happen. It doesn't matter how fast an attack is, if you know exactly what is going to happen the next second, then you know what button to press before that happens, unless you have some kind of neurological disability that prevents your brain from giving the order to your fingers fast enough. If the enemies in that game can attack in 1000 different ways, counting all their moveset, the area positioning, their stamina, super gauge and every possibility in general, then you would have to fill your memory with all of that in order to win purely by relying on your memory.

[@azureascendant994]

"Souls and runes by random enemies are not important." Meanwhile in elden ring I need to farm runes to defeat bosses in the beginning and when the game gets randomly harder to make up the difficulty cap.

[@freddart5163]

I liked the video but you can argue the Eldenring dlc falls out of the learn the pattern mindset because of the switch ups with combos but at the end of the day its about timing and learning the moveset and thats it the only skill is you seeing something come at you

[@asdfjgh]

They’re literally the same game in different packages. Elden ring plays like it was made in 2002.

[@SolonGaming]

I would say it even plays worse than early PS1 games. There were similar games back then as well, but many of the fromsofties weren't even alive back then or hadn't gotten into video games since they weren't as popular. I will make a video about all souls likes, even the ones that came out before the genre was born. I will be discussing their aspects and offering ideas on how to make an actually good souls like.

[@thedoomslayer5863]

The fact their latest game, Elden Ring EVEN ON PC is hard capped to 60 FPS and hard performance issues despite not being graphically intense or having a absurd amount of entites like some games is MIND BOGGLING. How are they so bad at optimizing the game? They act like it would collapse in on itself if you uncapped the frame rate and improved fps drops. Sadly this is one area i see many that play these games completely ignore.

[@roninswiftball]

It's funny because Ninja Gaiden Black is what I consider the hardest game I know. People think Elden Ring is a harder game than Ninja Garden Black. In all Dark Souls games all you do is dodge and attack. In Ninja Gaiden Black, you also dodge and attack as well but the combat has depth and you have different combos per situation. If I make someone like a souls veteran or souls god play chapter 1 on master ninja, you can bet they won't beat the first red ninjas that appear in the game.

[@SolonGaming]

Yeap. I mentioned that in Part 1.

[@user-ku2hr8bo7d]

To be fair the bosses in ninga gaiden are garbage because thier telegarphing is bad and some attacks like flying swallow don't work on some of them and they don't have any personality except for doku and the rival in 2, and the weapons are pretty uninteresting except for the staff and sword.

[@jubei7259]

I wouldn't describe myself as a Fromsoft fanboy by any means but I think criticising the 'Q. Why is Dark Souls good?' - 'A. Because it is' mentality by saying 'Q. Why is Dark Souls bad?' - 'A. Because it is', is kinda like the Spiderman 'No, You!' meme. The truth is, I found there were some aspects of all From's games that were wonderful - lore, level design, architecture, enemy design & melee combat. Some that were fine - repeating enemies, bosses, quests etc & some that were awful - camera positioning, platforming, getting hit through walls etc. I don't like losing all my souls/runes but I also understand why they choose to do this. The price of failure in From games is your time. I like playing games that treat the player like an adult but I do think they often do a very poor job of explaining to the player what some things actually do or how to advance certain quest stages. I wouldn't call them perfect by any means & I think the whole 'Git Gud' bollocks is infantile. I reckon most people who say it probably haven't even beaten the games themselves anyway lol.

[@SolonGaming]

I mention all that in my first part. This video is part of a series. You can check the link in the description for the rest parts. Thanks for the feedback.

[@Auraniwastaken]

You mean not beating my head against a brick wall of bs and not enjoying scouring through a wiki page to enjoy the "deep lore" this "masterpiece" provides isn't a sign of me having to get good? Preposterous.

[@RavenGamingOverLord]

I think it means that you and me are going insane from hitting our heads against the Godskin duo wall too many times lol

[@timekeeper2538]

You better get ready for Shadow of the Erdtree's popularity with the common normie gamer 🫢

[@TotinosOtherBoy]

Just say your reading comprehension skills are bad and your attention span is ruined by tiktok. You being unable to read and pay attention isnt the games fault.

[@green5260]

​@@TotinosOtherBoy this is so fucking ironic coming from a souls fan considering they're not even smart enough to realize they're not doing anything interesting with the combat

[@Auraniwastaken]

@@TotinosOtherBoy I can read the whole 3 lines of text the dev oh so kindly provided in the item descriptions just fine. Which were probably made for tiktokers who can't breathe unassisted, like yours truly.

[@celestialspoon5089]

So what games do you recommend instead? What games should I play in my spare time, that are challenging, and fun?

[@SolonGaming]

What are your favorite games? What genres do you like?

[@celestialspoon5089]

@@SolonGaming well I have love the dishonered series, Nier Automata I enjoyed too, and although I don't typically enjoy single player shooters I have enjoyed Doom Eternal, Atomic Heart, and Cyberpunk 2077. And at the moment I am playing and enjoying elden ring, which is how I came across your channel. I guess one common theme across all of these is that they take place in interesting settings which dial their respective themes up. E.g Dishonered is like Europe post industrial revolution. Doom's fantasy cities in exultia (if memory serves me well), Atomic Heart's soviet retro futurism, and Cyberpunks artful exaggeration of modern cities. Same thing goes for elden ring with it's ruins, and caves and disgraced cities, it fulfils a German word called "ruinslust" which describes an certain curiosity towards ruined buildings. But primarily my question was about, what games do you think succeed in the places elden ring fails? Because that might be next step, and you are quite right in your criticisms of elden ring and the other souls games. I don't look back on any of the bosses I've beat as being particularly hard, and to paraphrase you, the boss fights are basically memory exercises. (sorry for the text brick lol)

[@SolonGaming]

Don't worry about text bricks. I would recommend the Metal Gear Solid franchise to see stealth games with superior gameplay to Dishonored. You can start at MGS 3 or MGS 5. I would recommend Devil May Cry 5 as a game that shows what a deep combat with a high skill ceiling looks like. If you want Action-RPGs with an open world and good combat, check out Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth and Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA.

[@The_Mongoose]

Not sure I appreciate being called a waste of skin for enjoying something.

[@SolonGaming]

Give me a timestamp where i say that

[@julienchaudey959]

Awesome video. How'd rate persona 5?

[@SolonGaming]

It's super good but i haven't finished it yet. My trustworthy friends call it a masterpiece.

[@PsycheTesStachtes]

What do you think of monster hunter world?

[@SolonGaming]

I don't remember which MH game i played but it had similar problems to souls games.

[@PS2_Best_Era]

Wow... A lot of comments and views.

[@SolonGaming]

Welcome. You are usually one of the first viewers, but this time the party started way ahead of you.

[@PS2_Best_Era]

@@SolonGaming Crazy. It's like these basemen dwellers have nothing better to do than refresh the search page on youtube until they see one video being slightly negative about their favorite vidya, lol. They need to get a life and stop harming gaming discourse online.

[@Dmitry_Medvedev]

A good analogy about these games demanding memorization over genuine skill: When I played and fully beat multiple Souls games, all of the boss encounters gave me mostly insular skills and little if any general skills that could be carried over to other encounters. Insular skills meaning only applicable to one specific encounter. This is not a satisfying or rewarding design philosophy and gives the player no sense of noticeable upward skill progression.

[@SolonGaming]

I did a brief explanation of that in my part 1. Learning one hack and slash game or a 2D fighting game will not only make you better at every encounter in that game, but all games of the genre. You can master an entire souls game to the point that you know everything about it and the moment a DLC for the same game drops, your skill level at the first new boss fight is at 0, because you lack the one thing that matters: knowledge to time it's animation with a button.

