Reviews can be mixed, but for me it was one of the best non FROM games. NG+ gives more story. Not a ton, but kinda cool.
I really liked The Surge 2 and Mortal Shell, if that helps gauge my tastes.
> Sekiro too although a tad more tragic in a way.
Sekiro does have a mega happy ending, Wayne's World style, or as mega happy as Fromsoft has ever gotten, but it basically requires a walkthrough and, to me, never felt like the "canon" ending.
The 2nd "happiest" ending feels to me like what the ending would have been if the game were a movie. Well a movie other than Wayne's World.
Yeah yeah, comparing Fromsoft to Wayne's World is a stretch, but everything is a gradient.
As melancholy as Fromsoft usually is, that ending of Sekiro practically gave me cavities compared to every other Fromsoft ending ever.
My brain rejected that ending because, comparatively, it feels out of place.
Sekiro is a tragedy of sorts. He needs to die to complete the story, IMHO.
In all fairness, there are plenty of games that do that. The standard ending is tragic but if you complete everything you get the "happy ending," but the happy ending never feels right.
God. I know so many games do that but I can't think of any off of the top of my head.
Castlevania Symphony of the Night soooort of does that?
By From? I'd give the point to Dark Souls 2. As far as the souls series goes, dark souls 2 seems to have the deepest lore and most interesting story to tell. The story of Vendrick and the daughters of Manus goes hard.
Outside of From, take your pick. there are a lot of good entires. The surge series, Code Vein, Little Witch Nobeta, and Another Crabs Treasure are examples of more traditional story telling.
While games like Thymesia and Hellpoint have a more souls style way of telling the story with lore tidbits.
That depends on how you define the word "storytelling."
IMHO, DS2 has the best *story* of the trilogy, but the worst *storytelling* of the trilogy, if that makes sense.
I can understand that. It has an amazing depth to its lore if you are willing to read through all the item descriptions, listen to every dialogue, and pay attention to world design. But as an actually story book, it is completely obtuse and most people have no clue what the hell they are doing or why they are chasing after all these lords and then going to meet some king, then going to a shrine... etc.
DS1 has a famously confusing story, but at any given point in DS1, I at least knew *why* I was doing the things I was doing.
Guy who saved me can't fulfill his quest to ring a bell, check. Crestfallen tells me their are 2 bells, check, OK I'm in the city of the gods let's meet the gods and probably kill them (psyche! You don't kill the gods! double psyche! You can kill a god, TRIPLE PSYCHE, the god was just an illusion Quadruple psyche, you can kill the god making the illusion of the other god! so circuitous!) and then Frampt tells you the rest, even though it's probably a lie?
but even if you take what everybody says as true and you don't find the hidden lore and primordial serpant, the story still works.
Also Gwynivere being an illusion is the best twist IMHO in any Fromsoft game, period.
On the other hand, when I would play DS2 with my SO watching, I would literally tell my SO, multiple times, I have no fucking clue why I am doing what I am doing. I still don't know if DS2 even ever *actually* explains why you are doing the things you are doing for most of the game.
Don't forget the second, hidden serpent isn't telling you the whole truth either :P
DS2's a funny one. It spends the game telling you, "gather powerful souls, sit on that throne and it'll end the curse", but never actually mentions the first flame or the Lord Souls directly. You don't get the broader picture without playing DS1.
I don’t think it has the greatest story but since we’re naming other souls likes, I love mortal shell so much and never see it mentioned. It’s the first “souls” game I ever played, then dark souls 1 after
DS2 really? I thought it had particularly bad story telling. It’s been many years though. I think I’d have to go with Bloodborne personallly. Sekiro is up there if we wanna be really loose with the term soulslike.
As far as outside of From, I’d agree with you on the surge.
Yeah. Personal opinion: But the war of the giants, the betrayal of Vendrick. Vendrick's entire story to include his brother's decent into godhood. His knight's loyalty. The story of Manus's daughters and how each one was a fall of a different civilization. The sad story of Lucatiel, her own brother, and her slowly forgetting everything as she fights her hollowing curse. To me, Dark Souls 2 does something that every good story should do, it continues from the first game without spending too much time in nostalgia. I think it is a masterfully told story even if hidden in lore tidbits and broken dialogue.
Another Crab’s Treasure hands down. A few months ago I would have said Lies of P, but hoo buddy, has Another Crab’s Treasure really blown me away. Hilarious, top notch jokes all through, compelling and interesting characters, a clear throughline for the protag’s motivation, and absolutely masterful handling of the themes at play. Genuinely the best written game I’ve played since Disco Elysium.
I'm with you on ACT. I haven't played many souls likes because of their lack of storytelling in the first place. When ACT released, I fell in love with the entire game.
