FF Seraphim

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,987
Tokyo
From was known for making Armored Core and King's Field.
If you want to listen to one of the best soundtracks they ever produced you got to listen to this:
 

Dre3001

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,856
Maybe it's nostalgia speaking but I thought the Armored Core series was very successful.

I wouldn't personally call them virtually unknown. I think the Platinum games comparison a few posters mentioned was fair.
 

KORNdog

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
8,001
i vaguely knew them for the armoured core games. but i never liked those so they were kind of a no-body developer to me. the souls games seems to be a design template that brought them a lot of success and recognition.

i do wonder if it was a fluke though. i'd like to see them do something completely different to see if they can retain the same design quality of the soulsborne series but without the reliance on the soulsbourne template

i thought sekiro was going to be that, but it shares an awful lot with the souls games based on the footage we've seen.
 
Oct 25, 2017
4,004
Osaka, Osaka
"Friend"
"Try Attacking"

It's Safe Here.


Narrator's voice: It wasn't.

200.gif
 

Deleted member 11018

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,419
They were well loved by the mecha crowd, between Armored Core and Another Century's Episode From served them well.
 

MaitreWakou

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
May 15, 2018
13,180
Toulouse, France
Do you consider Sekiro to be an action game? Or fighting. Do you even think the same audience would like it?
Yes I think it's an action game. I think most From fans will like it (but not all, we can see here a lot of people saying stuff like "it looks bland" "why isn't it a ARPG like Bloodborne ?"), but it will also have a lot of new fans that don't like soulsborne because of how obscure soulsborne can be for newcommers.
Of course it still play kinda like a soulslike (with more freedom in traversal, some air action, etc...), but I think it's a first step for From in a world post Demons Souls, in order to start to do something else other than a soulslike. They want to prove they can do other stuffs, and I think it's really great.
By the way, they also are co-dev Déraciné with Japan Studio ! Which has nothing to do with a soulslike !
 

Sephzilla

Herald of Stoptimus Crime
Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,493
Before Soulsborne, From Software was basically the Platinum Games before Platinum Games.
 

Sojiro

Member
Jun 24, 2018
310
I at least knew them from this fun little gem they put out!

220px-Cookiecreamps2.PNG

Oh wow, I didn't know FROM was responsible for this game! I remember playing this through with a friend over a weekend and having a blast with it. A great, often overlooked game imo. From Software, to me, was the Armored Core game developer and that was pretty much it, and man did I play (and love) their AC games. I also remember trying Eternal Ring when it first came out, but I didn't give it much of a shot, because it wasn't the typical JRPG I was used to at the time.
 

Deleted member 25108

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
2,877
Interesting. Do you think they will now never leave that type of game?

I think no developer will walk away for a guaranteed money maker.

But for this generation at the very least, we have seen the last of Soulsborne. I expect them FROM to return to armoured core after Sekiro and then maybe something else entirely for next gen. After a good 4-5 year rest, I expect them to return to souls.
 

Ellyshia

Member
Oct 27, 2017
452
I was actually a pretty huge fan of them from the PSone days. I played Kings Field 2 and 3 and armored core back then and loved it. So they've been in my radar for years before demons soul. I remember when it was announced I was extremely hype for a spiritual sequel to Kings Field as that series was already in limbo at the time.

Even now, if you asked me what my favorite game from them was I would probably say Kings Field 3 or TAC.
 

deathsaber

Member
Nov 2, 2017
3,116
It wasn't.

There were a few Armored Core fans, and maybe a few Kings Field shippers out there, but From Software itself has hardly really known at all to the majority of the general game playing populace.
 

Lyrick

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,818
Before Kings Field evolved into the Souls games they were the Armored Core guys, who also made Tenchu and some really cool games on Xbox and Gamecube
 
Oct 31, 2017
2,435
Mainly from Otogi 1 and 2. I knew they made Armored Core.

Can we get a Otogi 3? Just imagine the graphics on next gen. Gawd!!!
 
Oct 26, 2017
6,151
United Kingdom
They made a little gem on PS2 called Evergrace.... I was like the only person in the world to play that game and it was utter utter shite.

They became better known for their Tenchu games, Armoured core, Otogi and then eventually rose to prominence with the soulsborne series.

They're a superb developer with a long history in the industry and have really found their mojo for making cracking great games consistently now.
 

Lumination

Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,737
As an Armored Core and Tenchu fan, I'd still probably say relatively unknown mid-tier dev in the PS2 era.
 

