I recently bought Dark Souls 3 for $25 on a Steam Weekend Sale, and I've been playing it a lot. Over the course of my playthrough, which I still haven't completed, I've realized something. The Dark Souls series is known for its intense, brutalizing difficulty, for youtubers screaming into the mic after they die to a horde of undead. However, after spending quite a while playing the game, I saw that Dark Souls is not difficult- Or at least Dark Souls 3, which I have heard is objectively the easiest of the trilogy. But regardless, I don't find myself believing it's a terribly difficult game. I've died countless times, lost hundreds of thousands of souls, but I've always pushed through after a few more tries. I have also realized why the Souls series is considered so hard- You die so much. But to me, death is not difficulty. It's just learning.
Difficulty to me is looking at a sprawling, complex level, seeing it as a whole, looking at it thinking "How am I supposed to do this? It's so intricate, so complicated." But then you try it again and again, and realize that the level is made up of little pieces that you know how to do easily, and then you do it. Once you see the level not as the sum of its parts, but its parts themselves, when that realization hits you that you know how to do it, you might fail a few more times, based on your skill, but you still beat the level. The point of this is that part of what makes a game difficult is that you can't push through a game through brute force and button mashing alone- A hard game requires deep, complex thought and strategy. Dead Cells to me is hard, because you can't memorize the levels. You die quickly, but so do your enemies. You die and die hundreds of times, but eventually, something clicks. You instinctively see recognizable parts from previous playthroughs, (If you don't know, Dead Cells is a roguelike- It generates its levels randomly) and it makes the level feel more familiar, but you also realize yet another thing. You also get an instinctive sense of enemy behaviors and patterns, and it helps you get better and better, learning something new from your deaths. Difficulty to me implies serious, complex planning, paired with the need for instinctive knowledge and memorization of mechanics and enemy behaviors. Death is not just a setback in difficult games. It is valuable, in fact, and it should be almost required. You should gain something from each death- knowledge. You cannot brute force your way through a difficult game by specing into a particularly strong build. No, each playstyle that the game supports is equal in it's difficulty. Difficulty requires you to engage in nearly all, if not every one of the game's mechanics. If it's a game focused on combat, the player is forced (In a good way) into a dance with the enemy. The player treats every single enemy like a major threat, which they are. They regard the enemy as equals, having been bested so many times. The two engage, and the player enters the zone- dodging and weaving through enemy attacks, yes, but still taking a few hits themselves. The player emerges victorious, feeling a sense of accomplishment, as if this common enemy was the final boss because it had killed them so many times. They emerged battered, yes- but victorious nonetheless. Difficult games do not require mastery- In fact, mastery of a difficult game is nigh on impossible. Instead, difficult games simply require proficiency. Yes, Dark Souls 3 is a hard game- Close to difficulty, but it falls just short, for one reason alone. Yes, it requires planning, and critical thinking. Memorization of enemy patterns is intrinsic to beating the game. But for one reason, and one reason only, I do not consider it a difficult game. You can simply brute force your way through. On my first playthrough, I was terrified of fighting this infamously hard boss- The Dancer of the Boreal Valley- and when the time came to fight it, I was surprised. I nearly beat it on my first try. I succeeded easily on my second. No guide, nothing. I just held up my shield, and rolled through like, one attack. I believe that I succeeded where others failed because of my build. I had a ton of health and strength, which allowed me to tank through hits while still dealing moderate damage myself. Now I can see how a light armored, low-health mage, a popular build in the Dark Souls games, could have struggled. That's where I don't see Dark Souls as a hard game. It all depends on your playstyle. Difficult games should be difficult throughout- I'm sure that I struggled where others succeeded. But really, it's all objective. For a guy like me, who enjoys really digging into all a game has to offer, while not becoming to emotionally attached to losing or dying, Souls games and Dead Cells (That's what I consider a difficult game) can be downright relaxing at times. For other, more serious involved people, it's just a frustratingly addictive game, which has a lot of struggles for a relatively small payoff. While some scream into the mic after lose 20,000 souls, I barely let out a sigh when I did. Thanks for reading; sorry for the long post.