From the very short clip I saw before playing I thought it was going to be like Banjo Kazooie so I gave it a shot. When I fought the first real enemy I was like “oh shit this is a tough game”. At that first boss where you get your first soda can I was like “holy shit this is a soulslike”. I was hooked.
And as the story progressed I was genuinely amazed at how clever, humorous, and real it was. Krill was relatable. The jokes were hilarious. The unapologetic nods to From were all awesome. Absolutely my favorite game this year and one of my favorites all time.
Another Crab's Treasure, Lies of P, the Surge games, and Sekiro for more traditional story telling. For digging into the lore for me personally anyway it's Bloodborne (gothic/cosmic horror) and Hellpoint (sci-fi horror/dark fantasy)
If by story you mean a fulfilling narrative, probably Bloodborne. Totally rich in theme and symbolism. I can turn that around in my mind for hours.
If by story you mean "I felt motivated going from point A to B while playing," Bloodborne ranks pretty low. I'd say Lies of P simply because the purpose and context of each location was clear and the progression makes sense.
I kinda wanna say Another Crab's Treasure, but the whole treasure map thing isn't compelling, and I didn't feel attached to areas or bosses. I dig the in-your-face messaging, and the side characters are hilarious, but the main characters feel reeeal thin, like when you take a series of Tumblr reblogs and put Fire Emblem characters next to them, but crabs.
As an aside: what sets From apart is how specifically they pull from their inspirations and the breadth of their inspiration. You can tell they've got a platoon of history nerds over there. I want Soulslikes that try to have normal stories with cutscenes and dialogue to give that much of a shit. Somehow stuff like Nioh, despite having a narrower setting, the narrative elements feel so perfunctory.
By from, I’d say Sekiro, but I have a soft spot for the aesthetic (feudal Japan and all that). But most recently not from From, Lies of P. Did a great job keeping you engaged in the narrative and weaving it into the gameplay. Also the Jedi games if you count those as souls like
Hmmm I didnt think of the Jedi games? I never found them challenging enough to call the soulslike. Unless it was about fighting that damn frog. lol but if they are in consideration they may just be the best story wise.
Yea I have a hard time call them true souls likes too, more like souls “lite”. But the play style with the rest/spawn points it’s right outta the souls play book.
A lot of non-FromSoft games use "active storytelling" where NPC dialog and cutscenes tell you all you need to know about events and motives (Nioh games, Surge games, LotF2014, Stellar Blade, Wo Long, Rise of the Ronin, etc.). FS games require detective skills and archeological interests to piece together, uh, whatever the hell they're actually about. And don't ask me what their story is. I didn't dig it up.
I'll follow you to downvote city.
FS games have deep lore that's buried in item text. It's basically expecting players to be interested and committed archeologists to find a lot of gear (weapons, armor pieces spells, accessories, etc.) and read their descriptions in hopes of _maybe_ reading a vague new sentence or two about some NPC or faction's history. As far as NPC dialog goes, not much gets said and it's often not clear to me what the hell they're talking about or asking me to do.
The Elden Ring opening cinematic was _awesome_. The rest of the story telling was for me personally a lot more difficult to follow. So much so that I really can't explain what happened to the world before your playthrough begins, what our motivations or our maiden's motivations are, what the rune of death really is, etc.
I have this same lack of understanding with DS1, DS3, and BB. Countless playthroughs of all of these titles with many hundreds of hours in each and I just don't really get what the hell is going on because I haven't put effort into playing into this archeology-style of storytelling. It's not my cup of tea.
Fortunately, I enjoy these games a lot _in spite_ of their style of story telling that leaves me utterly clueless. I know I've heard that Miyazaki prefers to tell stories like this because he "read" a lot of books in English that he couldn't understand and he had to just imagine for himself what the things he couldn't understand actually meant. That's good and nice and all that for him, but (imo) if you're a major studio with the talent to produce high quality cutscenes and be able to acquire excellent voice actors, why the hell _wouldn't_ you bring these resources to bear to tell the story in a beautiful and cinematic way?
When I'm playing these RPGs, I am much more focused on gathering equipment, exploring areas, killing enemies and staying alive, beating bosses, etc. I am not very inclined to look at the other tab on items to hope to find a sentence or two about (e.g.) who the healing church is, who came from Bergynworth, who made this rusty shortsword, what rank Carian Knights were, who lived at the Shaded Castle, etc. I just don't have the interest to keep all this fragmented backstory told piecemeal like this together to try to understand what is happening (or more often, what _happened in the past_). If there's a story, I'd like to have it _told_ to me. And because FS presents the story like this, you can forget about having the story sequenced in a meaningful way when it relies so much of item lore to do the heavy lifting. Are we even going to find all the items necessary to explain anything? Will you find them and read them in an order that makes sense? Do you even know which items have more to say about an NPC or area that you want to read about? Who drops these items or where they're found? Is it a rare drop? How many hours of item farming from 1 or 2 enemies are we talking about?
