Dark Souls (2011)

I am on a journey to beat 360 random Xbox 360 games. Here's my next adventure

Game number 58 was Dark Souls. Dark Souls is a fantasy action RPG where the character battles through the world of Lordran in order to discover its secrets. The game is extremely popular and has been renowned for its difficulty and emphasis on reactionary combat that almost plays out like a rhythm game. It is also a masterpiece and my second favorite game of all time!

Graphics/Sound: The graphics of Dark Souls are generally average for the 360 era of games. There are definitely points in the game where you will be amazed by the amazing scenery and atmosphere, but there are also going to be times where your eyes will literally hurt because certain textures were shaded much too bright. The character models and monsters are fantastic though! The creativity of some of the monsters in this game is astonishing and they can sometimes move in very animalistic ways. I also love it when games actually show the currently equipped armor on my character!

Sound is another story. While there are only a few points in the game with ambient music, they are used perfectly to set the tone of a certain area. Additionally, the sound effects in Dark Souls are fantastic! It always feels so good to hit something and the sound effects of a strike connecting or a spell going off were done excellently.

Story: The story of Dark Souls is something that some people will find genius and others will call a huge mess. I kinda agree with both sides on that debate. To put into context, there are very few times where plot is actually explained to the character. At the beginning of the game you are told that if you ring 2 bells something will happen… not much context at all. Most of the lore of Lordran (the world of Dark Souls) can be found in item descriptions or by talking to NPCs. Unless you have spent hundreds of hours in Dark Souls, have watched youtube videos, or are just Sherlock Holmes himself you will probably not grasp the full story and what is happening here. That is intentional and the game designers are clearly placing context and lore as additional things someone can interact with along their journey instead of it being the main focus of the game.

Gameplay: Lets be honest, the reason I or anyone else is going to play Dark Souls is because of its genre defining gameplay (yes I know Demons Souls came out first). Your character is going to equip a weapon or magic and will be forced to fight through many levels of carefully placed enemies. The defining traits of Dark Souls combat are the uninterruptible actions, high enemy damage, and the window of invincibility in the dodge. Each of these things need to be understood and mastered in order to beat the game.

Combat is usually a reactive experience. The enemy will attack and it is up to the player to block, dodge, or parry it and then counter attack. Outside of early game adds, it is impossible to go in and start attacking the enemy at random. You need to learn when it is possible to get a hit or 2 in before getting hit yourself.

I don’t think I can talk about Dark Souls without talking about its bosses. They are some of the most well designed bosses in all of video games and are clearly one of the defining traits of the game. My (and everyone’s) favorite are the duo Orenstien and Smogh. They are a duo boss fight where 1 is fast and agile and the other is slow but hits like a truck. There are many boss fights and most of them are exceptionally good in terms of standard game bosses!

My experience: Well I have played Dark Souls like two dozen times before this so I knew exactly what I wanted to do on this playthrough. I did a heavy dexterity build around the Painting Guardian Sword. I know that is about the least interesting build; however I chose it because of its viability in NG+. One of the things I wanted to do was go into different levels of NG+ until I decided I had had enough. I gave up in NG+5 and not because I don’t think I could have beaten it. I just wanted to get to the next game. I may go for NG+7 at some point in the future (the point where the game stops getting harder).

Overall, I think everyone who enjoys action RPGs or action games in general should play Dark Souls. It is one of the most satisfying games to play if you have the patience to die a few times. The combat is a true masterpiece and something that many game studios have been replicating. While the story may not be the most forward facing, the lore is incredibly deep and worth watching a few videos on. Please play this game. It is amazing!!! (10/10)

I spent 72 hours, 4 minutes, and 33 seconds playing Dark Souls to NG+5.

I have spent a total of 723 hours and 55 minutes on the Road To 360 challenge so far.

Next Game: Wheelman

Things I liked about the game:

• Variety of weapons.
• Some of the locations are beautiful.
• COUPLE amazing boss fights.
• Design.

Things that I disliked:

• Most of the game's areas are garbage.
• Most of the game's bosses are garbage.
• Way too long walk backs to bosses.
• Too many dumb/annoying enemies.
• Extremely complicated route, without a guide you won't finish the game.
• Garbage hitboxes.

