On spontaneous, on the knee: for which I love the Souls series!
Last time you witnessed my rather peculiar came out in the form of a madman and mixing with mud the curse that is the Souls series. Most, however, wonder and ask themselves: "If these games are EVIL, why do we play them at all?" The answer is difficult to justify because you need at least 5187 words, which I included in this blog. Instead of dwelling on it, I invite you to read it, which will answer this question.
MAN! THIS IS DARK FANTASY!
I've been a fan of the Fantasy genre since I can remember. I have always been interested in colorful, imaginary worlds filled with fantastical creatures. I was fascinated by the depiction of the relationship between races based on cultural differences, political intricacies or religious disagreements. It was interesting how these autonomous worlds, born in the minds of such masters as Tolkien, Martin, Lewis, our eternally offended compatriot Sapkowski, or even the dark Lovecraft, worked. I turned my gaze towards this genre, because the real world seems to me simply boring, hackneyed and everything has been said about it. I admire people who single-handedly create entire worlds and universes of Fantasy or Sci-Fi, giving them their own specific spirit. When it comes to Fantasy, however, I've always been an enthusiast of a more vulgar and iconoclastically blunt version, additionally filled with sex and black humor. That is why I will always prefer, for example, the works of "Sapek" over those from Tolkien, as well as the recently met Brent Weeks, over the ultra-popular "Game of Thrones", which has begun to eat its tail.
JUST LIKE LOVECRAFT'S VISION
Games are no different. I will always choose to push games like The Witcher series, Gothic, Diablo, Kingdom Come: Deliverance to the limit or underrated Risen and forgotten IceWind Dale, over pompous shallow and politically correct stories about effeminate elves and a big bad ugly demon , funded in The Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age. With such genre preferences, it was clear that the dark, mysterious worlds of the Souls series would absorb me completely.
THIS IS NOT A PERSPECTIVE FUN AT ALL
That feeling of loneliness, hopelessness, and confusion when a player lands in the Nexus moments before being crushed to death by some huge three-eyed abomination! Why did I land here? Why am I still alive? What is this place? A series of questions that swirled in the head after the first minutes of Demon's Souls are moments that every fan will remember for a lifetime. This amazing aura of mysticism, some land abandoned by god, which we entered practically without a game-standard introduction, being immediately thrown into deep water. No tutorials, no FMV inserts, no handholding. Just you are nobody, garbage thrown by destiny to the landfill of the forgotten, where only the strongest and devoid of feelings survive the longest. The aforementioned Nexus was a Hub leading to individual zones of this world filled with darkness, where even the dead could not find peace. Each land we explored enigmatically revealed to us the pages of its tragic history, and the dark secrets hidden in its deepest depths, all thanks to an unusual "narrative without narrative". Elements of the whole story about the fall of the world of Boletaria were read while exploring the land, looking into every corner and listening to the stories of those few survivors wandering around aimlessly, as enslaved by the shackles of destiny as we are. Every wall collapsed, every arrow stuck in, the burned corpses on the bridge, the figurines hanging from the tree, every barricaded door, the corpse lying face down in the bloody slush, or the dagger stuck in the table next to an overturned beer mug and a blood-stained letter? All the scenes wrote their own story, which was a real pleasure to discover. And in all this an anonymous player, armed with a broken sword and dressed in dirty rags, who after death returns to his looped purgatory from which there is no escape. It was something new, hitherto unknown! The Japanese from From Software presented the world with the darkest possible version of medieval Fantasy in a way that the leading artists from the old continent were not ashamed of. Thus the genre was born!
AND THE MAIN HERO IS THE WORLD
The world created in the first DS was so overwhelming and brutal that after a while each player felt hopeless, but at the same time it added motivation to survive, and this is the genius of the whole series. The designs of all the worlds so far are simply works of art of graphic design. It doesn't matter if it's the world of Boletaria centralized in HUB, divided into five different locations, whether it's concentrated, presented in a truly progressive Lordran style, full of secret passages and shortcuts, or the world of Drangleic in the form of a forking, growing tree , with roots in one starting location, each of them is a completely different and different experience of exploration.
ART, JUST ART!