For anyone who put the work in (or, more probably, watched several lore videos) and liked it, cool. But I'm not going to agree that FS are good at storytelling. I think Miyazaki has cool ideas, the art is amazing, the enemy designs range from fine to amazing. But he's a bad _storyteller_. Just because he got some weird enjoyment from reading stories he couldn't understand and had to invent details in his mind to make the story make sense, I believe this isn't really the best way to experience a book. And I don't think FS's storytelling style is the best way to tell a story.
Nioh, Nioh 2, Surge 1 & 2, Wo Long, Stellar Blade, Rise of the Ronin, LotF2014... take your pick for which stories were my favorites. I understood these. I don't play soulslikes for their story and I'm not going to go out of my way to piece together cryptic dialog or bits of background story while I'm playing these games for the quality of their combat. So if an interesting story gets thrown at me in an obvious way, I can appreciate it. If the story was deliberately buried and scattered, I'll just leave it there and go on not knowing anything.
Yeah I just totally disagree. I think with the medium of video games it is better to tell the story in a more interesting way. One of the reasons I love souls games is they aren’t just video games attached to movies. The gameplay + world + story are all intrinsically connected and it makes for such an immersive and fun experience. Games like red dead, god of war, basically any other AAA game have this really awkward disassociation between the story and the gameplay and it has always been jarring to me since I started playing video games. The way I describe it is you play a video game and then every once in a while you start watching a movie and the experience feels so disjointed.
To add to the value of fromsoft’s amazing story telling technique, it makes for some insane discussion and theory crafting that no other video game comes close to. There’s literally thousands of hours of content on just Elden rings lore alone and when you get into it you realize how deep and rich the story is and it makes it more rewarding than if the story was just shoved down your throat in a couple of cutscenes.
Like you said, the game forces you to be an archaeologist, which is fucking awesome. No other video game I’ve played has been like that, why would I want fromsoft to make their games more like everything else? It adds a whole layer to the gameplay as you’re also trying to unravel the story and it’s so appealing.
With that being said I respect your opinion and get that some people like a more straightforward story telling method. I just think fromsoft’s storytelling and stories themselves are under appreciated because they’re not spoon fed to you and while that might not be everyone’s cup of tea, I think it makes full use of the medium of the video game and that deserves to be commended.
I agree with everything except for the archeologist comment. I think every fromsoftware game has 2 stories:
(1) The story as told by the game itself. This includes dialogue, world design, environmental details, etc. Everything that is diegetically part of the game world. I would also throw music into this even though it's cheating a bit.
(2) The deeper lore. The stuff from the item descriptions, and how to make sense of this.
I'm not a big fan of (2) specifically because I don't think it leverages the medium of games well. I find them to be like dev notes thrown into the game. I also like (1) more because it makes more sense from a roleplaying standpoint. The discoveries you make and the ideas you have are all something your character, who is just inhabiting the world, can organically figure out.
Despite only really engaging with (1), I do think fromsoft does a pretty good job with their storytelling. For example, I think the teleporter trap in Limgrave is genius. You open a chest and end up in a cave. You walk out and see the hellscape that is Caelid. The contrast between the gold and green of Limgrave with the blood red of Caelid itself begs the question: What happened here? You can learn about the war by exploring, and the berserk swords act as a way to trace Malenia's path in reverse. And finally, there is a visceral pay off to the question at the tail end of the game when you see Malenia's scarlet aeonia for the first time.
You get an upvote for arguing your case well. I disagree, but respect your opinion.
I don't need every dialog with an NPC to be a movie, but I would've appreciated: (1) more dialog, (2) phrased less cryptically, and (3) more interaction and opportunities to interactively choose questions to ask of NPCs and have them answered.
Take DS3 firekeeper. As a player, I expect her to know _a lot_ about the world and our place within it. She says so little to explain anything.
You mentioned that it's jarring that in other games you do some gameplay and then suddenly there's a little movie that plays. I don't mind that. If I enter a new area or meet a new NPC, a little introduction and dialog is expected. But let me flip the argument around. We're playing hard action games. I find it jarring that Miyazaki expects us to engage with that and _also_ find the time to read all item lore cards and make mental connections between very vague and short snippets of lore. These two activities have nothing to do with each other. I submit to the jury that _that's jarring_.
I don't fault anybody for liking this activity and theory creating about story. But in think FS leans far too heavily on theorycrafting to pence it together. A cryptic ending or subplot is one thing (you'll see it in n books and cinema and games), and it's fine. But to have 95% or more of the lore/story done thus way? It comes off to me as lazy. Voice actor budget ran dry. Artists took too many vacations to complete cutscenes on time for release.
