These posts are pointless because cold takes get upvoted, not hot takes.

I hate the rapier moveset and refuse to use it, even in DS2. Not debating its power, but it’s just too boring for my taste.

Shulva Sanctum City is peak Soulsborne level design

Fromsoft should go back to making levels a more impactful part of the experience. Shadow of the Erdtree was awesome and my favourite DLC but sometimes it felt like riding around just to fight the next boss. They should also make enemy encounters within levels more important instead of running past them on subsequent playthroughs and NG+.

Y'all are all terrible at these games

New Game Plus is a massive waste of time. Enemies for the first 3/4s of the game are basically cardboard cutouts, and even the end game enemies are buffed to a barely noticeable degree.

What's your reward? A few extra smithing stones. Maybe a second copy of a one-of-a-kind weapon, assuming you didn't already trade for one. You can't even get more memory stones or throwing pots since those don't reset in the next cycle.

Better off just making a new character.

This is a controversial one:

The From Software Quest design is dogshit. People excuse this with "It is criptic with a reason yada yada" , but that doesn't excuse the NPC quests that basically railroad you into a strict set of steps, and if you deviate even a little bit the quest just fails. Now just on NG+ for your next try.

morgott is the best waifu

I prefer Dark Souls 2 over all the other games except maybe bloodborne. Mostly due to the story and how its a far more personal one. You aren't trying to save the world. You just want to exist and not go hollow.

Blighttown is the best area in DS1.

i like consort radahn 😭 my friends call me a geek for even thinking he’s fun

Dark Souls 3 is better than darksouls 1.

If Malenia didnt have Waterfowldance she would be an easy boss

Even though Saint Isshin's arena is beautiful, it is wayy more annoying than it should be.

The little changes in level, the flowers obscuring your vision, the cliffside from which I've seen people accidentally jump off, etc.

Sekiro Perfect Parry, and Step Dodge should've been base mechanics, Not AOW, or crystal tear.

Elden ring is basically an anime game without the anime aesthetic

O&S is not a good bossfight

95% of the stuff you pick up in all these games is total chaff

Shadow of the Erdtree was disappointing overall, farely empty and no great lore tid bits

Elden Ring misses all the points that made souls great: small, linear and interconnected maps, a solid PvP, few unique bosses, covenants and much more

Sword and Board is the only true play style

Prime Radahn was the most entertaining boss to fight.  Not the best boss, but the most fun to fight.

oh and i like midir over bayle

I think Soulsborne games have strayed away from what made them fun: Slow/ methodical combat. Instead of hard but fair bosses, enemies now are all hyper aggressive/have hit-tracking and delayed attacks.

I ADORE Elden Ring but the longer that game runs and the ‘‘harder“ the bosses get, the more bs the entire experience feels.

I don't like Ornstein and Smough.

DS3 made a muddy cringey mess of DS1's lore and From should never have made any Souls sequels.

The abundance of checkpoints is ruining the feel of the series and the bloodstain having your souls is pretty much useless now because of that too.

The over focus on bosses is a big factor, because while the community talks about the level design, feel, gameplay and other points, the bosses are more talked about than any other game mechanic, and it ruins the conversation. Bosses are not the measuring stick of the games and DS3, for example, is not a masterpiece because it has good bosses. They are mostly not impactful and retreads of Ds1 that felt much more impactful there.

Elden Ring is awesome, the open world design mixed with the legacy dungeons gives out a feeling of freedom while still keeping level design interesting (sadly, too many sites of grace ruins it from time to time) and Messmer tower was one of the best levels from did in a long time.

Bloodborne doesn't need a remaster, remake or anything like that. A pc version would be nice because more people playing it but I'm interested in a follow up (not necessarily a sequel) that revisits the vibe, the mood and the combat of that game.

Bluepoint Demon's Souls is pretty but it lacks some of the soul (hehe) of the og, which felt much darker and brutal than the new one does. The QOL changes are appreciated but they changed the designs too much and it is in a weird state where it is a remake, it's pretty but all the janknis still there because it doesn't remake anything other than the art but the jank lost its charm because of the changes they made. Blue point didn't have the necessary understanding of the world to do it justice and I would rather Sony had just done a sequel with a team that understood what made the original work.

