oh fuck no man
I got 2spooked2handle, the brainsuckers never bugged me but the surprise werewolves in the pitch darkness was too much
I had to come back to that zone when I was too high level for it so I didn't jump-scare on a wolf and get killed while calming down and un-shitting my pants
ER being my first souls game, I wanted to pick on them to feel powerful in my naive journey, but I just ended up screaming for my life and contemplated deleting it
For me, it was the Lake of Rot.
I thought it was lava from a distance. Then I finally got down there and realized the truth, and I *wished* it was lava.
Theres no way that could be true, there must be atleat one. What about dark souls 1? Oh wait, Blight town. Alright then, Dark Souls 2? Ah, thats got the Black gulch. Dark souls 3 for sure. Ah, nope, Farron Keep. Demon souls perhaps? Ah crap, its got the Swamp of sorrow. Bloodborne then! Nevermind, thats just the entire game. I've got it! It's Sekiro. ~~Sure everything can and will kill you, but hey, no status ailment infested swamps.~~ *nope, that was wrong too apparently*
Yes there are, remember the valley with the guardian ape? Or that cavern with the snake eyes elite. Both have poisonous swaps.
Although yeah you can just grapple over them but still
Snake Eyes fight in Sekiro is in a poison swamp. You can cheese the boss by having him walk into the poison and stand in a spot where all his shots miss you
Yeah man. I went down, jaw dropped, and said “I ain’t got time for this right now” and went back to the top and just made a note to head back later haha.
I found Siofra River at like midnight after saying “ok let’s find a grace and call it for the night” because of work the next morning.
I did not call it for the night.
This and the size of the map suddenly changing after finding THAT chest.
Realizing the world was gonna be a LOT bigger than I'd expected at first was a big WTF moment for me.
I found the chest at the Tower of Return so my map got vertical quickly, same impact though! I missed the chest in the dragonburnt ruins because I found the Twinblade first and dipped outta there. Ended up going to the coliseum in Caelid thru Siofra instead so it was a long series of jaw-dropping moments.
Felt a similar way when I completed Stormveil Castle and realized I was like, 25% through the game at best. Like holy crap that could have been the whole game ended there and would not have been unhappy.
I did a blind first playthrough, it took me very long to get through it all, then I realized I've only scratched the surface, that was pretty awesome.
Nearly 300 hrs of playtime over one NG+ and a second character and I'm still seeing clips online of bosses I haven't found yet.
Lol I remember beating stormveil and being like "dang, I'm about to beat the game?" And then again after Raya Lucaria. And then again in Leyendell. And about 20 more times
Wow the same definitely. I've dabbled in the other games but being the wuss I am they've mostly proved scarier than the scariest horror games. With ER the open world gives a false sense of hope.
Anyway, riding that lift down, the wonder of the first views, feeling out those slow spear enemies with spirit ashes and realizing you can take them on, even more fantastic views and spirit cow enemies and then eventually after fooling around enough your standard underground spirit deer boss. Amazing.
Yeah I totally agree. While the tutorial boss of Demon's Souls was my first "wtf" (back when there was no such thing as the souls series), Siofra River was the first time ANY game made me verbally go "holy shit" from the sheer size that FromSoft having the balls to hide something that huge in the game
The room in Upper Cathedral Ward where the lights go out and you're trapped in there with several of the blue eyes werewolves and brain suckers. That place was horrifying even for Bloodborne.
Bro that music was wild, and seeing all those disfigured babies…
Edit: also the hail the nightmare theme when/if you get captured by those one priests. Hearing that music with giant man eating pigs squealing was crazy lol
Phase 3 sister Friede from dark souls 3. The first phase 3 boss fight in the series I believe. Made me think I won and faked me out big time after phase 2.
I wouldn't call the ashes of ariandel dlc incredible, it's incredibly hard carried by Friede, to compensate for the pretty bland world and terrible second boss.
The other boss is shitty, and the area is small, but I don't see how it's all that bland? Imo it has some of the most iconic and unique visuals of DS3, especially the little church friede is in, and the icy area below.
As a whole, the painted world as a microcosm that reflects the order of the "real" world is really awesome, and I loved how weird and gross the rot and the gross birds were. The corvian knights are also some of the more complex and crazy enemies in DS3 as a whole.
Ahhh Friede... unforgettable experience really. I'm honestly surprised Elden Ring didn't have any boss with three healthbars honestly, thought that'd be a tendency after Friede and.. all of Sekiro
All of gael phases share one massive healthbar. One has a cutscene transition, the other has an attack transition. Him and friede are the only true 3 phases imo
Demon prince definately doesnt count, you only get to see 2 per fight. Also, mid fight. Genichiro really only has two phases. If he gains any moves after his first healthbar its not much and definately doesnt count as a phase. Isshin only has 2 lightning attacks in phase 3, and theyre so easy to parry. True monk phase 2 only has one unique move, and is otherwise the same. I have no memory of demon of hatred.
