The Road to Elden Ring #2: Dark Souls
What can I possibly say about Dark Souls that hasn’t already been said in someone else’s review or a 3-hour long YouTube essay? At this point we all understand its importance, its influence, and its massive impact on the industry as a whole. I’m just going to take this review as an opportunity to gush about what I consider to be my favorite game of all time.
Dark Souls masterfully improves on nearly every aspect of its predecessor, Demon’s Souls. Continuing Miyazaki’s philosophy of challenging but fair, the game teaches the player what to do, where to go, and what they’re currently capable of handling through excellent world design that subtly nudges them in the right direction by placing more difficult challenges in areas intended to be tackled later on. I can’t beat these strong skeletons in the graveyard? I can’t even damage the ghosts haunting under Firelink Shrine? I must have to go where these weak undead enemies are and carry on from here. Some may dislike the game is significantly less clear and straightforward than DeS, but I think that it provides the player with an unforgettable experience of naturally learning your goals and destinations and I think that’s really satisfying.
Demon’s Souls levels were small, but gave us a taste of the interconnected design Dark Souls would perfect. The world design and architecture in Dark Souls are simply stunning. The player can look in the distance and see half a dozen other areas of the game from most others, and each one is placed in a way that logically makes sense to where they’d be if Lordran was real. Taking a look at a 3D map of the entire game, one can see that areas never overlap each other, and are instead logically and realistically placed. Exploring through a difficult zone and arriving at a shortcut elevator at the end that magically pops you back at home base is insanely satisfying and the game is chock full of excellent zone connections like this. I think that this peaks here at Dark Souls 1, and is never really matched in the future of the franchise, perhaps with the exception of a couple incredibly satisfying Bloodborne shortcuts.
Another aspect carrying over from Demon’s Souls is the impeccable item placement and descriptions. Virtually every item feels hand-placed and like it’s there for a reason. Reading the description of consumables, armor, and weapons paints a vast picture of the story and background of Dark Souls’s characters and areas, and lets players with imagination really put the pieces together in an otherwise barren plot.
Dark Souls’s non-linear and open design, just like DeS, allows for an absolutely incredible replay value. After arriving at the game’s home base, the player is allowed to go nearly wherever they wish, collecting items and killing bosses in any order they please. This contributes to the ability to build your character into any class or archetype extremely early on.
One of the issues I had with Demon’s Souls that I neglected to mention was its healing system. The healing grasses are farmable, therefore, your ability to heal is theoretically endless, provided you’re willing to do the farming. Dark Souls fixes this problem completely with the Estus system. The Estus Flask heals more than most grasses in DeS, but the player is limited in their uses until they rest at a checkpoint. I think this adds another layer to item management, with the player having to asses if it’s worth it to heal or save their limited Estus until they need it more.
The other greatest improvement over Demon’s Souls is the integration of NPCs into the world in a much more natural and deeper way. Characters are found and rescued all over Lordran and return to Firelink Shrine, providing wares and services. However, all of these NPCs feel like they have their own motivations and goals, and will often leave and return to Firelink as they complete their own quests. The NPCs in Demon’s Souls were memorable but often felt like they were simply beholden to the player character, whereas here they feel like they have their own agency. The NPC questlines here are also more in-depth and the player can grow attached to some of these characters, like Solaire of Astora and Siegmeyer of Catarina as they encounter them throughout Lordran over the course of the entire game, even summoning them to help with boss fights. Patches the Hyena from Demon’s Souls even makes an appearance here, the first of many cameos as a series regular.
I never spoke about multiplayer in my Demon’s Souls review, but I think it’s worth a mention here, especially considering how phantoms are now worked into the single-player more cleanly. Players can summon other players (or NPC characters) to help them fight bosses in their world, but also run the risk of other players (or NPC characters) invading their world to kill them. Dark Souls 1 isn’t very active anymore, but the decision to implement NPC characters into the summoning/invading system was a great idea and lets the concept live on a decade later.
