Dark Souls Review

Dark Souls is an RPG that sticks it to the man: no funny business, just classic turn-based battles and an epic storyline. If this sounds familiar, it probably is, since that's the same formula that old-school RPGs have been using for a while now. If it isn't broken, don't fix it, right?

The game is made using RPG Maker XP, so it's very much like playing a traditional Final Fantasy game. The battles are simple and effective: fight or flee, basic attack or magic, use an item or defend, and so on. It's not a hard concept, and most RPG fans will be comfortable with the gameplay, since they've seen the same basic setup with plenty of others.

As is the tradition for long and epic RPGs, the story is... well, long and epic. It follows Gauly, a mercenary who spends his time trying to avoid being stabbed by the authorities and having a generally crappy life. His tortured past seems to follow him everywhere, and this makes him a very surly man. While evading the long arm of the law, he's (reluctantly) hired by the powerful Church to guide a sheltered young priestess to Shankar Temple to perform a ritual. It would be nice for our hero if that was all there was to it. On the way, just about everything that can go wrong does, and Gauly's job only gets harder. My only complaint is the occasional grammatical error, which are few and not very noteworthy.

I think the best part of the story (and one of the most appealing aspects of the game) is the strongly developed characters, especially Gauly. He's jaded, grouchy, and absolutely tactless. He's also one of the more interesting anti-heroes I've seen, since he's not your typical hero, nor is he particularly nice. Which makes him fun to play as.

With a game like Dark Souls, there's only so much you can do with graphics (the over-the-head view kind of puts a limit on things). However, the developers were pretty successful with making it aesthetically pleasing. The battles are gorgeous, with wonderfully rendered characters and smooth sprites. Everything else is adequate, with one exception. I have to wonder what exactly was going through the artist's head when they designed the small portraits next to the character's dialogue. They have a tendency to only vaguely look like the character as portrayed in the status screen, and basically, they just look gross. It doesn't ruin the game, but it's nasty enough that you'll notice it (like Gauly's portrait... icky).

My first impression of Dark Souls was that it would probably be a run-of-the mill RPG that would be content to spew some generic "chosen one" story and feature some spikey-haired hero with way too much gusto for his own good. I was relieved (to put it mildly) when Dark Souls turned out to be something more than a formula. Old-school RPG connoisseurs will be giddy with this one.

Graphics:
The battles are beautiful, especially the characters and their animations. The main issue with the graphics is those bloody dialogue portraits. Bleh.

Sound:
The tunes are generic 16-bit-esque music, which is fine with me (old-school fan here). The sound effects are kind of bland.

Gameplay:
The art of classic RPG making has been mastered in Dark Souls. The battles are smooth, the menus are easy to navigate, and the dungeon-crawling is... dungeon-ey (whatever, you get my point: it's good stuff).

Concept:
Dark Souls was made with an RPG maker, after all, so it's built from a mold. This doesn't mean it's not unique, it just means that it' s not new.

Value:
The game is long, and the journey is a fun one. If you're not among the RPG obsessed, you'll have to judge for yourself after you play the hour-long demo.

Fun:
Dark Soul is fun where it counts: the battles are epic, and the story is well done. It could even be argued that one of the best parts is simply playing as an anti-hero like Gauly.

Overall:
While not the BEST RPG out there, if you're an RPG aficionado, you'll find yourself parting with twenty dollars and feeling completely fine with it. The strong characters and the impressive battles define Dark Souls, and are sure to make fans swoon.