All Souls have a slightly different approach to the presentation of the open world than that which games such as TES, Gothic or Risen have accustomed us to over the years. It's not epic vast stretches of terrain that you can traverse the length and breadth of, on foot or on horseback, it's a more focused and personal, walking journey through interlocking locations that form a coherent whole. The construction of the worlds is a kind of redefinition into the 3D language of classic isometric cRPGs in the style of IceWind Dale, Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights, which also took place in more closed locations, but once we got to a castle, a system of underground corridors or a foggy town, we could visit every room, every cottage, every cave. This exploration of the area meter by meter and literally licking the walls is the quintessence of exploration in DS, thanks to which we savor every moment of looting all nooks and crannies.
Smelly Gutter!
Exploration is one thing, but the design and layout of locations on the map is another. Demon's Souls set the bar very high, it can be said that when creating Dark Souls, FS had to face itself to beat the previous work and at the same time not fall into imitation. Did it work? One could argue, but nothing will take away the character of each of the worlds. Starting from the precursor that threw us into such amazing and at the same time terrifying places as the Tower of Latria. A prison of cursed Boletaria outcasts, full of rusty bars, cells full of emaciated prisoners, cages and instruments of torture. The place where hope died first. This oppressive place was additionally patrolled by blind, magical guardians with the appearance of Cthulhu from Lovecraft's works, whose ringing of wielded bells to locate enemies could freeze the hardest! The design of the entire tower is a small work of art, the dark corridors and cells of the Bastille-like fortress finally took us outside, after a long journey, including the cursed cathedral, a place of worship where, as you can see, the souls of prisoners were fed. I guess I wasn't the only one who was forced to associate it with Silent Hill. Right after that, we faced the infamous Maneater! The deeper into the abyss, the darker and scarier, because at the base of the huge structure there was practically hell, to which we were descending in a cage for rebellious inmates. It all culminated in a fight with the Boss sitting on top of the chairs? Allusion? Abstraction? Just a work of derailed art, modeled on Beksiński's paintings. The Tower of Latria really stuck in my mind and to this day I consider it the best location in the entire series. However, nothing changes the fact that places such as the rotten gutter of the Valley of the Defilement, the classic medieval stronghold of Boletaria, the dark corners of the Shrine of Storms, imposing associations with Moria in Middle-earth, or the Stonefang Tunnel deep underground, drilled by fiery worms, differed a lot from Latria. All of them presented extraordinary artistic craftsmanship of designers who set the bar very high for themselves and the competition.
DEFINITION OF HORROR IN GAMES WHEN 20 CTHULHU WANTED TO EAT YOU!
Despite the fact that Boletaria stuck in my heart like Estok, the next world also left its mark on me. It was hard to surpass ourselves in designing Lordran, so it had to be revolutionary and it was! Instead of a Hub and loadings, in Dark Souls we got a fully open world for the first time, which, with its architecture combined with gameplay, imposed associations with Castlevania! Because that's right! Dark Souls is such a super-boosted Castlevania from the time when the series turned from a slasher into an adventure game full of puzzles, exploration and high-level combat. Maybe that's why the series appeals to my tastes so much, because I'm a big fan of everything that even slightly reflects the assumptions of Metroidvania. To the point! Dark Souls may have been a spiritual heir, perhaps it represented the same formula just in a different territory, but it developed its own specific, different atmosphere. The game attacked with dark Fantasy from the very beginning, pushing us into the shoes of the so-called dried. Empty, who was imprisoned in a prison isolated from the rest of the world. The very beginning is a kind of The Great Escape, because the real game started only when we landed in the mystical Firelink Shrine! This music and foggy environment, the beginning of a whole new adventure. For the first time, hear the characteristic sound of a bonfire being fired, combined with the name of the location popping up on the screen in the rhythm of the sound that we will dream about at night. It affected me so much that walking around the apartment I suddenly saw an underlined inscription, e.g. "Kitchen" and a specific "Bwszsiuuuuu" Yes! I guess I have to put this stuff away! No feeling amazing! Exploring each new land is something special in this game. There was also a duplication of patterns, such as the gutter (slowed down;-) Blighttown, which did not differ too much from the Valley of the Defilement, or the town imposing associations with the fortress in Boletaria. However, the rest was a novelty in the series and it's surprising that we managed to introduce so many new, fresh locations that were practically not reflected in the predecessor. Darkroot Garden! A dark, silent forest, interspersed with the ruins of old buildings, waterfalls and aimlessly wandering "tree people" and overgrown mushrooms! Japanese do you think? Then jump to one of the mushrooms! The climate in this place was thick as the fog that stood there. New Londo Ruins gives me chills just thinking about it! Filled with ghosts, a fallen fortress half flooded with water. The game turned into a real Horror. Little? Tomb of the Giants, probably one of the most mean and inaccessible locations in the series, a chasm full of decay and death in a "walking" form, whose king was a nice guy made of thousands of skulls. However, all this was overshadowed when the player ended up in Anor Londo!
