The fuck is this shit?
Dark Souls is an action role-playing game, according to Wikipedia. Its predecessor, Demon's Souls, achieved infamy by having the distinction of being pretty fucking hard in a gaming industry characterized by making things easier and more accessible. From Software then made this game, Dark Souls, building on the previous game and adding whole new layers of awesome. Dark Souls was so enjoyable that a popular petition convinced From to create a PC port, and more than that, a PC port filled with extra content the original release never saw. This very port will be available later this month for the low price of 40 bucks. The game is essentially a lengthy single-player adventure filled with customization and ample opportunity to fuck with other players' playthroughs (or have your playthrough fucked with by other players). More on that later.
I'm told this game is hard.
It is exceedingly difficult at first. You will die many times in the first few hours of play, as you acquaint yourself with seemingly unfair game mechanics. Once you get the hang of it,
you still die just not as much.
In one area of the game, the place is filled with ghosts.
Ghosts can be intimidating, but know how to fight them and you can be as cool and fearless as this guy.
Ghosts, being ghosts, cannot be harmed by conventional weaponry and attacks. Your options are to either get yourself cursed by specific enemies, or use the 'Transient Curse' item. The former lasts as long as you want, but cuts your maximum health in half. The latter only lasts for a fixed duration, and you'll never find out when it ends except in the middle of a fight when suddenly ghosts start seriously fucking you up. Ghosts are serious shit!
What's all this business about souls?
By killing enemies, you earn the currency of souls. Souls are used to level up your character as well as repair and upgrade equipment. In a similar vein is the currency known as humanity. Humanity is either obtained by killing a crapload of enemies, or by killing players. By default, your character is undead. To become human (and essentially toggle on online mode) you must offer one humanity at a bonfire. Once human, you can offer more humanity to a bonfire to kindle it larger, and thus get you more estus flasks (your hyper-important self healing item). Having more humanity also makes you more resilient to curses, increases the drop chance of items, and makes chaos enchanted weaponry more powerful. On death, you leave a blood stain containing all your souls and humanity. Obviously, getting your blood stain back is a major priority.
Toggle on online mode?
Multiplayer interaction in Dark Souls is limited when you aren't a human. The most you can do is use other player's bloodstains to see a sort of flashback as to how they died, and read orange soapstone signs (graffiti left by other players that can show up in other people's sessions of the game) to gain advice, marvel at someone's ability to state the obvious, or fall for some douchebag's trickery (always be suspicious when a sign says "Try Jumping"). While you're a human, you can use white soapstone signs left by other players to summon them as a white phantom into your world, where they will assist you until you defeat the area's boss. Also while you're human, your world can be invaded by hostile players - either as red phantoms seeking to kill you for all your souls and humanity, or blue phantoms seeking to enforce THE LAW (more on covenants later).
To spice things up, there are also NPCs that will invade or assist you at certain points in the game if certain conditions are met. Keep alert!
Why not just stay undead and beat all the bosses by myself, and not risk being fucked up by other players?
Wait until you fight the Capra Demon. Hell, the Belltower Gargoyles. You'll rethink that.
Covenants. Explain them.
There are 9 covenants you can enter in Dark Souls. They are sort of like factions that you can advance yourself in for various rewards. To give you a basic understanding, consult this chart.
Way of the White: Starting covenant if you're a Knight. Otherwise, uh... Consult the chart.
Princess Guard: You'll understand when you meet the leader of this covenant. Offers a variety of healing miracles (miracles being a type of magic).
Blades of the Darkmoon: THE LAW. In the magical world of Lordran, there are laws you shouldn't break. Among them are killing innocent NPCs scattered throughout the world, and abandoning a covenant without paying a large sum of souls. Also, if you invade another player and they have an item called an 'Indictment,' they can indict you if you kill them (obviously they tend to reserve this for invaders they have a particular hate for). Indicted players and killers of innocent NPCs and covenant breakers are then marked as targets for the Blades of the Darkmoon, players who can invade anyone anytime anywhere as a blue phantom. What makes them especially dangerous is that unlike all other invaders, there is no notification for the guilty player when a Blade invades them. Blue and red phantoms share a goal of killing the host player, but can actually hurt each other, leading to terrifying 3-way battles if someone is so unfortunate to have justice come seeking them at the same time as a soul-thirsty douchebag.
Warrior of Sunlight: PRAISE THE SUN.
Warrior of Sunlight covenant leader Solaire "Brolaire" of Astora praising a burning ball of hydrogen.
White phantoms who help other players kill many bosses can aspire to join the ranks of the Sunbros, a covenant dedicated to co-op. Perks of advancement in this covenant include extremely powerful offensive miracles, and the swag as fuck taunt/pose depicted above.* In addition, Warriors of Sunlight have their summon signs a distinctive brilliant gold rather than the usual white, and their summoned phantoms share this colour. Anyone who suspects the Sunbros to focus exclusively on killing monsters should be wary - a gold or white phantom is summoned to assist the host player with whatever accosts him, be it an NPC or a blue or red phantom.
