The hardest game not a SHMUP

 Dark Souls is undoubtedly a game that many gamers will have goose bumps at the mention of the name. The spiritual successor to the enormously difficult Demon's Souls is therefore anything but inviting to one who knows that stress resistance is not among his best qualities. Not that this is the intention of developer From Software. In fact, with a slogan like "Prepare to die" ensure that they have the courage even to fans already in the shoe drops before you start the game.

After hesitating for a while in the menu, cleared all my courage and I decided to start a new game. This takes you right into the character creation menu, which, with a few exceptions, identical to that Demon's Souls. Again it is impossible for a character to create your own image, unless you are horribly ugly and maybe even a little deformed are. Even some kind of charm you can not add to your in-game warrior. Maybe I just do not want a prince charming, as you start the game as an undead.

Besides customizing your appearance, you can always choose the specialization of your character. This largely determines from the start the way you play, so think carefully about the pros and cons of all available options. Demon's Souls where you could choose between thirteen different classes, you now have only ten choices. The less popular or more challenging classes are merged with others or are just completely removed, which makes everything much simpler. Are you a newcomer to the franchise, then you should choose a Knight or Warrior with lots of armor and high strength. So you're from the beginning quite strong and the enormous amount of armor you with riding forward, you will not so soon die as a class with fabric or leather armor walking around like a Magician, a Cleric or Thief.

To get a little bit to get started, the game offers you the option to 'Gift' to carry with you. This allows you to start from a small advantage, that varies from one or more HP to heal masterkey. Some gifts give you anything extra and are therefore created to trick you or just for those who do not need to lead. So watch out! Some classes have already in the beginning of a gift, making your choice so can yield additional benefits. Make good use, though you should not forget that the makers you occasionally like a bit of bother. Not everything is as it seems!

After an intro movie that makes the game seem more interesting than it actually is, you wake up in the Undead Asylum. You are right at one of the most important objects in the game, the Dark Souls easier to make it playable predecessor Demon's Souls. I'm talking about the Bonfire. Although this definition is incredibly inaccurate, you have been from the beginning very glad it exists. A bonfire is in fact always a safe place and you have the mogelijkgeid multiple things to settle in any RPG are very important. So take a bonfire away all negative status effects and you can again get full health. You can also buy upgrades over the world to your bonfire as a 'marketplace' use. No longer have to walk anywhere is not a luxury in this world of evil undead.

From the beginning, not all features available on your bonfire, bonfire but you can upgrade as the game progresses. This is done by souls of defeated enemies in exchange for, say, a repairbox. Naturally suffer heavy armor and weapons under the constant fighting, so these are things that you at all times it should be considering. Remember that you also use these souls to upgrade your weapons and armor and of course to be a higher level. Sometimes it is better to first wait a poorly thought out choice. The absence of savegame you can never back yourself so often deprives good chance to continue and therefore rewarded with a quick death.

More important is filling your Estus Flasks, which complement your health if you do not have the opportunity to visit a bonfire. Unfortunately you can at most only five bonfires Flasks fill, unless you an upgrade does. The fire is something exuberant and Estus you get a maximum of ten. Apart from providing a positive, a bonfire is also your biggest annoyance. Resting on a bonfire because it triggers respawn all the enemies you've encountered on your way. At every little advantage is always a huge disadvantage. You will have to live, otherwise you will die.

You will notice several new things in the game including the HUD. As a magician you expect because under your health bar is a mana bar. This is missing and so is your health only accompanied by stamina. In Demon's Souls proved to be powered magic freely. This since you had the opportunity mana regenerating armor, weapons and / or trinkets to set up allowing you unlimited remote could stay if you played well. Death by avoiding 'false' play was definitely a blot on the escutcheon of Demon's Souls, so something had to be done.

So from now on magic is a limit. This allows you the basic spell "Soul Arrow" only 30 times before you are forced to switch to melee combat. This can also be upgraded later in the game, but until then this is a great form of frustration. As a magic user, you are a terribly weak swordsman. Do not forget that your stamina heavyweight weigh in Dark Souls you are only two or three times you hit before you're through. Not only attacks themselves, but also repel attacks and counter often cost you more stamina than you want. Is it, then you defenseless and you guessed it already fixed .. then you die.

