i think dark souls 2 may have just emotionally impacted me more than it did for other people. vendrick’s state is one of the most affecting things i’ve encountered in video games
but i also would play ds2 again in an instant, whereas every time i start a new character in ds1 i get bored around sen’s / anor londo and lose motiviation to get back to that damn dlc which i still haven’t finished (got stuck on the first boss)
I finished Undertale today instead of working.
I cried a little, then felt silly, then got confused. The true pacifist ending is certainly very anime.
I can see why people vehemently defend this game to the point of absurdity. It has that quality about it, that thing that hooks people like Homestuck and Firefly and Dr. Who do. That feeling of never-ending depth and familiarity. Like a big warm hug that from a quantum physics textbook. The combination of feeling like you could study something forever, and feeling like you’ve found a family.
It’s a bit much for me honestly. I get overwhelmed by things like this.
Thematically, it’s very frustrating that the game explicitly chastises you for trying to do a Kill-Everybody run after doing a pacifist run, when half the story is buried in the Kill-Everybody run. I guess that idea is that sating your curiosity isn’t worth other’s suffering, but…nobody is really suffering, so it’s kind of a silly point to try and make. Still, the idea works really well as a modern ghost-as-software story.
I liked Undertale a lot. It is definitely in my top 10 games now, despite the criticism. I just think it falls apart when you start looking at the meta stuff that it does. It becomes a bit…contradictory and meaningless I guess? I’d have to do a deeper analysis, which I won’t because that would certainly ruin it for me.
The Papyrus battle is absolutely the best boss battle in any game ever. I love it. I still get chills thinking about it.
the vendrick encounter made me realize that dark souls 2 was actually artistically sensitive in a sea of squandered promises. i don’t like it very much, actually, but i think about the game a lot. the way it deals with memories and the search of the self was beautiful, the credits music says more than almost every bossfight. i wish we got the product they actually wanted to make.
Hah, that’s funny – much as i love the game, i tend to stop at Sen’s/Anor as well (more than a few of my playthroughs have ended on Painted World, my favorite level). i’m actually someone who likes the much-maligned second half of the game, but it does really plateau at that point.
Part of my disappointment w/ DS2 may be that i was really intrigued by the themes being hinted at in the first part of the game, but i came away feeling like it hadn’t amounted to much? i remember getting to the original, lone ending, turning to my friend who was watching and saying “i have no idea what the fuck this game was about or why i did anything”
I’ll definitely give the game another chance, should i ever have access to a console that can play the Scholar rerelease. i’m intrigued by the more fleshed out story bits and want to give all of the DLCs a go (only ever played a chunk of the first, and it was on someone else’s time). The way the play feels, some of the more puzzling/frustrating mechanical decisions, and the often disappointingly flat level design were ultimately what left me feeling down on it, so i doubt it would be a full redemption for me, but i liked enough about it to want to review my feelings.
the biggest thing i like about Undertale is just that i appreciate cute monsters and it is entirely a game about being friends with cute monsters, which is my ACTUAL DREAM
i’m probably a little more critical of it, looking back, but i still have a lot of time for it, and for a young dude’s first (full-game, original asset) effort it’s hell of impressive. Like, people slag off the writing and themes for being pretentious or w/e, but i’m into how sweetly sentimental it gets, really feels like “a messy love letter to all my friends and favorite games (and also anime)”
plus the music is fucking aces (Paprus is maybe my favorite battle too and the moment the theme goes “NYEHEHEH!”->“Bonetrousle” is low-key terrific)
(plus the regular, ordinary attack)
unquestionably the best part of the game
Flippancy aside, I would like you to expand on this because I guess I don’t understand why you are so upset? (I’m also unfamiliar with this ‘genre’ so maybe I am just generally out of the loop. Like, I don’t think stories need to necessarily be about the scariest thing in life, and, late capitalism seems a srs enough topic to explore?