The score, this time by Golden Sun and Star Ocean veteran Motoi Sakuraba, while sounding extremely different from Demon’s Souls (significantly less MIDI-y), is incredibly grand, orchestral, and intense, while also feeling beautifully melancholy. For every large bombastic track like the theme of Ornstein & Smough and the Belltower Gargoyles, there is a moving, solemn track like Firelink Shrine or the theme of Gwyn, Lord of Cinder. I believe this is still the greatest Souls game soundtrack. So many of these songs are iconic and seared into my memory – instantly recognizable. Demon’s Souls did this as well, but I want to mention the game has almost no music, allowing each zone to immerse you with its sound design, until you step into a boss fight and the music kicks in and makes the fight even better. The notable exception is Firelink Shrine, having a beautiful home base theme that makes you feel safe.
Pretty much my only issue with Dark Souls is the Demon Ruins/Lost Izalith area. It’s fairly common knowledge that Dark Souls was pushed out before From was entirely finished with it, and this is no more clear than in these aforementioned areas. Bosses are scattered throughout the area at a rapid rate, including a reskin of an earlier one, as well as other early game bosses copy & pasted throughout the Demon Ruins as common enemies. The zones themselves really are just two giant open rooms full of lava with an obnoxious bright texture, leaving a lot to be desired, especially with most of the other zones in the games being really creative and visually interesting. Not to mention the final boss of the area, the Bed of Chaos. Infamous within and outside the Souls community, the less said about this boss, the better.
With all this being said, Dark Souls is not a perfect game. It is clearly unfinished in some areas, lacks a lot of polish seen in later entries (mostly Dark Souls III), and at its core is definitely still pretty basic, a slight upgrade from Demon’s Souls in terms of gameplay and combat. However, the clear love, heart, and soul poured into this thing seen in its world design, challenging but fair philosophy, replay value, build and class variety, non-linear open world, incredibly memorable and iconic boss fights, and beautiful score all come together to make something that few would deny is an incredibly special game and experience. There’s a very good reason Dark Souls is cited as one of the most important and influential games of the previous decade.
Dark Souls is my favorite game ever made.
What can I possibly say about Dark Souls that hasn’t already been said in someone else’s review or a 3-hour long YouTube essay? At this point we all understand its importance, its influence, and its massive impact on the industry as a whole. I’m just going to take this review as an opportunity to gush about what I consider to be my favorite game of all time.
Dark Souls masterfully improves on nearly every aspect of its predecessor, Demon’s Souls. Continuing Miyazaki’s philosophy of challenging but fair, the game teaches the player what to do, where to go, and what they’re currently capable of handling through excellent world design that subtly nudges them in the right direction by placing more difficult challenges in areas intended to be tackled later on. I can’t beat these strong skeletons in the graveyard? I can’t even damage the ghosts haunting under Firelink Shrine? I must have to go where these weak undead enemies are and carry on from here. Some may dislike the game is significantly less clear and straightforward than DeS, but I think that it provides the player with an unforgettable experience of naturally learning your goals and destinations and I think that’s really satisfying.
Demon’s Souls levels were small, but gave us a taste of the interconnected design Dark Souls would perfect. The world design and architecture in Dark Souls are simply stunning. The player can look in the distance and see half a dozen other areas of the game from most others, and each one is placed in a way that logically makes sense to where they’d be if Lordran was real. Taking a look at a 3D map of the entire game, one can see that areas never overlap each other, and are instead logically and realistically placed. Exploring through a difficult zone and arriving at a shortcut elevator at the end that magically pops you back at home base is insanely satisfying and the game is chock full of excellent zone connections like this. I think that this peaks here at Dark Souls 1, and is never really matched in the future of the franchise, perhaps with the exception of a couple incredibly satisfying Bloodborne shortcuts.
Another aspect carrying over from Demon’s Souls is the impeccable item placement and descriptions. Virtually every item feels hand-placed and like it’s there for a reason. Reading the description of consumables, armor, and weapons paints a vast picture of the story and background of Dark Souls’s characters and areas, and lets players with imagination really put the pieces together in an otherwise barren plot.