The biggest change in Dark Souls compared to its predecessor, the semi-open world. In Demon's Souls you came to a central area - The Nexus - go when you die, and from there you could go to the start of each world. You played spawn additional places left later in the level, when the bosses defeated in those places. This allowed you without too much effort you move between certain parts of the world. In Dark Souls is not an option initially. Only much later in the game turns this feature back, and even then you only have a small selection bonfires go where you 'warp'. This forces you to so much of the game walking back and forth as if no end to it. Secretly, this is effective, because without your knowledge you gather souls still pretty much this way.

Of course you do, just like its predecessor, a wide range of shortcuts. Enormous even, and this time they are also much more effective. Of course, this game becomes too easy and thus shorter routes that From Software has well hidden, locked, difficult to get made ​​and / or guardians are interred in the form of almost immortal elite enemies. The latter can sometimes backfire, because the developers of the paths where you are not supposed to go littered with enemies of a higher level, which are indestructible. It's so confusing when you post a while back for that too complicated mini-boss at your sword to thread, and you then behind him (and some breakable boxes) a shortcut like you a lot of care could have saved if you previously had the time taken to the boss out of the way.

At such moments it is also very important that you think about the online options in the game, just like in Demon's Souls from start to finish is very evident. You have two forms of online play, you can help each other and you can thwart one another. This can in most cases only the human form of your character. This activates obtained by Humanity Sprites (an item that you normally get from enemies or find in treasure chests) to use and a bonfire in your so-called "Hollow" is reversed. With your White Soapstone can call people to help you and you can also see their requests. Note that if you're hollow, you are immune to the Black Phantom players who want to invade your world. In your human form you are not. Unless you are sure of yourself, it is advisable to not use your human form, because although defeated Black Phantoms bring many souls, they are often much harder than the AI ​​enemies.

You hear that it is a pretty common phenomenon in large red letters regularly to "You died" to see, but it makes the victory very sweet when you're in big yellow letters, "You defeated 'sees. This can happen when you see a boss, or Black Phantom, a cup (or in exceptional cases a few cups!) Smaller. This is actually to turn the power of the game. Indeed, many a gamer does not settle the dismay that follows die by a simple accumulation of enemies, traps, and other elites such scum. This often means that even people who just can not win every time the challenge to keep going. The worst way of dying is by small errors in the game. So you will often die by an invisible wall that you are a bridge pushes, a boss at 0 HP's and but an incomprehensible way the Grim Reaper outwit remains unseen enemies, the malfunctioning lock-on system, doors after a battle not so open. In other words, learn programming!

Meanwhile, the you probably have noticed that after writing quite some time, I barely text devoted to the story. I have this on purpose, because hardly any good story is found in Dark Souls. As in Demon's Souls is the story really interesting and you do not understand much. Next to that a little of the plot at the beginning of the game and when it ends. In between you get (almost) nothing to hear and only NPCs in the game cinematics are incorporated, are those that are intended to einbazen even narrower in the picture. The latter she is also very well done, because they certainly are scary! The only NPC who occasionally has something interesting to say the Crest Fallen Warrior who throughout the game is for the Fire Left Shire - the place that all parts of the Dark Souls world connects.

Overall, Dark Souls is a great game, but it's also a game that you can give a lot of stress. Dark Souls, it seems, despite the scant information from the developer himself, at first quite easily, but as expected, later a huge **** of a game to be. Small errors in battle you can lose a number of playing hours costs. Why it's so unfortunate that From Software has not learned from Demon's Souls when it comes to control woody and bugs. Fortunately, they learned of the complaining about the lack of variety in enemies and environments.

Here they worked hard and you notice significant improvement. Unfortunately, the game is still ugly. In any case, to me that in any case important is that, especially as a new soul, always playing online. Although there are players you just want to run a trick, there are also very helpful gamers who hints, tips and tricks for you to leave. This leaves only question is, what do you believe? Incidentally, I have especially for you track how many times I've gone dead. After about 25 hours play I'm in a good number of 238. I think this is now my lucky number.

Pros

- More shortcuts.
- More types of enemies.
- Even more challenging.
- Bigger game world.
- Environment is very diverse. Cons

- No interesting story.
- Bugs.