Dark Souls' Descent - Changing Tone (Part 1)

            I have a love affair with Dark Souls. I’m not going to try to hide it; it’s not even something I could try to hide. I love challenge in games, and Dark Souls has that in spades. But I also love well designed games, and Dark Souls may just be as good at that as it is at being difficult. It was only a matter of time before I post something about Dark Souls, and in fact, waiting a whole week to do it was really a grave mistake. The analysis I wanted to do on it ended up being so long I had to break it up into two parts. Ever since playing the original Dark Souls, I’ve wanted to explore the very definitive change in mood that occurs between the game’s first two acts, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do now. This week we’re going to take a look at the mood set up in the game’s first act, and then next week take a look at the second and see how the tone of the game completely changes.

            After you leave the tutorial area in Dark Souls, you only have a vague sense of what to do. You are told you need to ring two Bells of Awakening, with “One up above, in the Undead Church. The other is far, far below, in the ruins at the base of Blighttown.” Finding and ringing the first, upper bell is what I refer to as the ‘first act,’ and journeying down to the second one being the ‘second act.’ The first difference between the bells and the journey it will take to reach them can be seen right from this opening dialogue, and it’s in their verticality. The first bell is up, while the second one is way, way down. Those differing directions have inherent implications in our minds, whether we’re aware of it or not. Traveling up is often a sign of accomplishment or achievement. Think about how one feels to climb to the top of a mountain, or how the prestigious penthouse is at the top of a hotel, and of course how heaven is always associated as being up above us. Down, on the other hand, is not so good. Descending a cave is dark and murky, and we all used to fear what was hiding in the corners of the basement, and not to mention what is down is very much the opposite of heaven. Journeying up to the first bell is an accomplishment, an achievement, but descending down to the second one is very much a tense and unsettling challenge, and the use of these different vertical directions subconsciously enforces those two feelings.

            The journey to the first Bell of Awakening feels kind of like an epic quest. Yes, this is still Dark Souls and enemies are tough and areas grueling and stressful, but not overwhelmingly so. Enemy layouts are relatively simple, and there are plenty of somewhat-hidden optional paths to make players feel intelligent for finding these secrets. Even with these secret paths though, the areas are still linear and easy to navigate, with optional paths ending by cleverly looping back onto the critical path. Shortly after entering the Undead Burg, the first area on the path to the first bell, there is a bonfire, which provides a source of refuge for players and creates a forgiving checkpoint for future challenges. With your first steps into the Burg, you’re greeted with a cameo by a giant dragon that briefly lands on a bridge before flying away, which is frightening at first, but really just hypes up the player. And it’s important to note that this dragon encounter is something you’d expect from your generic fantasy tropes.

            All of the enemies in this area follow the kinds of themes you’d expect from a game like this. They’re all weak humanoids that all use the same model, with the only thing differentiating them being the different weapons they wield. You’ll know what to expect from the behavior of every enemy you come across, and the scariest ambushes you’ll find will simply be an enemy hiding around a corner. This entire area is designed to be familiar and unthreatening, by Dark Souls standards of course. Even the theme of a crumbling old fort is something players will feel at home with. There’s even a friendly merchant close to the bonfire that will sell gear and supplies should you ever run out.

Reaching the end of the area shouldn’t be a major challenge, even for new players, especially given how short it is. The area’s boss, the Taurus Demon is the second in the game, and seems very imposing at first. However, players are nudged to cheese him using plunging attacks they learned in the tutorial area, so he won’t put up too much of a fight, and it feels like an accomplishment to overcome this foe through either raw skill or clever ingenuity. Immediately after the triumph over the Taurus Demon comes the fight with the dragon that you met at the beginning of the area. Even though once again, it’s something that initially seems threatening, perhaps even impossible, the dragon can be easily bested by proper running away, or a lot of arrows, and it still feels pretty great afterwards to overcome the foe that struck fear into you at the area’s beginning. As a reward for all this triumph, you even unlock a shortcut back to the area’s bonfire that once again gives player’s access to that refuge it provides, and means you won’t have to redo the portion of the Burg you just did ever again.

I kind of lied when I said that immediately after the Taurus Demon you encounter the dragon, because there is a little, seemingly insignificant, optional interaction that occurs beforehand that helps make a key point about this first act of the game. Before you go to the dragon, you can find a lonely NPC staring at the sun. This NPC is Solaire, the most famous and beloved character from the entire series. His dialogue is friendly and encouraging and his presence makes it feel like you’re not entirely alone on this journey. The presence of NPCs is something that you’ll find sorely lacking in the areas in the second act, and the contrast helps further the mood difference between the two.

            The area past the Burg, the Undead Parish, is still a rather friendly and encouraging environment by Dark Souls standards. New players will find it challenging, but the training wheels are still on in many regards. The parish is still full of the same humanoid enemies you have fought the entire game, and sticks to fantasy tropes and similar enemies with weak knights, tougher knights, and armored knights. You face an initially frightening encounter with a giant armored boar, but once again the game will nudge you towards a clever way to best it without any real confrontation. Before long, you reach one of the game’s major safe zones, a large tower with a bonfire and helpful blacksmith that connects multiple areas, with no threats (save for a mini-boss in an area outside the bottom, but still no harm can come to you in the tower itself). And very soon after finding the tower, you find a massive shortcut that links the area right before the pre-bell boss all the way back to the starting hub of Firelink Shrine. Not only is it a nifty feat of world design, but it also makes this part of the world feel cozy and connected. There will be no long, dangerous trek to return to Firelink or any other previous area. It’s all nice and neatly connected.

            And then once you’ve beaten the boss of the Undead Parish, you climb one long ladder to reach the top of the bell tower. And this beat of silence is just about all you need to revel in your accomplishments. Once you’ve climbed to the top of the tower, you can look out from this vantage point and see all the areas you conquered to reach here before ringing the bell, bringing the great satisfaction of knowing you’re halfway done with your objective.

            As I’ve hopefully been able to point out, the first act of Undead Burg to Parish is designed to feel very rewarding. Player shouldn’t get overly frustrated, and every victory feels like an accomplishment. I’ll be saving a list of important takeaways for next week, as the meat of this analysis will be coming when we take a look at the Depths and Blighttown, and it’s necessary to be able to contrast this first part of the game to what’s to come.

Bastion's Tazal Terminals - Building a Climax by Dropping a Bombshell

WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for the game BASTION, and if you haven’t played the game yourself, I highly suggest you stop reading and not ruin the game for yourself, because it’s a pretty good game.

            Bastion was the first game released by small indie studio Supergiant Games, and was quickly heralded as a masterpiece by many. Its acclaim is no surprise given its total uniqueness in just about every aspect. From the isometric perspective where bits of levels fly in as you explore, to the refined and highly customizable combat, to the unique and surprisingly heartfelt story. One of the most unique things about the game, in fact, is the way the story is told. While you play the game, a narrator (who’s an in-game character named Rucks) will narrate the events of the game. Often he will just describe current events or make snarky comments on player actions, but occasionally he will drop hints of backstory and exposition. Regardless of what he’s doing, the constant presence of the narrator combined with the way he fluidly fits in with the flow of the game makes Bastion’s narrator one of the most engaging ways of telling a story to be seen yet. So today I’m going to take a look at how this, combined with clever writing in the game’s final area, the Tazal Terminals, creates an incredibly engaging and memorable climax.

            To understand the climax, first one needs to understand the things that occurred leading up to it. Bastion takes place in a post-apocalyptic world destroyed by an event known as the Calamity. It literally tore the world apart and turned most of the people into ash. You play as the Kid, one of few survivors of this great disaster. You make your way to the Bastion, an area known as the place to go when things go wrong, and the end of the world certainly seems like things going wrong. When you arrive you meet Rucks, a strange old man who was also the one narrating your journey through the first level. He tells you that in order to get the Bastion working you need to collect power cores, which have been thrown about across the ruins of the world, although you’re never told exactly what it is the Bastion does. With this you start your adventure, discovering two other survivors, Zia and Zulf, along the way. But Zulf betrays you and breaks the Bastion when he discovers the Calamity that destroyed the world was actually caused by a superweapon designed to wipe out his people.

            This is where the game’s final level, the Tazal Terminals takes place. Zulf has stolen the last piece you need to fix the Bastion and returned to the ruins of the capital of his people, the Ura. In this stage you fight through hordes of tough Ura soldiers, but it’s really the plot and narration that occurs here that makes it such a memorable level. The stage already starts off with a surprise, with Rucks revealing that all the narration he’s being doing this whole game has been him telling Zia the stories of your adventures. This doesn’t have any plot or lore implications, but it is a nice way to canonically explain the narration, and makes the game’s story and ending suddenly feel more intimate. No longer is the game really about you on an epic quest, instead it’s about telling the stories of your great adventure. And it also sets this level up as a major event in the plot, because Rucks states he’s been telling all these stories while waiting for you to get back from the Tazal Terminals, meaning that the actions that you are doing right now really are happening right now, and the previously all-knowing narrator doesn’t even know what you are up to right now.

