He's not wrong

Nuanced, moral choice rpg: Would you like to kill 3 giant crabs for 10 gold to save a racist child or kill 3 giant crabs for 15 gold and set an orphanage on fire?

This hurt me.

Do you think it's Bloody-Finger Hunter Yura, or Bloody Finger-Hunter Yura? I think the straightforward answer is the first one, but do we know for sure? In this space of uncertainty is where the seeds of video essays germinate.

I'm like that for Alexander. But I understand him. He is a jar. He is stuck. I hit him. He is unstuck. Easy story.

My boi dedicated his life to killing insane invaders who kill randomly because his ex girl became one after they broke up. After he tried to kill her and she slayed his ass he's like "Nah, you know what, imma just give my earthly flesh to an all consuming outer god who'll end all existence man"

I don't even remember who that is

I like their method of storytelling because it's fairly unique in the gaming landscape (at least, the landscape of the last 20+ years). 95% of stories in other games use the very traditional, straight-forward format with a ton of exposition and cinematic cutscenes and can be easily understood by anyone at an elementary reading level. I don't say that with disdain and there is nothing at all wrong with that method, as long as it is interesting and well-written, but it's refreshing to see them doing something different. I also like it because it's sort of the best of both worlds; you can either completely disregard the story if you're not interested (which is easy to do because Souls games don't have much in the way of forced exposition) and it won't really hinder your enjoyment of the game (if you're primarily interested in the action elements), or you can dive in deep with all of the discussion and theorizing in the community and the abundance of lore videos. It sort of reminds me of gaming in the early days. For example, when the original Legend of Zelda came out, one of my favorite aspects of that and similar games was the hours of discussion and speculation me and my friends would have as the game was exceedingly sparse on details. I think FromSoft does this intentionally as a nod to early game design and the fact that it is inherently more engaging (again, for those that are interested) as obviated by the wealth of discourse you find in any Souls game forum. Go look at God of War or Last of Us forums, for example. There is some, but not nearly as much story or lore discussion in those communities because everything is provided to the gamer and it is all clearly laid out (though I do still enjoy those respective stories for what they are, also).

It's really just a matter of preference and play style. My SO loves their games and enjoys watching tons of lore deep dive videos on YouTube, whereas I just run around killin and dyin.

I think it’s like piecing together a mystery, which can be interesting as you find clues and tidbits. Most of the lore is hidden in the item descriptions and explains the details of your environment. I didn’t really pay attention to it much at first, most things I just reacted to like “that’s fucked up”, but it was kind of neat when I started to realize how some of these enemies had a history within the world. Then I started rereading some of those descriptions, and what was a jumbled mess started making more sense. It was like having a jigsaw puzzle come together.

That said, there’s still a lot I don’t get and I still go WTF… ok time for unga bunga