Dark Souls Review

by Oscar Savastio

January 17th, 2016

PS3

 

Dark Souls is a game that was one of a kind when it first came out in 2011. Call of Duty 3: Modern Warfare 3 came out, along with Battlefield 3, Gears of War 3, Uncharted 3, you get the point. The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim also came out, keeping much of the gaming market busy with polished AAA titles. Graphics and production value were key, with game difficulty scaled by enemy A.I. health bonuses and large numbers. With Dark Souls, and From Software’s previous game: Demon Souls, game difficulty was a core focus, with graphics and production value taking a back seat. The story is intentionally vague, with blatant care taken to not spoon-feed the player with the lore or exposition. In fact, the opening cut scene that takes place after you first make your character is the only piece of storytelling you’ll get. The only scraps of a tutorial to learn the controls are represented by orange messages on the ground. With so many flaws at a shallow level, why do people rave about this game, throw it on their top ten lists and keep supporting the game developer?
It’s because the game makes you feel like a bad ass, and makes you earn every single accomplishment you make.

 

Story

You first start in a prison, locked up due to the fact that you’re an Undead: forever dying and returning to life. If you lose all of your souls, the games primary currency, you’ll go Hollow, which causes you to lose your mind and moan like a zombie off screen. Your only hope of reversing the curse you have is exploring the land of Lordran, and uncovering its dark secrets. Lastly, there are beings of power who possess strong souls, which hold the key to accomplishing your mission.

I love the story's premise, but I admit it took me some getting used to how the story is told in the game, which is through non-player character (NPC) dialogue and item descriptions. Every item holds some degree of value in making your own interpretations on character motivations, events that happened, and even if characters are lying. It becomes a case of putting together the puzzle pieces as you try to make sense of what you’re playing. The only obstacles to this is your willingness to comb the area, and your imagination for connecting the dots.
 

Presentation

"Punishing" is the word that I would use to describe exploring through Lordran. The world feels circular, with locations connecting to one another through shortcuts, paths, or small areas.  Bosses are huge and monstrous, giving you a sense of dread. The level design is fantastic: whether it be climbing on branches and looking at a different area in the distance, or busting out your binoculars to realize that there’s a shortcut that you may have missed, the immersion allows you to feel that the world is all connected and not linear.

While the game doesn’t have the best textures when it came out, the lighting more than makes up for it on the horizon. There are desolate landscapes, flooded cities, and bright roof tops where light bounces off and shines through, giving a feast for the eyes.

 

Gameplay

Unfortunately, there’s no real tutorial in the game to get you acquainted with the various stats and weapons. Weapons do different type of damage, whether it be piercing, striking, or slashing, as well as giving bonus damage based on certain stats. Parrying and the subsequent action of reposting is a fundamental mechanic of dealing with humanoid monsters and invading humans, but you have to learn it yourself without any help. It’s not my intention to say that learning by yourself is a bad thing, rather, learning vital mechanics of the game can get frustrating very easily. Once you do learn the different ways to approach, find a weapon you like, and dodge attacks, combat becomes fun. Weapons can stumble and knock down an enemy, allowing you to gain momentum and connect your hits. Hit boxes are precise, swinging a club doesn’t feel floaty, and inputs are responsive.

Dying isn’t the standard redo, where you go back to where you once were when you continued the fight. When you die, you leave a bloodstain and respawn at the last bonfire, with all the enemies in the area coming back to life as well. This bloodstain contains all of yours souls and humanity, a special type of currency, on your person. If you die before picking up your bloodstain, they are gone forever.

 

The game punishes you for rushing through the area you’re in, recommending you take it slow and steady. Monsters are punishing as well. Even when you are almost through the game, enemies can still do sizable amounts of damage. I tried rushing through Undead Burg with a train of hollows running to kill me, only to be killed when I got stuck on an enemy who had blocked the path. To handle monsters, and ultimately bosses, you have to learn the attack patterns and dodge the attack when it comes. As the game states, be prepared to die, go through the area, learn a bit more, and die again.

 

It’s frustrating, especially if you’re an impatient person and/or just not used to this style of play. And like any frustration, it feels good to kill that cheap-ass skeleton that was bunching up with other cheap ass skeletons and making your day sucky. It feels great killing that giant archer who would send me flying after a single arrow hit. And it makes you want to cheer when you beat a boss who was just about to die for the fourth time in a row, but you couldn’t get the last hit off. That feeling of accomplishment and exaltation is rare and gives you more than enough drive to keep pressing on.

 

Multiplayer

At the time of this review, Dark Soul’s multiplayer is very small and isolated. Dark Souls 2 has been out for a few years, with Dark Souls 3 to come out in 2016. You use items to summon or be summoned into other people’s worlds, and hoped the connection was good on the other person’s end. Players can summon others to help them through an area, or to duel. They can also invade people’s worlds and cause havoc. Lag is noticeable and commonplace, while summoning can take a few minutes or several to work. There’s an item in the game that allows you to write messages on the ground to communicate to players with certain words and phrases. Lying is accepted and gives you doubt on whether to trust another’s advice.

 

Conclusion

Dark Souls is not without its faults, but it is great nonetheless as a game that goes against the grain. A story that isn’t hamfisted down your throat allows people who don’t care about the story in a game to just play and not be annoyed half the time, while people who want to immerse themselves in the lore have the option of finding clues and making their own story out of the existing plot. While a steep learning curve and the lack of a tutorial hamper beginning gameplay, once you learn the moves, you are looking at a tight and responsive system with many different weapons and tools to beat monsters that are in your way. Beating a boss or an area gives great satisfaction, more than making up for the frustration it took to make it to that point. Finally, an alright multiplayer experience that’s dependent on lag allows jolly cooperation or complete destruction. I think everyone should give this game a shot, as it gives a unique experience that is hard to find in other mainstream titles.

 

Great/10
+ Responsive and complex combat
+ Accomplishment after every victory
+ Story makes you think
+ Lighting makes things pretty

-No tutorial
-Steep learning curve
-Multiplayer lag is the real deal
-Graphics could be better