Dark Souls: The Holy Texts Pt. 1

Introduction

Dark Souls is a holy relic. An interactive bible for the modern age. It speaks directly to the human condition in a soft, but stern voice. I'd like to explore this beautiful experience in depth over a couple of blog posts that will fully explain why I believe that everyone should experience this game, and why I believe that Dark Souls is the most important video game ever made.

For those of you who have not played Dark Souls these posts may be a bit over your head. Some things will go unexplained, but should be fully understandable to those of you who have played. I highly recommend playing, or at least attempting to play, before continuing to read. If you have played and felt the need to give up, I hope this blog convinces you to try again. It is well worth it.

An Exercise in Patience

For those of you familiar with it, Dark Souls continually presents you with well thought out challenges. This is achieved with clever enemy placement, varied enemy types, outstanding balance, pacing, item acquisition, and level progression (your characters level). Never are these challenges so difficult that you can not proceed without careful planning and knowledge of the situation. For example, the game can be beaten at Soul Level 1. You never need to directly overpower the situation to progress. Each new challenge is executed fairly, and is entirely dependent on your preparation and actions.

My father used to tell me "If you use your head, you don't have to use your back".

I've never seen this more perfectly illustrated in any game before this. Each situation can be overcome by examination and careful planning. On top of this, it also teaches us that it is okay to fail. 

"It does not matter how slowly you go- as long as you do not stop."

Those of us that have played, we have all been in this situation. We are continually being killed at one point and we are unable to progress. After each death we come back and try again. Testing the fence. With each death we learn what doesn't work and ideally we learn from our mistakes when we come back. Though we are punished for our failure with death, we are allowed to return indefinitely and try again and again and again. Upon conquering the challenge, we now proceed with the knowledge we have gained from this experience. We have learned how these things all interact together and how to work with them. We now know more than we ever have about these variables.

The same concept can be applied to anything you do in life. You may have been told before that you can do anything you set your mind to, and as cheesy as that sounds it is completely true. Make as many mistakes as necessary to proceed. Learn from each mistake you make. If you truly want to progress, then you can not give up. You will succeed. You will progress. You will gain more than you ever lost from these experiences. You will reach your goals.

If you take nothing else from Dark Souls, take this. Our Father Dark Souls teaches us patience, discipline, and solidifies our determination with only its core mechanics. 

Praise the Sun.\o/