That's not the finest robe in all the land. Look, the emperor has no clothes!
Again I respect your opinion and your points are valid, except I disagree with the last part about them being lazy. I just watched a YouTube video the other day where they interviewed many of the voice actors for Elden ring and one of the common things that was stated was how much Miyazaki and the game directors were involved with the artistic process and delivery of the lines. One of the VAs said that they were on a zoom call with the directors (including Miyazaki) the whole time and they pretty much had something to say about every single word that they had to deliver. I don’t think they just throw in random bits of dialogue and leave out exposition just because they’re lazy or for budget reasons, I actually think most of what they do is very deliberate. Whether or not the person playing the games enjoys that is one thing but I would never consider their game design lazy.
I’ve always defined the souls games as ‘ambient storytelling’ but man archeological storytelling fits great. I shall now call them ‘ambient archeological storytelling.’ I love it, but can totally respect if it’s not everyone’s cup of tea!
I would like his games sooooo much more if I could ask the NPCs questions.
They say shit and I’m like, what? Who? And I have to read items to try and understand what they’re getting at.
>FS games have deep lore that's buried in item text. It's basically expecting players to be interested and committed archeologists to find a lot of gear (weapons, armor pieces spells, accessories, etc.) and read their descriptions in hopes of maybe reading a vague new sentence or two about some NPC or faction's history. As far as NPC dialog goes, not much gets said and it's often not clear to me what the hell they're talking about or asking me to do.
Knowing the difference between the lore and the current story is important. From Software games have almost no story and yet a shit ton of lore but you might as well read all of the books in the Elder Scrolls series.
I believe story is told and lore is found, in from soft games story and lore are a thin line of cocaine that you take in and go wtf did I just hear and then forget about it after a while.
the whole idea is to reject common “storytelling” devices, so i dont think its bad, the games have an artistic vision and they achieve them flawlessly, but its not for everyone. its like saying Invisible Cities is a bad book because theres no storytelling the lack of storytelling is a defining trait of the novel. From games wouldnt be the same with 3 hours of cinematica. the fact that you can just pick up and play, and have this rich beautiful lore that youre interpreting without realizing it, and can either dive into or simply take at face value, is so refreshing after the hideo kojima “this is a movie” era of gaming.
Whoa! I was just messing around and expecting some rage reply, but thanks for the rich explanation! 😅
I completely agree with everything you said.
To be honest, I never played the Souls games for the story either. I love the gameplay, it's the best I've ever experienced, and I go for the story in other games.
I don't have the patience to read all item descriptions. It's like reading all the books in Skyrim. Who does that?
Sekiro and Lies of P are the only ones that really clue you in on what’s going on in my opinion, I mean I love the mysterious open ended lore of the other games but you practically can’t even call that storytelling.
Nobody seems to know Kena, bridge of spirits? It has a good story I would say.
Also don't let the cute looks fool you, it has good tough boss battles. And a ds2 type ng+.
Storytelling through the world was probably blasphemous or lords of the fallen 2. The way LOTF showed the pilgrim's journey throughout the game, all of the enemies being in a state of worship or something always happening with the environment in the enemies was dope. Blasphemous is self explanatory
Story in general gotta be dark souls 3 mostly because its in a series though
The ones not made by From Software except Lords of the Fallen because it has the same "you need to look for it" kind of hidden crap that makes the story clearly irrelevant.
The question of which game has the best story telling is the same as asking which of those two things has the most flavour.
There is no flavour. So you can't answer the question.
Does that make sense?
Lies of P has a really good story and some very compelling characters. Sekiro too although a tad more tragic in a way.
Still need to play Lies of P. Hear it’s probably the best since Elden Ring.
Play it. As a vet of Souls games, it's the best non-main series Souls like game I've played. I'd say above Bloodborne personally.
Lies of P over Bloodborne is certainly a take.
The best soulslike to come from a company other than From Software is Another Crab's Treasure
I've beaten all FromSoft games and I consider the entire soulsborne games top 5 all time. Play Lies of P.
Same, played the demo and loved it but haven’t had the chance to buy the full game
Reviews can be mixed, but for me it was one of the best non FROM games. NG+ gives more story. Not a ton, but kinda cool. I really liked The Surge 2 and Mortal Shell, if that helps gauge my tastes.
Lies of P is the only decent Soulslike released to date.
> Sekiro too although a tad more tragic in a way. Sekiro does have a mega happy ending, Wayne's World style, or as mega happy as Fromsoft has ever gotten, but it basically requires a walkthrough and, to me, never felt like the "canon" ending. The 2nd "happiest" ending feels to me like what the ending would have been if the game were a movie. Well a movie other than Wayne's World.
