Dark Souls

When a game advertises itself as difficult and unforgiven, you don’t give it too much thought about it these days. Games today are not difficult, they don’t challenge you, they don’t make you cry like a little bitch after you die from an encounter you successfully done twenty times before. Will you better, because this game does, and it does it in the most excruciating and addictive way possible. Is like you know you shouldn’t be spending five hours in an area trying to kill one boss, or get through one obstacle, but you do it anyway. This is like drug addiction, but much worse, at least with drugs, the highs aren’t separated by 20 straight lows as your trying to figure out what the hell went wrong, and how to do it strategically right next time. (note: dont do drugs kids, it is bad for you).

The story is about…. Okay, so I haven’t exactly gotten very far along in the story  yet, like I said, hours and hours of failing, has convince me that I will be spending hours and hours more trying to completed this game. What I got so far is your an undead, not an zombie, an undead. Zombies are just mindless shells, going around trying to eat anything they can. Undead, are normal dead people who can still talk and function, but are just dead-ish. Your trying to reclaim your soul and humanity in this unforgiving land. Now in order to do this, you kill other undead, dragons, and yes, zombies, to claim their souls, and level yourself up. Believe me, you will be killing plenty, grinding out souls and leveling up is a major part of this game. Hours and days will be consumed, just to reach the next level, and increase your stats by a smidge.

The environment is open ended, you can travel from top to bottom, from the highest peaks of an castle, to the lowest reaches of a catacomb. As long as your strong enough level wise to kill the enemies that pop-up. If you can not, it suggests that you need to go back and level up some more. Which brings me to how lost and confuse you will be getting, trying to figure out where your suppose to go. The only way to actually know is…, will you wont know, if you can kill the enemies easily, then your going the right way. Making the game so open-ended, with no direction does two things. One, it makes the world feel huge, I swear with all the hours I played so far, it does not even feel like I scratch the surface. Two, you wont know your screwed till your screwed. You will be constantly asking yourself, can I defeat this guy or get through this area, should I go back and save. Its a trial and error game play mechanic, either you will love or hate.

Game play is basically a third-person combat mechanic, you can choose from an array of weapons and items. Your character can use a shield on one hand and a sword on the other, or go two-handed combat. You can even dual-wield weapons. Bonfires can be found throughout the game, they can be used to heal, level-up, and a whole bunch of other things. Bonfire also will reset all minor enemies once you use one, that way you can farm more souls to level up. You will also find merchants and blacksmiths, to buy items and upgrade your armor and weapons. There is also an online element to this game, I have not try it out yet, but it seems like you can get people to team up with you to progress further in the game.

You will be fighting at most 4 enemies at a time, which is a good thing. Enemies in this game, including the regular one, are not push overs. The A.I. will male you weep if you are not careful. Enemies can counter and block your attacks, and the game likes to combine close combat mobs with range mobs. If your enemy as a shield, be ready for a long battle. The bosses in this game are brutal. Everyone of them seems like their 3 times your size, and can most likely destroy you in 3 – 4 hits. Like I said trial and error, you wont defeat any new bosses on your first try. It all comes down to learning their attack, and developing your own tactics to counter it.

Controls are a bit mixed, moving your character is pretty straight forward and easy to do. The fighting though can be a pain in the butt, the first action you take is almost instantaneous, however, there is a delay on any additional actions you take. So you do have to be careful at which buttons you hit, or it will ruin your entire tactic. The camera and lock-on system can and will kill you sometimes, especially when you on a narrow ledge, and the camera decides to spasm out as your trying to back up, and lock-on to an enemy simultaneously.

Dark Souls is not for anyone, I don’t even know if I can finish this game. there is something to be said for making a games this difficult in a generation where games are created with very little challenge to them. It will turn a bunch of people off for its non-linear story progression, and difficult boss encounters. If you like a real long and challenging game, where you have to develop tactics and think about everything you do, then Dark souls is a game for you.