Is this peak level design? Everything about the exploration and backtracking feels so intricate and adventurous

based

> this game turns to shit after Anor Londo
Ding ding ding! We have a winner! I like the first half of this game as much as everyone else, but it's like people completely forget the second half sucks a bag of dicks. Dark Souls 2 is a better game overall. It is not only longer, but it is of consistently high quality. The worst areas of DS2 are nowhere near as bad as the worst areas of DS1.

I've 100%ed Bloodborne and Sekiro, but I've never played through the DS games. I just beat Seath the Scaleless on my first DS1 playthrough, and let me say a lot of people are definitely blinded by nostalgia. The backtracking is not endearing by the 10th time you've gotten killed by a swarm of ghosts clipping through walls, or after you slip off of a crystal walkway for seemingly no reason on your way back to your souls.
The first half of the game was awesome. Losing my giant blacksmith to an out of control spear demon was not. Moments like this don't make me think "wow what a truly special game", they just show how poorly thought out and rushed a lot of this game clearly was.
Also enemy Invaders ruin the game. It's a great premise, but the reality is a get stuck on the fucking bridge in the Painted World while some faggot in heavy armor kicks me over and over until I fall down a hole with no way to defend myself. Other people's autism really interferes with an otherwise novel multiplayer system

It really is
Elden Ring will probably have a large wide map to explore and ride your horse around, but I hope their next game after that they create a small, interconnected world again with the same verticality as DS1

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git gud faggot

end this "second half of dark souls is all shit" meme

It's not a meme, it's a matter of fact.

>Is this peak level design?
post anor londo

duke's archive is good, tomb of the giants is memorable (not amazing level design but not "shit"), oolacile township is good, the abyss is also not amazing but very memorable and new londo is good

> Duke's archives
Everything looks the same and you just run around in a maze of levels that all look identical to each other
> Tomb of the Giants
The darkness is cancer, and there's no bonfire close to Nito so when you get killed by his bullshit sword attack in the first 5 seconds you have to run 5 minutes to get back to the boss arena
> Oolacile
That's DLC, not the base game
> Abyss
Doesn't even count as a level. It's just the boss arena for New Londo
> New Londo
Level design is good, great even, but the ghosts are cancer and ruin the level.

It’s true though. Even Anor Londo is trash. Ariamis is the last decent area. The DLC levels were also samey as fuck
Now this is REAL level design

Everything looks the fucking same in Bloodborne. I liked Dark Souls for its variety in environments while keeping things somewhat realistic.

How is the Duke's archives a maze?
It's a pretty straightforward building layout
>The darkness is cancer
>the ghosts are cancer
That's not the game being bad, that's you being bad
There are easy solutions to those problems

> How is the Duke's archives a maze?
It's something like 5 stories high and every floor looks the same. Plus two sides of the central wall that are basically mirror images of each other. And some parts are only accessible via staircases from other floors. Everything looks so similar it's hard for me to keep track of where I've been. It's not that bad if you're just trying to get through it, but trying to find all the loot is a major pain in the ass. And the darkness and ghosts are bad because they're just frustrating and unfun, not "tough but fair".

It's just a big hall split in two with three rows of balconies running around the edges
I think you are just a brainlet

It's not a meme. Give me a level in the second half that you think is good.

well the DLC is only accessible to you after you've beat o&s and the PC version comes bundled with it so I've always considered it as a part that literally everyone will play through, so I don't think it not being base game is a factor. Anyway I don't really think the darkness in the tomb is cancer, it brings a somewhat interesting gimmick which makes the area really memorable to me. You have to change the way you're willing to play because most players (without a guide) will only have the lantern or cast light for the tomb. Duke's archives does look the same, but I liked that you had to move the stairs to access different areas of the library which were previously unaccessable. I also really liked the prison break sequence a lot even though it's fairly short. It is somewhat maze-like but the area with the stairs is fairly short so I don't think it's a massive issue that that part looks the same. Ghosts are annoying and they're copy pasted too much but I never found them frustrating to fight against and they're a nonfactor once you get to the lower area of new londo.

Research Hall was the best Souls stage since Tower of Latria.

Looking Glass Studios' games are peak level design, especially Thief.

You didn’t play the game lol. The areas in Bloodborne were diverse in a more interesting way than DS1’s primitive element-themed areas

>the most linear level design of the series
ok