From start to finish you will enjoy your trip to this dark and brutal world, that never seizes to amaze.
The Good:
• Intensely unforgettable atmosphere.
• Gory and satisfying combat.
• Gigantic boss fights.
• Clever level design.
• Stellar Presentation.
• Seamlessly integrated online features.
The Bad:
• Frame rate can get choppy.
• Controls can lag at times.
• Can be a grind at times.
Presentation – When you start playing Dark Souls you get the feeling that this is a grim world and that you have no expectation to live. You start off in a cell amongst the dead in an asylum. The Whole feel of the game makes you feel so helpless but that does not detract from the fun of the game, it helps the atmosphere feel scary and unpleasant. I really love how the menus are so well integrated to the game itself. They work great and don't disrupt the feel of the game at all. The graphical style of the game is amazing; it looks great and gory while scary and gloomy enough to make an enthralling atmosphere. The sound is also incredible along with the music and immerses you even further in this dark world.
Gameplay – Dark Souls is shown in a third person perspective which is excellent for this type of game. This is an open world were you basically fight every monster, loot every chest and kill every boss. It's a pretty simple concept to follow on but the game is far from simple. Since it is open world you expect it to tell you were to go, but no. You are clueless when you first step in this world. The game never tells you what to do although sometimes it gives you some mere objectives but most of the time you are on your own.
Combat is very solid here but gets kind of irritating when you are in a narrow corridor with no space to swing you sword. Even the lock on can get tedious at time, not locking on the right enemies can destroy you. But apart from that the combat is great fun. When you use light armor your character feels very light and roll fast to dodge enemies. Controlling the character is great and pretty much remained like Demon Souls but including falling attacks which you can do when you are on top of someone. A new addition to the dark souls formula is the bonfires. Bonfires are used to rest the player, attune magic, access unique items and refill your estus flasks. Unlike Demon souls you don't have a fixed hub like the nexus since dark souls is an open world game not level based.
Dark Souls also adds covenants to the mix. Covenants are somewhat guild like and offer you free equipment or spells. You can also rank up in these guilds by sacrificing a vital item for each separate covenant. Every time you hit a milestone in these rank up you get a special item from the guild that makes you more powerful the way you use it. In total there are nine different covenants which are all very different.
Multiplayer - Multiplayer in Dark Souls is very unique. It is not the usual PVP stuff, there is much more to dark soul's multiplayer than that. By default you are always online depending if you are signed in PSN. While traversing this world players will encounter traces that other players leave. These are the three traces.
1. Messages: These are left behind by players that are willing to help or even misdirect players. These messages can be only constructed by fixed messages so that it eliminates any hardcore trolling that some of the players would love to. Players can also rate up or down the selected message so it can be easily trusted or ignored.
2. Bloodstains: Bloodstains are left behind by players that recently died, when interacted it will show a ghost replay of the last 5 seconds of that players life. This helps the player to directly learn from others mistakes.
3. Apparitions: A ghost of a player can appear randomly around the world showing you what that player is doing in real-time.
Other players can directly impact another player's world by either Invading as a dark spirit or being summoned as a phantom. Cooperative modes requires both the summoned and the summoner must voluntarily be initiated the partnership. To summon a player to help you first you need to be human. To be human you need humanity and after all that you need to check if you have beaten the area boss. If you haven't beaten the area boss then you can finally summon a player. Up to 3 players can be summoned at the same time. After the boss is beaten the other phantoms are vanished and return to their respective worlds. The invading feature on the other hands works much simpler. When you invade you are pretty limited on the items you use, which makes PVP even more difficult but even more satisfying when you defeat someone.
Overall: Dark Souls is a very worthy sequel to Demon souls, blending all the dark elements from the other game and making an intense dark world with solid combat, amazing soundtrack and stellar online features. This is a game for the gamers that are willing to devote time and sweat in this terrifying RPG.