You forgot how to mention the cosmic horror aspect about it , where you see allant go from this legendary warrior to helpless slug by the corruption of the old one
I played the OG demon souls on ps3 and I just beat him on ps5 but mannnnn I got chills again fighting false king allant. I love how this boss has the opening theme music remixed and he just feels so majestic
I feel like Allant's whole character was more than anything a criticism of nihilism. Allant wanted power for his realm above anything, he conquered surrounding kingdoms and expanded Boletaria as far as Stonefang and beyond. He sought out soul arts to earn even greater power, and used that level draining power (which in-lore is straight up stealing people's souls) for even more strength. It could be that Allant really did just want the best for his kingdom and felt crushed by the things he - and every other conqueror - had to do to achieve that. So he unleashed a soul destroying monster that would end the world. Makes perfect sense: The world isn't perfect, so you decide all of existence needs to be erradicated. Not just people, but reality itself. If Allant was a great conqueror, empire builder and wise ruler who made Boletaria so rich Jade was considered cheap; He probably unleashed the old one by mistake, maybe learning how to steal souls from the Maiden awakened it. Either way: Allant's speech at the end of the game is at best a post hoc rationalisation for why he awakened the old one, possibly born out of people that have turned into demons sort of losing themselves. It happened to Maiden Astraea, who killed and sucked the souls out of everyone in the valley, then decided that raising aborted infants as soul-starved puppets would be a good use of her powers. For some reason. Granted, the valley was a violent and cruel place filled with suffering before, but Maiden Astraea just made it infinately worse. At worst: Allant's speech is a greedy, bloodthirsty warmonger explaining why he had to end the world because there's so much misery in it, despite being one of the few people who can be said to have majorly contributed to that misery. He waged wars on all his neighbours and enslaving those he conquered, even taking over Stonefang. If he wanted to lessen the misery in the world, he could have raised his son to be better than him, or try to improve the lives of all his subjects slaves included. Given how Astraea turned out, I think this is scenario is less likely. I have to say though: Having a disgusting amorphous blob of corpses ramble nihilism at the player is maybe the least subtle anti-nihilist (anti-existentialist?) propaganda I have ever seen. Allant's true form I think is a fantastic illustration of how lust for power can corrupt and destroy even the most seemingly valiant warrior-king. Through Allant's lust for power: He's lost his kingdom, he's lost his people, he's lost the power to even fight like knight. His son hates his guts, his strongest soldiers (Biorr and Vallarfax) have turned against him, only insane and soulless monsters are left in his previously magnificent kigndom. Similar villains in previous FromSoft games have all become genuinely super powerful by doing similarly evil things as trying to end the world. But Allant is turned from a brave and wise conqueror to a pathetic heap of sludge. All of this came from the nihilistic pursuit of power, wealth and glory. Pride and greed squander your potential, destroy everything you've built and could've built, destroy your family and your friendships, and in the end they'll destroy you. That's what the game seems to hint everything considered. There is obviously the nature of the Beast (no pun intended) to think about, but even then I feel like the cycle is less repeatable than the video states. The only reason Allant could summon it in the first place seems to be the Maiden and her magic, who by the end of the game is also gone one way or another. If the player decides Freke is right (or wants to troll online), then the world's over. The most powerful demon in the world has fed all their souls to the Old One, and now there is 0% chance anyone canlull the Beast back to slumber. If the player decides Saint Urbaine and Yuria are right (or has the Maiden in Black as their waifu), then the Maiden is gone, the soul arts are gone, and a monumental powerful enough to keep the whole world together on their own has taken over (the player). How soul arts would return to the world I have no idea since anyone who knew how is gone forever, and there is now someone to eternally tell future generations not to do that. The ending is much more conclusive than the inherently cyclical endings of the Souls series, kinda like bloodborne's too. The story as a whole has a start, a middle, and an ending (technically two). A lot of the more subtle stuff (i.e. how the Old One was summoned) from Lokey lore. He's got a bunch of really cool articles diving into Souls lore, check it out if you want an interesting read into the background fo the souls games. I do disagree with some of the conclusions he comes to, but he's got a pretty good methodology and some really findings on his site. There is no TL;DR, you WILL read and you WILL be happy.
