Ten Years of Dark Souls: Prepare to Live
By Jakob Johns | Misfit Media Columnist
Before I can actually discuss Dark Souls, I feel like I have to address its reputation for being one of the most difficult games ever made. The first game’s challenging nature has, to put it bluntly, had the absolute shit memed out of it. It’s difficult to deal with when trying to recommend to friends; it’s the Dark Souls of game recommendations, so to speak. And to be fair, the game is challenging, but it’s also fair – an important point to keep in mind.
With all that aside, I want to pour one out for my favourite game of all time. It recently turned ten years old, and it’s looking great. Unfortunately, the recent remaster wasn’t exactly flattering and was about as effective as a botched facelift, but the game itself is as fun as ever. I could grumble about my jealousy of Demon’s Souls fans and their remaster which actually came out looking great, but that’s not exactly going to get us anywhere. However, it’s thematically appropriate that a mistake was made with the Dark Souls remaster before a success was found for the Demon’s Souls remake.
I’ve been playing Dark Souls since about 2017. There’s a recurring challenge for first-timers that happens often where you try it once, accidentally go the wrong way or level your character incorrectly, and promptly give up when you aren’t equipped to fight bosses as a result. This happened to me all those years ago before I picked the game up again later, and realised that if I kept my finger on the pulse of my character from the start, the game was easy peasy (relatively speaking). Level up correctly, stay on the right path, keep your gear in good shape, and you’ll be slaying gods in no time.
This very same thing happened to a friend on mine this year. He tried the game at the beginning of the year and, to put it bluntly, he hated it. He found it frustrating during fights and boring the rest of the time. The guy, like myself, was having a somewhat rough time in life at the time and found zero solace in the unforgiving land of Lordran. But, six months later, he tried again. Like me, he reapproached with a better strategy, and beat the game within a week.
In the above picture, you’’ lay eyes on the gorgeous thing known as the GiantDad. Back in the day, before it was “nerfed”, the mask known as the ‘Mask of the Father’ gave you a considerable boost in carry weight. People used it to optimise a beast of a build that used the Giant’s Armour and a massive Zweihander (affectionately dubbed the “bass cannon”) in order to instantly decimate enemies online. This goofy looking build, to me, incapsulates the charm and endurance that comes with getting good at Dark Souls. When you start, you feel frustrated by the relentless enemies. Oppressed by the moody music and colours. Worn down. Hollowed out. But, with perseverance, you realise that it only takes a persistent attitude and a bit of cunning to succeed. Not only that, but you start to have genuine fun with the embers of joy that are sprinkled throughout the game. After a while, the things that were once scary and eldritch become downright charming.
For people who see life itself through a grey lens, feeling hopeless and willing to give up, this is what makes Dark Souls such an effective deterrent to “going hollow” (as the game likes to say). There’s a recurring story shared by many long-time players of the Souls series that can easily be summed up as “Dark Souls saved me” (check out NakeyJakey’s cosy video below for an example). Because the magic of this game is that it reflects the impossible yet ridiculous nature of reality and reminds you that not only are there embers of beauty and charm out there, but most importantly, you can beat it – if you’re willing to try.
Credit:
Dark Souls (2011)
Dark Souls: Remastered (2018)
‘Dark Souls Saved Me’ by NakeyJakey