Last updated on February 21, 2022
I would like Dark Souls to be a broad exploration game filled with so many veiled things and details. A broad map that lacks details cannot be attractive for users who want to explore it in depth. Having said that, the reason why I put a lot of care into details might be much more simple. I enjoy the process of adding elaboration into games, and like to communicate with users through the details I create.
Where do I begin with the Souls series? I had a vague familiarity with From Software from Armored Core. Honestly, you’d think that giant robot combat would instantly work well in a video game, but I only think a few titles capture the hulking nature of a thousand ton behemoth. Armored Core did this well, though not spectacularly enough to capture my imagination. Another of their games, Otogi, captured my interest with its Japanese mythological folklore and strange, flying based fight mechanisms, but I never felt like I absolutely NEEDED to finish it.
Even the Souls series did not compel me at first play. I picked up Demon’s Souls years ago, and nothing clicked with me at all. The combat slowed things to a crawl. I took hits for no discernible reason (to my mind). Sluggish, delayed inputs led to my death. And who the heck wants to start all over once they die? Not me, that’s for certain. Or so I thought.
Demon’s Souls -I have wanted to start this game for the longest time (or its sequel, Dark Souls), and I finally took the plunge. Knowing that the game would inevitably hand me my butt on a silver platter, not having a manual sure helped to make me feel dumb on more than one occasion (thanks, Best Buy used games!). I hadn’t wanted to take the plunge, simply because spending twenty dollars on a three year old game wasn’t top on my list of “things I want to throw money at”, but its reputation obviously precedes it; there was no way I was getting a sub-twenty price on it, so I finally took the plunge.
Demon’s Souls, contrary to many games made nowadays, doesn’t hold your hand or even bother to guide you through a tutorial section. The marks on the floor, though helpful to understand the control, are entirely optional. Of course, none of this will help you with the first boss, who plays upon your expectation of “first boss” in a game by demolishing you almost immediately. That isn’t to say it is impossible, but Demon’s Souls has its own heart in the gamer’s mind – if you didn’t know it in advance, good luck living. That’s good, though!
How many games in the modern era bother to give the player some sense of accomplishment when they finally clear a tough section of a game, or kill a maniacally tough boss which requires razor-sharp timing, or a perfect parry/riposte into the instantaneous death of an enemy? It’s difficult only in that you don’t know what to expect – discovery remains the name of the game, both in understanding enemy tactics, finding hidden shopkeepers and items, and memorizing the layouts of a level intentionally to become better and better at the game. Think of it in this way: I find the Elder Scrolls game incredibly boring even though they encourage exploration like Demon’s Souls. However, the Elder Scrolls series doesn’t give you any incentive to explore because there’s no real tension. Demon’s Souls ensures you are on the edge of your seat, playing with extreme caution as you attempt to survive and obtain new techniques and items. Especially as dying has real consequences, you won’t take your life for granted here. There’s a much shorter margin of error, sure, but that’s why you have motivation to find the next challenge.
Half the time, you don’t even know all the mechanics. Did I know I was in Soul Form rather than Human Form for most of my gaming time? Not at all! I sure didn’t understand why my health was permanently placed at 50% rather than filling the whole meter. These things take time. Demon’s Souls requires investment solely as it recognizes the journey is more important than the destination. My killing the boss culminates the satisfaction of the challenge, but it also represents a climax to all the attempts done beforehand.
The controls haven’t failed me too often in my quest to play through the first section of the first level. The parry/riposte timing seems very strict, but I think that’s a good thing because it could easily find abuse if the timing window was too lenient. I’ve missed it more than I should, but it’s my own fault. The targeting system works similarly to Zelda’s Z-Targeting system from Ocarina of Time, yet actually makes a few improvements made necessary by the game’s mechanics. As multiple enemies can attack you at once, a quick target switch becomes incredibly important; here, it just requires a flick of the right analog stick to the direction of the foe. This simple solution fixes the whole problem with Zelda’s system. See, because it’s difficult to switch Z-Targeting, Nintendo made it so one enemy could attack you. The other enemy’s AI pattern would back off slightly to allow the player a fighting chance against odds of two or more. From Software, through this simple change, allows for many enemies to attack at once, putting additional strain on the player’s reactions and dodging skills, as well as one’s ability to multitask. It’s a great mechanic, and I’m surprised how well it works.
All in all, Demon’s Souls was a present surprise; although not quite as difficult as people say (it’s only because they can’t adjust from the handholding tutorial), it’s rather enjoyable and deliciously crunchy action-RPG. I’m hoping to play more.
All the things I wrote were true, yes, but I missed the point of those things. Other games came into my purview and took precedence, quite frankly. When the opportunity to buy Dark Souls on PC came up during a Steam sale, I went for it. I bought the guide from Gamestop a few months earlier for ten dollars, so adding $6.79 USD to the pile seemed a pretty great deal. Yet again, I played a bit, beat the first few areas, and then quit. It didn’t seem exciting at all; what, exactly, was I missing?
Eventually, I went for a third go-around. Persona 4, the game I was playing at the time, ended up being rather similar to Persona 3 – lots of fun dialogue bits, followed by a TON of somewhat monotonous grinding in randomly generated dungeons (hint: randomly generated dungeons get boring quickly). I picked up my Dark Souls game save at five hours, and suddenly found myself swept into a video game like I hadn’t in years. I basically dropped all other games and obsessed over it for weeks. Why did this happen? I can think of a few reasons, as the length of this article will attest.
First, though, a caveat: I don’t like Dark Souls because it’s “hard” or any nonsense like that. For anyone semi-competent and willing to grasp subtle cues, Souls games are not very difficult quite honestly. Comparatively speaking, it probably presented the stiffest challenge of 2011, but there’s no obstacle you cannot surpass with a bit of ingenuity, good pattern recognition, and a bare modicum of reflexes. Rather, we think it so difficult because we see so few games designed this way in the modern era – both game-wise, and story-wise (truer when it came out than now, when Souls copycats litter the landscape, but the point stands).
