[quote name='snowsquirrel']Jodu, I know you were a big DaS guy. How would you rate the single player experience of Das to DD?[/QUOTE]
It's a little hard to compare considering you have companions in DD, unless you go the assassin route of playing without pawns (totally doable BTW). So ignoring that I'd probably rate them equally.
For example, both have the realistic dark fantasy open world environments that take themselves seriously. While DD doesn't have mean spirited traps littering the world, it does have a few environmental traps and the Bluemoon Tower gave me a few oh shit moments when teetering on a ledge. What sets them apart is DaS always had its time of day frozen, while DD gives you the option of venturing only during the day when its safer. The real thrill comes from knowing where you need to go will take a day and being caught in the wilderness at night is truly creepy. Once that happens, you will catch glimpses of the same fear you'd find in DaS, which is simply brilliant design. If I had to rate one above the other, I'd give the nod to DD for the pure fact that I LOVE persistent worlds without many loading screens.
Then you have enemies, large and small, but DD integrates the same grappling system you'd find in Shadows of the Colossus. You can grapple anything, even arm-lock humans to allow your pawns to deliver devastating blows. For large enemies, the weak spots can prove hard to hit with arrows or fireballs, so you might decide to grab on to make sure they go down quick (they will enrage closer to death). If you're confident in aiming, however, you can just opt to loose arrows til the beast falls. Only spellcasters get any sort of lock-on reticle, so unlike DaS you're on your own to connect with melee/bows. Dodging mechanics are woven into abilities in DD, so there's a bit less skill required than in DaS where you need to dodge and then decide how to follow up. I like both combat systems equally, since they're both very engaging.
Lastly, the quests/story are both very minimalist but breathe life into the world as a whole. In DD, the quests are very much about exploration and telling a tale of locations in the world which I dig. There's still plenty of forgettable notice board quests but those are more of a bonus for playing the game, some of which you might not even complete your first playthrough due to the amount of items you need. More to the point, I never felt like I needed to grind anywhere to kill a specific creature. The main quests take you all around and the quests complete naturally. How you complete some quests are also very open-ended, so you get options such as 'do I want to keep this item because it helps me complete another quest or do I want to be loyal and follow instructions'. You don't get any of that in DaS, since the main quest is very direct and sidequests are more of a memory game of who wanted what. Again, love both equally.
This is quickly becoming long-winded, but the one unique factor to DD is the pawn system and it really has to be experienced first-hand to understand just how good it is. It provides the illusion of playing a online game without really being co-op. It's an experiment in social interaction and works brilliantly. If the game doesn't win GOTY from at least one outlet, it will be a crime.
with my mind.
