Dark Souls

There is a part in Square’s seminal PS1 RPG Final Fantasy VII where shortly after leaving the starting city of Midgar and venturing into the open world for the first time you encounter a huge snake, way bigger and more powerful than your current team. You can fight him for a while but you are only delaying the inevitable, no matter what you do; the snake will eventually beat you and leave you limping off with your tail between your legs. Later on in the game you get the opportunity to face the snake again and avenge your earlier death, only this time you are a higher level, have better equipment and weapons, this time you have a chance. It can still be tough but with the odds evened the snake can now be defeated and if you manage it you will be rewarded with a great deal of satisfaction and some nice shiny loot. So what has this got to do with Dark Souls I hear you ask? Well this short gaming analogy sums up why despite being so difficult, hostile and sometimes downright evil Dark Souls is one of the most satisfying (and frustrating) games I have ever played on the Xbox 360.



Dark Souls is a dark fantasy RPG developed by From Software as a loose sequel to critically acclaimed PS3 exclusive Demon Souls, there isn’t much of a plot save for a brief prequel which explains why the world is filled with murderous beasts and that there are four great demons that need to be slain. After this you are dropped into the world as your chosen avatar and are pretty much left to work everything out for yourself.
Gameplay is from a third person perspective and in many ways follows the standard action RPG format, as you roam unfamiliar castles slaying enemies and searching for loot. The main currency In the game is souls which are earned by defeating enemies, these souls can be used for levelling up your character as well as purchasing equipment from vendors and repairing your items. These souls are dropped when you die and if you get killed on your way to picking them back up they will be lost forever.



When the game begins you are go through a basic character creating process where you can customise the look of your character a choose a starting class, these follow the standard fantasy RPG roles such as rogue, warrior, mage etc.. but the real customisation really comes as you play the game as nothing is limited, magic classes can use heavy weapons or armour and warrior classes can cast spells so you end up creating your own custom class based upon your playstyle, likewise if you get bored of playing a certain way or are struggling with a certain section of the game then a quick equipment change is all that is needed to change your approach.
From software sensibly limit your use of special talents such as magic or ranged attacks so eventually you will need to master the excellent melee combat system. The combat is fairly simple, you have a light and a heavy attack along with a block and a parry. The complexity comes from the timing, each enemy has its own set of moves and they tend to hit hard so you need to watch them and learn their patterns before striking back with an attack of your own. If you are feeling particularly confident you can attempt a parry, if successful this will set you up for a counter which kills most enemies outright, but if you get it wrong you will take a big hit and may end up dead yourself.



Checkpoints in the game come in the form of bonfires that you can light, once lit you will become your respawn point when you die, bonfires restore your health and magic as well as replenishing your ‘estus’ flasks, these act as health potions and give you a set number of health top ups per life. The kicker is that every monster that you have killed since your last bonfire will come back to life, with the exception of bosses and mini bosses. This gives the bonfires a tactical significance and they tend to become a kind of home base where you can adventure from, gradually increasing your characters power and improving your equipment until you feel it is time to venture into the unknown as push forward towards the next big boss or objective.
Dark Souls is designed as a single player experience but there is an element on online play, players can leave notes for each other around the world warning of impending traps or treasure or leaving hints about upcoming enemies. Players can also invade other players worlds to cause harm or be summoned as allies to help with bosses, the conditions for this are strict and costly in terms of in game consumables but it does help and is useful to have some human help in an otherwise desolate and lonely world. Other players sometimes manifest themselves as ghosts in your game giving a brief glimpse of what other people are up to or bloodstains which you can touch to get a replay of how another player died and potentially warning of imminent danger