Old King Allant was to me the most Iconic and fun boss fight in a game of fun boss fights. As a kid I didnt understand really what was going on but it was epic and fun.
Fantastic work, the waiting paid off! I appreciated your insights on the endings, I frequently see them being describing simply as "the good ending" and "the bad ending", but to me it was always much more nuanced and not as clear-cut, the future of Boletaria unfortunately appears gloomy either way. It's similar to the first Dark Souls in this regard, but I think in the discussion around this game the idea that neither ending is really desirable, and that they both are ultimately futile, is much more common. Come to think of it, the Shura ending in Sekiro seems to be the only unarguably evil choice in the whole series, in addition to the one in Darks Souls III where the player kills the Fire Keeper, while the vast majority of them tend to remain very ambiguous and hazy, with no real consequences that are either satisfactory or harmful (not much more than the previous state of affairs at least). The Childhood's Beginning ending in Bloodborne is probably the most triumphant one (together with Sekiro's Return ending which somewhat restores the natural order of things, although it remains pretty open-ended), but still it's pretty enigmatic, who knows if that's actually a good fate for our hunter. I love this attribute of the finales in these games, they are different from many other games in the way they question and challenge the role and influence of the character, there's always this sense of oppression from a vicious cycle that is ineludible and unstoppable, and they end up painting a pretty fatalistic and bleak picture as a result, though it could be said that From Software reuses this concept too much. I feel like it's a core characteristic of their games at this point, and I appreciate it for what it is, but I understand someone who might want a more conclusive resolution. I wonder what their approach in Elden Ring will be. Anyways I'm really excited for the next videos, can't wait to hear your thoughts about the other games! (sorry for the long ass comment, I ended up raving more than predicted)
Dude don't apologize for the long comment, I love reading comments like this! And I think you're absolutely right about the endings of these games. Rather than reward the player with a binary, "Good" or "Bad" choice, or implement some sort of karma mechanic like in Fallout, the impact of your actions rests entirely on the player, not on the player character. FromSoft's games really do make you think when you finally beat them. I'll never forget playing though Dark Souls 1 for the first time, finally overcoming Gwyn, watching my character explode, and then the credits rolling. I was just shocked into silence. Weirdly, the way that the Souls games handle morality and player choice kind of reminds of SOMA. In that game, the few choices you make don't have any real impact on the story or the game. They don't unlock a new ending or reward you for playing a certain way. Rather, you just make the choices that you think are best and you, the player, will probably be haunted by them. I think that emphasis on affecting the player over the player character is present throughout all the Souls games, too. Like leveling up and finding new equipment helps a lot, but the true growth in these games occurs with the player's own skill. That's why it's so rewarding to finally beat that tough boss--it's not just a character leveling up, it's essentially YOU leveling up. So yeah, in conclusion, the Soulsborne games rock. Can't wait to cover them again soon!
Man you're absolutely right, you put it beautifully. I adore SOMA, and while I really appreciated how it tackled morality, for reasons such as the one you presented, I never made the connection to the Souls games, but god it makes so much sense now. Both games reject the notion that in order to make an action meaningful it needs to noticeably show its repercussions. Instead, they just leave you to ponder those choices for what they are, which makes them feel so much more grounded and impactful; they're not presented in an artificial way which makes you simply think about what course of action will lead to the best reward, but are regardless shaped to be significant moments by the game's design, and they feel very authentic and spontaneous, like in SOMA you can just decide all by yourself to unplug a mockingbird by pulling a cable, there's no prompt. Also in Dark Souls these choices often have only a marginal impact, ultimately everyone goes their own way and many characters have their personal goals and ambitions, which lead them to make choices individually, without the necessity of player interaction, their lives aren't just dictated by a button press on a yes/no menu, as that can feel gamey in a negative sense, I'm sure everyone knows how lifeless and still npcs can be in many cases when they are solely instruments for the player's needs. Granted, From Software games aren't the only ones in the genre to handle it in such a way (it still isn't very common though, from what I can see), but I think they do it to great effect, and it makes characters like Sigmeyer or Solaire feel like real, genuine participants in the game's world.
the original is in my eyes much better than the remake. the updated graphics are nice, but the art style and music doesnt really fit. I'd always prefer the original.
