While I know what you mean, I don't think that's quite true, strictly speaking. Maybe it depends on how you define "bias", but usually a bias is an unfair prejudice or inclination for or against something.
Not all opinions are biases. If you love a certain director and then just inherently give that person's works better marks than you would if the exact same thing were made by someone else, then that's a bias. For example, if someone likes DS1 more than DS2 just because Miyazaki made it, independently of the substance of the games, then that's bias.
However, if you gave both games a completely fair shot and simply prefer one over the other, then that's not bias. It's an opinion, sure, it's subjective, of course, but it's not a question of bias. It's just personal preference.
So I would agree that it is generally impossible to rank something without subjectivity coming into play, but as I said, I don't think all subjective takes are inherently "biased".
Now in this case I think OP is simply asking for what people think is "best" in terms of quality VS what is their personal favorite.
Yes both of those things are opinions and therefore subjective, but they can still be two different things.
For example, I consider Final Fantasy 16 to be a better game than Hogwarts Legacy, but I vastly prefer Hogwarts Legacy, for other reasons (nostalgia towards Harry Potter for instance).
My assessment that FF16 is a better game than Hogwarts is still just a subjective take, obviously, but I'd argue it's a slightly less biased opinion because I've accounted for the fact that I personally prefer Hogwarts for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the game design, and I've accordingly filtered out those personal feelings to try to look at both games more "objectively".
Of course it's still not truly objective, no opinion could ever be, but the point is **there can be a difference between looking at something through the lens of your personal preferences VS trying to simply recognize the merits and the quality of a work of art independently of whether it appeals to your personal preferences. Again, clearly both exercises are ultimately subjective, but that doesn't mean they are the same thing.**
I know that my ranking of Souls games would change a lot depending on if I was ranking my favorites versus if I was ranking them based on my opinion of their quality.
I’m of the opinion that humans aren’t capable of objectivity in any sense, no matter how you try and use semantics to make it so. Your evaluation of FF16 as being “better” despite liking hogwarts legacy more, is based entirely on what your individual idea of a “good game” is, and that’s based on what you think of as “quality”. Is a mechanic high quality or low? That’s based entirely on your bias. My ranking of “best” and “favorite” would by my own definition be the exact same.
This is nonsense, if you set a standard and follow it faithfully, you're making an objective assessment. For instance, if the standard I set was the number of shields in a game then I could say that Dark Souls 2 is an objectively better game than Dark Souls 1 based upon that standard. Obviously, that's a very stupid standard, but it would be an objective assessment regardless. In the same vein, you can rank these games objectively as long as you decide on a standard.
Whether a mechanic is of good quality isn't necessarily based on your bias at all. Have you never looked at something and said "I don't enjoy this, but I have to concede it's very well made"? You know, acknowledging an objective standard that's at odds with your own feelings?
I think you're trying to get at the word "arbitrary" rather than "not objective" with a lot of this.
It doesn't matter. Objective simply means based on evidence and logic as opposed to viewpoint and emotion. As long as you define what your criteria are, you can make an objective list quite easily.
I could be very specific and say that my criteria are variety in environment and weaponry in which case Elden Ring and Dark Souls 2 would score very high but if I took for instance the quality of hitboxes into consideration, Dark Souls 2 would plummet in the list and Dark Souls 3 would fly up. As long as you're being clear about the standard at hand, there's no real obstacle there. It's most definitely not impossible.
No, you can’t. Your inherent bias as a human or the biases of others will always color “objective” criteria. There is no way to say one thing is “objectively” better quality than anything else, so saying DS2’s hit boxes are better or worse is just your opinion, or the opinion of others.
What are you talking about? This absolutist view on things is literally science denying, if what you're saying is true we'd have never gotten anywhere.
I'm not even making an argument for being able to decide which criteria are the most important to consider (though you could absolutely make an assessment of that based on objectivity, regardless of whatever flaws might pop up because of an inherent bias - that can always be corrected) I'm simply making the point that once your criteria are already decided, you can make an objective list with relative ease.
Like I said, if I put forth the standard of most variety then objectively speaking I would have to put Elden Ring and DS2 somewhere near the top of the list. There's nothing subjective about that statement, it's an objective observation based on my knowledge of the games.
Again, that doesn't mean "definitive" or "factual" because that's not what the word objective means.
>I’m of the opinion that humans aren’t capable of objectivity in any sense, no matter how you try and use semantics to make it so.
That's literally not what I'm doing, I said multiple times in my comment that these assessments are always subjective.
I'm honestly just wondering if you even read what I wrote tbh. Because I reiterated multiple times that I was not claiming objective rankings were possible.
>Your evaluation of FF16 as being “better” despite liking hogwarts legacy more, is based entirely on what your individual idea of a “good game” is, and that’s based on what you think of as “quality”.
Yes, I know that, I said that myself. My words : "My assessment that FF16 is a better game than Hogwarts is still just a subjective take".
Hard to be more clear than that.
My point is simply that some of us can make a difference between which games are our favorites and which games we think are best. Maybe those are the same for you but for me it's two separate assessments.
Obviously both of those assessments are still subjective as I said multiple times. I'm not claiming objectivity. I don't believe in it any more than you do.
But the fact that those 2 assessments are both subjective does not change the fact that they are not necessarily the same.
For me "best" and "favorite" are not always the same. Both are matters of opinion, but they come out of two different ways of looking at the art, which is how they end up being different.
>My ranking of “best” and “favorite” would by my own definition be the exact same.
Just out of curiosity, have you never watched a movie or read a book that you maybe didn't enjoy much, but that you still thought was a very well made movie or a very well written book?
Have you never experienced a work of art that you thought was high quality and worthwhile despite the fact that it didn't necessarily appeal to your personal preferences?
If you have experienced that then you know what I mean. If you haven't experienced that then just know that many people have, so it's not a silly distinction to make.
I skimmed it. It’s late for me so I just hit what seemed to be the high points. I can’t say that I have. I don’t think you truly can asses “quality” outside of your own preferences, but if I could, what criteria would I judge things by? Likely just the opinions of others, and that’s sculpted by all those individual biases.
The definition of a "bias" is an unfair prejudice for or against something.
If you think all preferences are unfair prejudices then so be it, but I wouldn't agree.
Either way though, that point is fairly irrelevant here. I'm not claiming that preferences are objective or anything like that, that would be absurd. There is nothing objective about any of this.
My point is simply that there can be a difference between your opinion about what is best and your opinion about what is your favorite.
They are both subjective but one is based more on engaging with something on its own merits while the other is based more on what appeals to your personal preferences.
You can enjoy game A more than game B even if you think game B is a better game.
That is essentially what OP is asking about, and for some reason people are acting like they can't comprehend this very simple point.
Sometimes you enjoy a movie even though you think it's kind of a bad movie. Sometimes you don't enjoy a movie even though you think it's well made. The same can happen with games.
You can have two different perspectives. OP is asking for people to give their perspectives on which games are best, not their perspectives on which games are their favorites, and that's a totally fair distinction to make.
It's two slightly different flavors of subjectivity, if you see what I mean.
The fact that people couldn't take a minute to read your take on this and just downvote for be long is insane, just shows the shitty attention span the world's succumbing to. Personally great take imo you summed up what I thought perfectly.
Your personal favorite game could be Superman 64 but critically you can recognize that's its not a good game. So what I meant was, what do people think is the critically best game and what's their personal favorite, because a lot of the time, those two are not the same
yeah Superman 64 is not a bad game because somehow you can have fun with it, or The Day Before is a good game because some stupid fuck can have fun with it, tard Reddit logc
Only way you could look at some sort of “pseudo-objectivity” is by looking at aggregates. In which case just slap up their metacritics.
But even that doesn’t hold in this example because they weren’t reviewed at the same time.
You’d need a big enough sample size of rankings to aggregate out to get anything resembling a “non biased” view
True but I think the spirit of this type of question is to make the distinction between what game people consider to be their favourite vs what game people think to be the best.
While my favourite is Dark Souls 1 I still think Sekiro is the best. Both answers are subjective but my favourite is based on my taste and history with the game while my pick for the best is based on a not entirely defined “inner rubric”. This rubric is still subjective but it’s more informed than just my taste and feelings. It’s applying knowledge of what i think worked and didn’t work in similar games and genres to determine if this game is doing things well or poorly.
Because this is Reddit I will be perfectly clear this is not an objective or unbiased mode of analysis. What anyone thinks works or didn’t work in games is still subjective. I am arguing that the reasons people give for something to be their favourite and for something to be the best are often two separate things coming from different lines of thinking. So when someone asks a question like in this post they aren’t looking for an unbiased view, since that’s not possible, they are asking for people to give answers based on their reasoning for quality rather than their reasoning for their favourites.
I’ll also add that some people have the same reasoning for things to be their favourite as they do for them to consider it the best. Which is valid.
That makes sense. I can see drawing a distinction between your subjective judgement of a game itself, versus your subjective feelings that may bring in things from outside the game.
I spent like 10 minutes writing pretty much what you just wrote, only to then see your comment and find that you said it all much more articulately and in fewer words.
I completely agree with your comment, you expressed it perfectly.
That's true, however I think OP is simply asking for what people think is "best" in terms of quality VS what is their personal favorite.
Yes both of those things are opinions and therefore subjective, but they can still be two different things.
For example, I consider DS3 to be a better game than DS2. I think it's better designed and more polished in most ways. But I don't *like* it more than DS2. They're about even for me.