Graphically Dark Souls is a bit of a mixed bag, the world has a superb consistent vision and is sometimes breathtaking in realising it but at the same time the developers ambition outstrips the current hardware and in some boss fights the frame rate can drop to a dangerously low level, it rarely intrudes on the experience and on the whole I would consider Dark Souls to be a well realised and good looking game.
Achievement wise you are looking at a long and difficult slog to get 1000 with this game with a minimum of 3 complete playthroughs at around 30+ hours each.
The key defining feature of Dark Souls is its difficulty, there is a constant danger of death which leads to you treading carefully and treating the world with respect, death is a regular occurrence and is more often than not a learning experience, the game sometimes oversteps the mark seemingly being tough just for the sake of it but in general the difficulty serves as Dark Souls greatest asset. Nowadays we have become accustomed to being spoon fed every aspect of an experience from Fable’s breadcrumbs to the rewind mechanics in driving games. In bucking this trend Dark Souls is unique, it makes you think and it forces you to explore and against such difficulty even simple triumphs give a huge amount of satisfaction, whereas beating one of the games many difficult bosses feels like a real achievement.
It’s not for the feint hearted but if you have the patience and dedication to give to it, then Dark Souls will reward you with the most satisfying role playing game in recent memory

9 / 10

Excellent review mate really good.
I applaud the developers for sticking two fingers up to a gaming world full of remakes and sequels to make a game that bucks the trend and I will try this game at some point next year. I suspect Kent would score this game slightly lower though

Great review, every time I hear about this game it reminds me i must play this. I miss the old days when you would take days to master a level before finally finishing it with a huge sense of accomplishment. Nice reference to FF7 as well, I remember that snake too.

A top drawer review!

This game is well timed. I noticed most franchises seem to be getting a dumbing down, for the more casual and less patient casual gamer. This return to hardcore gaming is very welcome.

A good honest review mate.

nice work mate great review.

Not my kinda game but good work all the same

Thanks for the comments guys, it really is a great game but it can be frustrating. I'll put together a little guide of pointers for new players tomorrow, I'm no expert (far from it!) but there are a couple of things that would have been handy to know when starting out

Prepare to Die!

Some beginners tips for Dark Souls

Patience

This is probably the number one thing that this game requires, rushing around swinging your sword won't get you very far, even basic enemies are tough and hit hard and every hit that you take is going to decrease your chances once you get to a mini boss or a boss

Class Choice

As I said in the review class choice isn't crucial as you can change your playstyle as you progress through the game, however for new players picking a class with some kind of ranged attack is an advantage. I initially played a warrior and got a good 10-15 hours into the game then changed to the pyromancer which is a kind of hybrid melee / caster class and found it much easier. The ability to take enemies out from a distance is a huge advantage early on

Keep hold of everything

Like most RPG's you will pick up your fair share of junk in Demon Souls, keep hold of it! I don't want to ruin anything but if you keep hold of all your unwanted stuff it may benefit you as you progress through the game....

Take the High Road

When you leave the starting area you have a few choices of where to go, I would highly recommend taking the set of stairs that wind up around the side of a big hill, this will take you to the undead burg which is a great place to start your adventure, if you decide to ignore my advice and take one of the other paths, just watch out for the frogs

Bully the Dragon

If you took my advice and headed into the undead burg you will eventually come across a dragon, once you are under the bridge that the dragon is guarding you can shoot arrows into his tail which makes him get pissed off and fly about for a bit and then land, pump about 30 arrows in there and you will be rewarded with the drake sword which is the best weapon for quite a while and will make your life a bit easier

Humanity

Humanity is a bit of an oblique concept in Dark Souls and I believe it is left this way intentionally so that you need to work it out for yourself, the obvious use is to kindle bonfires which doubles the amount of estus (health) flasks that you gain from it when you rest there, it does have other uses that you will have to work out for yourself but I will say that it is a lot more valuable than it initially seems to conserve it and use it wisely

Take Breaks

Dark Souls can be very difficult and can wear you down so if you keep getting killed or are struggling with something take a break and come back with a fresh perspective, will also save you from destroying your controllers/plasma TV/Xbox etc

The main things I always find myself having to explain to people I talk about Dark Souls with are the many online functionalities. The online aspect to this game is one of the most important parts to it and without using it to it's full you will not get through this game, unfortunately the game makes no effort to explain this to people and leaves people to work it out on their own, if it wasn't for completing Demon Souls a couple of times I wouldn't have understood how important it truly was.

