Dark souls truly is as good as people say. In the face of things the game gets right, its shortcomings are fairly inconsequential. I’ll get those out of the way now. Not every boss is a 10/10 amazing life changing experience, some of the music isn’t perfect and there’s a lot of classic “hard game” bullshit, especially in the original version were a basilisk mob lag spike is basically a guaranteed shit journey back to firelink. With all that out of the way, I can confidently say dark souls rules total ass. There’s something so satisfying about this genre defining combat against some of gaming most iconic bosses. Learning which weapons or spells are gonna be better for your play style or when to let that attack button fly or play it safe is the cornerstone of gameplay and it’s pretty entertaining. Although combat seems to progressively evolve as the series goes on there’s something about this pre-mega graphic world that oozes charm and intrigue. The 5 gods and the lord soul world building is definitely captivating and the game does an excellent job of building up these boss fights before they even happen. The physical world is also amazing, taking clear inspiration from very 1100s architecture and combining it with fantasy to make something amazing. Buildings like the undead asylum not only build intrigue but also exhibit the historical influence above and that flight to Anor Londo for the first time really sells the might and magnificence of king Gwyn and the other lords. It is definitely good for the lore scroungers for the reasons I’ve mentioned above and then some and I am definitely a lore scrounger. Perhaps the biggest thing that stood out about this game however is its theme and how it connects to the gameplay. I think it’s absolutely genius to make a game hard and have the lord of the game imply that if you, the player give up, your character becomes hollow like the other undead of lordran. The game encourages perseverance in a very fun and kind of melancholic way. We see someone go hollow because they are jealous of our perseverance and they lose their purpose and king gwyn became so obsessed with conserving the age of fire he himself went hollow as well, hence it’s beautiful and tragically presented boss fight. I could talk about this facet of the game for hours but I’ll end it by saying dark souls is brilliant and truly solidifies itself as a modern classic. Please play it if you get the chance! Also the music fucks hard💯