Who likes smashing their face against a wall repeatedly? Because that is what happens in Dark Souls. It is a game where you headbutt a concrete wall so many times that you’ll eventually start to chip away at it. You can give up, go to hospital, return home and do something else. Or, you can get patched up and resume the head meeting wall scenario until you chip away a little more wall. And when you make slight progress you feel so triumphant in your head wall smashing ability that you charge headlong into the next wall, immediately snapping your neck and returning to hospital.
How much you enjoy this will have a direct correlation to your anger levels and the amount of control pads you can afford to smash into itty-bitty pieces after the 37 attempts at FUCKING Ornstein and Smough GAH HUMPH FUUUU, but if you can get over the initial difficulty there is a stupidly good game behind 75 reinforced concrete walls.
Story
Now you will be forgiven for thinking there isn’t a story (fanbois will flame you though), but there is. It is just hidden behind layers of text in the item descriptions and the games many wikis. But apparently, you are a risen undead “insert character class” and you are trying to light a bonfire. Why you’re attempting to light bonfires isn’t really explained, so you either have to read about it, or just accept the fact you’re here to bury your face in a large blob monsters buttocks.
Gameplay
Dark Souls is an Action RPG, so you run around in 3rd person perspective and die a lot.
Difficulty
I guess you can imagine that headbutting your way through 75 walls is pretty difficulty, but Dark Souls does become manageable. Nothing is signposted, but everything is fair. There is a reason you die, poor reaction, not noticing the HUGE WIND UP ANIMATION, jumping in lava, not looking around a corner, not holding your shield up, thinking you can run through 3 enemies to skip them, using lock on too much, not using lock on enough, the default camera, the special camera, thinking you can go toe to toe with Havel, lifts in Sen’s Fortress, the lifts in Blighttown, running onto a lift in New Londo Ruins that isn’t really there, being too aggressive, being to passive, and treasure chests.
Basically, you can’t face tank the game. Every section needs learning, and every section requires a different strategy as bosses that are easy for a warrior are almost impossible for a sorcerer (Four Kings) and visa versa.
Hell, you don’t even level up like in a normal game. When you kill enemies, they drop souls. These souls are your currency for buying spells, equipment, upgrades, and leveling. So leveling isn’t automatic, you need to save your souls, and level up at a bonfire. Problem is, if you die… you lose your souls. You can run to your corpse to reclaim your souls, but if you die again, they are gone for good. It means the risk vs reward scale is very much titled on the risk side of the scale and saving souls for that sexy new spell you really want can be a nerve racking experience.
Many sections are long, and you will die a lot figuring out where to go, so if you have souls, use ’em, because you *WILL* die. And you will die a lot. Dark Souls is the kinda game where Piss Willow the one armed archer could kill you if you don’t show him the appropriate respect.
The two main brickwalls I found to my progress were the Capra Demon, who is an earlyish boss, and then Ornstein and Smough. They aren’t especially difficult once you “git gud“, but I struggled because there are multiple things to deal with, and even on New Game+ as a super leveled god of Magic I was still whomped on these.
Once I passed Ornstein and Smough in Anor Londo I started to wafflestomp, I found an area in the Painted World of Ariamis where I was able to grind out 30 levels in about 2 hours, and suddenly my Pyromancer was 50+ strength and was trotting around in FULL Havel Gear. I was a fire god with the strength of a Warrior, and at this point I started to feel more confident. I was able to beat bosses on first or second attempt rather than taking 5-10 attempts (except Fire Centipede thingy, that fucker took 30 attempts). It means the game can start to get very easy, and the “joy” of headbutting walls is slowly replaced by the simple satisfaction of trouncing the Bastardy McFuckface bosses.
Despite all this there isn’t really a “punishment” for death except when you die corpse running, the most frustrating aspect is actually that some bosses have a long ass walk to get back to them which can be hella annoying. For example having to leg it for Bed of Chaos is a damn chore, but my personal hell are the Royal Guards before Ornstein and Smough!

Anor Londo Buttress: Sigh, dying on this bit is a chore. My advice, cheat by using poison arrows. Just cheat. Oh, and I died about 40 times.
Bosses
Most bosses are difficult to begin with, but the standard rule is “stick something in their arse”. Get behind ’em, and probe away. There are exceptions, but you rarely go wrong with pike it’s ass. That isn’t to say they are easy once you know to violate their rectums, most enemies will have a counter or a heavy damage retaliation, so if you’re not paying attention you will probably be one shot.
One slight disappointmentt I have with the bosses is on “New Game+”, this is where you redo the game, as you were. So walking up to Capra Demon who gave me so much trouble as a noob, and 2 shotting him wasn’t as satisfying as you’d think. So while the bosses hit slightly harder and have a little more health each time, they are nowhere near your level. It meant I got through the first 7 bosses in less then 45 minutes. Keeping in mind it took me 60 hours to complete the game and on all my save files it has taken me 2-4 hours just to get to 3rd or 4th boss it shows how much I am whomping on second playthroughs. Though once you reach Anor Londo the game catches up with your level and life becomes more difficult again.
