Hidetaka Miyazaki sees death as a feature, not a bug

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/hidetaka-miyazaki-sees-death-as-a-feature-not-a-bug

by evo_9 • 4 years ago

313 225 4 years ago

vsareto• 4 years ago

I do feel apologetic toward anyone who feels there’s just too much to overcome in my games

Psh, I ain't buying it. I think they found a niche and like sticking to it, and maybe like making folks salty. They make a ton of people happy with the difficulty, but nothing about these games are apologetic.

Trasmatta6• 4 years ago

I imagine him with his characteristic smirk as he says that. He's apologetic -- but also fully enjoying it. Miyazaki is a pretty brilliant troll.

vlunkr3• 4 years ago

As other comments say, the difficulty has been oversold. I don't know what your experiences with these games are, but there are lots of forgiving aspects to them that wouldn't be there if they just wanted to make the hardest games on the market. Here's a few:

- every death refills your main healing items, so you can't run out

- you keep all the items you collect before you die

- you can recover lost experience points/currency by returning to the place where you died

- you can summon NPC or online co-op partners when you need. This trivializes most bosses.

- other players can leave messages in the game. Lots of them are tricks, but it almost guarantees that you won't miss any important items.

- they're RPGs. If you don't have enough health or whatever, you can level up to correct that.

These games definitely punish you when you make a mistake, and sometimes they are just janky, but if you invest the time it all starts to make sense.

Unfortunately, I think it's their own marketing department that really pushed the difficulty angle, maybe they're trying to back out of that now that they're not an underdog.

KTallguy• 4 years ago

Demon's Souls was much more difficult in some ways, because you got weaker when you died (zombified), and your potions are consumable items that don't automatically recover. However you could also farm lots of potions, so there were ways to game it.

Beating Demon's Souls on a tiny CRT in an even tinier Japanese temp-apartment is one of my most cherished gaming memories.

Accacin2• 4 years ago

Yeah, it's not the game that's difficult. It's having the ability to keep trying it and work it out that's difficult.

I think of it like going back in time. You walk into a boss, you die.

The game says, "Ok, what did you learn from that death"? "Oh, I shouldn't try to dodge backwards from that attack", "Ok, you're back where you started - try again".

In this regard the games feel challenging but very fair. You can fight that boss for two hours straight and you haven't lost anything (other than possibly the souls you dropped). Any death you have is your fault, and you can't blame the game because you lost an item and now you are playing with another weapon or anything like that.

wly_cdgr• 4 years ago

It's funny how far the conversation has swung in the trash direction compared to 8-10 years ago. Used to be Proteus was controversial for having the nerve to call itself a game while having no gameplay...these days it's real games that have to defend themselves for having...real gameplay

cato_the_elder• 4 years ago

I love Miyazaki, and I hope the words in the headline are something they've put in his mouth. That's just banal deathist copium.

cdev_gl• 4 years ago

“Death and rebirth, trying and overcoming—we want that cycle to be enjoyable. In life, death is a horrible thing. In play, it can be something else.”

aqsheehy• 4 years ago

I hope when I'm close to death that I think this way too.

xeromal4• 4 years ago

Heck yeah. Me too. It requires a tremendous amount of peace to pull it off.

goldenkey2• 4 years ago

I've been wanting to make a pact with someone else so whoever is going to die first will be detonated in a spectacular firework. Rather go out with a bang than a wimper.

Trasmatta6• 4 years ago

The popular discourse seems to focus on the difficulty of From's games, but that's just one part of the entire experience. FromSoft has a holistic approach to game design that very few other studios manage to match. There's just an incredible amount of depth to their world building, and the gameplay, difficulty level, online mechanics, level design, characters, music, story, and themes all work to reinforce and complement each other.

I think FromSoft's games (and specifically the ones directed by Miyazaki) will be among a small set of games released in the past 20 years that will still be played and studied in 50 or 100 years (or more).

Also, this statement from the article:

Miyazaki has created the most difficult games of the century.

This is absolutely not true. There are many games that are much, much harder than Miyazaki's games. And it was definitely never his goal to make "the hardest games". The goal, from everything I've read about him, was to make difficult games where the difficulty reinforces the themes he wants to convey, and evokes the emotions he wants you to feel. I could name a bunch of games that are harder -- including Nioh, a game that's partially inspired by Dark Souls, and has a similar combat system (but with a lot more complexity). The difficulty is an important aspect of their design, but it's just one piece of the puzzle.

There's a quote from one of the characters in Dark Souls that I think gives a hint as to why Miyazaki makes hard games:

The dragons shall never be forgotten… We knights fought valiantly, but for every one of them, we lost three score of our own. Exhilaration, pride, hatred, rage… The dragons teased out our dearest emotions… Thou will understand, one day. At thy twilight, old thoughts return, in great waves of nostalgia.

xeromal4• 4 years ago

100%. There is a lot of love and care that goes into the balance of their games. It's not unfair.

marginalia_nu4• 4 years ago

I think the probably biggest mistake from other studios that try to replicate FromSoft's success is to try to make the games as difficult and punishing as possible.

That really isn't the point. The secret sauce is arguably that FromSoft makes puzzle games disguised as action games. Everything is a mystery, from the lore to the game play. They are rewarding to play because it is rewarding to solve puzzles.

The "difficulty" stems from the game developers anticipating how you will approach situations based on earlier situations, and adding new caveats to the rules. If you don't understand that dialogue between player and game designer, it may appear like it's just really punishing. It's really not, it's always easy if you know what to do. The difficulty comes from constantly being forced to adapt your approach.

It's pretty brilliant how they consistently re-use enemy archetypes between the games. A rat is a rat and a dog is a dog, in Dark Souls and in Elden Ring. They form archetypes, elements of design language. You need that to have that sort of predictability on your easel to be able to pull off the sort of unpredictability they do.

Trasmatta6• 4 years ago

Exactly, it's almost a "cargo cult game design" problem. A lot of other studios are just picking pieces of FromSoft's designs without really understanding why those pieces were there in the first place.

AmericanChopper4• 4 years ago

The "difficulty" stems from the game developers anticipating how you will approach situations based on earlier situations, and adding new caveats to the rules.

This assessment seems very strange to me. Their games are hard because you need to be rather competent in their demanding mechanics to progress, and you need to learn every encounter perfectly to get past it. That’s why so many reviewers trashed Sekiro, because they were simply unable to play it.

Talanes4• 4 years ago

I think FromSoft's games (and specifically the ones directed by Miyazaki) will be among a small set of games released in the past 20 years that will still be played and studied in 50 or 100 years (or more).

I can definitely see this. Until this morning, Dark Souls had been the only FromSoft game I had played, mostly because I only managed Capra last year despite first playing around release. But I still boot it up at least every couple of years, slog my way as far as I can, and enjoy every minute of it. The only problem is that it scratches that itch so well I never got around to trying the later ones.

rcpt• 4 years ago

Very little of it is actually mechanically demanding.

Sekiro though

didibus6• 4 years ago

The games are easier then I thought they'd be. I waited to play them for a long time, because of how hard people made them out. But you only really need a bit of patience, slow down what you do in the combat, and give bosses a few try.

I find plenty of other games were a lot harder for me, like Hades, Celeste, Meat Boy or Returnal for example. I think actually the genius about Souls games is that unlike Roguelikes or hard room based platformers, the difficulty is actually well balanced, it is approachable. You get better as you play, you learn the boss pattern, you level up and get better gear, and when you die the penalty isn't too harsh, getting back to the boss isn't like dying in a Roguelike where you gotta go through the whole run again, it's just harsh enough to make you really not want to die when you fight the boss though and feel some added stress from having to walk back to it to try again.

And if I think of casual AAA games likes FF7:Remake, Doom, Last of Us, none of those games I was able to beat at their hardest difficulty, yet I could beat all the souls games. And that's often because these games get hard by handicap or cranking the difficulty in cheap ways sometimes. Souls games are an easy kind of hard, they're approachable, that makes it more accessible in a way, and it's why I think they got popular.

Having said that, I still think they should add some accessibility features that can make the game easier. What they do in Mario Kart or Celeste I think is great. Instead of making difficulties which means some of them won't get proper design and balance. Focus on a single difficulty, but add accessibility features that can make it easier. I think it's important to do that so people who have handicaps, are younger, are too old, don't have the time and patience, can still experience and enjoy some of the games. They could choose to play some section normally, and when they get stuck, instead of quitting the game, they can try and give themselves some help to get over it.

