Dark Souls – Review

Title: Dark Souls
Developed By: FROM Software
Published By: Namco Bandai Partners
Based on: The original Demons Souls PS3 Game
Console: Playstation 3 (Worldwide), XBox360 (Outside of Japan)
Release Date: October 2011
Genre: Action RPG, “Series for the masosadist”
Audio: English
Subtitles: English
Region: This review was conducted on a Playstation 3 version of the game from the Australian region. This game is also available on the XBox360 and holds no gameplay changes, however may require Xbox Live Gold Membership to access online features.
Special Thanks: Namco Bandai Partners, for providing me with a review sample of this title.

Let’s go back even before the American and European releases of Demons Souls. Even before this had an official release outside of Japan and Asian regions there was a growing following for this game. In an era of gaming where some feel that games have become more about the fancy graphics, unlocking trophies/achievements and getting from A to B without little strife, this game rose with none of this – average graphics, getting from A to B was difficult with extremely challenging enemies that required careful and ever-changing strategy as well as trophies that while being straight forward to unlock – required much grinding to get that platinum.

I own a copy of the Asian English version, and in my review of the title gave the game a 96%. Since then both ATLUS and Namco Bandai released the game in North America and PAL Regions respectively, both reporting high sales and a growing fanbase evident that gamers are not only after design, but are also masosadists that want the game to brutally torture them – a service that the game provided well. From the bosses that could easily one hit kill you to the knight hiding behind the door out of view so whilst thinking you are safe, may be blindsighted, killed and sent back to the beginning of the level with a halved health bar.

Introducing Dark Souls! Retaining the same complex gameplay from Demons Souls, it incorporates improvements and modifications to make it appeal to both new and old fans alike. Before I get into the gameplay side of things, I would like to discuss the other elements of the game first. The game has an underlying storyline but is only touched upon to essentially have you progressing through the storyline. You are yourself, a custom personification which you produce at the start of the game using the built in tools that allow both basic and complex options. Unlike Demons Souls which had you switching between human and soul form, the game has you switching between human and undead (Hollowed).

This means that the moment you start up the game – your attempts at creating yourself as a character are ruined as you are left with an undead appearance reflective of someone trapped in an asylum for an extended period of time. After hearing about a legend about an undead ringing two bells which may save the world, you escape the asylum and begin your quest to traverse the world, fight against the enemies scattered around it and be able to rid yourself of your undead state for good. The element of fire is key to the storyline but is better explained in the prologue, which can be seen HERE. As I said before, the storyline is only underlying and it is quite possible to get to the end of the game without knowing the story in too much detail. However, the storyline is there for those who are interested in having one – personally, I died too much to care.

Dark Souls does not have award winning design in any aspect, to the point where I would say the game would be ruined if it had a very high design quality. The game is set in the old kingdom of Lordran which has been plagued by the undead and the few residents who have not fallen to a hollow state. Therefore, as with Bolataria in the original game the design style is more medieval in appearances meaning that you have castles made of grey bricks and mortar, dark and dank caverns and landscapes that have been affected by both time and dragon alike. To me it does a brilliant job at setting the intended tone and there are those moments, namely from high distances you can pause what you are doing, look out at the environment and be amazed and just how much time they spent getting that tone right but still wanting to show what they could do. As these environments are quite often after boss fights, it is quite a nice incentive to finish them. There are a number of weapon and armor choices in the game, and fortunately most sport their own unique appearances allowing some creative customization of your character – and retain the setting of the game.

Unfortunately, there were a couple of design quirks I could not necessarily look over. The game boasts approximately 100 enemy designs in total, and while the boss designs are very creative, the normal enemy designs are nothing overly special – with some designs being overused in some areas while others look too familiar to another and does not aid in differentiation of enemies (Of course, this could be perceived as a difficulty feature). What is unforgivable however are some moments in the game where the game reduces to moments of heavy lag – which not only may change the tide of battle out of your favor but in an example I experienced just before writing this review – climbing down a ladder with the lag made the experience tedious, especially having to fight sewer rats immediately after climbing down.

The winning aspect of the games sound is not the music but the sound effects. Everything from a slash of your sword against the wall to the dripping of water in a sewer to even a sound of a bell ringing all have a realistic sound to them which sets the mood very well. None of these sounds gave the impression of being forced, so if I were standing in the middle of a sewer of a post-apocalyptic medieval kingdom surrounded by giant rats – what I hear in the game is what I would expect to hear in that scenario. Music wise, the game boasts a sizable soundtrack with a couple of tracks for cinematics and the “world hub” if you could call it that and a majority of the tracks being for boss fights – with each boss having its own track. In comparison to Demons Souls, the music retains the same themes, but are of a higher quality and better suit the intense mood of the boss battles.

The most important element of this game is the gameplay obviously, and this could easily take the title of one of the hardest games ever released, even if it is more to reward taking your time and to punish an ‘act first, think later’ attitude. As I have implied above, you will be dying a lot, and I am not talking about once or twice per level but into the several dozens of times at some points. Death will come from many different sources including blades, magic, burning alive, arrows, falling off cliffs, ambushes and too many other ways to mention. The game encourages you to take a slow path and learn from your mistakes – so if you suddenly turn a corner and find an ambush of eight undead ready to dig out your entrails and succumb to them, the next time around you should be able to deduce a game plan to take them out.

With around 100 different enemies, many different environmental traps and a now wiser AI that on more then one occasion locked me into a position of no escape on a flight of stairs. This is where one of the games major changes comes into play… in the previous game you could stockpile on Grass – providing you with leafy nourishment that could heal your characters between 25 and 100 percent of your health, but this time you are provided with a small number of estus flasks every time you visit a campfire and are supposed to last you until you either complete a stage or reach another campfire – and they only heal a minuscule amount of health! Apparently the way they designed the game was to increase the attack of players, but reduce the defense greatly, which is evident when playing even the earlier levels.

