FromSoftware Boss Says Using Guides to Beat Its Games a 'Perfectly Valid Playstyle'

I wonder just how many of these so called "get gud" -ers use guides to figure out how to beat bosses, or what the overpowered builds are or where the strong weapons are hidden? Personally I consider that the closest thing to playing on "easy" mode for a souls game.

As a rubbish gamer with limited time, I wouldn't even know where to start without a guide for this type of game. At least I get to struggle through with the internet holding my hand.

My boy has also started on elden ring, quite a jump from fortnite, but he's loving it, even if he has spent more time searching for help than playing!

Well other players wrote their in-game messages like "don't go here, it's a trap", "hit this wall for shortcut", "strong foe ahead" etc and those are pretty much a guide, despite not all of them are true.

But i did used a guide if i can't find where i must go next after hours of exploring and i don't regret it. Other people maybe feel reluctant to use guide either they want to brag it to their friends as their gaming achievement or they want to enjoy the mystery and find the answer by themself.

I don’t play their games as I don’t have the patience for that but, generally speaking, I only ever use guides if I know there are a lot of missable activities or story beats and it’s like a 100hr game I know I won’t replay.

I will happily admit I watch tutorials and read guides. One due to playtime limitations, two there's no real indication of what things do and where to do it in their games, three to maintain fun, lack of progression can put you off. Also just because you watch and read tutorials, does not mean you can actually do the things, one f up and your dead. Lol

Even with a guide, you still need to beat the bosses which is no small task. I get wanting to go in blind but if you’re struggling, it’s acceptable to use a guide. Some people don’t click with every boss. It’s okay.

I think the key thing is they need to teach the basics of the souls formula for leveling up better within the games for total newcomers. I went into Bloodborne blind having never played a souls game. I didn't realise dying meant losing my XP. Nor did i realise you could get them back by returning to your body. Its a huge added barrier for people who are already novices and want to play the game organically. I think just improving on this one aspect would help a lot. I did like the optional dropdown tutorial area within ER though i think it just needs outline the basic progression structure better.

You definitely need a guide for some of the NPC quests as they can be somewhat obscure at times.

I tend to use guides when I want to be efficient with my time. First complete ER run was 170hrs ish... Second run with a guide was half that time and I found stuff I missed.

With From Soft games any victory is a good victory

I don't have a problem with using guides, never got the "git gud" thing anyway. We all get there in our own way, either through guides or sheer masochism .

Been playing lots of Souls games for years and I use guides from time to time, especially when I get stuck in an area for hours

Nothing wrong going in blind as well. Did it with Elden Ring at the first few hours. I did eventually used some guides to get the Ranni marriage ending.

It's really up to people on how they wanted to play FS games and don't let others tell you otherwise

No matter the guides you use some enemies would still require you to git gud, enemy variants in the BB dungeons like Defiled Amygdala, Bloodletting Beast.

I normally use the game routes from fextra to just give me an idea of flow and then explore each area with a planned build already in mind. For ER i had decided to play a full int melee monster and ended up going Astel and ***** Stars.

FS fans do tend to be some of the most ridiculous for gatekeeping what they count as beating the game or playing on easy mode, such as using summons, magic, shield turtling etc. If its in the game then its designed to be used regardless of people classing it as easy or not.

The use of guides are older than your average gamer. They are perfectly acceptable.

@Cutmastavictory

That is true, I remember the good old days when you had to wait for your monthly Amiga power and hope it contained some help for whatever you're stuck on.

Demon souls is the game that made me think twice about playing elden ring. I don't like guides as i hate interrupting my playthrough with youtube videos and tons of ads.

Generally I try to stay away from guides on my initial playthrough unless I'm completely stuck on where to go... which as much as I love Fromsoft's games is a common occurrence. How else was I going to figure out how to get to Castle Cainhurst? How was I supposed to know to stand by a random pillar to get there!? 😄

I used guides for Demons Souls, Darks Souls 1 and 2. I just don't have the playtime to keep dying all the time.

I've occasionally used a guide for Soul-Likes, but even so a great deal of perseverance is still required to get through these games.

I always use FightinCowboy when I undertake any Souls Like. When the games are so complex it is easy to miss stuff, and he often does 100% walkthroughs in which he shows you how to get every single item in the games, not just weapons but absolutely everything that it is possible to pick up. I highly recommend him, and usually follow his builds too. I would assume that most that play Souls games know of him because he is probably the best out there, and as a consequence, he usually has early access to all the games so his walkthroughs are generally available much earlier than most too. Seek him out, you will not regret it.

This is 100% walkthrough for Elden Ring:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7RtZMiaOk8gdRf130w4gFYyhstL-5VRh

I ain't going to lie I used a guide the whole way through I'm a single parent 2 young kids. I don't be having the time to just sit there and figure things out.

@Korgon Same with Yaragul to an extent, its easy to miss an entire part of the game depending on your skill level as you have to let the enemy kill you at a specific part of the game. Especially when the area gets you a ton of levels as its a prime farm area.

I started playing souls games in 2020. Been using guides on first playthroughs ever since haha

I try to go blind every first run, I love the sense of exploration of every game, but there are always some needs...

I need to know the stat caps and how numbers play in the damage formula

@Cutmastavictory
Remember when you could ring a hotline to get tips on games like Zelda OoT? It cost like £3 a minute 😂

I used guides on Soulsborne games, some of the endings and quests are so obscure and demand a certain way of progressing that I always wonder how they even figured it out in the first place!

I don't mind using a guide for games every now and then, but I also don't want the game I'm playing to hold my hand the whole way or have the feeling like I need to tether myself to a guide to progress, either.

