I don’t game often, but when I do, I game hard. Or soft. Depending on my mood. I am a mass of contradictions, and I don’t mind admitting it. Some could call it complex. Some could also call it contrary. Some others might simply call it crazy. I would say yes to all of the above, and I have no problem with that.
Side Note: This is completely off-base for the rest of the post, but I am not a fan of the move for games in the ‘horror’ genre moving into extremely graphic body horror. It’s not scary–it’s just gross. I watched the beginning of the demo for the newest *yawn* Supermassive Games, and I just turned it off after ten minutes. Full disclosure: I hate the games. I think they’re juvenile and facile, and they only exist to show really grotesque ways for teenagers (voiced by thirty-year-olds) to die. There is nothing interesting about them because the teens don’t act like real teens. I’ve said that Supermassive wants it both ways. They want the campy slasher flicks feel to their games AND they want you to actually care about their characters. You honestly can’t have the latter if you’re doing the former. At least not for me. Anyway, the newest one is so grotesque, I just could not watch. I watched maybe two minutes of the same team (Eurogamer) playing the next Outlast and turned it off just as quickly.
Not only is all that grotesque–it bores me. There is nothing interesting about oh, there are supernatural forces ripping humans apart if the characters are one-dimensional assholes. I spend my whole time as I’m watching just wanting everyone to die as quickly as possible. I mean, yes, that may be the intent, but it’s not interesting to me.
I hate that RKG are really into the games because then I feel I have to watch them play the games. I watched half of their recent Spookies (The Quarry), but gave up. The games are horrible to me. Like, jaw-clenching terrible.
Where was I? Oh, right. The yin and the yang of my video game playing. I like FromSoft games. That would be the yang. And I like cozy games. That would be the yin. I also like some hard roguelites, which would be more on the yang side.
Side Note II: I have tried so hard to like point-and-clicks. Oh my god. That’s a genre that should be right up my alley. I have tried. And tried. But it’s a genre that is stuck in the aughts and has not made any progress since. It has a weird stubbornness in not evolving from the days of pixel hunting. We don’t need to do that any longer. It’s a pain to do, especially for those of us with eyesight problems. In addition, we have inventories now that have more than four spaces. Let me pick shit up that I can hold onto until later. No backtracking to an area you visited three areas ago. No combining ludicrous items to make something completely different. We. Don’t. Need. To. Do. This. Any. Longer. Hell. We didn’t need to do that last one ever. I wanted to love the genre, but I just couldn’t. And I still can’t. I’ve tried a dozen games in this genre, both old and new. There are ones I’d recommend, but with the walkthrough in hand. I loved Kathy Rain, for example (unless until the third act, which completely devolved plot-wise), but I used the walkthrough liberally to solve the puzzles. In this genre more than any other, the puzzles are nonsensical and based on whatever is currently in the dev’s mind. It’s frustrating as fuck because there is so much to love about this genre. But in the end, I can’t get over the foibles.
Anyway. Where was I?
Oh yes. FromSoft games. I play them. A lot. Now that the Souls games are back online for the PC, I will go back to Dark Souls III. Except I’m trying to keep up my PS4 DS III character for Krupa’s plat. He only needs 10 more Proofs before he can finally play the game again. I have my character sitting at the DLC ready to help. That’s where he’s going to be once he’s finally done with the Proofs. I am on Midir and have not gotten any summons for it. I can do the Half-Spear, which is actually my least-favorite boss of the DLC. Why? because it’s another human being. Even if it’s the AI, I have difficulty with it. I also have trouble with the other bosses, yes, but it’s a different kind of frustration.
I love the From games because they are challenging and push me to do my best. I also love them because there is so much exploring to be done. Any time you go off the beaten track, you’ll find something new and unexpected. Honestly that’s the part of the games I appreciate the most. All the surprises and the sense of awe at finding something unexpected and wondrous.
I spent 225+ hours on my first playthrough of Elden Ring. I did not find everything, though I came close. The bosses weren’t, in general, as difficult as past bosses (or more difficult, depending on your viewpoint about the spirit summons), but the exploration was still top-notch. I can’t tell you how many times my mind was blown. When I went below the surface in a lift that kept going down, I was shocked and amazed at what awaited me. When I found another lift that went down to another area of the underworld, I was stunned yet again. When I continued on Ranni’s questline and went underground yet again (and after a certain major event in the game), I was completely blown away.
The underground area is not as big as the above world, obviously, but it’s still large–and utterly captivating. It’s my favorite area thematically and I can’t get over how it’s completely skippable. I mean, I can because that’s how FromSoft rolls. They create these entire areas that are optional–and completely missable. In the first Dark Souls, that was the Painted World of Ariamis and The Great Hollow. With the former, you needed a special doll to get into it and with the second, you had to hit TWO illusory walls in a row in a very not-obvious place.
Oftentimes, there is much pain in playing FromSoft games. That is part of the triumph–when you finally beat a boss who has owned your ass for several hours. There is a sense of accomplishment that can’t be replicated. I feel a same, less intense burst of satisfaction when I find a shortcut or a secret while exploring. It’s hard to explain to people who aren’t into the games without sounding like you’re in a toxic relationship. “Yes, it’s hard and frustrating. Yes, I curse and cry and think that I’ll never be able to do it. But eventually, I DO do it, though after much pain, and I’m good until the next time it happens.” It’s really hard to explain the satisfaction I get from playing these games, especially the triumph in beating an especially hard boss. It’s a thin line, though, between ‘difficult, yet satisfying’ and ‘too fucking hard’.
On the flip hand, there are cozy games. My favorites are Night in the Woods by Infinite Fall, Spiritfarer by Thunder Lotus Games, and Cozy Grove by Spry Fox. I had my issues with the DLC of the last one, but they have mostly been resolved.
What do they all have in common? They are laid-back in pace. There is no push to keep playing. In fact, with the last one, there is only so much new content each day (and I mean literal day in the real world), which has both its positives and its negatives. They are meant to be soothing and for you to putter around rather than race from one thing to another.
That doesn’t mean they’re aimless, though. All three of them have heavy themes and deal with grief in unique ways. I cried playing all of the games for various reasons; they really got me deep in my feels. It sounds strange to say that the latter two are about death, but in a gentle way. That’s what they are, though, and I came to care about many of the characters in both games.
I mentioned mid-post that the Supermassive games want you to care about the characters, but I never did because they were all so phony. I cared about the characters in all three of the abovementioned games, even though all of them are animals. As I said, I cried playing all three, and it was completely spontaneous.
I have included the trailer for a game (Mineko’s Night Market by Meowza Games) that I have high hopes will fall in the same category.