For the past week or so, I was pondering God of War (Santa Monica Studio) versus Monster Hunter Rise (Capcom). They are both ‘old’ games that just got PC ports, which is why I’m interested. Even though I have a PS4, I am not going to buy any game for that console if I can avoid it. In addition, I don’t care if I play a game when it first comes out so it wasn’t that I HAD to buy one of the games right at this moment. However, I’m going to be playing Elden Ring (FromSoft) from the moment it comes out (hopefully, February 25th) to the end of time.
I want a game to tide me over until that date, not that I can’t play Dark Souls III until then. I’m currently in NG+4 on the Road to Sacri–wait. No. I beat the Crystal Sage, I think. Maybe? Anyway, I’m around there. No, I think I still have to fight the CS in this cycle. And I’m still dipping in Cozy Grove every day as well as Dorfromantik. But I hunger for a new game because I’ve been playing those three games for the past several months. Cozy Grove, it’s been nine months. Dorfromantik has been at least four. As for Dark Souls III, well, I’ve been playing that game since 2016.
It’s a bit strange to me that I was considering a new game that I would only play for a month-and-a-half. I mean, I could play it past then, but let’s be real. Once Elden Ring drops, that’s all I’m going to be playing for the foreseeable future. I might still check in on Cozy Grove, but I don’t like to play two action adventure games at the same time–in part because the buttons are never the same. Any time I go back to Dark Souls, I come perilously close to hitting an NPC. One time, I had a controller that eventually broke the B button. I broke it. Not on purpose, but because I use it so much. B is run/roll/dodge/quickstep in Souls games and I’m pressing in almost constantly as I play the games.
I asked my brother what I could do and he said I could map roll to another button. I laughed because that’s unthinkable. Soulslikes are always trying to differentiate themselves and one way is by having different buttons. Which, fine. Go for it. But do not touch the B button–just don’t. I found out many years after I started playing Souls games that their button scheme is considered weird and bad, but it’s all I know so it’s default for me. Anyway, one soulslike I actually liked was Salt and Sanctuary by Ska Studios, which was a cartoon-y soulslike. It was an homage–veering dangerously close to copying. It’s clear that they love Souls games and wanted to do something that was very similar–in 2D. Anyway, they put roll on…either RT or LT. And it wasn’t rebindable. I watched a few people play it and every single one mentioned that particular tidbit. By the time I got around to buying it, it was rebindable, thankfully.