Dark Souls Review -- Video Game Review -- PS3/Xbox360

[cubanpete24]

Dark Souls Game Review By cubanpete24 The New Order Moderator Developed by From Software Dark Souls was released late last year, and it's only just now that I've come around to actually beating it, after more than 200 hours of total game time across all of my characters. Okay, maybe when I put it that way, it makes it seem like this game is way super long...alright. It took me about Eighty hours to fully complete a single playthrough. And not once did the game ever feel like it was dragging... Why 80 hours? Well, could it be the fact this huge open world has a crap ton of bosses and enemies and places to explore? Or can it be the game's very innovative multiplayer? Could it be both? Probably. Maybe I spent 20 of those hours just gazing out at some of the excellent skyboxes...or maybe I was dicking around trying to allocate my skill points to create the perfect "pwnzor" build to defeat the scrubs...It honestly escapes me at the moment, but nonetheless, this game made me come back like a wife to an abusive husband...because this game will beat the shit out of you. Because you will die, over and over again. Yes, this game's reputation precedes it, everyone knows it's a very unforgiving game, and this has both lured, and scared away many players. Yes, "Prepare to Die" is a tagline heavily associated with this game. So much so that's it's printed on the back of the box, twice. But something the back of the box forgets to mention, is that death is your best friend, because every death, is a learning experience. So why is this game so damn amazing? Read on... Prepare to BUY Gameplay Okay, so right off the bat you're treated to a very LotResque opening cutscene that lays out the groundwork for the game's very hidden story. I say hidden, because it takes a lot of reading, and replaying to actually understand what the hell is going on, and why shit is as fucked as it is in the world of Lordran...Where, "the flow of time is distorted. The flow of time itself is convoluted; with heroes centuries old phasing in and out." Now what does time being distorted have to do with anything? More on that, later. At first glance, it appears that Dark Souls has no story at all, when in actuality...it's oozing story out of every orafice. It just tells it's story differenlty then other games. You never actually get told anything. It's up the the player to draw their own conlcusions, based on item descriptions, and the gorgeous game environments. To the normal person, that might sound really...really lame. But trust me, drawing conclusions based on solid evidence, and your imagination, is a hell of a lot better than having someone straight up tell you what's going on. Another awesome thing Dark Souls has, are it's characters. Every character in Dark Souls has some sort of motive, some devious, other downright ridiculous. But every character is memorable, thanks to terrific voice acting, unique design, and interesting dialogue. The game has 2 endings, I won't spoil it, but I will say that it follows with the mood of the game. It's not predictable, but it's consistent. And is actually...an ending, unlike some games that just cut black and roll credits. So story is A Okay in my book   Spoiler:   For people who are interested in Dark Souls' lore, there is this guy on youtube who has a series that lays it all out. It's really informative, and interesting, so stay a while, and listen. Epicnamebro's channel Now for gameplay, the first thing most people hear about in Dark Souls, is how hard it is. Truth be told, everything you've heard is probably true. When you die, you lose your souls (Souls are used to buy and upgrade weapons and armor, and to level up), but you do have a chance at getting all those souls back if you manage to reach the place where you expired, alive. So yes, the game is very very strict, and very very difficult, but honestly, that only makes the game funner in my opinion. The controls are smoother than a baby's butt, which is to say that the controls are top notch. You really get a handle on the controls quickly. It's easy to learn, but difficult to master. Shoulder buttons control your weapons, face buttons govern everything else, including the option of holding your right hand weapon with 2 hands. Everything you do, is governed by a stamina bar. How fast your stamina replenishes depends on how heavy the items you have equipped are. This comes into play when choosing your character build, and the pros and cons to each build are what they would be normally. Heavily armored = slow but tough, lightly armored = fast but weak. For single player, finding a balance between speed and protection is important, but nowhere near as important as it is in multiplayer. This is where that whole "Time being distorted" thing comes into place. But before