I am both surprised and not surprised by these statements from Miyazaki. I haven’t played Elden Ring yet, but it does look like an attempt to make the genre more approachable and “organic” to play at one’s own pace and preferred structure. By the same token, Demon’s Souls appears to be the least forgiving in regard to how you approach the game and what order you would choose to do things.

For me, online walkthroughs, boss guides, build guides, and wikis to explain the games’ terms, mechanics, maps, structure, and various systems and nuances are absolutely essential. They really have enhanced my enjoyment of the series. My first FromSoft game was Dark Souls on PS3 and I lasted about 3-4 hours maybe before I just gave up, partially because of the difficulty, but partially because of the lack of guidance to make progress through the game. I didn’t touch their games again until I played Bloodborne several years later. That first area is brutal and the only way I made it through to the first opportunity to level up was through online help on the forums here on Push Square. Advice from players taught me to just run past enemies, engage with the boss, and wake up the doll so I could start farming for echoes and leveling up to be strong enough to beat Cleric Beast. Later on, I finally searched and found the fountain of information online that I continued to access throughout my playthrough with Bloodborne and I ended up thoroughly enjoying it and still hold it as one of my favorite games of all time.

Subsequently I have gone back to Dark Souls 1 and played to completion with online guide assistance and recognize it for the masterpiece that it is also. Same for Demon’s Souls and now I’m currently playing Dark Souls 2. Absolutely love these games and I would have totally missed out if I hadn’t sought online help. Next will be Dark Souls 3 and then finally Elden Ring.

And I feel no shame in using all online support, even cheeses. My philosophy is that the game is cheesing me (enemies you can’t see around the corner jumping out and knocking you off a cliff, enemies hitting you through a wall, and all the various other cheap deaths) so I feel justified to cheese it.

If your game needs a guide to play.....it's a badly designed game.

I've been cheesing with bows, kiting enemies one by one, used hit and run tactics and summoned blue phantoms for bosses ever since Demon's Souls on PS3.

As long as you don't cheat (other players) and enjoy the game - play however you want.

Elden Ring, in particular, has moments of being very obtuse. Despite my best efforts, I became quite stuck several times and had to look something up to make progress… then felt guilty and terrible! I think this is a big part of why I fell off the game after 150+ hours and didn’t finish it. Bought a beautiful guide, and have it sitting unopened on my shelf… Time to finish though! Shadow of the Ertree!

I tend to use guides for these games to make sure i dont miss anything, they can just be so messy in terms of "miss this npc in this hidden spot and they will die if you reach point x" or "now you have messed up - you shouldnt have done objective A until you have done hidden objectives X and Y".

Why would anyone care about how anyone else plays a game? Baffling.

I was actually surprised when he says that there's room for improvement for players that want to play From's games more organically. I always thought that those games were designed around 'water cooler' moments, which goes in line with Miyazaki's initial statement.

Without Save Wizard, I never would have even tried Elden Ring.

With it, it's one of my favorite games ever.

Online guides are great when you need them. Imagine loving a game and then getting stuck somewhere for hours to the point of wanting to give up. Imagine being a kid in the 80s playing Castlevania II when it first came out.

I try to avoid guides for all games but I see it this way. If I die to a boss/enemy 5 times straight and don't seem to be making any progress it's time for the guide. If I sit at a puzzle for 10 minutes time for a guide. If I still can't figure it out time to lower difficulty when possible. I'm playing games as a hobby, not get stressed out. Play how you want as long as you're having fun... unless your playing an multi player shooter... PLAY THE OBJECTIVE!

Good to know coming from the guy whose team still isn't able to program a pause function or add a quest log (at least to keep track of what was said 50h earlier in the game).

As a kid, I played almost exclusively blind. But as an adult with extremely limited leisure time, I tend to follow a walkthrough for heavy RPGs so I can play as efficiently as possible and not miss out on major content or story arcs.

@Barry_vV

Quite the hot take.

Pretty much every game ever made has a available guide of some description. Didn't think that one through, did you fella? 😂

@Mustoe The difference is in the word "needs"

Of course there are guides for other games, but they are not needed to complete these games. Those are extra. For example you can complete GoW Ragnarok without a guide where to go, the guides for GoW are where to find all collectibles. That's for a different goal.

Most people playing From Software games can't get to the ending without a guide, that's the difference. It's the lack of direction in those games why a guide is needed.

@Barry_vV

No it's because of the difficult nature of these games that people will sometimes use a guide - and in most cases in regards to major boss fights. That doesn't make it bad game design.

And anyway, you don't need a guide to complete these games.

But it's pretty obvious you're not a fan of Soul-Likes and so are going to double down on your belief that they can only be completed with a guide because "bad game design".

@Mustoe I love Souls-likes games. I have played them all. But i indeed hate From Software games and their (missing) design/no guidance. FS even said on Twitter that only 35% of the Elden Ring players have reached the point needed to start the coming dlc. The missing guidance plays a big part in that.

I (we, the 65%) don't need a exact marker where to go but at least give the game meaning and minimal guidance, like Lords of The Fallen or Lies of P.

The FS games just feel lazy and not done in my opinion.

@Barry_vV

With respect many Soul-Likes are horrendously unbalanced compared to From Software's catalogue. You say From's games have "bad game design", but they're far superior to many of the copycats out there. You're entitled to your opinion of course, but I simply cannot get on board with it.

I wouldn't go as far as to say you're misrepresenting Miyazaki, Adam, but I don't like the framing of your article either. Miyazaki says "We obviously understand, but we don't make or plan anything with that as a prerequisite. If anything, we try to cater to the player who is completely blind and wants to go through organically." He clearly states that he'd prefer it if players DIDN'T use a guide and that if they do use one then he considers that a failure on his part. So while he might not mind if we use guides, if he had it his way, then we wouldn't use them at all. As he prefers people to play his games as blind and as organically as possible.