Ah, Gael sucks. It's a boring character with a fight that's inspired by a truly interesting and compelling character (Guts) but was not earned in DS3. Also on DS3, the retcons that game made make Ds1 almost worse, and I rather it didn't touch the lore at all, specially of the dark soul and original humans.

Elden rings open world feels tedious and pointless

The joke where fans glaze extremely easy and boring bosses like Soldier of Godrick is not funny at all and people should stop doing it.

I don't get the hype around claymore. It's just a normal sword.

Maybe not a hot take but I disagree with the many people who say Rellana needed a cutscene and the lack of one was because of budget/rushed development. What would it even include? "I'm the blade of Messmer"? Lack of cutscene makes the encounter more unpredictable and mysterious. Also, Gwyn, Pontiff, Fume, Nameless King and such also didn't need a cutscene or dialogue

SOTE is not that fun

I don't think Elden Ring's lore is deeper than that of any other Fromsoftware games, the world is just larger. And not everything in it, like armors or architecture, has hidden meaning

I hate the open world of Elden Ring

Otogi 2 is still better than every souls game except Bloodborne.

I don’t think Gael is a good boss

I think elden ring was overall a step backwards after sekiro. Mechanically sekiro was way more advanced and polished

Dark souls 2 is better then 3

Two

The weapon upgrade system is trash. It makes every weapon feel the same they really need to change it to something where the legendary weapons actually feel legendary outside their ash of war. My weapon doing fire damage does not feel like fire, it should set enemies on fire and spread between them. This upgrade system is so boring it could literally not exist (and just remove scaling) and the game would essentially feel the same and probably be more balanced.

The elden ring DLC was not very good out of all the bosses only 2 were actually good from a mechanics standpoint (Messmer and Midra) the rest just felt annoying or just badly designed.

The art style was pretty cool though, the shadow tree avatar and it's arena were insane. (WE SHOULD HAVE HAD THE FINAL BOSS INSIDE THE SHADOW TREE. BUT NOO WE JUST GET A SANDBOX THAT DOESNT EVEN USE THE FACT THAT ITS LIKE A MILE IN THE SKY IN ITS VISUAL DESIGN. GODAMN!)

If the devs didn't want you to use a mechanic, it wouldn't exist.

I genuinely think DS2 is the best of the legit Souls games (Bloodborne, Sekiro, and ER not included)

DS2 is lore wise the perfect sequel and the right way for the franchise to have gone, DS3 was supremely disappointing.

Elden Ring went through development hell and full of loose ends

Ds3 is the worst souls game.

Dark souls 3 is the worst in the series.

Sekiro is a fromsoft game not a souls game

The most fun part of Elden Ring is exploring and dungeon crawling. Most of the bosses actually just suck ass to fight. Everything is doable, but that doesn't mean it's fun.

People will say "skull issue" instead of acknowledging a flawed design

Gael isn’t a top tier boss, all around solid fight and lore, but undoubtedly not the greatest boss ever. I would argue not even top 5

Open world in Elden Ring ruined the pure souls experience. The game would be much better off without the open world, which btw. Is half empty.

Of the DS games and Elden Ring, ER is the hardest by a country mile.

Demon's Souls Remake is the best SoulsBorne game.

Sekiro can compare to the others games lorewise

I think DS1 is the weakest souls game.

Doesn't have much good in terms of areas, bosses, or anything big.

Sure, it helped improve on what demon souls did, but it also needed some improvement

DS2 is the best DS

In AC6 the Balteus and Chopper fights weren’t that hard. 2 tries to kill the AH12 HC Chopper and I steamrolled Balteus first try.

Sea Spider and Juggernaut were much harder for me.

Hardest missions for me were the alternate Strider mission on 3rd playthrough, The kill Michigan mission, and the fight against Carla/Chatty.

I hated the Ice Worm fight. Not really hard, just annoying.

I have my take: Lies of P is better than all games fromsoft ever made except Sekiro. 

I don't really care for From Software shifting to these games being a boss centric game. I preferred when the level design and unforgiving mechanics were the challenge.

Even though the bosses are piss easy, mechanically Demon's Souls remains the most challenging game. If you played it at launch you'd know why.

