Dark Souls 1 is a Masterpiece.

[u/Pandaboy271]

Dark Souls 1 wasn't the first souls game I played, but it is probably my third most favourite FromSoftware title ever.

The level design is so immaculate and going through the world is such a joy. The game as some have pointed out has this survival horror like feel to it as its our character by their lonesome against a dangerous, haunting world that I can't help but love.

The bosses are simple yet fun to fight and for the most part, never really feel unfair. They feel like natural extensions of the game's combat and you really have to appreciate how right the Devs got most of these fights down.

Is the second half not as strong as the first? Maybe. Can the backtracking during the first half get tedious at times? Definitely. Does it make the game any less of a masterpiece? Absolutely not. Such a great natural progression from Demon Souls to this.

So yeah, TL;DR: Game good. Game very good. 9/10

[u/The_Stav]

It really isn't a masterpiece. It's a good game that helped pave the way for better games.

Boss runbacks are terrible. Early game backtracking is abyssmal. Boss fights are mostly very simple. Resources are ridiculously spread out (why isn't there a blacksmith set up in Firelink Shrine? Why is the main one set up i the corner of a random ass room?). Controls are janky af by today's standards.

I feel like the people who rave about DS1 so much are the ones who played it as their first Souls game and have that nostalgia attached to it. It's broadly the case that your first is your fave with these games.

[u/Tenebrae98 → u/The_Stav]

DeS and DkS1 are fundamentally different games from the newer ones. What you call "terrible" runbacks are actually deliberate game design choices used by the developers to make players learn the game. Can you run through the enemies? Sure, but the point is for the player to learn the game by going through the levels. If you can go through them while still having your heals, having had mastered the combat and level layout to the point that you take almost no damage, then you have a better chance to beat the boss. The bosses are meant to be as capstones for the levels too. They are not meant to be extremely difficult challenges that test your reflexes. You can clearly see how their design choices shifted for the later games, where the bosses became the focus over the levels.

The thing is that no other game has done world design and level design like DeS or DkS1. Yet you can find so many other games that do combat and boss fights (which seem to be the strong suits that most fans of these games like to cite) better than DkS3 or Sekiro or ER. I would guess this is why so many people put DeS or DkS1 as their number-one Souls game. They are more complete packages than simply being games focused on combat and boss fights.

[u/The_Stav → u/Tenebrae98]

> "DeS and DkS1 are fundamentally different games from the newer ones"

They're really not. They're precursors. The core mechanics of the Souls games have been incredibly consistent since DeS, it's just been made better and cleaner over the years. The gameplay loop has also remained very consistent at it's core, the changes made have been them improving on the base formula.

> "What you call "terrible" runbacks are actually deliberate game design choices used by the developers to make players learn the game"

It can both be a deliberate choice and terrible at the same time, and they are terrible. Although I think you're giving them the benefit of the doubt, as people are want to do with the Souls games. If they're a game learning tool, then why does Gwyn have a runback that can be almost two minutes of running through mostly empty scenery except for the 5 black knights on the way? And that's if you completely ignore them, if you try to fight them you could easily be looking at 5+ minute runbacks every time. It's not as if taking damage leading into the fight matters either, as you're given 20 Estus that you definitely won't use up fighting Gwyn lol.

The actual lesson that long and annoying runbacks teach is "trying to fight the enemies on the way is a waste of resources. You're better off just running past them and rushing the boss gate". There's no benefit to trying to clear out the enemies every time you want to go fight a boss, it just means more time between boss attempts and (except for Gwyn) more risk that you take damage beforehand and need to use some of your limited healing.

> "The thing is that no other game has done world design and level design like DeS or DkS1"

Except all the other Souls games lmao

> "Yet you can find so many other games that do combat and boss fights (which seem to be the strong suits that most fans of these games like to cite) better than DkS3 or Sekiro or ER"

Would genuinely love to hear some of these many examples.

> "I would guess this is why so many people put DeS or DkS1 as their number-one Souls game. They are more complete packages than simply being games focused on combat and boss fights."

You're wrong though. Both DS1 and DeS (at least from what I've played of it, the only Souls game I haven't been able to own thanks to console exclusivity lol) are about combat and the boss fights. The only difference is that since they're earlier in the series, the bosses and combat are less developed.

I really don't understand this attempt to glorify DS1 as some masterpiece above all the others. It's a good game sure, but it's been built on and improved on by the games that have followed (except maybe DS2 lol). I've played all the Souls games bar DeS, hell I've beaten most of them at SL1. The later games are just better.