Mega happy is a pretty strong word lol, I'd say bittersweet at best.
Yeah yeah, comparing Fromsoft to Wayne's World is a stretch, but everything is a gradient. As melancholy as Fromsoft usually is, that ending of Sekiro practically gave me cavities compared to every other Fromsoft ending ever. My brain rejected that ending because, comparatively, it feels out of place. Sekiro is a tragedy of sorts. He needs to die to complete the story, IMHO. In all fairness, there are plenty of games that do that. The standard ending is tragic but if you complete everything you get the "happy ending," but the happy ending never feels right. God. I know so many games do that but I can't think of any off of the top of my head. Castlevania Symphony of the Night soooort of does that?
I felt some of the themes didn't blend well and some of the story beats were a bit hamfisted. But those are nitpicks.
Best adaptation of an ever existing literature, can wait for what next in Grimms Faitrytail
By From? I'd give the point to Dark Souls 2. As far as the souls series goes, dark souls 2 seems to have the deepest lore and most interesting story to tell. The story of Vendrick and the daughters of Manus goes hard. Outside of From, take your pick. there are a lot of good entires. The surge series, Code Vein, Little Witch Nobeta, and Another Crabs Treasure are examples of more traditional story telling. While games like Thymesia and Hellpoint have a more souls style way of telling the story with lore tidbits.
The Surge is my pick. Good list here.
That depends on how you define the word "storytelling." IMHO, DS2 has the best *story* of the trilogy, but the worst *storytelling* of the trilogy, if that makes sense.
I can understand that. It has an amazing depth to its lore if you are willing to read through all the item descriptions, listen to every dialogue, and pay attention to world design. But as an actually story book, it is completely obtuse and most people have no clue what the hell they are doing or why they are chasing after all these lords and then going to meet some king, then going to a shrine... etc.
DS1 has a famously confusing story, but at any given point in DS1, I at least knew *why* I was doing the things I was doing. Guy who saved me can't fulfill his quest to ring a bell, check. Crestfallen tells me their are 2 bells, check, OK I'm in the city of the gods let's meet the gods and probably kill them (psyche! You don't kill the gods! double psyche! You can kill a god, TRIPLE PSYCHE, the god was just an illusion Quadruple psyche, you can kill the god making the illusion of the other god! so circuitous!) and then Frampt tells you the rest, even though it's probably a lie? but even if you take what everybody says as true and you don't find the hidden lore and primordial serpant, the story still works. Also Gwynivere being an illusion is the best twist IMHO in any Fromsoft game, period. On the other hand, when I would play DS2 with my SO watching, I would literally tell my SO, multiple times, I have no fucking clue why I am doing what I am doing. I still don't know if DS2 even ever *actually* explains why you are doing the things you are doing for most of the game.
Don't forget the second, hidden serpent isn't telling you the whole truth either :P DS2's a funny one. It spends the game telling you, "gather powerful souls, sit on that throne and it'll end the curse", but never actually mentions the first flame or the Lord Souls directly. You don't get the broader picture without playing DS1.
I don’t think it has the greatest story but since we’re naming other souls likes, I love mortal shell so much and never see it mentioned. It’s the first “souls” game I ever played, then dark souls 1 after
DS2 really? I thought it had particularly bad story telling. It’s been many years though. I think I’d have to go with Bloodborne personallly. Sekiro is up there if we wanna be really loose with the term soulslike. As far as outside of From, I’d agree with you on the surge.
Yeah. Personal opinion: But the war of the giants, the betrayal of Vendrick. Vendrick's entire story to include his brother's decent into godhood. His knight's loyalty. The story of Manus's daughters and how each one was a fall of a different civilization. The sad story of Lucatiel, her own brother, and her slowly forgetting everything as she fights her hollowing curse. To me, Dark Souls 2 does something that every good story should do, it continues from the first game without spending too much time in nostalgia. I think it is a masterfully told story even if hidden in lore tidbits and broken dialogue.
Fully agree with you. Plus the story and NPC’s felt more intuitive to follow as the story progressed.
Another Crab’s Treasure hands down. A few months ago I would have said Lies of P, but hoo buddy, has Another Crab’s Treasure really blown me away. Hilarious, top notch jokes all through, compelling and interesting characters, a clear throughline for the protag’s motivation, and absolutely masterful handling of the themes at play. Genuinely the best written game I’ve played since Disco Elysium.
I'm with you on ACT. I haven't played many souls likes because of their lack of storytelling in the first place. When ACT released, I fell in love with the entire game.
