@travan: All I said was that Dark Souls has been praised to hell and back with nothing new coming to the table, just more people saying "Yeah, it is great" and just rehashing what's already been said, Patrick included.

But hey, stupid me for saying anything even remotely negative about Dark Souls. I forgot how hive mind people are about it. I guess I just need to "calm down."

I don't think Patrick did a very good job at explaining how the game is special apart from it's "difficulty". In the end he hits the exact same talking points of "it's the accomplishment" and "feeling like you're part of a club".

But then again that's probably the common reaction to beating it the first time. It probably takes a few more playthroughs to really discover and appreciate all the other things this game does so right. I would expect someone like Patrick to focus more on how the game takes you on an emotional ride and how it encapsulates the feeling of adventure in almost every way possible though. Dark Souls is what videogames should strive to be, a personal experience.

Patrick,
You're stream got me to repurchase the game. I originally bought it in 2012, then promptly traded it in two months later. I barely scratched the surface of the game, but the infection was there. It was on my mind, it was on my mind quite a bit. You're stream, plus the day after you finished the sale on 360 GoD for $5, was the push I needed to jump back in. I may be getting my ass handed to me multiple times, but it's an enthralling experience I haven't felt with a game in quite some time.

I always figured it was more likely that people weren't saying "that build is OP" but might have less eloquently been saying "Had you picked a less obvious choice of build such as a Magic user, or dexterity/speed focused build... the game would require more parry/evasion skill and less tanking." It is a moot point, but I found NewGame+ clips your wings for tanking and makes it more important to avoid attacks. The game opens up quite a bit more once you make studied equipment combinations, make use of buffs, try out different spells, and generally know what you're doing with stat and equipment upgrades. It can be hard to go and beat a good game twice in a row, but in the case of Dark Souls (and I'd say Dragon's Dogma, too) the experience isn't complete without a second run of things, either with your character in NG+ or a whole new save file.

It was fun to watch someone play through the game for the first time and have a -relatively- easy time with it. I think Patrick's attitude and persistence was key, and having a supportive chat made for a unique playthrough. I personally put the game down for weeks at a time while playing, due to losing tons of souls a few times and wanting to smash the controller. I did find it useful and fun to experience invading, being invaded, and having a helper join in... which Patrick avoided for good enough reason, it makes the game's bosses quite a bit easier.

Not fighting your way through Ash Lake was a mistake, btw.

@spraynardtatum: You have any pyromancy? It kills the skele dogs very quickly. Also, keep in mind that the dogs sight range is even smaller than yours down there, especially with a lantern. You can generally start the fight with them on your own terms before they can react, killing them. Even at high SLs, letting those things warm up their attack string is fatal.

On topic, this is a very good article @patrickklepek, especially this paragraph here:

"Dark Souls and Spelunky begin with this design premise: watch and learn. If you don't watch, you're punished. If you don't learn, you're punished. But if you do both, you're rewarded with mastery, and Dark Souls bends to mastery. Not only does it bend, it buckles and breaks, respecting the player's ability to learn its rules."

This tells me you understand what people mean when people like me, who played and beat Dark Souls (and Demon's Souls) when they came out mean when we say the game's not hard. Pay attention, and be rewarded!

I could keep writing about Dark Souls and how much it's impressed me. It's the game I played most this last generation, and is probably only behind Super Mario Galaxy and maybe Mass Effect 2 in my list of favorites since 2006. I think it's extremely impressive, especially as a sequel to such a divisive game that doesn't hold up quite as well.

Yeah, Patrick, don't take the OP talk as a negative. From what I saw in the big last stream the majority of chat was using it as a positive "Holy shit, Patrick is so OP murdering these fools!" and laughing watching as you were taking out the bosses. You were OP through hard work in the game and smart levelling. And it's the kind of thing that makes the Souls games fun, when you get into the late game you get strong enough or skilled enough or just plain lucky enough to run through tearing everything up. And it FEELS GOOD! By the time you are taking out enemies that were one hitting you at the beginning of the game in one hit you feel vindicated.

I could keep writing about Dark Souls and how much it's impressed me. It's the game I played most this last generation, and is probably only behind Super Mario Galaxy and maybe Mass Effect 2 in my list of favorites since 2006. I think it's extremely impressive, especially as a sequel to such a divisive game that doesn't hold up quite as well.

@minishdriveby: So basically you've been playing it wrong but were able to brute force your way through it anyway? I did that with Viewtiful Joe the first time I beat it. Totally played it wrong and didn't understand the mechanics. When I stopped and tried to understand what I could actually do, it suddenly clicked and I did much, much better. That's not an indictment of the game or its reward of mastery; it simply shows that most games can be beaten with enough patience and stubbornness.