Cthulhu_8• 4 years ago

That's exactly it, once you're able to get past the intimidation from things like dark corridors, flailing enemies, abhorrent Things That Should Not Be, you can see they're actually fairly slow moving games, and deliberate action is the way to win - as opposed to a lot of games where button bashing and/or quick reflexes work just fine.

The games are punishing and challenging, but they're not unfair. Every time you die, you realize it's your own mistake; you tried to get another hit in, you forgot there was an enemy around that corner, you read a message saying "treasure ahead" in front of a cliff and actually believed it because it was actually true the one time. But there's so many games where you just don't have that amount of control over whether or not you will die there.

The previous game I was playing, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, has that problem because on the surface its combat system is based on reflexes and positioning. But in practice there seems to be too big an element of chance involved. Every strike is a roll of the dice whether the enemy will block or deflect it.

Whereas in, say Elden Ring, raising a shield will block attacks, but only until your stamina runs out. Rolling at the right time will avoid damage, but the challenge is in knowing the enemy's attack patterns - and some bosses have really long and unpredictable wind-ups initially. And an enemy with a shield, you can either wait for them to drop their guard, wear them out with attacks (which keeps you opened up for counter-attacks), avoid them entirely, or use completely different tactics like ranged attacks (arrows, magic) or even a cavalry charge.

aixi8• 4 years ago

Having said that, I still think they should add some accessibility features that can make the game easier. What they do in Mario Kart or Celeste I think is great. Instead of making difficulties which means some of them won't get proper design and balance. Focus on a single difficulty, but add accessibility features that can make it easier. I think it's important to do that so people who have handicaps, are younger, are too old, don't have the time and patience, can still experience and enjoy some of the games. They could choose to play some section normally, and when they get stuck, instead of quitting the game, they can try and give themselves some help to get over it.

But why? The difficulty is part of the experience and adds up to the oppressive nature of the ambiance. In a sense, the difficulty is part of the artistic vision of the designers. Not every piece of media or hobby needs to be vanilla and accessible to everybody; you would not request of Dostoyevsky for a 'simpler version' of his works, so that children and those not inclined to reading could experience them.

devin• 4 years ago

That’s what summoning players for co-op is, a way of reducing difficulty.

everdrive• 4 years ago

Having said that, I still think they should add some accessibility features that can make the game easier.

They do have that. Particularly the first Dark Souls game:

- You can bonfires if you need extra help getting through levels.

- You can summon people for help if you're struggling on a boss.

- You can just level up or grind some more.

me_me_me• 4 years ago

Genichiro Ashina fight from Sekiro took me 3 days of multiple 15-20 mins sessions.

With each attempt you learn the attack patterns and tells of which move-set boss will use.

Its immensely satisfying to slowly learn and see yourself improve.

When I eventually beat the boss I felt like a badass.

But most importantly its memorable experience, something that is hard to create.

From Soft can created hard but fair experience, and that's what makes the unique blend of emotions while you slowly master the game/boss.

umvi4• 4 years ago

Agreed, Genichiro is such a great boss fight. I remember the exhilaration of finally winning and just staring at the screen with my heart racing for a minute.

isk5172• 4 years ago

Genichiro definitely almost broke me. Walked away from the game a few times trying to beat him sure that I wouldn't come back, but every time I returned and eventually I prevailed.

SnowingXIV• 4 years ago

Ugh, Isshin the Glock Saint. Thorn in my side, as someone who loves the entire soulsborne series, beat most of them (not including DLCs) - he did break me. Sekiro is one of the tightest, most well designed games, it's super fluid, you feel incredible and animations are on point. This game is the hardest of the series because it is not something you can stat-pad against at least not as harshly as you could grind on the other games.

I spent many, many tries against him to get to the later phases but still would die. Like you multiple days, many sessions but against Isshin.

I moved on and came back to my save years later, that muscle memory was lost and did way worse. Realizing this may be a boss I simply don't conquer.

Elden Ring has sparked joy.

FreezerburnV• 4 years ago

My new take about Miyazaki's games, that I will refuse to give up going forward, is that part of the reason they're so good is because they are secretly comedy games (among everything else): https://twitter.com/docsquiddy/status/1498192962680930304

slothtrop2• 4 years ago

The difficulty is definitely an overstatement. It can be rendered trivial with in-game options, the right build, co-op. The quality that these games have is forcing players to be tactful. It's not a mindless affair, but it doesn't require fast reflexes either to excel either.

However, ways to approaching the game are unclear at the outset and they don't hold your hand either, which is a double-edged sword. There is value in discovering things through trial and error or communication with other players, though on the other hand if reading a starter guide drastically improves first-time experience then the games could benefit from better direction. I see that Elden Ring has implemented more guidance, though the open-world nature has created another confusion. You have to kind of enjoy not knowing where to go exactly. But the option to read a guide is there.

Someone made the puzzle game analogy and I think that works. There's always talk about whether an easy mode would be appropriate: would one also demand that puzzle games hold your hand through every puzzle effectively solving it for you? It would miss the point.

mrtranscendence4• 4 years ago

You have to kind of enjoy not knowing where to go exactly

Honestly, this is why I've never really enjoyed the Dark Souls games. Difficult bosses I'm fine with; I can handle gameplay. But I get lost going to the bathroom. If I leave a game for two days and come back to it I have no idea what I'm doing or where anything is. Without something prodding me in the right direction (or helping me get back to where I was before) it's hard for me to enjoy myself.

There are guides, I suppose, but I find following them tedious.

That said, I'm told Elden Ring has a map, which makes me 100% more interested right there.

MisterBastahrd• 4 years ago

I guess I'm at a loss then.

I've enjoyed the Souls series and have beaten all the games multiple times. They're also the only RPG I've ever played where I have absolutely no idea what's going on with the character past the entrance cinematic. I go into areas, kill things, fight named bosses until they die, and then go somewhere else. I'm sure it's a thematic part of the experience, but it makes the games feel like empty shells past the combat to me.

rewgs10• 4 years ago

I love From's games and yes this is a criticism that I absolutely agree with. In previous games, the story and lore was cryptic, but rich. It was delivered in a way that made you intrigued and you had to look for it, but it was all very coherent and cohesive and detailed and satisfying. And even if you didn't dive deep, the cryptic nature was intriguing enough to still make a shallow experience interesting.

I'm 30 hours into Elden Ring, have no idea what the Elden Ring is or why I or anyone else wants to be the Elden Lord, whatever that is. This is easily my biggest criticism of the game. Combat-wise it's as good as ever, but man in this area it is sorely lacking. But who knows, maybe it'll open up more as the game goes on. I've admittedly done very little of the story stuff (ran into Margit and fucked off doing random stuff so I could be strong enough to face him, which I plan on doing tonight), so perhaps that's the problem.

thenerdhead• 4 years ago

A good reminder to face your mortality each new day. I love this perspective on life and not allowing the "dark" into his family as it might be seen as a negative trait. What a unique philosophy for something so creative.

uejfiweun• 4 years ago

I doubt that some New Yorker journalist can really appreciate the gravity of what Miyazaki has done to gaming. The man switched careers in his 30s and literally changed the face of video games, releasing one highly influential game after another. Yes, you die a lot in his games, and they are hard, but that isn't the point. The point is that the influences of Miyazaki games are now visible in almost every AAA game these days. It's tough to really know how much Dark Souls changed the game design zeitgeist unless you play a lot of games (like me). With Elden Ring, he has only cemented his place as once of the great game designers of all time - I really hope some of the design decisions influence other games in the same way.

pvg• 4 years ago

some New Yorker journalist

You can just google the name. Simon Parkin has been writing about games professionally for 10+ years and like many people his age grew up playing games.

aaronbrethorst• 4 years ago

The author of the piece has been playing Dark Souls since before Twitter had a 'retweet' feature.

https://twitter.com/SimonParkin/status/45876470601629696

https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3A%40SimonParkin%20dark%20...

oscb• 4 years ago

You could try reading the article before assuming what the author will say. The author clearly is keen to Miyazaki's games and puts them into the context of the debate about game difficulty. Yet it justifies the author's intent. Give it a read.

wyager6• 4 years ago

I bought ER the other day after hearing rave review and was super disappointed. I ended up returning it after a couple hours.

* Visuals: Disappointing. Looked like a cheap free-to-play MMO. Cheap-looking textures, stock-looking characters, bad rigging (e.g. characters holding things in unnatural poses), etc.

* Controls: Unpleasant. Controls felt very sluggish. If this is supposed to make the game more challenging or something, this isn't a very fun mechanic.

* Software quality: Terrible. Performance is not good, tons of bugs, graphics issues, wouldn't recognize my controller when I had multiple input devices plugged in.

* Dialogue: What little I saw was super corny. Used as a crutch for poor level design. E.g. a ghost telling you something to the effect of "you need to jump into this hole to continue the game".

* Multiplayer felt like a cheap gimmick. I wanted to turn it off.

And so on. This honestly felt like someone's first attempt at making a Unity game, not a magnum opus from an experienced developer.

Am I missing something? This is my first souls game; is feeling cheap and clunky part of the aesthetic?

fartcannon2• 4 years ago

Making up excuses for why you died so much/taking it out on the other parts of the game is 100% part of the experience. There's even t-shirts with common new player complaints. For example: https://mobile.twitter.com/jasperrolls/status/87390752244861...

wyager6• 4 years ago

That didn't bother me at all - the difficulty level seems good. Not one of my objections

Trasmatta6• 4 years ago

For the visuals, FromSoft has always been a step behind from a graphical fidelity level. But they make up for it in art design, which is some of the best in the industry. Some of the areas in Elden Ring are legitimately jaw dropping. But the graphical fidelity is certainly nowhere near the level of something like Horizon (or even the Demon's Souls Remake, which was done by another team).

For the controls, the game is all about animation timing. You may be used to games where you can cancel animations. FromSoft's games instead require you to commit to your actions, giving everything a lot of weight. It takes getting used to. In some ways it's more like a fighting game than a lot of other action games. It's also possible that you were playing a character with heavier equipment load: try taking things off, so you have a faster roll.

There's no excuse for the performance / port issues. It released in a pretty poor state, but they are at least working on patches. I'd imagine it'll be a lot better after a few more patches.

The dialogue is a bit of an acquired taste. I find the writing to be brilliant, but at first it just feels odd. It helps to realize you're meant to feel out of place, without enough initial context to understand fully what's happening. You have to put the pieces together as you play, and then things finally begin to make sense.

The multiplayer is quirky and different, and probably not for everyone. You can always turn it off if it's not your thing.

wyager6• 4 years ago

FromSoft has always been a step behind from a graphical fidelity level. But they make up for it in art design, which is some of the best in the industry.

I'm not just talking about lack of rendering bells and whistles - I also thought the design itself was tacky, reminiscent of much lower-budget games like Valheim or those mid-2010s f2p Korean MMOs. Admittedly this is subjective.

For the controls, the game is all about animation timing

OK, knowing that this is an intentional design aspect makes it a lot more reasonable. Not necessarily my cup of tea, but at least understandable.

shhsshs• 4 years ago

Just my own opinions to respond to a couple of your points:

- Visuals: Disappointing. Looked like a cheap free-to-play MMO. Cheap-looking textures, stock-looking characters

What settings did you have the game on? This has never been my experience with a Souls game - and definitely not Elden Ring.

- bad rigging (e.g. characters holding things in unnatural poses), etc.

Yeah, agree. Pretty typical for every game though.

- Controls: Unpleasant. Controls felt very sluggish. If this is supposed to make the game more challenging or something, this isn't a very fun mechanic.

The Souls series is definitely a little slower in that sense than most other games. If you want a faster weapon, use a faster weapon. There are a ton available, but there are tradeoffs! The series puts a focus on calculated, well-timed strikes; the most successful strategy is to learn your opponents' attack patterns and take advantage of the right moment to strike. Once you hit the attack button you're locked in to the attack, so you absolutely have to know the boss isn't winding up for another attack.

- Software quality: Terrible. Performance is not good, tons of bugs, graphics issues, wouldn't recognize my controller when I had multiple input devices plugged in.

Keep in mind these games are designed for and primarily sold on consoles - PC is the minority.

- Dialogue: What little I saw was super corny. Used as a crutch for poor level design. E.g. a ghost telling you something to the effect of "you need to jump into this hole to continue the game".

I won't comment on the "corny" part other than saying you kind of just have to lean into it... Enjoy it for the fantasy it is.

"you need to jump into this hole to continue the game" - that's the first 15 minutes of the game, teaching you that you'll need to pay attention to that kind of stuff later. There is very little handholding past the intro.

- Multiplayer felt like a cheap gimmick. I wanted to turn it off.

I'm curious about this, can you elaborate?

- Am I missing something? This is my first souls game;

In my opinion yes. But the genre is just not for everyone. It's a really different type of game and some people just won't like the gameplay.

- is feeling cheap and clunky part of the aesthetic?

Yes, but as someone who enjoys the genre, I wouldn't use the word "clunky". It intentionally pushes the player away from the modern norm where a game can be blown through by mashing the attack button.

wyager6• 4 years ago

What settings did you have the game on?

1440p "high" on 3060 Ti. My visual objections weren't just the low-quality lighting, textures, framerate cap, etc. (objectively kind of bad) but also the visual design of the game (which I thought was kind of tacky/garish and reminiscent of 2010-era low-budget multiplayer games).

Pretty typical for every game though.

I saw some stuff that looked really out-of-place in an AAA game.

If you want a faster weapon, use a faster weapon.

Yeah, I think this was me confusing an intentional design decision with poor UI. Still, I subjectively definitely prefer more responsive games.

can you elaborate

The multiplayer didn't feel like an integral part of the game. They had to artificially incentivize you to use it in a ham-fisted way ("you get HP if people upvote the ugly textures you leave littered all over the place"), and the random ghosts popping up all over the place (I think part of multiplayer?) seemed useless and distracting.

It intentionally pushes the player away from the modern norm where a game can be blown through by mashing the attack button.

I think this is an uncharitable comparison for non-souls games. I can think of several games I've played recently which absolutely ace many of the things that bothered me about ER and are by no means button-mashers. For example, Ori 2 (beautiful graphics and design, ultra-smooth rendering, extremely snappy response time, etc. - excellent implementation of a singleplayer timing-heavy game) and HL Alyx (incredibly good level design, solid graphics, very smooth, intense focus on control experience)

tptacek• 4 years ago

To everything else people have said about the controls system, I'll add that the combat system these games use is the only thing that really makes the diversity of weapons meaningful; if your play style is zippy and responsive, you need to use zippy and responsive weapons, and there are dimensions to it besides "fast" and "slow"; a curved sword, a straight sword, and a poking sword will have different movesets, and differing levels of commitment and payoffs. Without that system, the only difference between these things would be damage stats and maybe an AOE radius.

Horizon is a game series that makes the opposite decisions --- it's amazing looking, super responsive, and extremely ergonomic. And for me it might as well be a 2D platformer. Combat looks spectacular, but nothing means anything, as you quickly come to realize while your character crafts 20 special arrows that involve soldering robot parts onto twigs in slow-motion as she aims. Why even maintain the conceit that she's shooting arrows? Just give her a ray gun.

I agree with you about the visuals! I'm playing on a PS5, and this is the least visually impressive Soulsborne game I've played. The comparison downthread with the Demons Souls remake is spot on; Demons Souls looks incredible on the PS5, but Elden Ring isn't even competitive with From's PS4 stuff.

I also think the game suffers visually from the open-world design; the linear paths in previous Soulsbornes have let them do a lot of interesting stuff with level design, but in this game almost everything on screen has to be addressable by the character, from arbitrary directons. This was especially apparent to me when I got to the Hieronymus Bosch-inspired midgame. In previous Soulsbornes, that would have been a wall of composed visuals; here, it's a flat plain studded with red blobs.

It's also much easier than any FromSoftware game since Demons Souls, which may be good for you, or may make it harder to see why people love games like Sekiro so much.

Bloodborne is the canonical starter Souls games for Soulsborne skeptics, and my bid for best AAA game of all time (but I don't play a lot of these games, so, grain of salt.)

calsy8• 4 years ago

Are we supposed to pretend you have any idea what you are talking about? Every point you made is stupendously wrong (bugs withstanding). It goes against the consensus of the overwhelming majority of players. Are they just suckers while you know the real truth? Please enlighten us with examples of games that make Elden Ring look like a first attempt at a Unity game.

caconym_• 4 years ago

I think the main thing you're missing is the actual game, presentation aside. You touched on controls, but I don't think you've grasped how complex and finely tuned the combat sandbox is, or how it enables different styles of play depending on equipment choice. When you're deliberate in your gameplay, it doesn't feel sluggish at all, but if you're just mashing buttons it definitely will.

There's a reason Fromsoft games are so popular, and it's not because they're on the cutting edge of AAA presentation—it's because they're so tightly designed, and in turns challenging and rewarding if you put in the work to engage with them. Most other, superficially similar games feel downright sloppy in comparison.