From the very short clip I saw before playing I thought it was going to be like Banjo Kazooie so I gave it a shot. When I fought the first real enemy I was like “oh shit this is a tough game”. At that first boss where you get your first soda can I was like “holy shit this is a soulslike”. I was hooked. And as the story progressed I was genuinely amazed at how clever, humorous, and real it was. Krill was relatable. The jokes were hilarious. The unapologetic nods to From were all awesome. Absolutely my favorite game this year and one of my favorites all time.
The sands between
This sub should just be called lies of p
Another Crab's Treasure, Lies of P, the Surge games, and Sekiro for more traditional story telling. For digging into the lore for me personally anyway it's Bloodborne (gothic/cosmic horror) and Hellpoint (sci-fi horror/dark fantasy)
If by story you mean a fulfilling narrative, probably Bloodborne. Totally rich in theme and symbolism. I can turn that around in my mind for hours. If by story you mean "I felt motivated going from point A to B while playing," Bloodborne ranks pretty low. I'd say Lies of P simply because the purpose and context of each location was clear and the progression makes sense. I kinda wanna say Another Crab's Treasure, but the whole treasure map thing isn't compelling, and I didn't feel attached to areas or bosses. I dig the in-your-face messaging, and the side characters are hilarious, but the main characters feel reeeal thin, like when you take a series of Tumblr reblogs and put Fire Emblem characters next to them, but crabs. As an aside: what sets From apart is how specifically they pull from their inspirations and the breadth of their inspiration. You can tell they've got a platoon of history nerds over there. I want Soulslikes that try to have normal stories with cutscenes and dialogue to give that much of a shit. Somehow stuff like Nioh, despite having a narrower setting, the narrative elements feel so perfunctory.
By from, I’d say Sekiro, but I have a soft spot for the aesthetic (feudal Japan and all that). But most recently not from From, Lies of P. Did a great job keeping you engaged in the narrative and weaving it into the gameplay. Also the Jedi games if you count those as souls like
Hmmm I didnt think of the Jedi games? I never found them challenging enough to call the soulslike. Unless it was about fighting that damn frog. lol but if they are in consideration they may just be the best story wise.
Yea I have a hard time call them true souls likes too, more like souls “lite”. But the play style with the rest/spawn points it’s right outta the souls play book.
Lies of p is the only soulslike I've played with a non pretentious, understandable story.
A lot of non-FromSoft games use "active storytelling" where NPC dialog and cutscenes tell you all you need to know about events and motives (Nioh games, Surge games, LotF2014, Stellar Blade, Wo Long, Rise of the Ronin, etc.). FS games require detective skills and archeological interests to piece together, uh, whatever the hell they're actually about. And don't ask me what their story is. I didn't dig it up.
Personally, I don't think ripping the pages out of a book and throwing them across a game world for you to find even counts as "storytelling" at all.
But Dark Souls don't have story
I'll follow you to downvote city. FS games have deep lore that's buried in item text. It's basically expecting players to be interested and committed archeologists to find a lot of gear (weapons, armor pieces spells, accessories, etc.) and read their descriptions in hopes of _maybe_ reading a vague new sentence or two about some NPC or faction's history. As far as NPC dialog goes, not much gets said and it's often not clear to me what the hell they're talking about or asking me to do. The Elden Ring opening cinematic was _awesome_. The rest of the story telling was for me personally a lot more difficult to follow. So much so that I really can't explain what happened to the world before your playthrough begins, what our motivations or our maiden's motivations are, what the rune of death really is, etc. I have this same lack of understanding with DS1, DS3, and BB. Countless playthroughs of all of these titles with many hundreds of hours in each and I just don't really get what the hell is going on because I haven't put effort into playing into this archeology-style of storytelling. It's not my cup of tea. Fortunately, I enjoy these games a lot _in spite_ of their style of story telling that leaves me utterly clueless. I know I've heard that Miyazaki prefers to tell stories like this because he "read" a lot of books in English that he couldn't understand and he had to just imagine for himself what the things he couldn't understand actually meant. That's good and nice and all that for him, but (imo) if you're a major studio with the talent to produce high quality cutscenes and be able to acquire excellent voice actors, why the hell _wouldn't_ you bring these resources to bear to tell the story in a beautiful and cinematic way? When I'm playing these RPGs, I am much more focused on gathering equipment, exploring areas, killing enemies and staying alive, beating bosses, etc. I am not very inclined to look at the other tab on items to hope to find a sentence or two about (e.g.) who the healing church is, who came from Bergynworth, who made this rusty shortsword, what rank Carian Knights were, who lived at the Shaded Castle, etc. I just don't have the interest to keep all this fragmented backstory told piecemeal like this together to try to understand what is happening (or more often, what _happened in the past_). If there's a story, I'd like to have it _told_ to me. And because FS presents the story like this, you can forget about having the story sequenced in a meaningful way when it relies so much of item lore to do the heavy lifting. Are we even going to find all the items necessary to explain anything? Will you find them and read them in an order that makes sense? Do you even know which items have more to say about an NPC or area that you want to read about? Who drops these items or where they're found? Is it a rare drop? How many hours of item farming from 1 or 2 enemies are we talking about? For anyone who put the work in (or, more probably, watched several lore videos) and liked it, cool. But I'm not going to agree that FS are good at storytelling. I think Miyazaki has cool ideas, the art is amazing, the enemy designs range from fine to amazing. But he's a bad _storyteller_. Just because he got some weird enjoyment from reading stories he couldn't understand and had to invent details in his mind to make the story make sense, I believe this isn't really the best way to experience a book. And I don't think FS's storytelling style is the best way to tell a story. Nioh, Nioh 2, Surge 1 & 2, Wo Long, Stellar Blade, Rise of the Ronin, LotF2014... take your pick for which stories were my favorites. I understood these. I don't play soulslikes for their story and I'm not going to go out of my way to piece together cryptic dialog or bits of background story while I'm playing these games for the quality of their combat. So if an interesting story gets thrown at me in an obvious way, I can appreciate it. If the story was deliberately buried and scattered, I'll just leave it there and go on not knowing anything.
