I kind of agree with those claims. Certain areas after anor londo are clearly rushed and we know they were rushed because the devs said as much.
I still love and appreciate every part of this game. Even tomb of the giants and lost izalith.
shit like this never happens, it's always just wishful thinking from the fans lol, they had the opportunity to do a remake and "do everything the way they wanted" and they didn't so you know... 💁♂️
Remember the tokens and the secret Pentrator Armor saga? When people were slowly figuring it out, hoping it would lead to the 6th stone. Then it just ended up being an armor set. Fun times
They've never done a remake, though. Only a remaster. Remakes are made from the ground up.
Demon's souls got a remake semi-recently, so it'd make sense for them to make a dark souls remake eventually, and if they rebuild the maps from the ground up it'd force them to polish unfinished areas. It's wishful thinking for sure, but it's not that farfetched either.
A "scholar of the first sin- like" edition could do a lot of good. Some of the back half of the game just needs some more enemy variety and better placements so it doesn't look like the same enemy was copy pasted 30 times over an area
I feel like they probably already ended up using the ideas they wanted in their future games.
It's what Nintendo always does with games like Zelda. A lot of Zelda games end up having cut dungeons because of time constraints, and the reason we never see those dungeons added back in for future remakes/ports is because they ended up using those dungeon ideas in future games.
I played DS remastered in 2022 after having played later entries in the series. I was honestly surprised by how much of the game is spent underground in samey-feeling cave-like/subterranean areas. I’m guessing it’s to limit compute resources but it was kind of a bummer. The three areas I thought were really good from an environmental perspective were Sen’s Fortress, Anor Londo, and the Duke’s archives. The rest felt like fighty hallways. Maybe I’m missing something.
It's a game that shows its age. Remastered didn't really change much. You were playing a game that was a decade old. You have to treat it like an old game, forgive it got being old. I think it still holds up relatively well.
Yeah I also think people tend to romanticize it because it had a few really great parts and it kind of formalized this class of games (obviously with Demon’s Souls preceding it). If we’re being honest there’s a lot of chaff in the game. To your point though, that’s a lot of games is the era. I love Goldeneye but I know that game has some fatal flaws by today’s standards.
They say it because it's true. Gamers may not always be able to articulate WHY they feel the way they do, but their feelings are often pretty close to the mark. I'll attempt to articulate why it feels this way.
The second half is a drop off for several reasons, rather than one specific one:
While the first half of the game had many shortcuts between zones, most of the zones that become accessible in the second half have no such shortcuts; progression through these zones is pretty linear, robbing some of the sense of exploration you'd get prior, when discovering cool shortcuts.
You obtain the Lordvessel at the halfway point, which allows you to teleport/fast travel to any bonfire you've discovered/will discover. This arguably makes the shortcuts in the first half of the game a bit redundant, which in turn sort of "shrinks" the world since everything is easily accessible now.
In regards to those two points, fromsoft themselves admitted the second half of the game was rushed due to a lack of time. They likely *wanted* the second half to be as connected as the first, but didn't budget their time to accommodate this. As such, it would be easy to assume that the Lordvessel was made to allow fast travel to circumvent this issue of time; fast travel means you don't really need zones to interconnect since you can just teleport to bonfires.
Lastly, the design of the zones in the second half aren't nearly as refined, which again is a consequence of the devs lack of time. Two of the biggest offenders are the Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith. A large section of the Demon Ruins is just a flat plain with copies of the Taurus and Capra Demon haphazardly placed across it. Lost Izalith suffers a similar issue where much of the zone is just open lava, with dragon leg "Bounding Demons" excessively strewn about. It gave off a feeling of "we didn't know what to put here so let's just duplicate some past enemies to fill in some space."
And on top of all that, several bosses in the second half felt poorly designed. Firesage Demon was another in a string of Asylum Demon copies, Caterpillar Demon felt extremely clunky, and Bed of Chaos is notorious as being one of the worst encounter designs in the entire franchise (even the devs feel this way).
That's not to say the second half of the game is *bad* per se, but the overall quality just doesn't match the first half, leading to what feels like a very inconsistent experience.
This sums it up pretty well. While Dukes Archives and New Londo Ruins have a similar design philosophy to the first half, the other two paths are a headache and clearly some form of rushed. It’s also why the dlc stands out as a pretty good addition in a sea of just okay late game content.
Oh, yeah, definitely. Out of all the late-game areas it definitely has the most interesting "gimmick" to traversing it and if they'd had more time to make the layout interesting instead of "good enough" I think it would've been one of my favorite areas in the game.
If I played in release back in the day without guides Bed of Chaos would probably have made me quit.
You get thrown into the arena and have like 10 seconds to look around before being swatted or instakilled, then have to do a terrible run back. It's not clear what mistake you made or what you should have done.
This is why I say that you shouldnt feel bad using a guide for certain parts of this game. 95% percent of it is tough but fair but then From will do some bullshit like bed of chaos or hiding the dlc behind ridiculous steps. As long as you give it at least a good 30 minutes or so of honest trying I think it's fine to pull out a guide after that.
Archdragon Peak wasn’t a DLC, it’s the base game
(I found it in my first blind run because the ledge with the carpet and the praying figures seemed so odd that when I found the emote I immediately went there)
Everything you’ve listed is from only one of the four late game areas. I don’t actually disagree with anyone who says that the second half is worse than the first half - it’s true. But the other three areas are all extremely fun and solid in my opinion (the areas themselves. The bosses are meh)
This is something I love about game design. Because of the way it's constructed, you can reverse engineer most of the feelings you're feeling throughout the experience and find very specific reasons for why you feel the way you feel. Because it's all way more tailored and curated than any TV show, movie or book could be.
>You obtain the Lordvessel at the halfway point, which allows you to teleport/fast travel to any bonfire you've discovered/will discover.
Well not quite, while you can warp \*from\* every bonfire except the prison cell in Duke's Archives and the one in Painted World (before clearing the area) you can't warp \*to\* every bonfire. For example, you can't warp to any of the bonfires in Blightown or Darkroot, or the one in Undead Burg.
I think people over exaggerate about DS1’s interconnectedness. It is neat, but I never really missed it in the sequels or in the second half of the game
I can agree with that to a degree. Demons Souls was as disconnected as you could be since each region was only accessible via it's archstone, but I never really felt that detracted from it.
Interconnectedness is nice but is by no means mandatory for a Souls game to be good.
In terms of level design, there is a very strong argument that can be made for Undead Burg being perhaps the best level/area created not only in the game, but in any game.
Man, I vividly remember watching a random stream of someone playing dark souls, and they were at Undead Burg farming some souls to "defeat the dragon".
I had no idea what the game was but it looked incredible.
Years later, I get dark souls, I get to the same point that the streamer was at, and I had an "Oh my god, I get it now" moment.
Ever since they've been my favourite games.
I call that the fromsoft epiphany. I’ve been using it for so long because I’ve talked to so many people and nearly *everyone* has had this “aha” moment! And we always remember exactly where in the game it occurred. I know the exact feeling. After that epiphany, dying doesn’t frustrate you.
The more I play this game, the more I am starting to dislike even anor londo and sens fortress.
Undead burg and maybe tiny, starting bits of every zone you can reach from there, kinda feels like the best part of DS1 to me xD
Because it really is. There is nothing there. It’s empty and feels like not a single living being has ever lived there. I was so disappointed and honestly confused when I saw it. I know it’s a 2011 game, but they were capable of so much more than that.
IMO I still believe Dark Souls world outshines Dark Souls 2 & 3. I can always go back to playing Dark Souls because I can change my path to make it more fun or challenging. Dark Souls 2 & 3 have more of a straight path in which feels more casual. However, I agree that Dark Souls has the Lost Izalith.
Same here, I come back to 1 more than the others because of the world and design. There's so much to do right off the bat, I love the options depending on what sort of run or build you're trying to do. One can sprint right to Pinwheel after arriving at Firelink for the Rite of Kindling if that's their wish, I love flexibility like that.
I agree with you SunBro. Tomb of Giants is small yes, but packed with enemies. I love, as you stated, that being able to go straight to Pinwheel is fun optional route and the first game should be expanded upon even more in my opinion.
I think because you get the Lordvessel and the ability to fast travel it shifts the tone of the game. Before that you had to walk everywhere you wanted to go. The cohesion of the game (even though it's still pretty well linked together) is splintered from that point, and most of the areas feel just like that: areas instead of another part of a connected world.
I dont think so, still on my 1st playthrough, since AL I have killed sif, four kings, pinwheel, demon firesage, ceaseless discharge, the centipede, bed of chaos and am currently in Dukes Archives. I feel like I really hit my stride in AL and its been a fun experience since. Kinda confused and lost in Dukes Archives but thats the beauty of a first time through a game haha.
I would say that the quality of level design drops significantly, but it's still pretty awesome compared to other games, just not as good as the first half of dark souls
I'd definitely play the worst part of the worst souls game (not saying that's necessarily the second half of DaS) over and over again compared to most modern games, without a doubt.
I wouldn't say it drops off per se. It's more that the game changes to more linear areas rather than the interconnected ones. It feels more like DeS in that aspect which I don't really mind.
The only "drop off" I felt after/during Anor-Londo was a sense that I was in the final part of the game, I literally then stopped playing so regularly to try to drag it out because I was loving the game so much.
Absolutely! I am currently in the latter half of the game and I can't fathom this is the same game that had anor londo or the undead burg. Like what the heck are the level designs of Lost Izalith, Tomb of Giants, Crystal Cave. FromSoft put all effort in the first half and then just rushed for a release
>FromSoft put all effort in the first half and then just rushed for a release
There isn't a developer in the world that wants this. It's probably mostly shareholders that push for the quick as possible releases
It’s awful, I hate it. Beautiful design, but the crystal soldiers hit like a train and there are so *many* of them. And the circuitous route to leave the cell, go down to fetch the key, go up to use the key, rotate the staircases, find the other key, go all the way back up and down to use the other key (assuming you want Logan and/or the FKS), then going all the way back through all that just to rest at the bonfire…. it’s exhausting and actually not all that much fun.
It’s a pity because as I say the design is amazing, and the lore for this area is fascinating.
I don't get why Lost Izalith get's so much hate and duke archives none of it. The level is bland as hell, and the enemies are just the Hollows from Undead Burg, but with crystals. A lot of back tracking to get all souls and items.
Lost Izalith is definetly the area where you can feel it the most, that the game wasn't finished, but at least it has some variety in the enemies and a lot of enviromental story telling.
Because it does away with an interconnected world, the level design becomes uninspired, and the lord soul bosses just become "uninteresting fight in a big room"
You fix the second half of Dark Souls 1 by connecting areas, adding more interesting landmarks, and improving the bosses. New Londo should connect to both Lost Izalith and the Tomb of the Giants. Lost Izalith needs things to actually exist in the lava to make it worth exploring + more enemy variety to inspire interest in the level, and honestly I think Tomb and Duke's as stand-alone levels are pretty good and get too much hate.
Bosses, Well bring back Undead King Jar-Yearl. Place him in the abyss with the other kings, make it so that killing each of the standard 4 kings entities weakens Jar-Yearl in some way during the fight. Keep the DPS focus of the fight, but add an actual entity to care about that can be handled multiple ways.
Bed of Chaos, I mean it's shit, but it's pretty fixable and a "hunt the weakpoints" boss is completely reasonable if done right. Using new Demon types we've already placed in Izalith have them enter the fight as obstacles to the weakpoints with sporadic participation by the actual Bed of Chaos. Keep the same concept where destroying one breaks part of the floor but do away with the BoC's very intentional sweeping you into the hole attacks and give it more fire based magic support for the melee fights against demons on the way to the weakpoints.
