Game Review 'Dark Souls'

What is this game about?
'Dark Souls' is a spiritual successor to Demon Souls, but doesn't require you to play the first game. Like its predecessor it's about survival and strategy. Its a massive action RPG world designed for adventure and exploration. Offering a number of classes to begin your journey. You set the pace in building your character and adventure. Approach aggressively, strategically or be cautious, but expect to die for this game will challenge your mind, make you pull your hair out, or throw your controller across the room. For the monsters you encounter will provide challenges that will make a reaper quit his job for dying abundantly. Patients, observation, strategy and dying is the key for dying will unveil the map of what areas to avoid or show what is waiting around the corner. Observation will display items that could help your journey, or see patterns to help defeat monsters. Patients will help you spot situations and traps to avoid, and strategy through learning will help you plan your next move allowing you reap great rewards as you explore, defeat monsters and level up.

How is the gameplay?
The gameplay is simple, you move the controller in the direction you wish to move. You have an inventory system to manage your loot. You can equip and change your characters weapons and armor. Only specific NPCs are available to buy items from, but require souls as currency, which can be obtained by defeating bosses, certain monsters, and finding them from corpses of past adventures. Upon death your character will experience penalties and respawn back to the last lighted bonfire. Bonfires replenish health, magic, and special items like Estus flask, which are a limited number of vials used to return health. You can increase Estus flasks by finding upgrades during your journey. Later on bonfires can be used as a place to upgrade items. The story unfolds when your character fights through various locations. Only by defeating the area boss will your character be able to advance the story. There is also online mode that is active if connected to the Internet. This feature provides limited co-op and player versus player interaction.

What makes this game different from other games?
Dark Souls isn't a linear game where you follow a set path. This is a game about open exploration where you move or confront monsters at your own risk. Monsters are scaled to provide a challenge, and you can be assured you will die. Don't even think you can make it through the game without dying, for your first encounter will be death. Dying is what makes this game unique for death is actually encouraged. You gain a lot of insight upon your death for this is a game that will require you to think and plan your next move.

Why should I be interested in playing this game?
If you enjoy a challenge that requires a bit of planning, patients and strategy with an open world designed for exploring unique dangers, then you may enjoy this game. I would not recommend if you don't enjoy repeating things over, or don't have patients, or require a guide on what to do next for this is an open world game that does not babysit the player.

I give Dark Souls 4/5 (4 - worth experiencing)