Delving into the deep recesses of dread can take a toll on someone, especially when they reside in its depths a long period of time. It makes them angry, they make mistakes and over time, grow to become as dark as the depths they’ve plunged themselves into. This is a general idea of what it was like playing Dark Souls, my ninth entry on my top ten list of all time favorite games.
What originally attracted me to the game in 2015 was not the difficulty it’s so well known for, but the inspiration behind the art of the game. It’s been stated that the areas, creatures, and tone of the game are heavily inspired by Berserk, one of my favorite manga/anime of all time. Back in 2015, there was no easily accessible way to play a game that would invoke the feeling of playing the Berserk story. For me, the next best thing was Dark Souls – the spiritual homage to Berserk.
I can’t truly talk about the plot of Dark Souls because it’s not the point of the game. The developers hid the lore and the story within item descriptions and NPC backstories as a means of putting focus on the experience of playing the game.
Upon starting the game, you awake alone in a dark cell. There is no music. There are only small moans. You are left to leave your cell, finding the messages of those who came before you and met their demise. This sense of being alone in a world out to take your life never goes away. In fact, it hones in on that feeling as you progress through the game. Most of the world is set in a level of darkness. Whether it’s the overcast at the Firelink Shrine, the barely candle lit Blighttown, or the endless depths of the Abyss, the game’s darkness feels oppressive as you try to make it to the next bonfire, which provides a momentary respite before continuing further. After that, all you have are the sounds of your footsteps and whatever is skulking in the shadows.
I always felt that the loneliness and the oppressive darkness is what the Black Swordsman and the Lost Children arcs of Berserk encompassed. During these story arcs, while not completely alone as he had Puck the fairy, Guts had been fighting demons for quite awhile and became skilled enough to take down the greatest of foes. These victories did not have Guts come out unscathed. They left him with terrible wounds and scars that no normal human could survive. He felt like he was fighting alone, unable to rest, in this world where he was both the hunter and the hunted. This is what it is like travelling through the world of Dark Souls.
The combat for Dark Souls on a mechanical level is an action RPG. It requires the player to take the souls they’ve acquired from defeating enemies and put them into various attributes to become stronger. Like any RPG, the weapons, armor, and magic are all pieces for the player to put together to craft a character that fits their style of combat. For me, I used this system to craft my own Guts, to wield a two-handed sword that was greater than my character in size. To swing a blade that no human could ever hope to swing. To depend on myself and only myself in this world of despair. And that’s exactly what I succeeded in.
Among the various resources you’ll use to keep yourself alive and make yourself stronger, one notable resource is that of humanity. In Dark Souls, humanity has various beneficial effects as the amount you have increases and can be obtained by defeating powerful enemies, maintaining your humanity as you defeat countless enemies, and as a consumable item on some poor dead adventurer. However, it can leave you susceptible to other players invading your game and attempting to kill you, robbing you of your humanity and leaving you to attempt to retrieve it from where you died before you die once more and lose it all forever. Because of this risk, it’s as if the game is having the player make the choice of either struggling to keep your humanity or choose to not have it at all for an easier and safer journey. Additionally, there is another item called “The Darksign”, which is fashioned to look like the symbol of the Dark Soul. Its effect is that it brings you to the safety of a bonfire at the cost of your humanity and souls.
The more I played, the greater my skill became. Every excursion brought me deeper in the game’s world, drawing me closer to fighting greater and monstrous enemies. I could not help myself from continuing, despite death after death, failure after failure, the ever so creeping sludge of black I’d feel as I’d fight and fight and fight and fight. Eventually, I felt it – the moment where I became just as monstrous as the creatures I fought. No different than Guts, I was this unstoppable force. A monster among monsters. I could get through the game without dying for a long period of time, only needing to move forward. I could land every swing and dodge every attack.
However, I found that this experience was both emotionally powerful and draining for me. It was a game that evoked such darkness from prolonged play, and as I recognized this, I would end up putting down the game when I felt that it was affecting my emotional state too much. The experience of playing Dark Souls was exactly what I wanted, but in a much more powerful way that I could’ve hoped. It didn’t just let me pretend to play a Berserk game – it evoked that darkness that pervades the story after it’s cruelest moment.
Dark Souls has music designed to break the silence of the game in some way. It is rarely a song of rest, like what plays in the Firelink Shrine. Instead, it’s commonly used to escalate the terror of boss fights. It blasts these orchestrated tracks, with bellowing choirs to strike deep into the core of your heart. No boss gave me quarter as they leaped to end my life again and again. Yet I would come back every time to one day defeat them and continue my journey forward, all the way to the end.
During my travels in the world, I would fill the silence with music from the 1997 Berserk anime instead of sitting in it and found it extremely fitting. Susumu Hirasawa’s work either helped calm my head or allowed me to fight harder. My progression through the game lead me to discover that Hirasawa made music for the Berserk games I would never be able to play, adding those tracks into my Dark Souls playlist. My favorite track became Forces 2, from the Berserk Dreamcast game and the sequel track to the song Forces from the 97’ anime. Unlike the optimistic march of the first Forces song, Forces 2 fit the idea of marching forward in this land of darkness.
The final boss of the game is Gwyn, Lord of Cinder. While an important figure to the game’s lore, I never saw him as what he was supposed to be to the game’s story. He was my reward for defeating the four I needed to defeat to get to him. My final challenge. The end of my journey. But the fight was not like any other in the game. Gwyn was no monster. He was a man. A human. He used similar tactics to that of players, with the added touch of flying towards you with a giant flaming sword. There was no grand entrance for him. No large cutscene to emphasize any power he may have had. It began like any boss fight, except for one thing – his boss theme. It was not terrifying or loud. It had no choir like the other songs. Instead, it was this lone and tragic piano.
The game presented me with a choice at the end of my journey. I was to either light the final bonfire and sacrifice my life to become one with the flame as Gwyn did, banishing the curse of undeath, or to let the flame die and begin the age of man, becoming the first Dark Lord. I chose to light the flame. I felt that for my character, after everything he’s been through, after this dark journey, he should have his soul be granted light.
In some strange way, what I left behind is what the game gave me as well. What I was given was The Dark Soul, the embodiment of the monstrous despair this game had made me experience as I played it to it’s hard-earned end. Despite how hard and cruel it is to move forward, no matter how much you get pushed down, you can keep going. You learn to fight in this cruel world, to endure it, to survive it. But I did not want to keep the Dark Soul. This game was a cautionary tale of what can happen when you stay too long in the depths of the dark heart of the world. Like Guts in Berserk, you may become a monster among monsters. And so, instead of placing it in my metaphorical room, I instead left the Dark Soul in the final bonfire. Even if living in the world is harder for it, I would still choose to keep my humanity.