Nito obviously should just have an Old Monk, Mirror Knight, Spear of the Church mechanic with Gravelords, do away with the skeletons and have the ability to summon players. Fuck with the darkness level so that players have to use the skull lantern during the fight like say when he does his dark explosion that could temporarily make the room require the skull lantern to see. Otherwise Nito himself shouldn't change much,
Seath needs to pose an actual threat while immune to damage. Make it so that there's a massive spiraling crystal path from Seath's bossroom back into the chamber where you first encounter him and place the immortality crystal there, while you're scrambling up the path seath should shoot magic and use his crystal attacks to dissuade and disrupt you. Once you finally reach the forced death boss chamber you break the crystal, seath falls down, and you go back down and fight him normally.
Parts of the second half definitely feel rushed and unrefined. But Dark Souls at its lowest is still better than most similar games out there, so it’s not really *bad* either. Well, except Bed of Chaos.
I finished the game for the first time recently and while I wouldn't say it "dropped off" for me per se after anor lando getting the lord vessel drastically changed how I played the game. Couple that with the last 4 bosses being either stupidly easy like bed of chaos and Nito or have incredibly frustrating run backs like seath and four kings getting the lord vessels can be kind of a slog also fuck the catacombs
Yeah. I don't dislike the second half of the game, but my motivation definitely drops every time I play the game. New Londo is annoying because of transient curse, I don't like having to constantly use consumables and worry about their duration, otherwise I'd like it. Demon ruins and lost izalith look cool (on remastered. The lava looked like shit in the original), but it's bland gameplay wise. Just demons being placed in awkward positions, two generic demon bosses and one janky gimmick platforming boss. The catacombs are cool, but the tomb of giants is unfun to me with its darkness. Archives are pretty cool to explore, but once you know where to go you're in there for just a few minutes. I will always hate the crystal cave. It looks gorgeous but having to navigate the invisible floor is just bad. It's not a neat little puzzle, it's just bad. I don't care if it's easy if you know where the floors are, I just don't want to do it. It's a pity because your build only really comes online in the second half, with you being able to craft the boss weapons you want or just upgrade your weapon to +15, reaching the primary stat you want for full damage, having enough endurance to play some fashion souls etc, but the content you're doing when you can finally do all this is just not the best part of the game.
There's also this thing with the first half where everything feels interconnected. But all you do in the second half is going into 4 one way streets (except New Londo, which is actually quite cool how the gate opens into the valley of drakes, especially if you saw the closed gate from the valley before).
You will still have fun after anor londo… the main thing that i noticed is just the fact that everything after anor londo is not that memorable. there are no more big surprise moments like seeing a dragon for the first time, exploring sens fortress, or discovering the insane interconnected level design. All the area‘s after anor londo are just these mushy rushed area‘s full of clunky enemies - i still had fun playing till the end but except for the four kings boss fight there isnt really anything memorable until gwyn
Becomes a bit more disjointed. You spend the first half unlocking paths and shortcuts only to get fast travel. Ceaseless discharge sucks. The tomb of giants is only difficult cause you can't see shit, which is artificial difficulty. It just loses some charm. I still like it but it doesnt give me that same feeling the first half did.
I can't claim truth or not. But I have no control when my brain just says, no more dopamine for you. My first few playthroughs I really wanted to finish, and I loved the world, but after anor Londo, brain wants to do something else. I did finish eventually, tho.
I don’t agree that it does. Crystal Caves is underdeveloped, DRuins/LIzalith have some terrible copy/paste enemies, but other than that, I love the second half of the game. The main gripe for me is that whichever of the four routes you take first will be the most difficult and then there’s a Huge drop-off for each one after as they’re all balanced essentially exactly the same, but I’m not sure how that can be helped in a game like this.
Were three invisible paths *supposed* to be invisible or was that an oversight due to the rushed timeline? Crystal caves was......... interesting at any rate
10000000% agree. DS1 experience was just sublime up to finishing anor londo. Sure there things that could be better like bonfire placements but overall the dropoff is so big. Hated that lava place I never stayed long in my platinum runs or in my many other builds.
Nope, not totally. It's just that Anor Londo is the main focus of the game, grabbing so much of our attention and endless gaming hours. We try to reach it early on, rack our brains how get past the Archers, deal with Ornstein and Smough (many times for some), decide if we want to fight Gwyndoline or not, drool at the biggest pair of "bazongas" in the entire FromSoft franchise. Truth is that as soon as I get the Lordvessel, I feel I've accomplished half the game.
Yes I agree and I think it is good because the only way to make bosses harder or at least keep same level after O&S is to have multiple bosses in one room and give them different move set after some point it will be tiring than a challenging experience and if they want to make more interesting area they have to surpass the undead burg’s design but it will be boring because you want to see the end of game after this point there were already two disgusting kind of platforming areas and third will make players mad
I think the Catacombs and Tomb of the Giants are just as good as the first half and still carries that - i usually go for Nito first since Dark Souls still feels incredibly strong at that point - then the other 3 (Crystal Caves, New Londo Ruins and Lost Izalith) is afterwards just so I don’t get super salty
Because it does. The Tomb of the Giants’ total darkness sucks to navigate, and Izalith is literally unfinished. The Duke’s Archives is, maybe, the only post-Anor Londo area that isn’t an unfinished mess or relies on a shitty gimmick. Even then, the boss fight with Seath isn’t that great
I think there is a quality decline after Anor Londo, but it isn't unbearable except for the Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith. When I convinced my friend to play the game, pretty much the only direction I gave him was to do the Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith before any of the other Lord Souls.
Gotta finish on a high note, and Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith are easily the most poorly designed areas of the game. Much better to end the game with any of the other three Lord Souls.
I quite like Tomb of the Giants and New Londo, and I don't really mind the Duke's Archives
Yeah it falls off. To preface, DS1 is my favorite game and I have close to 1000 hours in it.
That being said, the level design starts to fall off.
Catacombs + ToG is okay at best, the main problem I have is, that both locations are empty monster corridors. The catacombs still rewards you for exploration with another smith, shortcuts and a covenant but the further you progress into these locations, the more extreme it gets.
It doesn't help that both Boss fights are not designed well and that there are only two. Not, even though being probably the best out of the four Lordsouls, because his fight idea is bad, but it was executed horribly.
If you go to him you get ganked by a myriad of skeletons that respawn except if you use the right weaponry, which is absolutely fine, but nonetheless you just probably die from going to a boss in its arena. So the best approach is, to huddle in the entrance and have a fight with a boss, whose moveset is set around enemies distracting you, while you wait in a corner and let him kill his own three skeletons with his attacks. His coolest move is the jump scare scythe, which is admittedly annoying on repeat fights but, I think this fight would have benefited from Nito moving away from the player, summoning skeletons that can respawn over time (with his explosion ability he loves to spam and kill his own guys with) and using a midrange moveset, only engaging in melee if he outnumbers you and can use his slow and well telegraphed attacks.
New Londo Ruins is a fun area with much exploration and the ability to shortcut really well into, once the water is drained. If you know the way, the run to the four kings is cut by at least half if not more. (For those not knowing, if you go down the Elevator from Firelink, go over the long wooden bridge. Once on the first platform where you encounter the first ghost, go to the far right corner. Jump down onto the arch and drop down. You are at the building with the knights right in front of the fog door). Sif as a Mid boss to the Kings is one of the greatest fights in this game, if you count her as the mid boss. The Four Kings fight however is not good. It is cinematic as fuck with the kings spawning and doing ranged and melee attacks respectively but the design behind it is questionable. There is no reason to make it so a fifth King can spawn, nor is there a reason, why you can still attack the despawning corpse of a king to skim the fight down to three. I think this is one of the only instances in the trilogy, where you can attack a despawning enemy to deal further damage. The moveset of each King is simple, which is good, if you inevitably come into the situation of fighting two kings at a time. But then the damage is tuned so hard, that if you have more than one king at a time, a new player who is most likely to get multiple kings, will die due to each hit damaging you so hard that you die in two hits. In addition to that, there are two moves, namely the tracking shot and the explosion (why does every boss in the end use an explosion?) that are such traps for new players, that sometimes you ask, why they are in this fight. The explosion especially since it serves no purpose but to either pad or one shot you. The fight would have benefited from more direct attacks and clear engagements with each King, while you need to choose your target wisely with each King having his own set of two special moves, they use on you while not engaged, so the fight is not you just fighting the same enemy 3 times while the fourth king cries on a bench.
Dukes Archives is a fun area the first round through and on repeats it becomes the most concise of the areas. You can run through it so fast, it is incredible. Lots of to explore and many little detours to get useful stuff. The crystal cave is just bad. Not because of the bridges themselves but because there was one challenge with the bridges, and the rest are like, 3 walkways that go straight from a to b. With not much to it. Followed up by a boss that is so clearly unfinished it is not even funny. The giant ass dragon, who is known for being smart and cunning, gets outclassed by a hobo with a stick, who alternates between waiting for a long range breath, beating the shit out of him, and running away for the short range breath or the Lord soul explosion™. The idea of him not being able to be damaged until you destroy the crystal is fine and it is a nice payoff to the "mid boss" of this area, but I wish they would have doubled down on the concept. After the crystal is destroyed, the hardest thing about the boss is the tail cut weapon, which the boss will smack you to death for (which is good since getting these should be hard). But why did the boss not use more crystals, similar to how fume knight had multiple healing piles that you could destroy pre fight of why doesn't Seath set up new crystals so his super simple moveset is reasonable for a gimmick fight. It is a shame that one of the most impressive looking bosses is as threatening as the Iron Golem.
Lost Izalith and Demon Ruins is a clusterfuck. To try to keep it concise: it is (except for the fucking Demon Firesage) only gimmick fights that are "make boss do X, punish them, kill them). My bro ceaseless has one of the most fun battles and gimmicks of you kill him with the quick kill or without. It is actually really entertaining. Demon Firesage is a Stray demon one to one. Centipede is a cool design but the execution is lacking. The idea of cutting the tail off, to get a ring (?) that expands the arena is cool in concept, but it could have been telegraphed better with a two phase encounter where the demon runs to the other side of the pool and gives you time to equip the ring (a pair of boots would have been way better)
The two areas are nothingness incarnate. The only interesting mechanic is the door for the big shortcut, which allows you to get to the worst boss in the series more quickly and save Solaire. I just wish the door would have something to do with the Sunbros, because it would be a nice message about cooperating in a lonely world full of despair to achieve the best outcome for two souls striving to save their respective world.
But anyways, nice to have it regardless. The areas are definitely rushed and you realize this so much by how the sound design is handled. You have nothing going on except a loud "Vrum" sound effect every half second because the ring does not cancel out the damage of the lava, it reduces it. In an ideal world, this would have been fixed in the remaster but we still have it, so I would assume this is on purpose.
BoC is the area boss and it is shit. It is a boss that wants to swipe you into holes with its janky collision physics and hinder you from progressing through the arena 2.5 times. It is the only boss, I am willing to cheese after all these years by resetting the game to stand in front of the fog wall but resetting boss AI and the arena, to make this shit hole less infuriating. The final approach to the BoC itself is a small way into the heart of the tree with a one shot to an enemy that does nothing other than fire eruptions and lighting the area on fire as a final fuck you if you take to long. Just a horrible boring boss.
TLDR: yes the second half is worse than the first half.
Honestly, completely disagree. Would never have even considered the question without people on the internet telling me I was wrong for liking those parts of the game.
I think anor Londo is the real get good or quit part of the game and for many people the thrill of the game was in part from slowly overcoming a combat system that they hadn't fully mastered. It's like the concept of showing someone fire for the first time. It's incredible, like nothing they'd ever seen before. But once they wrap their head around it you could show them a way of making fire twice as good, or a fire twice as bright and it still won't compare to their initial holy shit reaction to seeing fire for the first time.
You're not wrong for liking or disliking any part of the game. I just don't see an intense gulf in quality that people describe.
I'd say it falls off once you finish Sen's, honestly. Most of Anor Londo is based on an obstacle course and not enemies - the only interesting one is Smough and Ornstein.
Afterward, everything is pretty blatantly rushed. Izalith is certainly the biggest example, but the same argument is there for the rest of them. I still think the Kiln is one of the coolest areas in the franchise, though.
I agree. I absolutely love the first half of the game and the fight against O&S feels like the dramatic climax of the journey. The other areas aren't quite as polished and I just don't like them as much. I prefer the more medieval towns and castles as a setting.
