When I started Dark Souls I was already aware that you lost all of your souls upon death, but I admit that I did not expect the game to have an retrieval system! And I really like the way it works.

Thanks to it, dying can actually mean getting more souls, if you're able to safely return to your death point, that is. If you do, you probably had to defeat the majority of enemies in the way (otherwise they just brutally murder you anyway xD), which means that you certainly got a generous amount of new souls on your return trip.

Now sum your retrieved souls with that new amount and get a nice reward for doing your best to survive until the retrieval point!

Of course, there's the risk of dying before retrieving your souls which means losing them forever, but as you get more experient at working around the enemy placement, that barely becomes a problem. Well at least in the area i'm currently at xD. (plus, there's nothing stopping you from returning to the latest bonfire to level up! It's not like you already killed all the threats behind you.).