Saturday Morning Gaming: On Fun

I’m still firmly in the grasp of Elden Ring. Holy cow, is this a good game. One of the main things that keeps me coming back for more is how different it is from other games that I usually enjoy.

I mean, the button setup is nigh-identical to God of War but the two games couldn’t be more different if they tried.

For one, the big difference is in how the story is told. In God of War, they come out and tell you pretty much exactly what is going on at any given moment. “We need to go to the place and do the thing in order to find the guy who will tell us where we need to go next.”

In Elden Ring? Lots of luck, pal. There was a ring, I guess, and it was Elden. It got broke into seven pieces and seven people ended up with a piece of it. They’re demigods now and you have to kill them in order to beat the game.

Where God of War will have Mimir give you a two minute speech about each demigod explaining exactly what they’ve done, what they’re going to do, and what we can expect from them, Elden Ring will give you pieces of info in drips and drabs. Like, Margit? The first *BIG* boss you fight? You find out later that he’s the lackey of demigod. I mean, he’s a lackey to one of the weakest demigods, but he’s a lackey to a demigod.

The Red Wolf of Radagon that you fight? He’s married to Rennala. The marriage wasn’t happy.

If you want more information than that, you’re going to have to search it out and find the Turtle Pope who can explain more to you.

And after you talk to the Turtle Pope, you’re going to have more questions than answers.

And while I was chewing on the difference between the two games, I ran across this little essay by Yahtzee:

If you don’t feel like watching it, he talks about how games keep you playing by giving you Context, Challenge, or Catharsis.

Context, he says, is related to storytelling. You like the characters, you want to see them interact, you want to see them succeed? It’s not necessarily a strong narrative, mind. He points out that Space Invaders has context but not really much narrative.

Challenge is not only the little goals the game gives you, but little goals you give yourself. Not limited to stuff like “beat M. Bison” but also stuff like “collect the stuff you need to make the armor you want” or sidequests like getting all of the flowers. He compares the soft challenges of RPGs where you make your numbers go up to the hard challenges of Dark Souls where good stuff and high numbers are only half the battle. You need to also be good at fingerplay to beat the bosses.

Catharsis, he notes, is something that the other two things provide but, in this context, he’s specifically talking about the satisfaction you get from any given moment in a game. Not just the catharsis of beating the big boss and getting the big cutscene but the moment where you block a hit just right or shoot the silver ball up the ramp before the countdown ends or just the joy of webslinging across town in Spider-Man or gliding across Gotham in Batman.

And that’s where I think that he puts his finger on the biggest differences between Elden Ring and God of War. God of War *SPIKES* the context football, it gives you mostly generic Challenges, and the Catharsis is satisfactory for the most part.

Elden Ring? The Context is confusing. You’re constantly fighting to get more of the story out of the game. The Challenge is palpable. Get more runes, get more boss fights, get more hints as to where you need to go next, get more of those butterflies that let you throw firebombs. And Catharsis? This meter is pegged. Everything from a successful block against a rat to opening up a new area to discovering an upgrade item to opening a new area gives you a tiny burst of catharsis.

And that’s *FUN*.

Basically, Elden Ring gives you a new mix of the three Cs that you’re getting and it’s fascinating to see how very little narrative context you’re given compared to all of the other AAA “participating in a particularly long movie” games.

God of War gave a good story. But it wasn’t a fun story. Elden Ring fights you uphill coming and going for pretty much everything… but it’s *FUN*.

Even now, I’m looking forward to posting this and getting back in front of Elden Ring while I’ve pretty much forgotten about getting excited about getting back to Gotham Knights. I mean, I *WILL* get back to it. I’m just in no hurry and it’ll be very easy for another game to cut the line in front of it. Because, at the end of the day, it’s not particularly fun.

So… what are you playing?

(Featured Image is a screenshot of Yahtzee’s youtube.)