Immortallium's Blog Posts

I like to watch YouTube videos while I’m eating, using my Steam Deck, exercising etc. and I’ve been watching a particular YouTube channel recently, 1ShotPlays, that have been playing the Dark Souls trilogy for their first time. I’ve reached a little over halfway through their Dark Souls III playthrough and, among many other things, I was reminded of how much I love Siegward’s questline and consider it to be one of the most satisfying I’ve ever had the joy to complete. Given that, I felt the need to write an article praising this story and why I ended up loving it so much! Understandably, there will be spoilers for Dark Souls III as well as the first Dark Souls game so if you wish to play them at some point without spoiling anything, I’d strongly recommend you stop reading here.

Before I talk about Dark Souls III, I want to talk about the first Dark Souls game and Siegward’s predecessor, Siegmeyer. Anyone who’s aware of Dark Souls but not played it may be aware that arguably the most famous character to come out of it is Solaire. Back when I first played Dark Souls in the winter of 2015, he was the only character I knew of beforehand so imagine my surprise when I found a character who I loved even more, Siegmeyer of Catarina. Sometimes affectionately referred to as the Onion Knight due to his armour, his jolly attitude stood out in the dark and sometimes lonely world of Dark Souls and I found myself wishing to help him out with his troubles whether they be opening a gate he was stuck at, disabling a boulder trap or clearing out a room full of hostile knights. However, his storyline ends rather tragically as he either loses faith in his own abilities due to always relying on the player or goes Hollow and attacks his daughter, Sieglinde, who kills him in self-defence and is broken-hearted as a result. Regardless which way his questline goes, it’s a tragic end that fits with the world of Dark Souls but one that I always found a bit unsatisfying. Regardless, I still continue to view him as my favourite character in the first Dark Souls game.

When it comes to video game companies, I’ll admit that Atari is one that I’ve payed little to no attention to in recent years. It seemed they were long past their heyday and any news I heard about them tended to be negative. However, the last twelve months has seen my interest in Atari grow due to some interesting decisions that they’ve been making. Due to this, I thought it might be interesting to discuss why Atari have suddenly got my attention after all this time and what I hope to see from them.

Let’s start with a brief history on who Atari are and their significance to the video game industry. The original Atari company was established in 1972 and quickly became one of the most significant companies in the video game industry with their console, the Atari 2600, becoming the best-selling console of the second video game console generation. However, a deluge of shovelware led to the Video Game Crash of 1983, which interestingly in Japan is known as the Atari Shock, leading to Atari being divvied up and sold, an unceremonious end for such an important company. The modern Atari company actually started out as Infogrames Entertainment and later acquired the brand through their acquisition of Atari Interactive. Still, things have not been smooth sailing with bankruptcy rearing its ugly head in 2013 and forcing sales of many of their intellectual properties such as Desperados, Backyard Sports, Deer Hunter and later on the notable Alone in the Dark franchise in 2018.

In the lead-up to the release of Sonic Superstars, Sonic producer Takashi Iizuka discussed why they decided to make a 2D Sonic game using 3D graphics, 2.5D in other words, rather than using the pixel art style of the earlier Sonic games or the critically acclaimed Sonic Mania. In his own words, he stated “we look at the pixel art – it’s great – but when we think about 10-20 years in the future, we don’t think it’s going to be a viable art style or presentation for our players.” Besides the fact that I disagree with this statement, I would consider myself a fan of many Sonic games, it also set off a discussion about pixel artwork in games and its place in the future of the industry. Taking this into account, I thought I might explain why I believe that pixel art in video games isn’t going to disappear anytime soon.

For those unfamiliar with this art style, pixel art refers to artwork that is made up entirely of pixels, typically at a limited resolution that allows you to see each pixel clearly and distinctly. This art style developed out of the graphical limitations of consoles and PCs but games made in this style continue to be made even though technology has advanced enough that a myriad of other art styles and graphics are available to choose from. This can be for aesthetic, authenticity or budgetary reasons.