PC users petition Namco Bandai for Dark Souls

Writeup at Kotaku about Dark Souls' difficulty here.

I still want to know how the game compares to Devil May Cry 3 (original console version, not the "Special Edition") and the 2004 reboot of Ninja Gaiden. They're probably the two games of the last 10 years that have kicked my ass the most on "normal" difficulty.

I though the 2004 Ninja Gaiden was one of the best games I've ever played. It was difficult, but not frustrating at all and for the most part it only took 2 or 3 attempts to kill a boss and overall you might die 3 or 4 times in a level. But the thing I loved about it was how well the combat flowed. It didn't feel forced or unnatural, it was all reasonably fast and very fluid. It was one of those games that had no initial adjustment and learning time. I picked it up and it just felt right, normally there's a bit of time you spend in a game getting used to how your character moves and how the controls work, Ninja Gaiden just felt "right" from the get-go.
 
I though the 2004 Ninja Gaiden was one of the best games I've ever played. It was difficult, but not frustrating at all and for the most part it only took 2 or 3 attempts to kill a boss and overall you might die 3 or 4 times in a level. But the thing I loved about it was how well the combat flowed. It didn't feel forced or unnatural, it was all reasonably fast and very fluid. It was one of those games that had no initial adjustment and learning time. I picked it up and it just felt right, normally there's a bit of time you spend in a game getting used to how your character moves and how the controls work, Ninja Gaiden just felt "right" from the get-go.

Yeah I found it to be a pretty good game, although the camera angles always gave me the shits, especially when you had to do a bunch of wall-running to progress through a level. The first boss was ridiculously hard though, since Ryu has practically no skills at that point of the game. Ninja Gaiden II was a bit easier, but cheaper at the same time and the camera angles were even worse. The obscene blood and gore that was cut from the 2004 NG for us Aussies was certainly a delight in the uncut sequel, though :).

Devil May Cry 3, on the other hand, was basically perfect in terms of camera and combat. Fighting every boss several times was the only real problem I had with it.
 
Yeah, the camera wasn't the best, but for some reason it didn't really bother me. I remember reading on forums people complaining about certain platforming areas and bosses being almost impossible because of the camera, but those same sections I flew through without a worry. I managed to get past the level 1 boss on my 2nd attempt ;) Most of the bosses telegraphed their moves long enough in advance to either block or roll away, it was just a case of figuring out which telegraph preceded which attack.
 
If they don't port it to PC, a PC developer will borrow all its gameplay concepts and make a different game with all of Dark Souls' game mechanics in place.

And that developer will reap all the rewards that Namco/From will have passed up.
 
If they don't port it to PC, a PC developer will borrow all its gameplay concepts and make a different game with all of Dark Souls' game mechanics in place.

And that developer will reap all the rewards that Namco/From will have passed up.

Nice thought, but I've been hoping someone would do that with Forza/GTA/SEGA GT 2002 for the past 10 or so years. No luck yet.
 
Its not the "hard" or "skill" that puts me off, its the way fans of the game come across as down right masochistic. I hear less comments about how its hard and more comments about how its frustrating.

The feeling I get from reading peoples' comments its more like "If you don't like getting kicked in the balls repeatedly by a small annoying asian man, this game probably isn't for you". Rather than "If you don't like games that require skill etc etc".

But hey, I'd like to try it to see what all the fuss is about... when its $5 in the bargain bin :p

This exactly.
 
Will never happen. It's from a Japanese dev that doesn't have much of a Western department, it's the type of "stupid American's hate games this hard" sort of masochist Asian stuff that doesn't sell well here, and Japan doesn't do PC gaming for the most part. PC gaming is for dating sims, rape sims, and music games there. And even then only the shitty ones.

Plus the companies that port this stuff have often said these ports tend to be hit or miss. They'll think something will work and then lose massive money on it. And that's on consoles let alone the PC in terms of the sheer numbers game and most fans of Japanese style games stay on consoles. So they tend to be very hesitant with this sort of stuff. That Demon Souls came out at all in the west was a bit of a fluke.

That all said it's not all that hard. The difficulty of this game is over rated. The key to the game is that anything can kill you with ease and the game loves to place enemies in obnoxious places, not "haha you couldn't see it" but choke points and areas you have to fight. So if you run through the game quickly you're going to get crushed because you'll get overwhelmed, and if you try to mindlessly hack and slash your way through something you're going to die in a manner of seconds.

