| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| PlayStation 3 | 9.40 |
| Overall | 9.40 |
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So one day I was wandering the woods when the trees came alive and tried to kill me, not surprising. I ventured deeper and found a human character, well he must be helpful all human characters are AHHH why is he shooting magic bolts at me! Crap I better kill him, wait what is that coming at me, is that a ghost knight, oh crap! RUN! "You are being invaded" Ah hell I'm screwed. This is a common scene in Dark Souls a brutal game that surprises you around every corner. I'm not going to go much into how the game plays as its similar to Demon's Souls. The major difference is the life and death system. Instead of becoming undead and losing half your life when you die now you keep all your health but are hallowed meaning you cant summon help. A new stat called Humanity governs the ability to become human once again. Use humanity to turn human and kindle bonfires meaning you get more health items at that particular save point. As a human you get better drops and you can summon other players to your game for some help, on the flip side you can now be invaded. The big problem is that if you die you lose all your humanity and revert to being hallowed and you die a lot. So its not worth playing human and most people don't so to find other players that want to coop or allows to be invaded is hard to do and this effects the entire online structure. Online in this game seems like a missed opportunity. When its working its brilliant. Coop is a blast, especially when someone invades and you double team them. Invasions whether you are the invadee or invader are always thrilling when the players are evenly matched, which does not happen all too often. The game randomly pits you with players, I believe there is supposed to be level caps to who you can be paired with but certain weapons can be leveled up extremely high at a low level. There was a glitch which allowed players to get infinite souls which totally upset the balance of PvP. Its not fun to go up against a guy that can kill you in two hits. Trying to find a partner or a person to invade takes a lot of time as well, often times forcing you to sit around waiting for the game to connect you to someone. If all these features worked quickly and pit players correctly the game could have been one of the best online games this gen, but its limited to being a decent feature in an awesome game. There is plenty to do and see outside of the multiplayer. The game world is now all tied together as one big world rather than different worlds you teleport to. The game unfolds like a giant Metroid game where you can go multiple paths but many are way too difficult to approach at early levels or some are locked out until you find a certain key. As you play shortcuts start to open up and areas start to become connected making world travel easy. Almost every thing you see off in the distance can be traveled to, it brings the world to life like never before. The level variety is staggering taking you from woods, to castles, fire pits, tombs and beautiful cities. Not all areas are designed equally as some are basic straight lines while others are trap invested maze like areas. For the most part though the game kept me surprised and wowed me many times with its level design. The enemy design deserves special praise for their incredible art design and variety. There are a bunch of usual grunt enemies but mixed in beautifully are all sorts of tougher enemies that can scare the crap out of you. They almost always show up in some sort of cinematic way, for instance running down a corridor only to see the figure of a black knight waiting for you at the end. Or enter a large room only too see this shadow of what looks like a headless statue, as you get closer it comes to life and starts to shoot lightning at you. That is the beauty of these games, never knowing what is around the corner, never having a clue if you are ready to fight these enemies or not. It's a breath of fresh air in an era where there is so much handholding and almost every enemy gets a sort of tutorial on how to beat it. The action is still very fun and allows for customization and many play styles. I enjoy playing as a tank and pounding enemies with a sword but every time i play someone online I see something different. There are crazy mages that wield fire. Ninjas that move extremely quick and focus more on backstabbing. The action is a wonderful mix of skill and stats and can stand up with the best action adventure games. Sword combat is fluid and usually becomes a dance of blocks, dodges and parries. It's the kind of game that even if you are underpowered you can still kill tough enemies if you play smart enough, to me that is a huge thrill. Demon's Souls is known for it's epic boss battles which were as innovative as they were tough. Dark Souls has some tough battles but it seems like all the imagination was sucked dry from them. The game offers up a bunch of bosses with simple patterns, some are downright broken to the point where you can beat them without getting touched. Then all of a sudden you get a boss that is super cheap that can instant kill you and has nothing to do with individual skill. The quality is all over the place and they never reach the inventiveness as the ones in the original. New to Dark Souls is the covenant system which allows the player to join a certain faction that may give you rare weapons as you advance. Some covenants are coop focused making it easier to team up with players and giving you rewards for defeating bosses together. My favorite ones though are the ones dedicated to invading other players worlds. These covenants were designed to pit players up against each other online, but as I mentioned above the online issues prevent this system from really taking off. One faction in particular is totally broken, on paper it could have been a blast as it results in your character making other players games harder unless they can find you and kill you. Sadly this never works, I don't know if its the online setup that doesn't allow for it to connect or if its glitched. Again when its working well its a blast. Some of my favorite moments where being summoned to the forest to defend it from players and getting into epic PvP battles. I found it fun to find all covenants as some are well hidden, and I LOVED the ones that gave you the tools to invade others. It just could have been so much more. As you can tell I am kind of mixed on the game. Many aspects are down right better than Demon's Souls, I do believe that overall this is the better game. It's deeper, it's longer, it has better enemy variety, the online play when it works is better. But too many things just don't work as they should, boss fights are too simplistic and nothing can top the first time you play Demon's Souls. That said overall the game is fantastic. I was absolutely hooked for 80 hours, enjoying every death and triumph. There are so many amazing moments and areas that made me go "wow". Like Demon's Souls the sense of accomplishment is unparalleled, when you finally get past that bastard that killed you 15 times you just want to get up and cheer. I can't wait to play it all over again. Even with its flaws its one of the best games you will play this year. |
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Posted by Dvader Sun, 23 Oct 2011 05:39:56
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Dvader (8m)
Don't know if I've fought enough bosses to have formed a rounded opinion but I'm fighting most of them now in hand-to-hand combat which is quite thrilling whereas I played Demon's Souls as a power mage and either killed them with ranged attacks without ever coming into harms way or just completely cheesed them (poison cloud anyone?).
As regards the online, I haven't experienced any of it yet as I'm hollow all the time, but I plan to do so at some point even though I loathed being invaded in Demon's Souls and I only ever invaded as the Dead Monk because I wanted to get his head scarf
Bugs only Blighttown was a slide show for me, every where else the game ran fine. I usually never care for graphical issues only when it effects play like slow down. I should have mentioned it but I got through it with minimal issues so I hardly remember it.