My story with Dark Souls is a little sad. My first exposure to the game was through Pewdiepie's let's play of all places. I remember that I thought it looked like a really interesting, if a bit frustrating game to play. At that point in time, though, I didn't have much patience for games, and was very easily frustrated by them. It wasn't until around two years later that I finally picked up a copy of Dark Souls. It was after I rewatched that lets play a few more times and saw the stunning world and enemy designs of the game that I made the decision to get it. I distinctly remember that I was having a bad week when I got the game. I don't remember why that was, but I do know that holding my copy of Dark Souls felt special to me in a way that I cannot quite articulate now. Maybe my memory is embellishing that experience, but I guess that I thought it'd be a good way to test my patience and see if I'd matured since I'd first learned about the game. I was fully prepared to be frustrated, I knew I'd have to try my hardest to control my emotions in order to beat that game. I turned on my PS3 and inserted the disk, after which point I took a breath and awaited what was to come.

But something strange happened. From the moment I began the game, I felt...calm. I was entranced by what I saw, I was immersed in that world. I'd never played anything like it before, and it was super different from what I thought I was going to get. Every time I died, I was not mad, but rather, I accepted that I made a mistake and was ultimately okay with it. I remember fighting the first few bosses; the Taurus Demon was especially difficult for me to beat. I remember the placement of enemies and the secrets and shortcuts. There was a guy sitting by a bonfire in Firelink Shrine, and I slashed him with my sword to see what would happen. To my surprise, he started attacking me back and I couldn't beat him. It felt bad in a way because I knew that I'd missed the information that he had to say, but that was okay--or so I thought-- because I could just go back to the previous bonfire and everything would be okay. WRONG! When I went back to Firelink Shrine, the fucker kept attacking me. I learned that my actions had consequences at that point, and that I'd have to think before I acted. This wasn't just a video game, it was a world....

And then the Firelink guy jumped off the cliff because his AI broke, and I laughed about that for a bit. You see, throughout all of that playtime, wasn't frustrated with the game at all. I might've been frustrated by my own stupid decisions, but with every fuckup, a new lesson was learned. I felt a more instantaneous sense of comfort and familiarity with Dark Souls' world than I think I ever had with a game prior, and that was honestly pretty special to me. Don't get me wrong, I was absolutely fucking pitiful at the game-- hell, I barely understood how a bunch of its systems worked, but I enjoyed my time with it more than I think I even realised at the time.

After I beat the Capra Demon, though, I decided to take a short break from the game. I don't remember exactly why I chose to do this-- maybe I was dying a lot, maybe I had more work to slog through, I don't know. Whatever the case, I was planning to resume my journey through Dark Souls when the time was right. But that time never came. One day, a vast quantity of the games I had were stolen from me, including Dark Souls. I was never able to finish that journey I had. In fact, I blocked the journey I did have out of my memory. I didn't think about Dark Souls outside of a few short moments every now and again. It wasn't until I got really into watching video essays that the game popped back into the front of my mind. At that point, Dark Souls wasn't just a difficult, weird, one of a kind experience anymore, it was one of the most influential games ever made. It was a masterpiece of world design, a masterclass in level design, and a prodigy of narrative design. I ended up watching videos comparing it to lesser ones. I learned about the true genius of the game. I learned about the emotional impact of Great Grey Wolf Sif. I learned about the traps of Sen's Fortress and the snake people who existed within its walls. I learned about Gwyn and Nito and the parallels between hollowed souls and depression. I then learned about the rest of the games in the series, and other 'souls-likes' outside of them. I felt its influence in the other games I played. I learned a tonne about Dark Souls-- hell, I know about as much as there is to know about it at this point. The game is absolutely legendary.

Yet, when I think back on it, I never got to learn anything for myself, did I? My experience with Dark Souls is limited to the few hours of it that I got to play, and the many hundreds of hours of it I've seen through other people's perspectives. Even those mechanics and systems that I barely understood when I interacted with them firsthand have all been dissected and broken down to the point where I feel as though I can master the game with ease. I already know how the game ends, I know how to beat the 4 kings, I know that Bed of Chaos is a fucking travesty.

Yes, I had my own experience with the game, but if I ever play Dark Souls again, I've already learned someone else's lessons. I will never discover anything about Dark Souls. I will never get to experience it for myself ever again. I will never ever be able to unlearn the things that I learned about the game. All of the magic and lessons and moments I could've experienced for myself were stolen from me, and I sought out that magic, but ended up with other people's experiences instead. I will never play Dark Souls again, because I can't play Dark Souls again. As such, my Dark Souls experience is limited to an npc jumping off a cliff because its AI fucked up. My experience with its world was nothing more than the kick of a ladder. My experience with the Lord of Cinder was naught but a Capra Demon. My experience was limited, but I fucking loved it, even if that love is hidden beneath layers and layers of the knowledge of others. I love Dark Souls and I wish I could love it more.

Y'know, I was originally gonna just leave this stupid review there, but as I finished writing the last paragraph, I realised something interesting. I always seem to have really unusually specific memories of the games and media I consume. However, before I started writing this, I had a really limited memory of Dark Souls. Yet, this has been by far the easiest and most enjoyable thing I've written in a long, long, LONG time. As I said towards the beginning of this excessive ramble, when I picked up Dark Souls for the first time, I remember having a bad week. I think it's kinda poetic in a way that I'm writing about this game I haven't played in many years after having a really bad last two weeks, and for the first time in a long time, I am feeling calm and relaxed. Normally, writing is a painful process for me, and recently, it's actually been excruciating, but in this case, I feel....almost joyful in a way, almost as though I'm sitting by a bonfire. It's as though for the first time in a long time, I've torn off a bandage that has caused me to see the sun again. I don't know if this has been remotely enjoyable or engaging to read, I don't even know if anyone has read this. I don't know if I'm gonna look back at this review tomorrow and hate what I see. All I know for now is that I'm glad I played what little of Dark Souls I did.


Also Bloodborne sucks, I will not elaborate any further.