Dark souls is a super important game in gaming in general, but especially to me on a personal level.
It's gameplay by itself is already really good, a solid challenge that keeps you hooked as you level up and start grasping the mechanics more, but where it really shines is its gameplay in relation to the atmosphere and world building. This is super apparent during the Gwyn fight where the fight really isnt hard at all, but it ties in amazingly with what the game had been building up for Gwyn himself. That feeling of going in and expecting a crazy fight, is completely juxtaposed with the feeling you get when you take him out super easily, realising just how long he has been going for and how important you are as his successor.
Exploring the world as you go through and feeling the need to pick up every blue light you see is one of the most important things you can do in this game as almost everything you do collect will help you in many different ways, meaning you dont have to stay struggling forever and can always just go off and explore somewhere else for a little, which was eventually taken and blown out the park with Elden Ring. Picking something up, finding that next bonfire, listening to the fire crackle and opening up your inventory to read the lore of whatever it is you just picked up gets you super invested in the world around you, and just who actually inhabits it.
To me personally, the atmosphere and world building are the most important things a game could have and few other games actually pull this off as well as Fromsoft's can. Piecing together all the lore by yourself through reading item descriptions, listening to what the NPCs describe, and then seeing locations mentioned prior for yourself is a feeling that is absolutely unmatched and keeps you engaged throughout, taking on that tough boss so you can explore whatever the next location is.
My personal favourite moment in this game will always be that first flight to Anor Londo. Going from a dark, decaying and left abandoned place with only a few spots of sunshine, and going further down to the bottom layer of Blighttown, witnessing just how bad the people of Lordran have it, surviving some crazy fights and braving Sen's Fortress, just to get a gorgeous view of inside the wall thats been hogging half your horizon and seeing the sun shining over a huge city for the first time completely blows me away everytime.
The introduction to this game is short and simple, a narrator informs you of how the world came around, and how its in the state it is now, and then what your simple task is. This is really as much simple story you get from Dark Souls, but it allows you to remember it and keep it at the back of your mind easier, giving you a reason to keep pushing on, and never go hollow. While exploring you can see just how many undead, like you, have tried and failed to do what you're trying before you, evident with the many bodies just laying around the world that usually leave you a few souls on the way. This really shows that what you're doing isnt just a simple task, and how you must keep pushing to not end up like they have. It does a great job of making you feel not all that special throughout the start of the game, with even the first NPC you talk to discouraging you and saying you'll never make it, pushing you to prove him wrong, and once you ring that first bell and feeling on top of the world, like maybe you are the chosen one, you can rub in the NPCs face and make him feel stupid for doubting you, this is then juxtaposed when you enter the dark and miserable depths, which item descriptions tell you house some of the banished and completely lost undead hollows, getting even worse as you push through and enter Blighttown where everything just becomes depressing, hard to navigate and giving you nothing but a hard time. BUT once you make it through Blighttown and ring that second bell, you really start feeling that YOU are literally HIM. This game is amazing at making you feel certain ways as you push through and persevere, the looming threat of going hollow looming over at all times.
Honestly the bosses arent too hard and once you get used to the main loop of dodging and learning attacks theyre quite easy, with every boss having a cool bit of lore to learn about once defeated and some beautiful music playing throughout. (except that fuck ass bed of chaos with its stupid runback)
There a few NPCs throughout the world, most are just lost and hopeless, needing your help to rescue them and once you do, most of the time they can only give thanks, but occasionally you'll find an NPC who will be friendly with you and you'll finally feel safe and no longer alone. The first friend you'll usually find is Solaire who is standing in the sunlight, basking in it, with rays of light off in the distance, a beautiful view ahead of him, as opposed to the depressing views of Undead Burg you've been seeing up to this point. This feeling of friendship keeps you feeling excited everytime you see him, excited for when you'll next see him, and what he could have to say. This feeling is absolutely heart breaking when you cannot finish his questline and eventually run into him again, where he starts attacking you and has possibly one of the most depressing lines of dialogue in the whole game, having gone insane in his search for sunlight. This hurts even MORE once you read his armour descriptions and learn that he had no special powers, and that he had gotten that far in life through just pure will power and training.
The interconnected world of Lordran is so cool and gets you all giddy when you explore an area, come out, and find yourself somewhere you recognise. My favourite moment like this was entering the DLC and going through the Royal Woods, and starting to realise that this literally was Darkroot garden in the past. The whole world just feels like it has purpose and even the later game areas still feel this way even if they do fall off slightly.
This moves me to that second half of the game. Imo i think this part of the game is WAY over hated and really just isnt that bad, sure it doesnt compare as well to the first half but its still great with some fun bosses throughout.