*Appropriate times for the 'Praise the Sun' gesture include successful summoning, successfully being summoned, killing an invader, killing an enemy, killing multiple enemies, drinking estus, engaging a boss, killing a boss, winning the lottery, proposing marriage, waking up in the morning, receiving a paycheck, experiencing an orgasm, engaging your boss, killing your boss, playing Dark Souls and whenever you are not preoccupied with sleeping or eating. PRAISE THE SUN.
Forest Hunter: The Forest Hunter covenant is dedicated to defending a specific stretch of dark, murky woods within a specific zone, said stretch of forest colloquially referred to as 'Dickstab Forest.' As long as you are human and in this forest, Forest Hunters will be continually summoned as blue phantoms into your world with the express purpose of killing the shit out of you, to a maximum of 3 Forest Hunters at once. And that's all. You can't avoid Dickstab Forest as it is mandatory to cross it in order to progress through the game. Also, those who make some progress in this covenant get a ring that makes them fucking invisible. Consult the chart to understand these implications.
Chaos Servant: This covenant is dedicated to arachnophiles and pyromancers. I won't spoil much, but this is a tricky covenant to get into, and that's even if you know what you're trying to accomplish. Advancement in it leads to access to rare and special pyromancy spells. Also, depression.
Gravelord Servant: PvP in Dark Souls usually consists of an invader aggressing and an unsuspecting host defending. The Gravelord Servant covenant turns this on its head. He fucks with other players by entering a zone, and expending an Eye of Death to create a special Gravelord mark on the ground. Then, three random players have said mark appear in their session of the game, infecting it and all enemies in that zone are empowered into black phantoms, which are tougher and hit a shitload harder. Whenever any of the three victims of the Gravelord are slain by black phantoms, the Gravelord is awarded souls, humanity, and an Eye of Death. The victims can only purge the infection by finding the Gravelord's mark and using it to invade the Gravelord in his session, appearing as a blue phantom. This can lead to an unlucky Gravelord being invaded by three people at once. Once defeated, the infection is removed from all three victims, regardless of who killed the Gravelord. Advancement in this covenant yields an extremely dangerous sword and a very powerful offensive miracle.
Path of the Dragon: Otherkin rejoice! By using Dragon Scales, you can leave marks that other players can use to summon you for duels to the death for more Dragon Scales. Eventually, you can redeem them to advance in the covenant and build your own dragon fursuit! (Read: transform various parts of your body into dragon parts enabling all kinds of scary shit like breathing fire).
Darkwraiths: Are you a cunt? Do you hate fun? Then the Darkwraith covenant wants you! Fire up your Red Eye Orb in a zone and watch as you are immediately dumped into someone else's game as a red phantom! Kill the host, receive souls/humanity, repeat into eternity! You fucking asshole! Advancement includes the power to suck the humanity out of people like a vampire.
Those all sound pretty neat, the prospect of building a fursuit especially. But why do you hate Darkwraiths so much?
Dark Souls is a special sort of game in that if you're good enough, you can beat the whole game at Soul Level 1. This isn't to say you don't advance; you simply invest all your souls into pimping out your equipment rather than leveling up. The Dickwraith covenant only becomes accessible fairly late into the game, meaning that usually you'll only face Darkwraiths later into the game. However, certain enterprising assholes will play through at a low soul level and become Darkwraiths, and will then return to zones early in the game with their insanely powerful weapons and armour and fight hapless noobs, as matchmaking for player interaction of all kinds is based off of Soul Level rather than progress in the game or quality of equipment.
What about customization?
At character creation, you pick one of ten classes you can begin as. This only dictates your starting equipment and stats; a bandit can become a formidable pyromancer if they invest their souls properly, and a pyromancer can become a mean thief. Obviously, it pays to not be a one-trick pony. The least noob-friendly classes are obviously Deprived for his total absence of phat lewt and Knight for his lumbering speed and inability to dodge well in a game that seldom lets you block things.
Dark Souls has a variety of spheres a character can specialize in. Magic is divided into sorcery (long-range projectile attacks and nifty utilities), pyromancy (huge explosions and buffs), and miracles (healing and slow but brutally powerful offensive stuff). Not-magic is divided into things as diverse as light vs. medium vs. heavy armour, heavy shields vs. medium shields vs. light shields, one handed weapons, two handed weapons, weapons with reach, knives, crossbows of varying kinds, bows, axes, hammers, man-sized superhammers, scythes, like fifty different kinds of sword, grenades,
So pretty much any medieval weapon.
They more or less hired Peter Molyneux for deciding what medieval weaponry made it into this game.
Don't make him say it.
Above all else, try not to spoil the game for yourself, as that ruins half the fun. To anyone that isn't too much of a tiny baby man not to try their hand at Dark Souls, I look forward to trying to kill/not be killed by you!
PRAISE THE SUN.
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