Elden Ring - To Love Suffering
If I were told, back when Dark Souls originally released, that I would enjoy the suffering caused by a later entry from the same developer, I would have given that person a side-eye of disbelief & annoyance. I was one of those people who ended up dropping the game not that far into it. Although, to my credit, I didn't return my copy of Dark Souls the next day, partly on account of being too young to drive, & I never threw a controller in rage. It wasn't that deep.
The game was different from the other games I enjoyed at the time, which were more power fantasy in comparison to the likes of Dark Souls. A game series that, while seemingly unfair to the player, is not impossible to beat, but certainly not easy. All one has to do is learn the boss patterns, understand the game mechanics, & don't panic roll. But I must admit I never did.
A rekindled interest, however, does not equate to a sudden understanding of what was holding me back originally. Both with Elden Ring & Dark Souls.
What may or may not be interesting is that I had actually gotten Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition for the PC well before the release of Elden Ring. And to no surprise, I did not enjoy the experience. Not because of issues with the port, but because I was still encountering the same issue as I had originally with the console version. I could argue that the quest markers & NPCs of other games that pointed me in a direction weakened my ability to figure things out myself, or that games with difficulty levels gave me the option to opt out of utilizing game mechanics that I simply did not wish to learn. Those certainly had their effect, but four words underlined my thoughts.
Death was not fun.
Eventually, I realized that my previous issues came from my perception of death. To die was to be told I wasn't good enough & a failure. However, in every Souls game, what is really lost when a player dies? Nothing that can't be grinded back. Is progress lost? No, the player respawns at the last place they rested. What does death give? Frustration.
It all comes down to how that frustration is interpreted & dealt with. Originally, I saw it as failure, that I wasn't good enough at the game to enjoy it, add to that how I felt directionless & it could come as no surprise why I kept giving up on the game series. Then, for some reason, I stopped caring. I discovered ways to cheese the game a bit, watched how to get cool early weapons & where to get upgrades, & just started enjoying the experience for seemingly no reason.
Granted, Elden Ring has been described as the easiest of the Souls series & I believe that. But for some reason, once I stopped caring about dying to bosses or annoying mobs, I found myself understanding the game better. I still can't learn a boss pattern because of my smooth brain, but that doesn't matter. What was important is that death no longer mattered, as a result, the main source of my frustration with the series vanished & allowed me to enjoy the experience of the game without the weight of failure.
My explanation for the change of mind from feeling disinterested in a series to enjoying the later entry may be lackluster. Originally, I had intended to review the game from the perspective of someone with such an experience, however, I found it difficult to explain to myself why it was I changed my mind & understand what really stopped me from enjoying the game. Sure, there is an argument to be made that it is outside my genre of joy, & that I was trying to convince myself originally that I was able to enjoy it.
However, I think a major part was also the time that went by in life. Games that I used to enjoy are now memories of a time lost to me. The unknown, the games I had no experience with, were all that was left. But isn't completely true, as I had played Code Vein. A souls-like game with a more anime vampire twist & I had beaten the game. But it did not change my thoughts before Elden Ring was released & my first time playing it.
In the end, I think people aren't used to exploring on their own & having to figure things out. In most games, there is a level of handholding to guide the player. Whether it's healing items before a boss fight, a light illuminating a door on a dark night, shining weak points, regenerating shields, or a blatant tutorial section that hand-feeds information. Often, we are also given the choice of difficulty, instead of being allowed to fail just as in life & learning from our falls. Keeping ourselves determined.
And I believe that might be what drew me most to it, in the present. I wish to prove I'm determined, even when in life I am not.
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