Anor londo is like, THE place in DkS1. Great scenery, the climax of the story, BOOBS, and the hardest boss you’ll ever face.
i would describe anor lando as the mid-point of DS1. it’s also the spot that almost got me to rage quit this game before i learned more about the weight and rolling systems to get across a certain bridge which i’m sure everyone knows.
You must be referencing what we’ve all grown to call ***“Shit Ledge”***.
Small shields being able to parry is something they did in Lords of the Fallen. Each class of shield has a different ability.
Why is it that things like Anor Londo archers get fond memories and memes made about them for being so hard, while the equivalent challenges in DkS2 get complaints about “artificial difficulty”?
Is it because Anor Londo gives you no alternative way through so everybody is ultimately forced to beat it and then comes away with the satisfaction of clearing it, while DkS2 regularly lets you cheese your way out of stuff if you’re not up to it?
Has to do with with frequency. The ledge in Anor Londo is like a 30 second affair then never delft with again. Shrine of Amana is equally annoying but also fucking looooong. DS1 makes you go “Hahaha that was bullshit.” and DSII makes you go “This wore out it’s welcome a while ago.”
I took a nap behind my greatshield of Artorias while those fools shit their arrows.
Edit: that was supposed to be “shot” but I kind of like it better.
Man, I hope the Abyss Greatshield is in Dark Souls 3.
If I couldn’t use that shield in DS1, I just just didn’t use a shield period. 
Blighttown from the Depths downwards is a lot more than 30 seconds. What about TotG? Capra Demon requires you to fight through the thieves and dogs on the way down every time and is literally just a recycled late game demon monster and a dog in a small room, but that gets memes while Smelter gets the middle finger.
People put up with more bs from Dark Souls 1 because it’s a much better game.
That’s not to say DS2 is bad.
Lol, as if Smelter Demon wasn’t recycled as well…
Blighttown and The Depths aren’t badly designed areas with consistently cheap enemy design throughout, but this is ignoring the fact that you can just skip both areas anyway…
You can’t skip shit like Shrine of Amana and Brume Tower if you want the complete ending.
I don’t know why the original Dark Souls VS DSII gets brought up so often when Demon’s Souls is the still the best game in the entire series.
You can’t see why a sequel gets compared so much to its predecessor?
Blightown from the Depths down is completely bypassable, even without the Master Key. Tomb of Giants is easy and fun. Neat little gimmick that doesn’t over stay it’s welcome, followed by a sick view of Ash Lake, a cool invasion by Leeeeroy the Paladin, and a dope boss. Those little skeleton kids drop humanity like crazy, I love it down there, I dunno why people dislike it so much. The Catacombs are far more annoying imo. Capra Demon is annoying but again can be skipped and came back to later when it’s more manageable. Them using Capra again down in Lost Izalith makes sense from a lore perspective, and helps to showcase how strong you have become. Nightmare boss fight and now you’re dropping like 8 of them with little effort. Boss as fuck.
But those are my personal reasons. I really liked Dark Souls II the first time I played through it, but each following time with a new build was less and less fun, and the annoying stuff grated more and more. I don’t like Smelter as a boss to begin with, so him coming back so many times was fucking annoying. I don’t complain about the Wandering Knight dude who is the same fight over and over because he’s fun to fight. Smelter’s not.
But I don’t think the game is awful either, I played it a ton, and I even picked up Scholar (tho I have like no time into it because I keep playing Bloodborne instead) so I don’t think it’s awful, I just think it’s exaction wasn’t as good as Dark Souls 1…or really any other Souls game, Demon’s and Bloodborne are more fun imo.
I can see DS1 as a greater artistic achievement. It has a far more impressive world, more consistent and inspired monster and area designs and the benefit of a world creation story instead of a substory that has to nod to a prequel. So I get where people are coming from when they say that. I’ve put a stupid amount of time into both though, and as I spent more time with it I grew to appreciate DS2’s mechanical improvements so much more. When you’ve taken in everything that the world and the art and the story has to offer, raw gameplay improvements really start to stand out, so the fact that DS2 has no input delay, better character building with a wider variety of viable setups, better overall PvP mechanics, a greater selection of raw combat challenges rather than knowledge obstacles, and far more scope for replayability due to having more content, more options to access that content and a better NG+ system… That all adds up.
So in the end, while I get where people are coming from, I ended up with more time played in DS2 than DS1, despite DS1 being my first. What can I say, I’m a mechanics guy.
Once. He comes back once, as an optional boss in a DLC area, and the first fight with him is also completely optional. This is getting back to my earlier confusion, you hand waved some DS1 nonsense because it was skippable, but the skippable DS2 boss really grated on you?
If you just got a better overall vibe from DS1 than DS2 because of the artistic vision of it then that’s cool. It always feels like people are searching for more specific answers though, and so ripping into DS2 for strange things which make no sense in context.
Yea cuz I don’t like the boss. I like the Capra Demon fight, I just don’t do it when you’re expected to. Also Smelter isn’t worth skipping the first time imo because he’s gating off an enemy spawn that drops a good ring.
I understand he’s skippable, but you asked why one gets a pass and the other doesn’t, that’s my opinion on why, and I only addressed the examples you brought up. There are a lot of other reasons I don’t like DSII as much as the others, some are petty, and some are not. The level design pales in comparison to any other Souls game and exploration is half the fun of these games for me. The world and world building is pretty crap to. I fucking hate the back stab and parry mechanics. I don’t like the replacement for Poise, tanking wasn’t anywhere near as fun as DS1. I hate how enemies stop spawning after dying a number of times, that shit is fucking lame, and makes farming blow. The NPCs suck for the most part, and their quests are lame.
Some of this stuff i hear has changed in scholar, but I dunno for sure, haven’t gotten far enough to form an opinion.
that’s the one, gotta love that you just have to hint at it and every DS1 player knows what your talking about.
Blighttown is really only bad for me because of the horrific frame rate. As long as you’re prepared for the dart blowing dudes it’s not too bad. I found Tomb of Giants to be more annoying.
People should be comparing Dark Souls 1 to Demon’s Souls instead. People are too hung up on the Dark Souls 1 VS DSII debate, it’s been discussed to death and I think it has to do with the fact that more people played those games since Dark Souls 1 and its sequel were also available on PC and 360, whereas Demon’s stayed PS3 exclusive.
I think Demon’s Souls has better pacing than both of its sequels, the game speed and combat is faster, making things more tense. While the levels and the world itself aren’t as big as some areas in Dark Souls 1 & 2, it makes up for this aspect by being more focused. Boss fights are better overall compared to its sequels, and the game itself has this odd charm to it that its sequels don’t have. Graphically it still holds up, the voice acting is top notch, the music is great and the game is still as atmospheric as ever and it still has some of the best NPC’s in the entire series. World tendency, once you understood it, was a lot more interesting than covenants in DS1 and 2.
If you haven’t played Demon’s but have played its sequels and Bloodborne you’re missing out.
Oh wow i thought Demon’s Souls had some of the worst bosses in the entire series.
I actually hate the world tendancy system. Once i learned how it worked i hated it even more. If i want to get specific tendancies i have to play offline because the online world shifts to the server average, and if i play online the system is mostly meaningless because you cant effect it. If your playing offline its a system that over punishes players for dying, You’ve died and lost half your health bar (or 25% and a ring slot) and the games now harder for an arbitrary reason. Thought it was a pretty meh system over all.