4.5/5 ★ – brudanos's review of Dark Souls: Remastered.

Full Review + Trophy Review and Tips Below I am continuing my path through the Souls series and I decided I would finally take the dive into Dark Souls. I can easily see why this game is so special to the community. Demon's Souls may have launched the series however it is Dark Souls that popularized it. The open labyrinth like world that is full of secrets and lore with enemies hiding in every nook and cranny is just a masterpiece of game design. Dark Souls definitely shows its age as Bloodborne, Dark Souls III and even Sekiro have continued to perfect on the formula that have made FromSoftware famous. Even with that said, it still blows many modern games out of the water with its scale and gameplay. What I love about Dark Souls is the variety in the locations you will traverse. Literally you can walk in any direction and immediately be in a vastly different area with its own enemies. The bosses in the game are so much fun and cleverly designed. If I had any one gripe it would be that most of the bosses just require you to find the best way to dodge and slice or use magic to defeat and rarely do you have to truly "figure out" the way to beat the boss. It is mostly trial and error, unlike Demon Souls where each boss felt like a puzzle that needed to be solved. Chaos bed would be the one exception to this. My Final note is that I found this to be the easiest of the souls games I have played. The animations from the enemies are much slower and less varied and the game is very forgiving with your dodge. Combined with magic that can take out most enemies in 1-2 hits and bosses in 4-5 hits, you should not have much of a hard time completing the campaign. Trophies Difficulty: 7/10 Time: 50 Hours Trophy Guide: Recommended Trophy List Score: 6/10 So you can expect 2 and a half playthroughs for the platinum trophy. This is something I particularly find frustrating with the trophy lists from FromSoftware but the game is so good, it ALMOST justifies it. My first run through the game took me about 35 hours and item grinding and a second playthrough took me about 5 hours. The third playthrough I only needed to get to the blacksmith in Anor Londo which didn't take me more than 2 hours. My Platinum run was about 42-44 hours total. Unlike future installments, there are very few trophies tied to beating bosses. Although you do get some trophies for beating the "main bosses" the majority of the trophies come from joining covenants, of which there are many. Now you don't need to join them fully, just get offered to join and you can then decline and still get the trophy. There are a few covenants that are important to join and they will require certain items to be given that you will need to grind for to get rewards. The rewards you are looking for are specifically magic spells and miracles that are required for their respective trophies. The last bunch of trophies is all about earning certain weapons such as a chaos weapon or fire weapon and also for max leveling a weapon. Your best course of action is to follow a guide for these and to not accidentally use the resources that you will need. You will also need to farm for a lot of resources and beat certain bosses in the game up to 3 times. As always, I highly recommend "Square One Games" on YouTube, where he has a great Road To Completion guide on the fastest route to a platinum. From Boss strategies to farming locations, this is the guide to follow if you chose to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAFiABf6UJo&list=PLFkshhwuRImJael5MRHkVAODb6nfVkQ-3 Happy Trophy Hunting!