A game that I truly loved the first half of, and then fell out of love by the middle of the second half only to fall back in love. It's truly a roller coaster of quality with how shockingly bad it can get in comparison to the terrific areas in the first half. But disregarding those issues I truly do feel thankful to this game for essentially putting challenge back in the zeitgeist of popular video games, not every game should be incredibly difficult of course, but it's fun to truly test your skills every once in a while.

Dark Souls is not just a game. It's an experience: an immersive, immensively difficult but rewarding experience offering endless possibilities in terms of play style and character building.

Many people are turned off by how difficult the game is. The game will punish you like no other. It will laugh in your face time and time again. It will make you question your life choices. But fellow gamer, THAT is what makes Dark Souls, well, Dark Souls.

Don't expect this game to hold your hand for you like every other rpg out there. There's no mini map or markers that tell you where to go. No journal or questbook to keep track of progress. It's up to you to figure it out and find your way. Listening to subtle "hints" in npc dialog, reading item descriptions, and reading messages left by other players are just a few ways to help. But many times you must simply venture into the unknown with no clues as to what you may find, what enemies you may face, what traps may lie on your path, or who may invade you at any second.

The level of difficulty and mastery of skills required in Dark Souls is what makes it such a rewarding experience. Finally defeating a boss on your 20th attempt, after you've memorized all their move sets and figured out all their weaknesses is a glorious feeling. The sense of accomplishment you get after a boss fight is the absolute most rewarding experience. You come out of each fight a better player, humbled, and ready for the next fight.

There's no other game I could recommend more than Dark Souls. Definitely one of the games every gamer should play at some point.

Hope this review was helpful. Be safe, friend. Don't you dare go hollow.

Cons:
- Some of its endgame locations feel rushed & unfinished
- Bosses get recycled both as regular enemies and just bosses again
- Stats do weird things, like dex increasing spellcasting speed, or resistance doing nothing
- Build variety leaves a lot to be desired
- A lot of crucial information is buried in item descriptions that are easy to miss, or NPCs that are hard to find
- Narrow corridors make certain weapons useless
- PvP is broken at 60FPS

Pros:
- It's a really, really good game