Death has become my constant companion.
And he's not a good travelling buddy. He's always popping up when I least expect it, derailing my progress with inconvenient mortality. He hides round corners, revealing himself when there's nothing I can do about it, or arrives in a flurry of manic blows from a formerly easy-to-beat enemy.
Sometimes he takes the form of an arrow fired from a cubbyhole frustratingly placed off-screen, or in the downwards sweep of a suddenly unblockable sword blow... Suffice it to say while playing Dark Souls II - the latest instalment of the notoriously difficult RPG series - I have died a lot. The good thing is, I'm pretty much a zombie to begin with.
The game pits you as one of the "hollowed": victims of a magical curse who start off fully human but become steadily deader unless they consume souls from defeated foes. I'm on a mystical quest through the land of Drangleic (pronounced Dranglake. It's a fantasy game, just go with it) possibly to confront its King, Vendrick, although I'm not sure. This is because the hollowing also robs its victims of their memories, and the people of Drangleic you encounter all seems a bit lost, while talking to them only teases out garbled fragments of the story piece by piece. The whole place has been hit by some sort of catastrophe, leaving it mostly ruined and infused with an air of melancholy that's a world away from the usual RPG staples of gleaming spires, dwarf-carved dungeons and elfy forests. The quest sends you walking through dark and shadowy paths in search of four "great souls" (no, I don't know what they do) solving puzzles and fighting other hollowed along with an assortment of demons and sundry bad guys.
Combat is very much a hack-and-slash affair, and you are able to vary the strength of your blows, roll and dance about as you do battle. It's a good system, but it's also hard to master and even the weakest opponents can be deadly if you mistime a strike. Doing this is Very Bad News, as each defeat means you restart with lower health and gain a rather more blotchy and cadaverous appearance. Worse, you also lose the souls you've accumulated, stopping you spending them on new items or levelling up. This is a game that gets harder each time you suffer a setback, not easier.
In many ways, Dark Souls II delights in your misfortune. It's a master of the surprise attack, and even tricks you into boss fights before you're ready only to reveal you're meant to come back once you've gained better skills. Thankfully, it's stays on the right side of encouraging just one more go, rather than prompting you to quit in rage each time you die, by dangling the carrot of letting you loot your own corpse, gaining back the progress you lost if you can make it back to where you died.
There's also something very refreshing about being a hero without a cause. I don't even know why I'm trying to find the King. Perhaps he can cure the curse. Perhaps I'm going to kill him for letting things slide so much. Maybe I just want to go "boo" and plant a kiss on his napper with my rotten and puffy zombie lips.
But I'll find him even though it means I'll most likely die trying. Repeatedly.
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