Imagine, for a second, that you started playing some RPG of the past. Take your pick, CRPG or JRPG. There’s no help, no guide, and nothing beyond the bare minimum of information beyond the instruction manual. Most game designers, rightly, saw their products as an assemblage of systems, rules, and inner workings with an aesthetic overlay. Hiroyuki Ito, who designed many of the combat systems to come out of the Final Fantasy series, said this:
1UP: The Final Fantasy games tend to change a lot from entry to entry. What part do you play in those changes that the series sees?
HI: Well, first of all, I completely ignore the story. [laughs] I hear about the story later, once the game is already in development. The process I go through is, I try to match the system to the story as it goes along. I try to match it as much as possible, where it’s possible.
The systems and rules existed independent of the story. Certainly, many games matched them as closely as possible, but the game came first; graphical prowess alone dictated that much. Players could fill in the detail with their imagination, and imagination remains cheap AND powerful. When the narrative didn’t match up to the game itself, our brains would simply fill in the blanks. Add being a young, wide-eyed child and you’ve got yourself a fan.
Most of the time, you would feel pretty lost. Incredibly lost. Yet, you wanted to explore as much as you could. Some crafted the illusion of openness despite being almost completely linearly (Secret of Mana, for example), and others gave you total freedom (many CRPGs, though Fallout 1 certainly comes to mind), but they all wanted you to learn how to play. They didn’t spoon-feed all the nuances to you, precisely because those nuances made the game what it was. If you can figure out the optimal strategy in ten minutes, that’s not an interesting role-playing game. If it takes sixty hours or more, and you didn’t even plumb the depths yet, then you’re playing something truly special.
In Secret of Mana, there’s a particular area called the Upperland Forest. Divided into four sections, each part represents a particular season: Summer, Fall (or Autumn), Winter, and Spring. After going through all four areas, you might expect to make your way to the next part, but not so fast – somehow, you end up right where you started! Huh?! Like the actual seasons, they progress in a never ending cycle. One bit of offhand information, however, will give you the key to escape the maddening forest. How many hours will you spend there without this information, or if you missed it? A long time. Even the official Prima guide provides, at best, a cryptic hint that may as well not exist at all; you need to put your thinking cap on and solve it. When you die or get lost, it’s frustrating only if you lack patience. Older games required patience! When you do figure it out, it’s satisfying in a way that is difficult to explain.
Dark Souls really nails that same feeling. If that same freedom and discovery led to your untimely doom because you went the wrong way, so be it – you missed something, or you did not pay attention to the strength of those enemies before retreating. Dark Souls starts in an area with three possible paths of progress, and two will definitely kill you on your first visit, but they give you the option all the same. At least the stakes are high; you might lose a few hours of progress, but you gained knowledge in the process.
Good video games provide, even in fail states, actionable information that will get you through said challenge the next time. Provided you pay attention and learn as much as possible, you will succeed inevitably. That’s why our brains like video games much more than real life: it is a set of clearly defined rules where every action has a precise and understandable reaction that you can perceive and tuck away in your brain for later use. As humans design video games, that isn’t exactly a revelation. Hence, that feeling of victory often feels much greater than you might imagine, due to directly linking the cause to the effect.
Furthermore, the mystery, wonder, and beauty of Lordran quite literally lifts the game to another plane. At one level, Dark Souls challenges your traditional video game skills. On another level, figuring out the story will confuse you to no end. What are you doing? Why does everyone seem to know what’s happening but you? Why is everything so desolate, empty, and oppressive? Why do kings and gods alike fall to your power? The narrative plays more like a giant archaeological dig for a forgotten world; tiny details interspersed between item descriptions, NPC dialogue, and area design might give you part of the picture, but not the whole.
Dark Souls seems destined to inspire conversation and debate, not just on the best builds or most difficult way to finish, but the actual tale itself. Think of a giant Internet-based oral tradition helped by a immensity of vague details. Surely you could find lore discussions happening all over the Internet! Unlike those games of the past, however, Dark Souls prefers to meander in feelings of utter melancholy.
At first, I believed that Dark Souls truly represented a kind of fatalistic nihilism. Every humanoid person to whom you can talk in the game, more often than not, is “Undead”. Humans are slowly losing their humanity as the bonfires of Lordran are slowly snuffed out, and the rulers of the realm have kept the Age of Fire alive to the detriment of everyone. The world no longer fits into a distinct timeline, with people of the past and astral travelers flitting in and out of a permeable reality. Everything’s in flux, and you need to fix it. Although, seriously, why are you listening to these people telling you to do this task and that task? Not everyone deserves to be trusted, that’s for sure. And, in the spirit of Dark Souls’ frequent choices between two bad alternatives, you can save the world and die or keep it all to yourself. Not exactly happy stuff.
And yet, I honestly found myself less sad and more happy. On one level, I don’t care much about the setting at all (given that I mostly need to not die). On the other hand, resignation to one’s fate does not mean moping in despair by necessity. Just because the intelligibility of the Dark Souls universe disappeared over a long time period (before you even play!), does not mean that your protagonist, or anyone else, gives up. Even in a time of total uncertainty and a hostile environment, people still live and still do things. Even in the collapse of civilization, life continues, but you make the decision whether it will continue as is or end.