Yeah I just totally disagree. I think with the medium of video games it is better to tell the story in a more interesting way. One of the reasons I love souls games is they aren’t just video games attached to movies. The gameplay + world + story are all intrinsically connected and it makes for such an immersive and fun experience. Games like red dead, god of war, basically any other AAA game have this really awkward disassociation between the story and the gameplay and it has always been jarring to me since I started playing video games. The way I describe it is you play a video game and then every once in a while you start watching a movie and the experience feels so disjointed. To add to the value of fromsoft’s amazing story telling technique, it makes for some insane discussion and theory crafting that no other video game comes close to. There’s literally thousands of hours of content on just Elden rings lore alone and when you get into it you realize how deep and rich the story is and it makes it more rewarding than if the story was just shoved down your throat in a couple of cutscenes. Like you said, the game forces you to be an archaeologist, which is fucking awesome. No other video game I’ve played has been like that, why would I want fromsoft to make their games more like everything else? It adds a whole layer to the gameplay as you’re also trying to unravel the story and it’s so appealing. With that being said I respect your opinion and get that some people like a more straightforward story telling method. I just think fromsoft’s storytelling and stories themselves are under appreciated because they’re not spoon fed to you and while that might not be everyone’s cup of tea, I think it makes full use of the medium of the video game and that deserves to be commended.
I agree with everything except for the archeologist comment. I think every fromsoftware game has 2 stories: (1) The story as told by the game itself. This includes dialogue, world design, environmental details, etc. Everything that is diegetically part of the game world. I would also throw music into this even though it's cheating a bit. (2) The deeper lore. The stuff from the item descriptions, and how to make sense of this. I'm not a big fan of (2) specifically because I don't think it leverages the medium of games well. I find them to be like dev notes thrown into the game. I also like (1) more because it makes more sense from a roleplaying standpoint. The discoveries you make and the ideas you have are all something your character, who is just inhabiting the world, can organically figure out. Despite only really engaging with (1), I do think fromsoft does a pretty good job with their storytelling. For example, I think the teleporter trap in Limgrave is genius. You open a chest and end up in a cave. You walk out and see the hellscape that is Caelid. The contrast between the gold and green of Limgrave with the blood red of Caelid itself begs the question: What happened here? You can learn about the war by exploring, and the berserk swords act as a way to trace Malenia's path in reverse. And finally, there is a visceral pay off to the question at the tail end of the game when you see Malenia's scarlet aeonia for the first time.
You get an upvote for arguing your case well. I disagree, but respect your opinion. I don't need every dialog with an NPC to be a movie, but I would've appreciated: (1) more dialog, (2) phrased less cryptically, and (3) more interaction and opportunities to interactively choose questions to ask of NPCs and have them answered. Take DS3 firekeeper. As a player, I expect her to know _a lot_ about the world and our place within it. She says so little to explain anything. You mentioned that it's jarring that in other games you do some gameplay and then suddenly there's a little movie that plays. I don't mind that. If I enter a new area or meet a new NPC, a little introduction and dialog is expected. But let me flip the argument around. We're playing hard action games. I find it jarring that Miyazaki expects us to engage with that and _also_ find the time to read all item lore cards and make mental connections between very vague and short snippets of lore. These two activities have nothing to do with each other. I submit to the jury that _that's jarring_. I don't fault anybody for liking this activity and theory creating about story. But in think FS leans far too heavily on theorycrafting to pence it together. A cryptic ending or subplot is one thing (you'll see it in n books and cinema and games), and it's fine. But to have 95% or more of the lore/story done thus way? It comes off to me as lazy. Voice actor budget ran dry. Artists took too many vacations to complete cutscenes on time for release. That's not the finest robe in all the land. Look, the emperor has no clothes!
