The Dark Souls trilogy is one of the best trilogy’s ever made and I will inform and review the whole trilogy in its full glory of action and despair.
“What is Dark Souls?” Dark Souls is a trilogy made by From Software in the early 2000’s but has obtained 40 million sales worldwide being one of the most popular series outselling many large titles.
(I’m also going off of the Dark Souls 1 remaster version and Dark Souls 2 Scholar of the first sin edition which is a remake both of these come including all dlcs)
Story: The story of Dark Souls is tragic and full of despair starting off in the first game introducing lords and kings alike. Dark Souls opens up with a cutscene explaining the lore and introduces characters and what they have done.
For example Dark Souls 1 opens up explaining how dragons were an ancient species and modern lords have slain them all including,Gwyn The Lord of Cinder, Grave Lord Nito, The Witch of Izalith, The Four Kings and the traitor dragon Seath The Scaleless. All intimidating individuals and includes Gwyn who is the final boss of the game and they do this introduction in all of the games.
The goal of the game is to link the first flame and prolong the world’s life, Dark Souls takes place in a dying world where once the fire fades the world will enter the age of dark in which all life will cease to exist, this is a never ending cycle which linking the first flame is prolonging this inevitable age showing the tragedy of Dark Souls
Gameplay: The Gameplay has evolved a lot since the first people always mention how drastically different Dark Souls 1 gameplay is from Dark Souls 3. Dark Souls 1 and 2 are slower and have worse feeling movement compared to the magnificent Dark Souls 3. Dark Souls 3 features fast paced gameplay everyone who tries it loves.
The Souls games start with slow gameplay but evolve to faster paced more epic cinematic fights with living legends present in all games ready to give you a memorable experience. Mostly all the bosses are loved by the community and make up a large part of the experience playing Dark Souls.
Popularity: Dark Souls is one of the most popular games series and has made a ton of popular memes as well. The community is huge and is still heavily active with a ton of content to consume and a lot of accounts on twitter to interact with. Most gamers have heard of the game and will give you a good conversation about the game.
Price: Dark Souls remastered is $39.99, Dark Souls 2 Scholar of the First Sin and original is $39.99, Dark Souls 3 is $59.99. These games seem pricey but the replayability makes them so worth the price.
Replayability: Dark Souls is a game with many different builds you can do such as: a tank, a sorcerer or even just a normal knight. There are so many different weapons and armor sets you can use and so many enemies to fight the replayability is endless. Fun boss fights also add to this with the anticipation of getting to a fun boss and actually fighting them.
Difficulty: The Dark Souls trilogy is made up of difficult games and that might drive some people away or be a challenge worthy of facing. A lot of other games are difficult and require a learning curve but none does it better than Dark Souls.
A boss may seem difficult but Dark Souls teaches you that repeating the same things over and over again won’t get you anywhere and it’s time to try something new, a different strategy or maybe come back later if it’s too hard. There is always something you can do to overcome that boss and once you find out how to, they might be a little fun to fight.
Dark Souls unlike other souls games focuses primarily on quality in bosses, this is most evident in Dark Souls 3 bosses being reviewed very highly and being the game with the best bosses I have ever played in my several years of gaming experience and once you learn how to play the game and get good at it it will be so much fun.
Community: The community for Dark Souls is a massive one with several youtubers making videos and a ton of memes on tiktok and accounts on twitter uploading memes about these beloved games. The community is still really active and the reddit pages still see use with some veteran players helping newer players.
Dark Souls has a wiki called “fextralife (insert game name)” where you can look up areas, bosses and even items and armor to see how to obtain them or what they do. Fextralife is a staple in the community with being a helpful place to look up and gather information on the game and how to defeat that difficult boss.
Music: Dark Souls has some of the best music that people listen to on a daily basis, it features orchestra and intense themes to match how a boss battle might be. It’s all epic sounding and really gets you going, the music adds so much to the awesome battle you are currently playing and just gets you in the mood to play the game.
Real musicians and conductors react to the music and say it is extremely good. The soundtrack is available on Spotify and youtube to listen to, I gotta say my favorite track in the trilogy is Dragon Slayer Armour from Dark Souls 3 but Orenstein and Smough from Dark Souls 1 is a close second. Two songs I highly recommend listening to, their themes sound so majestic and intense and are perfectly on beat also gives you that feeling where every part of the song hits.
DLC’s (downloadable content): The DLC’s are also works of art, Dark Souls 1 features the DLC “Artorias of the Abyss” with a strong center of the newly introduced character “Artorias” and how he is a living legend who has gone mad. All the DLC’s are fun and praised for being awesome and never a let down in Dark Souls.
A huge part of the story can also be found in the DLC’s but these parts of the story are added on and aren’t needed for the main story itself. The bosses are also a lot of fun and a lot of people say the DLC bosses are the best bosses in the trilogy.
NPC’s (non playable characters): yes even the NPC’s are awesome, take Solaire from Dark Souls 1, he is a guy in a lonely world trying to find light despite all the chaos he is on a quest to find his sun. Not all NPC’s have happy endings but they are very notable characters and some are even in multiple games or at least referenced.
NPC’s can also help you by being “summoned” for boss fights helping you defeat powerful enemies with friends. Completing quests may be confusing at first but once you find out how it will be a walk in the park next time you replay the game.
Art: The art of Dark Souls is worth mentioning because it is all beautiful, valleys to the center of the earth to an undead society it is all praised for its beauty. There is also a meme of the opening part of Dark Souls 2 being compared to other games’ art and Dark Souls 2 looking way better.
The art is truly something to admire with beautiful visuals from games that seem so old. Even now Dark Souls has some of the best visuals like Anor Londo and Irithyll which have stunning visuals when you first come across them.
Awards: The trilogy has seen its fair share of rewards and even outrages for them not being nominated for some, such as 2016 game of the year Dark Souls 3 was not nominated causing players to be upset. Dark Souls 3 did win the ultimate game of the year at the golden joystick awards however.
The trilogy has received several awards such as: Dark Souls 1 winning ultimate game of the year at golden joystick awards. Dark Souls 2 received the most nominations for 2014 for game of the year and best rpg and best online experience also winning game of the year at golden joystick awards. Dark Souls 3 won game of the year at golden joystick and all around a lot of nominations.
Developer team: The dev team is called “From Software” the same people who made the famous Elden Ring, and made the Soulslike genre. The Dark Souls trilogy was their first big hit and made them go from an indie studio to a double A studio and stayed as such. From Soft is loved by so many gamers for their amazing games such as Dark Souls.
Final take-aways: The Dark Souls trilogy is a great trilogy of games and is loved by so many people it personally deserves so many awards and should never be overlooked. It may cause rage but by the end of the day it is a fantastic game series that is able to be played over and over again and still be so much fun.
Everything from music to gameplay to the story is magnetic and will get anyone hooked on it. It is one of the most loved series for a reason and even brought us the Soulslike game genre making it popular after the silent release of Demon’s Souls from the same dev team.
I encourage you to check out these awesome games and you may find your new favorite game. Just remember that you can keep trying and don’t go hollow. Don’t you Dare go hollow… (yes that was a Dark Souls quote)
