Dark Souls Review

[V TheSystem V]

Though I'm 60 hours in and still haven't got past the Bell Gargoyles yet - I still find myself glued to and loving every minute of the game. I'm totally going to blow my X-box up through overplaying this.

60 hours and you've not even beaten the Bell Gargoyles? How much grinding are you DOING?!

 

[HappyNoodleBot]

Excellent pauses at the start of this "Hi. I'm Justin Clouse and this is our review of Dark Souls... Crap..."

For a moment I thought this was going to be more brutal than Yahtzee

 

[Liquid Paradox]

I rage quit Dark Souls. Yeah, it's hard. Like, really freaking hard, but that's mostly because it has a somewhat unique control scheme, and once you start to pic that up, it's not as bad. But that's not why I quit.

I was about an hour into the game, and had finally found the path not filled with guys I can't beat yet. I made my way to the second bonfire (after the tutorial, I mean), kicked and clawed my way to the second boss, this Taurus demon guy, and died, losing over 4 thousand souls. Then I die trying to get back there a bunch of times. Finally I Do manage to get back to the boss, and I die, because bosses in this game are insane. Third time was not the charm. Finally, on my fourth attempt, I just run past the boss a bunch of times, climb a ladder (a harrowing experience, by the way), and do this special attack where I leap off a cliff and land on his head, doing massive damage. I escape him again, make it back up the ladder, try to heal. Oh, look, he can jump up there. I die. Getting close to rage. Die a bunch of times on my way back, as per usual. Finally get back to boss, and ACTUALLY DEFEAT HIM! Fuck yeah!

Take about five steps and a dragon comes out of nowhere and kills me. Lose all the souls I gained for killing the boss. Turn off system. Fuck this game.

 

[thiosk]

I'm sad its not for PC. Its the second time i've been sad i don't have a console. Well not really SAD, I was only mildly sad about red dead, but I am sad about dark souls.

 

[BreakdownBoy]

Oh joy, console only RPG, what a load of shit.

 

[Gunner 51]

Though I'm 60 hours in and still haven't got past the Bell Gargoyles yet - I still find myself glued to and loving every minute of the game. I'm totally going to blow my X-box up through overplaying this.

60 hours and you've not even beaten the Bell Gargoyles? How much grinding are you DOING?!

I thought you may be glad to know that as of yesterday - I have beaten the Gargoyles. The Drake Sword really makes a world of difference, I'm just ashamed that I didn't think of it sooner.

I've even managed to beat the knight dude with the alpine horn type club. (I was sweating buckets trying desperately trying not to get hit by him.)

Though my grinding could be better because I always stick to the same patch of relatively easy to kill mooks rather than wandering through the land going from bonfire to bonfire. But now that I'm in Darkroot Gardens, I can get more XP by killing those lumpy looking ice things.

 

[ExtraDebit]

How's the game if one is completely deprived of online contents?

I lived in a country that have extremely laggy net which makes it impossible to play online or enjoy any online contents in games. I heard that online is a very big part in dark soul.

so........if one was to play dark soul completely in single player, how is the experience different from one with online contents?

 

[Turbo_ski]

I find it interesting someone has completed this game in an hour and half when it took me 64 hours on my first play-through.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/16/dark-souls-speed-run-is-a-tour-de-force-of-tolerance/

About to complete my 2nd play-through which is totally offline, just have to parry-kill the last boss. Won't be doing New Game+, tried it a little and feels too much of a scale up compared to the New Game+ in Demon's Souls. Also Master Key is way way way overpowered.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I hope archery is fixed its ass in Demons souls....

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

DP, delete this plz.

 

[TheDooD]

I hope archery is fixed its ass in Demons souls....

Its pretty legit now since headshots from bows staggers some enemies long enough to plant another arrow in their brain. Also crossbows are much faster for controlling space with slow armored enemies or taking out a weaker group from far away. Then there's the Dragon Killing bow which is crazy powerful if you build around it since the only arrows you can use with it are basically spears. Combining it with the Hawk Ring and you can shut down almost any enemy from range. If you can see it before it aggros you and land that headshot it's as good as dead.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I hope archery is fixed its ass in Demons souls....

Its pretty legit now since headshots from bows staggers some enemies long enough to plant another arrow in their brain. Also crossbows are much faster for controlling space with slow armored enemies or taking out a weaker group from far away. Then there's the Dragon Killing bow which is crazy powerful if you build around it since the only arrows you can use with it are basically spears. Combining it with the Hawk Ring and you can shut down almost any enemy from range. If you can see it before it aggros you and land that headshot it's as good as dead.

Are crossbows aimable now? Or are they auto target only weapons?

 

[TheDooD]

I hope archery is fixed its ass in Demons souls....

Its pretty legit now since headshots from bows staggers some enemies long enough to plant another arrow in their brain. Also crossbows are much faster for controlling space with slow armored enemies or taking out a weaker group from far away. Then there's the Dragon Killing bow which is crazy powerful if you build around it since the only arrows you can use with it are basically spears. Combining it with the Hawk Ring and you can shut down almost any enemy from range. If you can see it before it aggros you and land that headshot it's as good as dead.

Are crossbows aimable now? Or are they auto target only weapons?

Still auto target because they reload so fast compared to arrows I guess it's balanced in a way.