Haven’t played either version of demon souls but I love the original art style from watching videos on TH-cam and when I saw the remake I was excited but they changed the most unique part of the game
Great little love letter to Allant and Demon's Souls, CR! Flamelurker may be more memorable, but Allant is likely the best boss in the game. I always loved that long elevator ride. And the simple organ music in the PS3 game is so fitting. We don't get Gehrman, Gael, or Sword Saint without this original final battle. Allant set the mold!
It is pretty wild how much Demon's Souls got right given that it was their first game in this style. Allant really did set the mold for, "excellent final boss that challenges you a lot but also makes you oddly sad" that FromSoft would put in nearly all of their games
I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Siding with the old one won't lead to a reformation of the world. It is an end to creation itself. The material world dies and all souls are absorbed by the old one, The End.
Dark Souls 2: Nashandra isn't a terrible boss but she's very underwhelming from a gameplay perspective. Not very challenging and definitely the weakest final boss in FromSoft's catalogue for me. I may just be less familiar with Dark Souls 2's story than I am compared to the other games in the series, but Nashandra feels like she lacks the narrative significance that every other FromSoft final boss has, too. Dark Souls 3: Soul of Cinder absolutely rules. The first phase especially has so much variety due to the boss' multiple movesets and it really feels like the Soul of Cinder is testing you on everything you've learned up to this point. The second phase is a great callback and evolution of Gwyn's fight from DS1 while still being fun in its own right. I love Soul of Cinder a lot and it's one of the best fights in Dark Souls 3 in my opinion. Elden Ring: Radagon and Elden Beast are both bosses I adore--Radagon more so, but I sitll think Elden Beast is a genuinely great boss and is very underappreciated. Radagon is so great at applying pressure to the player with a variety of flashy and punishing moves, but if you manage to keep your calm, he's more manageable than he initally appears. The fight against Radagon is always exhilirating, though, and I think he's an amazing final boss from a narrative perspective as well. While Elden Beast does run away from you a little too often, it's an amazing spectacle fight that still tests you on the core mechanics of the combat. In my opinion, it's a better version of the Divine Dragon fight from Sekiro--while I enjoy the Divine Dragon fight, merely grappling to a fixed point and pressing a button for a lightning reversal for most of the fight isn't nearly as engaging or interesting to me as being in complete control of the battle as you are with Elden Beast. This battle also features my favorite boss track in the game, as both Radagon's and Elden Beast's themes rule, so it gets points for that, too. Lastly, Radagon and Elden Beast both have incredible visual designs, with Radagon being my favorite visual design for a character in any of From Software's games. I do plan on making a video about Radagon's visual design at some point in the future because I think it deserves recognition and I have lots of thoughts on it.
the word subverting to me has been destroyed. the only time i ever hear it used is when you expect something to be good and instead you get crap. like when you order pizza and your suprised with a pretzel. its almost never ever a good thing. we ordered pizza not a pretzel.
You keep saying the world will be remade anew after Allant and the Old One are done... but there's no evidence of that in Demon's Souls itself. Once the world is gone, it's _gone_ here.
