If you approach Dark Souls with patience and perseverance it will be one of the most rewarding games you will ever play.
This game is one of the hardest games i have ever played yet one of the most fun games i've ever played. Hurry up #2
Dark Souls is an extraordinary role-playing game that transports you to an awesome and menacing world you may never forget.
Like Demon's Souls, Dark Souls possesses a number of incredible online features that make you feel like one node on a giant web of identical worlds. You see the ghosts of other players on your travels, and they are less transparent the closer you are to a bonfire. These players don't exist in your world, but are more like echoes from a parallel kingdom that resonate with your own. You also encounter bloodstains that mark the deaths of other players; by activating one, you watch the player's ghost reenact the final seconds before death. These aren't just neat features that impart a sense of community, though they certainly do that. They also let players serve as silent, inadvertent guides to each other. By both living and dying, you might be another's quiet savior. It makes Dark Souls an unusual and wonderful contradiction: you feel remarkably alone in this frightening place, yet simultaneously part of a large multiverse where simply playing the game makes you part of a chorus of silent voices urging each other forward.
You can offer more direct assistance by creating helpful messages from a series of canned words and phrases and leaving them for other players to read, and you can heed advice others leave for you. And if you need extra help, you can summon a stranger to your world, or be summoned to another. Tackling a boss with one or three other players is a lot of fun, though there are other ways of assisting your fellow travelers. One way is to drop an item; left long enough, it will transform into a phantom and wander into someone else's game. Such phantoms leave behind precious items, though they must be vanquished before you can reap your reward. Of course, you might prefer antagonizing other players rather than assisting them. In that case, you can invade them as a black phantom. Just like in Demon's Souls, being invaded exponentially increases your tension level, because you have to worry not only about standard creatures, but also about another player hunting you down.
Dark Souls shares many attributes with Demon's Souls, yet possesses enough distinct facets to feel fresh and exciting even to veterans of the older game. One of those distinctions is an uncommon currency called humanity. Your basic form is that of a hollowed soul--that is, undead. In this state, you can't summon others to your side or invade their worlds. Doing so requires you to possess humanity. Humanity has benefits beyond allowing you to summon and, like souls, can be retrieved after death if you return to your bloodstain. It can also be sacrificed at bonfires to increase the number of health flasks you receive when resting, which can be a real boon. But being human makes you vulnerable, because it opens you to invasions. Other players don't steal into your world just for the fun of it; they want your valuable humanity. The good news is that if you defeat your pesky invader, you receive his humanity for your troubles.
Covenants are another element unique to Dark Souls. These are like factions, and joining one offers distinct benefits, not just for you, but possibly for other players. Finding covenant leaders isn't always straightforward. One is a cat lounging in a window, and it's easy to miss as you rush past, trying to lose the soldier dogging you. Another is a demonic monstrosity lurking behind a hidden wall you might have walked past a dozen times or more. Joining that cat's ranks has a great benefit: you can walk peacefully among the wolves and ghostly figures of the forest. That hidden demon has powerful pyromancy spells to grant you, among other choice offerings. Furthermore, players in the same covenant share certain benefits. For instance, comrades might enjoy the effects of a miracle you cast. Which covenant you find most appealing depends on what you want to get out of the experience; some benefit player-versus-player fanatics, while others are more appealing to sorcerers than to thieves. The game isn't always clear about the risks and rewards various covenants offer, but unraveling these secrets is one of Dark Souls' cerebral delights. Not sure what donating humanity to your faction leader might accomplish? Do it and find out for yourself. But be careful, because betraying a faction has consequences, and forgiveness isn't something you can pray for: it must be bought, and it doesn't come cheap.