This is the basis of the melancholic mood of the Renaissance: that ultimate values were no longer so solidified, and that the unity of belief shown in eras passed was an age that had ended. That everything in Dark Souls turns to your choices emphasizes this in more ways than one. Melancholy did not mean depression or sadness without reason or cause, but an honest evaluation and self-reflection that lead to a mood of quiet, if somewhat brooding, contemplation. Tears of mournful sadness, though contradictory, were not all that foreign from the era. The most famous song of English lutenist John Dowland, “Flow My Tears”, is the exemplar of this mood:
Flow, my tears, fall from your springs! Exiled for ever, let me mourn; Where night’s black bird her sad infamy sings, There let me live forlorn. Down vain lights, shine you no more! No nights are dark enough for those That in despair their last fortunes deplore. Light doth but shame disclose. Never may my woes be relieved, Since pity is fled; And tears and sighs and groans my weary days, my weary days Of all joys have deprived. From the highest spire of contentment My fortune is thrown; And fear and grief and pain for my deserts, for my deserts Are my hopes, since hope is gone. Hark! you shadows that in darkness dwell, Learn to contemn light Happy, happy they that in hell Feel not the world’s despite.
The mood of the actual music itself and the words merge in a holistic way. Renaissance music consisted of vocal-based “word painting” – literally, describing emotion via words while the harmony behind it actually matched the feeling evoked. Melancholy was especially associated with English music of the late 16th and early 17th centuries (mostly due to Dowland, of course). In fact, I wouldn’t call it a stretch to say Dark Souls’ world is more melancholic than nihilistic. Certainly there’s an inevitably and fatalistic tone (YOU WILL DIE), but also a time for contemplation and respite within the bonfires of the world. It’s your job as the chosen Undead (maybe) to link these bonfires together, to keep the Age of Fire active, and keep light in a world of darkness.
Even in all that, there’s still a thrill in exploring the ruins of a long lost civilization. That, of course, requires moments to contemplate, and clearing an area of its hostile forces will provide plenty of opportunity to do that. Some places remain perfectly intact, others crumbling to bits, but all remain fascinating and interesting. The information you learn must be pieced together, and that’s the only way anything makes sense. Even then, whatever lore and oral tradition that came down may prove unreliable – such historical distance from the events that happened hundreds, if not thousands, of years beforehand make that a difficult task, but an enjoyable one.
If anything, Dark Souls hearkens back to the era of discovery and adventure in gaming. We didn’t know the rules, and we liked it that way. You want, and NEED, to know as much as you possibly can, both in-game and out. Talk to all of the NPCs, because even one could provide that inkling of information that lets you progress. The first area tries to kill you, and most likely will succeed; death remains an ever-present reality, and attempting to avoid it will often lead to it. Yet, since this is expected, it’s not that big a deal. You will die, you will try new things, you we learn new things, and you may find yourself utterly lost. Even so, you will enjoy it.
The game comes out of your own volition, not some predetermined line. You can skip areas, go places you shouldn’t be, and break the “order” of the game whenever you want. Think Super Metroid with 3D combat instead of 2D platforming, and Dark Souls will make much more sense to you. The only limit comes down to your skill and how much you know.
Of course, our modern technology both hurts and hinders Dark Souls. Because of the Internet’s prolific nature, and its change to how we consume game, you can’t avoid it. If a player wants to find something, it is difficult to prevent them from finding it quickly and easily. GameFAQs may make a guide much easier to find, but it sucks out the thrill of discovering things yourself. Playing blind, without any spoilers, goes against most major AAA marketing campaigns, and how do you expect to go into anything spoiler free anymore? I’m as culpable of this as anyone else.
Even so, players leave hints both helpful and NOT helpful throughout the game. We’re all in this together, and their little hints both harmed and aided me throughout (don’t listen to the ones that tell you to jump – they’re usually quite wrong!). Even so, it’s obvious that From Software wants everyone to explore every nook and cranny of their densely packed game. They wanted people to share all of this gnostic knowledge, and the search thereby solidified the hearts and minds of many. Heck, people spent forever figuring out what that darn Pendant did without any real results! Director Hidetaka Miyazaki pulled a bit of a prank on that one, but the meaning seems obvious to me. See the item description:
A simple pendant with no effect. Even so, pleasant memories are crucial to survival on arduous journeys.
And that’s a central theme of this whole experience: memories. Memories of playing the game, remembrance of sharing one’s experiences through various challenges, and the constant search for more. What other video game in recent memory could aspire to that level of devotion, to categorizing every little facet, every lore-based loose end, and striving to the heights of New Game Plus until it can’t even increase in difficulty? I can’t think of one. Even if you don’t find yourself THAT hardcore to become a Dark Souls scholar (as I don’t), you will find several moments that will astound you.
The map design in particular deserves the utmost of commendation – if you thought Metroid and Castlevania provided truly “interconnected maps”, they’ve got nothing on Dark Souls. More than once, you will find a path for a shortcut between one area and the next, not even realizing those two sections connected in any way. When you drop that ladder, or see that giant door open to a previously explored area, your jaw will drop and your brain will feel mighty pleased for retaining such useless information. Did you know the bonfire was so close? Nope, but now I do! Dark Souls rewards you for keeping such information tucked away…somewhere. That these doorways and roads seem completely natural compliments the designers, certainly. None of these paths, when unlocked, look jarring. They make the world interconnected and complete, not just a random hodge-podge of level but a mysterious new area in a mysterious world.
The light sources gradually dim as you plunge into the underground, or sunlight beckons as you reach the surface. You might never find your way out, but that breath of fresh air will appear like it! No aesthetic element appears strangely off-putting; even if it isn’t the case, it feels like consistency held sway on the overall structure of the game. Dark Souls presents contrast without garishness.
I will admit that I did not jump into the game entirely unguided and blind. My brain doesn’t work that way. As a trained academic of sorts who left for greener pastures (the Internet), I tend to study anything and everything that comes my way. All ideas deserve contemplation and investigation, so I just can’t help it. Me? I buttressed my Dark Souls knowledge through the official Future Press guide, and I don’t regret it. It reminds me of my childhood, when I would sit with one game and exhaustively research everything within my reach. If you’ve seen my collection of guides, I do not bluff about it.
