Dark Souls vs. Bloodborne: The Player Character

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Digibro Never Shuts Up Episode 6

Tonight I’m joined by two guests—borderline co-star Brandon Tolentino, and my best friend, Dang-san! This podcast is dedicated to the purpose of discussing video games at the request of Lucus-FariaaA.

I recommend skipping the first five minutes or so because you can hear someone eating Chinese food and it’s sort of grotesque. Also nothing of great importance is said except for the introductions. This episode is super long and covers all kinds of stuff, so the breakdown is gonna be huge!

What’s in this episode:

0:00 – Opening Song: Babs Seed (Assertive Remix)
0:28 – Intro
1:15 – We should talk about video games
1:45 – Brandon’s Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament
3:13 – Dang-san played Sleeping Dogs
4:13 – The word “gameplay”
4:46 – The phrase “game feel”
7:11 – I’m playing Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams
(Part one: 7:11 – Steam Greenlight explained)
(Part two: 9:28 – The game itself)
(Part three: 12:06 – I rant on hating games about flow, loving modern platformers)
(Part four: 17: 37 – Back to the game itself)
19:16 – Dang-san never plays his Steam games
19:56 – DARK SOULS!
(Part one: 19:56 – Lead-in)
(Part two: 21:07 – Dang-san talk sabout Dark Souls, beautifully)
(Part three: 22:53 – Wake-up call bosses)
(Part four: 26:09 – How many times has Dang-san played through it now?)
(Part five: 27:42 – I brag about how awesome Dang-san is at video games)
(Part six: 30:51 – Dark Souls’ online community)
–33:34 – Here’s my Egoraptor/JonTron impression
(Part seven: 34:04 – Why I need Dang-san to help me do a proper Dark Souls analysis)
(Part eight: 36:08 – Dang-san’s Soul Level 1 run-through)
(Part nine: 38:09 – Playing blind)
(Part ten: 41:18 – So many ways to play/depth and pacing)
(Part eleven: 44:24 – Why I can’t talk about the game alone)
46:02 – My history with Dang-san
(Part one: 46:02 – His shitty writing)
(Part two: 50:20 – My whole history of knowing him)
1:04:00 or so – Meta stuff
1:06:14 – Brandon’s favorite game
1:10:13 – That one time they bought me a blow-up doll
1:12:06 – Who’s your favorite video game villain?
1:19:23 – Dang-san’s favorite game exists
1:21:31 – Playing online
1:24:42 – I have money now!
1:27:48 – Sonic sucks balls
1:32:44 – My favorite game?

Dying in Games

This is one of those things that varies a lot from player to player. For me at least, suffering major consequences for dying in a game sucks a hugemassive cock.

Dying in itself isn’t a problem, because without fail potential, a game has no challenge. If you were to fall down a pit in Mario, and the game then spawned you on the other side of the pit, there’d be no gratification in conquering the pit to begin with. However, when I fall down a pit and the game sends me back to the start of the level, I have to question why. And if I fall down the pit three consecutive times, then the game sends me to a further-back location, I really start to wonder what’s going on here.

Going by the trends I see in games journalism, it probably sounds like I’m supporting the modern, tripple-A, “easy games with regenerating health and instant respawns” cliche, but that’s not the case, because I don’t play those games. I mostly play stuff that’s either aging or indie, so this is about those games.

Moreover, the examples that I will cite of games that handle dying correctly and incorrectly come from all eras of gaming.

The desire to write this post springs to mind every time I suffer a particularly frustrating death in a game, and since that just happened in Metroid Prime, I’m going to start with the Metroid series.