notthepars
38 reviews liked by notthepars
Elden Ring
2022
I am called to revere Elden Ring out of spite. I once heard someone I no longer speak to for various reasons say, upon seeing a then new trailer, that they wish FromSoft would making something interesting like King’s Field again instead of this. Now, I was playing the King’s Field games for the first time when they said that, and I happen to love those games a lot, and I certainly want them to make another one or something like it, even though they never will because the games industry is full of cowards. But I also happened to know that this person had never played King’s Field, and were probably only saying it out of a smug sense of superiority. And this made me angry.
Yes, yes, the familiar gang is here. Yet another lowly warrior usurps the eternal cycle. The fallen order, the god-kings, corruption, the moon, the flame. Invasions, summons, messages, bloodstains. Tragic sidequests, Patches is there, and multiple endings. Magic is blue, holiness is yellow. You can parry and backstab enemies. You upgrade your weapons to scale with your stats. You dodge roll and stagger. These are familiar. They are played out, to a degree. And yes, they are not exciting in that old way. But I don’t really care, because I’m a “fan of the genre”. I am enthusiastic about the new things that come from this company, and the genre they’ve inadvertently spawned, and I’m always ready for innovation. But that doesn’t preclude me from finding joy in the familiar. Because it was never the uniqueness that mattered most.
There’s this kind of jealousy surrounding the Souls series. The fans (myself included) view them as special, unique, and precious gems. When something besmirches their name, it is a disgrace, because there is something transcendent about these games that we hold sacred. But as the series has become a prototype, a whole genre sprouting from its seedbed, the things that made a game like Dark Souls special have become no longer so special. How many games can we find that are trying to be exactly like it? Those qualities, whether it be difficulty, inscrutability, atmosphere, even specific mechanics, they’re not special anymore. How quaint does Super Metroid feel now? How cliche is The Shining now? Are The Beatles run of the mill? Is Seinfeld funny anymore? It’s like the old joke: “I don’t get the appeal of Hamlet. It’s just a bunch of famous saying strung together.”
It becomes difficult to vindicate why these games are good. So, we get jealous. We get protective. “No, you see, these games are special. How else could I love them so much if they weren’t? They are doing something different. They are beautiful in a way only I can understand.” Everyone thinks they are the sole prophet of Dark Souls liking, and that everyone else is some misguided mystic. I do, too. But I know I’m fooling myself. I know these games are mortal.
See, I’m not sure these games were ever that special to begin with. I remember, years ago, sitting on a couch playing Demon's Souls, and wondering out loud how they made this game, how they reached something so specific. And he said to me that "it had to have come from someone with a vision". As years go on, I find that statement less and less true. They were and are unique, sure. But they didn’t come from nowhere, sprouting from Miyazaki’s forehead like Athena. They were made by people in a company making a software product. Elden Ring was building off of Dark Souls, which was building off of Demon’s Souls, which was building off of King’s Field, which was probably building off of Ultima Underworld or something, and yadda yadda. Iteration is underrated. I think what ends up getting underrecognized, ironically, is that these are good video games. It’s not because they’re special. They haven’t unlocked a secret to games that no one else can know. These games don’t have to be special to be good. They can just be good. Which they are.
Anyway. I liked Elden Ring. I thought it was fun. I thought it was cool. I liked exploring its world. I liked crawling through its dungeons. I liked fighting bosses. That’s enough for me. And so you might ask, “Is Elden Ring even that special?” And I’m going to say, “Who cares?”
Yes, yes, the familiar gang is here. Yet another lowly warrior usurps the eternal cycle. The fallen order, the god-kings, corruption, the moon, the flame. Invasions, summons, messages, bloodstains. Tragic sidequests, Patches is there, and multiple endings. Magic is blue, holiness is yellow. You can parry and backstab enemies. You upgrade your weapons to scale with your stats. You dodge roll and stagger. These are familiar. They are played out, to a degree. And yes, they are not exciting in that old way. But I don’t really care, because I’m a “fan of the genre”. I am enthusiastic about the new things that come from this company, and the genre they’ve inadvertently spawned, and I’m always ready for innovation. But that doesn’t preclude me from finding joy in the familiar. Because it was never the uniqueness that mattered most.
