What Souls to play after beating DS1R?

[aerohcss]

I’m very close to beating DS1 (doing some DLC and coils runs before going to Gwyn now). Maybe I’ll even do another play through immediately after cause I fell in love with that game. This is not my first Souls game but the first one that I could understand. I’ve tried DS3 on Xbox and Bloodborne on PS long time ago, haven’t figured out how to play them and dropped. Now I want to continue to play Miyazaki san games but I'm having trouble to choose what game to play next. All have pros and cons.

DS2 pros: Next installment in the series after DS1. Can buy it very cheap on keys trade market.
DS2 cons: Most people do not recommend to play it at all or only after beating all Souls games.

DS3 cons: Probably most highly rated Souls game.
DS3 pros: A little more expensive than DS2 on keys trade market but not that much to care about it.

Bloodborne pros: Chronologically this is next Miyazaki game after DS1 (I suppose he didn’t make DS2 himself). Can buy used disc pretty cheap in my town (i have PS5).
Bloodborne cons: Only that I prefer playing on PC than PS.

Elden Ring pros: It’s on sale in Steam now and sales for Souls games are very rare.
Elden Ring cons: I’m not a fan of Open world games although I could make exception for Elden. Also this is longest souls game from all.

Also there are Sekiro and Demons Souls remake of course but I'm not even considering going through them right now cause they’re as dissimilar to DS1 as possible (maybe I’m mistaken).

What do you advise to play next?
P.S. Praise the Sun! \[T]/

[`皿´]

My suggestion would be: BloodBorne-DS3-Sekiro-EldenRing-DemonSouls-DemonSouls Remake-DS2

[Todd Howard]

DS2 -> Bloodborne -> DS3 -> Sekiro -> Elden Ring -> Armored Core 6.

The correct order to play the games.

[Shard of Manus]

Man. Ignore anyone that says don't play DS2.

If you have a PS5, I strongly recommend playing Demon's Souls and Bloodborne - but these are obviously separate titles. Different worlds, different settings/lore etc.

If you'd rather play the cohesive 'story' of Dark Souls, it's better to just play DS2: SotFS and DS3. Though, of course, these games aren't really connected by story, but merely through distant references that indicate 'yes actually, these are all set in the same universe' - but beyond that not much links them.

Demon's Souls is certainly more dated than DS1, but has incredible atmosphere and level design. It's a fantastic game. It doesn't really matter whether you play the original or the remake - the gameplay is still very much the same, just the remake did make some changes. They recomposed the soundtrack, re-voiced the game (with the same actors) and made some atmospheric changes too -- the original has more uniqueness, but the remake is obviously graphically superior. Neither really changes the core experience that much, but I suppose I would choose the original over the remake.

Bloodborne is an excellent entry by Fromsoft. By far their most polished and complete game (with the DLC). Amazing and you should definitely play it on the PS5.

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DS2 is a good game. Flawed, and moreso than other entries in the series, but man you will get a lot of fun out of it (especially for its price). It's big, even without the DLCs it's quite large, but SotFS comes with all DLCs and is the definitive experience.

DS3 is a good game. In my opinion, somewhat bland compared to other entries and doesn't really carry much atmosphere. Visually it's quite monotone, but also the way they design all their areas lacks a lot of the distinct qualities of DS1 (which practically perfects atmosphere). However, the game is mechanically superior and obviously improves the gameplay in a lot of aspects - it's much smoother, less clunky etc.; albeit they did sort of remove stamina management.

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Elden Ring is another unique experience. Absolutely huge, and the new DLC is easily 30 hours of content for just one playthrough. It's not without flaws, but the game as a whole is still very good.

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Sekiro is very different. It's not a Soulsborne and very much marked its own space in the Fromsoft catalogue. An amazing game, but lacks replayability so not much motivation to play it after getting the different endings.

I loved it, but even now I only have 50 hours in the game, which was enough for me to 100% complete it.

[eezeebee]

Don't skip DS2 just because of something you read. It's still very much worth playing, imo.

[zero hope >:(]

Don't play DS2 just because some people tell you it is not a complete trash.
It is not a proper dark souls experience and there are more worthy games in the series if you are picky enough to ask for an advice on what to play

[Scottish]

Was in the same position as you a few weeks ago. Picked up DS2 initially and didn't like it. The controls felt off. Turns out, they were....as the developers decided to go with as square deadzone on the gamepad, and not a radial deadzone like every other FromSoft game has.

So here's what you want to do:
1. Get Dark Souls 2 SotFS
2. Download and install the DS2 SotFS Lighting Engine
3. Download and install the upgraded textures
4. Download and install the Dark Souls 2 Radial Deadzone mod/fix.
5. Grab Flawless Widescreen and make sure you're running the DS2 fix. This will get you proper 3440x1440 resolution.
5. Once in the game, get your Adaptability up to 25 ASAP. This will increase your iFrames when dodging and increase the speed of your Estus flask. Once that's done, the game controls just like every other FromSoft game.

All the mods are up on NexusMods.
There are a LOT of things that DS2 can get dinged for; it is the red-headed stepchild of the series. But it's still a fun game and worth playing through. I'm about a 1/4 of the way through and having a blast.

