According to the Golden Joystick Awards Dark Souls is the Ultimate Game of All Time

[Troontown]

Oh it spawned a sub-genre. Ain't that cute. Let me tell you about a little game called Super Mario Bros. that pulled gaming back from the shadowy abyss.

No, allow me to introduce: ocarina of time
The game that DS took several aspects from.

Ocarina of time's combat is basically dark souls combat. Lock on. blocking, strafing around enemies, sidehopping, waiting for an opening.

There is a reason OoT is in the guiness book of records, and DS isnt.

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The first Dark Souls certainly did a lot of things right, like world building and combat. The main problem with it was the archaic, quarter-gobbling game design of punishing the player until he finds the correct path. You needed guides or 3rd party sources to have a smooth experience and a complete picture of the lore, and because of that it can't be GOAT except for a very small niche of players.

GOAT would be some sort of RPG everybody can connect with... probably a game by Bioware or Bethesda.

Exploration is not a detriment, zoomzoom. If you like corridor levels so much, might i recomment final fantasy 10/13?

[Hotmail]

Exploration is not a detriment, zoomzoom. If you like corridor levels so much, might i recomment final fantasy 10/13?

You can have exploration without punishment. OoT is a fine example of that.

My point is that DS mostly appeals to gaming masochists, which is a small niche of players.

[Troontown]

You can have exploration without punishment. OoT is a fine example of that.

My point is that DS mostly appeals to gaming masochists, which is a small niche of players.

There is no punishment for exploration in DS. Just a punishment for being shit. afaik, there are no instant death moments due to exploration. You getting killed by the skeletons at the start or a black knight isnt a punishment for exploration, its a punishment for you being shit, as you can make your escape perfectly fine.

Just like OoT. Were you can get oneshot by enemies you cant handle yet, or burn to death in the fire temple beacuse you're not supposed to be there

[Fencers]

Why are multiple posters saying Dark Souls spawned a genre? It was Demon's Souls, the game that came before it.

Being first to market doesn't mean that game created a genre, per se. It's the impact and market penetration an item has that is important. For example, Metroid wasn't the first "Metroid-like" game in the genre. But it was the one that broke.

Dark Souls had an impact Demon's Souls and King's Field did not.

[Sluvs]

it is a great game, but the ultimate game?

not even close.

While it's legacy is undeniable, there is plenty more games that are better IMHO. Just a small list, in no particular order by the way:

Outer Wilds
Zelda Botw
Zelda OOT
Zelda Wind waker
Resident evil 2 remake
Hollow Knight
Bioshock

And that just out of the top of my head.By no means dark souls is a bad game, but the best game? of all time? That is a laughable statement IMHO.

[rogoth]

and I say that Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards is the best game of all time.

I'm sorry... ULTIMATE GAME OF ALL TIME.

magna cum laude was better

[Troontown]

Only a sub genre?
WC3 spawned three entirely different genres at the minimum, and the classic version is still beloved by many, and it's sequel, the World of Warcraft, killed many MMO-RPGs, and most MMORPGs today try to emulate it to other franchises. What I wouldn't give to get my hands on Blizzard's copy of WoWEdit.

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What impact?

todays sponsor, genshin impact.

God, I must say, this thread only reaffirms my hatred for zoomers and they all deserve a boot to the face.

"muh derp suls is impoortant big impact"
No! Dark souls is basically an ocarina of time ripoff. If DS was an n64 game, it would be an oot clone.

"b-b-but it spawned a genre so it deserves ultime game of all time"
No! Difficult games are not a genre. Action adventure genre also existed long prior to DS.

Furthermore, if merely spawning a subgenre (which we already established it did not do) was enough, then what does that make the original super mario game, which completely saved the game industry?

What does that make SM64, which revolutionized 3D platformers, nay, 3D games in general? Keep in mind that when SM64 released, things like duke nukem "3d"were considered top of the line graphics.

also: little big adventure>dark souls

[xmirrors]

It's a bit too niche for that, but I'd definitely rank it very highly.

[RobertoCarlos]

Yeah I dont agree.

I love dark souls/from software but I wouldnt put Dark souls as ultimate game of all time.

