Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition Review (PC)

  Dark Souls has a reputation for being extremely difficult. Masochistic, even. If you go by the subtitle of the PC version, “Prepare to Die”, you could reasonably expect a painful, torturous time and wonder why anyone would subject themselves to hours of punishment. The dirty little secret of Dark Souls is it's a fair challenge that just about anyone can complete with some patience observational skills. It's systems are mysterious and obtuse for sure, but underneath the layers of fog and grime is a masterfully woven open world, amazing artistic craftsmanship, and rock solid gameplay that makes most modern games seem like lazy, uninspired cake walks. Dark Souls at a conceptual level is almost a meme at this point, and for good reason.

  Equal parts action game and role playing game, manual skill and pattern recognition can conceivably be all you need to make your way through your adventure. The world has certain rules it always adheres to; enemy placement is static, your attacks are measured and predictable, and because it takes place in an open world sequence breaking is not only possible, but all but unavoidable when you're presented with multiple paths to take with no guidance. People have beat this game without getting hit once, with Guitar Hero controllers, and not leveling up at all. For the rest of us, the heavy RPG elements are here to help. Like most RPGs, “difficulty” is really a matter of time investment. Your character will get stronger as the game progresses, eventually making boss monsters trivial standard enemies. How far you go down that progression tree will determine in pure numbers how many hits you can take and how much damage you can do, and comparatively how difficult the game will be. When you hit a wall (and you will), you can keep at it with pure will or go farming to ensure a statistical advantage. The option is yours, and Dark Souls is a game of options.

  There are many ways to approach the game. Do you set out as a mage, using magic projectiles and weapons and buffing yourself? An archer, keeping distance from your enemies and picking them off one by one? You can create a dexterous character, dual wielding fast blades that cause bleeding and having a fast, light roll speed that renders you invincible for long periods. Personally I'm partial to knight characters, wearing heavier armor and either using a shield for added protection or two handing giant strength weapons and running into battle like a dumb animal. The choices are almost endless, the open leveling system allowing you to spend points as you please and mix and match archetypes until you find what works for you. There really aren't any “wrong” ways to build your character, another hallmark of good RPG design. Oftentimes what stats you strive to increase will change as you discover gnarly weapons that have certain stat requirements, and there's a shitload to choose from. It's all about personal preference rather than min-maxing your way to boredom. Or you could do that too, if you're boring. Choices...

  Uncharacteristic of many role playing games, the story is nebulous. This is by design. Hidetaka Miyazaki, the director of Dark Souls, has said he drew inspiration from his experiences as a youth reading Western fantasy novels but only being able to understand bits and pieces of the narrative and having to fill in the blanks with his imagination. Using that as an artistic vision, the game fucking nails it. At a glance you could mistake it for standard Tolkien high fantasy, with fireballs and knights and dragons. But the morose nature that permeates everything, the feeling that things are always just off kilter like you're stuck in a David Lynch film, the Lovecraftian creatures wandering around, the moments where you're walking through a heavy metal album cover... Dark Souls is so much more. It's dark fantasy and horror and monster movie. You never quite know what is motivating you or what NPC's cryptic dialogue to trust. You keep pressing forward because you want to see what's around the corner, and that's motivation enough. Digging deep for lore is almost a metagame in itself, and trying to piece together logic through item descriptions and inference is a fun exercise that is ultimately a fool's errand. The history of the land and lords and how your character changes the game world is something that must be personally discovered, and when it makes sense to you have fun debating your findings with others that got something different out of the game that completely contradicts your theories. It's brilliant.

Lore aside, the physical world you explore is incredible. On my first playthrough it seemed imposingly, impossibly gigantic. And it is big no doubt, but it's honeycombed with shortcuts, secrets, and completely skippable areas that will be burned into your brain once everything clicks. Adventuring into a new area is harrowing; surprises both hostile and advantageous wait every few steps you take. Death can come in an instant, either through enemy attacks, traps, or the biggest threat of all: player stupidity or complacency. Inching your way through the levels, you're required to make mental notes of every small detail, because death can go from devastating setback to a minor inconvenience as long as you can make it back to where you died and recover your souls (XP/currency). Backtracking and repetition as a punishment shouldn't be a good thing, but when just about every death is your fault alone the system works perfectly. And the environments are so intricate that your second or tenth time through an area usually leads to some profound discovery. The game world is made for replayibility and exploration, and it's one of the most memorable you're likely to come across. The variety is bewildering; from pitch black catacombs, dark forests, blinding lava rivers leading to underground ruins, a snowy mountain village... If you don't like the environment you're in, step through the next fog gate.

  I really can't say enough good things about Dark Souls. It's one of the best games I've played in the past decade or so. There should be something for everyone here: exploration, action, role playing, PvP, co-op, giant monsters, giant broads with huge, heaving tits... It's just awesome.