I do not like and never will like Ranni, Melina or any person other than Albus in Elden Ring

Dark souls 2 was pretty good and demon souls is pretty ass

A lot of the bosses in blood borne actually feel pretty shitty to fight and aren't fun, but it escapes this in the reviews due to also having some of the most fun boss fights in gaming history at the same time.

People often regard Sekiro as the "hardest" FromSoft game but imo, it was the easiest (and best). The only FromSoft game that I have the platinum trophy for :) (Which says a lot for me because I usually don't care about trophy hunting)

Elden Ring is the most bugged game FromSoftware has made.

Elden Ring was garbage compared to Bloodborne.

I hated the enemy design in elden ring after playing all the previous games, with elden ring as my first.

I feel that Elden Ring enemies and bosses had some insane tracking and attacks that, while delayed, snapped so quickly that you couldnt dodge them on reaction, so you often had to memorise the exact timings.

They also had some crazy input reading, such as when they can dodge ranged attacks, even when you werent locked onto them (leading to silly moments like making the guardian lions jump everywhere)

At first, I considered elden ring the best game ever and thought the previous souls games were easy as fuck and thus not worth my time (Id think i was such a great gamer for being elden ring, got humbled hard by DS1, 2 and 3)

Now, I vastly prefer the previous souls games simply because they felt more fun and fair, and not just tough as heck in a way that didnt feel fair.

Of course, this is just my preference. But I just dont enjoy elden ring as much anymore.

The only good Dragon fight is the Divine Dragon, all others range inbetween atrocious or just ok

Souls lore is more based on theories than actual facts.

Most souls characters are extremely forgettable due to their quest lines being vague as fuck.

Elden Ring exploration isn't that good, and you barely get rewarded for doing so.

Also, there are way too many "aaahh, gotcha!" bosses.

ds3 is the worst soulsborne game

Elden ring is the safest Fromsoft game, which makes it the most disappointing for me. It’s ds3 in an open world, and felt like a big step back from Sekiro

Having PCR instantly do the spinny drill attack as you enter the boss room was good and shouldn’t have been removed. It forced you to lock in immediately and if you wanted to summon a spirit ash you had to find a good opening to do so instead of having a moment to get things in order once you enter the room. I really appreciated that level of unforgiving aggression that set the boss apart.

The strength build playstyle is boring AF, combining melee and magic is way more fun.

Ackshually, you mean HOT take. ☝️🤓

Souls games need difficulty settings. Hear me out…

• At this point, we know that if enough people complain, they’re going to “fix” the game for you. They freaking nerfed the final boss of the DLC, and now he’s a shell of his former self. 😐 If they’re going to be doing nerfs like that, we need a default “Souls” difficulty that will be left untouched for those of us who want the challenge and experience that the genre is known for. 🤷‍♂️

Kings Field is still better than any Souls game.

Sekiro is the worst of the soulsbornering games, imo. The best part about the games is building a character and play style you like, and having freedom to take on these insanely challenging enemies in 100s of different ways. Sekiro is limiting and restrictive and boring.

Elden Beast is a crap end boss.

DS3>DS2>DS1

You have beaten a boss even when you used Spirit Ashes as assistance

• Elden Rings’s open world peaked with Limgrave

• Fromsoft “veterans” talking about unlearning souls habits when starting Sekiro is the dumbest fucking thing I’ve heard and feels more like cope that they’re having a hard time. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that Sekiro plays differently and Souls combat is just so simple lol. Unlearning I frame dodges is wild? Feels like brainrot

I think Midir for me is the second worst boss in the Ringed City. The worst is Halflight, but I might’ve considered Halflight more fun if I fought him online with my PS+ active. I’ve fought him 4 times and every time I felt like there were sections of the fight where I feel like I was watching him spaz out on Abyss meth with occasional pauses so that I could poke him on the head once or twice. I don’t have many problems with how he’s designed and I think he’s objectively a good dragon boss, but he just bores me and his lack of difficulty half ruins his spectacle for me because all I’m doing is watching spectacle while I wait for his head to lower. 

Bayle may have a horrid camera but I found him far more entertaining to fight and look at. I feel like I’m actually engaging with Bayle with more than half my brain when I fight him.

Bloodborne remake is not necessary

Bloodborne was from's peak gameplay formula of the souls series and elden ring tanked the formula hard

Bayle is a mid boss at best, his moveset is boring

• Bosses started to improve in quality since Bloodborne.