 

[Skeleon]

Eh, if this (or Demon's Souls) were on the PC, I'd definitely give it a try. I tend to try to play all games on the highest difficulty, even if it means continuous deaths (such as the Stalker games) and just keep trying and reloading and fighting for that adrenaline rush and personal gratification that comes with beating a sheer impossible situation after all. If I may say so myself, I think I'd be the perfect kind of person that this game would target as its audience. Unfortunately, I don't own those consoles and won't buy them, either. Since there apparently is no PC port and none planned, either, I'll have to pass this up. Too bad.

 

[Wolfram23]

Having never tried any Nintendo Hard games since the early 90's - I thought Dark Souls was a refreshing change of pace from today's games. But what struck me about the game was that most games when they prove too hard, it'll have me reaching for something easier.

Even if you die a lot, and believe you me - you WILL - it very rarely feels cheap. (With the exception of that arsehole knight in the bottom of the Undead Berg tower with the Alpine Horn. (You'll know him if you see him.)

Though I'm 60 hours in and still haven't got past the Bell Gargoyles yet - I still find myself glued to and loving every minute of the game. I'm totally going to blow my X-box up through overplaying this.

Hey man, if you talked to that Sun Knight guy right after the Tauros Demon (and before the Red Dragon), then what you should do is resurrect to Human form before going to the Bell Gargoyles. Then you can summon the NPC! Made the fight so much easier.

But yeah that stupid Havel ("alpine horn") is a pain. I had to remove half my gear so I could roll fast, and then it was a dodge and backstab game. Still died a bunch, though

 

[Mr Companion]

Oh joy, console only RPG, what a load of shit.

Wow I thought I was a little too pc elitist but I didn't know there were some people that don't even give anything they are unfamiliar with a try!
Funny really because Dark Souls is infinitely better than any pc rpg I have yet to experience but thats just me being accepting of alternative platforms again silly me have fun with hotkeys!

 

[BreakdownBoy]

Oh joy, console only RPG, what a load of shit.

Wow I thought I was a little too pc elitist but I didn't know there were some people that don't even give anything they are unfamiliar with a try!
Funny really because Dark Souls is infinitely better than any pc rpg I have yet to experience but thats just me being accepting of alternative platforms again silly me have fun with hotkeys!

Maybe my statement was obscure, what I was trying to say is this. Developers who develop cool games like and not limited to Uncharted, Gears of War and Red Dead Redemption piss me off because they ignore a big portion of the market. I am not a pc super race kind of person, I do believe consoles have their benefits but that doesn't make console exclusive games any cooler, so chill the hell out, and yes I do enjoy hot keys as they allow me to play real RPG's the way they were inteded and not hack slash God of War wannabes.

 

[Gunner 51]

Hey man, if you talked to that Sun Knight guy right after the Tauros Demon (and before the Red Dragon), then what you should do is resurrect to Human form before going to the Bell Gargoyles. Then you can summon the NPC! Made the fight so much easier.

But yeah that stupid Havel ("alpine horn") is a pain. I had to remove half my gear so I could roll fast, and then it was a dodge and backstab game. Still died a bunch, though

I didn't have any humanity at the time, I ended up grinding to the point where I could use a Drake Sword on the gargoyles with one hand and without being encumbered by it. Then I focused everything on the first gargoyle and didn't stop beating on it for one second.

After that, the second gargoyle was a piece of cake.

Now I have ground my way to get the Crest of Artorias, grinding just became a whole lot easier. Forest Dwellers in Darkroot Gardens behind the Artorias door carry at least 2000 xp per person.

 

[Zom-B]

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

Fair =/= easy.

Have you played the game? Literally everything does not have a counter. If you mean, you can move out of the way or block, then you may be right, but that hardly makes it any more fair than any other action role playing game. You can beat any enemy in the game, and you can avoid almost all monster based damage, but that's true for almost every other game I've ever played, and their reviews don't describe them as being super fair.

fair =/= beatable

I know this is kind of an old thread, but it's been posted a year end review thingy...

So I'm wondering if you've changed you opinion on the "fairness" of the game. Because I'd have to agree with you that everything does have a counter. Poison from enemies can be mitigated by different armour and rings and reduced by items gained form certain enemies. Same goes for bleeding damage. Also, different damage modifiers, i.e. fire, lightning, can be mitigated by various equips as well. Also, weapons can be upgraded to have the same bonuses to help defeat certain enemies.

It's all well balanced. Fair is subjective, but I think Dark Souls balances it nicely.

 

[Inkidu]

My problem with Dark Souls is that it's an archaic slog of exploded mechanics. I can't remember the last time I did a grind, and here's freaking Dark Souls reminding me what it's like to kill the same mooks (not just the same mooks in different places, the same exact mooks) over and over again. It seems like many of the "hardcore" equate challenge, and difficulty with rote memorization. I love the atmosphere and the realistic combat of the game, I wish the bosses and boss-likes didn't have cheap attacks or spams (and yeah some of them do). I know more about the first thirty minutes of Demon Souls than I do the whole game. I could literally do it in my sleep. That's freakin' boring to me. The only reason I keep playing is so that I hope to find some new area to explore, but then I'm quickly relegated to grinding souls and humanity if I want to get anywhere. Maybe multiplayer adds more, but I can't support Live and I have to rate it on the single-player experience alone.

It straddles the line between good and mediocre. This isn't just me whining about how it's too hard, remember, I mainly take gripes with old mechanics that waste my freaking time. Playing Dark Souls is the closest someone will ever get to experiencing Hell. No, I don't mean it's bad, I mean the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. I often found myself in purgatorial loops, and that's a lot more dispiriting than any death Dark Souls provided (except for some truly worthy rage quit cheap-ass bosses).