Dark Souls Review : Successor to Demon's Souls

Dark Souls is one of the rawest most intense games I've ever played. Dark Souls is the next step along that path. Death is everything in Dark Souls. Put as simply as possible, Dark Souls is Castlevania: Symphony of the Night to Demon Souls' Castlevania III. The distinct worlds that comprised Demon's Souls are gone, having been replaced by a massive, seamless world that can take upwards of 80 hours to explore. What makes Dark Souls so effective is the sense that death is always just around the corner. I imagine a large, imposing brick wall. It's the same mechanic that drove Demon's Souls, though Dark Souls adds a few new elements to the formula, the first being the new bonfire system.
Perhaps the biggest difference from Demon's Souls however, is the open world of Dark Souls (which necessitates the new bonfire system).

The world of Dark Souls is huge. Make no mistake, however, every bit of joy in Dark Souls has to be earned with blood, sweat and souls. Dark Souls predecessor Demon's Souls was emblematic of all of them. Where most games do their best to be something else – to tell a story like a novel, to impress with cinematic techniques like a film – Demon's Souls is pure game, a complete and darkly fascinating vision that makes no concessions to the modern conception of how games should be. The open-world structure is the biggest change since Demon's Souls.

The combat system is the beating black heart at the center of Dark Souls. The game never forces you into a certain playstyle. (For context, I played through Demon's Souls about four times, and nothing in that game gave me the same trouble – and the same rush – as some of Dark Souls' crueler moments.) There's a slightly uneven, discouraging distribution of souls throughout most of the game, where extremely strong enemies reward you with only a few hundred souls. When you die in Dark Souls, you become Hollowed, and lose any souls that you've collected. Souls can be spent on leveling yourself up, buying an extra sliver of health or stamina or magical capability.

Dark Souls is tightly designed around its community and co-operative aspects, far more so than Demon's. This community aspect is the most extraordinary thing about Dark Souls – you're all in it together, and the knowledge that there are others sharing your experience is what turns Dark Souls from a depressing solo journey into a breathtaking collective achievement.

The shadows of other players move through the world, showing you snatches of someone else's game. It is impossible to overstate how crucial online play is to the Dark Souls experience. Multiplayer is your get-out clause, the thing that stops Dark Souls from ever being straightforwardly impossible, no matter what your skill level. There are points in the game where you actually need help; FROM's tacit admission of this comes in the form of NPC summon signs that appear outside certain boss battles, letting you summon help even if you're playing the game offline.

Like everything in the game, though, the multiplayer has its dark side. Players can invade your world if you're in Human form and assassinate you. There are times, though, when Dark Souls crosses the line from thrillingly challenging to straightforwardly sadistic. There's punishing, and then there's unfair. Without wanting to spoil the plot, Dark Souls sends you deeper into the earth with every victory, becoming extraordinarily imaginative in its sadism. The world speaks for itself.