If you go through the game slowly and methodically, try to keep your fights down to one enemy at a time, and pay attention to where things are it isn't all that hard. And the game is certainly not unfair at any point. However if you approach it like a western RPG and try to Rambo something or simply bolt past an area the game is going to chew you up and spit you out. Also if you make the assumption that just because you gained some levels, slapped on a new suit of armor and got a new weapon some enemy isn't going to kill you real quick you'll learn that one the hard way as well.

If you've played Japanese RPGs via importing games over the past couple generations the difficulty isn't that bad or a shock. On the other hand if you've only played the easy ones that get released in the US, or even worse western devs PC or PC style RPGs it's probably going to be hard on you and a bit of a kick to the balls.
 
It's not that it's "frustrating" more so then IPt's just plain hard. The Majority of the time when you die in Dark Souls (or demons souls) it's because you did something wrong and didn't react quick enough or know what you were doing. It's quite unforgiving.

However in the end, when you DO beat it, it's so much more rewarding then most games.

However I will say this about Dark Souls, FUCK Blightown and it's drops of death thanks to huge fps slow down. I just don't see how that part passed Q&A, it's like 5 fps down there , take one mis-step and you're dead. Also fuck the Andor archers, pita the first time (but you just have to time it right and roll).
 
However I will say this about Dark Souls, FUCK Blightown and it's drops of death thanks to huge fps slow down. I just don't see how that part passed Q&A, it's like 5 fps down there , take one mis-step and you're dead. Also fuck the Andor archers, pita the first time (but you just have to time it right and roll).

Blighttown is certainly a dreadful experience when you come at it from the long path. Aside from the overly optimistic draw distance, you can pull out the binoculars and see that enemies halfway across the map are trying to find paths to get to you and just eating up clock cycles. They made it a tiny bit better in 1,05, but it still sucks.

The archers piss me off because now I feel like its one of the only areas in the game where fate is out of my hands. I have the same problem with Bed of Chaos.
 
Yes, 60k petitions out of which about 80% will actually purchase the game and out of the 80% only 25% will pay the full price. Definitely makes a lot of sense to launch the game on PC :p.
 
Yes, 60k petitions out of which about 80% will actually purchase the game and out of the 80% only 25% will pay the full price. Definitely makes a lot of sense to launch the game on PC :p.

I think more people would know about it than an online petition if it were being released. It's pretty silly to think that everyone who would buy this on Steam knows about some obscure online petition.
 
Yes, 60k petitions out of which about 80% will actually purchase the game and out of the 80% only 25% will pay the full price. Definitely makes a lot of sense to launch the game on PC :p.

It actually makes very little sense for them to PC it ever. Asian ports to PC tend to horrible for these sorts of games. Asian RPGs, strategy games, shooters, all bomb like crazy. It almost always turns into a money loser and ends laughably bad.

Plus people who enjoy Asian games already own the consoles they come out on. The companies can also tell by imports how much of a market is there.

Keep the hardcore and tough Asian games on the platforms where the sell the best. PC is for western RPGs, not hard RPGs.
 
Keep the hardcore and tough Asian games on the platforms where the sell the best. PC is for western RPGs, not hard RPGs.

You're probably not aware of this, but the Japanese don't really like hard games and the difficulty tends to be increased for western versions of games.
 
It actually makes very little sense for them to PC it ever. Asian ports to PC tend to horrible for these sorts of games. Asian RPGs, strategy games, shooters, all bomb like crazy. It almost always turns into a money loser and ends laughably bad.

Plus people who enjoy Asian games already own the consoles they come out on. The companies can also tell by imports how much of a market is there.

Keep the hardcore and tough Asian games on the platforms where the sell the best. PC is for western RPGs, not hard RPGs.

Eastern Europeans sell hardcore difficult RPGs on the PC just fine. DS is more styled like a western game in the first place. The combat often gets compared to Gothic 2, Risen, The Witcher 2 etc. Console gamers would blow a gasket playing STALKER

You really just don't get PC gaming.
 
It actually makes very little sense for them to PC it ever. Asian ports to PC tend to horrible for these sorts of games. Asian RPGs, strategy games, shooters, all bomb like crazy. It almost always turns into a money loser and ends laughably bad.

