Dark Souls is of course known as an unforgiving and perilous game experience. Having watched complete Let’s Plays of 2 and 3, however, I felt I had enough familiarity with the mechanics and what to expect that I was confident. This did help me get over some initial barriers in the game so it helped, but I still did get the Dark Souls ExperienceTM; for one, a lot of the challenge is execution that stems from the player’s mastery of the controls. For another, Dark Souls 1 is actually missing some refinements or mechanics are otherwise changed in the sequels so I still felt out of my depth at first. And of course, I had never seen anything of the content of the game, so I had to come to grips with the level designs and boss patterns myself.
