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Hidetaka Miyazaki sees death as a feature, not a bug

313 points by evo_9 5y ago

vsareto 5y ago
>I do feel apologetic toward anyone who feels there’s just too much to overcome in my games Psh, I ain't buying it. I think they found a niche and like sticking to it, and maybe like making folks salty. They make a ton of people happy with the difficulty, but nothing about these games are apologetic.
- Trasmatta 5y ago
  I imagine him with his characteristic smirk as he says that. He's apologetic -- but also fully enjoying it. Miyazaki is a pretty brilliant troll.
- vlunkr 5y ago
  As other comments say, the difficulty has been oversold. I don't know what your experiences with these games are, but there are lots of forgiving aspects to them that wouldn't be there if they just wanted to make the hardest games on the market. Here's a few: - every death refills your main healing items, so you can't run out - you keep all the items you collect before you die - you can recover lost experience points/currency by returning to the place where you died - you can summon NPC or online co-op partners when you need. This trivializes most bosses. - other players can leave messages in the game. Lots of them are tricks, but it almost guarantees that you won't miss any important items. - they're RPGs. If you don't have enough health or whatever, you can level up to correct that. These games definitely punish you when you make a mistake, and sometimes they are just janky, but if you invest the time it all starts to make sense. Unfortunately, I think it's their own marketing department that really pushed the difficulty angle, maybe they're trying to back out of that now that they're not an underdog.
  - KTallguy 5y ago
    Demon's Souls was much more difficult in some ways, because you got weaker when you died (zombified), and your potions are consumable items that don't automatically recover. However you could also farm lots of potions, so there were ways to game it. Beating Demon's Souls on a tiny CRT in an even tinier Japanese temp-apartment is one of my most cherished gaming memories.
  - Accacin 5y ago
    Yeah, it's not the game that's difficult. It's having the ability to keep trying it and work it out that's difficult. I think of it like going back in time. You walk into a boss, you die. The game says, "Ok, what did you learn from that death"? "Oh, I shouldn't try to dodge backwards from that attack", "Ok, you're back where you started - try again". In this regard the games feel challenging but very fair. You can fight that boss for two hours straight and you haven't lost anything (other than possibly the souls you dropped). Any death you have is your fault, and you can't blame the game because you lost an item and now you are playing with another weapon or anything like that.
wly_cdgr 5y ago
It's funny how far the conversation has swung in the trash direction compared to 8-10 years ago. Used to be Proteus was controversial for having the nerve to call itself a game while having no gameplay...these days it's real games that have to defend themselves for having...real gameplay
cato_the_elder 5y ago
I love Miyazaki, and I hope the words in the headline are something they've put in his mouth. That's just banal deathist copium.
- cdev_gl 5y ago
  “Death and rebirth, trying and overcoming—we want that cycle to be enjoyable. In life, death is a horrible thing. In play, it can be something else.”
aqsheehy 5y ago
I hope when I'm close to death that I think this way too.
- xeromal 5y ago
  Heck yeah. Me too. It requires a tremendous amount of peace to pull it off.
  - goldenkey 5y ago
    I've been wanting to make a pact with someone else so whoever is going to die first will be detonated in a spectacular firework. Rather go out with a bang than a wimper.
    - xeromal 5y ago
      If space travel is cheap enough when I die, I'd like to be shot into the sun.
      - goldenkey 5y ago
        That sounds awesome. Like an immolating monk except by pure light/EMG itself :-) Count me in!
        xeromal 5y ago
        Hell yeah man! Just going back home.
Trasmatta 5y ago
The popular discourse seems to focus on the difficulty of From's games, but that's just one part of the entire experience. FromSoft has a holistic approach to game design that very few other studios manage to match. There's just an incredible amount of depth to their world building, and the gameplay, difficulty level, online mechanics, level design, characters, music, story, and themes all work to reinforce and complement each other. I think FromSoft's games (and specifically the ones directed by Miyazaki) will be among a small set of games released in the past 20 years that will still be played and studied in 50 or 100 years (or more). Also, this statement from the article: > Miyazaki has created the most difficult games of the century. This is absolutely not true. There are many games that are much, much harder than Miyazaki's games. And it was definitely never his goal to make "the hardest games". The goal, from everything I've read about him, was to make difficult games where the difficulty reinforces the themes he wants to convey, and evokes the emotions he wants you to feel. I could name a bunch of games that are harder -- including Nioh, a game that's partially inspired by Dark Souls, and has a similar combat system (but with a lot more complexity). The difficulty is an important aspect of their design, but it's just one piece of the puzzle. There's a quote from one of the characters in Dark Souls that I think gives a hint as to why Miyazaki makes hard games: > The dragons shall never be forgotten… We knights fought valiantly, but for every one of them, we lost three score of our own. Exhilaration, pride, hatred, rage… The dragons teased out our dearest emotions… Thou will understand, one day. At thy twilight, old thoughts return, in great waves of nostalgia.
- xeromal 5y ago
  100%. There is a lot of love and care that goes into the balance of their games. It's not unfair.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  I think the probably biggest mistake from other studios that try to replicate FromSoft's success is to try to make the games as difficult and punishing as possible. That really isn't the point. The secret sauce is arguably that FromSoft makes puzzle games disguised as action games. Everything is a mystery, from the lore to the game play. They are rewarding to play because it is rewarding to solve puzzles. The "difficulty" stems from the game developers anticipating how you will approach situations based on earlier situations, and adding new caveats to the rules. If you don't understand that dialogue between player and game designer, it may appear like it's just really punishing. It's really not, it's always easy if you know what to do. The difficulty comes from constantly being forced to adapt your approach. It's pretty brilliant how they consistently re-use enemy archetypes between the games. A rat is a rat and a dog is a dog, in Dark Souls and in Elden Ring. They form archetypes, elements of design language. You need that to have that sort of predictability on your easel to be able to pull off the sort of unpredictability they do.
thenerdhead 5y ago
A good reminder to face your mortality each new day. I love this perspective on life and not allowing the "dark" into his family as it might be seen as a negative trait. What a unique philosophy for something so creative.
uejfiweun 5y ago
I doubt that some New Yorker journalist can really appreciate the gravity of what Miyazaki has done to gaming. The man switched careers in his 30s and literally changed the face of video games, releasing one highly influential game after another. Yes, you die a lot in his games, and they are hard, but that isn't the point. The point is that the influences of Miyazaki games are now visible in almost every AAA game these days. It's tough to really know how much Dark Souls changed the game design zeitgeist unless you play a lot of games (like me). With Elden Ring, he has only cemented his place as once of the great game designers of all time - I really hope some of the design decisions influence other games in the same way.
- pvg 5y ago
  some New Yorker journalist You can just google the name. Simon Parkin has been writing about games professionally for 10+ years and like many people his age grew up playing games.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- aaronbrethorst 5y ago
  The author of the piece has been playing Dark Souls since before Twitter had a 'retweet' feature. https://twitter.com/SimonParkin/status/45876470601629696 https://twitter.com/SimonParkin/status/45876470601629696 https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3A%40SimonParkin%20dark%20souls&src=typed_query&f=live https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3A%40SimonParkin%20dark%20...
