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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 g

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.
- Trasmatta 5y ago
  Exactly, it's almost a "cargo cult game design" problem. A lot of other studios are just picking pieces of FromSoft's designs without really understanding why those pieces were there in the first place.
  - marginalia_nu 5y ago
    I think it can be fruitful to analyze games through the emotions they evoke. After all, the whole reason we play games is to feel a certain way. I think the problems with many clones stem from misidentifying the emotion of FromSoft games to be frustration. The reason we play a souls game isn't to get frustrated, that's the price of admission not an ends in itself. What we want is that feeling of accomplishment. Along this axis, FromSoft's games are closer related to something like The Witness than say Diablo (which is more about feeling strong and powerful).
- AmericanChopper 5y ago
  > The "difficulty" stems from the game developers anticipating how you will approach situations based on earlier situations, and adding new caveats to the rules. This assessment seems very strange to me. Their games are hard because you need to be rather competent in their demanding mechanics to progress, and you need to learn every encounter perfectly to get past it. That’s why so many reviewers trashed Sekiro, because they were simply unable to play it.
  - marginalia_nu 5y ago
    It's in part this process of learning new encounters I'm talking about. In the beginning of Dark Souls, you can kill every enemy pretty much the same way. Then gradually you need to use more mechanics to get forward. Very little of it is actually mechanically demanding. What's demanded of you is that you observe and correctly assess the situation, that you recognize that what you are doing isn't working, and the solution isn't to do it harder, but to find another solution. The biggest problem most new players have is that they try to play too fast and they don't react to what's in front of them. They mash buttons and try to do everything at once. They approach every situation the same way, probably rushing in and probably pressing every button on the controller in a mindless flurry. An seasoned player will almost certainly play slower than a newbie because they're playing a lot more deliberately. You have people playing these games with voice commands[1] and DDR mats[2] and whatever. If that isn't evidence this isn't a test of dexterity, I don't know what will. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m2a2dLdZ0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m2a2dLdZ0M [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxKsRf6R-vc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxKsRf6R-vc
Talanes 5y ago
> 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). I can definitely see this. Until this morning, Dark Souls had been the only FromSoft game I had played, mostly because I only managed Capra last year despite first playing around release. But I still boot it up at least every couple of years, slog my way as far as I can, and enjoy every minute of it. The only problem is that it scratches that itch so well I never got around to trying the later ones.
- rcpt 5y ago
  > Very little of it is actually mechanically demanding. Sekiro though
didibus 5y ago
The games are easier then I thought they'd be. I waited to play them for a long time, because of how hard people made them out. But you only really need a bit of patience, slow down what you do in the combat, and give bosses a few try. I find plenty of other games were a lot harder for me, like Hades, Celeste, Meat Boy or Returnal for example. I think actually the genius about Souls games is that unlike Roguelikes or hard room based platformers, the difficulty is actually well balanced, it is approachable. You get better as you play, you learn the boss pattern, you level up and get better gear, and when you die the penalty isn't too harsh, getting back to the boss isn't like dying in a Roguelike where you gotta go through the whole run again, it's just harsh enough to make you really not want to die when you fight the boss though and feel some added stress from having to walk back to it to try again. And if I think of casual AAA games likes FF7:Remake, Doom, Last of Us, none of those games I was able to beat at their hardest difficulty, yet I could beat all the souls games. And that's often because these games get hard by handicap or cranking the difficulty in cheap ways sometimes. Souls games are an easy kind of hard, they're approachable, that makes it more accessible in a way, and it's why I think they got popular. Having said that, I still think they should add some accessibility features that can make the game easier. What they do in Mario Kart or Celeste I think is great. Instead of making difficulties which means some of them won't get proper design and balance. Focus on a single difficulty, but add accessibility features that can make it easier. I think it's important to do that so people who have handicaps, are younger, are too old, don't have the time and patience, can still experience and enjoy some of the games. They could choose to play some section normally, and when they get stuck, instead of quitting the game, they can try and give themselves some help to get over it.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  That's exactly it, once you're able to get past the intimidation from things like dark corridors, flailing enemies, abhorrent Things That Should Not Be, you can see they're actually fairly slow moving games, and deliberate action is the way to win - as opposed to a lot of games where button bashing and/or quick reflexes work just fine. The games are punishing and challenging, but they're not unfair. Every time you die, you realize it's your own mistake; you tried to get another hit in, you forgot there was an enemy around that corner, you read a message saying "treasure ahead" in front of a cliff and actually believed it because it was actually true the one time. But there's so many games where you just don't have that amount of control over whether or not you will die there. The previous game I was playing, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, has that problem because on the surface its combat system is based on reflexes and positioning. But in practice there seems to be too big an element of chance involved. Every strike is a roll of the dice whether the enemy will block or deflect it. Whereas in, say Elden Ring, raising a shield will block attacks, but only until your stamina runs out. Rolling at the right time will avoid damage, but the challenge is in knowing the enemy's attack patterns - and some bosses have really long and unpredictable wind-ups initially. And an enemy with a shield, you can either wait for them to drop their guard, wear them out with attacks (which keeps you opened up for counter-attacks), avoid them entirely, or use completely different tactics like ranged attacks (arrows, magic) or even a cavalry charge.
