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"[GAME] Dark Souls"

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Mon 09/04/12 at 16:51
Regular
Posts: 261
“Prepare to die” are the words that are displayed in large capital letters on the back of the box. I have to say I was prepared to die without even knowing it and was surprised how quick it was before I bit the dust. The very first encounter caught me by surprise as a giant demon dropped from above, triggering epic tense music, and he made pretty short work of me. On my next attempt I read a note near the Demon’s legs which told me to run. Thanks… would have been nice if you could have left that near the door of the room. Alternatively, I should have had an initial instinct to flee rather than take it on. It seems there is a fine line between courage and idiocy. After finding a gap to exit, I lit a bonfire there. From there I slowly made my way through a few skeleton warriors and then baiting another few to not get surrounded and then taking them out with blocking and countering. I traversed the white light to find myself back in the boss room where I ended up dying again. I re-spawned at the bonfire I lit earlier and went through the same skeletons to the boss again…… and again…… and again. This experience is what you will have at some point in Dark Souls and if you don’t learn from your mistakes then the loop never ends. When I finally managed to beat the first boss, I had an overwhelming sense of relief and joy and that experience is what Dark Souls is worth playing for.

Dark Souls is an Action RPG made by From Software and is the sequel to Demon’s Souls, which was known for its considerable difficulty. Dark Souls retains the difficulty from its predecessor and also keeps the online component of the game, which allows you to enter other peoples’ games to help or hinder them. If you don’t wish to take on other players while you try to survive against the enemies you already have to deal with then you can play offline. When offline you won’t be able to get assistance from other players and you won’t be able see messages that other players drop for you, but you will be able to call on NPCs instead which is a way to compensate for it.

In Dark Souls you are an undead, yet to become “Hollow”. You are locked up in an Asylum and that is said to be your fate. Then another undead helps you break from your cell and you go on to escape from the Asylum and learn about a prophecy about someone who breaks from the Asylum to ring the two Bells of Awakening. The prophecy ends there, so you don’t know what the outcome of ringing both bells will be. The story in Dark Souls is pretty minimalistic and instead has a game driven by atmosphere and exploration rather than heavy narrative.

When you start the game, you will name your character, modify your appearance, pick your class and a starting item. The classes will determine your play style: Knights have heavy armour but have low mobility and speed, Thieves have light armour but are more agile, Mages attack with spells from range but aren’t strong at close combat etc. Your class will affect your starting attributes and items but you can put attribute points into attributes that aren’t related to your starting class to mix things up, like having a Knight that has a basic healing spell. One class called “Deprived” is a class that starts you off with no armour and a club, but you start at a higher level. You have a selection of starting items to choose from but the game won’t tell you what some of the items do. Even in the item description it is stated that the “item has no known use” and ultimately you may put yourself at a disadvantage by picking a less useful item. A Thief gets a master key starting item and an additional starting item.

Once you escape from the Asylum, you will end up at a bonfire where you can spend the souls that you have earned from beating the first area on attributes such as health, stamina, strength and dexterity. Bonfires are your resting areas in the game and when you do rest, you restore your health to full and fill up “Estus Flasks” which are HP potions, but it also re-spawns all the enemies that you have killed apart from bosses and semi-bosses. If you are stuck on a boss, you can fight your way through weaker enemies up to the boss and then return to the bonfire to reset and do it over and over again. The difficulty of the game makes you feel like you should try to gain every advantage that you can and you would think that grinding would be pretty dull, but that’s not the case. The combat in Dark Souls is very engaging as even the weakest of enemies can send you to the “You Died” screen if you mistimed a parry, block or attack. Enemies are usually in groups, so you have to lure them out one by one using arrows or other projectiles so that you don’t aggro groups all at once. The game makes combat more engaging with the use of stamina, which depletes when you swing a weapon, block an attack, dodge or sprint. This means that you have to make sure you don’t attack too many times and leave yourself open to a counter, as you don’t have enough stamina to block or roll away.

The AI can be a bit spotty as you can hit some enemies with projectiles without retaliation or you can run away until they drop aggro and they move back to their spawn point allowing you to take endless shots at them. There are a few exploits in the game that are near bonfires allowing you to constantly reset and repeat them over and over for souls. The question is whether you care about exploitation in a difficult game to care, but equipment is more game changing than your level so it won’t help you that much. If you are aware of this at the beginning you can rush through difficult areas and dodge all enemies to obtain items that you aren’t expected to have until later on in the game, as you don’t lose items on death.

The Bosses in this game are interesting and intimidating and you will find yourself going up against a giant wolf swinging a massive sword in its mouth, Gargoyles on top of a church and a giant glowing butterfly that shoots lasers. Most of them are beaten through pattern recognition, looking for tells when they are going to unleash powerful attacks to avoid or when they leave themselves vulnerable. There are bosses that can be beaten with cheap tactics and some can die instantly if you can knock them off a ledge.