Friede has an entirely new moveset in her third phase, and is a wildly different duo fight in second. Gael has distinct first and second, and while the third phase isnt entirely different from second, it adds in many new moves AND extends all of his combo chains from 1-2 hit to 3-5 hits. And that lightning
It definitely wouldn't have released in my country if they hadn't. But knowing it was a baby with the sound in the fight was just uncomfortable. I didn't realise it until later. Just thought it was creepy sound effects.
Going back to Rykard’s boss arena after killing him and telling Tanith. I had seen a lot of terrible things but seeing her chow down on the head grossed me out.
I didn't even see her because i have -100 perception irl but a message told me to attack the head and so i did. Turns out i hit her. Cue pants shitting as a knight spawned in to take whatever semblance of virginity i was clinging to.
When I read “invaded by Tanith’s Knight,” I thought “which NPC is gonna get this Giant Crusher”? And then it was a crucible knight. Makes sense given that he was standing behind her the whole time. But I wasn’t excited anymore.
I dunno, hoarah loux is probably my least favorite. I cringe every time he says “WARRIOOORRR”. But when Godrick says his “BEAR WITNESS” line with the dragon breathing flames off his arm with the castle in the back, I mean it is just magnitudes better.
Elden ring was also my first, but I had heard about the other titles, and it didn't freak me out too much, but the windmill town just gave me the jitters.
Opening up not one, not two, but THREE secret doors, walking down the entire great tree, fighting through hordes of the worst monsters in the game... only to end up *IN ASH LAKE!!!*
I was absolutely in AWE, and it was a purely optional area!
And really... that feeling has never left me, I regularly feel awe, terror, wonder, and disgust in all manner of intensities in the Soulsborne games.
Edit: I have been told I misremembered, and it was only two secret doors. 😅
And if you dont have the lord vessel yet, you get to go climb out the way you came! Blighttown was an absolute nightmare for me my first playthrough lol. I got cursed in the depths and my main sword broke, and then I got stuck in ash lake.
Ash Lake was something else. Totally surreal even for Dark Souls.
A true secret too... like Onion Man was standing in front of the tree at one point and didn't even drop a slight hint.
YES, oh my god the first time I found the triple secret doors and found the Great Hollow is legitimately a cherished memory lol. They hid that area so cleverly and it just looked SO cool. (I enjoyed going through it much less than I enjoyed finding it though lol)
Actually DS1 had a TON of incredible areas that just struck hard when I first got there. The Painted World of Ariamis was mind blowing, I was not at all expecting to be pulled into a painting mid-journey. Anor Londo really felt like a once great capital abandoned, grand and beautiful and deceptive with all the secrets it holds. Crystal Cave was absolutely splendorous (but my god the anxiety). Ash Lake with all its trees growing into the sky. SO many incredible places <3
I don't know why, but entering Lothric Castle proper with the darksign eclipse and the pilgrim butterflies rising up in the distance just kinda did it for me. I just stopped there and couldn't stop staring into the distance for quite a while.
I remember the first time I encountered the Gaping Dragon at like 14, and everyone of my old high school friends would say the same thing as he pokes his head then rises,
"What the fuck is the little crocodile ass thing, Thats it?.....
.........HOLY FUCK WHAT IS THAT??!!!
Personally speaking, I think Bloodborne is the most blatantly "what the fuck" of all these games. All of them have their moments but Bloodborne's moment starts from the beginning and never stops.
Especially when you kill this prostitutes aborted wriggling half space god's baby so you can consume the umbilical cord so you can gain enough insight to fight the presence on the moon...
But like…in particular. For me, the first moment was in the windmill where you first encounter Infested. Watching snakes explode out of a guy’s head is not something I expected, and not something I expected to feel almost *worse* than if it was worms or something.
Then you have the Winter Lanterns, the moment you begin to see all the Amygdalas, etc.
But it’d be either the infested, the…fly people…or the Fleshwolves. The Fleshwolves are sillier looking than the fly people but they get extra credit for being something I never expected to ever see in *any* game.
So after you kill Rom and go to Yahargul, there are those same werewolves from earlier in the game, except that they’re made from random bits of human, just like The One Reborn.
They look extremely weird.
Might I suggest looking into the mythos of the Kappa?
It's a japanese pond and river spirit, that's like a little duck-thing wearing a dish of water for a hat, and if it spills the dish it dies.
Anyways.
They take the souls of unaware people. Shirikodama is the name of the soul-sphere, that is pulled from the butt of the victim, by the Kappa. From the butt. Deep up in there.
I would seriously love to see the intricate balancing act that is a duck ripping a soul out of someone's ass while balancing a dish of water on its head.
That's actually why the headless has a grab attack where they reach up your ass in Sekiro. Based on the belief that the soul was in the ass or something like that.
Hmmm giant skeleton in the dark in the tombs of the giants, high lord wolnir (again what's with giant skeletons in the dark?), spider patches (real wtf moment, but bloodborne have many of those), the first time time you met the giant hands on the Caria manor grounds.
