Fuck Yeah, Dark Souls!

The original Dark Souls is one of those rare gems I have bought, installed and never uninstalled since. It's still sitting right there, I'm on my 8th or so New Game + and I still fire it up every now and then, just because I'm scared I'll end up going full noob again. To me, this isn't like swimming or riding a bicycle. You don't just get the hang of Dark Souls and remain good at it forever. I stop playing, dick around in other games for a bit, come back to Dark Souls a few months later and immediately suck again.

No matter how much I love the first one, I never bought Dark Souls 2. The game looked like total ass upon release, nothing like the awesome preview footage shown off by From Software (I refuse to buy Ubisoft crap for the exact same reason) and then everyone who bought the original Dark Souls 2 had to buy the enhanced version that looked a little less awful just a few months later. And while I'm sure that part two is a good game in its own rights, I was still perfectly happy with the first one and simply didn't feel ready to move on. And then this happened:

Dark Souls 3. Holy shit. I didn't even wanna play it at first, because first every fucking Youtuber out there got the stupid preview release ages before the game came out. Then every moron, their mothers and their dogs went and bought the Japanese version, which also came out before the western release. Great. There are fucking walkthroughs all over the internet, most secrets have been revealed, all I'm getting here is sloppy seconds and I can have my session invaded by assholes, who have been playing this thing for weeks. Then again, that doesn't even matter, because From Software just love to keep things simple for cheaters. Savegames are still stored locally. Heck, tweaking your soul level is as simple as firing up Cheatengine. Because having some asshole with infinity hit points invade my game to kill me is so much fun! Sure, I can just play offline, but... sigh. And I could have just stolen the game and played online? WTF?!

But that's pretty much it. That's all I can find to bitch about right now. Yeah, yeah, bonfires can crash your game if you crank up the lighting settings, there are some FPS drops here and there, fuck you, it's a brand new game, patches and driver updates will fix most of it before too long... it's not exactly Arkham fucking Knight, is it? And Dark Souls 3 may very well be the most beautiful game I have ever played.

I don't mean beautiful in the "Oh it's so pretty, I want to live there" kind of way, but the aesthetic, the artwork, the whole thing is absolutely breathtaking. This is a game world at its end, everything is utterly fucked, it's all rotted and dusty and falling apart in such a stunning, melancholical way. You can wear a knight's heavy plate armor, but it's battered and bruised, your cloak is little more than a holey rag. The people are all insane and/or turned into people jerky, some of the undead will turn on each other if they don't get to kill you... and through all the dirt and grime you catch the occasional glimpse at the past. At how awe-inspiring and glorious the world must have been at some point.

Disneyland

I'm enjoying this game a lot. It plays, sounds and feels like Dark Souls, but it looks a million times better. Yes, there's some texture pop-in, some textures aren't super detailed, eat a dick! The art style is absolutely incredible and draws me right in. And I don't even care that, for the most part, it's really just rehashing previous Souls games, because that's what I want. Yes, the high wall of Lothric is the undead burg, featuring most of the same fights and even the fucking dragon. Yes, some of the bosses look cool and pose next to no challenge to anyone who has ever played a Souls game before. It's some of the best parts of previous games mashed together and presented with some of the most stunning visuals I've seen in any game.

What makes the game even more fun is the combat system. Combat works a lot like it does in the first Dark Souls, plus added weapon arts. But enemies feel faster, (somewhat) smarter, more aggressive. And you get paired weapons for sweet, sweet dual-wielding action. I started off playing Dark Souls 3 just like the first one, inching forward, hiding behind a shield, wearing enemies down one hit at a time. I did so for about 30 minutes. Then I've put the shield away and I've been using dual scimitars ever since, hacking baddies to bits in a furious hail of strikes. It's a whole new way to play for me, something I never managed to pull off in the previous game, but it feels incredibly satisfying this time around.

And they look so damn sweet!

Difficulty... blah. So many articles out there about this, some of them more awful than others. Yes, it's tougher and a bit more unforgiving than most modern "let's place a checkpoint everywhere and make it impossible to fail" games. I'd go as far as saying some parts are simply a bit unfair, because shit attacks you from every single angle, sometimes in a way you couldn't possibly know until it happens. There are parts here and there where you are almost certain to fail, so you'll have to learn from that, come back and be prepared. With all that said, it's not the brutally difficult game some people crack it up to be.

Blindly rush in, play the game like your average brainless hack'n'slash title and you'll die. Lots. But if you take your time, use your brain, fight enemies one at a time where you get the chance, wait for them to make their attacks before you move, it's all perfectly doable. Most enemies, including bosses, telegraph their attacks quite clearly, you'll have enough time to prepare a dodge roll and with the right timing you won't take any damage at all. Of course that requires practice, of course mistakes still get punished, but lots of deaths can be avoided simply by being patient.

And I don't need health or estus to destroy a boss. The magic pixel is my friend.

In other news, the miniatures finally got here. The paintjob is okay-ish, nothing stunning, but I suppose you can only do so much when you're a six year old Chinese kid who only gets ten minutes per miniature.

Life is good.