Playing Dark Souls after Elden Ring

Tips for playing Dark Souls for the first time if your intro to the Soulsborne franchise was Elden Ring. I cover differences in game design philosophy, itemization, skills, stats, and statuses that differ between the two From Software games. Hope to encourage you to go back to Dark Souls 1 after beating Elden Ring, and smooth out any gaming culture shock.

Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction and thesis
1:16 (Visual) spoiler warning & RFC
2:01 Level design
4:00 Difficulty and balance
5:51 Gameplay
8:45 Itemization and builds
11:04 Random gotchas
13:54 Outtro and thanks

[leeham]

The level design is unmatched. Restricting fast travel in place of a vertical world that branches together with clever shortcuts is a genius design decision, and it sadly has not been repeated in this series.

[superh]

The lack of fast travel before O&S has always been so great. It encourages you to get "stuck" on a boss and push through, instead of warping out, grinding/hunting upgrades, and then steamrolling. Even on repeat playthroughs, it encourages you to be smart with your time and not make needless trips back to firelink

[nooberus]

Sitting down at the bonfire in the swamp of Blighttown for the first time and realizing I cannot just fast travel out of there was a frightening but also exciting experience I will never forget! Especially because I played DS3 and BB first where such a problem cannot occur. Loved it :D

[gabeasher]

The first souls has the best world map. Its fantastic.

[RikuFemma]

I decided to revisit Dark Souls this past week and had an absolute blast with it, probably the most fun since my very first playthrough. Even decided to get the platinum trophy for it and that says something since I rarely go for 100% completion in games. What a masterpiece it is and holds up well to this day!

[NoisieBastrdd]

I would add that the fact you can't fast travel for the most part of the game (AND not having a map nor direction) makes you really connect with the environment, the world, the scenery. And you have to walk through it SO MANY TIMES, it becomes second nature to you. You'll find yourself knowing how to get to every part of the level effortlessly or get lost in an unknown location for a new adventure. DS1 is truly special the first time.

[morpfey]

Being that Elden Ring was the first Fromsoftware game that I 100% and even completed a level 1 run in I decided to go back and play the rest. While I agree the bosses are easier the most brutal part for me is the long runs you have to take to get back to where you were. That was definitely the biggest shock after being allowed to spawn directly outside of most boss room in Elden Ring.

[LameBella]

what a lovely little video. i love that you sound calm but keep me interested. not too energetic like "WHATS UP GUYS" and not monotone like video essays. the goldilocks of voice overs

[fripposo]

i played this one entirely inmediately AFTER elden ring (only had played a couple of hours in ds1 before and never reached the end) and it blew my mind, its a masterpiece of a game

[CaptainChubbyDuck]

I never felt more unsafe and the need to be careful as in DS1. In all other games I dont care if I make misstakes or die, because I can only fast trevel. Especially in DS3 and Elden Ring where theres bonfires everywhere. Whereas in DS 1 youre really punished for dying, as bonfires were pretty rare and it was important to learn by failure, having to redo things over and over! Finding shortcuts in the later games means nothing because the fast travel is always enabled. But in DS1 finding a shortcut means everything, when youre totally lost in a hard area, and find yourself back to areas youve been to and know where the bonfire is. If you need to go to an area, you need to go on foot, and know that travelling huge distances is a time consuming thing, which is a much more risk reward situation, which gives way more satisfaction when you arrive at the area you wanted to go to.

[OldBoydudeman]

I've always said that the biggest character of Dark Souls 1 is the very map itself. The level design is the best of any game and the feeling of connecting areas when you discover that ladder or that tunnel or that lift is amazing. I'm playing it again now😍

[MarvelousMediaEngine]

Nice job. I just finished demon souls on PS5. I think that was a masterpiece, now you got me interested in Dark souls.

[uncledamfee]

Echoing the level design mastery....It's simply one of the best to ever be created. Every space is utilized. Secrets hidden everywhere. Everything means something. Entirely connected. As amazing as Elden Ring has been the world of the Original Dark Souls is unmatched, in my opinion by any game.

[labakrapscalio]

When I played dark souls 2 and dark souls 3i was legitimately upset when I learned you could fast travel right out the gate. I loved having to learn the layout of the land and having to earn the ability to fast travel

[Apofica]

Bless the algorithm, because I was just writing about playing Dark Souls after Elden Ring, and I was just making a very similar point about the world building. I think that by Elden Ring, writers had figured out how to make the terrain seem like it has affected the history of the world around it, whereas Dark Soul's one weakness is the that the world serves as a game-space first and then as a lore-building device. Of course, every game has the world at the service of the gameplay, but the way Elden Ring makes it seem that it's the other way around is very artistic. Anyways, great video, congratulations.

[boydudeman]

I played DS3 first and then Elden Ring. It was really hard for me to get into DS1 but what honestly got me kinda hooked was how interconnected the world was. I picked the Master Key on my first play through and it ironically was the thing that got me hooked because it made realize, “Holy shit, this location leads to this location????” Then I finally figured out the combat and everything just clicked.
Now for me DS1 is my favorite, but I have a soft spot for DS3 since it was my first Souls.

[LEQN]

My dude! New Elden ring player here. Lovely video, picked up Dark souls recently (havent finished elden ring yet, but am definitely going for it).

This entire video has been a good disclaimer for me to get into a different mindset!

[gorillauppercut]

I am now subbed this was a fantastic quality video and I am about to start up Dark Souls Remastered for the first time ever. Can not wait to see more from this channel.

[xian]

I would add that you can hurt NPCs by accident and that in some cases you can really screw up with this. In Elden Ring they made it impossible to do it in the Round Table, but in Dark Souls, press the wrong button and you can aggro o kill and NPC, even the blacksmith!

[tjmaximum]

this is amazing, i left these games alone cus of their reputation and didnt feel like suffering, but after playing elden ring because of its seemingly endless praise i realized its an extremely rewarding suffering and im excited to try out all of fromsofts previous entries.