I never had any intention of playing Dark Souls 2, or any of the other Souls games for that matter. I had always been of the mind that the Souls games were difficult only for difficulty's sake. The gifs and memes of the first two games never held my interest. It wasn't until a good friend of mine pestered me about it over and over and over that I decided to check the newest of the games out.

Dark Souls 2 is a game in a very old school vein. There are no overly long tutorials or long winded cut-scenes showing you where your next objective lies. The game has a very small tutorial section full of small stones that tell you the basic controls, stones that you could easily accidentally hit and destroy in the middle of combat, preventing you from reading them, and even if you do read all the messages and learn the basics, the game tells you nothing about its more advanced features. Getting your estus flask to restore your health, leveling up, upgrading weapons and armor, all of this information is up for the player to find. The game does not hold your hand, it gives you exactly the tools you need to overcome your situation and beat the game, but it gives you nothing more than that, and it requires you to find it all yourself.

At first this was my most hated feature of Dark Souls. The fact that it explains nothing to you, that you have to scrape and scrounge and dig for everything the game has to offer really got under my skin. But the longer I played the game and the more experience I gained in its unapologetic style, the more I came to realize that the reason I railed against this game's style was because I had been spoiled.

I really think what turned me around to a game like Dark Souls was the same thing that originally turned me on to the first game I ever played: The Legend of Zelda. Both games have a grand sense of scale and adventure. Both games give you very little in the way of detail and just allow you to go out and explore the land. Both games can be brutally difficult if you dont understand how the enemies operate.

But I think, as time went on, I lost that sense of exploration. I forgot how much I enjoyed the idea of being thrust into a world with only your own wits and a few subtle clues. Over time maybe the video game industry lost the idea of that challenge factor in favor of more visually stunning graphics and gameplay that is more appealing to a wider range of audiences. And unlike most gamers, I don't necessarily think that is a bad thing. However, I do think that it dulls us to a lot of fun that can be had out of games that challenge us more than the standard "Reach the Objective, Kill the Enemy" games, causing us to forget just how fun those old games were.

At it's heart Dark Souls 2 isn't the flashiest game out on the market, and it will never be accused of holding anyone's hand, but it has a sense of freedom and exploration that games these days are sorely lacking. And it charmed my heart to the point that I have 182 hours on my main character at the time of this writing, and I'm still finding new things I didn't know about and enjoying my time with the game. And I think that, regardless of minor graphical glitches and some frustration at the beginning, if a game can hold your attention for so long, it at least should be fulled explored before an opinion can be formed. I learned that the hard way.

(Originally written 06/25/2014)