I can’t quite believe that I am currently sat down, about to write a piece on a Dark Souls game.

To say that Dark Souls or any of the Soulsborne games are not made for people like me would be a massive understatement! I haven’t played a proper RPG for a long while, mostly down to time constraints of adult life and an unhealthy addiction to playing FIFA games. Add to that the fact that overly difficult games will often put me into a controller throwing fit of rage and you can see why Dark Souls has never appealed to me.

So when it was suggested to me that Javier and myself do a live stream of this terrifying game, I was more than a little apprehensive… But with the promise of help from my good buddy Javier and a ton of booze, the alcoholic in me was stronger than the little boy too afraid of the big bad RPG. Before I get into my first impressions of the game, you can check out the above mentioned live stream below…

As you can tell if you watched the stream, I actually had a great time with Dark Souls! Watching other people play the game has never made it appeal to me – it always looked sluggish and dull – but once I actually tried it for myself, I realised how wrong I was. Before the stream, the only Soulsborne experience I really had were about half an hour or so with Bloodborne. It was only half hour because I was instantly put off by the combat and uninstalled the game as quickly as I had installed it; I was later told that if I had played Dark Souls first, then I would have maybe understood the appeal of Bloodborne’s gameplay a bit more, and I can now see that.

The gameplay was what won me over and I can’t really explain why… There was something deeply satisfying about getting the timing right for that perfect parry or being defeated by a group of enemies and going back to get your revenge and retrieving your souls. This will all probably sound so obviously familiar to souls fans, but for me it was something that I wasn’t expecting to grab me, something I wasn’t expecting to want more of, and something I wasn’t expecting to actually have a shit ton of fun with.

The difficulty that these games are famed for was not something that I actually had an issue with, sure it was challenging but not to the point where it ever felt unfair. It strikes me as a game that will reward you for your time and effort so if you are willing to put in the hours to learn the games combat system then the time you have with Dark Souls will be a much better and rewarding experience in the long run. With that being said, it’s worth pointing out that I have only played about 2 hours or so of the game and even that was split between two of us… So it’s difficult to say if I would still have the same feelings for the game as I get into deep waters.

But will I ever get into deep waters? There’s no doubt that I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Dark Souls but it hasn’t exactly motivated me rush out to purchase my own copy any time soon. That’s not to say that I will never play it again, hell there may even be a Drunk Souls – Part 2 in the not too distant future (Hint, hint), but it hasn’t jumped to the top of my to play list. Though for some reason I do feel the itch to maybe return to the start of my Soulsborne story and give Bloodborne another try, now that I have a better idea of the combat system and how these games work. I think now I would have a lot more patience to go further and give it way more of a chance.

Whatever happens next, whether it’s a return to Bloodborne or whether I decide to continue my Dark Souls adventure, it’s a near miracle that I am considering either one of these titles, as this time last week I was keeping such a giant distance between myself and these games that the idea of choosing to play one over my usual cup of tea was just never an option. Now it’s a different story. Sure, it might be the booze talking, but my opinion on Soulsborne games has done a complete 180 in a small two-hour window and I personally think that speaks volumes about the quality of these games.