Dark Souls is leaps and bounds better than Skyrim. I can go on for days about why.
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So there are certain elements that make up a good roleplaying game. These elements are debatable, but for simplicity sake I'm going to use what I consider the main defining attributes of most Role Playing Games:
These elements are:
Story
Combat
Role-playing Elements + Character Development (AKA Personal Involvement/Enacting of a Character or Role)
Quality of ImmersionStory:I'm gonna start off with Story First. This is one of the areas where people say Skyrim trumps Dark Souls in every single way. So let's compare the two.
Skyrim's story unfolds like a movie. You watch the story of the game unfold as though you are a member of an audience, watching the plot. You see the characters talk to each other, or you're told what to do or where to go but, you aren't really...part of the story so much. Your choices CAN make changes in the way the game plays out...but no matter what you will get a specific end result: You live, get a reward, someone dies, you accept someone's proposition in order to progress the story, etc etc. But its really rare that stories in Skyrim can take a totally different path than what was originally set out to be shown. So rather than YOU making the story, the story is just "told" to you, and you are just along for the ride. It may not seem like this when you're playing, but that's the essence of the story and quest design.----------------------
Now in contrast a lot of people say, "Dark Souls has no story/very minimal story." Or that the story takes a backseat to the game's gameplay. This is saddening for me because Dark Souls actually has one of the best stories I have ever seen in any RPG. The problem is that a lot of people totally missed it. The story unlike Skyrim is not always told by "word" but more often told by observation.
Dark Souls' world is very large and diverse, and nothing that is placed in the world is placed by accident. Every enemy is there for a reason. Every boss is there for a reason. Every NPC is there for a reason. Nothing is randomly placed in the world.
The thing about Dark Souls' story, is that you are always unfolding the story yourself. You slowly learn about the story and the world around you as you explore. You may enter a new area and ask yourself... "Hey I saw that enemy before in my travels but he looks totally different now! Why does he look like that?" There's a story to be unfolded there, and a reasoning behind what you see. That's why the story is so good. So rather than watching a movie unfold infront of you, you are making your story while also uncovering the mysteries of the world you currently inhabit. Not only is it a story YOU discover, but its a very intertwining story with very real characters inside a very real feeling world.However, the biggest reasons why people miss the story are: Spoiler 1)
A lot of the story is shown in the item descriptions -As you get items you gain hints about its previous owner, the world the characters inhabit, and more. These are all written in the item descriptions.
2)
A lot of the story is shown in the world design -For example, (might be slight spoiler)
Spoiler in one area you might meet with Skeletons, whereas another area you might meet with zombies. There's a reason for that. You might also notice that a lot of enemies, hallways, building structures, etc are bigger than you or other human beings, there's a reason for that too.
But the game doesn't just OUT AND TELL YOU THAT. You have to just look around and pay attention. This is also part of the overall scheme of the game.
3)
A lot of people feel that stories have to be in movie form to be good -This is more conditioning from game companies. They will often give a shallow story that you can instantly understand, at the cost of not allow the player to really make a story on their own or be actively involved in the story and its flow and progression. Skyrim tells you straight up: "YOU ARE DRAGON BORN". It's not something you slowly discover, its not some underlying thing to learn about or become a part of actively in the story...it's just flat out told to you.
4)
People are lazy -Simply put, most people don't want to take the time out to discover a story. After I beat Dark Souls, I found out that the what I believed the story was about, and what my real purpose was in the story, was totally off base, and I had to play it over to understand everything once again.
As for actual story specifics, I'll pass on spoiling it for any of you guys interested in playing the game, But if you've played the game and thought to yourself "this game doesnt have a lot of story", and want to know more about the actual story, send me a PM and I can tell you all about it and blow your mind 
. 90% of the time, whatever you thought the story was about, is wrong.CombatIn Skyrim, Combat is really shallow and is a low point in the game for me. The game is mostly blocking, spamming shouts, spamming shield bashing, chugging potions and mashing attack. That's how I define the melee combat in Skyrim. Mage combat, I dunno about, but you guys can tell me if its more strategic I guess. It didn't feel all that strategic from what I saw though. My spam shield bash beats everyone: mage, bear, bandit and dragon alike.---------
As for Dark Souls, this is a no brainer here, but for the uninitiated: Dark Souls has one the best medieval combat systems ever made. Every single weapon in the game (~129/130 Weapons in total I believe), has its own unique fighting animations, abilities, ranges, speeds, damage, recoil potential, stagger potential, stamina drain, etc.