Bosses that I liked: Gwyn, O&S, Sif, Knight Artorias, Manus.

Wow. The feeling of beating this game was different. Over 5 years has it been since my first try that ended after 10 hours in the The Depths. Only a month has it been since my second try failed, funnily/pathetically enough in The Depths again.

Playing Elden Ring though taught me I CAN actually be good enough to beat the bosses in these games, so I came back to Dark Souls determined to stick through both the bosses and the puzzles this time. And so I did.

There are few experiences in gaming as intense and as focus-requiring as souls games and I truly have never felt like this after finishing a game. I've felt heartbroken when the ending was sad before or I didn't want the game to end or I've felt happy/content when beating most games, but I never felt this proud like with Dark Souls.

This is my first game from FromSoftware that I finished and the second that I truly played, so best believe that I will be playing through DS2/3, Bloodborne, Demon's Souls and Sekiro in the coming months/years, plus of course Elden Ring.

First though, I want to get the bad stuff out of the way first before I discuss why I agree that the game is a masterpiece, despite those imperfections. Every game has its issues, doesn't mean the experience can't be overwhelmingly fun regardless.

I played this game on PC and I've played the "Prepare to Die Edition", so not the Remaster. This edition is locked to 30 FPS and truly a mediocre port. Whenever the Dragon in Undead Burg would breathe fire or some of the bosses would create "too many" fire/crystal effects, the frames would go to die at around 1-10 for a few seconds. The Centipede Demon boss fight for example, which luckily took only one try, was consistently played at about 10 FPS, truly a horrid experience.

In general, on a technical level, there are many things that haven't aged well in this game or have simply been poor design choices by the devs. Best example: Enemies can swing through walls, while you can't. Died to this more than a couple times. Or the camera moves around wildly when the roof of the area is too close to the ground, or some trees/walls get in the way and you can't see the enemy for a couple seconds. Or whichever fucker decided to "reset" the camera angle with the same button that locks on to enemies. Which means if the boss was one inch too far away to be locked on to, your camera angle would just 180 and you'd get hit in the back. This happened way too often.

At the end, sometimes during a few boss fights you had to fight the technical issues as much as you did the boss.

And finally, the final few areas were slightly disappointing. The final boss doesn't even have a cut scene entrance, so the game misses out on an opportunity to make it way more epic, though the boss fight wasn't really that great itself. And "Crystal Cave" and "Tomb of the Giants", the final two areas I played, where just absolutely horrible to play through, where the boss fights ended up being way too easy and the journey there was the main, disgustingly difficult challenge.

Because at Crystal Cave, the floor is invisible, and while some light falls down on the invisible floor here and there, it IS still invisible, so I died more times than I'd like to admit. With Tomb of the Giants, the area was pitchdark, you could only see slightly in front of you. This just sucked. The boss fight was extremely simple because I could eat all of his hits and just dish out damage until he died.

And finally, something that is still my main concern with the older soulslikes, is that you have to walk back to a boss for a couple minutes after dying to it. That means 10 tries that would take 15 minutes in Elden Ring take 45 minutes in Dark Souls.

Other than that, there wasn't anything else I saw as a negative. All this is enough to make many people quit the game for non-gameplay reasons and I sympathize, I was in the same situation back in the day. But for those who persevere, there is no satisfaction in games from a gameplay perspective like beating a boss you had been stuck with for the past half hour or longer.

Not only that, but there are few games that reward exploration of both environments AND game concepts like this game (and other FromSoft Souls games). There is no quest log, no map, no objective markers and no hand holding in terms of where you have to go next, but thanks to perfect level design and interconnection it's easy to get a feel of all the areas. To then be able to discover shortcuts on top of that is always an awesome feeling. Quests are there for those looking for them and I felt more connected to these characters that I only talked to a few times than I would've guessed, whether it's Solaire or Onion Man. And if you pay attention to NPC dialogue and some item descriptions, it's more than doable to go through this game without having to access a guide once. Though if you're playing Online, the help through messages by other players can be invaluable.