WALK IN THE FOREST
The architecture of the royal residence was virtually unparalleled in either the series or the RPG genre in general. A huge castle, full of hidden passages and nooks and crannies, awakened in the player an explorer like Indiana Jones or another Nathan Drake. Anor Londo showed the fall of the kingdom by writing a story with every room visited. All these abandoned rooms of servants and royal retinue, as if everyone had evaporated from their daily duties. The roofs of soaring towers, on which you had to carefully balance and sneak to the windows leading to the inner chambers. A huge cathedral, once gathering members of the sun cult. These golden reflections on the marble floors, sculptures and other elements of the decor studded with precious metal and stones. The atmosphere of an abandoned house and the echoes in the space intensified the experience! The culmination of the trip to Anor Londo was the worst fight in the series with the meanest motherfuckers gaming has ever seen! The duo of Ornstein and Smoug made everyone nervous! However, the reward in the form of visiting the "Solar Goddess" with the largest buffers in games ever, fully rewarded the hardships. The majestic capital of Lordran has become so iconic that we were even supposed to return to it in the future, but no one knew that at the time. Dark Souls is an example of how you can turn the success of its predecessor into gold and create a quality that is hard to find in other developers. They bought me this.
HOW TO CHANGE THE ADDRESS, IT'S ONLY TO ANOR LONDO CITY
Did the series take a breather when visiting Drangleic in Dark Souls II? Many will unanimously say yes, but I completely disagree with it, because in my opinion, just because something is different does not necessarily mean that it is worse. The developers clearly wanted to go in a different direction, which made the world structure not as consistent as in Dark Souls. There was no feeling of a great hard journey, rewarding the patient and persistent, who enjoyed such mundane things as opening a shortcut to the bonfire or leaving the bridge shortening the way to important points on the map. In two, you can freely travel between the bonfires. Thanks to such jumping, the game became simpler, and the world became something like a hybrid of openness from the first game and HUB from Demon's Souls. But did the locations lose their character because of this? Honestly, I've noticed a lot more duplicate ideas. Once again, we were descending into a foul dungeon that looked exactly like Valley of the Defilement, again! And this time they were literally called the gutter. Drangleic Castle is a poorer variation on Anor Londo, which could not match the iconic capital of Lordran with its poor architecture. However, there were once again gems that positively surprised me and I will definitely remember them. The idea of a deserted pirate bay, clearly modeled on the cult paintings of the genre, only in a slightly more fallen version is a hit! Summoning a spectral ship with a bell, the subsequent boss fight below the crypt deck and the possibility of using the ship as a transport to the Lost Fortress, well, a fairy tale ... i.e. Horror! The Keep itself, bathed in moonlight, filled with prisoners and suicidal cultists, was not bad either. The dark, secretive forest on the outskirts of the city was as imaginative as Darkroot Garden, especially since I felt there like Little Red Riding Hood or Hansel and Gretel, lost and tempted by the sweet voices and smiles of the forest spirits, which usually drew me into a trap. In addition, a hidden quest with a soldier converted after death, looking for his head and warning against a body wandering in the fog! Well, a mastery based on cult works of literature. The name Sleepy Hollow suggests itself. The whole world was presented in the form of a tree, each branch of which is a series of successive locations, I was most captivated by the "branch" leading to Iron Keep.
I HAD TO STOP AND PRESS THE (USEless) SHARE BUTTON!
In order to get to the Steel Fortress, i.e. the largest forge the world has ever seen, you had to go through the hunters' valley bathed in darkness, and then through the mysterious temple buildings, in the labyrinth of which you could get lost, and oozing from every crevice and pond the poison and the rampant mages didn't help at all. Stronghold of Steel had something that always fascinated me in the series. Anor Londo-like construction, full of shortcuts to open, the master blacksmith turned into a demon as one of the meanest bosses, and the story of this place told by a local merchant. What more could you want? Despite the disappointing fight with Maior Domus, I consider Iron Keep to be the gem of this installment.
WHO YOU ENTER THERE WILL NOT LEAVE ON YOUR OWN STRENGTH!
As you can see, this chapter is a wall of text, but I just can't stop writing about the individual, exciting journeys through the depths of the Souls world, which immediately fell in love with me. And despite all the inaccessibility and the brutal level of difficulty, I am very happy to come back to it, because there is always something new to discover, and the creators surprise at every turn. It's hard to describe my personal experiences, because they are different for everyone, but for me, the climate and atmosphere while absorbing this bloody piece of code is pure pleasure.
WOŁODYJOWSKI IN ALL OF US!
Who didn't want to become a knight when he was a teenager? Who ran around the yard with a plastic sword or a stick and a bucket on his head and made himself the self-appointed ruler of the sandbox, he knows "what's up". Souls fulfill the dreams of every fan of the medieval approach to fencing and weaponry. The literalness and pietism with which all this is presented makes the hearts of fans of forged steel beat faster!
CHOOSE YOUR STYLE
At the base of a good combat system in RPGs, there is always a character development system, which determines whether our soldier will be a fast and agile swordsman, a heavy giant with the strength of an aurochs, or an airy mage leaning on a staff and throwing magical incantations. This system in the series seems to be quite simple in assumptions, consisting in raising one specific stat at each level of experience, however, each of the stats is affected by not many other factors. Such, for example, resistance is not only an increase in vitality and a character less vulnerable to damage, it is also a range of all kinds of resistance to spells, fire, poisoning, electrical discharges, etc. etc. The strength factor will increase the damage we deal, but also, for example, will allow us to lift more equipment at once. The statistics are a fairly clear table and it is entirely up to us what the main character of the drama will look like, we not only decide on his appearance, but above all on his strength in specific professions. Create your own hero from scratch? Priceless!
CHOOSE BY COLOR
The hero is modeled throughout the game, we are constantly modifying something, changing directions going in the one we prefer. The figure is a piece of clay, marble, and we are the sculptor giving them shape every time we visit a leading teacher, every time we sit around a campfire or visit a local blacksmith's forge. The possibilities are virtually endless and nothing stands in the way of reversing your choices with special artifacts. This is what turns me on the most in DS! It's the feeling of being a helpless shell whose abilities grow with each enemy defeated and each piece of scrap metal found. At the beginning, when a man says to himself "well, at least something" when he finds a rusty sword and helmet of some wretch in the sewer under the city, and later the first wooden shield and throws off the leaky rags for eyelet mail and leather trousers. The subsequent chaining of a delinquent with plate armor and a helmet with a terrifying wolf's mouth, or the dark robe and mask of the grim reaper itself, throws an uncontrollable banana on the face. Immersion into each mute character really does well.
YOU CAN BECOME A CROSSMAN!
The deeper into the forest, the more possibilities and tools of murder to choose from, which has become another characteristic feature of the series and a benchmark in the genre. Already The Elder Scrolls offered tons of iron to choose from, but what the From Software games present is a completely different quality. Their division into categories can give you a headache! Slashing swords, thrusting swords, both attacks or magic attacks and counters, long swords, curved swords, two-handed swords, broken swords, giant swords! Shields only for defense and counter, or such for heavy crushing attacks and reflecting spells! Knives and spears that sweep everything in range, or pierce enemies and skewer them. Small inconspicuous but deadly daggers, double blades that are a medieval analogy to Darth Maul's light lance from "Star Wars", studded whips, a whole range of bows, crossbows and arrows, magical catalysts in the form of all kinds of staffs and special bells. Little? How about patting a few snouts with a ladle, a poker, or a wooden club? Any way is good to survive, right?
And here's my thief
Making sophisticated elements of armament is a topic for a whole separate paragraph and a full professional, illustrated guide, which if it really was made, I would pre-order it! The design shows multicultural influences from the real world and never crosses the borders of good taste and seriousness. All those inlaid with crests and studded with stones, noble armor of rulers, those jagged, blood-rusted swords that have seen more than one fight. All those shields with family crests or carved giant copies full of demonic engravings and decorations. Swords burning with live fire and robes woven from golden thread full of magical reflections. Mirror Shield! Magic Spectral Sword! Armor from Catarina, thanks to which we look like a thoroughbred onion! I'm melting... In From Software, there is either a whole staff responsible only for designing weapons, or there is one chief enthusiast of Medieval climates who steers the whole enterprise like a despotic king of perfectionism!
AND YOU FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT LIKE THEY FIGHT
Apart from all the paranoia related to collision detection and the totally botched physics of all Souls, it was the combat system that set a new quality in gaming for many years and hardly anyone breaks down melee combat as finely as the swordsmen from From Software.
Quintessence!
I like slashers, I really do! This ruthless fight with a two-meter blade, without any limits and chopping hundreds of enemies into slices is pure, condensed fun. However, sometimes I feel like a more realistic approach to melee combat and these games have provided me with more than that. First of all, the heaviness of the movements and the sense of weight of the swung iron, a factor that distinguishes them from other fantasy action RPGs. I always found it funny that TES characters were "swimming" and swinging a sword like a stalk found in the forest, as if it weighed nothing at all. Demon's Souls showed, or rather confirmed me in what a fight should look like for heavily armored, "canned" warriors, panting with difficulty from behind the visor. Here, every cut, crushing thud or thrust must be planned, delivered from the right angle, from a convenient position during the hole in the opponent's defense. Any anger-driven, reckless play is punished with a sharp depletion of your health bar or death! You constantly have to be focused, constantly think about covering yourself with a shield, dodging, rolling and controlling the stamina bar depending on the character's level, the supply of which affects practically every our activity. Maybe it's not entirely realistic, but rather a limitation related to it, because real medieval European warriors could hardly afford to drift away and gasp after 5-6 sword swings, but it's a game and they follow their own rules . There must be some constraints affecting the balance, right? The stamina factor is an accretion of racial RPGs and has been in the genre since time immemorial, which is also a motivation for character leveling.
THE REMEMBER THE GOTHIC TIMES.
Slaughtering stupid zombies armed with clubs or torches is usually the first thing we encounter in the series, but the further into the forest the harder and more demanding it gets. The real fun begins when we arm ourselves with a suitable sword or axe, put on a steel armor and stand in front of a two-meter-long gentleman bursting with steam through the cracks in the helmet! Reminiscent of the best scenes from Uruk-Hai in Peter Jackson's film trilogy. It's the tension and pressure in the harbors as a giant with a blade the size of us rushes at us! Take up the challenge or run away? The first hit on the shields, which drained the entire stamina bar, and another slash is already coming towards us, will we be able to regain at least a millimeter of stamina to dodge, regenerate behind the enemy's back and counter with a side slash or is it our end!? It varies, it happens that the exchange of blows lasts from 5 to 15 minutes and consists in constant nibbling with the enemy and playing cat and mouse on the map. Healing and more scratches on the dial! One slash and dodge! Escape to the stairs and attack from above! Shield parry and instant deadly counter! Flip and send a quick arrow from the bow! Launch a fireball from your hand and retreat up the ladder to the upper level! Each fight is a different script and choreography worthy of the best Hollywood pictures. The feeling and satisfaction resulting from defeating each more demanding opponent is indescribable, and the accelerated heart rate and trembling muscles speak for themselves that in fact we fight not only on the TV screen but also ourselves, inside! This game can really make you sweat and get palpitations.
AS LIKE SOMEONE COMPLAINED THAT IT'S TOO SLOW!
Battles with smaller or larger opponents scattered around the maps are one thing, but the quintessence has always been boss fights, and these can lead to the grave. Not once after defeating one of the more difficult pleasantries, I just had to put the pad down and lie down for a moment to calm my nerves and heart that wanted to jump out of my chest. Moments when the boss has a few millimeters of life left, we ourselves are barely standing and we have to decide to attack or cover ourselves with a shield, which can also send us to the sand because despite the block, we always receive some damage anyway. Or dodge, shoot an arrow, and the knife will succeed! Maybe we'll be that quarter of a second faster than a hand-wide blade flying towards our neck! Decisions made under the pressure of the moment are the order of the day and a lot depends on them. The worst are those fights in which we defend, heal and deal one hit out of ten from the boss most of the time! Such a crossing is better for health than a morning cross-country run, probably bursting with a similar amount of calories. It is worth remembering that while playing DS, herbal tranquilizers and a few pairs of pants for a change are highly recommended.
MONSTERS & CO
What would "souls" be without a one-of-a-kind bestiary? What Crash Bandicoot without crates and Lara without boobs, BUCKET!