Yeah From Software certainly doesn't display an impressive technical prowess, purely graphically speaking they are a bit behind compared to contemporary games of similar, or bigger reach, but in my opinion they still are nowhere near as bad as I hear some people say, a couple of times I saw Demon's Souls being described as looking graphically comparable to PS2 titles. That's madness in my opinion, as said I think that from this technical standpoint they don't particularly stand out, but you can't say they're not at least decent at it. Also there are positive exceptions: I believe that Bloodborne, despite having some problems with, for example, low-res and even copy-pasted textures in some places, has a remarkable level of detail in its environments and models, the armors and weapons are absolutely stunning and its areas are absolutely brimming with minutiae, and they're stuffed with little things like vials, books, urns, eccetera (which probably was a big factor in the fps issues, another instance of From demonstrating not so great technical proficiency). This said, what does the heavy lifting in making these games look beautiful, and allows them to stand out in such an imposing fashion from most others I've seen, is of course the art direction. It's the usual graphics vs art direction debate; I strongly believe that even with limited resources, such masterful artistic vision like the people at From are blessed with can not only overshadow the limits, but elevate the aesthetics to hard to reach highs. From Software is just ridiculously good at this, they display all of their genius, creativity and attention to detail in designing every single element of their worlds, to the smallest of things, and that's in my opinion the true _soul_ of these games. The animations also help in this, they're consistently top-notch throughout the whole series (for the most part), I think they only stumbled a bit in Dark Souls 2, but even then they're still fine generally. It's hard to find similar talent, and when you do, it's glorious.
When I first played them I was a little bothered by the graphics but then I started appreciating the art direction in the games elden ring and sekiro especially looks beautiful. Those are also the most graphically advanced of the games other than the demon souls remake.
You forgot how to mention the cosmic horror aspect about it , where you see allant go from this legendary warrior to helpless slug by the corruption of the old one
Uh, no. Allant turned himself into a blob because he despised his own humanity
I played the OG demon souls on ps3 and I just beat him on ps5 but mannnnn I got chills again fighting false king allant. I love how this boss has the opening theme music remixed and he just feels so majestic
I feel like Allant's whole character was more than anything a criticism of nihilism. Allant wanted power for his realm above anything, he conquered surrounding kingdoms and expanded Boletaria as far as Stonefang and beyond. He sought out soul arts to earn even greater power, and used that level draining power (which in-lore is straight up stealing people's souls) for even more strength. It could be that Allant really did just want the best for his kingdom and felt crushed by the things he - and every other conqueror - had to do to achieve that.
So he unleashed a soul destroying monster that would end the world. Makes perfect sense: The world isn't perfect, so you decide all of existence needs to be erradicated. Not just people, but reality itself.
If Allant was a great conqueror, empire builder and wise ruler who made Boletaria so rich Jade was considered cheap; He probably unleashed the old one by mistake, maybe learning how to steal souls from the Maiden awakened it. Either way: Allant's speech at the end of the game is at best a post hoc rationalisation for why he awakened the old one, possibly born out of people that have turned into demons sort of losing themselves. It happened to Maiden Astraea, who killed and sucked the souls out of everyone in the valley, then decided that raising aborted infants as soul-starved puppets would be a good use of her powers. For some reason. Granted, the valley was a violent and cruel place filled with suffering before, but Maiden Astraea just made it infinately worse.
At worst: Allant's speech is a greedy, bloodthirsty warmonger explaining why he had to end the world because there's so much misery in it, despite being one of the few people who can be said to have majorly contributed to that misery. He waged wars on all his neighbours and enslaving those he conquered, even taking over Stonefang. If he wanted to lessen the misery in the world, he could have raised his son to be better than him, or try to improve the lives of all his subjects slaves included. Given how Astraea turned out, I think this is scenario is less likely.
I have to say though: Having a disgusting amorphous blob of corpses ramble nihilism at the player is maybe the least subtle anti-nihilist (anti-existentialist?) propaganda I have ever seen. Allant's true form I think is a fantastic illustration of how lust for power can corrupt and destroy even the most seemingly valiant warrior-king. Through Allant's lust for power: He's lost his kingdom, he's lost his people, he's lost the power to even fight like knight. His son hates his guts, his strongest soldiers (Biorr and Vallarfax) have turned against him, only insane and soulless monsters are left in his previously magnificent kigndom. Similar villains in previous FromSoft games have all become genuinely super powerful by doing similarly evil things as trying to end the world. But Allant is turned from a brave and wise conqueror to a pathetic heap of sludge. All of this came from the nihilistic pursuit of power, wealth and glory. Pride and greed squander your potential, destroy everything you've built and could've built, destroy your family and your friendships, and in the end they'll destroy you.