me_me_me 5y ago
Genichiro Ashina fight from Sekiro took me 3 days of multiple 15-20 mins sessions. With each attempt you learn the attack patterns and tells of which move-set boss will use. Its immensely satisfying to slowly learn and see yourself improve. When I eventually beat the boss I felt like a badass. But most importantly its memorable experience, something that is hard to create. From Soft can created hard but fair experience, and that's what makes the unique blend of emotions while you slowly master the game/boss.
- umvi 5y ago
  Agreed, Genichiro is such a great boss fight. I remember the exhilaration of finally winning and just staring at the screen with my heart racing for a minute.
- isk517 5y ago
  Genichiro definitely almost broke me. Walked away from the game a few times trying to beat him sure that I wouldn't come back, but every time I returned and eventually I prevailed.
- SnowingXIV 5y ago
  Ugh, Isshin the Glock Saint. Thorn in my side, as someone who loves the entire soulsborne series, beat most of them (not including DLCs) - he did break me. Sekiro is one of the tightest, most well designed games, it's super fluid, you feel incredible and animations are on point. This game is the hardest of the series because it is not something you can stat-pad against at least not as harshly as you could grind on the other games. I spent many, many tries against him to get to the later phases but still would die. Like you multiple days, many sessions but against Isshin. I moved on and came back to my save years later, that muscle memory was lost and did way worse. Realizing this may be a boss I simply don't conquer. Elden Ring has sparked joy.
  - t3rmi 5y ago
    The secret to beating Isshin is you dont try to kill him. Think of him as a friend you’re trying to hang around and not let go. Once you get muscle memory for all his movesets you can sense that you can end the game whenever you want.
FreezerburnV 5y ago
My new take about Miyazaki's games, that I will refuse to give up going forward, is that part of the reason they're so good is because they are secretly comedy games (among everything else): https://twitter.com/docsquiddy/status/1498192962680930304 https://twitter.com/docsquiddy/status/1498192962680930304
slothtrop 5y ago
The difficulty is definitely an overstatement. It can be rendered trivial with in-game options, the right build, co-op. The quality that these games have is forcing players to be tactful. It's not a mindless affair, but it doesn't require fast reflexes either to excel either. However, ways to approaching the game are unclear at the outset and they don't hold your hand either, which is a double-edged sword. There is value in discovering things through trial and error or communication with other players, though on the other hand if reading a starter guide drastically improves first-time experience then the games could benefit from better direction. I see that Elden Ring has implemented more guidance, though the open-world nature has created another confusion. You have to kind of enjoy not knowing where to go exactly. But the option to read a guide is there. Someone made the puzzle game analogy and I think that works. There's always talk about whether an easy mode would be appropriate: would one also demand that puzzle games hold your hand through every puzzle effectively solving it for you? It would miss the point.
- mrtranscendence 5y ago
  > You have to kind of enjoy not knowing where to go exactly Honestly, this is why I've never really enjoyed the Dark Souls games. Difficult bosses I'm fine with; I can handle gameplay. But I get lost going to the bathroom. If I leave a game for two days and come back to it I have no idea what I'm doing or where anything is. Without something prodding me in the right direction (or helping me get back to where I was before) it's hard for me to enjoy myself. There are guides, I suppose, but I find following them tedious. That said, I'm told Elden Ring has a map, which makes me 100% more interested right there.
  - slothtrop 5y ago
    Yeah I get it. It's funny because, despite ER having a map, I feel way more lost in the open world. DS games may have had a few branching sections but they're more or less linear, here you're having to just pick a direction and hope to find something. And then you encounter all these random bosses that seem overpowered and calculating when would be best to fight them.
MisterBastahrd 5y ago
I guess I'm at a loss then. I've enjoyed the Souls series and have beaten all the games multiple times. They're also the only RPG I've ever played where I have absolutely no idea what's going on with the character past the entrance cinematic. I go into areas, kill things, fight named bosses until they die, and then go somewhere else. I'm sure it's a thematic part of the experience, but it makes the games feel like empty shells past the combat to me.
- rewgs 5y ago
  I love From's games and yes this is a criticism that I absolutely agree with. In previous games, the story and lore was cryptic, but rich. It was delivered in a way that made you intrigued and you had to look for it, but it was all very coherent and cohesive and detailed and satisfying. And even if you didn't dive deep, the cryptic nature was intriguing enough to still make a shallow experience interesting. I'm 30 hours into Elden Ring, have no idea what the Elden Ring is or why I or anyone else wants to be the Elden Lord, whatever that is. This is easily my biggest criticism of the game. Combat-wise it's as good as ever, but man in this area it is sorely lacking. But who knows, maybe it'll open up more as the game goes on. I've admittedly done very little of the story stuff (ran into Margit and fucked off doing random stuff so I could be strong enough to face him, which I plan on doing tonight), so perhaps that's the problem.

