First of all, this game is really good and figuring out the mechanics or where to go next is mostly a really pleasant and rewarding activity. Many of the boss fights were fun, the npc's are great (most are better than the npc's of its predecessor Demon's Souls), the parallel the game makes with depression is beautiful and Firelink Shrine feels like home... It's such a beautifully executed concept. But... I hate to say it but i agree with most people when they say the second half of the game is inferior to the rest of it.
After Duke's Archives the game had worn me down; I was tired and saturated - I just wanted to finish the game as fast as possible at that point. And besides that, this game is not as inventive as people praise it to be, since a substancial part of its core characteristics and mechanics came from Demon's Souls - they are basically a copypaste of it. There are a repetition of some enemies, bosses, areas, npc's and even lore elements; the thing that is completely original about Dark Souls is its "open-world" and interconnectivity, which is pretty cool and helps a lot with the execution of the games themes, but at the same time, it gives me a feeling of a very small world so I wouldn't say it is perfectly executed.
Dark Souls, in my vision, wanted to be a improvement of what Demon's Souls was, and in many ways this was achieved - but this is where the problem lies: in many other ways it wasn't.
Demon's Souls was still way more experimental and inventive with bosses for example - every new boss felt like a puzzle to be solved (which I personally like more)... and once solved it would give you an enormous advantage against that boss - Dark Souls on the other hand standardized boss encounters to a single type of boss fights (Bed of Chaos was a poorly executed exception).

Anyway, sometimes I think that maybe in that final stretch of the game when I started feeling fatigued and tired with the game narrative, areas and bosses - my head was in the wrong place for personal reasons. And maybe I should've taken a break to finish the game some time later. Maybe if I had done that I would've enjoyed the second half way better, so I'll keep that in mind and will complete the game a second time someday in the future. Maybe I'll change my opinion, I don't know...

At long last, this is still a great game, better than most things you can find in the game industry nowadays. It has some unique traits and atmosphere, a very rewarding gameplay style, greatly executed themes and a beautiful message.
To everyone that played the game and may be reading this, whether you agree or not with my opinion, don't you dare go hollow!

I can give this less than a perfect 10 and what does it matter? Any less-than-immaculate rating cannot take away just how much of a consummate work of art Dark Souls is. This game’s main factors are excellent and blend together so well. The mechanics, the structure, the world-building, the lore… the stew they make together is amazing.

Back in 2011, Dark Souls showed everyone what a cohesive piece of art a video game could be and the years have not done a disservice to it. It still feels great to play, the world is captivating, and just about every little detail is worth exploring. That’s what it gets down to: just about everything here is worth examining like any other great piece of art in history.

I could mention some of its flaws like the camera can betray you at the most crucial moments or how the collision physics in the Crystal Cave are pretty bad because, hey, those criticisms are legitimate! But art is more than just weighing pros versus cons, so in case you were wondering why I could give a game like this a 9 out of 10 and then say it was one of the greatest pieces of video game art, that’s why.

Este fue un antes y un despues en mi vida. Es el juego que me enseño a nunca rendirme ante un reto y es, simplemente, una joya de los video juegos... Aunque solo sea medio juego. Porque si, dejando de la sus temas, jugabilidad y el delicioso, DELICIOSO DLC, el primer DS es un juego hecho por la mitad. Una vez se pasa Anorlondo en juego base, el mismo va en picada (sin contar las caidas de Frames que tiene esta version en especifico del juego). La pelea de Gwyn y el DLC ayudan a pasar ese mal trago, pero aun asi esa parte en el medio es tan pesada que me cuesta olvidarla. A pesar de todo, DS es hermoso en su imperfeccion y lo recomendaria a cualquiera que me preguntara.