Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

100 or More Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Highly addictive"

Every player that has put this game into their console knows the difficulty. But that is not what keeps this game from receiving a 9 plus score. Obviously i liked the game enough to play it as long as i have. Also have every achievement which i am quite proud of. I am going to get the negative out of the way first.

There is a quite a bit of slow down and frame rate problems. It is especially noticeable in places such as Blighttown. This detracts from the overall immersion into the game. Also when interacing with the npc's there should have been a zoom in from the camera such as in games like Mass Effect where the characters mouth actually moved when he spoke. This would have added to the overall story which sadly to say is quite dull. Both endings are unrewarding to say the least considering what you have to go through to see them. I also believe there should be maps to be discovered for each area. I also would have liked to have seen a better stats page. Maybe something that shows the enemies you have encountered. I would like to know how many times i have defeated them, their hit points, items they may drop, etc. If we could get this game and Castlevania to merge we would have one hell of a game. I would also like to know what weapons i have used to kill with. The overall lack of direction is pretty bad as well. While the game is big enough it seems bigger the first time through. The last time i ran through the game in under 10 hours. There are also a couple of cheap places that may have you wanting to bust the game into a million pieces. Some of the difficulty comes from getting hit once trapped in a corner and not being able to recover because the enemy hits you again before you even have a chance. I realize that it is the players fault for getting hit in the first place but a few of my deaths felt cheap instead of hard. OK that is enough bad things to say because while playing this game i became very addicted.

The world in dark souls is very immersive and sucks you into it. The boss fights are brutal and the enemies take up the entire screen at times. There are so many secrets to discover and the upgrading process of weapons is quite addictive as well.The overall freedom the game gives you is great. There are many different places the player is able to explore at any given time. I love this factor about a video game and to me is one thing that makes Dark Souls so addictive. The combat is fun and figuring out how to deal with each enemy is also very enjoyable for an action rpg. Grinding and leveling up your character to get passed the next segment is quite rewarding once you are able to press on to the next part of the game.

I feel that if the developer would give the player just a little more updated menus and things like maps then dark souls would be game of the year contender. But as it is it is just a very good game that is highly addictive.