[@user-ku2hr8bo7d]

​@@SolonGamingI don't know try beating a boss on dante must die without knowing its patterns ,this crtisisim is very strange you are supposed to learn the boss until you can beat him without taking a lot of damage not beat him instantly unless you are playing on a lower difficulty.

[@SolonGaming]

@@user-ku2hr8bo7d In a reflex based game you can beat everything in your first time as long as your reflex skill is super high. Mastering your moveset and doing combos will help maximize the damage at opportunities.

[@user-ku2hr8bo7d]

@@SolonGaming yeah that is right ,also thanks for your recommendation of shovel knight it was very fun.

[@PsycheTesStachtes]

As a souls fan your commentary and critisism is godlike. More things you should critisize: The fact that hundreds of weapons exist in the games but only 20 are viable and used, the disgusting coloring or areas, the fact there are builds that dont even require dodging but can tank all hits. Cant wait for the next part!

[@SolonGaming]

Did you watch the previous parts? I am pretty sure i mentioned how most equipment is not viable and the colouring as well.

[@tidiatda313]

Haven't watched the video, I'll just ask, how about I just don't play them? Why MUST I play them?

[@SolonGaming]

You should NOT play them and you SHOULD watch the video which is part of a series. Check the description for the other parts. The point of these videos of mine is to mock the people who worship these bad games and inform the rest.

[@tidiatda313]

@@SolonGaming I will, if that's what you do then I must thank you, someone had to do it despite the literal cult strategies souls fanboys exploit. Declaring them a "revolutionary new genre" of games when they are just extremely clunky and janky metroidvanias truly exposes how they were just babby's first 3d japanese action game and their refusal to play every (much better) game which came before them

[@reign1594]

How do you feel about sekiro?

[@SolonGaming]

The action part of the combat was a whole level of better, but that's not really much of a bar. On the opposite, the RPG mechanics were almost non existent, but then again it's not like they were good in the first place, like the stamina system which only makes the games more tedious. All in all, it's better in many ways since it even has actual stealth mechanics, but still it's an extremely overrated game where you just time parry with enemy attacks most of the time. I will be making more videos about souls games and even an overall tier list.

[@michaelsmelt5218]

​@@SolonGaming Give us a list of games you consider better than these games

[@yogu4400]

What do you think of Bloodborne and Sekiro? Their combat is better in my opinion and more fun than DeS,DS1,DS2, DS3 and ER

[@SolonGaming]

I haven't played Bloodborne yet. Sekiro is definitely better, but not enough to be considered great.

[@yogu4400]

You could watch some Bloodborne Videos maybe

[@yogu4400]

I think YT is deleting my stuff

[@SolonGaming]

@@yogu4400 I will play Lies of P soon and upload the playthrough. Just be patient. Maybe one day we will get Bloodborne on PC.

[@yogu4400]

@@SolonGaming i also heard that Miyazaki soppusedly want a Bloodborne 2 made in Devil May Cry Style but idk if this is true, what you think of this?

[@monsieurdorgat6864]

Let me save you 45 minutes: if you hate the games, don't worry about it. Not every game is for everyone. Don't make it weird and force yourself to play games you don't like.

[@SolonGaming]

Cool story, but that wasn't the point of the video.

[@monsieurdorgat6864]

@@SolonGaming Yeah, another casual who doesn't like Souls games decides how to fix them. Yeah, yeah we've heard that IGN/Reddit take a million times since Demon Souls released 🙄 Seriously, this is akin to telling Morrowind fans that their game needs to include Skyrim's universal fast travel to be a "proper RPG". If you don't like the game series, you're the last person who should be making suggestions. Not everyone likes the continuous tide towards making generic, mass produced garbage for the lowest common denominator.

[@SolonGaming]

@@monsieurdorgat6864 Your low intelligence is showing with all that strawmanning

[@monsieurdorgat6864]

@@SolonGaming And yet, here you are - coughing up the straw that fills your very soul. How could I not burn this man, who has so meticulously made himself of straw?

[@SolonGaming]

@@monsieurdorgat6864 You are so incredibly delusional and so full of yourself it's almost funny or it would be if you weren't actually miserable. You build the strawman and you want to keep pretending it's real to pretend like you are making a point. You didn't counter a single one of my points in any of my videos. You just repeated the same generic ''git gud'' rhetoric with extra steps thinking it makes you look smart if you use bigger words. Hilarious. Tell me what skills these games require mister casual.

[@Silver_silva0]

I liked the Lore it was amazing Some areas and map explain you the story/ like the caild you see the scarlet rot destroyed everything caused by Malenia..... Each area Each character in the game Each bosses has their own unique story Well you wanna get deep into it you should consider watching lore videos It's definitely worth it Combat, it isn't great as sekiro or Bloodborne but i love the weapon variety that you can find and make it easier for you (unique Ashes of war) Summons Some interesting parts of the map I had done one of the most interesting side quests which was Rannis quest line which i liked it so much for a single quest there was a beautiful map (i did the Ranni ending age of the Star) And some great bosses such as Godfrey i liked him and his lore I did other endings called Golden order And regular ending So far i enjoyed But they were some parts I didn't liked like that Malenia Boss fight till this day i still don't like her because of how unbalanced she is...... I have recently beat the legendary game called sekiro it was perfect Absolutely beautiful game I ever played So About Malenia felt like she should've been in sekiro 2: fire giant yeah cool Boss fight but a bit Big to games camera 3: the Elden beast yeah he actually flies around yeah but it's still passable and like the lore behind him So besides these bosses i enjoyed the game so far And just because the game isn't made for you doesn't mean it's overrated I saw the comment section and the criticism sounded legit It seems like you haven't understood something.... Well we all have Tastes you can't just you know call the game boring Or just say people who criticize you They're fanboys....

[@tad_boney]

Ok so i do agree with a lot of your points here dark souls is BS all the time but i think some of your counter arguments we're just basically nuh uh and while dark souls does require a fair amount of knowledge that makes it harder for new players it also does require skill because simply put you cant know everything but you can learn if you want to or just put the game down and except its just not for you Regardless everyone is entitled to an opinion even if some people dont agree with it

[@SolonGaming]

If you watch the previous parts of my series, you will see i have explained the ''nuh uh'' points and i don't feel like repeating myself in every video. Also you just said it requires skill while referring to obtaining knowledge. Storing data to your brain is not a skill. You are not honing anything by filling your brain with ''how to apply this item here and press this one button when you see this animation''.

[@beri4138]

40:03 LOL this fool saying he beat every challenge in Celeste sent me. I bet he doesn't even know about the golden berries.

[@tobusygaming467]

I have a question, how are other games better in the git gud aspect?

[@SolonGaming]

Same way the job of a scientist is better than the McDonalds worker. One is simple mindless time consumption and the other is about using the knowledge as a toolset creatively.

[@screamthesecond3946]

@@SolonGaming do u mind giving some examples?