The most enjoyable part of this game to me though is it's combat. Even encounters with basic one-hittable hollows can be a challenge if you let multiple of them overwhelm you or if you simply are not focused, so the tension is always high. In addition, re-visiting areas hours later to realize how far you have come is really cool. Countless times I was like "how am I supposed to beat these guys" and 10 hours later, I'd go through them with relative ease. This feeling is of course amplified when it comes to bosses.

I remember in my first playthrough when the Taurus Demon took like 10 tries. In this playthrough he took like 20 seconds. Or the Lightning Demon below Andre the Blacksmith, or Havel in the Tower, not to mention the first Black Knight in Undead Burg, all of whom were mighty challenging in my first playthrough but were more than doable this time around.

Some bosses unfortunately weren't that great in design and some ended up being too easy, maybe because of my STR/DEX focus. Especially the "4 Lords" (?) were mostly disappointing. The Bed of Chaos for example was a puzzle boss that required no combat.

But the amount of variety in enemies AND boss design, the amount of builds you can do, the amount of stuff you can explore, the amount of insane looking different environments there are and the amount of fun I had make this a Top 10 gaming experience I've ever had.

My first proper Souls game (I glitched my way to level 80 and an easy finish in Demon's Souls) and I absolutely love it. First playing on PS3 for the 'authentic' experience. Blighttown wasn't so bad in that regard.

Just took down Iron Golem in Sens Fortress on my first try, with only 1 Estus. Took me more than a few tries getting to him, though...

Brief summary of my first playthrough:

9/4/2020 - 9/13/2020

• I have killed every boss including DLC

• My build prioritized Strength, Vitality, and Endurance

• For the first few hours of my playthrough, I switched to the Halberd and played with that until I got the Black Knight Halberd and I stuck with the Black Knight Shield

• I have not encountered every NPC like Iron Tarkus and Siegmeyer was bugged

• Occasionally, I used guides to look up how to get a certain item to progress and what decisions meant.

• I have never used any summons nor have I used sorcery ever.

• I went to the Catacombs and Tomb of the Giants early on at around level 30 and has my ass kicked for hours until I looked up that I was underleveled

• My friend had the game 2 months before I bought it and I'm already ahead of him within a day. The part he was at was that he rang the first bell in at about 11 hours on Steam. He gave up and skipped to DS3.

• Stuck with Havel's ring for a majority of the game. Started using the Ring of Favor and Protection after killing Nito

• Before buying, I was alrrady spoiled of bosses like Sif, Ornstein and Smough, Pinwheel, and how to beat the Asylum Demon.

Regardless of that last point, Dark Souls made for one of the best weeks of my gaming life. I enjoyed the hell out of it and I can't wait to replay it for the tidbits of lore and with a new build based more on magic.

I avoided this for many years after it's release, I remember watching my mate play it and thought 'nope, I'm out'. Since I played Bloodborne back in 2015 (and loved the hell out of it) I've grown to love these From Software titles, to the point now where any new release announcement is an instant pre order. It's brutal gameplay, unforgiving boss fights but rewarding experience make for a game that will live long in my memory, however there was a pretty steep drop off during the latter stages with some pretty naff areas and enemy variety. The DLC is a must purchase though.

This youtube channel "Illusory Wall" has made some really fascinating videos about Dark Souls recently, looking at the map data. A lot of this was new material, recently discovered. I was really satisfied, watching this; now I feel like I finally have a complete map of Lordran in my head with all the puzzle pieces clicking together. Amazing how the game's world map is entirely consistent.

This video was really interesting too: https://tinyurl.com/yb8ru467

A sort of review of Dark Souls.

This is not going to be a classic review. But rather a sort of recollection of my time with the game and my general thoughts and notes on it.

A few notes upfront. I played both the die hard edition and later on the remastered one. Playing 30fps and 60fps later on. First on PS3 controller and later on the xbox one controller I beat it on like 5th playthrough attempt I first went in blind but ended up playing with a phone as a companion app looking up various things including boss strategies, shortcuts and so on when I felt it and I feel and after finishing it, I think this was the good choice. Especially considering extra lore bits it gave me. If anything this made the game more fun Some spoilers might be included though due to the game's nature it's rather hard to spoil

Everyone knows what Dark Souls is at this point. It's more of a meme than a game actually. A very hard, unforgiving action RPG where you either 'git gud' or you're a filthy casual. I'm far from such statements as I do believe not every game is for everyone. And that was the way I felt about Souls games and never felt I have anything to prove by beating it.