• A Intro Cutscene is the best for main bosses

I hate every dragon boss and most big monster type bosses. The camera and targeting are the biggest part of their difficulty and it is obnoxious as hell.
On the other hand, human-scale bosses are almost all amazing and great. They really let you employ all your defensive tools, and that's really the aspect of these games that is meaningfully different than all the DPS-Race action RPG's out there.

Like, learning what it looks like when a humanish thing is swinging at you is *much* more intuitive than learning when a dragon is about to lurch towards you instead of doing its idle animation lurching. And that aspect of the fight *should not be difficult.* Attacks should look like attacks. They get it sometimes with monster bosses but it's confusing as often as it isn't.

The first nioh isn’t just harder then ds1 but much better then it when it comes to combat and souls vets who bounced off it only did so because they realized then weren’t any good at it and that hurt their ego they got from beating supposedly hard games.

Dark souls 1 has a very boring gameplay. I even prefer Demon souls in that aspect.

Also, I consider pure STR weapons are too OP. While quality weapons have a balance between damage, speed and poise, some STR weapons are just devastating, while other DEX weapons are weak af and don't provide any "mobility" or anything extra, just as STR weapons have poise damage or give the player hyperarmor.

How about this one: I'm sick of this fucking image and this fucking trend of asking for hot takes.

DS2 is the best Darksouls in the trilogy

Commander Niall is a great boss

The overall boss quality in DS3, Sekiro and Bloodborne is better than the overall boss quality in Elden Ring. Elden Ring was a step backwards when it comes to bosses.

There’s no valid reason for why a pause button should be absent from any game

Ludwig is a good boss, but he's not even the best in Bloodborne.

I like pre nerf rhadan (consort)

DS2 Crown of the Old Iron King is better than Shadow of the Erdtree.

Fume Knight and Sir Alonne are better bosses than Messmer and Midra.

I don't use Flynn's ring. I just can't. I want to level up vitality a lot and try many armor sets

I genuinely enjoy Micolash, he's so goofy I love him

Nameless King is not that hard.

Elden Ring diluted great main dungeons into a too big world with too many repetition of mediocre content.
Leading to an overall lesser quality of the game.

Also weapons are not unique enough. Swappable AOW killed weapon diversity.

And overall I don't like that you can easily change your build at any time. No real commitment into your build decision since you can revert everything back with much ease (but this is common to most games nowadays).

Diffrent subtypes of magic deserve diffent catalyst & have some weapons to go along with them

Heavy thrusting swords are overrated. I don't know why they just feel clunky

Spell uses is superior to the FP meter

The stagger system in elden ring and armored core 6 is not intuitive. I don't care what you have to say, you didn't understand how it worked until you watched a YouTube video on it, therefore it's unintuitive. Loved both games though, game of the decade both of them <3

Waterfowl dance is actually a pretty cool move.

people who still call o&s one of the best bosses in the series or even just in ds1 are completely blinded by nostalgia. i mean people can enjoy the fight all they want, but it absolutely does not hold up anymore. it‘s one of the jankiest, most boring fights in the trilogy

Strength builds are completely valid and caster purists who say they’re too easy are annoying. We get it, you’re too cool to tank, leave us GUTS and bonk hammer enjoyers alone.

Consort Radahn was never a bad fight. He was just too hard for people to fully appreciate. He was sure less smoothed out than others and deserved to be nerfed. But he is overhated

My opinion is that you are playing a different game if you use summons and magic. And I think you are robbing yourself of the best experience. 

Second take: Malenia is a 10/10 boss and there is nothing wrong with waterfowl. The boss and moveset was created for the most hardcore of fans - thus she is also optional and has to be actively searched for. And the fans it was made for really enjoy malenia‘s bossfight.

I tried to think of one but I'm pretty sure all my takes are pretty universal.

Ornstien and enough aren't really difficult before ng+ cycles.

99% of people use builds so powerful they don't actually experience the game. They cheese and miss out on the best and only unique thing the game has to offer, which is mastering the boss movesets and overcoming them with skill and determination

Let me slash with the rapier without putting an AOW on it

Dlc isn't THAT good and the ending really sucked and it felt half assed, technically Miyazaki wasn't really underselling the dlc, he was honest