0 Comments
In Dead Cells, you're a dead prisoner possessed by a pile of goo, running around a giant island littered with hordes of dark revenants infected with a mysterious disease called the "Malaise." You do battle with them using a variety of swords, bows, hammers, traps, and even grenades and turrets. Rolling and jumping between intimidating monsters is exhilarating, and is fun in a way that few games can be. But however deep and exciting Dead Cell's combat is, that's not the main draw of the game. Dead Cell's claim to fame is it's ingenious mixture of two incompatible genres. If you know what metroidvanias and roguelikes are, you'll know that they're virtually polar opposites. And yet, Dead Cells manages to combine the randomly-generated levels and gear of roguelikes, and the vast, interconnected worlds of metroidvanias. Although it's far from a perfect mixture, it provides unique and varied gameplay every time I boot it up. I almost never have even similar level layouts, but each level has a kind of theme, or level design kept constant throughout the game. There are four runes I unlocked within the first five hours. These enabled me to reach items I couldn't get to before, gave me new ways to move and attack, and even entirely new levels to explore. Dead Cells didn't mix the two genres perfectly, but they still did an amazing job. The game clearly puts gameplay first. The story is intriguing and told in an interesting way, yet takes a backseat to Dead Cells' fast and furious combat. Even so often, you encounter special rooms or areas that contain a special item(s) that you can inspect. Although some give you a slightly weak weapon or some gold to spend at the shop, all these rooms contain various bits of lore. Exploring every area carefully, and piecing together random bits of narrative rewarded me with a genuinely interesting story. The lore is often punctuated with a joke or punchline to keep the mood somewhat "light." These little jokes or references (There's a ton of those- just look at the background every once in a while) only fall short once or twice. I found them refreshing, and some even gave me a little chuckle. All in all, Dead Cells is a masterpiece of a game. I love every bit of it. It surprised me at every turn with fun new mechanics and strategies. I still remember the ecstasy I felt when finally beat that hard-as-nails final boss. (Buyers beware- the last two areas are less of a difficulty curve and more of a difficulty wall...) Dead Cells is a masterpiece of a game, with few flaws or places to improve in. And with potential DLC (Or DLC-sized updates, à la Hollow Knight), I think I'll be playing Dead Cells for a while. Image reference: Figueroa, Jorge. “Dead Cells.” Flickr, Yahoo!, 22 Aug. 2018, www.flickr.com/photos/jiff01/30321017848. In Dead Cells, you're a beheaded corpse fighting its way through hordes of revenants, using a variety of swords, bows, bombs, and magic spells. The game has been praised for its varied and fast-paced, flowing combat, its melding of two polar opposite genres, and astounding environmental design. Each area has its own mood, architecture, and mechanics, each brought to life by the game's great use of color. In the screenshot above, you can see the Beheaded standing in one of the later areas in the game, the Forgotten Sepulcher. The maze-like catacombs are shrouded in a thick, red darkness that hurts you if you stand in it too long. To help you along, however, two kinds of lanterns are scattered throughout the level. Smaller, more common blue lanterns light up when you touch them, and break after a small period of time. The other kind, a big yellow orb, is only found next to portals, and doesn't break. Below, you can see a basic color wheel. You can see that the color of the fog is completely opposite to the color of the blue lanterns. Color Theory states that this creates a complementary scheme. The high-contrast lanterns draw players in like moths to a lamp. Even without knowing what it does, they go to inspect it, and realizes that it's just a special version of the bigger, yellow orbs that they encountered earlier. Speaking of which, you'll also notice that yellow is one color away from red on that color wheel. This creates a split complementary scheme, providing a nuanced and good-looking environment. The red creates a foreboding sense of dread, while the yellow and blue provide a sense of safety, even when there is none. This is just one example of the amazing use of color in Dead Cells.
|
AuthorHi! I'm Thomas MacDougall, a sophomore at DSA. Here you can check out my thoughts and recent activities. Please note that the views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Durham School of the Arts or Durham Public Schools. Archives
March 2020
Categories
All
|