[@SolonGaming]

@@screamthesecond3946 In Devil May Cry 5 after memorising the tons of your character's moves, you can use them creatively in succession of each other(combos and movement skills for positioning) in ways that may be optimal for the current situation(area, enemy type and enemy positions) while also quickly thinking about your next moves and you are engaged in combat all the time because you are attacking while also moving around to avoid damage. In Dark Souls, you memorise the enemy attack animations so you can avoid getting damaged by rolling, you wait for the enemy attacks to start so you won't risk getting hit by exchanging blows and you wait until their attacks stop so you can have a consistent window for your chance to do mostly basic attacks since they are faster. One has many options for both defence and offense and in in the other one you don't even think about anything, just use your basic eyesight and memory to store data to your memory and then simply apply it with the use of a single timed button. Even if DMC5 had only a super easy mode where everything can be easily beating by blind mashing, it's skill ceiling is still a thousand times higher than that of any souls like game. I am pretty sure i briefly talked about it in my part 1 of my series. You should check the video description and give it a watch.

[@screamthesecond3946]

@@SolonGaming I think its not apt to compare devil may cry to dark souls. One is a fast paced, combo based game while the other is a methodical, slower paced one. What you said about enemy positioning, types, etc can also be applied to Dark souls or Elden ring. Isn’t remembering the enemy types also a form of memorization? In elden ring for example, you would be analyzing the enemy positioning and their animations to see for example if you have enough time to cast a spell / use a weapon skill, or is it safer to create some distance. Also, your argument regarding one button solves all is now outdated. With elden ring, positioning and directional rolls are much more important. Certain attacks can be avoided by simply repositioning yourself allowing you a larger window to punish. There are a variety of other ways to avoid taking damage as well other than rolling. Jumping. Blocking, Parrying, Buffs, etc. One final thing, for most enemies in souls likes, reaction based combat is enough . And “not thinking about anything” is just plain wrong. Overall people do exaggerate the difficulty of souls likes , but its nowhere as braindead as you describe it to be.

[@SolonGaming]

@@screamthesecond3946 I wasn't comparing them as if they are the same genre. I was compared the amount skill needed for each game. In Souls games ALL YOU DO IS MEMORISE AND APLY THE MEMORY DATA WITH NO CREATIVITY OR THOUGHT TO WIN. The only thing you need is timing. You are still describing the very basic mechanics of these games. Anyone can immediately figure all that out as long as they get the knowledge of the precise enemy animation. Your options are very limited, it's not like you a huge moveset with moves that can also be combined with each other or cancelled and replaced by others during combat. There is no depth in a combat where you only have to think one step ahead especially when it's not even a refined reflex system that relies on your eyesight and it wastes your time through trial and error memorisation instead. If the RPG mechanics were good and they required creativity to combine spells and gear to strategize, that would be something, but since the games don't even allow you to freely experiment with builds and all melee combat feels identical, it pretty much means the games require no physical or mental skills.

[@Gewangaming]

Not hard just annoying 😂 Just like it tho

[@gilgamesh310]

So much of what’s hard and what’s not is just semantics. Elden Ring and Sekiro respect the players time about as much as Celeste when it comes to dying. You don’t lose much progress, with some exceptions. The punishment often needs to be balanced with the challenge. It’s why the challenge is much greater in Elden Ring and Sekiro than it is in Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls 1.

[@RIPDOTS237]

Let me save you time too level up Moonveil to +10 spam Thru the game

[@ortzialberdiazpiazu7431]

mimic tear: am i a joke to you?

[@RavenGamingOverLord]

@@ortzialberdiazpiazu7431 No little one

[@ortzialberdiazpiazu7431]

@@RavenGamingOverLord *proceeds to get mauled by waterfowl*

[@tiredasf107]

You sound salty asf lmao. People have opinions. This guy : 😡

[@SolonGaming]

I am pretty sure it's the other way around

[@YodaMorpheus7]

I don't really agree with your statement that soulslikes are just rote memorization. The first boss I ever fought in a Fromsoft game took me 15 tries to beat. I was killed over and over as I attempted to learn how to play the game. But that was just the tutorial boss. The next boss took me around 20, and that's when I really learned things like how positioning is important, stamina management is important, and that choosing the correct weapon can make a big difference. Afterwards, I beat the rest of the game's bosses in five tries or less. Same with the next soulslike I played. And the next one. If it was just memorization, I would have taken 15-20 tries on every single boss I ever fought because I would have needed to memorize them perfectly in order to have any chance of winning. Instead, I can often beat a boss the first time I challenge them, before I ever have a chance of memorizing attacks. In addition, even if I had memorized attack patterns, it still takes reaction speed to determine what attack the boss is going to make next (because it could be any of their 7+ repertoire of moves) and decide on an appropriate course of action. Just knowing what the boss is going to do doesn't mean you'll execute perfectly every time. That takes practice, just like any skill. I agree that the difficulty of these games is often overstated. They certainly aren't the hardest out there, and if you play cautiously and intelligently they can in fact become very easy. They aren't mindless by any definition, however. Some of my favorite parts of these games are crawling through dungeons, looking around corners and spotting traps before they are sprung, often leading to a surprise attack on an unwary enemy or even the chance to use them to my advantage, killing enemies without swinging my weapon once. If I really was as stupid as you think I am, I would have just charged in without thought, gotten demolished by the boulder/spike trap/flamethrower and remembered it next time, instead of seeing it the first time and adapting accordingly. Edit: About your criticisms of losing souls when you die, you compare it to your money being stolen. I think that you're being a little unfair with that. If you are playing intelligently, you aren't wandering around with more souls than it takes to level. It would probably take you 20 minutes at most to get an equal number of souls back. It would be like losing five dollars. You're not really going to feel that bad about it, maybe mildly irritated. Also, you say that the RPG mechanics don't matter anyways, the game is just memorization. Why do you care about your souls at all?

[@SolonGaming]

The first bosses took you longer because you didn't even know the baby steps these games require which are the core mechanics. They take very little time to master, there is no depth at all and you just get used to the game's nonsense like i-frames rolling through enemy attacks. The only problem is, the game throws a boss that can deal a lot of damage to you and takes time to kill very early on, so you don't have time to practice and the practicing happens during the boss resulting in many deaths. I never said anything about memorizing perfectly. You can even win by taking a wild guess as to when an attack is going to happen and pressing the roll button. Luck can carry you through the game with minimal memorization, especially after you already learned the baby steps. There is no reaction speed or reflexes required for a game THIS slow, unless your have severe physiological problems. Stop pretending these games require skill. Being cautious about traps requires time and eyes, not brains. That time spent is a total waste and it's hardly any better than charging in blindly, dying and retrying. Both options cost you almost the same time and both are bad, boring and a waste. Using the traps against the enemies is extremely rare and mostly unnecessary. Choosing the right weapon is a wild guess and many of them are straight up cheese. If you were smart you would have realised all that and you would know the massive amount of difference between games that require brains like RTS games and reflex based games like Hack ans Slash games. You would have realised the massive difference is stimulation they offer instead of doing mental gymnastics to create the illusion that Souls games require skill. Souls and RPG mechanics don't matter in a sense that they don't change the gameplay at all. You just roll and poke with different damage numbers. Losing 5 dollars every now and then is way beyond irritating and 20 minutes lost is a lot since that was your free time, unless of course you have nothing else going on in your life and you can throw your time without caring.

[@YodaMorpheus7]

@@SolonGaming I figured I wouldn't change your mind, and that's fine, just wanted to give my two cents on it. I personally enjoy the slow-paced dungeon crawl, the atmosphere is very treacherous and foreboding. Perhaps I am just wasting my time, but I'm having fun doing it and that's all that matters. Isn't that what games are for, to waste your free time in a fun way? If I wasn't having fun, I wouldn't have bought more of these games. If that makes me a moron I'd rather be stupid and happy then enlightened and miserable.

[@SolonGaming]

@@YodaMorpheus7 You should not expect to change anyone's mind when you are clearly wrong. Enjoy whatever you want, simple activities are for simple minds. As long as you don't lie about it we have no beef.

