Another Role-Playing-Game!?!
Yep, Dark Souls is a role-playing-game, There are stats, equipment, spells and giant rats to slay in dungeons. I’m a bit of a geek and love a good RPG (Hated Final Fantasy XIII but that’s another story) and this one is certainly up there for originality, mood, gameplay and graphics. It’s not that there has been a breakthrough in technology, but there is a breakthrough here in originality here. While many games will hold you by the hand and feed you the plot this one doesn’t.
Mood + Exploration + Imminent Death + Reward + Treasure = Adventure!
Dark Souls is set in a dark world detached from reality, with dilapidated ruins, dank dungeons and underground worlds. The vistas are beautifully vague, with atmospheric light pouring from the distance loosely illuminating forms in the distance. Your character is actually undead, and escapes the undead asylum at the start to maybe become some “undead saviour”. These visuals are refreshing instead of the “look, look, look there’s a big shiny amazing architectural thing here, look!!!”. Later in the game a princess (who is forty foot tall for some reason) tells you that you can break the world of limbo they are all trapped in.
I admire the braveness of the story telling and the steep learning curve. After the Undead Asylum (tutorial) you meet a guy and said something about bells. I didn’t even know I was meant to ring these things but eventually after many hours of trial and error managed to ring one. At the start of the game I went the “wrong” direction and got killed about ten times by skeletons in a grave yard. I’m just illustrating how open the game is, you can go the wrong way and get to one end of the world map but is risky and you will probably die. I am currently sixty hours+ into the game now and “think” I have explored most of the game.
I have to say the map design is also pretty awesome, they do a great job at teasing you by showing you an item but you can never quite reach it. Sometimes you have to go around the whole world to reach it, sometimes you just can get it. This encourages the player to carry on exploring and hopefully get the item that could give them that edge. They managed to remove loading screens, this was achieved by clever use of view spectrums and the shear darkness, where atmosphere over rides texture detail… and it works really well.
Die a hundred deaths
The gameplay revolves around the death system. You are undead, but you can find humanity every now and then. Humanity is a precious commodity, which can be used to make your character human – this opens up many events. When human you can interact differently with NPCs (game non-playable characters) but also leaves you open to “invasion” – Players can invade another’s world and well, kill the player. This has happened to me a few times, and to be honest I find it hard enough not to get killed by the monsters. The currency in the game is Souls – you get these from killing stuff and from pickups. This can also be used to level your character up. When you die you drop your humanity and all souls you had – This can be picked up again but if you die on the way to get it that’s it. The game is also clever with the auto-save, when you die its saves so no cheating/being cheap by saving a lot and reloading. This is great as is a genuine risk, and also leaves a safety zone – if you’re comfortable in an area you can explore it then hopefully level up, after that you’re set and dying isn’t so punishing.
It got Equipment right too!?
Yes equipment is a key feature in RPGS and these are great. The balancing for starters is awesome and the equipment feels as it should – If you block with a heavy shield it deflects the attack well and leaves the enemy open if you have a quick weapon to counter. This also somehow scales really well to – later on when you return to an easy area the enemies feel flimsy as you’re used to killing twenty foot demons – ye they can still rape you if you are foolish.
Each weapon is different to – not just stat wise (like Skyrim – I spit on your crappy generic equipment) but with the attack/recovery speed, move set and reach. In Skyrim an Iron Dagger feels and plays just like every other dagger in the game. You can also craft items – and should if you want to beat the game without pulling all your hair out. The crafting and stats actually seem to have a big impact. Sorry to keep dissing Skyrim but the equipment in that is crap, the method for acquiring crafting material boring (Keep on clicking when you look around a room Ala Fallout or go to a farm for potions) and crafting is ultimately unrewarding and unnecessary .
Have to mention the online
The online in Dark Souls is unique. You can have up to four players together as far as I know, can’t “browse” servers or even use the headset to communicate.
Default – Adds so much mood and a fitting dark link to other players souls.
What you will see most of online (as you need humanity & not to die otherwise) is messages left by other players – These have helped me a lot, but can also be used to wind other players up or to try to be funny. Another thing you will see a lot of is ghosts – these are actually other players on the same server who recently died – you can see how they died and what they were doing – these are often hilarious and sometimes insightful.
Co-op
Even if you have no humanity you can help other players – they have to be human however and around the same level (this cuts down boosting/cheating). You can leave a sign anywhere and a human player can see it and summon you – you can then try to beat a boss together (recommend) and you get humanity and souls as a gift.
PVP (Player vs. Player)
There are “covenants” you can join. My personal favourite (and suits my ranger character) is the Forest covenant... To get through the forest you have to battle other players who defend it. If you join you can be called at any time to defend the forest. I like this as you can be fighting any level / type character and gets interesting when you buddy up and the magic goes flying around. There are many covenents and a “wanted list” of people who invade a lot and you can bring justice (if you pick that covenant).
It also gets all mixed together – I was helping some guy early in the game, he summoned another player to help then some guy invaded… I faced the invader off (if the host dies is all over) and drew them away into a corner where we all pummeled the crap out of them. See if you invade you can’t be a higher level so you get people who “power play” and make the best character they can to kill noobs (which could also be challenging and fun). I like the idea of become some righteous avenger and may get to it if I manage to complete the game.
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