Dark Souls: A Test in Patience...and Sanity

Painfully addicting. Depressing. Infuriating. Rewarding. All of these words can be used to sum up the experience that is the video game, Dark Souls. Dark Souls was released in October, and has messed with gamers psyche ever since. It's predecessor was also described as one of the hardest video games ever made, and Dark Souls follows it up perfectly in that regard. A casual gamer will find no fun in playing this game, but role playing game enthusiasts will find that this game is something special. The sheer amount of skill and strategy it takes to defeat just the simplest of dungeons is stunning in itself. In ways, Dark Souls harkens back to what made The Legend of Zelda to be such an iconic game, but Dark Souls just kicks up the difficult while also making it vicious. You will find yourself failing quite a bit, hell the promo trailer of the game even says "Prepare To Die!" They were not kidding, it will happen a good amount of times. In that is the fun of this game, when you beat a level or a boss after constantly failing over and over and over again you will have a feeling of such nirvana that it is hard to describe. When I beat a boss after countless hours of trying to figure out how to beat him, I looked at the clock and realized it was five in the morning. Good Golly Miss Molly! I didn't care in fact, when I stood over the corpse of the hideous creature I had just slain I let out the creepiest of laughs that I am sure if my neighbors heard they would have contemplated calling the police. You be the judge, because the video below is the closest thing to the laugh you'd let out after defeating a boss...sidenote (Dragon Ball Z fans will get an extra kick out of the joke)

I do suggest when you do reach that point, put the game down. You will not do any better if you keep pushing on, put the controller down and turn off the system because I guarantee there is something around the corner waiting for you that is not pleasant. If the game ever makes you happy, then you should take it as a sign from God himself to put the controller down and consider yourself a lucky person. Enough side tracking though, the point of this article is to go over the experience that is Dark Souls, through the rare ups and the frequent downs.

A phrase best suited to use to describe the whole trail and effort method to playing Dark Souls would be that of "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results." Truer words never spoken. You will spend hours and hours on a level, hell you may even spend a day, a week, or heaven forbid a month trying to beat a level. You also full well know that you have a better chance of failing than actually succeeding, but yet you try to fool yourself into believing that "This time will be different, this time I'll beat that dragon/enemy/ominous looking area over there that scares the ever living crap out of me." Some would consider that to be a sign of insanity, but they just don't get it right? Right?? Right??? Right???!!!

The one piece of advice I can give to anyone that is thinking about playing this game it would be this, have patience. When you are faced with a new enemy or a boss, don't go and try to Rambo him to death. The more patient you are, the better the chances are that you will succeed. When you do succeed after spending way to much time watching your opponents attack patterns learning when and where to attack, you will feel like a golden God of awesomeness or as most people would call it, Chuck Norris. I kid you not. It is the most rewarding thing to be able to stand victorious over whatever beast that had instilled fear on to you for the past, hour...or month. (I'm not insane...the voices in my head tell me I'm not insane.)

All in all it is a terrific game, and one of the most addicting experiences I have encountered in video game format. It is an addiction, it can cause you to lose your mind but also could be the most rewarding video game. It is addicting simply because of the tight gameplay, the epic feel to the game even though the plot isn't very coherent at all and the graphics are fantastic. If you do not like to actually think about what you are doing when playing a video game, this game is not suited for you, which I find to be the best trait of the game. To send you all off, I will leave you all with this amazing trailer that was released to promote the game. I hope you all enjoyed the article, and the trailer.