I'm mostly covering the base game for this review. I'll log Artorias separately but briefly cover the DLC at the end of this. I think the best thing immediately about Dark Souls is, despite how infamous these games are for their difficulty, how exploitable these games are. Thoroughly exploring areas, amassing a wide range of weapons and items, recognizing the options + intent behind whats given to you for each segment and utilizing these to the best of your abilities is Dark Souls at its best. I was lucky enough to have seen quite a bit of the early game routes beforehand but executing the shortcuts available was incredibly satisfying. Getting that early fire keeper soul, learning the black knights' opening and getting behind its back, killing the channeler above Gaping Dragon, doing darkwood and the moonlight butterfly before depths/blighttown to get some free moss and also snag havel's ring made for a smoother and more enjoyable time through my first half (except Capra, I still hate Capra). Also having most of the world be this interconnected is so cool. Reaching the last stretch of the tomb of giants to see ash lake just below was so neat. Anytime a shortcut popped up or an area connected to another it felt like I found the missing puzzle piece I needed.
This all builds up to Anor Londo and eventually the fight with Ornstein and Smough (and also a field trip into a painting). O&S is probably the peak for me, it has so many cool details and small intricacies on top of being a good challenge. Knowing who these two were, knowing their deal and seeing them in action diminished nothing as you get knocked back twenty feet by Ornstein's arena-long thrust. Also while I don't dislike the soundtrack of DS I will say this is probably the only song I recognize/remember off the top of my head so thats a bonus. I seriously love this fight and, I'm gonna be completely honest here despite probably coming off as a scrub: I do really enjoy summoning for certain fights. Not particularly when the summons are for hard fights, but when fights have way more going on for these summons. Having Solaire to make the O&S fight a 2v2 does ease up on the challenge but I think its also incredibly cool to have a partner in that kinda situation. Likewise, while Manus is undoubtedly one of the hardest fights in the game and the series as I've heard, why the hell wouldn't I summon Sif? Of course I'd want to summon sword dog to my side. Yeah it might diminish the challenge having a companion along for the ride but its a dog wielding a sword I saved a few minutes ago (and killed several days beforehand). This is to say I thought summoning was way more fun in this game than something like Bloodborne, where I thought soloing bosses was more gratifying. Here, summoning made me feel more connected to the world and I didn't feel too opposed to doing it as I did with BB. Only other times I did it were Moonlight Butterfly (got combo shot to death by magic while wearing armor with low MD and got scared into summoning beatrice (also umineko is one of my favorites pieces of media you think Im not gonna summon a witch named beatrice?)) and Iron Golem (Tarkus is raw and I took his armor to endgame). I think I summoned Solaire for Centipede on my first shot because I had leftover humanity and I just wanted to see what would happen but I still didn't quite get just how fast lava kills and died 10 seconds in lmao. I'll definitely avoid the mechanic whenever I start NG+, but I think this also exemplifies how mitigable much of this game can be if you really want need to get past a certain wall.
There's definitely a lot of challenge in these games but a good chunk of patience, experimentation, pattern recognition, etc. goes a long way in this game. Gaping Demon was probably the point in which it clicked that stepping back, seeing the moves and taking in what's in store does wonders in these game and sure enough- on the next boss, Quelaag, I first tried her (my only other first try was Sif but that felt kind of bad).
This all said and done lets talk about how much trash garbage is in this game. Capra Demon? Fuck that guy and his trash arena. Blighttown? I didn't have much problem but I can only imagine the eaten frames playing this on the original. Resistance? Literally why does this exist. Sen's Fortress? I liked this area but it was also the one area I tilted way more than most other areas. Also I hate those two titanite demons at the very bottom with a passion, died more times trying to kill those two than I did Kalameet or Artorias. Pretty much a good chunk of the game after O&S?
And that's partly why I don't think I like this game as much as I did Bloodborne. That game I think also has its ups and downs but stays mostly consistent throughout. Once you finish Anor Londo and go back to a lot of the places that were previously locked off, you have a real mixed bag of segments. Duke's Archive I would say is fine but has these odd set pieces Im not the biggest fan of and don't think work all that well (why the Pisaca chase you up the stairs only the first time that alarm rings only for that set piece to not work after a first attempt I don't know). The tomb of giants is kinda fine but I handled it well enough having maxed out pyromancy. New Londo Ruins I didn't hate too much but I did fucking hate that boss run to Four Kings (also missing the very large ember for several hours sucked). Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith? Yeah that part I just felt bad that they never got to truly finish that section of Dark Souls. I thought pyromancy and the chaos witch lore was really interesting so its a shame the area based upon all that was just reused bosses, dragon asses, two NPC questlines ending roughly and the Bed of Chaos being a shitshow.
To sum up the DLC, again I thought it was really good and probably the best collection of bosses in the entire game. The lore behind these past characters you see is really cool and seeing some of them in action like Hawkeye Gough is super fun. I kinda wish there was a bit more to this though, I think the Old Hunters DLC was a perfect culmination to that game adding a bunch of different weapons and having a lot of cool areas to explore. Oolacile is neat and all but I didn't care too much about the exploration aspect of AotA. Still, the four bosses you face here are definitely some of the best in the game and you have some cool worldbuilding here.