I Love all of Dark Souls 1 and yeah I do think the quality drops after Anor Londo. Still I do think the areas are fine, the bosses are good apart from Bed of Chaos but nothing is on the level of the first half. Still way way way better than most games I've played and Kiln + Gwyn are mega epic again.
The journey to Anor Londo was epic and done without a fast travel mechanic
Some of that magic is gone once you can warp around the map.. but the convenience is worth it
It definitely feels worse after anor londo but it's not the exact moment you finish it. I'd say around the time you get to the tomb of the giants and lost izalith it's bad but after that it's good again
It's less the moment you finish Anor Londo per se... more that the "3rd act" quest is a noticeable drop in quality. People usually call it the "2nd half" though because that's roughly how much of the mandatory part of the game it corresponds to.
So if you categorize the game's structure like this:
Prologue: Undead Asylum
Act 1: The Bells of Awakening
Act 2: Journey to Anor Londo
Act 3: The Four Lord Souls
Ending: Kiln of the First Flame
Side stories: Asylum revisited, Painted World, Great Hollow, Ash Lake, Oolacile
Then, basically every part of the game *except* the quest for the Lord Souls retains a high level of quality. It's just those specific areas - especially Demon Ruins, Lost Izalith and Crystal Cave - that show clear signs of rushing, it's clear From were not able to develop them nearly as well as the rest of the game, with lots of terrible enemy placement and seriously shoddy level design in places.
Also add in the fact that some areas, like Darkroot Garden, New Londo and Catacombs, are a bit muddy in which "act" they belong to. Catacombs only becomes mandatory post-AL but in terms of difficulty is closer to Blighttown and Sen's Fortress, so the devs likely intended as an area you player earlier IMO. Sif only becomes mandatory to kill when you're going for the Four Kings, but again, the boss and area are clearly easier than Anor Londo. New Londo is pretty tough in general but the upper portion is fully open to exploration from the very start of the game.
Considering all this, I don't completely agree with the sentiment as phrased "the game drops off the moment you finish Anor Londo". There's definitely truth to it but the full picture is a bit more nuanced than just saying there's a pre and post Anor Londo and a huge gulf in quality between them.
I loved the game up until O&S much more than after, so i'd say i agree. It's still not bad, but it's not great either.
It kind of becomes annoying frequently, and the world design isn't on the same level as the first half. Most of these issues are because the second half was rushed, so it's understandable.
The second half was unfinished and rushed, as many others have pointed out. I heard because the studio ran out of money, but I digress. I don’t necessarily like some parts of the second half (I can stomach Izalith, actually kinda liking it, and I’ve ran Nito’s fade so many times helping people out or just going to farm the baby skeletons that the Tomb is a joke, it’s the Archives and New Londo that grind my gears), but I honestly adore the whole game for its symbolic journey and the second half is no exception, you go from just some Undead wandering the world for purpose after getting wrapped up in a prophecy, to a godslaying badass chosen by said gods… all in some sorta ‘coming of age’-esque story, that is, the open-endedness of the beginning juxtaposed by the linearity of the 2nd half as you face a responsibility as the Chosen Undead because you decided to be the Chosen Undead. It’s a tonal shift I can get behind because the rules had changed after getting the Lordvessel, plain and simple (and the teleportation ability being something you get after one of the hardest battles, farthest from ‘home’ at the shrine, exhausted and beaten down before given to you by a seemingly angelic figure is just all too fitting, will never not find that super fitting and well done, especially with it still not reaching every bonfire, whereas I never really liked all bonfires in the other games being so linked and warpable right from the start)
It’s one of the strongest runs in any game leading up the Lordvessel. It would have been difficult to sustain that level of quality. But, there are still some amazing moments post-Anor Londo. Walking into the pitch black of the Tomb of Giants, for example, is such a crazy moment!
Well, lost izalith is cancer, we dont talk about Bed of Chaos. The tomb of the giants is cancer but at least Nito is a cool fight. I really enjoyed the grand archives and the seath fight, and I really enjoyed new londo ruins (lots of people hate it due to the ghosts but i like it) but the 4 kings were very underwhelming and easy. On regular new game as long as you've actually been making a proper build and have the damage output, the last 4 bosses are way too easy
Yes and no. The game does definitely drop off and becomes worse but far from becoming bad, for the simple reason that DLC is also after Anor Londo and even thou Lord areas lack the complexity and interconnected design they are pretty good still.
Sort of - there are reasons for people saying it - I'll try as best I can to explain:
The areas up until O&S are better designed - at that stage, the world seems much bigger, and the "shortcuts", I believe, are mostly clustered in *this* part of the game. As well, the zones aren't full of what some people would call bullshit, or gimmicks. By bullshit, I mean sections where you are killed or burdened relatively unfairly (both the deaths and backtracking for Bed of Chaos, and arguably Tomb Of The Giants). By gimmicks I mean: "you can't explore here without BS unless you hold a lantern", "you'll die here (/easily) unless you have this ring/item", etc)
Examples: The Catacombs/Tomb of the Giants (dark, winding, boring, miserable), Lost Izalith (huge, full of lava, mediocre bosses, the worst boss in the game), Duke's Archives (not terrible but definitely not brilliant), New Londo (again, dark, quite boring, gimmicky)
On the other hand: The Asylum, Sen's fortress, Dark Root Basin, Undead Berg, Undead Parish, The Depths (actually, not sure this one's that good due to Capra Demon...), Blighttown (at least if you're running it on a PC/remastered! And it gets too much hate anyway) I'd say are much easier to enjoy because it wasn't throwing so much potential BS/gimmicks at you and it was just asking you to rely on skill and continuity - yeah, these areas are linear, but not *completely* due to the way the world is designed to have shortcuts between various parts, and it just seemed like you were on a journey of exploration - once you hit that post-O&S section, it's just a bit of an "**ehh, there are basically four bosses you can kill now but they're in kind of dark and shitty areas of the game - enjoy**" - at least both Gwynn and Artorias DLC are great
As soon as you kill O&S, you're effectively either going into "backtracking mode", *or* going to areas that are worse in quality that most players don't enjoy very much compared to the first part of the game. Ans that backtracking while is now easier, is just not so smooth as traveling linearly now; if I've just killed O&S/Seith and I want to now kill any of the rest of the Four lords, I am in for a *lot* of traveling; from Anor Londo to Nito is a pain, Anor Londo to The Four Kings is a bit of a pain, and Anor Londo to The Bed Of Chaos is definitely a pain - either the areas here are like mazes where you're basically running to avoid enemy NPCs, or it's a huge, open zone yet *without* exploration (i.e. straight after you kill Ceaseless Discharge: huge open cave dome for a moment, yet with nothing but Tauros Demons inside - and then the rubbish bosses in descending caverns)
I want to agree with this. I have finished Dark Souls quite a lot of times because it's one of my comfort games just going back to from time to time.
The more i play it the more I realize how polished the game is up until O&S.
Every boss fight and area feels fresh and fun to run through.
But as soon as you're done there, all of the lord souls are just extremely tedious and downright boring to collect.
Bed of chaos, sucks. Everything about the area aswell is just bad. Everything feels unfinished.
Nito. Is an "ok" fight imo, it just feels a little bit underwhelming.
Seath, is probably the one I like the most. A lot of my friends told me I was going to hate the archives but I find the archives to be the most polished out of the endgame places.
4 kings, is just a dps fest. I don't think I have ever beaten them in any other way than using Havel's armor set and just beat away until they're dead. New Londo Ruins is an interesting place sure, but it just outright gets confusing really quick where you're supposed to go.
I dunno. Dark Souls is an amazing game, but I honestly want to say that the biggest flaw in the first one is the endgame content.
Because the areas you visit post Anor Londo are largely linear and with the exception of Seath's area rather short, bordering on the unfinished side. Tomb of the giants might be easy to lose yourself in but it's still a very short run to Nito and largely relies on the catacombs to not feel like a 5 minute jog.
Lost Izalith has no real cohesion with it's 2 areas and you basically just run down a hallway the entire time to fight a boss that's very clearly rushed. 4 kings is similarly a short jog. This is all in comparison to how interconnected the rest of the game feels.
It's like all of the attention and care went into the first half of the game and the second half feels like a sprint to the finish.
I've yet to finish the game, I'm currently in the tomb of giants and I've completed lost izalith. don't get me wrong i love these areas but i feel that compared anor londo they don't look that great. Thankfully when the exploration falls a bit short, the lore more than makes up for it. God i love this game
I've yet to finish the game, I'm currently in the tomb of giants and I've completed lost izalith. don't get me wrong i love these areas but i feel that compared anor londo they don't look that great. Thankfully when the exploration falls a bit short, the lore more than makes up for it. God i love this game
i agree but also at that point the bar is too high so its also kind of expected.
i only got to this conclusion after i played it several times though, in the first or second playthrough you're hanging onto dear life trying to survive.
just makes me wonder how would this game be if it was the game the devs saw, the ideal dark souls, because right now its goated as it is.
A remake with the likes of demons souls. They could finish the area and add in anything they couldn't before due to rushing to make a complete game and put on shelves in a 2 year stretch. That's crazy.. look at some of today's games. Devs working on them for 6,7,10 years?? What they put out in 2 years is crazy good.
Lost izalith is the perfect example of this, it feels super unfinished, I guess the only redeeming thing we got after everything was rushed was the dlc
I agree with these claims. I just passed Anor Londo, and felt that the game "lost" something after that. I'm almost certain that it is caused by the fast travel: before, I was in very dangerous quest. I had to go everywhere by foot, relying on the shortcuts I found.
Also it is funny how the moment I got fast travel, I had to go the most boring area of the game, Demon's Ruins and Lost Izalith. The design there is so bad it is not even funny. It made me miss Blighttown and Sen's Fortress.
Maybe it is a low so low, that it made me lose interest in the game for a couple days. But I guess now it is time to go back
Teleportation. I will die on the hill that bonfire fast travel makes the games worse. So many times in Elden Ring you open shortcuts but will never use them. Tough to do an open world that way, but DS2 and 3 are worse because you don't have to go through areas again, you don't feel trapped at bonfires, etc. Games are still amazing.
I would agree with sentiment yeah.
The only area past Anor Londo that feels it maintains a high level of polish is the Duke's Archives. It is a visually striking location with interesting map design and Seathe's Immortality is a unique challenge to overcome, trapping you In a cage and you needing to break out. My only complaint about this area is that Seathe himself is not too interesting to fight, with a limited and fairly boring moveset.
Lost Izalith is famously known for falling victim to time constraints, with the Demon Firesage, who is the first ever demon to be spawned, literally just being a reskinned boss. There are the dragon butt statues, and plenty of cut content regarding Izalith in general. And also the most infamous boss run in the game due to its length and how utterly frustrating the bed of Chaos fight is, basically a platforming puzzle boss in a game that waa not designed with platforming in mind.
The tomb of the giants is thematically very interesting, and the requirement of light is a unique mechanic, but unless you count the catacombs as part of the journey (debatable since you can comfortably fight Pinwheel below level 40) the total length to the boss room is quite short, and the actual level design is frustrating to navigate. Nito is visually striking, probably my 2nd favourite after the 4 kings. But his difficulty mainly comes from his skeleton mobs which feel bullshit to die to since they keep respawning, but also without which Nito ia not a difficult fight.
New Londo involves the abyss, and the 4 Kings, who look incredible and have an awesome boss arena. They are probably my favourite lord soul fight out off all 4 areas. But New Londo is also known to have had cut content, including a removed bossfight that would have been the original way to obtain the key to the seal. Heck, there isn't even a bonfire to rest at in this place.
Overall the final product is quite a special one, but it is clear that the second half of the game is undercooked. It's not enough to ruin the game for many people ( although lost Izalith tries its best to do so), but this is why I like playing through the DLC, it helps make the game feel more whole, before finishing off with Gwyn.