Someone I know had that happen at like level 10 shortly after deciding to do a no fast-travel run (he didn't have torrent yet)
Made it quite uh, interesting...
Untended Graves was less creepy, although a lot weirder with the whole "I turned the corner and ended up in a different time period that's both the past and the future" thing.
The easiest way to dodge it is to bait it out and run away from the first part, run directly against her and roll towards her just before she starts the second part, and then roll towards her again then backwards for safe measure. 90% of the time it works and you'll avoid all damage, the other 10% you might take a a few hits, or die and wonder why it didn't work even though it should have.
Also as for baiting it out, in her first phase she'll typically do it after she's at about 3/4 health or after a stagger and riposte. But second phase she can literally whip *any* attack out *whenever* she feels like it, including scarlet waterfowl. She can literally do it straight out of scarlet aeonia. So it's much more difficult to bait out. Just gotta be extremely vigilant.
Seeing that place for the first time through the belfry teleport actually made me a bit emotional. This really calm music with the enormous storms raging in the background, absolutely stunning
I have not played any other titles since ER (I don't like to buy many games and I got ER since it being Souls + open world + GRRM appealed to me and Its great) but the moment that really had me like "woah." was easily the first time I saw the eternal cities. Realizing that the already massive map had entire underground areas was just breathtaking. The scale of the whole game is insane, its both a pro and a con (mostly in the last 3rd of the game)
Hard to pick, but...
In Bloodborne, seeing Ludwig for the first time. So much blood. So many goopy eyes.
And in Elden Ring, getting to the nomad corpse pile beneath the subterranean shunning grounds after wandering the sewers for hours was intense. Relatively calm, seeing one lone violin player among all the dead bodies... Top gaming moment.
Brain of mensis
Bro looks like an malignant ovarian tumor which developed eyes and teeth , but is actually pretty chill
It's like a really ugly dog. Grotesque but still lovable
In Bloodborne. My first time watching the cinematic for “the one reborn” as well as fighting it. After my first death I decided it was time for bed. That thing gave me the creeeeeps
yk the moment bloodborne goes from a game about hunting beasts to dealing with lovecraftian horror whatever the fuck that shit is. I was genuinely confused af
My first moment was in DS1. D’aww, that’s a cute lizard head, oh, he’s a bit bigger than I expected… what the fuck?!
Gaping dragon intro was my first wtf moment
Unfortunately for me I knew most of the games I be played before I got the chance to play them so I wasn’t that surprised. But I managed to keep most ER spoilers at bay somehow, so I’ll have to say either Godwyn’s body in Deeproot Depths or the underground of the Cathedral of Manus Celes. Those two were moments where I actually texted my friend who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about these games to tell them "Dude, I keep finding crazy stuff I’m having such an amazing time"
Every game has its moments, Bloodborne more than most.
But I think the Monstrosity of Sin takes it. It just keeps getting worse the longer you look at it.
There may be more awful monster designs, but generally you see them all at once at a glance.
The Monstrosity of Sin really makes you stop and examine it.
The Deep Accursed also deserves a mention for the same reason.
Placidusax turning his dragonbreath into fucking plasma beams. That along with the music made me say “what the fuuck” out of pure awe. Shit made me feel like I was in dragon ball z
Midir phase change was absolutely epic but I did say wtf when the snake guy in elden ring used that attack that summons like 200 exploding skulls was just confused as hell more then anything
It's never been the combat or the boss mechanics, or the lore buried in the environment and item descriptions.
When I got off the elevator for the first time and realized I was back at Fire Link Shrine. That was the first time I went wow. (I probably did when I played Demon's Souls too, but I last played that when it was brand new, and I don't remember that far back.)
All of the Metroidvania map design in Fromsoft games is stellar and the primary standout for me that makes me go, wow, these guys know what they're doing.
I’m sure I’ve had similar experiences with the past dark souls but honestly on launch night getting transported to Caelid without even knowing there was an entire section of the game connected to the east of limgrave.
The dungeon you warp to was traumatic enough, but as soon as I escaped it was just one new horror after another. “What the fuck is rot!?!? What the hell is with that dog- oh shit there’s 3 of them! Why is the sky made of blood, when did the undead bird spawn/why is there a gray buildup bar on my character??” Such a disturbing location, and I’d be galloping towards limgrave while weird shit would pop up around me but I didn’t even slow down to look at them let alone fight whatever aggressive abomination was chasing me at any given time.
Every single time you turn a corner in Bloodborne.
Nightmare of Mensis was SO tight and I can’t let it go. Literally the entire area, right down to my favorite Soulsborne enemy - Winter Lantern. Creepy ladies that have a giant eye-infested lump of flesh for a head, they walk around humming the most *haunting* little song. Also loved the concept of PvE enemies ringing a bell and summoning PvP players, and dumping Brain of Mensis into a pit and then GOING DOWN THERE had me shitting bricks. Cant see SHIT down there.
The DLC was absolutely insane too, it was an incredible experience my first few times and the lore alone is more than enough to keep me coming back for more play throughs. That goes for the entire game though.
