Pach's Real Talk: Dark Souls

Pachbel's posts are rated T for Teen.

Greetings gamers! Are you so excited that Skyrim just came out because you love RPGs? Super confident in yourself because back when you were a kid you 100% completed Final Fantasy 7, and that made you hardcore because there were no achievements? Feeling good about yourself because you have been able to successfully seduce members of the opposite sex? WELL NONE OF THAT MATTERS BECAUSE DARK SOULS DOESNT CARE.

Real talk.

Now I know what a lot of you may have heard about this game along with Demon Souls (the huggable predecessor)... and with this write-up I aim to bring everything to light. Don't worry people, Pachbel is here for you... Dark Souls isn't... but Pachbel is.

First and foremost is the issue with difficulty: Perhaps you have heard that this game is hard from several other, less attractive sources? Well I'm here to tell you that that is 100% incorrect.

Dark Souls isn't hard... you are simply WEAK. Now wait... wait... put that itchy forum finger down and hear me out. Come back. That's it...just sit on down and relax. Can I get you anything? No, I'm out of coffee you arrogant punk...

You aren't weak, because you've handled hard games before right? You're different because you played Street Fighter 2 back when it was hardcore. You did a speed run of Megaman 3. You beat Earthbound without a strategy guide. You're going to conquer this game! So lets talk mechanics shall we?

As of this post I've played through the game twice, with two characters that haven't used a drop of magic (more on that momentarily). So take it from me that the game has a combat system that can (and will) have you awaken one night screaming in a cold sweat. It is not so much complex as it is unforgiving, and yet beautifully addicting all at the same time. You basically have attack, heavy attack, and a variation on attack and heavy attack based on what weapon you're using. For the most part this consists of a Leonidus chest kick, and a D2 remniscent leap attack.

That's it. No perks, no upgrades, no super powers. It's you, your balls, and your stat counting. The enemies are very diverse, and you are equipped with only those 4 moves the entire game to make it work. Now don't get me wrong... I loved every minute of it because winning with those 4 moves makes you feel like a man... but be warned that it isn't a picnic.

So that leaves the other two mechanics: Magic and Defense. Lets start with defense... you can roll. Alright moving on.

No but seriously that's about it. Rolling makes you invulnerable temporarily and lets you avoid attacks that you can't block without excessive amounts of endurance and chest hair. And forget about sampling heavy armor with your freshly baked rolls. Wearing heavy armor without massive amounts of endurance will change your character animation from rolling to belly flopping on the ground and stumbling to your feet like a cancer patient that just got pushed down some stairs. Come to think of it... the invulnerability is also a bit finnicky but it'll work most of the time... promise.

You may also parry and block if you have a shield (which you should) in your off hand. However unless you're deflecting attacks from only 1 enemy at a time that isn't firing maggots and flaming dogs at you (oh just wait until the enemies section), you'll have to rely on terrain and good timing to keep yourself alive.

So thus far to keep you alive we have 4 simple attacks... and essentially defense that relies on you not getting hit ever to bring you through the game. Oh good.

But don't fear because this next part will be your salvation: MAGIC. I can't stress enough how important magic will be in your lonely crusade. The magic in Dark Souls has been redesigned from Demon Souls to make it more accessable and useful for any and all classes. There now exists no mana bar, but rather a "charge" system that gives you a fixed amount of uses per spell per equip. It's definitely an improvement from what came before it. So with that in mind: you don't have to be like me! Pick up soul arrows, pick up lightning bolts and fireballs... they're about the only thing in this game that evens the playing field even a little bit. It's also important to mention that at times the camera placement options in the game can be abysmal, and that it will get you killed, so you need all the help that you can get.

Overall the mechanics in this game are designed in a simple way and left in your hands to squeeze every last drop of utility out of. Which definitely isn't a bad thing... but if you're used to a game giving you a ramping effect when it comes to special abilities, think again about picking this up.

And speaking of ramping... arguably the most difficult part of the game is how you actually progress as a character.

So picture this: you're in a crowded New York subway station just waiting for the B-train, enjoying life, feeling good. Then all of a sudden a crazed hobo runs up, shivs you in the back, and takes your wallet a la White-Power Bill. You think "OH GOD I'M BLEEDING! MY WALLET!" but no one seems to be helping you. Then when you try to pursue the man with your wallet, the rest of the people in the subway pull out knives and try to stop you. That is what it means to progress from one stat point to the next in Dark Souls.

Everything in the game is (duh) about souls. Souls are your currency, your experience, and your e-penis all at the very same time. But that's not the bad part. Every time you die... and I mean EVERY time you die... you lose ALL the souls you are carrying. Now that wouldn't be so bad if you could store souls in your personal inventory elsewhere, but you can't. So essentially the game will steal experience from you each and every time you die unless you can make it to a checkpoint to cash in. Sound like archaic game design? It is. But the Dark Souls creators swear by it as simply another challenge to be overcome... and admittedly it does feel good when you do.