Nevertheless when it was on sale I picked it up to see what it is about. I went in blind - a big mistake - and got stuck in the undead burg - really early on. And just didn't feel it. Left it in the backlog and moved on. It just wasn't the right time.

Some years later my dog got paralyzed waist down. After surgery had to be carried for assisted walks - twenty kg, third floor, four times a day. Until something snapped in my back - turns out I have some spine condition which I was unaware and should not strain it. Both I and the dog are mostly fine now but it was a rough month when I was stuck to lying mostly.

It was then when I sort of picked Dark Souls yet again as I guess I was not enough in pain. Started again blind and again wasn't doing too well. But something stuck a nerve, I've been playing for over 30 years, I will not be beat by a game. Queue the guides. I started with what character to pick and order of places to go. So I picked pyromancer, and what a game changer it was. Dark souls does not have a standard class system, picking a class is mostly distributing starting points accordingly and giving you some starting gifts. And the strength of pyromancer was not that it had a fireball, but rather that it was way more agile from the start and that makes the game a lot easier. I also did not understand the max load weight up until like half of my final playthrough.

Got as far as Capra Daemon and bought the remastered version. Mostly because it was super cheap - like 5$ and had native xbox one controller support and it was well worth it just for that.

Started again and this time made a post on Grouvee and that was a really good move. Torgo's suggestion to use halberd for beginners probably made me finish the game without too much of a struggle. And now I really see why this game is really amazing and easily getting in the top 10 of my favorite games.

I think the biggest problem Dark Souls have is lack of explanation. And I don't mean waypoints or clear story but some basic mechanics ruling the world. The way you learn about the game I think makes more fun for a second playthrough. It might actually be more fun with each attempt due to the familiarity with the concepts of the game than the actual first playthrough.

The game’s great. It’s actually closer to amazing really. And I definitely didn’t have that feeling going in but my enjoyment and amazement grew as I was getting deeper and deeper into the game. And just when I thought I was getting to the end of it - it turned out to be more like a halfway point. But I don’t think at any step I felt bored with it or tired of the game. Though nearer the end a yearning for something simpler did start to creep in. But I must admit once the final boss was defeated I almost thought of starting over with the lessons learned.

The visuals are great, atmospheric and with a sense of grandeur. The monumental constructions with a lot of details are sometimes really breathtaking. Though some of the paths are not so easy to spot. What is also great about the world is that it seems to be wrapping on itself. Shortcuts open up which make the traversing the levels a lot easier and things you thought to be just background stills are actually accessible later on.

The non linear progression is both good and not so good. At times it feels overwhelming not being certain as to where to progress forward and what places are optional and which are not. Especially early on when I wasn’t sure if I were just being bad or going the wrong way. That’s why having a list of locations in order on a side note helps quite a bit. Especially on the first playthrough.

The fighting system is very much fun once you get the hang of it. The fights feel strategic and require patience. Rushing in usually ends bad. The variety is also amazing. Each weapon feel completely different, requires a different approach to fight and timing. And I’ve almost did not touched the magic system in the game apart from basic pyromancy. There’s a lot of variety and replayability that's for sure.

The enemies are quite varied and usually require different tactics. Some are annoying but usually they’re pretty fair. There’s also plenty of bosses and mini bosses. They’re varied again - some easier than others, some not. Though once you figure out how to tackle specific one or read on how to they're manageable. Apart from the capra demon, now that one is really annoying though the small arena you get to fight him is the main enemy here.

An honorable mention for the spider lady boss, which was the first boss I genuinely enjoyed in game and might be my favorite one of the lot.

I wish the game had explained two things from the start that would have made the experience not so rough at start. Firstly, and I learned it perhaps half game is that in order to stay agile your current equipment load needs to be under half of your maximum load. And there I was thinking its armor class dependant. That would have made quite a few different choices I've made while leveling up.