- oscb 5y ago
  You could try reading the article before assuming what the author will say. The author clearly is keen to Miyazaki's games and puts them into the context of the debate about game difficulty. Yet it justifies the author's intent. Give it a read.
wyager 5y ago
I bought ER the other day after hearing rave review and was super disappointed. I ended up returning it after a couple hours. * Visuals: Disappointing. Looked like a cheap free-to-play MMO. Cheap-looking textures, stock-looking characters, bad rigging (e.g. characters holding things in unnatural poses), etc. * Controls: Unpleasant. Controls felt very sluggish. If this is supposed to make the game more challenging or something, this isn't a very fun mechanic. * Software quality: Terrible. Performance is not good, tons of bugs, graphics issues, wouldn't recognize my controller when I had multiple input devices plugged in. * Dialogue: What little I saw was super corny. Used as a crutch for poor level design. E.g. a ghost telling you something to the effect of "you need to jump into this hole to continue the game". * Multiplayer felt like a cheap gimmick. I wanted to turn it off. And so on. This honestly felt like someone's first attempt at making a Unity game, not a magnum opus from an experienced developer. Am I missing something? This is my first souls game; is feeling cheap and clunky part of the aesthetic?
- fartcannon 5y ago
  Making up excuses for why you died so much/taking it out on the other parts of the game is 100% part of the experience. There's even t-shirts with common new player complaints. For example: https://mobile.twitter.com/jasperrolls/status/873907522448613380 https://mobile.twitter.com/jasperrolls/status/87390752244861...
  - wyager 5y ago
    That didn't bother me at all - the difficulty level seems good. Not one of my objections
    - fartcannon 5y ago
      Ah, just admit it. :D The sooner you admit it, the sooner you can get into the culture. It's not only one of the best series of games made in the past 15 years, but it's also got one of the more fun communities around.
- Trasmatta 5y ago
markus_zhang 5y ago
I heard about these gamed and watched a few hours of gameplay each. I was unconvinced and closed the YouTube tabs after it became too boring. I guess I have to play it to feel it? But most of the games I enjoy playing are fun to watch. Duke3d and Baldurs Gate are two examples. Can someone elaborate why Dark Soul is actually fun to play, and more importantly why sold for so many copies? I read other comments and the thing they mentioned (world building and music and game design) isn't really particularly recognizable from the few hours (actually about 10 hours) I watched, and even if they are excellent surely there are other games that match?
- mathteddybear 5y ago
  I cannot recall if they were popular games that matched it at the time. Let's not underestimate the online elements of the game (and the lack of difficulty levels, lack of saving game, that goes with it). As for the combat, that was the height of "Batman" combat on consoles. Cue internet discussions where fans of DS praised its combat design, while PC players with Mount&Blade were not impressed much.
- DanHulton 5y ago
  Very simply, no other game series does the "mastery" thing so well. The game is both wide and deep, and even though there's superficially a leveling system, it won't save you if you can't actually play. This raises some accessability issues, definitely. I'd love to see Fromsoft games take that challenge on next. (Or another studio, there are plenty of great Souls-like games out there.) Especially as I'm getting older, I definitely feel like I have a lot more "knocking the rust off" to do when I start up each new Soulslike game before I'm competent enough to play well. But once I'm in the zone, once I've achieved that mastery, enemies that I had previously been decrying as "absolute bullshit, what the hell am I even supposed to DO about them?", I'm just carving through casually, while theorizing in my head what stats I'm going to raise at the next level up or where I should head next. At least for me, there's no other game series that does that quite so well.
  - ShroudedNight 5y ago
    > This raises some accessability issues, definitely. I'd love to see Fromsoft games take that challenge on next. > Especially as I'm getting older, I definitely feel like I have a lot more "knocking the rust off" to do... I would definitely appreciate novel takes on accessible mastery. I likely [1] have visual memory (immediate + delayed), subtle but measurable visual motor difficulties, and ADHD:I. Having zeitgeist games feel so thoroughly inaccessible is alienating. One thing that feels like it helps (no concrete data, placebos and all that...) is high refresh rates. My guess is that it frees my visual memory from being used for interpolation. Ironically, From Software seem almost antagonistic to providing this. [1] Measured definitively ~15 years ago; who knows what's happened since then.
jquery 5y ago
The difficulty isn’t particularly high, it’s just high for a mainstream AAA game in the year it was released, and was probably the first time many in the generation of Dark Souls encountered actual challenging gameplay. There are much, much more punishing games out there from the mainstream (Ninja Gaiden and Nioh) to Indie (IWBTG and Super Meat Boy). I think Dark Souls is celebrated less for its difficulty and more for its beautiful world building.
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  I think it's because the difficulty sits in the right zone where you don't need extraordinary effort to complete it, but you need just the right amount so that you feel accomplished. The world building is icing on the cake, but not the main idea imo.
nassimsoftware 5y ago
I'm new to From Soft games and decided to buy Elden Ring because it's a similar game to Zelda Breath of The Wild which I really liked. I was afraid that the game would be too difficult. After playing 17hrs, the game is indeed difficult but there are many things you can do in the game to make it easier for yourself (Which I did because I'm more interested in exploring the world than mastering the gameplay). For example, if you're a casual gamer focus on exploring and having small wins (beating mobs, beating mini bosses, buying weapons) in the game before tackling the suggested route. There are guides online to help you lower the difficulty through finding certain items and buying certain things in the game. This is essentially the easy mode everyone wanted but the core souls fans. Anyway, great game.
- wincy 5y ago
  I like that the extremely challenging bosses can be bypassed, but are still there for those who want it and I think frees FromSoftware to make some bosses even more challenging. For example, there’s a spot where 2 of 3 major bosses have to be defeated. The third one is EXTREMELY difficult compared to the other two. Like, not even close. I didn’t have to beat it, having handily dispatched the other two, but I set a personal goal. I then proceeded to spend 4 hours the other night trying to beat it. I got frustrated, I got help from other players, but I just couldn’t progress. Finally the multiplayer servers went down, and I didn’t want to quit. I started paying attention. I analyzed why I was dying, and adapted a three phase strategy for the different parts of the boss fight. First time, died, second time, died but got it to low health. Third time was the same, then finally the fourth time it all came together in harmony, and I beat the boss. The feeling I got from that was exquisite, like I had EARNED something, even if it’s just some game and mostly a waste of time. It felt similar to when I used to raid in World of Warcraft, but without the 40+ hour a week commitment. It’s been years since I’ve felt a sense of accomplishment anywhere close to that because of my professional career. Most of the projects I work on are pretty boring.
- idle_zealot 5y ago
  > This is essentially the easy mode everyone wanted but the core souls fans. This easy mode has been in every From game I’ve played. It’s the reason core fans don’t want the much-demanded difficulty settings.
Osmose 5y ago