However, next to the pvp (which I will touch on later), nothing will make you want to punch a baby more than dying with a large coin purse full of precious, precious souls. You WILL have one chance to get your souls back after you have died... but that's to fight your way back to the spot you died and touch the blood stain where your character last passed on. This is a core element to the game which over time you get used to, but is still a real pain to deal with (especially when trying to fight a boss).

Now lets talk about quality of life. There are NO... I repeat NO maps in this game. I have literally spent hours wandering in the wrong direction, with no indication that I was heading that way before consulting the online guides. Is this bad game design? You betcha, but will you still play it in spite of that? Absolutely... because you're not weak, right? Thought so.

But seriously, be prepared to consult the glorious dark souls wiki every step of the way if you want to move through this game even somewhat smoothly. The lack of information that is presented to the players on even item tooltips is absolutely maddening. In this humble blogger's opinion, not having information in a game where even HAVING the information hardly makes a difference in your success/failure is poor design. Just point me in the appropriate direction of the murder and suicide please. Don't make me look it up. That's like forcing me to do push-ups just to get my ps3 to turn on.

In addition to the lack of information, there is no save function to the game other than the inherent auto-save. There is a checkpoint system (represented by bonfires happily placed in the most dangerous and out of the way places of the game), but they are few and far between. Success depends on your ability to memorize enemy patterns and game data to proceed quickly in between the plethora of deaths. Is this fun? Well... I would have to say not at first. However, because the game is one large open world you definitely feel like master of your domain once you've progressed from one area to the next. The repetition lets you really study and appreciate every last detail of the beautifully rendered dark souls world, and that isn't a bad thing once you get into the patterns of each individual level. By the end of the first area, with the constant "you make a mistake, you die, you start over", you'll definitely feel like a dog with a shock collar with an owner who didn't take their Prozac on time. But once your senses stop assuming that the game is going to take it easy on you, you'll start to adapt. And this is where Dark Souls truly begins to shine as a game.

Lets talk enemies and levels.

The best part about your first playthrough of Dark Souls will be you marveling at how different, complex, and engrossing the enemy design is. You'll find yourself super excited to see how the bad man is going to touch you next with every single new enemy and area you encounter. It really becomes about you conquering an entire race of ingame enemies rather than mindlessly hacking at each creature the same way until it dies. Each level is incredibly diverse, and is covered from head to toe in traps and interesting secrets. You will never feel like you've seen the same room, setup, or trap twice... well at least not until it kills you and you run by it again.

Now think about that for a second. I mean really think about it. How many games have you played where there are NO recycled areas or enemies, and that are a longer than a 4 hour play experience? I can only count them on one hand, and I'm better than you... so that says something.

And the boss battles, oh dear me the boss battles. Every single boss will require you to think outside the box to defeat, and every time you fight that boss the fight will be different from the last. This isn't your average "I have the hookshot so now I can beat the giant eyeball cluster" game. You're going to have to make it work with whatever you've got at your disposal to beat each and every boss.

Now this is where I'm supposed to talk about how the multiplayer is innovative and makes the bosses and enemies much more fun to move through, but I'm not going to do that. The multiplayer can be quite iffy at times, and while you may be blessed with an ally to assist you through a difficult boss battle now and again, for the most part you will be alone on your journey. I will say this though - not since I was a young teenager have I had the urge to hurl several valuable pieces of video game hardware out of an open window into a crowd of rabid monkeys... but when I was invaded by "Iloveboobs6602" and murdered just before a boss fight, I definitely found myself weighing the options of hunting that lonely nerd in real life like a Richard Connell novel. I digress.

The game is about the single player, and while it is fun to read peoples comments just before being murdered in the same way that they were murdered, the multiplayer is almost non-existant especially on a first playthrough.

So, to wrap things up:

You're weak. You know you're weak, because you've been playing oblivion and you think your RPG should be fun. Well that is why Dark Souls will eat you alive. If you die in this game it's because you suck and need to get better. The game designers have made that perfectly clear every step of the way and you ARE going to die...a lot. But you're going to have fun being repeatedly obliterated by the entire cast of silent hill while you run ill-equipped and ill-informed through a lonely world of pain and misery... and that's the weird part. You'll find yourself coming back for more each and every time because the game is just difficult enough to make you think "What if I tried this differently, what if I used this spell instead of that one." And at that point the game truly takes off for you.

With games that mercilessly challenge you becoming more and more infrequent these days, I would definitely recommend picking up a copy of dark souls for your miserable pleasure. There will definitely not be anything like it for quite some time.

Dark Souls is rated M for Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Violence, and the desire to tear your weak little heart out and run screaming into the night.