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.

Trasmatta 5y ago
Exactly, it's almost a "cargo cult game design" problem. A lot of other studios are just picking pieces of FromSoft's designs without really understanding why those pieces were there in the first place.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  I think it can be fruitful to analyze games through the emotions they evoke. After all, the whole reason we play games is to feel a certain way. I think the problems with many clones stem from misidentifying the emotion of FromSoft games to be frustration. The reason we play a souls game isn't to get frustrated, that's the price of admission not an ends in itself. What we want is that feeling of accomplishment. Along this axis, FromSoft's games are closer related to something like The Witness than say Diablo (which is more about feeling strong and powerful).
AmericanChopper 5y ago
> The "difficulty" stems from the game developers anticipating how you will approach situations based on earlier situations, and adding new caveats to the rules. This assessment seems very strange to me. Their games are hard because you need to be rather competent in their demanding mechanics to progress, and you need to learn every encounter perfectly to get past it. That’s why so many reviewers trashed Sekiro, because they were simply unable to play it.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  It's in part this process of learning new encounters I'm talking about. In the beginning of Dark Souls, you can kill every enemy pretty much the same way. Then gradually you need to use more mechanics to get forward. Very little of it is actually mechanically demanding. What's demanded of you is that you observe and correctly assess the situation, that you recognize that what you are doing isn't working, and the solution isn't to do it harder, but to find another solution. The biggest problem most new players have is that they try to play too fast and they don't react to what's in front of them. They mash buttons and try to do everything at once. They approach every situation the same way, probably rushing in and probably pressing every button on the controller in a mindless flurry. An seasoned player will almost certainly play slower than a newbie because they're playing a lot more deliberately. You have people playing these games with voice commands[1] and DDR mats[2] and whatever. If that isn't evidence this isn't a test of dexterity, I don't know what will. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m2a2dLdZ0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m2a2dLdZ0M [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxKsRf6R-vc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxKsRf6R-vc

