This is a bit of a long one, so forgive me, but I promise there's a point.
When Dark Souls originally came out, I was pretty disinterested in it despite the fact that it was critically acclaimed and sold well. The reason for this was almost entirely due to the discourse that surrounded it. Everything from the "Prepare to Die" marketing campaign to the community's incessant gatekeeping really put me off from trying the game. To me, it painted a picture of a game so brutally difficult that only masochists and the hardest of hardcore gamers could enjoy it. As someone who plays games primarily to relax, the idea of incessantly banging my head against a difficult boss or dungeon seemed like the antithesis of a good time. After all...
Fast forward to 2020. I, utterly starved for content mid-pandemic, decided to pick up Dark Souls Remastered on the Switch since it was on sale. I figured that even if I didn't enjoy playing the game, it was only $20. And I did enjoy it... for a few hours. Exploring the Undead Parish and beating the gargoyles was pretty fun... but it still didn't really click for me. I found The Depths and Blighttown to be quite the slog. The corpse run to Gaping Dragon in particular really put me off from playing the game much further, and made what was a relatively simple boss fight incredibly punishing. The reason? This fucking thing:
I know it's not too tough to avoid it's curse attack, but being tilted from the fight made me succumb to it an embarrassing amount of times. The frustration with getting constantly cursed plus the fact that I was getting constantly thrashed by one of the easier bosses in the game broke my spirit a little. Although I made through Blighttown alright, I felt a similar frustration while fighting Quelaag, which led me to drop the game after completing Sen's Fortress and getting to Anor Londo's first bonfire. After all, if I was having so much trouble with such purportedly easy bosses, how was I supposed to handle these guys...
I wasn't super familiar with the fight, but I knew enough from cultural osmosis that Ornstein and Smough were among the most difficult in the game, if not the most difficult, and I knew they were next. So, sensing the potential frustration ahead, I dropped the game. Yet another game that would languish in my backlog. But then, two things happened recently. The big one was Elden Ring's announcement trailer, which, as I'm sure you know, was hype as hell. But then another thing happened; something smaller that you might've missed.
HasanAbi, popular champagne socialist, political commentator, and Twitch streamer beat the Nameless King in Dark Souls III after a nine month break. I was fortunate enough to catch the stream during those final moments, and it was exhilarating. He had suddenly mastered a fight that he had been raging about a mere hour earlier, and the chat erupted. It was then that a thought occurred to me: I could probably go back and beat Dark Souls if I put my mind to it. After all, it had been about nine months since I'd dropped the game as well.
So I decided to do just that, or at least give it the old college try. I told myself that if I ended up beating Ornstein and Smough within a reasonable amount of tries that I'd commit to beating the rest of the game as well. With that in mind, I made it through Anor Londo, went through the fog gate and... got thrashed. It was kind of close, though. I told myself I'd give it one more try for the night, but that was it. So, I make my way back and... beat them. Second try.
I was happy, yet slightly bothered. Had I gotten better at the game, or had I just built the difficulty of the fight up in my head so much that, in actuality, it wasn't actually that bad? The answer was a mix of the two. Regardless, I was now past this mental block entirely of my own making, and now fully enjoying myself playing the game. I knew that, if I kept chipping away at it, I could get through it, and, as of today I did! I beat all of the optional bosses, the DLC bosses, and Gwyn, and I honestly think that Dark Souls 1 might be among my favorite games ever made.
So, the moral of the story is this: it's never too late to go back and beat a game, even if it's been quite some time. Even if this thread doesn't take off, if it encourages even one person to go back and tackle something in their backlog, it will be well worth having written it.
TL;DR the real Dark Souls is getting over the mental block of tackling your backlog. Go get back on that horse! You might even enjoy it like I did.
When Dark Souls originally came out, I was pretty disinterested in it despite the fact that it was critically acclaimed and sold well. The reason for this was almost entirely due to the discourse that surrounded it. Everything from the "Prepare to Die" marketing campaign to the community's incessant gatekeeping really put me off from trying the game. To me, it painted a picture of a game so brutally difficult that only masochists and the hardest of hardcore gamers could enjoy it. As someone who plays games primarily to relax, the idea of incessantly banging my head against a difficult boss or dungeon seemed like the antithesis of a good time. After all...
Fast forward to 2020. I, utterly starved for content mid-pandemic, decided to pick up Dark Souls Remastered on the Switch since it was on sale. I figured that even if I didn't enjoy playing the game, it was only $20. And I did enjoy it... for a few hours. Exploring the Undead Parish and beating the gargoyles was pretty fun... but it still didn't really click for me. I found The Depths and Blighttown to be quite the slog. The corpse run to Gaping Dragon in particular really put me off from playing the game much further, and made what was a relatively simple boss fight incredibly punishing. The reason? This fucking thing:
I know it's not too tough to avoid it's curse attack, but being tilted from the fight made me succumb to it an embarrassing amount of times. The frustration with getting constantly cursed plus the fact that I was getting constantly thrashed by one of the easier bosses in the game broke my spirit a little. Although I made through Blighttown alright, I felt a similar frustration while fighting Quelaag, which led me to drop the game after completing Sen's Fortress and getting to Anor Londo's first bonfire. After all, if I was having so much trouble with such purportedly easy bosses, how was I supposed to handle these guys...
I wasn't super familiar with the fight, but I knew enough from cultural osmosis that Ornstein and Smough were among the most difficult in the game, if not the most difficult, and I knew they were next. So, sensing the potential frustration ahead, I dropped the game. Yet another game that would languish in my backlog. But then, two things happened recently. The big one was Elden Ring's announcement trailer, which, as I'm sure you know, was hype as hell. But then another thing happened; something smaller that you might've missed.
HasanAbi, popular champagne socialist, political commentator, and Twitch streamer beat the Nameless King in Dark Souls III after a nine month break. I was fortunate enough to catch the stream during those final moments, and it was exhilarating. He had suddenly mastered a fight that he had been raging about a mere hour earlier, and the chat erupted. It was then that a thought occurred to me: I could probably go back and beat Dark Souls if I put my mind to it. After all, it had been about nine months since I'd dropped the game as well.
So I decided to do just that, or at least give it the old college try. I told myself that if I ended up beating Ornstein and Smough within a reasonable amount of tries that I'd commit to beating the rest of the game as well. With that in mind, I made it through Anor Londo, went through the fog gate and... got thrashed. It was kind of close, though. I told myself I'd give it one more try for the night, but that was it. So, I make my way back and... beat them. Second try.
I was happy, yet slightly bothered. Had I gotten better at the game, or had I just built the difficulty of the fight up in my head so much that, in actuality, it wasn't actually that bad? The answer was a mix of the two. Regardless, I was now past this mental block entirely of my own making, and now fully enjoying myself playing the game. I knew that, if I kept chipping away at it, I could get through it, and, as of today I did! I beat all of the optional bosses, the DLC bosses, and Gwyn, and I honestly think that Dark Souls 1 might be among my favorite games ever made.
So, the moral of the story is this: it's never too late to go back and beat a game, even if it's been quite some time. Even if this thread doesn't take off, if it encourages even one person to go back and tackle something in their backlog, it will be well worth having written it.
TL;DR the real Dark Souls is getting over the mental block of tackling your backlog. Go get back on that horse! You might even enjoy it like I did.
