When Demon’s Souls released in 2009, I was going through a pretty hard crisis of faith regarding videogames. I had grown old enough to finally see their limits, the industry-imposed repetition and condescention in their design, the corners that have to be cut and padded. I blindly took the advice from a few raving cynics I aligned myself with and imported Demon’s Souls from America as a last shot before I defiantly moved on from the medium like the little drama queen I was. DeS was exactly the game I needed, I had never played anything else like it, I had my mind shattered by the way the bosses in the title weren’t so much battles as they were puzzle boxes - imposing small situations to solve, being asked to find the lone small thread that will make the beast unravel. It felt like a NeverEnding Story adventure or something, I loved it, I still do.
With every new Fromsoft game, Hidetaka Miyazaki takes the opportunity to twist the dial even further from Adventure Fantasy to Battle Fantasy, the focus becoming more oriented around a type of mechanisation I personally find diagnostic-feeling, much less fulfilling - stat optimising and gear building, rote memorisation of excruciatingly difficult boss movesets. Very disenchanting open world too; everything in every corner is there to make your character more powerful, a handful of “types” of dungeon/outpost, a truly memetic core routine that made me feel like I was just playing Genshin Impact. This is obviously just a preference thing, but you must forgive me for feeling a little left behind.
There is a lot beauty in Elden Ring’s world, if I had anyone to thank for giving me the desire to trudge through this game to the end, it’ll be the stellar art and design team. Some of the most stunning locales I’ve seen in a minute; I’m particularly fond of miquellas haligtree, crumbling farum azula, and even revisiting Radahn’s arena post-battle for a taste of what I’d personally hoped exploring Elden Ring’s open world would feel like. The monster designs are nuts too, some skirting the perfect balance between recognisable and grotesque to lend some genuine unease.
Elden Ring is a fantastic game, just not a game for me. It actually gives me a little tinge of sadness to play a Fromsoft title and be made to think “this reminds me of another game” so many times. I respect the player-hostility maximalism of the bosses and the dizzying open-endedness of character builds - and in all honestly, Elden Ring very clearly has some of the richest thematic storytelling across the Miyazaki platter right now - I would just rather watch people snap the game over their knee on Youtube than ever play this again.
With every new Fromsoft game, Hidetaka Miyazaki takes the opportunity to twist the dial even further from Adventure Fantasy to Battle Fantasy, the focus becoming more oriented around a type of mechanisation I personally find diagnostic-feeling, much less fulfilling - stat optimising and gear building, rote memorisation of excruciatingly difficult boss movesets. Very disenchanting open world too; everything in every corner is there to make your character more powerful, a handful of “types” of dungeon/outpost, a truly memetic core routine that made me feel like I was just playing Genshin Impact. This is obviously just a preference thing, but you must forgive me for feeling a little left behind.
There is a lot beauty in Elden Ring’s world, if I had anyone to thank for giving me the desire to trudge through this game to the end, it’ll be the stellar art and design team. Some of the most stunning locales I’ve seen in a minute; I’m particularly fond of miquellas haligtree, crumbling farum azula, and even revisiting Radahn’s arena post-battle for a taste of what I’d personally hoped exploring Elden Ring’s open world would feel like. The monster designs are nuts too, some skirting the perfect balance between recognisable and grotesque to lend some genuine unease.
Elden Ring is a fantastic game, just not a game for me. It actually gives me a little tinge of sadness to play a Fromsoft title and be made to think “this reminds me of another game” so many times. I respect the player-hostility maximalism of the bosses and the dizzying open-endedness of character builds - and in all honestly, Elden Ring very clearly has some of the richest thematic storytelling across the Miyazaki platter right now - I would just rather watch people snap the game over their knee on Youtube than ever play this again.
6 Comments
Thanks for reminding me why Demon's Souls is so good. Demon's Souls was an enticing and unique fantasy adventure game that also happened to be a difficult ARPG, whereas most FromSoft games afterwards are just difficult ARPGs with little else going for them.
Demon's Souls wasn't even supposed to be bitingly hard on its bosses and stuff, it was a total accident and a byproduct of the dungeon crawler mystique. That's the reason why the hard part was about solving puzzles through decisive combat options and knowing the correct weapon for the correct situation - the environments and enemy placement were the real shit. You couldn't solve everything by rolling, something it's now seen as "bad". That's probably why they didn't really care about balance in favor of world flavor (Royalty class).
In fact, the most Dark Souls fight in the whole game was False King Allant, a world class of meat and potatoes Dark Souls combat: it asked you to dominate rolling and reading movements the most of every other boss, the formula that's practically been refurbished and given more anime sprinkles. Sadly, seems like every boss has to be that exact fucking same core mechanic to be considered good.
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Curious how you felt about Dark Souls 2 and Sekiro. For me (I've never played Demon's Souls), Dark Souls 2 provided a feeling of lonely and melancholy adventure more than anything, and I loved it for that. For me, it is what you call a Adventure Fantasy. Sekiro on the other hand went all-in on the Battle Fantasy and in my opinion perfected it. Both of the games are my favorite Fromsoft Soulslike for those different reasons. I gave Elden Ring a 4.5 but I agree with your review entirely. I just personally loved the first playthrough of Elden Ring up until the final 10 hours, even though it didn't deliver the adventure of DkS2 nor the catharsis of Sekiro.
Dats a neat perspective and I think I can see it! In complete honesty, I haven't played Dark Souls 2 since its launch week, and sadly, I wasn't overly keen at the time. I don't want to lend any credence to what the Me from nearly ten years ago thinks, so I'm sure a revisit & re-evaluation is in order - and it'll probably be worthwhile, Dark Souls 2 definitely is a bit of an odd ducking isn't it? I'm a little excited to see whether its idiosyncratic shifts away from formula would light a spark in me considering how utterly Done I am with the Souls bread & butter at the moment.
Sekiro I uhhhhh honestly just do not think about. I had an okay time playing it, but most of what I can excavate from my memory are the stretches of the game where I fought a boss ten times to learn their rhythm. I think I'm beyond the point in my life where I need my games to be challenging in a reactive sense, not saying it's bad just saying I kind of need to draw a line under my relationship with Soulzlikez. Folding Screen Monkeys was a really great boss though, felt like something straight out of Demon's.
Sekiro I uhhhhh honestly just do not think about. I had an okay time playing it, but most of what I can excavate from my memory are the stretches of the game where I fought a boss ten times to learn their rhythm. I think I'm beyond the point in my life where I need my games to be challenging in a reactive sense, not saying it's bad just saying I kind of need to draw a line under my relationship with Soulzlikez. Folding Screen Monkeys was a really great boss though, felt like something straight out of Demon's.
Mur96
2 years ago