I find myself in a weird position where I thoroughly enjoyed my time with DS1, but I still have my hang ups and issues with certain parts of the game- and I didn't find myself thinking that I liked it as much as BB when I finished that game. Still, Im definitely up to play NG+ sometime in the future since there's a lot of stuff I decided not to fulfill on this playthrough (namely Gwendolyn and Priscilla). I think over time my opinion on DS1 will only grow and grow but for now its a few pegs below Bloodborne in my heart.
This all builds up to Anor Londo and eventually the fight with Ornstein and Smough (and also a field trip into a painting). O&S is probably the peak for me, it has so many cool details and small intricacies on top of being a good challenge. Knowing who these two were, knowing their deal and seeing them in action diminished nothing as you get knocked back twenty feet by Ornstein's arena-long thrust. Also while I don't dislike the soundtrack of DS I will say this is probably the only song I recognize/remember off the top of my head so thats a bonus. I seriously love this fight and, I'm gonna be completely honest here despite probably coming off as a scrub: I do really enjoy summoning for certain fights. Not particularly when the summons are for hard fights, but when fights have way more going on for these summons. Having Solaire to make the O&S fight a 2v2 does ease up on the challenge but I think its also incredibly cool to have a partner in that kinda situation. Likewise, while Manus is undoubtedly one of the hardest fights in the game and the series as I've heard, why the hell wouldn't I summon Sif? Of course I'd want to summon sword dog to my side. Yeah it might diminish the challenge having a companion along for the ride but its a dog wielding a sword I saved a few minutes ago (and killed several days beforehand). This is to say I thought summoning was way more fun in this game than something like Bloodborne, where I thought soloing bosses was more gratifying. Here, summoning made me feel more connected to the world and I didn't feel too opposed to doing it as I did with BB. Only other times I did it were Moonlight Butterfly (got combo shot to death by magic while wearing armor with low MD and got scared into summoning beatrice (also umineko is one of my favorites pieces of media you think Im not gonna summon a witch named beatrice?)) and Iron Golem (Tarkus is raw and I took his armor to endgame). I think I summoned Solaire for Centipede on my first shot because I had leftover humanity and I just wanted to see what would happen but I still didn't quite get just how fast lava kills and died 10 seconds in lmao. I'll definitely avoid the mechanic whenever I start NG+, but I think this also exemplifies how mitigable much of this game can be if you really want need to get past a certain wall.
There's definitely a lot of challenge in these games but a good chunk of patience, experimentation, pattern recognition, etc. goes a long way in this game. Gaping Demon was probably the point in which it clicked that stepping back, seeing the moves and taking in what's in store does wonders in these game and sure enough- on the next boss, Quelaag, I first tried her (my only other first try was Sif but that felt kind of bad).
This all said and done lets talk about how much trash garbage is in this game. Capra Demon? Fuck that guy and his trash arena. Blighttown? I didn't have much problem but I can only imagine the eaten frames playing this on the original. Resistance? Literally why does this exist. Sen's Fortress? I liked this area but it was also the one area I tilted way more than most other areas. Also I hate those two titanite demons at the very bottom with a passion, died more times trying to kill those two than I did Kalameet or Artorias. Pretty much a good chunk of the game after O&S?
And that's partly why I don't think I like this game as much as I did Bloodborne. That game I think also has its ups and downs but stays mostly consistent throughout. Once you finish Anor Londo and go back to a lot of the places that were previously locked off, you have a real mixed bag of segments. Duke's Archive I would say is fine but has these odd set pieces Im not the biggest fan of and don't think work all that well (why the Pisaca chase you up the stairs only the first time that alarm rings only for that set piece to not work after a first attempt I don't know). The tomb of giants is kinda fine but I handled it well enough having maxed out pyromancy. New Londo Ruins I didn't hate too much but I did fucking hate that boss run to Four Kings (also missing the very large ember for several hours sucked). Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith? Yeah that part I just felt bad that they never got to truly finish that section of Dark Souls. I thought pyromancy and the chaos witch lore was really interesting so its a shame the area based upon all that was just reused bosses, dragon asses, two NPC questlines ending roughly and the Bed of Chaos being a shitshow.
To sum up the DLC, again I thought it was really good and probably the best collection of bosses in the entire game. The lore behind these past characters you see is really cool and seeing some of them in action like Hawkeye Gough is super fun. I kinda wish there was a bit more to this though, I think the Old Hunters DLC was a perfect culmination to that game adding a bunch of different weapons and having a lot of cool areas to explore. Oolacile is neat and all but I didn't care too much about the exploration aspect of AotA. Still, the four bosses you face here are definitely some of the best in the game and you have some cool worldbuilding here.
I find myself in a weird position where I thoroughly enjoyed my time with DS1, but I still have my hang ups and issues with certain parts of the game- and I didn't find myself thinking that I liked it as much as BB when I finished that game. Still, Im definitely up to play NG+ sometime in the future since there's a lot of stuff I decided not to fulfill on this playthrough (namely Gwendolyn and Priscilla). I think over time my opinion on DS1 will only grow and grow but for now its a few pegs below Bloodborne in my heart.