[OgichiGame]

You should play Sekiro. The combat mechanics are different, but it hits a lot of the same highs that DS1 does in it's level design, world building, and story. As a big DS1 fan, the sequels DS2 and 3 just didn't do it for me, but Sekiro hit the nail perfectly for a lot of what I loved about DS1. I think it even surpasses it. I think it's the best game they've made to date.

[zero hope >:(]

Originally posted by Scottish:

3. Download and install the upgraded textures

The worst part about DS2 texturing is not the lack of detail, but the excessive amount of tiling / repeating textures. Its this what makes your eye uneasy, not the low detail. Other souls games suffer from this too for some degree, but DS2 is really a grid city in comparison. Some areas handle it better (hello Majula), some do worse (hello Iron Keep), but eventually you start noticing it everywhere

Like, look at that tower in the backround to understand what I speak about:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3261552563

The trick part is that the tiling can't be solved by boosting the texture details, but it makes things even worse instead, because the more detailed the tile is - the more unnatural it feels. To have a somewhat kind of remedy on that you have to do vice versa - make textures more bland and featureless. Doesn't solve the problem entirely, but at least it feels much less trippy.

There was a retexture project for Vanilla DS2 trying exactly this approach (google "Texture Improvement Project" for Dark Souls 2 @ Nexusmods, wont provide the link myself, sorry). The tiling is still there, but it is way less annoying. Sadly, it is not compatible with SOTFS

[rad_knight]

the best play order for souls games is to play dark souls 1, and then stop.

if you really want to play more souls games, play salt and sanctuary. the rest of the fromsoft souls games are all downhill from DS1, just pretend the rest don't exist.

[zero hope >:(]

Originally posted by rad_knight:

if you really want to play more souls games, play salt and sanctuary

I remember trying exactly this as I got bored with DS1 and DS2, so I tried to play something else, and I was not satiffied. Like, S&S tries too hard to be Dark Souls in 2D, and why do I even play a game instead of Dark Souls which is not Dark Souls but acts like it is Dark Souls when I still can play Dark Souls instead? It won't substitute. Nice music though.

Better off playing Hollow Knight, it provides enough of Dark Souls feeling while makes a good job of being something completely different and original.

[Shadic]

imo ignore the haters and go right to dark souls 2.

[AzureVizor]

Attempting to speak objectively there isn't anything terribly wrong with Dark Souls 2 that isn't present in nearly all the souls games.
Dark Souls 1 has its own unique jank, but you've played that game so I won't beat that dead horse.
Dark Souls 2 has a lot of ambush locations and fairly irritating mobs, which is generally true for all the Souls games. The main reason I would tell people to play or steer away from Dark Souls 2 is the match making system. Dark Souls 2 runs on a unique system called "Soul Memory," which is the total amount of souls accumulated. Fundamentally, it means it doesn't matter if you're Soul Level 30 or Soul Level 120, if you've gathered a total of 1,000,000 souls, which is around the amount you'd have at 120, you will be matched with players at that Soul Memory.
This was developed to minimize "twinks," IE, low level players with endgame equipment. There is an item that prevents the user from gaining souls, so you can softlock yourself at a specific Soul Memory for PvP. Leveling up is also easier, as you can achieve Soul Level 65 at just around 200,000 Souls.
However, Dark Souls 2 PvP, in my opinion, is the most fun out of the three titles. They introduce a mechanic called "Power Stancing" which introduces new animations and attacks when you dual wield weapons.
In terms of Dark Souls 3, the mechanics in that game is much smoother and definitely ironed out. My personal beef is that Dark Souls 3 didn't continue to have power stancing, so PvP was much less fun for me, but it did introduce Left Trigger skills for certain two-handed weapons. It also introduces what is basically "mana" to use spells and said skills. In previous titles, using weapon abilities was locked directly onto weapon durability and Miracles, Pyromancies, and Magic was locked behind set usage. The introduction of Mana, as I see it, was likely to mitigate twink players' ability to running around with end-game spells/abilities. As a whole though, PvP in Dark Souls 3 is often seen as a "spam-roll fest" as rolling seems to cost less stamina compared to the other titles.
But, match making in Dark Souls 3, which was given to Dark Souls Remastered, is based on both Soul Level and Weapon Level. Meaning you can only be summoned or invaded by people within a certain weapon level threshold, this isn't a huge issue, but does limit your invasions/coop abilities. However, you will probably barely notice it if you're playing the game normally.

[Ethan M]

Go right into dark souls 2. If you truly enjoyed ds1 then you will enjoy ds2.

[Hicks]

DS2 SoTFS is great game. Its actually chill game compared to DS1 and DS3, especially DS1. Majula is great hub, very peaceful. Also most bosses are very easy, you will kill them in 1 or 2 tries. This is either good or a bad thing, depends on your mentality. The game is very exploitable stats wise. You can become bringer of death very fast. Its definitely the easiest out of the 3 games. The zones are the hard part but at least you can travel between bonfires unlike in DS1. Yes the movement is kinda different but its not a big deal really. Give it a go, you will like it. Then go for the harder DS3.

I saw some people talking about Demon Souls. Personally I liked the game but it was chore to play. Its something like 1 bonfire per level and if you die at the boss you have to run all the way back... tedious to say the least. Otherwise its great! (emulated on PC upscaled on 4k)

[RomanJesus]

The original DS2 is not that bad, the majority of people have a problem with SOTFS edition which turns the entire game into a gank fest.