Unfortunately, engaging with them is a leap of faith on the part of the player, and I can definitely see why some aspects of the presentation would be off-putting.

rewgs10• 4 years ago

You are definitely missing something. You just had your first whiskey and you don't have a palette for it yet.

I had a very similar reaction when I first played Bloodborne, especially to the controls. I'm very into tight, kinetic controls, like in Donkey Kong Country and Super Meat Boy. Bloodborne felt squirrely and didn't appeal to me at all. I returned it.

The game didn't stick for me but Dark Souls 3 did, and over time I came to understand. The controls are perfect for these games, Elden Ring included. It's just an acquired taste, and I think you need to understand the gameplay mechanics and control paradigm to really see why they're perfect. It's hard to explain -- more just something to understand and feel. That said, I'll try and give you a few tips:

First off, the foundational difference between the Souls genre and every other game you've ever played is this: movements cannot be interrupted. You attack, and you are committing to that attack. The animation will play out until the end, and you are essentially frozen (and vulnerable -- though there are some caveats to that) during it. Ditto for your enemies. You might not have consciously noticed it, but basically every game you've ever played has allowed you to interrupt yourself mid-movement and do another action instead. Therefore, Souls games really require you to think before you do something. One reason people are so "hardcore" about these games is because they truly are games of skill.

R1 is your fast attack, R2 your slower but more powerful attack. Really take note of the timing. Long, isn't it?

It's slightly different in every game, but in ER Y or Triangle, and then R1 or L1, will make your right or left weapon two-handed. Your R1 and R2 attacks will be a bit more powerful. Also, press L2 (and depending on the weapon, follow that up with R1 or R2), and you'll get your "special" attack that's only available while two-handing. There's a lot of finesse in figuring out when to do what, but for now, just stick with R1 and R2 (one- and/or two-handed), and get the feel for combat. It might take a little bit, and don't be afraid to look stuff up. Trust me, the effort is rewarded here, truly.

Push the right control stick to lock on to an enemy. It took me ages to figure this out, and was the number one thing that started to make the game feel good. With time I've come to see it with more nuance -- sometimes it's good to lock, sometimes not (particularly when facing a lot of enemies), but at first I'd pretty much keep it on all the time while fighting. Notice that if you jerk your left controller, the lock will move from one enemy to another. Learning how to quickly switch locks between enemies is a huge help.

Hold B or Circle to run. Tap it to roll. These two actions are key to the Souls genre. Rolling is everything in combat. Getting a feel for when to speed up (especially when circling an enemy) is also huge. You are briefly invincible while rolling -- learning to time a roll through an enemy's attack is a key component of these games.

Jumping is quite different and more of a main mechanic in ER, whereas in former Souls games it was easily the most cludgy control (and therefore one of the least important movements). Just like rolling, you're invincible for a few frames while jumping.

Rolling and jumping into an attack makes the attack more powerful.

There's lots more: parrying, back stabs, critical hits, plus weapons scaling with your stats, magic...but for now, the bread and butter above should be all that matters. Move and hit with grace/speed/thought.

Regarding the visuals, I simply could not disagree more. A common refrain about From's games is that, while yes, they're never on the bleeding edge in terms of graphics quality, their art design is second to none, and I absolutely agree with that sentiment. It's just the best there is. They definitely have a "look," and their characters especially have this really particular, slightly janky look, but that's part of the charm. The world, though...honestly best in class, consistently. Their art direction and atmosphere is just incredible. Personally I'm finding ER lacking compared to DS3 and Bloodborne (though ER does have a few absolutely jaw-dropping moments), but it makes up for that in other ways. Also, it's a massive, open world -- it can't be expected to be blowing me away as much as a more linear, closed, and thus composed game like DS3 or Bloodborne.

Yes, the software quality is bad right now (sounds like you're on PC?) but this is unfortunately par for the course early on with PC games in general. It always takes a sec to iron out the bugs. I just got an update tonight and it helped a ton, only had one frame stutter in about 3 hours. Also be sure to update your GPU drivers.

Dialogue: these are high fantasy RPGs, they're gothic and can be over the top and are quite dramatic. If you don't like that, I highly doubt you'll like the games, full stop. That said, boy, I could not disagree more regarding "poor level design." From's level design is quite simply the best in the business.

I think you misunderstood the "ghost" -- that was probably above the "tutorial cave," if I'm reading what you're saying correctly. From's games famously don't really have tutorials, so ER having one is a bit odd. I took the whole "the door's clearly right over there, but go jump in this hole real quick anyway" type thing as a cheeky, typical From humor way of saying "tutorials are a bit crude no matter what so we're gonna literally stick it down in a hole." I suppose if you're new to From's humor it might not land, but then again I wouldn't suggest ER as a first From game anyway.

Multiplayer being a "cheap gimmick" seems a bit harsh and odd wording. What part of it is a "gimmick?" That said, I personally prefer to play the games offline, so I'm with you there. The messages are hilarious and the bloodstains can be useful, but overall I like to feel left alone on my first play through. Later on I can play online to inject some fun and variety.

calsy8• 4 years ago

You realise that the hole is deep on purpose to give the impression that it's dangerous. That the dialogue is telling you to let go of your fear and jump down, which begins a tutorial that is completely optional.

Cthulhu_8• 4 years ago

Am I missing something? This is my first souls game; is feeling cheap and clunky part of the aesthetic?

The visuals are... better than preceding games, but not as 'next gen' as they could be, definitely the same engine as they have used for a long time now.

That said, games like this need some time to grow; I've played Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 myself, I do feel like this one only starts to come into its own when you've passed through the first dungeon.

The combat being sluggish is a design choice; it forces you to move deliberately / with intent, instead of button mashing like in similar styled games (like God of War, uhhh. Devil may Cry. Maybe Horizon). Combat is more strategy than action oriented; once it clicks, it's really satisfying though. Can be, anyway.

Anyway, it might not be the one for you, that's fine. There's other games in the wider genre that might click with you better; I think Bloodborne for example has a much more compelling story and atmosphere (think of all the horror variants you know of). Hollow Knight plays very easily, doesn't have the clunkiness, but does have the challenge, the gameplay loop of die and try again, and the atmosphere of a half dead land well past its glory days. There's also Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, I haven't played it myself, but it has similar gameplay but set in the Star Wars universe.

the_doctah• 4 years ago

I started playing Elden Ring directly after finishing God of War on PC, and that is way more mashy. I don't think I realized how much so.

ER is my first FromSoft game and the length and weight of the animations is something that took me a very long time to get used to. Mashing R1 isn't going to do you any favors at all. I don't think I've ever played a game that respects your buffered inputs as much as this game. But I'm starting to dig it.

markus_zhang• 4 years ago

I heard about these gamed and watched a few hours of gameplay each. I was unconvinced and closed the YouTube tabs after it became too boring.

I guess I have to play it to feel it? But most of the games I enjoy playing are fun to watch. Duke3d and Baldurs Gate are two examples. Can someone elaborate why Dark Soul is actually fun to play, and more importantly why sold for so many copies? I read other comments and the thing they mentioned (world building and music and game design) isn't really particularly recognizable from the few hours (actually about 10 hours) I watched, and even if they are excellent surely there are other games that match?

DanHulton2• 4 years ago

Very simply, no other game series does the "mastery" thing so well. The game is both wide and deep, and even though there's superficially a leveling system, it won't save you if you can't actually play.

This raises some accessability issues, definitely. I'd love to see Fromsoft games take that challenge on next. (Or another studio, there are plenty of great Souls-like games out there.) Especially as I'm getting older, I definitely feel like I have a lot more "knocking the rust off" to do when I start up each new Soulslike game before I'm competent enough to play well.

But once I'm in the zone, once I've achieved that mastery, enemies that I had previously been decrying as "absolute bullshit, what the hell am I even supposed to DO about them?", I'm just carving through casually, while theorizing in my head what stats I'm going to raise at the next level up or where I should head next.

At least for me, there's no other game series that does that quite so well.

ShroudedNight• 4 years ago

This raises some accessability issues, definitely. I'd love to see Fromsoft games take that challenge on next.
Especially as I'm getting older, I definitely feel like I have a lot more "knocking the rust off" to do...

I would definitely appreciate novel takes on accessible mastery. I likely [1] have visual memory (immediate + delayed), subtle but measurable visual motor difficulties, and ADHD:I. Having zeitgeist games feel so thoroughly inaccessible is alienating.

One thing that feels like it helps (no concrete data, placebos and all that...) is high refresh rates. My guess is that it frees my visual memory from being used for interpolation. Ironically, From Software seem almost antagonistic to providing this.