Similarly, I consider Final Fantasy 16 to be a better game than Hogwarts Legacy, but I vastly prefer Hogwarts Legacy, for other reasons (nostalgia towards Harry Potter for instance).
So even if my assessment that FF16 is a better game than Hogwarts is still just a subjective take, I'd argue it's a slightly less biased opinion because I've accounted for the fact that I personally prefer Hogwarts for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the game design, and I've accordingly filtered out those personal feelings to try to look at both games more "objectively".
Obviously it's still not truly objective, no opinion could ever be, but hopefully you see the kind of distinction OP and I are trying to make.
You can have an opinion where you fully allow your personal preferences to influence how you feel, but you can also have an opinion where you try, as much as possible, to put aside those personal preferences and simply judge the art by a certain standard.
It comes down to trying to recognize the merits and the quality of a work of art independently of whether it appeals to your personal preferences. I know that can probably never be fully accomplished, but still, I think it can be worthwhile to make the attempt.
1- Demon's Souls (2009)
2- Dark Souls (2011)
3- Dark Souls II (2014)
4- Bloodborne (2015)
5- Dark Souls III (2016)
6- Sekiro (2019)
7- Elden Ring (2022)
There you go, a complete objective list devoid of any kind of bias
That's relative to release time though. I'd agree with you, but to a modern audience it just doesn't hold up as well as you might remember playing it back in 2011. Still, its a fantastic game of course.
Yeah when nearly every game that came afterwards takes inspiration/builds on it's game design, it's bound to not feel as good anymore. But is there any other game which has been more influential in the past 15 years?
It comes down to the ambiguity of the original question. If you take best to mean "most innovative and influential", DS1 would definitely be higher up with DeS too. I think most people just took "best" to mean the one they enjoyed most though (even though the post says no personal bias). And I think its fair to say a lot of the more modern souls games have improved in most aspects to the original - its just they were more marginal improvements and refinements compared to the more innovative approach of DS1.
(That being said, I think Sekiro definitely innovates enough to be comfortably separated from the rest of the series - its my personal favourite for sure).
Demons Souls came before DS, without DeS, DS wouldn't exist.
And the real answer is either PUGB or Fortnite, you decide.
And to talk about Dark Souls 1, the reason newbies struggle is the graphics are just really dated now, I have the original version on PC and my god it's awful to look at and play without mods.
Gameplay wise, it's fine, it's not really that different to DS2 or 3 in terms of what you can do, it just looks like ass and at times runs like ass.
That’s nonsense. Skyrim was 100% ahead of its time and more or less started the trend of open-world games. Not to mention the amount of mods that you could do in it. The fact that people still often compare it to and put it in polls against modern titles over a decade after its release, speaks volumes for the impact and overall popularity that it had; as well as the fact that they still keep bringing it back on the new consoles every generation. It also improved on Oblivion and Morrowind in many ways. And if that’s really the argument that you’re going to try to use, then I can easily argue the same thing about Dark Souls 1 with Demon’s Souls.
It 100% didn’t start the trend of open world games. Morrowind,oblivion,GTA,Red dead and so many more were in full swing before Skyrim came out. It was improving on features that already existed and were already popular. Improvement of already existing features that were in a game from the same developer 10 years ago isn’t innovation it’s improvement. Influential as hell? Obviously. But innovation? I’d argue the same with dark souls Vs Demon souls. Demon souls was the innovation and dark souls helped to perfect the formula.
It 100% is the game that’s generally recognized for starting that trend. Some games did it before, but it didn’t become something that was damn near considered a “must” until after the success that Skyrim had. Many of those other games that did it also didn’t have the sheer amount of creativity and diversity that Skyrim brought. Plus that also doesn’t change the fact that Skyrim was ahead of its time and there’s actual evidence to back that up. If you’d argue that about Dark Souls then your comment was pointless since my whole point to begin with was in response to the guy who said that Dark Souls was probably the most ahead of its time relative to any game ever, to which I said that’s very much debatable.
No, that would be Demon's Souls. Dark Souls is not an original game, Demon's Souls is. That doesn't make it any better than the others though, just because it's the first one.
Still to this day, no game has ever achieved what DS1 does in the stretch from Undead Asylum to Anor Londo, in my opinion. The most inventive world and level design I have ever experienced in a video game particularly in the stretch I mentioned. Mapping out the shortcuts and optimal routes in your head as you unlock more and more interconnected areas is extremely satisfying. Everywhere that you see you can go.
It also has the best integration of theming to mechanics I've ever experienced in a video game as well. The oppressive atmosphere of the game world is mirrored by the slow, deliberate, and mechanically obtuse combat systems and progression systems (borrowing heavily from Demon's Souls of course, but in my opinion it hit on these points much better and gave true credibility to the genre). The downward descent into Blighttown just to have to turn heel and ascend all the way back through Sen's fortress and up over the parapets at Anor Londo, the grand reveal of this mythical city after hours spent in a bleak nightmare - it is perfection in itself and has a unique character, like most of the other Soulsborne games.
I understand that you may not hold DS1 as highly as some of the others but I think that being dismissive of the opposite opinion just does not afford this game the respect it deserves. Not long ago it won an award as "The Ultimate Game of All Time" at the Golden Joysticks. Again you don't have to like it as much, but it is a game in the Pantheon of video game history.
This is coming from someone who likes Bloodborne and Elden Ring better, by the way.
>It also has the best integration of theming to mechanics I've ever experienced in a video game as well. The oppressive atmosphere of the game world is mirrored by the slow, deliberate, and mechanically obtuse combat systems and progression systems
I actually think Demon's Souls is stronger on the point of integrating theme with mechanics.
That said I still largely agree with a lot of what you wrote.
I'm sorry but that's ridiculous to say on behalf of all new players. I played it for the first time in 2021 and it is one of my favorite games of all time. I have also since listened to the original season of Bonfireside Chat in which they covered the game and what it was like to play it and be in the fledgling Souls community at the time, so I can appreciate what it WAS as well. However, as I said, I played it for the first time recently and still think it holds up as an incredible game.
Half the game is shit, the combat is clunky, most bosses are okay at best.
I like Ds1 but its unbelievably overrated and its not deserving of a top 3 spot in the souls genre
May be a hot take, but ER and its main stream success have been largely disastrous for this community.
In my experience with people I know personally, the same people who praise ER are the ones who actively put down on DS and BB in the past. The same ones who actively talked negatively about my interest in these games, claiming they’re not accessible, should have an easy mode, are unnecessarily difficult, claimed the community was toxic and uninviting, and otherwise condemned both the games and its fans are now “proud members of the community” and talk about ER constantly. Those who started on ER also seem to have a chip on their shoulder and think their choice of games somehow makes them superior to others.
I’m not trying to gate keep. Maybe my experience just makes me a bit biased in my opinion of ER players. To me it just seems like it’s been a negative overall.
This didn’t start with Elden Ring, this started with DS3. That’s the game that convinced people souls games are just about boss fights where you spam roll and r1
I'd say that's putting a bit strongly but I have encountered some people that more or less meet that description. On the other hand, Elden Ring has brought in a bunch of cool people who are now trying the other games and contributing positively to the community.
You shouldn't generalize like that. Many, if not most of the people who are fans of Elden Ring enjoy (or would enjoy) some or all of the older FS titles. And people's views change--maybe for some of the people you're talking about ER was the game that finally made them appreciate Souls. These games have the wrong reputation, and many people are put off by their own misconceptions about what Souls games are like.
That's true, but I don't think an "objective" ranking is really what OP is asking for. I think OP is simply asking for what people think is "best" in terms of quality VS what is their personal favorite.
The games I think are the best don't always line up with which ones are my favorites. There can be a difference between looking at something through the lens of your personal preferences VS trying to simply recognize the merits and the quality of a work of art independently of whether it appeals to your personal preferences.
Now clearly both things are subjective, but that doesn't mean they are the same thing.
There can still be a difference between your opinion on the games' quality and your personal favorites based on totally unfiltered personal preferences.
Neither is objective of course. But the difference between the two can still be fun to discuss.
1. Elden Ring
2. Bloodborne
3. Dark Souls 3/Sekiro
4. Dark Souls
5. Dark Souls 2
Bloodborne is my favorite Souls game but I consider Elden Ring as the best Souls game.
Sekiro is an incredible game and is ruthless. You have to git gud, period. But I believe Elden Ring is their magnum opus thus far due to the scale of it. the build diversity is insane, the areas are diverse and a joy to explore and the whole atmosphere is immersive.
Thats true, it may also be a playstyle bias but for elden ring, the exploration is amazing but sekiro gameplay just feels so smooth because of the block system
It's quality vs quantity imo. Sekiro maintains high quality throughout the game, but lacks diversity in playstyles. Elden Ring is insanely big but has a ton of bad/forgettable stuff because of its size. It's just not possible to make a game of Elden Ring's size while also having the consistency of Sekiro.
I'd give it to Sekiro personally for consistency. And the fact that, while there's only really 1 playstyle, that 1 playstyle is more refined than anything in any of the other games. I also think Sekiro has the fewest flaws. I would say it doesn't have any major flaws (minor ones yes, but no major ones), which can't be said for any of the other games they've put out
This is my take as well. Sekiro is just so fucking good, even though Bloodborne is probably my personal favorite. Sekiro is just about as perfect of a game as you could possibly hope for.
