we’re finally down to the top 10. so begins the journey to determine the winner of the losers bracket, which will go on to face katamari damacy in the grand finals. earthbound, outrun 2 and doom / doom ii are also still in the running, but they’re seeded for later rounds so they don’t appear in this pool yet. overall bracket here. voting is now open and will close in one week.
Kind of funny to consider that the final 3 rounds of the winner’s bracket is going to be Katamari Damacy vs Doom/Doom2 and it’ll end with a tie every time
I still think Bloodborne is relatively overrated and has horrible pacing. Every time I try to replay it it keeps becoming my least favourite FromSouls thing. My favourite areas, weapons and moments are locked behind a staid first half. I’m indifferent to the aesthetic (until Cainhurst Castle and Mensis), the combat never clicked (pistol parries are really abstract to me as a way of forcing this style of defense, feels like a half step to Sekiro) and the music has never registered with me. I’m fairly sure there’s a specific interlocking set of taste flags that just rubs against my game mind, because the game seems to command tons of esteem that I can’t directly experience myself. I’m curious to get more perspective on why people love it rather than just moan about lack of early weapon and build variety.
Going by how much I’ve played out of the games in question I’d have to say killer 7 and MGS2. Dark Souls and F-Zero GX are probably the better games though, so I don’t think I’ll vote for this. I’m too torn between my opinion and the right thing to do
Demon’s and Bloodbourne are the two modern From games I have played the least and they both look like they could end up being my favorite From games. I’ll play the latter some time soon because I have it on PS5
don’t care about any of these games other than F-Zero. souls more like BOWL…ELS. i will vote against Bloodborne and Demon’s Souls spiritually 8000 times just out of spite for Doom and SH2 and Mario 64 being out of the running.
ah okay! good to know. also i was mostly joking, just kinda get bored with how the entire game world i follow seems like it’s dominated by SoulsBorne at all times.
esoteric appeal meaning wildly commercially successful franchises that literally 80% of games people i follow on twitter and 80% of people on here talk about constantly apparently
i get it. they’re the Radiohead of games. it’s mostly just that tired of hearing about how brilliant they are in the same way (as much as i love Radiohead) i’m tired of hearing about how good OK Computer is. feels like there are no new points to be made there. i’m just kinda annoyed by games world i follow being one extended lovefest for those games.
I think From coming ahead in the international market is a good thing. There are only five games in this colloquial series, only one of which people tend to describe as mediocre at worst, and they employ many of the same design philosophies that have been present in King’s Field and early Armored Core, and some of those games barely saw the light of day. Just because The Big D is a successful series doesn’t make it undeserved. The core design principles and integrated story and mechanical complexity are still different than anything being done in the AAA space, and I will be happy to play every Sword & Shield Em Up that I can get my hands on. I’ve only been able to play DS3 and Bloodborne for a few hours each, because I don’t own a PS4, and I can still vividly remember what happened in each of those games, where I went, and how I got to the places I did, and that memorability is something that isn’t to be found in pretty much any action RPG released this decade. Dark Souls has basically taken the place of The Elder Scrolls 6, and I’m grateful that game doesn’t exist, because unlike the actual most popular ARPG series, Dark Souls at least has the guts to be different in its presentation from everything else, even if that difference has become repetitive. They made the same game like 6 times with Kings Field/Shadow Tower/Eternal Ring, and I don’t think the wild runaway success of Dark Souls has changed much about the way the company makes games, and that’s why I’m voting for Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls. They’re stuck in my memory in meaningful way, and that’s not a new opinion, they’re stuck in many people’s memories, mostly the same memories, and that’s fine. And that’s not to mention the online encounters, each of which is its own little unique story, even if that story is “I killed a guy” or “a guy killed me”, you just don’t really get that often.
and honestly both of the games in this bracket are over a decade old, and this is selectbutton, so you’re not gonna stop hearing about them until we’re all dead probably
i know what’s interesting about those games. i’ve heard like probably like 1000 different people recount their relationship with them in excruciating detail by this point. more interested in the ones like King’s Field that are slightly weirder and don’t have the generic western medieval grim dark framing (yeah i know “the lore is good” or whatever) and AAA budget tbh. them being more interesting than other AAA games is more of a reflection of the total paucity of interesting or novel ideas in the AAA space more than it’s a huge endorsement of Souls for me. not to mention the fandom for them is basically like the Harry Potter fandom of games.
I have played every Souls game multiple times and somehow never came in direct contact with its “fandom” and I recommend everyone else disconnect so much they never have to hear anyone say “git gud”
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