My first soulsborne game was elden ring. Which I never completed because I always just got tired by it near the end. But about a month ago I decided to finally buy first dark souls. And with that one, I've had such a good time. I even got surprised, because it was easier than I initially thought it would be. So I'm here to give my overall dumb thoughts on my first experience in ds (mostly about bosses).
Dark souls is almost perfect. The level design, music, enemies and fighting, everything is incredible.
All the areas except the lost izalith, demon ruins and tomb of the giants were awesome. I loved exploring every corner of the map, the game gives you some nice rewards if you are being curious and actually try looking everywhere. My favorite areas were probably Anor londo with all the gold and fancyness, giant castles, knights and one of my favorite boss fights that are Ornstein and Smough. Darkroot garden, was cool because I just like forests and moonlight butterfly was pretty. Depths, because of the gross tunnels with rats, overall vibe of despair, and also gaping dragon. Gaping dragon is cool. But as I said, there are three areas I mentioned that are yucky. Demon ruins consists of copypasted bosses as common enemies and a third asylum demon, but to be fair, centipede demon was quite cool. Lost izalith is just a giant lava pool with the worst boss in the game. And tomb of the giants tho isn't as bad as other two, still is frustrating with all the darkness and skeletons who do giant amounts of damage when you can't even see them. And well, gravelord Nito was dissapointing too, for the area this hellish.
Talking about the bosses, I liked pretty much all of them except three that I despise and also three that I just killed and was like "wait.. that's it?". Just wanna talk about fights I remembered the most. Gargoyles were an incredible boss fight. I love how they're actually easy, but being that there's two of them, it makes you nervous and wait for the right moment to attack. I still remember how euthorical it was to finally kill at least one of them. And once I beat the second one, few attempts later, damn it was cool. Quelaag was the second boss that gave me hell. At first, dodging her sword was insanely hard. Few times I died because I stepped in lava, trying to get back and heal. But eventually, of course, I did it. Loved her. Ornstein and Smough were probably the boss fight I'll remember the most. The game is 15 years old, so of course I heard of them. And once I saw that cutscene I knew I'm screwed, and well, I was right. About 20 attempts of suffering and it was worth it. My final attempt was pretty much perfect, I killed Smough without any hit and then fought juiced up Ornstein who then actually kicked my ass good before death. Gaping dragon was very memorable, I saw him lots of years ago on youtube and this design has never left my head. I beat him on my third attempt and on second I died only because I understood that I want to record everything. So, he was very easy, but I'm glad I finally met him after so many years. In dlc, three out of 4 of the bosses were probably the best in the game. Guardian was easy, he died pretty fast in first attempt. Nothing to say. But golly, Artorias. Artorias was good. Even tho I felt like some of the hitboxes are weird, I was having very fun time with the fight. It was so rythmic and epic. I was fighting with a spear, never really had a chance to stun him out of buffing. So I had to suffer. I think it was second hardest boss in the game for me. Kalameet. Well, at first I didn't even know how to kill him. I went to arena and immediately got cooked. Only later I went to that kind, giant bro and he helped bringing Kalameet down. Fight was pretty tough too. A lot of damage, pretty high speed. But later it just was the matter of healing in a right moment after any hit I took. He was the last dlc boss I fought and even tho he was pretty hard, for me being one of the hardest bosses in the game, he was nothing compated to Manus. Manus was literal hell for me. High health, high damage, bunch of magic. It was hellish, but being the hardest boss of the ds1 imo, he's my favorite out of all. The amount of joy I got when I finally learned the attacks he instantly killed me with before, was fantastic. Of course I shat myself when he started using his magic, but later I've learned to dodge it too. Manus became one of my favorite bosses of all time, I think, not just in this game. I can't describe how much I loved fighting him. But, there are bosses that I hated with the same passion I loved Manus with. First one was third asylum demon. And it's not that he's that bad, but I just hated fighting the same boss 3 times, but now he's just red and spam explosions. It's ass, don't like it. Second dumdum I hated is bed of chaos. It was the first boss I actually got angry at. I've heard about this thing and how much he sucked, but I wasn't prepared for THAT. Holy, getting pushed into the floor holes while trying to do anything was definitely an experience. I'm just happy that one of the bosses of all time saves your progress. If it wasn't like that, I'd lose all the hair on my head and become Patches, but insane. And last boss I hated, might be a hot take, but the last boss, Gwyn. I think he sucks big time, only reason he's hard is that he doesn't let you heal, otherwise he's pathetically easy. And well, he's the second boss I've got angry at. I tried to fight him normally, which always ended with me being dead. I was naive and expected hard, but fair fight like with Artorias or Manus, but well, In the end, I've got tired and parried him to death. So yea, I hated him, maybe part of it is my problem, for expecting something more and wishing for cinematic, cool last fight, but nonetheless, last boss for me was a big dissapointment. Cutscene of the ending is cool tho. And last three bosses I wanna talk about are the ones that just got me like "I thought you were stronger...", overall, surprisingly were memorable by how meh they were, and were either okay and little boring, or died so fast that I can't even say anything in particular and that last one is Pinwheel. Gwyn didn't even have his own cutscene (tho it's okay imo because that bum doesn't deserve it), but this dude who died after 10 hits did. That's just sad, idk. Second boss who dissapointed me was gravelord Nito. I beat him in first attempt with almost no hits, guess the real bossfight were the skeleton beasts we've met along the way. He was slow as hell, but design is cool, gotta say that. For one of the main bosses he was bleh. And the last boss that dissapointed me, who's runback is harder than the fight itself, were four kings. Spent 3 attempts and yes, the fight is just meh. Same situation as with Nito, one of the main bosses, but there's nothing much going on. Not really a fan. Rest of the bosses are just nice, but just weren't memorable enough for me.
So the conclusion is that this game is fire, despite some flaws, even big ones. Dark souls will stay in my memory for the rest of my life as one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. I'll definitely replay it one day, perhabs, after beating rest of the dark souls series which I will do with pleasure. I bought the second game yesterday, the day I beat the first one, and already have some things to say after few hours of playing, and some of those things aren't good, but I'm ready to play it with opened mind and have more fun. So, that's it, as it was said, the game is phenomenal. Brought me a lot of fun and happiness with little bit of suffering, I can see why so many people love it, and I guess, I'm one of them now too
