GAH. No foot-based role-playing game should ever be this hard!! They said that Dark Soles was supposed to be challenging, where failure is a real mechanic that’s supposed to be part of the game. Yet I still want to toss my controller right out the window and go and play something stupid, like Farmland. I don’t even like life simulators, but at least it’s nothing like this.
Here I am trying to support the Australia gaming industry as well. Though to be fair, I do like the atmosphere and the minimalist plot. You’ve got a world that’s like a twisted fantasy version of Melbourne. The main character had to visit a podiatry clinic near Cheltenham, but then there was a great and terrible event that made everything dark and weird, and now there’s magic and whatever. The main character quit going to the podiatrist when he saw that society had dissolved into chaos and everyone was just wandering around on the scorched ground without any proper arch supports. Foot-based conditions ran rampant as manufacturers of shoes instead started manufacturing swords and potions, so now everyone just wears cloth on their feet and there’s no protection.
The nameless protagonist eventually gets so irritated that he (or she…I’m playing with a male character, but you can choose either) sets out on a great journey to find the eleven crystal arch supports that will restart the shoe industry and bring comfort and support back to the world.
So that’s fine. But the game is just stupid hard, from the gameplay right down to the dialogue trees. You’re supposed to fail, and learn from your mistakes. But…nah, screw that, I want to win first time. Give me an easy mode. And what’s with making me memories about five-hundred podiatry terms? To make it past the sacred circle of fungal nails I had to answer a fifty-question quiz about achilles tendinitis, and it changes every time. I’ve been stuck for six days.
-Leonard