Dark Souls’s non-linear and open design, just like DeS, allows for an absolutely incredible replay value. After arriving at the game’s home base, the player is allowed to go nearly wherever they wish, collecting items and killing bosses in any order they please. This contributes to the ability to build your character into any class or archetype extremely early on.
One of the issues I had with Demon’s Souls that I neglected to mention was its healing system. The healing grasses are farmable, therefore, your ability to heal is theoretically endless, provided you’re willing to do the farming. Dark Souls fixes this problem completely with the Estus system. The Estus Flask heals more than most grasses in DeS, but the player is limited in their uses until they rest at a checkpoint. I think this adds another layer to item management, with the player having to asses if it’s worth it to heal or save their limited Estus until they need it more.
The other greatest improvement over Demon’s Souls is the integration of NPCs into the world in a much more natural and deeper way. Characters are found and rescued all over Lordran and return to Firelink Shrine, providing wares and services. However, all of these NPCs feel like they have their own motivations and goals, and will often leave and return to Firelink as they complete their own quests. The NPCs in Demon’s Souls were memorable but often felt like they were simply beholden to the player character, whereas here they feel like they have their own agency. The NPC questlines here are also more in-depth and the player can grow attached to some of these characters, like Solaire of Astora and Siegmeyer of Catarina as they encounter them throughout Lordran over the course of the entire game, even summoning them to help with boss fights. Patches the Hyena from Demon’s Souls even makes an appearance here, the first of many cameos as a series regular.
I never spoke about multiplayer in my Demon’s Souls review, but I think it’s worth a mention here, especially considering how phantoms are now worked into the single-player more cleanly. Players can summon other players (or NPC characters) to help them fight bosses in their world, but also run the risk of other players (or NPC characters) invading their world to kill them. Dark Souls 1 isn’t very active anymore, but the decision to implement NPC characters into the summoning/invading system was a great idea and lets the concept live on a decade later.
The score, this time by Golden Sun and Star Ocean veteran Motoi Sakuraba, while sounding extremely different from Demon’s Souls (significantly less MIDI-y), is incredibly grand, orchestral, and intense, while also feeling beautifully melancholy. For every large bombastic track like the theme of Ornstein & Smough and the Belltower Gargoyles, there is a moving, solemn track like Firelink Shrine or the theme of Gwyn, Lord of Cinder. I believe this is still the greatest Souls game soundtrack. So many of these songs are iconic and seared into my memory – instantly recognizable. Demon’s Souls did this as well, but I want to mention the game has almost no music, allowing each zone to immerse you with its sound design, until you step into a boss fight and the music kicks in and makes the fight even better. The notable exception is Firelink Shrine, having a beautiful home base theme that makes you feel safe.
Pretty much my only issue with Dark Souls is the Demon Ruins/Lost Izalith area. It’s fairly common knowledge that Dark Souls was pushed out before From was entirely finished with it, and this is no more clear than in these aforementioned areas. Bosses are scattered throughout the area at a rapid rate, including a reskin of an earlier one, as well as other early game bosses copy & pasted throughout the Demon Ruins as common enemies. The zones themselves really are just two giant open rooms full of lava with an obnoxious bright texture, leaving a lot to be desired, especially with most of the other zones in the games being really creative and visually interesting. Not to mention the final boss of the area, the Bed of Chaos. Infamous within and outside the Souls community, the less said about this boss, the better.
With all this being said, Dark Souls is not a perfect game. It is clearly unfinished in some areas, lacks a lot of polish seen in later entries (mostly Dark Souls III), and at its core is definitely still pretty basic, a slight upgrade from Demon’s Souls in terms of gameplay and combat. However, the clear love, heart, and soul poured into this thing seen in its world design, challenging but fair philosophy, replay value, build and class variety, non-linear open world, incredibly memorable and iconic boss fights, and beautiful score all come together to make something that few would deny is an incredibly special game and experience. There’s a very good reason Dark Souls is cited as one of the most important and influential games of the previous decade.
Dark Souls is my favorite game ever made.
Stabbed
2 years ago