This is the Dark Souls of video games.
A grander take could probably be made than what I will do, but what has been said in the discourse of Dark Souls and the Fromsoft Formula over the last twelve plus years that hasn't already been mentioned? This game is difficult, but not for the reasons I like games being difficult. In Bloodborne and Sekiro, for better or for worse respectively, I felt like I was being challenged upon the contents of me versus boss, or me versus world enemy. Previously, my encounters with the toughest elements of those games, Elden Ring included, boiled down to my skill against a meticulously crafted combat experience. I like that to an extent. You don't necessarily feel cheated if you lose, rather pursuant of a methodology to improve. In Bloodborne when I found myself fail-rolling against gravestones when fighting Father Gascoigne, I told myself "Git gud" and was able to overcome the fight after a few more tries. In Sekiro, I bit my lip, yelled an obscenity, and buckled down my parry timings to win the duels. In Dark Souls? I threw my hands in the air like a confused ape wondering what jape had wandered upon my nape.
I named my character Chunky Thomas... there is no real etymology here, but after playing thirty-three (afk time included) some hours of Dark Souls I think Clunky Thomas would be a better moniker. I came to the conclusion after defeating the lava-spider boss (leaving name out as a spoiler) that Dark Souls did not feel more difficult because of its bosses than other Fromsoft games, but rather that the game was more difficult overall. This is due to a plethora of reasons that can be mostly boiled down to archaic overworld design and resoundingly poor hitbox tech. Now when I speak on the overworld design I don't mean the environments, because for 2011 they are phenomenally detailed and deep, but rather the corpse runs, enemy placement, and contrived sequencing of "objectives" to name a few. Legendary Youtuber VideoGameDunkey's "Thank You Dark Souls" quip isn't just a silly gag, it's a great dig at the cheap tricks this game pulls on the player when simply trying to enjoy going from A to B. Blight Town should be called Indict town because of how much of a sour mark it jumps the game off with. Nothing says "fun" or "weehee" or "yahoo" like jumping from the top of a cliff down to the bottom while fighting through enemies that you can't see, corners that abruptly end, easy places to trip and fall and have to restart progress, and status effects galore. Blight Town is simply the easiest place to point a finger at, but this happens in multiple places in the game, most annoying when you are trying to take on Dark Souls' large collection of bosses. Corpse Runs are no stranger in FromSoft games, as Demon Souls had you do it from the BEGINNING OF EACH LEVEL, but with Dark Souls they are incredibly sinister. It sucks to die in any game sure, but you kinda know it comes with the Fromsoft territory. Though it's unfair to judge games after their successors made positive changes, I really missed Elden Ring's statues of Marika and respawning you right near boss rooms. There was a boss (named after four enemies,) that I'd die to and have to make a two to three minute trek each time across some seriously dangerous ground to even make it back to the boss arena. Now I coulda "gotten gud" and beaten the boss much earlier sure, but having to retrace my steps to that extent soured my experience greatly. This happened time and time again, where even if I wasn't dying to the boss a lot, the amount of times I did coupled with the journey back made the experience excessively tiredsome.
I remember playing Dark Souls as it released in 2011, I didn't quite understand it but I had a blast playing through and observing my buddies back then on their PS3 take on this mysterious world for the first time. Ever since watching them play, I tried it myself a few times and it never took because of its aimless exploration and lack of upfront story. I was the Fallout and Elder Scrolls kid that liked having a game that said "story here" and "objective roughly in this area" and I haven't really ever gotten over that. It's the way my brain works and has since, I operate very well in a space that offers me a general sense of direction in lieu of a formless endeavour. Do I like games and media without a said "goal?" Absolutely. Minecraft is one of the greatest games of all time in my opinion. Even in another Fromsoft title like Elden Ring, which is one of my favorite titles ever, I enjoyed it despite not having a clear "go here" mantra. But what Elden Ring did do that Dark Souls didn't was give you even a modicum of a hint. I get that the sequences of Dark Souls could be formulated on one's own after a good amount of careful deliberation, but I simply don't have that time anymore and my brain sure dislikes the conflict of trial and error in such an unfair world. In Elden Ring I could explore an area and not no where to go, but it would be okay because the general placement of enemies was less opressive and I could traverse the world with ease. In Dark Souls, getting from place to place is a hastle and a non-guarentee in the manner of having your souls/humanities survive. I loved looking at the world but had a strong disdain for moving through it. Another dislike I had in this regard was not having each bonfire be a warp spot, the decision making is clearly to make the game feel less "safe" but to me felt more like a headache as a result. Not having any kind of map or reasonable connection between realms of interest is inexcusable and dejecting toward a players time and wherewithal.