That's what the game seems to hint everything considered.
There is obviously the nature of the Beast (no pun intended) to think about, but even then I feel like the cycle is less repeatable than the video states. The only reason Allant could summon it in the first place seems to be the Maiden and her magic, who by the end of the game is also gone one way or another. If the player decides Freke is right (or wants to troll online), then the world's over. The most powerful demon in the world has fed all their souls to the Old One, and now there is 0% chance anyone canlull the Beast back to slumber. If the player decides Saint Urbaine and Yuria are right (or has the Maiden in Black as their waifu), then the Maiden is gone, the soul arts are gone, and a monumental powerful enough to keep the whole world together on their own has taken over (the player). How soul arts would return to the world I have no idea since anyone who knew how is gone forever, and there is now someone to eternally tell future generations not to do that.
The ending is much more conclusive than the inherently cyclical endings of the Souls series, kinda like bloodborne's too. The story as a whole has a start, a middle, and an ending (technically two).
A lot of the more subtle stuff (i.e. how the Old One was summoned) from Lokey lore. He's got a bunch of really cool articles diving into Souls lore, check it out if you want an interesting read into the background fo the souls games. I do disagree with some of the conclusions he comes to, but he's got a pretty good methodology and some really findings on his site.
There is no TL;DR, you WILL read and you WILL be happy.
this is what gets me through work
Now you just have to beat Demon's Souls while you're at work dude. I think that it will WORK out pretty well if you know what I mean hahahahahaha
Old King Allant was to me the most Iconic and fun boss fight in a game of fun boss fights. As a kid I didnt understand really what was going on but it was epic and fun.
Fantastic work, the waiting paid off!
I appreciated your insights on the endings, I frequently see them being describing simply as "the good ending" and "the bad ending", but to me it was always much more nuanced and not as clear-cut, the future of Boletaria unfortunately appears gloomy either way.
It's similar to the first Dark Souls in this regard, but I think in the discussion around this game the idea that neither ending is really desirable, and that they both are ultimately futile, is much more common.
Come to think of it, the Shura ending in Sekiro seems to be the only unarguably evil choice in the whole series, in addition to the one in Darks Souls III where the player kills the Fire Keeper, while the vast majority of them tend to remain very ambiguous and hazy, with no real consequences that are either satisfactory or harmful (not much more than the previous state of affairs at least).
The Childhood's Beginning ending in Bloodborne is probably the most triumphant one (together with Sekiro's Return ending which somewhat restores the natural order of things, although it remains pretty open-ended), but still it's pretty enigmatic, who knows if that's actually a good fate for our hunter.
I love this attribute of the finales in these games, they are different from many other games in the way they question and challenge the role and influence of the character, there's always this sense of oppression from a vicious cycle that is ineludible and unstoppable, and they end up painting a pretty fatalistic and bleak picture as a result, though it could be said that From Software reuses this concept too much. I feel like it's a core characteristic of their games at this point, and I appreciate it for what it is, but I understand someone who might want a more conclusive resolution. I wonder what their approach in Elden Ring will be.
Anyways I'm really excited for the next videos, can't wait to hear your thoughts about the other games!
(sorry for the long ass comment, I ended up raving more than predicted)
Dude don't apologize for the long comment, I love reading comments like this! And I think you're absolutely right about the endings of these games. Rather than reward the player with a binary, "Good" or "Bad" choice, or implement some sort of karma mechanic like in Fallout, the impact of your actions rests entirely on the player, not on the player character. FromSoft's games really do make you think when you finally beat them.
I'll never forget playing though Dark Souls 1 for the first time, finally overcoming Gwyn, watching my character explode, and then the credits rolling. I was just shocked into silence.
