I judge a ton of games merely on its art and aesthetics, that is a primary pillar in my book. So, yes, the QULAITY of your horrible little goblins will make your game seem better to me.

In visual medium, if your art is so good it nearly story telling for you, you are already ahead of a product that has less skillfully made art. That is true for movies, video games, or children's books.

First game I've bought day 1 in quite some time. POG game!!

Its a fantastic game, simple as that.

An open world game that values your time, all of the side content is entirely optional. The art is an absolute treat; and its a Souls game that seems to have finally struck a delicate balance between preserving the challenge many of the fans love while also being approachable enough to a wider audience. Its an absolute banger.

Even though Demon's Souls is what put this type of game 'on the map' for a lot of people, From Software has been making this type of game for decades now... going all the way back to PS1 days.

They've put in the time, put in the work, and their efforts have paid off. I f'ing hate souls games, but I cannot deny for one second that From Software has paid its dues and have finally distilled this game down to an absolute science and gotten the kind of success their persistence and dedication deserves.

My theory is that dark souls was slow to boil, I don’t think FS ever expected their series to take off like it did. Anyone who wants to be as successful as FS wouldn’t make a dark souls clone, they’d go make a mobile game, for example. It really is the epitome of a niche product that got big with other developing markets like content creation and streaming. Not to say Elden Ring isn’t a good game, it does exceed players’ expectations. I’m not interested in Dark Souls gameplay, but I love watching streamers play it, and it makes for incredibly entertaining bite-sized clips.