Dark souls is a gorgeous, intricately constructed and tightly honed game. The combat is fantastically balanced, and the world is a mysterious and confounding joy to explore. A massively replayable game, with so much depth, detail and ability to effect the world and characters around you in often small but fascinating ways. It presents itself fully formed, unwilling to compromise, and this works incredibly well. The infamous difficulty of the game is certainly there to some degree, but is certainly overstated. The game teaches you how to play it, your increasing knowledge of the world as much a tool as finding a hookshot in a Zelda game would be. There are some areas that are less interesting than others, and the game is so demanding of you that you will occasionally feel like you are fighting the controls to pull off a certain roll etc., but overall the game is incredibly well designed and a complete pleasure to get lost in.
