Dark Souls - The Joy of Crossing The Finish Line

Couchpotato

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VG 24/7's Dave Cook has an article were he explains he finally finished the game, and gives his impression of it.
It’s over. I finally did it.

Completing Dark Souls has got to be one of my most proudest moments as a gamer and for the first time in years I actually feel like I earned victory, instead of having it dispensed through obligation.

This is not a case of simply coasting through a game’s plot or funnelling your way along corridors to see some end credits. Dark Souls is an endurance test from the word go and while it seems intimidating at several junctures you just have to keep reminding yourself that each of the game’s challenges – however seemingly impossible – were made to be beaten.

I’d forgotten this golden rule after giving up on the game last year. By that point I had just passed Sen’s Fortress and I was getting read to battle my way to Ornstein & Smough. I had heard many intimidating horror stories about these guys before, and the fact that my VG247 work was really piling up caused me to file my Dark Souls disc away. I vowed to return again one day.

Completing Dark Souls was a proper test of patience, determination and skill that I almost gave up on several times. But now I can finally say “I did it!”
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Having played early Wizardys and Bardes Tale games, I can say Dark Souls is not that hard at all. Try beating one of these older games without a walkthrough. I dare you...
 
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And while you are at it you can take out some graphing paper and drive around your state/province and see if you can match Google maps by hand.

I would seriously rather create a card catalog system for my local library rather than attempt to pin down where the spinners and teleporters are in dark areas of the dungeons of some game like Bard's Tale 2. Those games are hard without any of the fun of actually playtested gameplay (to be fun for the gamer actually, what a decline) and decades of game design evolution present in Dark Souls.
 
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Congratz to him, but honestly, DS isn't that hard, really. It's just that we got de-educated in playing games and facing a hard learning curve by the years and years of simplified and too easy "gameplay" that some games boast these days.

Still, beating it feels incredible at first. Then beating it on NG+, now, that's a testament to skill and patience I'd say.
 
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Hmm...I'm pretty sure that I beat every Bard's Tale, and a couple of Wizardry's without a walkthrough, but I can't imagine trying to beat Dark Souls without consulting the wiki. Of course that may be just because I'm less patient now.

Really though Dark Souls is not hard in the way most people think it is. With a few exceptions, it's not hard because of punishing battles that require twitch reflexes. As long as you don't go somewhere your not prepared to handle the fights aren't usually all that tough. What's hard is the exploration. Often the entrance to an important area or a vital save point will be hidden somewhere you are very unlikely to find on your own.

I loved the game overall, but I did often feel that it was almost unplayable without the wiki, which did kill some of the joy of exploring yourself, even though I tried to minimize it's use as much as I could. It didn't help that the documentation was some of the worst I've ever seen either.





Having played early Wizardys and Bardes Tale games, I can say Dark Souls is not that hard at all. Try beating one of these older games without a walkthrough. I dare you…
 
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Did you summon Solaire to assist you, or better yet, one or two other human players?

I summoned both Solaire and a human player a few times without beating them. Then I ran out of humanity and had to go farm humanity in the sewers. That's where I lost interest and had to shelve it for a while.
 
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Well for me DS was hard. In a good way, but hard. Haven't gotten all that far, but I have every intention to take it up again.
 
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