Holy cow, I have been having a crazy few weeks, but I’m not about to let all the Enthusiacs down, and I’m here to talk about Dark Souls!

Dark Souls 3 came out recently, rejuvenating the cries for the series to have an easy mode.

The core of Souls

Let me get this out of the way…  I’ve played all the games in the spiritual series, from Demon’s Souls to Bloodborne.  I’ve beat all 4, and platinum-ed Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls 1.  Point is, I know the game series pretty well.

There are a lot of elements to the game that are appealing.  The world design, the detail in the lore, the obtuse storytelling that both rewards you for attention to detail, yet is open enough to interpretation that it allows for interpretation and reading between the lines.  Then, there’s the challenge.

Yes, the Souls games can be very difficult, but they are also tremendously fair.

Literally one of the first images that comes up on a search of “tough but fair”

I am just guessing here, but I think the core point of the Souls games isn’t so much the aesthetics, or the story telling, or even the difficulty directly.  Weather Miazaki intended it, or not, for me the central idea is that every single enemy is a credible threat.  When you know what you’re doing, you can take certain enemies out without much difficulty, but if the player is inattentive, any enemy can take you down.

If you take that point as a given, it gets difficult to imagine how to make the game easier.  For each enemy to be a credible threat, then you can’t make them weaker, or the player stronger.

Empowerment Fantasy, or not

One of the reasons the Souls games are so different is that it’s tone is so unusual.  Many games are power fantasies.  They make the player feel more capable, stronger, smarter, or all around better than the enemies in the game.  From games like Mario and Sonic, to Metal Gear Solid, to Uncharted, to Half Life.  These games are all empowerment fantasies.  Other games are disempowerment fantasies.  These are usually horror games, like Alien: Isolation, or Outlast, where the player has no ability to confront the threat, and can only run and hide to survive.

The Souls games don’t truly belong to either distinction, and that is due in no small part to the great parity between the player and the enemies.  So, look at these two and gauge how threatening they are.

A dregling from Demon’s Souls. No matter your stats, still dangerous if you’re careless.

The Dark Souls black knight. Also dangerous, but not too much if you fight carefully.

VS

The first enemy of Demon’s Souls against the Marquee enemy of Dark Souls.  They can both be defeated by a low level player.  The only danger is lack of caution.  A higher level makes it more difficult for the dregling to kill the player due to better armor, poise, and longer HP bar, but there are still lots of times when I’ve been careless, and they take advantage.  No matter how strong you are, they are a legitimate threat.  The black knight, on the other hand, can still be defeated with entry level gear.  The margin for error is lower, but, again, with care you can routinely stick and move, and maybe back stab him till he’s down.  If you can dodge, you can win.

Pictured, a man with the right idea for how to play Souls games.

The game insists that each enemy is a threat, and it won’t let you ignore any of them.  In turn, it expects you to take all enemies seriously.  This continues the sense of parity between the player and the game.  The player and the enemies all follow strict rules.  No matter how big or bad the enemy is, there’s always a way to handle it that will work without powerful character or gear.  This applies to ANY ENEMY.  People have managed to defeat the first boss in Demon’s Souls, which is a “supposed to lose” battle, but you can dodge and attack.  It takes a lot of patience, but if you can keep it up, you can kill it.  Even in a “supposed to lose” situation, the game doesn’t trick you or force you, it always obeys its rules.  Because of that…

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