Yeah, more of this kind of stuff.
I would never put Undertale into “pretentious” territory. If anything, I wish it explored the themes of friendship and conflict more deeply. I can see people being turned off by the sentimentality, but I liked that. More sentimentality and genuine feelings in games please.
It is pretty rad that it has a wildly over-the-top Power of Friendship™ ending not too different from ones you’ve seen in many jrpgs, but in order to see it, you must actually befriend everybody, and try your best not to hurt anybody. It’s so goddamn adorable.
(Though in a lot of ways i think i like the various neutral endings best 
)
Also i lied, the best battle in the game is the one where you convince the two Hotland guards to confess their love for one another
second best is Lesser Dog
Vendrick would be cool if he didn’t eventually turn into a boss.
I don’t think DS2 actually deals with memories. It merely presents the theme.
you don’t have to kill him
Yeah. Knowing that the option exists though just robs it of a lot of its impact I think. It feels last-minute. Like, “Huh. Well, we modeled this guy, so we might as well let the player kill him eventually.”
Wouldn’t that cross a line? They don’t stop the player from killing other, more innocent village NPCs.
I don’t think so. You can’t hurt him during the first encounter. I’d be perfectly happy interpreting that as a maintenance of his mental deterioration and hardiness, still somehow steadfast after all these years. Come to think of it, I’d’ve also preferred if the Ancient Dragon weren’t a boss. It doesn’t help that both of 'em are awfully designed.
Man. Don’t even get me started on how comically the game handles NPC death otherwise. Those headstones.
probably the actual worst part of the game, from a person who think ds2sotfs is the pinnacle of souls
this is a great point because i don’t actually think ds2 is a game that concerns itself overly with themes, other than disorder and isolation
but it’s too disordered and isolated to follow through on them. it’s empty. and it’s for the best, because it allows you to take anything you want away from it.
and by empty, i mean there’s no underlying meaning, no intended interpretation. it’s a bunch of cool stuff thrown together. but it comes together blissfully!
it’s hard to defend souls2 because it really is a piece of shit. it’s just the best piece of shit ever.
still stand by ds2 having the best pvp of the series
also i definitely remember just going ham on him on first encounter, he just doesn’t react until you’re a bunch of hits in (oh right, you need some souls of a giant to make it not super tedious, whatever) (edit again: ‘Summoning player phantoms for Velstadt will also lower Vendrick’s defenses regardless of Giant Souls.’ that’d do it)
Replaying Link’s Awakening. I know a case has been made for it as the best of the GB© Zeldas, and I don’t necessarily disagree with it, and yet, the game still bugs in ways the others others don’t. I dislike how central the sword is, and how there are really no good alternatives to it for the longest time, making it a complete 180 from the previous traditional Zeldas until then. I dislike how you’re forced to spend far too much time on the menu screen. The segment where you’re walking Bow Wow feels most pleasant to traverse, and that’s largely because you can use the Roc Feather and Bracelet and still have offensive options. These are all still issues in the Oracles games, but there, at least, they feel like they exist because they existed in LA. It’s not their fault, per se.
I’m also unsure how I feel about the various bosses and sub-bosses and how their aesthetic fits into Zelda’s larger history. Those that aren’t lifted from LttP take the forms of things like clowns or faces, which work on the GB screen, but like the rest of the game, take the series in a direction I was never sure I appreciated. Is there actual art of the bosses available? It’d be interesting to see what they looked like before being translated into sprites.
(And of course, the bosses were also an area in which the game turned towards the rigid compared to past games.)
I also bought a copy of Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge from the local vintage vidcon store, and it’s quite neat. Between the stage selection, the Belmont du jour’s projectile attack, the vertical ropes, and multiple paths, it feels very Mega Man in places, which is interesting.
counterpoint: you can equip a bow and bombs and hit both buttons to shoot bomb-tipped arrows
Also: "You got Marin! Is this your big chance? "