Dark Souls

The games take place within a dark, medieval fantasy setting, where the player's character fights against knights, dragons, phantoms, demons, and other monstrous or supernatural entities. The accretion, loss, and recovery of souls are central to the narrative and gameplay of Dark Souls games. These games are linked through their setting and an overarching cyclic narrative centering around fire, and are linked through common themes and elements, including interactions with phantoms and battles with demons. At the end of each game, characters may reignite the "first flame" or allow it to fade, recurring a choice others have made before.

The Dark Souls games are played in a third-person perspective, and focus on exploring interconnected environments while fighting enemies with weapons and magic. Players battle bosses to progress through the story, while interacting with non-playable characters. The protagonist of each Dark Souls game can have a varying gender, appearance, name, and starting class via character creation. Players can choose between classes, including knights, barbarians, thieves, and mages. Each class has its own starting equipment and abilities that can be tailored to the player's experience and choices as they progress. The player gains souls from gameplay battles which act as both experience points to level up and as currency to buy items. Souls gained are usually proportional to the difficulty of fighting certain enemies; the more difficult an enemy, the more souls the player will gain from defeating it.

Dark Souls

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One of the core mechanics of the series is the use of how it handles progress, death, and player improvement. Bonfires serve as a checkpoint within the series, restoring all health and other critical resources when used, but also respawning most enemies and obstacles, making repeated trips back to safety untenable for forward progress. Upon losing all of their health points and dying, players lose their souls and appear back at the bonfire where they last rested. If the player can return to their point of death, their bloodstain, without dying again, they can regain all lost souls.[1] If the player dies again before reaching their bloodstain, the souls are permanently gone.[1] Notably, using a bonfire manually and respawning at one after death have identical effects, save for the player losing their currency at their place of death, which can be retrieved with no penalty. In this way the player is encouraged to not fear death, as no progress is lost so long as they can learn from their mistakes. As the player retraces their steps after death, they will naturally defeat more enemies, gaining more souls and allowing their character to gain experience alongside the player themselves.

Another aspect of Dark Souls is the "humanity" system. There are two forms the player character can be in during the game, human form or hollow form. Whenever the player character dies in human form, they are returned to hollow form and can only return to human by consuming the humanity item and issuing the command at the bonfire to restore humanity. While in human form, the player character may summon other players and non-player characters (NPCs) to assist them, but they may also be subjected to invasions by other players and NPCs who seek to kill the player to restore their humanity, harvest souls, or achieve some other goal. Humanity can be acquired in many ways, and if no humanity is available, players can still progress in hollow form. Death results in the loss of all carried souls and humanity, but players revive as hollows at their most recent bonfire with one chance at returning to where they died to recover all lost souls and humanity. If the player dies before reaching their "bloodstain", their previously accrued souls and humanity are permanently lost. Carrying humanity grants bonuses and resistances, incentivizing players to hold onto their humanity.

The opening cutscene of Dark Souls establishes the premise of the game. During the "Age of Ancients" the World was shrouded with fog, covered with primordial Archtrees, and ruled by the Everlasting Dragons. A primordial fire known as the First Flame manifests in the world, establishing a distinction between life and death, and light and dark. Four beings find "Lord Souls" surrounding the First Flame, granting immense power: Gwyn: the Lord of Sunlight, Nito: the First of the Dead, the Witch of Izalith, and the Furtive Pygmy. Gwyn, Nito, and the Witch use their new power to destroy the dragons and take control over the world, while the Furtive Pygmy is said to be forgotten, and thus begins the "Age of Fire." Over time, as the First Flame begins to fade while the Gods rise in power, Gwyn sacrifices himself to prolong the Age of Fire. The main story takes place towards the end of this second Age of Fire, at which point humanity is said to be afflicted with an undead curse related to a circular, flaming symbol on their bodies known as the Darksign. Those humans afflicted with the undead curse perpetually resurrect after death until they eventually lose their minds, a process referred to as "hollowing."

Miyazaki stated that the game draws direct inspiration from earlier works of fantasy and dark fantasy, especially the manga series Berserk.[14][15] He has described the driving aesthetic principle of the game as being "a certain kind of refinement, elegance, and dignity".[14] He also described the themes which guided the design of the game in the following way: "I put three major guidelines in place: Gods and knights centered around Anor Londo, demonic chaos and flames centered around Lost Izalith, and the theme of death centered around Gravelord Nito. To these themes we added the special concept of ancient dragons that predate all life, and this formed the basis for Dark Souls".[14] Many of the game's locations were inspired by the real-world, such as the Chteau de Chambord in France and Milan Cathedral in Italy.[14][16]

Dark Souls received positive reviews from critics upon its release. One of the reviewers for Dark Souls described it as "a very hardcore dark-fantasy [role-playing game]" that is "role-playing right down to the roots", and stated that the "massive field map and powerful enemies serve to rev up both your sense of adventure and your sense of dread." Another reviewer said that "the sheer happiness you get after the trial-and-error pays off and you overcome the challenge is absolutely impossible to replicate."[53]

GameSpot praised the online system and the sense of jubilation when conquering boss fights after numerous failed attempts. They also suggested that casual gamers may struggle to progress, whereas role-playing game enthusiasts will thrive on the difficulty.[44] IGN complimented the level design, variety, strong emphasis on online features, excessively dark tone and atmosphere, and deep gameplay. While praising the extreme difficulty, they stated that "there's a difference between punishing, and downright unfair."[54] Eurogamer also applauded the level design and atmosphere while noting that the game's difficulty might not appeal to casual gamers.[41]

Dark Souls focuses on dungeon exploring and the tension and fear that arise when players encounter enemies in this setting. The game is a spiritual successor to Demon's Souls, which in turn is considered a spiritual successor to the King's Field games. The game takes place in an open world environment and uses a third-person perspective. The player battles using various weapons and strategies to survive in a dark fantasy world. Online features allow players to share the play experience without need for direct communication.

Dark Souls 3 takes place in a transitory place, revolving around the first flame and the cycle of fire and dark. You play as a protagonist whose goal is to find and return the five Lords of Cinder to their thrones at Firelink Shrine in order to link the flame again. The protagonist is known as an Unkindled, a kind of Undead, beings of ash unworthy to ascend to become a Lord of Cinder. The five Lords of Cinder are Ludleth the Exiled, Aldrich, Saint of the Deep, Farron's Undead Legion, the Abyss Watchers, the reclusive lord of the Profaned Capital, Yhorm the Giant, and Holy King Lothric, Last Hope of His Line. Lords of Cinder are past beings who were successful in linking the flame, being burned remnants of their past selves.

The games take place in a Dark Fantasy world, where humans coexist with giants, dragons, gods, monsters, and "Undead", humans marked with a cursed brand that grants them Resurrective Immortality, but slowly leeches their body and mind till they're a Soulless Shell. In each game, you take the role of one of these Undead, who finds themselves swept up in a quest to rekindle the flame that keeps the world alight, and hold off the coming age of darkness... that is, unless you choose to usher in that age yourself. e24fc04721