I warned you this was coming... and now the darkness is here. Actually I'm later than I wanted to be with posting this, because before this game hit I started an article that is still being worked on. More on that when its done, but I got a bit sidetracked and between that, life, and being sucked into this fantastic game for 22 hours (in about 3 days of off and on play time) I guess I didn't get out my first impressions as fast as I should have for real first impressions. Well now that I'm cut off from my main file thanks to a location switch and the stupid save lock, I guess now is a good time to talk about it.... though that still wont keep me away, I'm debating on starting a cleric, tank-ish knight, or sorcerer run for my other PS3.
Anyways in case you can't tell, I love the game. I really do. I wont waste time talking about how it stands against the industry like I have in other similar articles, or how its an amazing achievement, as both of these have been already spread as common knowledge from the lovely Souls fanbase. So lets get the negative out of the way first.... I was shocked and sad to find the misery gone. Sure the game is still a sad take on fantasy, but its a more obvious charmed and enchanted fairy tale land even complete with a Dwarf more so than darkness and lost souls. The intro area is like an overgrown night meadow garden stuck into a cave, then you step out to a wonderful and bright sea shore that serves as the hub, then your first true path to adventure is along a twighlight forest with a fortress kingdom torn apart from an old war with giants. Those black and overcasted gloomy skies are gone. The world doom and destruction is replaced by the knowledge that this new world was only supposed to contain dead cursed guys like the player, and isn't doomed at all (maybe changes later, and it clearly has decay, but nothing like Dark Souls 1). I suppose overall this would usually be considered a step up as its a nice fantasy setting with more variety and more emotion. However truth is, its not as great because its not exactly as powerful. To bump into a hopeless guy struggling is like bumping into one in real life... he's there, and you either nod your head and agree with him or want to shut his pessimistic pie hole. Meanwhile when it happened in Dark Souls 1 it was because they had a reason to be sad, though to be honest the sad characters may have been outweighed by those with another attitude... because it was so dark and depressing that in order to live you couldn't let the bad get to you. Instead you were challenged to make the best of it, and it felt pretty powerful and good and the mood met up well with the progress you made along side learning and mastering the game. Now it looks a bit like Dragon Age... it isn't that bad or generic, and it feels different, but if you were to look at screenshots of all the places I had been you could confuse the worlds together.
However this is a nitpick at the end of the day. Yeah a setting change sounds massive, but still... the world is sad, the world has a troubling sense to it, and thanks to the gameplay I'm turning every corner as if I was walking on glass keeping a very tense and eerie suspense to the enchanted land. There is something unsettling, and I just know the doom emotion that Dark Souls 1 basked in will come out into this new land sometime or another. Besides, practically everything in the trailers made me think this would be a similar mood so I've clearly got some ground to cover to see all the trailer spots and the terrors previewed. There was a freakin' lava dragon demon thing, and suffering skin torn thing, and a monster made out of corpses for crying out loud, and I have yet to stumble into a single one... I'm sure the terror and misery is going to hit hard and turn the pretty world upside down. Besides asking for it to be the exact thing is too much to ask for. I knew there would be nobody to replace Solaire, and I knew it would have some setting changes.
So onto my gameplay experience... its great. I'm a swordsman who has been juggling between a good stabbing sword, slice happy scimitar, a flaming sword, and a shield. Learning from past experience, bows have their use as well and since it scales with my main trait of dexterity I'm keeping it up to power. I love the new durability system as its more consistent and streamlined in a good way compared to the older version. The old way had you guessing your durability which usually lasted you for an hour or more of gameplay, and eventually you should have checked on it at a bonfire if you bought the kits (and you should have). Now it refills at a bonfire automatically like a flask would. This gives you a meter, and balances off the difficulty in a different way where you're keeping track of it like an ammo count in an FPS. Rather than opening up a giant menu to look for 360/520 and spending minimal amounts of souls on repair every bonfire for your durability, you have a little health-like bar for your weapons always on the equipment HUD and it tears quicker leaving it a potential risk to track. However its free to restore, again like a flask. As a swordsman this makes me think smartly about what I want to use and when, and it makes long walks through places like No-Man's wharf a stronger test of good endurance and supplies. I found both right hand swords that I needed to be on the edge of breaking, when I suddenly realized a repair powder that was useless to me in DS1 and was a life saver here... and I felt great for finding it off of some corpse completing the need to explore and keep stocked items.
Now the health thing is something you get used to. Same for the leveling up with an NPC. Sure having to fast travel back to the village just to pump in on or two points is a pain, and the NPC's looping pretentious sounding dialogue is extra annoying, but it becomes tolerable and its sometimes pleasant to wander the village for a second like a break or it reminds you to see that blacksmith again. The new way the flask is done is brilliant so that your not just chugging one health potion, but have less but more varied methods of healing. So I'm really enjoying the game and need to work on fighting a boss known as the ruin sentinel when I get back to my main file again. I can't wait to see what lies ahead, and I'm excited and hoping I can complete the game sometime over the course of next week. Praise the sun!
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