izigame.me

...it requires a lot of patience and resolve. In the end though, it’s not only worth braving the darkness for the sense of satisfaction, but also for the incredible world building.

According to many players Dark Souls is one of the hardest game series out there. It’s rare that solely beating a video game is considered an achievement itself. To do just that you need to go through a purgatory of constant failures, pain and frustration. It’s a production that many people take on mainly just to challenge themselves. Still, there is more to this game than just being “a bit more difficult than an average video game”.
Your character wakes up in a prison cell and you find out about the curse of the undead. The curse causes you to lose all power and come back to life after each death, until you start to lose your mind and become one of the empty husks, ghouls mindlessly roaming the many castles and dungeons you explore.
Once you leave the walls of the asylum you were locked in and learn about the prophecy of the Chosen Undead, you travel to Lordran to rekindle the fire, lift the curse and save the world.
Well, did you grasp the main concept? Was it too general of a story, not specific enough? That is Dark Souls. If you pay attention to the prologue and the actual things you do in the game, you might get some idea of what is even happening. But this game is a big jigsaw puzzle. Many things you do in it are for you to just progress further. You don’t get the context of the fight with this big spider monster and what defeating it means for this location. You just want to get past it. This context you find in environmental storytelling, item descriptions and enigmatic dialogues with NPCs.
You can only understand Dark Souls when you actively seek out its secrets. Its actual story is not only not handed to you on a silver platter, but is also full of lies, falsehoods and manipulations. The characters have their own goals, things they say are not always the truth and it doesn’t matter if they are purposefully spreading lies or are just as oblivious as we are.
I’m not saying that to correctly appreciate this game you must become the absolute lore master, it’s not the point. I’m saying that by just playing the game to beat it, you will miss a lot of its artistic value. It’s full of interesting side plots (my absolute favorite is Artorias and Sif) and metaphors. Damn, people are writing research papers about this game, I considered it too.
The gameplay itself is like this: you go from a bonfire (which is your checkpoint) as far as you can, ideally to the next one, defeating or evading enemies as you go and acquiring their souls. Souls are the currency that lets you level up, upgrade your gear or buy items from merchants. You explore many different locations, fighting various enemies, finding items and uncovering secret illusory walls. You face formidable bosses each testing your skills.
So what is so difficult then? My take is that Dark Souls difficulty consists of several main points. One of them is losing all your power after death. When you die you lose all your current carried souls and humanities (humanity is a whole different mechanic I won’t be explaining here) and leave a blood stain close to the place you perished. If in your next attempt, you manage to reach the stain you’ll recover all your lost power. If you die before that though, the stain gets replaced with a new one, making you lose all previous progress. It can be equally addicting as demotivating.
Another unpleasant thing is running back after each death.
Thirdly, this dark fantasy adventure is oddly realistic. Your character has a stamina bar that depletes with almost every action. Sprinting, dodging & rolling, attacking, blocking hits all use stamina and once you run out of it, not only you cannot attack further, but also you can’t dodge away. It’s important to keep track of your stamina bar, because besides knowing a few spells, you are just an ant with a toothpick to that Gaping Dragon – one wrong move can mean the end for you. Combat itself is also pretty tactical, if you can call it that. You must position yourself in a way so that if the enemy swings at you, you don’t roll off a cliff or into the lava. Even just healing yourself is a tricky decision – you must make sure that you have time to do that mid-combat. The animation takes time and foes won’t let you take a break.
In conclusion one of the most frustrating situations can be that you die to a boss, try to run back fast for your souls while being mad, start making mistakes along the way, get beat up by some funny skeletons because you swinged at a wall instead of them, miraculously survive only to roll off a cliff and die again. Then rage quit.
Sounds bad right? Do I think this game is hard?
It’s certainly above average. But I think the key here is to keep the right mindset. You will die a lot, it’s not only part of the experience, but also the best way to learn. The game teaches you to live with failures and that it’s never truly over unless you don’t get back up. Also, there is no shame in screwing up – the beauty of this game is you can have 300h in it and still die in a stupid way.
You are given many tools to aid you. You can always farm some souls and level up yourself or your gear before moving on. You can experiment with your playstyle and build. There is pretty much no best armor or best weapon here (except for some cheesy magic builds I heard of), just play around and find what’s best for you.
And your biggest help might be the multiplayer feature. You can summon other players (or AI characters) to help you fight a boss you have trouble with. The MP also works in more subtle ways: players can leave messages to each other on the floor, helping you find treasure or warning you of some danger. This can also troll you and make you roll into the wall repeatedly, but hey, it’s part of the charm.
DS has some mechanics that aren’t really explained to the player, you have to google them on your own. Many people will probably say “it’s part of the difficulty and mystery of the game, it’s good!”. But man, I think things such as Equip Load could’ve been explained a little better.
The remaster is my first encounter with the game, so I won’t be comparing anything here. The game looks good and has a great aesthetic. Environments are amazing, so are the enemy and boss designs. Really, solely how the bosses look like can tell you a little about their story (Artorias having a broken arm). The world is dying in this game, it’s basically medieval fantasy apocalypse. Many foes once great and powerful, now are sick, wounded or lost their former power. They still will give you a hard time though. Anor Londo might be the greatest visual achievement here – not many game locations will leave that kind of impression. It only grows on you when you uncover its secrets.
The music is an interesting thing in Dark Souls. Overall, many times it’s not there. You just hear your tired footsteps, undead yelling, sounds of combat struggle. That makes the moments when music appears all the more powerful. There are only a few locations with background music. The boss themes not only are intimidating and adequately convey the fact that you’re going to get your ass handed to you in a moment, but often they give off more specific feelings. “Knight Artorias” is menacing, but then it tries to tell you the tragedy of the character. Gwyn’s theme should be the biggest and most bombastic track of all – it’s the final boss battle. Instead, it’s just this melodic, melancholic piano.
It’s not easy. You have to fail; you must learn the game and it requires a lot of patience and resolve. In the end though, it’s not only worth braving the darkness for the sense of satisfaction, but also for the incredible world building.

(additional thoughts in the comments, because it’s hard to do DS justice in a short review and Steam has character limit apparently)