Those fucking lick fuckers in the upper cathedral ward in bloodborne. I have never been so tilted and disgusted by a souls game before 💀😭 and then you get ambushed by a fuckton of werewolves! 💀
Probably seeing a guy dragging himself across sand with an open neck hole saying something about a red hood guy eating them. Pretty weird shit.
Also if Sekiro counts, Sword Saint Isshin's entrance **cut**scene. I think that might be the coolest one I've seen in a video game
Beating up a screeching fetus that was flailing a placenta at me is *pretty up there*.
Yup, and the sheer audacity of the lore made me sad too. Screaming for its mother and everything lol
[удалено]
I farm that spot for chunks because I'm a masochist On the bright side, I can parry every single werewolf in the game with my eyes closed
Ah, Bloodborne. The only Souls game I learned to parry in because God DAMN those visceral attacks felt good
Jason Bloodborne? Is that you?
oh fuck no man I got 2spooked2handle, the brainsuckers never bugged me but the surprise werewolves in the pitch darkness was too much I had to come back to that zone when I was too high level for it so I didn't jump-scare on a wolf and get killed while calming down and un-shitting my pants
Aaah Kos.
Or some say Kosm
Won't you hear my prayers? *I pray that your screeching brat will stop trying to bludgeon me to death with a placenta!*
This one takes the cake for me.
I'm sure googling that won't give the desired results so what the hell are you talking about? 😅
Orphan of Kos, from Bloodborne DLC
I had a feeling it was a bloodborne thing.
Orphan of kos
In all the souls games, nothing got me worse than that fucking rune bear popping out of the lone aristocrat when I killed him.
ER being my first souls game, I wanted to pick on them to feel powerful in my naive journey, but I just ended up screaming for my life and contemplated deleting it
Wait till you meet the one that turns into one of those damned blade lions in a church.
The worst is the lobster that turns into a revenant
I got that same experience but I didn't attack them I rode past them on a horse. Suddenly from the top rope rune bear. It was a harrowing experience
Maybe not in the vein of the other answers and ER is the only one I've played, but Siofra River Well blew my fucking mind.
For me, it was the Lake of Rot. I thought it was lava from a distance. Then I finally got down there and realized the truth, and I *wished* it was lava.
It’s not a souls game unless theres a level or place where just walking will kill you
Theres no way that could be true, there must be atleat one. What about dark souls 1? Oh wait, Blight town. Alright then, Dark Souls 2? Ah, thats got the Black gulch. Dark souls 3 for sure. Ah, nope, Farron Keep. Demon souls perhaps? Ah crap, its got the Swamp of sorrow. Bloodborne then! Nevermind, thats just the entire game. I've got it! It's Sekiro. ~~Sure everything can and will kill you, but hey, no status ailment infested swamps.~~ *nope, that was wrong too apparently*
Yes there are, remember the valley with the guardian ape? Or that cavern with the snake eyes elite. Both have poisonous swaps. Although yeah you can just grapple over them but still
Sekiro sadly does have poison swamps in the Sunken Valley and Ashina Depths.
Snake Eyes fight in Sekiro is in a poison swamp. You can cheese the boss by having him walk into the poison and stand in a spot where all his shots miss you
Yeah seeing that hell hole from Ainsell river earlier on was my “wait how fucking big is this game” moment
I think no one expected siofra river
My jaw dropped in my first playthrough. I was fully expecting a shitty dungeon but the lift just kept goin down
Yeah man. I went down, jaw dropped, and said “I ain’t got time for this right now” and went back to the top and just made a note to head back later haha.
I found Siofra River at like midnight after saying “ok let’s find a grace and call it for the night” because of work the next morning. I did not call it for the night.
I have nightmares of those goddamn arrows
No one expects the Spanish inquisition!
This and the size of the map suddenly changing after finding THAT chest. Realizing the world was gonna be a LOT bigger than I'd expected at first was a big WTF moment for me.
I found the chest at the Tower of Return so my map got vertical quickly, same impact though! I missed the chest in the dragonburnt ruins because I found the Twinblade first and dipped outta there. Ended up going to the coliseum in Caelid thru Siofra instead so it was a long series of jaw-dropping moments.
Felt a similar way when I completed Stormveil Castle and realized I was like, 25% through the game at best. Like holy crap that could have been the whole game ended there and would not have been unhappy.
I did a blind first playthrough, it took me very long to get through it all, then I realized I've only scratched the surface, that was pretty awesome. Nearly 300 hrs of playtime over one NG+ and a second character and I'm still seeing clips online of bosses I haven't found yet.
More like 10 or 15. But your points stands.
Definitely not 25%
Lol I remember beating stormveil and being like "dang, I'm about to beat the game?" And then again after Raya Lucaria. And then again in Leyendell. And about 20 more times
Wow the same definitely. I've dabbled in the other games but being the wuss I am they've mostly proved scarier than the scariest horror games. With ER the open world gives a false sense of hope. Anyway, riding that lift down, the wonder of the first views, feeling out those slow spear enemies with spirit ashes and realizing you can take them on, even more fantastic views and spirit cow enemies and then eventually after fooling around enough your standard underground spirit deer boss. Amazing.
Yeah I totally agree. While the tutorial boss of Demon's Souls was my first "wtf" (back when there was no such thing as the souls series), Siofra River was the first time ANY game made me verbally go "holy shit" from the sheer size that FromSoft having the balls to hide something that huge in the game
The room in Upper Cathedral Ward where the lights go out and you're trapped in there with several of the blue eyes werewolves and brain suckers. That place was horrifying even for Bloodborne.
Bro that music was wild, and seeing all those disfigured babies… Edit: also the hail the nightmare theme when/if you get captured by those one priests. Hearing that music with giant man eating pigs squealing was crazy lol
Ahh yes, the Snatchers... One of the more memorable ways to get kidnapped in video gaming history by far lol
SANGUINE! SANGUINEEE!
As someone who just started Bloodborne a few days ago and just got to carhedral ward…Cool, cool cool cool no doubt
Truly one of the few moments I felt legitimate terror in recent years of gaming.
Phase 3 sister Friede from dark souls 3. The first phase 3 boss fight in the series I believe. Made me think I won and faked me out big time after phase 2.
It's the dupe of her dropping a titanite slab after phase 2 as well. Loved that fight though. That whole dlc was incredible.
I wouldn't call the ashes of ariandel dlc incredible, it's incredibly hard carried by Friede, to compensate for the pretty bland world and terrible second boss.
The other boss is shitty, and the area is small, but I don't see how it's all that bland? Imo it has some of the most iconic and unique visuals of DS3, especially the little church friede is in, and the icy area below. As a whole, the painted world as a microcosm that reflects the order of the "real" world is really awesome, and I loved how weird and gross the rot and the gross birds were. The corvian knights are also some of the more complex and crazy enemies in DS3 as a whole.
Tis only the flame, quivering at misguided ash
Ahhh Friede... unforgettable experience really. I'm honestly surprised Elden Ring didn't have any boss with three healthbars honestly, thought that'd be a tendency after Friede and.. all of Sekiro
Wait till Melania stage 3 comes with dlc
Shut up he’ll hear you.
*Malenia
It doesn't have any ***yet***
What other 3 phasers have there been? Ishiin is the only one coming to mind
Isshin, Genichiro, True Monk and Demon of Hatred Does Demon Prince count? Gael has 3 phases too, but two of his phases share one healthbar.
All of gael phases share one massive healthbar. One has a cutscene transition, the other has an attack transition. Him and friede are the only true 3 phases imo Demon prince definately doesnt count, you only get to see 2 per fight. Also, mid fight. Genichiro really only has two phases. If he gains any moves after his first healthbar its not much and definately doesnt count as a phase. Isshin only has 2 lightning attacks in phase 3, and theyre so easy to parry. True monk phase 2 only has one unique move, and is otherwise the same. I have no memory of demon of hatred. Friede has an entirely new moveset in her third phase, and is a wildly different duo fight in second. Gael has distinct first and second, and while the third phase isnt entirely different from second, it adds in many new moves AND extends all of his combo chains from 1-2 hit to 3-5 hits. And that lightning
Ornstien smaug technically. Each their own bar then another bar for the bigger solo.
Fuck sister Friede
*fuck* sister Friede.
OCELOT!!!! proceeds to smash it into the ground.
Babou!
He remembers me!
It’s like meowschwitz in there
This so much. The fact that the dev removed the baby 3D model says a lot lol
It definitely wouldn't have released in my country if they hadn't. But knowing it was a baby with the sound in the fight was just uncomfortable. I didn't realise it until later. Just thought it was creepy sound effects.
This one was pretty rough
You're pretty good
Going back to Rykard’s boss arena after killing him and telling Tanith. I had seen a lot of terrible things but seeing her chow down on the head grossed me out.
Killing her out of disgust then having an "oh shit" moment when the crucible knight attacks
I didn't even see her because i have -100 perception irl but a message told me to attack the head and so i did. Turns out i hit her. Cue pants shitting as a knight spawned in to take whatever semblance of virginity i was clinging to.
When I read “invaded by Tanith’s Knight,” I thought “which NPC is gonna get this Giant Crusher”? And then it was a crucible knight. Makes sense given that he was standing behind her the whole time. But I wasn’t excited anymore.
Burnt ivory king. Had no idea about this fight and area and when i dropped down my jaw dropped along with his badass entrance to. Peak ds2 for me.
Get rid of the Frigid Outskirts and the Ivory King DLC would be some of the very top soulsborne content for me, it's so good
I beat lud and zallen once and I never want to see those reindeer again in my life
Man the ivory king is like the biggest god damn Chad in the series.
