And I still haven’t beat it. I don’t think I’m close.
So when I say I rule out Soulslikes, it’s not because they’re hard. Silksong is a beautiful game with tight controls. And I’m sure Clair Obscur had something going for it, but I didn’t get to play it enough until it turned into Guitar Hero with a blindfold, being asked to play Through the Fire and Flames on Expert, to survive my first real fight on the expedition, or die. I just don’t think those games are very fun. To be fair, I didn’t like Guitar Hero either. I never liked QTEs — they were fine in Mass Effect when it was inconsequential puzzles to unlock extra loot, but when you hide the prompts and you need to beat them to progress? I just think it’s shitty game design.
Every time I “lose” at Blue Prince, I think, that was fun. Maybe I learned something. Maybe not. The gameplay loop is fun. It could be called a Soulslike in the vaguest sense, except there isn’t any fighting, and it’s never really down to expert timing, either. But you’re crashing yourself against this immovable object until you figure out how to advance, and you take that skill and you apply it to the next run. At least as far as puzzles go, it is very similar.
But losing at those other games? It’s frustrating because I see what I have to do, and I try to do it, and it doesn’t work. A game failing you because you don’t understand what to do is fine. But once you figure it out and you’re trying to do it, it shouldn’t fail you for doing what it wants. Of course, real life is like that at times, but we play games to get away from that frustration. So when a game comes along that can smack you down for not doing something right, and it makes you anticipate the next run with that kind of eagerness… I think that is something that should be recognised.
Blue Prince
And I still haven’t beat it. I don’t think I’m close.
So when I say I rule out Soulslikes, it’s not because they’re hard. Silksong is a beautiful game with tight controls. And I’m sure Clair Obscur had something going for it, but I didn’t get to play it enough until it turned into Guitar Hero with a blindfold, being asked to play Through the Fire and Flames on Expert, to survive my first real fight on the expedition, or die. I just don’t think those games are very fun. To be fair, I didn’t like Guitar Hero either. I never liked QTEs — they were fine in Mass Effect when it was inconsequential puzzles to unlock extra loot, but when you hide the prompts and you need to beat them to progress? I just think it’s shitty game design.
Every time I “lose” at Blue Prince, I think, that was fun. Maybe I learned something. Maybe not. The gameplay loop is fun. It could be called a Soulslike in the vaguest sense, except there isn’t any fighting, and it’s never really down to expert timing, either. But you’re crashing yourself against this immovable object until you figure out how to advance, and you take that skill and you apply it to the next run. At least as far as puzzles go, it is very similar.
But losing at those other games? It’s frustrating because I see what I have to do, and I try to do it, and it doesn’t work. A game failing you because you don’t understand what to do is fine. But once you figure it out and you’re trying to do it, it shouldn’t fail you for doing what it wants. Of course, real life is like that at times, but we play games to get away from that frustration. So when a game comes along that can smack you down for not doing something right, and it makes you anticipate the next run with that kind of eagerness… I think that is something that should be recognised.