Dark Souls
Another timely review. Dark Souls came out in October 2011, the spiritual sequel to Demon's Souls and the first in a trilogy which is set to be completed next month as of writing. I played Dark Souls as part of my quest to play the Best Games Ever (according to GameFAQs) and I went in fairly blind, knowing nothing other than it was generally highly rated but notorious for its difficulty. I had played maybe a couple of hours of Demon's Souls, and I think I watched a video of the first 30 minutes or so of Dark Souls, but other than that I didn't really know what I was in for.
The game starts out with a cutscene explaining some of the lore and story, which is pretty nonsensical and, it seems, not really the point of the game. Then you are thrown into the story as a prisoner in an unnamed dungeon just as a body is dropped into the cell with you, conveniently providing you with the key to the door. The tutorial area, Undead Asylum, introduces you to some of the mechanics of the game including how to attack and crucially the soapstone messages, which are orange signs on the floor which give (usually) helpful advice. In this area, the messages are from the developers to teach you the controls, but as you progress you will find messages left by other players as well. This is one of the great features of Dark Souls as although it is primarily single-player, you never feel too alone.
Undead Asylum is a pretty pacey start to the game - you're thrown into a boss fight even before you collect your weapon, which you have to run away from and then find your way back to once you are properly equipped and defeat in order to escape the Asylum to the rest of the game.
Once you do escape, you reach Firelink Shrine, the main hub of the world. Here, the game slows down quite substantially, and lets you explore at your leisure, including areas far above the level you are now. At least near the start the direction you need to go is reasonably well signposted, although later on you have a bit more freedom, or lack of direction, depending on your point of view.
The world of Dark Souls is bleak, but not without moments of beauty. There is also a lot more variety in the locations than I had realised, at least once past the opening few stages. There is some story to be found, but this is easily missed and as I said, not all that important. Mostly the world is just a backdrop for what's really the selling point of Dark Souls - the combat.
The game has a huge variety of weapons to try, and many of them have unique movesets that set them apart even if they appear similar to another option on the surface. There are also three types of magic to try, although I haven't really experimented with that side of combat. For the most part, the controls are very tight and mastery of them is rewarded with the ability to take on enemies far beyond what your level might suggest. This is particularly due to the roll, which gives invincibility during part of its animation and allows you to dodge the attacks that either kill you in one hit or break your guard completely if blocked, and these are numerous. As well as the roll, each weapon has a weak and strong attack, which is different if held in one hand or two, and there's the kick and jump attack.
These last two I was not so enamoured with, as you perform them by tapping forward on the analogue stick and pressing attack at the same time. This led to many occasions where either one was needed and the timing was off, or more often simply approaching an enemy and attacking at the wrong performed a kick, which does no damage and leaves you open to a counter-attack. As it happened, the weapon I was using for most of the game replaced the kick with a quick slash and backflip, and the game leads you to fight on narrow ledges over drops to certain death at several points. As you might be able to imagine, this caused quite a few frustrating deaths.
Frustration is a feeling I came back to quite often during the course of the game, beginning relatively early on and mostly due to the death system. As you progress through the game, you acquire souls from killing enemies, which act as both experience points and currency. However, you can only cash in this experience at certain safe spots called bonfires, or use with the various vendors dotted about the world. If you die, you lose any souls you were carrying at the time and are sent back to the last bonfire you used, and all the enemies (apart from bosses and a select few others) respawn. You have a chance to reclaim your lost souls if you can reach the spot where you died, but if you die again then they are lost forever. Also, remember the notorious difficulty? You die, a lot. I died around 450 times on my first playthrough, and although most of them were my fault, I felt like a fairly sizable fraction were unavoidable. When death is so punishing, this does lead again to frustration.
There are a few other design choices that I didn't really agree with. The main one is the combination placement of bonfires relative to bosses and how hard some of those bosses are. As I said, when you die, including to a boss, you respawn at the bonfire you most recently visited. Often the nearest bonfire to a particular boss is a couple of minutes' run, and especially towards the end of the game requires either defeating or dodging many difficult enemies. And of course the boss can kill you in one hit, Therefore the time spent fighting a boss in Dark Souls is about 80% just getting there in one piece, and only 20% actual fighting, This is a pity because many of the bosses are, or could be, quite interesting fights, but I at least felt a desire to cheese them just to get them over with so I wouldn't have to make the run back for the 20th time.
The other issue I wasn't a fan of is to do with the multiplayer. Dark Souls has both co-operative and competitive multiplayer. This is a great feature on the face of it, as players who have mastered fighting the AI opponents can seek out something more challenging to test themselves against, and those that are struggling can call for help. The problem is that all multiplayer is gated behind a mechanic called hollowing. All characters start hollowed but can reverse this by spending an item called Humanity at a bonfire. Once unhollowed, you can summon other players to help you with areas that are difficult, including bosses, and NPC summons are also provided in case you can't play online. However, if unhollowed you are also eligible for invasion from an unfriendly player, where you must duel to the death. So players who are both having difficulty, and those who are seeking extra challenge, are all lumped in together which I have to imagine makes for an unsatisfactory experience for both groups when they collide. As it happens, due to the fact that you lose your unhollowed state when you die, and humanity is pretty limited until much later in the game, I spent most of my time hollowed anyway and only really used the multiplayer aspect of the game in two areas.
There are ways to affect how likely it is you are the victim of an invasion or able to summon a helper, including various areas which are marked more for PvP and in-game factions you can join to swing the meter one way or the other, but overall I think it could have been handled better.
Finally, the game is a little obtuse when it comes to explaining mechanics - you have about 10 different stats you can level up, which you can get a bit of explanation of from the menu but not in a particularly helpful way. I was intending to play the game without a guide as much as possible, but I did find myself having to refer to the wiki more and more as I went through just to understand concepts as fundamental as upgrading weapons and what the various stats actually mean in a practical sense.
It is pretty telling that in spite of these complaints and misgivings, I did keep coming back to the game and managed to finish it, although I wasn't able to complete all of the optional areas. There is a rewarding feeling and a palpable sense of growth of your abilities as you progress, as you gradually make more and more progress through an area not because your character has grown stronger but because you're better able to use their skills. Overall I would recommend Dark Souls, and I'm definitely looking forward to trying other games in the series, but you should definitely pay attention to the subtitle and Prepare to Die.
A lot.