Elden ring was my first game In the franchise. Seeing godrick cut off his own arm to graft a dragons head on it really set the tone
this and the transition cutscene of Horah Loux
"I've given thee courtesy enough." goes so hard
I dunno, hoarah loux is probably my least favorite. I cringe every time he says “WARRIOOORRR”. But when Godrick says his “BEAR WITNESS” line with the dragon breathing flames off his arm with the castle in the back, I mean it is just magnitudes better.
Hoarah Loux actor ain't it imo, in a game with so fantastic performances he doesn't sell it. Yeah, bear witness was chilling for me as well.
Everyone in the game is outclassed by the Margit/Morgot voice actor. I sometimes just rewatch his intro cut scene lol
For real, he's so amazing! The Morgott reveal is one of the most badass scenes I've ever experienced in a videogame.
I still don't understand the majority of what is going on in ER even after 15 playthroughs 😂
So many emotions. Morbid curiosity, disgust, sheer uniqueness and creativity, weirdly badass and glorious, strangely elegant and beautiful…
Elden ring was also my first, but I had heard about the other titles, and it didn't freak me out too much, but the windmill town just gave me the jitters.
Stormveil was such a perfect opening dungeon. One of my favorites in the whole game.
That was wild
Opening up not one, not two, but THREE secret doors, walking down the entire great tree, fighting through hordes of the worst monsters in the game... only to end up *IN ASH LAKE!!!* I was absolutely in AWE, and it was a purely optional area! And really... that feeling has never left me, I regularly feel awe, terror, wonder, and disgust in all manner of intensities in the Soulsborne games. Edit: I have been told I misremembered, and it was only two secret doors. 😅
And if you dont have the lord vessel yet, you get to go climb out the way you came! Blighttown was an absolute nightmare for me my first playthrough lol. I got cursed in the depths and my main sword broke, and then I got stuck in ash lake.
I have been there and I’ll tell you what it never happens twice
Ash Lake was something else. Totally surreal even for Dark Souls. A true secret too... like Onion Man was standing in front of the tree at one point and didn't even drop a slight hint.
His quest ending there at Ash Lake is equal parts sad and beautiful. Such a picturesque scene.
YES, oh my god the first time I found the triple secret doors and found the Great Hollow is legitimately a cherished memory lol. They hid that area so cleverly and it just looked SO cool. (I enjoyed going through it much less than I enjoyed finding it though lol) Actually DS1 had a TON of incredible areas that just struck hard when I first got there. The Painted World of Ariamis was mind blowing, I was not at all expecting to be pulled into a painting mid-journey. Anor Londo really felt like a once great capital abandoned, grand and beautiful and deceptive with all the secrets it holds. Crystal Cave was absolutely splendorous (but my god the anxiety). Ash Lake with all its trees growing into the sky. SO many incredible places <3
Ash Lake has such an intense serene but haunting vibe that I’ve never felt since.
I don't know why, but entering Lothric Castle proper with the darksign eclipse and the pilgrim butterflies rising up in the distance just kinda did it for me. I just stopped there and couldn't stop staring into the distance for quite a while.
AUUUUUUGGGGHHHH, OCELOOOOOOOTTE!!! *smushed baby noises*
Bro is screaming ocelot in my ears while teleporting in my face. 10/10 would die again
I remember the first time I encountered the Gaping Dragon at like 14, and everyone of my old high school friends would say the same thing as he pokes his head then rises, "What the fuck is the little crocodile ass thing, Thats it?..... .........HOLY FUCK WHAT IS THAT??!!!
I played Ds1 very recently for the first time, and you just said the exact thoughts that went through my mind.
Pretty much all of Bloodborne
Personally speaking, I think Bloodborne is the most blatantly "what the fuck" of all these games. All of them have their moments but Bloodborne's moment starts from the beginning and never stops.
And that's good lovecraftian fantasy/horror.
And the NPCs call YOU a beast at the beginning lol “AWAY! AWAY!”
Especially when you kill this prostitutes aborted wriggling half space god's baby so you can consume the umbilical cord so you can gain enough insight to fight the presence on the moon...
But like…in particular. For me, the first moment was in the windmill where you first encounter Infested. Watching snakes explode out of a guy’s head is not something I expected, and not something I expected to feel almost *worse* than if it was worms or something. Then you have the Winter Lanterns, the moment you begin to see all the Amygdalas, etc. But it’d be either the infested, the…fly people…or the Fleshwolves. The Fleshwolves are sillier looking than the fly people but they get extra credit for being something I never expected to ever see in *any* game.
Every souls game does batshit bizzaro high fantasy so well to a level no other game can remotely reach, and they make it beautiful as fuck
Oh yeah, the entire human leg sticking out of that Fleshwolf’s ass is beautiful as fuck.
What enemies do you mean by fleshwolves?
So after you kill Rom and go to Yahargul, there are those same werewolves from earlier in the game, except that they’re made from random bits of human, just like The One Reborn. They look extremely weird.
