In a result that will no doubt please The Lone Steven, Dark Souls stormed to the top of yesterday’s poll and remained firmly at the top until the poll closed. This mean’s I’m left with the somewhat tricky task of introducing Dark Souls, a game I know little about aside from two facts: it’s long and you die a lot.
Unfortunately for me I found out that at least half of my knowledge of Dark Souls is wrong. Whilst looking for a few crumbs of information that would help me make sense of the point of Dark Souls, I stumbled across this news story from last year which proclaims that Dark Souls is beatable in under 90 minutes. The game may have a lot of content, but it would seem it doesn’t have to be all that long if you’re dedicated to the cause of playing it as fast as possible. To be fair to the game, that probably doesn’t apply to most people.
It does seem that the other half of my information about the game was correct though, you really do die a lot. Rather than a formal review of the game, Peter kept a brief diary of his experiences in the world of Dark Souls. In the first part of said diary he died three times and hadn’t even managed to kill the game’s first real enemy, the Asylum Demon.
In his second diary entry he revealed that it had taken him seven attempts to get past the Asylum Demon, and in doing so he learned a key piece of information – Dark Souls doesn’t like you. Whilst the almost death rate for the game might have made this obvious, the game’s disdain for the player goes much deeper than that. As Peter puts it, “Dark Souls keeps its secrets.”
The game simply isn’t going to explain core mechanics to you, leaving them for you to discover and work out. For example, it wasn’t clear to Peter that he could recover his accumulated power, the souls he had collected, after he’d died. Instead he was left to discover the ghostly entity that your death leaves for himself, something that seemingly took him quite a few attempts.
Peter’s second diary entry is his last one, and he admitted that he didn’t feel like he’d “…even scratched the surface yet.” There’s depth in Dark Souls, and the way it refuses to spoon feed you instructions or tips layers mystery on top of that depth.
However, if you’ve been playing the game for a while hopefully you’ll have explored some of that depth and can relay your thoughts on the game to us. If you feel like sharing how you feel about the game, or even what it’s done to you, then all you need to do is drop a comment below. Once you’ve managed to push past the emotional scarring and write your comment, remember to add a rating on the Buy It, Bargain Bin It, Rent It, Avoid It scale. Finally, you’ve got until Sunday afternoon to get your comment in if you feel like being part of Monday’s verdict article.
yogh_wayne
The hardest part of Dark Souls is when you first start to play the game. You have to learn the controls of course, as with any game, but you also have to learn that this is not God of War. Patience and caution are key. After that the game might still be hard, but it’s never unfair. When you die, you know why you died and how you could’ve avoided it. Since enemies respawn at the same positions each time you rest or respawn at a bonfire, you can actually learn to play the different areas like you can learn to play a level of a platformer (in which you also die a lot by the way).
Boss fights are special of course, they’re very powerful, but each one is beatable once you develop a strategy. Also you can summon other players or NPCs to help you. There are some brilliant and pretty unique online features (e.g. touching other player’s bloodstains will reveal how they died, so you can try not to end the same way).
One of the best parts of Dark Souls is the game’s atmosphere. There’s no bombastic orchestral soundtrack all the time, music is played in key areas and during boss fights. Most of the game is quiet. You hear your character breath under the helmet. You hear the rattle of the armor and weapons while you carefully move on, and you know that there’s something around the next corner that will try to kill you. There’s an incredible tension when you fight through an area for the first time.
Adding to the atmosphere are the ghosts of other players which you can occasionally see (although this was actually done nicer in Demon’s Souls), or when you rest at a bonfire at the same time and can see their real appearances.
You also meet a number of NPCs along the way. Each one with his/her own story and quest he/she follows. Most of it is rather cryptic at first, but the way you learn more about them as you meet them again in different locations is brilliant.
Another thing I like about Dark Souls is that your character is in no way limited by the class you choose at the start. You can equip any armour or weapon you find, but you’ll have to invest into the right stats to efficiently use them. For example my character started as a thief and is now a pretty good mage. Also there’s no level cap. The only thing that’ll stop you from reaching level 9999+ is the insane amount of souls required to level up at some point.
If you like action RPGs and aren’t scared of a little trial and error, you should definitely play Dark Souls. It’s hard but fair (and I’d say it gets easier as you progress), and it’s one of the best games of this generation.
BUY IT!!
I can’t wait for the DLC expansion on 26th of October :)
Praise the sun!
Dom El
Dark Souls does a lot incredibly well – the graphics and sound create a genuine sense of place, and it is probably the only fantasy game I’ve played where loneliness and alienation are the resounding emotions that a player experiences. It’s difficulty level is well documented, and in many ways it does serves to draw you deeper into the game.
However, I always felt that the underpinning technology behind the game just didn’t serve as well as it should have. The weapons and combat never carry the sense of weight that they should have, and movement is indefinite when it needs to be accurate. Enemies themselves are also lightweight, robbing them of a realistic place within the world, which is a huge shame when the world itself is so well presented.
I can only recommend that you ‘Rent It’, as there are definitely elements to be enjoyed with Dark Souls, particularly the environments and the challenge the game presents. They can only be enjoyed however if you’re willing to see past the mechanical failings of the game engine.