I like reading about video games a whole lot, especially their inner workings. In a time when we could not find information at will, guides proved the next best thing. And yes, you might say most of Dark Souls works better blind, but I just like having the maps after finishing an area (usually to make sure I didn’t miss an item or something). Hey, I could just look this stuff up, but I choose to play this way. It’s not like the enemies suddenly kill themselves. And for once, I always have the burning desire to play a video game and know all about it.
Dark Souls, at least, does that much: it made video games fun and difficult again for a lot of people, and that makes it hard to go back. The guide certainly does not help you in actually performing any of the skills required to complete the game. If the story didn’t exist, if it didn’t present a wondrously strange world, and if it did not intrigue, I am not exactly sure whether the actual fighting systems would stand out. However, as they are, they add a degree of tension to the whole.
Any time you wander into a new section, the fear of new enemy types and plunging into the unknown grips you. Foes could appear from any angle, out of the dark, or even lying in a perfect ambush. Once combat begins, you may need to juggle two to three enemies at once, all while avoiding, dodging, parrying, or blocking their attacks. The push-pull dynamic reminds me of real sword-fighting, if not actually replicating it. One person takes a strike, then another person takes a strike. A lock-on function allows you to circle strafe, and a quick flick of your right analog stick will change your focus to a different opponent. You must pay attention and recognize enemy patterns while also knowing where to move, what you can/cannot block, and the timing on the rolls.
Since rolls have invincibility frames, that makes them powerful, but rolling at the wrong time will still punish you severely (depends on the strength and quality of your armor). Parrying does the same, except you may be rewarded with a riposte attack that does incredible amounts of damage (only on humanoid enemies). The same could be said of the backstab, the same kind of attack from behind rather than the front. Any and all these options will bring your to victory with good timing; mess them up, and you get punished. PvP especially rests on knowing your options and your opponent’s options; given the variety in weapon attacks, speeds, and variety, that’s a tough task, one at which I am not especially proficient.
Bosses further challenge the notions of combat. In nearly every area, you will grow in comfort with the obstacles presented, even in the nastiest places like Blighttown’s confusing structures or Anor Londo’s Royal Sentinels hall (grr, I hate that one). The bosses exist primarily to throw you out of that familiarity, to make your current tools seem worthless and inadequate. Most bosses at the beginning of the game will wipe the floor with your face. You will fail, and then you will need to adjust your game plan according through a process of strategy. Trial and error also plays a part; like in any RPG, weaknesses do play a part. Learning boss patterns also helps immensely, and you might spend attempts just learning how their attacks work at what ranges. Maybe you’re just not ready or equipped correctly for an encounter.
I played Ornstein and Smough a few times, quite convinced that I could not do it. I realized I had a weapon of immense strength in my inventory, and a few tries later I won. Anything can happen with enough imagination! Each boss encounter makes for some tense and exciting moments.
All that tension comes to a head in the brilliantly implemented “Soul” system, along with the bonfires. Every enemy in the game drops “Souls”, which function as Dark Souls’ currency. Exploring an area usually builds up a large number, and you need Souls for almost every essential tool, from weapons to armor to upgrades to leveling up your stats (required for many pieces of equipment in the game too). Dying means you lose ALL the Souls you currently earned. Dying the first time does not mean you lost them all, as you can Retrieve the Souls not far from the location where you died. If you die on the way there, however, prepare for the feeling of loss.
I experienced this myself while traversing The Great Hollow. I just defeated Quelaag the Chaos Witch, the half-woman/demon spider with lava attacks. She drops somewhere in the range of 20,000 Souls, not exactly a light number at this point in the game. Like the overconfident idiot I am, however, I decided NOT to use the Souls (a foolish decision!) and traverse into an unknown area called The Great Hollow. Basically, it’s just dropping down the inside of a huge tree; this involves precarious platforming as you slowly drop your way to the bottom. Many items sit on narrow branches, tempting the player to do something stupid to get them. And, surprise, I fell really far and died (fall damage is really high!). Then, I fell again – there the Souls go, and so they went.
I kept going further down, given that I had nothing to lose at that point, and pretty much found myself stuck in a giant lake with a Hydra. Suffice to say this was not one of my prouder moments. I would need to backtrack all the way back to survive. And I did! But that took some hard work and some true dedication to extricate myself out of a dire situation. You cannot warp until a certain point in the game, and thus you traverse every location on foot. Thus, make your travel arrangements carefully, or you might find yourself in some dire circumstances. That doesn’t mean you cannot make your way out – only that it will require some work, especially if you want to maintain your Soul count. Always spend them before going into unknown areas! Trust me, you’ll thank me later.
In a nutshell, Dark Souls requires sifting through layers upon layers of sediment and intentional obfuscation. From Software demands that you figure it out yourself without incessant hand-holding in just about every aspect. It doesn’t cater to those who don’t understand – in a way, it takes an elitist stance on video game development. Not every game need be for everybody, and Dark Souls epitomizes this approach more than any game in recent memory. You can approach it from many different angles, many of them wrong, but all exist in a grand effort to explore all its intricacies and nuances via communities sharing their expertise. What a grand, and most likely unintentional, experiment! The broader the vision, the better the game?
My desire for theology probably stems from that same impulse. I think of theology as an archaeology of knowledge, an epistemology of unknown things. Most of the basic elements of Christianity appear as straightforward as you could expect: Jesus Christ was the Son of God, died, and rose again to bring the entire world to salvation and submission to YHWH. Yet, there’s so many things we don’t know. Theologians and laypeople for thousands of years searched through this basic framework of basic beliefs and faith towards answers to whatever questions pressed them at the time. Some came up with absolute solutions to every possible question (Thomas Aquinas), while other focus on one element alone just to parse out its depths (most modern theology). Neither of these approaches strike me as particularly wrong – just different. Everyone finds diverse topics interesting, and we need all of them in the Church (even if they’re wrong, just to see how we can go wrong).
