Dark Souls is one of the most brutally challenging, but fair games I have ever played. The Prepare to Die Edition adds new bosses, monsters, areas to explore, simplifies online play, and it throws in a couple of NPCs and more equipment. Methodical combat removes the reliance on high-level gear while impressing the importance of patience and caution. Celebrate the small victories — murdered monsters, conquered bosses, etc. — but do so briefly; don’t let a stray skeleton stab you during a happy dance. Being unable to blame the game for an unfair death makes boss kills even more enticing and the in-game accomplishments much more tangible. This masochistic masterpiece delivers each and every demoralizing death on a silver platter garnished with your own ineptitude. No mercy; play better or give up. Or maybe put the controller down and take a break.
As a fun mini-meta-game, players are invited to draw a map instead of using one already provided. The game is about exploration — there is no default map. Exploration becomes an activity, not a passive means to an end (of the level). Entire labyrinthine subsections that interweave via shortcuts or hidden hallways all have dangers lying in wait, sure, but think of what might be explored should you survive.
The environments are seamless: each zone organically flows into the next, whether it’s into the sewers, a forest, or even a diseased shanty town, suspended in a cave, accented by a harrowing fall into inky oblivion. Consequently, players must memorize, or at least recognize, different sections of the game to successfully navigate through Lordran. Few things suck more than not remembering where you died while holding tens of thousands of souls. When players die, they respawn at the last bonfire they rested at. These checkpoints restore health, refill magic and estus flask (healing potion) uses, and respawns all of the monsters. Healing items and spells are limited; consequently they are invaluable. Was it worth wasting three heals out of five on those first two skeleton knights? No. Play better — failure is your only other option.
High five Bro n’ Arrow!
After Dark Souls savagely murders you with the precision of a player-killing machine, you lose all of your collected souls (and humanity). But all is not lost! After you retrieve your bloodstain from where you died (or near where you died if cliff diving was involved), all souls and humanity are restored. But, as I mentioned, when you die, all the monsters respawn. This means dying two rooms away from a bonfire while fleeing a group of bulbous-eyed, gecko-freak frog-monsters huffing and puffing purple petrification clouds, isn’t as horrendous as accidentally giving them the slip by ducking into a lair with a fang-filled, open-chested bone-dragon that feasts on your despair. You have to find your body without dying. If you die again, it’s not a big deal: you just lose all of your in-game currency and the old bloodstain disappears because you’ve left a new one.
This sucked in so many different ways.
Combat is methodical, simple, and entirely dependent on the player’s capacity to learn patterns and recognize different types of attack. Calmly defending and punishing enemy missteps is the safest way to survive; swinging a giant sword down a narrow hallway blindly is not a good idea. Fighting seems simple enough, stamina depletes every time a sword is swung or a blow is blocked (walls will also stop attacks), which builds complexity and depth through the resource management of stamina (governed by the endurance stat). Attacking too rapidly leaves a player exhausted and defenseless, while blocking only slows the process. This game doesn’t condone hack n’ slash behaviors; one stray blow that sneaks past the player’s whirling blades might turn the player into a stunlocked meat piñata. Here’s a tip: when monsters prepare for a slower attack or are left defenseless after being blocked, run behind them and stab them in the back for massive damage; otherwise, time your parry correctly and you can deliver your own powerful blow. Depending on the type of armor and stats a player or monster possesses, some attacks won’t even phase them, while others might make them flinch and leave them wide open for another attack. The myriad monster attack types includes ice golems punching you with jagged crystalline fists and tree people that introduce face-eating as a fearsome attack.
When exploring this dead kingdom, remember that blacksmiths are shopkeepers, but not all shopkeepers are blacksmiths. Crafting materials are found on slain foes, in treasure chests, and on corpses. Weapons and armor can only receive a certain number of upgrades, but after the threshold is hit, certain blacksmiths may imbue a weapon with new upgrades such as a lightning sword or occult mace. The customizable weapons and armor compliment the level progression. Items are deliciously nebulous; descriptions deliver only a small morsel of information and merely hint towards their applications, like using a Transient Curse to be able to fight ghosts.
Well, at least we both missed.
Through Lordran, players see phantom players flick in and out of existence, sometimes resting, other times fleeing from an invisible horror. Bloodstains mark the ground with small memorials to players and their deaths that, when activated, summons a translucent ghost to reenact the final moments of that wayward traveler. It’s simultaneously a voyeuristic, plainly public moment and an awkwardly private one. You never get to see whatever killed them; you only watch as they get face-canned for the last time. To join others in their fight against this unknown evil, you can place a summoning sigil on the ground, and then other players can summon you into their own world.
Playing with friends is even more difficult than playing through this game without dying. The game wasn’t designed to be a cooperative experience, though the advertising would mislead you. Note: don’t design your game around anonymous online play, but advertise easy multiplayer matchmaking. If the summoner dies, everyone is sent back into their own world.
However, one great and dark aspect of this soulless game is that players can invade each other’s worlds and slaughter one another. People playing cooperatively are no exception to a sneaky invader. Murdering other players does have rewards, so be on the lookout for backstabbing player killers (or prey).
The tense atmosphere cultivated by the nigh tangible fear of losing everything fully immerses the player; mechanics reinforce and solidify the ambiance of Dark Souls. Watching someone play the game is entertaining, especially when they die, but playing the game is an entirely different experience. The undead and array of monsters, phantom warriors flickering between other worlds, and a diverse cast of interesting shopkeepers and characters beg to be found. Equipment and items are worthless compared to the bliss of butchering the most terrifying giant creatures that don’t seem to be bothered by that toothpick you call a sword. Just remember that dying is an important step in the learning process.
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