Mothers always ask, “if your friend said you should jump off a bridge, would you do it?” It turns out, according to several million Dark Souls fans, that’s exactly what I should do. At every hole and endless abyss, there always reads a message “try jumping,” as if it is an original concept they just thought of.

The Dark Souls community isn’t one I have much love for, as I recently made clear, telling every one of them to try jumping off a bridge for telling others how to play single-player games. Some are very helpful, filling out the very mandatory Wikis required to know any semblance of what the game is even about. Then there are the others, who think unless you are doing a nude dance mat run, as you dab the mat with your testicles, you aren’t playing properly. Because, of course (to these people) you can only be a man, and women can only play Barbie Horse Adventure.

That said, given the game is praised like the sun. It is hard to come up with a review that is, in any way, original and doesn’t feel like I’m trodding the same ground everyone and their mother has walked a thousand times already. You see, Dark Souls released ten years ago this September, in a grim fact that we’re all dying and there is nothing sustained for long periods of time other than the sun. That thing goes to sleep at night (and is also dying).

A spiritual successor to a game that was met with such praise as “[the titular] Souls’ are needed for everything from shopping to power[-]ups, and the entire game is unforgiving,” and “it’s not a game for everybody.” Yes, well done for deducing that one Poirot. What next, the sun doesn’t actually move and we’re the ones spinning around it? No game is for everyone, just like ax murder and naked pictures of your mum. Sometimes things are catered towards me and the weird among us. Though let’s tackle the carry-over to the later games.

Souls are things that you get for killing people, it’s like a currency for mass murderers. Each being, big and small, exudes a number of these souls. Depending on the size of the creature or whatever it is, you get more souls. Simple enough so far. However, unlike real life (unless you are an investment banker), you can keep killing until you get an unlimited amount of currency; as just about everything comes back to life when you sit at bonfires. Everything but the really big and scary monsters that make you swear lots. We’ll get to them.

At bonfires, you glue your limbs back on, swear you definitely hit that bloke before he took off half your health bar, and do a bit of math to figure out how many blokes you need to stab before your next upgrade. Oh yeah, this is an RPG on top of all the other bits that usually put me off of several games, including high fantasy. I still don’t understand what a Lothric is, for all I know, it could be an oily rag one of the many bosses uses to pleasure themselves.

So the big blokes, or as I call the Gaping Dragon, “Oh dear Jesus, what abomination hath been brought to this world that a vagina has legs and teeth?” They all tend to have health bars like a family size Toblerone, and you take until New Years’ day to eat even half of one of those. Meanwhile, you have a tiny sword that is like a Flake and your knees are just two fun-sized Twix’s. Does anyone else fancy a bit of chocolate right about now?

This is the high difficulty bit, or rather one of them anyway. Made to be as incongruous as possible, nothing is explained to you. You are just thrown into a room with a monster named Barry in a leather mask and holding a whip. You, the ill-informed one, either need to figure what he’s going to do with that whip and his other toys or you are going to go into a vicious cycle of riding his rodeo more than a handful of times. Each time, you will learn something new; an attack pattern, a moment to neck an Estus (I hear they are the best-est), and ultimately, why it was a bad idea to come into the room in the first place.

Though that’s not all that’s left up to you to learn. Yes, the tutorial does happen to be there, it does teach you the buttons, and if the dance mat people had their way, you’d feel lucky about having that much. The story, who you are, why you are here, and all of those normal bits of games are left up to you to decide. Even which direction you are meant to go is left to you. Sometimes you’ll be told you need to do a thing, but this is Dark Souls. If you want waypoints and map markers you better go back to playing games for children, like Halo and Call of Duty. You shrieking mimsy!

This is where I have to divert from my rather humorous way of poking Dark Souls fans where it hurts and go for the jugular. I’m a little torn on all of this being either good or bad. Don’t get me wrong, I love Dark Souls for a reason. I think it is one of the greatest games of all time. However, when you are having to consult a fan-made wiki on which direction to go (more so a problem with 2 than 1), there might be a slight fault with some of the outdated designs. The reason fans love the game so much is simply how self-accomplished they feel when breezing through a thing for a ten-millionth time, but it isn’t always the easiest thing to get into.

To get into Dark Souls I played it first on PC, which was the first mistake, as the PC port was as much an abomination to humanity as a dragon’s genitals flopping out in middle battle. Then I proceeded to plod through the starting areas, doing everything as you’d expect, and I just wasn’t getting it. Frustration was overriding any advancements and a sense of achievement. I was making my way through the castle and onto the church roof to fight that Bell Gargoyle. So I stopped, left it a while, returned, and did the same again: Still no fun. Then I played Hollow Knight, a Souls-like in a gorgeous 2D world of bugs.

You see, Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls have spawned their own subgenre of the Metroidvania sub-genre. So every indie developer and their cousin have made one, from the best being Hollow Knight, to the complete bat smegma of Lords of the Fallen. You might hate Dark Souls with all your being, you might have sworn the game to the pits of hell, but you can’t deny that it is one of the most influential games of all time. It is up there with Donkey Kong/Super Mario, Minecraft, Pong, Wolfenstein, The Sims, Pokémon, Ms. Pac-man, Half-Life, Grand Theft Auto III, Tomb Raider (the proper one), and Resident Evil 4.

Be it Triple-A, like Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, or a small indie, like Blasphemous, there is a Souls-like for you. However, common sense prevails with them, as the incongruity is stripped away to make for a more pleasant experience, all while holding some truth to the formula. So, to return to my point I’ve been gearing up with, the lack of accessibility simply getting into the game is off-putting. That’s not to state the obvious of “it’s not for everyone,” but it is there to highlight the simple fact that there is a high barrier of entry you need to cross to even enjoy it a little.

That said, the lack of general accessibility for those who might have disabilities is also off-putting to some who truly do want to play. The toxic center of the fan base yelling any accessibility will “ruin the game,” is a major annoyance I have with my own enjoyment of the series. Their argument is that there already is enough to complete the game while using an electric whisk and two drum sticks. Most notably those messages with the try-hard cretins I’ve already mentioned, the ability to summon friends into battle, and minor things that aren’t actual accessibility. As I’ve said before, some have slower reaction times, and even the ability to pause a game should be standard.

Nonetheless, we traipse back to a bonfire in a rush to stop a burning blaze, halt a murder outside the house, or look up the home address of our new enemies to mail them strongly worded letters. All before wandering back out into the unforgiving world of high fantasy and cantankerous H.P. Lovecraft-shaped monstrosities. We praise the sun as we go, hoping maybe next time you’ll learn to do the roll so you aren’t smacked in the face with a dragon’s genitals, and if you’re lucky, Siegmeyer will give you the Tiy Being’s Ring.

Ultimately, Dark Souls is my second love, right behind Lara Croft shooting tigers and ahead of driving fancy go-karts at stupid speeds. It is hard to give such a game criticism without having to criticize the fans who blindly defend it. I’m not defending that inaccessibility to those who want to play but simply can’t for pre-existing circumstances. However, once you cross the barrier and begin to get the Stockholm Syndrome of banging your head against the high walls of Lothric, you understand it. It is unexplainable, but it just some joy and self-accomplishment brought on by the unforgiving nature.

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Dark Souls Remastered

$39.99 USD

10

Score

10.0/10

Pros

• A world so deep you could swim in it.
• Though it is rough, the world design is what games should be.
• Spawning lovely games like Hollow Knight from its genitals.
• Level design that is perfection.

Cons

• The barrier for entry is on the roof.