Secondly ability to summon NPCs to help you out. I've read prior whether it's worth paying as hollow or in human form. The answer I found was it doesn't matter but in hollow form you'll not be invaded. And while I was struggling with the Anor Lando bosses I've read that you can summon Solaire to your aid. I would have never known and that made me quite angry.

It's a great game that is just not accessible to new players. Though it's definitely worth going the extra mile as the whole experience is very rewarding.

A sort of testament of just how good the game might be the fact that from the start I said I will not look up any lore. Guess what I did after finishing the game…

Overall not sure what else to add here. It's an awesome game, well worth dealing with certain inconveniences at first. And in a way it's very much a changing moment as I feel every somewhat similar game will be compared to this one. Very high recommendation. And I will return to this one for sure.

Also I just acquired rights to add on every game review that it's not as hard as Dark Souls.

OVERVIEW

• Rating: 10/10

• Hours played: 145

• Pros: Combat, lore, rewarding gameplay, unique multiplayer, world design, high replay value

• Cons: Late game is not as polished as the early levels, camera issues when fighting big monsters

PLAYTHROUGHS

I completed Dark Souls on the Prepare to die Edition 8 times, running through the DLC content about half of those times. My first playthrough took me 45 hours (DLC included), and I tested multiple playstyles on the subsequent characters. I only played NG+ with my first character, stopping after the winning the bossfight in Anor Londo.

GAMEPLAY

Dark Souls (DkS) is my favourite game of all time, which is quite surprising considering I am not the type of gamer who cares too much about difficulty in games. Mind you, I almost always pick the Medium/Normal mode, only tanking the hardest difficulties on games that are objectively not challenging or that I end up being very good at due to playing for countless hours. That probably says a lot about this game and the whole hype around the challenge involved. DkS is tough, and there’s no way to deny it. But it is also very approachable if you have enough patience and dedicate some attention to what it is trying to tell you. It’s a fair game (most of the time), and the challenge makes it way more rewarding in the end then it could ever be with a a difficulty slider attached to it.

One of the greatest things about DkS is how it tries to teach players its mechanics and design style. Most of it comes from experience, requiring a certain level of trial and error, which is very often something I find problematic on videogames. Here, it works, primarily because failure (normally in the form of death) is a part of the game. Thanks to the respawn system at bonfires, dying is simply a normality in the setting, allowing for the players to still feel immersed when they lose. That’s much better then just going through a menu and reloading the last save. That said, a lot of things on DkS can be learn by paying attention to details. There’s multiple scenarios on the early levels that teach you what to expect: traps, ambushes, enemies that are clearly too strong for you. But most of the time there’s a way around it: a trap or an ambush can be avoided if you spot it first, and you can lure enemies to fight you one at a time instead of being ganked by a mob. Tough enemies (even bosses) often have weaknesses, and it’s possible to use the environment to increase your chances to win as well. And all of that is done organically through the level design, without the overuse of tutorials in the form of text walls or boring NPC’s telling how to play the game.

The combat system uses very simple mechanics and controls, but it takes some time to master, especially for players not used to melee-based action games. Despite that simplicity, there’s a lot of depth around it, since the grate variety of weapons, shields, spells, armor sets and playstyles often gives players very different experiences on each encounter (different weapons can have very different move-sets and hit-boxes, it’s not just about how much damage they deal). Because of that, building a character is one of the coolest things on the game, there are a lot of possibilities and the replay value is very high primarily due to that. Upgrading your gear and leveling your character accordingly to the playstyle you want is very important, but the combat of DkS is mostly about player skill: once you master the system, it will be totally possible to defeat all of those too-tough-for—a-low-level-character that gave you trouble on your first playthrough. This creates the feeling that players are leveling alongside their character, something I find very rare on modern RPGs.

There’s a good variety of enemies here, and it’s very important to learn their movesets in order to be prepared to react appropriately during fights. The combat shines the most when you fight humanoid warriors, though. Bosses are a very frequent reality on DkS, providing challenge and excitement whenever they appear. They are also varied on desing, some of them among my favourites on any game. However, fighting the bigger creatures in this game can often be problematic due to how the camera works (something that was never completely fixed on the sequels).