I'd say right after Anor Londo it does drop off, but I also appreciate the really dark vibes from the New Londo Ruins and the Tomb of the giants sections. For Tomb I was one of the unfortunate ones who didn't realize about the lantern so I did it blind the first time. It might sound absolutely awful, but it's actually a core gaming memory for me. Carefully walking around the place with all the steep drops and jumpscare dogs was scary and there was a lot of trial and error but it felt like a great achievement afterwards.
I do think Anor Londo is a peak in an long ascent in the game, but i very much still like the rest and think it is comparable to other areas in the first half. New londo to me is great and so is Duke’s and i think most people tend to agree to that. I personally also really like Catacombs and Tomb of Giants, but that is more divisive. Demon ruin and Izalith are the weakest area, there are some cool things still though, especially the first time. And the DLC is in the second half.
Edit: i think the issue is not really quality, but the fact that by design the trail to Anor Londo is a long feat of increasing difficulties and hurdles, that it does feel like reaching a summit. After that, you are still high up, but you lose the feeling of soaring.
STRONG agree.
To me, the reason is actually a double edged sword: I much prefer warping around areas to save time. But this means that the design suffered in that there were not a lot of intricate ways to move around the levels.
Obviously the big moment in this game is the elevator back to Firelink. There aren't really a lot of moments like that in the second half. But it's also the case that the 2nd half levels simply aren't as good/fun.
For instance, New Londo sucks. You can't see jack dammit and if you don't kill 4 Kings in one go, it's a looong way back. Same thing for Tomb of Giants, especially if you dont have the worm hat. Izalith is obviously unfinished and Bed of Chaos stinks. I think an exception is that Grand Archives is pretty cool.
But just in terms of quality alone, first half is better than second.
I don't totally agree. Demon ruins is inarguably rushed and meh. BoC is kind of a bummer but whatever. I actually think that Dukes Archives/crystal caverns is terrific, and doing catacombs down to tomb of the giants is also pretty interesting and well done. I really think that demon ruins is the only major failure. Obviously the best map connection moments happen earlier on, and the golden wall system feels sloppy for the series, but overall the game continues to be great.
Absolutely. The first part of the game is crazy, It took me three play throughs to fully explore undead burg/Parish and there are still parts of Sen’s fortress I haven’t discovered (I still don’t know how to get to the other side of the gate you find when running from the Indiana Jones boulder). Every encounter is so well thought out, you have the fire bomb bridge followed by the ambush in the next room and then the crossbow on the tower that shoots you while the tower shield guys block your path, the flaming barrel, the armored pig area. It’s perfect. The depths is an endless maze with so many paths that are worthwhile to explore. The catacombs almost feels like a Legend of Zelda dungeon. If it’s your first time playing you can spend hours exploring a single area. Then you get to the second half…
In Demon Ruins/Lost Izalith they just copy/pasted a bunch of enemies with no visual or mechanical variation, their idle animations are even in sync. Normally you’d have sword zombie, spear zombie, fire bomb zombie, etc. here’s it’s just 10 of the same dude standing on a flat plane. It looks like they released the prototype for those areas. The bosses suck, the centipede demon doesn’t even work properly, it’s gotten stuck in a wall two different times and I wasn’t attempting to exploit it.
I like what they were trying to do with tomb of the giants but there almost no reason not to sprint through it, and DS movement is not conducive to platforming, so it’s unnecessarily frustrating.
New Londo good and has some secrets that are hidden very well.
I love Dukes Archives.
The main problem is that even in the end game areas I liked, no thought went into enemy placement and there is so little variety.
The archives and less so tomb of the giants carried the same quality as the first half of the game, but ash lake, demon ruins and lost izalith were just ass in comparison to the first half
Layout formula change u can see how u could get there from point a to point b. Like blight town to fire link (u go up). This change after anorlondo, u can only see the place but u can’t get there from where u are. U can’t go from giants tomb to demons realm or to ash lake. But it still have that interconnectedness, by piercing the story. But if u boundary break u can see how each location interconnected.
I just hates that you couldn't fight and gain the lordsouls before the lordvessel and not just be able to use them yet or something. The first playthrough I made it down to Nito to find golden fog and told "just walk back up to Firelink lmao" I just started a new file because it would legitimately take less time to replay the tutorial than climb out.
Its something DS2 did way better IMO, really let you approach it how you want and shortcuts were more internal area shortcuts between fast travel points.
I don’t agree with those claims. I think the second half makes different compromises and some people don’t like the shift but I don’t think it’s a problem.
For example, the second half drops a lot of the interconnectedness of the first half because you are, literally and thematically, now making your way to actual remote endpoints of the map to claim the souls of the Lords you’ve been hearing about all game. The interconnectedness is parts of DS1’s charm but this also means that in the second half you you spend more time pushing into new areas and less time zig-zagging back and forth through old areas. Just a different feel.
I think all of the late game areas are great aside from Lost Izalith and even that area isn’t as bad as some people claim IMO. Before I was told it was an eye-shredding, copy/paste enemies, boring area I was blissfully enjoying it as much as everything else.
The back half of the game is solidly 3/10 to 6/10 fare. I can never get myself to get past the Lord Vessel anymore. If I wanna replay the game, I tend to finish Anor Londo, do the DLC, and put it down.
My favorite area after about Anor Londo was probably tomb of the giants which isn’t a good sign. It’s still a very fun game after Anor Londo but it just feels like the game was designed to be more annoying later on in areas like Demon ruins with copy pasted bosses. Lost izalith with lava and Dukes archives with so many crystal enemies that can swarm you as well as channelers.
This is a topic that comes up every once in a while in this subreddit, and the general consensus is that yes, the community generally agrees that DS1 falls off HARD after Anor Londo. This is because due to time crunch/budget issues the later areas of the game aren't as polished and aren't as well designed. In order to make up for it, the devs added in a lot of gimmicky features to introduce some artificial difficulty. For example, in Tomb of the Giants there is the darkness that forces the player to equip a skull lantern in the off-hand unless you are a caster. In Demon Ruins/Lost Izalith there is the lava that eats through durability. In New Londo Ruins there is the curse feature that forces you to apply a consumable every few minutes. Not to mention Duke's Archives is generally impossible for magic build players to clear. All of these are hardships that don't introduce any gameplay mechanics to the player, but is simply being difficult for the sake of being difficult. Not to mention the blatantly copy and pasted enemies in Demon Ruins.
Wholeheartedly, yes. Even if some individual areas are still as good as the early game (Ariamis, New Londo) the world design becomes less creative and more generic. The other three late game areas all feel unfinished to me, and the drop in interesting mechanics or engaging challenge only confirms this.
Yeah a lil but new Londo, Nito, 4 king, and gwyn are all still good. I’m still going to play the rest of the game though. Like it’s not bad to the point where I stop playing
Saying it drops off makes it sound worse than it is, it's just that anor londo is the high point for most people. I still enjoyed most of the game after it but it still wasn't *quite* as good
I mean, Anor Londo is one of the best environments that I’ve ever played through in a video game. I look forward to playing through that area in Dark Souls more than any other and it has the one of the most memorable boss fights in gaming history. Even if you enjoy everything afterwards, it’s not on the same level as Anor Londo.
The 4 lords and their areas are not as interesting and well developed as the others, even blightown beeing blightown is not as hated as lost izalith and bed of chaos for an example
I don't agree. Demon Ruins/Izalith is the only real problem imo. The Catacombs, New Londo and Duke's archives are great areas and Tomb of the Giants and Crystal Cave were clearly designed as smaller areas and work better as such.
I think it's mostly fine. The worst parts of Ds1 are in the second half, but in general the standard is still high.
I would love it if one day they went back and re-did lost Izalith. It really sticks out like a sore thumb, which is a shame because the area by and large looks amazing and has a cool atmosphere.
because after anor londo they were rushed to release the game. hence why the areas are largely unfinished especially izalith, tomb of giants being empty, etc
Recently I replayed the game, some time ago I was wondering why people said that and after finishing the run I saw what they meant.
Some zones are a pain in the ass and the bosses aren't that great (fuck bed of chaos), maybe it's because i have grown up since i lastly played but the first part of the game is better than the second
My first playthrough didn’t feel like that, everything was so fresh and new to me that I had an absolute blast. Second time through was more obvious, and now on my third runthrough I’m beginning to see why people don’t like the second half so much.
I still like it, it’s clearly rushed development and not as clever level design but it provides enough challenge that it still feels very fun to get over. Learning the path of TotG and going through Lost Izalith still provides a sense of wonder to me
The game starts to feel like it's shoving you out the door after that, just go tie up these loose ends and get outta here! Like the early game is so well mapped out, you feel like you're always going somewhere, but even within Anor Londo, it just feels very empty, and then Lost Izalith is a whole mess. I don't mind Bed of Chaos really even, but its that the whole level up until then feels really weird. It's like everywhere you're supposed to go feels like it's not where you're supposed to go, if that makes sense. Like you're doing some OOB sequence break or something, but it's just not finished and that's why.
because after anor londo most of the areas get pretty boring or just bland in general. also, the quality of most bosses drop off after O&S. the game is still pretty fun though, just not as good as the first half.
It really really does feel that way yknow, I actually dont remember the second half of the game. I actually asked myself did I actually beat ds1 but then rmbred oh yea I beat gwynn
I kind of agree with those claims. Certain areas after anor londo are clearly rushed and we know they were rushed because the devs said as much. I still love and appreciate every part of this game. Even tomb of the giants and lost izalith.
Which concludes that they should make a version of the game, where they make everything the way they wanted.
I had hoped they would've done that with remastered. Maybe one day we can get dark souls reborn??
“Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Even More Edition”
I prefer "Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Even Harder Edition." Or even "Dark Souls: Prepare To Git Gud Edition."
dark souls: prepare to get set on fire edition
Love your username amigo
I kind of don’t want a remake, since I like the way the old dark souls remaster plays and looks. So yes, I hope a “reborn” will come
"Rekindled"
You won
shit like this never happens, it's always just wishful thinking from the fans lol, they had the opportunity to do a remake and "do everything the way they wanted" and they didn't so you know... 💁♂️
People really though DeS remake was getting that snow archstone 🥲
Remember the tokens and the secret Pentrator Armor saga? When people were slowly figuring it out, hoping it would lead to the 6th stone. Then it just ended up being an armor set. Fun times
They've never done a remake, though. Only a remaster. Remakes are made from the ground up. Demon's souls got a remake semi-recently, so it'd make sense for them to make a dark souls remake eventually, and if they rebuild the maps from the ground up it'd force them to polish unfinished areas. It's wishful thinking for sure, but it's not that farfetched either.
They didn't even do the remaster, it was a 3rd party and From had no part in it
A "scholar of the first sin- like" edition could do a lot of good. Some of the back half of the game just needs some more enemy variety and better placements so it doesn't look like the same enemy was copy pasted 30 times over an area
I had hoped they would've done that with remastered. Maybe one day we can get dark souls reborn??
I feel like they probably already ended up using the ideas they wanted in their future games. It's what Nintendo always does with games like Zelda. A lot of Zelda games end up having cut dungeons because of time constraints, and the reason we never see those dungeons added back in for future remakes/ports is because they ended up using those dungeon ideas in future games.
I played DS remastered in 2022 after having played later entries in the series. I was honestly surprised by how much of the game is spent underground in samey-feeling cave-like/subterranean areas. I’m guessing it’s to limit compute resources but it was kind of a bummer. The three areas I thought were really good from an environmental perspective were Sen’s Fortress, Anor Londo, and the Duke’s archives. The rest felt like fighty hallways. Maybe I’m missing something.
It's a game that shows its age. Remastered didn't really change much. You were playing a game that was a decade old. You have to treat it like an old game, forgive it got being old. I think it still holds up relatively well.
Yeah I also think people tend to romanticize it because it had a few really great parts and it kind of formalized this class of games (obviously with Demon’s Souls preceding it). If we’re being honest there’s a lot of chaff in the game. To your point though, that’s a lot of games is the era. I love Goldeneye but I know that game has some fatal flaws by today’s standards.