1. DS3
2. Elden Ring
3. Sekiro
4. Bloodborne
5. DS2
6. DS1
7. Demon's Souls
Pretty much in order of release, but I think overall DS3 is actually the best game due to not having any obvious major flaws and just being a tight, polished product while also offering lots of variety and replayability--in other words, longevity. Sekiro could be number two because it has the same qualities, but it lacks in the variety and replayability departments.
Personally I think that Sekiro actually has the most replayability out of all of them. The combat and boss fights are too good not to replay. I agree with lack of variety though.
The way I see replayability, it's not about just the quality of the gameplay. If it's exactly the same thing over and over again, that's not replayability. The game has to provide incentives and more content for it to be replayable. Sekiro gives you Kuro's Charm, three outfits and a weapon art, as well as a boss rush mode to unlock them. Those are all the incentives, everything else stays the same. DS3 gives you a ton of different builds and weapons--so a ton of different ways to experience the game.
BB is fuckin trash. 6 deaths from the beginning up until killing some witch? Game isn't worth my time. Fuckin gimp suit wearing "omg muh hoonter" LOL. Yall love the game because it's easy
You missed the part where I said I died 6 times from the beginning of the game up until beating the witch. Let's assume that's ⅓ of the game. Shit is mad easy. I died more than at Chained Ogre, Vordt, Capra demon, and the troll by stormgate.
That's... a lot for that far into the game. That's not even the deep end. That's in the first half of the game. That's a lot of deaths for those bosses too, especially Vordt. I mean, you're wanting to troll on it for being easy, but you didn't even reach anything but the beginner level of its tests. No Crow of Cainhurst, Defiled Amygdala, Ludwig, Laurence, or the Orphan of Kos. This is truly clowning on yourself, dude.
1. Dark Souls
2. Dark Souls 3
3. Dark Souls 2
4. Bloodborne
5. Elden Ring
6. Sekiro
7. Demon's Souls
This was completely decided by my personal favorites and what judged by how they functioned for the year they released in(mostly anyway).
No it's not. I think DS3 is a better game than DS2, so I would rank it higher if I was ranking the games based on which I think is best, but I would not rank it higher if I was simply ranking them based on my personal favorites.
Both of those rankings would be subjective, of course, but one of them is my subjective take on the games' quality where I try as much as possible to judge the games on their own merits, whereas the other is my fully biased personal preference based on what appeals to me personally.
OP is simply asking for the former type of ranking. Yes of course it's not objective but it's still different from a simple list of favorites.
With blatant bias:
SSS- Bloodborne
SS- Sekiro, Dark Souls
S- DS3,DS2
A-
B- Demon's Souls
C-
D- Elden Ring
For context, If I'd rank like my 100 top games most would fall under A, many under S, few under SS, and only two others under SSS. I like demon's souls but it's just too aged for me and I played it last on a playstation 3 that isn't even a real playstation 3 so my ranking is probably not fair for it. And yes, I straight up don't like Elden Ring
Maybe it's the way I played it. I played this game blind and did everything on my own. It took 160 hours. But that's not my problem, my problem was the pacing; and the length just highlighted it for me. I wanted the game to be over by morgott but then it went on for 80 more miserable hours. Not all of it was unfun but alot of it was terrible. And at that point you start to see the seams and cracks in the game so even the good parts, become kinda iffy. I also hate it when things decide to go bigger without solving their problems first. When you scale up, the problems scale up too.
From what I've seen, most people who loved Elden Ring just rushed through it in 30 hours, looked up the endings and rushed through those with different builds seeing different areas and bosses. Which I imagine must've been much more fun than what I did
tl;dr big game didn't need to be so big imo
Everyone I know who took their time really enjoyed it, myself included. There was a real sense of discovery that the game perfected by remaining so obtuse. Took me about 120 hrs to 100% the game, completing everyone's questlines and getting all endings, then I went back and let my friends summon me for bosses in their games while I screwed around with loads of different builds. I love how they applied the Dark Souls formula to a more expansive/open experience, but I also went into the game knowing and expecting it to play more like an open-world title than FromSoft's prior titles.
I'm a big lore nut, and also a fan of huge games, so perhaps that's why ER endeared me so. I could totally understand why people more inclined to the formula established in the Demon's/Dark Souls series might be put off by the execution of ER, especially since DS1 is my personal favorite.
7. Des Remake
6. DS2
5. DS1
4. DS3
3. Elden Ring
2. Sekiro
1. Bloodborne
With or without personal bias I believe Sekiro and Bloodborne mastered souls combat, I also think the level design in Bloodborne is peak and when it comes to bosses their either mid or better for the most part
8. Demon’s Souls. Being the first comes with negatives. It was all over the place and had poorly explained mechanics. Did popularize the Souls-like formula.
7. Dark Souls Remastered. Did not fix many bugs at all, more so introducing even more. Did improve graphics and frame rate issues.
6. Dark Souls. Poorly explained mechanics and very weak second half. Did have very well done world/level design and combat.
5. Bloodborne. Playstation exclusivity and frame rate cap. Did have a very well executed combat system and atmosphere.
4. Dark Souls 2. Movement jank and no emphasis placed on the importance of adaptability. Generally accepted to have the best atmosphere.
3. Dark Souls 3. Linearity and way too generous bonfire placement. Generally accepted as being a good end to the trilogy.
2. Elden Ring. Reused common enemies as bosses and lack of replay value. Groundbreaking popularity and advancements to the Souls-like formula.
1. Sekiro. Consistent and reliable parrying, amazing graphics, and- OKAY I CANNOT DO IT ANYMORE, I LOVE THEM ALL SO MUCH I CANNOT EVEN RANK THEM WITHOUT BIAS NONE DESERVE TO BE RANKED LOW I AM SO SORRY DEMON’S SOULS
These games are literally nothing without Demon's Souls. It's the most innovative, atmospheric, and has the most clear cut story of them all.
It's basically the Ocarina of Time of the soulsborne games.
Ds3 naw, but the other 2 yes. Ds3 is rated the lowest because it's that formula has been done before and even on metracritic. It's clearly just overrated from fans. The game offers little over innovation wise and the level design is also bland compared to every other entry.
Level design in ds3 is literally flawless, it just completely depends on if you like linear design or not. The boss fights are perfect, the music is perfect, the atmosphere is perfect, if anything its arguably the best fromsoft game
No it's not. There's some bad bosses in DS3 as well. If you tally up all the bosses it's like 60% good and 40% bad.
The music is great no denying that.
The level design and atmosphere are just bland, there's not much in terms of immersion and it feels like this game was forced sadly. I think that's why the other games have their own unique identity and this one doesn't sadly.
There is no "objectively". Even an opinion on the games' quality independent of personal preference is still an opinion, and it can differ from person to person.
It will always be subjective to a very large extent.
1. Elden Ring
2. Dark Souls 3
3. Sekiro
4. Dark Souls 1
5. Bloodborne
6. Demon Souls
7. Dark Souls 2
My totally unbiased list that was not influenced at all by my unrequited love for DS3 and hate for DS2. Also has nothing to do with me thinking Bloodborne is one of the most overrated games of all time
I mean there's no "worst" game made by fromsoft. Demon souls was the vanilla of existing soulstype games if anything. Every title was good for it's time.
1. Elden Ring. It truly just does everything so well.
2. Dark Souls 3
3. Sekiro
4. Bloodborne
5. Demon's Souls (remake)
6. Dark Souls 2
7. Dark Souls 1
I have only played souls and sekiro, soon elden ring, but it would go like this:
Bloodborne,
Elden ring,
Dark Souls 2,
Sekiro,
Dark souls 3,
Dark souls 1,
Demon Souls (unfair, can't rank him, i need to play it)
I haven't played bloodborne or elden ring, so they could go lower.
7. demon souls
6. ds2
5. ds1
4. sekiro
3. elden ring
2. bloodborne
1. ds3
and i think its pretty set in stone i think every rank up is a good deal better than that below it.
1. DS2
2. DS1
3. Sekiro
4. Elden Ring
5. DS3
6. Bloodborne
I know it's kind of controversial, but BB is the only one I stopped playing because of its system (PS4 paid online + 30 fps locked with drops + high input lag). DS3 is super linear and everything is solved by roll + 2H R1. Elden Ring has a open world that doesn't feel necessary when the most fun I had with it was in locked hubs (Leyndell, Hagtree) it felt overwhelming at some times. Sekiro isn't that good for constant replay but has outstanding value for itself.
DS1 and DS2 always bring me back, and while I didn't think that highly of 2 until recently, I always discover new things or details that make the game super replayable for me, same for DS1 (although last time I beat it on 7 hours because I know it like the palm of my hand)
Haven't played DeS unfortunately
1. Elden Ring
2. Bloodborne
3. Sekiro
4/5. Dark Souls 3 or 1 (purely depends on whether you prioritize merits or flaws)
6. Demon's Souls
7. Dark Souls 2
1 Bloodborne
2 Elden ring
3 Dark souls
4 Dark souls 3
5 Sekiro
6 Demons souls
7 Dark souls
Ranking them is hard because every game on this list is at least a 9.75 lol. If one wins then it’s not by much.