Sanctuary

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,393
Yes I think it's an action game. I think most From fans will like it (but not all, we can see here a lot of people saying stuff like "it looks bland" "why isn't it a ARPG like Bloodborne ?"), but it will also have a lot of new fans that don't like soulsborne because of how obscure soulsborne can be for newcommers.
Of course it still play kinda like a soulslike (with more freedom in traversal, some air action, etc...), but I think it's a first step for From in a world post Demons Souls, in order to start to do something else other than a soulslike. They want to prove they can do other stuffs, and I think it's really great.
By the way, they also are co-dev Déraciné with Japan Studio ! Which has nothing to do with a soulslike !

I've always disliked the term "Soulsborne", because not only has there only been a single Bloodborne so far ("Metroidvania" makes a hell of a lot more sense within the context of the nomenclature), but Bloodborne is still essentially a Souls game with some stripped elements, a few tweaked or added (didn't make much of a difference to the overall feel though) elements and an increase in speed. This was made even more abundantly clear when Dark Souls 3 released.

Sekiro to me is following along a similar progression (or regression). It's faster, and has some elements stripped or entirely removed. But it also has additions that the other games did not have, and it's not like customization is gone entirely. The core gameplay is still intact though. Tweaked obviously, but it's still there.

Also, despite the ARPG label, I never considered any of them to be RPGs anyway (or even worse, them being called "JRPGs"). Action Adventure games with "RPG elements". But I know I'm in the minority with that.
 
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Oct 25, 2017
4,293
I played some Armored Core demos on the PSX and was aware of the franchise, but had no idea who or what From was before Demon's Souls got somewhat hyped up.
 

Deleted member 17403

User Requested Account Closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,664
I knew them for Armored Core and Otogi. I never had an Xbox but I always thought Otogi looked cool. I dabbled in a little Armored Core when I first got my PS2 with Armored Core 2; AC2 and Zone of the Enders were the first games I purchased on PS2.
 

PSqueak

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,464
In the west?

You'd get some "who??" answers.

In Japan they prolly were "that company that makes mecha games".
 

catswaller

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,797
Good, but not very well known (unless you were an armored core fan), b-list developer. They made a ton of games, a lot of which are unpolished but honestly very good, but never had a super high profile.
 

Elyian

Member
Feb 7, 2018
2,645
I knew them for Armored Core 3, and have honestly been a fan since. I always wondered why they weren't more popular during the PS2 era, especially with a franchise about mechs. Aside from Gundam, I didn't really see many mech titles, so From Software had me covered on that front.

Oddly enough, I fuckin hated Demon Souls when my older brother got it. Thought it was a lame action game with ugly "fog" looking magic and a cool setting. Wasn't until like a year later where I got hooked after clearing the first part of Boletaria.
 

Edify

Member
Oct 28, 2017
357
I'd never heard of Fromsoft until Demon's Souls. More embarrassingly, I played the japanese release of Demon's at a gaming + pizza night at a local independent game shop and was unimpressed and felt like it was the worst game of the night.

I was a fucking idiot in 2009.
 

convo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,587
A lot of people seem to remember Chrome Hounds too. Miyazaki addressed how they used to make a lot of weird and quirky games like Echo Night and he sort of wants to bring that back with that VR game Déraciné and it's also a testing bed for their use of UE4.
I do hope they'll consider more smaller projects like that, they reused concepts from shadow tower and King's field in their newer more popular games and i think they can do that with new Mecha games as well.
 

discogs

Member
Oct 28, 2017
373
London
In 2003-2004 when I was 13, they were one of the peculiar Japanese software companies that I would meticulously research in order to find hidden gems on the PS2 during dry long summer holidays. I would then call around all of the local independent game shops and see where I could get Armoured Core the cheapest. Having secured it for ÂŁ7, I would then play it exhaustively and still find it dull and frustrating. Heh! Being a kid I guess.
 

Velezcora

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Nov 16, 2017
3,124
I think From Software are the ideal representation of the jank game developer. They made crazy experimental games and that subsequently were janky and not very good.
I'd even argue that jank didn't really leave them until Bloodborne.

They had cult followings for their game franchises but some people are making it out to seem like they were as relevant back then as now.
Which really was not the case. The average gamer was not talking about From Software until Dark Souls became a thing.
 

balohna

Member
Nov 1, 2017
4,317
I remembered reading their name in gaming magazines in the early 2000s. So even if I didn't play their games, I was reading stuff like "the new game from From Software" and thinking they had a weird name. I rented Lost Kingdoms, probably their only pre-Souls game I played. But I knew they were generally a pretty good, mid-tier Japanese developer.
 

TalonJH

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,956
Louisville, KY
I was a big Armored Core fan but it was very niche. AC has all the detail ad complexity that the Souls games do. People that liked AC and a couple of their other games (like Tenchu) really loved From but there was no mass audience. Most people didn't know who they were even though they have probably played one or two of their games.
 
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