By Steven Quinones | Staff Writer
There are different types of games that we are all good or bad at, but there is a series of games that everyone is essentially bad at: the Dark Souls franchise. The most recent addition to the franchise, Dark Souls III, has just come out and I took the challenge of playing it. It was a grave mistake that I wish I never ended up making. Now, before I go into it, I will say that I don’t think Dark Souls is the hardest thing I have ever played. That honor goes to the NES classic, Ghosts and Goblins.
Dark Souls is a game that takes a lot of patience, and that is something that a lot of players do not have. With games like Call of Duty and other first person shooters being the mainstream games of this generation, gamers are used to more fast paced action and less decision making. Any casual gamer will be able to pick up a first person shooter and have some sort of success, in fact that is generally the case for most games. Dark Souls games, however, are a different beast entirely.
The Souls games begin with a character creation process that requires picking different classes, and each class has its own special benefits. There are classes for all different play styles and they even went so far as to make a specific class for the more “hardcore” players. This class is known as the Deprived class. This class is the most balanced class, yet its starting stats are barely enough to get through the beginning stages. Trying to play with this character class was the worst part of playing the game.
After spending hours testing each class, the one I found to work the best, especially at the beginning of the game, is the Sorcerer class. In addition, the easiest way to go about beating the early bosses is a long distance strategy, because the bosses are heavy hitters as well as close-range enemies.
The enemies are another major problem within the game. There are times when you may run into a singular enemy, but there are also times in which you can easily get ganged up on by enemies. It is very difficult to fight more than one enemy at a time, and if you aren’t careful, you can find yourself dead before you even know it. At the beginning of the game, it is even possible for two enemies to kill you in a total of two hits.
Dark Souls III is hard and there is no way around that. This game has exceeded the expectations of the fans and has set a new standard for the franchise going forward. The game is hard and definitely would seem near impossible to a casual player, but it is still something worth playing. While the fighting is slow and meticulous, the overall gameplay makes the game worth it. It’s very addicting to try and master fighting against the various different bosses and enemies in the game. So if you’re thinking of playing Dark Souls, be prepared to put a lot of time into it.
