Over the weekend I got my hands on a copy of Dark Souls for Xbox 360. I would have preferred to have it on The PS3  but as far as I could tell they both played the same way.

I began playing as a knight class. Starting out with heavy armor was pretty nice, but not being able to move quick soon became troublesome. Going the highroad to Undead Burg first seemed to be the best and only choice. It took me close to 4 hours to reach the first boss because I spent a lot of time playing with the new jump mechanic. My experience was stressful but fun thus far.

Graphics.

The graphics in the game were nothing amazing but they were decent in today’s day. The enemies and textures of ground and things looked smooth for the most part. The thing that caught my eye was the high-res background images. Although I had seen it done a billion times before it always looks nice. The game had some weird frame-rate issues in the tutorial level and some more a bit later on.

Gameplay.

The engine seems to run smoother than Demon’s Souls but not by a lot. The new jump mechanic made for multiple deaths trying to get items just across a small gap. Back stabs and ripostes worked just about the same as they did in the first game. Although the gameplay is great, I ran into a problem with the first actual boss. The boss killed me by knocking me off a cliff. Afterwards the boss jumped off the cliff after me killing himself. I went back to see if he had actually died. He was dead and whatever I might have gotten from him was gone into a canyon of nothingness. I was annoyed at parts but I never felt like there was nothing I could do. There was always a way to get past everything with enough patience.

Sound.

Sounded great. Can’t say much about this because soundtrack is barely there. Also can’t say much about it because I don’t know what a dragon sounds like.

Overall.

Great game that will last you a good while exploring different characters and trying to reach the end.

Rating

8.7/10