Dix, if you keep giving good design advice like this away for free, people will take advantage of you!

Fuckin’ Harbour Master. I HATE THAT GUY! He looks so old! Plus he’s, like, y’know; with… and… stuff. And what have you.

This is a stupid, stupid, stupid video filled with stupid people and stupid things and you’re stupid if you like its stupid-ness. THIS MEANS WAR

Nice choice! It makes me look younger!

Ahhh, mission complete.

One of the most interesting things about Dark Souls is that it has a very comprehensive fiction, but it doesn’t tell you any of it; what it does tell you is not laid out in a logical order. It falls to you to figure things out, to put the story together yourself, and you have to REALLY PAY ATTENTION. For example, loading screens show text about various items – it’s not just filler. Big pieces of story are hidden in there. You have to listen to what people say, how they say it, when they say it, and so on. The result is that each player is challenged not only in the game, but by the game. Your interpretation may differ from someone else’s, but Dark Souls doesn’t make anything easy, including the story.

Some people take this to mean that there is no story, or that they just threw together a bunch of unconnected stuff, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I applaud the design; if you don’t want to spend time thinking about and analyzing the story, you don’t have to, but it’s there if you like that sort of thing.

@Human Being – thanks for the correction. I mix up the Darkwraiths and the Darkmoon Blades. I’ve already finished the game and know about the alternative “sponsor” path, which I hope to trigger in my NG+.

@John G – you are quite right. I really did hit Siegmeyer, by accident, during this scene, but I knew he was doomed regardless. He threw himself in the pit before I had a chance to soften those bastards up with arrows. It was sort of like approaching the painting in Anor Londo: you mean to just “examine” it, but of course this is Dark Souls we’re talking about here, there are very few chances to think things over.

@Harbour Master & Scout – I hadn’t really thought of Torment as a comparison, but actually that works. Both games are sort of Dickensian in a way, populated by the bizarre and the grotesque. Both mete out their stories in a manner that requires analysis and investiture from the player. Both tell very dark stories but have moments of levity (Torment has quite a few MORE moments of levity, but hey). And both really do make you care about the supporting cast; in Torment’s case it’s your party, while in Dark Souls it’s the people (and snake-dog things) that you meet.