I think Miyazaki's games are great and I enjoy them myself, but the continued (even in this article, somewhat) framing of accessibility features as ruining the artistic vision of hardship is a little disingenuous at this point. Many disabilities make games several times more difficult than they are for people without them, and a difficulty slider or increased stats help level the playing field so that the games can be of equal relative difficulty for all players. It's on FromSoft to own the fact that sticking to their stance on accessibility features means they are choosing to exclude players who didn't get to choose what they are and aren't capable of. I think that tarnishes the meaning of their works more than the risk of someone making the game "too easy" does.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  To note, there are many other mechanisms to adjust the playing experience than a difficulty slider or an explicit "easy" mode. I think a lot of us prefer a more natural and "legit" integration of different paths into the gameplay. It requires more effort and creativity on the developer side, but it also allows players to move from laid back/easier playing to more demanding play in a seamless way. To put it in your terms, I prefer games where the player chooses _in game_ what they are and what they aren't capable of, instead of dealing with settings and weird modes where you don't even know what they effectively mean and how well they would fit you.
  - Osmose 5y ago
    Oh yeah, you can make lots of choices on how to integrate them or what features to offer! Celeste assist mode lets you control the game engine's speed, modify how many jumps you have, etc. Hades gives you a mode where you get a permanent 2% health buff every time you die that allows the game to meet you where your capabilities lie instead of of forcing you to guess.
    - SlowAndCalm 5y ago
      I think you touch on why a singular difficulty level can be good when you mention meeting where your capabilities lie instead of forcing you to guess. When I encounter something difficult in a game, I'm always tempted to turn the difficulty down and often do. With Souls games I explicitly know if something is too hard and take it as a sign I need to do something different; whether that's my mechanical technique or the need to explore more. An increasing buff or other difficulty helpers would mean I could eventually brute force my way through without considering other options. Maybe I would prefer that, but it would just be a guess unless I did it the other way.
dota_fanatic 5y ago
> “I do feel apologetic toward anyone who feels there’s just too much to overcome in my games,” Miyazaki told me. He held his head in his hands, then smiled. “I just want as many players as possible to experience the joy that comes from overcoming hardship.” It's been great to see how their games have inspired so many people. If you go search any of the subreddits for their games, it's not rare to see testimonials of how the game "saved their life". It helped them learn to believe in themselves. To believe that they can change and overcome the challenges that are facing them, things they previously despaired were insurmountable. To use terminology from the Dark Souls series, they were hollow and through mastery of the game they were able to reverse it. Although they didn't have quite such an effect for me, these experiences nevertheless have built confidence that I otherwise wouldn't have. Just because something is difficult, just because I don't understand it now, doesn't mean it will always be that way. If I keep at it, if I think and experiment enough, the thing at hand becomes legible and one day soon, doing that thing that used to be so hard will become second nature. It's an empowering experience.
- MattyRad 5y ago
  I've always thought that the only way to lose at Dark Souls is to give up, and go Hollow. It's a small missed opportunity that From Software didn't indicate where in the Game players went Hollow; that is, if a player died, show their bloodstain and how they died. If a player died and hasn't resumed playing for a very long time (they gave up), then put a new hollowed enemy instead of a bloodstain.
sergiotapia 5y ago
No other games give me this feeling of melancholy, longing and revisiting once glorious places that are now dead and faded. Elden Ring is his magnum opus and I don't know how he tops this. What a tremendous achievement. If you haven't played Elden Ring, give it a try - you may be surprised how absorbed you are.
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  Shadow of the colossus did that for me. The thing with souls like games is that the locations are loaded with enemies and challenges. It adds to the game play but makes the places feel too video gamey and breaks the immersion.
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    Yeah, it feels like SotC was a big influence on this game; the article mentions that Miyazaki was inspired to go into video games from Ico by the same studio that did SotC, and Ico itself also has this feeling of an old, empty, fallen empire about itself. Actually, most of From Software's Soulslike games have that atmosphere. DS3 is a cyclic world in one of its last cycles, society no longer exists as such and all that is left is ghostly and undead remnants. Bloodborne takes place in a city and area where the great heroes from back in the day have long gone, it's barely holding together. Sekiro is an old society that is still active, but war-torn. And old. Probably the least dilapidated of the three.
- vlunkr 5y ago
  Isn't it a little early to declare this his magnum opus? It's been out less than a week.
  - sergiotapia 5y ago
    I've played all Souls games and am qualified to give this assessment.
umvi 5y ago
I just beat Sekiro last month and picked up Elden Ring this month. I think Miyazaki is a genius - FromSoft smashed it out of the park with this one, and I honestly had no idea how he could outdo himself after the masterpieces that were Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Definitely try Bloodborne as well, it's up there as well.
  - umvi 5y ago
    Been meaning to. I don't like the idea of buying a PS4 for just 1 game. I keep hoping it will come to PC.
    - mattgreenrocks 5y ago
      I keep hoping they'll remaster it and fix all the performance issues. One day...
Aissen 5y ago
What people seem to miss IMHO, is that this is "difficulty" thing is a time trade-off deeply ingrained in this type of game design. The frustration as you learn the rules of the game and try to improve this particular set of dexterity brings exhilarating satisfaction once you overcome the previously deemed impossible obstacles. But this also means that you need to have the time to plunge into this type of long-form challenge. And time is our most precious resource, so obviously this niche is not for everyone; especially in an era of infinitely available entertainment.
- jsmeaton 5y ago
  Yep great observation. I started my first FromSoft game last week - Demons Souls remake - and I had no idea what was going on. Making very little progress and restarting levels over and over. So I decided to follow a guide and the game has become so much fun. It’s quite a bit easier because I’m not dying thousands of times to find which way to go. But I wouldn’t have kept at it otherwise.
- knolan 5y ago
  I think this is the point for me. I really love the concept of these games. The world building and lore is incredible but I don’t have the time to invest to make any progress. Instead any playtime is confusing and frustrating and then I have to stop before I’ve time to make and progress to counter those feelings. A game like Jedi Fallen Order is a Souls like game and I make some headway with it before eventually throwing in the towel and switching to easy mode once I couldn’t defeat a particularly difficult boss. Another issue is performance. These games have always been choppy and that doesn’t help.
- rewgs 5y ago
  Agreed. It's funny, since getting into these games I've more or less stopped consuming other media. Out with movies, TV shows, even books (at least for now while I'm riding high on the games). I just play for an hour or two before bed, and it's wonderful.
nurbl 5y ago
I'd just like to add that one of the most important features of a souls game is the fairness of it. It's almost always your fault when you lose; for reacting too slow, for rushing in, for not keeping your eyes open, for forgetting to equip the right stuff. You are punished for not learning. I think the games feel hard compared to "normal" games because they don't hold your hand. If you see that and adjust, they are not that hard. They do test your patience, and force you to deal with frustration. Most games try their hardest to avoid this. As an old nethack player I really appreciate this. I think in some ways, Souls is what nethack might have been if it was developed today.
- nikanj 5y ago
  And there's zero enemy scaling, and no level cap. If you want, you can go grind yourself to an absolute unit, then come mop the floor with the boss
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    Kind of. It helps, but especially in Bloodborne it's no guarantee. And Sekiro goes against that as well. While you do get some improvements in things like health, healing ability and weapon strength, the game still leans mainly on your own skills. It doesn't have an RPG style leveling system, any improvements are thanks to your own exploration and victory. It's really gratifying to get the deflects timed just right. I've finished most of it, I'm close to the ending now but I somehow can't bring myself to finish it?