Covenants aren't Dark Souls' only source of mystery. You experience events that you couldn't have seen coming but that still make a kind of demented sense when they occur. Touching a glowing ring after defeating yet another skyscraping boss initiates a memorable voyage. A creature appears where none was before, eager to exchange unused equipment for a few souls in return. You also encounter strange characters locked in cells and trapped in golems. Should you rescue those imprisoned individuals, they may appear later in Firelink Shrine with words of advice, gestures to teach you, and new spells to purchase. Others may not be what they seem, and if you have reason not to trust them, you can drive a sword into their flesh. Doing so may grant you a helpful ring or piece of armor, but you might lose certain benefits by denying yourself future access to these folk.
Not all unexpected circumstances are pleasant ones, however. Falling victim to a curse halves your health bar, and curing it requires purchasing a special stone--or sprinting through haunted ruins, where a special healer offers his services. Idle long enough near a disgusting, larvae-filled foe, and it might infest you, turning your head into a giant egg that eats half of the souls you earn. Finding the right cure for your head tumor is a quest of its own, though it isn't one granted by an NPC, but one born of circumstance. Such occurrences might seem harsh, but they're actually a sly method of making the adventure feel like one of your own making, rather than one governed by a structured quest log.
Dark Souls requires intense focus. This isn't a lighthearted romp in a bright and colorful fantasy world; it's a methodical journey into the frightening unknown. And that's what makes it so riveting. Some games try to scare you with bump-in-the-night shocks and far-off howls, but Dark Souls doesn't require such predictable methods of terror. Its terrors emanate from its very core, each step bringing you closer to another inevitable death. How amazing that such a terrible place could be so inviting. The game's world is so memorable, and its action so thrilling, that it might invade your thoughts even when you aren't playing, silently urging you to escape the real world and return to this far more treacherous one. Dark Souls doesn't just surpass other dungeon crawlers; it skewers them with a razor-sharp halberd and leaves behind their soulless corpses.
Kevin VanOrd is a lifelong RPG lover and violin player. When he isn't busy building PCs and composing symphonies, he watches American Dad reruns with his fat cat, Ollie.
9.5? Humm...Now ask if the reviewer actually finished the game xD
For anyone wondering: Get this game. It is unbelievably good. Yes you will die a lot. But don't give up. LEARN and PROCEED. And when you kill a boss first try you will taste a very rewarding feeling my fellow gamer.
Simply can't wait for Dark Souls 2
The game was definitely good, but not for everyone. The very nature of the game is incredibly repetitive, and even though I don't mind all that much, it can get to be quite tedious. Still enjoyed the game.
Just to clarify, the head parasite DOES NOT come from breaking the chaos servant covenant! It comes from being infected by a certain attack from the parasite guys near the entrance of the demon ruins. They are pretty close to the quelaag's sister (covenant leader), so that might be why he attributed the parasite to the covenant.
Why do people whine that the game is sooo extremely difficult? It's not. Be smart, don't rush enemies and you will progress quite smoothly. This game is simply amaizing, I can't wait when the 2nd instalment gets out.
The only problem with Dark Souls and Demon's Souls is that after you struggle to get through a level, you memorize enemy placement and traps and you never have a problem with that area again. NG+ doesn't really fix this problem.
1 Like @unbentonslaught The true experience: don't level up past soul level 100, and beat the game until NG+7, where the difficulty maxes out... GL HF
I have to say, when my friend said that this game made him rage quit in an hour, I did not believe him. Nor did I believe it when it happened to me. After a day of bitter sulking, I picked my controller back up and had the most insanely fun playing experience I have ever had in a game. (Even though I died around one-hundred times in the first two hours.)
@I_are_Cake again¨? so you did not like the 1st game, it is true that is too difficult at some points but at the same time it s the reason you wanna keep playing it ! and yes this one is gonna give you th best headache of your life my friend
@kratospete @I_are_Cake He wasn't referring to demon's souls. the "again" was a sarcastic kind of "could you repeat that" referring to the reason. It points out how no one said a reason. It's like saying "could you show me how that works again?" It doesn't mean how did it work more than one time, it meant show it again.
