But that’s kind of the thing - Dark Souls didn’t invent ball-crushing difficulty. Rather it came about as a reaction to the general “if players ever fail or lose it’s our fault” pervasive design philosophy that had gradually taken root over the decades. But here’s the thing : the earliest game we played WERE ball-crushingly hard. What’s worse if, they were hard and unfair, by design. Because the point was to make people put quarters in the machine no matter how skilled they were while also ostensibly telling people that they could play forever as long as they were skilled enough.
Dark Souls is way easier than, say, Battletoads. It’s more fair, more predictable, it telegraphs the overwhelming majority of its sucker punches (with the notable exception of the first encounter with Seath, and the Bed of Chaos which is its own brand of bullshit - but that’s not really by design, I don’t think). It goes out of its way to teach you that yes, that guy who’s all alone and doesn’t notice you and doesn’t react to prods is a giant trap, don’t rush him you idiot ; in the very first zone. It also teaches you that yeah, you’re gonna get crushed by some opponents, but you’ll be able to crush them right back when you come back with better tools - in the tutorial no less ! By contrast, Battletoads expects you not only to have split second reflexes, but also to have that entire fucking hovercraft level memorized from start to finish. Each try (originally) costing you money. That’s one quarter per bullshit wall in your path with zero warning. Ka-ching !
I really, but really don’t think you have to graduate from, I don’t know, Majora’s Mask to be able to approach Dark Souls. If only because Dark Souls is so very fucking good at teaching itself to the player organically. Bloodborne is another story, of course…
Dark Souls isn’t a bad first game IF you have somebody experienced in games to help teach you the controls. My ex hadn’t played a game since Pokemon and had trouble with inputs in other games like directional inputs (think smash attacks in Smash Bros) and while she never finished it, with me there she managed to get fairly far on her own. Dark Souls is more about persistence, patience, and cautiousness than callous difficulty.
In fact, in a few ways people who haven’t played a lot of games may find some aspects easier because Dark Souls often traps you by subverting common game design and gaming tropes a non-gamer wouldn’t be familiar with. Also non-gamers tend to be more paranoid which pays off in most cases in DS1.
That said, I wouldn’t recommend it on your own or if you want a gentle introduction. Especially if you have bad reflexes.
That’s a good point. When I started gaming it was the Atari era, and then later I played those brutal NES games when that console was released. I got started on those tough games. If a little kid could handle them, an adult with a developed brain and patience born of maturity should be able to.
The difference though is that there wasn’t a choice back then. You really couldn’t play a game that held your hand, they didn’t exist. Now that they’re there, take advantage.
I guess, going back and reading the OP again, I’d go this way…
Suggest games that have been really popular, because successful games generally were that way due to wide appeal.
Suggest games of multiple genres since we don’t know what the OP might like (and neither do they).
Suggest games that are cheap and/or free, since budget was mentioned as a consideration.
I guess focusing on “not very challenging” isn’t the right move. A game that’s not challenging might just come across as boring, even to a neophyte gamer.
Yeah, that’s pretty much it. And to be fair, that’s not the first game that’d spring to mind if I wanted to introduce a GF or friend to gaming who’d never touched a gamepad. That’d be a bit like sending some Marduk videos to someone wanting to get their ears into that “heavy metal” thing you’re so into. I mean sure, absolutely do that if you’re in the room just so you can enjoy the face they make, but…
I disagree. I played all those games back then, and there is a massive difference when timing only has to cover brain mapping to two buttons and a direction pad. Trying to handle the brain-to-action mapping of ~ten buttons, plus multi-button combo’s while the same split-second timing rules apply is vastly harder.
Oh hey, just thought of a great opportunity. Origin has a subscription service that gives you access to something like 150 games a year for $30. Mostly good games too, just just shovelware. It’s actually an unreasonably good deal for someone new to gaming. You only need the basic origin access tier, not the premier tier - the premier tier includes newer games, but you don’t need that. And the basic origin tier paid yearly is a steal.
Yeah, this is a ridiculously good deal. If I didn’t already have a library with more games than I could ever play (especially in Steam) I wouldn’t hesitate to subscribe to this.
I would recommend ‘turn-based’ games, where you can spend as much time as you like on a move (as opposed to ‘reflex’ games which don’t suit us old-timers.)
These games are also easy to play as the commands usually just involve a mouse and a menu.
I echo the earlier recommendation of www.gog.com, as you can buy classic, well-tested games cheaply (and they run under Windows.)
My favourites are:
Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (you control armies led by wizards and battle similar opponents)
Civilisation 4 (this does involve managing several things, including armies, research and building cities)
Sid Meier’s Colonisation (you re-enact the War of Independence, starting with a single colony and using trade with Europe to finance expansion and eventually a Revolution.)
If you want to play with lots of others, I enjoy Lord of the Rings Online (at www.lotro.com)
You are a character adventuring in Middle Earth at the time of the Lord of the Rings books. You can interact with other players for trading and advice. I personally play the whole adventure solo, but you can link up with groups of players.
Of course there will never be a game with a better story line!