[@YodaMorpheus7]

@@SolonGaming One last thing, I feel like you'd convince more people of your point of view if you didn't consistently insult them while doing so. Just some friendly advice. And before you state "I'm just saying the truth" like I've seen earlier, that doesn't make it any less of an insult even if you truly believe it. Enjoy your subjective opinion.

[@SolonGaming]

@@YodaMorpheus7 You have no clue what you are talking about, just like you don't have a clue about what kind of games you are playing. Don't bother giving pointless advice.

[@SPONGETF]

Watched about 20 minutes and I've heard enough to conclude that you're only focusing on the mechanical gameplay aspect of the games, thereby completely missing the forest for the trees. Every aspect of the games serve to build something greater than the sum of their parts, something purely mechanical players will never be able to comprehend and therefore will never be able to appreciate.

[@SolonGaming]

You watched the third video of a series. Start from the first part, link is in the description. It's not my fault the ''teachers'' of the fandom focused on the mechanical parts to convince people to like these games. The gameplay mechanics are objectively bad even if we pretend they were deliberately made that way to build up to ''something greater''. That ''something greater'' should be easy to articulate from the smart fans right? Let's hope one day they will get to it.

[@SPONGETF]

@@SolonGaming If that "something greater" was easy to identify and articulate we would have an endless supply of games as great as Dark Souls 1 or Elden Ring (I think it's safe to say that this is clearly not the case). The reason why most video essays about these games focus only on the mechanical is that it's the only part about the games that's easy to explain. Mind you, I don't think those videos have much merit, they are not creating valuable new information, only putting on paper what we already know as players who have played the games--a better approach would be to describe what part the mechanics serve in building the greater picture.

[@SolonGaming]

@@SPONGETF Dude come on. It's not that deep. I am not even asking you to articulate it yourself, all i want you is to give me a video name and a channel name of someone who can, so i can check it out myself and have an idea of that "something greater". I believe i have a really good understanding of it since i did an extensive amount of research and you will see in part 4.

[@Dmitry_Medvedev]

LMAO GAMEplay doesn't matter in a videoGAME?

[@SPONGETF]

@@Dmitry_Medvedev Nice strawman, I said that the videos make it seem that gameplay mechanics is the ONLY thing that makes them great while it actually is the overall coming together of multiple aspects that elevates them to greatness.

[@fkutw4tt3rtub3]

Hey Solon, glad to see you online and keeping it real as always. At 30:00 this guy with the voice of a school bullies victim mumbles about how the direction of a dodge matters. When in reality and is proven by all the speedrunners of this franchise, it can't matter because the dodge literally gives you invincibility frames(which can be extended with Adaptability stat in DS2, making it the most broken stat in the game, lol), which means you can dodge in ANY direction as long as you time it with the hitbox of an attack (so 99% of the time if you familiar with an attack you dodge into boss for max dps). That's just beyond me how they can spit such bull crap for hours with a stature of an experts, when everything they say can be described in like 2 sentences and is nowhere near the point they try to deliver. There are good things about DS franchise though, such as the atmosphere itself, visuals and minimalistic UI, these things are good and make these games distinct from overloaded crap, the lack of lore and story is also not bad considering how terrible modern writers are. It's an okay game to play with a bunch of friends in coop (though for whatever reason DSfanboys like to shame multiplayer as an easy mode, though it's literally on devs for not being able to balance their game around multiplayer) and a FEW boss fights are quite interesting i.e Artorias in DS1 dlc, I personally liked this fight a lot. Also a huge downside in DS games is that 99.99999% of enemies if not all 100% just blindly attack, they can't dodge, they don't read any data from the player outside of his position, they run at the player and strike him with all their bs patterns (which is why they are super easy to beat in coop). There are also scripted enemies who ambush you in certain spots to ensure that you die when you don't know it. There is this stupid progression thing when every level up costs significantly more and items have certain stats requirements (which you can't know without wiki), so the obvious decision for a beginner player when he doesn't know which stat he would need in the future is to save his souls, and game punishes him for that, so hearing them talking about how souls don't matter is funny. I mean, if you know the game, the viable builds and how many souls you need for them exactly and spots where to obtain them, then sure, souls don't matter to you. But if you value your time then this mechanic is ridiculous. Keep them videos coming when you have time and desire, your videos are very refreshing when compared to those circlejerking clickfarmers, I must have overslept when world got flooded with these NPCs and their pathetic water pouring videos, there should be more people like you who speak facts.

[@SolonGaming]

Hello there. Sorry if i can't remember you just by your name alone. I mentioned almost all of that in part 1. I am glad you liked it. Enjoy your stay. Edit: I remembered. You are the guy who disagreed with me about Tekken 8 being better than 5. Cool.

[@BountyHunterNinja582]

Oh man does this video speak to my very soul, no pun intended. I've been in such a minority of people who think dark souls and the other souls games are coated in issues and valid criticism against them, but the fans suck the games and fromsoftware off so hard they will accept eating out of the garbage because they've been conditioned to enjoy eating garbage. I made myself beat dark souls 1, 2, 3, and elden ring to be educated on the in's and out's and I never fell in love with the games as some claim I would. they are just standard games at best nowhere near masterpieces. Great video I will subscribe! and don't let any fools shut down your voice, it must be heard!

[@reign1594]

As a fan, I can see why you wouldn't like them. It's fine.

[@SolonGaming]

@@NikoNOJ Overly punishing and cryptic games have existed even in pre PS1 era. Even back then, they were considered flawed. You can pretend the punishing nature of the game is part of the games philosophy, but you won't have any excuse about the terrible balancing and bugs. I mention the positives of these games like level design and lore in my first part which you can find in the description link.

[@reign1594]

@@SolonGaming honestly, if they fixed hitboxes and phasing the game would be so much better, I've died countless times to clipping and bullshit.

[@SolonGaming]

@@reign1594 I will make an entire video with all the fixes needed to make these games actual masterpieces.

[@reign1594]

@@SolonGaming I'll subscribe, looking forward to it.

[@reign1594]

Solon, Do you have any game recommendations? You seem to have a decent amount of knowledge.🙏

[@SolonGaming]

I will be making an entire series about the best games of every genre and i will be offering ideas on how to create the best game of each genre by combing the best aspects of them. If you want me to recommend you some games right now, just tell me which genres you want and i will give you a small list of the best ones i played.

[@reign1594]

@@SolonGaming Any good rpg games? This genre is fucked rn

[@SolonGaming]

@@reign1594 Turn based or action?

[@reign1594]

@@SolonGaming either.

[@SolonGaming]

@@reign1594 Octopath Traveller 2 STAR OCEAN THE SECOND STORY R World of Final Fantasy The World Ends with You Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA Grim Dawn Granblue Fantasy: Relink Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Recommendations from my trustworthy friends: Persona 5 Tales of Arise

[@TotinosOtherBoy]

This dudes gonna be the next Phil Fish

[@tidiatda313]

Ok I watched it WHY THE HELL do all of these reviewers also always bring up celeste? What is this psyop?

[@SolonGaming]

Lol. Celeste is another game that's well known for it's massive difficulty and it's actually good. I don't know about psyop. The creator is a tranny as far as i am aware, but i never felt like the game tries to cater towards certain people or push any agendas.

