Getting Dark Souls All Wrong

Joystiq’s Xav de Matos has penned an opinion piece on Dark Souls, explaining why he intially “got it all wrong” and why he’s glad he gave it a second chance. Here’s a snip:

Every movement, every parry, every block or weapon swipe is part of a crucial dance. You can’t wildly mash buttons and hope to walk away. You can’t stress yourself out. You must demonstrate patience at every turn. This is the difficult part. In an industry that makes its biggest piles of money on the backs of twitch-experience franchises, games like Dark Souls or ZombiU seem like dinosaurs seemingly built on the same principles of retro games, where difficulty was increased to maximize profitability at the arcade.

Even when “cheesing” the game by gaining higher-than-normal level gear for your customizable hero, a few strikes will kill you. I know this because in my original PC-version run, I did just that; I spent far too much time acquiring the Drake Sword to ease the transition into the world of Dark Souls (I skipped it playing the Xbox version). Even then, starting enemies can take you out and bosses can one-shot you. Later, treasure chests sprout arms and legs and eat your character whole in one massive gulp.

But that moment where you stand against a behemoth you’ve never seen before, drain your stamina bar as you dodge and attack, and emerge victorious with nothing more than a sliver of health left is glorious. It’s a challenge and, if you work within the systems offered, one that is always possible to complete.

Hopefully that kind of gameplay won’t be lost in the upcoming sequel.