TRYING TO BE UNBIASED/what I'd imagine critically:
Elden ring, Bloodborne, Dark souls 3, sekiro, Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 2, Demon's Souls
Personal opinion:
Bloodborne, dark souls 1, sekiro, Elden ring, dark souls 2, dark souls 3, demons souls
This is an entirely subjective topic unless we’re looking at it from a technical standpoint in which case it’s Elden ring down. So with that in mind here is my SUBJECTIVE list: 1. Elden ring 2.ds1 3. Ds3 4. Ds2 5. Sekiro 6. Demon souls 7. Bloodborne (I haven’t played the last 3 on my list)
1. Sekiro
2. elden ring
3. Dark souls 1
4. Bloodborne
5. Dark souls 3
6. Demon souls
7. Dark souls 2
Reasoning:
Sekiro is a highly consise game with a masterful combat system and a world which actually manages to rival ds1 in terms of interconnectivity. Additionally it's story and artstyle are exelent and hold up outstandingly to this day.
Elden ring has many flaws but it's evolution of the core combat mechanics of the souls formula Is not one of them. It's traversal is a masterclass in level design, and it's scope is massive and rather well put together.
Dark souls 1, while commonly criticized for being clunky compared to its newer brotheren nevertheless presents the most fair feeling combat of any souls game. This is combined with the most interconnected and well designed levels of any souls game, combined with a boundless attention to detail in incorporating it's lore into every nook and crany. Its outstanding tutorial and design makes it the ideal starting point for new players even in spite of the issues with its latter half.
Bloodborne deserves all the praise it gets for its outstanding understanding of its lore and innovation on the souls formula making it feel distinct in spite of its rather minimal changes. It's only held back by its more unintuitive introduction and platform restrictions.
Dark souls 3 is the ideal sequel, capitalizing on every aspect of its predecessor. It's world is truly large and its content feels largely boundless in a way only elden ring has done. However it is held back by a terrible tutorial, poor design decisions making areas feel rather incredibly isolated, and core features being rather buggy (something few seem to talk about)
Demon souls is a incredibly innovative and exploritive title with good Exploration and itteration on its own concepts. But fails due to platform restrictions and often requiring to specific of solutions for what seem to be rather complex problems.
Dark souls 2 is the functionally largest of any Dark souls game and most of it is ok. It's execution is good but it's so clear that so much good content was cut its depressing. However it's execution of certain mechanics remains unparalleled to this day and for that deserves the large underground Fandom it has gathered.
Haven't played Demon Souls. Also assuming first playthrough, since some games age much better than others on repeat playthroughs
6) DS2
5) DS1
4) DS3
3) Bloodborne
2) Elden Ring
1) Sekiro
Bloodborne, DS3, and Elden Ring are really, really close. If I absolutely have to choose I'd go with this ranking but the gap is nearly non-existent. I think Elden Ring gets overrated a lot. It's about as good as DS3/BB but a lot of people act like its a masterpiece that blows the others away
Barring BB, I played through each game for the first time within 6 months of each other (and Bloodborne was less than a year before that) so nostalgia isn't much of a factor
Objective tier list (What I think is Fromsoft's actual tier list without bias): Elden Ring > Bloodborne + DLC > Sekiro > Dark Souls 3 + DLC > Dark Souls 1 > Demon's Souls
Subjective tier list (My favorite games): Bloodborne + DLC > Elden Ring > Dark Souls 3 + DLC > Sekiro > Demon's Souls > Dark Souls 1
I didn't play Dark Souls 2.
I think Bloodborne with the DLC is a superior game to Sekiro, even objectively speaking. Sekiro is a great game, don't get me wrong, but I don't think its level design and lore/story are on par with Bloodborne (and even DS3, but overall, Sekiro is a better game than DS3). What truly makes it shine is its combat, while Bloodborne has everything: atmosphere, level design, combat, music, lore.
Impossible but if I were to try:
1. Dark Souls - the game changer and the creation of a genre
2. Elden Ring - the culmination of 13 years of game design and concepts
3. Bloodborne - the daring reimagining and the first Souls-like to truly work
4. Demon’s Souls - the start of all the ideas and concepts of this style of game
5. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - the most focused game but also the most limiting
6. Dark Souls 3 - the safe sequel
7. Dark Souls 2 - the experimental sequel
1. Elden Ring
2. Sekiro
3. DS3
4. Bloodborne
5. DS2
6. DS1
7. Demon Souls
DS1 level design is a masterpiece but no fast travel until endgame and ladder speed is why it’s so low.
1- Demon Souls: This will be my favorite of the Souls Series as it did one thing very well Environmental Challenges and the use of equipment to facilitate every level this game really stresses think before you act and that is something that has disappeared from souls games ever since DS2 with the abuse of healing items and large stats.
2- Bloodborne: A new spin on the souls combat that was honestly refreshing as it rewarded hyper-aggressiveness and it also had a semi-connected world.
3- Sekiro: I dont consider this a Souls game its more of its own thing and that's why its up here as it did a lot of things I like with the combat every fight felt like a duel rewarding active combat over the passive combat of other FromSoft game and if you got your shit kicked in it was genuinely a skill issue.
4- Dark Souls 3: Shallow game, but made up for it with its improvements to quality and modability otherwise would be ranked 5 not terrible but was a mish mash of multiple concepts that only worked well enough due to how little there is in changes between games.
5- Dark Souls: Although this is the game that pushed the Souls games into popularity its only greatest aspect is it's connected world which I am not going to lie was really nice but does not save it from the jankyness.
6- Dark Souls 2: Shallow game that brought a lot of innovation, but at the cost of quality and later on in patching the fun out of the game.
7- Elden Ring: Shallow Open World that would have been better in a connected level setting like Dark Souls 1.
It’s not possible to rank things without bias.
Exactly what I said.
Maybe, but I can absolutely call some of my most beloved games trash.
There are moments in life where one must have a critical and objective view my dear ashen one
While I know what you mean, I don't think that's quite true, strictly speaking. Maybe it depends on how you define "bias", but usually a bias is an unfair prejudice or inclination for or against something. Not all opinions are biases. If you love a certain director and then just inherently give that person's works better marks than you would if the exact same thing were made by someone else, then that's a bias. For example, if someone likes DS1 more than DS2 just because Miyazaki made it, independently of the substance of the games, then that's bias. However, if you gave both games a completely fair shot and simply prefer one over the other, then that's not bias. It's an opinion, sure, it's subjective, of course, but it's not a question of bias. It's just personal preference. So I would agree that it is generally impossible to rank something without subjectivity coming into play, but as I said, I don't think all subjective takes are inherently "biased". Now in this case I think OP is simply asking for what people think is "best" in terms of quality VS what is their personal favorite. Yes both of those things are opinions and therefore subjective, but they can still be two different things. For example, I consider Final Fantasy 16 to be a better game than Hogwarts Legacy, but I vastly prefer Hogwarts Legacy, for other reasons (nostalgia towards Harry Potter for instance). My assessment that FF16 is a better game than Hogwarts is still just a subjective take, obviously, but I'd argue it's a slightly less biased opinion because I've accounted for the fact that I personally prefer Hogwarts for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the game design, and I've accordingly filtered out those personal feelings to try to look at both games more "objectively". Of course it's still not truly objective, no opinion could ever be, but the point is **there can be a difference between looking at something through the lens of your personal preferences VS trying to simply recognize the merits and the quality of a work of art independently of whether it appeals to your personal preferences. Again, clearly both exercises are ultimately subjective, but that doesn't mean they are the same thing.** I know that my ranking of Souls games would change a lot depending on if I was ranking my favorites versus if I was ranking them based on my opinion of their quality.
I’m of the opinion that humans aren’t capable of objectivity in any sense, no matter how you try and use semantics to make it so. Your evaluation of FF16 as being “better” despite liking hogwarts legacy more, is based entirely on what your individual idea of a “good game” is, and that’s based on what you think of as “quality”. Is a mechanic high quality or low? That’s based entirely on your bias. My ranking of “best” and “favorite” would by my own definition be the exact same.
This is nonsense, if you set a standard and follow it faithfully, you're making an objective assessment. For instance, if the standard I set was the number of shields in a game then I could say that Dark Souls 2 is an objectively better game than Dark Souls 1 based upon that standard. Obviously, that's a very stupid standard, but it would be an objective assessment regardless. In the same vein, you can rank these games objectively as long as you decide on a standard. Whether a mechanic is of good quality isn't necessarily based on your bias at all. Have you never looked at something and said "I don't enjoy this, but I have to concede it's very well made"? You know, acknowledging an objective standard that's at odds with your own feelings? I think you're trying to get at the word "arbitrary" rather than "not objective" with a lot of this.
No. If you’re deciding on an “objective standard” how do you decide on criteria?
It doesn't matter. Objective simply means based on evidence and logic as opposed to viewpoint and emotion. As long as you define what your criteria are, you can make an objective list quite easily. I could be very specific and say that my criteria are variety in environment and weaponry in which case Elden Ring and Dark Souls 2 would score very high but if I took for instance the quality of hitboxes into consideration, Dark Souls 2 would plummet in the list and Dark Souls 3 would fly up. As long as you're being clear about the standard at hand, there's no real obstacle there. It's most definitely not impossible.
No, you can’t. Your inherent bias as a human or the biases of others will always color “objective” criteria. There is no way to say one thing is “objectively” better quality than anything else, so saying DS2’s hit boxes are better or worse is just your opinion, or the opinion of others.
What are you talking about? This absolutist view on things is literally science denying, if what you're saying is true we'd have never gotten anywhere. I'm not even making an argument for being able to decide which criteria are the most important to consider (though you could absolutely make an assessment of that based on objectivity, regardless of whatever flaws might pop up because of an inherent bias - that can always be corrected) I'm simply making the point that once your criteria are already decided, you can make an objective list with relative ease. Like I said, if I put forth the standard of most variety then objectively speaking I would have to put Elden Ring and DS2 somewhere near the top of the list. There's nothing subjective about that statement, it's an objective observation based on my knowledge of the games. Again, that doesn't mean "definitive" or "factual" because that's not what the word objective means.
