- Primary Subject: Dark Souls / Dark Souls: Remastered
- Key Update: An editorial opinion argues that the original Dark Souls is overpraised due to nostalgia, highlighting poor enemy placement and tedious boss runbacks as key flaws.
- Status: Confirmed
- Last Verified: January 20, 2026
- Quick Answer: Severe enemy placement traps and punishing boss runbacks make the original Dark Souls far more frustrating and flawed than nostalgic fans often admit.
To this day, many revere the first game in the Dark Souls trilogy. It is the primary force behind the creation of the Soulslike genre, as its brutal difficulty and exceptional world-building laid the foundation for titles that would become beloved in their own right, such as Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Elden Ring.
As someone who has experienced it, I will credit it with paving the way for many amazing Soulslike games. However, I do have a problem regarding how people tend to see it. Many believe that the first Dark Souls is a great game, citing how fun it was to explore its world and beat its incredibly tough inhabitants. I've beaten the game, and while it did have some good points, I don't remember it being the fond experience most others do.
So, I've replayed it to see if I was missing out on something, and after conquering it once more, I can confidently say that anyone who says Dark Souls is a fantastic game is only blinded by nostalgia. Again, I'll give the game credit where credit is due, but it is not something that you should ever play unless you're insanely curious.
As for why, one reason is the horrendous enemy placement. It's a problem the second game is more well-known for, but the first one is still very guilty of it. The world of Dark Souls can already be a nightmare to navigate, given that many sections involve you being killed by traps or plummeting to your death if you make even the tiniest error, but what makes it worse are enemies in places where they really shouldn't be.
One very good example is the notorious Anor Londo. To get to the area's main cathedral, you have to cross a narrow butress and run across the ledge leading to a window entrance, fighting or evading giant Sentinels and Bat Wing Demons along the way. If that wasn't bad enough, during the crossing, two Silver Knight archers will continuously attempt to hit you with great arrows, which have a good chance of knocking you off and leading to instant death.
That one segment alone has caused many to scream out of frustration or even give up on the game entirely, and there are many more like it throughout the game. Bad enemy placement can't be forgiven, and Dark Souls has one of the worst, so play it if you want to suffer what it's like to be unfairly killed just because one or more obstacles are in places they shouldn't be repeatedly.
Another reason I firmly believe the first Dark Souls was never a good game is the fact that it has some of the worst runbacks in video game history. When you go up against a boss, there's always a chance that you'll lose. When that happens, most modern games provide you the option to retry the fight immediately, sometimes even from the point where you failed.
Others, however, force you back to a checkpoint, wherein you'll have to make your way back to the boss fight. For the most part, it's annoying, but not that much trouble, as the runback is your punishment for failure, but one that's not too bad. Dark Souls, however, says otherwise. While not all of its runbacks are awful, the ones that are will make you want to throw your controller in frustration.
One of the best, or in this case worst, examples would have to be that of Seath the Scaleless. Starting from the bonfire in the archives, you have to run down a courtyard full of Crystal Golems. Get past that, and next you drop into a crystal cave that's also filled with those golems and invisible walkways. And once you finally reach the boss door, you'll find that it's guarded by giant clams, which should be funny, but they hurt and can break your weapons, so they're anything but.
If you lose to Seath, which can be a tough fight on its own, then you'll have to start all over again from the archives and do the runback, which takes at least 2 minutes if you're good at it. Again, the others are just as bad, such as the one in the infamous Anor Londo for Ornstein and Smough or the one in Lost Izalith for the Bed of Chaos. They're the worst, and they're so awful that people have quit because of them.
For what it does, Dark Souls does its job a little too well, and as someone who has beaten it three times, I would say that it is one of the worst video games ever. I know some people will say otherwise, and that's fine, considering taste is entirely subjective, but from an objective stand point, it's a beautiful game, just not a good one.
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