Dark Souls Review

[Slycne]

Dark Souls Review

If you?re willing to approach Dark Souls and learn its ins and outs, its one of the most rewarding and enjoyable titles out right now.

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[Mirrorknight]

It's been pretty fun. You have to play it smart. If you're one of the types to want to run in and kill guys, you're going to get your butt handed to you on a platter. You've got to learn how enemies move and react. A guy that wields a giant dragon fang and wearing rock armor is going to one-hit you if you try standing toe to toe, but if you get him to take a swing at you, you'll have a huge opening to back-stab the guy. Sure, it'll take ten or so to finish the job, but as long as you don't get cocky or sloppy, it's cake.

It's chess, not checkers.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

'Stream not found'

Don't know if that's just me or not...

Edit: Now that it's working.

I agree, I'm having so much fun playing this game, it's just rewarding on so many levels, and I'm just having a blast trying out each weapon. In Demon's Souls, there was no difference between a Bastard Sword and a Claymore. In Dark Souls, there are variations in attack patterns for nearly every weapon.

 

[Kopikatsu]

It's been pretty fun. You have to play it smart. If you're one of the types to want to run in and kill guys, you're going to get your butt handed to you on a platter.

Not really. About 1/3rd of the way through the game (Basically once Blighttown was completed...dear God, that place was awful), I could fling myself into a mass of enemies and beat them all to death with my bare hands. Which do 2 damage a hit.

Yes, I had nothing better to do with my time than take on three Spear Knights and two Undead Archers at the same time bare handed.

Anyway, moral of the story is, if you learn how to parry and get a shield with high stability (Or just use your bare forearm, which has REALLY FREAKIN' HIGH stability for some reason), you can brute force your way through the game.

Similarly, every boss but Gwyndolin and Seath can be defeated within 1-3 casts of Iron Flesh.

Until New Game+. Where you will die. Extremely often. Because every enemy has 300% stats and bosses have 500% stats.

And their stats increase until NG+++++++. Yes. Seven times.

 

[Burst6]

How do you do that move with the halbred where you spin around after blocking?

I think that's just the 1-handed strong attack for the halbred.

 

[Itsthefuzz]

I can't stop playing this game... which is weird because it shows so much hate for me.

 

[ZeroMachine]

Why does everyone always call these games fair? I played a game where ghosts come through the walls and hit you from every direction, dragon bosses and spear bosses one-shot you if they get the right hit, some monsters are untargetable, and poisonous wasps come at you in unlimited numbers. Sure, it's a fantastic game, but it's far from fair just because these things can be avoided, often with luck playing the biggest part of that avoidance.

If being beatable means that something is fair, then I'm not sure what constitutes an unfair game.

It's fair because literally everything in the game has a counter. You can combat EVERYTHING.

Fair =/= easy.

 

[K4RN4GE911]

You have to play it smart. It's chess, not checkers.

This. One million times over. I have yet to play it, but I've seen gameplay vids where they compare two different play styles, mainly going in head-on, or playing it tactfully. I'm guessing you can tell which one didn't pan out so well.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

As hard as this game is, I can't stop playing it. It's not the kind of hard where I will rage quit and not touch it for days, but it's the kind of hard where I will take a deep breath and try again. If I finally beat a boss, I feel like I actually accomplished something, and actually get excited...... and then die again.

I swear it's giggling at me when I die.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

As hard as this game is, I can't stop playing it. It's not the kind of hard where I will rage quit and not touch it for days, but it's the kind of hard where I will take a deep breath and try again. If I finally beat a boss, I feel like I actually accomplished something, and actually get excited...... and then die again.

I swear it's giggling at me when I die.

Yes, I can see the game clutching its sides as Smough tossed me into the air like a ragdoll for the upteenth time. But it still manages to be extremely addictive. It is sadistic like that.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

The review supplement isn't working.
Edit: It is working now.

 

[Evilsanta]

And here I am playing Demon's Souls like a sucker...

OT: Great review, I would s buy this if I only had some damn money. The masochist in me wants it!

 

[vivster]

i have only 3 questions to this game

1. how open world is this game? it often claims to be open world but all i see from gameplay footage is narrow castle corridors
is there an outside world? is there something to do there? and is there freedom to lay off the fighting and do something else like exploring or hunting or trading?

2. is there sun? again the only thing i've seen are dark corridors and more darkness outside
i really appreciate some light in my games

3. is online mode mandatory? i really like to avoid other people influencing my single player experience... in any way

 

[Zhukov]

I want to know what the checkpoint/save system is like.

That's what prevented me from buying Demon's Souls. I don't mind difficulty, but making me repeat obnoxiously large amounts of content because I died to a one-hit-kill enemy is bad design in my book, no matter how you try to pretty it up.

So, what's it like in Dark Souls?

 

[AlternatePFG]

i have only 3 questions to this game

1. how open world is this game? it often claims to be open world but all i see from gameplay footage is narrow castle corridors
is there an outside world? is there something to do there? and is there freedom to lay off the fighting and do something else like exploring or hunting or trading?

2. is there sun? again the only thing i've seen are dark corridors and more darkness outside
i really appreciate some light in my games

3. is online mode mandatory? i really like to avoid other people influencing my single player experience... in any way

1. It's about as open as Metroid or Castlevania. There's different paths to take, but it isn't a wide open overworld for you to explore like in Oblivion or something similar.

2. There is sun in the game, but there's a rather large variety of locations.

3. Online is not mandatory, you don't need to sign in and play online if you do not want to.

I want to know what the checkpoint/save system is like.

That's what prevented me from buying Demon's Souls. I don't mind difficulty, but making me repeat obnoxiously large amounts of content because I died to a one-hit-kill enemy is bad design in my book, no matter how you try to pretty it up.

So, what's it like in Dark Souls?

It's similar to Demon Souls, except the checkpoints are a bit more common. Also, usually for each checkpoint there's a shortcut you can open up once you get to the end of that section, that lets you skip most of it to get to the boss.

 

[Twilight_guy]

And All I can think is LRR running gag about dieing "and that was the eleventh time I died"
Might look into it just to see if I'm actually improving as a gamer or if I've gotten lucky for the past few years.