I have two lists of my favorite games. One is my favorite FromSoft games and another is my favorite non-FromSoft games. In honor of Nightreign coming out in a month (their co-op action adeventrue multiplayer game, which I’ll talk about more later), I decided to rank the FromSoft games I’ve played. I’ve done it before, but who knows? Maybe I’ve changed the position of some of the games. I’ll do it in ascending order, starting with….six, I think?
I’d like to emphasize once again that this is not the ‘best of’ list, but a list of my favorite. I don’t believe in best of lists because it’s really hard to make any kind of objective list about subjective art. I mean, it’s clear to see when something in good or bad, but when it’s at the top echelon, it’s hard to differentiate between excellent and stunning, for example.
I will say that the bottom two are easy.
6. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Look. This one is always going to be divisive. I have gotten so much pushback on this, even when I state that it’s my least-favorite FromSoft game, not the worst. I actually think it’s a fantastic game that is gorgeous to look at and the story is probably the easiest to understand of all the games. I love the main character, the Lone Wolf, and I would shag him in a heartbeat. Emma is a great NPC as are Isshin and Genichiro. Kuro is a serviceable plot point/mover, and I don’t mind that he’s the focal point of the whole game.
The ending I got is the hardest to get and the most involved. It’s also the most hopeful and complete, and it’s the one that many people thought was going to be the springboard for the sequel. The sequel which never happened. No one knows why, but my unfounded theory is that FromSoft did not want to work with Activision again beacuse the latter was too micromanager-y.
This game is brutal if you can’t get the deflect, which I could not. I was able to perform it maybe a quarter of the time, and not with any consistency. When I mentioned that I beat Genichiro without deflecting, my nibling’s spouse commented, “I didn’t think it was possible to do that.” My response: “It is, but it’s not enjoyable.”
That was my feeling about the whole game. I could do it, but it wasn’t enjoyable. Even less so is that there is no summoning in the game. I get why, thematically, but it made me realize that it’s the one From game that I will never plat because there is no fucknig way I can solo all the bosses two more times. Plus the two new bosses I would have to fight and beat for the Shura ending.
It’s pretty heart-rending to me that I will never be good at that game and that I will not be able to beat that game again. That’s just the way it goes, though.
5.Bloodborne
This is also in the same place. I love the environments and the Gothic mood of the game. Aesthetically and vibes-wise, it’s SO my jam. My favorite NPC of all time is in this game (Eileen the Crow). The Hunter’s Axe is such a good weapon–it carried me all the way through the game and the DLC. The bosses are whimsical and grotesque, and the mood is impeccable.
However. I cannot do pure offensive combat, which is what this is. There is only one shield in the base game, and it’s a wooden plank. The item description says something like, “Shields are nice, but not if they engender passivity.” You can get health back if you attack after getting hit.
I love all the different aspects of the game–I just cannot do the combat effectively. I can’t parry, and my reflexes are shit. There is no magic/caster build, really, and the Arcane build doesn’t really kick in until you put 50 points into it. That’s a fucking lot. Arcane is the closest to magicks, and things got a bit easier when I got the Augur of Ebrietas. It shoots out tentacles from your arm and staggers people. You can get the riposte after if you time it right, and it’s much more generous than the gun (for the parry).
The other thing I really dislike about this game is that you don’t start with a set number of blood vials. You can carry up to 20 (well, 24, but you need, ah, runes I think? to do that), and you can stock up to 600, I think]. It was only 99 when the game came out, but they upped it when people complained (my hypothesis). I had to chuckle when Krupa from RKG said that blood vials were in short supply in the early days, but that it wouldn’t be a problem later on. I laughed because I ended up farming so much for blood vials. I’m a cautious healer, meaning if I was anywhere close to half-health, I would heal. Rory was the same, and he used the blood vials freely.
You also can only carry 20 bullets (again, you can get more with the runes or whatever, but 20 is standard) as well. Same situation, and I did not care about that as much, but it was still stressful.
I wanted to like this game more than I did–I wanted to like it so much. I didn’t feel the same way about Sekiro beacuse that was just not my jam at all. Bloodborne broke my heart. I waited several years to play it beacuse it was an exclusive on the PS4, and I’m not a console person. When I finally bought a PS4 on steep sale and Bloodborne with the DLC included for $35 (I want to say), I knew I wasn’t going to get on with it–but I so hoped I would. Also, since I had thought I would never play it, I had watched countless playthroughs of it. I regret that because I would have loved to go in spoiler-free.
Do I think that would make it better in terms of combat? No. But I would have had more wonder at the world. This is the game I really, really, really wished I liked better. But, sadly, it’s mired at 5 on my list of 6.
I’m done for today. I’ll do at least two more tomorrow.