Prepare to die!.....again.

User Rating: 8.5 | Dark Souls PS3
By Axcalay | Review Date:
Dark souls, the "spiritual" succesor to the great Demon's souls is here to take over your life, your thoughts and dreams and most of all, your rage quit threshold to all new heights. It plays out pretty much like Demon's souls apart from there's no central hub where you can tackle the levels as you please, rather an ambitious open world design. Kudos to From software for making it completely seamless too, as there are absolutely no load screens or pauses as you run through the various places. The environments vary from a war torn medieval castle, ghostly ruins, dragon filled lands, grand cities, inside trees,sewers and crystal caves all the way to molten volcano depths, each with their own perils, dangers and challenging boss fights. Each world is also expertly crafted, with a beautiful art design and graphics to match. Occasionly the frame rate drops to alarming levels, but not so often that it detracts from the experience.
The whole kill enemy, gain souls level up, die lose it all, run back to bloodstain to get it all back or die trying formula has returned but here you have an added pressure of loss: Humanity. Without humanity you will forever be a "hollow" or zombie type creature, your enemies will be harder and the chances of them dropping items will decrease. Also in this hollowed state you will be unable to summon any NPC's or other people playing online to help you out. This really adds even more depth and risk to a game that already has heaps already, making for a very exciting and challenging experience.
Good job that you have an incredible arsenal of weapons, armors, spells, miracles and pyromancies at your disposal, because litteraly, even the lesser enemies have the potential to make you into brown bread fast.
As in demon's souls, it really doesn't matter what class you choose from in the beggining as this will only affect your starting out stats. Even a cave man can become a great sword wielding magician able to do miracles and burn some undead butt.
The story this time around is even more vague than it's predecessor, but unfortunately, also less important. Yes there are NPC's that you continually find that shed a little more light on the subject (or not) but save for one or two, aren't as interesting as in Demon's. The same can also be said of the atmosphere. It's nearly there, but not quite. The level designs also seem somewhat on a smaller scale to Demon's souls and that, "the further I go the more wierd and terrifying it's gonna get" is just not that present this time around, save a couple of places. But these are just hateful comparisons that anyone who has played through Demon's will find themselves doing.
If you haven't played Demon's souls yet, then this gane will feel fresh and new, but I also recommend playing Demon's souls first.
Like it's predeccessor, this game is not for everyone, so the impatient and easily frustrated should just stay well, well away.

So all in all, a great game, that I can't help feeling is not as great as it could've been with a little more development time.

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