Hot damn! I don't think I've died, failed and suffered so much in any game since Dark Saviour on the Sega Saturn. Which was possibly the only platformer-RPG-adventure hybrid thingie I've ever played to 100% completion. But I digest.
I'm probably going to repeat stuff I've written in previous posts now, but I'm too hyped up to care. Rarely have I been so satisfied after finishing a game - and all I got was a confusing 10 seconds cutscene and a tune by Motoi Sakuraba (♥!) on a bland credits sequence, then it all just started over - New Game +
And believe it or not, that sense of achievement really came from the game's absolutely ludicrous difficulty. At its worst moments, Dark Souls is the videogame equivalent to getting raped with a pineapple. Ironically, the game relies on a mechanic which has been criticised and loathed in games since the 8/16bit era: Failure is almost certain the first time (or first dozen times) you try something and you won't get better until you learn and memorize every single step of the way to the next safe spot ('bonfire'). In fact, if I started a new character right now, I could probably finish the game in far less than 50% of the time it took the first time around, because now I know all the traps, monster attack patterns and shortcuts.
That's not to say you can't beat a dungeon or certain boss baddies on the first try if you're very perceptive and gifted with superhuman reflexes. But some deathtraps are hard to foresee until you die to them at least once: A 'treasure chest', which grabs and swallows you whole, an elevator, which gently carries you into the nearest spike trap, a crumbling floor, which takes 50% of your health through falling damage and sends one of the game's toughest boss baddies your way, who will one-shot you the second you grab your healing potion. Knowing about these lethal mechanisms makes the game significantly easier, but in most cases you won't know until it's too late for you or at least some other player near you.
You don't usually see other players around you except for rare moments, where they fade in and out of existence like ghostly phantoms, reminding you that other people are facing the same dangers which are killing you time and again. But players can leave messages and warnings to other adventurers, which will appear in your game. "Trap ahead!" "Illusionary wall." Some players are not so lucky and just leave behind a blood stain, which tells you how they have died when you touch it.
There's a bit of a pseudo MMO flair to it, which is where much of the motivation to keep playing stems from. Because you know that other players are failing at the same part of the game at the very same moment. Some of them leave frustrated messages. "I can't take this!" Peer pressure. We're all in this together. And I'm better than those suckers, so I'll get through this. You get the idea.
That and it's just so good! Even if that boss kicks your ass a dozen times, if some fucking undead fencer riddles you full of holes with his rapier or you get pancaked by some random passing boulder, the fighting, the jumping, everything feels so solid and fun, you just don't want to give up when you die. You want to try again and again and again. Within reason. High velocity controllers have been seen flying around our very living room, but rarely so. You wouldn't believe the screams of anger, frustration, but also sheer joy, which have echoed through our house over the weekend. I just can't remember the last time we've been so emotionally involved in any game.
There is this constant pressure. One false move, one step in the wrong direction and you may lose all your experience points ('souls'), which could otherwise buy you level ups, an important weapon upgrade or a new set of armor. And most of the time it's your fault. Fucked up a dodge roll, mashed the attack button too rapidly, walked off a cliff, ate the hail of arrows from a trap and forgot to raise the shield in time. The sense of relief when you safely make it from one bonfire to the next, get that level up, keep your progress, is immense. So is the crushing despair when you get killed on the last step of the way and you have to start over. Ideally, you learn from your mistake and avoid it the next time. Most of the time I just get pissed off, try to rush back to where I died and die again on the way back.
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| Soloing these guys as an inexperienced player = World of pain |
Even a generally helpful feature like summoning 1-2 other players to help you tackle some of the extra tough bosses can result in humiliating death. Because once you make yourself visible to potentially helpful players, you also make yourself a potential target to those, whose demeanor is considerably less than friendly. This happened to me when I summoned somebody to help me fight Smough and Ornstein, a nasty tag-team of boss baddies. Both me and the guy who wanted to help me were heavy tanks, which makes the game a lot easier from a pve point of view. Full plate absorbs loads of damage, greatswords dish out lots of damage. Win-win. Then we got ganked by some high level fucker using light armor, a spear and lots of magic. Suddenly, the game was no longer about killing the boss. It was about getting to the damn boss in once piece without getting killed by that asshole player.
Wearing only light armor, the guy ran laps around us and our greatswords were far too slow to even hit him. Which makes sense - if you focus on killing players more than monsters and bosses, you'll use a completely different set of stats, skills and items. Something the average pve noob won't beat. And that's what he did there.
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| "I don't suppose we can talk about this?" |
Now, before you scream bullshit at the idea of random people invading your game to murder you - this is purely optional. You can play in undead ('hollow') form, making it impossible for all players, friendly and hostile alike, to interact with you. But that means you also can't summon anyone for help. You can't have it both ways. Play solo, don't get murdered. Team up, have player-killers invade your game.
Oddly enough, pvp is a strangely friendly affair as far as slaughtering random people goes. I had invaders waiting or even helping while I was fighting off enemies, rather than just stabbing me in the back. They'd bow before attacking, then bow again when the fight is over. It's a far cry from WoW's /spit /point /laugh open world pvp. That said, no amount of friendly gestures and animations will change the fact that you're here to kill me, halt my progress and cause me a fair amount of grief, so don't be surprised when I chop your fucking head off while you're bowing like this was some kind of friendly, honorable, consensual encounter.
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| Not all companions and invaders are human, either. This boss here... |
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| ...may very well end up helping you with one of the game's toughest battles. |
-Cat
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