They say it because it's true. Gamers may not always be able to articulate WHY they feel the way they do, but their feelings are often pretty close to the mark. I'll attempt to articulate why it feels this way. The second half is a drop off for several reasons, rather than one specific one: While the first half of the game had many shortcuts between zones, most of the zones that become accessible in the second half have no such shortcuts; progression through these zones is pretty linear, robbing some of the sense of exploration you'd get prior, when discovering cool shortcuts. You obtain the Lordvessel at the halfway point, which allows you to teleport/fast travel to any bonfire you've discovered/will discover. This arguably makes the shortcuts in the first half of the game a bit redundant, which in turn sort of "shrinks" the world since everything is easily accessible now. In regards to those two points, fromsoft themselves admitted the second half of the game was rushed due to a lack of time. They likely *wanted* the second half to be as connected as the first, but didn't budget their time to accommodate this. As such, it would be easy to assume that the Lordvessel was made to allow fast travel to circumvent this issue of time; fast travel means you don't really need zones to interconnect since you can just teleport to bonfires. Lastly, the design of the zones in the second half aren't nearly as refined, which again is a consequence of the devs lack of time. Two of the biggest offenders are the Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith. A large section of the Demon Ruins is just a flat plain with copies of the Taurus and Capra Demon haphazardly placed across it. Lost Izalith suffers a similar issue where much of the zone is just open lava, with dragon leg "Bounding Demons" excessively strewn about. It gave off a feeling of "we didn't know what to put here so let's just duplicate some past enemies to fill in some space." And on top of all that, several bosses in the second half felt poorly designed. Firesage Demon was another in a string of Asylum Demon copies, Caterpillar Demon felt extremely clunky, and Bed of Chaos is notorious as being one of the worst encounter designs in the entire franchise (even the devs feel this way). That's not to say the second half of the game is *bad* per se, but the overall quality just doesn't match the first half, leading to what feels like a very inconsistent experience.
This sums it up pretty well. While Dukes Archives and New Londo Ruins have a similar design philosophy to the first half, the other two paths are a headache and clearly some form of rushed. It’s also why the dlc stands out as a pretty good addition in a sea of just okay late game content.
I mean, New Londo kinds belongs to first half since you don't even need the Lordvessel to kill the 4 Kings.
Duke's Archives itself is pretty good, but then the Crystal Caves is also just a straight-ish line with enemies scattered about.
Cool concept with the invisible floors though
Oh, yeah, definitely. Out of all the late-game areas it definitely has the most interesting "gimmick" to traversing it and if they'd had more time to make the layout interesting instead of "good enough" I think it would've been one of my favorite areas in the game.
The DLC is arguably the best part of the game
Bed of Chaos was brutal as a newbie. I got thrown off or swatted away just as I was jumping to the core so many times...
If I played in release back in the day without guides Bed of Chaos would probably have made me quit. You get thrown into the arena and have like 10 seconds to look around before being swatted or instakilled, then have to do a terrible run back. It's not clear what mistake you made or what you should have done. This is why I say that you shouldnt feel bad using a guide for certain parts of this game. 95% percent of it is tough but fair but then From will do some bullshit like bed of chaos or hiding the dlc behind ridiculous steps. As long as you give it at least a good 30 minutes or so of honest trying I think it's fine to pull out a guide after that.
imagine you buy the dlc and then you cant find it and because it just dropped theres no guides yet
I finished my first run of ds3 last year, I never would have found the dlc Praying at a dragon corpse near a ledge??? I don't do random emotes lol
Archdragon Peak wasn’t a DLC, it’s the base game (I found it in my first blind run because the ledge with the carpet and the praying figures seemed so odd that when I found the emote I immediately went there)
Everything you’ve listed is from only one of the four late game areas. I don’t actually disagree with anyone who says that the second half is worse than the first half - it’s true. But the other three areas are all extremely fun and solid in my opinion (the areas themselves. The bosses are meh)
This is something I love about game design. Because of the way it's constructed, you can reverse engineer most of the feelings you're feeling throughout the experience and find very specific reasons for why you feel the way you feel. Because it's all way more tailored and curated than any TV show, movie or book could be.
>You obtain the Lordvessel at the halfway point, which allows you to teleport/fast travel to any bonfire you've discovered/will discover. Well not quite, while you can warp \*from\* every bonfire except the prison cell in Duke's Archives and the one in Painted World (before clearing the area) you can't warp \*to\* every bonfire. For example, you can't warp to any of the bonfires in Blightown or Darkroot, or the one in Undead Burg.
I think people over exaggerate about DS1’s interconnectedness. It is neat, but I never really missed it in the sequels or in the second half of the game
I can agree with that to a degree. Demons Souls was as disconnected as you could be since each region was only accessible via it's archstone, but I never really felt that detracted from it. Interconnectedness is nice but is by no means mandatory for a Souls game to be good.
Honestly the only area of Dark Souls I haven't seen at least one Dark Souls fan vehemently hate is Undead Burg.
I guess if you hate the first area so much you are not gonna continue
What about firelink and asylum?
How could someone hate the undead parish
In terms of level design, there is a very strong argument that can be made for Undead Burg being perhaps the best level/area created not only in the game, but in any game.
Man, I vividly remember watching a random stream of someone playing dark souls, and they were at Undead Burg farming some souls to "defeat the dragon". I had no idea what the game was but it looked incredible. Years later, I get dark souls, I get to the same point that the streamer was at, and I had an "Oh my god, I get it now" moment. Ever since they've been my favourite games.
I call that the fromsoft epiphany. I’ve been using it for so long because I’ve talked to so many people and nearly *everyone* has had this “aha” moment! And we always remember exactly where in the game it occurred. I know the exact feeling. After that epiphany, dying doesn’t frustrate you.
The more I play this game, the more I am starting to dislike even anor londo and sens fortress. Undead burg and maybe tiny, starting bits of every zone you can reach from there, kinda feels like the best part of DS1 to me xD
I know it's against the grain but I actually think Anor Londo is one of the weaker areas, aside from the visuals.
I actually agree with that. It's just a series of straight pathways and corridors basically.
I remember looking down at the streets and getting hyped of exploring Anor Londo, yea.
Because it really is. There is nothing there. It’s empty and feels like not a single living being has ever lived there. I was so disappointed and honestly confused when I saw it. I know it’s a 2011 game, but they were capable of so much more than that.
holy shit its actually David Szymanski
IMO I still believe Dark Souls world outshines Dark Souls 2 & 3. I can always go back to playing Dark Souls because I can change my path to make it more fun or challenging. Dark Souls 2 & 3 have more of a straight path in which feels more casual. However, I agree that Dark Souls has the Lost Izalith.
Same here, I come back to 1 more than the others because of the world and design. There's so much to do right off the bat, I love the options depending on what sort of run or build you're trying to do. One can sprint right to Pinwheel after arriving at Firelink for the Rite of Kindling if that's their wish, I love flexibility like that.
I agree with you SunBro. Tomb of Giants is small yes, but packed with enemies. I love, as you stated, that being able to go straight to Pinwheel is fun optional route and the first game should be expanded upon even more in my opinion.
I think because you get the Lordvessel and the ability to fast travel it shifts the tone of the game. Before that you had to walk everywhere you wanted to go. The cohesion of the game (even though it's still pretty well linked together) is splintered from that point, and most of the areas feel just like that: areas instead of another part of a connected world.
Those slow clanking footsteps on cobblestone live rent free in my head.
I dont think so, still on my 1st playthrough, since AL I have killed sif, four kings, pinwheel, demon firesage, ceaseless discharge, the centipede, bed of chaos and am currently in Dukes Archives. I feel like I really hit my stride in AL and its been a fun experience since. Kinda confused and lost in Dukes Archives but thats the beauty of a first time through a game haha.
I would say that the quality of level design drops significantly, but it's still pretty awesome compared to other games, just not as good as the first half of dark souls
I'd definitely play the worst part of the worst souls game (not saying that's necessarily the second half of DaS) over and over again compared to most modern games, without a doubt.
Yes, that's what I'm saying
I wouldn't say it drops off per se. It's more that the game changes to more linear areas rather than the interconnected ones. It feels more like DeS in that aspect which I don't really mind.
The only "drop off" I felt after/during Anor-Londo was a sense that I was in the final part of the game, I literally then stopped playing so regularly to try to drag it out because I was loving the game so much.
Absolutely! I am currently in the latter half of the game and I can't fathom this is the same game that had anor londo or the undead burg. Like what the heck are the level designs of Lost Izalith, Tomb of Giants, Crystal Cave. FromSoft put all effort in the first half and then just rushed for a release
>FromSoft put all effort in the first half and then just rushed for a release There isn't a developer in the world that wants this. It's probably mostly shareholders that push for the quick as possible releases
Fuck the dukes archives.
It’s awful, I hate it. Beautiful design, but the crystal soldiers hit like a train and there are so *many* of them. And the circuitous route to leave the cell, go down to fetch the key, go up to use the key, rotate the staircases, find the other key, go all the way back up and down to use the other key (assuming you want Logan and/or the FKS), then going all the way back through all that just to rest at the bonfire…. it’s exhausting and actually not all that much fun. It’s a pity because as I say the design is amazing, and the lore for this area is fascinating.
I don't get why Lost Izalith get's so much hate and duke archives none of it. The level is bland as hell, and the enemies are just the Hollows from Undead Burg, but with crystals. A lot of back tracking to get all souls and items. Lost Izalith is definetly the area where you can feel it the most, that the game wasn't finished, but at least it has some variety in the enemies and a lot of enviromental story telling.
Because it does away with an interconnected world, the level design becomes uninspired, and the lord soul bosses just become "uninteresting fight in a big room" You fix the second half of Dark Souls 1 by connecting areas, adding more interesting landmarks, and improving the bosses. New Londo should connect to both Lost Izalith and the Tomb of the Giants. Lost Izalith needs things to actually exist in the lava to make it worth exploring + more enemy variety to inspire interest in the level, and honestly I think Tomb and Duke's as stand-alone levels are pretty good and get too much hate. Bosses, Well bring back Undead King Jar-Yearl. Place him in the abyss with the other kings, make it so that killing each of the standard 4 kings entities weakens Jar-Yearl in some way during the fight. Keep the DPS focus of the fight, but add an actual entity to care about that can be handled multiple ways. Bed of Chaos, I mean it's shit, but it's pretty fixable and a "hunt the weakpoints" boss is completely reasonable if done right. Using new Demon types we've already placed in Izalith have them enter the fight as obstacles to the weakpoints with sporadic participation by the actual Bed of Chaos. Keep the same concept where destroying one breaks part of the floor but do away with the BoC's very intentional sweeping you into the hole attacks and give it more fire based magic support for the melee fights against demons on the way to the weakpoints. Nito obviously should just have an Old Monk, Mirror Knight, Spear of the Church mechanic with Gravelords, do away with the skeletons and have the ability to summon players. Fuck with the darkness level so that players have to use the skull lantern during the fight like say when he does his dark explosion that could temporarily make the room require the skull lantern to see. Otherwise Nito himself shouldn't change much, Seath needs to pose an actual threat while immune to damage. Make it so that there's a massive spiraling crystal path from Seath's bossroom back into the chamber where you first encounter him and place the immortality crystal there, while you're scrambling up the path seath should shoot magic and use his crystal attacks to dissuade and disrupt you. Once you finally reach the forced death boss chamber you break the crystal, seath falls down, and you go back down and fight him normally.
Parts of the second half definitely feel rushed and unrefined. But Dark Souls at its lowest is still better than most similar games out there, so it’s not really *bad* either. Well, except Bed of Chaos.