Talanes 5y ago

> 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). I can definitely see this. Until this morning, Dark Souls had been the only FromSoft game I had played, mostly because I only managed Capra last year despite first playing around release. But I still boot it up at least every couple of years, slog my way as far as I can, and enjoy every minute of it. The only problem is that it scratches that itch so well I never got around to trying the later ones.

rcpt 5y ago
> Very little of it is actually mechanically demanding. Sekiro though

didibus 5y ago

The games are easier then I thought they'd be. I waited to play them for a long time, because of how hard people made them out. But you only really need a bit of patience, slow down what you do in the combat, and give bosses a few try. I find plenty of other games were a lot harder for me, like Hades, Celeste, Meat Boy or Returnal for example. I think actually the genius about Souls games is that unlike Roguelikes or hard room based platformers, the difficulty is actually well balanced, it is approachable. You get better as you play, you learn the boss pattern, you level up and get better gear, and when you die the penalty isn't too harsh, getting back to the boss isn't like dying in a Roguelike where you gotta go through the whole run again, it's just harsh enough to make you really not want to die when you fight the boss though and feel some added stress from having to walk back to it to try again. And if I think of casual AAA games likes FF7:Remake, Doom, Last of Us, none of those games I was able to beat at their hardest difficulty, yet I could beat all the souls games. And that's often because these games get hard by handicap or cranking the difficulty in cheap ways sometimes. Souls games are an easy kind of hard, they're approachable, that makes it more accessible in a way, and it's why I think they got popular. Having said that, I still think they should add some accessibility features that can make the game easier. What they do in Mario Kart or Celeste I think is great. Instead of making difficulties which means some of them won't get proper design and balance. Focus on a single difficulty, but add accessibility features that can make it easier. I think it's important to do that so people who have handicaps, are younger, are too old, don't have the time and patience, can still experience and enjoy some of the games. They could choose to play some section normally, and when they get stuck, instead of quitting the game, they can try and give themselves some help to get over it.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
That's exactly it, once you're able to get past the intimidation from things like dark corridors, flailing enemies, abhorrent Things That Should Not Be, you can see they're actually fairly slow moving games, and deliberate action is the way to win - as opposed to a lot of games where button bashing and/or quick reflexes work just fine. The games are punishing and challenging, but they're not unfair. Every time you die, you realize it's your own mistake; you tried to get another hit in, you forgot there was an enemy around that corner, you read a message saying "treasure ahead" in front of a cliff and actually believed it because it was actually true the one time. But there's so many games where you just don't have that amount of control over whether or not you will die there. The previous game I was playing, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, has that problem because on the surface its combat system is based on reflexes and positioning. But in practice there seems to be too big an element of chance involved. Every strike is a roll of the dice whether the enemy will block or deflect it. Whereas in, say Elden Ring, raising a shield will block attacks, but only until your stamina runs out. Rolling at the right time will avoid damage, but the challenge is in knowing the enemy's attack patterns - and some bosses have really long and unpredictable wind-ups initially. And an enemy with a shield, you can either wait for them to drop their guard, wear them out with attacks (which keeps you opened up for counter-attacks), avoid them entirely, or use completely different tactics like ranged attacks (arrows, magic) or even a cavalry charge.

me_me_me 5y ago

Genichiro Ashina fight from Sekiro took me 3 days of multiple 15-20 mins sessions. With each attempt you learn the attack patterns and tells of which move-set boss will use. Its immensely satisfying to slowly learn and see yourself improve. When I eventually beat the boss I felt like a badass. But most importantly its memorable experience, something that is hard to create. From Soft can created hard but fair experience, and that's what makes the unique blend of emotions while you slowly master the game/boss.