To aid you in your quest initially, you are allowed to select from one of ten classes which allow you to start off with certain weapon/armor sets, spells and stats. The game includes many types of melee and ranged weapons, but also incorporate three spell types for added complexity to your class – pyromancy which is all about the fire, sorcery which is about soul magic and miracles which are all about the healing. Financially (In terms of souls – a sort of currency that is received after every monster defeat and lost when defeated), this is a costly path to choose but used right allows you to defeat bosses with greater ease. Unfortunately they dropped the MP bar, so each spell only has a limited number of recasts unless replenished at the fire. Along with many other benefits (Including new weapons and online features), to purchase new spells you will need to join one of nine covenants, factions of sorts where for example – the Way of White allows you to purchase miracles whilst joining the Princess’s Guard for example will grant you two spells exclusively for use while in the covenant.

The only thing I did like about Demons Souls was that the game didn’t just drop you off at a checkpoint if you died but instead dropped you off at the start of the level, and you could easily shift through the five areas and levels of each through the Nexus. This time around, they have adopted an open world strategy where you have to traverse the world to discover and travel to different regions. This alone caused me some confusion at the start. From the main hub there are three paths to take – one leads you to the Undead Burg (The first area you should visit), one leads you to a graveyard filled with skeletons and the other takes you to the Depths. The issue was, there was no direction as to where to go first and the game feels a bit linear at first – so if you are like me and tried going to the graveyard and depths first, you may be a bit hesitant about why all these monsters can one hit kill you whereas the path that is slightly more obscure takes you to a safe route. The open world system does work better in the later levels, especially where you can find side-levels which are great for soul collection – which in turn can be traded in to level up your character.

The game no longer requires you to be sent back to the hub every time you die, which given the open world system is a life-saver however still allows you to cut a considerable portion of a level out if you die in combat. This is undertaken through finding campfires, in which one or two are found in most areas of the game – upon visiting one it allows you to fully heal, replenish your flasks, creates a checkpoint for if you die, allows you to revive as a human provided you have humanity (A usable item) and replenish your magic spells among other things. I really am undecided on this as I do prefer the old system more, however there is a catch in using them – as upon using a campfire all enemies besides bosses and unique enemies will respawn. Carrying over from the original Demons Souls game, the weapon and armor system carries over allowing you to upgrade your weapons and armor using items found on the field – however provided you have the correct items, you can upgrade and repair them at the base – a nice inclusion considering that the Blacksmith is deep within the Undead Parish and not convenient if in another area entirely.

I have read quite a bit of praise about this games online features, much of it being the same as Demons Souls, but I would like to offer another perspective on it – not to state that they are bad by any way, but as a means of encouraging people to take part in the active online community. The first thing I noticed upon traversing the first few levels was the lack of red text – text that can be left on the ground to inform other games of what traps or enemies may lie ahead (Might sound like a built-in cheat system – but it isn’t). Instead of being able to leave messages straight away, you have to purchase an item from the Undead Burg then manually use the item to leave a message or recommend a message. Seriously folks, I encourage everyone to take the extra 10 seconds to leave a message and or recommend, as that is one way to get the community involved. Another limitation is the White Sign Soapstone, used to request a summon to another gamers world. It is a great system, but only a human can summon you and only an undead can leave a sign, which limits play at the start as humanity is hard to find to become a human. Do not get me wrong, I love the online systems from the ability to see people wandering around their own game universe to being able to see how a player died through bloodstains – but some of the systems do have limitations that may be impractical to use until later on in ones gameplay.

Overall, there are a couple of problems with camera angles, practically of some features early on in the game, slowdown and the fact that some new players may be scared off by dying for the twentieth time before they even reach the first main area, but what you have here is a game that should give you many an hour of gameplay that will test your skills as a gamer, as well as testing you mentally.

Provided that you enjoy games that make you think a bit outside of the box and has AI that is not going to go easy on you at any point – I think you should be more then happy with acquiring this title for your collection. While I still personally prefer Demons Souls, Dark Souls is not all that far behind and still could be one of the better games released this year – with many of the new inclusions being welcome additions and adding more side-quests and places to visit then before. It is safe to say that you will not find the Dark Souls experience anywhere else in todays current game market!

Final Score

Storyline/Character Development: C
It is hard to score this game more then a C for storyline. The storyline holds very little to the game, as it allows you to make up your own history for the character – however would have been nice if they hadn’t prepared an interesting concept and just left it as an underlying story.

Design: A-
As I stated before, there is nothing award winning in the design department, but the theme and designs go very well with the intended setting and storyline – and to top it all off they have included some areas of the game that have brilliant environment details from the dank sewers or dark castle corridors.

Music/Voice Acting: A-
The game has no voice acting. The sound effects are a clear winner here, giving a realistic feeling to the environment in almost every area of the game. Music is limited generally to boss battles and some cutscenes/areas, and are well suited to the theme of the game and retain the charm from Demons Souls.

Gameplay: A-
While there are a few bugs and additions that may have needed more tweaking, the gameplay is as it is implied – challenging and it is refreshing to see a game torture the player from A to B instead of taking their hand and slowly guiding them into the systems.

Replayability: A
With many hidden areas, convents, play styles, side quests and other unlockables, you have dozens of hours of content in this game and should keep you entertained as long as you wish. Unfortunately however, with the removal of the world and character tendancy systems, it does lose an added variable for challenge.

Personal Opinion: A
Whilst perhaps not maintaining the same charms towards me as Demons Souls did, it was still a very rewardable gaming experience that I think any gamer who likes something a bit harder from the norm should own.

Overall Score: A-