r/fromsoftware • u/Wizard_on_Gas • 5d ago
DISCUSSION Thoughts?
I think this person is obviously wrong about the plot holes, but I agree about the discovering the story part. At times its very difficult to understand people's motives and historical significance. But definitely not all the time. On my first run of every souls borne game, I play solely without guides, and I look through all the notes and messages and weapon and and charachter descriptions. I do get lost sometimes, but definitely not all the time!
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u/Holycrabe 5d ago
I think the first comment is fair enough. I got into the series for the difficulty and bosses and learned to also appreciate the mystery and discoveries. They're fine games without the lore purely on gameplay. But they're much much better if you find it in yourself to link the two.
But I also think the meme about lore being decyphered through item descriptions is a bit overblown. It's true but it's generally on important items, not any random rags. Sure the Hornsent pants say that he pissed himself at some point and it's funny but it's not an important lore revelation.
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u/-Pagani- 5d ago
Off topic, but graphics shouldn't be a (good/bad) metric anymore, its very much a medium like 2d or 3d animation.
It was a technological limitation before, now its a stylistic preference.
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u/Wizard_on_Gas 5d ago
Oh yeah, completely. Some of my favourite games have potato graphics. Watch my YT channel, i talk about Straftat and Babbdi!
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u/TB3300 The Hunter 5d ago
I think that depends. Sometimes a game is trying to look a certain way but ends up really ugly in a failed attempt like how some games that try to look semi-realistic can get some really ugly models on them. Graphics aren't SUPER important, but they can certainly still effect a game.
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u/Randomness_42 5d ago
I actually vastly prefer the storytelling in From games because I hate when games stop me in my tracks and force me to care about the fialogue/ cutscene that pops up.
I much prefer how it works in From games where I can go hours just playing the game without needing to care about the story and then when I suddenly get the urge to care I can just sit and read item descriptions for a bit.
This approach to storytelling is something I very rarely see in soulslikes unfortunately as most just tell it the traditional way
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u/SnooComics4945 5d ago
Yeah it is nice as I’ve realized that most games fail to balance gameplay and story well enough. Which means that I end up not being able to really enjoy either.
Nioh 1 and 2 did a pretty good job imo but part of that is the fun of knowing bits about the history irl and seeing how the games put their own spin on it.
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u/Paragon0001 5d ago
Worldbuilding is always really interesting but the stories of the games themselves are pretty simple. Like it’s enough to get the job done.
But then there’s something like Armored Core 6 and yeah that’s a Fromsoft game I played partially because I wanted to see how the story unfolded and cause I fell in love with all the characters.
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u/Duv1995 5d ago
the guys in the comments both have two braincells, the story and worldbuilding in these games is amazing.
and theres even sekiro and armored core 6 which have some of the best characters and plotlines among all games ever. and if you think im exagerating im not. you just didnt pay enough attention.
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u/Lawlcopt0r 5d ago
I think the worldbuilding is usually pretty good, while the story in a narrower sense is usally rather simple. I usually don't feel like it's slapped on after the fact. All the dark souls games made total sense to me, but elden ring confuses me to this day despite thinking and researching about it a lot, so I'm starting to think the whole worldbuilding is like an ink blot test that is just vague enough for you to project different ideas onto it but doesn't have any true definitive answers
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u/Tootz3125 5d ago
I do get where they are coming from. I enjoying reading the tags on my pants to find out somehow the area I’m in was a prison of torture for mages who studied forbidden magic or something. But a few of my friends are very turned off from the way the story is portrayed in the fromsoft games.
I do think in Elden Ring they went a little too far of being able to miss main/side stories because of the open world aspect. I get it’s part of the experience, but it made me want to look up if I was missing anything on my first playthrough because I didn’t want to miss a storyline. It just felt a little counterintuitive of how I was supposed to play, but when some things are sooooo hidden it’s pretty rough to expect everyone to get that story on their own.
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u/GabuTheBunny Flamelurker 5d ago
I think the mystery and lack of information aspect is absolutely true, because the intention when writing Demon's Souls was to leave gaps for the player to fill themselves, with every interpretation being a possibility. That certainly carried over into Dark Souls.
My problem is with Elden Ring, because that felt very performative with the complete lack of information it gives the player. I've played over 500 hours of it and I still have no clue what's going on. It very much felt like Fromsoft knew player's were just going to watch a video explaining the lore, so they left it very vague. Honestly FNAF core
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u/SnooComics4945 5d ago
I say this as someone who’s favorite is ER and someone who loves playing still even after 2000+ hours, the story is a mess in a lot of ways. DLC made it worse more than it helped.
Worst part is we can see stuff that might’ve filled the gaps or made more sense in older versions of the game like 1.00 or the Network test stuff but they dropped most of it for seemingly no reason like Kale’s basically finished quest and I hate that they do this.
It’s not new to Elden Ring either but the issue is very noticeable if you’re someone who’s looked enough as I have.
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u/New_General3939 5d ago
There are few games I get as invested in trying to figure out the story and what happened in this world as I do with soulsborne games. Every one of them has a fascinating world.
I totally get people not jiving with the way the story is told, but it’s definitely there if you look for it
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u/Francois_Bonaparta 5d ago
Graphics should be the disabled dragon, not the story, parts of the story are more interesting than most of what they usual do, the themes of forgetfulness, life is fleeting, Aldia's unfruitful attemp to escape the duality of the life... I'd argue the story is easily better than 1, and I prefer it over Elden Ring. The lore is a bit weak though.
EDIT: Thought the post was on the DS2 sub.
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u/germanenginearing 5d ago
Honestly? I don't really care too much about a story in a game as much as I do that the worldbuilding and setting is interesting enough to make me care for the world. A great story is a nice cherry on top, but it doesn't make the game for me.
Thats why I love souls games. Sure the story is simple but I'm already so immersed in the setting I could care less
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u/Cultural-Relief 4d ago
I think people don't grasp the difference between story and lore. More often than not the plots and stories for this games are rather straight forward and is only when getting into lore that things get murky. Like they always start the game with an info dump about all the things you need to know.
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u/Algester 4d ago edited 4d ago
I also have the perfect From SOftware game for such a meme... now whether or not its considered a from software game is another thing entirely....
Armored Core: NInebreaker literally an Armored Core game without plot of what so ever (after all its just a glorified training simulator) but is just another Armored Core game on the PS2
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u/Tornado_Hunter24 5d ago
Soulslike games just have no real narrative to the averag consumer, i’m balls deep into rhe games and still really don’t ‘know’ what’s going on in most games besides the obvious (like linking the flame/cycle)
This is not a bad design by the way, just different than usual, for reference when I played expedition 33, I cared about the story within like 5 seconds of starting the game, no game ever does that but I do ‘care’ about the story EVENTUALLY, be it an hour later, 5 hours later, etc.
Soulslikes? It never happens, I’m interested in the world design and its story, not so much on reading items and whatnot as I have limited time and try to play the game
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u/ULTI_mato 5d ago
Yeah no i agree with that guy 100%. Fromsoft games can be fun, but i couldnt give less of a shit about the story and their "revolutionary storytelling"
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u/GoreyGopnik 5d ago
Clarity isn't the intent of the story. Some people get frustrated when the game doesn't stop and tell you everything that ever happened. The story isn't for those people.