we get into that, there is one concept you must understand. Your form. You can be in either human form...or hollow form... If you are in human form, you have the ability to call upon other players for help. However, you also run the risk of being invaded by another player, who would want nothing more than to kill you for your souls...You can also BE the one who is doing the invading. You lose your human form when you die, where you then become hollow If you are in hollow form, You can't get help from any other players and your character's appearance is highly disfigured, but on the flipside, you can't get invaded. What you can do however, is help other people, who are in human form. To reverse your hollowing, you must have something called "Humanity" which is obtained through defeating bosses, helping OTHER players defeat bosses, or by defeating an invader.   Spoiler:   These are 3 of the most commonly used items for multiplayer, but there are many many more, that have their own niches White Sign Soapstone -- One of the perks to being in human form (more on that later), is that you can summon 2 people to assist you, by touching a summon sign, placed down by another player which lets the player join your game, as a white phantom. This is how coop works in Dark Souls. There is no voice chat support in this game, so the 2 players always remain somewhat anonymous. You can however communicate through gestures, which leads to some very interesting situations. Orange Guidance Soapstone -- Multiplayer is very interesting in Dark Souls, because of the anonymity of the players that play. throughout the game, you will see "ghosts" of other players that are in the same area as you. You can't interact with them, just see them. Since time in Lordran is distorted, etc etc etc, you can leave messages on the floor that other people can read. It can be used to help players, or deceive them... Red Eye Orb -- An item exclusive to the Darkwraiths, a covenant who's sole purpose is to be major dicks to everyone. when used, you invade the world of a player who is in human form as a red spirit. If you kill them, you get their souls, and humanity. This serves as pvp in Dark Souls, as some people are in human form for the sole purpose of fighting red spirit Multiplayer in Dark Souls is fantastic, the way pvp and coop are executed in this game fits really well with the tone of Dark Souls. There is no ingame voice chat, and party chat is disabled if you play on the xbox. This sounds terrible you say.... This is a game that's all about being cryptic, down to who you're playing with. You can communicate with built in character gestures, like pointing, and bowing, and straight up messaging is still a viable option. Fighting the creatures you encounter can be a test of your skill, but nothing tests your skill more than fighting wits and braun with another human mind. You might think that I'm over exaggerating, with the whole "wits" part...If that is the case then sadly you are , Every character build has it's strength and weaknesses. It's up to you to find and exploit those weaknesses. Be it through observation, or trial and error. If you are having back to back pvp matches, chances are, you're going to encounter the same people more than once. It's in these grudge matches that things get really intense. Coop is great, sure. But it's on pvp where some of your most memorable moments will happen. One time, I invaded someone who was in the middle of hosting cage matches. I seethe host, and 2 dark spirits lined up, spectating the fight between a dark spirit, and summoned phantom that was going on below. However, sometimes multiplayer can be very annoying. If you invade someone, thay may ragequit and disconnect, and you might encounter a dickwheel like I mentioned above. But the worst offender, is some of the lag you get. If your internet, or your opponent's internet connection isn't very strong, it can lead to very confusing lag. You could be a long ways from your opponent, and he might appear behind you for a backstab. However, you come to compensate for any latency. While unorthodox, the game's multiplayer is fantastic, and fun.   Spoiler:   CUBAN'S SUPER ETHICAL MULTIPLAYER ETIQUETTE Now what the hell is this doing here? It has no place at all in this review. Well I really hate to be the one saying it but you are... So I am spoiler tagging this part of the review, simply because it has nothing to do with how good the game is. These are just musings from my experience in multiplayer that I am passing down to you, in case you pick this game up. You have been warned 1. Be Honorable and respect players, unless they are major dickwheels. Being a dickwheel means you do either of the following Spam wrath of gods, (a shockwave that knocks you back, cannot be blocked by shields, deals a lot of damage, and a general pain in the ass.) Are ganking (camping an area with 2 other players to assist you, waiting for people to invade so you can kill them 3v1, in doing so, you gain souls that you didn't earn.) Heal If you rematch someone who may have taunted you by spamming gestures, ESPECIALLY if they beat you by using any of the above tactics, then you don't have to respect squat. 