Combat felt jank, full stop. This is absolutely a product of the time but woah nelly did I have a rough time understanding the ways I was perishing to enemy combatants. I ran a full oonga boonga strength build, as I often do in games of this nature (or most action/RPG's) and attempted to operate under my knowledge of enemy moves and roll timings. I quickly learned after a few bosses that this wasn't going to work the whole way through, as each boss seemed to have their own hitboxes that were made up and impact upon my hp that didn't matter. It felt like I was always in 2-3 shot range, and that was frequently tested because the bosses would have an AoE that got me in the hitbox despite nothing indicating that I was actually hit by the bosses move physically. Many a time did I think (and this happened especially in the DLC) that I had succesfully timed a roll out of a move just to look up at my health bar and see a declining yellow bar make an appearance. Like I mentioned above, this is definitely due to the age of the game and hitbox technology not being near what it is today and in Fromsoft's magnum opus Elden Ring, but it feels awful to go back and experience. My takeaway was that I felt more cheated by encounters than I felt that I was playing the game poorly, I didn't get good feedback on many fights as to what I could do better, moreso just what I could survive.
I know this title is intentionally cryptic, and I also Know that my favorite Fromsoft releases are guilty of this too, but the lack of any cohesive story element left a sore spot for me. With the intro cutscenes big lore dump and some self searching on the good ol' interwebs, I was able to put together what the story means and why I was doing certain things towards the end of its narrative, but it could have been told in a much better and easier to parse way than what it did. Fromsoft seems to have learned this with time; as Bloodborne drips the narrative in front of the player a little more with Gehrmann, Sekiro is completely narrative driven, and Elden Ring has SIR GIDEON OFFNIR, THE ALL KNOWING giving out his lore dumps and information on the Elden Lords. Not having any of that in Dark Souls made it unfortunately difficult to know the "why's and what's" of my actions as the main character.
Dark Souls wasn't all bad, but it felt bad for me to play. I thoroughly enjoyed the aesthetics and tropes that would make their way through Fromsoft's games to follow. Locations like Anor Londo and the Royal Woods were really neat. Everything felt like it was meticulously designed to craft a once lived in fantasy realm. Bosses, while they didn't play so cool, looked real cool and had that charm to them that makes the series and company as special as it is. The music for these fights, and especially for the final (which was hilariously easy) boss was a good touch to make them feel memorable.
Dark Souls is clearly one of the more influential games of this milennia (Blade of Miqullla?) but it feels dated. I can't recommend this game to anyone because of its dated map design, hitbox tech, and lack of narrative cohesion, but I do understand why it exists and why people have such an affinity to it.
P.S: I began this review at around 4AM, thinking I'd offer a few sentences and then depart to bed, but it's nearly 5AM and I think I overstepped my intentions.
A grander take could probably be made than what I will do, but what has been said in the discourse of Dark Souls and the Fromsoft Formula over the last twelve plus years that hasn't already been mentioned? This game is difficult, but not for the reasons I like games being difficult. In Bloodborne and Sekiro, for better or for worse respectively, I felt like I was being challenged upon the contents of me versus boss, or me versus world enemy. Previously, my encounters with the toughest elements of those games, Elden Ring included, boiled down to my skill against a meticulously crafted combat experience. I like that to an extent. You don't necessarily feel cheated if you lose, rather pursuant of a methodology to improve. In Bloodborne when I found myself fail-rolling against gravestones when fighting Father Gascoigne, I told myself "Git gud" and was able to overcome the fight after a few more tries. In Sekiro, I bit my lip, yelled an obscenity, and buckled down my parry timings to win the duels. In Dark Souls? I threw my hands in the air like a confused ape wondering what jape had wandered upon my nape.
I named my character Chunky Thomas... there is no real etymology here, but after playing thirty-three (afk time included) some hours of Dark Souls I think Clunky Thomas would be a better moniker. I came to the conclusion after defeating the lava-spider boss (leaving name out as a spoiler) that Dark Souls did not feel more difficult because of its bosses than other Fromsoft games, but rather that the game was more difficult overall. This is due to a plethora of reasons that can be mostly boiled down to archaic overworld design and resoundingly poor hitbox tech. Now when I speak on the overworld design I don't mean the environments, because for 2011 they are phenomenally detailed and deep, but rather the corpse runs, enemy placement, and contrived sequencing of "objectives" to name a few. Legendary Youtuber VideoGameDunkey's "Thank You Dark Souls" quip isn't just a silly gag, it's a great dig at the cheap tricks this game pulls on the player when simply trying to enjoy going from A to B. Blight Town should be called Indict town because of how much of a sour mark it jumps the game off with. Nothing says "fun" or "weehee" or "yahoo" like jumping from the top of a cliff down to the bottom while fighting through enemies that you can't see, corners that abruptly end, easy places to trip and fall and have to restart progress, and status effects galore. Blight Town is simply the easiest place to point a finger at, but this happens in multiple places in the game, most annoying when you are trying to take on Dark Souls' large collection of bosses. Corpse Runs are no stranger in FromSoft games, as Demon Souls had you do it from the BEGINNING OF EACH LEVEL, but with Dark Souls they are incredibly sinister. It sucks to die in any game sure, but you kinda know it comes with the Fromsoft territory. Though it's unfair to judge games after their successors made positive changes, I really missed Elden Ring's statues of Marika and respawning you right near boss rooms. There was a boss (named after four enemies,) that I'd die to and have to make a two to three minute trek each time across some seriously dangerous ground to even make it back to the boss arena. Now I coulda "gotten gud" and beaten the boss much earlier sure, but having to retrace my steps to that extent soured my experience greatly. This happened time and time again, where even if I wasn't dying to the boss a lot, the amount of times I did coupled with the journey back made the experience excessively tiredsome.