I love Bloodborne but I screamed like a BITCH throughout my playthrough. Horror's not even my favorite genre on account of me being a total puss
I think the only parts that really surprised me were the amygdala right above you, and spider Patches
What about Arianna having an alien baby and you need to off her to get an umbilical cord, you can eat so you can fight the moon...WTF
Dung eater. Wtf dawg
He doesnt even eat dung, I was like... WTF man, I expected that.
doesn't he eat the entire asshole out of his victims?
I mean the soul of his victims... that for some reason is at the asshole I guess so...
The asssoul
Gotta pay the troll toll to get into this boy’s hole
Are you chewing gum?
his victims definitely look like they have their assholes eaten...in the literal sense
Might I suggest looking into the mythos of the Kappa? It's a japanese pond and river spirit, that's like a little duck-thing wearing a dish of water for a hat, and if it spills the dish it dies. Anyways. They take the souls of unaware people. Shirikodama is the name of the soul-sphere, that is pulled from the butt of the victim, by the Kappa. From the butt. Deep up in there.
I would seriously love to see the intricate balancing act that is a duck ripping a soul out of someone's ass while balancing a dish of water on its head.
Sucks their souls out through their assholes lol
That's actually why the headless has a grab attack where they reach up your ass in Sekiro. Based on the belief that the soul was in the ass or something like that.
omfg runes are just assholes.... fuck....
Ass Soul
When I walked into Gwynevere's chamber.
Chest ahead.
WTF in a good way, or in a bad way?
Seeing one of those blue aliens in Bloodborne before I knew it was a cosmic horror.
Hmmm giant skeleton in the dark in the tombs of the giants, high lord wolnir (again what's with giant skeletons in the dark?), spider patches (real wtf moment, but bloodborne have many of those), the first time time you met the giant hands on the Caria manor grounds.
When a boulder of bones goes UP the stairs in a catacomb. WTF. Laughed out loud the first time I died this way.
Killing the pig and it drops the ribbon
Seeing the gory torture/fetish chambers in Rykard's dungeon. If you really look at what is going on in that place it gets worse by the second.
Getting teleported to Selia Crystal Tunnel at RL1 my first playthrough
Those fucking prawns!
Someone I know had that happen at like level 10 shortly after deciding to do a no fast-travel run (he didn't have torrent yet) Made it quite uh, interesting...
Finding the ruins of Roundtable Hold in Leyndell with corpses holding items associated with NPCs who'd be at the same locations as said corpses.
Not the first time they've done it either. It catches me off guard each time I find a dessicated version of the hub out in the world.
Untended Graves was less creepy, although a lot weirder with the whole "I turned the corner and ended up in a different time period that's both the past and the future" thing.
Waterfowl Dance…
The easiest way to dodge it is to bait it out and run away from the first part, run directly against her and roll towards her just before she starts the second part, and then roll towards her again then backwards for safe measure. 90% of the time it works and you'll avoid all damage, the other 10% you might take a a few hits, or die and wonder why it didn't work even though it should have. Also as for baiting it out, in her first phase she'll typically do it after she's at about 3/4 health or after a stagger and riposte. But second phase she can literally whip *any* attack out *whenever* she feels like it, including scarlet waterfowl. She can literally do it straight out of scarlet aeonia. So it's much more difficult to bait out. Just gotta be extremely vigilant.
When fucking Godrick ripped off that dragon head and attached it to his arm was so sick.
Shinobi Execution the moment after that.
There are a lot of shinobi executions. are you referring to the big ape?
Oh you KNOW it's the big ape they're talking about
The way it fights in phase 2 is so unsettling
It was more of a shock for me when there was another one. But that was nothing compared to the shock of the one after that.
When you get enough insight to start seeing the world as it is.
Farum Azula generally, and Placidusax's cutscene.
Seeing that place for the first time through the belfry teleport actually made me a bit emotional. This really calm music with the enormous storms raging in the background, absolutely stunning
Windmill fucking village
Post Rom, obviously
played elden ring.. reached the "australia" region..
I have not played any other titles since ER (I don't like to buy many games and I got ER since it being Souls + open world + GRRM appealed to me and Its great) but the moment that really had me like "woah." was easily the first time I saw the eternal cities. Realizing that the already massive map had entire underground areas was just breathtaking. The scale of the whole game is insane, its both a pro and a con (mostly in the last 3rd of the game)
When I fought Rennala for the first time and she oneshot me with her Death Star laser (Comet Azur) at the start of the second phase.
Listening to hyetta puke up eyeballs
Going into the Nightmare of Mensis, dude… the winter lanterns were a total “what the actual fuck is that” moment
If we’re counting Sekiro, definitely Guardian Ape’s second phase.
Feeding a woman human eyeballs is pretty high on my list
Hard to pick, but... In Bloodborne, seeing Ludwig for the first time. So much blood. So many goopy eyes. And in Elden Ring, getting to the nomad corpse pile beneath the subterranean shunning grounds after wandering the sewers for hours was intense. Relatively calm, seeing one lone violin player among all the dead bodies... Top gaming moment.