Plus people who enjoy Asian games already own the consoles they come out on. The companies can also tell by imports how much of a market is there.

Keep the hardcore and tough Asian games on the platforms where the sell the best. PC is for western RPGs, not hard RPGs.

Brother, you need to hit that red x in the corner and call it a day 'round these parts if you can't do better than this.
 
Its been well documented that porting a game to PC isn't nearly as cost intensive as making the game, but they somehow manage to still underfund it and screw it up, i really hope they do it right if they decide to.
 
I would definitely repurchase the game (I own it for PS3) if it comes out for PC, it would be awesome if it were ported well, and I could increase the graphical settings, as others have noted, it can be a little bit of a chug fest in some locations.

Other than the visuals, I think playing it with KB + Mouse should be just fine.
 
66,000 sig's now. Bandai says that PC gamers have their attention.

I can see it now though. This game comes to PC. PC Gamers bitch about the 'consolized low res graphics' and Bandai says "never again".
 
66,000 sig's now. Bandai says that PC gamers have their attention.

I can see it now though. This game comes to PC. PC Gamers bitch about the 'consolized low res graphics' and Bandai says "never again".

So if Bandai released dark souls with 720p max res we should say thank you? How about a quality port instead of taking quotes from the Ubisoft whine 101 guide.
 
So if Bandai released dark souls with 720p max res we should say thank you? How about a quality port instead of taking quotes from the Ubisoft whine 101 guide.

I support this message.

Just cause they are "bringing it to PC" doesn't mean we shouldn't expect and demand a QUALITY port.

It doesn't have to look Crysis 2 spectecular, but some graphical tweaks, 1080p, some tinkering with the controls to make it more PC friendly, and they can call it a day on this game.
 
66,000 sig's now. Bandai says that PC gamers have their attention.

I can see it now though. This game comes to PC. PC Gamers bitch about the 'consolized low res graphics' and Bandai says "never again".
They should ask THQ about the difference between a bad port and a good port.
 
I think the expectations of Dark Souls on PC would and should be lower given it would be done by a developer with very little PC experience and published by a company with no presence on the PC.
 
They could always outsource it to a competent porting house, like the guys who ported DEHR to PC.
 
They could always outsource it to a competent porting house, like the guys who ported DEHR to PC.

Maybe, but difficult Japanese console games being ported to the PC by outsourced developers didn't turn out so well for Devil May Cry 3 and Resident Evil 4. They were so bad Capcom decided to take charge of ports-to-PC in-house. I think DEHR being ported well by a different studio was an exception to the rule.
 
True, but that boils down to incompetence rather than having any correlation to using an external studio to do the port, especially in view of the number of terrible in-house ports we have seen shoveled out by developers.
 
Maybe, but difficult Japanese console games being ported to the PC by outsourced developers didn't turn out so well for Devil May Cry 3 and Resident Evil 4. They were so bad Capcom decided to take charge of ports-to-PC in-house. I think DEHR being ported well by a different studio was an exception to the rule.

Capcom didn't care about the quality of the ports at all. That's why they ended up bad. They basically passed them off to Ubisoft and stopped caring at that point. Ubi had the ports made as quickly and cheaply as possible.
 
I support this message.

Just cause they are "bringing it to PC" doesn't mean we shouldn't expect and demand a QUALITY port.

It doesn't have to look Crysis 2 spectecular, but some graphical tweaks, 1080p, some tinkering with the controls to make it more PC friendly, and they can call it a day on this game.
Thanks for confirming my speculation.

What if high res textures do not exist for this game? Do you expect them to go back through and recreate high res textures for the entire game? I doubt this game will sell over 50,000 units anyways. Anything more than a direct console->PC port won't happen because it's not worth it.
 
Here's how I feel about something like this: If they brought a quality version of this game to the PC, I'd buy it just to vote with my wallet even though I'd have some extra expenses with the stash of tranqs and blood pressure medicine for myself nearby. ;)
 
Damn near 80k signatures...

Demon's Souls was a very obscure game that did not generate any attention untill word of mouth spread amongst gamers at how much gaming goodness was encapsulated on a single Blu-Ray disc.

It suprises me not to see the masses clamoring for more.
 
people will bitch about online portion more than anything
how do i invite friend to my session??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
 
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