Dark souls. A game with Full of soul but with a little bit of daring hollowness inside it

In my journey to play souls titles, I played dark souls 3 first but didn't finish, then played bloodborne, then demons souls and now this. Dark souls.

Just like demon's souls, I find this game still worth experiencing. It doesn't do everything great unfortunately but one thing it does great, it really does GREAT.

You see, souls titles in it's core is just a cliche fantasy game with lots of monsters to fight something like castlevania, but what makes it carry to next point, the castlevania symphony of the night if you will... The World that is.

There are tons of 2d metroidvania's in the gaming, but 3d ones are hecking rare. But this game, with it's connected world, actually managed to give me that feeling again. The cohesive world that expands and connects with every step of the way. Especially it's first half with you somehow be able to go wherever you want from the world and not just that come back to it again and again and again... It's so good that in fact that, it's gets twice more disappointing the moment it stops doing that.

Yeah I am talking about the last 1/3 of the game unfortunately.

Before the whole franchise became just a boss tier list titles, it cared about it's world before the most and this game is the result of that idea. But like I said there are soooo many shortcomings as well.

First 1/3 of the game is about ringing the bells but it's so open that you can go wherever you wanted and it's the best part of it and I can easily give 5/5 for it. For example myself went to new londo ruins first, get f####, return to hub, find the right way, ring the first bell, don't know where to go next, go down and find out catacombs, go there and arrive tomb of the giants, realize there is no shortcuts back to hub, get stuck, get f####, get raped, finally manage to return back to hub with barely be able to breath, look up a guide, learn the right way, go to more boring version of swamp, ring the second bell

Second 1/3 is about getting the lord vessel and there are small bumps that takes it down to 4/5 but still enjoyable, go to the boring ass forest, barely stay alive from the boss and get the ring, go to awesome fortress and get killed to traps bazillion amounts of times, finally go to anor londo, then hidden painting and then back to anor londo and... Other than the excellent boss fights, enemy reusage starts to show itself, anyway game is still great and we get the lord vessel.

Then last 1/3 happens and game becomes a mess. You need to get to 4 zones with gimmicks, be it lava, curse, darkness etc. While this in itself not a bad thing, where it gets ridiculous is there is almost no shortcut or almost no connectedness between them. Game gets linear as it gets and boss runs gets longer as it gets, also enemy variety gets lower as it gets.


I am gonna be honest even tho late bosses are mostly easy, variety and boss runs to them really soured me from the experience and resulted me almost leaving the game. I mean I finished it but for what cost?

You see, I always find souls titles endgame areas to be quite lacking and dark souls is no exception. But unfortunately dark souls is much much worse for it. Because it breaks it's consistency of level design. And the world feels more the worse because of it

At least dlc is cool tho?... I finished the dlc as well(but I find out I miss kalameet dragon boss... Dang it) and it was cool.

Unfortunately it reuses the bland forest area in the first zone, but the moment you finish that rest is great. It's especially good when it comes to level design with you somehow find yourself at the bonfire every single time with shortcuts just like in the main game. But one thing almost ruined everything for me and that is, it's last boss Manus.

You see, I made a full on light equipped fast rolling stamina heavy character, say glass cannon dps if you will. But Manus is like a dark souls 3 boss(also it's the first one that with the trend that unending combos). He is fast, super aggressive and just Does. Not. Stop.

It's the first time in the entire game I felt hopeless. I managed to beat him after god know how many tries but felt nothing but fatigue(also my new job internship stress adds to it tenfold). Unfortunately because of it I am mixed when it comes to the dlc but at least it's still worth it just for the high quality areas you traverse

So yeah this was dark souls. Quite the polarizing game for me with every step gets best to worse. It's a game where I can't find it's awesome connected world anywhere else, but never had that much frustrating moments in any game. So because of that I give to base game 3 stars, but with the dlc it goes up to 4 for me

So what can I say... one can only wish a better second half when it comes to consistency because even it's older cousin demon's souls shows it's value more and more to me.