Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: fromsoft

In the in-between In My Ideal World

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In my last post, I intended to talk about the little things around the big things in my life, but ended up talking about writing–which is a big thing. It’s not one of my identity issues, though, except that I’m struggling with writing fiction now in a way I never have. Before my medical crisis, I had stories in my brain all the time. I had one writer’s block that I could remember, and it was for a month. That was very tense for me, but it went after that month or so with no problem. Now, however, while I still have ideas and fragments in my brain, I don’t have the stories I used to have.

I have been mulling over an idea for a trilogy for the last year. I’ve been refining it as I go, but I can’t make it gel in a coherent whole. Acutally, I have a few different ideas (for different trilogies), and I’m trying to find a way to bring it all together. I don’t want to talk too much about it before I start writing because I find that the more I talk about my writing, the less I actually write/the worse I actually write. That’s not unique to me, by the way. A lot of writers find that if the talk too much about their writing as they’re writing, it takes the verve out of said writing.

Here’s the thing. The big things such as sexual orientation, race, gender, etc., are important, yes, but so are the spaces in between. Or the things that don’t quite fit into any one character. And they’re all connected–at least in my mind. Which I’ve discoverered might be because I’m neurodivergent.

Side note: It’s refreshing to know that I can still learn things about myself at my old age. Refreshing, but also daunting. Daunting because there is so much about myself that I would like to fix. Refreshing because apparently, you can teach an old dog new tricks!

This is one of the reasons my writing has stalled. I think that since my medical crisis, my brain has become even more wedded to the idea that everything is related. If I want to write about one thing, say, my medical crisis, then I have to start with my family dysfunction. I have to add in my Taiji practice, not to mention just my life in general.

When I start thinking of all the things I need/want to add to the story, my brain mentally gives up.

Side note: After Elden Ring came out, Ian urged mo te pitch to his editor a story about FromSoft games and my medical crisis. See, before my medical crisis, I was so hyped for Elden Ring. It was announced….before the pandemic? Or at least rumored, and then it didn’t come out. And didn’t come out.


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Why Elden Ring is great, but not perfect, part three

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I’ve been watching videos from Kinda Funny Games. They have recently changed their review score to 10 (from 5). Then, they did two videos in which they listed games for each number (from each guy). I’ve included the one for 10 below. They briefly say that 10 is not perfect, but a masterpiece. Then they go into detail about what they consider a masterpiece to be. This is the closest to what I think a 10 is, and I appreciate that they really get down to the nitty-gritty. And also that they mention that no game is perfect.

That’s what gets me stuck on giving a 10. Nothing is perfect. If 10 is perfect, then no game can be a 10. Saying it’s the best of the best, though, is something different. I still hesitate in giving a 10, but it’s more conceivable when I don’t think of it as perfection.

Here’s part two of why the game is not a 10 (perfect). I think part of my hesitation is that the flaws are persistent and continue from game to game. Wonky hitboxes; poison swamps; the last pixel of health; enemies hidden around the corner/up on the ceiling/behind a crate; surprise swarm of enemies; messy UI. The last was cleaned up somewhat in this game and I appreciate the ‘new’ tab they instituted in the DLC.

The UI is not great, though. I won’t say it’s terrible, but it’s barely serviceable. There are not ways to easily sort items (at least not that I know of), and it’s a pain to have to scroll through a million items to find the one you want. Now, granted, you can put items in the storage box at a site of grace or sell the extras, but I’m not going to do either of those. One reason for the latter is because I have the irrational fear that I’m going to want to do something different with each of the fifteen straight swords that I have. Or the thirty-two Radahn’s gauntlets. I actually have less of a problem selling the armor because you can’t do anything with them, but the weapons  Iget stuck on.

With my NG+ characters, I have so much shit on them. It gives me lowkey anxiety any time I scroll through all the shit I have on me. Again, that is more me than the game, though.

I’m currently doing an intelligence build run and NG+ on my strength run. I really wish there was more to do on NG+ to distinguish it from NG. I still enjoy NG+, mind, but it would be a little boost to have something new to perk me up on NG+ and beyond.


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Why Elden Ring is not a 10 for me, part two

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I want to start this post by saying that I don’t believe in 10s. Here is yesterday’s post. I don’t think anything is perfect, and while I get in theory that there is a perfect score, well, I mentally call it “a really damn good game” or something like that. I also get that you have to have a top score. If there wasn’t a 10, but only a 9, then the 9 would become the perfect score. It’s just a thing to me that I don’t like a perfect score or talking about numbers as if they are objective (when it comes to ranking).

