By Nelson Schneider - 03/29/15 at 05:57 PM CT
This week the PlayStation 4 was taken by storm by From Software releasing the same game they’ve been releasing over and over and over since 1995. The insufferable Masocore fanbase has been hyping it and praising it since the first screens leaked, despite the fact that “Bloodborne” is nothing more than an 8th Gen rehash of “King’s Field,” one of the very first PlayStation 1 games ever developed. “King’s Field” also happens to be the first PlayStation game I ever played at a demo station at Game Guy in Manhattan, Kansas… and it was the game that had me backing the Nintendo 64 until Squaresoft announced that ‘Final Fantasy’ was moving to PlayStation.
What is truly baffling about the love for From Software’s ever-turning wheel of awful action/“RPGs” is that “King’s Field” and its sequels were never a big deal back when they were released. Interestingly, it seems that there has been some sort of concerted effort amongst new-gen From Software fanboys to retcon their favorite developer’s reputation, since the critical panning of “King’s Field” and its sequels has largely disappeared from the Internet, replaced by much later retro-views that read near identically to the fawning sycophantic religious mantras spouted by From Software fanboys about “Demon’s Souls” and its sequels.
I was able to uncover one accurate review of “King’s Field IV” dating from 2003 which states boldly what everyone at the time knew to be true of the series:
“Kings Field– a name that has been emblazoned upon our minds by virtue of its sheer incompetence.” –NowGamer.com
From Software never earned much attention simply because it was a given that most of their games were abominable. And in looking at the complete list of the company’s creations, it is only too apparent that at least one dev team has been insistent on re-using the same horrible ideas – including intentionally awkward controls for everything, enemies that far outclass the player character’s abilities, and harsh punishments for every player mistake – throughout the development of 4 ‘King’s Field’ games, “Echo Night,” “Eternal Ring,” “Shadow Tower” (which is apparently getting a PSN release in order to give the fanbase something else terrible to gush over besides “Bloodborne”), 3 ‘Souls’ games and “Bloodborne” itself. Yet all of the earlier games in this release schedule received next to no attention through the 5th and 6th Generations, while from somewhere dark and unholy, the From Software fanbase arose alongside “Demon’s Souls” and simply refuses to pipe down or fade away.
Instead, these fans have enacted some kind of vile, zombie-like conversion among numerous gaming publications, which have begun publishing glowing reviews of games that are fundamentally flawed. Anyone, like IGN’s Dan Stapleton, who dares to acknowledge From Software’s ever-repeated design flaws is immediately mobbed by the endless gibbering mouths of Internet fanboys as they attempt to stifle any voice of reason and contention (I’m fully aware that I’m setting myself up for such verbal abuse – which usually amounts to little more than parroted memes of ‘git gud,’ ‘scrub,’ and the like – in writing this, but the truth needs to be told.).
So, how can “Bloodborne,” a game with a 93 Metacritic score at the time of this writing, be terrible? How can all of those critics be wrong? The answer is as simple as the fact that Dan Stapleton’s IGN article isn’t the official IGN “Bloodborne” review: The only people still willing to play – and therefore review – From Software’s opaque, cumbersome, and frustrating games are the same people who have already drunk the Kool-Aid and joined the Cult of From.
What caused the rise of the Cult of From? It certainly couldn’t be the quality of the company’s games, considering there hasn’t really been a From Software fanbase for the majority of the company’s existence (outside of a small fanbase dedicated to the company’s other eternally-recycled game franchise, ‘Armored Core,’ which I actually enjoyed until every sequel started to feel identical). Not to mention the fact that many other clunky, difficult, un-fun action games have come and gone with no fanfare, such as “Nightmare Creatures” and “Draconus: Cult of the Wyrm.”
Instead, the Cult of From seems to be a knee-jerk overreaction to the mainstream-ification of “AAA” games. Among the cultists that make-up the From Software fanbase, the Articles of Faith include a complete and utter disdain for things like ‘spoonfeeding’ and ‘handholding’ that are apparently a scourge upon the face of gaming. These objects of hatred include such blatant pandering as in-game tutorials, pre-boss checkpoints, and in-game maps. Furthermore, the cult’s recitations invariably invoke the words, ‘patience, observation, planning, challenge, tough-but-fair, satisfaction’ in a form of droning chant, when in actuality the words, ‘tedium, repetition, trial-and-error, and unresponsive’ would be more accurate. I’m no fan of the QuickTime Event-powered cinematic experiences that have been dominating the “AAA” sales charts recently, but the Cult of From needs to realize that going back to impenetrable, unplayable Nintendo-Hard style games is not the antidote to this infection.
