Demon's Souls

very close to being the best game fromsoft have made. despite being the lowest budget and the game predicted to fail, it has the best lore, the most interesting story, and the most enthralling & cohesive world design:

want upgrade ore? head to the mines. want healing items? kill soldiers in the castle. want souls? head the the ethereal shrine of storms. only game apart from elden ring that makes sense in this way

the game that started the annoying runbacks in souls games, but the only game in which the runbacks are actually good: in demon's souls, the bosses aren't in any way difficult, they're more of a puzzle than a combat trial. the combat comes in the form of navigating the enemies, who are placed in such a way that they have to be fought. no more tedious dashing past enemies like in later games; every boss attempt requires enjoyable engagement

it would be the best fromsoft game if it weren't for a few major flaws, that from have since fixed with later games:

• having to endure a loading screen to travel back to the nexus every time one wants to level up, dump/upgrade items, travel to another area
• having to worry about running out of healing, every time you die is ≥1 grass wasted. i hardly use any > half moon grass until i have the ring of regeneration
• the item burden system is stupid, and feels like it's only jammed in because every other rpg has one

valley of defilement sucks though

this section is solely about the ps3 original, as the 2020 bluepoint remake is soul-less (heh), generic and bland-looking

Dark Souls

shows that all these games proclaiming "fast-paced combat" oughtn't be

the crowning glory of the soulsborne series. the environment design is almost on par with demon's souls; it's the only game i've ever played that feels like the map was designed to be used by residents rather than played as a game. in fact, everything about the game feels like it doesn't give a shit if you play it or not

it fixes all of demon's souls' major flaws: the estus system refils healing items every death; bonfires allow levelling, repairing equipment, and upgrading weapons; and the item burden has been removed entirely

i almost don't have anything negative to say about it

blighttown sucks though

this section is primarily about the remastered version, as that's the one i played, but this applies to the vanilla version as they're practically the same apart from performance issues

Dark Souls II

much more "fantastic" than des/ds1, with brighter colours than the sickly green of des or the washed out grunge of ds1. unfortunately, however i think means one loses the juxtaposition of the anor londo reveal. heide's tower of flame, for example, is just as pretty as anor londo, but i don't think it feels the same as it's not in comparison to the depths, blighttown, and then sen's fortress

the slowest game in the series i think? but that allows it to be the hardest. rather than a pure test of reflexes, it's an actual test of strategy, game knowledge, and other skills. i don't like the parry mechanic though. unlike ds1, there's a startup animation, which means that rather than parrying when the attack is about to land, one has to parry as soon as the attack animation starts

so many optional bosses and alternative routes! don't want to fight the bastard ruin sentinels? take a walk through a wall with a face! can't be arsed with the singeing demon? just disable the flames and climb the ladder! don't want to fight any of the four main bosses? just, like, don't bother!

i think they realised ds1's mistakes about the runback being too boring, and tried to fix it. unfortunately it's not quite as good as des, as they did so by making enemies have a longer aggro range and mist gates have no i-frames rather than by pure enemy placement and environment design, but it's still pretty good

the gutter sucks though

this section is primarily about the scholar of the first sin revision, as i feel that is the definitive version (enemy placements are more lore friendly, etc.), but a lot of this applies to the vanilla version as well