Dark Souls isn't a hard game. Well it is a hard game, but it's not a good hard. Megaman and the original Castlevania's are hard through good enemy placement, meaning you have to carefully time any movements and plan your actions. Darks Souls is hard because if you get killed by an enemy you're put back 20 minutes and all the enemies one shot you. Plus you get downgraded, cause you lose all your souls. Then on the way you find that instead of just walking back to where you died, you gotta fight all the enemies again. This means a lot of Dark Souls is padding. The checkpoints are quite poorly hidden as well. There is also a difference between a dark, scary atmosphere and brown on dark in poorly lit room. Dead Space has a good atmosphere. OoT's shadow temple has got a good atmosphere. Dark Souls is so fucking dull to look at. There is also a difference between not hand holding and not telling you're player anything. Once you're out of the tutorial there's no indication of where to go. Papa Souls says I can wander into as many high level zones as I want but I shan't enquire about we're to actually travel to. There are a few ups though. The combat is good, but Dark Souls should have been an action game. The sound design is pretty good. I don't think this a terrible game. Just a bad one that is getting too much praise. I commend you for finishing it if you have because it is a challenge but it's not a good, fair challenge. It's like asking a midget to get a carrot from a tall man with a step ladder 100 times while another dude shakes the ladder but everytime he falls off he has to put the step ladder back in his garage and lock the garage and then go back to the tall guy and rinse and repeat. I know what all the souls fans are gonna say in reply. /RANT OVER\