Dark Souls

There are elements that come off as dated now but you can definitely see why this was so acclaimed and influential. Sen's Fortress can fuck off forever though.

The best game of its generation, at least in my opinion. Dark Souls weaves all the elements of a video game together to form a rich, wonderful tapestry which could only exist in its medium. This is a game that deserves to be played to understand the experience.

I get the appeal, and I totally understand why this would be someone's favourite franchise, but it's not for me.I never had the patience to learn the game on it's own term or to be able to deal with it's trial-and-error learning curve.

Peak

At first it's interesting, but quickly becomes boring. No real story to speak of, just endless grinding.

It was a foundational game, and there are so many great things about it. And there is The Bed of Chaos and various other half-finished aspects.

On balance, I think I liked 'Demon's Souls' a little more; the highs here are much higher (the slowly unfolding interconnection between the pre-Lord Vessel areas is just one of the medium's crowning achievements) and the lows much lower (Lost Izalith's demon clone stamp), but the relative simplicity of the older title sells its crepuscular, apocalyptic melancholy somewhat better. Both have an equally impressive understanding of the ambiguity and aporic nature of folklore.

This game is one of the most influential for a good reason. Although further fromsoft and soulslike games refine the formula into something better, this game will eternally have that charm and quality I've never seen after it. Playing it for the first time massively changed my taste in games, despite its flaws

Not for me

A monolith of friction against the "smoothness" of modern consumption. Lordran is a hauntological mausoleum, a world suffering from a terminal inability to end. Its silence evokes the Eerie—a "dead mall" on a theological scale. The game’s punishing mechanics are not merely a test of skill, but a materialization of precarity. It formalizes the melancholia of capitalist realism: the exhausting labor of propping up a crumbling system because we cannot conceive of a world beyond it. - Full Review