So I'm Playing Dark Souls (Finally) - Part 1

After avoiding the Souls franchise for years, I've finally decided to take the plunge.  My initial hesitancies were caught up in both the usual suspect in the difficult, and in one more abstract, the fan base.  I tend to balk at fan exuberance and exaltation of a game, especially when I already have other factors that keep me from playing it.  It took some prodding from friends and acquaintances, but I finally started up the game the other day, and played a few hours.  And boy, what a few hours they were.  What does that mean?

Well, I don't know.

I still don't know how I feel about the game.  The game is still difficult, where every mistake opens you up for some sort of severe punishment.  Yet it's also not as difficult as I expected.  Sure, there have been some hangups and walls, but nothing feels completely insurmountable.  It feels like you can figure everything out, from the menu full of stats that makes the JRPG fan in me nod in recognition, to the attack patterns of an enemy in a tight corridor.

Yet.

I'm currently rolling a Sorceress and I've been walled in the Undead Berg.  Part of this was self-inflicted, as I spent dozens of attempts trying to clear the large Knight guiding an optional pathway.  Other parts have felt a little rough, with the area boss, and a bridge I have started to think of as the Napalm Beatdown Highway, with some deaths in these areas feeling unavoidable.  I could go back and soul grind to help try to just overpower the challenges, but something about that doesn't feel right.  Maybe it's my preconceptions about what a Souls game should be instead of whatever it actually is.

This game feels muddy.  Not just in its aesthetics and design, but in it's play.  It feels very slow and deliberate, where every swing or dodge is a commitment.  For example, parrying completely invalidates an enemy's attack, and opens them up for a huge counterattack, but the wind up on the parry animation is just a hitch longer than you'd expect.  If you miss the parry, you could be missing two thirds of your HP bar in a few seconds.

I'm till not sure how I feel about this game.  I can see the luster under the grime.  I can see what people like about it, but I'm still approaching this game's at arm's length.  The hesitancy and caution has helped in my gameplay, the first time I hit a new area, but it also means I'm still unsure how I feel about this.  My hope is that by writing as I play the game I'll be able to figure things out through thee writings.