For example if I pick up a straight sword, I might have a choice from a Longsword, Shortsword or the Claymore. I'll use this set since they all have similar attack animations. Spoiler The shortsword has shallow reach, weak strikes, but really fast attacks. It drains my stamina slowly as well, so if I want to be more reckless with my attacking, I can use the shortsword. However, it forces me to fight at a close distance to my opponents, which puts me at risk as well. One other attribute about short sword is that since its a smaller blade, it has a higher chance of being recoiled by an enemy's shield. But since its a smaller blade, if I do get recoiled, the time I spend recoiling is a lot less than a larger blade.
Longsword has medium speed, but slower than the Shortsword. But it has much more reach, and is stronger as well. It drains my stamina more too, so I cant be as reckless with my attacks as the Shortsword. The extra range lets me put more distance between me and my opponents, and gives me more of a chance to observe and punish enemy's attacks, rather than being forced to react in a close quarters situation. The recoil time, is a lot longer than with the short sword though, so I would have to be more careful with my strikes.
Claymore is my personal current weapon of choice. It's REALLY slow compared to the Longsword and Shortsword. It drains my stamina a lot(I can only do about 3 - 4 attacks before getting tired at maximum stamina!). But it HURTS. It also has a very very long range, and it is really hard for an enemy to force me to recoil while I'm using it. Since I personally like to play a more long range game but I dislike magic, I can use the claymore to keep my playstyle at a range that's far from the enemy, while keeping me safe. Whenever I decide to go offensive, and I hit the enemy successfully, it will do a lot of damage, which has a high chance of causing stagger,
This sort of weapon diversity is spread across all the weapons in the game, so you can really BE who you want. If you want to be that Sir Knight with a Spear that strikes extremely fast, you can do it, there's bound to be a spear for that. If you want to be an Evil Mage, who burns everything in sight, you can be that too. You can even use a shield as a weapon if you really wanted to. There's a lot of choice in the game, and whatever you pick to play the game with is always going to be a viable option. Maybe not shield though...lol. But I'm sure there's someone out there who plays shield xD.This is one of the reasons why Skyrim feels lackluster for me at times. There's really only 8 weapons in the game: Longsword, Dagger, Mace, Two-handed sword, two handed mace, Bow, Staff, and Magic. Magic seems like a very deep thing, and it had a lot of effort put into it, so I cant discount that, but regular combat not so much.... =/. So yeah... Dark Souls has 129 weapons(excluding shields) to Skyrim's 8.
Role-playing Elements (AKA Personal Involvement/Enacting of a Character or Role)In Skyrim they say that you can be who you want to be...but I don't really feel that way with the game. You can play one of three roles for sure: Thief, Warrior, or Mage. But I never really feel like I'm actively making a choice to be like... a blacksmith, or I'm actively making a choice to be great at speech. I'm not actively molding my character most of the time...I just do stuff and get enough exp for it and those skills level up. At no point during the time I was crafting my 50th iron dagger did I really feel like I was a blacksmith. At no point where I took my 200th slap in the face from a sword while conveniently wearing iron boots, did I feel like I was actively getting more skillful at using iron armor. At no point where I sold my 35th item: "The Dwarven Gauntlets of Restoration", did I feel like I was getting better at Speech. You just level up skills, get perks, add perks you want, go on with your life. Because of stuff like that I never really feel like I'm role-playing the character, or all that connected to the world. I'm just watching a movie unfold, like I wrote above. It's not a BAD thing. It's just not very "personal".------------------------------
In contrast to Dark Souls you can really be who YOU want to be. You make the choice in every moment about who your character is how you want them to be. You have the choice about where you want to go, what you want to tackle and when. You control when you should rest, whether or not you should trust the character in front of you, what weapons you should use, what armor you should use. The game lightly nudges you in a direction in the beginning, but after that the game kind of lets you craft your own story. You can literally draft a story for your character in your mind and enact that role from the very beginning and play the game all the way through as that role.
For this, I'll give a personal story: Spoiler The character I went through my first playthrough with was a character from Oblivion: Huurwen of the Fighter's Guild. In Oblivion, Huurwen was a master of the shield, and a great fighter. So I molded her out to be a knight who was in this world she was a part of. So I started off the game with a short sword, and a leather shield. I picked the wrong class initially (a hunter, not a knight), and I realized in order for my character to be her role she would have to gain knight's clothing. My Hunter Clothes were light weight and let me move quickly, but a Knight doesn't use Hunter Clothes! So I located some Chainmail and decided to use that. But the Chainmail was so heavy for my character's current abilities...she didn't have enough Endurance (active armor/weapon carrying capacity) to wear those items and move at her normal pace. So I had to make the decision to add some more Endurance. After a few points in Endurance, I was able to move normally. I also got a better shield than the leather one...a Knight's shield, which my character wore proudly.