[1] Measured definitively ~15 years ago; who knows what's happened since then.

awild• 4 years ago

Hades really scratched that itch for me. It's very easy to get going and have fun, but requires investment to completely finish it.

I'm pretty terrible at most games so it took me quite a while to actually finish a whole run, but it was a lot of fun once I did.

rewgs10• 4 years ago

Couldn't have said it better myself. I got into Dark Souls 3 last year and have only fallen in love more and more with the genre. Like many, I absolutely hated it at first, but as time went on I started to "get" it. Now I don't really have any interest in playing anything else, including previous favorites like Breath of the Wild and Skyrim.

At this point the only (Souls-like) From game I haven't played is Sekiro.

Trasmatta6• 4 years ago

I will say: I find these games to be extremely fun to watch (and a lot of others do as well, as they consistently get very high views on Twitch and YouTube), but maybe not so much if I wasn't already into playing them as well. I think the viewing experience is greatly improved by having a personal experience of the game itself, and the skill that goes into what you're watching.

This is perhaps similar to watching a fighting game: it's probably hard to enjoy watching somebody play Street Fighter if you haven't actually put hours into it yourself, and understand the depth and nuance of what you're watching.

Talanes4• 4 years ago

Honestly, I think both Souls games and Street Fighter are very watchable for non-players. Both rely on a very strong link between animation and gameplay, which I find reads more intuitive than something like watching someone play a shooter I'm unfamiliar with.

TheBozzCL• 4 years ago

Avid Dark Souls fan here.

Somebody in another comment said it... but they're not action games. They're puzzle games.

The satisfaction of playing a Souls-like is in trying a challenge over and over again, recognizing the patterns and actions that will get you through it. The game puts a challenge in front of you, and through practice and tenacity you get through it.

It's almost never unfair. Most of the time, if you fail it's because you didn't understand how to win. Seeing yourself do better at the game not just because you've leveled up your character (in fact, even low-level mooks can wreck you up if you lower your guard), but because you have gotten better is one of the most satisfying feelings.

You're not gonna have fun by just watching (though there's plenty of content creators that make Dark Souls fun to watch. YMFAH is my favorite). You also need to be aware that the formula takes practice. If you ever feel like giving it a try, I feel either Bloodborne or Elden Ring would be good games to start.

rewgs10• 4 years ago

Chiming in to say that I think DS3 is the best intro the series. I tried a couple, including Bloodborne, and swore them off claiming I hated them. But then I tried DS3 and for some reason the whole thing clicked. It benefits from the faster gameplay and lessons learned from Bloodborne, but is a bit less difficult than Bloodborne, and still gives you a shield (very useful for newer players).

Tiktaalik• 4 years ago

Can someone elaborate why Dark Soul is actually fun to play

Enemies actually feel real, actually feel like they're making their own smart choices, instead of merely being pylons for the super powered player to knock over.

sk0g• 4 years ago

I wouldn't say that applies globally however. Plenty of NPCs get locked into sequences of attacks when they have no chance of hitting you, simply because they started an attack sequence.

And that isn't a problem, because these games aren't about smart enemies. They are all about complex enemies that challenge you till you figure them out. It may sound nitpicky, but there is definitely a fine line between them.

Smart enemies are simply not fun to play against. You need to give players that "aha!" moment, when everything clicks and something that was otherwise tormenting you is now doable, all because you figured the mob out. These games are still about power trips, but relying on pattern-finding in addition to just mechanical prowess.

For actually smart enemies, PVP games are the go-to. But those get tiring, and come with their own host of issues.

deckard12• 4 years ago

You might not be into the medieval-ish theme of Dark Souls or Elden Ring. I know I wasn't for awhile. You see it and you instantly think Skyrim, the Witcher, or any number of other similar looking games.

I would check out Bloodborne. It has a Lovecraftian horror vibe going on. The environments are simply incredible. Not to mention the music and sounds. There is also Sekiro, if you prefer samurai and old Japan.

Can someone elaborate why Dark Soul is actually fun to play

The fun part comes when you successfully defeat a boss you've attempted ten times. In addition, the exploration of the world is great. You generally progress down a path for a while and eventually unlock shortcuts back to your "safe" points (bonfires, lamps, etc.). If you die, all enemies respawn. That sounds stressful, and it can be. If nothing else, this game teaches you resilience. Not many AAA games are willing to stick it all on the line like that. Most games offer easy/medium/hard options. Not FromSoft.

this_is_not_you• 4 years ago

I have a different take on what makes the Souls game interesting (but it has changed somewhat with Elden Ring).

What I enjoyed most about the Dark Souls games and Bloodborne was the sense of adventure/exploration/dread that comes with leaving a safe zone (bonfire, lamp) and venturing out into the unknown. You don't know what to expect, there will be new enemies that you don't know how to deal with yet, there might be traps but somehow you forge on, not knowing when you will reach the next save point. With every enemy you kill you gain currency you can use to level up, but one mistake and it's all gone. Then you have to be extra careful to get it back. The sense of relief you feel when the level design all of the sudden brings you around to an old safe zone is beyond anything I have felt in other games.

That's also why I didn't care so much about the boss fights initially but I came to enjoy them for the challenge. To the point that I spent 2 hours yesterday in Elden Ring trying to defeat a boss that was totally optional.

emptyfile• 4 years ago

I tried Dark Souls multiple times and I just find it dreadfully boring.

I like video games to challenge my mind, not how fast I can duck-roll-dodge-hit-dodge-roll-hit and so on for 10 minutes to kill a boss or whatever.

mathteddybear• 4 years ago

I cannot recall if they were popular games that matched it at the time. Let's not underestimate the online elements of the game (and the lack of difficulty levels, lack of saving game, that goes with it). As for the combat, that was the height of "Batman" combat on consoles. Cue internet discussions where fans of DS praised its combat design, while PC players with Mount&Blade were not impressed much.

jquery• 4 years ago

The difficulty isn’t particularly high, it’s just high for a mainstream AAA game in the year it was released, and was probably the first time many in the generation of Dark Souls encountered actual challenging gameplay. There are much, much more punishing games out there from the mainstream (Ninja Gaiden and Nioh) to Indie (IWBTG and Super Meat Boy).

I think Dark Souls is celebrated less for its difficulty and more for its beautiful world building.

deltaonefour2• 4 years ago

I think it's because the difficulty sits in the right zone where you don't need extraordinary effort to complete it, but you need just the right amount so that you feel accomplished.

The world building is icing on the cake, but not the main idea imo.

nassimsoftware• 4 years ago

I'm new to From Soft games and decided to buy Elden Ring because it's a similar game to Zelda Breath of The Wild which I really liked.

I was afraid that the game would be too difficult. After playing 17hrs, the game is indeed difficult but there are many things you can do in the game to make it easier for yourself (Which I did because I'm more interested in exploring the world than mastering the gameplay).

For example, if you're a casual gamer focus on exploring and having small wins (beating mobs, beating mini bosses, buying weapons) in the game before tackling the suggested route.

There are guides online to help you lower the difficulty through finding certain items and buying certain things in the game. This is essentially the easy mode everyone wanted but the core souls fans.

Anyway, great game.

wincy• 4 years ago

I like that the extremely challenging bosses can be bypassed, but are still there for those who want it and I think frees FromSoftware to make some bosses even more challenging.

For example, there’s a spot where 2 of 3 major bosses have to be defeated. The third one is EXTREMELY difficult compared to the other two. Like, not even close. I didn’t have to beat it, having handily dispatched the other two, but I set a personal goal. I then proceeded to spend 4 hours the other night trying to beat it. I got frustrated, I got help from other players, but I just couldn’t progress.

Finally the multiplayer servers went down, and I didn’t want to quit. I started paying attention. I analyzed why I was dying, and adapted a three phase strategy for the different parts of the boss fight. First time, died, second time, died but got it to low health. Third time was the same, then finally the fourth time it all came together in harmony, and I beat the boss. The feeling I got from that was exquisite, like I had EARNED something, even if it’s just some game and mostly a waste of time.

It felt similar to when I used to raid in World of Warcraft, but without the 40+ hour a week commitment.

It’s been years since I’ve felt a sense of accomplishment anywhere close to that because of my professional career. Most of the projects I work on are pretty boring.

idle_zealot3• 4 years ago

This is essentially the easy mode everyone wanted but the core souls fans.

This easy mode has been in every From game I’ve played. It’s the reason core fans don’t want the much-demanded difficulty settings.

emsy• 4 years ago

This is also true for BOTW. My wife, who plays very little, grinds healing and stat increases before boss fights. I think the difficulty argument is just some dumb journo-take that guarantees easy outrage clicks.

