I feel like it's a rite of passage for game design YTers to talk about dark souls and depression in the same way it's a rite of passage for retro reviewers to make a video on Bubsy.
(I think it's cool Dark Souls helped people, I'm not criticising it's just a [I] funny[/I] thing I noticed)
[QUOTE=Rossy167;53068073]I feel like it's a rite of passage for game design YTers to talk about dark souls and depression in the same way it's a rite of passage for retro reviewers to make a video on Bubsy.
(I think it's cool Dark Souls helped people, I'm not criticising it's just a [I] funny[/I] thing I noticed)[/QUOTE]
The irony in living a shitty situation, and escaping in a narratively depressing game :v:
[QUOTE=Clovis;53067974]Its really awesome to hear that this game has helped people through dark times; and considering how good it is i'm not surprised. The world is so immersive it really sucks you in like a vacuum and really pulls you out of the shittyness and into something really special. This has to be not only one of my favourite games of all time, but one of the greatest of all time even despite its flaws - its a work of art[/QUOTE]
There are tons of great games, big and small, that are remembered for years, however they don't have any lasting or meaningful impact on the grand scheme of things
Games like Doom, Half-Life, Rogue, Dark Souls, Zelda however completely change things in such a lasting and unique way that you can never truly duplicate unless you do it by pure mistake. Even if you created a better Half-Life or Doom, you're only creating a game that exists because of that defining series. You're not captivating what it meant when it was created, you're just trying to emulate its success.
I'd say Souls captures what made Zelda so great, that feeling of failure and struggle, and that sense of accomplishment you get from finally winning. It recreates the feeling of when Zelda originally created a new genre.
Played the first one when going through some shit, was nice to be able to grapple with challenges you can actually beat through perseverance as opposed to a bunch of real life shit. Think it's probably why it's my favorite.
[QUOTE=SebiWarrior;53068769]The irony in living a shitty situation, and escaping in a narratively depressing game :v:[/QUOTE]
Isn't it more fitting though? Than something that's all sunshine and rainbows I mean.
lots of people deal with shitty situations with harder music. Life sucks so many people go to hard music and heavy, thick bass strings with vocals that are angry and coarse, for answers. It helps them better cope with the fact that they have an abusive family and deal with shitty people in their daily lives.
Some people escape reality with something like MLP where its all nice, happy, and others double down with something that's even worse than reality because it 'speaks' to them better.
I started participating less in high school, barely showed up to classes in college, working at a shitty job with shitty people, and got into a pretty serious car accident. Dealing with all that and trying to figure out my sexuality at the time was a lot for me to take in.
Around the peak of my depression, Dark Souls (and Demon Souls) came into my life. Dark Souls pretty much took me away from all that bad shit. I felt completely entrenched in its world. I put in hundreds of hours on both the PS3 and PC. All I wanted to do was play Dark Souls all day every day.
There's something mystical about Dark Souls.
Dark Souls, to me, has the same atmosphere that Warhammer Fantasy had, and I think that's what drew me to it. That feeling of being in a dark, unforgiving, hostile world full of creatures that want nothing more than to hurt you. A world ruled by huge, brutish monsters and sinister beings of malign intelligence. But through all the blood and mud and sweat, you could defeat it. You could change the world, if only you try hard enough, kept on pushing. Just you, your halberd, and sheer force of will.
this is too close tbh
I feel the exact same way about playing Witcher 3. It just came at a point when I really needed something to tell me that my actions can make a difference when I felt that nothing I did mattered.
[QUOTE=Trooper0315;53069339]I feel the exact same way about playing Witcher 3. It just came at a point when I really needed something to tell me that my actions can make a difference when I felt that nothing I did mattered.[/QUOTE]
It's really interesting how this works, I've never thought of it this way. The idea that videogames can give you earnable control, regardless of it being real or not, and how you can psychologically trick your mind into getting better for it. Maybe it's our ability to exercise the mindset a lot of us were brought up with, that working towards something by failing over and over to finally get it, where in real life we may not get that opportunity. Returning to that normality, even in the setting of a game, could be what people need to heal mentally. The game being immersive allows it to be so effective, as it's kinda like meditating.
[QUOTE=Trooper0315;53069339]I feel the exact same way about playing Witcher 3. It just came at a point when I really needed something to tell me that my actions can make a difference when I felt that nothing I did mattered.[/QUOTE]
So many games fuck it up and Witcher 3 does it in the most unique way
You can attach a personality to Geralt that is personal to you and through that impact the world through the choices you make, yet no matter what personality you chose you still feel like Geralt is his own man.
It doesn't suffer from the issue of black and white morals that are directly conflicting at all, which means that there is no wrong choice, unlike in a game like Fallout 3/4 where you're either the nicest guy ever or a total fucking dick.
Probably the best thing about games like Dark Souls and Witcher, there is no obvious 'evil', but its still a horrible world that you'd suffer in if you were really there.
[QUOTE=SebiWarrior;53068769]The irony in living a shitty situation, and escaping in a narratively depressing game :v:[/QUOTE]
It's narratively depressing, but mechanically it's kind of a triumph of human spirit. The mechanics are [i]about[/i] depression because it's inherently introspective: you try, you fail, it's your fault so you work out why you failed and improve, you succeed. It's functionally the CBT treatment for depression, only it works, even if only in the extremely short term.
[QUOTE=Rossy167;53070674]It's narratively depressing, but mechanically it's kind of a triumph of human spirit. The mechanics are [i]about[/i] depression because it's inherently introspective: you try, you fail, it's your fault so you work out why you failed and improve, you succeed. It's functionally the CBT treatment for depression, only it works, even if only in the extremely short term.[/QUOTE]
And the only true failure occurs when you give up.. When you turn [B][I]hollow[/I][/B].
Uhh, well, Dark Souls came into my life in 2013 when I was browsing the Steam store during the sale and picked it up on a whim based on what I had heard about it from a friend and because I thought the black knight on the cover looked cool.
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