[@DivineArchangelAzrael]

I have a few things id like to say, and i hope you will forgive any writing mistakes i may make, English isn't my first language. After watching the video and reading some of your comments i think first of all that your idea of skill and intelligence are inherently flawed, first, and this is my understanding as someone who has studied psychology, that IQ is most certainly not a straightforward measure of intelligence, and that there are many different types of intelligence, someone who is very good at how audience preferences change has a different type of intelligence from someone who has a easy time understanding biology or someone who has a better ability on how to better utilize their bodies to do a sport for example, so your use of the term intelligence is deceiving, and when you say you will make a video on the psychology of the people who like the games i hope you actually use proper scientific knowledge instead of so kind of coffee shop argumentation that people who don't actually know what they are talking about use. Secondly your definition of skill and memorization seems to be a bit selective, if you want to be really picky you can say that the entire dmc combat is a mixture of reaction and memorization (learning boss attacks and dodging or jumping at the right time, or royal guard) since you can beat the entire game without even using long combos (i beat it literally by just spamming judgement cuts) which seems to be your problem with the elden ring combat, and if you take the long combos into account you are also just memorizing the sequence to do them and there your definition of skill is how fast one can mash buttons in a right sequence which would be a very restrictive definition of skill. To finish of, you talk about the games being punishing and not hard, stating that difficulty is a requirement of skill and punishing as death due to improper execution (not playing the way the game wants you to) but i would argue that both concepts aren't as far from each other as you would think, to exemplify my point take this example, there is a heavy steel pole in front of you that to you lack the strength to lift, so you would say it is impossible to lift (measurement of difficulty), would you then categorize strength as a skill and thus your inability to lift as a lack of skill, or would you say the pole is punishing you for not having the strength required to lift it, something to think about. I want to just end this by saying that i have nothing against you and i like that people are analyzing these games in a critical light, and that even tough i used devil may cry as an example that does not mean i hate the game or think it is bad, i love dmc actually and its one of my favorite franchises with its own set of problems as almost all games have. i hope my comment was interesting or insightful, and if it is not fell free to pick it apart all you want as i enjoy pitting ideas against each other.

[@SolonGaming]

You are wrong about many things but i will release the video where i clearly explain the differences between skill, talent, trial and error and then i will release the psychology one after that.

[@ChadIndianOfficial]

My advice, git gud. Naaaah jk, it's really about a personal choice some people enjoy the entire learning experience and the lore. Some people don't, and that's completely fine 🤷‍♂️

[@talezshadid]

Yeah this game is pretty hard but it's enjoyed by most people so it's probably not for me! :D This guy for absolutely no reason: 😠😠😠😠😡😡🤬🤬🤬🤬

[@SolonGaming]

How 5 year olds comment when they think they understand a video

[@talezshadid]

@@SolonGaming How grown up men (i think?) react when they find something they don't like

[@SolonGaming]

@@talezshadid I like how i just told you that you are wrong yet you stick to your original wrong thought and keep pretending you are right. Delusional unintelligent child spamming emojis.

[@talezshadid]

@@SolonGaming You're fr gonna keep replying with hate to all the comments under this video? No wonder people don't like you, you're just an unimportant worm on the internet trying to get attention after all.

[@timekeeper2538]

​@@SolonGamingYour opinions are incorrect brother, you have to accept this for your own mental health instead of this lolcow path you seem to have chosen.

[@DivisionOfTheLight]

@SolonGaming This whole channel looks like a copium/venting/rage-bait compilation. You sound like you need therapy before becoming a game designer. Honnest opinion. You are right to criticize and have the right to your own opinion but you being bad or not liking a game doesn't make it a bad...

[@SolonGaming]

The irony of a souls fan saying someone else is copying and needs therapy. You will love the next part of this series. What even makes you think i am bad at these games and what skills do they require?

[@DivisionOfTheLight]

@@SolonGaming Don't take it personal. It's just the first honest impression I got when watching your videos. To answer your question: You seem to have like some hatred against the game and/or community. Whatever we could say or do, it won't make you reconsider your point of view. You are not open to debate. If you struggle with all the mechanics the game has in place, you are bad at it. Those games don't take your hand. They give you the basic tools and knowledge and you need to work with that to achieve something. Those games are fair (except DS2). If you die it's your fault and not the game's fault. The way you express your frustration and denial regarding the skills/knowledge/mechanics clearly shows that you don't understand the game.

[@SolonGaming]

@@DivisionOfTheLight I have like a 10 year old history with this fandom since the first souls games and i got lots of death threats as well. Still my ''hate'' is not blind. I recognise sane fans. I never said i struggle with the mechanics. I don't really think anyone does, except for people who haven't played third person action games or RPGs. You are the one who doesn't understand the fact that trial and error design means you need to LEARN FROM YOUR DEATHS. Meaning, you WILL die, since it's a fundamental part of how the game progresses. After trying something out and dying, you gain the knowledge that the thing you did, does not work. You repeat trying things out while you keep dying until you learn what does work and you keep that in mind so you can use it to progress. The deaths until you reach the point of knowing what works are not your fault. You literally have no way of knowing the precise solution and timing before trying and dying.

[@DivisionOfTheLight]

@@SolonGaming You are right. Your points are a reflection of what I feeI about the majority of the FromSoft games. I would just argue on your last point. You can be a minimum prepared to a boss by the journey you take to get to them. You don't have to die to every enemy nor attack to gather intel. After a while you develop some "reflexes" and those "reflexes" will help you even against bosses. I don't think "Die & Retry" is the adequate terminology as it pushes to think the game is like "I wanna be the guy" what is is not. Maybe "Die & learn", "Die & adapt" or the dreaded "git gut".

[@Dmitry_Medvedev]

It's called having testosterone

[@ortzialberdiazpiazu7431]

ok, first of all, i think its not the best idea to just call every souls fan stupid as a whole, yes, souls games have toxic players, that doesnt mean every person who enjoys those games are, so i dont think insulting everyone inside the fandom of the game you are trying to criticise a good way of making constructive criticism, but leaving that aside, i also think some of your arguments are flawed, for starters, i do think dark souls is a hard game, some of the bosses require you to do precise imputs and to know the attack patterns of the boss, for example midir, gael, manus, malenia and so on, these are in fact, difficult bosses which are a part of what makes this games hard. About the losing souls mechanic, i think its a great way of motivating the player to be better, so if you die, you try to get at least to the point where you got before and improve as a player, which is the same as hollow knight has done, besides, you dont normally carry that much souls on you, there are enough bonfires to rest around the map so you never get an absurd amount of souls without getting to a bonfire, this makes it so at max you lose enough souls for one level, which is not that much. about the getting gud, yeah, part of the game is learning the attack patterns, and there is nothing wrong with that, you say that they were not really thinking while playing, but to memorize the attacks you have to stay alert and think, you seem to think that learning and having knowledge of the game doesnt make you good, but it does, if you learn the bosses' attacks, you are gonna be better than someone who doesnt, besides that, learning the attack patterns is not everything in this game, you also have to time well your dodges, because sometimes it happens that you know which attack is coming and how to dodge it, but you can make a mistake and dodge too early just to get hit, thats also part of the difficulty, and as a new player, you are more likely to do these mistakes, but this ability to time your dodges can be improved, making you better at the game. with both knowledge of the boss and precise inputs, you get gud, you become good at beating the boss. next, people do need those kind of videos, because some people might not know how dark souls bosses work, maybe they are used to easier things and feel overwhelmed, maybe they just try blindly rolling thinking it will work and they just need someone telling them what will work, and i feel like its not normal to just insult those people they way you did. side note, in 26:54 you complain about that video only attracting old players, but in that exact screenshot you can see someone saying he's new, also they are fans of a game talking about the game they like, you say it like its such a bad thing, but they are only talking with other people about the things they like and have in common, thats not a bad thing for the part were you say that people that play popular games are weak minded, no, some poeple just hear others say that a game is good and they say ''hey, people are saying this game is good, maybe i should try it to see if i have some fun'' and even if they jsut play it to have a something to talk about with their friends, there is nothing wrong with that, its ok to start playing a game for any reason you want, and you have no right to insult anyone for their reasons to try any game. another side note, i have noticed that whenever you talk, you put clips of bugs and seemingly unfair moments to prove your point, and while some of them are the ocasional bug, some are just outright misleading, for example the worm one near lost izalith, where you just positioned yourself on a corner and waited for the grab, using the somehwat glitchy camera there, but the worst one so far is the one at 40:14, where you clearly were trying to imply that that death was something your enemy did that was unaboidable, when that explosion was caused by the drink you took right before that, which makes you self inmolate and is explicitly told that it does that finally, as some final notes, i would like to say that a lot of your criticism comes from you having a problem with dying, saying things like that dying is unavoidable as a bad thing, but it isnt, as some of the videos you commented say, its ok to die in dark souls, its not a bad thing, second of all, i understand that these games are not for everyone, some people dont find the fun in learning a bosse's patterns, or dying 30 times to a boss, and thats ok, whats not ok however, is to insult everyone who enjoys the game and tries to help people also enjoy these games in a non toxic way and act like your opinions are facts.

