Our group played it many times, willing ourselves to engage with its excruciating difficulty and forgive its shortcomings. But maybe for me personally, who cherishes the intricate and thoughtful design of the source material, the board game was always destined to disappoint. Barring the obvious trolling of players before they had even begun, the message was clear: herein lies death, so be prepared. When my pledge finally arrived, I pried open the box to the sight of a paper insert declaring “You Died”, an all too familiar message in game that heralds failure. So it was with great excitement that I plunged headfirst into the abyss of Steamforged Games’ wildly successful (£3.7m!!) Kickstarter campaign in 2016, which sought to bring the world of Dark Souls onto home tabletops. Bonfire lit! Since then I have played the entire catalogue including DLC offerings, have shelves of art books and strategy guides dedicated to its many worlds and was lucky enough to contribute a small piece to Keza MacDonald and Jason Killingsworth’s ode to Dark Souls “You Died”, a book chronicling every corner of the first game in the series. When I got my first proper job after graduating, I bought it with the money I earned from my first month’s pay. Heard of Painted World Of Ariamis? Well, you will today.ĭark Souls is quite simply my favourite video game of all time, for all of the aforementioned reasons and more. Or else a blank “never heard of it” / a sheepish confession along the lines of “I tried to get into it once but, nah, it’s too tough for me.” When it comes to any Souls game, there doesn’t often seem to be much occupying the space between these two camps: you’re either a Souls fanatic who indulges in pixelated punishment or, for whatever reason, you’re not. Either an animated endorsement of From Software’s brutally difficult video game, a twisted love of its epic boss fights, cruel but clever level design and subtle snippets of lore interspersed throughout its worlds. Say the words “Dark Souls” to any gamer and you’ll likely get one of two responses.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |