Tag: Miyazaki | A Banana Peeled

Talking more about The Duskbloods (FromSoft), let’s expand out for a minute. The announcement of the new Switch 2 coincided with the president’s announcement of the new tariffs he was enacting. I’m not going to get political in this post, but I will note that the tariff announcement affects everything, so of course that includes video games. Arguably, that’s one of the least-important things affected by the new tariffs, but it still matters. Here is my post from yesterday, and I want to expand on my very mixed feelings on this new FromSoft game.

Miyazaki was interviewed about the game by Nintendo. It’s funny how they do an intro about him like he was an unknown or an indie dev, but it’s because the Nintendo crowd aren’t likely to overlap that greatly with the From fans.

I want to reiterate that Miyazaki and From can do wahtever they want. Obviously, they don’t need my blessings or anything like that. They have given me thousands of hours of entertainment, and that can’t be taken away. I can put on any of the games I have by them and get lost in the world. In fact, I’ve been doing that on a daily basis, albeit with varying games. Right now, it’s Elden Ring including the DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree. I must say, I’m on NG++ with my current character, and the DLC is much more tedious than NG+. I would say the bosses weren’t that much harder, until I reached a certain boss that has never given me trouble. This time around, even with human summons, I was struggling. This is with my strength-int-faith character, heaviest on the int. I’m building up the strength and endurance beacuse I don’t like how I’m hitting at the moment.

I’ve been cruising along with not much difficulty. With the help of NPC summons, human summons, and Mini-Me, I wasn’t having much difficulty with the DLC. Until this boss. As a caster, this boss isn’t that big a deal. However, while I’m still a caster with this character, my magicks do significantly less damage in NG++. And I have less Mind (blue stuff/mana) to cast my spells/incantations. I’m not squishy, exactly, but I can definitely feel it when I’m battling a particularly tricky enemy.

This boss has three phases. Before, I got it in five or less tries. It really hasn’t been an issue. Until this time. I summon two people and we got it down to half the last health bar. Then, we all died one by one, and I didn’t even get to the third life bar for several more tries. Normally, the human summons I get have been fantastic. For this boss, they were more miss than hit. Some did not even make it out of the first phase. And, one jerk peaced out near the end of the second (or maybe third?) phase. I have gotten than many times in Elden Ring, especially the late game–human summons leaving the fight. Sometimes, I’m sure it’s connectivity, but sometimes, it seems like they’re choosing to leave. It’s very frustrating.

After trying human summons several times, I decided to try Mini-Me. I had them doing incantations, and one thing that really frustrates me with the DLC especially, but that also happened in the base game, is that the bosses tend to ignore the spirit ashes while focusing on you. In addition, the summon won’t fight if you get too far away from them. Obviously, this limits how you can use the spirit summons.

One of the things that irks me the most when people talk about the Soulsborne games is when someone glibly says, “Oh, there’s no story there.” I’ve heard actual games journalists say this, and it irks me every time. There is a story to each game–a pretty deep story with several NPC storylines. It’s just not handed over to you in cutscenes (though there are a few of those. The ones in the beginning are surprisingly explicit); you have to dig it up mostly on your own. Or, if you don’t have the patience for it, read up on it on the wikis.

I will say that you don’t have to understand the story in order to play the games and have a satisfactory experience. The gameplay itself stands up if you’re willing to put the time and effort into learning it. I’ve learned from ‘the community’ that the controls are shit, but I didn’t know that because it was the first time I’d ever used a controller. Any control scheme would have been foreign to me, and now, the Souls schematic is the one imprinted into my brain. I reinstalled MHW because Ian is powering through the end game, and his enthusiasm has perked my interest again. It’s hard getting back into the controls, though, because I’ve been playing Souls games in the meantime.

I was switching back and forth between Souls and MHW for a bit, and that was really hard. When I go back to Souls games, though, it’s like coming home. It’s one of my biggest gripes about Souls clones that they would copy everything about the formula EXCEPT the controls. If you’re going to be a Souls clone, then copy the control scheme. B is forever roll, and I will fight anyone on this.

Anyhoooooo. Back to the brilliance of Miyazaki, and this is specifically related to him. In each game, there are several NPC questlines. You have to do them in a specific, byzantine order in order to fulfill the quests. I’ll give you an example. Solaire is one of the most famous and beloved NPCs in the whole Souls series. The whole ‘praise the sun’ and ‘do you even praise the sun, bro?’ memes are about him, and the funniest part is that he never says the phrase at all. It’s the emote you get when you join the Warrior of Sunlight Covenant (his covenant), and you perform it by crouching slightly, then raising up as you hold your arms up in a V. If you’re summoned as a SunBro (nickname for the members of this covenant), you perform the gesture automatically as you enter your host’s world, and you’re a brilliant golden color as opposed to white.

Tag Archives: Miyazaki

Miyazaki talks and I listen

Miyazaki the brilliant storyteller