Eventually I got a longsword, and realized it was more of a Knightly weapon than the Short sword. But it required more strength and dexterity to wield it properly, so I started to add points in that to let my character be able to use it. It was my favorite weapon for a very long time and it served my character for most of the journey. Eventually in my character's travels, she gained true Knight Clothing. However, it was also incredibly heavy and she moved slow, just like the initial situation with the chainmail... So I had to make another choice to add more Endurance to be able to use the knightly armor properly and comfortably. I kept playing the game like this for a long time, getting more Knightly Shields and switching them out based on the situation.
Finally I got a Claymore after a tough battle somewhere, and after getting enough stats to use it properly, I realized that I liked it...but I couldn't really let go of my Longsword....I kept switching back and forth between the two for a long time. I loved the Longsword to death: I was really skilled with it, and it felt like my longtime travel companion. But the Claymore felt just as good, plus more reach. It was slower for sure but it had crippling damage and power to make up for those shortcomings. Eventually...I made the choice to shelve my longsword and take on the Claymore instead. I've been using the Claymore ever since.
At that point my character was really a true knight, who played out her role both outwards and within playstyle that was suggested in Oblivion. I played a very defensive style with emphasis on my Shield, and crippling damage with the Claymore. The playstyle stayed with me till the end of the game.
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/imageshare/image.php?id=31947
I already knew I was Dragonborn before I started playing the game. Armor is Armor is Armor. Weapons are Weapons are Weapons. It's not a lot of choice there. Ebony is better than Steel cuz it does more damage or protects you more...there's no real choice in what you do. So you don't really play the role...you just play the game.So I think Dark Souls wins here.
Quality Of ImmersionSkyrim is pretty. I can't discount that. Skyrim is pretty. The world is vast and there's a lot of things to see. Dragons fly around and look incredible. Magic looks nice. Water looks nice. The auroras look nice. Snow animals spawn in snow areas. Draugr spawn in crypts. Etc and so Forth. The basic concepts of the Skyrim should be damn immersive. BUT... there's always something that totally screws up the immersion for this game.
So here's a story for Skyrim:
Spoiler When I first played Skyrim, I was totally into it. The whole getting taken to your execution was awesome, plus when the guy goes "Who are you Prisoner?" and that starts the character creation...man I was freaking excited! It was sooo cool. When my character went on the chopping block, I really felt like "...Wow the game just started and I'm gonna die?". I was legitimately scared as though I was on that chopping block. Then dragon flew above right where I was, and I was like WHOAH!!! Then I was running around, and the dragon was killing everyone, and everyone was tossing fireballs and arrows and all that...man it was incredible. It was all so good. So after that, I got suited up, readied my weapon and fought my first enemy.
And then it went all downhill from there....
The enemies took my hits as though I was slicing through thin air. Their hits did nothing to me either. I didn't stagger, I didn't care they were slicing me with a giant Battle Axe. They didn't care that I was cutting across them with a rather hefty sized blade either. It was just...weird. It was a huge disappointment, and immediately slapped me out of my immersion. I didn't feel part of that battle...the battle just kind of happened. All the tension around me dissipated and I remembered I was just playing a game.
After that I went through the rest of the tutorial, randomly getting cinematic kills on enemies that I didn't earn, for no apparent reason. Everything died at my mindless mashing, and many of them died with really silly looking clunky animations. I still remember how much I laughed when I saw the "tap dancing" death animation for the first time. It's the one where they wave their hands around silly and kind of dance to the ground. It makes me laugh every time. It just didn't feel like I was part of the world so much anymore, and I was just...."there".
But yeah I went through the rest of the tutorial and I got outside and I saw the huge land mass, and I was excited again. I started getting a huge amount of respect for the game again, and forgot all about those crappy battles that I passed by just a few minutes ago, and just went around exploring. I had some interesting things happen, like a Dunmer Conjurer killed me for randomly coming where she was doing a ritual, and some wolves ambushed me, along with some fun mine raids...
But there was always...SOMETHING that would break my immersion again like: Spoiler
- I would pass by some sort of wood fixture and the texture would look absolutely terrible.
- I took a cart, expecting the cart to drive me to my destination, and all I got was a really ghetto fast travel animation.
