It's a pretty short game (I replayed it around a year ago) and I still like it. I realize now that it's very similar to resident evil games, but now it's samurais. More importantly, to me it has DNA in it that informs the souls games (i.e., you suck up souls from killing demons and use them to upgrade weapons/gear). It has almost an endless battle mode that gets you an awesome sword if you can beat it. It set me on a path of playing all the sequels (not including spin-offs) and loving them, I plan on replaying them in the near future.

I'm sure this isn't the best of the smash entries. It's before a lot of the nuance was introduced and the combat was honed for actual competition. But just because the sequels improved on the game doesn't mean that this game was a slouch when it came out. It was the essential couch multiplayer game. The 'campaign' was small, but I remember getting really excited unlocking Luigi and used him a bunch. There are only 12 characters to play, and the movesets were much more basic, so it was an easier game to 'master' than the more recent entries. I played so much of this game with my brothers, and the game itself has basically defined a genre all its own.

This game blasts on all cylinders, making repeated death/failure feel like progression and even working it into the narrative loop seamlessly. The narrative is a kaleidoscopic spiderweb of different stories that can stop and start independently of each other. And they keeeeep going. I'm over 100 hours in and there are still narrative bits that I haven't seen. There are weapons to upgrade, relationships to invest in, enemies to learn. It's kind of like Dead Cells/Slay the Spire in that you get randomly presented upgrades throughout a run. Combining these in different ways can lead to some crazy 'broken' approaches. Also forcing you to try out different builds, which is nice. The game has incredible replayability, facilitated through it's gameplay loop, skill-honing, progressing the narrative(s), achievement hunting, palace decorating. It's here, it's queer, the art style is amazing, the characters are fun. I really think it's peak game design and built with love.

Do you want a game with satisfying physics? Do you want a game that’s easy to play but has insane echelons of skill-honed competition? Do want a big ball? This game is so smooth. Frictionless. Reliable. I have been dropping in and out for over a decade and it always welcomes me with open arms. It reminds me of the pool table that I grew up with in my parents house. SARPBC had a small enough community that it made it feel like it was my own. Rocket League has grown from these roots, and I love Rocket League as well, but SARPBC will always be special.

We’re bathing in blud baby!! Such tight gameplay, mmm mmm mmm it’s tasty to time a perfect parry. With a gun. Or you die. I love the Victorian aesthetic, it’s just different enough from classic knights-in-a-castle themes of other Souls games. It’s difficult but fair. It’s got a lot of secrets. And it plays with some neat themes, like what people would do to live forever, motherhood, betrayal, justice. It’s a game that I started, returned to GameStop, then came back to and now is one of (if not my all-time) top games. Enjoy.

My first souls game. Also, the game that got me on the path to thinking of games as self-expression and art as opposed to brain-frying time-wasters.