2. To counter certain moves that are unblockable here's what you do Let's get the big one out of the way. Most people assume Wrath of Gods is unblockable, so they spam it either when they are losing (otherwise known as bitching out), or when they want to finish you off because you little health. Basic instinct is to roll away, but actually, you're supposed to roll toward your opponent. Also, watch for talismans, The moment you see your opponent equip a talisman during the middle of a fight, always assume they will bitch out, and get ready to roll and counter with a backstab. When you have defeated your dickwheel, taunt them with a gesture that causes your character to point downward, as to say "stay down" Tranquil Walk of Peace, when used, you will not be able to run or roll if you are within a certain distance of your opponent, to counter this is simple, but counter-intuitive. Do nothing. Of course, keep your shield up and block their attacks, but do not try to roll away. attempting to roll away will cause your character to enter this really long animation where he stumbles forward .5 feet, and this leave you very open for a backstab. If they have a low poise, try swinging your weapon, the bigger, the better. If you manage to hit them, you will stun them which will leave them open for another attack, where you can then hit them again, which stuns them again, leaving them open for another attack. rinse was repeat. This technique is called stun locking. When facing an opponent that uses BOTH Tranquil Walk of Peace AND Wrath of Gods, then congratulations, you've meet a dickwheel of the highest caliber. Your only defense against this is to try stunning your opponent, you can try suicide running towards your opponent and hope you can stun lock them, but if that doesn't work, then you are pretty much screwed. My advice is to maintain a certain distance when you see someone equip a talisman. chances are, if they whip it out while in close proximity of you, they won't be using it to cast a healing miracle... Being stunlocked sucks, because you're helpless, and can't do anything to counter it. The only way to prevent this, is to have more poise. However, if by some divine intervention you are able to break free from this stunlock, PARRY PARRY PARRY. Chances are your opponent will follow up his weapon swing with another swing, in an attempt to stunlock you again Backstab fishers are people who speed around you, and backstab you for lots of damage. experienced fishers usually backstab you again the moment you get up, leaving you defenseless. To counter this, just walk backwards, and strafe in the direction opposite to the direction your opponent is strafing. 3. Know your moveset Swings, thrusts, and slashes. Know them. If you have a weapon with a varied moveset, know which button does what. and HOW they execute it. certain slash/thrust weapons have quick slashes, but painfully slow thrusts. 4. Know your role There are 9 "factions" in Dark Souls called covenants, some of which heavily involve multiplayer. The 2 most prominent, are bitter opposites. The Warriors of Sunlight, and the Darkwraiths. The others are multiplayer covenants that I have affliated myself with, however there are many more, that I simply do not know enough about to have an opinion on. Warrior of Sunlight, aka Sunbros : Help everyone. When you are summoned, it is your sworn duty to protect and assist your host. You appear as an awesome gold phantom, rather than the default, boring gray phantom. Unless your host insists otherwise, help them defeat invaders. Darkwraiths : As a darkwraith, your duty is to be a dick to people. However, you are not obligated to be a dick. The honor concept I laid out above applies here. You invade people as a red spirit Darkmoon Blades, aka "The Blades" : As a Darkmoon Blade, you are supposed to hunt down players who have betrayed their covenant, or darkwraiths who have been indicted. You invade people as a blue spirit of vengeance, you aren't in it for the rewards, you're in it to punish the guilty. Forest Hunter, aka Cat covenant, aka Catbro : As a catbro, you are supposed to prevent people from nearing the grave of Artorias, who is buried in the forest. My interpretation however, you are Captain Planet, saving the forest by killing people who gank the forest. you invade people as a blue spirit Have Fun So controls are responsive, the game is hard, has a cryptic story, and multiplayer. What else is there? A wide array of weapons and armor? Yes character