Blog Comments

Mark Hamill was best Joker.

Originally Posted by ToriJ

I stand corrected. And I forgot about the summoning. The invading stuff is just online isn't it? I didn't play online.

Thanks for the feedback It's something I don't get enough of.

Yeah, invading and summoning is an online mechanic. As long as you're connected, you can see other peoples' bloodstains, and when you touch them it shows how they died so you can better avoid traps. Among other things, like players leaving hints. Humanity comes into play because, while you're human, you can invade/get invaded, meaning someone else can come into your game and try and kill you. The flip side of that is you can also summon other players for help (though you can also do this while Undead). So that's another layer of the humanity mechanic; you can stay undead to avoid invasions, or use humanity if you want a player to challenge you or if you want to get better drop rates when farming for materials to forge weapons/armor. If you have access to Xbox Live, you should definitely give it a shot!

And no problem! I used to write reviews a lot myself, so I know how important constructive criticism can be!

Originally Posted by SirPrizes

Nice review! This is my favorite game of the current generation by far. A couple of nitpicks though:

Consuming more humanity doesn't make you appear more human. You have an undead form and a human form. Consuming humanity increases your attack, defense, and item drop rates, meaning the longer you stay human and the more humanity you consume, the stronger you are and the better items you'll find. I found it to be an incredible system because the payoff is huge, and risking consuming a lot of humanity only to lose it all upon death makes the game a lot more engaging.

I'm also surprised you didn't go into the multiplayer aspects at all, and how humanity factors into that. Summoning and invading are a huge part of the game, I would have liked you to go more into depth about those elements, as well as the different covenants in the game. Also, weapon forging and the poise mechanic, where you can absorb blows if your armor has high enough poise without your attacks being interrupted.

I also personally liked that there's no pause screen, it makes you stay committed to doing whatever you were going to do. If there were a pause function, I have a feeling a lot of players would abuse it to pull up the menu and quit the game before they die, leaving a lot less tension when playing.

I also didn't find glitches to be very prevalent at all, at least in my experience. Compared to a game like Skyrim the polish is insane. Though I definitely did find the inexplicable delay when attempting to shield every once in a while very frustrating.

As for the story aspects, the world has a huge amount of history, and I love the fact that you have to piece it together yourself instead of a story being told in cutscenes. It makes it much more immersing piecing events together through context (like finding an item next to a pool of blood and reading a description about who it belonged to, then piecing together what their final moments must have been like). The fact that it doesn't have an obtrusive storyline was one of the things I enjoyed the most about the game.

As for the shielding aspect where your enemy has their shield up and you're waiting for a moment to strike, you can usually kick an enemy's shield down.

So yeah, overall, great review and really well-written! Though I would have preferred more detail about more of the games' mechanics, particularly the multiplayer functionality which I find to be brilliant and definitely a highlight of the game. Good job!

I stand corrected. And I forgot about the summoning. The invading stuff is just online isn't it? I didn't play online.

Thanks for the feedback It's something I don't get enough of.

Nice review! This is my favorite game of the current generation by far. A couple of nitpicks though:

Consuming more humanity doesn't make you appear more human. You have an undead form and a human form. Consuming humanity increases your attack, defense, and item drop rates, meaning the longer you stay human and the more humanity you consume, the stronger you are and the better items you'll find. I found it to be an incredible system because the payoff is huge, and risking consuming a lot of humanity only to lose it all upon death makes the game a lot more engaging.

I'm also surprised you didn't go into the multiplayer aspects at all, and how humanity factors into that. Summoning and invading are a huge part of the game, I would have liked you to go more into depth about those elements, as well as the different covenants in the game. Also, weapon forging and the poise mechanic, where you can absorb blows if your armor has high enough poise without your attacks being interrupted.

I also personally liked that there's no pause screen, it makes you stay committed to doing whatever you were going to do. If there were a pause function, I have a feeling a lot of players would abuse it to pull up the menu and quit the game before they die, leaving a lot less tension when playing.

I also didn't find glitches to be very prevalent at all, at least in my experience. Compared to a game like Skyrim the polish is insane. Though I definitely did find the inexplicable delay when attempting to shield every once in a while very frustrating.

As for the story aspects, the world has a huge amount of history, and I love the fact that you have to piece it together yourself instead of a story being told in cutscenes. It makes it much more immersing piecing events together through context (like finding an item next to a pool of blood and reading a description about who it belonged to, then piecing together what their final moments must have been like). The fact that it doesn't have an obtrusive storyline was one of the things I enjoyed the most about the game.

As for the shielding aspect where your enemy has their shield up and you're waiting for a moment to strike, you can usually kick an enemy's shield down.

So yeah, overall, great review and really well-written! Though I would have preferred more detail about more of the games' mechanics, particularly the multiplayer functionality which I find to be brilliant and definitely a highlight of the game. Good job!

Finish the game!