izigame.me

Playing Dark Souls in 2022 is a strange experience. During years, I've been avoiding From Software games, mostly because of the mantra said by many people about being "very hard" and "punishing" for the player and the praise of a certain kind of people very proud of "beating the hardest game" and calling out everyone else for not doing it.
But recently, due to the Elden Ring fever, I've seen other kind of From Soft player, more focused on the experience, the lore and how the game reflects that into you through mechanics. this intrigued me so I had to experience first hand.
And well, I have to say that I mostly enjoyed the experience. I tried not to look for anything on the Internet (even if I asked some friends for some guidance a few times I was stuck) and the first thing that shocked me is that I did not find the game that "hard" or "punishing" as people said. It can be unfair at some points, and for instance I hated the long walks from the fires to the bosses in some areas, but overall I found that, with a non very high level of skill and some patience, you can go through all the game without many issues. I think the issue on "difficulty" is just that you need to approach some situations with an open mind and rethink and adapt, and, at the time of Dark Souls, that was not very common, so most people cracked their heads through a wall, finding a harder experience than intended.
But well, I overall enjoyed the way the story is presented, obscure and scarce as it is. It is quite clever to make the player enjoy every scrap of info and let big gaps in between so you can fill them and make the story your own.
I will end up playing every souls game after some time, and I hope to enjoy them as much as I did with this one.