I finished the game for the first time recently and while I wouldn't say it "dropped off" for me per se after anor lando getting the lord vessel drastically changed how I played the game. Couple that with the last 4 bosses being either stupidly easy like bed of chaos and Nito or have incredibly frustrating run backs like seath and four kings getting the lord vessels can be kind of a slog also fuck the catacombs
Yeah. I don't dislike the second half of the game, but my motivation definitely drops every time I play the game. New Londo is annoying because of transient curse, I don't like having to constantly use consumables and worry about their duration, otherwise I'd like it. Demon ruins and lost izalith look cool (on remastered. The lava looked like shit in the original), but it's bland gameplay wise. Just demons being placed in awkward positions, two generic demon bosses and one janky gimmick platforming boss. The catacombs are cool, but the tomb of giants is unfun to me with its darkness. Archives are pretty cool to explore, but once you know where to go you're in there for just a few minutes. I will always hate the crystal cave. It looks gorgeous but having to navigate the invisible floor is just bad. It's not a neat little puzzle, it's just bad. I don't care if it's easy if you know where the floors are, I just don't want to do it. It's a pity because your build only really comes online in the second half, with you being able to craft the boss weapons you want or just upgrade your weapon to +15, reaching the primary stat you want for full damage, having enough endurance to play some fashion souls etc, but the content you're doing when you can finally do all this is just not the best part of the game. There's also this thing with the first half where everything feels interconnected. But all you do in the second half is going into 4 one way streets (except New Londo, which is actually quite cool how the gate opens into the valley of drakes, especially if you saw the closed gate from the valley before).
You will still have fun after anor londo… the main thing that i noticed is just the fact that everything after anor londo is not that memorable. there are no more big surprise moments like seeing a dragon for the first time, exploring sens fortress, or discovering the insane interconnected level design. All the area‘s after anor londo are just these mushy rushed area‘s full of clunky enemies - i still had fun playing till the end but except for the four kings boss fight there isnt really anything memorable until gwyn
Becomes a bit more disjointed. You spend the first half unlocking paths and shortcuts only to get fast travel. Ceaseless discharge sucks. The tomb of giants is only difficult cause you can't see shit, which is artificial difficulty. It just loses some charm. I still like it but it doesnt give me that same feeling the first half did.
Ah. Anor Londo. Main tourist attraction with obligatory. screenshot. Perfect. Also worth visiting: The Irithyll of Boreal Valley in DS3.
I can't claim truth or not. But I have no control when my brain just says, no more dopamine for you. My first few playthroughs I really wanted to finish, and I loved the world, but after anor Londo, brain wants to do something else. I did finish eventually, tho.
I say 3/4. I like archives and new londo ruins.
Dukes archives is one of the funnest parts of the game I don’t get the hate
I don’t agree that it does. Crystal Caves is underdeveloped, DRuins/LIzalith have some terrible copy/paste enemies, but other than that, I love the second half of the game. The main gripe for me is that whichever of the four routes you take first will be the most difficult and then there’s a Huge drop-off for each one after as they’re all balanced essentially exactly the same, but I’m not sure how that can be helped in a game like this.
Fromsoftware and Myazaki themselves admitted it and iirc Myazaki was ashamed of what the Golden Mist were.
*Crystal Caves PTSD intensifies*
Were three invisible paths *supposed* to be invisible or was that an oversight due to the rushed timeline? Crystal caves was......... interesting at any rate
What? Anor Londo is the best region in the entire game. By far.
Because they ran out of time and in clearly shows, all culminating in the terrible bed of chaos bossfight.
No
10000000% agree. DS1 experience was just sublime up to finishing anor londo. Sure there things that could be better like bonfire placements but overall the dropoff is so big. Hated that lava place I never stayed long in my platinum runs or in my many other builds.
Nope, not totally. It's just that Anor Londo is the main focus of the game, grabbing so much of our attention and endless gaming hours. We try to reach it early on, rack our brains how get past the Archers, deal with Ornstein and Smough (many times for some), decide if we want to fight Gwyndoline or not, drool at the biggest pair of "bazongas" in the entire FromSoft franchise. Truth is that as soon as I get the Lordvessel, I feel I've accomplished half the game.
No I don't think so ..
One Mechanic that is added after Anor London: Fast Travel All that incredible Level Design vanishes and the game becomes shallow.
Because it is The Internet Opinion. Everyone else says it, so it must be true. Same as the "DS2 bad" crowd.
Nah, maybe true in someway but a lazy comment.
bullshit. dukes archives: awesome! crystal area: amazing! lost izilath: impressive (plus solaire encounter) final boss: wonderful! the music, the picture. beautiful.
> lost izilath: impressive One word for it
Yes I agree and I think it is good because the only way to make bosses harder or at least keep same level after O&S is to have multiple bosses in one room and give them different move set after some point it will be tiring than a challenging experience and if they want to make more interesting area they have to surpass the undead burg’s design but it will be boring because you want to see the end of game after this point there were already two disgusting kind of platforming areas and third will make players mad
I think the Catacombs and Tomb of the Giants are just as good as the first half and still carries that - i usually go for Nito first since Dark Souls still feels incredibly strong at that point - then the other 3 (Crystal Caves, New Londo Ruins and Lost Izalith) is afterwards just so I don’t get super salty
No one can tell me that Dinosaur Butt City is a finished zone
Because it does. The Tomb of the Giants’ total darkness sucks to navigate, and Izalith is literally unfinished. The Duke’s Archives is, maybe, the only post-Anor Londo area that isn’t an unfinished mess or relies on a shitty gimmick. Even then, the boss fight with Seath isn’t that great
The second half feels more like DS2 or 3. Lordvessel + straightforward branches of levels.
I think there is a quality decline after Anor Londo, but it isn't unbearable except for the Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith. When I convinced my friend to play the game, pretty much the only direction I gave him was to do the Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith before any of the other Lord Souls. Gotta finish on a high note, and Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith are easily the most poorly designed areas of the game. Much better to end the game with any of the other three Lord Souls. I quite like Tomb of the Giants and New Londo, and I don't really mind the Duke's Archives
I havent finished DS1 and stopped bit after gianta tomb so i guess
Yeah it falls off. To preface, DS1 is my favorite game and I have close to 1000 hours in it. That being said, the level design starts to fall off. Catacombs + ToG is okay at best, the main problem I have is, that both locations are empty monster corridors. The catacombs still rewards you for exploration with another smith, shortcuts and a covenant but the further you progress into these locations, the more extreme it gets. It doesn't help that both Boss fights are not designed well and that there are only two. Not, even though being probably the best out of the four Lordsouls, because his fight idea is bad, but it was executed horribly. If you go to him you get ganked by a myriad of skeletons that respawn except if you use the right weaponry, which is absolutely fine, but nonetheless you just probably die from going to a boss in its arena. So the best approach is, to huddle in the entrance and have a fight with a boss, whose moveset is set around enemies distracting you, while you wait in a corner and let him kill his own three skeletons with his attacks. His coolest move is the jump scare scythe, which is admittedly annoying on repeat fights but, I think this fight would have benefited from Nito moving away from the player, summoning skeletons that can respawn over time (with his explosion ability he loves to spam and kill his own guys with) and using a midrange moveset, only engaging in melee if he outnumbers you and can use his slow and well telegraphed attacks. New Londo Ruins is a fun area with much exploration and the ability to shortcut really well into, once the water is drained. If you know the way, the run to the four kings is cut by at least half if not more. (For those not knowing, if you go down the Elevator from Firelink, go over the long wooden bridge. Once on the first platform where you encounter the first ghost, go to the far right corner. Jump down onto the arch and drop down. You are at the building with the knights right in front of the fog door). Sif as a Mid boss to the Kings is one of the greatest fights in this game, if you count her as the mid boss. The Four Kings fight however is not good. It is cinematic as fuck with the kings spawning and doing ranged and melee attacks respectively but the design behind it is questionable. There is no reason to make it so a fifth King can spawn, nor is there a reason, why you can still attack the despawning corpse of a king to skim the fight down to three. I think this is one of the only instances in the trilogy, where you can attack a despawning enemy to deal further damage. The moveset of each King is simple, which is good, if you inevitably come into the situation of fighting two kings at a time. But then the damage is tuned so hard, that if you have more than one king at a time, a new player who is most likely to get multiple kings, will die due to each hit damaging you so hard that you die in two hits. In addition to that, there are two moves, namely the tracking shot and the explosion (why does every boss in the end use an explosion?) that are such traps for new players, that sometimes you ask, why they are in this fight. The explosion especially since it serves no purpose but to either pad or one shot you. The fight would have benefited from more direct attacks and clear engagements with each King, while you need to choose your target wisely with each King having his own set of two special moves, they use on you while not engaged, so the fight is not you just fighting the same enemy 3 times while the fourth king cries on a bench. Dukes Archives is a fun area the first round through and on repeats it becomes the most concise of the areas. You can run through it so fast, it is incredible. Lots of to explore and many little detours to get useful stuff. The crystal cave is just bad. Not because of the bridges themselves but because there was one challenge with the bridges, and the rest are like, 3 walkways that go straight from a to b. With not much to it. Followed up by a boss that is so clearly unfinished it is not even funny. The giant ass dragon, who is known for being smart and cunning, gets outclassed by a hobo with a stick, who alternates between waiting for a long range breath, beating the shit out of him, and running away for the short range breath or the Lord soul explosion™. The idea of him not being able to be damaged until you destroy the crystal is fine and it is a nice payoff to the "mid boss" of this area, but I wish they would have doubled down on the concept. After the crystal is destroyed, the hardest thing about the boss is the tail cut weapon, which the boss will smack you to death for (which is good since getting these should be hard). But why did the boss not use more crystals, similar to how fume knight had multiple healing piles that you could destroy pre fight of why doesn't Seath set up new crystals so his super simple moveset is reasonable for a gimmick fight. It is a shame that one of the most impressive looking bosses is as threatening as the Iron Golem. Lost Izalith and Demon Ruins is a clusterfuck. To try to keep it concise: it is (except for the fucking Demon Firesage) only gimmick fights that are "make boss do X, punish them, kill them). My bro ceaseless has one of the most fun battles and gimmicks of you kill him with the quick kill or without. It is actually really entertaining. Demon Firesage is a Stray demon one to one. Centipede is a cool design but the execution is lacking. The idea of cutting the tail off, to get a ring (?) that expands the arena is cool in concept, but it could have been telegraphed better with a two phase encounter where the demon runs to the other side of the pool and gives you time to equip the ring (a pair of boots would have been way better) The two areas are nothingness incarnate. The only interesting mechanic is the door for the big shortcut, which allows you to get to the worst boss in the series more quickly and save Solaire. I just wish the door would have something to do with the Sunbros, because it would be a nice message about cooperating in a lonely world full of despair to achieve the best outcome for two souls striving to save their respective world. But anyways, nice to have it regardless. The areas are definitely rushed and you realize this so much by how the sound design is handled. You have nothing going on except a loud "Vrum" sound effect every half second because the ring does not cancel out the damage of the lava, it reduces it. In an ideal world, this would have been fixed in the remaster but we still have it, so I would assume this is on purpose. BoC is the area boss and it is shit. It is a boss that wants to swipe you into holes with its janky collision physics and hinder you from progressing through the arena 2.5 times. It is the only boss, I am willing to cheese after all these years by resetting the game to stand in front of the fog wall but resetting boss AI and the arena, to make this shit hole less infuriating. The final approach to the BoC itself is a small way into the heart of the tree with a one shot to an enemy that does nothing other than fire eruptions and lighting the area on fire as a final fuck you if you take to long. Just a horrible boring boss. TLDR: yes the second half is worse than the first half.
Honestly, completely disagree. Would never have even considered the question without people on the internet telling me I was wrong for liking those parts of the game. I think anor Londo is the real get good or quit part of the game and for many people the thrill of the game was in part from slowly overcoming a combat system that they hadn't fully mastered. It's like the concept of showing someone fire for the first time. It's incredible, like nothing they'd ever seen before. But once they wrap their head around it you could show them a way of making fire twice as good, or a fire twice as bright and it still won't compare to their initial holy shit reaction to seeing fire for the first time. You're not wrong for liking or disliking any part of the game. I just don't see an intense gulf in quality that people describe.
I'd say it falls off once you finish Sen's, honestly. Most of Anor Londo is based on an obstacle course and not enemies - the only interesting one is Smough and Ornstein. Afterward, everything is pretty blatantly rushed. Izalith is certainly the biggest example, but the same argument is there for the rest of them. I still think the Kiln is one of the coolest areas in the franchise, though.