I remember playing Dark Souls as it released in 2011, I didn't quite understand it but I had a blast playing through and observing my buddies back then on their PS3 take on this mysterious world for the first time. Ever since watching them play, I tried it myself a few times and it never took because of its aimless exploration and lack of upfront story. I was the Fallout and Elder Scrolls kid that liked having a game that said "story here" and "objective roughly in this area" and I haven't really ever gotten over that. It's the way my brain works and has since, I operate very well in a space that offers me a general sense of direction in lieu of a formless endeavour. Do I like games and media without a said "goal?" Absolutely. Minecraft is one of the greatest games of all time in my opinion. Even in another Fromsoft title like Elden Ring, which is one of my favorite titles ever, I enjoyed it despite not having a clear "go here" mantra. But what Elden Ring did do that Dark Souls didn't was give you even a modicum of a hint. I get that the sequences of Dark Souls could be formulated on one's own after a good amount of careful deliberation, but I simply don't have that time anymore and my brain sure dislikes the conflict of trial and error in such an unfair world. In Elden Ring I could explore an area and not no where to go, but it would be okay because the general placement of enemies was less opressive and I could traverse the world with ease. In Dark Souls, getting from place to place is a hastle and a non-guarentee in the manner of having your souls/humanities survive. I loved looking at the world but had a strong disdain for moving through it. Another dislike I had in this regard was not having each bonfire be a warp spot, the decision making is clearly to make the game feel less "safe" but to me felt more like a headache as a result. Not having any kind of map or reasonable connection between realms of interest is inexcusable and dejecting toward a players time and wherewithal.
Combat felt jank, full stop. This is absolutely a product of the time but woah nelly did I have a rough time understanding the ways I was perishing to enemy combatants. I ran a full oonga boonga strength build, as I often do in games of this nature (or most action/RPG's) and attempted to operate under my knowledge of enemy moves and roll timings. I quickly learned after a few bosses that this wasn't going to work the whole way through, as each boss seemed to have their own hitboxes that were made up and impact upon my hp that didn't matter. It felt like I was always in 2-3 shot range, and that was frequently tested because the bosses would have an AoE that got me in the hitbox despite nothing indicating that I was actually hit by the bosses move physically. Many a time did I think (and this happened especially in the DLC) that I had succesfully timed a roll out of a move just to look up at my health bar and see a declining yellow bar make an appearance. Like I mentioned above, this is definitely due to the age of the game and hitbox technology not being near what it is today and in Fromsoft's magnum opus Elden Ring, but it feels awful to go back and experience. My takeaway was that I felt more cheated by encounters than I felt that I was playing the game poorly, I didn't get good feedback on many fights as to what I could do better, moreso just what I could survive.
I know this title is intentionally cryptic, and I also Know that my favorite Fromsoft releases are guilty of this too, but the lack of any cohesive story element left a sore spot for me. With the intro cutscenes big lore dump and some self searching on the good ol' interwebs, I was able to put together what the story means and why I was doing certain things towards the end of its narrative, but it could have been told in a much better and easier to parse way than what it did. Fromsoft seems to have learned this with time; as Bloodborne drips the narrative in front of the player a little more with Gehrmann, Sekiro is completely narrative driven, and Elden Ring has SIR GIDEON OFFNIR, THE ALL KNOWING giving out his lore dumps and information on the Elden Lords. Not having any of that in Dark Souls made it unfortunately difficult to know the "why's and what's" of my actions as the main character.
Dark Souls wasn't all bad, but it felt bad for me to play. I thoroughly enjoyed the aesthetics and tropes that would make their way through Fromsoft's games to follow. Locations like Anor Londo and the Royal Woods were really neat. Everything felt like it was meticulously designed to craft a once lived in fantasy realm. Bosses, while they didn't play so cool, looked real cool and had that charm to them that makes the series and company as special as it is. The music for these fights, and especially for the final (which was hilariously easy) boss was a good touch to make them feel memorable.
Dark Souls is clearly one of the more influential games of this milennia (Blade of Miqullla?) but it feels dated. I can't recommend this game to anyone because of its dated map design, hitbox tech, and lack of narrative cohesion, but I do understand why it exists and why people have such an affinity to it.
P.S: I began this review at around 4AM, thinking I'd offer a few sentences and then depart to bed, but it's nearly 5AM and I think I overstepped my intentions.