It makes it kinda pointless, then, for me to talk about why I don’t think of Elden Ring as a 10, then, right? Maybe, but I’m going to do it, anyway. And it’s not just the number 10, but the fact that people think it’s the perfect game–or close to it. It’s not. I hasten to add that it’s my favorite game for good reason, so I’m not dissing it by saying it’s not perfect. Then again, I get freaked out by the whole talk about perfect because by definition, nothing is perfect. Nothing can hope to be perfect! So I guess I should just make my peace with it by thinking of it as ‘a really fucking good game that is a cut above the rest’.

My brain doesn’t work that way, though. A 10 is perfect and it means that nothing can be better. Or if things can be improved, it should just be little things. The fact that the port sucked on release knocked it automatically out of 10 territory for me (though, ironically, I didn’t have much trouble with it on my mid-tier PC). I ended up giving it a 9.65 or so–which is equal or just above/below what I would give Dark Souls III.  I think? That may not be what I gave it, but it’s what I would give it now after playing the DLC.

We won’t talk about the last boss of the DLC because I have way too many felings about that boss to cover it in this–well, no. I will touch on it because it’s emblematic of what I found problematic about Elden Ring–and the rest of FromSoft’s games.

I want to be very clear that I am a huge FromSoft fan. I admire their unrelenting vision and the way that they do what they want, no matter what. They have changed the landscape of gaming, and it’s overwhelmingly for the better. They are the standard against which others can measure themselves, and inevitably come up short. They are almost gods in the industry–deservedly so.


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Why Elden Ring is not a 10 for me

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I love Elden Ring (FromSoft). It’s my favorite game of all time, tied with Dark Souls III. I need to play DS III again; I haven’t done it since February. The RKG Discord did a Return to Lothric then, and it was fun getting back to it.

I will admit, though, that I’ve been playing mostly Elden Ring since the DLC came out–hell, before that, too. It’s interesting to me that when people talk about the best From game, they like to pretend that there is an objective answer to that. I mean, it’s not unusual that human beings want to rank things, and it’s certainly not unusual to think that your opinion is FACTS. It’s just amusing to me how vehement people get about it. I know that I’m in the minority with Dark Souls III, and I’m really in the minority with placing Bloodborne and Sekiro at the bottom of my list.

While I adore Elden Ring and have played it almost nonstop for two-and-a-half years, there are things that could have been done better. I am currently doing NG+ with my strength character, so I want to start with my issues with NG+ and beyond. This is not limited to this From game, but it’s exacerbated in this one because…well, I’ll just jump into something that really irritates me about NG+.

There are important items in the game that when you get there in NG+, you get nothing. Not a replaced item, but nothing. There are rises in the game that are towers you have to unlock by solving a puzzle (usually). Some are as simple as finding three ghost tortoises and striking them. Some involve jumping; some involve gestures; one, memorably, involves a *sigh* hidden path. They are a fun break from the dungeons, and I enjoyed most of them. They are outposts for the sorcerers of Raya Lucaria (I think) so you usually get something intelligence-related from them like a spell or a memory stone. The latter is how you get another spell slot.

Side note: This is one of the notable improvement in Elden Ring from the prior game. The memory slots, I mean. I can’t tell you how irritating it was to have to dump so many levels into attunement in order to get spell slots. I normally had five slots–and I think that was only with a ring that gave me an extra slot. In this game, every character starts with two memory slots. You get more from certain bosses and from rises, mostly. By the end of the game, you have ten slots. There’s a talisman that gives you an extra two. I think that’s the most you can have (twelve); at least, that’s all I’ve found.

When you reach the rises with memory stones in NG+, you get nothing. That’s right–nothing. No replacement item–not even a damn smithing stone. You open the chest and there is literally nothing in it. I can’t tell you how deflating that is.


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Hidden disabilities are insidious

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I’ve been playing Elden Ring (as I do) as a dex build. In my decade+ years of playing FromSoft games, I have never played a dex build or even a hybrid dex build. The reason is pretty prosaic: I’m shit at them. I have tried, mind you. Oh, I have tried. It ends with me either abandonning the run or adding other aspects (usually magicks) until the build could not be considered a dex build.

