"On the first day

man was granted a soul

And with it, clarity"

There's something oddly quaint about Demon's Souls, with its soundtrack's goofy orchestral bombast, relatively bog-standard dark fantasy setting and minimalist tale of kings & demons, conjuring up imagery of a DM's first DnD campaign, no doubt the result of a cultural import of Wizardy shaping the early days of Japan's RPG scene in ways that would give birth to Demon's Souls' very predecessor, King's Field. This basic tale of fallen kingdoms and terrifying demons, crestfallen knights and ancient dragons capturing the hearts of thousands as an old-school throwback trailblazer of the action RPG genre when it dropped in 2009, yet now mostly looked upon as an ancient ancestor defined almost entirely by its progeny's legacy.

"On the second day

upon Earth was planted an irrevocable poison

A soul-devouring demon"

It's this aforementioned quaintness though, that gives Demon's Souls the leg up in comparison to its spiritual successors in the multi-million Soulsbornekiroring franchise. The artificiality of Boletaria, it's segregation into video-gamey worlds aided immensely by its strong atmosphere, of abandoned monoliths and overrun capitals, of howling prisoners and majestic beasts that ebb & flow on the horizon, a setting so seemingly uninspired on paper yet so deeply compelling in motion. A game of antiquity, of four-direction dodge rolls and jank-ass lock-on, like pulling puppets missing a few strings; of spite, that thrives upon kicking you while you are down and robbing you of progress much more than its future installments ever would, yet it's so utterly cognizant of its shortcomings that it creates some of the most interesting boss encounters of the series so far, goliaths that do not simply ask for skillful execution and high-level action gameplay, but for observation, for spatial awareness, for a level of comprehension beyond spamming R1 at someone's ankles. Bosses such as Old Hero, Dragon God and Fool's Idol engage me on a level that not a single boss from Elden Ring managed to do so, and its a lost magic I wish other games of Demon's Souls' kin would try to recapture.

Demon's Souls is a game that left me with genuine headaches and gritted teeth at its obtuse brutality, and yet it is still filled to the brim with the magnetic charm of early FromSoft that compels me to their portfolio, the so very human feeling of perseverance in the face of adversity that runs through much of their catalogue. It's a game that I did not enjoy for most of my playtime, but it's one that deserves its praises and more, even if I'm not the kind of die-hard enthusiast these games seem to compel.

"Soul of the mind, key to life's ether

Soul of the lost, withdrawn from its vessel.

Let strength be granted so the world might be mended.

So the world might be mended."

As I found myself circling a zombified grunt at the tutorial area of Elden Ring in order to perform the classic Souls backstab, I subconsciously knew right then and there what game I would be playing for the next 100+ hours, and not even that first sight of the ethereal Erdtree and its expansive surrounding landscape managed to swat away that sinking feeling.

"Dark Souls but open world" is a fairly justifiable tag line that Elden Ring earns with distinction for many, but it's one I interpret in a less charitable way. Considering how cruficied Bloodborne was over its optional chalice dungeon content, it's a bit surprising now to see a map filled with it deal with such little critical scrutiny by its fanbase, having an overreliance in copy pasted settings, bosses and mysteries that ends up homogenizing the experience of discovery and reward.

These issues are par for the course when dealing with the open world genre, and they would be acceptable had the space inbetween them provided any semblance of evolution on the Souls formula to acommodate the shift in scope. Double jumping horse aside, the unaltered Dark Souls moveset doesn't really offer compelling exploration outside of the small pockets of dungeon content, and when most of the interesting and unique content is relegated to the main story dungeons of the game, it's hard not to question if Elden Ring really needed to be open world in the first place.

The obssession with Dark Souls 3 boss design places you into a strict familiar pattern where stat and weapon experimentation are heavily punished, as most bosses have at least one "fuck you" move that one hit kills you for no reason, and weapon crafting insists on being a time consuming and expensive endeavor that forces you to hold onto the same high damage boring greatsword. It's telling that in a roster of 100+ bosses, Renalla, Radahn and Rykard are the only bosses I fondly remember, as they provide a challenge that goes beyond constant I-frame dodge rolling and memorizing fake out attacks.

And make no mistake, Elden Ring is Dark Souls 4, not just in the way it plays but also in the way it tells its story. Despite taking place in a different universe with new gods and lore to learn of and decipher, it has become evidently clear by now that Miyazaki and his team really have only one story to tell. Sure, it is still a fascinating story, but when I'm once again learning about secret crystal magic, beasts and dragons preceeding humanity, golden orders that are built upon lies, or chaotic forbidden flames that threathen the status quo, through the same obtuse and obfuscated dialogue and storytelling that defines these games, I struggle to find reason to engage with it with the same enthusiasm I once had for it.

Concepts like the Scarlet Rot or Destined Death are interesting enough to have had been the sole creative well to take from, but are forced to share the spotlight with the ever increasing and convoluted list of ideas Elden Ring has to offer that unnecessarily overcomplicate its world with a vast number of uninteresting factions, outer gods and characters that dont have the space to develop and enrich the universe of the game, robbing Elden Ring of the opportunity to create a laser focused experience like Bloodborne. Is Rykard's house of horrors that much different from every other castle you end up in Elden Ring? Or can we agree that the Dark Souls 3 formula has sanitized the world design of theses games to a point that they no longer have the capability to put you inside a world in the same manner Demon's Souls once could?