[@SolonGaming]

1. Me calling them names was mostly a generalisation. I can recognise the difference between souls fans and you can see that in the comment sections of every single video of this series. Also the insults aren't really insults when i can actually prove them as facts. Intelligence is observable and their behaviour speaks volumes about it 2. The game requiring precise timing of a single button through memorising is not a sign of difficulty. It's simple time consumption through trial and error and you can even cheese all the bosses you mentioned and called hard. Even if the cheese didn't exist, the so called difficulty would be completely artificial. Just an illusion because of the time consumed and the frustration. 3. Punishing the player by wasting their time while having tons of bugs and not even giving hints or options to adapt to situations with the very limited, simple, stiff and clunky mechanics is objectively bad design. You don't even know why you died many times and other times you know there was nothing you could do about it. Getting punished for playing bad and getting punished for not reading the mind of the devs are two completely different things. 4. ''to memorize the attacks you have to stay alert and think'' No you don't, you just stand there and store data to your memory. Where does the thinking come in play? 5. Memorising the worst book at the library and parroting it better than anyone else doesn't mean you accomplished anything. It's not something that can be carried on to anything in your life or interesting/useful. People who do it for the bragging rights are just desperate with inferiority complex. You also repeat the exact same things these KZbinrs did about learning the most basic mechanics that everyone would understand anyway without any help. That's not advice, unless you assume people who play these games are not very bright. 6. ''side note, in 26:54 you complain about that video only attracting old players, but in that exact screenshot you can see someone saying he's new, also they are fans of a game talking about the game they like, you say it like its such a bad thing, but they are only talking with other people about the things they like and have in common, thats not a bad thing'' Do you really believe that commenter is being honest about getting into the game because of that pointless video? A whole fandom lying and stroking each other while trying to shut down criticism and whining when confronted IS a bad thing. 7. I said people who want to get into popular games just because of the popularity are the weak ones. Having the need to belong to a group where everyone thinks and acts like you is a weak cult minded mentality. 8. Not all the clips are there to make a point relevant to what i am saying. Some are just there to show different ridiculous situations you can find yourself in while playing these games. I wasn't even remotely implying that death was unavoidable. 9. Dying in a game that is designed to kill you constantly while also punishing you with a lot of time loss and keeping you away from experimenting with builds due to losing your ''levels'' is a bad thing. Not everyone has the time to sit in a basement and repeat the same process with minor differences just to progress in a game that offers NOTHING interesting gameplay wise. 10. If you actually watched the rest of my videos of this series you wouldn't need to make this huge comment, then again you look like you also have some comprehension issues, so i might be wrong.

[@ortzialberdiazpiazu7431]

@@SolonGaming 1. i think you can agree that generalizations like these are in fact not good, you said multiple times that souls fans are stupid, not toxic souls fans, you are putting every single person in the same boat and insulting them all, even if they didnt do anything bad. apart from that, the fact that you think they are true, doesnt stop making them insults, in this video, you have called me and much more people in the world idiots without even knowing most of them which is insulting. 2. for me its not only a single button, you also have to attack precisely, and find ways to squeeze your own attacks, besides, especially in elden ring, there is jumping and crouching, which can and are encouraged to use to dodge certain attacks, making it more challenging. 3. you havent really explained why those mechanics arent clunky, but yes, one of the most fair criticism you can give to dark souls is that its controls feel stiff, especially for today's standarts, however, most of the times you do know why you died, since we are talking about walking somehwere to recover souls, im assuming you are talking about getting killed by normal enemies, and the main reason for getting killed like this is simple, you get ganked by 4 or more mobs, and the way of improving is pretty simple, going one on one and not aggroing every enemy at once. 4. well you have to know where to dodge and how, apart from deciding which attacks you can counterattack to depending on your weapon, which for me at least, requires thinking and strategy 5. yes it does, it means you managed to learn the bosses attacks, learnt from your mistakes and overcame the obstacle, you might not like this way of overcoming challenges, and thats ok, as i said, this games are not for everyone, what i think is that you shouldnt tell everyone else that they are stupid for liking something you dont. 6. first, you dont know that person, you can be sure that he is lying, you dont even have a clue for that, what you are doing is supporting your whole argument in an assumption, which i dont think i have to say that its not a solid argument, besides that this people you have insulted havent even whined about anything, they are jsut fans of a game talking about the game they like, just like other games like doom, hollow knight and celeste fans do. 7. it doesnt have to, normally (not always) if a game gets popular, its because of something, that something normally being that is fun, so its normal for people to at least wanna try it to see why everyone is so exited about it 8. these points are clearly made to make the souls games look more chaotic and unfair this is clear because all the other clips show glitches and bugs or an enemy killing you seemingly out of nowhere, the intention of that clip is clear 9. as i said, you can only lose one level at most, and taking into account you end up at level 150 minimum on games like elden ring, one level is not gonna prevent you from experimenting with builds, especially in ds3 onwards were you can change your stats once you get into midgame 10. this proves another one of my points, i havent insulted you in my replies at any point, however, you have insinuated that i am dumb i have only given what i think are fair counter points to your arguments, and part of your reply has been insulting me, and not only with me, you ahve doone something similar with some of the replies here

[@SolonGaming]

@@ortzialberdiazpiazu7431 You will find answers to most of your questions through the rest of my videos. Go ahead watch them and come back again to see what you are missing. I don't like repeating myself. Stop being so insecure and so easily offended on the internet. If you took the video personally, that's on you.

[@ortzialberdiazpiazu7431]

@@SolonGaming easily offended? i think i took the video personally because you explicitly insulted a whole comunity im part of, i think thats enough reason for me to feel attacked, apart from that, yes i have watched your other videos, and they dont asnwer my questions, so please, i would like to hear your answers and counter arguments to my previous message

[@SolonGaming]

How old are you?

[@Cabbagej63]

this video did not get good, plz... dont appere in my feeds agan ty

[@SolonGaming]

This commenter did not get good at watching and understanding videos without crying and also wants to stay in his tiny bubble like a scrub forever.