I still have no real interest in going back and trying to finish Dark Souls. I played a few hours and didn't really like it. That said, I love watching you guys play the Souls games.

@patrickklepek: I really like these articles you've done on both Dark Souls and Monster Hunter. It's great to see the perspective of you coming in from the outside, as someone that might have written off such unconventional or niche games and franchises. You really put in the time to understand what it is that these games are actually about and why people enjoy them as they do and for what they are. I hope you do more of these articles about these sorts of experiences with such franchises. If there's anything I'm disappointed in, it's that you never really had the time to write such an article after your playthrough of Fire Emblem: Awakening last year.

Looking forward to see what you tackle next!

@patrickklepek Got to thank you, Patrick. The bits I watched of your stream finally got me into DkS after two years of putting it off due to worries about obscure systems and frustrating difficulty. I'm enjoying the experience, loving that i'm making progress and doing it pretty much without help besides some friendly advice here and there. And i'm not a particularly 'good' gamer, but just someone like you willing to be patient and learn from my mistakes. Anyone reluctant to take the plunge, do so, DkS is unlike anything I've ever played, and that's a good thing.

Welcome to the GiantSouls covenant. We absolve you of all your sins prior to joining. You get a cool little t-shirt and a gesture: \0/

Praise the sun!

Great game or greatest game?

The only challenger to the throne for me in the last generation was Skyrim which I just loved to death with difficulty maxed. Even then Skyrim wasn't truly challenging unless you put handicaps on your build.

Killin' it this week. I've played maybe 2 or 3 hours of both these games and it never hooked me because I just didn't want to commit the time to dive deep. It's been super interesting hearing and watching people's experiences with these games.

Sounds like playing this game at launch would have been much like playing Fez when it first came out. The internet collectively scratching its head trying to figure out just what the hell was really going on. What I played, I enjoyed but as with MMORPGs that I've dabbled in, I saw the depth of the well and decided I'd rather spend my time elsewhere experiencing many things rather than a single deep one.

In any case, great write up.

So I started playing through the game again after you started Patrick, and I got to Smough & Ornstein, I think only 5 or 6 levels below what you were at that point. The game did feel much easier than when I first played. Now I don't know how much of that is because I've played it before(and twice more in NG+), but I remember doing way more farming my first time playing and having a much tougher time. One big example is those Twinkling Titanite that you used to upgrade your Blackknight Great Axe, when the game was released you couldn't buy those from any vendor, they were a rare drop from those oyster enemies, I had to farm them for hours to get enough to upgrade my weapon. At least with that patch it cut out a lot of farming because it made more items available to buy/less expensive. You're right though, at least you and other people getting into the game later can say that they beat it, and playing it is better than never giving it much of a chance. Thanks for the write-up. :D

Great write-up Patrick. It really encapsulates a lot of the appeal of these games to me.

I bought Demon's Souls when it first came due to some of the buzz from importers. I had a few play sessions with it, and I liked it. I liked it a lot actually. But it hadn't quite clicked with me yet. I didn't have that, "OH MY GOD THIS GAME IS SO AWESOME." moment yet. Ironically enough, I would experience that moment while I was playing a different game. Uncharted 2, I think. Or maybe whatever the latest Call of Duty was. It doesn't matter. Anyway, I was playing Uncharted (or Call of Duty) and it was a pretty bad scene. My posture was awful. I was leaning so far to one side I was practically laying down. My play was extremely sloppy and poor, mindless even. Honestly I was barely even paying attention to the game. And yet... I was succeeding. At one point I was even running past entire groups of enemies just to trigger the next checkpoint or cutscene.

I don't know what caused it, but for some reason I began thinking about just how different I felt playing Demon's Souls. In Demon's Souls I was sitting upright. I was leaning forward. I was alert. I was acting intelligently, skillfully, and decisively in the game. I was... having fun. Pretty much the polar opposite of how I was playing Uncharted at that moment. Then, much to my disgust, I realized that how I was playing Uncharted is how I had been playing the vast majority of games over the previous three or four years. It was honestly kind of shocking, and a bit of a wake up call. I know that sounds dramatic, but it really was kind of a big deal to me at the time. It really made me get introspective and evaluate why I play games, how I play them, what I enjoy about them, why I got into them in the first place, etc. I came out of that knowing and understanding my own tastes a lot better. I put down Uncharted that day, and continued playing Demon's Souls, and I haven't looked back.

That's quite a great write-up, and it sums up a lot of what's great about the game.