A new feature of Dark Souls is the use of Humanity which is a rare drop from enemies. This resource can be used at a bonfire to turn you into a human, which gives you better stats, an increased drop rate and the ability to summon NPCs or other online players to help. When you die you drop all humanity and souls at the location where you died and you end up at the last bonfire you saved at. This means that all the enemies you killed have re-spawned and you have to make your way back to the location to pick it up again. If you die, it is gone which leaves you in a weaker state and you will have to grind for another random humanity drop if you wish to have help from others. This is what makes your attempt at survival so tense as it is more than just a loss of time. You can also use humanity to “Kindle” a bonfire so that when you rest at one, you will hold more Estus flasks so that you can heal up more before having to return for health. Note that the animation for drinking from a flask is long and it isn’t ideal to use them in mid combat unless you move a fair distance away.

Dark Souls can be very cruel as there are instant death traps placed in a game where death is already punishing enough. There are enemies in the game that can “curse” you, which causes you to lose half your health permanently until you buy an Item from certain NPCs. The effect also stacks so you can end up with a quarter or an eighth of your maximum health ultimately meaning that everything will kill you in one hit. The thing I don’t like about Dark Souls is that everything you do is permanent and if you hit an NPC then it may no longer talk to you or turn aggressive. This means that you could hit the only merchant in the game that sells a specific item or hit a blacksmith so that you can no longer upgrade your weaponry.

I also think the game is quite esoteric in certain ways, such as elemental weaknesses of enemies where I just don’t understand the logic. For example Gargoyles are weak to lightning…. What the hell? These developers are Japanese; did they ever play Pokemon?! Also, items are dropped by destroying tails of enemies and you can miss out on a powerful sword if you don’t figure it out early in the game. There is also an NPC that you rescue early on and if you don’t kill him afterwards, he will kill another important NPC and you will have to fight him with two phantoms guarding him later on in the game and you don’t even get anything that is worthwhile for the extra effort.

That said, for those who have patience and determination to run through the same gauntlet of enemies to have another swing at a boss in the hope that you learn something new and overcome it, this is a very good game. I was put off trying Demon’s Souls by the talk of the game’s difficulty but I’m glad I gave the sequel a chance.

8.5/10
There have been no replies to this thread yet.
Mon 09/04/12 at 16:51
Regular
Posts: 261
“Prepare to die” are the words that are displayed in large capital letters on the back of the box. I have to say I was prepared to die without even knowing it and was surprised how quick it was before I bit the dust. The very first encounter caught me by surprise as a giant demon dropped from above, triggering epic tense music, and he made pretty short work of me. On my next attempt I read a note near the Demon’s legs which told me to run. Thanks… would have been nice if you could have left that near the door of the room. Alternatively, I should have had an initial instinct to flee rather than take it on. It seems there is a fine line between courage and idiocy. After finding a gap to exit, I lit a bonfire there. From there I slowly made my way through a few skeleton warriors and then baiting another few to not get surrounded and then taking them out with blocking and countering. I traversed the white light to find myself back in the boss room where I ended up dying again. I re-spawned at the bonfire I lit earlier and went through the same skeletons to the boss again…… and again…… and again. This experience is what you will have at some point in Dark Souls and if you don’t learn from your mistakes then the loop never ends. When I finally managed to beat the first boss, I had an overwhelming sense of relief and joy and that experience is what Dark Souls is worth playing for.

Dark Souls is an Action RPG made by From Software and is the sequel to Demon’s Souls, which was known for its considerable difficulty. Dark Souls retains the difficulty from its predecessor and also keeps the online component of the game, which allows you to enter other peoples’ games to help or hinder them. If you don’t wish to take on other players while you try to survive against the enemies you already have to deal with then you can play offline. When offline you won’t be able to get assistance from other players and you won’t be able see messages that other players drop for you, but you will be able to call on NPCs instead which is a way to compensate for it.

In Dark Souls you are an undead, yet to become “Hollow”. You are locked up in an Asylum and that is said to be your fate. Then another undead helps you break from your cell and you go on to escape from the Asylum and learn about a prophecy about someone who breaks from the Asylum to ring the two Bells of Awakening. The prophecy ends there, so you don’t know what the outcome of ringing both bells will be. The story in Dark Souls is pretty minimalistic and instead has a game driven by atmosphere and exploration rather than heavy narrative.

