Dark Souls

I didn't put this jolly footnote in my YT comment of your Rumination, Arch, but there's the added kick in the gut that, if in your imposed immortality, you happen to lose your will to go on, you lose your Humanity and become a zombie. Forever.

(Not that you didn't manage to actually think up a worse fate than that in YOUR OWN setting, but that's off topic.)

And yes, i'm getting the proverbial ball rolling, if anything wants to discuss Solaire's history, Priscilla's colorful parentage, or the theory that Estus is actually Sunny D.

Nah, the horror is not there. I mean, as a zombie even in this setting, you don't have the kind of mental capacity to do but the most basic of tasks. So it's likely you also don't have the mental capacity to understand your own fate.

It's not like you are an immortal and unkillable being that is locked into an Absolutely Safe Capsule, fated to stay there for eternity.

I guess it's a matter of perspective. Going stupid and insane can be liberating, i give you that, but it's also kinda spitting in the face of everything that person was, and leaving a mockery of it standing there, shoving in your face how everything you are can be so easily rotted.

Like, if the step down from dissolving into the Force, like the Jedi do when they die, is the real life corpse we all leave behind that has to be buried until it just decays out of sight and out of mind, then going Hollow has got to be the step way down from that.

And then the step down from that would be being reprogrammed by a Scion. Thanks for that, Arch.


EDIT: Though in retrospect, it kinda puts us in the upper tier of just how badly your existence could imaginably end. What do you know, i never figured we'd get a silver lining from this.

EDIT 2: Oh yeah, Javan, and wasn't it you that insisted on depressing this game was at one point?

It is depressing, but the Hollow curse itself is not the main reason for it. The real reason for the setting to be depressing is that, no matter what you do, you can't get a good ending out from this dying world, no matter how hard you try. You can at most give up what you are and maintain this shitty cycle and keep the lights on, or give up who you are to embrace darkness.

Also, this is a thing and on topic:

Good old Vaati.

Anyway, i guess my main lack of a problem is i can think of worse things. Or rather, things that rank higher on my dread list. All relative, i suppose.

EDIT: Sudden epiphany, kinda. With all the dread the game's lore-rooted immortality mechanic evokes, i still enjoy the journey. Not gonna deconstruct it any further than that, or i might ruin it, but there it is.

I feel it is simpler than that. Great game has a setting that you wouldn't want to live in. As long as it stays a game, you won't have a problem with it, because you can walk away from it when you want to.

That sounds just like a certain game Arch loves that-is-called-FF6!

Hmm... not quite, i think.

I remember playing Fatal Frame 3 - frigging jewel of a horror game, the first time i ever remember being seriously freaked out and having a ton of fun at the same time (Alien Isolation was the other one). It was also the first time i remember having a break from the character i was playing, in that, as much fun as i was having, there was truly, positively, absolutely no upside whatsoever to the experience my character was having. The single motivation i felt for that chick was having the whole thing end as soon as humanly or turianly or vulcanly possible (and then she'd still have nightmares for the rest of her life, but *shrug*, gotta make do).

So, while as a player i was enjoying the experience, as the facet of the character i was allowing myself to get immersed in, i gotta admit it was a "let the horror end" kinda deal.

When it comes to Dark Souls, though, i do not have that all-encompassing negativity when stepping into my character. It's not cheerful, i give you that, but there is something there that does give you the will to push forward. Some kind of intangible, if you will.

But maybe that's just me.

By the way the devs have gone on record as saying that if you give up on Dark Souls and don't complete it, then what happened in-lore is you gave in to Hollowification and the... well the obvious happened. Nother nice meta touch to that game.

Except your character never goes bad for as long as you leave it there (unlike The End). I would know, i've left that game on standby for months, and my char is always ready to go back in.

Although, Demon's Souls was initially meant to wipe your save if your character ever died while in Soul Form. For obvious reasons they decided against it, and created the concept of the Nexus.

Btw, here's something to counter all the doom und gloom you guys feel for this series.

Interviewer: "With such a horrible setting, I'd think that would be reason alone for gamers to stop playing it at some point."
From Developer: "Well, if you start the game and does not finish it, your character in lore has given in to Hollowfication."
Interviewer: "W-wow, that's... a downer, to put it bluntly. So the only way to win in Dark Souls is to not play it at all?"
From Developer: "Actually... you know all the poor hollowfied souls all over the game that already exist before the game starts... weeeeell..." *grins and looks away*
Interviewer: "..." O_O

Edit: That may or may not have been the most awesome edit of DS2 pvp since the sudden 'Lu Bu Alert' one.

Btw Arch, i didn't want to bring this up on YT, but i think you confused the Vanguard from Demon's Souls with the Asylum Demon. With the Vanguard, it was one of those battles that if you lost, the game keept going anyway. With the Asylum Demon, you were just supposed to find a detour, get your gear, and go back to fight it.

No everyone misunderstood me about the dying as tutorial thing and I gave up trying to respond to each person individually. The point is that with the way the game is designed you are, clearly, supposed to die to the big fat boss who's name I assume is Asylum Demon 2 minutes into the game so you understand how dying and hollowification and otherwise works (and if you figure it out your first time, there's always that damned dragon to teach it to you). It wasn't a complaint, dying and coming back is an integral part of the gameplay and so shoving it at you first thing made good sense.

And i went and barehanded the damn boss just so i could measure up...

I finished Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin yesterday morning (yes, I played all night). That includes the three DLCs. I managed to get the original ending first then the new ending second by using a Bonfire ascetic.

Overall, it was a really good game. I didn't care much about the story since there's pretty much none, only lore, and I don't really feel like analyzing it. Especially since I haven't finished Dark Souls 1 (horrible port which was packed with Games for Windows). But I had fun and I have to admit I feel pretty good about finishing that game even if I had to use the walkthrough a few times, mainly to find a missing key or something like that. I also took the habit of listening to gaming podcasts while I played (hint: it's difficult to stay alive in combat when someone makes you laugh).

I might do a New Game plus; there are no shortage of podcasts laying around the Internet.

Just in case you're interested, here's what my character looks like: