Fatigued Souls (Part 1)

i remember when they first demoed aldia and it was dark and haunting and it felt like it was going to be this huge sprawling spooky mansion

they sure didn’t live up to that huh

I once spent like an afternoon invading the catacombs, dropping dung and pebbles on the highest rotating bridge to lure strangers then activating the trap like Patches
It definitely was the best PVP experience in the series

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One host waited for me along with a white phantom at the Patches lever instead. I walked the long way and then when I approached the ladder they Tranquil Walk of Peace’d me and both plunge attacked me at the same time

When you made a mistake and you know you did, it’s not so bad; that becomes a moment to reflect and rethink. When some kind of bullshit comes out of nowhere and one-shots you, it’s crazy-making.

Is it? I find that it’s actually the other way around. Getting randomly one-shotted is just life, but the implication that I deserve to suffer loss after humiliating loss makes me physically ill with anger.

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This medium doesnt seem like your thing

That seems very backwards… ?

Are you saying that you get angry when something that its directly your fault goes wrong but just accept when a random punishment comes from nowhere?

Some people just hate themselves

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This is the most interesting dark souls take I’ve ever seen

no it isnt clint

No it’s very good and cool. Maybe not the most interesting take but it really made me think y’know?

Everyone be nice to Hater :x

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i wasnt being mean

I am being 100 percent genuine, and I’ve been thinking about that post all day.

Like, yeah, maybe we shouldn’t put up with this punishment! Maybe in 100 years punishing people for failure in video games will be seen as a bizarre leftover from capitalism and our current tendency to assume that all failure stems directly from choices people make.

I’m kind of obsessed with it right now honestly

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Like, a teacher would never tell a student who failed a test “Go back to lesson 1, even though I know you already know all of that material!!! You have screwed up and must learn through repetition!!” Maybe it’s sick that video games do this.

I know that this isn’t a hot take - difficulty in games is always a hot button issue, but I’ve never seen such vitriol towards it and it’s really making me reassess my own relationship with difficulty!!!

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i think before you go too far down that rabbit hole you should consider that there are like, multiple genres of video games my dude

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yeah yeah

i’m just like

having a moment

Getting to play the game you like more isn’t a punishment.

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Yeah like I always think about people that lose a save file or what have you and decide not to play the game they were theoritcally enjoying again and like isn’t that the ultimate condemnation of the game?

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I agree that this is interesting to think about. What you summarized here was my experience with Flamelurker, and it could just as easily apply to an R-Type boss.

Of course, subsequent Souls games have retreated from this with more generous bonfires (always right before a boss these days). I think it’s a welcome change, but I wonder whether the developers felt that they were compromising their vision in making things more forgiving, in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience. Or did they come to conclude that they had made things needlessly punishing in the past?

Though I enjoy thinking about my Flamelurker experience now, it sure was harrowing at the time. Each time I died (immediately, without getting a chance to really learn any strategy), I had to reach that point again. I happened to discover the shortcut path first and didn’t even know about the longer one, but I still died trying to make those jumps half the time.

Also, Demon’s Souls doesn’t merely imply that the player deserves to die. Executioner Miralda explicitly says so. I mentioned what is my favorite spoken line in another thread:

That said, I like the Souls games just the way they are.

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I’m just wondering how much the idea of “punishment is always deserved” has infiltrated my way of thinking outside of games. I’m definitely the kind of person who feels a deep shame at failure, and assume that anything bad that happens to me is somehow my fault. So it’s a bit of a chicken or egg riddle for me, and I wonder how much this may affect other people as well.

So really it’s just a personal line of thinking, there’s absolutely a place for difficult games yadda yadda there are less difficult games blah blah blah retreading old ground etc.