            

          The game stays true with this idea all the way through the level. This is an incredibly intelligent trick by the developers at Supergiant Games, as they manage to use this core game feature in a brand new way that really sets the final level apart. The narrator now explains the purpose of the Bastion to Zia. Rucks has always been vague about the Bastion, and he’s never just given straight up exposition, so the fact that this is so unprecedented helps make what’s coming up much more impactful.

            

          Just as a side note, all of the dialogue I’m about to discuss is so well-written and perfectly delivered by Rucks in game that it’s hard to be able to explain  just how impactful it is to someone who hasn’t played Bastion, and it is pretty spoiler heavy so even though there’s already been a spoiler warning, I highly suggest you experience this game for yourself, if you can, before getting it spoiled. After the initial reveal in the start of the level, Rucks ends up explaining the purpose of the Bastion. He states that the Bastion was designed as a failsafe in case something ever went horribly awry, and that once all the cores are gathered, it can reverse time up to a point before the Calamity, and everyone would have a chance to do it all over again and prevent this terrible disaster. Then, after you’ve been given a short bit of time to think about this, Rucks mentions that because of the nature of the device, the Bastion is completely untestable. There is no way of knowing that resetting time would prevent the Calamity. Then you’re given a bit more time to ponder this.

It’s important to note that none of this happens in a cutscene. All these major plot revelations occur during the gameplay of the final level. This does two important things. First, you’re forced to take all this in while playing the game. This is the game’s final level, and it isn’t really a pushover, so you’re forced to consider the implications while fighting a bunch of tough enemies. The gameplay never stops being intense, and when the story matches that intensity without sacrificing any gameplay pacing, the entire affair feels like a major climax. But the other thing this does is make it so that the story is your reward for progressing through the game. The narrator is continuously dropping major plot reveals, but they only happen once you reach certain triggers in the level. This means that if you want to find out what’s going to be revealed next, you have to progress further into the level. This is a moment where gameplay and story come together beautifully to drive the player. The level already has a good bit of forward momentum, but when Rucks says just a little bit of something major every time you make a bit of progress, the player feels a need to keep on going through the level, and are given an intense drive to get all the way through, both for the gameplay sake of beating the game, but also for the story sake of learning more. And with this also, the story climax and gameplay climax both travel at the same rate together, meaning that there’s no sense of disconnect at all, everything flows together and keeps the player engaged. This would be a lot less possible without the game’s narrator, because he can drop exposition in a meaningful way without halting gameplay or breaking immersion for a second.

However at this point the player still hasn’t reached the ultimate climax, which is part of the beauty of this level. Soon Rucks reveals yet another surprise, that the Bastion could also be used to fly away from this ruined part of the world, but he says that’s a terrible idea, that you can’t just abandon the weight of the Calamity that’s on your shoulders, you have to try to fix it. And at this point it becomes clear you’re going to have a choice, to either revert time or to leave and try to start fresh. With this, the game asks a deep question about who you are as a person. Are you someone who let’s go of the past and moves on, or are you someone who would rather fix your mistakes? Would you go back in time to try to save millions of lives or just accept the past and move on? These are deep questions about you as a person, and you better have an answer by the end of the level. Just as the story reaches a peak here, the gameplay begins to slow down. It doesn’t halt, but it does change. Earlier in the stage, you were blasting through hordes of ninjas with the loadout of your choice. Pretty soon, the game forces you to equip a new weapon, called the Battering Ram. As one would expect, it’s just a giant wood battering ram. But its massive size comes with massive weight, and while it does devastating damage, it also kills your movement speed. Now every step is deliberate and slow, and you lose the ability to perform a speedy dodge roll that you’ve had all game. The developers at this point were well aware of which of their climaxes would be more impactful to the player at this point, so they choose to slow down the gameplay so that the weight of the plot and the upcoming decision can rest heavy on the player’s shoulders.

