Dark Souls

[TomGuycott]

Oh my god this game is SO good. I want to do some sort of extensive review of it, but I don't have time and I just want to talk about it right now. Here's some highlights about the game that I really like, though (Tagged in case you don't want to know ANYTHING at all about the game, am spoiling some bosses, but most of them have appeared in trailers if you've been watching them):

Spoiler

-Open world, environments range from gritty to scary to beautiful, including dirty castles, fiery caverns, pitch black catacombs and sunlit cities.

-The humanity, estus flask and bonfire system makes the game simultaneously easier and harder at the same time, mainly due to the open world system and the inability to travel freely back to a hub world. (I spent 6 hours wandering around in what I found out was one of the last areas of the game trying to get back out, but could only respawn at the LAST bonfire in that section).

-Enemies are dangerous and attack very well in tandem, but at the same time are also capable of being tricked, like getting them close to en edge so you can bump them down into a pit, or getting drawn into traps meant for you. The more powerful enemies are much harder to trick like this.

-The world is riddled with minibosses that basically consist of incredibly powerful enemies that while not bosses in themselves ARE incredibly powerful and annoying if you don't know how to fight them. Unlike regular enemies, these enemies don't respawn after visiting Bonfires. Enemies like this include dragons, giant rats, that armored boar from the trailers, and a legion of Black Knights all wielding different types of weapons.

-Bosses, while each having exploitable weaknesses, are incredibly brutal, and even IF you exploit said weaknesses it will not always make the fight easy for you, and one missed step can kill you. Some of the concepts are rehashed (there's a necromancer that splits into copies like one of the bosses from Demons' Souls, but this one has a creepier design, atmosphere and was harder overall).

-NPCs scattered throughout the world provide surprisingly useful information when you know what to listen for. Like in Demons' Souls, some will come back and become real assholes later.

-More Miracles and Sorcery, and the addition of Pyromancy, my favorite of the three so far.

-Many more unique weapons (they even have a whip now!), a less confusing but not underwhelming smithy system, and a MUCH larger selection of cooler looking armors (so far every basic humanoid enemy in the game has had a collectible armor set, including the Black Knights). Naturally some are better than others because of stats, but sometimes you just want to look cool.

-Covenants can be joined giving the character allegiance to other factions. This gives you access to many more spells, some of the most powerful in the game in fact. You can even level up your faction rank by fulfilling certain tasks.

-Online Play is enhanced due to the inclusion of factions. Some factions REQUIRE you to go attack other players in order to level up, while other factions increase odds of joining others in your faction while warding away attacking players. Some of the faction requirements are more unique; for example, there is a faction where you set down messages on the ground with an item, and if another player who holds a Dragon Scale touches the message, you invade their world and take their scale if you defeat them.