Dark Souls Reviews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on October 6th, 2011

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Dark Souls is a game with many merits that appeals directly to a certain sadistic breed of gamer. It's not a game you come home to, to sit back and relax. It's a game in which you test yourself and your patience. While most of your time with the game will be spent cursing at your television, your overall sense of satisfaction, completion and progress will serve as its own reward. You can't go wrong with a game like this if you're up to the challenge and love dark twisted fantasy role-playing games. Framerate issues aside, Dark Souls is a must buy for any hardcore gamer who thinks they have what it takes to step up to the challenge.

At a time when games fall over themselves to bestow their players with the highest of accolades for the smallest of efforts, Dark Souls stands alone in demanding nothing but the best from those who brave its daunting world. It is telling that there is no difficulty slider to enable you to enjoy its beautiful world with evened odds: the difficulty is the world. Without it, the game's central motif, that hard-won success should be its own reward, would be meaningless.

The only thing it is really possible to fault Dark Souls for is its utter inaccessibility. For time-poor gamers who look forward to a little escapism at the end of a hard day, Dark Souls will not provide the welcome respite they crave. Yet to criticise a game for doing what it set out to do so perfectly is both foolish and misleading. For anyone who has ever felt themelves skating over the surface of games, never quite finding themselves drawn in, this is the antidote. Dark Souls is not a game to be played, but lived.

Dark Souls could prove to be gaming Marmite for some players, who'll either love it or hate it. Dark Souls makes no bones about being unrelenting in its difficulty though, although it's by no means insurmountable. It's a rare game that's unlike anything else, refusing to pander or compromise in any way, shape or form. In this day and age, Dark Souls is hugely refreshing then, and well worth the time and effort.

Since you can only have one active death to recover at a time, thus began my trek back to my pseudo-final resting place. I kept reaching my corpse and then dying to something immediately afterward. This happened five or six times over the next couple of hours. I would run up, grab my stuff and die before I could reach another bonfire or make my way back to my current one. On the seventh attempt, I walked out of the area with the bonfire, swung at an enemy and, thanks to the attack animation, fell off the side of the keep. There went my souls, now up to about 5,000, and a couple of humanity points. I sharply drew in my breath, my brain reeled, and I felt the blood drain from my face.

That's Dark Souls in a nutshell. The stakes being as high as they are adds a level of excitement all too rare in the hold your hand games of this generation. Without the punishment, there's no real fear, and without the fear there's no thrill. And in Dark Souls, much like Demon's Souls before it, you will most definitely fear.

Of all the games I've played in 2011, Dark Souls is the one I'll be thinking of most often in the years to come. It's not without its problems, alas: a patch is promised, but the PlayStation 3 version currently locks up every few hours requiring a hard reset, and for that I'm knocking off a whole star because come on.

Beyond that, I'm taking off another half star because, well, not everybody likes green tea, and you can hardly call it the perfect beverage in the face of that. But you should know that in my heart, Dark Souls rejoices with a full five stars, and I strongly suspect From Software will be the only developer to knock it off that throne.

Dark Souls isn't for everyone. Some people might be put off by how unforgiving the game can be, or frustrated to the point of giving up as a result of the difficulty curve (which is more of a cliffside than anything). If you're looking for a challenging, unique dark fantasy game to put a few hours into, Dark Souls is the right choice for you.

And if you enjoyed Demon's Souls, buying Dark Souls should be a foregone conclusion. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some demons to kill.

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