Dark Souls is a beautiful forest full of ugly trees, a master's painting held together with duct tape and hot glue.
Coming back to Dark Souls and beating it for the first time in at least a couple years, it was honestly shocking how well-paced the game was compared to how I remember it. I remember the first time I played this game I spent more than ten hours just trying to ring the first bell, wrestling with complex, unfamiliar controls and the nuances of the combat. The latter half of the game is generally considered worse, though I've also generally considered it to be easier. I wonder to what degree that might have been warped by the fact that Anor Londo is, ostensibly, the last time in the game that the player is really asked to learn something new, the learning curve being mistaken for the difficulty curve.
Visually it's mostly aged surprisingly well, character detail and texture quality is largely more than acceptable, especially for the time. Even if the specular effects on reflective surfaces don't look particularly "natural", they look good, and definitely more striking than the more recent remastered version. The main blemish is that with the DSfix mod, playing with much greater visual clarity than any official release has offered (due to both resolution and adjustable depth of field), the pop-in is really noticeable; there are times when entering a small room, you will see objects appear in the opposite corner as you pass through the door.
Combat is the main area where I think the first few of these games don't quite knock it out of the park, though fighting regular enemies here is typically more than manageable. Boss fights are probably the single greatest weakness of this game. Many of them are total pushovers, and when they do present a challenge they either highlight how unrefined this is compared to future installments, or are just plain bad.
But, Dark Souls more than makes up for it by having one of the most interesting worlds ever seen in a video game, both in its narrative elements, and perhaps more importantly in its construction. From creation myth to conspiracy, from the cathedrals to the sewers to the rot, fire, death, and mysteries further down. Everything has its place, and every place fits perfectly together. Though, the individual areas themselves are often small or barren, with many failing to offer the same kinds of gauntlets seen in both Demon's Souls and in future games. Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith are the obvious worst offenders, and are typically argued to be flat out unfinished, though Darkroot and Blighttown don't feel much better.
Dark Souls is more than the sum of its parts though, and even when those parts don't shine on their own, they at least give a strong thematic support to the rest of the package.
Coming back to Dark Souls and beating it for the first time in at least a couple years, it was honestly shocking how well-paced the game was compared to how I remember it. I remember the first time I played this game I spent more than ten hours just trying to ring the first bell, wrestling with complex, unfamiliar controls and the nuances of the combat. The latter half of the game is generally considered worse, though I've also generally considered it to be easier. I wonder to what degree that might have been warped by the fact that Anor Londo is, ostensibly, the last time in the game that the player is really asked to learn something new, the learning curve being mistaken for the difficulty curve.
Visually it's mostly aged surprisingly well, character detail and texture quality is largely more than acceptable, especially for the time. Even if the specular effects on reflective surfaces don't look particularly "natural", they look good, and definitely more striking than the more recent remastered version. The main blemish is that with the DSfix mod, playing with much greater visual clarity than any official release has offered (due to both resolution and adjustable depth of field), the pop-in is really noticeable; there are times when entering a small room, you will see objects appear in the opposite corner as you pass through the door.
Combat is the main area where I think the first few of these games don't quite knock it out of the park, though fighting regular enemies here is typically more than manageable. Boss fights are probably the single greatest weakness of this game. Many of them are total pushovers, and when they do present a challenge they either highlight how unrefined this is compared to future installments, or are just plain bad.
But, Dark Souls more than makes up for it by having one of the most interesting worlds ever seen in a video game, both in its narrative elements, and perhaps more importantly in its construction. From creation myth to conspiracy, from the cathedrals to the sewers to the rot, fire, death, and mysteries further down. Everything has its place, and every place fits perfectly together. Though, the individual areas themselves are often small or barren, with many failing to offer the same kinds of gauntlets seen in both Demon's Souls and in future games. Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith are the obvious worst offenders, and are typically argued to be flat out unfinished, though Darkroot and Blighttown don't feel much better.
Dark Souls is more than the sum of its parts though, and even when those parts don't shine on their own, they at least give a strong thematic support to the rest of the package.