Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: mainstream

Parting is such sweet sorrow (part three)

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I have more to say about FromSoft. I just did the worst boss in FromSoft history (Bed of Chaos), and it reminded me why it’s considered the worst boss in FromSoft history–yes, all of the games combined. The thing is, I can see the cool idea behind the boss, but Miyazaki was pushed to finish the game–and this was the area that really suffered. He has apologized for it, and he redid the area in Dark Souls III to his satisfaction.

Anyway, I did it early, and I had very little health. Plus, with my terrible spatial aptitude, it was frustrating beyond belief. So was the Centipede Demon. Anything that I can’t see for several seconds is going to be a problem to me.

Back to the Bed of Chaos. It really represents the best and worst of FromSoft thinking. It’s a puzzle boss in which there are two glowing orbs on either side of a living tree (the Bed of Chaos). You have to hit both orbs and then the floor in front of the bed crumbles away. You have to jump on a thin branch and run up to kill the actual boss.

I know this sounds easy, but, trust me, it isn’t. Why? Because the tree sweeps its branches at you and makes bits of the floor disappear. The sweeps takes off nearly a full health bar for me, and it’s hard to spot the holes in the ground while sprinting for the orbs. or the hole in the ground you need to jump in.

I have never had as much difficulty with this boss as I did this time–and it was always me getting swept into holes. It happened the same way something like three times in a row–and the runback was more aggravating each time. One of the best things From did in Elden Ring was get rid of the boss runs. I can tell you that there’s little as frustrating as taking five minutes to actually get to a boss and then dying within ten seconds.

I have included a video below of a guy trying to do the boss with a bunch of weird self-imposed limits. (People like to do all kinds of weird runs.) I want to point out that he has roughly three times the health that I do, which made it easier. Not easy, mind, but easier. Even still, he was having a tough time with this boss (in terms of getting hit, not in getting killed).


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Time to say goodbye…maybe (part two)

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In yesterday’s post, I was talking about FromSoft. When Demon’s Souls came out in 2009, it was a last-ditch effort by FromSoft to get something out of a game they deemed to be a failure. They put one of their devs in charge, a cog in the wheel named Hidetaka Miyazaki, and they allowed him to do anything he wanted with it. Because, and I cannot emphasize this enough, he was expected to fail. Or rather, the game was. The company had no faith in it and just wanted it off their hands.

It didn’t sell exceedingly well, but it got a very enthusiastic cult following–and a request (demand) for it to be ported to the PC. It never got that port, but the game did well enough for Miyazaki to be allowed to make another game. It was a sequel called Dark Souls, and that was the beginning of the slow, but steady rise for the little company that could, FromSoft.

Once again, the requests (demands) for a port to the PC was loud. And there was one, but it was terrible. TERRIBLE. Fortunately, a modder came up with the dsfix which made it bearable on the PC. By the time I decided to play the game, it ran decently. I did not have the Blighttown two FPS issue, and I was able to play the game without many technical difficulties. Did I suck at it? Of course I did. Did I hate it by the end of the playthrough? I certainly did! Did I vow I would never play it again? Yup.

Ha! I have to laugh at my previous self because I was so far off track as to what would happen on my FromSoft journey. I did put it away for a bit, but then the sequel came out. And despite myself, I was intrigued.

I cannot overstate how much of a love-hate relationship I had with the original Dark Souls game. I was very proud that I finished it, but it made me feel so tired. So very tired. This is how I feel when I finish every game, by the way. It’s partly my fault because when a new From game comes out, it’s all I want to do. I become obsessed and play hours at a time, and they are not short games.  Plus, the fact that I will take at least twice as long as normal players to play a From game, well, that can veer on grueling.

I waited until the Scholar of the First Sin edition of the second game before playing it. And, yes, Miyazaki was not behind this one. Yes, it’s considered the unloved child in the FromSoft family of games, and yes, it’s both hated and loved (by different people), and there are even some people who consider it the best Souls game. I am not one of them (that would be the third game), but I did end up liking the game very much–as long as I didn’t hold it to rigid Dark Souls standards.

Side note: I have said this so many times that the sequel had no way to win. If it had been just the same as the first game, people would have complained that it wasn’t innovative. In the ways it actually deviated from the original, people hated it. Hated it. I’m not going to say that all the innovations were great, but I’m also not going to say they were terrible, either. In fact, I would say that the things I liked least about the game was when they doubled down on making things HARD BECAUSE THAT’S HOW THE FIRST GAME WAS.


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What is niche vs. what is mainstream

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It’s 82F right now. I had to run to the pharmacy to pick up a med, and it was hot. H-O-T, I say. It seems we’ve skipped spring altogether and went straight to summer. Except, we have a low of 41F for Tuesday, so winter may not be done with us yet. That is the weather in Minnesota right now, but not what I want to talk about.