[@johnokazaki7967]

This is also not mature buddy... If they are complaining, about a complain, where does that leave the original complain?​@@SolonGaming

[@SolonGaming]

@@johnokazaki7967 What in the world are you even talking about?

[@MakioGoHardio]

Ok I watched the video, this video is just you insulting a fanbase for liking a genre and calling them basement dwellers. It’s fine if you don’t personally enjoy trial and error in a video game, but that’s what souls games are built upon, you learn the bosses and enemies through trial and error that’s the entire appeal of the genre, a lot of people find this fun and enjoyable but ig if they do they’re losers. I wonder what games you personally enjoy. I’m guessing you’re making these insults because people told you to “git gud” or “skill issue” in general these terms are used jokingly and the people who use them unironically are losers, the words aren’t meant to be taken seriously for the most part, but insulting and generalizing an entire fanbase based on your interactions with them is kinda weird. some of your points I agree with but I think if you represented them in a less insulting more cordial way you wouldn’t be getting dogpiled on. 27:38 this point really only applies to all the dark souls games, I highly recommend comparing Ongbal fighting ds3/bb bosses to ER or Sekiro bosses you’ll see how much depth both games have to offer. I’ve had my fair share of negative interactions with souls fans, I once criticized a boss for having a true undodgeable attack documented by literal no hit runners and someone told me skill issue even tho I’ve no hit many of the bosses, so I understand your frustration with some of the player base. I’ve also had many positive interactions with souls fans as well, just having cordial conversations and criticizing the games. Sorry for the rambling but I think you made some decent points, imo all the dark souls games are pretty mediocre for many reasons they only really have solid level design, art style, and music, the only good games they made are ER, Sekiro, AC6, and DeS at least imo.

[@nimbus3218]

So you failed to get good and are butthurt at those of us who did.

[@SolonGaming]

That doesn't even make sense. You sound like a failed abortion.

[@johnokazaki7967]

That's not mature my friend... No need to answer that ​@@SolonGaming

[@miceatah9359]

@@SolonGaming bold coming from a dude where only every 5th word can be understand

[@capnphuktard5445]

😂​@@SolonGaming

[@capnphuktard5445]

​@@johnokazaki7967 ok snowflake

[@Gdahron]

‘Gitting gud’ really means that you have to adapt to the game’s bs. How slow your character moves “the timing” is bs, the ai reacting INSTANTLY to most of your moves is bs, the random ‘regular’ enemy that ends up being practically invincible is bs. You are right. it really does all boil down to knowing what is going to happen. What is going to happen is a bunch of bs.

[@Nin_tony]

>run into group of enemies >get mauled >do the exact same thing five more times >game is bad

[@screamthesecond3946]

more like actually learn how the game works. Yes there are a few enemies that has flaws in their design and are very difficult, but exceptions doesn't make the rule.

[@Gdahron]

@@screamthesecond3946 Relax. 🙄 It could be that we agree more than we disagree. I play the crap out of souls games because it’s almost like they were created FOR creators.. In other words, there’s plenty of things to tinker with; builds, exploration, weapons combos. They are actually amazing in that sense. However , There is still plenty to dislike about this style of game. Namely the mechanics are ATROCIOUS and there are indeed parts of the game that are ‘difficult’ in the sense that they are cheap.

[@ortzialberdiazpiazu7431]

test

[@darkshadow99-ny2ct]

low test

[@DivisionOfTheLight]

I understand your criticism. You're just not made to enjoy Soulsborne games and that's ok. Expecting every game to please everyone is delusional.

[@SolonGaming]

Yes i was not made to enjoy games that offer zero stimulation. I never said anything about expecting every game to please everyone so i am not sure who you are saying that for.

[@Dmitry_Medvedev]

VIDEOGAMES are mechanical software systems. Software and system mechanics can be rated objectively. You SUBJECTIVELY enjoy a OBJECTIVELY flawed system (game).

[@DivisionOfTheLight]

@@Dmitry_Medvedev While it’s true that video games are built on mechanical software systems and their technical aspects can be objectively rated, this perspective overlooks the fact that video games are also a form of art. Like any artistic medium, the ultimate value and impact of a video game lie in the subjective experience it provides to its players. Video games encompass storytelling, visual art, music, and interactive design, all of which contribute to the overall experience in ways that are deeply personal and subjective. Just as one might appreciate a painting or a piece of music despite (or even because of) its imperfections, players might find profound joy, meaning, and satisfaction in games that may have technical flaws. Evaluating a game solely based on its mechanics and technical performance ignores the emotional and artistic dimensions that make each game unique. The narrative, aesthetic choices, and player experience are crucial components that can’t be measured by objective criteria alone. These elements resonate differently with each player, making the appreciation of a video game a highly personal journey. In essence, while we can assess the objective qualities of a game’s code and mechanics, the final work transcends these elements to become a holistic piece of art. This art form can only be fully understood and appreciated through the subjective experiences and emotions it evokes in its audience. Therefore, criticisms and evaluations of video games should account for their artistic and emotional impact, which can vary greatly from one player to another.

[@ortzialberdiazpiazu7431]

@@SolonGaming what he's saying is that he respects your opinion, because everyone here is free of having their opinions, however, you are not respecting ours, because you are insulting the game we like and bellittleling us for liking it

[@codytaylor7861]

But the lore bro.

[@robiocraft2383]

If the stakes in these games weren't as high, beating them wouldn't feel half as satisfying. it wouldn't be rewarding and be a waste of time. getting to the actual level of having a powerful build, strategizing your build, upgrading weapons, engaging in pvp, mastering bosses, finding all of the items/spells are some of the things I find meaningful in these series. It would be absolutely pointless if the game gave it all on a silver platter by the means of objective markers or micro transactions and the like, bosses being pushovers etc. More or less to be able to afford to enjoy these series you need to set aside the time they require, which frankly will turn many people away, because time is naturally very limited. but for those few who will properly get into it, it will become an absolute treat to them and the time will set aside by itself. Moreover I wouldn't count souls games at being very high IQ games, sure trial and error playstyle is tedious and doesn't require too much intelligence, but that's why it's an action rpg not a tactical or civilisation rpg. Much like many skills in life they all require trial and error, meaning that mastering game's obstacles is still a skill of sorts. that isn't inherently bad unless you see it as such of course. Many people are born with many varied personality traits and dispositions which are more suitable for different skills and games, it so happens that souls-like games falls into a certain category that itches that niche.

[@star-crossedwarrior204]

This video is ABSOLUTELY FLAWLESS no counter arguments to be made here. The souls games are complete garage with no originality or interesting mechanics or masterful level and art direction & exploration. I mean who wants over come a challenge laid before them? Dark souls more like trash souls am I right?

[@SolonGaming]

If you find souls games challenging, that says a lot about you.

[@star-crossedwarrior204]

Oh I agree completely! The souls games are so easy that they just aren't fun trash souls am I right?

[@Mashedtomato-fp9lc]

😂 when someone is agreeing with him he still tries to insult them what a sad little boy

[@deathofnagoya]

@@Mashedtomato-fp9lcits very obvious sarcasm

[@nicolasvenezuelaverde1184]

Alot of people like you played the game but never understood the dance 😂 that is why the best players of these games are DS1 veterans

[@SolonGaming]

There is no dance. Of course the best players are the ones who have been playing these games for a decade. They memorised literally everything, not that it matters since anyone can easily steamroll with internet help.

