The Thrill Of Finally Playing The First Dark Souls
I love Souls games, but until recently, I hadn’t played much of the first Dark Souls. That’s changed with Dark Souls: Remastered, and it’s been a fascinating experience.
It took me a while to fully get on board the Souls train. Here’s my history with this series, which I actually have a feeling isn’t all that uncommon:
- I played a few hours of Demon’s Souls in 2009 after seeing a bunch of smart people raving about it online, but couldn’t get my head around it. It seemed too janky, too awkward, and too difficult.
- When Dark Souls came out in 2011, I was still intimidated by these kinds of games, and didn’t even try it. I had just started writing for Kotaku, and remember my then-colleague Michael McWhertor chiding the rest of the staff for giving our Game of the Year award to Skyrim instead of Dark Soulsall while wondering if, based on his review of the game and the fact that so few of us had played it, he maybe had a point.
- By the time Dark Souls 2 hit in 2014, I was ready to give another Souls game a shot. I played a significant amount of that game, maybe 10 or so hours. It was enough to defeat The Pursuer (easily the toughest Souls boss I’d ever defeated), unlock a bunch of areas, and get my head around the combat. I remember being bummed out by how many people disliked the game and feeling like I’d missed the boat on this series. I eventually lost interest and stopped playing.