It's an odd thing to be this critical of Elden Ring, considering it still manages to be one of the most compelling triple A titles of recent years, with amazing creative art direction, original storytelling and engaging challenges to overcome, maintaining the strengths of the series that makes it stand out from everything else in the market, then and now. Conveying how threathening Caelid is by the mere act of the player walking into it represents some of the best environmental storytelling you will see, and the confidence to make so much of Elden Ring's content optional and secret turns the nonchalant reveal of a whole hidden area to explore beneath the overworld map one of the highlights of the series. It contains some of the best tragedy filled NPC questlines that characterizes the franchise, with Ranni's being a standout in the way it presents the most tradicional story arc in a Souls game and Diallos' being a noted highlight that feels like it could have come straight out of a GRRM book.

But at this point in time, 10+ year of Souls games, Elden Ring ironically and unintendely further reinforces metatextually the themes of stagnation and extending the life of something that has long gone past its prime. In his pursuit to perfect the Souls formula into his idealized game, Miyazaki has instead dilluted the small quirks, nuances and idiosyncrasies that made the series so groundbreaking and revolutionary all those years ago, and has fallen into a cycle of redundancy and iteration that has quickly trapped the series into a niche of comfort food. Sadly, Elden Ring is not the game we have all been waiting for that dispels the notion that open world is an inevitable flawed genre with diminishing returns, and it is also not the promise of the evolution the franchise has been desperately in need of. Maybe it is time to extinguish this flame and usher in a new age once and for all.

Nearly a year removed from its launch, free of recency bias, no longer swarmed by the theses of those more eloquent than I, I'm content in saying I don't like Elden Ring. I've beaten it a couple times, played solo and online, used a variety of builds, gone completionist and not, tackled its world in intended and unintended order, had fun and glazed my eyes over in boredom, been in awe of and readily mocked it through and through. I like so very much of it, but I don't like Elden Ring.

I don't like this GRRM-gilded world. There's a prevailing sense of deliberate obfuscation that apes the peculiarities of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls but it's a mere mimick. It is an inverse Rowling-style approach to worldbuilding -- she fills her holes and says they were always filled, Dark Souls had holes and never noticed them, Elden Ring creates holes to taunt the VaatiVidya watcher with the tar with which to fill them.

I don't like this ocean of content. Even if wondrous tsunamis are few and far between, the impetus to purposefully seek them renders them decreasingly effective. The novelty of Walking Mausoleums, Erdtree Avatars, winding tombs, subterranean cities all turn quickly to routine. I can only laugh so many times at a man getting hit in the groin by a football.

I don't like the perpetual breadcrumbs. Scattered like millet for fowl lay treasures for the taking. Of what use is a thousandth herb, a hundredth spirit, a tenth greatsword? None, so say I, if it caters only to that which I am not: the theorycrafter, the PvPer, the challenge runner. And for these redundant fragments to be handed to me after a repetitious romp through yet another imp infested tileset with a singular twist? I am left wondering why I put in the effort.

I don't like the ramp. Other FromSoftware titles, deliberately or not, have tremendous peaks and valleys in their presentations of power and the scope of encounters. From the terror of Ornstein and Smough to the odd simplicity of Sif to the potential headache of Four Kings to the humour of Pinwheel to the fear of Nito to the melancholic ease of Gwyn. Here, outside of minibosses, I proceed uphill eternal as Sisyphus. On paper it is an ideal, in reality it is a fatigue. Does it seek to frustrate? Does it matter? There is no reprieve on the intended path.

I don't like that this is designed for me to like it. Polished to a mirror sheen, every aspect is intended to appeal to me. A personality in flux to receive my adoration, never showing me that true, imperfect self. I long for the idiosyncrasies of a chance encounter.

I had so much fun with you, and I came away with the understanding it was all a falsehood. The dopamine was real. The sentimentality, a fiction.

This season is over and it's pretty bad. The new items are kinda meh and the loot pool sucks ass.

The new Areas are interesting but every other area has basically been reduced to nothing because all of the bosses and vaults have been removed. As a result over half of the map is a bunch of shitty boring mansions with very little variety. That was a huge problem last season but at least the vaults made them slightly interesting. Now it's just terrible.

Talking about the Loot pool again, the weapons they kept overshadow a lot of the new weapons. The Gatekeeper shotgun is really fun when used well but other than that, most of the weapons are either just carried over or pretty fucking bad. The Sniper is a pointless weapon since the DMR exists and the new Olympian items are weirdly balanced. The wings are cool at first but they just make you a BIG target, the Lightning Bolts are overpowered and way too dangerous, the Chain of Hades is awful.

We got an Avatar crossover halfway in and it made the game even worse, Insane OP shit that just made it more unbareable to play.

All I'm doing is AFKing Lego FN to get EXP so I can finish the BP and not worry about playing it.

Terrible season, one of the worst in years.

Also as a side note, all the Skins in the BP are absolute piss compared to their concept art. FN has this nasty habit of ruining the designs of all their art over the last year and I'm pretty tired of it.