Thoughts On: Dark Souls

*Boss Music Plays*

I have played a lot of video games in my life and with the exception of some console and PC exclusives (I mainly play on Xbox) I have touched almost every significant franchise in gaming. The legendary Dark Souls series, until a couple months ago, remained untouched for one reason or another. Besides being a third person action game involving rolling and parrying, the only thing I knew is what’s been preached upon nonstop since the game originally released in 2011: Dark Souls was hard as dicks. A difficulty so great that it became the point of comparison for video game difficulty going forward. Apparently, no matter how hard a game was, it was never as hard as Dark Souls. (Note: Technically I played Dark Souls: Remastered, a slightly updated version of the original Dark Souls)

I will go ahead and get this out of way. Yes, Dark Souls is hard. Dark Souls is very, very hard. I think I told my mom during my play through that “Dark Souls is like repeatedly getting punched in the penis”. It is both a combination of the gameplay and the game mechanics that create such a challenging and demanding experience. The gameplay is what your mind focuses on first when discussing difficulty. The player and enemies all move very slowly with a specific move set that never changes, meaning you can learn, through trial and error, how to tackle the situations the game forces you in. There is little to no room for error though. Across the board, enemies in Dark Souls inflict an assload damage. If you let your guard down for even a second, you will end up dying in that very second. Death is brutal, as you get sent back to the last bonfire you rested it at while also losing all your souls (which are used to level up your character, a must for progressing through the game). Every time you rest at an aforementioned bonfire, every enemy in the game respawns except for a select few, all be it in the exact same locations. Basically, the game play loop consists of finding your way through whatever hellscape lies ahead of you, dying over and over again until you learn how to successfully navigate an area to either the next bonfire or boss battle. The gameplay rewards intelligence and punishes carelessness.

The games mechanics also factor greatly into the overall difficulty of Dark Souls, mainly because, besides the basic controls, absolutely nothing about the game is explained to you. Mechanics such as leveling your character, improving your weapons/armor, NPC storylines and even Dark Souls specific systems like the human/hollow system or its multiplayer are not explained in the slightest. There is no map and little to no explanation of what you’re supposed to do or where you’re supposed to go. Hell, the game doesn’t even have a pause button. I have never played a game with such complicated systems and no explanation of how those systems work. Your options or either an incredibly slow and wasteful slog trying to figure out this shit or to simply look stuff up on the wiki. The only other game I’ve played where the wiki is this important is Terraria. I read pages and pages of stuff on the wiki just to understand how the game actually works and it isn’t until you’ve gained this knowledge that the difficulty of Dark Souls becomes manageable. The hardest part is certainly the very beginning of your first play through when you don’t know shit. Without the wiki, this easily would’ve been the hardest game I’ve ever played. Once that hump is overcome though, Dark Souls is still incredibly challenging, but I have experienced other games on the same level. Halo: CE and Halo 2 on legendary come to mind.

The obscurity of Dark Souls even creeps back into the gameplay. You know how other games may have an easter egg hidden behind an invisible wall or across a jump that is difficult to make? Dark Souls takes this concept and hides entire areas of the game. Upon completing my first play through, I missed The Painted World, Daughter of Chaos, Dark Sun Gwyndolin, multiple NPCs, and the entire Artorias of the Abyss DLC. Furthermore, the only reason I discovered The Great Hollow/Ash Lake, which is hidden behind not one but two invisible walls, is because I was looking something up on the wiki and discovered it indirectly. What madness is this!

So, yeah, Dark Souls is a brutally difficult third person action game. What I did not expect however, is that Dark Souls is also an incredibly in-depth and interesting RPG. I had no idea this game could be tackled in so many ways. You can be a super heavy tank, a fast, nimble, and stealthy rogue, a ranged archer, a mage of multiple magic schools, and everything in between. I went for a dexterity and stamina build with some capability in sorcery. There are so many items in this game such as pieces of armor, weapons, rings, and many, many items specific to the logic of Dark Souls. Looking at my inventory, I still don’t understand what half of the stuff I’m carrying actually does. There’s many factions in the game, all with their own unique items and goals. The environments are all so interesting, so varied in their aesthetic design even with graphics that feel very dated. It’s been a long time that I enjoyed exploration in a game this much and with that comes a true sense of adventure. I was intrigued by every cornered I rounded, every enemy I fought, every person I talked to, every item I picked up. I was not expecting Dark Souls to scratch that RPG adventure itch so well. This aspect of the game is my favorite and it makes the extreme challenge worth persevering through so you get to see what lies ahead. My desire to explore these environments without the aid of a narrative demonstrates just how impressive they are.

I will slightly retract that last statement. Dark Souls does have a story but, in typical fashion, it’s explained in such a barebones and convoluted way that it’s almost like the game doesn’t have a story. What does happen is interesting though and the obscurity behind it combined with the intrigue of the world keeps me from completely dismissing the story altogether. I think Dark Souls is meant to be taken metaphorically if you wish to get something from it. A metaphor that combines what information you do get with the gameplay itself, a metaphor about light, darkness, perseverance, empathy, and insanity. When it comes down to it though, the story can easily be ignored.

The crowned jewel of Dark Souls is its iconic boss battles. They’re visually stunning with varied, interesting movesets, all backed up with incredible music. No two bosses are alike, each with a distinctive personality and fighting style, but they’re all capable of kicking your ass one way or another. Some bosses are easier than others and I think which boss you struggle with will vary from person to person. The feeling of killing a boss that has bitch slapped you ten, twenty, thirty times is some of the best moments in gaming.

Dark Souls does have a multiplayer component. Players can join other players games, to either help or harm them. All the multiplayer is woven into the single player experience and there is no separation between the two, meaning you can’t just simply search for an online match and duel another player or something. I honestly wasn’t a huge fan of the system and mostly ignored it. I found the actual gameplay to not be much fun when matched with another player and the benefits/losses of invading other worlds is confusing. The element is there though and it appears like it can be pretty deep.

If one could compare video games to movies then Dark Souls would be a cult film with a specific but dedicated fanbase. While I’m too late and, still, too clueless to be apart of that, Dark Souls absolutely captivated me. It’s one the most iconic and memorable games I’ve ever played. Upon finishing my first play through, I immediately started New Game +, partly because I wanted to play through all the content I missed, but also because I wanted more, despite the significant length of the game. And now, after having beaten the game again, I’m going to buy Dark Souls II and then Dark Souls III and play them as soon as I can.