This review contains spoilers
So, if you're reading this with any intentions of finishing it, then you'd better get yourself comfortable as I'll take my sweet time dissecting this gruesomely spectacular masterpiece and disaster.
For starters, I usually write something off right after I beat the game, but with Dark Souls I felt the need to see all the endings before doing so, and regretted it halfway through my NG+ run. So, you see, this game fucking sucks; It actually made me physically fucking ill at times. Like, what the actual fuck were those mid to lategame segments!? Walking through extremely tight spots with precision platforming, through rivers of lava and even through actually fucking nothing at one part. The game was clearly designed with the intention to fuck with the player, and while I understand most logic behind the biggest Ls the game invites you to play through, I still find it unexcusable to purposedly make parts to mock the player and delay his pilgrimage.
I say this after going through most the game for a second time: it still baffles me.
Level design aside, what actually makes me snarl and gnash my teeth in sheer, unwavering fury is, of course, the actual difficulty. I have quite a few "hard games" under my belt, but Dark Souls is the only one whose hardest part comes from how old it is. The Chosen Undead animations and responses take FOREVER to begin and end, it's also so easy to get locked on a combo where once I'm down, I am NOT getting up in time not to get knocked down again and again until all I can do is witness my 100th death. And the funny part? I have to run through the abhorrent levels each time I die because autosaves weren't invented in 2011 apparently. There are some close-ish bonfires closer to bosses, but most of them are hidden so wtf? I will die standing by how games with bosses this hard should have saves immediately before them. Or at least VISIBLE closer bonfires. I will admit that my those complaints sound small, but all those minor things result in minutes, if not hours where I do fucking nothing but execute muscle memory running back to the part I died... believe me when I say they slowly but surely burnt the hell out of me.
And, like, the thing is that the levels are also bland as fuck. It wouldn't be half as painful to die if the scenarios I had to see so many times had some level of depth. I find the lore incredible (will elaborate on that in a bit), but location-wise, it delivers very little in the way of immersion. Some areas look pretty or at least aren't Blighttown (which is a plus), but they're also too rudimentary and it feels like I'm forever wandering through a hollow husk of what should've looked decent / provide me with visual lore details. I believe that feeling could make for a good atmospheric experience feeling the loss of a fallen kingdom far from its glory days if the game's levels didn't feel so shallow; they just have nothing besides enemies and F* you's in the shape of traps and whatnot.
In Dark Souls, the Chosen Undead follows his epic quest through environments I very much like (The Duke's Archives, Tomb of the Giants and Anor Londo--just to name a few), and while there ARE details in the areas' structure and design, those feel like the exception and not the rule. Most areas feel not like an actual place where normal, living people could have normal lives. Most areas are just bland terrains for the Chosen Undead to tediously travel through as the only sound to fill my ears are his armor dangling around his body. Besides that, there is NOTHING. The intertwinement between scenarios is nice, but it is also diminished when most areas feel so incomplete.
But you know what's not diminished? Dark Souls. Even after all that, I still simply love Dark Souls. I hate how the game's low is an abyss of misery but the high is that much but in good. The story-telling style FromSoftware goes for is, to me, the pinnacle of imagination-inducing, thought-provoking bliss. There is just no end for how engaged I feel with Dark Souls' philosophical points and themes.
The game's areas are mostly underwhelming, sure, but what the bigger picture is in the lore is undeniably spectacular. Its unspoken events are those of violence, anger, fear, sadness, of tragedy and of hopefulness. An undying world brought down by a specie's fear of obsolescence and up again by a selfless warrior whose actions can either dim the light or do nothing. It's beyond profound and fascinating.
And the best part? Dark Souls' story is great and ties up greatly with its lore. I love it when the art I consume makes me take an active stance and actually think and digest its events. And, with one of the most eerily enchanting melodies I've ever heard in my life, Dark Souls' ending credits brought me to unforgettable emotional highs to levels only masterpieces such as this are capable of achieving.
