What an amazing experience. Dark Souls truly mastered the formula of making the game kick your ass and hold no fucking restraint on you whatsoever, while still making the player come back to do it all over again.

When you start off you basically have nothing. You walk through the Undead Asylum looking past all of hollows who have gone mad. You then make it to your first bonfire. Each one in the game serves not only as a sense of relief to the player, but also shows itself as a glowing beacon of your progress. When you eventually collect all your essential materials and manage to take down the Asylum Demon. Without a single word of dialogue, the game shows you that no matter what happens, every enemy in the game is capable of being defeated at your hands.

From then on you encounter multiple new enemies, areas, npcs that will help you on your journey, and undoubtedly the best part of Dark Souls; the bosses. While not every boss in the game is perfect, and some clearly outshine some more than others, the bosses are the absolute charm of Dark Souls. The larger bosses may have an intimidating size, but are often slow and have attacks that can be easily dodged with a little practice. Whereas, more human like bosses will be harder to hit, faster, and can have combos that will seriously fuck you up if you slip up, but will have lower health pools and are more prone to being staggered.

Another one of the best features in the game is the extremely wide, seemingly infinite variety of playstyles. From the moment you start the game, you choose what starting class you want to play as, and what starting gift you want along with that starting class. From pyromancer, to knight, to sorcerer, to bandit, there is something that can appeal to everyone here. And that's not even bringing up the extremely large roster of weapons that can be used. Swords, Axes, Greatswords, Lances, Scythes, Spears, Catalysts, the tooth of a fucking dragon, there is so much stuff that I can't see how it's possible to not find something for you.

The previous paragraph perfectly leads into what is single handedly the best part of the base game. The boss fight that is Ornstein and Smough. It is an absolutely brilliantly crafted boss fight that does everything perfectly. It is a boss fight in which you are forced to fight two enemies at the same time. The more human shaped, sleek, agile, and extremely speedy Dragonslayer Ornstein, and the large, slow, incredibly devestating Executioner Smough. The two are made to cover eachothers weaknesses perfectly and while trying to deal with one in the middle of the other being distracted is most likely your best source of trying to get in damage. If you even think for a second that you can attack one while the other is on it's way towards you, you're as good as dead. This isn't the only part of what makes this boss fight a masterpiece though. Once you kill one of them, the other will regain all of their health and enter a second phase. If you kill Smough first then you'll fight a supersized Ornstein who gains an electrified version of Smough's body slam, and if you decide to take out Ornstein first instead you'll have to face Smough with all of his moves now electrified. This second phase is apart of the many things that makes this fight a masterpiece. It kicks your ass unrelentlessly and continually has you coming back to try over and over until you come back and finally conquer the duo. Truly the best part of this masterpiece of a game (Excluding the dlc.)

After defeating many more bosses, and raising your stats, changing your gear with the thousands of possible combinations, you've finally made it to the final boss, Gwyn. He is a king that is trapped in his own time, which has far long exceeded him. His family is dead, his knights have been killed and he is simply trying his best to defend what very little he has left. If you choose the to link the fire ending then he is the representation of what the player is fated to become. An undead husk of what was once a man who sought only to protect his land and bring prosterity to his people. The music is what really makes this fight hit hard too. All of the songs for the bosses in this game fit perfectly. Some are bombastic and brilliantly orchestrated. Some are more menacing, bone chilling tunes. Whereas others are calming and relaxing tunes. You'd think that at the end of your journey it might play an epic tune to finish off the showdown between to opposing forces, fated to face off against one another. But it plays an extremely somber tune. The music is quiet and gives the player a peace of mind, it is an absolutely brilliant way to bring a close to this masterpiece of a game. Without a doubt in my mind, 9.5/10.