It seems From Software employs some evil spawn or the Fallen Angel himself, because the design of the monsters in the series could only come from some sick and twisted mind, but this is just AWSOME! The architects of evil in the graphics department simply have no equal in this field. There is probably no competition on the market that could match the works of the Japanese. I've always been excited about the schizophrenic approach of the slant-eyed brothers to design, who in games such as the Silent Hill series were able to present us with disgusting and terrifying monsters from the worst nightmares, on the other hand, they gave us colorful slimes and killer crabs, but let's skip that. In the creation of Demon's Souls and later installments, artists, cartoonists and designers climbed to the heights of virtual madness in modeling.
I'll give you one example and you'll immediately know what I mean. GAPING DRAGON! Probably the first boss from Dark Souls if I remember correctly. Everyone who was there saw the cute face of a lizard peeking out of a hole in the ground. How sweety! Come here little one! These were the first thoughts, and then a cold shower! The lizard turned out to be the NOSE of a giant ZOMBIE-DRAGON, which is a lure for naive victims! The bone abomination crawled out of the ground, reared up on its hind legs, gaped open the rotten moldy ribs on its chest, and roared with the roar of a thousand absorbed souls! It's called MINDFUCK!
ONE TWO THREE, SPOT!
It all started, however, with such personalities as a blind, 100-meter-tall, ancient dragon with a double jaw like an Alien from Ridley Scott's saga, the aforementioned ugly Maneater, a gargoyle with a human face and a snake as a tail, Stitched from human remains, a rotten man with a cleaver or Tower Knight! Oh yeah Tower Knight! A nice guy who made us realize how small we are in this world! As the name suggests, it was a Goliath the size of a watchtower, with a shield the size of a small truck, a lance carved from a tree trunk, and its helmet could probably house a family of 3! How about a pseudo-Tibetan, dried up monk who instead of dusting himself in red robes, he has a pile of them curled into a kind of funnel-turban on his head, the epitome of his mark for betraying and absorbing the souls of his other brothers! Here we come to another important issue, namely the stylistic consistency and interpretation of the roots of a given monster.
TRY TO AVOID SUCH "GOALKEEPER"
Each designed opponent was closely related to a given location and fit perfectly into the predetermined reality. The inhabitant of the rotten sewage was made of thousands of leeches, a disgusting creature with the appearance of a golem, in castles you could usually run into all sorts of armored knight-guardians of various sizes and strength. The ancient temple is, of course, the world-forgotten remains set in motion by magic, manifesting themselves in the form of walking skeletons with various weapons, skeletons-mages lifting the dead from the grave and others assembled from the bodies of the dead and rusty weapons of abominations. The deeper and further the player goes, the more terrifying creatures he will meet on his way. Forgotten by the world, adversaries usually throw an expression of scandal or utter horror on their faces! How can you even kill something like that! A frequently asked question.
THE GENTLEMEN NEED NO INTRODUCTION
I've already mentioned "The Gap Dragon" (Sick!), but my absolute top from the parts played so far is primarily The Old Hero! A boss from the dark underworld of Shrine of Storms from Demon's Souls. Imprisoned by a giant sword stuck in the ground, a blind ancient knight with a tattooed body. The whole fight with him was based on a game of cat and mouse, because the opponent saw nothing and acted entirely by smell and hearing, while uttering cries of madness that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. One of the best and inventive clashes in the series. By the way, his appearance and screams reminded me a lot of Veronica, known from Resident Evil: Code, the senior of the Ashford family!? Case?
The only boss in the series that I admire and respect
The Orstein bastard is on the list too! Clad in golden armor, a proud dragon hunter with a lion's head helmet and a thunderbolt-throwing energy spear. It quickly became the showpiece of the series and also appeared in later installments in the form of Cameo. It is a pity that the first clash with him in history is one of the worst fights ever, because he is supported in it by fat Smoug, blindly beating with a hammer the size of a Fiat 126p! I much prefer to stand against him and in an honorable 1 on 1 duel and prove once and for all who is better. He's one of those bosses we respect, even though he wants to make skewers out of our ass.
THE LATEST FACE OF DEATH!
An absolute destroyer was also Nito, the lord of Lordran's underworld. An abomination made of hundreds of skulls of buried warriors, fused together by some dark, rage-driven force, designed to scare away more players who are dragging them to the abyss. Death literally oozes from this disgusting creation of hell, and the ubiquitous coffins and the floor lined with bones deepen the fear of facing it. First of all, it was quite an art to reach him, you can see that he didn't want to be found and disturbed, so it's no wonder that he shortened the head of every nosy "Tomb Raider" who came to his house of death deep in the depths of the earth.
MIRROR, MIRROR, TELL ME? WHO WILL CRUSH ME TODAY?
The list goes on for a very long time and one could list endless examples of sick visions of the authors. Despite the fact that with each subsequent game you start to feel Deja Vu, and the epicness of the monsters is a bit lower, the creators still manage to surprise with something, such as the filthy The Rotten One from Dark Souls II, a macabre creation composed of ENTIRE bodies of the fallen, an obvious Dantesque vision or Looking Glass Knight, an extremely agile Knight in majestic mirror gear, using a magic mirror (shield) to defend himself, with which he summons phantoms from another dimension, one of those we admire before we start fighting. As you can see, the guys from FS still haven't exhausted their ideas and are creating new games, so until the formula gets boring, you have to forge the "meat" while it's hot!
MISCELLANEOUS 2
What else do I love about this series? It's hard to write everything down in one place, because many sentimental memories are fleeting moments, driving us there at that particular moment, and the very layering of them once again confirms the genius of the series.
I love that feeling of loneliness and constant anxiety when I'm making my way through dark dungeons and I never know what's around the corner and from which side the attack will come. Solo exploration is indescribable.
I love the magical sounds this world lives by. The sound of a bonfire, which means a moment of peace and relief, an asylum in which we are safe for a while. Blood pressure-boosting sounds of swords clashing and bowstrings drawn. The crystal sounds of stone lizards escaping in panic. Gusts of wind haunting abandoned ruins, giving the illusion of voices from the afterlife, but above all melancholy, minimalist music setting, making the player aware of how far he is from a safe home!
I like to observe the relationships between the characters, and even though their influence on the player is very sparing and subtle, we still care about their fate over time, and what they have interesting to say and offer. Many of the "avatars" are really interesting people upon closer acquaintance, who can repay us with help in the worst trouble, and their knowledge of the world sheds new light on many things. The treacherous Patches the Hyena, the proud Siegmeyer of Catarina or the incredible tale of Vengarl of Forossa, it's something you remember!
Get carried away by the story, discover the secrets of the ancient past and find out why whole worlds fell into ruins, PRICELESS!
PRAISE THE SUN
The Souls series is a sadistically addictive journey into yourself. On the one hand, it awakens a monster in us that, like the Incredible Hulk, wants to destroy everything in its surroundings, but on the other hand, it fascinates with its unusual approach to the action RPG formula, which has become ossified in the last 10 years, introducing practically nothing new. From Software "wrote" a new exciting genre, and the fact that many try to duplicate their style is proof that it was the proverbial Bullseye! Me, despite a ton of nerves and the same amount of calories that I burned playing their games, I will still bravely persist. I will swear, I will destroy pads, throw chairs, challenge programmers and bite pillows, but I will not give up because the fire is eternal and as long as it is smoldering in us, we know that we are alive. FINN.
YES IT IS!
BONUS - THE SALT AND SANCTUARY
Looking for any possible alternative to Pocket Souls, I came across a gem worth recommending to any fan, and I should mention that I don't have a Switch yet, so I won't mention the Dark Souls portable remaster.
Looks pretty familiar, doesn't it?
The Salt and Sanctuary on PSVita! The little-known studio SKA Studios served up the best, possible and perfect "translation" of DS into 2D language and Soulslike indie games. From the outset, it feels like the lost brother of Dark Souls, that despite a few contextual changes, the game feels like it's a spiritual heir or a chapter set in the same world, but somewhere on the other side of the globe. The game builds on everything we've seen in the Japanese series so far, so it's tough, there's irritating collision detection and mean enemies, but also an immersive world, beautiful music, and a character progression system with its own identity.
THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT A PLATFORM GAME!
An amazing title, which is additionally drawn with a Metroidvania flair, does not hide who it was inspired by, because that's what it's all about! I'm about 30% progress behind me and I can recommend the game to any DS veteran who doesn't contort at the sight of an archaic yet stylish 2D setting, revealing a unique and raw, hand-painted world.
THE TITLE SANCTUARY, THE LITERAL ANSWER TO SOULS bonfires
I guarantee that anyone who starts, survives the first hours and chops up the bosses waiting in the queue, will inadvertently throw a banana in his face. Have I seen it somewhere? ;-)
EPILOGUE
SOMETHING ENDS SOMETHING BEGINS