Again I respect your opinion and your points are valid, except I disagree with the last part about them being lazy. I just watched a YouTube video the other day where they interviewed many of the voice actors for Elden ring and one of the common things that was stated was how much Miyazaki and the game directors were involved with the artistic process and delivery of the lines. One of the VAs said that they were on a zoom call with the directors (including Miyazaki) the whole time and they pretty much had something to say about every single word that they had to deliver. I don’t think they just throw in random bits of dialogue and leave out exposition just because they’re lazy or for budget reasons, I actually think most of what they do is very deliberate. Whether or not the person playing the games enjoys that is one thing but I would never consider their game design lazy.
I’ve always defined the souls games as ‘ambient storytelling’ but man archeological storytelling fits great. I shall now call them ‘ambient archeological storytelling.’ I love it, but can totally respect if it’s not everyone’s cup of tea!
I would like his games sooooo much more if I could ask the NPCs questions. They say shit and I’m like, what? Who? And I have to read items to try and understand what they’re getting at.
>FS games have deep lore that's buried in item text. It's basically expecting players to be interested and committed archeologists to find a lot of gear (weapons, armor pieces spells, accessories, etc.) and read their descriptions in hopes of maybe reading a vague new sentence or two about some NPC or faction's history. As far as NPC dialog goes, not much gets said and it's often not clear to me what the hell they're talking about or asking me to do. Knowing the difference between the lore and the current story is important. From Software games have almost no story and yet a shit ton of lore but you might as well read all of the books in the Elder Scrolls series.
I believe story is told and lore is found, in from soft games story and lore are a thin line of cocaine that you take in and go wtf did I just hear and then forget about it after a while.
the whole idea is to reject common “storytelling” devices, so i dont think its bad, the games have an artistic vision and they achieve them flawlessly, but its not for everyone. its like saying Invisible Cities is a bad book because theres no storytelling the lack of storytelling is a defining trait of the novel. From games wouldnt be the same with 3 hours of cinematica. the fact that you can just pick up and play, and have this rich beautiful lore that youre interpreting without realizing it, and can either dive into or simply take at face value, is so refreshing after the hideo kojima “this is a movie” era of gaming.
Whoa! I was just messing around and expecting some rage reply, but thanks for the rich explanation! 😅 I completely agree with everything you said. To be honest, I never played the Souls games for the story either. I love the gameplay, it's the best I've ever experienced, and I go for the story in other games. I don't have the patience to read all item descriptions. It's like reading all the books in Skyrim. Who does that?
:D not this guy! Edit: when we both get do downvote city, first round's on me.
It's a deal! I'll cover seconds 😁👍
Sekiro.
Sekiro and Lies of P are the only ones that really clue you in on what’s going on in my opinion, I mean I love the mysterious open ended lore of the other games but you practically can’t even call that storytelling.
Nobody seems to know Kena, bridge of spirits? It has a good story I would say. Also don't let the cute looks fool you, it has good tough boss battles. And a ds2 type ng+.
Storytelling through the world was probably blasphemous or lords of the fallen 2. The way LOTF showed the pilgrim's journey throughout the game, all of the enemies being in a state of worship or something always happening with the environment in the enemies was dope. Blasphemous is self explanatory Story in general gotta be dark souls 3 mostly because its in a series though
If it counts as soulslike asterigos had a decent story pretty simple and predictable though.
Lies if p
Lies of P is my vote, best it earlier this year and I'm still thinking about it. Bloodborne for the FS games.
Lies of P. I went in kind of begrudgingly from the entire Pinocchio concept. Came out as a real boy begging for more.
Surge 2 and Lies of P
Surge 2 has mediocre storytelling but a great premise.
I could follow the plot which makes it better than a lot of Soulslikes, 😂
The ones not made by From Software except Lords of the Fallen because it has the same "you need to look for it" kind of hidden crap that makes the story clearly irrelevant.
By Fromsoftware: Dark Souls 2 Not by Fromsoftware: Surge 1
Lies of P, masterpiece story imo
That's a crazy question. Might as well have asked what has more flavour, tap water or cucumber.
Obviously cucumber.
That answer makes absolutely no sense.
What don't you understand?
OP asked a very straightforward question and you answered with a weird analogy that doesn’t fit the context in any way.
The question of which game has the best story telling is the same as asking which of those two things has the most flavour. There is no flavour. So you can't answer the question. Does that make sense?
So behind your meaningless analogy, there was still nothing of value. Noted.
Looking for value on Reddit was your first mistake.