It feels weird to try and review one of my favorite games of all time - if Baldur’s Gate is the game of my childhood, the Souls games are certainly the games of my “modern” era - as there are so many feelings and thoughts and ideas just wrapped up and tangled on top of one another, like a giant ball of yarn that’s been growing for years. It becomes hard to unpack everything without turning either into rote descriptions of “I like X thing about game,” or spilling out saccharine word vomit and dumb shit like yarn ball metaphors and “modern gaming eras” escaping, when they should be locked up permanently. Regardless, I wanted to try and tackle the challenge of reviewing my favorites, or at least unpacking my experiences with them for myself, so here I am. I’m not going to go into some ontological or Derridean critique of Dark Souls. I think enough people have deconstructed this game for a lifetime. This is just my perspective on my experience with the game, all cliche and platitudes included.

For a long time, I didn’t really think I liked hard games. I grew up playing NES and all that, but I don’t really think that crossed my mind back then; I would gladly smash my head against something over and over without the thought of it being too hard. It was just the game. So when Dark Souls came out and all I ever heard about it was how hard it is and punishing and impossible, it was a definite no - I didn’t want a hard game, because, after all, I played games for fun. The games I enjoyed were all adventure and discovery, full of blasting enemies with magic, exploring fantastical worlds, and slicing my way through a story whether heroic or grim. None of these things were ever how Dark Souls was described to me, even by friends who loved the game, so I just ignored it and passed it off as something I would never play.

In late 2019, I saw a commercial for a game called Sekiro. I impulse bought it. I knew Sekiro was supposed to be a hard game, but it reminded me of the Tenchu games that I used to rent from Blockbuster as a kid and nostalgia won me over. It destroyed me, but I loved every second of it. I found out it was from the same people that made Dark Souls, and I finally decided that, what the hell, if I can beat Sekiro I can beat Dark Souls. So after a few months, I bought that too. Then I lost my job.

Compared to hours of LinkedIn and Indeed every day, I found that Dark Souls did not measure up in difficulty. It was my reprieve, and I devoured it. I huddled on my couch playing handheld on the Switch, well into the night almost every night. I could not put it down, and while, sure, I did find the game to be difficult, I approached it in the same way that I approached my NES games when I was a kid. I just took the game for what it was and ran with it. Shockingly, Dark Souls wasn’t just a combat simulator with reflex checks and hair-pulling moments - it was an adventure and a new world to explore, and I wanted to see and experience everything.

Obviously, looking back with hindsight, it’s easy for me to roll my eyes at myself being surprised or shocked by the game, seeing as exploration is one of the pillars of Dark Souls’ design, but I just didn’t know. I think that’s one of the things that made the game and experience so special to me, as I was just able to enjoy this gaming cultural behemoth without any of the white noise contamination that I have now. Everything was unexpected, and I was just able to connect with a new world on my own terms and at my own pace, making the entire experience an exercise in solitude and intimacy - further driven home by the same themes being woven throughout the landscape of Lordran and my time spent there. Immediate and total resonance with a piece of art or media is rare and one of the most powerful things a person can experience, and I guess, in a very crude way, that’s why I love the Souls games - they just make sense to my brain in almost every way. That isn’t to say I don’t have criticisms or flaws towards these games, on the contrary, the games I love most are the ones that I can be the hardest on. However, all those things fade away the moment I hear that haunting menu theme.