The very basic aspects that everyone playing Dark Souls will experience are the follow:

Messages on the ground - you can write messages wherever you want once you possess the Orange Soapstone and these can be left to either help or deliberately mislead other players. i.e trap ahead or try jumping here (off this big cliff!!) these messages can then be rated for their helpfulness by other players. If your messages get positive ratings you will be awarded with Humanity points which is incredibly valuable to you so it's worth your while to write and rate messages often so the community is helped out.
Blood Stains - clicing on a blood stain shows the last few seconds of another players life, this can be valuable if you want to see if there is a creature round the corner that's going to one hit kill you!!
White phantoms - these are other players currently playing in your area - again pay attention to them as they could lead you to secret areas you haven't dicovered yet.
Bonfires - you will see an outline of other players resting at the same bonfire to you. This is meant to help remind you you're not alone in the fight and foster a community spirit.

To understand the more advanced online features I first need to explain the Covenant system. The covenants are factions within the game world and to join them you must seek out specific, often very well hidden , individuals. There is no conditions to joining all but one of them, but beyond giving you a 25g achievement they will not affect your single player game at all. However, to level up within these factions you need to do certain tasks, mainly tied to online play. Levelling up will award you with unique spells and weapons that are key to achievements. I will make reference to the covenants more in the following sections.

Dark Souls offers two main types of multiplayer experience. You can play co-op with up to three people or you can engage in PvP battles with a maximum of four players either 1 vs 1 , 2 vs 1, 2 vs 2 or 3 vs 1. There is no party system within the game so there is no easy way to play with friends and the game does not support voice chat so you can't communicate with others. To the extent that you can't actually play the game at all while in an Xbox live party. Due to this the game has to introduce it's own mechanics to create multiplayer games.

Co-Op Gameplay

To take part in someone elses game you need the White soapstone. Using this leaves a white summoning symbol on the floor and any other players who are in your area, and is playing on the same server as you, can see that sign and invite you into their game based on a few conditions. They must be in human form, they can't have beaten the area boss and they must be your Soul Level (XP level) give or take 10%. If you join another game you don't take your inventory but still have current items. You carry back any XP you earn from killing a boss and a Humanity point as a rewards for killing a boss, but you don't earn acheivements and the boss will still be alive in your game.

If you wish to get other people to help you, you must spend a humanity point at a bonfire to be in human form then simply keep an eye out for the white summoning signs. you can get up to three other people to help you run through and area or kill a boss. However, the XP you get for killing the boss will be halved.

Co-op gaming heavily relies on people just being willing to help out strangers and sometimes just sitting around for an hour in one spot waiting for a game. Thankfully the Dark Souls community is all on board for this and I have never had trouble geting help for tough boss fights. It is also a requirement in certain convenants to help out people to rank up your covenant level.

There are also NPC's that you can summon for help with most boss battles, there summon sign is normally slightly hidden near the entrance to the boss but they can be very helpful. you do need to be in human form to summon them also. you can combine NPC's and human helpers for a big fight with a tough boss.

Versus Gameplay

Unfortunately while you are in human form you also run the risk of being ivaded by other hostile players. Like any other enemy if they kill you you lose your progress and all you souls but if you beat them you are awarded with humanity and a value appropriate to how many souls they are carrying. you generally get a warning you have been invaded, except for people belonging to a certain covenant that allows them to invade without detection. Even then there are tell tale signs you have been invaded, like you won't be able to leave the area or use any online related item.

Invasions can happen for the following reasons:

Players can use the red Cracked Orb item to invade. these are very limited items.

Players can use the Red Soapstone for an infinite amount of invasions, this is awarded by one covenant in the game.

Players in certain covenants can be summoned by their faction into someone elses game when that person has acted against the convenant.

The main reason for invading other people is to earn souls. I have earned over 100k worth of souls with one kill as you get all the souls that the player you invaded was carrying when you killed them. Also there is certain items that can only be collected through invading people that are needed to rank up within certain covenants. You can generally only invade the area you're currently in (unless you're summoned by your covenant) and this relies on other poeple being in that area, in human form, that can be invaded. This can make invading people very frustrating and tie consuming. It took me ten hours to get the ten kills I needed through invading people to level up in one convenant to get one spell

when it works well the online system is amazing and brings the game to life. However, it frequently has problems and is sometimes completely broken. They are trying to fix this at the moment, there have been five patches for the game in Japan so far with no word when the rest of the world will be getting the patches