U might be aware there is a genre of video games spawned by the Japanese company From Software, famous for both difficulty and for weaving a spell over players with oppressive atmosphere and heavy vibes of baroque desolation. This began with the Demon Souls and Dark Souls games, to which have been added Bloodborne, Sekiro, and Elden Ring. They called them Souls-likes for a minute, then Soulsborne genre, and now? Whatever.
I have been put in mind of them a few times lately, most recently when some video game media named Elden Ring as the best game ever on their top 100. Is it the bestiest? I’m not gamer enough to find out, but I’ve watched some people play it on youtube. I’ve watched a number of these games.
I swear I had something to say about them, but here I am trying to compose my thunks at 2:00 in the morning, tired enough to die but not quite able to sleep yet…
A uniting element of these games, at least the FromSoft originals, is that your character is basically or explicitly already dead. The “multiple lives” aspect of video game unreality is given an excuse: This guy can keep coming back because he’s just a phantom. I think that’s a big mood right there.
Anyway, what do y’all know about these things? Any experience playing them? Just interested in the aesthetic like my poser ass? Discuss.
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These games are one of those things where I have people tell me they’re good, and then they start describing it. By the time they’re done all I can think of is “What on Earth is good about that?!?”
I understand the appeal of accomplishing something difficult and feeling good about doing that. But things don’t seem to stay that positive when it comes to video games. So when I see a game advertising about how difficult it is rather than any quality that might be interesting or people talking about how it’s for “real” gamers I just know it’s calling out to that toxic side of the community. I’ve dealt with that in other games and, well, they’re just a big, nasty waste of my time.
It’s interesting how much stronger this narrative justification is in the early games vs the later games. In Dark Souls, you’re suffering from the undead curse, which causes you to revive and lose your souls over and over until you go mad (echoing the player experience of banging their head on the game until they go mad). And practically the entire plot revolves around that. In Elden Ring? You revive over and over because um… maybe there’s a youtube that can explain it. And other souls-inspired games tend to drop the narrative justification entirely, because it’s just what game do.
It’s like Super Mario 64. Having a camera that you control independently of the character was a novel concept, so they narratively justified it by having a lakitu hold the camera. But now that these camera controls are everywhere, why bother?
One thing I noticed about these games is that you are expected to play them with reference material in hand. The game manual doesn’t begin to explain the complexities of mechanics or item details and most have some events and areas that are possible to miss. These games are already hard, without that information it would be insanely frustrating.
You can’t grind your level up to the point where not having good gear and tactics doesn’t matter. The monster attacks are so powerful that you have to learn dodge and block tactics and how to evade special effects. This is clearly intentional as it enforces the games intended mechanics.
These are counter to a lot of otherwise hard RPGs, which can often be rendered fairly easy if you have a comprehensive guide and are willing to grind your characters up to high level.
@3 JM — This is why JRPGs appeal to me. I’m old, my reflexes are terrible, I want the option to grind past boss mechanics. For me, that’s the fun. And of course the dopamine hit from numbers going up…
@JM yep. a lot of the difficulty in DS3 and Elden Ring (the ones i’ve played) is that they’re not doing a very good job of explaining how the game works. I think this is a deliberate choice to amplify the atmosphere, but not explaining how the game works is still bad game design IMO
They’re interesting games, they have a loot of really cool world design, but they’re not as amazing as all the fanboys say
Also Elden Ring is full of filler. It needs a through, and harsh, editing
I’m with Dennis K. I’m old and my reflexes aren’t what they used to be. More and more I play turn based games or turn the difficulty down. Not that I was ever really one of those gamers who ramped the difficulty up automatically. Find your level and have fun.
Your mention of in-story resurrection justification for multiple lives led me to think of Slay the Spire and [spoilery spoilers of spoilerness warning}
While the game doesn’t have extra lives per se, it has an in-story justification for you playing the game multiple times! There’s an eldritch being that wants you to, uh, Slay the Spire, and resurrects you and sends you back at it over and over again until you succeed. This makes a little less sense when you play the game again after you succeed, of course, but it’s there. The fact that you’re repeating the attempts in-universe becomes increasingly obvious as you pick up the clues left around the various in-game events.
i just remembered why i wanted to post about these games! it was just to suggest someone do a fan music video with bloodborne to the song “in your eyes” by peter gabriel. bonus if you have micolash sing it.