While the small-scale level design of Dark And Darker Gold individual areas, with shortcuts and hidden routes that send you in a loop, can be found in plenty of its imitators, Dark Souls' impeccable approach to world design is singular. 

Even FromSoft's own sequels and spiritual successors, whether that's Bloodborne or Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, don't have such a coherent world. It's not hard to imagine why, because even Dark Souls itself struggles to pull it all together. 

Late game area Lost Izalith, for instance, is full of recycled enemies and a barely functional boss fight involving some truly terrible platforming the game wasn't built for, and shows the cracks in the games ambitious design.

Yet, in a twist of fate, while the original game's magic has never been replicated, the maligned Dark Souls 2 is the one whose ideas are now starting to dominate the evolution of soulslikes. 

While its world design never reaches the heights of the original, the sequel invests much more into player choice. There are numerous systems buried within the game that allow players to modify the experience to suit their whims. 

Combat is more nuanced and customisable, introducing power stances that create new movesets when you wield two similar weapons in each hand. There are more ways to approach a fight than there are in the original, and arguably even Dark Souls 3. 

If that system sounds familiar, it's because Elden Ring does the same thing. FromSoft's latest actually shares many of Dark Souls 2's sensibilities, putting players in the driving seat of Dark And Darker Gold for sale their experience instead of throwing them down an obstacle course full of skeletons with the lights off.