    - kabouseng 5y ago
      Lucky for you there are multiple endings, so finish it, start a NG+ and achieve a different ending...:D
    - isk517 5y ago
      Sekiro doesn't have the RPG style leveling system but having the correct prosthetic attachment or combat art equipped can really trivialize a lot of boss fights.
  - 5y ago
Accacin 5y ago
I love the 'overcoming challenging boss fights' thing these games have. You go through so many emotions on a tough boss. Start pretty confident, go through stages of "this boss is so stupid" to "the controls are so bad" to "I can't do this". Then you get to a stage where the first part goes cleaner, and you start to believe again. Get it down to 20%, choke, die. Then going through sweaty palms, trying to stop yourself being too aggresive. Running out of flask charges, etc. Then there's the time where you know it's one last hit and you wait your moment. Attack and you see the boss dying animation. Often I can't believe I just done it and then the feeling you get is amazing. My hands are shaking for a good 20mins and you are just giggling to yourself.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  > You go through so many emotions on a tough boss. Start pretty confident, go through stages of "this boss is so stupid" to "the controls are so bad" to "I can't do this". And with a lot of bosses, it starts with a "what the actual fuck is this thing?". I'm thinking e.g. Cleric Beast in Bloodborne, which is an Experience to run into initially because of its size, distracting appearance (lots of flapping fur), sound design, the music swelling up to an epic discordant mess, its aggression and the limited space. But also the second story boss in Elden Ring.
- rewgs 5y ago
  Absolutely spot on. I had this with Leonine Misbegotten last night and had to go on a walk to calm myself down again, it was incredible.
moss2 5y ago
Elden Ring deserves an easy mode, so people can bypass Miyasaki's vision and don't have to experience the joy of overcoming hardship.
rmbyrro 5y ago
Why do they have to eat so much of my mobile screen with these silly sticky bars at the top AND bottom? Didn't even bother reading this...
yumiris 5y ago
Must admit, the article and comments have completely changed my impression of the Souls series. The "git gud" mantra has been drilled into my numbskull to the point where I would restart a boss fight even if I got hit once. I got a wee bit too persuaded into rushing and mastering (which, of course, can't be done at the same time), because anything less meant that I ain't doing it right. In the end, I gave up on the Souls series and classified it as not being for me, but now I'm considering returning to Bloodborne and Sekiro again. Cheers for the new perspective everyone!
- umvi 5y ago
  Sekiro is very different from souls style combat - for me Sekiro was more like a rhythm game where you have to tap the deflect button to the cadence of enemy attacks. It's still very fair and rewarding though, if you persist through the initial learning curve
- mattgreenrocks 5y ago
  I've bounced off Sekiro 2 or 3 times, but DS3 was the game that got me hooked, so give that a try as well.
imtringued 5y ago
The immortals got bored of eternal peace in heaven so they created a world of mortality filled with endless crises so that they can experience death over and over again. Unfortunately the mortals' world has become peaceful as well and mortality has become a long distant memory. So the mortals have decided to create a world of mortality filled with endless crises so that they can experience death over and over again.
esjeon 5y ago
I enjoyed reading this, but had to filter so much overhype out of the article. The author should consider reducing the dose of caffeine. One thing is that the ideas noted here aren't really unique to Miyazaki. The game industry once shared the same notion implicitly, but they lost it as their businesses got bigger. Many games these days are more like digital drugs that stimulate your peripheral nerves. Many of them go further and make players suffer, so that players pay money for relieving that pain (pay-2-win). I mean, it's the game industry went haywire, not that Miyazaki is doing something special. He has been simply preserving what should have been kept right there. In the same context, I'm strictly against calling Miyazaki a genius. He's rather an opposite case of being genius. Geniuses do colors; something feisty and brilliant. Miyazaki does muddy brown; he silently does the due diligence within his scope. That is, his works are rather an accumulation of mundane tasks - persistence and craftsmanship - not some random gotcha moments, or a wrong electrical zap in brain synapses. You can really feel this difference by playing his games carefully. Following through his works, I could sense how deep he went. There's something that word "smart" can't really cover.
- telchior 5y ago
  You could say he has genius in some respects, and craftsmanship in others. Games are big, complex things that actually have a lot of different systems and aesthetic inputs, so it's not really fair to act like their creators are similar to someone painting a masterpiece or writing a book. On the other hand, it's also not fair to give Miyazaki all the credit. Hundreds of other people worked on this game, and their creativity and contributions are unknown.
nemo44x 5y ago
His games are the siritual successor to Ultima games. You’re given very little to go on and you’re expected to create your own adventure and discover the main story. Mistakes are harshly punished so caution is needed. Add in BotW and you have Elden Ring. It’s a masterpiece.
deleted 5y ago
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falcolas 5y ago
One unfortunate thing about the newer From games is how the difficulty relies so heavily on the two things humans will lose over time: focus and reflexes. Its most ardent fans will age out of being able to play their favorite games as they get harder and harder to play. They'll be forced out of their niche.
guuz 5y ago
Since Friday, I've been pouring hours and hours into the game. It is marvelous, but arguably inferior to their previous titles on a highly subjective level (I've missed, for example, the more accentuated dread and hopelessness of Dark Souls and Bloodborne). I guess these points will probably be addressed more thoughtfully by people more qualified than me in due time. The more flagrant problem is the abysmal graphical performance for 2022 standards — it is borderline unacceptable, no art direction can compensate for the insistence on a clearly obsolete tech foundation. I wonder why they are reluctant to change.
Pulcinella 5y ago
I think some of the perceived difficulty comes from Miyazaki’s games requiring practice. Generally quite a bit more practice and learning than more mainstream RPGs and action games require (though less in certain ways than character action games like Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden). That level of practice is honestly not for everyone and that is ok. Fighting Games require a very, very large amount of practice. For someone like me it’s too much, especially because there aren’t even any community events near me. If I am going to practice that much, for the stage of life that I am in with how little free time I have, I would rather practice something else. And that’s fine too. That doesn’t make fighting games bad or “too difficult,” they are just not for me.
jmount 5y ago
I like the FromSoft games. I think the difficulty is a bit of a cross-cutting issue. What I like is the diegetic treatment of death in the games. There are reasons in game or in story reasons the player character and the monsters re-animate, and it has consequences in the game. In fact much of the theme of the game is arranged around this. For games like Doom the player sees their character die, but from the monsters' point of view these are alternate timelines that didn't happen- the monsters see one one selected timeline where the played didn't happen to die.
exdsq 5y ago
Elden Ring has become my life! 25 hours in since last Thursday (which for me is a lot of time). Absolutely love it, best game I’ve played since Hades and before that probably Borderlands 2.
Koiwai 5y ago
For the record I love Sekiro, and went back and beat Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, but gave up on DS2/3, Bloodborne and Elden Ring. I believe Soulsborne's only charm, is when you finally beat that foe, that feel of accomplishment, that depends on the fact it's hard, the game is nothing on easy. The battle system itself, basically roll forever and slash once here and there, is inferior to most action games. Sekiro on the other hand, has like the best battle system.

313 points by evo_9 5y ago

>I do feel apologetic toward anyone who feels there’s just too much to overcome in my games Psh, I ain't buying it. I think they found a niche and like sticking to it, and maybe like making folks salty. They make a ton of people happy with the difficulty, but nothing about these games are apologetic.

Trasmatta 5y ago
I imagine him with his characteristic smirk as he says that. He's apologetic -- but also fully enjoying it. Miyazaki is a pretty brilliant troll.
vlunkr 5y ago
As other comments say, the difficulty has been oversold. I don't know what your experiences with these games are, but there are lots of forgiving aspects to them that wouldn't be there if they just wanted to make the hardest games on the market. Here's a few: - every death refills your main healing items, so you can't run out - you keep all the items you collect before you die - you can recover lost experience points/currency by returning to the place where you died - you can summon NPC or online co-op partners when you need. This trivializes most bosses. - other players can leave messages in the game. Lots of them are tricks, but it almost guarantees that you won't miss any important items. - they're RPGs. If you don't have enough health or whatever, you can level up to correct that. These games definitely punish you when you make a mistake, and sometimes they are just janky, but if you invest the time it all starts to make sense. Unfortunately, I think it's their own marketing department that really pushed the difficulty angle, maybe they're trying to back out of that now that they're not an underdog.
- KTallguy 5y ago
  Demon's Souls was much more difficult in some ways, because you got weaker when you died (zombified), and your potions are consumable items that don't automatically recover. However you could also farm lots of potions, so there were ways to game it. Beating Demon's Souls on a tiny CRT in an even tinier Japanese temp-apartment is one of my most cherished gaming memories.
- Accacin 5y ago
  Yeah, it's not the game that's difficult. It's having the ability to keep trying it and work it out that's difficult. I think of it like going back in time. You walk into a boss, you die. The game says, "Ok, what did you learn from that death"? "Oh, I shouldn't try to dodge backwards from that attack", "Ok, you're back where you started - try again". In this regard the games feel challenging but very fair. You can fight that boss for two hours straight and you haven't lost anything (other than possibly the souls you dropped). Any death you have is your fault, and you can't blame the game because you lost an item and now you are playing with another weapon or anything like that.

wly_cdgr 5y ago

It's funny how far the conversation has swung in the trash direction compared to 8-10 years ago. Used to be Proteus was controversial for having the nerve to call itself a game while having no gameplay...these days it's real games that have to defend themselves for having...real gameplay

cato_the_elder 5y ago

I love Miyazaki, and I hope the words in the headline are something they've put in his mouth. That's just banal deathist copium.

cdev_gl 5y ago
“Death and rebirth, trying and overcoming—we want that cycle to be enjoyable. In life, death is a horrible thing. In play, it can be something else.”

aqsheehy 5y ago

I hope when I'm close to death that I think this way too.

xeromal 5y ago
Heck yeah. Me too. It requires a tremendous amount of peace to pull it off.
- goldenkey 5y ago
  I've been wanting to make a pact with someone else so whoever is going to die first will be detonated in a spectacular firework. Rather go out with a bang than a wimper.
  - xeromal 5y ago
    If space travel is cheap enough when I die, I'd like to be shot into the sun.
    - goldenkey 5y ago
      That sounds awesome. Like an immolating monk except by pure light/EMG itself :-) Count me in!
      - xeromal 5y ago
        Hell yeah man! Just going back home.

Trasmatta 5y ago

The popular discourse seems to focus on the difficulty of From's games, but that's just one part of the entire experience. FromSoft has a holistic approach to game design that very few other studios manage to match. There's just an incredible amount of depth to their world building, and the gameplay, difficulty level, online mechanics, level design, characters, music, story, and themes all work to reinforce and complement each other. I think FromSoft's games (and specifically the ones directed by Miyazaki) will be among a small set of games released in the past 20 years that will still be played and studied in 50 or 100 years (or more). Also, this statement from the article: > Miyazaki has created the most difficult games of the century. This is absolutely not true. There are many games that are much, much harder than Miyazaki's games. And it was definitely never his goal to make "the hardest games". The goal, from everything I've read about him, was to make difficult games where the difficulty reinforces the themes he wants to convey, and evokes the emotions he wants you to feel. I could name a bunch of games that are harder -- including Nioh, a game that's partially inspired by Dark Souls, and has a similar combat system (but with a lot more complexity). The difficulty is an important aspect of their design, but it's just one piece of the puzzle. There's a quote from one of the characters in Dark Souls that I think gives a hint as to why Miyazaki makes hard games: > The dragons shall never be forgotten… We knights fought valiantly, but for every one of them, we lost three score of our own. Exhilaration, pride, hatred, rage… The dragons teased out our dearest emotions… Thou will understand, one day. At thy twilight, old thoughts return, in great waves of nostalgia.

xeromal 5y ago
100%. There is a lot of love and care that goes into the balance of their games. It's not unfair.
marginalia_nu 5y ago
I think the probably biggest mistake from other studios that try to replicate FromSoft's success is to try to make the games as difficult and punishing as possible. That really isn't the point. The secret sauce is arguably that FromSoft makes puzzle games disguised as action games. Everything is a mystery, from the lore to the game play. They are rewarding to play because it is rewarding to solve puzzles. The "difficulty" stems from the game developers anticipating how you will approach situations based on earlier situations, and adding new caveats to the rules. If you don't understand that dialogue between player and game designer, it may appear like it's just really punishing. It's really not, it's always easy if you know what to do. The difficulty comes from constantly being forced to adapt your approach. It's pretty brilliant how they consistently re-use enemy archetypes between the games. A rat is a rat and a dog is a dog, in Dark Souls and in Elden Ring. They form archetypes, elements of design language. You need that to have that sort of predictability on your easel to be able to pull off the sort of unpredictability they do.

thenerdhead 5y ago

A good reminder to face your mortality each new day. I love this perspective on life and not allowing the "dark" into his family as it might be seen as a negative trait. What a unique philosophy for something so creative.

uejfiweun 5y ago

I doubt that some New Yorker journalist can really appreciate the gravity of what Miyazaki has done to gaming. The man switched careers in his 30s and literally changed the face of video games, releasing one highly influential game after another. Yes, you die a lot in his games, and they are hard, but that isn't the point. The point is that the influences of Miyazaki games are now visible in almost every AAA game these days. It's tough to really know how much Dark Souls changed the game design zeitgeist unless you play a lot of games (like me). With Elden Ring, he has only cemented his place as once of the great game designers of all time - I really hope some of the design decisions influence other games in the same way.

pvg 5y ago
some New Yorker journalist You can just google the name. Simon Parkin has been writing about games professionally for 10+ years and like many people his age grew up playing games.
deleted 5y ago
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aaronbrethorst 5y ago
The author of the piece has been playing Dark Souls since before Twitter had a 'retweet' feature. https://twitter.com/SimonParkin/status/45876470601629696 https://twitter.com/SimonParkin/status/45876470601629696 https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3A%40SimonParkin%20dark%20souls&src=typed_query&f=live https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3A%40SimonParkin%20dark%20...
oscb 5y ago
You could try reading the article before assuming what the author will say. The author clearly is keen to Miyazaki's games and puts them into the context of the debate about game difficulty. Yet it justifies the author's intent. Give it a read.