customization? Yes Unique boss battles? Hell yes Replayability? Yes Yes Yes This is without a doubt the most replayable game that I have ever played. Upon completing the game, you have the option to play through it again, keeping all the gear you have, in New Game Plus, only this time, all enemies have 3x health, and deal 3x damage. However, you also can have up to 8 different characters. I scrapped about 6 characters before I settled on one, and ran through the whole game with, but since then, I've made a NEW character, who I plan on making even better than the one I had settled on previously. You have 8 starting classes to pick from. (click to resize) If there's one thing in this game that I think defines it more than it's unique multiplayer, or punishing difficulty, it would be the bosses hands down. Boss battles are something that's been omitted from most modern games. When I say boss battles, I'm not talking about Sergei Russianman from your Call of Duties. No, I'm talking about people 4 times your size, capable of making you their bitch, with the slightest misstep on your part. I'll touch on their design later in the review, but my god, every boss in this game just looks amazing. Each one is unique, each one has it's strengths and weaknesses, and a move that will kick your ass. There are 22, full blown bona fide boss battles in this game. Some of which that aren't required to be defeated to beat the game, so you could run through the entire game once, and never find a few. When you defeat certain bosses, you get a hefty sum of souls, and their actual soul. You use these souls to make pimping, pimping, PIMPING weapons, which like everything in this game, look fantastic. Fun Fact: Snorlax on the left there is the favorite boss design of the game's director, Hidetaka Miyazaki. (click to resize) You have a large choice of weapons and armor to pick from. You can even create weapons from the soul of a boss that you have defeated, a to make a supercharged BAMF soul infused weapon. That isn't to say that supercharged BAMF boss soul infused weapons are the only good items in the game...It all comes down to the person using it. I've seen people using their fists beat down other players...Let me tell you, it's awesome. This game also gives you the option to customize your character, but it's nothing groundbreaking when it comes to customizing your character's face. Espescially considering that you will be spending most of the game in hollowed form, meaning your character's face will ultimately look like this guy. Design In my opinion, the graphics in this game are satisfactory. However, the area where this game hits it out of the park, is it's design. God damn...does everything in this game look incredible. Everything looks amazing in this game. Armor, weapons, bosses, environments, hot damn, the environments. Look, the way everything in this game looks is so good, that I ordered the artbook. Even though I can't read anything in it, because it's all in Japanese. Alas, not everything in this game is perfect...so let's just get the bad out of the way first. The graphics in this game are good, but not amazing. The game is capped at 30 frames per second, and when there's a ton of shit onscreen, the frame rate can really crawl. This doesn't happen often, but it will become very prominent at one part of the game. It's an area called Blighttown, and it's basically a big swamp, filled with an abundance of large bees and lepers. If you have your camera pointed in the wrong direction, the game will crawl to a snail's pace. But like I said, frame rate is consistent for the rest of the game. There...that's the only bad thing I can say about this game's design. One minor little occasional frame rate drop at one part of the game. That for the most part, has been patched and fixed. This game has a very consistent tone, and it shows in it's design. Everything is grim, macabre, and cryptic; Down to the design. First, let's start with the basics. How the game is an open world. Now, there are lots of open world game out now, but none of them are as executed brilliantly as they are in Dark Souls. The game world is huge, and is separated into smaller sections. These sections are interconnected through a system of shortcuts, and let me just say, that some of the shortcuts, are genius, to say the least. Also, did I mention that the game world is huge?   Spoiler:   Because yeah...The game world is huge. Excellent design however, isn't exclusive to the environment in this game. Everything else looks flipping sweet too...Like armor. Your starting sets don't look too fancy, but just you wait, because you're going to find some super boss sets about a quarter way in... One of my personal favorite designs is the Catarina set, aka, the Onion set. It's supposed to make parrying easier...but that's just a bonus in my opinion...