What also astounded me in my study of theology came from the unerring reliance on the Biblical texts. Quite frankly (and in a bit of amazement to me), not every person believed in the inerrancy of Biblical texts. A Baptist education will do that to you! Even so, all of them respected these ancient texts as something profound and powerful. Whether or not the words in them came directly from God (and, honestly, relying on them without that authority still makes no sense to me), they remained a powerful source of life lessons for almost all Christians, liberal and conservative alike. Not many collections of books THAT old can stand to that sort of diversity in approach.
Some of us are definitely wrong, of course – well, maybe. We all look back at the past with either a fond remembrance of times gone by, an appreciation of the knowledge and information they bestowed upon us, or a total disdain for the “wrong” way people thought. How many criticisms of this or that thought have I read? A lot. In a hundred years, I imagine people will think the same way about us as we stumble through the dark looking for the ultimate answers to questions that don’t have answers either! And this is all OK, because we ground all this discussion around the central truth of the Gospel. All of these new conversations bring out tiny facets and details we otherwise could not know.
Most of Christian history, or at least of its intellectual history, exists in some shape or form. Various denominations cherish their figures of faith in many different way, and many of our Church bodies remain in total disagreement on a number of issues. Sometimes, we can’t tell where the disagreement even started, only that we exist in the midst of it. And yet, these debates and conversations keep coming. Our theology means much towards the pull of Christian progress, and if we fail to remain faithful to what we know we will fall. That hasn’t happened yet!
And, for our part, that singular source, Scripture, remains a part of that conversation. How we interpret it, what methods we use, whether empirical or spiritual methods come into play, and many other factors dictate how we use it. The academic study of texts leads to a renewed understanding of that past; we can either absorb this or ignore it. We can choose to accept the “unacceptable” parts, or merely tuck them away as relics of a bygone era. All of this matters; by taking no stance, you say it isn’t important. The Bible may be the world’s most confusing book of rules (what a dumb way to describe it) ever crafted, but that does not mean we live in the dark. In other words, we need to see our objectives, but also carefully work our way through the Bible and the past. We must remain on guard and wary for opposition and wrong-headed thinking (appeals to modern culture sounds like a particular one). We must sift through a very confusing narrative without a magical solution, pooling our combined faith and ideas together.
Each failure may be just that – a failure – but the point isn’t to stay in the doldrums. You learn from that misbegotten exercise, get back up, and do it again. The archaeology always sounds incredibly boring from the outside, but the quest will make perfect sense to one who understands what I mean. It’s the difference between seeing someone doing a boring job, and actually doing it yourself – it’s not so boring after all, is it? This is the only effort commensurate to the task. For anyone who’s read the Scripture before, you see this at every angle. They provide a place to explore, try things out, and dive into unfamiliar territory.
Let me provide a particular example of Scriptural cave-plumbing. If you read the Bible, you will inevitably reach the title “Son of Man”. It appears in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, yet in both cases the same phrases may/may not refer to the same thing. Some believe it means ‘son of the human one’, which would make sense if referring to the virgin birth…but then it also appear over one hundred times in the Old Testament as well. Since the writers of those Scriptures couldn’t possibly know about Jesus yet, unless we could confirm they saw/heard revelation from God about Him, that’s a problematic issue. In many cases, it does not even refer to a person in particular. In the New Testament, Mark 14:61-2 equates “Son of God” with “Son of Man”:
But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and saith unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.
That doesn’t really clarify the issue at all, given that “Son of Man” (or however you want to translate it) only sees use with an definite article and subject (i.e., Jesus) in the New Testament. The use in the Old Testament remains similar to other documents of their time period, while Jesus’ sayings use it in an exclusive way not seen before or since in any writings. We can go further and say that, even if it merely means another way of saying “Son of God”, it did not find its way into any major creeds of the early Church, nor any profession of faith. To affirm Jesus as the Son of God recognizes His divinity, but what about Son of Man? Apparently, the Church still sees this as a confusing, and contentious, issue.
If you wanted a definite answer on the subject, then you won’t get one, because there isn’t one, and no one agrees. Theology represents a give and take between parties, a constant process of theorizing, understanding, and illumination. We gather all the stuff we can, and then try to make conclusions based on that. We use exterior sources to get a wider glimpse at the hidden truths. Obviously, all of this sounds impenetrable and complicated. Somehow, the Bible continues to influence world affairs even as people continue to study it and use its authority for various good/bad purposes. Quite strange for a book so old, you might think, but Christianity’s influence on Western culture (and, now, the world) continues to grow, shift, and change with the times. I am not exactly positive on every development in that respect, but that’s part and parcel of a wide-ranging mode of thought – it allows for many, many people to have many, many different ideas.
Compare the understanding of a child to that of an adult in Christian terms. I believe and accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior as a very young child. My mind, as I can perceive now, was not yet fully formed; the basics made sense, but you cannot truly understanding the why and how of existence at that age, even if you do hold the actual answers in your tiny hands. A wealth of information exists from parents and elders around you, and their natural authority means you listen. You don’t so much think about it as accept it, without much passing thought to a blind acceptance.
But, as you grow older, you learn to recognize the nuances of life (or, at least, unconsciously perceive what functions well) and begin to see the difference between real and imagined authority. Some issues deserve a debate rather than immediate kowtowing to someone older than you. Then you may investigate the details for themselves. Knowledge passed down from generations may prove incredibly useful, and you just needed to confirm it. Other times, your previous education proves quite wrong and you must remove it. In either case, discovering it yourself means infinitely more than accepting something at first glance. Same goes for college and graduate school in theological studies: test it, and see if it works. No authority except God will tell you, and distinguishing between God and your own heart proves the most treacherous territory.
That’s why theology often comes in the form of abstract principles, frameworks, and sets of belief like the Apostle’s Creed or million-word treatises: it exists outside personal experience. It does not fold into the affective fallacy, and others can criticize your thoughts. We can refine feelings into actionable thoughts for the benefit of others. Think of the Bible itself – if they did not transcribe these books over and over and over again, would we know anything? No. God obviously planned for people to write these texts, and then further for us to recognize their divine nature. That’s not the work of human emotion alone – it needed something beyond that to get to the heart of the message. The Holy Spirit brings Scripture beyond its temporal origins into new life.
