List Price: $39.99
Sale Price: $17.97
Today's Bonus: 55% Off
Months ago, the boyfriend called from Gamestop while returning a couple of Silent Hill games we foolishly bought one weekend. "Google games & tell me the first one that comes up that looks good."
For the next few weeks I sat beside him & watched in awe as he struggled to get through the Asylum Demon (the very first boss, maybe 10 minutes into the game). As time went by the two of us had our weekends consumed, him playing & me watching. I eventually started sitting with my laptop constantly on & at the ready in case he needed help finding items or wanted recommended strategies from the multitude of Wiki material available online. I rememeber at one point I actually started telling him he was doing things wrong, criticizing his play! Me who had never even played the game. I would tell friends about it with great enthusiasm, encouraging them to play too. These conversations grew awkward though, simply due to the fact that I had nothing to back it up. I had still yet to play..
I became so intruiged that I finally decided to give it a shot. Though I was sure I would fail, as games that required manual sight control (ie; Skyrim) historically have defeated me almost instantaneously. I struggled & got insanely frustrated trying to wildly maneuver around both joysticks just so that I could see where in god's name I was going, let alone try to fight something, hah! My journey ended shortly after it began in the Undead Asylum. I owned up my initial defeat to a combination of my struggles with the controls, my complete lack of practice, & not knowing when some scary monster might come around a corner & attack me! My level 2 Pyromancer forever sits at that bonfire.
A while later I got a bit angry with myself for quitting so quickly & mustered up the courage to try again. This game was just too cool to give up before I had even gotten to the first boss fight. I spent hours & hours in the Asylum just running around killing Floppys, (or Hollows, as they're referred to) but I prefer Floppys. I finally realized by accident how to LOCK ON to an enemy! Oh my god! I can actually fight now! Aghh I'm so awesome! Oh god the boss. And I'm dead. Omg plunging attack AGGHH!! And I'm dead again. Ok I'll stop.
Now.
After creating many new characters from scratch I think I've finally settled on one I can be happy with. The directions that you can take your character are endless & require careful planning & strategy early on, otherwise you, like me, may end up having to start over with a new one in order to get on the right track. Visually this game is stunning. It is so captivating & you allow it to draw you in without question. Dying becomes a bit less heart-breaking every time, & the run back to regain what was lost can vary between a slow strategic trek, to an all-out crazy, flailing sprint! This game will get your heart pumping. It will keep you up at night, which is why, fellow students, I recommend purchasing it over the summer. It will make you mad, FURIOUS at times! Furious enough to wake the neighbors. But when you FINALLY defeat that especially difficult boss, or that particularly annoying invader, with your very last shard of humanity, with only a fraction of your health left, I guarantee it will bring you to your feet for an immediate victory dance Tiger Woods style.
Sorry for the somewhat disjointed review. There's just too much to explain in order to create an adequete non-bias review of this product in its entirety, so I tried to create one that depicted the way the game made me feel when I play. Hopefully you feel the same way. It's definitely a ride worth taking! :)
To those considering this game, I would give it 100 stars if I could. Expect a challenge, & buy it. If a noob like myself was able to get the hang of it, anyone can.
Praise the Sun!
Click Here to Read More Reviews >>
Well, these are exaggerations on both counts but... you get the idea.I do not consider myself a hard core gamer but there were a few grand games that I played hard and long on the PS3: Oblivion, Fallout, Grand Turismo, Demon's Souls. Of these, Demon's Souls was the only Platinum I've ever earned and it clocks at over 500 hours of pure fear, strong anxiety and intense frustration punctuated by brief moments of pride and joy brought by the hard earned sweet victories.
I started talking about Demon's Souls because to us, PS3 gamers, Dark Souls is NOT the first coming of unspeakable terror onto our consoles. Dark Souls is the SECOND coming. And what a visitation this promises to be :)
Okay, here it is, after the first few hours. I am going to post updates (not spoilers) as I progress through the game.
THE COMMONS
Deomon's Souls has many, never-seen-before, amazing innovations. We hoped and we expected to see most of them again on 'chapter two' and Dark Souls does not disappoint even though Dark's seems to be a Universe unrelated to Demon's. It's not even a parallel Universe (I like to think of parallel Universes as those in which the other fellow Dark Souls players exist if running around as a hollowed-out soul you can call 'existence'. It's a different world but a lot works in seemingly familiar ways.
Here's what I would call the Demon's heritage:
One-save only. And this is a BIG thing because the game saves itself every couple of seconds. Once you get hurt or you hurt someone you didn't mean to you can't go back to the previous save because there's no such thing. Unless you have one hand on the power cord ready to pull it, everything you do has consequences and you can't go back and try again. Be VERY careful when you talk to them merchants or blacksmiths because one unintended slap and they will never deal with you again.
Human vs. Soul form. Can't be invaded by other players while in Soul (Hollow) form. As a Human you can invade other words, help others, seek help.
Classes. You pick yours from 10. Not exactly the same as in Demon's though.
Stats. Again, 10 different categories, some differently named, some totally new like 'humanity' and 'attunement'.
The ability to seek help and to help others. I believe that you can have up to 3 others helping.