Weirdly, the way that the Souls games handle morality and player choice kind of reminds of SOMA. In that game, the few choices you make don't have any real impact on the story or the game. They don't unlock a new ending or reward you for playing a certain way. Rather, you just make the choices that you think are best and you, the player, will probably be haunted by them. I think that emphasis on affecting the player over the player character is present throughout all the Souls games, too. Like leveling up and finding new equipment helps a lot, but the true growth in these games occurs with the player's own skill. That's why it's so rewarding to finally beat that tough boss--it's not just a character leveling up, it's essentially YOU leveling up.
So yeah, in conclusion, the Soulsborne games rock. Can't wait to cover them again soon!
Man you're absolutely right, you put it beautifully.
I adore SOMA, and while I really appreciated how it tackled morality, for reasons such as the one you presented, I never made the connection to the Souls games, but god it makes so much sense now.
Both games reject the notion that in order to make an action meaningful it needs to noticeably show its repercussions. Instead, they just leave you to ponder those choices for what they are, which makes them feel so much more grounded and impactful; they're not presented in an artificial way which makes you simply think about what course of action will lead to the best reward, but are regardless shaped to be significant moments by the game's design, and they feel very authentic and spontaneous, like in SOMA you can just decide all by yourself to unplug a mockingbird by pulling a cable, there's no prompt.
Also in Dark Souls these choices often have only a marginal impact, ultimately everyone goes their own way and many characters have their personal goals and ambitions, which lead them to make choices individually, without the necessity of player interaction, their lives aren't just dictated by a button press on a yes/no menu, as that can feel gamey in a negative sense, I'm sure everyone knows how lifeless and still npcs can be in many cases when they are solely instruments for the player's needs. Granted, From Software games aren't the only ones in the genre to handle it in such a way (it still isn't very common though, from what I can see), but I think they do it to great effect, and it makes characters like Sigmeyer or Solaire feel like real, genuine participants in the game's world.
the original is in my eyes much better than the remake. the updated graphics are nice, but the art style and music doesnt really fit.
I'd always prefer the original.
Haven’t played either version of demon souls but I love the original art style from watching videos on TH-cam and when I saw the remake I was excited but they changed the most unique part of the game
you know the video is good when time flies by
Great little love letter to Allant and Demon's Souls, CR! Flamelurker may be more memorable, but Allant is likely the best boss in the game. I always loved that long elevator ride. And the simple organ music in the PS3 game is so fitting. We don't get Gehrman, Gael, or Sword Saint without this original final battle. Allant set the mold!
It is pretty wild how much Demon's Souls got right given that it was their first game in this style. Allant really did set the mold for, "excellent final boss that challenges you a lot but also makes you oddly sad" that FromSoft would put in nearly all of their games
Great vid mate 😁
Thanks mate :)
Great video keep up the good work hope you get many more subs !!!!
Thank you ❤️
Best of luck with the channel
Demon souls and soulsborne lore in general is SOOOOOOO cool. I never noticed all the swords on the beaches were nexus swords
"lovely little soulsborne masochist" LMAO
So not gonna lie I was thinking laying remake demon souls and king Allan’s boss music matched during the time of the video lol😂
I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Siding with the old one won't lead to a reformation of the world. It is an end to creation itself. The material world dies and all souls are absorbed by the old one, The End.
Yup, that's what Allant wanted, to just delete the world
good video is it ok if I ask you a question?
Thank you, and ask away!
@@criticalrants ok what do you think of ds 2 , 3 and elden ring final boss?
Dark Souls 2: Nashandra isn't a terrible boss but she's very underwhelming from a gameplay perspective. Not very challenging and definitely the weakest final boss in FromSoft's catalogue for me. I may just be less familiar with Dark Souls 2's story than I am compared to the other games in the series, but Nashandra feels like she lacks the narrative significance that every other FromSoft final boss has, too.
