Dark Souls has strokes of brilliance, Ornstein and Smough is now one of my favourite boss fights ever, remembering how to navigate the world is a fun puzzle in a would-be-otherwise mindless game, and Undead Burg is a great starting area.
Dark Souls also spends many hours being absolutely terrible, having no respect for its player's time, and feeling wholly unplaytested.
The start of the game is definitely its strongest run, Undead Burg is a treat to move through and learn the way around, and I was having a good time up until Capra Demon. The combination of a boss that can easily kill you in the first few seconds until you have spent the time and runs to learn how to deal with the dogs, along with an either long or tedious run back is a horrible experience. Which highlights why I don't think the runs back to bosses after losing to them works. Most runs back consist of either taking some elevator or running a long distance without much conflict, or running past a whole load of enemies as you scootch your way through the fog door with their attacks swinging through you. I don't see how either is engaging gameplay. In the case of the Capra Demon fight, it only served to make the experience more tedious, drawn out, and frustrating. I did not feel like my time was being valued at any point running back to a fog door in this game. I understand the concept behind having to run back to the boss, but at least for anyone who can make it through the basic enemies and levels but has yet to learn the boss, I think its a complete failure and only serves to waste your time.
One of the reasons why Undead Burg works well for me is how long you stay in it, and have to keep moving through it in different ways to go to other places. This, I feel, is not really a factor for most areas in the game. Areas like Blighttown, Depths, and The Catacombs feel more like highways that you move through once or twice to get to the new area, especially after the Lordvessel makes their endpoints accessible. I wasn't really able to get any idea of Blightowns layout since I just made one easy descend, killed the boss, and then made one easier ascend. To go through Blightown again would be the same experience as my first time through, even though I had only seen it for the first time like two days ago. I wish these areas had reasons to go back to them. Darkroot Garden is seems like it would be a similar sort of area, but since I had to go there three separate times I've actually connected with it.
I can only really say that I like maybe three bosses in this game. Most everything dies too quickly and has nothing scary about their moveset to ever really give that much of a challenge. I cant say that most fights are more engaging than Asylum Demon (hell they literally copy this boss twice !,) and some feel like they flat out don't work and were never playtested. I can see Qualaag's slashes whiffing when you're close just another tutorial for staying close to the enemy being good, but why the hell does literally every attack of Sif miss? I can't imagine From testing this boss, getting in range to hit him, having every attack of his miss, and then feeling complete in their work. Far too much of this game is complete jank bullshit for me to really engage with it (like getting grabbed by Gaping Dragon without him ever playing any sort of attack animation).
There are simply not enough redeeming factors for this game to make the slog that it was worthwhile beyond zeitgeist.
Dark Souls also spends many hours being absolutely terrible, having no respect for its player's time, and feeling wholly unplaytested.
The start of the game is definitely its strongest run, Undead Burg is a treat to move through and learn the way around, and I was having a good time up until Capra Demon. The combination of a boss that can easily kill you in the first few seconds until you have spent the time and runs to learn how to deal with the dogs, along with an either long or tedious run back is a horrible experience. Which highlights why I don't think the runs back to bosses after losing to them works. Most runs back consist of either taking some elevator or running a long distance without much conflict, or running past a whole load of enemies as you scootch your way through the fog door with their attacks swinging through you. I don't see how either is engaging gameplay. In the case of the Capra Demon fight, it only served to make the experience more tedious, drawn out, and frustrating. I did not feel like my time was being valued at any point running back to a fog door in this game. I understand the concept behind having to run back to the boss, but at least for anyone who can make it through the basic enemies and levels but has yet to learn the boss, I think its a complete failure and only serves to waste your time.
One of the reasons why Undead Burg works well for me is how long you stay in it, and have to keep moving through it in different ways to go to other places. This, I feel, is not really a factor for most areas in the game. Areas like Blighttown, Depths, and The Catacombs feel more like highways that you move through once or twice to get to the new area, especially after the Lordvessel makes their endpoints accessible. I wasn't really able to get any idea of Blightowns layout since I just made one easy descend, killed the boss, and then made one easier ascend. To go through Blightown again would be the same experience as my first time through, even though I had only seen it for the first time like two days ago. I wish these areas had reasons to go back to them. Darkroot Garden is seems like it would be a similar sort of area, but since I had to go there three separate times I've actually connected with it.
I can only really say that I like maybe three bosses in this game. Most everything dies too quickly and has nothing scary about their moveset to ever really give that much of a challenge. I cant say that most fights are more engaging than Asylum Demon (hell they literally copy this boss twice !,) and some feel like they flat out don't work and were never playtested. I can see Qualaag's slashes whiffing when you're close just another tutorial for staying close to the enemy being good, but why the hell does literally every attack of Sif miss? I can't imagine From testing this boss, getting in range to hit him, having every attack of his miss, and then feeling complete in their work. Far too much of this game is complete jank bullshit for me to really engage with it (like getting grabbed by Gaping Dragon without him ever playing any sort of attack animation).
There are simply not enough redeeming factors for this game to make the slog that it was worthwhile beyond zeitgeist.