Dark Souls Review

Let me begin this review with the honest statement that I did not care to finish Dark Souls. I didn’t play Demon’s Souls, it’s predecessor, so I had no idea what I was getting myself into and had heard that Dark Souls was one of the hardest games of the year. I’m good at most games, have a pretty decent amount of patience (I beat Catherine on Easy and Normal, so that has to mean something) and really wanted to see what Dark Souls was all about. Well I found out it’s all about frustration. I don’t understand how this game is rated so highly. I’m going to try to make this an unbiased review and not just some troll session, so please bear with me.

Dark Souls starts slow, with one cut scene trying to describe the story to you, because after that, there’s nothing. Just you wandering around reading bloody scripts on the ground as a half ass tutorial. The menus are confusing, with descriptions of objects that just tell about their lore and not how they benefit you. Oh, square means I drink this stuff for HP, thanks for not telling me that bloody scripts.

You begin with character customization where you choose your combatant, anything from a knight to a mage, the choice is yours. I chose the knight, powerful with a good deal of HP. The customization has a few faces to choose from and some body types, nothing too detailed. After that you’re thrown into the unforgiving world of Dark Souls.

The first thing you notice is that the graphics are unimpressive. Very circa 2000 Dreamcast style, I don’t normally let poor graphics bother me, I enjoyed the hell out of Deadly Premonition, so wandering around this jagged edged world wasn’t it’s downfall. The relentless combat style was what killed Dark Souls for me. Timing is everything and apparently I didn’t have it. Every monster strikes differently, faster or slower, once or with combination strikes.  Needless to say I died, a lot. I was determined to not let this bring me down and continued to trudge through the trenches. But in the end, Dark Souls had defeated me, defeated my will to continue to play.

I had read many other reviews and people’s opinions on Dark Souls and have come to this conclusion. People who claim that Dark Souls is their “Game of the Year” are A.) Liars, B.) Attempting a humble brag saying their really good at games, or C.) Being a gaming Hipster by liking what the gaming norm says isn’t worthy of being a GOTY. “I was playing Dark Souls before anyone liked it.” STFU hipster.

Dark Souls is challenging and unforgiving, the combat is responsive but lacks fluidity, menus are clunky and unhelpful, and character customization is lacking depth. I had a hard time wanting to play Dark Souls, a game that frustrated me to no end, when I could be playing titles that were fun and made me happy such as Saints Row: The Third and Star Wars: The Old Republic. A punch to the gut would be less painful.

I was going to finish Dark Souls…but I took an arrow to the knee.

Enjoy hours of unrewarding drab gameplay, Dark Souls scores a B-.