The Stones. They are of different colors but they have uses not unlike the Demon's stones, possibly more: to seek help, to leave messages, to invade.
Souls as currency of the land and the price price you must pay to level up. And you lose them all every time you die so... use them (buy, uplevel) before you lose them.
Every time you rest all non-boss enemies respawn.
The ability to play nasty and invade other players' worlds.
Blood stains. You can see how others died.
Second (and ONLY second) chance. You can recover lost souls if you can touch your own blood stain before you die again.
Messages. Can leave messages but don't expect to be able to type away detailed clues. You pick your message from a pre-approved list.
Incredibly precise combat. Each class of weapons acts differently and you can see/feel the difference between hitting flesh, bone or armor.
Uchigatanas!!! Need I say more? These are by far the coolest katanas you'll ever swing in any game and probably the best you can get through this one at least through mid-game. Demon Souls most terrifying black phantoms (invading players) where the 2-Uchigatana dudes. Most, possibly all of the Demon's weapons can be found in Dark: Claymores, Halberds, Clubs, Axes, Estocs and so forth.
Practice makes perfect. Like Demon's Souls, this is a struggle for perfection because in most instances only perfect or near-perfect attacks and defenses will save you from yet another horrific death.
Continues the Deomon's tradition of no difficulty levels. Like its predecessor, there's only one difficulty level on Dark and that's 'very easy', as in 'very easy to get yourself killed'. Seriously, for anyone who played Demon's, Dark feels like the second or third playthrough only you start at a low level, have no weapons or armor and find yourself in completely unfamiliar territory now so it takes a little bit of dying, observing and experimenting before your learn the ropes.
THE DELTAS (new and never seen before)
This, I'm sure, is going to be a growing list and I'm going to update it as I progress into the game. If what's going on in this game can be called 'progress'.
One-world design. This appear to be a huge world but gates, bridges and passes are all well guarded so be prepared to shed a lot of blood and die a lot to earn your right of passage. Unlike Demon's which had a hub that was the only connection between the several separate 'worlds', Dark's world regrions are very much interconnected and much of the fun and mystery is your gradually discovering and unlocking sometimes secret doors and passages.
The healing system. The role of 'grasses' is drastically reduced (there are some mosses that you can still use to cure ailments) but Dark doesn't make it as easy when it comes to your ability to recover health. It's no longer near-unlimited.
The Covenants. Each of the 9 will open new play modes and, as always, every action brings about consequences. Joining may appear an easy decision but separation can be painful and costly.
Pyromancy as a THIRD class of magic, joining sorcery and miracles. For anyone who likes fire and explosions... it's awesome.
The Gifts. Interestingly some seem to have no effect while others such as the Magic Key you get if you pick the class of Thief is quite useful.
Danger times 2. It may be just because I'm a little rusty playing Souls or because I know Demon's so well now it's like a walk in the park but Dark appears to be a lot harder. But... we play, we learn. We shall see :)
More color. Can't imagine Demon's with colors but in this world the occasional bright splashes blend well and don't subtract from the feeling of danger.
No Luck. You COULD get lucky in Deomon's Souls but that's no longer the case. That particular stat has disappeared, replaced by your ability to hold 'humanities' which you lose every time you die.
Sweet revenge. One of the covenants mission is to hunt down and kill those nasty dark phantom bullies.
And, of course, Dark Souls does away with all the gentleness and hand-holding occasionally found in Demon's. It really does. Remember that nice Russian lady in the Nexus that you must kill if you want your Platinum? Gone! My first impressions: don't trust anyone because everybody seems to be either evil or insane.
THE STORY
Not quite sure what's expected of me yet and I don't think I should spoil anyone's fun anyway. There is a prologue, of course and, clearly, terrible things happened that caused this not to be a happy world. Need to investigate some more but I'm not sure who's to be trusted, who should be used, who can be a friend.
MY RATING
If Amazon's 5 stars stands for 'I love it', what would be the star count for "I love it, I fear it and, 80 hours into the game I'm obsessed by it"? Well... 5's the limit :). I expect to spend hundreds of hours playing this game and, hopefully, with a little or maybe a lot of help from my friends and a lot of priceless advice from some of the game-focused sites I will name my favorites on a comment to this review.
__________________________________________
July 2012 Update:
Several months and several hundreds hours of gameplay later, I'm still playing Dark Souls.
Sure, I 'beat' the game so many times already but finishing the game the first time is only the beginning. Then you play 'new game plus' (NG+), then NG++, NG+++ and so on where everything gets harder and harder. Can't get the platinum trophy unless you go through the game at least twice.
And there's the PvP (player vs. player) which is where, with your most deadly or your most fun character built to much your skills you can face other players in everything ranging from helping out a fellow player beat a boss or a fair 1v1 fight where players bow to each other in the beginning and pay their respects to the defeated one once the fight is over to no-rules melees where magic and poison knives fly, buffed greatswords or halberds hit hard and you may face up to 3 players plus whatever the game may be throwing at you at the same time. The fun never ends, the variety is almost endless and it's addictive.
--
>> Brush your teeth, it's the law! >SPOILER ALERT-skeleton babies before Gravelord Nito fight: souls farming + humanity farming = W!N!!!
0 comments:
Post a Comment