I wouldnt even know what you would name as king of games. Games are changing quite quickly each decade

Id argue Divinity Original Sin 2 has more polish than dark souls.

[XDurionX]

Yes, it was an influential game, but i could name at least ten that were more important. Mario, Zelda, Diablo, Warcraft, even fucking Tetris.

Personally, i can't stand soulslikes, own DS1 and 2 and a bunch more, but haven't been able to play either of them for more then 2 hours. The gameplay is fucking tiresome. If you like sadistic dodge-orgies, fine, i don't.

[Easyclassictopkeklel]

Ranking games without splitting into different subgenres does not work. There are a ton of players who dislike the genre itself, not even talking about the game design and difficulty spikes on bosses. Also it has way too many flaws to call it "ultimate game". To me the whole franchise is overrated and I had way more fun in Bloodborne or Sekiro than in og dark souls.

[Dezerte]

I dislike souls-like games, so I would have to disagree. And while it has been an influential game, it is not alone in that regard either.

[DarkAmbient]

Being first to market doesn't mean that game created a genre, per se. It's the impact and market penetration an item has that is important. For example, Metroid wasn't the first "Metroid-like" game in the genre. But it was the one that broke.

Dark Souls had an impact Demon's Souls and King's Field did not.

Dark Souls was the big hit, definitely. We'll just have to disagree on which game gave birth to the Souls genre.

Btw does anyone remember a Japanese YouTube channel that had loads of Dark Souls PvP videos? It was quite popular but I can't remember what it was called and I think it might have vanished. If it's still around please let me know.

[kail]

I don't believe in such a title tbh. Wouldn't even rank my absolute favorite games as the ultimate of all time. It's near impossible to rate different genres in the same contest and if we're talking about birthing a genre, many games have done that in the past and semi-recently. Souls is great enough to have a genre named after it, which is no small feat.

[Mysterymask]

I don't believe in such a title tbh. Wouldn't even rank my absolute favorite games as the ultimate of all time. It's near impossible to rate different genres in the same contest and if we're talking about birthing a genre, many games have done that in the past and semi-recently. Souls is great enough to have a genre named after it, which is no small feat.

Tbf only 3 games have that distinction

Rogue, Metroid/Symphony of the Night, and Dark Souls

[Tech614]

Tbf only 3 games have that distinction

Rogue, Metroid/Symphony of the Night, and Dark Souls

And yet only one of these is an actual genre, the others are sub genres. To give you an idea about how useless these sub genres are people claim Hollow Knight is both a Metroidvania and Soulsborne game depending on who you ask.

I don't really care about games taking inspiration from others and trying to call it a genre. We don't call Pokemon a "megami tensei" game because it was the first monster collecting RPG. We don't call Final Fantasy games "Dragon Quest like" games even though FF1 was inspired by DQ1. And to top it all off, we sure as fuck don't call Sonic a Mario game.

Only extreme fanboyism seems to think a checkpoint based action rpg warrants some genre name for itself- when Souls didn't even invent this lol. At least in Metroidvanias case, Super Metroid and SoTN actually where doing shit not seen in their genres. Souls didn't really do anything unique outside of maybe not hand holding a generation that was used to it.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

super mario 64 looks to me like the fever dream of a pedophile. But i never had an n64.

what???????????

[Santti]

what???????????

Well, that's certainly a take...

[Log Cabin]

Influential game sure... before darksouls "hard" games where pretty niche for a while having fallen out of favor much like horror games were considered dead before amnesia sold well.

Gameplay wise I can't see it but I can get why it would get the award.

[Coldkil]

Ultimate game of all time is the stupidest title i've ever heard. Every now and then comes a game that changes the gaming landscape, and no one of them can objectively be the best of all time.

This is a pure marketing strategy to generate click/talks due to its controversial nature and spawn discussions like this one. I'll continue to just disregard any kind of "award stuff" cause like magazine reviews most of the times the interests behind them are more important than the game itself.

This said, agree with many others that DS has been a very important title for the landscape of gaming, but "ultimate game of all time" is something you should 't give to it, or any game actually.