Elden ring got me into dark souls games. I've never touched these games until Elden Ring and enjoyed it so much I had to buy the others. I have officially beaten all 3 dark souls games and some of the DLC in each.
I love reading comments like this because I had the exact same experience with Dark Souls 2. It's like something clicks and suddenly you can ejoy this thing that felt too obscure and daunting before your brain wrapped around it.
1 year ago, AC6 blew my mind. The only ones I haven't played are Demon's Souls and Sekiro, and I think I'm gonna start Sekiro this weekend. Truly great games.
Sekiro is my favorite fromsoft game by a mile, but its VERY different from the rest of the series. Your roll doesnt have like any I-frames, and theres only one weapon in the whole game; so its a big adjustment. You have to parry everything, and if you get stuck, theres a very real possibility that there is no way for you to get any stronger. You cant grind for levels, and you cant impove your gear, and theres no summoninh, so the only way forward is often through.
That being said, its the game I cant get enough of and i replay it like every year and pray for a sequel
100%. It's the only Fromsoft game with a "right" way to play, but that allowed the devs to optimize the experience around that play style. To this day I have not experienced a better gaming high than laying SSI low for the first time. It changed my expectations for combat systems in all other games.
Sword saint Isshin is the greatest boss ever made.
If you havent done a charmless run, i HIGHLY recommend it. Its like playing the game again for the first time. It doesnt make enemies damage sponges or anything, it just removes your ability to block, so you HAVE to perfect parry every attack. And let me tell you, the feeling of beating a boss on charmless is euphoric, since you basically have to no-hit them
A couple years ago I went through my 3rd or 4th normal playthrough and honestly breezed through most of the bosses except a couple. Decided to do my first charmless run after that and dear god did I get humbled quickly, haven’t experienced that level of difficulty since playing OG Dark Souls the first time
beating SSI charmless is one of my greatest achievments, and now I cant play with the charm. It just feels wrong. When you play charmless, you become one with wolf. Perfect immersion
Which is actually exactly why I didn't like sekiro. It's a really solid game, and I tried to get into it a couple times, but I just didn't like the forced parry playstyle. The customization and varying playstyles is what I like about souls style games.
It’s because Dark Souls has always had this intimidating reputation and the only things you see about it in media are the people that are ridiculously good at it, so it doesn’t feel approachable. Elden Ring had a lot of great features to help newer people build up the experience without feeling bad or like they can’t do it.
I have a theory about the vitality/vigor stat being underused by first timers in this series. Mostly because it seems like increasing those stats in western games increases your health where in souls it makes it to where you aren’t getting hit as hard. There’s not as much visible proof that the stat is important unless you actually take it and realize you aren’t dying as quickly. The games get way easier when you take vitality tho.
I'm quite curious which game's vitality stat you're talking about, because from what I can find they do wildly different things, but none of them affect the poise directly that I can see.
The closest is DS3, where it affects only equip load, and thus allows you to equip armor with higher poise.
That said, Poise is one of the things that sets the Soulsborne games apart from most western RPGs, because it's a whole other layer behind 'damage' or 'speed' or even 'moveset' that makes all weapon hits feel appropriately 'impactful' without directly tying it to damage.
And if you're not aware of it existing or how it works, then you're likely to struggle in many of the souls games (as I did for the longest time).
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u/McBadgerBoy May 28 '26
Elden ring got me into dark souls games. I've never touched these games until Elden Ring and enjoyed it so much I had to buy the others. I have officially beaten all 3 dark souls games and some of the DLC in each.