3 Like Please stop that "unimaginable difficulty" circus. Both games - DS and DKS - are played okay and you feel like a master of situation as soon as you master the basics of these games; then you just walk freely in the well-known levels and just kill everything that confronts you as the king would beat the impudent serfs. Yes, the bosses are quite difficult, but not as difficult as MH monsters, and Dragon's Dogma has something to say, too.So please tell me why is there a hysteria over Dark and Demon's Souls difficulty all over the internets?.. Why do many reviewers say smth like "you'll brake many gamepads while playing this game" - omg really? I never broke a single gamepad in my life and not going to. (sorry, exactly this example has nothing to do with exactly this review).
@Atermi dragons dogma was really one of the easiest games I've ever played just unlock the mystic knight, put on your big boy armor, grab your holy sword and sling your dark shield over your shoulder and go to work
Or use magic like maelstrom and meteor
4 Like As big as Skyrim seems, Dark Souls is a much stronger RPG in almost every aspect. In Skyrim it is never really a question of "What quests do I want to do?" but rather "What order do I want to do them in?", and instead of "How do I want to develop my characer?" it's "How can I get him to the max level with maxed daedric armour and weapons quickest?"
In Dark Souls souls however there really is no right answer to these questions, and so who you roleplay as is completely down to you. Do you want to go ware heavy equipment and go around like a tank, absorbing every hit you take and smashing everything in your path to the group, sacrificing your speed, or so you want to use light armour and weapons to doudge attacks and catch people off their guard? Perhaps you want to go for something a little different and were spiked armour with a shield with a great big spike in the middle, so you can hurt people just by jumping at them? Perhaps you want to go for a weapon with long reach instead, or go for one with poision or bleed so you can use more abstract methods of taking their health down?
And then there's the covenants, in Skyrim there's only 4 guilds of which the game's achievements encouage you to become a master of all three. In Dark Souls there are 9, and you can onle be a true follower of one. Do you want to become a Chaos Serpent, get a pretty niffty chaos fireball spell and eventually the awe-inspiring Chaos Storm, whilst also unlocking the gate to the demon world, or would you rather follow the Path of the Dragon, transforming yourself into a fire breathing human/dragon hybrid? Maybe you want to become a Dark Wraith, gain the powerful red eye ord and dark hand to steal people's precious humanities, gather enough and you can start to look like the Grim Reaper himself, or perhaps you would rather become a Blade of the Dark Moon, charge your weapon up with holy power and take revenge on those swines that killed your beloved princess?
Then there's that one part that makes up the "role" in "role playing game", the class system. Do you want to be a warrior and start with one of the best longswords in the game and slam it into monsters with your outstanging strengh, whilst being useless at magic, or settle with a Theif to start with a mater key that gets you access to all the starting loot early on, as well as a second starting gift of your choosing. Maybe you want to venture for a Cleric and be the only class who can carry up to 10 castings on your healing spell whilst also being able to defend yourself in combat, or maybe a Pyromancer is more up your street, starting the game one level ahead with great offensive skills, but specialising in a type of magic that doesn't scale with any or your stats. You could even chose the deprived class to give yourself an extra challenge, and to be granted the chance to reach the highest level there is.
All this is what makes a role playing game a role playing game; choice. Sure Skyrim has a large expansive world to explore but it means nothing without any relevance to who's exploring it. It may as well be a large white rectangle with random monster and item placement; you're still going to end up with the exact same character, all that would change is that your stats would be a little higher because you wouldn't have spent so much time looking at all the pretty waterfalls. And another thing, I don't like the way Skyrim just puts a giant "go here" arrow up for you whenever you get a quest and then talks you through every action you must do like you're some kind of braindead kid who's getting trained how to use the toilet, I much prefer Dark Souls do it yourself approach here as it gives you all the info you need to know and if you don't read it, then tough, it's your own damn fault, and if you can't get through an area without dying it's up you to figure out how you can get around the problem, whether that be using a different weapon, fighting the enemies in smaller groups, using a spell to sneak past or distract them, looking for a shortcut to boycott that part of the game altogether, or whatever else your imagination can think up. It's all down to you, not the game, but you.
