Why is it that a beloved game can age so poorly? Why is it that a world who has discovered a series from its technically first iteration remember a "future timeless classic" while being oblivious to its faults? Why is it, that even with a tinkered edition of a broken game, making it a bit less broken, is still a broken game?
Dark Souls changes a player. It changes a player in many facets. I do not fathom the player whose first memories of a "soulslike" game included frame dips into painful locations. I do not fathom the player who recommends a game to another, only to tell them: "It sucks at first but you'll see". People love a video game, but they won't hesitate to tell you about how some aspects of it suck. Dark Souls changes a player to become an adrenaline junkie for challenging gameplay. Dark Souls changes a player to rethink about their preferences to a "fun challenge". Dark Souls changes a player to consider difficulty as a factor to fun. As for me, Dark Souls changed me to become a more miserable person.
Before I start with my review of "Dark Souls: Remastered", I would like to warn you that this is a review of both "Dark Souls: Remastered" AND "Dark Souls". This is a review for both because I never got past the first iteration of the game: Its technical faults made it a dizzying experience that made it unenjoyable from frame one. Dark Souls: Remastered is but an accompaniment piece to its original version, making it, at the very very least, playable. Dark Souls doesn't need too much to make it playable, but what happens after that?
I have fully played Dark Souls AFTER I've played Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 3 in their entirety, and then some. I wasn't a stranger to the series when I entered the world of Lordran, and yet, I was more miserable playing through this game than I was with the other two combined. Difficulty is undoubtedly an important factor in its game design, but this is also where difficulty as a game design was still being fleshed out. Dark Souls is the result of experimentation, following the success of its predecessor. One game wasn't enough to determine what can make a game hard and fun at the same time. I can't say they haven't tried — quite the opposite, they definitely took their time to craft every stage with care — but, the result of their labor only showed that, even if you do try, you can ultimately fail at providing your experience.
What is a Dark Souls game, but a game about finding opportunities to attack your opponent once they've finished attacking? Can you be greedy and sneak a 2nd or 3rd hit while your opponent's defenses are down? It's a game about learning patterns, using what little movement you have to weave through combat and come ahead victorious, no matter the realistic odds you had fighting (un)godly beings. I've got to say, Dark Souls is the game where you need to do the most Guesswork. Capital G in Guess, because more often than not, knowing a pattern is not enough to get through fights. Some fights take too much time because these patterns are chained too quickly, or don't leave the hero enough time to even score a slice. Some fights pit you with more than one — I could stop here, many people already know what I mean — enemy at a time, and these fights don't have "Patterns" in mind: they have a mess that you need to clean up. The mess doesn't care if you can't attack, you just need to know when the mess has finally let an opportunity show up. The difference between a pattern and a mess, is the intent of difficulty by the game's designers. Should a fight be all about patterns? What even is a pattern? I can only say that a pattern has as loose of a meaning as you have the many ways of approaching fights. The problem is: many of these ways are sub-optimal. Weapon balance is all over the place, some locations make your weapon completely useless and, most of all, the fucking bow isn't going to budge your enemy's health bar.
In a world where misery takes hold of everything, you'd think miserable gameplay would accompany it well (remember this sentence).
The beauty in the decay of what was once a kingdom makes for great vistas to explore. A dead world, rich of story, is undeniably the greatest strength that Dark Souls, hell, its series, has given to us. Dark Souls changes a player to enjoy a world's environments. That, for once, is a good thing I can say about Dark Souls. That's why it's not one star: It has wonderful, redeemable qualities. Crazy how a rating system can work. Anyways, could you wonder what video games could be without Dark Souls? Would we still have countless amounts of lore hunters occupying the gaming world? A question that I shudder to even think. Lore hunting, as cringe as it sounds, is still a wonderful and necessary aspect of analysis. It's what people would do with books and movies, so why not video games? I'm not saying that Dark Souls invented lore to hunt, I'm just saying it was the reason why it became so much more popular. I'm also a fucking sucker for historic (more specifically gothic) architecture, so the locations to visit in this game are like a gourmet meal to my eyes.