(click to resize) If you don't have an appreciation for onion shaped armor...then not to worry. The game has plenty of other excellent, and unique armor choices to pick from. ************......and many more... And the weapons...Should I even go there? You've got weapons ranging from katanas...to spears...to whips...to claws...etc etc etc. They all look and feel great, thanks to their unique animations. the Boss soul infused weapons look gorgeous, and fit very well with their respective bosses. Moving on to something completely different, the game's UI is satisfactory. Something really jarring at first is that fact that you can't pause the game. Which in all honesty, isn't anything too bad, if you need to do something, all you have to do is find a safe place. Another thing that's odd is the fact that you can still move your character while you're in the game's menus. So if you're fighting someone and need to make a quick change in your loadout, you can do so so as long as you maintain distance from your opponent. Something I would like to make clear is that the way the entire world is structured, is geeeenius. This game has a checkpoint system, where if you die, you respawn at the last "bonfire" that you rested at, there's at least one bonfire in every area. This is another thing that I like. At the bonfires, you have the ability to repair your gear, manage your inventory, and replenish your health potions. You are able to upgrade the amount of health potions given to you by "kindling" that bonfire. Later in the game, you gain the ability to warp to certain bonfires, which is a HUGE convenience, because, as you all know. The game's world is fucking huge. One final thing I want to mention, but not go into extreme detail, is some of the bosses. half the fun when facing them, is just getting to see them for the first time. The bosses in this game are varied, except for one offender, who's model gets used three times. I loved the fact that you could wear some of the bosses armor, or use their weapons after you defeated them, because they really do look awesome. Sound Just do me a favor and play the song in the spoiler box, and listen while you read on.   Spoiler:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpI-KeK-PQg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpI-KeK-PQg Thank you, now let's move on. The sound in this game is very top notch. Music only plays when you are resting at firelink shrine (The closest thing this game has to a true "safe zone"), like everything else in the game, the music is excellent. Along with the voice acting, and sound effects. The game isn't totally silent when you're playing, since you'll be hearing the groans of certain enemies, and the clinging and clanging of your armor. It sets the mood of isolation, that you are the only sane person left in a world where everyone is mad. (Until you summon someone to help you, but even then, you run the risk of being invaded) Most of the music in this game contains a sense of melancholy. It really fits, and sounds good. My favorite one by far being the final boss' theme. Some songs repeat for certain bosses. But that doesn't change the fact that they're still pleasant to listen to. Sound effects in this game, are satisfactory. Everything makes the sound that it's supposed to make. Wooden clubs make an abrupt "thud" when they hit something, and you hear your blade whistling as it cuts through air. Some of the sound effects are there to alert you as well. Most spells that are being cast have a distinctive power up sound effect that alerts you to how you should defend yourself. Conclusion Look, This game is going to get 10s across the board. Is everything in it perfect? No. But by giving this game a 10, I'm not implying that the game is perfect. No game is perfect, this is simple fact, and will always come down to the person playing it. By giving this game a 10, I'm saying that it's a game that that is really a cut, about the games, that are already a cut above the rest. Simply put, Dark Souls is one of those games that you need in your video game collection. It's one of a kind, and one of the greatest games out right now. It's 30 dollars right now, in comparison, the new Dawnguard DLC for Skyrim is 20 dollars. Dark Souls makes Dawnguard look like Horse Armor. It took me 80 hours (on one character) to complete the game my first time. If you're a person that bases the value of your game, though it's length, then you've found a keeper. The people at FromSoft have created a masterpiece, plain and simple. "I remember the first time I died, but dying gets easier, it’s how you die, that leaves your mark." Gameplay--10/10 Design--10/10 Sound--10/10

[Naked Crook]

Finally got around to reading this. Damn, that was very detailed. Almost as good as the game sounds. Defiantly worth a try. Good review...and repped.