The game isn’t done throwing surprises and tough decisions at the players yet however, which is part of the beauty of this level. The story culminates in a way that really makes the player ask questions about themselves as a person, and it leaves a big impact. Rucks alludes to the fact that the Ura can’t be happy that Zulf led you, at this point an unstoppable one man army, to their hideout. While Rucks is still speaking, you find Zulf, being beaten up by his own people . When you approach, they flee and you’re given a choice. You can either leave Zulf there and let him get what he deserves for betraying you, or drop your weapon to pick him up and carry him to safety. Except the battering ram is the most powerful weapon in the game, and you’re still waist-deep in enemy territory. If you choose to leave Zulf and carry on, you’ll end fighting the one last stand of Ura soldiers, but with the power of the battering ram, its essentially a massacre. But if you choose to save Zulf, the same horde of soldiers will be waiting for you and weighed down by Zulf, all you can do is slowly trod forward while you get shot by this army. A beautifully sad song begins to play in the background as one by one, the enemies stop firing. They begin to stand still and watch, as you carry Zulf to safety, not willing to harm you once they see what you’re trying to do. Near the end of the path, one soldier will start firing upon you again, before being struck down by his commander. It’s a beautiful moment, and one that manages to express so much emotion without any words.

Up until now, Bastion was a game that relied heavily on words. The whole game is narrated to you after all, but for this one poignant moment, the whole story is told visually. This sudden reversal makes the event seem all that more significant when it’s just you in silence, watching events unfold. This moment makes Bastion’s final level now stick out in player’s minds for two reasons. First there is the high-speed, intense plot reveal portion of the level that forces you to question who you are as a person. Trying to figure out which decision you would make while getting further and further into the level and learning more and more is something almost every Bastion player can remember clearly, and I imagine it had an impact, if even incredibly small, on their lives. Something like that is a game functioning as art, and is the highest praise I can bestow upon something. Except the level doesn’t end there, because then comes the slow, heavy section where you have time to reflect and take things in before you’re forced to decide the fate of a man’s life. Of course, the developers knew most players would choose to save Zulf, as saving him seems like the obvious “correct” choice. This illusion of choice makes you feel more like a hero when you do save him, and then the moment where enemy soldiers lay down their weapons for you is a powerful scene to further back up the strong emotions the game is trying to create.

All this brings us back to the article’s title. The Tazal Terminals aren’t remembered because of unique gameplay, cool scenery, or unique challenge. What makes the area stick out as a memorable climax is the way the story and gameplay peak together. In the Tazal Terminals, your mind is always occupied. First you’re busy chasing after major reveals as you progress through the level, and then suddenly you’re forced to answer deep questions for yourself as the action continues. With the game’s narrator, your immersion is never broken during any of this because the gameplay never stops for a textbox or dialogue prompt. The final encounter with Zulf is just the icing on the cake. Just when you think you have this area figured out, the game dumps a second choice on you, one that will take most players down the path to an emotional experience that’s able to convey so many feelings you without any words, and once again never halting the gameplay, only slowing it down for emphasis. The emotional impact of the questions that Bastion makes you ask is what makes the final area so good at sticking with players. And that right there is something to take note of, because it uses one of the biggest strengths of games as a medium: the involvement of a player. If all that I just described of Bastion's climax had been in a book, it wouldn't have been as impactful. One unique strength games have over all other mediums is the fact that the player is an active participant. They are the one making the choices and determining the story. So if one was reading this in a book, the question at the forefront of their mind would probably be "What is the main character going to decide?" In a game, however the question at the forefront of the player's mind is "What am I gonna do?" While a reader would probably have questions sparked in their mind from the reading, a question like this is inherently more impactful in a game because there the player is forced to make a choice, and your choice will have a legitimate outcome. This potential of games to provide meaningful choices that players have to make and then see the outcome of is relatively untapped in games today, and is what can enable them to truly have unique impacts on players.

 This brings me to the major takeaway and the point of today’s article: a good climax should always give players something to chew on. Hit the player with something they weren’t expecting before, and then make them think. Make them ask questions and make them feel something that may have an impact on their life. All mediums can make their audience think, but only games can force them to make a choice. Something surprising and impactful what will make an area truly stick out, and what will make a climax stick with players.

                                                                                                                                            

Key Takeaways:

·         One of the unique strength of games is their ability to involve the player. Games that truly excel at being games are ones that use player choice in a meaningful way

·         Really engaging moments of a game will weave story and gameplay together, so that both escalate and help each other without making one halt for the other.

·         Good, memorable climaxes should always make the player think and give them something to chew on later, or during the climax.