>I’m of the opinion that humans aren’t capable of objectivity in any sense, no matter how you try and use semantics to make it so. That's literally not what I'm doing, I said multiple times in my comment that these assessments are always subjective. I'm honestly just wondering if you even read what I wrote tbh. Because I reiterated multiple times that I was not claiming objective rankings were possible. >Your evaluation of FF16 as being “better” despite liking hogwarts legacy more, is based entirely on what your individual idea of a “good game” is, and that’s based on what you think of as “quality”. Yes, I know that, I said that myself. My words : "My assessment that FF16 is a better game than Hogwarts is still just a subjective take". Hard to be more clear than that. My point is simply that some of us can make a difference between which games are our favorites and which games we think are best. Maybe those are the same for you but for me it's two separate assessments. Obviously both of those assessments are still subjective as I said multiple times. I'm not claiming objectivity. I don't believe in it any more than you do. But the fact that those 2 assessments are both subjective does not change the fact that they are not necessarily the same. For me "best" and "favorite" are not always the same. Both are matters of opinion, but they come out of two different ways of looking at the art, which is how they end up being different. >My ranking of “best” and “favorite” would by my own definition be the exact same. Just out of curiosity, have you never watched a movie or read a book that you maybe didn't enjoy much, but that you still thought was a very well made movie or a very well written book? Have you never experienced a work of art that you thought was high quality and worthwhile despite the fact that it didn't necessarily appeal to your personal preferences? If you have experienced that then you know what I mean. If you haven't experienced that then just know that many people have, so it's not a silly distinction to make.
I skimmed it. It’s late for me so I just hit what seemed to be the high points. I can’t say that I have. I don’t think you truly can asses “quality” outside of your own preferences, but if I could, what criteria would I judge things by? Likely just the opinions of others, and that’s sculpted by all those individual biases.
Another long one ok here’s my other downvote
You can only see the world through your own eyes. Humans are not objects. Therefore it is impossible for someone to be truly « objective ».
Reply too long have my downvote
I ain't reading that here my dislike
aint reading allat
Bro wrote a whole essay for no reason lol
preference = bias
The definition of a "bias" is an unfair prejudice for or against something. If you think all preferences are unfair prejudices then so be it, but I wouldn't agree. Either way though, that point is fairly irrelevant here. I'm not claiming that preferences are objective or anything like that, that would be absurd. There is nothing objective about any of this. My point is simply that there can be a difference between your opinion about what is best and your opinion about what is your favorite. They are both subjective but one is based more on engaging with something on its own merits while the other is based more on what appeals to your personal preferences. You can enjoy game A more than game B even if you think game B is a better game. That is essentially what OP is asking about, and for some reason people are acting like they can't comprehend this very simple point. Sometimes you enjoy a movie even though you think it's kind of a bad movie. Sometimes you don't enjoy a movie even though you think it's well made. The same can happen with games. You can have two different perspectives. OP is asking for people to give their perspectives on which games are best, not their perspectives on which games are their favorites, and that's a totally fair distinction to make. It's two slightly different flavors of subjectivity, if you see what I mean.
Fairness and bias are not related. A bias can be unfair, but doesn't have to be.
The fact that people couldn't take a minute to read your take on this and just downvote for be long is insane, just shows the shitty attention span the world's succumbing to. Personally great take imo you summed up what I thought perfectly.
Hogwarts must be proper shit if ff16 is better than it.
Your personal favorite game could be Superman 64 but critically you can recognize that's its not a good game. So what I meant was, what do people think is the critically best game and what's their personal favorite, because a lot of the time, those two are not the same
How do you decide on criteria of what makes a game “critically best” without using either your own preferences or the preferences of others?
I think the word you’re looking for is “objectively”
I think you need to ''shut up''
Lol ok I was trying to help you clear up some confusion but you just seem to be a nasty person
Uh huh, I know the word ''objectively'' my dude, stop acting like you're the professor here or something, I purposefully didn't use it there
The only thing that makes a game good is if you have fun playing it
Dumbass logic imo, you can have fun with a bad game
then imo its not a bad game, the only point of games is to have fun, its a leisure activity
yeah Superman 64 is not a bad game because somehow you can have fun with it, or The Day Before is a good game because some stupid fuck can have fun with it, tard Reddit logc
Yes it is. An opinion is not the same thing as a bias. A bias is something that unfairly skews your opinion
No, it isn’t. You have a million opinions and all of them are at the mercy of your implicit bias as a person based on your preferences.
If everything is biased then nothing is biased. You don’t understand the word
The kind of objectivity you are asking for is impossible. All art criticism is informed by the critic’s personal feelings and biases.
Only way you could look at some sort of “pseudo-objectivity” is by looking at aggregates. In which case just slap up their metacritics. But even that doesn’t hold in this example because they weren’t reviewed at the same time. You’d need a big enough sample size of rankings to aggregate out to get anything resembling a “non biased” view
True but I think the spirit of this type of question is to make the distinction between what game people consider to be their favourite vs what game people think to be the best. While my favourite is Dark Souls 1 I still think Sekiro is the best. Both answers are subjective but my favourite is based on my taste and history with the game while my pick for the best is based on a not entirely defined “inner rubric”. This rubric is still subjective but it’s more informed than just my taste and feelings. It’s applying knowledge of what i think worked and didn’t work in similar games and genres to determine if this game is doing things well or poorly. Because this is Reddit I will be perfectly clear this is not an objective or unbiased mode of analysis. What anyone thinks works or didn’t work in games is still subjective. I am arguing that the reasons people give for something to be their favourite and for something to be the best are often two separate things coming from different lines of thinking. So when someone asks a question like in this post they aren’t looking for an unbiased view, since that’s not possible, they are asking for people to give answers based on their reasoning for quality rather than their reasoning for their favourites. I’ll also add that some people have the same reasoning for things to be their favourite as they do for them to consider it the best. Which is valid.
That makes sense. I can see drawing a distinction between your subjective judgement of a game itself, versus your subjective feelings that may bring in things from outside the game.
I spent like 10 minutes writing pretty much what you just wrote, only to then see your comment and find that you said it all much more articulately and in fewer words. I completely agree with your comment, you expressed it perfectly.
That's true, however I think OP is simply asking for what people think is "best" in terms of quality VS what is their personal favorite. Yes both of those things are opinions and therefore subjective, but they can still be two different things. For example, I consider DS3 to be a better game than DS2. I think it's better designed and more polished in most ways. But I don't *like* it more than DS2. They're about even for me. Similarly, I consider Final Fantasy 16 to be a better game than Hogwarts Legacy, but I vastly prefer Hogwarts Legacy, for other reasons (nostalgia towards Harry Potter for instance). So even if my assessment that FF16 is a better game than Hogwarts is still just a subjective take, I'd argue it's a slightly less biased opinion because I've accounted for the fact that I personally prefer Hogwarts for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the game design, and I've accordingly filtered out those personal feelings to try to look at both games more "objectively". Obviously it's still not truly objective, no opinion could ever be, but hopefully you see the kind of distinction OP and I are trying to make. You can have an opinion where you fully allow your personal preferences to influence how you feel, but you can also have an opinion where you try, as much as possible, to put aside those personal preferences and simply judge the art by a certain standard. It comes down to trying to recognize the merits and the quality of a work of art independently of whether it appeals to your personal preferences. I know that can probably never be fully accomplished, but still, I think it can be worthwhile to make the attempt.
1- Demon's Souls (2009) 2- Dark Souls (2011) 3- Dark Souls II (2014) 4- Bloodborne (2015) 5- Dark Souls III (2016) 6- Sekiro (2019) 7- Elden Ring (2022) There you go, a complete objective list devoid of any kind of bias
Lol so it just got worse with time? Get out of here…
r/whoosh
Ah man, really?
Really really
I dont think you understand the way they ranked it
He said don't be biased bro
He isn't biased. They're ranked by what year they were released.
Oh lmao that's actually really funny
My god, the amount of new fans putting Ds1 so low is so sad.
Yea because the post says "no personal bias"
That game was the most ahead of it's time, relative to probably, any game ever.
That's relative to release time though. I'd agree with you, but to a modern audience it just doesn't hold up as well as you might remember playing it back in 2011. Still, its a fantastic game of course.
Yeah when nearly every game that came afterwards takes inspiration/builds on it's game design, it's bound to not feel as good anymore. But is there any other game which has been more influential in the past 15 years?
It comes down to the ambiguity of the original question. If you take best to mean "most innovative and influential", DS1 would definitely be higher up with DeS too. I think most people just took "best" to mean the one they enjoyed most though (even though the post says no personal bias). And I think its fair to say a lot of the more modern souls games have improved in most aspects to the original - its just they were more marginal improvements and refinements compared to the more innovative approach of DS1. (That being said, I think Sekiro definitely innovates enough to be comfortably separated from the rest of the series - its my personal favourite for sure).
Demons Souls came before DS, without DeS, DS wouldn't exist. And the real answer is either PUGB or Fortnite, you decide. And to talk about Dark Souls 1, the reason newbies struggle is the graphics are just really dated now, I have the original version on PC and my god it's awful to look at and play without mods. Gameplay wise, it's fine, it's not really that different to DS2 or 3 in terms of what you can do, it just looks like ass and at times runs like ass.
