Dark Souls: Initial Thoughts

I picked this gem (so far) at gamestop just 2 days ago. So I admittedly haven't made much progress, being that I'm on a full time work schedule and have limited gaming time, especially when that game is as punishing as Dark Souls. But what I have seen so far really is amazingly impressive. Yes, you do die a lot. A lot a lot. But to be honest, it isn't over the top hard. Devil May Cry 3 was a lot harder, or at least it was back in the day when I first played it. But it's all extremely fine tuned, you have to plan things in advance and calculate all of your movements down to each individual swing of your sword. And in that regard it's in a totally different class from DMC3. Almost every enemy you face can kill you within seconds if you let your guard down. You need to move constantly, rolling, dodging, parrying. A single misstep can spell your end, and the loss of all of your souls (read: Experience Points) if you were reckless enough to get killed before reclaiming your power from your previous death.

Everything between boss fights is tailored for one thing and one thing only. To soften you up for whatever towering monstrosity is waiting through the next white light. I've only killed 2 bosses so far. The first was admittedly quite easy, I killed it on my first try, and I was honestly a little disappointed. I came to this game to get my ass kicked after all, I didn't want to beat BOSSES on my first attempt. That changed quickly though when I reached the second boss, the Taurus Demon. That one took me perhaps 15 tries. And each time you die you return to the last bonfire you rested at (bonfires are where you level up and restore estus flasks (read: healing potions) but each time you do this, all enemies respawn, so you can't just fight your way to the room before the boss, run back and heal, then go back at the boss. This might all sound really frustrating, and I can see where it would be if you go in expecting a usual modern game, which is typically an almost effortless romp more intended to present a story than anything else (which is fine don't get me wrong, but a good challenge doesn't hurt). But the thing is, when you finally kill that boss, or get passed that group that's been hounding you for countless deaths, it's one of the most gratifying moments you can possibly find in a video game. When you finally watch the giant minotaur demon disappear in a blinding flash of light and breathe that sigh of relief, you'll understand what I mean, and all the frustration will have been well worth it.

Less important factors here include the graphics and sound design. The graphics are ok, the textures aren't so great (mostly in the environment, character models, sans faces, actually look great and giant monsters are suitably intimidating.) but the animations are second to none. Everything moves, and controls, just about as smooth as silk. The sound design as well is really well done, everything sounds pretty much like you'd think it should, the thundering crash of a demons hammer smashing into the ground behind you will make your heart jump every time.

Anyways, once I beat it I'll be releasing a full review (it might be a while as my time is limited and the game is rumored to be about 100 hours long.). I'm also going to work on getting up my backlog of reviews including; Gears of War 3, F.E.A.R. 3, Dungeon Siege 3, (there are an awful lot of 3's in here...), Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Terraria, Skyrim (unless I did that already, I can't remember) Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and I think a couple more. Don't expect regular updates or anything but I'm hoping to get some writing done, maybe even this weekend. As always thanks for reading.