It is 2022 and this game is still $60. The worst Souls game, streamlined with its 70% equip burden fast-paced rolls for the casual audience who can't dodge with fat rolls, bosses that are tuned to this singular playstyle in mind with zero consideration for the fact it's an RPG with different options available to people, sterilized with a pasty, ashy, monotonous environment, rehashed characters, uninteresting and often outright bad equipment, awful magic, generic Two Steps from Hell tier soundtrack, and the most painful levels in the series. Sixty smackeroos. No.

Most Souls games have an experience that can be one way or another defined as "sucks." But it's a good kind of suck. In Demon's Souls, I like the way the Valley of Defilement sucks. I am terrified of genuinely exploring Tomb of the Giants in Dark Souls to this day. Having to switch weapons because your current one is about to break in Dark Souls 2 and using multiple weapons against different kinds of enemies is a slog that is made better by playing better. Absolutely nothing about Farron Swamp is ever worth your precious time upon this Earth, even if you were to quickstep through it all. It is not a good suck. It is not even that hard. Not even the cool weapon you get for killing the boss there is worth the effort of having gone through that awful place, because it's ultimately painfully mediocre in most situations, not even amazing in the situations where you'd want to use it, and you're better off with your Longsword. Even what others think to be "better" levels like Cathedral of the Deep are filled with gotchas and overstay its welcome. And of course, being the most linear game in the series since Demon's Souls, you can't just not go there or do a quest to find a way to skip the worst parts. Every character, every playthrough, every build, every NG+, you must do every single mediocre level you'd rather not do because unless it's a dead-end, it's mandatory.

It might feel alright on your first playthrough with nostalgia of the series, but has proven to be an awful game to replay because very few things in this game feel good. Unless, of course, the only fun part of difficulty for you is the little ribbon you get for winning, and absolutely everything else along the way doesn't matter to you. I have not beaten all the bosses in this game; I have not even attempted Midir. Why would I want to? The experience will be just watching the boss do all the cool stuff while I just watch and wait to hit him twice, like every other "hard" boss in the game, or dare I say, franchise. If you wanted to play Souls games because you heard they were hard, congrats, you found the rotting, festering corpse. Grab a stick, two hand it, and press R1 twice before rolling away.

If I want a good Souls game, I play Dark Souls. If I want an action game that is actually hard, I play Monster Hunter. Unfortunately, if I want to play modded Souls games, I have to deal with Dark Souls 3 because modders use it as the platform of choice for most big projects. That's the one bone I will throw this awful game, until people get to work on Elden Ring.

It is 2022 and this game is still $60. The worst Souls game, streamlined with its 70% equip burden fast-paced rolls for the casual audience who can't dodge with fat rolls, bosses that are tuned to this singular playstyle in mind with zero consideration for the fact it's an RPG with different options available to people, sterilized with a pasty, ashy, monotonous environment, rehashed characters, uninteresting and often outright bad equipment, awful magic, generic Two Steps from Hell tier soundtrack, and the most painful levels in the series. Sixty smackeroos. No. Most Souls games have an experience that can be one way or another defined as "sucks." But it's a good kind of suck. In Demon's Souls, I like the way the Valley of Defilement sucks. I am terrified of genuinely exploring Tomb of the Giants in Dark Souls to this day. Having to switch weapons because your current one is about to break in Dark Souls 2 and using multiple weapons against different kinds of enemies is a slog that is made better by playing better. Absolutely nothing about Farron Swamp is ever worth your precious time upon this Earth, even if you were to quickstep through it all. It is not a good suck. It is not even that hard. Not even the cool weapon you get for killing the boss there is worth the effort of having gone through that awful place, because it's ultimately painfully mediocre in most situations, not even amazing in the situations where you'd want to use it, and you're better off with your Longsword. Even what others think to be "better" levels like Cathedral of the Deep are filled with gotchas and overstay its welcome. And of course, being the most linear game in the series since Demon's Souls, you can't just not go there or do a quest to find a way to skip the worst parts. Every character, every playthrough, every build, every NG+, you must do every single mediocre level you'd rather not do because unless it's a dead-end, it's mandatory. It might feel alright on your first playthrough with nostalgia of the series, but has proven to be an awful game to replay because very few things in this game feel good. Unless, of course, the only fun part of difficulty for you is the little ribbon you get for winning, and absolutely everything else along the way doesn't matter to you. I have not beaten all the bosses in this game; I have not even attempted Midir. Why would I want to? The experience will be just watching the boss do all the cool stuff while I just watch and wait to hit him twice, like every other "hard" boss in the game, or dare I say, franchise. If you wanted to play Souls games because you heard they were hard, congrats, you found the rotting, festering corpse. Grab a stick, two hand it, and press R1 twice before rolling away. If I want a good Souls game, I play Dark Souls. If I want an action game that is actually hard, I play Monster Hunter. Unfortunately, if I want to play modded Souls games, I have to deal with Dark Souls 3 because modders use it as the platform of choice for most big projects. That's the one bone I will throw this awful game, until people get to work on Elden Ring.