Personally, I have only been through FromSoftware’s Bloodborne, but just started my first playthrough of Dark Souls: Remastered. I’ve had friend after friend tell me to sink into the painful joy of FromSoftware’s classic and so far its great, and painful, and taxing, and amazing. For those who have never played a Dark Souls game or its exclusive cousin Bloodborne then there is one way to describe them: It is like going into a haunted house while blindfolded and told there’s a murderer somewhere in the middle.
One of the few game developers who listened to players complaining about games holding their hands through the process and then flexed their knuckles and said “Just wait.” The game tells the player everything they need to know, if they know where to look. Passed the basic controls the player is on their own, all mechanics and goals are up to the player. From weapon upgrades to how weight of items affect the speed of the character is all up for the player to figure out for themselves, unless you’re like me and have a support group of friends to give advice on what to do and where to go.
Dying is a feature of the games, a mechanic even. FromSoftware using the difficulty of the game as promotional material having the PC release of the original Dark Souls called the “Prepare to Die edition”. Which in turn did nothing but challenge hardcore fans of the series to try to complete runs of the game without dying, or even getting hit, not levelling up or finding the quickest way to beat the game. Levelling up the character is the most in depth and intricate that is possible to find in the video game but on a first playthrough it will have you quoting Frodo Baggins and although it isn’t in Elvish it doesn’t make it any easier to understand.
Once the connection between weight, strength and weapons then the game can get into its true meaning, grinding. So much grinding, going through the same area over and over again to get enough XP to level up your character until you challenge the boss with the amount of confidence of hours of levelling up will give just to be crushed by a giant sword because you got caught in a corner without realising.
There is one sentence my housemate still mocks me for saying about Dark Souls, and it was that you don’t level up the character, you level up yourself. Probably one of the worst sentences I’ve ever said myself, but I know what I meant by it and simply put was that the game requires you to change how you play the game or at least learn how enemies attack. Coming from games that give out prompts for every fight, the ones who give the player the new weapon to tackle a harder enemy. To then be given the basics and pointed in the general direction of an enemy that will nine times out of ten kill you until you’ve memorised their attack patterns.
From a new fan to some possible new ones, take the time to find out that games can be difficult still, they’re not all button mashers that turn any situation into a simulation of some toned bad-ass who can fend off as many enemies that can be thrown at them.
The Nerdy Bartender 