umvi 5y ago
Agreed, Genichiro is such a great boss fight. I remember the exhilaration of finally winning and just staring at the screen with my heart racing for a minute.
isk517 5y ago
Genichiro definitely almost broke me. Walked away from the game a few times trying to beat him sure that I wouldn't come back, but every time I returned and eventually I prevailed.
SnowingXIV 5y ago
Ugh, Isshin the Glock Saint. Thorn in my side, as someone who loves the entire soulsborne series, beat most of them (not including DLCs) - he did break me. Sekiro is one of the tightest, most well designed games, it's super fluid, you feel incredible and animations are on point. This game is the hardest of the series because it is not something you can stat-pad against at least not as harshly as you could grind on the other games. I spent many, many tries against him to get to the later phases but still would die. Like you multiple days, many sessions but against Isshin. I moved on and came back to my save years later, that muscle memory was lost and did way worse. Realizing this may be a boss I simply don't conquer. Elden Ring has sparked joy.
- t3rmi 5y ago
  The secret to beating Isshin is you dont try to kill him. Think of him as a friend you’re trying to hang around and not let go. Once you get muscle memory for all his movesets you can sense that you can end the game whenever you want.

FreezerburnV 5y ago

My new take about Miyazaki's games, that I will refuse to give up going forward, is that part of the reason they're so good is because they are secretly comedy games (among everything else): https://twitter.com/docsquiddy/status/1498192962680930304 https://twitter.com/docsquiddy/status/1498192962680930304

slothtrop 5y ago

The difficulty is definitely an overstatement. It can be rendered trivial with in-game options, the right build, co-op. The quality that these games have is forcing players to be tactful. It's not a mindless affair, but it doesn't require fast reflexes either to excel either. However, ways to approaching the game are unclear at the outset and they don't hold your hand either, which is a double-edged sword. There is value in discovering things through trial and error or communication with other players, though on the other hand if reading a starter guide drastically improves first-time experience then the games could benefit from better direction. I see that Elden Ring has implemented more guidance, though the open-world nature has created another confusion. You have to kind of enjoy not knowing where to go exactly. But the option to read a guide is there. Someone made the puzzle game analogy and I think that works. There's always talk about whether an easy mode would be appropriate: would one also demand that puzzle games hold your hand through every puzzle effectively solving it for you? It would miss the point.

mrtranscendence 5y ago
> You have to kind of enjoy not knowing where to go exactly Honestly, this is why I've never really enjoyed the Dark Souls games. Difficult bosses I'm fine with; I can handle gameplay. But I get lost going to the bathroom. If I leave a game for two days and come back to it I have no idea what I'm doing or where anything is. Without something prodding me in the right direction (or helping me get back to where I was before) it's hard for me to enjoy myself. There are guides, I suppose, but I find following them tedious. That said, I'm told Elden Ring has a map, which makes me 100% more interested right there.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  Yeah I get it. It's funny because, despite ER having a map, I feel way more lost in the open world. DS games may have had a few branching sections but they're more or less linear, here you're having to just pick a direction and hope to find something. And then you encounter all these random bosses that seem overpowered and calculating when would be best to fight them.

MisterBastahrd 5y ago

I guess I'm at a loss then. I've enjoyed the Souls series and have beaten all the games multiple times. They're also the only RPG I've ever played where I have absolutely no idea what's going on with the character past the entrance cinematic. I go into areas, kill things, fight named bosses until they die, and then go somewhere else. I'm sure it's a thematic part of the experience, but it makes the games feel like empty shells past the combat to me.

rewgs 5y ago
I love From's games and yes this is a criticism that I absolutely agree with. In previous games, the story and lore was cryptic, but rich. It was delivered in a way that made you intrigued and you had to look for it, but it was all very coherent and cohesive and detailed and satisfying. And even if you didn't dive deep, the cryptic nature was intriguing enough to still make a shallow experience interesting. I'm 30 hours into Elden Ring, have no idea what the Elden Ring is or why I or anyone else wants to be the Elden Lord, whatever that is. This is easily my biggest criticism of the game. Combat-wise it's as good as ever, but man in this area it is sorely lacking. But who knows, maybe it'll open up more as the game goes on. I've admittedly done very little of the story stuff (ran into Margit and fucked off doing random stuff so I could be strong enough to face him, which I plan on doing tonight), so perhaps that's the problem.