Dark Souls First Impressions

Dark Souls has been one of my most anticipated games for months now. Its predecessor, Demon's Souls, was a brilliant RPG with a near unlimited amount of character customization. Mix in incredible difficulty that pushes you to complete the game every step of the way, and you had one of the best games of 2009 and of this generation in general.

So, I picked up Dark Souls on Wednesday and have been playing the crap out of it and in turn getting crap kicked out of me every step. But as Tyler and I said on this week's podcast (hopefully it will be on the blog soon), difficulty can be a double-edged sword. It can make or break the game. Does it make Dark Souls the way it did Demon's Souls or does it go too far?

STORY

Like Demon's Souls, so far Dark Souls really doesn't have much in the way of a narrative. In fact, the opening prologue even more cryptic and confusing than for Demon's Souls. It does have some lore mixed in there from what I've seen so far and I'm hoping to uncover more as the game goes on. While Demon's Souls never became a masterpiece of storytelling or had much depth to its story, there was definitely more than met the eye at first.

I'm not expecting much and if you're looking for story in the first place, you're probably playing the wrong game. This is a game primarily about the gameplay and overcoming extreme odds, so even if there's not much story depth, I'm not going to grill into it all that much in this case.

GAMEPLAY AND DESIGN

If you've played Demon's Souls, you probably have an idea of what to expect. Even the controls are almost identical. You have to go through several different and very difficult areas grinding your way through basic enemies and every now and then, killing a big demon (aka boss).

There are big rats and then are REALLY frakking big rats.

You gain souls for (almost) every enemy that you kill which act as an all-in one currency for everything. This includes leveling up, which gets more expensive each time you do so. They're also used for purchasing items, upgrading equipment (in conjunction with upgrading materials), repairing equipment and other things.

There are differences and the biggest one is that Dark Souls feels much more open. In the first game there was a hub called the Nexus which was used to get from one place to the next and a good safe zone. In this one, I guess there's one place you could call a hub but the safezones are bonfires.

The bonfires are essential to the game. Not only do they refill your esters, which replaces the grasses from Demon's Souls as healing items, they are also where you can level up your stats, repair your equipment and just plain take a breather. Though they also reset every enemy you've killed, not including bosses. Though this can be useful for farming for souls and other material.

Another difference is that you don't mana this time for spells and miracles. This time, each spell and miracle has a limited number of uses which can be recharged if you get to a bonfire. This was done in an attempt to balance the magic and I think it worked, though I'm still not quite sure where I stand on the change.

Also there's no soul form this time. There's hollow and human form. You get humanity points throughout the game which can restore your humanity each time you die as you become hollow each time. Humanity also gets the enemy to drop more items and if you have humanity points but are already human, you can kindle the bonfires to give you more healing items when you use them. Just be careful because when you die, you lose all your unused souls and humanity points. If you get to the spot where you died without dying again, you can get them back. Die again before that, and they're gone for good.

Even bigger is that there's no world tendency this time. In Demon's Souls, world tendency could be either light, dark, or neutral and all of them had effects on the world and gameplay. I'm kind of sad to see it go but I can definitely see why they did it as manipulating the world tendency in Demon's Souls was a pain in the ass at times.

You fight a giant wolf that uses a giant sword. That is AWESOME!

When I say Dark Souls is hard, I mean it is REALLY hard. Enemies are relentless and even most of the weaker enemies can kill you in a few hits from get-go. If you get outnumbered too much, you can your ass goodbye.

But like the first game, it's for the most part fair. If you die, you screwed up and you need a new strategy. Customization, variety, and adaptation are key here. So here's a tip. While you should definitely focus on your strength, whether it be magic, melee, archery, or whatever, don't ever ignore any of your skills. Try to keep your character somewhat balanced. The same goes for equipment, have a good variety that you can switch to-and-from quickly. And when you do overcome an obstacle, the satisfaction that you'll feel is absolutely incredible.

The online component is also back and is almost the same as last time. There is a new addition in the form of covenants that the player can join which have different practices and can give some nice goodies to members, whether they be spells, miracles, or equipment. I haven't really checked them out yet so I'll go over them more in the full review.

Much is the same, but much has changed and it's just as much fun as it was two years ago.

GRAPHICS AND SOUND

Artistically, Dark Souls has much more varied environments than Demon's Souls did and also a much richer color scheme. The first one had too much gray which was definitely a problem. It was further held back by at times being WAY too dark.

Some of the creature designs have been awesome, particularly the bosses. Even though the first boss is ridiculously easy to kill, he still looked intimidating as hell. The Taurus Demon also looked incredibly badass and those are just two bosses that I've really come across. Some of the others that I haven't come across yet have looked awesome from what I've seen in footage and images with the Gaping Dragon being pure nightmare fuel.

YIKES!!! I'd hate to be its family dentist.

As for the music, I like it much more than the music in Demon's Souls which I just didn't get into for some reason. This one has some much more peaceful sounding tunes than Demon's Souls did which is nice for a break when you've been getting the shit kicked out of you for the past few hours.

CONCLUSION

There's still a LONG way for me to go in this game and I wouldn't expect the full review for sometime as I want to try everything that I can. Arkham City will also delay the main review.

However, from what I've played so far, this has been an excellent follow-up to the game that came out of nowhere two years ago. It's mostly the same mechanics with a few changes. Some are great and some I'm mixed on but as a whole, at the moment, it's been a great package.