Dark Souls 3 was not completely original on the surface, being of course a 3, but if some asset were reused, to me what counts is the balance between fidelity and splendid new discovery. Plenty of this there was, and so it was an incredibly polished, inventive, devilishly seducing experience, towards a well deserved grand("grandepressing")finale.
Dark Souls 2, beside some uncertainty in the general sense of connection, was set after set of mystery and marvel, with a remaster, for once, not resting on laurels despite being so close in time.
Dark Souls 1, with a rushed but still haunting last segment, was maybe the game that got me in awe the most with the idea of level design, in 49 years and after many metroidvanias, and the most in sense of danger and bravery, in search of the next bonfire.
If we don't count Demon's Souls. Here the sense of menace, particularly on Latria, is stellar, competing with the greatest survival horrors ever, surpassing many.
If we don't count Bloodborne, a symphony of horrors without rivals.
As without rivals are all, absolutely all, the DLC contents. They are not just adding more stuff mechanically, but more sense, and at the same time more mystery, and at times even more quality through the cracks of the main game.
And every time the very idea of action-adventure-rpg, as a mission to restore some order in a crumbling reality, is modeled around the opposite. The violence is always ambiguous (Shadow of the Colossus-like), the journey is from chasm to chasm instead of building bridges, the chaos is in your actions first of all, you disappear and return to retrieve your "soul" over and over again, as if it was the body the real soul, and the soul some inert energy. The co-op is limited, wordless, uncertain and paired with, again, the opposite, the invasions, adding an incredible tension overall, even if the invaders, more and more year after year, are cheaters, even at this weak point, if you want to play along, the game is always whispering in your ear: some invincible sob is coming to get you.
Games of contrasting juxtapositions: a frightful order verging into chaos, but also maybe a peaceful chaos verging into frightful order, and a constant, as constant as it is reticent, invitation to contemplate this narrative mystery, as reflective as can be a thing at the same time ordering you to adopt a tactic, to study it, but without giving you pause.
The many very obscure aspects, a ton of them in the narrative, are then in my opinion enrichments, are calling me to explore, to research more, but only because in the end the reward is there. And I don't even go into the lore very much, but not many (read: no other one) narratives in games were able to make me think, not of other fantasy writers (that I mostly don't have the time to read, sadly), but of the works of James Frazer.
Speaking of gameplay again, Sekiro, like Bloodborne in his way, tries a different path, and finds in himself another milestone.
Because magisterially, when they seem to concede something with their games, like more frequent bonfires, or fast travel etc, they are really using these concessions to expand the means and the scenarios, and to shove under your throat even more challenge.
They are constantly changing their vision I think, just without going from space to cowboys, but above all, without selling an ounce of their integrity, not even in selling this like some "tegridy" facade. Just the idea of putting on the market a thing of pure challenge like Sekiro, and winning the challenge as a soft house, is very telling.
And then, Elden Ring?
The fact that they are, at this point, not only not imploded, but so magnificently exploding the formula while keeping the balance between risk and exploration, progress and repetiton, in a way that many can say, not all of course but many, that this is the best open world ever and one of the greatest games ever, just as when I was saying to myself, back then playing Demon's, and then the Dark ones, and then Bloodborne, and then Sekiro: this is the best stuff I'v ever...
Well, "just" this fact, and sorry if I went to a general recap, is why Elden to me is impossible to classify. It's only the best stuff that I need, as f always with FROM
