I’ve known that Berserk was a major influence behind the souls games, but I just recently started reading Claymore and noticed a few things that seemed like inspirations. The Puzzle Sword makes an appearance, and there’s a character named Priscilla, but I figured that those could be coincidences. Well the setting just changed to the town called Lautrec and I don’t think it’s coincidence anymore lol. Does anyone know of any other works that are such a direct inspiration to the souls games? I’d love to read more. (Also Berserk and Claymore are both fantastic and I highly recommend both of you enjoy manga. Also also I haven’t finished Claymore yet so please no spoilers.)
Claymore reads like the love child of Berserk and The Witcher. I don’t know what came first so maybe chronologically that’s not right, but that’s the vibe of the series. I hope you enjoy it too!
I started my own list of DS / Berserk references as well, but I lost it in a PC reformat. I’d love to see yours when you finish it, there really were a lot of references and it’s fun to see the ones I missed
I’m with you that timelines are confusing! At least berserk and the witcher started being published arroud the same time and the influences are there of course, at least from what you get to see in the witcher games. Which inspired which, I requires further investigation :P . I’ve been also meaning to read the witcher novels for a while but I haven’t gotten arroud to it.
As for the reference list, it was mostly visual design stuff, thematically theres also so much! I don’t know if I’m eloquent enough to put it into writing :P To do a solid post I’d probably have to re-read the whole thing, but honestly I kind of have the itch to do it. It has been so long I read some parts I have forgotten some details. But, I’ll check out Claymore first and also will compile what I find there.