“Dark Souls” provides hours of fun, despite its punishing difficulty

Courtesy gamespot.com

By Zack Gill
Arts Editor

“Dark Souls,” the new video game by From Software, gives its players emotional sensations incredibly similar to ones experienced by people dealing with real life: everything from staggering frustration to the thrill of accomplishment.

Video games have notably declined in difficulty since the heyday of the arcades, so in an age where video games like “New Super Mario Bros” literally take over for struggling players during hard levels, the infuriating difficulty of action role-playing game “Dark Souls” is refreshing.

“Dark Souls” is among the best video games of 2011 in providing players with a wonderful sense of discovery, surprisingly strategic gameplay, and fascinating online features, in addition to an incalculably high difficulty level.

“Dark Souls” is a semi-sequel to 2008’s Playstation-exclusive, “Demon’s Souls.” Both games consist of mostly the same gameplay (with some variation), have separate storylines and universes. The story of “Dark Souls” is incredibly vague and cryptic. Basically, the player controls an costumized Undead hero of his or her own creation who is supposed to rid a gothic-fantasy world of horrific monsters and demons.

Make no mistake: “Dark Souls” lives up to the hype that christened it as one of the hardest games of this generation. The game is brutal and unforgiving. If players accidentally attack merchants or other crucial non-player characters, they’ll be forced to fight them to the death. After these characters are killed, they disappear from the game forever.

There also is no way to reload past saves if a player makes a mistake because “Dark Souls” is constantly auto-saving to prevent exploitations. Players do not get an in-game map, either. These features make every little victory in “Dark Souls” euphoric for gamers.
People play video games for gratification, and, despite its difficulty,

“Dark Souls” provides the most invigorating sense of accomplishment
since the days of memorizing enemy layouts in arcade games. The game’s features almost feel conspiratorial in their difficulty; as players progress, they actually feel as if they are outsmarting something greater than themselves.

Although the game is primarily single-player, “Dark Souls” has a lot of multiplayer functionality that it shares with predecessor “Demon’s Souls.” Players can leave messages of advice (be it truthful or otherwise) that will show up in other players’ campaigns. Players end up relying on these messages heavily, which often warn of traps or bring hidden treasures to light, in addition to providing a bizarre sense of community and camaraderie.

Players can also invade each other’s games to steal experience points from each other, and in a feature new to “Dark Souls,” players can also summon friendly players to help them tackle bosses. There’s something invigorating in realizing that players aren’t alone as they progress through “Dark Souls.”

Combat is simple but satisfying and surprisingly fluid. While players pretty much only get two attacks – a normal attack and a slower, strengthened attack – they must also take positioning into consideration. Downright evil AI means enemies are programmed to swarm and charge players.

Nothing quite compares to the thrill of luring enemies out and taking control of a dangerous situation in “Dark Souls.” Skillful players can also parry attacks and perform deadly backstabs to add more and more depth to create some surprisingly complex combat for a game with attacks.

Difficulty is going to be the deciding factor of “Dark Souls” for a lot of people. “Dark Souls” doesn’t explain its mechanic to gamers, nor does it clearly tell them what to do. Some gamers will find a rewarding, enriching experience that will change their view of video games as an art form and at how they draw emotional responses from players. Others will find that they purchased a $60 paperweight after they quit “Dark Souls” 15 minutes in.

“Dark Souls” is rated M and is available in stores nationwide for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.