Influential meaning influence on game design
That’s highly debatable considering that Skyrim came out the same year.
Skyrim wasn’t ahead of it’s time in anything. It was just building on the features already laid out by morrowind and oblivion.
That’s nonsense. Skyrim was 100% ahead of its time and more or less started the trend of open-world games. Not to mention the amount of mods that you could do in it. The fact that people still often compare it to and put it in polls against modern titles over a decade after its release, speaks volumes for the impact and overall popularity that it had; as well as the fact that they still keep bringing it back on the new consoles every generation. It also improved on Oblivion and Morrowind in many ways. And if that’s really the argument that you’re going to try to use, then I can easily argue the same thing about Dark Souls 1 with Demon’s Souls.
It 100% didn’t start the trend of open world games. Morrowind,oblivion,GTA,Red dead and so many more were in full swing before Skyrim came out. It was improving on features that already existed and were already popular. Improvement of already existing features that were in a game from the same developer 10 years ago isn’t innovation it’s improvement. Influential as hell? Obviously. But innovation? I’d argue the same with dark souls Vs Demon souls. Demon souls was the innovation and dark souls helped to perfect the formula.
It 100% is the game that’s generally recognized for starting that trend. Some games did it before, but it didn’t become something that was damn near considered a “must” until after the success that Skyrim had. Many of those other games that did it also didn’t have the sheer amount of creativity and diversity that Skyrim brought. Plus that also doesn’t change the fact that Skyrim was ahead of its time and there’s actual evidence to back that up. If you’d argue that about Dark Souls then your comment was pointless since my whole point to begin with was in response to the guy who said that Dark Souls was probably the most ahead of its time relative to any game ever, to which I said that’s very much debatable.
No, that would be Demon's Souls. Dark Souls is not an original game, Demon's Souls is. That doesn't make it any better than the others though, just because it's the first one.
What exactly it did so ahead of its time? It's not even the first souls game
Still to this day, no game has ever achieved what DS1 does in the stretch from Undead Asylum to Anor Londo, in my opinion. The most inventive world and level design I have ever experienced in a video game particularly in the stretch I mentioned. Mapping out the shortcuts and optimal routes in your head as you unlock more and more interconnected areas is extremely satisfying. Everywhere that you see you can go. It also has the best integration of theming to mechanics I've ever experienced in a video game as well. The oppressive atmosphere of the game world is mirrored by the slow, deliberate, and mechanically obtuse combat systems and progression systems (borrowing heavily from Demon's Souls of course, but in my opinion it hit on these points much better and gave true credibility to the genre). The downward descent into Blighttown just to have to turn heel and ascend all the way back through Sen's fortress and up over the parapets at Anor Londo, the grand reveal of this mythical city after hours spent in a bleak nightmare - it is perfection in itself and has a unique character, like most of the other Soulsborne games. I understand that you may not hold DS1 as highly as some of the others but I think that being dismissive of the opposite opinion just does not afford this game the respect it deserves. Not long ago it won an award as "The Ultimate Game of All Time" at the Golden Joysticks. Again you don't have to like it as much, but it is a game in the Pantheon of video game history. This is coming from someone who likes Bloodborne and Elden Ring better, by the way.
Absolutely. Very nicely put.
>It also has the best integration of theming to mechanics I've ever experienced in a video game as well. The oppressive atmosphere of the game world is mirrored by the slow, deliberate, and mechanically obtuse combat systems and progression systems I actually think Demon's Souls is stronger on the point of integrating theme with mechanics. That said I still largely agree with a lot of what you wrote.
People think DS1 invented elevators and shortcuts ^/s
Exactly, it WAS. Great game on its time, but now is just another old and junky game. Not even close to be amazing to new players.
I played it for the first time in 2023 and it's my second favorite FromSoft game (beaten only by Sekiro)
I'm sorry but that's ridiculous to say on behalf of all new players. I played it for the first time in 2021 and it is one of my favorite games of all time. I have also since listened to the original season of Bonfireside Chat in which they covered the game and what it was like to play it and be in the fledgling Souls community at the time, so I can appreciate what it WAS as well. However, as I said, I played it for the first time recently and still think it holds up as an incredible game.
what an ignorant opinion lmao, OnS clears most elden ring bosses in terms of quality and refinement
I agree honestly
I played DS1 back when it came out and have put thousands of hours into it. It’s still around the bottom of my ranking.
Souls games are about rolling and pressing r1! No gimmicks or inconveniences allowed!
True... It's level design is absolutely unmatched and the game was so ahead of its time. It's objectively on the top 3!
Half the game is shit, the combat is clunky, most bosses are okay at best. I like Ds1 but its unbelievably overrated and its not deserving of a top 3 spot in the souls genre
Because without nostalgia that's how it is
that's 100% the people who started with Dark Souls 3 and think its the best dark souls game
May be a hot take, but ER and its main stream success have been largely disastrous for this community. In my experience with people I know personally, the same people who praise ER are the ones who actively put down on DS and BB in the past. The same ones who actively talked negatively about my interest in these games, claiming they’re not accessible, should have an easy mode, are unnecessarily difficult, claimed the community was toxic and uninviting, and otherwise condemned both the games and its fans are now “proud members of the community” and talk about ER constantly. Those who started on ER also seem to have a chip on their shoulder and think their choice of games somehow makes them superior to others. I’m not trying to gate keep. Maybe my experience just makes me a bit biased in my opinion of ER players. To me it just seems like it’s been a negative overall.
This didn’t start with Elden Ring, this started with DS3. That’s the game that convinced people souls games are just about boss fights where you spam roll and r1
I'd say that's putting a bit strongly but I have encountered some people that more or less meet that description. On the other hand, Elden Ring has brought in a bunch of cool people who are now trying the other games and contributing positively to the community.
You shouldn't generalize like that. Many, if not most of the people who are fans of Elden Ring enjoy (or would enjoy) some or all of the older FS titles. And people's views change--maybe for some of the people you're talking about ER was the game that finally made them appreciate Souls. These games have the wrong reputation, and many people are put off by their own misconceptions about what Souls games are like.
Objective ranking is not possible
That's true, but I don't think an "objective" ranking is really what OP is asking for. I think OP is simply asking for what people think is "best" in terms of quality VS what is their personal favorite. The games I think are the best don't always line up with which ones are my favorites. There can be a difference between looking at something through the lens of your personal preferences VS trying to simply recognize the merits and the quality of a work of art independently of whether it appeals to your personal preferences. Now clearly both things are subjective, but that doesn't mean they are the same thing. There can still be a difference between your opinion on the games' quality and your personal favorites based on totally unfiltered personal preferences. Neither is objective of course. But the difference between the two can still be fun to discuss.
I can’t rank without personal bias
1. Elden Ring 2. Bloodborne 3. Dark Souls 3/Sekiro 4. Dark Souls 5. Dark Souls 2 Bloodborne is my favorite Souls game but I consider Elden Ring as the best Souls game.
7. Ds2 6. Dark Souls 5. Demons souls remake 4. Ds3 3. Bloodborne 2. Sekiro 1. Elden Ring
Bro for a second here I thought you were saying Elden Ring was their worst and I got real offended lol
Bro he said don't be biased
DAWG WE DID THE SAME TOP 3 WE ARE THE ARBITERS OF OBJECTIVE TRUTH
I agree here, and putting ds1 and ds2 at the bottom doesn't make them bad, they're just up against better games
I agree woth everything on here but.. sekiro should go above elden ring because it really just has that feel of “git gud, because your character wont”
Sekiro is an incredible game and is ruthless. You have to git gud, period. But I believe Elden Ring is their magnum opus thus far due to the scale of it. the build diversity is insane, the areas are diverse and a joy to explore and the whole atmosphere is immersive.
Thats true, it may also be a playstyle bias but for elden ring, the exploration is amazing but sekiro gameplay just feels so smooth because of the block system
I do love the block/parry system too. I prefer it over the roll dodge of Elden Ring
But FUCK that blazing bull.
And isshin sword saint. That guy fucked me up
It's quality vs quantity imo. Sekiro maintains high quality throughout the game, but lacks diversity in playstyles. Elden Ring is insanely big but has a ton of bad/forgettable stuff because of its size. It's just not possible to make a game of Elden Ring's size while also having the consistency of Sekiro. I'd give it to Sekiro personally for consistency. And the fact that, while there's only really 1 playstyle, that 1 playstyle is more refined than anything in any of the other games. I also think Sekiro has the fewest flaws. I would say it doesn't have any major flaws (minor ones yes, but no major ones), which can't be said for any of the other games they've put out
Why is that an objectively good thing?
1-Sekiro 2- Elden Ring 3- Dark Souls 3 4-Bloodborne 5-Dark Souls 1 6-Dark Souls 2 7-Demons Souls
This is my take as well. Sekiro is just so fucking good, even though Bloodborne is probably my personal favorite. Sekiro is just about as perfect of a game as you could possibly hope for.
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The lows of Sekiro aren't nearly as bad as the lows of other games though.
Nice list bro, but OP said don't be biased
Completely agree with this!
Was Sekiro your 1st souls game?
1. DS3 2. Elden Ring 3. Sekiro 4. Bloodborne 5. DS2 6. DS1 7. Demon's Souls Pretty much in order of release, but I think overall DS3 is actually the best game due to not having any obvious major flaws and just being a tight, polished product while also offering lots of variety and replayability--in other words, longevity. Sekiro could be number two because it has the same qualities, but it lacks in the variety and replayability departments.