Cthulhu_8• 4 years ago

I'd argue that Sekiro doesn't have an easy mode as such; while you can often explore different areas and alternative routes, when it comes down to it you need to master the combat system.

I'd argue it's possibly the least accessible From Software game. But, also the tightest in terms of combat.

jjj123• 4 years ago

Most of the demands for an easy mode are about accessibility concerns. If you’re working with a motor impairment you may be blocked out of ever playing a souls game.

A mode with slower enemies or more forgiving dodge timing would allow those people to experience the game in some form.

mrmuagi• 4 years ago

And there are things you can do to make it harder too! Like limiting yourself to certain weapons, speed running or even doing a no hit run.

aixi8• 4 years ago

This is essentially the easy mode everyone wanted but the core souls fans.

I don't think souls fans (which I am) are against 'having an easier time with the games', I think most are just against explicit difficulty settings and stuff like god mode, because they break the motif of the games. Easy mode has always been there, since DeS, in that there are multiplayer summons who can carry you through every fight.

unicornmama• 4 years ago

I hated BoTW, would I also hate Elden Ring?

telchior2• 4 years ago

I didn't like BoTW much. Possibly not for the same reason as you: I felt it was very pretty and had a lot of individually very nice game mechanics. But the world felt empty. Just a massive canvas for a bunch of little puzzle rooms that all give the same reward.

Elden Ring, on the other hand, feels quite dense and there's a massive amount of variety in that density.

enragedcacti• 4 years ago

Probably. The fighting mechanics are very different (and more interesting) in Elden Ring, but a ton of the fun of both games is seeing something cool on the map or off in the distance and exploring it. If that loop with its lack of explicit guidance or goals didn't work for you in BoTW it probably won't work for you here.

Osmose4• 4 years ago

I think Miyazaki's games are great and I enjoy them myself, but the continued (even in this article, somewhat) framing of accessibility features as ruining the artistic vision of hardship is a little disingenuous at this point. Many disabilities make games several times more difficult than they are for people without them, and a difficulty slider or increased stats help level the playing field so that the games can be of equal relative difficulty for all players.

It's on FromSoft to own the fact that sticking to their stance on accessibility features means they are choosing to exclude players who didn't get to choose what they are and aren't capable of. I think that tarnishes the meaning of their works more than the risk of someone making the game "too easy" does.

makeitdouble2• 4 years ago

To note, there are many other mechanisms to adjust the playing experience than a difficulty slider or an explicit "easy" mode.

I think a lot of us prefer a more natural and "legit" integration of different paths into the gameplay. It requires more effort and creativity on the developer side, but it also allows players to move from laid back/easier playing to more demanding play in a seamless way.

To put it in your terms, I prefer games where the player chooses _in game_ what they are and what they aren't capable of, instead of dealing with settings and weird modes where you don't even know what they effectively mean and how well they would fit you.

Osmose4• 4 years ago

Oh yeah, you can make lots of choices on how to integrate them or what features to offer! Celeste assist mode lets you control the game engine's speed, modify how many jumps you have, etc. Hades gives you a mode where you get a permanent 2% health buff every time you die that allows the game to meet you where your capabilities lie instead of of forcing you to guess.

autoexec2• 4 years ago

To put it in your terms, I prefer games where the player chooses _in game_ what they are and what they aren't capable of

What are some examples of games that do this? I haven't played many recent titles, so the only examples of this I can think of are some games like skyrim that let you max out everything so you can play as any class you like and move between them at will or Final Fantasy/Pokemon where you can grind your way to victory if you're willing to spend the hours.

I'm pretty sure I've played a title or two that tried to automatically adjust the difficulty according to how well I'm playing, but I always resented it. It feels like punishing success and it's too easy to game by intentionally holding yourself back.

I think options/settings still have their place. There have been several times when I (as a relatively non-disabled person) would have loved an option to disable a time limit or lower the difficultly level of a boss fight and there are games I've started but never finished because I couldn't. Cheat codes have really fallen out of favor, but they had their place too.

TheFattestNinja• 4 years ago

Its tricky. If we look at games as art, and I think we can agree that From's one are complex enough to warrant it, on one hand I agree that cutting off someone from experiencing your art seems silly and injust, but then you think of other media: a dyslexic person will not be able to experience a complex book like a non dyslexic would. Is it right to simplify the book to only use simple english or would that compromise the book? Hard to tell. I can see the argument for which games can be made more inclusive more easily than other media and thus they should, but everything is built for a target audience and only works best when aimed at them. Im really on the fence here. I would like more people to experience From's work, but I feel the work itself wouldnt be as memorable if Blighttown was less hopeless (yes even if it was optin, as youd give into temptation)

Osmose4• 4 years ago

Accessibility for dyslexia isn't about changing to "simple english" though. You can offer customizable fonts on e-readers (people with dyslexia may find some fonts have more recognizable word shapes than others, e.g. Comic Sans is a popular option that is widely available), you can offer your work as an audiobook, etc.

There are many games that offer similarly difficult experiences with accessibility options that did not "ruin" the difficult experience. Celeste, for example, is a difficult platformer that offers lots of options for making the game "easier" and yet it's still known as being a very difficult, and rewarding, game, especially in the later levels.

vlunkr3• 4 years ago

I think the problem with a difficulty slider is that it puts lots of extra burden on the developer. Balancing difficulty is already tricky, and now you have to do it n times? And a newcomer to the series might choose "easy", which is not the intended experience for the average player.

My proposal is an "a la carte" difficulty instead, where you choose what mechanics you want to mess with. You could get unlimited estus or health, give yourself any item or any number of souls, freely adjust your level, etc. Basically cheat codes. That way you really choose your own difficulty. The whole game can be a cakewalk or can just skip one area that's giving you trouble. And honestly that would just be fun for everyone to mess with.

croon• 4 years ago

This is really the answer. I don't know why every (singleplayer) game doesn't do this. I know some players like to complain that it ruins the game, but I can't see how. There will always be the default/designed way to play the game, available for anyone who wants it.

I grew up with games before ubiquitous internet access, where you could edit game files easily. If I wanted to play a game regularly I could, and if I wanted to edit stats, I could. It's just a form of meta agency on gaming. It's about having fun, and I think a lot of purists have lost that, at least when it comes to denying others their way of fun.

didibus6• 4 years ago

Yes, some games have started doing that and giving them as accessibility features, and I love it. I think it's a great way to do it. Mario Kart 8 and Celeste are two examples that come to my mind which do that.

AllegedAlec2• 4 years ago

Yeah, that sucks for those people. I don't think framing it as a moral failure on Fromsoft's side is right though. It's an artistic decision, not a 'haha, go fuck yourself you armless twats' one.

Osmose4• 4 years ago

It's not one or the other. It's both an artistic decision to leave no remote possibility of altering the difficulty, and a moral one to exclude folks whose disabilities make the game vastly more difficult than it is for others. They're responsible for both.

hohoemi8• 4 years ago

What someone with a motor disability needs is a specialized controller, not a difficulty slider.

throwaway17_17• 4 years ago

That’s not really a universally applicable assumption. I have a degenerative nerve condition and auto-immune disease, they both substantially make my response times and ability to press buttons worse. I am absolutely loving Elden Ring and I have beaten each Soulsborn Fromsoftware has put out. However, I am terrified that I will reach a point where I will simply not be able to play the games. I am working on hardware interface designs (ie controllers and keyboard/mouse) to hopefully allow me to overcome this, but I’m not sure it will ever be doable/usable enough to still enjoy my favorite games. I don’t want a difficulty slider, but some options could exist to make my future life better (more iframes, narrower hit boxes on enemy attacks, etc).

JohnWhigham• 4 years ago

Where do people get this entitled attitude that every game should be accessible to everyone as much as possible? Nothing in the world is like that.

didibus6• 4 years ago

I agree, adding accessibility features seems pretty trivial for them, they can keep the game the same, but just add options to have say double the health, extra armor, auto-parry, etc.

This isn't just something that could help people with disability, but also younger players, more casual players, older players. But most importantly, even me, I've beat all the games, but I'd have fun replaying them in a God mode, after going through it feeling like a chump, it be fun to replay them feeling like a god. So in my opinion it would bring more opportunity for fun from people who already played them, and also allow more people to enjoy the game.

015a• 4 years ago

I feel that what's presented here is an intractable problem; there's no right answer, there are only aspects to the problem. I've thought about it a lot.

