I’ve made progress on Dark Souls, not enough progress to properly scrutinize it though.  Until then here are my general thoughts of the experience so far.

1. Attacking NPCs is a bad idea, while this is a generally universal game concept, it’s not universal for them to have the power to kill you in two hits while taking trivial levels of damage.

2. Ripostes (powerful counterattacks) are awesome and make not dying that much easier when you’re good at them.  Also knowing which enemies are worth riposting is just as useful.

3. Why the hell did I carry around a hand axe for so long?  Halberd is the way to go.

4. Poison is complete bullshit.  Forever.

5. It is not fun learning that certain enemies can also backstab and riposte you.

6. The world is littered with these giant Knights in black armor that I still have no chance against.

7. It feels very satisfying to repeatedly farm the enemy that riposted and then backstabbed you earlier.

8. Upgrading weapons looks far more worthwhile then spending your hard-earned souls on actually leveling.  Though I know I will probably need it later.