There’s this kind of jealousy surrounding the Souls series. The fans (myself included) view them as special, unique, and precious gems. When something besmirches their name, it is a disgrace, because there is something transcendent about these games that we hold sacred. But as the series has become a prototype, a whole genre sprouting from its seedbed, the things that made a game like Dark Souls special have become no longer so special. How many games can we find that are trying to be exactly like it? Those qualities, whether it be difficulty, inscrutability, atmosphere, even specific mechanics, they’re not special anymore. How quaint does Super Metroid feel now? How cliche is The Shining now? Are The Beatles run of the mill? Is Seinfeld funny anymore? It’s like the old joke: “I don’t get the appeal of Hamlet. It’s just a bunch of famous saying strung together.”
It becomes difficult to vindicate why these games are good. So, we get jealous. We get protective. “No, you see, these games are special. How else could I love them so much if they weren’t? They are doing something different. They are beautiful in a way only I can understand.” Everyone thinks they are the sole prophet of Dark Souls liking, and that everyone else is some misguided mystic. I do, too. But I know I’m fooling myself. I know these games are mortal.
See, I’m not sure these games were ever that special to begin with. I remember, years ago, sitting on a couch playing Demon's Souls, and wondering out loud how they made this game, how they reached something so specific. And he said to me that "it had to have come from someone with a vision". As years go on, I find that statement less and less true. They were and are unique, sure. But they didn’t come from nowhere, sprouting from Miyazaki’s forehead like Athena. They were made by people in a company making a software product. Elden Ring was building off of Dark Souls, which was building off of Demon’s Souls, which was building off of King’s Field, which was probably building off of Ultima Underworld or something, and yadda yadda. Iteration is underrated. I think what ends up getting underrecognized, ironically, is that these are good video games. It’s not because they’re special. They haven’t unlocked a secret to games that no one else can know. These games don’t have to be special to be good. They can just be good. Which they are.
Anyway. I liked Elden Ring. I thought it was fun. I thought it was cool. I liked exploring its world. I liked crawling through its dungeons. I liked fighting bosses. That’s enough for me. And so you might ask, “Is Elden Ring even that special?” And I’m going to say, “Who cares?”
That breeze of this time of year; the one where you know spring is turning into summer, something about it turns back the clock. For me, it always brings me back to Pokémon on the Game Boy Advance. I’ve been wanting to go through this game again, and feeling that breeze, really made me want to go home. Sometimes I feel silly about this being my favorite game, ‘cuz it’s just a Pokémon game, nothing cool or out-there, and it’s just FireRed Version, to boot: the first remake of the first game. But, this game is so special to me and I think is so well designed and feels like the team at Game Freak were trying to show that they can do this.
Before I get into it all, I just wanted to touch on something that I never realized. Something I did was set LR to “Help” for the first time. Pokémon comes really naturally to Pokémon players. There are fundamentals that define this series that we all know so well, just like there are fundamentals to all video games. Though, Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen have a mission statement, that they want everyone to enjoy this adventure to the fullest. They state that is “our” goal in a note of text that appears before the player even before Professor Oak introduces the world of Pokémon. This little thing at the beginning is not something that stuck with me every other playthrough, but this time I realized that they not only want new gamers to try Pokémon, but they want new people to try video games. When you press the L or the R button, you are allowed to ask the game nearly any question you can think of, from “What do I do now?” to “What is the Dark-type good against?” It was interesting, up until the first badge, reading through all the copies that were written to explain adventure RPG games.
It’s this nice little companion that FireRed and LeafGreen have because, no matter how much a player needs their hand held, whether it’s because they’re young or because they don’t play a lot of video games, the designers want so badly for as many people as possible to enjoy the entire adventure of Pokémon. to explore every town, every cave, every forest, and meet as many Pokémon as they can.
And that’s what I’ve been trying to do lately. The past few years, I’ve been trying to take my time in Pokémon games by getting into the role of a kid out on their own adventure for the first time. What this has allowed me to do is really appreciate how each Pokémon games’ scenarios are laid out. I think it’s Game Freak’s biggest strength in these early games to design a game scenario that really gets a player to each corner of the map in a non-linear way. In a recent playthrough of Crystal Version, I found myself rebuking the common pacing critique of that generation, finding that it is perfectly paced if you properly explore the world as the Hidden Moves you unlock open it up more. every single Pokémon game, even the new ones, are built around “HMs.” Once you get a new overworld move, the world opens up more and there are new people to meet, places to explore, and of course, Pokémon to catch. Talking to NPCs, walking into every building, it allows the world to sink in so much more than if you just play Pokémon so passively, just going from
necessary objective to necessary objective. It’s what the game is designed around, and it makes these games fit in with other JRPGs of this era.