First, this is a legitimate example of a slippery slope. That alone is not a reason to avoid adjustable difficulty, but when done in the name of making a game more accessible it becomes difficult to pin down when a game's difficulty is the "correct" level of accessible. A wheelchair ramp is a wheelchair ramp; they work for practically anyone with a wheelchair, if built to a quantified code. But difficulty is particularly, well, difficult, to quantify. There will always be people who can't enjoy video games, because disability is a multivariate spectrum unique to every individual.

On one end of that spectrum, there are many people who despite being otherwise able-bodied and minded cannot beat Margit. A friend of mine was struggling with him quite a bit. A couple hours later he finally got it. He was ecstatic, of course, then said "I don't know how you beat him so quickly". I didn't. It took me about 80 deaths and three hours of aggregated attempts. That's the point; many people view Souls games as having some Elite Echelon of players who "get it", destroying every boss handedly, and while there certainly are players like this, the fanbase is predominated by people who experience exactly the same difficulty players who "give up early" do. What we're talking about, in these instances, is not an able-minded skill differential; we're talking about Patience and Willpower. I don't believe its fair to consider these aspects of human nature a variable in the "difficulty" argument; making From's games easier purely to cater to people who don't have the patience or willpower to push through fundamentally changes the experience they have; it would no longer be a "great" game, because what makes it great is predominated by its demand on your patience. Its weird; some people like that, some people don't. But you take it away and its unclear if what is left actually has a similar value; it turns out, maybe you just wouldn't like it either way.

Its similar to demanding that a scary movie have an option to remove the scary scenes, because I don't like to be scared; this demand would similarly be rooted in this idea that a tranche on the population is "missing out" on what many people love about scary movies, so they want to change the artform in order to enjoy it. Not all art is built for all people. Not everything should be a Disney movie.

Your argument that a difficulty slider provides options for players to find a level of difficulty which is "right" for them is cute, but it assumes that players know what this true difficulty should be. The problem is: we don't. How can I, able-bodied and minded or not, be trusted to make a decision on the "correct difficulty for me" of a game whose entire point is to be near-impossibly difficult? I die to Margit eighty times; should I turn the difficulty down? How about a hundred times? Two hundred? What is the right number of deaths that a player should experience facing Margit?

Some games firmly take the stance that the number is near-zero; that's absolutely fine, I love these games! From's games are not that.

Second: I've played a ton of games. Too many; many with difficulty sliders, many without. I've literally never seen a game implement a difficulty slider which resulted in a satisfying change in difficulty at the level of FromSoftware's game's difficulties. When games implement difficulty sliders, they almost always take the form of: start with a base level of health, damage, etc, call that Medium. Increase by 25% for Hard. Increase by 50% for Insanity. Decrease by 25% for Easy. Etc. It doesn't matter if its TLOU's Grounded, or Mass Effect's Insanity, or God of War's GMGOW or Fallen Order's Jedi Grand Master. Sliders ALWAYS, in 100% of cases that I've seen, mean: there's numbers within the matrix of the game's design, lets tweak those numbers up and down.

Someone gets shafted, in literally 100% of situations. Either a game was designed for medium, and the hardest difficulty is unsatisfying because enemies become damage tanks, or ammo becomes too scarce, or something. Or: a game was designed for the hardest difficulty, and the easier ones feel like an afterthought where enemies are tissue paper and you're a god amongst mortals. It turns out: game development is REALLY, REALLY hard. Its a miracle games are even released, let alone that a small number are great. Your assertion that a difficulty slider would help make a game relatively equally difficult among differently-abled people either would never work, as it hasn't in the past, or is tantamount to demanding game developers design and build multiple finely-tuned copies of their game for each difficulty. Not just health, ammo, damage values; but animation timings, ability sets, parry windows, item drop locations, its a herculean task!

Not to mention: your assertion assumes that the quadratically multivariate spectrum of human disability can be satisfyingly encoded into a linear slider. TLOU2 is the only game I've seen which has multivariate difficulty sliders; from enemy health to drop rate, you can tweak five or six variables. But: that circles back to my previous point; it becomes a slippery slope where players are overloaded with fine-grained control over difficulty in order to produce the perfectly tuned game for them, without any guidance on what that "perfect tuning" actually is or should be.

dota_fanatic• 4 years ago

“I do feel apologetic toward anyone who feels there’s just too much to overcome in my games,” Miyazaki told me. He held his head in his hands, then smiled. “I just want as many players as possible to experience the joy that comes from overcoming hardship.”

It's been great to see how their games have inspired so many people. If you go search any of the subreddits for their games, it's not rare to see testimonials of how the game "saved their life". It helped them learn to believe in themselves. To believe that they can change and overcome the challenges that are facing them, things they previously despaired were insurmountable. To use terminology from the Dark Souls series, they were hollow and through mastery of the game they were able to reverse it.

Although they didn't have quite such an effect for me, these experiences nevertheless have built confidence that I otherwise wouldn't have. Just because something is difficult, just because I don't understand it now, doesn't mean it will always be that way. If I keep at it, if I think and experiment enough, the thing at hand becomes legible and one day soon, doing that thing that used to be so hard will become second nature. It's an empowering experience.

MattyRad• 4 years ago

I've always thought that the only way to lose at Dark Souls is to give up, and go Hollow.

It's a small missed opportunity that From Software didn't indicate where in the Game players went Hollow; that is, if a player died, show their bloodstain and how they died. If a player died and hasn't resumed playing for a very long time (they gave up), then put a new hollowed enemy instead of a bloodstain.

sergiotapia2• 4 years ago

No other games give me this feeling of melancholy, longing and revisiting once glorious places that are now dead and faded. Elden Ring is his magnum opus and I don't know how he tops this. What a tremendous achievement.

If you haven't played Elden Ring, give it a try - you may be surprised how absorbed you are.

deltaonefour2• 4 years ago

Shadow of the colossus did that for me.

The thing with souls like games is that the locations are loaded with enemies and challenges. It adds to the game play but makes the places feel too video gamey and breaks the immersion.

Cthulhu_8• 4 years ago

Yeah, it feels like SotC was a big influence on this game; the article mentions that Miyazaki was inspired to go into video games from Ico by the same studio that did SotC, and Ico itself also has this feeling of an old, empty, fallen empire about itself.

Actually, most of From Software's Soulslike games have that atmosphere. DS3 is a cyclic world in one of its last cycles, society no longer exists as such and all that is left is ghostly and undead remnants. Bloodborne takes place in a city and area where the great heroes from back in the day have long gone, it's barely holding together. Sekiro is an old society that is still active, but war-torn. And old. Probably the least dilapidated of the three.

vlunkr3• 4 years ago

Isn't it a little early to declare this his magnum opus? It's been out less than a week.

sergiotapia2• 4 years ago

I've played all Souls games and am qualified to give this assessment.

umvi4• 4 years ago

I just beat Sekiro last month and picked up Elden Ring this month. I think Miyazaki is a genius - FromSoft smashed it out of the park with this one, and I honestly had no idea how he could outdo himself after the masterpieces that were Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro.

Cthulhu_8• 4 years ago

Definitely try Bloodborne as well, it's up there as well.

umvi4• 4 years ago

Been meaning to. I don't like the idea of buying a PS4 for just 1 game. I keep hoping it will come to PC.

Aissen• 4 years ago

What people seem to miss IMHO, is that this is "difficulty" thing is a time trade-off deeply ingrained in this type of game design. The frustration as you learn the rules of the game and try to improve this particular set of dexterity brings exhilarating satisfaction once you overcome the previously deemed impossible obstacles. But this also means that you need to have the time to plunge into this type of long-form challenge. And time is our most precious resource, so obviously this niche is not for everyone; especially in an era of infinitely available entertainment.

jsmeaton• 4 years ago

Yep great observation. I started my first FromSoft game last week - Demons Souls remake - and I had no idea what was going on. Making very little progress and restarting levels over and over. So I decided to follow a guide and the game has become so much fun. It’s quite a bit easier because I’m not dying thousands of times to find which way to go. But I wouldn’t have kept at it otherwise.

knolan• 4 years ago

I think this is the point for me. I really love the concept of these games. The world building and lore is incredible but I don’t have the time to invest to make any progress. Instead any playtime is confusing and frustrating and then I have to stop before I’ve time to make and progress to counter those feelings.

A game like Jedi Fallen Order is a Souls like game and I make some headway with it before eventually throwing in the towel and switching to easy mode once I couldn’t defeat a particularly difficult boss.

