How many of you are former FromSoftware fans?

[Ezekiel]

Why did you give up on them?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Bit of an odd thread for a company that won Codex GotY 2012 with Dark Souls and repeated as Codex GotY 2022 winners with Elden Ring.

 

[Talby]

When they made a bad Skyrim clone.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I never bought into the normie obsession with FromSoftware or "Souls difficulty" or whatever buzz words they used.

 

[Ravielsk]

I am still a fan, but I have definitely grown disillusioned with them. Their basic souls formula was a breath of fresh air in 2008 but ever since dark souls 3 its been getting stale.

Every new game they repeat the same mistake of not really bothering to tutorialize their progressively twitchier mechanics. The counter productive focus on difficulty and story delivery that at this point is more about being obtuse than telling... well anything.

I still enjoy their output and will play the shadow of the erdetree but I already fully expect that I will need to mod several parts of it to make it less annoying(like putting in FP regen).

 

[Maxie]

Yeah, we need you sneed software fans properly identified, perhaps you'll be wearing a badge

 

[Baron Tahn]

Why former? From software is OK? Elder Ring not my favourite of theirs (DS2 fan mostly) but what have they done? Was the Elden expansion shit or something?

 

[d1r]

After Dark Souls 3 (never played Sekiro since I don't like the setting of it).

I found original Dark Souls 2 lacking in many aspects (world building, graphics, multiplayer), and thus was heavily disappointed by it. Therefore my hype for Dark Souls 3 was pretty low. Turns out Dark Souls 3 was as worse as Dark Souls 2, because it moved the whole gameplay aspect into a completely different direction (with main offenders being roll spam becoming the norm, game being too linear, and normal poise from DS1 gone). Elden Ring fucked up multiplayer even more, and the open world aspect was completely unnecessary (with the game having flaws that every other big open world also has). I found that game to be a really bore to play through.

Maybe I just grew tired of the whole formula, but I am pretty much done with the Souls series as a whole really.

 

[Baron Tahn]

Well sure me too, I've got a lot of hours in 2, 3 and Ring....but it doesn't mean I all of a sudden am a 'former fan', the games were alright. Agreed that 3 was weaker than 2 if that's what you are implying. To be fair I always wanted to play bloodbourne and never got a PC port so missed out on that. Elden Ring was 'good' as far as games in general go but I never got into it like I did with 2. I mainlined that, spent ages in multiplayer just larping, can't even remember which covenant now. The lack of covenants in Elden Ring was the biggest letdown for me.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Good idea zeke. Capture all of the retards in one thread.

 

[manifest]

RPGCodex is a Western, computer-focused forum, so I think the finer points of Japanese conservatism with regards to the video game industry goes somewhat unnoticed here. The obvious example and king of this is Nintendo: they will not fix what ain't broken until the people stop demanding more. They finally broke the back of Pokémon, but when they shake up the formula too much people inevitably beg for a classic Zelda or Mario title. Basically every notable Japanese franchise I can think of follows this pattern. From Software, in particular, will spin off a new franchise if they deviate enough from the "core" of their previous titles. I'm sure sales figures played heavily into this in the Fifth-Sixth generation titles as well.

The more of From's back catalogue you play, the more this slow iterative approach becomes apparent. After making three King's Field games, in as many years, they translated the engine, control scheme intact, to adventure format with Echo Night. Every Armored Core game had 2 or 3 side games that effectively expanded on the assets they made for the base game; focused on arena missions, netplay, one was a sort of managerial AI game where you didn't even control your mechs anymore. The outliers and one-offs presumably sold terribly, if Kuon's eBay prices are anything to judge by, so they just cut off the dead branch and made more Armored Cores. Similarities between franchises are also more than superficial: I've never seen this chart before, but I knew when I searched "FromSoft Bingo" a tired meme like this would pop up.

The West has no real conception how creative works are made. Video games are both a product, something greedily expected to fulfill a certain pre-cut notion of "what games should be," and a religious object, to be worshiped mysteriously like a strange artifact that fell off the trade ship of a higher intelligence. Demon's Souls was a hail mary, breaking basically every "rule" of "goodgamedesign" that retarded consoomers believe. Endlessly respawning enemies. Overtly punitive deaths. Obfuscated, baroque and poorly-communicated systems (Miyazaki has stated that he expected people to figure things out in community efforts online.) It was more or less expected maybe not to bankrupt the company but to deliver the same sort of sleepy AA they'd been making for 15 years. The fruit of all that iteration is a series with more ARRPEEGEEing than anything America has managed in the last 25 years, so no, I'm not a "former FromSoftware Fan," I'm a militant fanatic. It's easy to deride formula, but it's not like any of the wannabes even come close.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Been a fan of From Soft games since I played a JP import of Armored Core 1 on a modded PS1. Gave up halfway through Dark Souls 3 (never finished the game). I'm just tired of the formula by now, especially since the combat mechanics barely improve in a meaningful way. In some way they keep getting worse as From Soft feels compelled to escalate the boss design to keep the veteran fans engaged. Wouldn't say I'm a former fan as I will still gladly go back and play their PS1 & PS2 games. I'm just completely done with the Souls formula and ready for something entirely unique. Unfortunately Elden Ring has hit an entirely new audience for whom the formula is still new and novel so they still have another 10 years to milk the formula before it runs completely dry for everyone else.