wyager 5y ago

I bought ER the other day after hearing rave review and was super disappointed. I ended up returning it after a couple hours. * Visuals: Disappointing. Looked like a cheap free-to-play MMO. Cheap-looking textures, stock-looking characters, bad rigging (e.g. characters holding things in unnatural poses), etc. * Controls: Unpleasant. Controls felt very sluggish. If this is supposed to make the game more challenging or something, this isn't a very fun mechanic. * Software quality: Terrible. Performance is not good, tons of bugs, graphics issues, wouldn't recognize my controller when I had multiple input devices plugged in. * Dialogue: What little I saw was super corny. Used as a crutch for poor level design. E.g. a ghost telling you something to the effect of "you need to jump into this hole to continue the game". * Multiplayer felt like a cheap gimmick. I wanted to turn it off. And so on. This honestly felt like someone's first attempt at making a Unity game, not a magnum opus from an experienced developer. Am I missing something? This is my first souls game; is feeling cheap and clunky part of the aesthetic?

fartcannon 5y ago
Making up excuses for why you died so much/taking it out on the other parts of the game is 100% part of the experience. There's even t-shirts with common new player complaints. For example: https://mobile.twitter.com/jasperrolls/status/873907522448613380 https://mobile.twitter.com/jasperrolls/status/87390752244861...
- wyager 5y ago
  That didn't bother me at all - the difficulty level seems good. Not one of my objections
  - fartcannon 5y ago
    Ah, just admit it. :D The sooner you admit it, the sooner you can get into the culture. It's not only one of the best series of games made in the past 15 years, but it's also got one of the more fun communities around.
Trasmatta 5y ago

markus_zhang 5y ago

I heard about these gamed and watched a few hours of gameplay each. I was unconvinced and closed the YouTube tabs after it became too boring. I guess I have to play it to feel it? But most of the games I enjoy playing are fun to watch. Duke3d and Baldurs Gate are two examples. Can someone elaborate why Dark Soul is actually fun to play, and more importantly why sold for so many copies? I read other comments and the thing they mentioned (world building and music and game design) isn't really particularly recognizable from the few hours (actually about 10 hours) I watched, and even if they are excellent surely there are other games that match?

mathteddybear 5y ago
I cannot recall if they were popular games that matched it at the time. Let's not underestimate the online elements of the game (and the lack of difficulty levels, lack of saving game, that goes with it). As for the combat, that was the height of "Batman" combat on consoles. Cue internet discussions where fans of DS praised its combat design, while PC players with Mount&Blade were not impressed much.
DanHulton 5y ago
Very simply, no other game series does the "mastery" thing so well. The game is both wide and deep, and even though there's superficially a leveling system, it won't save you if you can't actually play. This raises some accessability issues, definitely. I'd love to see Fromsoft games take that challenge on next. (Or another studio, there are plenty of great Souls-like games out there.) Especially as I'm getting older, I definitely feel like I have a lot more "knocking the rust off" to do when I start up each new Soulslike game before I'm competent enough to play well. But once I'm in the zone, once I've achieved that mastery, enemies that I had previously been decrying as "absolute bullshit, what the hell am I even supposed to DO about them?", I'm just carving through casually, while theorizing in my head what stats I'm going to raise at the next level up or where I should head next. At least for me, there's no other game series that does that quite so well.
- ShroudedNight 5y ago
  > This raises some accessability issues, definitely. I'd love to see Fromsoft games take that challenge on next. > Especially as I'm getting older, I definitely feel like I have a lot more "knocking the rust off" to do... I would definitely appreciate novel takes on accessible mastery. I likely [1] have visual memory (immediate + delayed), subtle but measurable visual motor difficulties, and ADHD:I. Having zeitgeist games feel so thoroughly inaccessible is alienating. One thing that feels like it helps (no concrete data, placebos and all that...) is high refresh rates. My guess is that it frees my visual memory from being used for interpolation. Ironically, From Software seem almost antagonistic to providing this. [1] Measured definitively ~15 years ago; who knows what's happened since then.

jquery 5y ago

The difficulty isn’t particularly high, it’s just high for a mainstream AAA game in the year it was released, and was probably the first time many in the generation of Dark Souls encountered actual challenging gameplay. There are much, much more punishing games out there from the mainstream (Ninja Gaiden and Nioh) to Indie (IWBTG and Super Meat Boy). I think Dark Souls is celebrated less for its difficulty and more for its beautiful world building.

deltaonefour 5y ago
I think it's because the difficulty sits in the right zone where you don't need extraordinary effort to complete it, but you need just the right amount so that you feel accomplished. The world building is icing on the cake, but not the main idea imo.

nassimsoftware 5y ago

I'm new to From Soft games and decided to buy Elden Ring because it's a similar game to Zelda Breath of The Wild which I really liked. I was afraid that the game would be too difficult. After playing 17hrs, the game is indeed difficult but there are many things you can do in the game to make it easier for yourself (Which I did because I'm more interested in exploring the world than mastering the gameplay). For example, if you're a casual gamer focus on exploring and having small wins (beating mobs, beating mini bosses, buying weapons) in the game before tackling the suggested route. There are guides online to help you lower the difficulty through finding certain items and buying certain things in the game. This is essentially the easy mode everyone wanted but the core souls fans. Anyway, great game.

wincy 5y ago
I like that the extremely challenging bosses can be bypassed, but are still there for those who want it and I think frees FromSoftware to make some bosses even more challenging. For example, there’s a spot where 2 of 3 major bosses have to be defeated. The third one is EXTREMELY difficult compared to the other two. Like, not even close. I didn’t have to beat it, having handily dispatched the other two, but I set a personal goal. I then proceeded to spend 4 hours the other night trying to beat it. I got frustrated, I got help from other players, but I just couldn’t progress. Finally the multiplayer servers went down, and I didn’t want to quit. I started paying attention. I analyzed why I was dying, and adapted a three phase strategy for the different parts of the boss fight. First time, died, second time, died but got it to low health. Third time was the same, then finally the fourth time it all came together in harmony, and I beat the boss. The feeling I got from that was exquisite, like I had EARNED something, even if it’s just some game and mostly a waste of time. It felt similar to when I used to raid in World of Warcraft, but without the 40+ hour a week commitment. It’s been years since I’ve felt a sense of accomplishment anywhere close to that because of my professional career. Most of the projects I work on are pretty boring.
idle_zealot 5y ago
> This is essentially the easy mode everyone wanted but the core souls fans. This easy mode has been in every From game I’ve played. It’s the reason core fans don’t want the much-demanded difficulty settings.

