You should know something ahead of time: Dark Souls is an emotional terrorist, and it does not want to be your friend. At level 60, entry-level enemies from 30 hours earlier stabbed us to death. While we were deep into a trap-laden, treasure-filled fortress, a loot chest sprouted feet and ate us whole. This game may look like your usual sword-and-sorcery action-RPG, but the amount of patience required to deal with its atypical approach to dungeon running won’t be for everyone.
We adored the abuse, though. Dark Souls’ combat system is more complicated than hacking your way to the next loot pile, and even against impossible odds, battles are always compelling. Precision — not power — dictates survival. Each fight with lizard-men and scary-ass armored knights demands you lure guys away from groups and expose their distinct weaknesses. When one undead archer can eviscerate you, strategy and concentration become your strongest defense against anguish (alongside your shield — blocking is crucial).
Other players can make your life miserable, too. Various items allow anyone else playing Dark Souls online to temporarily invade your world, purely for the sake of venting their rage on you. Stumbling onto a summon sign has the opposite effect: you can briefly call on co-op buddies to help you in a boss fight.
Even with a little help, Dark Souls is an exhausting, unforgiving experience. It’s always fair, though, even when it punishes you for playing poorly. Death strips you of your souls — the universal currency for purchasing weapons and leveling up — but respawning gives you a chance to recover the lost earnings. Die on the way back, however, and those souls are gone forever. Once, we misguidedly brought a huge amount of XP into a fight against a giant wolf boss. The pooch, wielding a massive sword in his teeth, slaughtered us…17 times in a row. Hours of earlier effort vanished permanently because of our lack of skill. At the same time, we finished off the killer canine only through learning from our failure and getting better at rolling away, then charging forward.
The game rarely tells you where to go next, so you explore. It doesn’t hold your hand, so you muddle through. Few games have the intestinal fortitude to defy genre conventions and player expectations at the expense of enjoyment, but that’s what hooked us. We obsessed over exploring every hidden area, slept less to slay dragons, and probably sustained a bit of psychological damage in the process. But it was worth it.
+ Challenging and satisfying in unfamiliar ways.
+ Smart combat; loads to see and do.
– Excruciating difficulty isn’t for everyone.
? How many awesome optional areas did we skip accidentally?