Dark Souls 3: Soul of Cinder absolutely rules. The first phase especially has so much variety due to the boss' multiple movesets and it really feels like the Soul of Cinder is testing you on everything you've learned up to this point. The second phase is a great callback and evolution of Gwyn's fight from DS1 while still being fun in its own right. I love Soul of Cinder a lot and it's one of the best fights in Dark Souls 3 in my opinion.
Elden Ring: Radagon and Elden Beast are both bosses I adore--Radagon more so, but I sitll think Elden Beast is a genuinely great boss and is very underappreciated. Radagon is so great at applying pressure to the player with a variety of flashy and punishing moves, but if you manage to keep your calm, he's more manageable than he initally appears. The fight against Radagon is always exhilirating, though, and I think he's an amazing final boss from a narrative perspective as well.
While Elden Beast does run away from you a little too often, it's an amazing spectacle fight that still tests you on the core mechanics of the combat. In my opinion, it's a better version of the Divine Dragon fight from Sekiro--while I enjoy the Divine Dragon fight, merely grappling to a fixed point and pressing a button for a lightning reversal for most of the fight isn't nearly as engaging or interesting to me as being in complete control of the battle as you are with Elden Beast.
This battle also features my favorite boss track in the game, as both Radagon's and Elden Beast's themes rule, so it gets points for that, too.
Lastly, Radagon and Elden Beast both have incredible visual designs, with Radagon being my favorite visual design for a character in any of From Software's games. I do plan on making a video about Radagon's visual design at some point in the future because I think it deserves recognition and I have lots of thoughts on it.
Hmm….insight gained 💨💨
the word subverting to me has been destroyed. the only time i ever hear it used is when you expect something to be good and instead you get crap.
like when you order pizza and your suprised with a pretzel. its almost never ever a good thing. we ordered pizza not a pretzel.
You keep saying the world will be remade anew after Allant and the Old One are done... but there's no evidence of that in Demon's Souls itself. Once the world is gone, it's _gone_ here.
Man i never played this game but that is a mindfuck. Amazing writing tho
also i dont like the soul steal. its fine on new game when your lvl 80. more annoying on ng plus 5 when your insane level.
I will never play Souls games or Bloodborne, because they look so damn ugly. Doesn't it bother you who have played them?!
You must have seen different games because the Soulsborne games have fantastic art direction and look absolutely gorgeous
Yeah From Software certainly doesn't display an impressive technical prowess, purely graphically speaking they are a bit behind compared to contemporary games of similar, or bigger reach, but in my opinion they still are nowhere near as bad as I hear some people say, a couple of times I saw Demon's Souls being described as looking graphically comparable to PS2 titles. That's madness in my opinion, as said I think that from this technical standpoint they don't particularly stand out, but you can't say they're not at least decent at it.
Also there are positive exceptions: I believe that Bloodborne, despite having some problems with, for example, low-res and even copy-pasted textures in some places, has a remarkable level of detail in its environments and models, the armors and weapons are absolutely stunning and its areas are absolutely brimming with minutiae, and they're stuffed with little things like vials, books, urns, eccetera (which probably was a big factor in the fps issues, another instance of From demonstrating not so great technical proficiency).
This said, what does the heavy lifting in making these games look beautiful, and allows them to stand out in such an imposing fashion from most others I've seen, is of course the art direction.
It's the usual graphics vs art direction debate; I strongly believe that even with limited resources, such masterful artistic vision like the people at From are blessed with can not only overshadow the limits, but elevate the aesthetics to hard to reach highs.
From Software is just ridiculously good at this, they display all of their genius, creativity and attention to detail in designing every single element of their worlds, to the smallest of things, and that's in my opinion the true _soul_ of these games.
The animations also help in this, they're consistently top-notch throughout the whole series (for the most part), I think they only stumbled a bit in Dark Souls 2, but even then they're still fine generally.
It's hard to find similar talent, and when you do, it's glorious.
@@criticalrants
Art direction does not good graphics make.
When I first played them I was a little bothered by the graphics but then I started appreciating the art direction in the games elden ring and sekiro especially looks beautiful. Those are also the most graphically advanced of the games other than the demon souls remake.