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Dark Souls Review for PlayStation 3 (PS3)

Dark Souls Review for PlayStation 3 (PS3)

Death Is Only The Beginning

Dark Souls is a difficult game.

It’s difficult because it gives you an impossible task: struggle against insurmountable forces of darkness to return the world to the living. While this might sound like just another day for the average gamer (how many times have we already saved the universe?), Dark Souls takes a vastly different approach. Instead of giving you an arsenal of guns, serious magical skills, or unnatural resurrection powers, the game puts you in the shoes of a regular old chap. You have fleeting vitality, only the most basic of weapons, and the ability to absorb souls to improve yourself. Slowly.

Because you play as regular ol’ Joe, you’re going to have to work extremely hard to make yourself worthy to take on the massively difficult forces around you. And that’s where the real meat of Dark Souls comes into play. You don’t play this game because you want to experience a cinematic story or because you want to find out what happens to the main character. You play because you want to actually experience the hero’s journey—not the one you see in films, but the one where you work tirelessly, fail often, and learn from your mistakes. Welcome to the world of Dark Souls.

Dark Souls Screenshot

The game starts in a dark prison cell. After picking some basic features, you wake up dead. There are several other dead people in here as well, and as a tutorial, you’ll have to cut them all down. Fortunately, these dead guys don’t really fight back. But this grace period is fleeting, as your first boss encounter is only steps away. But like so many things in Dark Souls, you aren’t quite ready to face this boss quite yet, so you’ll have to duck into a dark corner and do some fast and dirty leveling (while finding some weapons) before you can even hope to progress.

The game’s overall format is much like this first area, and you cannot simply run through the game. Grinding in Dark Souls is an art form, and one you’ll have to master quite early. As you kill enemies, you’ll collect a set amount of souls from each victim. These souls can then be used as leveling currency to slightly improve your stats, one level at a time. But there’s a bit of a twist to this mechanic.

Dark Souls Screenshot

The only place where you can commit souls to skill points is by a bonfire, which works as the game’s de facto checkpoint system. Unfortunately, these bonfires are few and far between, and if you die before reaching one, all the souls you earned in battle will be lost. You’ll have to start all over again from zero, until you can find the spot where you died. And if you die again before you reach that spot, then you can just go ahead and abandon all those souls (and all that hard work).

But let’s just say for a moment that you do make it to the bonfire, and you are able to spend all of your earned souls. Dark Souls has another surprise for you: all those enemies you’ve just defeated have respawned and are ready to kill you again. Though this is initially somewhat of an annoyance, it can actually be a good thing for those who are dedicated to the grind. Just keep collecting souls, returning to the bonfire, leveling up, and then beating the enemies again. Though the game itself is extremely difficult, it doesn’t make it hard for you to level up. This helps you cope with the ridiculous amount of deaths you will undoubtedly suffer through.

Dark Souls Screenshot

The only helping hand Dark Souls offers is a very impressive multiplayer component. There’s a fairly impressive co-op system that allows you to play with up to three other people online, which is a tremendous help when you are trying to get through a particularly tough section. Of course, if you prefer to suffer in silence, you can also take part in a sort of passive co-op. As long as you have online features enabled, you can check messages left by other players, view replays of other players’ deaths (incredibly useful if there’s a hidden trap), and even fight alongside real-time “ghosts” of other players who are in the same area as you.

Dark Souls asks a lot of its players, and you don’t get a whole lot back in terms of story or cinematic scenes. But as those who have already experienced Demon’s Souls already know, the experience itself is worth the dark and treacherous journey. Running through the same area ten times just to beat a mid-level boss to get to the next checkpoint may seem foolish to some, but there is an incredible addictiveness to it. Getting just a few more souls and then finally beating that beast or dragon feels immensely satisfying, and I don’t think there’s any other game out there that can quite replicate the experience.

Dark Souls Screenshot

On the technical side of things, Dark Souls is just as solid as its predecessor. The game’s world is vast and highly detailed. Though “grunt”-type enemies do tend to look quite similar, there’s enough variety in the bosses and the world at large to keep things from getting too repetitive visually. The game’s soundtrack is also very well-done, with a haunting score that keeps pace with its dark themes.

Dark Souls is a game that is very demanding, and it certainly isn’t for everyone. However, if you liked its spiritual predecessor Demon’s Souls, or are looking for a gaming experience unlike the endless paint-by-numbers RPGs out there, Dark Souls will give you everything you want and more. Like anything worthwhile, it is a difficult experience and it’s not always pleasurable. But in the end, this is one journey you’ll be happy you undertook.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 4.3 Graphics
The world of Dark Souls is gorgeously depicted with plenty of detail. 4.0 Control
The world of Dark Souls is gorgeously depicted with plenty of detail. 4.2 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
The soundtrack is haunting, and voiceover is done well (despite being quite sparse). 4.5 Play Value
Grinding, leveling, and, of course, dying over and over again will keep the most dedicated players immersed in this world for a very long time. 4.2 Overall Rating – Great
Not an average. See Rating legend below for a final score breakdown.

Review Rating Legend
0.1 – 1.9 = Avoid 2.5 – 2.9 = Average 3.5 – 3.9 = Good 4.5 – 4.9 = Must Buy
2.0 – 2.4 = Poor 3.0 – 3.4 = Fair 4.0 – 4.4 = Great 5.0 = The Best

Game Features:

  • Extremely Deep, Dark, and Difficult – Unforgiving in its punishment, yet rewarding for the determined – learn to strategize freely and conquer seemingly impossible challenges. You will organically design your own gameplay style by developing your character and continuously trying different strategies to finally achieve successful progression.
  • Fully Seamless World – Explore a completely integrated world of dark fantasy where dungeons are seamlessly intertwined, with great height.
  • Mastery Earns Progression – Contains 60 hours of gameplay, with nearly 100 uniquely despair-inducing monsters and an incredibly nuanced weaponry and magic spells system, the effectiveness of which is determined by combat situation, fighting style, and character attributes. A player’s success depends on their eventual mastery of how and when to use the magic spells, choice of armor, the number of weapons, the types of weapons, and the moves attached to the weapons.
  • Network Play – Players may cross paths with one another, interacting with each other throughout the game even as each player plays their own game. Networked play allows users to cross paths with one another to enhance the single-player gameplay experience without destroying it.
  • Flexible Character Development and Role Play – As the player progresses, they must carefully choose which of their character’s abilities to enhance, as this will determine their progression style. Players can choose to play as a sword master and a wizard, for example.
  • Community – See other real players and empathize with their journey, learn from seeing how others died, and find and leave messages for your fellow players, helping them or leading them into death.

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