All of these various factors bring Christianity into greater knowledge and fuller ideas every day. We can use a framework to either aid or counteract the wisdom of our day, while also seeing what new benefits we can receive from the world at large. You don’t see Christians rejecting technology, do you? The Internet caused a massive explosion to the Information Age, and yet the Christian population hasn’t gone down as a result – in fact, we’re increasing (if stable relative to the population). Christians now come from all nations and not just the Western world. It’s estimated that 10% of China’s population unofficially figures into our overall total. That means a greater variety of cultural contexts come into play, allowing for theological developments far and wide reflecting different experiences.
All of this theology talk points to the remarkable thing about Christian faith: adaptation. No faith has ever been able to either infiltrate, completely transform, or change in subtle ways to account for the changes to civilization over a period of two thousand years. I find it remarkable, and while none of this offers validity towards the faith itself (that’s up to you), I simply love relaying these facts just because they amaze me. Christianity adapts without losing its core message, and Christians usually follow suit without sacrificing their core beliefs. Everybody wins!
Having played Dark Souls for so long, I believe that might actually be the primary reason why people believe Dark Souls is so hard. They don’t adapt as well as they thought they could. So many video games in the modern era give you the feeling of victory without letting the player truly earn that victory. No obstacles forces them to think outside of their limited view, nor opponent to trip them up and cause them to stumble. When a game like Dark Souls comes along, you can just imagine the outcry – some will get it, and some will not. Some will adapt, and others with exemplify the weaker end of Darwin’s survival of the fittest.
The reason why it feels so hard, other than the reasons aforementioned, often comes down to bad memory, a lack of understanding, or simply a refusal to change your tactics. In many games, the optimal strategy will always remain the same. In Dark Souls, that often isn’t the case. Normal enemies comes with different appearances and attack patterns; some of them might parry more or block consistently, which will totally throw you off your game. Fighting multiple enemies at once will destroy you unless you change strategies on the fly. You may need a fast or slow weapon, or attack them at range, or simple reduce your armor load to dodge better, or realize you can’t block without getting staggered. You will need to swap equipment, buff equipment, and mess around for optimal combinations based on the task at hand and what you have.
Let me present a few examples: boss fights provide the easiest way to communicate this concept. Seath the Scaleless does a few different attacks. One of them shoots a beam (in many directions, dependent on your position). Each one, when it hits, does a ton of damage and causes crystals to sprout from the ground. He can also use a crystal shockwave that hits the entire area around him, and this does much the same thing. If you stand in these crystals, they do damage over time AND afflict you with the Curse debuff if you stand in them too long. Curse causes you to permanently (unless you use an item) lose half your health and be unable to regain your humanity until you get rid of it. None of these things are helpful in a boss fight, I assure you!
Second, Seath also does not like you attacking him from behind, and he’ll whip his tails about to kill you. If you’re in front, he’ll smack you with his fist. Either one will hurt (or kill). Seath rotates relatively fast in a rather cramped space, so avoiding the breath is your key goal. The problem, from my end, came with my big heavy tank build. I usually play with over 50% equipment load, meaning that my character moves slowly while also moving like a walking tank. I can take a lot of hits from normal enemies and block their attacks easily; normal mobs pose no problem. However, the key part of the Seath fight comes from this: you can’t block ANYTHING, nor will your heavy armor help you. I found tanking immensely helpful from Sen’s Fortress onward (except for the boss video above), and here was a boss that sat diametrically opposed to whatever build and equipment layout I had developed. So Zachery Oliver had to think about how he would destroy this boss.
As a Warrior, I spent comparatively little time developing any ranged attack abilities such as magic or bow and arrow. I might have Pyromancy, but I’ve not the real stats or upgrades necessary to make that work. I need to function within my means – hitting stuff with blunt or sharp instruments. I enjoy doing this, but getting up close to enemies sounds like near suicide in the case of most bosses. They will whack you if you don’t dodge right! There’s got to be a way to survive a hit or two without being a giant tank.
First, equipment load needed to go down; I needed something that would put me under 50% so I could sprint behind the boss and roll through his attacks. while also providing some defense. I ran in with cloth alone, whereupon Seath one-shotted me almost instantly. Thankfully, The Duke’s Archives contains the Crystal Armor set; while it costs a lot to repair, it also weighs substantially less than any heavy armor out there, so it ended up as my first choice. I kept using my Lightning +5 Zweihander, as I had gotten used to the appeal of the Ultra Greatsword’s one big hit, and I eschewed using a shield entirely. Thankfully, the Crystal Golems outside allowed me to practice playing without a shield again, getting the timing for hits while also learning to dodge effectively in a hit-and-run style.
I should add that elemental and magical resistance counted for a lot. I usually take Havel’s Ring, which increases your equipment load by 50%, but in this case the Cursebite Ring proved more effective. Honestly, I didn’t get cursed once during any subsequent attempts, and adding the Cloranthy Ring (increasing your stamina, and hence your ability to sprint for a long period) made it even easier. Exactly nine good strikes later (that Zweihander hits pretty hard!), Seath fell to my huge blade and goofy outfit:
You can imagine this strategy led to success. Did the game tell me about it? Not really. Did I need to figure this out for myself? Absolutely! What people don’t realize is that skill alone and dodging stuff will not win the day in Dark Souls. Exploration and gear count for a lot more once you’ve got the basics down. Dark Souls provides a gigantic test – how well do you know the game, and how can you manipulate various elements of the whole to your advantage? You may not get to play you want, but there’s always multiple solutions to every problem. If in trouble, grind and upgrade your Soul level or your gear. If in more trouble, find some more hidden items in previously explored areas. I’m still finding new things even after scouring previous levels, and you can certainly return at your leisure. Dark Souls isn’t in a rush. Neither should you be.
