A revolution in game design, it's not hard at all to see why Dark Souls has been so influential in more modern games. It's so rare that you see a developer who are;
#1: So willing to let players miss out on huge swathes of content by tucking away entire, interconnected areas behind secrets, and;
#2: Willing to be so thoroughly, unapologetically evil to the player. Brutal boss fights, little to no handholding, enemies constantly ambushing you and hiding behind corners, NPCs who betray you and so much more.
You combine these things, and you have a recipe for player immersion. I'd be willing to bet that a large majority of the reason players talk up how consumed they were by Dark Souls is due to how "hands off" the game is. It never explains any of its countless nuances, it leaves the player to their own devices to discover how certain mechanics work; how to survive enemy attacks by using the I-frames on your roll, how to dual-wield weapons or use a shield in tandem with another one or use a single weapon with both hands. During my playthrough on stream, I shot arrows at the pressure plates in Sen's Fortress to trigger them without stepping on them, and my chat totally popped off. None of them had ever seen someone do that or even thought to do such a thing and it worked! That was so sick, and also I'm a genius! If more games were willing to trust their players to think for themselves and experiment, they might be hailed as just as immersive.
It's incredibly impressive how many builds and playstyles Dark Souls' combat and systems allow for, combine that with the non-linearity and potential for constant sequence-breaking with its world as open and interconnected as it is and you have a game that's also extremely replayable. At its best, Dark Souls honestly feels like an edgier and less clunky 3D Zelda only designed by people who hate you.
There are a couple things that hold it back from the complete top score for me. The second half of the game noticeably dips in quality from the first, it never quite reaches the heights of Anor Londo and Sen's Fortress again once those areas are over, and some areas like Tomb Of The Giants are outright unenjoyable for me, even as someone who likes difficulty. The Bed Of Chaos is an obviously awful boss in every regard so notorious that I hardly even feel the need to go off on it, the menu'ing is pretty clunky and unintuitive and I personally don't like having to do the "run up" to a boss again every time you die to it. I love difficulty, but I don't think that's interesting difficulty or gameplay - it just seems like padding to me, and it's especially frustrating against bosses like Gwyn who are pretty brutal and whose fight can be over in about 30 seconds, yet you have to do a like - 3 minute run-up to every time you wanna rematch him. Ugh.
Still though, anything I can find wrong with this game pales in comparison to its achievements. Very few developers have the balls to do the things Dark Souls does. In my playthrough, dastardly NPC Lautrec who betrays you if you let him live backflipped off a cliff during our fight and just died, I just got his item for free and the game just let me roll with it. Now THAT's game design. No restrictions, no refusing to let players cheese out a W, just dudes backflipping off cliffs. Fuck yeah, Dark Souls. Fuck yeah.
#1: So willing to let players miss out on huge swathes of content by tucking away entire, interconnected areas behind secrets, and;
#2: Willing to be so thoroughly, unapologetically evil to the player. Brutal boss fights, little to no handholding, enemies constantly ambushing you and hiding behind corners, NPCs who betray you and so much more.
You combine these things, and you have a recipe for player immersion. I'd be willing to bet that a large majority of the reason players talk up how consumed they were by Dark Souls is due to how "hands off" the game is. It never explains any of its countless nuances, it leaves the player to their own devices to discover how certain mechanics work; how to survive enemy attacks by using the I-frames on your roll, how to dual-wield weapons or use a shield in tandem with another one or use a single weapon with both hands. During my playthrough on stream, I shot arrows at the pressure plates in Sen's Fortress to trigger them without stepping on them, and my chat totally popped off. None of them had ever seen someone do that or even thought to do such a thing and it worked! That was so sick, and also I'm a genius! If more games were willing to trust their players to think for themselves and experiment, they might be hailed as just as immersive.
It's incredibly impressive how many builds and playstyles Dark Souls' combat and systems allow for, combine that with the non-linearity and potential for constant sequence-breaking with its world as open and interconnected as it is and you have a game that's also extremely replayable. At its best, Dark Souls honestly feels like an edgier and less clunky 3D Zelda only designed by people who hate you.
There are a couple things that hold it back from the complete top score for me. The second half of the game noticeably dips in quality from the first, it never quite reaches the heights of Anor Londo and Sen's Fortress again once those areas are over, and some areas like Tomb Of The Giants are outright unenjoyable for me, even as someone who likes difficulty. The Bed Of Chaos is an obviously awful boss in every regard so notorious that I hardly even feel the need to go off on it, the menu'ing is pretty clunky and unintuitive and I personally don't like having to do the "run up" to a boss again every time you die to it. I love difficulty, but I don't think that's interesting difficulty or gameplay - it just seems like padding to me, and it's especially frustrating against bosses like Gwyn who are pretty brutal and whose fight can be over in about 30 seconds, yet you have to do a like - 3 minute run-up to every time you wanna rematch him. Ugh.
Still though, anything I can find wrong with this game pales in comparison to its achievements. Very few developers have the balls to do the things Dark Souls does. In my playthrough, dastardly NPC Lautrec who betrays you if you let him live backflipped off a cliff during our fight and just died, I just got his item for free and the game just let me roll with it. Now THAT's game design. No restrictions, no refusing to let players cheese out a W, just dudes backflipping off cliffs. Fuck yeah, Dark Souls. Fuck yeah.
The_Trash_Enby
2 years ago