Osmose 5y ago

I think Miyazaki's games are great and I enjoy them myself, but the continued (even in this article, somewhat) framing of accessibility features as ruining the artistic vision of hardship is a little disingenuous at this point. Many disabilities make games several times more difficult than they are for people without them, and a difficulty slider or increased stats help level the playing field so that the games can be of equal relative difficulty for all players. It's on FromSoft to own the fact that sticking to their stance on accessibility features means they are choosing to exclude players who didn't get to choose what they are and aren't capable of. I think that tarnishes the meaning of their works more than the risk of someone making the game "too easy" does.

makeitdouble 5y ago
To note, there are many other mechanisms to adjust the playing experience than a difficulty slider or an explicit "easy" mode. I think a lot of us prefer a more natural and "legit" integration of different paths into the gameplay. It requires more effort and creativity on the developer side, but it also allows players to move from laid back/easier playing to more demanding play in a seamless way. To put it in your terms, I prefer games where the player chooses _in game_ what they are and what they aren't capable of, instead of dealing with settings and weird modes where you don't even know what they effectively mean and how well they would fit you.
- Osmose 5y ago
  Oh yeah, you can make lots of choices on how to integrate them or what features to offer! Celeste assist mode lets you control the game engine's speed, modify how many jumps you have, etc. Hades gives you a mode where you get a permanent 2% health buff every time you die that allows the game to meet you where your capabilities lie instead of of forcing you to guess.
  - SlowAndCalm 5y ago
    I think you touch on why a singular difficulty level can be good when you mention meeting where your capabilities lie instead of forcing you to guess. When I encounter something difficult in a game, I'm always tempted to turn the difficulty down and often do. With Souls games I explicitly know if something is too hard and take it as a sign I need to do something different; whether that's my mechanical technique or the need to explore more. An increasing buff or other difficulty helpers would mean I could eventually brute force my way through without considering other options. Maybe I would prefer that, but it would just be a guess unless I did it the other way.

dota_fanatic 5y ago

> “I do feel apologetic toward anyone who feels there’s just too much to overcome in my games,” Miyazaki told me. He held his head in his hands, then smiled. “I just want as many players as possible to experience the joy that comes from overcoming hardship.” It's been great to see how their games have inspired so many people. If you go search any of the subreddits for their games, it's not rare to see testimonials of how the game "saved their life". It helped them learn to believe in themselves. To believe that they can change and overcome the challenges that are facing them, things they previously despaired were insurmountable. To use terminology from the Dark Souls series, they were hollow and through mastery of the game they were able to reverse it. Although they didn't have quite such an effect for me, these experiences nevertheless have built confidence that I otherwise wouldn't have. Just because something is difficult, just because I don't understand it now, doesn't mean it will always be that way. If I keep at it, if I think and experiment enough, the thing at hand becomes legible and one day soon, doing that thing that used to be so hard will become second nature. It's an empowering experience.

MattyRad 5y ago
I've always thought that the only way to lose at Dark Souls is to give up, and go Hollow. It's a small missed opportunity that From Software didn't indicate where in the Game players went Hollow; that is, if a player died, show their bloodstain and how they died. If a player died and hasn't resumed playing for a very long time (they gave up), then put a new hollowed enemy instead of a bloodstain.

sergiotapia 5y ago

No other games give me this feeling of melancholy, longing and revisiting once glorious places that are now dead and faded. Elden Ring is his magnum opus and I don't know how he tops this. What a tremendous achievement. If you haven't played Elden Ring, give it a try - you may be surprised how absorbed you are.

deltaonefour 5y ago
Shadow of the colossus did that for me. The thing with souls like games is that the locations are loaded with enemies and challenges. It adds to the game play but makes the places feel too video gamey and breaks the immersion.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Yeah, it feels like SotC was a big influence on this game; the article mentions that Miyazaki was inspired to go into video games from Ico by the same studio that did SotC, and Ico itself also has this feeling of an old, empty, fallen empire about itself. Actually, most of From Software's Soulslike games have that atmosphere. DS3 is a cyclic world in one of its last cycles, society no longer exists as such and all that is left is ghostly and undead remnants. Bloodborne takes place in a city and area where the great heroes from back in the day have long gone, it's barely holding together. Sekiro is an old society that is still active, but war-torn. And old. Probably the least dilapidated of the three.
vlunkr 5y ago
Isn't it a little early to declare this his magnum opus? It's been out less than a week.
- sergiotapia 5y ago
  I've played all Souls games and am qualified to give this assessment.

umvi 5y ago

I just beat Sekiro last month and picked up Elden Ring this month. I think Miyazaki is a genius - FromSoft smashed it out of the park with this one, and I honestly had no idea how he could outdo himself after the masterpieces that were Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Definitely try Bloodborne as well, it's up there as well.
- umvi 5y ago
  Been meaning to. I don't like the idea of buying a PS4 for just 1 game. I keep hoping it will come to PC.
  - mattgreenrocks 5y ago
    I keep hoping they'll remaster it and fix all the performance issues. One day...

Aissen 5y ago

What people seem to miss IMHO, is that this is "difficulty" thing is a time trade-off deeply ingrained in this type of game design. The frustration as you learn the rules of the game and try to improve this particular set of dexterity brings exhilarating satisfaction once you overcome the previously deemed impossible obstacles. But this also means that you need to have the time to plunge into this type of long-form challenge. And time is our most precious resource, so obviously this niche is not for everyone; especially in an era of infinitely available entertainment.

jsmeaton 5y ago
Yep great observation. I started my first FromSoft game last week - Demons Souls remake - and I had no idea what was going on. Making very little progress and restarting levels over and over. So I decided to follow a guide and the game has become so much fun. It’s quite a bit easier because I’m not dying thousands of times to find which way to go. But I wouldn’t have kept at it otherwise.
knolan 5y ago
I think this is the point for me. I really love the concept of these games. The world building and lore is incredible but I don’t have the time to invest to make any progress. Instead any playtime is confusing and frustrating and then I have to stop before I’ve time to make and progress to counter those feelings. A game like Jedi Fallen Order is a Souls like game and I make some headway with it before eventually throwing in the towel and switching to easy mode once I couldn’t defeat a particularly difficult boss. Another issue is performance. These games have always been choppy and that doesn’t help.
rewgs 5y ago
Agreed. It's funny, since getting into these games I've more or less stopped consuming other media. Out with movies, TV shows, even books (at least for now while I'm riding high on the games). I just play for an hour or two before bed, and it's wonderful.

nurbl 5y ago

I'd just like to add that one of the most important features of a souls game is the fairness of it. It's almost always your fault when you lose; for reacting too slow, for rushing in, for not keeping your eyes open, for forgetting to equip the right stuff. You are punished for not learning. I think the games feel hard compared to "normal" games because they don't hold your hand. If you see that and adjust, they are not that hard. They do test your patience, and force you to deal with frustration. Most games try their hardest to avoid this. As an old nethack player I really appreciate this. I think in some ways, Souls is what nethack might have been if it was developed today.

nikanj 5y ago
And there's zero enemy scaling, and no level cap. If you want, you can go grind yourself to an absolute unit, then come mop the floor with the boss
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Kind of. It helps, but especially in Bloodborne it's no guarantee. And Sekiro goes against that as well. While you do get some improvements in things like health, healing ability and weapon strength, the game still leans mainly on your own skills. It doesn't have an RPG style leveling system, any improvements are thanks to your own exploration and victory. It's really gratifying to get the deflects timed just right. I've finished most of it, I'm close to the ending now but I somehow can't bring myself to finish it?
  - kabouseng 5y ago
    Lucky for you there are multiple endings, so finish it, start a NG+ and achieve a different ending...:D
  - isk517 5y ago
    Sekiro doesn't have the RPG style leveling system but having the correct prosthetic attachment or combat art equipped can really trivialize a lot of boss fights.
- 5y ago