Dark Souls is a game I hate playing, but also love. Specially after being finally unshackled by its semi-unsurmountable BS, I can confidently say that this game among the very best out there.
For starters, I usually write something off right after I beat the game, but with Dark Souls I felt the need to see all the endings before doing so, and regretted it halfway through my NG+ run. So, you see, this game fucking sucks; It actually made me physically fucking ill at times. Like, what the actual fuck were those mid to lategame segments!? Walking through extremely tight spots with precision platforming, through rivers of lava and even through actually fucking nothing at one part. The game was clearly designed with the intention to fuck with the player, and while I understand most logic behind the biggest Ls the game invites you to play through, I still find it unexcusable to purposedly make parts to mock the player and delay his pilgrimage.
I say this after going through most the game for a second time: it still baffles me.
Level design aside, what actually makes me snarl and gnash my teeth in sheer, unwavering fury is, of course, the actual difficulty. I have quite a few "hard games" under my belt, but Dark Souls is the only one whose hardest part comes from how old it is. The Chosen Undead animations and responses take FOREVER to begin and end, it's also so easy to get locked on a combo where once I'm down, I am NOT getting up in time not to get knocked down again and again until all I can do is witness my 100th death. And the funny part? I have to run through the abhorrent levels each time I die because autosaves weren't invented in 2011 apparently. There are some close-ish bonfires closer to bosses, but most of them are hidden so wtf? I will die standing by how games with bosses this hard should have saves immediately before them. Or at least VISIBLE closer bonfires. I will admit that my those complaints sound small, but all those minor things result in minutes, if not hours where I do fucking nothing but execute muscle memory running back to the part I died... believe me when I say they slowly but surely burnt the hell out of me.
And, like, the thing is that the levels are also bland as fuck. It wouldn't be half as painful to die if the scenarios I had to see so many times had some level of depth. I find the lore incredible (will elaborate on that in a bit), but location-wise, it delivers very little in the way of immersion. Some areas look pretty or at least aren't Blighttown (which is a plus), but they're also too rudimentary and it feels like I'm forever wandering through a hollow husk of what should've looked decent / provide me with visual lore details. I believe that feeling could make for a good atmospheric experience feeling the loss of a fallen kingdom far from its glory days if the game's levels didn't feel so shallow; they just have nothing besides enemies and F* you's in the shape of traps and whatnot.
In Dark Souls, the Chosen Undead follows his epic quest through environments I very much like (The Duke's Archives, Tomb of the Giants and Anor Londo--just to name a few), and while there ARE details in the areas' structure and design, those feel like the exception and not the rule. Most areas feel not like an actual place where normal, living people could have normal lives. Most areas are just bland terrains for the Chosen Undead to tediously travel through as the only sound to fill my ears are his armor dangling around his body. Besides that, there is NOTHING. The intertwinement between scenarios is nice, but it is also diminished when most areas feel so incomplete.
But you know what's not diminished? Dark Souls. Even after all that, I still simply love Dark Souls. I hate how the game's low is an abyss of misery but the high is that much but in good. The story-telling style FromSoftware goes for is, to me, the pinnacle of imagination-inducing, thought-provoking bliss. There is just no end for how engaged I feel with Dark Souls' philosophical points and themes.
The game's areas are mostly underwhelming, sure, but what the bigger picture is in the lore is undeniably spectacular. Its unspoken events are those of violence, anger, fear, sadness, of tragedy and of hopefulness. An undying world brought down by a specie's fear of obsolescence and up again by a selfless warrior whose actions can either dim the light or do nothing. It's beyond profound and fascinating.
And the best part? Dark Souls' story is great and ties up greatly with its lore. I love it when the art I consume makes me take an active stance and actually think and digest its events. And, with one of the most eerily enchanting melodies I've ever heard in my life, Dark Souls' ending credits brought me to unforgettable emotional highs to levels only masterpieces such as this are capable of achieving.
Dark Souls is a game I hate playing, but also love. Specially after being finally unshackled by its semi-unsurmountable BS, I can confidently say that this game among the very best out there.
QuentTheSlayer
7 months ago