While the world of Dark Souls isn’t incredibly large – say, compared to something like Elder Scrolls or its ilk – Dark Souls wins in my mind through carefully crafted design. Every inch of the thing brims with a density and depth; rather than making broad strokes as to an “open world” with lots of stuff but not too much to do, every place and every thing contains myriad details you won’t catch on the first visit. Heck, the game forces you not to rush anyway, so why not smell the (admittedly dilapidated) roses on your way? I think that’s one of the things Hidetaka Miyazaki really wanted for players to do: take their time, explore the world in their minds and heart, and really live in it.I can tell you this much: with the effort and dedication you’ll spend finishing, you will grow to love Lordran, warts and all. It trains you through hardship and suffering, and you eventually learn the language of its rules and systems. Paying attention to it all remains vastly rewarding!
The popular colloquialism “the devil’s in the details” comes to mind. That idiom actually derives from an earlier phrase via German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe that makes a lot more sense: ‘God is in the detail”. Whatever is done, should be done most thoroughly. The details are important. And often, we don’t have a keen eye for that level of detail. We need training, guidance, and maybe a little nudge in the right direction to direct us onto the straight and narrow rather than the winding way.
As per my Protestant leanings, “total depravity” is often a part of the way I think about human existence. And, coincidentally, so does 2 Timothy 3, which we often use for about two verses and forget the rest. Not here! The beginning is not exactly happy stuff?
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.
Whether or not you believe in an eschatological future (I would argue most Christians do in some measure, but there’s so many variations that I can’t cover here), we know that human beings are already like this. We do not often find ourselves, without prodding, on the way to righteousness. We do otherwise. It’s no surprise so many people observe Lent from so many different denominations: material distractions aren’t exactly a help to someone struggling with their Christian walk. Further, nuns and monks take that impulse to an extreme with wholehearted devotion to God.
6 For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. 9 But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also.
Interestingly, verses 6-7 form an interesting argument: truth and learning do not always mix. Knowledge of the truth and constant acquisition of new concepts does not always make for something better. This is why I emphasize the central truth of the Gospel so heavily: if you don’t have that as the basic truth for your framework, it will fall apart. You cannot progress if the first principle does not buttress the rest of your thought. Paul seems to agree with me: the sinful mind will often take the path of learning for the sake of learning, without really going much of anywhere (i.e., without action).
10 Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, 11 persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! 12 Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
I love the contrast here. Immediately after saying the right way to learn, and the proper truths meaning a whole lot, Paul tells us that these beliefs do not come without cost. Christ allows us to strive and persevere in the worst of circumstances. To pay attention to the details of life, engage in an analysis of ourselves, and to move towards Jesus’ example takes dedication. Even so, persecution shouldn’t be unexpected.
Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t just mean people who argue with your about your faith. Paul obviously means state and religious persecution, something to which an American isn’t really familiar at all. I’m talking about what a dedicated believer must give up, what they cannot do, what God will not allow participation in, and how people will respond. That may be different for many people, and I sympathize. The world will call us insane for abstaining from whatever, but sticking to the course remains a far better option. Some of us will die for the faith; imagine the life of the martyr by comparison, and you live a blessed life (maybe not according to him/her, anyway). Even so, Paul strives to communicate that we must learn within the truth. Outside, it’s all noise and nonsense, but we can make sense of it all by dying and living with Christ.
In an abstract sense, and in a personal sense, I find it true. No authority other than Jesus Christ and His Word ever made sense to me, and I imagine that will not change any time soon. We can appeal to other authorities all we like, but none will ever supersede the Savior.
13 But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 15 and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
Paul means that we start with the right framework. Those who don’t do this will end up on myriad other, less fruitful paths that lead them further and further from the truth. It often leads to a lack of openness, and a lack of intellectual curiosity. Much as we like to say we love new ideas, human beings do love their regularity and lack of change (at least from a psychological perspective) in what we do. A good Christian must force themselves out of their comfort zone often to truly get at the meaning of anything, and if you don’t start in the right spot, who knows where you will end up?
Of course, you could tell me that Paul speaks to Jews here (see verse 15 specifically), but we can make a general application now to those who grew up or eventually learned the truth. That truth allows us to see Scripture as a light, and not just as a collection of books with different genres. They all speak of the same God, and that becomes more apparent the more you look into it. Progressing on that path, you will eventually see how that understanding applies to everything, from the structure of the world itself to human relationships. We need wisdom, and knowledge of God lets wisdom flow. If you live and breath it, the results can be amazing.
And heck, I basically lived and breathed Dark Souls for two weeks or so. I couldn’t stop thinking about playing it, and when I was playing it I had to keep going. I had to keep learning to get better, and I needed to adapt to achieve victory. All of these various thoughts were swirling in my mind at the time, and I had found a perfectly application for many of my own theological ideas and applications. How weird, that a video game makes them more apparent and even more interesting than you thought.
Unlike Christianity, though, Dark Souls falters in a few notable respects. None of these flaws have anything to do with From Software’s relative lack of budget in comparison to their peers, but general design issues gone awry. By the time I finally played, many glitches and overpowered strategies (hello, Iron Flesh!) disappeared, yet there’s still one that makes the whole game far too easy: poise.
Poise is a statistic that determines how many times an enemy needs to hit you in order to cause a Stagger. Stagger is exactly what it sounds like: that moment you receive a hit and your character stuns, flinches, or wobbles in a temporary fit which also causes loss of control. Obviously, that’s not a good thing (especially because you continue to take damage during stagger states), so there’s two ways to fix it. The more interesting, and challenging, of the two means avoiding as much damage as possible via evasive tactics as listed above. The more effective, and relatively droll, comes in wearing armor with high Poise ratings.
