So I finally got Dark Souls, and I'm currently just starting the "Anor Londo" area. My question is this: when does this game become
fun? I think I've had fun for a combined total of maybe five minutes, being generous.
Note that I'm not saying, "It's too hard to be fun." For fuck's sake, I was in the top 100 of Ninja Gaiden Black. In fact, Dark Souls is not hard. If you have the patience to suffer through the unfun combat, then it's dead easy. The problem is that the combat is
so boring and slow-paced that you try to break the monotony or hasten things along, which gets you killed. The only "difficult" things I've encountered are stupid "the DM says fuck-you" things. (Ex, I didn't know that picking up the gold-hemmed set perma-aggroed Ceaseless Discharge, so I spent the next half hour just trying to run back to fightin' range.)
The combat is pathetically simplistic and mind-numbingly boring. The areas are uninteresting and poorly laid out given the constraints of the movement controls. (In fact, basic movement and aiming are actually the hardest part of this fucking thing.) The last visually striking thing I remember was actually right after the intro area. The story, such that it is, is so poorly delivered that I had to start a new fucking character just so I could see the intro movie again, since the fucking game doesn't do any-fucking-thing to make the narrative or even your fucking goals an important fixture.
So I go onto review sites looking to see what people say, and they're all like, "Sen's Fortress is fucking amazing," or, "When I saw the xxxx I was intrigued and wanted to see more." Or something as utterly wtf as
As you wander the parapets of the Undead Burg, you'll occasionally hear the tolling of the bell at the top of the gargoyle tower, signifying someone else's triumph over a boss. You'll feel spurred on to success yourself, reassured that it's not impossible, or you'll smile at the memory of your own victory if you're already further on.
WTF? Or
Dark Souls' story is subtly and sparsely told, leaving you to write your own mythology, giving you only cryptic, unsettling verses of vague exposition to go on. The world speaks for itself.
No, it fucking doesn't. It's just half-assed and unfinished.
I seriously don't understand. Have the years made me too completely jaded to enjoy this? Am I so inured to the tropes and motifs of RPGs/action games that nothing affects me?
Or is Dark Souls just a shitty game that's made of shit with a shitty, half-finished core that From Software justified selling by calling it "hard"?
I keep comparing it to other hard games I've played over the years, particularly the Ninja Gaiden series. Now, Ninja Gaiden I&II (Xbox/360) were known as hard games. And they were honestly hard. You had to master several skill sets, manage resources, learn enemy patterns, navigate dangerous areas, and do it all at breakneck speeds. But even when it was soul-crushingly frustrating (a certain bonus area in NG2 springs to mind) it was always
fun, because the gameplay itself was
fun. Dark Souls fails this fundamental test.