 

[Haplo]

Not sure I qualify as a Fromsoft fan. Certainly not as a former fan.

I rather liked Elden Ring overall. Though dislike how twitchy the games became since DS3 and how gimmicky the bosses are.

Combat is significantly better in Nioh. But as an overall package, the Fromsoft games stand strong.

 

[Sentinel]

Me.

Gave up on them because of the increased focus on action but without any improvements to action gameplay. FromSoftware's boss combat sucks and always has sucked.

Since deliberate map design, cool online interactions and good music are long gone, there's no reason at all to play FromSoft games.

 

[Meshugger]

There hasn't been any serious competition to From Software the last 8 years or so. You might as quit gaming all together and take up another hobby instead.

Unless of course if you quit them since Dark Souls 2. I can't blame you for giving up on that blandness of a game.

 

[Ezekiel]

Me.

Gave up on them because of the increased focus on action but without any improvements to action gameplay. FromSoftware's boss combat sucks and always has sucked.

Since deliberate map design, cool online interactions and good music are long gone, there's no reason at all to play FromSoft games.

I think the combat is too inbred after so many games and has nowhere else to go. They rely on tricky attack delays and give the enemies so much stamina and, I guess, longer combos because the system has nothing left to offer existing players. Well, maybe if they focused on AI, how the enemies worked together, they could continue to milk this, but obviously they're not gonna do that. Their enemies are dumb as bricks. Enemies keep getting stun-locked as they can barely deal with one enemy at the rear while fighting the one in front.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

The combat is great. Don't fix what ain't broke. Look at the countless games that tried to copy it. They all play like dogshit.

 

[9ted6]

Never was a huge fan but I think From has a Telltale problem. You can only make the exact same game so many times before it gets old, especially when each new game is worse than the last.

Soulsborne tropes in gameplay, story, level design and structure are boring and played out now. There's nothing new or surprising, it's the same formula over and over and over again.

Sekiro was like a heartbeat on a flatline and they've never repeated it.

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

never played any of their stuff.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I feel like FS has a weird pattern where they create the bones of something good, iterate until it's amazing, and then continue fucking with it until it's not so great any more. Their two best games imo are AC2:AA and Dark Souls. I've never played much of the older kingsfield lineup, maybe some of those were amazing too, and from what I have played the Souls games are certainly iterating on that. Maybe the issue is that they listen to feedback, and feedback on a wonky game gives good results, while feedback on a great game gives shitty ones. The direction the AC series went after the PS2 era finished was baffling, veering from one extreme of gameplay to another, with the most recent entry being like 80% souls DNA. Souls might be headed in the same direction- a backlash against the open world aspects from some people resulting in a swing to an even more retarded extreme of completely linear levels. Who knows.

Honestly, I'm kind of okay if they shit the bed though, provided someone else takes up the mantle.

 

[musouking]

"No King rules forever, my son."

 

[S.torch]

My only grip with From Software is that they haven't returned to Bloodborne, which is my favourite setting of theirs. Way above the medievalish setting of Dark Souls. Victorian kino tops it all. I don't except them to return with the same title, since is a PS4/PS5 exclusive. But it wouldn't be hard to make a split like Demon's Souls and Dark Souls.

In every other aspect they have managed to surpass themselves in what they do. They even have surpassed westerners in "western" fantasy, which is hilarious.

 

[Shinji]

I have played quite a few of them, but the only one I really enjoyed was the original Demon's Souls on the PS3.

From Software manages to create some pretty interesting worlds and levels, but I always feel their games last longer than they should.

With Demon's Souls it felt just about right.

 

[Haplo]

The combat is great. Don't fix what ain't broke. Look at the countless games that tried to copy it. They all play like dogshit.

Combat isn't bad. However for example Nioh shows that it could be better.

And the ever more present/common delayed attacks are NOT cool.

 

[Machocruz]

I haven't given up on From, but I have no interest in any Soulsish games after Bloodborne, or AC after Verdict Day. Time for something different from them.