I have one more post in me about FromSoft. Let’s be real. I could write about them endlessly, but for now, I’ll stick to one post at a time. In the last post, I talked about why Patches is a better representation of the From games than is Solaire. Oooooh yes. I know that’s so controversial of me to say, but it’s how I feel deep in my heart.
Ian and I have discussed plenty of times whether Miyazaki loves his fans or hates them. I’ve said this before, but here are the arguments for both sides.
Miyazaki hates his fans: His worlds are so bleak and actively out to get the player. It’s pure misery everywhere you go, and everyone is hurting in one way or the other. Hell, one of the main points of the first game is that if you go Hollow, you’ll lose your reason to live. That’s when you lose your mind and it’s just a mercy to kill you. There are more than one NPC in the first game that you can mercy kill after they lose their minds (Griggs of Vinheim, Big Hat Logan, Oscar of Astoria, Crestfallen Warrior, Reah of Thorolund, Laurentius of the Great Swamp, to name more than a few. And, of course, the big man himself, Solaire).
That’s just off the top of my head–there might be more. I don’t do them all every time, but I have done them all at least once. Hm. That might actually be my next playthrough–doing all the NPC mercy killings.
By the way, many people like to kill all the NPCs at the end of the playthrough and before NG+ to get the items that they drop. I’ve done that, but I felt really bad about it. I don’t do it any longer.
It’s amazing to me how I can remember every corner of the game–at least in the first half. I did those runs so often, I can do them in my sleep. I will admit that I’m not quite as good at the second half of the game, but I know the general layout and most of the enemies. You kind have to when you die a million times on the way to the boss.
It’s also wild to me that I’ve played this game at least two dozen times, and I still find new things/hear new things about it. I’m sure that there are no secrets left to be found, but that doesn’t mean I’ve heard/seen it all.
One of the best things about playing a From game real time is the sense of community that happens when everyone is looking for secrets and commiserating about how hard certain bosses/areas are. This has happened since Demon’s Souls, and it’s one thing that makes the games incomparable. People are divided as to whether Miyazaki meant it to be that way or not, but my god, it has paid off in spades.