I will be controversial about it. I don’t like the katanas in the games. At all. One amendment. The great katanas in the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC were cool, but they’re more greatswords than katanas. I don’t know why I’m not more enamored of them, but I have tried them in almost every game. I have used Rivern of Blood in Elden Ring, but that’s more for the Skill (Corpse Piler) than the weapon itself.

I have tried to do a dex build in Elden Ring, starting as a samurai. I abandonned that because it got frustrating. This time, I started as a vagabond with two scimitars. I have said many times that one of the reasons I don’t do dex is beacuse you’re expected to play without a shield. Then again, most people seem to play caster without a shield as welll. One reason I don’t like Bloodborne is because there are no shields in it. Well, there is one, but it’s a joke shield.

I have tried. I really have. Playing without a shield, I mean. I’m so glued to my shield, it’s embarrassing. I hold it up way too much. There are times when I realize that I haven’t lowered it in literal minutes. I decided with the vagabond to see how long I could go without using a shield. I struggled from the get-go, but I managed to limp along. You probably won’t be surprised to find out that hitting fast and furious does a sick amount of damage. I power-stanced two daggers (including the blood-letting reduvia) for a bit, which was fun. But I never really got the hang of it.

Then I switched to the halberd+8 that Edgar gives you (after he invades you), infusing it with either Hoarfrost Stomp or Sacred Blade, depending on the situation. For the first time, I’m actually using holy on the undead so they don’t come back–and to deal massive damage to the undead who don’t revive. I will say, it makes a huge difference. I may keep upgrading this weapon specifically for this purpose.

Then I got the Bloodhound’s Fang, which is the classic dex weapon in the base game of this game. Many YouTubers use it for the whole game whereas other YouTubers declare it cheese/pussying out/making it too easy. You know how I feel about this by now. It’s in the fucking game. It’s legit. Period. End of.

Someone in the RKG Discord (on the way FromSoft keeps nerfing anything considered too OP): Who cares if a weapon/incantation/spell is too OP? Why not let people be OP if they want?


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A talk about difficulty, part four

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Back with part four about the difficulty in FromSoft games. In the last post, I ended by rambling on about fun and how *gasp* different people find *double gasp* different things fun.

*SPOILER WARNING*

The people who are ‘disappointed’ in Rory using the Mimic Tear say it’s not fun to watch the Mimic Tear do all the work. Which is fine as an opinion. But they tend to state it as if it’s facts. As if no one in their right mind would ever enjoy watching that!

Several months ago, there was one guy who declared proudly in the Discord that ‘we’ had won when Gav implemented the ‘no summons for the gold fog gated bosses’. As if this was a good thing. As if everyone would agree with him. Which, much to his dismay, probably, most people most emphatically did not agree with him.

Within this current discussion, someone mentioned that it didn’t seem like a lot of hardcore From fans actually enjoyed the games. They talked about beating the bosses and how hard they are, but not about the actual games themselves. Which was really good insight. It’s about how much of a badass they are and how they are better than everyone else because they did it the right way. The pure way. The only way. The one true way, you might say.

I fear that this is the fork in the road for the two camps beacuse there really is no middle ground. Well, there is, but I don’t think it would satisfy anyone, really. Although some of the dissenters said begrudgingly that they would be ok with it. It’s that Rory be able to summon anywhere but the main bosses. Someone else suggested that Mimic Tear not be allowed because it’s too powerful.

This is a microcosm of the community at large, sadly. I thought the RKG community would be devoid of it, but I was wrong. They are not nearly as plentiful or as rude as in the general FromSoft community at large, but it’s becoming more of a problem every week. It’s funny because my brother was over today to help me with my phone. I described the situation to him, and he was so puzzled.

“It’s in the game,” he said. “How is it cheating?”

How, indeed.


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A talk about difficulty, part three

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Hello! Today I want to jump into the topic of sexism. It will tie in with my main topic of difficulty in FromSoft games, though I can’t guarantee I’ll get there today. The reason I’m bringing it up is because it factors into the whole tiresome difficulty debate. Here’s a link to the last post I wrote about this topic.

Over at the RKG Patreon, there are several more people who commented about how disappointed they are with the summoning situation. They say it’s not fun to watch

*SPOILER WARNING*

Mimic Tear beat the bosses. And that part of what they liked about Retry/Prepare To Try was Rory beating his head against a boss over and over again. They mention the Laurence boss fight more often than not (which I dropped below), and it was notorious for taking Rory 15 hours to beat. It’s an epic fight in which the guys pretty much stopped speaking by the end of it just because they had nothing left to say. People still consider it one of the best episodes of all time.

The thing is, though, it was one episode out of twenty. That’s how many episodes there were in the Bloodborne playthrough. Most of them an hour or less. The first series of Retry Elden Ring was thirty episodes with several of them being around two hours. Or at least an hour and a half. We are on episode 42 and not even halfway through the second series. Of three. There are going to be three series in total, not including the DLC. It’s really disheartening to read the comments on Patreon (I don’t dare read the YouTube comments) from all the guys (and, yes, it’s almost all guys) who are so stuck on the summoning thing) when the boys put so much work into the series.

Here’s the thing that really grates on me. There are literally thousands of people doing no-summons runs. That’s kind of the thing for the FromSoft content creators. Not using summons. That’s, like, the base for a FromSoft content creator these days. No shield is also the norm. No magicks because that shit is for pussies, yo. I’m being sarcastic, of course, but that is truly how people in the community feel.

Sometimes, I wonder why I play games with such a toxic fanbase. I mean, there probably is this much bitterness in all fanbases because people are shortsighted no matter what, but there is something about the FromSoft games that bring out the worst in some people. There are a lot of great people in the community, of course, but, boy, the toxic people are so fucking unpleasant.


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A talk about difficulty, part two

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First of all, I got my shingles shot on Thrusday (it’s Saturday now), and I was fine for the first ten hours or so. I mean, my arm swelled up and was hot and sore to the touch, but that was a given. Then, the exhaustion hit, and I could barely keep my eyes open.

I was exhausted and my arm was feverish all day yesterday. I could barely keep my eyes open, and I had no energy at all. I’m better today, but still ready to sleep. I attended the first half hour of my Taiji class to do the stretches, but that’s it. I was getting hot and sweaty, which is the time to quit. My teacher has told me that if you have a light sweat, you can keep going. If you break out in a hard sweat, you stop. I was somewhere between a light sweat and a hard sweat, but did not want to overdo it.

*SPOILER WARNING*

Back to the topic at hand–difficulty. It’s coming up in the Retry episodes because Rory has been using the Mimic Tear on the regular. Which has made some people very mad. One person unsubbed because of it. At the end of the last season, Gav laid out some rules as to when they would use the spirit summons. This caused a spirited debate in the Discord with most people wanting Rory to summon whenever he wanted. There were a few who wanted it so that he could only summon out in the field (and not for bosses).

This season, it seems the rule is gone, which makes me happy. However, more than one person has commented that it’s no fun when Rory immediately pulls out the Mimic Tear–which is the best summon in the game. It’s you with all your abilities and whatever consumables you have equipped.

This is the tension with these games, especially Elden Ring. Oh, by the way, it amuses me how much I was pinging back and forth at the end of the last post. My brain was not in any shape to concentrate. I’m a bit better today, but still so tired. I’ll try my best, though.

There are two camps of FromSoft watchers (meaning fans who like to watch other people play the games). One is filled with those of us who just like watching people have a fun time playing the games. Weird, I know. The other camp is filled with people who are VERY LOUD about how someone should be playing the game. I’ve seen content creators apologize for something that is perceived as being cheese or saying they don’t want to be known as a cheeser, and I just shake my head. I’ve seen YouTubers shamed out of their personal preferences, which annoys me to no end.

Games are meant to be fun. At the end of the day, I mean. I know this is hard to believe, but different people have fun in different ways. I don’t like that people think if they are a patreon or a subscriber, they get to dictate what the content creator does. I’m not saying they have to support someone they no longer like, but that’s different than trying to demand the content creator does exactly what you want them to do.


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When does ‘hard, but fair’ turns into ‘too fucking difficult’?

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I’m taking a break from reviewing the Shadow of the Erdtree so I can talk about difficulty. Why? Because it’s fucking FromSoft, and people want to talk about it ad nauseam. The difficulty, I mean. Mostly the hardcore onebros who have way too much of their egos tied up in beating the games in the exact way they deem most pure. And correct.