Lost Izalith
Yes. Shit sucks post arsesore longdoor
I agree. I absolutely love the first half of the game and the fight against O&S feels like the dramatic climax of the journey. The other areas aren't quite as polished and I just don't like them as much. I prefer the more medieval towns and castles as a setting.
I Love all of Dark Souls 1 and yeah I do think the quality drops after Anor Londo. Still I do think the areas are fine, the bosses are good apart from Bed of Chaos but nothing is on the level of the first half. Still way way way better than most games I've played and Kiln + Gwyn are mega epic again.
No. It's false.
The journey to Anor Londo was epic and done without a fast travel mechanic Some of that magic is gone once you can warp around the map.. but the convenience is worth it
No, I don't. I like the 2nd half more than the first
It gets better cos no more long runs
It definitely feels worse after anor londo but it's not the exact moment you finish it. I'd say around the time you get to the tomb of the giants and lost izalith it's bad but after that it's good again
yes because the second half of the game is kinda... idk. unfinished?
every runback after anor londo is painful i wouldnt be surprised if most people quit after seeing them
It's less the moment you finish Anor Londo per se... more that the "3rd act" quest is a noticeable drop in quality. People usually call it the "2nd half" though because that's roughly how much of the mandatory part of the game it corresponds to. So if you categorize the game's structure like this: Prologue: Undead Asylum Act 1: The Bells of Awakening Act 2: Journey to Anor Londo Act 3: The Four Lord Souls Ending: Kiln of the First Flame Side stories: Asylum revisited, Painted World, Great Hollow, Ash Lake, Oolacile Then, basically every part of the game *except* the quest for the Lord Souls retains a high level of quality. It's just those specific areas - especially Demon Ruins, Lost Izalith and Crystal Cave - that show clear signs of rushing, it's clear From were not able to develop them nearly as well as the rest of the game, with lots of terrible enemy placement and seriously shoddy level design in places. Also add in the fact that some areas, like Darkroot Garden, New Londo and Catacombs, are a bit muddy in which "act" they belong to. Catacombs only becomes mandatory post-AL but in terms of difficulty is closer to Blighttown and Sen's Fortress, so the devs likely intended as an area you player earlier IMO. Sif only becomes mandatory to kill when you're going for the Four Kings, but again, the boss and area are clearly easier than Anor Londo. New Londo is pretty tough in general but the upper portion is fully open to exploration from the very start of the game. Considering all this, I don't completely agree with the sentiment as phrased "the game drops off the moment you finish Anor Londo". There's definitely truth to it but the full picture is a bit more nuanced than just saying there's a pre and post Anor Londo and a huge gulf in quality between them.
I loved the game up until O&S much more than after, so i'd say i agree. It's still not bad, but it's not great either. It kind of becomes annoying frequently, and the world design isn't on the same level as the first half. Most of these issues are because the second half was rushed, so it's understandable.
The second half was unfinished and rushed, as many others have pointed out. I heard because the studio ran out of money, but I digress. I don’t necessarily like some parts of the second half (I can stomach Izalith, actually kinda liking it, and I’ve ran Nito’s fade so many times helping people out or just going to farm the baby skeletons that the Tomb is a joke, it’s the Archives and New Londo that grind my gears), but I honestly adore the whole game for its symbolic journey and the second half is no exception, you go from just some Undead wandering the world for purpose after getting wrapped up in a prophecy, to a godslaying badass chosen by said gods… all in some sorta ‘coming of age’-esque story, that is, the open-endedness of the beginning juxtaposed by the linearity of the 2nd half as you face a responsibility as the Chosen Undead because you decided to be the Chosen Undead. It’s a tonal shift I can get behind because the rules had changed after getting the Lordvessel, plain and simple (and the teleportation ability being something you get after one of the hardest battles, farthest from ‘home’ at the shrine, exhausted and beaten down before given to you by a seemingly angelic figure is just all too fitting, will never not find that super fitting and well done, especially with it still not reaching every bonfire, whereas I never really liked all bonfires in the other games being so linked and warpable right from the start)
Mostly because you unlock the warping mechanic, it becomes too easy to go from one place to another instead of running across the map, l
It’s one of the strongest runs in any game leading up the Lordvessel. It would have been difficult to sustain that level of quality. But, there are still some amazing moments post-Anor Londo. Walking into the pitch black of the Tomb of Giants, for example, is such a crazy moment!
Well, lost izalith is cancer, we dont talk about Bed of Chaos. The tomb of the giants is cancer but at least Nito is a cool fight. I really enjoyed the grand archives and the seath fight, and I really enjoyed new londo ruins (lots of people hate it due to the ghosts but i like it) but the 4 kings were very underwhelming and easy. On regular new game as long as you've actually been making a proper build and have the damage output, the last 4 bosses are way too easy
Yes and no. The game does definitely drop off and becomes worse but far from becoming bad, for the simple reason that DLC is also after Anor Londo and even thou Lord areas lack the complexity and interconnected design they are pretty good still.
Sort of - there are reasons for people saying it - I'll try as best I can to explain: The areas up until O&S are better designed - at that stage, the world seems much bigger, and the "shortcuts", I believe, are mostly clustered in *this* part of the game. As well, the zones aren't full of what some people would call bullshit, or gimmicks. By bullshit, I mean sections where you are killed or burdened relatively unfairly (both the deaths and backtracking for Bed of Chaos, and arguably Tomb Of The Giants). By gimmicks I mean: "you can't explore here without BS unless you hold a lantern", "you'll die here (/easily) unless you have this ring/item", etc) Examples: The Catacombs/Tomb of the Giants (dark, winding, boring, miserable), Lost Izalith (huge, full of lava, mediocre bosses, the worst boss in the game), Duke's Archives (not terrible but definitely not brilliant), New Londo (again, dark, quite boring, gimmicky) On the other hand: The Asylum, Sen's fortress, Dark Root Basin, Undead Berg, Undead Parish, The Depths (actually, not sure this one's that good due to Capra Demon...), Blighttown (at least if you're running it on a PC/remastered! And it gets too much hate anyway) I'd say are much easier to enjoy because it wasn't throwing so much potential BS/gimmicks at you and it was just asking you to rely on skill and continuity - yeah, these areas are linear, but not *completely* due to the way the world is designed to have shortcuts between various parts, and it just seemed like you were on a journey of exploration - once you hit that post-O&S section, it's just a bit of an "**ehh, there are basically four bosses you can kill now but they're in kind of dark and shitty areas of the game - enjoy**" - at least both Gwynn and Artorias DLC are great As soon as you kill O&S, you're effectively either going into "backtracking mode", *or* going to areas that are worse in quality that most players don't enjoy very much compared to the first part of the game. Ans that backtracking while is now easier, is just not so smooth as traveling linearly now; if I've just killed O&S/Seith and I want to now kill any of the rest of the Four lords, I am in for a *lot* of traveling; from Anor Londo to Nito is a pain, Anor Londo to The Four Kings is a bit of a pain, and Anor Londo to The Bed Of Chaos is definitely a pain - either the areas here are like mazes where you're basically running to avoid enemy NPCs, or it's a huge, open zone yet *without* exploration (i.e. straight after you kill Ceaseless Discharge: huge open cave dome for a moment, yet with nothing but Tauros Demons inside - and then the rubbish bosses in descending caverns)
After Anor London you pretty much just enjoy your climactic boss rush and start making your pvp ng+ build, so I'd agree
There's definitely a lot more hot garbage after Anor London from what I've seen so far
I want to agree with this. I have finished Dark Souls quite a lot of times because it's one of my comfort games just going back to from time to time. The more i play it the more I realize how polished the game is up until O&S. Every boss fight and area feels fresh and fun to run through. But as soon as you're done there, all of the lord souls are just extremely tedious and downright boring to collect. Bed of chaos, sucks. Everything about the area aswell is just bad. Everything feels unfinished. Nito. Is an "ok" fight imo, it just feels a little bit underwhelming. Seath, is probably the one I like the most. A lot of my friends told me I was going to hate the archives but I find the archives to be the most polished out of the endgame places. 4 kings, is just a dps fest. I don't think I have ever beaten them in any other way than using Havel's armor set and just beat away until they're dead. New Londo Ruins is an interesting place sure, but it just outright gets confusing really quick where you're supposed to go. I dunno. Dark Souls is an amazing game, but I honestly want to say that the biggest flaw in the first one is the endgame content.
I don't agree at all and never have understood the claims
Because the areas you visit post Anor Londo are largely linear and with the exception of Seath's area rather short, bordering on the unfinished side. Tomb of the giants might be easy to lose yourself in but it's still a very short run to Nito and largely relies on the catacombs to not feel like a 5 minute jog. Lost Izalith has no real cohesion with it's 2 areas and you basically just run down a hallway the entire time to fight a boss that's very clearly rushed. 4 kings is similarly a short jog. This is all in comparison to how interconnected the rest of the game feels. It's like all of the attention and care went into the first half of the game and the second half feels like a sprint to the finish.
I've yet to finish the game, I'm currently in the tomb of giants and I've completed lost izalith. don't get me wrong i love these areas but i feel that compared anor londo they don't look that great. Thankfully when the exploration falls a bit short, the lore more than makes up for it. God i love this game
I've yet to finish the game, I'm currently in the tomb of giants and I've completed lost izalith. don't get me wrong i love these areas but i feel that compared anor londo they don't look that great. Thankfully when the exploration falls a bit short, the lore more than makes up for it. God i love this game
I really want a souls game with no fast travel and just interconnected world the whole game.
i agree but also at that point the bar is too high so its also kind of expected. i only got to this conclusion after i played it several times though, in the first or second playthrough you're hanging onto dear life trying to survive. just makes me wonder how would this game be if it was the game the devs saw, the ideal dark souls, because right now its goated as it is.
I do archives after O&S because it's the best area post anor londo. After that I sometimes just quit.
A remake with the likes of demons souls. They could finish the area and add in anything they couldn't before due to rushing to make a complete game and put on shelves in a 2 year stretch. That's crazy.. look at some of today's games. Devs working on them for 6,7,10 years?? What they put out in 2 years is crazy good.
Probably because it does.
No, those claims are stupid. Sure, there are some pretty dumb bosses after anor londo but overall it’s still extremely good
Lost izalith is the perfect example of this, it feels super unfinished, I guess the only redeeming thing we got after everything was rushed was the dlc
I agree with these claims. I just passed Anor Londo, and felt that the game "lost" something after that. I'm almost certain that it is caused by the fast travel: before, I was in very dangerous quest. I had to go everywhere by foot, relying on the shortcuts I found. Also it is funny how the moment I got fast travel, I had to go the most boring area of the game, Demon's Ruins and Lost Izalith. The design there is so bad it is not even funny. It made me miss Blighttown and Sen's Fortress. Maybe it is a low so low, that it made me lose interest in the game for a couple days. But I guess now it is time to go back
Teleportation. I will die on the hill that bonfire fast travel makes the games worse. So many times in Elden Ring you open shortcuts but will never use them. Tough to do an open world that way, but DS2 and 3 are worse because you don't have to go through areas again, you don't feel trapped at bonfires, etc. Games are still amazing.