Additional Content
I don’t normally cover DLC in reviews, but I bought the Prepare to Die edition of Dark Souls, so I figured i’d at least have a looky…
And just like the rest of Dark Souls, you can play the entire game and not know where or how to access it without a guide. You need to make sure the Siegmeyer quest is working (as it is easily buggable) and you need to kill a totally innocuous random Blue Golem in the Duke’s Archive. A portal will then appear miles away. Go to the portal and you’ll be whisked to the new area.
To be honest, the additional content did nothing for me, the boss battles weren’t interesting to me, and were a little harder. So ultimately I got bored and gave up on it.
Conclusion
I love Dark Souls, there is no hand holding, there is no “press X to not die” and while it is brutal in its difficulty, everything is mostly fair. If you have the patience you’ll find a game that is deep and rewarding, where most of the bugs end up looking like features. Especially when you convince a boss to jump off a rooftop killing itself in the process.
I have sank nearly 100 hours into Dark Souls in just over two weeks, and it might be the only game other than Silent Hill 2 where I have immediately done a second run.
The only bit I consider to be unfair or broken is the shear RNGesus of the Bed of Chaos or the FUCKING buttress in Anor Londo which are easily the least fun parts of the game.
Pros: GITTING GUD
Cons: significant lag in areas like Blighttown, dying when running back to a previous death, Bed of Chaos just wanking you off into a pit of death, the bit on the buttresses with the archers in Anor Londo.
94%
Back in the day:
Widely considered one of the most important games of the 7th Generation Dark Souls received very high scores, though averaged out in the mid 80s.
Personally only played the second Dark Souls, was great but bloody hard. One of those games I intend to go back to and finish somewhen.
Reuben
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I’m on DS2 now, i’m not enjoying it anywhere near as much as DS1. Too many dudes in big armour, whereas DS1 was huge dragons and shit.
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I regret never beating this game. I’m not even sure how far I got.. I recall beating the Gaping Dragon and then Queelag, never reached Sif (maybe I got lost..?).
At the time, I chose the ‘rage-quit’ path over the ‘git gud’ path. I should really give it another go after playing both DS3 and Bloodborne to death (100%’d the pair).
I played a fair bit of DS2 as well (up to the Old Iron King – who’s health I got down to almost nothing and then I got greedy) but I felt that the ‘loss of max health on death’ mechanic was completely unnecessary; item management is the last thing you want to be worrying about in a game like that (the Estus Flask is more than enough).
Anyway, I’m glad you enjoyed this one. If you’re interested, you should check out some of the world record speed runs of it – they’re insane. I’ll definitely be giving this and the second one another go in the future.
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I’m playing DS2 right now, and I am in the Lost Bastille (5 or 6 bosses in), and Iam not really enjoying it as much.
The stupid weapon degradation sucks, and the items are too much to managed. I started as a sorceror because I loved that in 1, but in 2 they been nerfed too much. Facetanking as a strength Warrior and nowt can break through shield, so it is now too easy
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Sif is a boss you absolutely need to beat as he has the item to take on the Four Kings, but he is like 3 maps removed from anywhere you’d need to go so is too easy to miss.
After Quelaag you go to a fortress with awesome platforming that is stupidly hard. Then Anor Londo where it sucks. After that it opens up and you can go 4 seperate ways,.
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The bed of chaos is a dick. Just flat out dick moves the whole time. I tend to keep my language family friendly on here, but bed of chaos does not deserve it.
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If it wasn’t for Ornstein and Smough being so hard Bed of Chaos would be the worst bit. I enjoyed the platforming in Sen’s, but the Buttress in Anor Londo FUUUUUUUU
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The thing with Ornstein and Smough is they’re tough because they outclass you most of the time. The bed of chaos is just rubbish because it relies on quick platforming in an unpredictable arena when the controls aren’t set up for that style of play. It doesn’t fit in with the type of boss fight the game needs.
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VERY TRUE. The run to BoC is a right pain too, I had to switch rings every time on my Pyromancer as he was in full Havel, , so needed to keep switching the lava ring for something more useful in the fight
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Full Havel? Not going for a lightweight build then 😉
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FULL Havel, even the shield! My Pyromancer had something stupid like 60 strength. His magic sucked, but he hit hard and could withstand any attack
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Plus I did a 2nd run as a sorcerer so went ultra light
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Magic can work pretty well in DS, but the later games nerfed it heavily.
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Noticing that in 2. The magic does naff all, my sorcerer is almost doing as much with melee as he does with spells and his int is in the 50s, strength is around 16…
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Considering most of the bosses, dodging characters are often the best option.
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I broke you and you know it.
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And i broke my pad!
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My first and only 1000/1000 on Xbox 360. This, followed by BB, is the best game ever made.
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I’ve never 1000ed anything that counts. Got 1000 on a boxing game that gave you all the achievements for doing the 25 fight career.
Or Left for Dead where I only missed 1
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Played Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne, but never Dark Souls. I already have a copy ready to play as soon as possible even if I know I’ll probably not finish it. Those game are hard for me, but strangely addictive. Nice post!
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Cheers dude, I’m drawn to Bloodborne but I haven’t bought a current gen console yet. I’m enjoying playing a game style that doesn’t treat you like a baby.
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