- I bought my first horse, and I was forced to stare at my horse's butt in third person whenever I rode it (since I couldn't first person anymore).
- Randomly when I did the cinematic kills, the game would change my viewing from first person to 3rd person.
- The combat system made NO SENSE TO ME. I came in expecting something at least on Demon's Soul's level of comprehension, and I had to turn my mindset from smart play, into a mash fest. Huge immersion breaker.
- Stamina had no use.
- Stuff like this: http://www.whompcomic.com/comics/2011-11-14-Straight-As-An-Arrow-Into-The-Marrow.jpg
- Dragons...oh many where do I begin. Dragons go down in seconds like they're nothing. I eat their flames like a boss. Mash wins every dragon battle.
- There's no dodging options, and you can't run while blocking until Level 70 blocking skill. Seriously??
- Glitches all over the place: See through water, flying creatures that land and die spontaneously, dragon skeletons that fly miles away if you hit them with magic, weird broken animations while cutting logs or smithing sometimes, texture errors, (I still remember the horrible pink texture pop ins that gave me nightmares, like I saw one of the Greybeards in that pink texture...what a terrible memory)...
- Etc... I can go on forever.
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Now pretty much everything I wrote so far about Dark Souls ties into this immersion category, so I'll let those stand alone, but I will say that Dark Souls has pretty much never broken my immersion. I can count on one hand the number of glitches I've had with the game. I'll name them actually.
1) In an earlier patch, a boss enemy would sometimes die randomly. He appeared in the world...and he would lose his footing or something, and you'd suddenly get a ton of exp for it. It was a rare glitch though, and it has been patched out already.
2) Used to be hard to see summon signs before because of a server issue. Patched out already.
3) Slowdown in one specific area, but this is forgiveable imo. Cuz its not absolutely unplayable there after all. This is the only instance I can say is slightly an immersion breaker, but its only because the game is flawless otherwise, so this error feels a lot more glaring.
4) Weird rare foot error if you get too close to something when you sit down. But this is ridiculously minor.
But that's about it...
When I played Dark Souls I always felt like I was a part of the world. I was really playing that character on the screen. The world I'm walking through is real, its alive, and I have to fight for my life in order to survive in it. It didn't feel as much like a game but more of a story I'm unfolding with my character, so I was always immersed.
So I think Dark Souls wins here too.--------------------------------------------
There's some other areas I can tackle related to both games, such as the Quality of the World design, NPC and enemy design, and etc, But I'll do those another time. Skyrim has a nice overall world design, but I still feel a lot of the world is generic. There are a lot of specialized areas, but they're like a fancy generic areas. That's one thing Bethesda did really well with Skyrim: Keeping generic stuff and reusing it over and over again to make something that feels slightly new, even though it really isnt. Dark Souls has a more diverse world, and each area is drastically different from each other, however they all blend together in a very natural way. In relation to world design I think that's more of a question of Quantity vs Quality, and that's just a matter of taste.
I know for sure though that I wont remember "Glademist Cave", "Knifepoint Cavern", or any of the other generic dungeons, but I know I can clearly visualize every area in Dark Souls because of the quality and design of each area. But its up to you to decide who wins in that regard.
I really like the Skyrim towns though, especially Markarth...it's really nicely done. Skyrim's town design is great for sure, but the dungeons and world overview are mostly forgettable.---------------------------------
So many people might ask me...well why still play Skyrim if you hate it so much? I don't hate Skyrim at all, plus I'm mostly modding it right now. Modding it is a game on its own, and that's fun to do. but Skyrim is not absolutely terrible by any means, but its hard to take it seriously sometimes because it betrays its own vision a lot, or falls short a lot of the times where it really counts. Like I really praised the game for its general culture from the beginning, but a lot of times it does really...dumb things...that totally betray its own world view. Stuff like the Giants shooting you into the sky, really bad textures in certain areas that are crucial, heavy lag, poor AI, enemies doing all sorts of weird poses in death, glitches aplenty, etc etc.
Also, I don't think its a bad game...it just needs some more work to bring it up to where it should have been from the very beginning so it doesn't betray its own sense of immersion.
Like combat is supposed to be visceral, but I when I attack someone its like cutting through smoke? I have a shield up, but I cant run with it when it's held up? Why can't I look in 1st person on my horse? Why do I get thrown into 3rd person when someone does a FUS RO DAH on me? Why do I have to get hit by everything? Chugging so many potions in the middle of battle with no consequences...?
Stuff like that.
» Sun May 13, 2012 4:32 am 