In all fifty-nine hours, the time spent tanking in heavy armor proved the most dominating to nearly every situation. Only a few fights really encouraged going for a low equipment load build (Smough and Ornstein, Seath), while the rest turned into a continual situation of block, then hit. With high enough Poise, you literally turn every boss fight into a simple game of waiting out attack strings, smacking the enemies/bosses once, then retreating back to blocking. Greatshields, with their high stability ratings (determining how much stamina damage you take while blocking), turn this into something trivial. Greatshields will make most enemies reel when hitting your giant wall, allowing for an easy counterattack.
From there, upgrading your shield makes it more insane, especially the overpowered Greatshield of Artorias; its stability means even bosses can’t break through your guard. Once I found Havel’s Armor set (almost highest poise in the whole game), the combination of all these things turned the latter half of the game into a cakewalk. Even the final boss didn’t challenge me at all. Actually, I should note that (at least in my view) they did try to design DLC bosses to counter the tanking strategy. At least one or two of Kalamaat and Manus’ attacks basically bowl you over regardless of whether you block or not, and this means you can’t counterattack at all due to recovery frames and stamina drain (though you still take no damage). Still relatively minor at best, but that didn’t happen with any bosses in the default game, interestingly enough (or maybe my memory’s failing me).
I love tanking and smacking things with big weapons, so my disappointment at the ease which my usual tactics turned the game on its head made me a little sad. Are there other optimal tactics like this? At least for Dark Souls, the Poise statistic definitely makes the whole of the experience far too easy. Frankly, none of this information will help you in the early game, especially if you picked a class with high magic stats first, but it’s there and you can certainly implement that strategy as long as you’ve got the Endurance rating to handle it. Four Kings, in particular, requires some deft dodging and fast DPS if you hope to handle it without a high Poise set, and it’s just easier to do it that way. I literally stumbled into something that made the game incredibly easy for much of its latter half, and that’s somewhat disappointing.
Then again, in such an open system with such variety and mystery, you should take what you can get. You don’t want to play as something you hate to do; I know many people hate fat rolling (with a high armor load, you roll substantially slower), but I honestly don’t care. Your preference and your assortment of items usually determines the best strategy, and perhaps you hate tanking stuff. It might also make the game incredibly difficult and satisfying. Technology and information have a way of spoiling the game in this way, as stated previously!
Even so, Dark Souls does follow the JRPG in one fundamental way: overleveling. And I certainly did that too, albeit unintentionally. Since I ended up receiving a huge influx of souls just by playing the game normally, and needing exactly zero real armor upgrades, I settled with leveling up my three mains stats up to 40 each: STR, VIT, and END. Past that number, the exponential decrease begins to slow, and this means you do want to balance all your statistics somewhat. I imagine From Software put the “soft cap” on stats to prevent overleveling, but it didn’t seem to matter in my case.
Being cautious means spending all your Souls as often as possible so that deaths become less of a concern. Whenever I reached a bonfire, I would simply use up all the “Soul” items in my inventory to ensure I could level right there and consume the Souls. Because of my foresight, I ended up at level 99 or so at the end of the game – far too high, as it turns out! I didn’t even need to grind in order for this to happen; the game naturally encouraged me to do it, just due to the systems in play. Stat increases and levels alone won’t increase your ability to play, but extra room for mistakes does removes a whole lot of the tension.
None of this really “breaks” Dark Souls. You still must block at the right times, ensure your stamina doesn’t deplete fully (stagger against a boss still means instant death), armor won’t save you from dying in a few hits, and you’ll need to upgrade/swap weapons and attacks to function at full capacity. Still, I hoped for a far greater challenge than my initial impressions gave me. In the end, much of the difficulty comes from obfuscation rather than pure “difficulty”. Almost any RPG, hybrid or otherwise, out of Japan emerges with this difficulty, and From Software looks no different in that regard.
If you took the time to read this gargantuan monster of a document, know this: if you love video games at all, you should love Dark Souls. Dark Souls represents how video games functioned in the past, but also how they should function now: as designed worlds of unbridled creativity, effectively constructed, complementary systems, and a story that demands interactive engagement rather than passive reception. The challenge and difficulty comes as a natural result of a great implementation of all these elements, recognizing how players will react to this or that situation while making for a dynamic pacing and flow. Even Dark Souls’ openness somehow makes it possible to create a certain kind of pacing, alternatively deep thought as to beating the next obstacles versus intense concentration in combat situations and unknown territories. I’d call it less “masochistic” and more “satisfying”; the length certainly contributes to that effect too, I imagine.
Unfortunately, Dark Souls and its ilk in the Souls series did not change the gaming landscape at all the way I’d imagine they would. We point to it as a weird outlier in the history of games, a unique little oddity that everyone plays with rapt attention when it comes out, and subsequently learns the wrong lessons. Other games don’t learn anything from Dark Souls other than “It’s so hard guys!” – and then I beat it, not so sure that this really makes Dark Souls interesting at all! Once a myth takes hold, though, it’s often difficult to displace. Don’t worry, though; we forget it immediately afterward, content with our diet of AAA and indie fare that seems to forget they’re not books or movies – they’re games. From Software does not hold the only talented group of developers who can make this sort of game, but who’s looking for that? So it goes.
Thankfully, my consumption choices don’t need to fall in that same pit. I have the wisdom and the knowledge to selectively choose with what I fill my mind. And I think video games could do a lot better than the constant ephemeral experiences we receive. Recognition of other video games and their diverse stances on what successful design contains plays into the conversation, but video games don’t often provide us an opportunity to use cryptic communication as a vehicle for imagination and skill on the part of players. Dark Souls succeeds where many others don’t by allowing players to do what they will.
In that sense, Dark Souls, to me, constituted a primarily joyful experience that reinvigorated my enjoyment of video games, that clarified some ideas about theology, and overall was completely worth the time and effort to unlock its hidden depths in both play and written form. 10,000 words may not be enough, quite honestly! There’s not many other ways to say it than that.
