Dark Souls review (Xbox 360)

Indeed. If ever a game gave me a legitimate reason to swear blue murder, it was probably Dark Souls. However, I’ll restrain myself at least for the duration of this review…

The spiritual successor to the critically acclaimed Demon’s Souls was touted upfront to be ‘even harder’. Which says something, considering that Demon’s Souls has a reputation for being very strict, difficult and unforgiving.

Dark Souls definitely cranks things up a notch or two. Battles are tougher; there’s even less guidance; and you meet your first boss ten minutes into the game.

If at first you don’t succeed…

While Demon’s Souls had a bit of a story, Dark Souls just drops you into the fairly open world and lets you figure out things by yourself.

Occasionally NPCs will give you a hint on what can be done in the part of the world you’re currently exploring, but they won’t tell you where to go, what to do, or how to do it.

This game is, by nature, a pure mechanics game that encourages and rewards detailed exploration.

Not unexpectedly, you will encounter all kinds of foes during your forays – from measly undead to massive demons and even dragons.

They will halt your progress, and it is entirely up to you to figure out how to get past them. Because if you die, you go straight back to the starting point, and anything you killed on the way will be back.

That’s Dark Souls in a nutshell. Explore; level up; kill things. You need to learn skills, gain experience, figure stuff out for yourself. There is almost no guidance.

If your approach doesn’t work, try something else. Don’t try the same thing twice. There is no luck involved, and if you’re wrong, the punishment is dire. Trial and error is pretty much what it comes down to, but the game is ultimately fair in that there is always a way to get past a foe. They all have their weaknesses, and it’s up to you to find and exploit them.

While it keeps most of the mechanics from its predecessor, Dark Souls introduces a few new features.

In each area, you can find bonfires which serve as both a spawn location and a place to rest, heal and perform rituals. The catch is that as soon as you rest at a bonfire, all enemies (excluding bosses) respawn.

Also, the healing grasses from the previous game have been replaced by so-called Estus Flasks, which don’t drop as loot, but are refilled at a bonfire.

With the kindling ritual, you can upgrade fires to refill more flasks throughout the game.

…try and try again

Speaking of bosses: these ones are absolutely fearsome.

The first time you see the Taurus Demon come at you – a hulking, towering beast – you will probably crap your pants.

The bosses are generally not there to indicate the end of a level or a game phase. They’re just sprinkled across the world to do what bosses do: give you a proper fright, and halt your progress. Until you figure out a strategy to deal with them, you will not get past them.

On a technical level, the game does reasonably well. Its visuals are a bit underwhelming, with somewhat muddy textures and a general 16-bit feel. I also noticed some frame rate drops in certain areas; the initial Undead Asylum for example. The Lighting effects are great though.

The sound was dodgy at times. On my 5.1 system there were instances when I could have sworn I heard steps of an enemy running at me, but they were nowhere close.

Overall, there isn’t much to complain about.

You’re on your own

The online component of Dark Souls is kept in the overall vein of the game. As in Demon Souls, other players will show up as ghostly silhouettes, and players can leave (more or less) useful messages all over the world for others to see.

While there is a way to summon another player into your world (or invade that of another player) to help you with a specific fight, it’s not a co-op mode as such, because it can’t be targeted.

Trying to invite a friend will most likely fail because chances are slim that you’ll be logged into the same server. If you form a party on Xbox LIVE, the game will revert into offline mode. This seems to be quite deliberate, to reinforce the sense that at the end of the day, you’re on your own – as with everything else in the game.

My final grade for Dark Souls is a good one – what the game does, it does very well. The concept is sound, the execution is brilliant.

However, and do not take this lightly – this is NOT a game for everyone.

Old school gamers will absolutely thrive on the challenges posed by the game, as well as its uncompromising and at times almost punishing way of ‘teaching’.

If you’re not on your toes at all times, if you don’t learn the skills necessary, from combat to stamina management, and if you are slow in recognizing the patterns the game gives you – it will chew you through and spit you out.

You will end up frustrated and annoyed, possibly even with one or two shattered controllers. You might ask yourself the same question I did every now and then: ‘Where is the fun in that?’