So, there you are folks. That's why Dark Souls is better than Skyrim.
@robo37 Different people like different games for different reasons.You like DS more than Skyrim than play it.Just because they both have dragons don't make them the same.
@robo37 you needed a 60+ lines essay to prove that Dark Souls is better than Skyrim? Who the hell is going to read all of this xD Here is my proof: I bought Skyrim first, played it for about 19 hours and found it awesome. Then i bought Dark Souls...and never touched the Skyrim or any of my games' disc case again ;)
Hey where is the PC review by the way excellent game though at first it did not attract me as after dying for the six time at that demon in undead asylum but after got used to it and starting using different strategies it got fun the PC version is somewhat better as well as with a monster PC you can move through the areas where the console versions lagged a lot quite smoothly. All in all a rare gem in this generation of games.
2 Like The only game (along with demons souls) that I feel perfectly okay checking out the wiki to learn strategy for certain enemies and areas. Even knowing exactly how to beat an enemy doesn't make it an easy fight. There is enough fun and challenge in just BEATING the enemies and bosses for me, let alone learning how to do that on your own.
2 Like Boring game ever. It's not even RPG, it's a some kind of monoton-adventure-survival game. Producers know how to take attention so they made this crap, and everybody knows how difficult game is but it's also nothing more than difficult. Gameplay, sounds, menus, graphics everything is a joke. Game is a kind of joke. If you want to play a game which is about making things almost impossible for you, try it. I also don't understand Dark Souls fanatics out there. Skyrim is x5 better than this cheap bullshit game. Even Oblivion beats this RPG called crap. Real score is 5.5/10. (I don't give a sht if you agree or not)
@Warmuro fuck skyrim. skyrim is a piece of shit casual-centric, watered down, SIMs copying cash grab. its a total joke. i dont give a shit if you agree or not.
1 Like @Warmuro I can understand the comment about the game looking cheap, but understand they weren't going for impressive graphics, or dazzling menus, like Skyrim. They made a bleak grueling game with precise controls and challenging combat, unlike Skyrim which seemed to have hit and miss controls and at times laughable challenges. Every one has there preferences, I've enjoyed both games immensely, but I can't remember the last time a game grabbed my attention and dragged me into it's world like Dark Souls.
2 Like @Warmuro If you don´t give a shit about the opinions of others and are content enough to live inside the circumambient idiocy of your own brain, don´t post messages in forums.
@UniversalSigh I respect people's opinions but in this subject i don't give a shit if they AGREE OR NOT. I don't have to give a shit, and others don't have to either. No one can limit my opinions and i can't limit others' opinions either. I have right to write my opinions about games right here and i write and you can't tell i should do otherwise. I don't want a personal fight or an arguement in front of monitor screen, we don't need to give a shit about each other bro. Also, this is not a good area to have an arguement, i've seen a lot of bullshit like we're about to make now -which is off the topic and it surely looks like cheap crap. Have a nice day bro, good gaming.
1 Like @1375alireza no but there is a level glitch you can use......to find it just look for it in the "answers" section on this page. hope it helps.
@ChoppinBrockl33 How bout the old SNES games where you only got a certain amount of lives... like Super Ghouls and Ghosts..... THAT game was hard. I've beaten Dark Souls completely... Super Ghouls and Ghosts.... unless I did it and forgot... never beaten.
This game requires inhuman levels of patience and persistence, but it was easily my favorite game of 2011.
Guys! This game is gonna see the light in PC! 24 august on Steam! the only problem is theyre planning to add Games For Windows Live to? the game... Please sign this petition in order to have Steamworks instead of GFWL!
PC gamers dont want to have such a masterpiece of game like Dark Souls with that broken DRM called GFWL... Lets sign so devs know!
Search in google: Dark Souls gfwl petition
Its the second link (the site is named change)
Thanks for your time and support!
