Dark Souls

When painting a masterpiece an artist cannot include any arbitrary details no matter how minute, and in Dark Souls every details, no matter how big or small, are all made to further draw the narrative; there is no dead corpse for the sake of having a dead corpse. So, the narrative is there but highly enigmatic.

The world of Dark Souls is gigantic, and all throughout connected with outstanding level design. So, unlike Demon’s Souls there is no hub area to return to, now you have bonfires that are located all throughout the world where you can replenish your health and magic.

Navigating your way through the game is a visual spectacle in itself; the areas are terrifically varied, every new area you enter shows character both visually and mechanically; the colors, atmosphere, enemies and sound, all play a different tune. Moving from an area to another is also seamless, not just in technicality without loading, but also thematically; the art will change gradually as the theme of the new location and its colors bleed bit by bit.

The developers also use traveling from area to another brilliantly to give the player a change in pace; you’ll travel through a stressful location going deeper and deeper, facing tough-as-nails enemies, the place itself go darker and darker. You feel the stress building up, scared of dying and losing all you gathered till you reach the bottom, and then you see a peaceful, bright and ominous place.

The genre is fantasy, so we expect spectacles of epic proportions. And there is no shortage of epic moments in Dark Souls, but the issue here is that, at times, the scenes are too demanding and the console version fails to keep up, and what suffers is the frame rate. Still, those moments are few and far between.

From Software was never on my radar, they made many games before Demon’s Souls but none that reached such high acclaim. So, what I truly admire is how they didn’t take it safe with the development of Dark Souls. Dark Souls is not just a grander experience, they fixed almost every issue I had in Demon’s Souls: The combat, travel, narrative, level design...and much more, in short they have big kahunas.

Some of the other notable changes from Demon’s Souls is how you regain health and how you cast magic. The health now is limited: Every time you respawn in the game you get a  number of flasks that heal you partially. The magic casting changed also in a similar fashion, now you don’t relay on a mana meter, now each magic spell has a specific amount of casts in it that also refills every time you respawn. You have also a limited number of shared slots for equipping magic, miracles and pyromancy.

From Soft focused on more variety in the experience, whether it was the character build, level design, weapons, combat...etc. But with variety the balance always suffers, especially if your game has pvp. Still, the balancing with pvp focused games was always a process that took time, active community and  vigilant development team, and thankfully that is the case in Dark Souls.

It’s really hard to complain about the combat in Dark Souls; it is easily the least flawless engine in the genre. Whether you’re build is focused on using melee weapon, magic, miracles or pyromancy each has its own feel, strategy and character. The game also expands in each path giving you a huge roster of weapons and spells that will alter the way you play. Moreover, some of the issues I had with the combat is how the magic feels like an easy mode; it’s highly effective against most of enemies and bosses, while giving you the safety of ranged combat. Thankfully the magic isn’t as unbalanced when it comes to pvp...unless you’re playing the dlc.

The time in the world of Dark Souls is convoluted and filled with mysteries. Each player has a version of the world existing in parallel to another player. You’ll see faint images of other players as they move in their own worlds, you will also see blood stains marking the death of other players, and if you were to touch the stain the last few seconds of the player's life will play in a faint red image to serve as warning from what killed him.

Players can also, similar to Demon’s souls, leave messages on ground for each other, for a more forward warning. And if that also didn’t serve, players can join your journey to aid and guide you. On the other hand, some players can also invade your game as enemies and kill you, or for a more direct challenge you’ll find red markings on the ground to summon a foe to duel. My issue with the summoning other players is that the bosses don’t change much to fit facing more than one player at the time; their attacks usually is fit for facing one player at the time.

Demon’s Souls reached critical acclaim but unfortunately it didn’t sell as much as it deserved. Still, it had a great community of players that kept playing religiously, all thanks to the pvp. From Soft recognized that pvp has great potential for growth and definitely capitalized on it by adding the Covenants system as well as an arena for dueling. Unfortunately the covenants idea didn’t grab many players as I hoped; I expected from the development team for more support to it with content as well as organizing events. I really hope this idea get more established in later games as I see it as a great way to reinvigorate the pvp even more.

Covenants are like guilds basically, there are a number of covenants that the player can join, each has its own benefits: unique melee weapons, magic spells, miracles, items...and much more. Acquiring the benefits the covenants offer is another story, first you have to join the covenant and that in itself is a challenge since some of the covenants are hidden. After joining the covenant each covenant will require you to complete certain goals, and if you manage to achieve these goals you can acquire whatever they offer. The creativity in the covenants is how they used the goals to furthermore give variety to the online play; some covenants will require you to bring a number of items that can only be acquired from other players in pvp.

The boss encounters and enemies is easily one of the strongest aspects of Dark Souls. The roster is gigantic, varied and challenging as they come. But still none of them are unfair. From Soft, fortunately, still use the Japanese game development style by reintroducing an older boos in a new style; the first boss you face you’ll face again but this time more powerful with fire element, or another boss you’ll face multiple versions of him at the same time; that fucked up enemy you couldn't beat comes with a dog now; or even using the level design by making you face a boss in tight spot that feels like the physical interpretation of having a panic attack.

In closing, Dark Souls is a gorgeous, gratifying and profound experience. On the other hand, the game requires focus, time and a lot of patience, but it I can easily say that the game delivers an experience that can’t be found in any other game.