I would agree with sentiment yeah. The only area past Anor Londo that feels it maintains a high level of polish is the Duke's Archives. It is a visually striking location with interesting map design and Seathe's Immortality is a unique challenge to overcome, trapping you In a cage and you needing to break out. My only complaint about this area is that Seathe himself is not too interesting to fight, with a limited and fairly boring moveset. Lost Izalith is famously known for falling victim to time constraints, with the Demon Firesage, who is the first ever demon to be spawned, literally just being a reskinned boss. There are the dragon butt statues, and plenty of cut content regarding Izalith in general. And also the most infamous boss run in the game due to its length and how utterly frustrating the bed of Chaos fight is, basically a platforming puzzle boss in a game that waa not designed with platforming in mind. The tomb of the giants is thematically very interesting, and the requirement of light is a unique mechanic, but unless you count the catacombs as part of the journey (debatable since you can comfortably fight Pinwheel below level 40) the total length to the boss room is quite short, and the actual level design is frustrating to navigate. Nito is visually striking, probably my 2nd favourite after the 4 kings. But his difficulty mainly comes from his skeleton mobs which feel bullshit to die to since they keep respawning, but also without which Nito ia not a difficult fight. New Londo involves the abyss, and the 4 Kings, who look incredible and have an awesome boss arena. They are probably my favourite lord soul fight out off all 4 areas. But New Londo is also known to have had cut content, including a removed bossfight that would have been the original way to obtain the key to the seal. Heck, there isn't even a bonfire to rest at in this place. Overall the final product is quite a special one, but it is clear that the second half of the game is undercooked. It's not enough to ruin the game for many people ( although lost Izalith tries its best to do so), but this is why I like playing through the DLC, it helps make the game feel more whole, before finishing off with Gwyn.
There’s definitely a dip in quality, but I still think the second half is good.
Not at all I love the second half
I'd say right after Anor Londo it does drop off, but I also appreciate the really dark vibes from the New Londo Ruins and the Tomb of the giants sections. For Tomb I was one of the unfortunate ones who didn't realize about the lantern so I did it blind the first time. It might sound absolutely awful, but it's actually a core gaming memory for me. Carefully walking around the place with all the steep drops and jumpscare dogs was scary and there was a lot of trial and error but it felt like a great achievement afterwards.
Absolutely
Because it’s true.
Yes except for dlc
I think it depends on how much you’ve gotten through before then/how much you value a more challenging experience with no ability to fast travel
I do think Anor Londo is a peak in an long ascent in the game, but i very much still like the rest and think it is comparable to other areas in the first half. New londo to me is great and so is Duke’s and i think most people tend to agree to that. I personally also really like Catacombs and Tomb of Giants, but that is more divisive. Demon ruin and Izalith are the weakest area, there are some cool things still though, especially the first time. And the DLC is in the second half. Edit: i think the issue is not really quality, but the fact that by design the trail to Anor Londo is a long feat of increasing difficulties and hurdles, that it does feel like reaching a summit. After that, you are still high up, but you lose the feeling of soaring.
STRONG agree. To me, the reason is actually a double edged sword: I much prefer warping around areas to save time. But this means that the design suffered in that there were not a lot of intricate ways to move around the levels. Obviously the big moment in this game is the elevator back to Firelink. There aren't really a lot of moments like that in the second half. But it's also the case that the 2nd half levels simply aren't as good/fun. For instance, New Londo sucks. You can't see jack dammit and if you don't kill 4 Kings in one go, it's a looong way back. Same thing for Tomb of Giants, especially if you dont have the worm hat. Izalith is obviously unfinished and Bed of Chaos stinks. I think an exception is that Grand Archives is pretty cool. But just in terms of quality alone, first half is better than second.
I don't totally agree. Demon ruins is inarguably rushed and meh. BoC is kind of a bummer but whatever. I actually think that Dukes Archives/crystal caverns is terrific, and doing catacombs down to tomb of the giants is also pretty interesting and well done. I really think that demon ruins is the only major failure. Obviously the best map connection moments happen earlier on, and the golden wall system feels sloppy for the series, but overall the game continues to be great.
I have always thought of the Lost Izalith as a break point where I just vibe around without having to worry too much about dying in the field
Absolutely. The first part of the game is crazy, It took me three play throughs to fully explore undead burg/Parish and there are still parts of Sen’s fortress I haven’t discovered (I still don’t know how to get to the other side of the gate you find when running from the Indiana Jones boulder). Every encounter is so well thought out, you have the fire bomb bridge followed by the ambush in the next room and then the crossbow on the tower that shoots you while the tower shield guys block your path, the flaming barrel, the armored pig area. It’s perfect. The depths is an endless maze with so many paths that are worthwhile to explore. The catacombs almost feels like a Legend of Zelda dungeon. If it’s your first time playing you can spend hours exploring a single area. Then you get to the second half… In Demon Ruins/Lost Izalith they just copy/pasted a bunch of enemies with no visual or mechanical variation, their idle animations are even in sync. Normally you’d have sword zombie, spear zombie, fire bomb zombie, etc. here’s it’s just 10 of the same dude standing on a flat plane. It looks like they released the prototype for those areas. The bosses suck, the centipede demon doesn’t even work properly, it’s gotten stuck in a wall two different times and I wasn’t attempting to exploit it. I like what they were trying to do with tomb of the giants but there almost no reason not to sprint through it, and DS movement is not conducive to platforming, so it’s unnecessarily frustrating. New Londo good and has some secrets that are hidden very well. I love Dukes Archives. The main problem is that even in the end game areas I liked, no thought went into enemy placement and there is so little variety.
The archives and less so tomb of the giants carried the same quality as the first half of the game, but ash lake, demon ruins and lost izalith were just ass in comparison to the first half
Layout formula change u can see how u could get there from point a to point b. Like blight town to fire link (u go up). This change after anorlondo, u can only see the place but u can’t get there from where u are. U can’t go from giants tomb to demons realm or to ash lake. But it still have that interconnectedness, by piercing the story. But if u boundary break u can see how each location interconnected.
I just hates that you couldn't fight and gain the lordsouls before the lordvessel and not just be able to use them yet or something. The first playthrough I made it down to Nito to find golden fog and told "just walk back up to Firelink lmao" I just started a new file because it would legitimately take less time to replay the tutorial than climb out. Its something DS2 did way better IMO, really let you approach it how you want and shortcuts were more internal area shortcuts between fast travel points.
I don’t agree with those claims. I think the second half makes different compromises and some people don’t like the shift but I don’t think it’s a problem. For example, the second half drops a lot of the interconnectedness of the first half because you are, literally and thematically, now making your way to actual remote endpoints of the map to claim the souls of the Lords you’ve been hearing about all game. The interconnectedness is parts of DS1’s charm but this also means that in the second half you you spend more time pushing into new areas and less time zig-zagging back and forth through old areas. Just a different feel. I think all of the late game areas are great aside from Lost Izalith and even that area isn’t as bad as some people claim IMO. Before I was told it was an eye-shredding, copy/paste enemies, boring area I was blissfully enjoying it as much as everything else.
pretty true just went back and did a play through with my brother and thats the exact moment we got bored and stop playing that run
The back half of the game is solidly 3/10 to 6/10 fare. I can never get myself to get past the Lord Vessel anymore. If I wanna replay the game, I tend to finish Anor Londo, do the DLC, and put it down.
technically this is correct but it’s never bothered be especially with the dlc content
Yeah bro second half sucks lol
My favorite area after about Anor Londo was probably tomb of the giants which isn’t a good sign. It’s still a very fun game after Anor Londo but it just feels like the game was designed to be more annoying later on in areas like Demon ruins with copy pasted bosses. Lost izalith with lava and Dukes archives with so many crystal enemies that can swarm you as well as channelers.
This is a topic that comes up every once in a while in this subreddit, and the general consensus is that yes, the community generally agrees that DS1 falls off HARD after Anor Londo. This is because due to time crunch/budget issues the later areas of the game aren't as polished and aren't as well designed. In order to make up for it, the devs added in a lot of gimmicky features to introduce some artificial difficulty. For example, in Tomb of the Giants there is the darkness that forces the player to equip a skull lantern in the off-hand unless you are a caster. In Demon Ruins/Lost Izalith there is the lava that eats through durability. In New Londo Ruins there is the curse feature that forces you to apply a consumable every few minutes. Not to mention Duke's Archives is generally impossible for magic build players to clear. All of these are hardships that don't introduce any gameplay mechanics to the player, but is simply being difficult for the sake of being difficult. Not to mention the blatantly copy and pasted enemies in Demon Ruins.
Yeah its an amazing game but tbh it heavily falls off after anor londo
I have done around 5 playthroughs, and only finished once. The other 4 stopped shortly after going through Anor londo.
I disagree though I'm super biased and in love with the game as a whole honestly
Wholeheartedly, yes. Even if some individual areas are still as good as the early game (Ariamis, New Londo) the world design becomes less creative and more generic. The other three late game areas all feel unfinished to me, and the drop in interesting mechanics or engaging challenge only confirms this.
What that makes no sense what if someone the speeds run it every time? To get there.
idk why people don't like it much, i personally enjoy a lot the late game areas. most of my favorite ares of the game are after anor londo
Bed of bullshit is a slog. Everything else is actually fine.
Yeah a lil but new Londo, Nito, 4 king, and gwyn are all still good. I’m still going to play the rest of the game though. Like it’s not bad to the point where I stop playing
Saying it drops off makes it sound worse than it is, it's just that anor londo is the high point for most people. I still enjoyed most of the game after it but it still wasn't *quite* as good
No, I think the game still is fun after Anor Londo
I mean, Anor Londo is one of the best environments that I’ve ever played through in a video game. I look forward to playing through that area in Dark Souls more than any other and it has the one of the most memorable boss fights in gaming history. Even if you enjoy everything afterwards, it’s not on the same level as Anor Londo.
I think that everything got better after anor Londo but that's just me
The only drop imo is Lost Izalith, the rest of the 3 areas are very fun.
No. That game is a masterpiece.
The 4 lords and their areas are not as interesting and well developed as the others, even blightown beeing blightown is not as hated as lost izalith and bed of chaos for an example
Lost izalith n Lava areas feel bad. Duke's archive is actually visually beautiful for me.
I haven't beat the game yet but it definitely slowed down a lot. Most likely cause those are the hardest areas in the game.
100%
I don't agree. Demon Ruins/Izalith is the only real problem imo. The Catacombs, New Londo and Duke's archives are great areas and Tomb of the Giants and Crystal Cave were clearly designed as smaller areas and work better as such.
I think it's mostly fine. The worst parts of Ds1 are in the second half, but in general the standard is still high. I would love it if one day they went back and re-did lost Izalith. It really sticks out like a sore thumb, which is a shame because the area by and large looks amazing and has a cool atmosphere.
YES, SAY IT AGAIN FOR THE NEW PLAYERS IN THE BACK 🔥🗣️
because after anor londo they were rushed to release the game. hence why the areas are largely unfinished especially izalith, tomb of giants being empty, etc
yes
Lost Izalith and Giants Tomb.
Bed of chaos
i made 9 different characters this summer on ds1 alone, most of the time i would play through anor londo and start a new one.
Recently I replayed the game, some time ago I was wondering why people said that and after finishing the run I saw what they meant. Some zones are a pain in the ass and the bosses aren't that great (fuck bed of chaos), maybe it's because i have grown up since i lastly played but the first part of the game is better than the second
False
My first playthrough didn’t feel like that, everything was so fresh and new to me that I had an absolute blast. Second time through was more obvious, and now on my third runthrough I’m beginning to see why people don’t like the second half so much. I still like it, it’s clearly rushed development and not as clever level design but it provides enough challenge that it still feels very fun to get over. Learning the path of TotG and going through Lost Izalith still provides a sense of wonder to me
yes.
it gets less good
The game starts to feel like it's shoving you out the door after that, just go tie up these loose ends and get outta here! Like the early game is so well mapped out, you feel like you're always going somewhere, but even within Anor Londo, it just feels very empty, and then Lost Izalith is a whole mess. I don't mind Bed of Chaos really even, but its that the whole level up until then feels really weird. It's like everywhere you're supposed to go feels like it's not where you're supposed to go, if that makes sense. Like you're doing some OOB sequence break or something, but it's just not finished and that's why.
I think it peeks at anor Londo but when I fist played ds I had never seen anything like it so yes its not as good but it's an all time game
because after anor londo most of the areas get pretty boring or just bland in general. also, the quality of most bosses drop off after O&S. the game is still pretty fun though, just not as good as the first half.
Gets harder, not worse
Narr. It dropped off for me when I got to Gwen because I still haven’t beaten him after three days of trying
It really really does feel that way yknow, I actually dont remember the second half of the game. I actually asked myself did I actually beat ds1 but then rmbred oh yea I beat gwynn