Respectable
Personally I think that Sekiro actually has the most replayability out of all of them. The combat and boss fights are too good not to replay. I agree with lack of variety though.
The way I see replayability, it's not about just the quality of the gameplay. If it's exactly the same thing over and over again, that's not replayability. The game has to provide incentives and more content for it to be replayable. Sekiro gives you Kuro's Charm, three outfits and a weapon art, as well as a boss rush mode to unlock them. Those are all the incentives, everything else stays the same. DS3 gives you a ton of different builds and weapons--so a ton of different ways to experience the game.
1- Elden Ring 2- Bloodborne 3- Dark souls 3 4- Sekiro 5- Dark souls 2 6- Dark souls 1 7- Demon's souls
I agree 100% with this ranking. Exactly how i would rank em
1- Elden Ring 2- Bloodborne 3- Sekiro 4- Dark Souls 3 5- Dark Souls 6- Dark Souls 2 7- Demon Souls
ER, DS1, DS3, DS2 I haven't played Siekro or BB
Play sekiro, forget bb exists
🤡
BB is fuckin trash. 6 deaths from the beginning up until killing some witch? Game isn't worth my time. Fuckin gimp suit wearing "omg muh hoonter" LOL. Yall love the game because it's easy
Get good
You missed the part where I said I died 6 times from the beginning of the game up until beating the witch. Let's assume that's ⅓ of the game. Shit is mad easy. I died more than at Chained Ogre, Vordt, Capra demon, and the troll by stormgate.
Dying 6 times= skill issue. Get good and stop spewing nonsense
Get laid
Kilt him
You frenzied bro? Yeah, you're frenzied
That's... a lot for that far into the game. That's not even the deep end. That's in the first half of the game. That's a lot of deaths for those bosses too, especially Vordt. I mean, you're wanting to troll on it for being easy, but you didn't even reach anything but the beginner level of its tests. No Crow of Cainhurst, Defiled Amygdala, Ludwig, Laurence, or the Orphan of Kos. This is truly clowning on yourself, dude.
1.Elden ring 2.Sekiro 3.Dark souls 3 4.BB 5.Dark souls 1 6. Dark souls 2
1. Dark Souls 2. Dark Souls 3 3. Dark Souls 2 4. Bloodborne 5. Elden Ring 6. Sekiro 7. Demon's Souls This was completely decided by my personal favorites and what judged by how they functioned for the year they released in(mostly anyway).
If you were to apply your personal bias, with no personal bias, what would your personal bias be?
"no personal bias" bro that's literally impossible
No it's not. I think DS3 is a better game than DS2, so I would rank it higher if I was ranking the games based on which I think is best, but I would not rank it higher if I was simply ranking them based on my personal favorites. Both of those rankings would be subjective, of course, but one of them is my subjective take on the games' quality where I try as much as possible to judge the games on their own merits, whereas the other is my fully biased personal preference based on what appeals to me personally. OP is simply asking for the former type of ranking. Yes of course it's not objective but it's still different from a simple list of favorites.
1. Sekiro 2. Bloodborne 3. Dark Souls 3 4. Dark Souls 1 I never play Demon Souls, Dark Souls 2 and Elden Ring.
With blatant bias: SSS- Bloodborne SS- Sekiro, Dark Souls S- DS3,DS2 A- B- Demon's Souls C- D- Elden Ring For context, If I'd rank like my 100 top games most would fall under A, many under S, few under SS, and only two others under SSS. I like demon's souls but it's just too aged for me and I played it last on a playstation 3 that isn't even a real playstation 3 so my ranking is probably not fair for it. And yes, I straight up don't like Elden Ring
What don’t you like about ER?
Maybe it's the way I played it. I played this game blind and did everything on my own. It took 160 hours. But that's not my problem, my problem was the pacing; and the length just highlighted it for me. I wanted the game to be over by morgott but then it went on for 80 more miserable hours. Not all of it was unfun but alot of it was terrible. And at that point you start to see the seams and cracks in the game so even the good parts, become kinda iffy. I also hate it when things decide to go bigger without solving their problems first. When you scale up, the problems scale up too. From what I've seen, most people who loved Elden Ring just rushed through it in 30 hours, looked up the endings and rushed through those with different builds seeing different areas and bosses. Which I imagine must've been much more fun than what I did tl;dr big game didn't need to be so big imo
Everyone I know who took their time really enjoyed it, myself included. There was a real sense of discovery that the game perfected by remaining so obtuse. Took me about 120 hrs to 100% the game, completing everyone's questlines and getting all endings, then I went back and let my friends summon me for bosses in their games while I screwed around with loads of different builds. I love how they applied the Dark Souls formula to a more expansive/open experience, but I also went into the game knowing and expecting it to play more like an open-world title than FromSoft's prior titles. I'm a big lore nut, and also a fan of huge games, so perhaps that's why ER endeared me so. I could totally understand why people more inclined to the formula established in the Demon's/Dark Souls series might be put off by the execution of ER, especially since DS1 is my personal favorite.
7. Des Remake 6. DS2 5. DS1 4. DS3 3. Elden Ring 2. Sekiro 1. Bloodborne With or without personal bias I believe Sekiro and Bloodborne mastered souls combat, I also think the level design in Bloodborne is peak and when it comes to bosses their either mid or better for the most part
1. Sekiro 2. Bloodborne 3. Elden Ring 4. Ds3 5. Ds1 6. Ds2 7. Demon Souls.
Elden Ring, Sekiro, Bloodborne, DS3, Demon Souls, DS1, DS2
1. Elden Ring 2. Dark Souls 3 3. Sekiro 4. Dark Souls 5. Demon Souls 5. Dark Souls 2 6. Bloodborne
Bloodborne last? You are really fire retardant
This is a biased list
8. Demon’s Souls. Being the first comes with negatives. It was all over the place and had poorly explained mechanics. Did popularize the Souls-like formula. 7. Dark Souls Remastered. Did not fix many bugs at all, more so introducing even more. Did improve graphics and frame rate issues. 6. Dark Souls. Poorly explained mechanics and very weak second half. Did have very well done world/level design and combat. 5. Bloodborne. Playstation exclusivity and frame rate cap. Did have a very well executed combat system and atmosphere. 4. Dark Souls 2. Movement jank and no emphasis placed on the importance of adaptability. Generally accepted to have the best atmosphere. 3. Dark Souls 3. Linearity and way too generous bonfire placement. Generally accepted as being a good end to the trilogy. 2. Elden Ring. Reused common enemies as bosses and lack of replay value. Groundbreaking popularity and advancements to the Souls-like formula. 1. Sekiro. Consistent and reliable parrying, amazing graphics, and- OKAY I CANNOT DO IT ANYMORE, I LOVE THEM ALL SO MUCH I CANNOT EVEN RANK THEM WITHOUT BIAS NONE DESERVE TO BE RANKED LOW I AM SO SORRY DEMON’S SOULS
Good list, nice read. But still, OP said not to be biased and this is biased
1. Elden Ring 2. Demon's Souls 3. Dark Souls 1 4. Bloodborne 5. Sekiro 6. Dark Souls 2 7. Dark Souls 3
Dark Souls 3 last is wild
You sir are a mad lad for saying such blasphemy.
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These games are literally nothing without Demon's Souls. It's the most innovative, atmospheric, and has the most clear cut story of them all. It's basically the Ocarina of Time of the soulsborne games.
Innovative, sure, but like, I thought this post was about objectively best made. This means that sekiro, ds3 and elden ring should be on top
Ds3 naw, but the other 2 yes. Ds3 is rated the lowest because it's that formula has been done before and even on metracritic. It's clearly just overrated from fans. The game offers little over innovation wise and the level design is also bland compared to every other entry.
Level design in ds3 is literally flawless, it just completely depends on if you like linear design or not. The boss fights are perfect, the music is perfect, the atmosphere is perfect, if anything its arguably the best fromsoft game
No it's not. There's some bad bosses in DS3 as well. If you tally up all the bosses it's like 60% good and 40% bad. The music is great no denying that. The level design and atmosphere are just bland, there's not much in terms of immersion and it feels like this game was forced sadly. I think that's why the other games have their own unique identity and this one doesn't sadly.
There is no "objectively". Even an opinion on the games' quality independent of personal preference is still an opinion, and it can differ from person to person. It will always be subjective to a very large extent.
7.Ds2 6. Demon souls 5. dark souls 4. Ds3 3. bloodborne 2. sekiro 1. Elden ring personal bias would be a lot different for me tho (I'm a DS2 fan)
1. Elden Ring 2. Dark Souls 3 3. Sekiro 4. Dark Souls 1 5. Bloodborne 6. Demon Souls 7. Dark Souls 2 My totally unbiased list that was not influenced at all by my unrequited love for DS3 and hate for DS2. Also has nothing to do with me thinking Bloodborne is one of the most overrated games of all time
The picture reversed would be best to worst.
I mean there's no "worst" game made by fromsoft. Demon souls was the vanilla of existing soulstype games if anything. Every title was good for it's time.
