The Dink Network

I started playing Dark Souls a few weeks ago. I have mixed feelings. I like the atmosphere, but the controls were horrifyingly unintuitive and difficult to get into. I've gotten through Undead Burg, the sewer place and the bell tower church thing so far, and I still find the controls pretty crappy. Too often I die because the camera spasms while dodging into something, I casually stroll off a ledge, I accidentally open the ducking gestures menu, or the target lock either fails to lock on or locks into the wrong thing.

I also don't think the game's difficult, so much as it's punishing. If you could save anywhere or the game had a frequent checkpoint system, getting through it would actually be very easy. As long as you know what's going to happen next, what foe is going to pop up or what kind of move a boss is going to perform, it's no problem. But if you DON'T know, you're going to die. You can only learn what will happen by playing the game, so you die a lot, and each time you die, you have to backtrack a long distance, potentially losing hours worth of experience should you die again before reaching your essence.

The game makes me ducking angry, which is why I keep coming back to it, and want to beat it. No way is the game going to beat ME, regardless of what kind of unfair bullshit jump kills it pulls!