While it is true that many modern “AAA” mainstream games do take things a bit far with regard to putting everything on rails or bending over backwards to ensure that the least experienced non-gamer can understand everything about the game without having to read a manual, From Software’s games intentionally do the opposite to such an extent that it kills their playability. There is nothing wrong with providing the player with an area map or objective. It’s imperative that every action game provides the player with a useful view of the world via the in-game camera and a responsive way to interact with that world with intelligible feedback. Yet the Cult of From has become so contrarian regarding these simple things that make modern games good that they have decided that all modern design must be discarded in favor of ‘pure’ gameplay that supposedly is only enjoyable to intellectually superior übermenschen whose highly-developed senses of curiosity and perseverance allow them to dominate these intentionally opaque, obtuse, and backward games, ‘fun’ optional. They don’t seem to care that, as much as the typical modern “AAA” game alienates contrarian Cult of From fans, games like “King’s Field,” “Bloodborne” and their ilk alienate everyone else. These are essentially the action game equivalent of “Dwarf Fortress.”
My first real experience with “King’s Field” saw my character awakening on a beach armed with nothing but a dagger. I approached a nearby snail and tried to kill it, only to find that my combat motions were unbearably slow – slower than a friggin’ giant snail – and the game gave no actual feedback as to whether I was damaging my target or not. Of course, the snail killed me. I tried to fight the snail a couple more times before giving up on it and attempting to explore other parts of the immediate environment. As I wandered aimlessly, I saw a small hut pop-up in the distance. I approached it, heard a horrible noise… and died. Killed by a hut? It made no sense, so upon trying for the 5th time to make any sense of the game, I approached the hut from the other side, only to see… something white and pointy protruding through the wall, accompanying the horrible noise. It turned out that some kind of undead skeleton was dwelling in the hut and was able to make its attacks clip through the walls in order to hit me while it was completely safe from my pathetic, slow dagger swipes. I turned off the PlayStation, removed the “King’s Field” disc, and sold it. Yes, I, at one point, owned “King’s Field,” despite the laughable first impression I had gotten from the demo station at Game Guy… I figured something was wrong with the demo controller. It turned out that the problems were all with the game. All of this happened in 1996, and the trauma is still fresh in my memory – It’s an experience I would never willingly tolerate for any length of time.
The kind of awful experience I had with “King’s Field” belongs in the past, in a time when game developers had no form of feedback until it was too late and when things that now seem like fundamental basics of game design were not yet codified. Unfortunately, based on Dan Stapleton’s article, it seems that From Software still has not changed their ways (aside from finally improving their games’ graphics and sound from gutter trash to quite stylish and eyecatching). Indeed, in some ways the ‘Souls’ games and “Bloodborne” are even worse than their predecessors, mainly due to the compulsory PvP battles that can happen at any given time, essentially codifying Griefing into the mechanics of a long-running franchise that is, itself, already as abusive to players as possible.
The main purpose of this article is to serve as a warning. I have already written about the merits of finding a game reviewer whose views match your own and following their advice even when it is contrary to what the masses are saying. With only the most dedicated Cult of From members still willing to play and review games like “Bloodborne,” it’s important to take every positive review with a grain of salt and actually READ the whole thing instead of simply relying on a final score. In many cases, the reviewer will reveal their cultist status and even acknowledge the game’s flaws, while simultaneously touting the flaws as benefits or features.
Comments
Oh look it's another
Oh look it's another - wrote on 01/25/17 at 08:34 PM CT
disliking a game company and it's games is one thing but insulting people for liking something you don't understand is being a pure a$$hole
A first time From Software player.
A first time From Software player. - wrote on 05/03/15 at 03:23 AM CT
Git Gud. Casual.
Chris Kavan - wrote on 03/31/15 at 08:44 PM CT
I was the guy you sold that to! I managed to beat both Kingsfield and Kingsfiled II and Kingsfiled: The Ancient City and the original Demon's Souls... but I'm not a cult member. I never purchased Dark Souls or Dark Souls II and while Bloodborne looks interesting, I'm not slavering at the bit to purchase it. Plus, I really don't get why the PvP is so essential - I hated it in Demon's Souls and would purposefully shut off the online connection to get rid of it. But every AAA title franchise has this kind of built-in fanbase - the GTA series, Elder Scrolls, Mario and on and on - it's gotten worse with each generation as far as I'm concerned - and social media makes it 10x as annoying.
