I played Dark Souls once before, not long after it became a huge ‘hit’ out of nowhere. I had heard the game was unforgiving, and as someone who often gets mad and quits games when they die, I should have known Dark Souls wasn’t for me. I remember having absolutely no clue what I was doing and repeatedly dying while trying to climb some stairs on the mountain side, VERY early in the game. At that point I gave up and swore never to come back.

Well now that I have a 360 again, I downloaded Dark Souls and decided to give it another try. I think all of the Bloodborne talk lately got me wanting to check out the Souls experience again.

This afternoon I still had absolutely no clue what I was doing. I had to Google what Humanity was and still couldn’t quite figure out what to do with it. I made myself human and redeemed some humanity (by redeemed I mean I used it so a number shows in the upper right corner) but have no idea what affect that had.

I managed to make it past the stairs I got stuck on before, but it was ugly. I’m absolutely terrible at anything that involves timing and can’t parry an attack to save my life. I basically ran up to enemies while holding my sword in two hand mode and flailed at them until they died, all while taking a few hits here and there.

I wandered around aimlessly and used up quite a few Estus flasks and my divine ability or whatever (I’m playing as a Knight) and somehow made it to the second boss after summoning another character (which I assume is another player?). The boss immediately sent me flying off the bridge into the ether and to my death. I started off back at the campfire way back below those stairs I was stuck on before and decided to call it quits again.

Maybe there was another campfire between there and the boss (I would hope so), but I certainly did not feel like running through all that again. Heck, I barely made it to that boss with my life intact and I don’t see the appeal in doing it all again. Furthermore I’m pretty sure all of my souls and humanity are irretrievable seeing as my body was thrown into the nothingness. Not cool.

At this point I’m not certain if I’ll try again. I don’t think I can take repeatedly trudging through the same area and enemies just to die again and again. I think I’m just not cut out for this game. I may take a look at a strategy guide or watch some ‘Let’s Plays’, but for now I think I’ll fire up Tiger Woods ’13 and relax on the links.