Prepare to Die Again, For a third time.....No really.

“Now Only Embers Remain.”

 

Gamers everywhere are DYING in anticipation for the next instalment in the Souls series simply titled Dark Souls 3.

For those unfamiliar with the (as fans dub it) “Souls” series, it is a collection of Action-Role playing games created and developed by the Talented team at FromSoftware.

The series is played in third person perspective with a difficult yet satisfying melee and magic real time combat system that keeps your glutes clenched one hundred percent of the time.

Travelling through desolate lands, castles, forests, mountains, swamps, and just about any other type of terrain you can think, players simply explore and play until you find the last boss.

The majority of enemies you face are disfigured undead people and creatures. Some enemies use physical attacks and others use magic. Then you also get to fight huge unique boss enemies like a Flying suit of armor, or a giant spider that shoots a laser.

Amazing enemies and character builds aside, one of the biggest draws for people to the series is the lack of “hand holding” the game provides and encourages exploration.

There are no maps, no way points and only simple cryptic instructions provided by the very few friendly NPCs you find throughout the game. This refreshing design is all thanks to current president of FromSoftware and father of the Soul’s series, Heditaka Miyazaki.

Miyazaki San, began working at FromSoftware in the heyday of the PlayStation 2. During this time, he worked as a programmer on the Armored Core series.

Just 5 years after starting at FromSoftware Miyazaki San went from programmer to Creator/Director/Producer on the first game in the Souls series “Demon’s Souls”.

Released in 2009 exclusively for the PlayStation 3, this was the game that laid the groundwork for what would become one of the most popular contemporary video game franchises.

Many of the features that appeared in Demon’s Souls would carry over into the other iterations of the series. Some of the most notable features would be:

·    Fully Customizable Character Creator
·       Melee combat that allows control of many weapons in various stances.
·       A weight system that affects the player’s movement speed both in and out of combat.
·       Magic attacks
·       The ability to summon other players into your game for co-op help.

The biggest difference between Demon’s Souls and the rest of the series however, is Demon’s Souls “Hub” world.

This is the only game in the series to feature a separate area from any field of combat with different portals used to travel to different lands where progression takes place.

Dark Souls, the spiritual successor to Demon’s Souls released to much hype in fall 2011. This follow up took everything from the original, improved it one hundredfold. Although originally only released for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, the game hit such a critical mass, that it even received a PC port the following year.

One of the biggest changes made in Dark Souls from Demon’s Souls, was the removal of the Hub world, in exchange for a giant seamless open world. The most fascinating part is that many of the different gruelling paths you travel eventually lead you back to the start of the game: “The Firelink Shrine.”

More Bosses, more lore, Dark Souls got so popular it even received DLC. Once people beat that, everyone started clamoring for another entry, and boy did they get one.  

Image Credit to:

www.nredist.com

demonssouls.wikia.com

This is the place where I will pierce the video game industry.

Hi my name is Justin Rycaj (Ritz-eye) yes that's how you pronounce it. I should probably consider getting it phonetically printed on my business cards once I get them made. But that's neither here nor there.

So I guess I should preface by stating the two reasons why I came to the Art Institute of Vancouver for Video Game Design after hearing how highly it ranked:

1. To make my dreams come true.

2. To achieve Greatness!  

It all started back on my fourth birthday, my first real memory of video games. I received a Nintendo entertainment system with Super Mario World 3 and Final Fantasy (oooo ahhhhh). Although most kids at that age would have probably drawn to Super Mario, The Box art for Final Fantasy probably imprinted on to me much more, and invoked what could quite possibly be my first ever desire for Adventure.

Sure I didn’t really understand the combat mechanics, nor did I get very far, but if you had lined up the entire Mario Cast and Final Fantasy side by side; I’d always pick the Final Fantasy characters are being cooler and more interesting. That original box art from Final Fantasy still flickers in my mind any time I feel like playing Dark Souls or Bloodborne.

Oddly enough I didn’t get another home console until the PlayStation One. Sure I had a Game Boy, Game Gear, and a home computer, it’s just up until the time the PS1 came out, nothing really lit that fire of adventure like Metal Gear Solid (Been a PlayStation fanboy ever since).

Metal Gear was the first time where I felt like “video games are growing up with me.” If you look over the course of the Past 28 years, the Metal Gear franchise has shown the most evolution out of any other series which is why I respect Hideo Kojima so much. This is also probably one of the reasons why I don’t like Nintendo games anymore, they stay the same and their mascots seem more like crutches than anything these days. But I’m not here to slander.

Getting back on topic. It’s very hard to argue that Hideo Kojima isn’t one of the hardest working, and best creators/producers we have in the industry. It’s a shame that Konami’s Gag order prevented him for accepting his award at the 2015 VGAs. It was a really dumb move by Konami and has pretty much painted him as a folk hero now. 

This is also evident by all the love he’s been getting since it happened, and the recently announced partnership with Sony to Open the New Kojima Productions.

If you had to ask me who my favorite producers were based on their bodies of work would have to be (in no particular order):

Hideo Kojima – Metal Gear Series

Neil Druckman – The Last of Us, Uncharted Series

Hidetaka Miyazaki – The Dark Souls Series

Ultimately my goal would to be a Creative Director/ Producer half as good as them. Hopefully my diploma will give me a jump start to reaching that goal.