Does this game suck? Objectively, yes. I like some things about Dark Souls. For one, I'm thankful for its existence, despite its immensely flawed experience catering. Thankfully, they fixed Dark Souls later on after learning from their mistakes: It's called Dark Souls 2.
Dark Souls changes a player. It changes a player in many facets. I do not fathom the player whose first memories of a "soulslike" game included frame dips into painful locations. I do not fathom the player who recommends a game to another, only to tell them: "It sucks at first but you'll see". People love a video game, but they won't hesitate to tell you about how some aspects of it suck. Dark Souls changes a player to become an adrenaline junkie for challenging gameplay. Dark Souls changes a player to rethink about their preferences to a "fun challenge". Dark Souls changes a player to consider difficulty as a factor to fun. As for me, Dark Souls changed me to become a more miserable person.
Before I start with my review of "Dark Souls: Remastered", I would like to warn you that this is a review of both "Dark Souls: Remastered" AND "Dark Souls". This is a review for both because I never got past the first iteration of the game: Its technical faults made it a dizzying experience that made it unenjoyable from frame one. Dark Souls: Remastered is but an accompaniment piece to its original version, making it, at the very very least, playable. Dark Souls doesn't need too much to make it playable, but what happens after that?
I have fully played Dark Souls AFTER I've played Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 3 in their entirety, and then some. I wasn't a stranger to the series when I entered the world of Lordran, and yet, I was more miserable playing through this game than I was with the other two combined. Difficulty is undoubtedly an important factor in its game design, but this is also where difficulty as a game design was still being fleshed out. Dark Souls is the result of experimentation, following the success of its predecessor. One game wasn't enough to determine what can make a game hard and fun at the same time. I can't say they haven't tried — quite the opposite, they definitely took their time to craft every stage with care — but, the result of their labor only showed that, even if you do try, you can ultimately fail at providing your experience.
What is a Dark Souls game, but a game about finding opportunities to attack your opponent once they've finished attacking? Can you be greedy and sneak a 2nd or 3rd hit while your opponent's defenses are down? It's a game about learning patterns, using what little movement you have to weave through combat and come ahead victorious, no matter the realistic odds you had fighting (un)godly beings. I've got to say, Dark Souls is the game where you need to do the most Guesswork. Capital G in Guess, because more often than not, knowing a pattern is not enough to get through fights. Some fights take too much time because these patterns are chained too quickly, or don't leave the hero enough time to even score a slice. Some fights pit you with more than one — I could stop here, many people already know what I mean — enemy at a time, and these fights don't have "Patterns" in mind: they have a mess that you need to clean up. The mess doesn't care if you can't attack, you just need to know when the mess has finally let an opportunity show up. The difference between a pattern and a mess, is the intent of difficulty by the game's designers. Should a fight be all about patterns? What even is a pattern? I can only say that a pattern has as loose of a meaning as you have the many ways of approaching fights. The problem is: many of these ways are sub-optimal. Weapon balance is all over the place, some locations make your weapon completely useless and, most of all, the fucking bow isn't going to budge your enemy's health bar.
In a world where misery takes hold of everything, you'd think miserable gameplay would accompany it well (remember this sentence).
The beauty in the decay of what was once a kingdom makes for great vistas to explore. A dead world, rich of story, is undeniably the greatest strength that Dark Souls, hell, its series, has given to us. Dark Souls changes a player to enjoy a world's environments. That, for once, is a good thing I can say about Dark Souls. That's why it's not one star: It has wonderful, redeemable qualities. Crazy how a rating system can work. Anyways, could you wonder what video games could be without Dark Souls? Would we still have countless amounts of lore hunters occupying the gaming world? A question that I shudder to even think. Lore hunting, as cringe as it sounds, is still a wonderful and necessary aspect of analysis. It's what people would do with books and movies, so why not video games? I'm not saying that Dark Souls invented lore to hunt, I'm just saying it was the reason why it became so much more popular. I'm also a fucking sucker for historic (more specifically gothic) architecture, so the locations to visit in this game are like a gourmet meal to my eyes.
Does this game suck? Objectively, yes. I like some things about Dark Souls. For one, I'm thankful for its existence, despite its immensely flawed experience catering. Thankfully, they fixed Dark Souls later on after learning from their mistakes: It's called Dark Souls 2.