Here's what I would add: Dark Souls raises the stakes. In most games nowadays, you have nothing to lose upon dying, so you just don't give a shit. With Dark Souls, you care, because you know what you'll lose upon dying. That keeps you on your toes, and makes it infinitely more rewarding.

Spread the souls love boys, praise that gat damn sun.

I have had little luck convincing my friends and acquaintances to give Dark Souls a shot because of the difficulty thing perpetuated by some of the games media. I am well aware how it has been bestowed this mantle. This is one of the reasons I am elated you have come to this conclusion.

As a game, Dark Souls respects you. Oddly enough I remember Nintendo used to do this. I remember little things like figuring out you needed full life to have your sword shoot in Zelda. Or using the bombs to jump in Super Metriod. There was no 10 minute tutorial for either thing.

The combat in Dark Souls is not just a means to an end. The main mechanic in a game should not feel like it overstayed it's welcome. I felt like my adventurer was trying to survive. Even in a way different game (Red Dead Redemption) I shot tons of people without fatigue. Of course he solves everything with a gun, he's an F'ing cowboy! If you ever think in a game "man I wish there were some puzzles to break up this combat" that is probably bad game design. I never felt this even once in Dark Souls.

Patrick touched on another part that makes Dark Souls special. You may never see areas of the game. Witcher 2 did this as well as Skyrim. That shows confidence in your game. You think that the player will find it interesting enough to go find it. Way better than the lazy "Hey there are 100 coins in this level, find them!" way to corral players where you want them.

I also love videogames of all types. Not every games has to be like Dark Souls nor would I want them to be. I do think designers could learn a lot from this team. Who would have thought that one could make the gaming world a better place through dark oppression and a lack of hope?

Praise the Sun.

I really like this:

At first, Dark Souls feels like an immoveable, impenetrable object. But as it turns out, you were trying to move it from the wrong side. At the right angle, it nudges. Soon, the nudge causes it to tilt. Then, it falls over.

lol @ Sen's Fortress gif. Couldn't replicate that if you tried!

I'm in a bit of a rut right now when it comes to the Souls franchise. I tried for several hours to find the magic behind Demon's Souls on the PS3, but unfortunately didn't get that much time with the game. I have Dark Souls for 360 and PC (once as a gift, once as a Steam steal), but the left-brain in me tells me I have to finish Demon's Souls before progressing to Dark Souls, even though I didn't really care for the narrative in the former at all. I don't know if Dark Souls is worth the "jump", or whether I should go back to Demon's Souls and try to finish that first.

One of the best articles I've read in quite some time. Praise the sun, sunbros!

Congrats, Patrick. I and my friends finally purchased Dark Souls around Christmas time and have had a lot of frustrating moments washed over with victorious fun. It is refreshing.

BRB, going to staple this article to Jeff's face.

I had a similar experience with Demons' Souls. Bought it roughly 2 years ago. Even though I ended up looking at the wiki and stuff quite a bit, and farmed, it still felt like an accomplishment. I haven't played Dark Souls, but I'm considering picking up Dark Souls II when it drops. I still don't know if "hard" or "difficult" are the right words to describe the Souls games, oh well.

Nice write up scoops

I agree. I mean, I wouldn't personally consider the Souls games 'hard', certainly not in the same manner so many make it out to be. The thing is, it's about patience. I personally enjoyed the games from what I've played, and I completely understand why people love it aside from having the experience of finishing it, and seeing all there is to see, but I didn't stop because of the difficulty, I stopped because I wasn't patient enough to get to the next step.

The times when one loses, or I lost and died, that didn't bring frustration, because I know it's not the games fault, it just made me ponder what I had to do to complete the task at hand, and that was rewarding. The bosses for instance, they can be incredibly intense and intimidating at first, and jaw dropping for it. I simultaneously expect to lose the first time, but also try to advise a plan to beat him then, or for perhaps another go.

Maybe I played it incorrectly, which I don't believe I did, but I felt like I had to grind in a certain area to move on, and that's why I wasn't patient enough, because I just wanted to move on and see the cool new environments and enemies to come, but it took too long, though I'm not saying I wish it were different (like some hack 'n slash). I'm also not going to trial and error a speed run; that's defeats the purpose of taking it all in to me. Superb games, but I probably won't ever finish them, which is also the reason I'm not all that excited for Dark Souls 2, even though I know it'll probably be great.

This just made me want to play Flappy Bird....

The Souls games are clearly great games, I haven't finished either, but I've enjoyed the bit I've played. That said, man, between this website's newfound obsession with the series and the fact that the internet is constantly screaming about how every game has to be like Souls from now on I am completely fucking burnt out on the series. I'm just sick of hearing about it. And Dark Souls II is out very soon, so it's not over yet. This is going to suck.

