Black Souls First Impressions

I'm nervous as all heck due to my medicine but I'm going to push through and warm up here to get some of my thoughts out. Right now I'm at the library so this is the perfect place to write down my thoughts on Black Souls. Sheesh, I'm trembling so much from the anxiety I can't type properly. I got to take it slower. I'm nervous because I've never fixed a story before. I usually write it and leave it because I don't know how to fix it. So much can go wrong with editing because you end up cutting a piece that you thought wasn't important but became the cornerstone of your story. You cut that and the whole piece falls apart.

I start with character creation. I'm given the choice of a Knight, a Thief, and a Mage.  I play a mage because I wanted to do something different than the usual tank character I play. After a brief introduction to a girl named Alice, she explodes into a pool of blood and the screen fades to black. The game opened with me in a cell, just like other Souls series, and a young paladin opening the door to my cell and offering to guide me through this desecrated kingdom. That all ends when she dies an agonizing death to a fire-breathing dragon before it, in Souls style, kills me and sends me to another level where I can start fresh. An NPC greets me and offers me items and the ability to level up if I bring her souls. The way the game says that word, "souls," like I'm offering a living human sacrifice rather than a collectable. I get my first partner, a fairy whom I'm told is "different than the other fairies." What does that mean? Already, I'm creeped out by that line. What are the other fairies like that makes me have to be wary of them? Now with a partner I travel fighting mandragora with teeth and other plant-based monsters that crop up in the field. As I journey through I find items to help me out, refillable flasks and plenty of healing items keep me on my feet as I cut through the strange monsters. I wonder if mandragora count as a type of fairy. Is that what my NPC friend meant when she said the fairy wasn't like the others? I get stuck early on when I find bread crumbs that lead to the edge of the forest which I can't enter for some reason. Maybe I need to hit a switch or something. Another NPC mocks me for picking up breadcrumbs I found on the way to the edge. I knew immediately it was a reference to Hansel and Grettel. The game mocks me for picking up the crumbs but its not like the kids needed the crumbs anymore. Dear god, what have I gotten myself into? 

The game is built using RPG maker tech meaning the overworld is very basic. Most items are shown on the screen as glints and the occasional treasure chest. It's a basic formula with a sinister undertone. The monsters I fight are definitely where the effort went into. Horrific monsters that come straight out of a nightmare. And the added gothic fairytale vibe only adds to the creepiness. It's amazing how much the game has put into me when I've barely scratched the surface. I picked this game because, as I've said in my previous post, it had warning signs all over it. Sexual abuse and terrible violence were listed in the game's overview. That only made me more curious so I picked it up. I look at other games made by professionals that try to be "edgy" but they fall short because they can only go so far without ruining their company's reputation. The best example would be Rockstar, or at least their team during the PS2 era. There was a game they made called "Manhunt" where you worked to escape the clutches of a snuff film maker who sends gangs after you to create his "masterpiece." Today, Rockstar wouldn't touch that genre with a nine and a half foot pole. Rockstar is edgy, but not that edgy. Today they boast this reputation of being crude but funny, like the kind of guy who's mouth gets him into trouble and a smile that gets them out of it. I see their latest game, GTA 6 as being sanitized by corporate heads who want to make a profit more than they want to make a game. That's why indie games like Blacksouls stand out to me, they don't cater to someone's offenses. Their offensive senses. 

Enough about Rockstar, I need to focus on Blacksouls. From what I gather this game was made by one guy. An obvious fan of the Darksouls series yet I feel like the fairytale themes are just there for shock value. I get the idea that the developer is avoiding making their own rich story like Darksouls and using parody to create these shock stories. It's not a bad approach, the developer has obviously put work into this game. But I feel that the game could have gone deeper if there was a little more effort put in. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know what went through the designer's head. It almost feels like a joke, as if the dev knew that he could get a quick rise out of me by transforming children's stories into grotesquiries. Again, I don't mind that idea but I can't shake the feeling of it being a little cheap. I guess I'm picky about my stories. I hope that the game will change my opinion. Maybe I can grow a bit.

I plan to play more of Blacksouls when I get home but I just wanted to illustrate how impactful the game was on my early playthrough. That's enough warm up, I've got a short story to edit.