In yesterday’s post, I was talking about FromSoft. When Demon’s Souls came out in 2009, it was a last-ditch effort by FromSoft to get something out of a game they deemed to be a failure. They put one of their devs in charge, a cog in the wheel named Hidetaka Miyazaki, and they allowed him to do anything he wanted with it. Because, and I cannot emphasize this enough, he was expected to fail. Or rather, the game was. The company had no faith in it and just wanted it off their hands.
It didn’t sell exceedingly well, but it got a very enthusiastic cult following–and a request (demand) for it to be ported to the PC. It never got that port, but the game did well enough for Miyazaki to be allowed to make another game. It was a sequel called Dark Souls, and that was the beginning of the slow, but steady rise for the little company that could, FromSoft.
Once again, the requests (demands) for a port to the PC was loud. And there was one, but it was terrible. TERRIBLE. Fortunately, a modder came up with the dsfix which made it bearable on the PC. By the time I decided to play the game, it ran decently. I did not have the Blighttown two FPS issue, and I was able to play the game without many technical difficulties. Did I suck at it? Of course I did. Did I hate it by the end of the playthrough? I certainly did! Did I vow I would never play it again? Yup.
Ha! I have to laugh at my previous self because I was so far off track as to what would happen on my FromSoft journey. I did put it away for a bit, but then the sequel came out. And despite myself, I was intrigued.
I cannot overstate how much of a love-hate relationship I had with the original Dark Souls game. I was very proud that I finished it, but it made me feel so tired. So very tired. This is how I feel when I finish every game, by the way. It’s partly my fault because when a new From game comes out, it’s all I want to do. I become obsessed and play hours at a time, and they are not short games. Plus, the fact that I will take at least twice as long as normal players to play a From game, well, that can veer on grueling.
I waited until the Scholar of the First Sin edition of the second game before playing it. And, yes, Miyazaki was not behind this one. Yes, it’s considered the unloved child in the FromSoft family of games, and yes, it’s both hated and loved (by different people), and there are even some people who consider it the best Souls game. I am not one of them (that would be the third game), but I did end up liking the game very much–as long as I didn’t hold it to rigid Dark Souls standards.
Side note: I have said this so many times that the sequel had no way to win. If it had been just the same as the first game, people would have complained that it wasn’t innovative. In the ways it actually deviated from the original, people hated it. Hated it. I’m not going to say that all the innovations were great, but I’m also not going to say they were terrible, either. In fact, I would say that the things I liked least about the game was when they doubled down on making things HARD BECAUSE THAT’S HOW THE FIRST GAME WAS.
Ahem.
By the time I was done with the second game, I was a confirmed FromSoft fan. I both hated and loved the game, but I ended up addicted to From games. Oh, and I played the first game a second time before playing the second game. What can I say? When I get into something, I get into something. I have no chill, which means that I either hate or love something. Or, with the From games, both in an alternating fashion.
Because I was so in love with them by the time I was finished with the second game, Ian bought me the full edition of the third game (which included future DLC). It was the first time I was able to play real time with a From game, which was a different experience. In part beacuse it made it harder to find an instant answer to whatever problem I was having.
In the previous games, I tried not to Google answers unless I was really stuck (and then the answer was always “you’re playing the game wrong and probably cheating you loser” or the shorter version, “git gud”), but that stopped in the third game. There was a new mechanic, which meant I had to try it, right? Well, in doing so, it made my favorite NPC disappear from my game in a huff. Since I had planned on making her my main mission in my playthrough, I was devastated.
I learned that she was not important to what I was trying to do, but I was still mad that I could not do her questline until my second playthrough. I mean, I knew I was going to do a second playthrough, but I was still upset about it. From that moment on, I decided that if something was really important to me, I was going to look it up, even if it meant spoiling other storylines (which I’ve done).
It’s a dififuclt thing, though, because while I like going in unspoiled, I don’t like missing the NPC questlines. In the DLC for Elden Ring, I managed to mess up all but one NPC questline, which had rather big consequences for a late-game event. I was able to do it right in following playthroughs, but it still left a sad taste in my mouth for the first playthrough.
Dark Souls III ended up my favorite From game of all time*, which meant it was my favorite game of all time. I have two lists when it comes to my favorite games. From games and non-From games. And the From list is more a ‘my favorites in order’ rather than these are my favorites overall. What I mean is that I just rank all the From games I’ve played, judging them against each other, because I consider them all above most other games. Even the ones I didn’t particularly love myself (*cough* Sekiro *cough cough*).
Here’s the thing, though. I have not been feeling the love for the last two From games I tried (Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon and Elden Ring Nightreign), and I know that even if I could play The Duskbloods (the upcoming Switch 2 exclusive), it most likely would not be for me. it’s PvPvE, and it seems to be highlighting everything I hate about games. Multiplayer, PvP, and exclusive. Someone in the Discord I’m in says he hopes it’s an extraction game, which is yet another thing I hate.
Look.
I’m not saying that Form can’t do whatever they want. At this point, they have earned that right. Not like I ever had a say in what they made, but especially not now. Miyazaki has always been one to try something different (he hates sequels. It’s why he won’t do a Bloodborne sequel, at least in my estimation), which I’ve always appreciated.
He says that they’re still committed to making third-person, single-player games, but those are edging out of my ability, too. More on that tomorrow.
*until Elden Ring.