Dark Souls Remastered

My reviews tend to be shorter when I have nothing bad to say about a game. Dark Souls Remastered is a masterpiece.

Dark Souls Remastered came out in May 2018. Being a remaster of the original Dark Souls, the game is essentially a one to one recreation in every aspect, with only a few gameplay elements changed. The main purpose of the remaster was to provide higher quality graphics. Most fans of the remaster were people who had played and enjoyed the original Dark Souls in 2011, but some, including myself, had their first experience with the series in Dark Souls Remastered. The first time I remember hearing of Dark Souls was in 2015, in my Boy Scout troop. A scout who was multiple years my senior would talk with me about Dark Souls, a game about knights and monsters. I remember trying to get the game for myself multiple times over the following years, but never gaining parental permission, because the game is rated M. On January 8th, 2021, I played Dark Souls Remastered for the first time on Steam. Seeing as I started the series almost 10 years after the first game came out, and that the game was hyped up to me by the senior scout, I was extremely excited to begin my adventure through Dark Souls. To make the experience even better, I streamed the entire game to the senior scout, and he watched and provided hints and tips to give me the best experience possible.

At the time of writing this, I have played through the game multiple times, achieved both endings, killed all the bosses, and completed almost every challenge in the game.

After playing through the game over a one month period, I looked back and thought if the game was actually worth my hype. And my conclusion was that Dark Souls is by far one of my favorite games ever, and that it has helped form my philosophy on how challenge should work in game design. Here’s why.

Everyone knows Dark Souls for being hard. And that’s not completely wrong. The game has very unforgiving traps and combat. And I would fall victim to traps throughout my run constantly. But I would never find myself getting upset over my numerous deaths. This is because the traps didn’t really rely on skill in order for the player to overcome them. Once you knew the trap was there, and how to avoid it or survive it, it would basically never get you again. The combat, on the other hand, was a test of not only skill, but knowledge. Obviously, you have to be somewhat skilled at the game in order to pass its combat tests, but knowing your limits in combat is equally important. If you see a room with a dozen enemies in it, you should know that charging in will only get you killed. A knowledgeable player would know that the best option would be to draw them out one at a time with items or projectiles. Choosing to do this instead of charging in has nothing to do with skill, but it has everything to do with knowing your limits. The same can be said for a situation in which you have no idea what to do, and you instead rely on skill to get you through it alive. This happened to me when I was in the open section of Darkroot Garden. I entered the area where the human forest hunters were, and I had zero idea where to go. This was different from the other areas because there was no set path of progression, just an open field of trees and hills. Darkroot Garden is also covered in thick fog and darkness, further inhibiting visibility. Because I couldn’t rely on knowledge to get me through, I had to rely on my combat skills, just taking on every enemy I saw until I eventually found Great Grey Wolf Sif’s door. Having a good balance of knowledge and skill is vital to Dark Souls’s combat. When one won’t be enough, you can rely on the other.

Of course, none of this matters if you have no skill or knowledge. Having neither of these just happens to be the state you are in when you start up the game for the first time. The Northern Undead Asylum is an amazing tutorial level that tells the player all the abilities of their character, and gives them a perfect feel for avoiding traps and combat. The boulder rolling down the stairs right before you find Oscar tells you that this game won’t hesitate to throw traps at you, no matter how unprepared you are for them. When you reach the upper platform of the Asylum Demon arena, and the Asylum Demon stares up at you, you think you’re safe from it. When the demon jumps up and smashes the platform (and you), you know that you are never safe as long as an enemy knows your location. The tutorial gives you the perfect introduction to how the rest of the game will go.

As you go through the game, you will acquire skill and knowledge just by playing. But of course, they come easier to some players than others. But as long as you don’t quit the game forever, it’s really impossible to lose any of these. Skill and knowledge can only be gained, not lost, as long as you keep your focus. This is my absolute favorite thing about Dark Souls’s challenge. As long as you keep trying, you will always eventually reach your goal. Theoretically, I could put a new player in front of Gwyn, and, as long as the player doesn’t quit, they will eventually take Gwyn down. Multiple times throughout my run, I could feel that a task was impossible, but because of the way Dark Souls’s game design philosophy tackles challenges, I knew that I could pull through if I just kept trying. During the fight with Knight Artorias, I felt like I was up against an impenetrable wall, one that could only be broken if I left, got stronger stats, and came back. But I knew, if I kept trying, I could break through with nothing but sheer willpower. Every player knows that, in fact. That’s why it always feels so amazing when you finally kill that boss you’ve been on for two hours. Killing Knight Artorias and Black Dragon Kalameet were some of the greatest rushes of euphoria I’ve ever felt in my life. Because everything is possible, the game can make the most difficult challenges, and still, players will best them. This philosophy of game design is exactly the type of game I can play over and over again, and feel just as accomplished every time.