One of the things I dislike the most about the FromSoft community is how everyone is so sure they are right about everything. Given that most of them are young white men, it’s not surprising, but it’s still annoying as fuck. Look. I know everyone thinks they’re right all the time. That’s part of being human. Except for people with low self-esteem and anxiety, but even that is a twisted self-centeredness.
Side Note: I am very much self-centered in that way. I know that I’m right about everything, but at the same point, I know that other people have their own truths as well.
There’s always a robust debate about which game is the best. There has been a backlash against Elden Ring being overhyped and blah, blah, blah. As I mentioned earlier, I have no problems with people saying they didn’t like the game or didn’t gel with it. But Saying it’s bad is just objectively wrong. You can say that it had many issues upon release, especially the PC port.
And, lord knows there are things I don’t like about the game. I’ve elaborated on them before at great length. Shitty platforming–for the love of god. FromSoft. We need to have a chat. An open and honest discussion about your love for platforming. I say this with love, but you fucking suck at platforming. Adding a horse into the mix makes it even worse. There are these tombstone steps that dot the Lands Between. I hate them because you have to use Torrent to jump down on them, and you have to turn sometimes to get to the next one. It’s nigh (or should I say neigh?) impossible to turn on a dime when you’re riding a horse. Even a small one like Torrent.
There was an interview with Miyazaki in which he was asked about swamps. There is a swamp (or three) in ever game he’s helmed. He said he’s aware that people hate the swamps, but that he can’t help making them. So, yes, he’s admitting to trolling players. I would not be surprised if he had the same mentality when it comes to the platforming because it’s in every game.
I’ve ranted about this several times. Games that are not platformers should not include platforming in them. Platforming takes very precise inputs and hair-trigger reactions. To be able to code for that is a skill. In a game in which this is the main purpose, they can have several people dedicated to making it as pristine as possible. When you have a game that is not focused on platforming, you can’t put as much resources into doing it well. And if you can’t do it well, don’t do it at all.
But it’s part of the games that I just have to accept. Platforming, swamps, mob enemies, oh my! These are just parts of From games.
I just don’t understand why people think their point of view is the only one. The people in RKG are pretty cool over all, but this mentality rears its ugly head here, too. Once in a Krupa stream, we were talking about different soulslikes. Everyone was gushing over Nioh. I think it’s a solid game, but I never gelled with it. I played about a third of it before calling it quits. They were talking about The Surge, another soulslike and what trash it was.
I said that I liked The Surge more than I did Nioh, and you’d think I said that I had assassinated Santa Claus. I got so many angry gamerboys telling me why I was wrong. Which, I mean, no? I was not wrong to say I liked The Surge better than Nioh because that was the truth. They told me why Nioh was a better game, and they were flustered and confounded when I cheerfully agreed. Nioh IS the better game. I would not argue that point at all. But that wasn’t what I was saying. I said that I liked The Surge better than Nioh, which is indisputable.
Side Note II: There was a YouTuber I used to watch who was gobsmacked by the thought of saying a game was good if he didn’t like it. If it was good, he would like it, was his train of thought. Therefore, if he didn’t like it, it couldn’t be good.
I don’t get that at all. There are plenty of things I can say are fantastic without liking them. Not just games, though Nioh and Nioh 2 fall firmly in this camp, but all sorts of pop culture. For me personally, Beyonce, Daft Punk, The Godfathers, and Moby Dick are some examples. And there is stuff that is complete trash that I like, such as most of my musical taste.
I have no problem saying that what I like is trash. It disconcerts people. A lot. So when I told the group that I knew Nioh was a better game, but that I preferred The Surge, they were flummoxed. They did not know what to do with it. They were like, “Let me get this straight. You know Nioh is the better game, but you prefer The Surge?” in incredulous tones.
Yup! That’s exactly what I was saying. I didn’t like Nioh because I just could not gel with the combat system. It had stances in addition to collecting your qi and a bunch of other mechanics I didn’t grok. The Surge, on the other hand, was just a bunch of dumb fun. You sever limbs and make them your own weapons. How cool is that? There were several frustrating things about it, but I had a hell of a time with it. Similarly, The Surge 2 is a better game than the original, but I quit it before the end because I just wasn’t having fun any longer. In this case, it was because of multiple bosses. Ugh. I hate that so much.
I don’t understand people who think their point of view is the be-all, end-all. I mean, I get thinking that you are right because that’s human nature. But not to realize that others might feel differently than you? How do you reach adulthood and not get a whiff of that? I mean, I know we have a tendency to hang out with people who are like us, but come on.
When it comes to ranking the FromSoft games, I always do it in the form of the games I like, not some mythical objective ‘the best’ list. 6. Sekiro. 5. Bloodborne (though that might change if it came to PC). 4. Dark Souls II. 3. Dark Souls. Dark Souls III and Elden Ring are tied for the top for now. I’ll have to think about it some more so I can properly place them 1 and 2. I have a hunch I’ll flip it on the daily, but for now, I’ll keep them tied.
It happens in real life, too. I notice that people want to make blanket statements about things they know nothing about. When I talk about Taiji weapons on Twitter, there are always women aghast that I could do anything so ‘violent’. I don’t completely blame them as I shied away from weapons for a long time because of the same worry. In fact, my teacher had to force a sword into my hand and told me to just hold it. I was hooked from that moment on, but I had fobbed her off for months.
Still. Whenever someone on Twitter would freak out about the ‘violence’ of weapons, I pointed out that it was not something I was doing to be violent. It wasn’t as if I was bringing weapons with me wherever I went and brandishing them menacingly. It was more because the weapons forms are beautiful like art and because they are great weight-bearing exercises. Yes, they can be used as self-defense, obviously, but I’m not going to be carrying a sword or saber with me. Perhaps a cane or a fan, though.
I change my opinion partly based on experience, which I think is not unusual for humans. But also not unusual, people who refuse to change, even when they have experience that is different than what they expect. I guess that’s also just human nature.