Oh, and my sleep has been creeping back again. But I did get over eight hours of sleep last night, so that’s good. But I don’t want to go to bed past three in the morning. That’s my goal. Four at the latest (which I did not meet last night). I let myself fuck around too much last night–and I found out.

One thing, though. I don’t want to let one off day completely wreck my schedule. I have the habit of giving up if I mess up once. I know that’s not a good thing, so I’m trying to not spiral.

Also, I want to up my daily writing from one hour to two (for the fiction side of it). That’s very doable as I used to write 2,000 words a day before my medical crisis. One hour is nearly 1,000 words, so I should be able to do 2,000 in two to three hours if I’m diligent.

That’s not what I want to talk about today, though. That would be my love for things that sit somewhere in the shadowy (heh) realm of niche and mainstream. There are two things I want to discuss, both in pop culture. Today, I will focus on FromSoft–I have not talked about them for a while.

Below, I have included a video of someone no hitting my BAE, Messmer, with what I think are the Dryleaf fists. (The martial arts weapons in the DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree. Very cool, but not my style.) I absolutely adore this OST and this boss. Funnily enough, he was the face of the DLC so everyone assumed he would be the last boss. Not even close. FromSoft loves to fuck with fans like that. Not saying he’s not important because he is, but his fight is roughly halfway through the DLC (if you do tihngs properly, which I did not).

I still get chills watching this boss fight and listening to the OST. It’s just so epic and grand. I love how From has major setpiece bosses, and this is definitely one of them. In fact, many of the bosses in tthe DLC for Elden Ring are major spectacles.

I’ve been thinking about how FromSoft went from the little studio that could (back in the 10s) to the powerful juggernaut it is today. Now, every game that is anywhere near the action adventure genre adds Fromlike elements to their games, and games in other genres do so as well. There has been a different focus at different times, and right now, it’s on the deflect/parry. Which, yuck. I hate it so much. Not only is it ableist (which it most definitely is), it’s just so boring.


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Getting My Freak On

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I’ve mentioned my love for my stories over at Captain Awkward and Ask A Manager. One reason I’m addicted is because I don’t interact with the world at large very much, and it’s a way to gauge how weird I am against two communities that are more similar than not to my personal leanings. CA is way more left-leaning than is AAM, but both are more progressive than the country in general. In addition, both are filled with passionate, thoughtful commenters (and have strict commenting rules), and even when I don’t agree with someone, I can usually come away with something to think about.

What do I mean about the weirdness? I’ll give you an example. There was a letter at AAM from someone who played a ‘prank’ of locking her (AAM uses the generic she/her unless otherwise noted in the letter) coworker on a balcony right before an important meeting in which the coworker was presenting something. He was let out (phrasing hers. It appears she didn’t let him out), and he waited until after the meeting to go ballistic on her, pulling her away from a client and telling her he would kill her if she ever did that again. The OP (original poster/letter writer) took great pains to say that they had a jokey relationship before this, and asked what she should do now.

My immediate reaction was that it was a malicious thing to do, especially before a presentation, and that she should take her blaming tone and shove it. She was framing the letter as if she had done this silly little thing and look at how he overreacted!!!!! Now, him grabbing her and threatening her is not cool. At all. I am saying that upfront. However, what she called a prank is not cool, either. She locked him on the balcony, not knowing if he might have issues with being out in the open for a long period of times, heights, or not having an escape. Two, she did it right before an important meeting in which he had a presentation. He might have been thinking he would miss the meeting, and that would have been an unpleasant feeling as well. Three, apparently, she wasn’t the one who let him in.

I was really disturbed by how she minimized her own behavior only to focus on his. There were plenty of people on my side, but there were also plenty of people saying the prank was probably innocent, and the coworker really overreacted. I’m not defending his behavior because there is no place for grabbing/threatening, but I can at least see where that behavior is coming from. I have much less sympathy for the OP because who the hell pulls a childish ‘prank’ like that? Apparently, many people, according to the comments.

An interesting difference between the two commentariats is that there are several ‘out’ polyamorous people at CA, and it definitely puts a different spin on relationship-related woes. The commentariat at AAM is very harsh against people who have affairs–both the partner who is married and the other person. Over at CA, the common belief is that it’s the person who’s married who has the contract with their partner, and they are responsible for keeping it. The other person isn’t obligated to honor the marriage and as people are not possessions, should not be the target of anger/ire. At AAM, there is a sizable portion of the commentariat who believe that if you help someone cheat on their partner, you are a terrible person, period. They liken it to being the driver of a getaway car for a bank robber–yeah, you didn’t rob the bank, but you’re helping the person who did.


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