Suskie's Dark Souls review

Great review, dude. I guess I missed your old review before you deleted it, but I may have rad it when you first posted it anyway. What you write here is a very interesting personal dilemma for yourself, but you explain it beautifully, and your score feels justified despite all the scathing criticism in the beginning of the review. It's amazing a game can achieve such a pull as this one appears to have. Most people would give up, as you did at first, and never return. I consider myself a patient person, but I don't even think I'd be able to tackle this. (I'm going to try Demon's Souls soon and find out if I can even stand a chance.)

I did notice one tiny typo, so I'll include that here.

I knew that whatever was hidden at its based would surely be breathtaking.

Thanks to both of you for catching those, and for reading. I'm glad you both enjoyed it!

Ben: I kinda can't believe it, either. And it sounds like you gave up at exactly the point when I originally did. Did you fight the Bell Gargoyles?

WQ: Demon's Souls would be better for testing the waters, yeah. It's actually even harsher in certain ways, but like I said, the hub-based structure makes the whole experience more welcoming once you get into the swing of it. It's also probably around half the length of Dark Souls, honestly.

Ha. I would've loved to see your reaction to a later level in which both he and Taurus Demon are common enemies. There's this one hallway where you have to fight, like, six Capra Demons in a row.

I agree about the camera, though. There's this one late-game boss called Centipede Demon that you fight in an arena covered almost entirely with lava, meaning you have to actually engage him on the extremely narrow strips of land surrounding the pit, and both he and the walls frequently interfere with the camera's stability. One player even left a tip before the fight: "Beware of locking on." Heh.

Edit: Just put together an accompanying blog entry, if anyone's interested.

You know, I never had any trouble with the Capra Demon. I know it didn't take me more than 2 or 3 attempts to beat, and I had it pretty easy with the gargoyles, too. The boss I had trouble with was the duo at the end of Anor Lando, which I had to attempt many times before I was finally successful. Throughout the game, I'd say the part that gave me the most trouble was actually getting to the bosses...

I remember having problems with Capra on my first play, but oddly, I actually beat him on my first attempt this time. One of only, I believe, two bosses in the game that I did that with. (The other being Pinwheel.)

One of my favorite encounters in the game, against Seath the Scaleless, required at least a solid five minutes of walking and platforming back to the arena every time I fell in battle, and that was after I'd figured out how to simply slip past all of the enemies that stood in my way without engaging them. If dying is a part of the learning process, then setbacks like these are just a waste of time.

They can be a waste of time, but subjectively, not objectively.
The spacing of checkpoints, how match replay to ask of the player whenever he loses to a boss, ... these are part of the things decided in designing the game, and they are set to be functional to what the game wants to be — for the type of player it is mostly, well, designed for.

The purpose of setbacks may be to simply ask for endurance. But most often, the purpose is to make the player observe, and observe again, and again, this and that detail, until he's learned enough that he can be allowed progress into the next area/mission/... Or to make him train, and train again, and again.

They aren't there for no reason — if a good designer or design team placed them there.