I have said ad nauseam that the rotten core of the FromSoft community needs to STFU already. Maybe not in that exact way, but I am stalwart in my belief that they are a detriment to the community at large. Not because they play the games the way they do–but because they are so vocal and adamant that it’s the only way to play. Whether it’s without a shield or without armor or without leveling up or without magicks or without summons or–there are a lot of things they insist make you a pussy if you do or use–YOU HAVE TO PLAY THE GAME THIS WAY, NOOB GIT GUD ONEBRO FOR LYFE!!!!!!

It’s been happening since the first game, and it’s only gotten worse. I think that Elden Ring being more for the general public just exacerbated the toxic fans because how dare FromSoft try to pander to the masses?

FromSoft is a company. Their goal is to sell games. I mean, creative vision and all that, but it makes sense that they would want to get more eyes on their games. That’s the whole point–make the game you envision and hope that a lot of people like and buy it. I know that people want the thing they love to never change, but that’s not how life works. In fact, none of the games are exactly the same as the one before. This is as it should be. Otherwise, you could just play the same game over and over again. Which, I mean, FromSoft fans do that, anyway. I always have a From game on the go. Currently, that’s Elden Ring, but it was Dark Souls III for a long time before that. I play mostly From games with indie games sprinkled throughout. Mostly cozy games, but also roguelike/lites.

I am so tired of the difficulty debate, but I think it’s only going to get worse. Why? Because FromSoft has dared to tell it’s most rabid fans that maybe, just maybe, they had to change how they played the games if they wanted to have fun with them. You see, so many people who pride themselves on soloing the bosses, are mad that the bosses of Elden Ring were designed around the spirit summons. It meant that soloing some of the bosses was nigh on impossible, especially with all the other restrictions these players put upon themselves. Not using a shield for one. Or magicks. Or or or.

This is what it means to be a Western white dude, writ large, quite frankly. Not the no shield thing, but the ‘this should be made exactly for me, otherwise it’s bad and wrong’ thing. Everything is pretty much calibrated to that ‘normal’ white dude, so it’s jarring to them when something isn’t. Especially something as beloved by the ‘git gud’ crowd as FromSoft games. They are the same people who were quick to point out that Miyazaki should be allowed to make the games the way he wanted whenever the question of an easy mode came up, but now, he should not be allowed to make the bosses center around spirit summons.


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Shadow of the Erdtree, a review, part ten

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Ok, this is the last post in my series of posts of reviewing Shadow of the Erdtree, the DLC for Elden Ring (FromSoft). For now, anyway. I have to say that I get so frustrated with reviews in general beacuse they tend to be THIS GAME IS THE BEST THING EVER NO NOTES or THIS GAME IS THE WORST THING EVER AND HOW DID IT GET MADE???? There is very little in-between, and I get why. Nuance doesn’t sell. You need all the clickbait you can get as a content creator. There has to be an audience for it, too (hyperbole), otherwise content creators wouldn’t do it so much.

And the discourse is frustratingly shallow much of the time. I know that’s because many people don’t think in layers the way I do, but still. I have to really seek out thoughtful dissections that aren’t just superficial. I’m tired of the difficulty debate because it’s so narrow and not fruitful. Also, From is going to do what From is going to do. From an accessibility standpoint, they will never have a coventional easy mode. I’m not sure I would want one, to be honest, or what that would actually entail. I’ve had this discussion with rational people before, and it’s hard to say what that would actually mean.

I mean, they could give the bosses simplified moves. Have a Nice Death (Magic Design Studios) did that with their easy mode, along with fewer enemies and everyone having less health/doing less damage. I had to knock it down to easy fairly early on and that’s how I played the whole game. I still couldn’t do the true end boss, in part because of the horrible platforming in the last area (having to jump through spiky crevices and then falling back if you can’t do it. Which I couldn’t). Also in part because you have to do the whole area and the boss without filling up on health. Oh, and it’s not just one boss, it’s two plus a mini-boss. And an increase in difficulty (because that’s part of how you reach the secret end boss).

Am I sad that I can’t do the true last boss? Yes. Will I go back and try it again? I don’t know. I put so much into that game, only to fall short time and time again. I can’t even beat the fake last boss that often–or get there. I think I’ve beaten him…three times? Maybe?

I don’t know if that would be possible in a From game. I mean, it would be, but I highly doubt they would ever do it. In the last post, I rambled about many things, really. I was tired, upset,  and didn’t have myself gathered.


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