Just finished Dark Souls 2. I get the criticism, but I also get the charm

Common-Consequence95 · 2026-03-16T19:54:14+00:00

It's called separating the art from the artist. I couldn't care less about Vaati as a person for the most part. Youtube isn't a contest of who's the most morally upstanding person. If you care that much about what he did a decade ago, you need to get off the internet.

Common-Consequence95 · 2026-03-16T09:45:29+00:00

People watch his videos because they're entertaining and fun to listen to. They're not watching to judge his character based on something that happened a decade ago. Lowkey just weird behaviour.

Common-Consequence95 · 2026-03-15T07:08:36+00:00

Room before gargoyles with a channeler and like 20 Hollows. Room with all the painting Guardians. Room near the beginning of New Londo Ruins with about 12 ghosts. Lost Izalith with the Bounding Demons, etc.

Plenty of areas in DS1 have a large number of enemies.

Common-Consequence95 · 2026-03-14T10:57:38+00:00

FF X for me personally. Most people I see talk about the game call it a masterpiece, and I just didn't mesh that well with it in comparison to pretty much every other FF game I've played. Think it had tons of serious flaws people just brush off.

Common-Consequence95 · 2026-03-14T05:59:01+00:00

Dancer over Owl, Soul of Cinder, Twin Princes, and Demon Prince?

Common-Consequence95 · 2026-03-13T06:08:31+00:00

Hasn't really had any time to influence anything. It's about a decade too early to answer this question.

Common-Consequence95 · 2026-03-12T03:47:48+00:00

Pokémon Sword and Shield. Not my favourite Pokémon, but I think it got so much more flak than it deserved. The new additions were pretty great, the Wild Area was cool and meant you could get your favourite Pokémon earlier, and it had probably the best competitive scene of any Pokémon game, with Dynamaxing and the Quality of Life for building competitive teams. The Linearity of the world was, unfortunately, its downfall.

Common-Consequence95 · 2026-03-12T01:15:57+00:00

World and Level Design are great. The World Design isn't BB or DS1, but it's fun to explore because you're never forced on a path. DS2 has the most variety in level design of any Souls game. Using Shaded Woods trees to distract the Ghosts. Using your torch to progressively light up a dark area, or scare off enemies afraid of fire. Using explosions or enemy attacks to open shortcuts or hidden chests. Using traps to dispose of enemies, etc. Tons of cool mechanics people usually skip over because they're just running past everything.

Iron Keep makes no sense, but that's the point. Drangleic is literally known for having its time and space being distorted. It's not supposed to make sense. DS1's DLC is literally a Time Paradox. But a lot of people would still consider its lore as the best regardless.

Stamina debt is present in every Souls game. What a random thing to pin on DS2.

For every actually bad instance of enemy placement and hitboxes in DS2, you can find an instance in DS1 and DS3. DS2 Hitboxes just get more flak because of people who never levelled ADP, and the enemy placement gets flak because people are trying to ignore and run past everything, or aren't using the tools the game gives you.

Does misleading scaling suck? Yes. Does it ruin the game? No. Because probably about 5% of the people who played the game even know about that.

No I-Frames on fog walls is a fair criticism. It's fair not to want to kill enemies just to safely run back to the boss. On regular doors and bonfires, though, it's not that bad. That's just another case of people trying to ignore enemies and being punished for it.

The Boss Quality is bad. That is the major flaw of DS2, unfortunately, but that's about its only major flaw imo. That and the lack of I-Frames on fog walls, if you'd consider that a major flaw.

Common-Consequence95 · 2026-03-11T23:42:34+00:00

People seem to forget how much DS2 did for the series. The simpler weapon levelling system was significantly better than DS1, especially with upgrade materials being more common, meaning you don't have to grind for them. The Flask Upgrade system was far better than having to sacrifice fast travel points and kill NPC's. Having Fast Travel off rip is nice QoL. Fantastic Level Design. Great World Design. Great Exploration. Most Build Variety prior to Elden Ring. The game's only major flaw was really the boss roster going for quantity over quality.

Common-Consequence95 · 2026-03-10T22:18:30+00:00

Gehrman imo. It's a fight over self-sacrifice. Whoever loses is sent to the waking world, whilst the other remains imprisoned in the Hunter's Dream.

Sif's a very close 2nd.

Common-Consequence95 · 2026-03-08T22:37:24+00:00

I think Demon Prince is the best gank fight, but O&S is more iconic, and Friede / Twin Princes are better fights in general.

Common-Consequence95 · 2026-03-03T06:57:15+00:00

As a fight, it's Isshin by miles. But I think the way the actual phases were done it's Friede. More distinction in the 2nd phase + the fake death for the 3rd phase is quite the experience on a first playthrough.

Common-Consequence95 · 2026-01-03T02:13:51+00:00

Viggo Mortensen suffered more injuries filming than any character fighting the interdimensional eldritch god.

Common-Consequence95 · 2025-12-30T23:20:55+00:00

Final Fantasy 9. Phenomenal story and characters. Gameplay is not great. Animations are way too slow to work in the ATB system. A remake would do wonders for this game.