The music of this game is gorgeous and Sakuraba did a phenomenal job of conveying how you feel in music form. Music doesnt really play that often except in boss fights, where they get you feeling that sense of power coming from them, or in certain locations. The ash lake is a gorgeous place that once you enter, a booming melody begins playing, giving the quiet, lonely atmosphere a scene of doom and power as you look around to see nothing but a bit of land, assumedly ash from the age of fire and the huge trees going as far off into the distance as you can see, giving you questions on why there are actually such large trees in the world. The music continues playing as you explore, where you start expecting a boss to begin attacking at any point, until you reach a room where a dragon lays, you expect a fight, and it just sits there. This is how Dark Souls subverts your expectations at every point throughout its experience where you will never truly know what is coming up next, leaving your imagination to run wild. Another good moment where this happens is after you beat O&S and Darkmoon Knightress tells you about how nobody has seen Seath in forever and nobody ever dares approach his tower as theyre never seen again, you also learn at the start of the game that he betrayed his own kind, so you expect a crazy powerful boss. Once you enter his boss room, you cant even attack him, and he dumps you in a cell in the archives where you must escape alone. Throughout the game you learn that Seath has been learning the key to immortality. If you free Logan he tells you of Seaths immortality, which can be broken in the very location that he protects. If you play the large phonograph, a powerful song plays in the Archives for the rest of the game. A beautiful song in what you learn was once a home of immense knowledge, now turned into a prison where even the powerful enemies are themselves attempting to flee from what the game itself describes as "mistakes" and abominations of what were once hand maidens (although they arent that hard to fight lol). The world of Lordran is full of places like this, where you can just tell that you are exploring it during its worst times and how it wont last much longer without intervention.
Lighting the lordvessel and advancing into the Kiln of the first flame was an extremely memorable experience as you know you're finally approaching the end of the game, coming up on finishing your true destiny, then you see a dark, destroyed place and wonder just what actually happened here. Once you get to Gwyn you see that there isnt even a flame left where he stands, and that he really has been just selfishly holding the world on by himself. You take him out with relative ease and see just how far he has fallen since he started the age of fire and link the first flame yourself, embracing the flames and lighting the world up once again.
This game is incredibly important to who i am as a person, how i view video games, art and life as a whole, the games message being that everything must come to an end eventually and nothing lasts. This game truly did change me and i will forever treasure it as one of the greatest of all time. Even if there were some questionable choices throughout, Thanks for everything Miyazaki, you are a true genius and a master of art.
And thanks to anyone who actually read any of this at all lol
It's gameplay by itself is already really good, a solid challenge that keeps you hooked as you level up and start grasping the mechanics more, but where it really shines is its gameplay in relation to the atmosphere and world building. This is super apparent during the Gwyn fight where the fight really isnt hard at all, but it ties in amazingly with what the game had been building up for Gwyn himself. That feeling of going in and expecting a crazy fight, is completely juxtaposed with the feeling you get when you take him out super easily, realising just how long he has been going for and how important you are as his successor.
Exploring the world as you go through and feeling the need to pick up every blue light you see is one of the most important things you can do in this game as almost everything you do collect will help you in many different ways, meaning you dont have to stay struggling forever and can always just go off and explore somewhere else for a little, which was eventually taken and blown out the park with Elden Ring. Picking something up, finding that next bonfire, listening to the fire crackle and opening up your inventory to read the lore of whatever it is you just picked up gets you super invested in the world around you, and just who actually inhabits it.
To me personally, the atmosphere and world building are the most important things a game could have and few other games actually pull this off as well as Fromsoft's can. Piecing together all the lore by yourself through reading item descriptions, listening to what the NPCs describe, and then seeing locations mentioned prior for yourself is a feeling that is absolutely unmatched and keeps you engaged throughout, taking on that tough boss so you can explore whatever the next location is.
My personal favourite moment in this game will always be that first flight to Anor Londo. Going from a dark, decaying and left abandoned place with only a few spots of sunshine, and going further down to the bottom layer of Blighttown, witnessing just how bad the people of Lordran have it, surviving some crazy fights and braving Sen's Fortress, just to get a gorgeous view of inside the wall thats been hogging half your horizon and seeing the sun shining over a huge city for the first time completely blows me away everytime.