Good on you Patrick for that Dark Souls article. I might suggest you do another play through as you missed the more substantial ending, a decent down into an area that does a lot for world building and the fate of a few NPCs Sigmeyer/Solair

Very good article... as a person who has beaten the game twice (on the same character with NG+) and who had used little in terms of guides and FAQs, the game was a ball buster. I used guides for some explanation on some mechanics (level up system, souls, and humanity) but the rest was pure trial and error. I have to say that it has been a wonderful and terrible experience. Wonderful in that the game was a incredible experience that was a blast to learn and play. The terrible part is that I am too impatient and would run in blind and die over and over again.

I highly recommend this game to anyone looking for a great experience. If you can try to avoid as many guides and FAQs unless you really need them. Take your time and remember dying is part of the experience, and you will die a lot. Take your time to take in all of your surroundings and read the lore on the items you collect.

Praise the Sun \[T]/

If anyone knows how to click bait their audience it's Patrick. Just kidding Scoops. Pretty well written article for such a worn out topic on the site as of late. Even after finishing the game I personally think Dark Souls is just decent but I think DS2 could be awesome. As someone who has worshipped the Sun for years I'm finding that meme increasingly obnoxious. The internet making light of someone else's faith? Get right out of town and take a bus. Thanks again for the write-up.

@blabbermouth64: Flappy Bird is infinitely harder than Dark Souls. Fuck Flappy Bird.

I actually got really bummed out when @patrickklepek mentioned on the podcast that he only intends to play these games once. Honestly, I really do think the "true" playthroughs are the subsequent ones. I wrote this review back in the day after I beat Dark Souls a second time, and it's probably my favorite thing I've ever written about a game.

I feel like you gain so much wisdom in that series playing it multiple times. When you've beaten the game the first time, all you're left with is a feeling of accomplishment because it was hard to do. Maybe even a glimmer of understanding. But when you've played through the game multiple times, you gain real understanding of why the game needed to be hard on you that first time. You understand things about the mechanics that are seriously impossible to know during the first playthrough because the game was a long con the whole time, giving you tasks and materials that you can't reasonably complete in one playthrough. You interact with the community in ways you couldn't before, and that's my favorite part of the game.

So I mean, I don't begrudge Patrick for coming away with the perspective he has or look down upon him from some snobbish elitist perspective or whatever (not saying you are either). He has the perspective of someone who has beaten it once: Proud. Accomplished. Ready to take a long break, haha. I just hope he jumps back in eventually, or at least plays through Dark Souls II a second time, and either time, interacting with other players every chance he gets. The best way I can put it is this:

When you start playing Demon's Souls for the first time, you land in the Nexus and players have left messages all over the place that say, "The true Demon's Souls starts here." Those messages aren't for you. Not yet, anyway. They're for when you land in the Nexus again.

Even though the Souls series and Monster Hunter are very different games, they're so similar in key ways that they rank as my number 1 and 2 game series of all time.

I want an apology too!

EDIT: Also, let's go watch some DBZ!

Can't wait for the Dynasty Warriors apology writeup.

I'm glad you finally saw the light in Dark Souls Pat. The souls games are two of my favorite games ever! I can not wait for the new one!

Just finished Dark Souls. Ending up doing a build similar to Vinny in Load Our Last Souls. I was super overpowered through most of the game, and it kinda ruined some of the fun. Barely died on any of the bosses after Ornstein & Smough. Killed Artorias on first try, etc. I was way overleved but I never felt like I had been grinding for souls. Still really enjoyed it, but I feel like I missed out on some of the "fun".

HOLY CRAP THOSE GIFS LMFAO

Good write up, @patrickklepek , but I have to disagree with you about the people giving you shit about your playstyle. No one should care enough about how someone else is playing a game to become angry or dismissive about it.

The way people flip their shit about Brad while he's playing Demon's Souls is pretty sad.

@shadowskill11:

maybe the game is just good. but you know it could be some other reason

Praise the Sun Patrick! As a Souls veteran I also agree with you, it is now one of the best times to jump into the series just before Dark Souls II comes out. \±/ :D

it's the sport of kings better than diamond rings, "dark souls!"

I can't wait for when I play Dark Souls II completely in the dark. I've had a fair amount of help for Demon's Souls and Dark Souls because it's so easy to look for answers online, but I'm gonna try and avoid everything when I play the game.

I'll just point out that Patrick also gave Monster Hunter a shot as well. IIRC, the issue with him continuing on it was that the people he was playing with (8-4) live in Japan. He seemed to like it to some degree, iirc.

tldr: Patrick got gud