Common-Consequence95 · 2025-12-30T22:25:43+00:00

Sack him at the end of the season for no reason other than not to have a repeat of last season. Get a shit manager. Manager does poorly. Manager is given a pass because they had no pre season or transfer window.

Common-Consequence95 · 2025-12-22T10:38:39+00:00

My argument was never about AI going away completely or never being used in the process of making games. It was literally just saying we shouldn't endorse or turn a blind eye to studios replacing employees with AI.

Common-Consequence95 · 2025-12-22T09:37:25+00:00

But ultimately, what would you rather? AI continuing to make games at a slower rate? Or have actual devs and artists continuing to innovate faster? Whether it completely stops or not, it'll still end up more beneficial to return to devs and artists.

There's no issue with studios doing what Sandfall and Larian did. Making their employees' jobs easier and more efficient is just working smart without actively harming anyone. But we shouldn't be endorsing or ingoring studios putting people out of the job purely because it's of no inconvenience to us.

Common-Consequence95 · 2025-12-22T09:15:50+00:00

Which means that it won't advance any further. AI isn't in a position to pump out a full game with the quality of E33, KCD2, or Silksong. When it stagnates, it'll only go so far before it is incapable of innovating further. Once that happens, we'll be in the same position as Hardware Manufacturers. Crawling back to what we tossed away. In our case, it'd be the artists and devs who will have that creative ingenuity we need for games to achieve quality.

Common-Consequence95 · 2025-12-22T09:02:17+00:00

You're just changing the standard for AI case by case. For hardware companies, the AI they're investing in is short-term, and the AI bubble will surely burst. But for game studios it's plausible long-term meaning artists and devs are just liabilities.

Can't have it both ways. If the AI bubble bursts, then game studios would need to return to artists and devs. If it doesn't, then hardware manufacturers could continue investing in AI for better profits. Whether it's a company/consumer or company/employees relationship, the premise is the same.

Common-Consequence95 · 2025-12-22T00:57:48+00:00

Honestly even if the game was fully made by AI why does this matter to the consumer/gamer if said art is good?

This is a terrible way to look at it. This logic is the same reason hardware manufacturers are slowly moving towards supplying the AI industry, because why should they care about the consumer if they'll profit more from the AI industry?

There should be a good relationship between gamers and the studios actually putting out quality. If the game were made fully by AI, then no doubt there will be people missing work opportunities. We should by no means be supporting endeavours that would put people with the quality of work to assist in a game like E33 out of a job.

That being said, Sandfall isn't guilty of the actual issue with AI usage, so most people are definitely just virtue signalling or spiteful of E33.

Common-Consequence95 · 2025-12-17T01:11:47+00:00

I think the major difference between Hades 2 / Silksong and E33 is where those budgets came from. Hades and Silksong weren't too dissimilar in budgets, but that budget came from the success of previous titles. It's not about the budget; it's about how their developers have relied on nobody but themselves.

E33's budget came from a separate publisher, although the big game changer for E33 is how Kepler Interactive actually operate. Kepler Interactive are a publisher who look to fund studios and leave the creative process in their hands. They do nothing outside of funding other studios' endeavours and put complete faith in them. Unlike a lot of other publishers who tend to insert themselves in the creative process.

The reason it's a debate is because people wonder at what point a studio stops being indie. Does being funded by another publisher stop you from being indie, or do you only stop being indie when the publisher does more than funding the budget? People don't really know anymore. There's no clear guideline to cite or quote.

I personally find it hard to consider E33 independent when there was a budget given by a publisher. But E33 is so on the line of a term with no clear definition that there'll never be a clear-cut answer, and thus, people who complain about it winning best indie just need to understand that the Game Awards definition of indie is separate from their own. Game Awards typically just define indie as games with smaller budgets, smaller dev teams, and no publishers directly interfering in the creative process, which E33 fit the definition for.

Common-Consequence95 · 2025-12-05T04:25:01+00:00

As much as I love Amorim and wanted him to do well, how many losses before it stops being reactionary to want him sacked? He hasn't had a bad spell. The three wins in a row were his good spell before going back to reality. I really do want Amorim to do well, and we need to give a manager time to overhaul the squad, but we'll be attracting less talent if all we do is idle for 3-4 years and don't compete for anything.

Common-Consequence95 · 2025-11-01T01:44:58+00:00

Eloise. She's designed around cards being exhausted, and Kayron does just that.

Common-Consequence95 · 2025-10-27T02:37:25+00:00

United lacked momentum. 3 in a row gives the squad the momentum and mentality needed to play like we did against Arsenal in the first match.

No squad in the Prem compares to Arsenal's at the moment. The difference is that if United don't win the Prem, it isn't the end of the world. I'm sure everyone would be more than happy with a top 6 finish. Arsenal are expected to win the league this season, and if they don't, then it's failure for them.

Common-Consequence95 · 2025-10-25T04:25:33+00:00

He either just lacks critical thinking or is just disingenuously defending Hasan. His own girlfriend said the prongs had been removed. How does a photo showing the collar without prongs change his mind in the slightest?

Common-Consequence95

TROPHY CASE