The introduction to this game is short and simple, a narrator informs you of how the world came around, and how its in the state it is now, and then what your simple task is. This is really as much simple story you get from Dark Souls, but it allows you to remember it and keep it at the back of your mind easier, giving you a reason to keep pushing on, and never go hollow. While exploring you can see just how many undead, like you, have tried and failed to do what you're trying before you, evident with the many bodies just laying around the world that usually leave you a few souls on the way. This really shows that what you're doing isnt just a simple task, and how you must keep pushing to not end up like they have. It does a great job of making you feel not all that special throughout the start of the game, with even the first NPC you talk to discouraging you and saying you'll never make it, pushing you to prove him wrong, and once you ring that first bell and feeling on top of the world, like maybe you are the chosen one, you can rub in the NPCs face and make him feel stupid for doubting you, this is then juxtaposed when you enter the dark and miserable depths, which item descriptions tell you house some of the banished and completely lost undead hollows, getting even worse as you push through and enter Blighttown where everything just becomes depressing, hard to navigate and giving you nothing but a hard time. BUT once you make it through Blighttown and ring that second bell, you really start feeling that YOU are literally HIM. This game is amazing at making you feel certain ways as you push through and persevere, the looming threat of going hollow looming over at all times.
Honestly the bosses arent too hard and once you get used to the main loop of dodging and learning attacks theyre quite easy, with every boss having a cool bit of lore to learn about once defeated and some beautiful music playing throughout. (except that fuck ass bed of chaos with its stupid runback)
There a few NPCs throughout the world, most are just lost and hopeless, needing your help to rescue them and once you do, most of the time they can only give thanks, but occasionally you'll find an NPC who will be friendly with you and you'll finally feel safe and no longer alone. The first friend you'll usually find is Solaire who is standing in the sunlight, basking in it, with rays of light off in the distance, a beautiful view ahead of him, as opposed to the depressing views of Undead Burg you've been seeing up to this point. This feeling of friendship keeps you feeling excited everytime you see him, excited for when you'll next see him, and what he could have to say. This feeling is absolutely heart breaking when you cannot finish his questline and eventually run into him again, where he starts attacking you and has possibly one of the most depressing lines of dialogue in the whole game, having gone insane in his search for sunlight. This hurts even MORE once you read his armour descriptions and learn that he had no special powers, and that he had gotten that far in life through just pure will power and training.
The interconnected world of Lordran is so cool and gets you all giddy when you explore an area, come out, and find yourself somewhere you recognise. My favourite moment like this was entering the DLC and going through the Royal Woods, and starting to realise that this literally was Darkroot garden in the past. The whole world just feels like it has purpose and even the later game areas still feel this way even if they do fall off slightly.
This moves me to that second half of the game. Imo i think this part of the game is WAY over hated and really just isnt that bad, sure it doesnt compare as well to the first half but its still great with some fun bosses throughout.
The music of this game is gorgeous and Sakuraba did a phenomenal job of conveying how you feel in music form. Music doesnt really play that often except in boss fights, where they get you feeling that sense of power coming from them, or in certain locations. The ash lake is a gorgeous place that once you enter, a booming melody begins playing, giving the quiet, lonely atmosphere a scene of doom and power as you look around to see nothing but a bit of land, assumedly ash from the age of fire and the huge trees going as far off into the distance as you can see, giving you questions on why there are actually such large trees in the world. The music continues playing as you explore, where you start expecting a boss to begin attacking at any point, until you reach a room where a dragon lays, you expect a fight, and it just sits there. This is how Dark Souls subverts your expectations at every point throughout its experience where you will never truly know what is coming up next, leaving your imagination to run wild. Another good moment where this happens is after you beat O&S and Darkmoon Knightress tells you about how nobody has seen Seath in forever and nobody ever dares approach his tower as theyre never seen again, you also learn at the start of the game that he betrayed his own kind, so you expect a crazy powerful boss. Once you enter his boss room, you cant even attack him, and he dumps you in a cell in the archives where you must escape alone. Throughout the game you learn that Seath has been learning the key to immortality. If you free Logan he tells you of Seaths immortality, which can be broken in the very location that he protects. If you play the large phonograph, a powerful song plays in the Archives for the rest of the game. A beautiful song in what you learn was once a home of immense knowledge, now turned into a prison where even the powerful enemies are themselves attempting to flee from what the game itself describes as "mistakes" and abominations of what were once hand maidens (although they arent that hard to fight lol). The world of Lordran is full of places like this, where you can just tell that you are exploring it during its worst times and how it wont last much longer without intervention.
Lighting the lordvessel and advancing into the Kiln of the first flame was an extremely memorable experience as you know you're finally approaching the end of the game, coming up on finishing your true destiny, then you see a dark, destroyed place and wonder just what actually happened here. Once you get to Gwyn you see that there isnt even a flame left where he stands, and that he really has been just selfishly holding the world on by himself. You take him out with relative ease and see just how far he has fallen since he started the age of fire and link the first flame yourself, embracing the flames and lighting the world up once again.
This game is incredibly important to who i am as a person, how i view video games, art and life as a whole, the games message being that everything must come to an end eventually and nothing lasts. This game truly did change me and i will forever treasure it as one of the greatest of all time. Even if there were some questionable choices throughout, Thanks for everything Miyazaki, you are a true genius and a master of art.
And thanks to anyone who actually read any of this at all lol