Dark Souls - Beat this! 64 hours, level 65 (str > vit > dex > faith/endurance for anyone who cares, somewhat haphazard build based on what I needed at the time).
Unfortunately, Fenrir, I can't really agree with you about Bed of Chaos hype. I want to like the fight... dodge hazards and do some platforming! But it's too short, and the walk to the fight is too long. Oh well. Wasn't really happy with any of the lord soul fights, my favourite fight during this arc of the game was the Demon Firesage who was at least kinda competent and made me learn his moves. Demon Ruins/Lost Izalith was pretty good for non-bosses though. Taurus and Capra Demons galore! (Capras still don't deal with shields, but fighting two at once is good fun.) I also liked the giant stompy guys. I liked them even more when I realised you can make them kill each other.
Final boss was fun, if different. Completely badass human! Has human weaknesses. Nothing I did seemed to work (as in, stop him from pummeling me) except parrying, which worked pretty well, so it was all about learning his timing to counter him to death. Halberds solve everything. Not as difficult as Bell Gargoyles or O&S (though the former was probably mostly me not learning the game yet) but pretty good, can't complain about him as a way to end the game.
I've commented enough on the game so far such that you can mostly guess my opinion of the game. When it's on, it's a good fun action game, deeper than it first looks and much deeper than some games of this type that seem to think having a couple RPG elements is an excuse to make your gameplay simplistic and dopey. Boss design is great when it's on its game, though there are some stinkers too... I think that's the price you pay for having this many bosses. Randoms are pretty fun, varied enough, always crucial in a game like this. I do quite like the sprawling world which is interconnected and you can find various shortcuts as the game goes on, kinda like a Castlevania or Metroid (and certainly better about it than Metroid Prime was!). It's better in the first half than the second, unfortunately.
The game has all manner of design decisions, typically in the pursuit of being seen as hard, which are questionable (if few that make me outright think "this sucks"). Long walks to boss fights in a game with only one life? Meh, feels needlessly punitive. Give me lives, yellow orbs, save points closer to bosses, whatever. At times it works really well; Sen's Fortress (possibly my favourite area of the game) wouldn't be the same if it gave you an extra bonfire in the middle. At others it works less well, there's really only so many times I want to kill/avoid the same set of enemies. The game also sends me for a FAQ far too often. Not the end of the world, I figured out very quickly this would be the case, but I don't really get it as a design decision. They even seem to want you to play online where apparently other players will leave you messages telling you most of the FAQ-bait things, so why even bother? Inventory system is also pretty bleh, given that if I ever want to use three weapons (including talismans, pyromancy gloves, etc.) I need to scroll through lots of crap which I can't organise. Unorganisable inventory in 2011, seriously? Maybe I missed a way to do it, I just realised this has been annoying me for 50 hours and I should probably have asked you guys about this before. Whoops. (And yes, I'm aware trashing things in your inventory or feeding them to that weird snake dude is an option.)
Game's too long. Ultimately that's my biggest complaint. I want a 30 hour game that I can replay in 10, they gave me a 60 hour game that I can replay in... 20? 30? I dunno. Just too much. It really dulls the potential, to me, of playing with different builds, because good lord, after all this time I really don't want anything more to do with the game for a while. All the games this one most seeks to emulate (oldschool NES titles, Metroids, Castlevanias, DMC, God Hand, etc.) are way shorter and I'm thinking there is a reason for this. I imagine this complaint will be lost on the people who love the game but so it goes.
Game really dropped the ball on plot/setting/atmosphere as well. Writing was nonsense from beginning to end, I didn't really know what was going on, NPCs illuminated nothing about what the fuck I was doing. I can read up on it online but I really don't give a shit, there was nothing whatsover in the hints the game dropped that suggested this game's plot was remotely interesting. Even for a barely existant plot it manages to be bungled ('sup, Fire Keeper murderer arc). Yes there's sceneskip so it's ultimately not a big deal, but ugh, somehow this nonsense annoys me more than having no plot whatsoever, or goofy plots. It's nice to have something to play the game for besides the gameplay side of things.
No music outside bosses is terrible. Makes a lot of areas feel lifeless. Sometimes that's the point, but when literally every area besides the Firelink Shrine does it it quickly loses all impact, and adds to the feeling of "why the fuck am I doing this" that pervades the game. Aesthetically it does do some things well though; environments are great and there are some good monster designs in there (obviously Sif is the best, nobody debates this I hope).
Good thing that gameplay's good! Change a lot of things about this and you have a 10/10 game. On the other hand, remove that gameplay and dear god this gets dropkicked after about hour 4. As is it can chill with a 6.5ish. Might have a firmer opinion on this once I have some distance. It's been a pretty fun/interesting ride but I'm glad it's over.
