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I couldn't kill the shopkeeper. I tried everything, from quick knives to slow broadswords, from dull clubs to a bright, ethereal shower of lightning bolts fired from a splayed palm but, regardless of the weapon of choice, she merely laughed her witchy laugh and asked me once again if there was anything in particular I was after. It's this sort of observation that marks video game players out to non-video game players as closet psychopaths and weirdoes. But you can tell an awful lot about a video game from the characters you are forbidden to kill. Many games - especially those with a story to tell that relies on the key characters staying alive - wrest control from your hands whenever you turn your gun or spear on one such crucial lead. 'Ah', we think, as the unseen designer sheathes our weapon for us with a disapproving shake of the head: 'you're that kind of game'.
But Dark Souls was never that kind of game. On its forsaken mounds and in its bleak tunnels there were few friends to be found. Nevertheless, once found and once made, nobody would stop you from bludgeoning them to death, by will or by accident. No designer would stage an intervention and stay your hand. The only consequence to your action would be that you lost a friend. And if the friend you lost happened to be the only shopkeeper for miles, well, you better hope you weren't shopping for boots; you're in for a long walk.
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