In the last post, I was talking about why I think I’m nearing the end of my relationship with From games (it’s them, not me. But it’s me. But it’s also them). I don’t play the games because they are difficult, and I have the feeling that the Elden Ring DLC is going to be above my station.
Once, when I was watching Ian stream Elden Ring, his brother, Z, was in the chat. We were talking about how great the game is, and he (Z) said that he wished there was an exploration mode in Sekiro because he had friends he would love to see the game, but they would never be able/want to play it because of how hard it is.
I laughed. Not at him, but because From will never ever do something like that. I love their games, but they don’t care about traditional accessibility. I will say that with Elden Ring, they have done things to make it accessible, but not in the obvious ways. I actually thought they tried to be more accessible for Sekiro, and my completely un-thought-out opinion of why was because they were working with Activision–and the latter demanded that they do things in the more traditional way.
To that extent, there was a sort of aim-assist, big red kanji that tells you when the enemy is doing an unblockable attack, and an actual map! I include the last as a joke because it was clearly forced upon FromSoft. It’s buried in the options menu, three layers deep. Plus the map is a blurry image of the overworld and nothing else. It’s not useful in the least, and it’s obvious that From made it as minimal as possible.
This is one reason I don’t care for Bloodborne and Sekiro. There is very little accessibility in any of the games, but you have so much more flexibility in the Souls trilogy and in Elden Ring. Quite frankly, I’m astonished that I finished Sekiro. It’s because I’m stubborn, but there is no way I could do it now. The last time I tried the game, I went back to Father (Owl) in the Hirata Estate. He is my nemesis, and I went at him for hours. I got to his second phase maybe three times, but had nothing at that point. I gave up and never went back.
This game has no give. I have heard so many times, “Once you click with the game, it’s easy!” I’ve also heard, “It’s like a rhythm game (or a fighting game)!” I’m also shit at both of those, by the way. I have rhythm in real life, but I don’t have game rhythm. I can feel music in my body, but I can’t intellectually parse when I need to deflect, for example.