Dark Souls

Never again… Never again…

I feel ashamed. This is the first review I have ever done when I haven’t actually finished the game. Dark Souls is the sequel to the infamous Demon’s Souls and concerns the typical fantasy setting in which an age of dragons is brought to a halt and the land is swathed in darkness. You actually play as an undead, someone without a soul. Who is imprisoned in a giant prison for the undead when you are suddenly freed and tasked with traveling throughout the land, defeating giant demons and reclaiming your humanity. Of course that’s what it looks like on surface level, in reality there is a swathe of backstory and lore to keep you immersed in this world of pain and suffering, and to fully enjoy the experience you are encourages to research and look between the lines in order to find out the true story.

The intrepid adventurer, you, fighting more of the undead

The presentation in this game is perhaps it’s most stunning aspect. Apart from some quite frankly hilarious mistranslations the game is amazingly pretty for what it was made from and even from the perspective of this being a world of death and decay it still manages to impress. The UI and menu’s are poor however, it took me almost one hour to figure out how to equip both a sword and shield. That aside all of the locales are well designed and each of the enemies and bosses you face are equally part disgusting as they are also well suited to the environment. The lighting in this game is some of the best I have seen in a while and it helps you to look at the pretty skyboxes and well designed enemies before inevitably dying.

And die you will. When the PC port (which I got) is names the ‘Prepare to Die Edition’ you know the game isn’t screwing around. This game is hard, to the point of absolutely mind numbing impossibility. If you don’t like frustrating games, you will not like this one. As a typical RPG you have your character creation, class, look etc. From there you need to go through dungeons and kill bosses. What is interesting however is that once you exit the first dungeon the world opens up and suddenly you are playing an open world game. Each of the paths you can take from the starting point lead up to somewhere and you can go wherever you please. However you will take the same one, it’s the easiest one. The gameplay itself is actually very nicely done. Weapons have weight and feel to them that cannot be matches, attacks against you and against enemies kill and hurt in the way you would expect them to in real life. This of course plays into the difficulty however as each enemy you have to face is capable of easily killing you, so your attention is fully needed on each encounter. This is a fair system and it encourages you to use your skills to the maximum, and rewards you for playing well and punishes you if you don’t pay attention.

Yeah… Expect to fight things like this.

The game however does have flaws, big ones. As mentioned I played the PC port and the controls on the PC were awful. Buttons were laid out strangely, menu’s didn’t react as you would expect them to, simply a mess. The beginning is also a bit of a slop too, this game requires you to have done some research before playing as it’s more of a show and don’t tell kind of game. Finally as mentioned this game is only for those who consider themselves professionals at gaming, and even then it will still find a way to make you suffer.

This game is the ultimate test of your skills. It’s not for entertainment or appealing to mass market or anything else. This is a game that desires to make you the best gamer you can be. If you don’t want a challenge, look elsewhere. But if you want one of the prettiest, well thought out and well designed games made recently, give Dark Souls a try. I won’t judge you if you can’t finish.