Originally Posted by
Cosmiccandy
I tried to get into Dark Souls multiple times, but I can't seem to hack it. Its not the difficulty that bothers me, ive beaten a lot of titles made by Platinum Studios and their predecessor Clover Studios (God Hand, Bayonetta etc) that were hard as all hell. What bothers me is that it pretty much failed to teach me anything about how to play it. I have no clue how spells work, what humanity does, what half the statistics for my weapons/armour are etc. I could go on, but it really seems like the only way to learn the games mechanics is to look up things from a third party or get my ass handed to me arbitrarily for the first I dont know, 5 hours before I figure out the games rules.
God Hand might have been ball-bustingly difficult, but at least it had the common courtesy to explain all of my abilities within the first 10 minutes and give me all the tools I need to possibly win. Now I get it, a lot of games are way too hand-holdy with tutorials and trout. I remember Mass Effect 3 telling me to move the control stick to move my character. That being said, is it really so unreasonable that you teach me about how to use magic if I pick a dedicated spellcasting class? Im not asking for a detailed walkthrough here, just some basic direction.
Im not trying to rain on anyone's parade or anything if you enjoy this game, but there's really no excuse for not teaching players the basic rules to your game. Imagine if you could only learn Chess by having your opponent take your pieces in ways you didn't know were possible. Heck you might think you've checkmated them only to find out that you can do some weird move where they swap with the castle, ruining your entire strategy. If the player doesn't know the basic rules, how can they possibly develop strategies and get any good at the game without learning them first?