2022 has been a huge, inspirational year for me in the form of video games. Thanks to my brother's patience and guidance, I've finally faced my fears and began playing FromSoftware games starting with Elden Ring and working my way backwards in their Soulsborne series.
A brief backstory of my Soulsborne experience:
I started with the original Demon's Souls on PS3 but I absolutely hated the game and avoided all of the Dark Souls titles afterwards. Bloodborne then became the title that kept FromSoftware on my radar due to its incredible art direction and atmosphere. My brother encouraged me to play Sekiro but I was too scared of its parry system to give it an honest try. Then the Elden Ring hype happened this year, finally sparking the biggest interest in actually playing a FromSoft game for me. My brother finally sold me on it and the rest was history.
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These games have made a huge impact on me artistically, boasting textural detail, character and game design, atmosphere, and lore that make the worlds, stories, and gameplay of these titles so rich. I've had a fair share of tears, frustration, and anger bursts playing these games (I don't think I've ever had to play my own music to calm myself down while playing a video game before) but there's something so satisfying in defeating a FromSoft boss or figuring out a hidden secret solely relying on Soulsborne logic. Each of these games sparked an illustration to commemorate the achievement of completing the first playthrough. So here's the current collection of these illustrations in chronological order of my Soulsborne playthrough:
Elden Ring
The Crucible Knights
(The boss fight that was my first, real FromSoft struggle. It broke me so hard I had to remove my headphones and play K-pop out of my phone to calm down.)
Tarnished
(My final character build from my first playthrough.)
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Maple Orange
(Watching my brother play most of the game was probably what helped me understand how to play Sekiro.)
Divine Confetti(One of my favourite parts of the game was confronting the Headless. The beautiful effect of the Divine Confetti item, the super creepy music, and terrifying fight all contributed to why these enemies were the most memorable for me.)
Dark Souls
(My final build. The fictional headphones reference my need to blast music at the last boss fight because I was losing my mind and needed Pendulum to calm down.)
Dark Souls II
(I had to re-spec my character twice and declared I hated this game in my head. Turned out I was playing the DLC too early which is supposed to be more difficult than the vanilla game. I painted this piece to remember the pain I felt upon that realization.)
Dark Souls III
Ashen One
(I was so excited to jump into Dark Souls III after the grueling effort of Dark Souls II. I ended up appreciating DS2 more because it served as a notable time gap between the DS and DS3. Had I skipped the second game I probably wouldn't have enjoyed DS3 as much as I did to immediately start illustrating my character build at early game.)
Morne(My final build.)
Bloodborne
(My final build. Also notable that I finished my first playthrough and this piece a few days after the November 2022 blood moon.)
One day I'll get back to Demon's Souls and close the Soulsborne loop.
And here are some bonus doodles of some of my playthroughs:
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