This Year in RPGs: August

Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition (released 8/24/2012)

Although it was released on consoles last year, Dark Souls didn't find its way to PCs until August of this year. Fans had petititoned the publisher Namco-Bandai to release it on the PC, and after receiving over 40,000 signatures, the publisher relented.

But it wasn't all sunshine after the PC's release. Some fans criticized frame rate and sound issues which pointed to the port being a lazy job. Some of those issues have since been cleared up with patches.

The game itself is notoriously difficult, as is its predecessor, Demons's Souls, a PS3 exclusive. Dark Souls is a 3D hack 'n slash RPG with real-time graphics, nice visuals, an interesting story and unforgiving gameplay. You will die, and you will die a lot, hence the subtitle of the game. But that's okay because dying itself plays into the mechanics of the game. It's hard to explain, so get in there, die, and see for yourself!

From Software is the developer of Dark Souls, the same company that did 3D Dot Game Heroes, a delightful and nostalgic romp through an homage to the original Legend of Zelda. If a petition was successful to port Dark Souls to PC, maybe they'll listen to a petition about a sequel to 3D Dot Game Heroes? Anyone? Is this thing on?