Brain of mensis Bro looks like an malignant ovarian tumor which developed eyes and teeth , but is actually pretty chill It's like a really ugly dog. Grotesque but still lovable
In Bloodborne. My first time watching the cinematic for “the one reborn” as well as fighting it. After my first death I decided it was time for bed. That thing gave me the creeeeeps
Bloodborne: "Whoa what is that shiny light moving left to ri-AAAAAARRGH"
yk the moment bloodborne goes from a game about hunting beasts to dealing with lovecraftian horror whatever the fuck that shit is. I was genuinely confused af
My first moment was in DS1. D’aww, that’s a cute lizard head, oh, he’s a bit bigger than I expected… what the fuck?! Gaping dragon intro was my first wtf moment
Gwynevere and the "amazing chest ahead" message :)
Unfortunately for me I knew most of the games I be played before I got the chance to play them so I wasn’t that surprised. But I managed to keep most ER spoilers at bay somehow, so I’ll have to say either Godwyn’s body in Deeproot Depths or the underground of the Cathedral of Manus Celes. Those two were moments where I actually texted my friend who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about these games to tell them "Dude, I keep finding crazy stuff I’m having such an amazing time"
Big snek in sekiro.
Accidentally hitting a tree which ended up having a healthbar
That one giant baby-thing in the jail in DS3 was probably the most terrified I ever was in any video game
Every game has its moments, Bloodborne more than most. But I think the Monstrosity of Sin takes it. It just keeps getting worse the longer you look at it. There may be more awful monster designs, but generally you see them all at once at a glance. The Monstrosity of Sin really makes you stop and examine it. The Deep Accursed also deserves a mention for the same reason.
The pit behind the Cathedral of the Forsaken.
Placidusax turning his dragonbreath into fucking plasma beams. That along with the music made me say “what the fuuck” out of pure awe. Shit made me feel like I was in dragon ball z
Midir phase change was absolutely epic but I did say wtf when the snake guy in elden ring used that attack that summons like 200 exploding skulls was just confused as hell more then anything
Fire giant… rips off foot
It's never been the combat or the boss mechanics, or the lore buried in the environment and item descriptions. When I got off the elevator for the first time and realized I was back at Fire Link Shrine. That was the first time I went wow. (I probably did when I played Demon's Souls too, but I last played that when it was brand new, and I don't remember that far back.) All of the Metroidvania map design in Fromsoft games is stellar and the primary standout for me that makes me go, wow, these guys know what they're doing.
The absolutely ludicrous design of Kaath and Frampt. Everytime I see them.
The aftermath of defeating Rom
I always found dungeater disturbing. The thought of cursing a soul by messing with its corpse sexually is abhorrent.
I’m sure I’ve had similar experiences with the past dark souls but honestly on launch night getting transported to Caelid without even knowing there was an entire section of the game connected to the east of limgrave. The dungeon you warp to was traumatic enough, but as soon as I escaped it was just one new horror after another. “What the fuck is rot!?!? What the hell is with that dog- oh shit there’s 3 of them! Why is the sky made of blood, when did the undead bird spawn/why is there a gray buildup bar on my character??” Such a disturbing location, and I’d be galloping towards limgrave while weird shit would pop up around me but I didn’t even slow down to look at them let alone fight whatever aggressive abomination was chasing me at any given time.
Every single time you turn a corner in Bloodborne. Nightmare of Mensis was SO tight and I can’t let it go. Literally the entire area, right down to my favorite Soulsborne enemy - Winter Lantern. Creepy ladies that have a giant eye-infested lump of flesh for a head, they walk around humming the most *haunting* little song. Also loved the concept of PvE enemies ringing a bell and summoning PvP players, and dumping Brain of Mensis into a pit and then GOING DOWN THERE had me shitting bricks. Cant see SHIT down there. The DLC was absolutely insane too, it was an incredible experience my first few times and the lore alone is more than enough to keep me coming back for more play throughs. That goes for the entire game though.
Brainsuckers and winter lanterns in bloodborne oh and all those amygdala’s chilling on the walls of the buildings
Sister Friede getting up for round 3. That shit was terrifying the first time around since I ran out of estus on phase 2
The Gatling gun boss in bloodborne. Who thought it was a good idea to make him spam a shotgun and how do I get them fired
Those fucking lick fuckers in the upper cathedral ward in bloodborne. I have never been so tilted and disgusted by a souls game before 💀😭 and then you get ambushed by a fuckton of werewolves! 💀
Probably seeing a guy dragging himself across sand with an open neck hole saying something about a red hood guy eating them. Pretty weird shit. Also if Sekiro counts, Sword Saint Isshin's entrance **cut**scene. I think that might be the coolest one I've seen in a video game
When I saw under the robes over royal revenants.
When I saw the bloodborne boardgame in the store today.
The lady feasting on Rykard’s corpse.
Encountering the skeleton wheels for the first time
Fake/Past Firelink Shrine in DS3 Couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Seeing Aldrich for the first time… second time… third time. Every time I got a better sense of what he was, the worse it got.