Dark Souls. Oh dear dear Dark Souls. You have touched my heart. You have touched the hearts of two million gamers. But why? How? Well, for many reasons.
First of all the plot of Dark Souls is truly elegant. You are told the backstory of an ancient war between Lords and Dragons long ago. This war led to hours upon hours of lore that exists in the Dark Souls universe. It is so well paced and hidden that you have to play ten hours to learn anything about what is going on and after that you have to spend the rest of the game hunting down obscure facts that odds are you won't even find, but what's the alternative? Having everything spelled out for you? Pft. Who wants key elements of the story GIVEN to them.
Next is the level design, designed with the utmost care and perfection. Blight town is meant to represent stagnation of Human development and progress, which is why the frame rate gets butt fucked down to single digits in the swamp. It symbolizes overcoming natural decay. Another example of genius is the Tomb of the Giants, in which you travel through the dark, sacrificing a hand unless you have an item that takes 30 Humanity to get, falling off of cliffs time and time again because I giant skeleton archer you couldn't see shot you. It symbolizes pressing on into the unknown and the preparation that must be taken. But I think the crowning achievement is the bridge in Anor Londo where you must run up it dodging two giant archers who will send you to your death at least thirty times before you get it right. This is clearly the embodiment of life and how quickly death can come or be averted based on flash decisions.
But the design, you have to talk about the design. Like the characters, you can easily remember what they look like. Oh, they don't have memorable faces, 80% of them wear helmets or other face concealing head ware, and the ones who do noticeably never open their mouths when they talk, but this deliberately poorly design of the lack of mouth movement and the under designed faces clearly are do show the poverty of the world, and the developers clearly mirrored that in their budget to reflect it to the full extend. And the realism, oh dear lord the realism. When will we get another game that has four corpses doing awkward dances and getting caught up in your legs every time you walk over them?
There will never be another game like Dark Souls...but perhaps it is ahead of its time.
[spoiler:]
Yes, this is very much a joke thread.
[/spoiler]
First of all the plot of Dark Souls is truly elegant. You are told the backstory of an ancient war between Lords and Dragons long ago. This war led to hours upon hours of lore that exists in the Dark Souls universe. It is so well paced and hidden that you have to play ten hours to learn anything about what is going on and after that you have to spend the rest of the game hunting down obscure facts that odds are you won't even find, but what's the alternative? Having everything spelled out for you? Pft. Who wants key elements of the story GIVEN to them.
Next is the level design, designed with the utmost care and perfection. Blight town is meant to represent stagnation of Human development and progress, which is why the frame rate gets butt fucked down to single digits in the swamp. It symbolizes overcoming natural decay. Another example of genius is the Tomb of the Giants, in which you travel through the dark, sacrificing a hand unless you have an item that takes 30 Humanity to get, falling off of cliffs time and time again because I giant skeleton archer you couldn't see shot you. It symbolizes pressing on into the unknown and the preparation that must be taken. But I think the crowning achievement is the bridge in Anor Londo where you must run up it dodging two giant archers who will send you to your death at least thirty times before you get it right. This is clearly the embodiment of life and how quickly death can come or be averted based on flash decisions.
But the design, you have to talk about the design. Like the characters, you can easily remember what they look like. Oh, they don't have memorable faces, 80% of them wear helmets or other face concealing head ware, and the ones who do noticeably never open their mouths when they talk, but this deliberately poorly design of the lack of mouth movement and the under designed faces clearly are do show the poverty of the world, and the developers clearly mirrored that in their budget to reflect it to the full extend. And the realism, oh dear lord the realism. When will we get another game that has four corpses doing awkward dances and getting caught up in your legs every time you walk over them?
There will never be another game like Dark Souls...but perhaps it is ahead of its time.
[spoiler:]
Yes, this is very much a joke thread.
[/spoiler]