My final was…
Campfire the Charizard, met in Pallet Town
Lemontart the Jolteon, met in Celadon City
Rageroom the Primeape, met on Route 22
Yachtclub the Lapras, met in Saffron City
Drumstick the Marowak, met in Pokémon Tower
Flowershop the Vileplume, met on Route 24
I picked Charmander, just like I did for the first time. Good ol’ Kyle. I always like planning out my teams, and this time i felt like planning out a character. I chose ‘GIRL’, like I have been for, like, nearly a decade, now, but also named myself ‘RED’. Just a little trans girl leaving home like all kids do, nervous to go out on an entire journey dressed as herself. Pokémon, at its core, is about the first time you feel like you’re growing up. This feeling that the first step to becoming an adult is doing things yourself for the first time. This rite of passage is told through the story of a kid going on an errand, that turns into an adventure, and stumbling into a situation that adults usually handle, and takes it on alone. But, of course, they’re not really alone. They have their Pokémon, and that’s what Pokémon is about: growing up, and leaving the house, can be really scary, but you’re never as alone as you feel.
I love getting to the end, facing down your rival. That Champion battle is pretty tough in set mode, but for the first time, with a team of six, I didn’t have to do any grinding before my league challenge. Whenever I use Jolteon, they always are a shining star on my team. Didn’t even need Thunderbolt, Shock Wave + Toxic helped get rid of Pidgeot, Blastoise, and Alakazam. It came down to my Charizard versus his Arcanine, and my boy clutched it out (with the help of my fourth Max Potion used, the last I’d be comfortable using while keeping my dignity).
There’s just something about the Kanto region’s vibe that I love. Half of me wishes Pokémon kept going the route of “this is basically the real world but with little freaks in capsules.” there’s an NPC in Pewter’s museum that tells you about how he remembers the moon landing from 1969. Compre that to when you play Omega Ruby and you go to space on the back of Mega Rayquaza and fight Deoxys. I don’t know, it just gives Kanto this specific feel to the region that can be easily overlooked, but after playing this and Yellow Version back-to-back, I’m very interested in the world of Pokémon where the “great Pokémon war” that Lt. Surge and other lore refers to is just, I don’t know, the fucking Vietnam War.
Before I get into it all, I just wanted to touch on something that I never realized. Something I did was set LR to “Help” for the first time. Pokémon comes really naturally to Pokémon players. There are fundamentals that define this series that we all know so well, just like there are fundamentals to all video games. Though, Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen have a mission statement, that they want everyone to enjoy this adventure to the fullest. They state that is “our” goal in a note of text that appears before the player even before Professor Oak introduces the world of Pokémon. This little thing at the beginning is not something that stuck with me every other playthrough, but this time I realized that they not only want new gamers to try Pokémon, but they want new people to try video games. When you press the L or the R button, you are allowed to ask the game nearly any question you can think of, from “What do I do now?” to “What is the Dark-type good against?” It was interesting, up until the first badge, reading through all the copies that were written to explain adventure RPG games.
It’s this nice little companion that FireRed and LeafGreen have because, no matter how much a player needs their hand held, whether it’s because they’re young or because they don’t play a lot of video games, the designers want so badly for as many people as possible to enjoy the entire adventure of Pokémon. to explore every town, every cave, every forest, and meet as many Pokémon as they can.
And that’s what I’ve been trying to do lately. The past few years, I’ve been trying to take my time in Pokémon games by getting into the role of a kid out on their own adventure for the first time. What this has allowed me to do is really appreciate how each Pokémon games’ scenarios are laid out. I think it’s Game Freak’s biggest strength in these early games to design a game scenario that really gets a player to each corner of the map in a non-linear way. In a recent playthrough of Crystal Version, I found myself rebuking the common pacing critique of that generation, finding that it is perfectly paced if you properly explore the world as the Hidden Moves you unlock open it up more. every single Pokémon game, even the new ones, are built around “HMs.” Once you get a new overworld move, the world opens up more and there are new people to meet, places to explore, and of course, Pokémon to catch. Talking to NPCs, walking into every building, it allows the world to sink in so much more than if you just play Pokémon so passively, just going from
necessary objective to necessary objective. It’s what the game is designed around, and it makes these games fit in with other JRPGs of this era.
My final was…
Campfire the Charizard, met in Pallet Town
Lemontart the Jolteon, met in Celadon City
Rageroom the Primeape, met on Route 22
Yachtclub the Lapras, met in Saffron City
Drumstick the Marowak, met in Pokémon Tower
Flowershop the Vileplume, met on Route 24
I picked Charmander, just like I did for the first time. Good ol’ Kyle. I always like planning out my teams, and this time i felt like planning out a character. I chose ‘GIRL’, like I have been for, like, nearly a decade, now, but also named myself ‘RED’. Just a little trans girl leaving home like all kids do, nervous to go out on an entire journey dressed as herself. Pokémon, at its core, is about the first time you feel like you’re growing up. This feeling that the first step to becoming an adult is doing things yourself for the first time. This rite of passage is told through the story of a kid going on an errand, that turns into an adventure, and stumbling into a situation that adults usually handle, and takes it on alone. But, of course, they’re not really alone. They have their Pokémon, and that’s what Pokémon is about: growing up, and leaving the house, can be really scary, but you’re never as alone as you feel.
I love getting to the end, facing down your rival. That Champion battle is pretty tough in set mode, but for the first time, with a team of six, I didn’t have to do any grinding before my league challenge. Whenever I use Jolteon, they always are a shining star on my team. Didn’t even need Thunderbolt, Shock Wave + Toxic helped get rid of Pidgeot, Blastoise, and Alakazam. It came down to my Charizard versus his Arcanine, and my boy clutched it out (with the help of my fourth Max Potion used, the last I’d be comfortable using while keeping my dignity).
There’s just something about the Kanto region’s vibe that I love. Half of me wishes Pokémon kept going the route of “this is basically the real world but with little freaks in capsules.” there’s an NPC in Pewter’s museum that tells you about how he remembers the moon landing from 1969. Compre that to when you play Omega Ruby and you go to space on the back of Mega Rayquaza and fight Deoxys. I don’t know, it just gives Kanto this specific feel to the region that can be easily overlooked, but after playing this and Yellow Version back-to-back, I’m very interested in the world of Pokémon where the “great Pokémon war” that Lt. Surge and other lore refers to is just, I don’t know, the fucking Vietnam War.
there are parts that feel stolen right out of uncharted and the last of us that i thought really rocked and worked for a call of duty game.
and then there are parts that were lifted and remixed from old call of duties that felt staid and boring.
by the end i felt exactly as entertained as i felt bored. there is a futurama episode where bender meets God and God exclaims, "if you do something right no one will think you've done anything at all" and that's kind of what this game feels like.
felt actually like an amalgamation of several different mindsets at play to the point it loses all identity. it wants to be zero dark thirty and sicario but it's a game where the cover character wears a skull mask in every setting. it's a game that's like "we can't do anything with the villain because of laws" and then throws them out the window later on hoping you've forgotten that. i've written a review like this before where i've said, as an expert in being a dumb person and a bad writer, i can spot dumb, lazy writing a mile away, modern warfare ii has all the hallmarks that. it's the equivalent of that horse drawing meme that starts of super realistic and in each installment becomes sloppier and sloppier until it resembles a blind child's depiction of a horse. you could extrapolate some political takeaways from this but at this point it'd be in vain because it contradicts itself through its sheer contempt for basic coherent consistently.
ultimately i think despite looking like a billion dollars it just doesn't play any better than any other call of duty. and i think it's disappointing it fails to really remember what made the first modern warfare 2 so good - the commitment to michael bay levels of balls to the wall action (it gets there in spurts but it's almost more of a reboot of the 2010 medal of honor game than the og mw2).
and then there are parts that were lifted and remixed from old call of duties that felt staid and boring.
by the end i felt exactly as entertained as i felt bored. there is a futurama episode where bender meets God and God exclaims, "if you do something right no one will think you've done anything at all" and that's kind of what this game feels like.
felt actually like an amalgamation of several different mindsets at play to the point it loses all identity. it wants to be zero dark thirty and sicario but it's a game where the cover character wears a skull mask in every setting. it's a game that's like "we can't do anything with the villain because of laws" and then throws them out the window later on hoping you've forgotten that. i've written a review like this before where i've said, as an expert in being a dumb person and a bad writer, i can spot dumb, lazy writing a mile away, modern warfare ii has all the hallmarks that. it's the equivalent of that horse drawing meme that starts of super realistic and in each installment becomes sloppier and sloppier until it resembles a blind child's depiction of a horse. you could extrapolate some political takeaways from this but at this point it'd be in vain because it contradicts itself through its sheer contempt for basic coherent consistently.
ultimately i think despite looking like a billion dollars it just doesn't play any better than any other call of duty. and i think it's disappointing it fails to really remember what made the first modern warfare 2 so good - the commitment to michael bay levels of balls to the wall action (it gets there in spurts but it's almost more of a reboot of the 2010 medal of honor game than the og mw2).
day n nite, the shitty pokemon seem to come out at night
Bloodborne
2015
Accurately recounts the tale of a man making the trek to his local greggs
Elden Ring
2022
So I played this game for a month straight. Got to level 105 in 100 hours and got to the Mountaintop of the Giants.
That was a month ago. I have played maybe five hours since. I have officially decided to retire. Real life is too stressful to enjoy this any longer.
I have nothing interesting to add or contribute about this game.
It is perhaps the pinnacle high art AAA game development. It is the video game equivalent of one of those meals that would appear in the TV show Hannibal. It is elegant and expansive and exhausting. It is every Dark Souls game gelled together and cubed and stretched out across a giant canvas. It is maybe the best game I've ever played. It will be the best game I never finish until I make headway elsewhere. I will return to Elden Ring. But I feel like I've been clubbing for 40 hours straight and Hidetaka Miyazaki's idea for an afters is a 2 week no sleep bender to Ibiza. I'm good. Maybe later
That was a month ago. I have played maybe five hours since. I have officially decided to retire. Real life is too stressful to enjoy this any longer.
I have nothing interesting to add or contribute about this game.
It is perhaps the pinnacle high art AAA game development. It is the video game equivalent of one of those meals that would appear in the TV show Hannibal. It is elegant and expansive and exhausting. It is every Dark Souls game gelled together and cubed and stretched out across a giant canvas. It is maybe the best game I've ever played. It will be the best game I never finish until I make headway elsewhere. I will return to Elden Ring. But I feel like I've been clubbing for 40 hours straight and Hidetaka Miyazaki's idea for an afters is a 2 week no sleep bender to Ibiza. I'm good. Maybe later
Final Fantasy XIII
2009
Extremely flawed, but very fun. The ultimate story about a mall-cop meeting her relentlessly 2000's brother-in-law. Worst birthday ever!
Final Fantasy XIII
2009
This review contains spoilers
it is QUEER AS HELL for two lesbians to turn into one world-destroying monster
Dark Souls III
2016
This review contains spoilers
It's not at all controversial to say that Dark Souls III is the least inspired entry in the vaunted Soulsborne franchise. More referential than reverential, it is shameless in shoveling up icons from past games and shoving them into the player's face. Gone is the subtlety in storytelling that seduced souls to Souls. In exchange, bombast. Because how else would you tell the story of the end of the world?
So Dark Souls III goes big and bold in every way. There have never been this many discrete areas that are as massive and interconnected in their sprawl. The Undead Settlement alone feels like three separate Demon's Souls levels packed into one with a bevy of NPCs filling it out. The Cathedral of the Deep ranks up there with the best alongside 1-1 and The Painted World of Ariamis with its decayed Gothic architecture that reeks evil and how it keeps wrapping back around itself with savvy shortcut progression. Coming out of the darkness of the Catacombs of Carthus and into the moonlit vista of Irithyll of the Boreal Valley is one of the most breathtaking moments in franchise history.
Enemies are at their most freakish and intimidating. Lumbering Hollow Soldiers wielding greataxes leap with surprising agility. All manner of Lothric Knights can make quick work of you with their holy-buffed arsenal of spears, maces, and two-handed greatswords. Corvians look vulnerable on their own, until they scream a scream that rends the spirit, spring forth wings that envelop your vision, and claw at your flesh in a frenzy. And who can forget their first time seeing the Pus of Man burst from the body of a frayed Hollow, its black, voluminous serpent-shaped goo pulsating and lashing out with reckless abandon, its hatred for order apparent in its stark red eyes.
Even the NPC questlines are at their most circuitous. It's never been something I've figured out on my own, pursuing the opaque sidequests in these games, so it's not really a big deal for me here either. At least most of them follow through with climactic ends. What they lack in the personal drama of the more thematically resonant NPCs of old, they make up for memorable pomp and circumstance. I mean you gotta admit it was pretty badass to see Siegward walk in from behind you, speechifying with Storm Ruler in tow, ready to cut down Yhorm, a Lord of Cinder, and his friend to honor an oath.
Speaking of Lords of Cinder, Dark Souls III has got to have the most consistently good-to-great boss battles in all of games. Iudex Gundyr is the best first test, his first phase checking your basic melee offense and defense capabilities in a duel with a humanoid opponent, and his second phase prepping you for the oversized monstrosities that remind you of the importance of camera positioning. The Curse-rotted Greatwood is one of the finest examples of pure spectacle with its wide-open arena, mooks that add to the chaos without being hindrances, glaring weakpoints that still take some skill and timing to hit, and a midpoint level change that took me by surprise on my initial run. How it ties into the current game's lore and calls back to a dear friend from Dark Souls II are just gravy. As for major story bosses, the Twin Princes is now one of my favorite fights. From the chilling intro cutscene where Lorian crawls out to protect his younger brother to Lothric reminding his elder brother of their Undead Curse with whispers to rise, it's compellingly cinematic in the only way From Software knows.
But nothing else sums up Dark Souls III the best than the Abyss Watchers. The most fearsome and loyal followers of Artorias are now corrupted by the Abyss, killing each other to contain this darkness. You fight with and against them. They die and resurrect as one, fire erupting from their blade. The score is grand yet solemn. It's an epic duel between ash and ember. It's a shambling corpse powered by the past that needs putting down. Let it burn. It deserves to go up in glorious flames.
So Dark Souls III goes big and bold in every way. There have never been this many discrete areas that are as massive and interconnected in their sprawl. The Undead Settlement alone feels like three separate Demon's Souls levels packed into one with a bevy of NPCs filling it out. The Cathedral of the Deep ranks up there with the best alongside 1-1 and The Painted World of Ariamis with its decayed Gothic architecture that reeks evil and how it keeps wrapping back around itself with savvy shortcut progression. Coming out of the darkness of the Catacombs of Carthus and into the moonlit vista of Irithyll of the Boreal Valley is one of the most breathtaking moments in franchise history.
Enemies are at their most freakish and intimidating. Lumbering Hollow Soldiers wielding greataxes leap with surprising agility. All manner of Lothric Knights can make quick work of you with their holy-buffed arsenal of spears, maces, and two-handed greatswords. Corvians look vulnerable on their own, until they scream a scream that rends the spirit, spring forth wings that envelop your vision, and claw at your flesh in a frenzy. And who can forget their first time seeing the Pus of Man burst from the body of a frayed Hollow, its black, voluminous serpent-shaped goo pulsating and lashing out with reckless abandon, its hatred for order apparent in its stark red eyes.
Even the NPC questlines are at their most circuitous. It's never been something I've figured out on my own, pursuing the opaque sidequests in these games, so it's not really a big deal for me here either. At least most of them follow through with climactic ends. What they lack in the personal drama of the more thematically resonant NPCs of old, they make up for memorable pomp and circumstance. I mean you gotta admit it was pretty badass to see Siegward walk in from behind you, speechifying with Storm Ruler in tow, ready to cut down Yhorm, a Lord of Cinder, and his friend to honor an oath.
Speaking of Lords of Cinder, Dark Souls III has got to have the most consistently good-to-great boss battles in all of games. Iudex Gundyr is the best first test, his first phase checking your basic melee offense and defense capabilities in a duel with a humanoid opponent, and his second phase prepping you for the oversized monstrosities that remind you of the importance of camera positioning. The Curse-rotted Greatwood is one of the finest examples of pure spectacle with its wide-open arena, mooks that add to the chaos without being hindrances, glaring weakpoints that still take some skill and timing to hit, and a midpoint level change that took me by surprise on my initial run. How it ties into the current game's lore and calls back to a dear friend from Dark Souls II are just gravy. As for major story bosses, the Twin Princes is now one of my favorite fights. From the chilling intro cutscene where Lorian crawls out to protect his younger brother to Lothric reminding his elder brother of their Undead Curse with whispers to rise, it's compellingly cinematic in the only way From Software knows.
But nothing else sums up Dark Souls III the best than the Abyss Watchers. The most fearsome and loyal followers of Artorias are now corrupted by the Abyss, killing each other to contain this darkness. You fight with and against them. They die and resurrect as one, fire erupting from their blade. The score is grand yet solemn. It's an epic duel between ash and ember. It's a shambling corpse powered by the past that needs putting down. Let it burn. It deserves to go up in glorious flames.
Elden Ring
2022
Um, it's really dang good. Draws on the core aspects of games I find very satisfying.
It needs difficulty/approachability options and accessibility options so I don't have to caveat my recommendation to others.
It needs difficulty/approachability options and accessibility options so I don't have to caveat my recommendation to others.