(05-16-2014, 03:24 PM)Ildur Wrote: Clearly achieving a high rank because of combos or whatever requires some form of skill, but isn't it an optional part of the game? If I go play DMC right now, do I need an S rank to beat all the bosses and finish the game?This is almost entirely besides the point. I was particularly responding to this:
[snipped for length]
(05-16-2014, 02:35 AM)synaesthetic Wrote: Very fast paced hack-and-slash games like DMC don't have (and can't have) the same level of skill-based challenge that games like DS or MH, or even TERA to a degree.Bolded by me for emphasis.
This is simply a patently false statement. Whether or not the game requires it is immaterial; the game is STILL more than capable of possessing the same level of skill-based challenge and even more so because the mechanics are actually deeper. It's even false to suggest that Dark Souls is less forgiving; certainly at its base level it is less forgiving for actually getting through the game, but trying to S-rank a Platinum game or DMC is easily a match for a Souls games' level of challenge.
The rules change when you make such an attempt: you can only make so many mistakes before you just have to start over. You have to have a level of systems mastery well beyond that which is required to simply 'beat' a game, and to say that the games are easier or cannot have as much skill-based challenge because that baseline exists is simply disingenuous. The Souls games essentially force a rule on the player that says "you can only make this many mistakes before you die" while removing any semblance of 'difficulty settings'; trying to S-rank a character action game is essentially the same thing, only without the sudden death (and even then, there are difficulty settings designed to kill you very, very fast).
To put it another way: if you put the same limitations on the player between a Souls game and a character action game (you die in 'X' amount of hits), the latter will easily breach the former in difficulty simply because there are so many more game elements to keep track of, both in terms of the player toolset and in terms of what the enemies actually bring to the party. A lot of Dark Souls' difficulty, for example, comes from the player actually being limited in what they can do. Your weapons only have a handful of attacks; most of these attacks have lengthy windup and recovery times; your roll has a limited number of invulnerability frames; EVERYTHING you do costs you stamina.
That's one aspect of difficulty, and it's perfectly valid, but a character action game derives part of its difficulty from the fact that the player has a HUGE toolbox and must learn to utilize it effectively. A Souls game effectively hamstrings the player off the bat in the name of making things difficult (which itself is only a means to draw the player into the world further), which is simply not what a character action game is designed to do. It's because of this that Dark Souls fails to retain any semblance of challenge once a player has attained systems mastery; it's not actually a particularly deep game mechanically, it just does a good job of limiting the player to make things difficult and unforgiving.
Anyway, I hope that helps bring across where I'm coming from. From where I'm standing I just can't bring myself to agree with such an absolute statement. Such games can and do have an incredibly high level of skill-based challenge. Perhaps you have to actively seek it to find it, but you can't just deny that it exists.