[@ortzialberdiazpiazu7431]

@@SolonGaming isnt this kind of contradictory? if the bosses were just learning the patterns and beating the boss, everyone should be equally as good since its just memorization, if the veterans at this game are better, that means the experience they have has helped and that there is indeed some skill behind the players

[@SolonGaming]

@@ortzialberdiazpiazu7431 There is minor skill in flipping burgers too, that doesn't mean it's interesting or the skill ceiling is anywhere above the ground. Memorising the worst book in the library would also mean you are the best one at parroting it. Do you consider that a skill too? None of that can be carried on or applied to anything else. It's just copying data from one place to paste it to another. You copy the content of a book, store them to your brain and then paste them verbally to someone. Is that supposed to be impressive? To the point that you would even mock people who find that activity utterly ridiculous?

[@capnphuktard5445]

​@@SolonGamingThey are vaccine damaged is my only answer to the DS games popularity. It's an autistic hivemind going on or something.

[@knivy6160]

I've only gone halfway through, but I GENUINELY believe that you are fundamentally misunderstanding fromsoft's games. The mechanics are intentionally simple. People don't boot up fromsoft games wanting some mechanically dense, expressive, flowy combat game. There are a bajillion of those. Sure, maybe some people think it's mechanically dense, but they're more so dense in ideas. Especially within Dark Souls 1 and demon's souls, the core game design feels a lot more dungeon crawl-y to me, not action game-y. All of the things you point out like the game being trial and error, and the vulnerability to "cheese" strats are literally THE appeal of the game. Fromsoft makes games that are journeys, rewarding people for taking their time to understand the world they created and exploring it to it's fullest. Mechanically, it has a lot of honestly pretty unbalanced ideas, esp early on. Spells, Bows, and throwable/consumable items are powerful enough to beat the game on their own. When it comes to the boss fights/combat, they reward strategy itself, with mechanical skill being a way to get out of sticky situations or apply melee weaponry (intentionally the riskiest but most potent damage source most of the time) into the combat. In Dark souls 1, while yeah most of the fights are "gimmicks" - they also have some nifty reward for thinking instead of brute forcing things. Taurus demon is awesome because of how many ways you can approach him, you can fight him man to man, or you can realize he jumps back in certain attacks and make him fall off the bridge. You could alternatively climb the ladder behind you, and then follow up with a drop attack. You could also just have him jump up onto the tower with you, and fight him more fairly than on the thin bridge, but with more room to abuse projectiles and space yourself. Okay, I've watched the rest of the vid. All your mechanical "complaints" can be pointed at celeste. The game can also be memorized, you're effectively just looking for the "correct" series of inputs to get to the goal. Is that not what fromsoft games are? You complain about fromsoft stuff being a "dodge roll simulator" which primarily means moving a control stick and pushing the b button according to a predetermined timing by the devs, then attacking with a bumper. Throw in some mild resource management (or a lot depending on how you're playing) and that's fromsoft gameplay. Recognize a series of inputs that will lead you to success. "success" in fromsoft games' case being access to more game, generally speaking. You do that exact same thing in celeste though. Recognize the correct dpad and jump movements to get you to the end of the level, or collectible. What difference is there here, other than genre? Also, in most cases in fromsoft titles as long as you're exploring, any time spent repeating content because of death is typically short, you can usually get from checkpoint to checkpoint in probably less than 3 minutes if you know where you're going. In the worst cases maybe 10 minutes? But that's been only shortened and basically does not exist within the newer titles. Idk about elden ring, but in sekiro/ds3 a lot of the checkpoints are a brisk less than minute walk/run between each other. I genuinely don't know how to say this, other than that you just don't see the appeal of souls type game design. Fromsoft games are puzzle/rhythym games disguised as an action rpg. Clearly, you're not a fan of that, and that's ok.

[@SolonGaming]

Did you watch the other parts of my series?

[@knivy6160]

@@SolonGaming Sorry, but if it's anything like this one I'm not gonna bother.

[@SolonGaming]

@@knivy6160 It could save you the time of making such a pointless essay, but i guess you are the kind of guy who likes hearing his own voice.

[@knivy6160]

@@SolonGaming I did try watching another one, but a collective hour of hearing you say opinions and claiming that the games are a waste of time is enough for me. The original comment was to say I don't agree with you, basically. I'll go and do something else I enjoy - maybe boot up a fromsoft game, instead of complaining and baiting people for angry comments on the internet.

[@SolonGaming]

@@knivy6160 You should have done that from the beginning instead of pretending to know what you are talking about. You are simple minded after all.

[@jerrdan100]

not every opinion is valid.. the fact that these people are so entitled and think changing the game to benefit they way THEY only play is ignorance at its finest. Just accept that the game just isn't for you and leave the real fans to enjoy this masterpiece. Stop actively trying to ruin something just because you dont get it or "its too hard". You are the type of privileged gamers that people cant stand. Acting like every game NEEDS to be all inclusive when in reality its just the loud vocal minority complaining about things they dont understand. Go back to playing some Sweet baby inc games.

[@SolonGaming]

Delusional comment from someone with no comprehension skills and lots of strawmanning. Just keep pretending the blatant facts are opinions so you can inhale the same copium. You are the kind of guy who can't get out of your basement.

[@Dmitry_Medvedev]

go beat NINJA GAIDEN on Master and DMC3 on DMD then you can act so superior. But until then...

[@SolonGaming]

@@Dmitry_Medvedev Let's actually not normalise people acting superior for being good at video games. Inflated ego is already a pretty huge social problem, let's start by teaching the benefits of being humble.

[@PS2_Best_Era]

I don't ever recall him stating nor implying that Dark Souls was bad because it wasn't inclusive. If anything, his complaint was about the lack of depth in the game design. Pay attention next time.

[@jerrdan100]

@@SolonGaming no facts were stated. only opinions. Chill with the buzzwords buddy.. your IQ is showing

[@AMENTALL1Z4RD]

Sounds like someone needs to git gud...

[@SolonGaming]

Same old, same old

[@boredgamer7841]

was okay until your brain apparently left your skull and you just started on a nonsense tangent equating souls to real money.

[@SolonGaming]

The point is not that they have the same value. My point was, you collect money because you have a goal in mind and you need them. Same with souls. Someone telling you ''it's ok to lose them because you will get more later on anyway'' is terrible advice. You still lost something and the most important thing lost is TIME.

[@liquidreality472]

@@SolonGaming A level 1 run as one's first run will take a lot of time ("lost" time" ) but will ultimately result in a better understanding of the game. The time isn't lost, it's converted into experience. Understanding the game is arguably far more important than the souls you use to level. Whether the time spent is worth it or not outside of the game is a different question

[@SolonGaming]

@@liquidreality472 I understood the game and what it's all about a few hours in. The so called experience doesn't help you with anything. The time spent is not worth outside or even inside the game. Memorizing enemy animations is pointless data stored in your head, especially if you have no intention of replaying these games. It's mindless suffering for mentally ill people.

[@liquidreality472]

@@SolonGaming yes, I understand your position. My comment was in response to losing souls being a waste of time.

[@SolonGaming]

​@@liquidreality472 The so called experience you mentioned would still be there even if the devs didn't make a system that punishes you for not taking a right wild guess the second time you try to deal with a problem the game presents you. That system serves no other purpose than to waste the player's time because the devs are not smart and don't understand that trial and error gameplay is the opposite of skill and making it punishing means your own mechanics work against your own core gameplay. Look at the Ratchet and Clank games. They let you keep all the experience points and money even after death and they are even skill based games where your deaths are clearly your fault. Even the death screen is instantaneous there even though you won't see much of it as long as you are skilled.

[@cykalandon8635]

Where can we get that thumbnail lmao