To tangle with Demon's Souls was to stare into the abyss and know that it would stare back you had to play its way or not play at all. It taught the value of overcoming great struggle in a world of safe, focused guidance in design. Instead of plucky, mouthy protagonists, it quietly spoke of unending cycles of power and pitch-black disposition. If you were in the thick of it at the time, you knew as well as anyone that if you gave Demon's Souls enough time (and maybe a bit of homework), you'd find the diametric opposite to every video game for nearly every console of the previous generation.ĭemon's Souls saw what was contemporary and spat in its face. In fairness, I went through it in the most difficult way I possibly could, unbeknownst to me and my infantile fumbling through its dense character growth. You could say that I literally fought my way through the ruined Kingdom of Boletaria, taken aback as I was with it's challenges. In April of 2010, I was diagnosed with lymphoma, and as on-and-off illnesses have churned months into years, it's no longer a way to cope-it's a curse.ĭemon's Souls was released in North America in October of 2009, a little less than six months before my diagnosis.
So when I say this, just know that I mean it more than almost anything I've ever written: Dark Souls needs to die. My relation to a bunch of video games has become, in its perverse way, adversarial. In fact, when I take a step back here, I might not be a fan at all.
Souls games and I have a complex relationship, and letting it go shouldn't be so wistful as, say, not looking forward to another release year in and year out, annual as the franchise has become. A true believer.īut you'll have to excuse me, because some farewells aren't so simple or so easy. In fact, that's what I was asked to do for the piece you're reading right now give it a once-over, say goodbye.
Video games like dark souls series#
It's tempting to look back at a series of games like Dark Souls and do a macro-level farewell to peer over your shoulder at the last eight years or so since Demon's Souls became a sleeper sensation to retread that library of think pieces and critical fawning that the games, though deserved, have accumulated.
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