FromSoftware's Game Design Changed Everything

i always end up writing these pinned comments while im delirious and sleep deprived (or sleep DEPRAVED on my fromsoft shit lmao) but thank you for coming by and tuning in i really really love these games and I know they also mean a lot to many other people too and I think thats really cool and video games are so magical. i hope this video is good! and i hope you're doing good too. and i hope the people who wanted ROMCOM merch are happy too! the hoodie is high quality 14oz heavy blend for size ref and im really really proud of how both pieces turned out and feel on my bod. anyways im gonna finally play tears of the kingdom!! <3 ttyl jakeymerch.com/

All hail the rat king. Honestly one of my favourite characters in all of Demon's Souls

Taking a left instead of a right at Fire Link Shrine has probably ended the start of more Fromsoft game careers than anything else in their catalog.

Dark souls 2 saved my life. I was in a sober living home and could feel myself slipping back so i went and bought an old 360 and got dark souls 2 because it looked cool. And i become obsessed with it. I started taking my recovery more seriously and i started buying all of fromsofts games and i have 4 years clean now.. i can honestly say miyazaki saved my life

Between FromSoft and Ghibli, why are Miyazaki’s taking over my life rn

congratulations to from software for making everything great for all the jacobs out there

Realizing the Miyazakis approach to storytelling was akin to reading a book in a language where you only understand about 75% of the words explains SO MUCH!!

One aspect that doesn't get discussed enough is how FromSoft's success isn't an overnight thing, but purely years and years of iterative design. From the King Fields, Armored Cores, Otogi, Evergrace, and Souls, each one of them is just years and years of iterating on those same ideas and moving the needle just enough to make it feel fresh, and Elden Ring feels like a perfect culmination of those 36 years of existence.

This guy's channel made me want to try my hand at video essays back in 2019 (didn't work out) and my first idea was making a piece about FromSoft's design and the impact of it. Years later, this video is easily the best thing I've ever found in my sub feed. This truly is the Elden Ring of The Dark Souls of FromSoft Video Essays.

I like how you shown the Crucible Knight as an example of a weaker boss

I love how Jake's fans have all collectively decided that he's our cool older cousin that we never see. It's just so fitting.

The sense of scale they captured when you first open the doors to lands between is unmatched. Never fealt daunted by how big a game was but the start gets me everytime.

I really liked the DS2 healing system the second time I started to play the game/when I restarted and knew what I was doing. The small healing orbs were so afodable that I would buy max amount and roll through the whole game with them. Made the whole exploration side so much more manageable

I was working at GameStop when Demon’s Souls came out. We didn’t get many copies at first, but slowly over the next several weeks more and more people came in asking for it and we kept getting more and more copies due to demand. That natural word of mouth growth was something that rarely ever happened

Seeing this man is like reading Game Informer or Gamepro as a kid, and being immersed in playing a good ps1,N64 or Dreamcast game. Or reading a classic manga that wasn’t popular but was well known. A wholesome, informative, funny, and well crafted tv show or movie. It’s a heart warming feeling that gets rarer as time goes by.

i dont think theres a single more triumphant moment ive felt in any video game besides finding the top side of the ladder in the undead burg and kicking it down for a shortcut

the lack of Sekiro mention is slander. It reinvented their formula combat wise, and it also brings back the interconnected concept of DS1. Also, the fact that you can come back to areas like Ashina Castle and they completely change throughout the story is SO COOL. New enemies, new pathways unlocked in an area you’ve already explored, etc like idk man. Sekiro is FromSoft’s In Rainbows to me more so than Elden Ring ever could be

as a jacob, i can confirm that it has had a huge impact on the industry of jacobs. we'll never be the same

That shortcut elevator in DS1 is top tier game design, the feeling of being utterly lost, fighting knights on your last estus, running away trying not to get killed until you see THAT elevator. Going down that shortcut and seeing the firelink shrine made a click in me, that was the moment that I realized I was not playing your average video game no, this is somethin else.

33:00 the game design problem with this approach is that it basically means you can fully upgrade like 2 weapons and basically never have to look for upgrade materials ever again, which is obviously not what they wanted. One way to get sort of around this would be to only give you half of your upgrade resources back from your old weapon, but that's more like putting on a bandage than actually solving this design issue.