First Impressions:Dark Souls
Despite all the praise surrounding Dark Souls, I never got around to playing or even looking it up on Google until now. I don't know what made me want to all of a sudden, maybe it was everyone saying Re:Zero was the Dark Souls of anime, but here I am.
Before going into researching a little bit about Dark Souls, my thoughts on the game was that it was basically going to be Skyrim(though I learned Dark Souls came out a year early) but just a little darker. So was I right in my first thought? Somewhat. However, there was one thing I wasn't aware of, and that thing is the difficulty. Take Skyrim's highest difficulty level and put it on cocaine, that's how you get this game. After watching a walkthrough by a Youtuber named HunterStarcraft, I was quickly amazed at how anybody could get through just the first boss. In Skyrim, beating an enemy isn't at all difficult, you just swing your sword as much as you can; however, in Dark Souls, there's actual strategy involved. The lowest enemies in this game were by far more deadly than half of Skyrim's. While it maybe challenging, it does seem to be so much fun.
As for the story, I honestly don't know much, as I only watched the first twenty minutes of the game; however, from what I can tell it's about these undead humans and the protagonist is the chosen one(because rpg). Though going back to gameplay, one thing that I thought was cool was that there's multiplayer and co-op. Honestly, I have no idea what you do, but HunterStarcraft mentioned stealing stuff, and what's better than that? All I know is, I'd have loved some multiplayer in Skyrim(I guess ESO is that but I haven't bothered with buying it) and I'm getting it with Dark Souls.
Overall, going into Dark Souls I have very high expectations. While it maybe difficult, in gaming the higher the risk the greater the reward.
I really like the way you've compared it to the Elder Scrolls series. It has a similar aesthetic, but that's where the comparison ends. That is, however, how we typically begin to make sense of the unfamiliar; we put it through the lens of what we know. The difficulty you observe is in many way the very point of the Dark Souls series (along with other From Software titles - Demon's Souls and Bloodborne). It is always strategy-based and frustratingly fair. When you lose, it's because you have to learn how to play, not because the game spams you with untelegraphed attacks. Learning is really important to the game, actually, as the stories are almost always communicated vaguely through clues rather than explicit video or text.
ReplyDelete