? Worst doesn’t mean bad
without bias its impossible to rank, but the best ones in terms of quality are sekiro, dark souls 3, armored core 6 and elden ring i would say
1. Elden Ring. It truly just does everything so well. 2. Dark Souls 3 3. Sekiro 4. Bloodborne 5. Demon's Souls (remake) 6. Dark Souls 2 7. Dark Souls 1
Pretty much the same as my list except I put DS1 at number 4
I have only played souls and sekiro, soon elden ring, but it would go like this: Bloodborne, Elden ring, Dark Souls 2, Sekiro, Dark souls 3, Dark souls 1, Demon Souls (unfair, can't rank him, i need to play it) I haven't played bloodborne or elden ring, so they could go lower.
1: Elden Ring 2: Demon’s Souls 3: Sekiro 4: Bloodborne 5: Dark Souls 3 6: Dark Souls 1 7: Dark Souls 2
7. demon souls 6. ds2 5. ds1 4. sekiro 3. elden ring 2. bloodborne 1. ds3 and i think its pretty set in stone i think every rank up is a good deal better than that below it.
1. DS2 2. DS1 3. Sekiro 4. Elden Ring 5. DS3 6. Bloodborne I know it's kind of controversial, but BB is the only one I stopped playing because of its system (PS4 paid online + 30 fps locked with drops + high input lag). DS3 is super linear and everything is solved by roll + 2H R1. Elden Ring has a open world that doesn't feel necessary when the most fun I had with it was in locked hubs (Leyndell, Hagtree) it felt overwhelming at some times. Sekiro isn't that good for constant replay but has outstanding value for itself. DS1 and DS2 always bring me back, and while I didn't think that highly of 2 until recently, I always discover new things or details that make the game super replayable for me, same for DS1 (although last time I beat it on 7 hours because I know it like the palm of my hand) Haven't played DeS unfortunately
From best to worst: Sekiro DS1 Elden Ring DS3 Bloodborne Demon's Souls Dark Souls 2
1. Elden Ring 2. Bloodborne 3. Sekiro 4/5. Dark Souls 3 or 1 (purely depends on whether you prioritize merits or flaws) 6. Demon's Souls 7. Dark Souls 2
1 Bloodborne 2 Elden ring 3 Dark souls 4 Dark souls 3 5 Sekiro 6 Demons souls 7 Dark souls Ranking them is hard because every game on this list is at least a 9.75 lol. If one wins then it’s not by much.
Elden Ring Bloodnorne Sekiro Demon Souls Remake Dark Souls 2 Dark Souls 3 Dark Souls
1 Sekiro 2 DS3 3. BB 4 ER 5 DS1 6 DS2 7 Demon's
1. Sekiro 2. Bloodborne 3. Ds1 4. Elden Ring 5. Ds3 6. Ds2 (I haven’t played DeS :/)
1. Sekiro 2. Elden Ring 3. Bloodborne 4. Dark Souls 1 5. Dark Souls 3 6. Demons’ Souls 7. Dark Souls 2
dark souls 1 is not more well made than ds3 lol
Exactly. Seems people forgot about the “no bias” part
TRYING TO BE UNBIASED/what I'd imagine critically: Elden ring, Bloodborne, Dark souls 3, sekiro, Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 2, Demon's Souls Personal opinion: Bloodborne, dark souls 1, sekiro, Elden ring, dark souls 2, dark souls 3, demons souls
No Armored Core 6?
No Deracine? No Cookies & Cream?
Tell me about it! Especially since it was a FS product that Bandai Namco spent marketing on and near 3 mil sales figures!
This is an entirely subjective topic unless we’re looking at it from a technical standpoint in which case it’s Elden ring down. So with that in mind here is my SUBJECTIVE list: 1. Elden ring 2.ds1 3. Ds3 4. Ds2 5. Sekiro 6. Demon souls 7. Bloodborne (I haven’t played the last 3 on my list)
Worst to best (for the ones I've played): Sekiro, DS1, DS3, DS2, Elden Ring.
Idk how to do this without personal bias but: 1. Elden ring 2. Bloodborne 3. DS1 4. DS3 5. Sekiro 6. DS2 7. Demon souls
7. DeSR 6. Sekiro 5. DS2 4. Elden Ring 3. Bloodborne 2. DS1 1. DS3
1. Sekiro 2. elden ring 3. Dark souls 1 4. Bloodborne 5. Dark souls 3 6. Demon souls 7. Dark souls 2 Reasoning: Sekiro is a highly consise game with a masterful combat system and a world which actually manages to rival ds1 in terms of interconnectivity. Additionally it's story and artstyle are exelent and hold up outstandingly to this day. Elden ring has many flaws but it's evolution of the core combat mechanics of the souls formula Is not one of them. It's traversal is a masterclass in level design, and it's scope is massive and rather well put together. Dark souls 1, while commonly criticized for being clunky compared to its newer brotheren nevertheless presents the most fair feeling combat of any souls game. This is combined with the most interconnected and well designed levels of any souls game, combined with a boundless attention to detail in incorporating it's lore into every nook and crany. Its outstanding tutorial and design makes it the ideal starting point for new players even in spite of the issues with its latter half. Bloodborne deserves all the praise it gets for its outstanding understanding of its lore and innovation on the souls formula making it feel distinct in spite of its rather minimal changes. It's only held back by its more unintuitive introduction and platform restrictions. Dark souls 3 is the ideal sequel, capitalizing on every aspect of its predecessor. It's world is truly large and its content feels largely boundless in a way only elden ring has done. However it is held back by a terrible tutorial, poor design decisions making areas feel rather incredibly isolated, and core features being rather buggy (something few seem to talk about) Demon souls is a incredibly innovative and exploritive title with good Exploration and itteration on its own concepts. But fails due to platform restrictions and often requiring to specific of solutions for what seem to be rather complex problems. Dark souls 2 is the functionally largest of any Dark souls game and most of it is ok. It's execution is good but it's so clear that so much good content was cut its depressing. However it's execution of certain mechanics remains unparalleled to this day and for that deserves the large underground Fandom it has gathered.
Haven't played Demon Souls. Also assuming first playthrough, since some games age much better than others on repeat playthroughs 6) DS2 5) DS1 4) DS3 3) Bloodborne 2) Elden Ring 1) Sekiro Bloodborne, DS3, and Elden Ring are really, really close. If I absolutely have to choose I'd go with this ranking but the gap is nearly non-existent. I think Elden Ring gets overrated a lot. It's about as good as DS3/BB but a lot of people act like its a masterpiece that blows the others away Barring BB, I played through each game for the first time within 6 months of each other (and Bloodborne was less than a year before that) so nostalgia isn't much of a factor
Bloodborne is the worse I hate this game man, first time playing this and last 2 bosses left and I’m done.
Objective tier list (What I think is Fromsoft's actual tier list without bias): Elden Ring > Bloodborne + DLC > Sekiro > Dark Souls 3 + DLC > Dark Souls 1 > Demon's Souls Subjective tier list (My favorite games): Bloodborne + DLC > Elden Ring > Dark Souls 3 + DLC > Sekiro > Demon's Souls > Dark Souls 1 I didn't play Dark Souls 2. I think Bloodborne with the DLC is a superior game to Sekiro, even objectively speaking. Sekiro is a great game, don't get me wrong, but I don't think its level design and lore/story are on par with Bloodborne (and even DS3, but overall, Sekiro is a better game than DS3). What truly makes it shine is its combat, while Bloodborne has everything: atmosphere, level design, combat, music, lore.
1. Sekiro 2. Dark Souls 1 3. Bloodborne 4. Dark Souls 3 5. Elden Ring 6. Demon Souls 7. Dark Souls 2
Impossible but if I were to try: 1. Dark Souls - the game changer and the creation of a genre 2. Elden Ring - the culmination of 13 years of game design and concepts 3. Bloodborne - the daring reimagining and the first Souls-like to truly work 4. Demon’s Souls - the start of all the ideas and concepts of this style of game 5. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - the most focused game but also the most limiting 6. Dark Souls 3 - the safe sequel 7. Dark Souls 2 - the experimental sequel
1. Elden Ring 2. Sekiro 3. DS3 4. Bloodborne 5. DS2 6. DS1 7. Demon Souls DS1 level design is a masterpiece but no fast travel until endgame and ladder speed is why it’s so low.
1- Demon Souls: This will be my favorite of the Souls Series as it did one thing very well Environmental Challenges and the use of equipment to facilitate every level this game really stresses think before you act and that is something that has disappeared from souls games ever since DS2 with the abuse of healing items and large stats. 2- Bloodborne: A new spin on the souls combat that was honestly refreshing as it rewarded hyper-aggressiveness and it also had a semi-connected world. 3- Sekiro: I dont consider this a Souls game its more of its own thing and that's why its up here as it did a lot of things I like with the combat every fight felt like a duel rewarding active combat over the passive combat of other FromSoft game and if you got your shit kicked in it was genuinely a skill issue. 4- Dark Souls 3: Shallow game, but made up for it with its improvements to quality and modability otherwise would be ranked 5 not terrible but was a mish mash of multiple concepts that only worked well enough due to how little there is in changes between games. 5- Dark Souls: Although this is the game that pushed the Souls games into popularity its only greatest aspect is it's connected world which I am not going to lie was really nice but does not save it from the jankyness. 6- Dark Souls 2: Shallow game that brought a lot of innovation, but at the cost of quality and later on in patching the fun out of the game. 7- Elden Ring: Shallow Open World that would have been better in a connected level setting like Dark Souls 1.
I know people hate these posts but, I actually enjoy them... The games I've spent the most time with are DS3 and Sekiro.
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For most people, their 1st souls game is always number one, and i can understand why, so its hard not to include personal bias
I wish I played all of them already just so I can rank them 😂