Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: niche

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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Content creation and me

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I have been watching several videos of autism and gender. Well, not exactly. I have been watching the first five minutes of several videos on gender and autism. The reason I haven’t made it past that is–there are several. In one, the woman repeated called herself ‘a female’ and women in general ‘females’. As a noun, not an adjective. In 2023, nearly 2024. This is not on because many people who do it are doing it as a slur or a way to undermine women. I am not here for that. At all. I winced every time she said, “I am a female with autism or anything similar.” In addition, I am not a woman. I am woman-adjacent, but not a woman. At least not as defined by society. Which is part of the whole point. If society’s rigid definition of a woman includes must wear makeup and a bra, have children, not laugh too loud, or just no take too much space in general, then burn it all to the ground. And I’m not just talking about the bra.

I also quit watching some of the videos because of the hypercuts. I can’t deal with flashing images, which some of the videos bordered on. One person kept making air quotes with their fingers, which I could not handle. Not only was the visual bothering me, but so was the meaningless of the air-quotes. I knew why they were doing it, but they were doing it wrong. And that annoyed the fuck out of me. Another person was spinning a ball or something. I get why they were doing it, but that also bothered my brain.

Side Note: I hate ASMR. It makes me rage. Insta-angry. It wasn’t, “Listen to the ASMR. Note that it was irritating me. Then, become upset about it.” It was, “Listen to the ASMR. RAGE SHUT THAT SHIT OFF AHHHHHHHHHHH!” with me scrambling to turn off the video. I’m saying this because some of the videos had the same insta-rage in my brain.

Here is what I like in my content creation. Chill people. Natural reactions. No forced shouting and forced outrage. Dare I say it, boring? Yeah, other people might find it so. No flashing lights. No spikes in sound. And no jittery camera work.

Here’s the other realization. Just because someone has, say, autism, it doesn’t mean they can talk about it in a way that is compelling or understandable. It’s like anything else, really. And, despite the intimate nature of most YouTube channels, it’s still a performance. Or at least public speaking. Which not everyone can do.


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