Another issue is performance. These games have always been choppy and that doesn’t help.

rewgs10• 4 years ago

Agreed. It's funny, since getting into these games I've more or less stopped consuming other media. Out with movies, TV shows, even books (at least for now while I'm riding high on the games). I just play for an hour or two before bed, and it's wonderful.

nurbl• 4 years ago

I'd just like to add that one of the most important features of a souls game is the fairness of it. It's almost always your fault when you lose; for reacting too slow, for rushing in, for not keeping your eyes open, for forgetting to equip the right stuff. You are punished for not learning.

I think the games feel hard compared to "normal" games because they don't hold your hand. If you see that and adjust, they are not that hard. They do test your patience, and force you to deal with frustration. Most games try their hardest to avoid this.

As an old nethack player I really appreciate this. I think in some ways, Souls is what nethack might have been if it was developed today.

nikanj2• 4 years ago

And there's zero enemy scaling, and no level cap. If you want, you can go grind yourself to an absolute unit, then come mop the floor with the boss

Cthulhu_8• 4 years ago

Kind of. It helps, but especially in Bloodborne it's no guarantee.

And Sekiro goes against that as well. While you do get some improvements in things like health, healing ability and weapon strength, the game still leans mainly on your own skills. It doesn't have an RPG style leveling system, any improvements are thanks to your own exploration and victory. It's really gratifying to get the deflects timed just right.

I've finished most of it, I'm close to the ending now but I somehow can't bring myself to finish it?

alpaca1282• 4 years ago

Alternatively you can just never level up and still beat the whole game with enough patience. That's what I like about the Souls series compared to some other RPGs, it lets you do whatever you want and is balanced to make late-game enemies literally just more challenging, not some unfair instakill situations (hello Skyrim & Witcher 3).

Accacin2• 4 years ago

I love the 'overcoming challenging boss fights' thing these games have.

You go through so many emotions on a tough boss. Start pretty confident, go through stages of "this boss is so stupid" to "the controls are so bad" to "I can't do this".

Then you get to a stage where the first part goes cleaner, and you start to believe again. Get it down to 20%, choke, die. Then going through sweaty palms, trying to stop yourself being too aggresive. Running out of flask charges, etc.

Then there's the time where you know it's one last hit and you wait your moment. Attack and you see the boss dying animation. Often I can't believe I just done it and then the feeling you get is amazing. My hands are shaking for a good 20mins and you are just giggling to yourself.

Cthulhu_8• 4 years ago

You go through so many emotions on a tough boss. Start pretty confident, go through stages of "this boss is so stupid" to "the controls are so bad" to "I can't do this".

And with a lot of bosses, it starts with a "what the actual fuck is this thing?". I'm thinking e.g. Cleric Beast in Bloodborne, which is an Experience to run into initially because of its size, distracting appearance (lots of flapping fur), sound design, the music swelling up to an epic discordant mess, its aggression and the limited space. But also the second story boss in Elden Ring.

rewgs10• 4 years ago

Absolutely spot on. I had this with Leonine Misbegotten last night and had to go on a walk to calm myself down again, it was incredible.

moss2• 4 years ago

Elden Ring deserves an easy mode, so people can bypass Miyasaki's vision and don't have to experience the joy of overcoming hardship.

rmbyrro• 4 years ago

Why do they have to eat so much of my mobile screen with these silly sticky bars at the top AND bottom?

Didn't even bother reading this...

yumiris• 4 years ago

Must admit, the article and comments have completely changed my impression of the Souls series.

The "git gud" mantra has been drilled into my numbskull to the point where I would restart a boss fight even if I got hit once.

I got a wee bit too persuaded into rushing and mastering (which, of course, can't be done at the same time), because anything less meant that I ain't doing it right.

In the end, I gave up on the Souls series and classified it as not being for me, but now I'm considering returning to Bloodborne and Sekiro again.

Cheers for the new perspective everyone!

umvi4• 4 years ago

Sekiro is very different from souls style combat - for me Sekiro was more like a rhythm game where you have to tap the deflect button to the cadence of enemy attacks. It's still very fair and rewarding though, if you persist through the initial learning curve

mattgreenrocks2• 4 years ago

I've bounced off Sekiro 2 or 3 times, but DS3 was the game that got me hooked, so give that a try as well.

imtringued• 4 years ago

The immortals got bored of eternal peace in heaven so they created a world of mortality filled with endless crises so that they can experience death over and over again. Unfortunately the mortals' world has become peaceful as well and mortality has become a long distant memory. So the mortals have decided to create a world of mortality filled with endless crises so that they can experience death over and over again.

esjeon• 4 years ago

I enjoyed reading this, but had to filter so much overhype out of the article. The author should consider reducing the dose of caffeine.

One thing is that the ideas noted here aren't really unique to Miyazaki. The game industry once shared the same notion implicitly, but they lost it as their businesses got bigger. Many games these days are more like digital drugs that stimulate your peripheral nerves. Many of them go further and make players suffer, so that players pay money for relieving that pain (pay-2-win). I mean, it's the game industry went haywire, not that Miyazaki is doing something special. He has been simply preserving what should have been kept right there.

In the same context, I'm strictly against calling Miyazaki a genius. He's rather an opposite case of being genius. Geniuses do colors; something feisty and brilliant. Miyazaki does muddy brown; he silently does the due diligence within his scope. That is, his works are rather an accumulation of mundane tasks - persistence and craftsmanship - not some random gotcha moments, or a wrong electrical zap in brain synapses.

You can really feel this difference by playing his games carefully. Following through his works, I could sense how deep he went. There's something that word "smart" can't really cover.

telchior2• 4 years ago

You could say he has genius in some respects, and craftsmanship in others. Games are big, complex things that actually have a lot of different systems and aesthetic inputs, so it's not really fair to act like their creators are similar to someone painting a masterpiece or writing a book.

On the other hand, it's also not fair to give Miyazaki all the credit. Hundreds of other people worked on this game, and their creativity and contributions are unknown.

nemo44x• 4 years ago

His games are the siritual successor to Ultima games. You’re given very little to go on and you’re expected to create your own adventure and discover the main story. Mistakes are harshly punished so caution is needed.

Add in BotW and you have Elden Ring. It’s a masterpiece.

falcolas• 4 years ago

One unfortunate thing about the newer From games is how the difficulty relies so heavily on the two things humans will lose over time: focus and reflexes. Its most ardent fans will age out of being able to play their favorite games as they get harder and harder to play.

They'll be forced out of their niche.

guuz• 4 years ago

Since Friday, I've been pouring hours and hours into the game. It is marvelous, but arguably inferior to their previous titles on a highly subjective level (I've missed, for example, the more accentuated dread and hopelessness of Dark Souls and Bloodborne). I guess these points will probably be addressed more thoughtfully by people more qualified than me in due time.

The more flagrant problem is the abysmal graphical performance for 2022 standards — it is borderline unacceptable, no art direction can compensate for the insistence on a clearly obsolete tech foundation. I wonder why they are reluctant to change.

Pulcinella• 4 years ago

I think some of the perceived difficulty comes from Miyazaki’s games requiring practice. Generally quite a bit more practice and learning than more mainstream RPGs and action games require (though less in certain ways than character action games like Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden).

That level of practice is honestly not for everyone and that is ok. Fighting Games require a very, very large amount of practice. For someone like me it’s too much, especially because there aren’t even any community events near me. If I am going to practice that much, for the stage of life that I am in with how little free time I have, I would rather practice something else. And that’s fine too. That doesn’t make fighting games bad or “too difficult,” they are just not for me.

jmount• 4 years ago

I like the FromSoft games. I think the difficulty is a bit of a cross-cutting issue. What I like is the diegetic treatment of death in the games. There are reasons in game or in story reasons the player character and the monsters re-animate, and it has consequences in the game. In fact much of the theme of the game is arranged around this.

For games like Doom the player sees their character die, but from the monsters' point of view these are alternate timelines that didn't happen- the monsters see one one selected timeline where the played didn't happen to die.

exdsq• 4 years ago

Elden Ring has become my life! 25 hours in since last Thursday (which for me is a lot of time). Absolutely love it, best game I’ve played since Hades and before that probably Borderlands 2.

Koiwai• 4 years ago

For the record I love Sekiro, and went back and beat Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, but gave up on DS2/3, Bloodborne and Elden Ring.

I believe Soulsborne's only charm, is when you finally beat that foe, that feel of accomplishment, that depends on the fact it's hard, the game is nothing on easy.

The battle system itself, basically roll forever and slash once here and there, is inferior to most action games.

Sekiro on the other hand, has like the best battle system.

Hidetaka Miyazaki sees death as a feature, not a bug

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