When you start the game, you will name your character, modify your appearance, pick your class and a starting item. The classes will determine your play style: Knights have heavy armour but have low mobility and speed, Thieves have light armour but are more agile, Mages attack with spells from range but aren’t strong at close combat etc. Your class will affect your starting attributes and items but you can put attribute points into attributes that aren’t related to your starting class to mix things up, like having a Knight that has a basic healing spell. One class called “Deprived” is a class that starts you off with no armour and a club, but you start at a higher level. You have a selection of starting items to choose from but the game won’t tell you what some of the items do. Even in the item description it is stated that the “item has no known use” and ultimately you may put yourself at a disadvantage by picking a less useful item. A Thief gets a master key starting item and an additional starting item.

Once you escape from the Asylum, you will end up at a bonfire where you can spend the souls that you have earned from beating the first area on attributes such as health, stamina, strength and dexterity. Bonfires are your resting areas in the game and when you do rest, you restore your health to full and fill up “Estus Flasks” which are HP potions, but it also re-spawns all the enemies that you have killed apart from bosses and semi-bosses. If you are stuck on a boss, you can fight your way through weaker enemies up to the boss and then return to the bonfire to reset and do it over and over again. The difficulty of the game makes you feel like you should try to gain every advantage that you can and you would think that grinding would be pretty dull, but that’s not the case. The combat in Dark Souls is very engaging as even the weakest of enemies can send you to the “You Died” screen if you mistimed a parry, block or attack. Enemies are usually in groups, so you have to lure them out one by one using arrows or other projectiles so that you don’t aggro groups all at once. The game makes combat more engaging with the use of stamina, which depletes when you swing a weapon, block an attack, dodge or sprint. This means that you have to make sure you don’t attack too many times and leave yourself open to a counter, as you don’t have enough stamina to block or roll away.

The AI can be a bit spotty as you can hit some enemies with projectiles without retaliation or you can run away until they drop aggro and they move back to their spawn point allowing you to take endless shots at them. There are a few exploits in the game that are near bonfires allowing you to constantly reset and repeat them over and over for souls. The question is whether you care about exploitation in a difficult game to care, but equipment is more game changing than your level so it won’t help you that much. If you are aware of this at the beginning you can rush through difficult areas and dodge all enemies to obtain items that you aren’t expected to have until later on in the game, as you don’t lose items on death.

The Bosses in this game are interesting and intimidating and you will find yourself going up against a giant wolf swinging a massive sword in its mouth, Gargoyles on top of a church and a giant glowing butterfly that shoots lasers. Most of them are beaten through pattern recognition, looking for tells when they are going to unleash powerful attacks to avoid or when they leave themselves vulnerable. There are bosses that can be beaten with cheap tactics and some can die instantly if you can knock them off a ledge.

A new feature of Dark Souls is the use of Humanity which is a rare drop from enemies. This resource can be used at a bonfire to turn you into a human, which gives you better stats, an increased drop rate and the ability to summon NPCs or other online players to help. When you die you drop all humanity and souls at the location where you died and you end up at the last bonfire you saved at. This means that all the enemies you killed have re-spawned and you have to make your way back to the location to pick it up again. If you die, it is gone which leaves you in a weaker state and you will have to grind for another random humanity drop if you wish to have help from others. This is what makes your attempt at survival so tense as it is more than just a loss of time. You can also use humanity to “Kindle” a bonfire so that when you rest at one, you will hold more Estus flasks so that you can heal up more before having to return for health. Note that the animation for drinking from a flask is long and it isn’t ideal to use them in mid combat unless you move a fair distance away.

Dark Souls can be very cruel as there are instant death traps placed in a game where death is already punishing enough. There are enemies in the game that can “curse” you, which causes you to lose half your health permanently until you buy an Item from certain NPCs. The effect also stacks so you can end up with a quarter or an eighth of your maximum health ultimately meaning that everything will kill you in one hit. The thing I don’t like about Dark Souls is that everything you do is permanent and if you hit an NPC then it may no longer talk to you or turn aggressive. This means that you could hit the only merchant in the game that sells a specific item or hit a blacksmith so that you can no longer upgrade your weaponry.

I also think the game is quite esoteric in certain ways, such as elemental weaknesses of enemies where I just don’t understand the logic. For example Gargoyles are weak to lightning…. What the hell? These developers are Japanese; did they ever play Pokemon?! Also, items are dropped by destroying tails of enemies and you can miss out on a powerful sword if you don’t figure it out early in the game. There is also an NPC that you rescue early on and if you don’t kill him afterwards, he will kill another important NPC and you will have to fight him with two phantoms guarding him later on in the game and you don’t even get anything that is worthwhile for the extra effort.

That said, for those who have patience and determination to run through the same gauntlet of enemies to have another swing at a boss in the hope that you learn something new and overcome it, this is a very good game. I was put off trying Demon’s Souls by the talk of the game’s difficulty but I’m glad I gave the sequel a chance.

8.5/10

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