Level design is one of the main positives of DkS. The low number of checkpoints forces players to find creative methods to navigate levels, find shortcuts and memorize the layout. The variety of enemy encounters, traps and ambushes is abundant, making most players keep their shields up whenever they explore a new part of the world. And if the levels are great, the world design of Lordran is one of the greatest I’ve ever seen! There’s a high amount of connectivity between different areas, providing players with great satisfaction when they open new paths to previously explored areas, while also allowing for great replay value, since you can learn new methods to explore the world, and, therefore, experiment different progression routes. A lot of areas (and their bosses) are optional too, reinforcing the freedom given to players on how they approach the game.

One downside, though, is the late game. Some of the levels and bosses on the second half of DkS are not as polished as what we get early on, resulting in a few disappointing and frustrating moments. As far as I know that happened because the developers had to rush some of the development to release the game on time. On a positive note, the DLC more than compensates for that, giving players a new high level map and some of the best bosses of the trilogy. It’s highly recommended to anyone who enjoyed the game.

To finish this section, it’s important to mention the multiplayer. DkS has a very interesting system, allowing players to be summoned to or to invade the world of other players. Co-op is fun and can be very helpful to new players struggling with a specific area or boss, and going through the PvP is a good way to learn new tricks and become better at the combat. The DLC also introduced an arena for players who want to focus on that (a lot of them do).

NARRATIVE

DkS narrative is primarily based around the very depth lore created by From Software. The world of Lordran has a lot of backstory to its many areas and characters, and learning about it can be as difficult as killing a boss. There are 3 main ways to get information on DkS: talking to NPC’s, reading item descriptions and paying attention to the great environmental storytelling. Be careful with NPC’s, though: they often provide wrong or incomplete intel due to their own motivations and/or lack of knowledge.

Plot-wise, there’s not that much to talk about, since the game itself gives you very little in the form of purpose for the most part. But if you go into the lore, it’s possible to know much better what you’re doing, why a lot of things are the way they are and why certain characters are/were acting the way they do/did. There are many mysteries to uncover, but many things are left open for your own interpretation, which can be fun for people like me. If you’re lucky enough some answers you want may come on the sequels, so watch out for those!

DkS has a very diverse cast of NPC’s, all with very unique personalities, motivations and story arcs that can be followed (and often influenced) by the main character. The one downside is how easy it is to miss most of those stories (almost impossible to see them all on a first playthrough unless you have a guide or a friend telling you where to look). It is worth it, though, because the NPC’s help immensily to flesh out the world and keep players engaged.

TECH

Lordran is beautiful. Yes, the graphics are quite dated now, but the art design is so great that I can’t care about it. It’s obvious the amount of care that was put even into small details, the variety of items, locations and enemy design is amazing and some of the vistas are absolutely impressive. Again, some of the late game areas don’t have the same quality of details, but the game looks great most of the time.

The music is also a major plus of DkS. Generally played during boss fights and a few odd-places, the soundtrack plays a big part on engaging players and setting the tone for characters and places you’ll encounter. For the most part, though, the game focuses on the environmental sounds, immersing players into the world and also encouraging them to use it to their favor – sound is a great tool to notice enemies approaching when you’re exploring dark areas, as an example.

You can play it at 60fps on the PC by using a mod called dsfix (highly recommended), or you can try the remastered version for new consoles or PC. I can’t say how good it is, though, since I only saw the remaster on videos and never played myself. Personally, I’m happy with the vanilla version. Outside of one particularly infamous area, I’ve never experienced major framedrops, bugs or glitches.

CONCLUSION

One of the main design concepts of this game is to provide players a rewarding experience through the conquest of great challenges. DkS accomplishes that with all the merit I can give it. Understanding the story can be just as complicated as defeating the toughest foes, but it’s just as rewarding. Music and art design are both amazing and help to set the tone for a great adventure. I love this game and want to replay it many more times, and even if it’s not a game for everyone, it’s worth to at least try it out – the experience is certain to be memorable one way or another.