Dark Souls

Dark Souls is a critically acclaimed game. It also has a reputation for being unreasonably difficult.

Intending to experience the great stage design everyone talks about, I tried this game for the third time.

Somehow, I managed to finish it. I do indeed learn a lot from the stage and encounter designs, but the impression of Dark Souls being difficult changed halfway through the game.

Bosses in Dark Souls are intimidating. They either hurt a lot, has a wide attack range, or both.

One mistake may cost from half to the entire hp bar. So with the fear of dying, players start to play safe. Keep distance from the bosses.

However, this is not how Dark Souls is intended to be played, and From Software made sure the players understand this.

They placed a boss at the early stage of the game, which is extremely difficult to defeat without playing aggressively.

The boss is the Bell Gargoyles. Some people say the gargoyles are where the game actually starts, because if the player can't figure out how to defeat the gargoyles, they are very likely to struggle with the rest of the game too. A lot of people quitted at the gargoyles.

They are my favorite boss in the entire game for the same reason. After hours of failure, I finally grasped what From Software tried to teach me with the gargoyles: calculated aggressiveness. And this knowledge helped me finish the whole playthrough.

The BGM was great too.

There are a lot of obstacles in the game, be it finding the next bonfire, platforming through enemies, or impossible-to-defeat bosses. However, after the early stages, the game was easier than expected.

I guess it really depends on if the player gets the catch or not.

The biggest takeaway for me from Dark Souls, is how this game teaches particular concepts or mechanics to players: by punishing those who do not understand yet, again and again, until they either get good enough or quit.