Accacin 5y ago

I love the 'overcoming challenging boss fights' thing these games have. You go through so many emotions on a tough boss. Start pretty confident, go through stages of "this boss is so stupid" to "the controls are so bad" to "I can't do this". Then you get to a stage where the first part goes cleaner, and you start to believe again. Get it down to 20%, choke, die. Then going through sweaty palms, trying to stop yourself being too aggresive. Running out of flask charges, etc. Then there's the time where you know it's one last hit and you wait your moment. Attack and you see the boss dying animation. Often I can't believe I just done it and then the feeling you get is amazing. My hands are shaking for a good 20mins and you are just giggling to yourself.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
> You go through so many emotions on a tough boss. Start pretty confident, go through stages of "this boss is so stupid" to "the controls are so bad" to "I can't do this". And with a lot of bosses, it starts with a "what the actual fuck is this thing?". I'm thinking e.g. Cleric Beast in Bloodborne, which is an Experience to run into initially because of its size, distracting appearance (lots of flapping fur), sound design, the music swelling up to an epic discordant mess, its aggression and the limited space. But also the second story boss in Elden Ring.
rewgs 5y ago
Absolutely spot on. I had this with Leonine Misbegotten last night and had to go on a walk to calm myself down again, it was incredible.

moss2 5y ago

Elden Ring deserves an easy mode, so people can bypass Miyasaki's vision and don't have to experience the joy of overcoming hardship.

rmbyrro 5y ago

Why do they have to eat so much of my mobile screen with these silly sticky bars at the top AND bottom? Didn't even bother reading this...

yumiris 5y ago

Must admit, the article and comments have completely changed my impression of the Souls series. The "git gud" mantra has been drilled into my numbskull to the point where I would restart a boss fight even if I got hit once. I got a wee bit too persuaded into rushing and mastering (which, of course, can't be done at the same time), because anything less meant that I ain't doing it right. In the end, I gave up on the Souls series and classified it as not being for me, but now I'm considering returning to Bloodborne and Sekiro again. Cheers for the new perspective everyone!

umvi 5y ago
Sekiro is very different from souls style combat - for me Sekiro was more like a rhythm game where you have to tap the deflect button to the cadence of enemy attacks. It's still very fair and rewarding though, if you persist through the initial learning curve
mattgreenrocks 5y ago
I've bounced off Sekiro 2 or 3 times, but DS3 was the game that got me hooked, so give that a try as well.

imtringued 5y ago

The immortals got bored of eternal peace in heaven so they created a world of mortality filled with endless crises so that they can experience death over and over again. Unfortunately the mortals' world has become peaceful as well and mortality has become a long distant memory. So the mortals have decided to create a world of mortality filled with endless crises so that they can experience death over and over again.

esjeon 5y ago

I enjoyed reading this, but had to filter so much overhype out of the article. The author should consider reducing the dose of caffeine. One thing is that the ideas noted here aren't really unique to Miyazaki. The game industry once shared the same notion implicitly, but they lost it as their businesses got bigger. Many games these days are more like digital drugs that stimulate your peripheral nerves. Many of them go further and make players suffer, so that players pay money for relieving that pain (pay-2-win). I mean, it's the game industry went haywire, not that Miyazaki is doing something special. He has been simply preserving what should have been kept right there. In the same context, I'm strictly against calling Miyazaki a genius. He's rather an opposite case of being genius. Geniuses do colors; something feisty and brilliant. Miyazaki does muddy brown; he silently does the due diligence within his scope. That is, his works are rather an accumulation of mundane tasks - persistence and craftsmanship - not some random gotcha moments, or a wrong electrical zap in brain synapses. You can really feel this difference by playing his games carefully. Following through his works, I could sense how deep he went. There's something that word "smart" can't really cover.

telchior 5y ago
You could say he has genius in some respects, and craftsmanship in others. Games are big, complex things that actually have a lot of different systems and aesthetic inputs, so it's not really fair to act like their creators are similar to someone painting a masterpiece or writing a book. On the other hand, it's also not fair to give Miyazaki all the credit. Hundreds of other people worked on this game, and their creativity and contributions are unknown.

nemo44x 5y ago

His games are the siritual successor to Ultima games. You’re given very little to go on and you’re expected to create your own adventure and discover the main story. Mistakes are harshly punished so caution is needed. Add in BotW and you have Elden Ring. It’s a masterpiece.

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falcolas 5y ago

One unfortunate thing about the newer From games is how the difficulty relies so heavily on the two things humans will lose over time: focus and reflexes. Its most ardent fans will age out of being able to play their favorite games as they get harder and harder to play. They'll be forced out of their niche.

guuz 5y ago

Since Friday, I've been pouring hours and hours into the game. It is marvelous, but arguably inferior to their previous titles on a highly subjective level (I've missed, for example, the more accentuated dread and hopelessness of Dark Souls and Bloodborne). I guess these points will probably be addressed more thoughtfully by people more qualified than me in due time. The more flagrant problem is the abysmal graphical performance for 2022 standards — it is borderline unacceptable, no art direction can compensate for the insistence on a clearly obsolete tech foundation. I wonder why they are reluctant to change.

Pulcinella 5y ago

I think some of the perceived difficulty comes from Miyazaki’s games requiring practice. Generally quite a bit more practice and learning than more mainstream RPGs and action games require (though less in certain ways than character action games like Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden). That level of practice is honestly not for everyone and that is ok. Fighting Games require a very, very large amount of practice. For someone like me it’s too much, especially because there aren’t even any community events near me. If I am going to practice that much, for the stage of life that I am in with how little free time I have, I would rather practice something else. And that’s fine too. That doesn’t make fighting games bad or “too difficult,” they are just not for me.

jmount 5y ago

I like the FromSoft games. I think the difficulty is a bit of a cross-cutting issue. What I like is the diegetic treatment of death in the games. There are reasons in game or in story reasons the player character and the monsters re-animate, and it has consequences in the game. In fact much of the theme of the game is arranged around this. For games like Doom the player sees their character die, but from the monsters' point of view these are alternate timelines that didn't happen- the monsters see one one selected timeline where the played didn't happen to die.

exdsq 5y ago

Elden Ring has become my life! 25 hours in since last Thursday (which for me is a lot of time). Absolutely love it, best game I’ve played since Hades and before that probably Borderlands 2.

Koiwai 5y ago

For the record I love Sekiro, and went back and beat Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, but gave up on DS2/3, Bloodborne and Elden Ring. I believe Soulsborne's only charm, is when you finally beat that foe, that feel of accomplishment, that depends on the fact it's hard, the game is nothing on easy. The battle system itself, basically roll forever and slash once here and there, is inferior to most action games. Sekiro on the other hand, has like the best battle system.