What book best recreates the atmosphere of Dark Souls?

stop with this "rec me lit that seems like my favorite videogame" bullshit god FUCKINg damn

Read some Bernhard. Maybe Extinction. Maybe correction.

>>8663038
>when OP breaks a man's will with one question

the narrator by michael cisco

my diary desu

>>8663027
The Silmarillion and Return of the King. Other than that I don't read fantasy so I don't know if there's a book about a broken post-apocalyptic world in which you figure out its history through small hints.

Some video games are art. Though none are very complex or profound. Dark Souls is a good video game but it's not good art. You probably don't belong on this board.

>>8663027
Jack Vance, The Dying Earth.
>dying planet filled with huge ruins
>powerful wizards doing nasty things to each other with magic
>incredibly dangerous environment and inhabitants
>weird magic things happen that you can't understand but you just roll with
>get transported somewhere by demon creatures
There's even a guy named Chun the Unavoidable. Read it, OP.

>>8663027
the Drizzt books in the Forgotten Realms series

Oh of course. Maybe the book of the new sun

>>8663064
>Doing nasty things to each other
Is it really as homoerotic as it sounds?

>>8663064
Jack Vance's world is a bit too colorful though.

Its not really empty or dead enough. Very rarely is there any sense of loneliness or despair in it. More just wacky unfortunate things.

>>8663027
No Longer Human

>>8663053
>citations from the grand library of my ass

>>8663027
Nothing in legit literature, so just read Berserk, dude

>>8663053
The way The Talos Principle pieces mythologies together to talk about Ai is fairly profound at times.
The Beginner's Guide has a mult-layered narrative (although most people focus on the narrator) that is complex.
Antichamber is the closest thing mechanically to symbolizing cognitive development we'll have for a long time.
LISA: A Painful Rpg is an excellent example of moral gray area in extreme circumstances, and shows a wide array of influences. while maintaining a strong sense of choice in a game about futility.

Go to your containment thread.

>>8663027
Book of the New Sun
House on the Borderland
Blood Meridian

>>8663027
the Dark Souls strategy guide

>>8663053
yeah that's bullshit.

Dark Souls is the closest game I can think of that actually feels like art.
Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are up there as well.

>>8663053
This guy >>8663394 is correct.

Dark Souls is probably the only game out there with a story and general experience that could not be conveyed in any other medium. The feeling of helplessness and despair, of being a tiny useless creature in a broken world, is sublime.

The mythological references are brilliant too. Dark Souls is a pretty good primer to Gnosticism.

>>8663394
>>8663444
>video game
>art
>least of all a meme tier artificial difficulty game like DS
>waste of trips

jfc

>>8663444
>>8663394

Jesus read some books you disgusting plebeians

>>8663027

Why are the graphics so shit? this game looks like it came out in 2004, not 2011.

>>8663324
Hidden.

>>8663444
Why don't you try reading some books or listening to some music before sprouting this nonsense?
>>8663064
Dying Earth isn't very absurdist or bleak. It's pulp that is for the most part adventure stories.
>>8663080
He wants what he perceives as Gnosticism and feeling of smallness. Which is nothing like New Sun.

>>8663465
Idk if you're meming or not but DkS 1 is the most graphically impressive game I've played
2 has shittier graphics

blood meridian

>>8663052
>>8663027

book of the new sun

>>8663484

I'm talking about the technical quality, not aesthetics. The technical quality of the graphics looks poor, like something that came out ten years ago.

I've noticed that Jap games always have bad graphics.

>>8663520
Maybe not everyone cares about graphical realism as much as you do? Graphics always become outdated in the future but unique aesthetics are remembered for a long time. I guarantee you Hotline Miami will be a more notable game than Crysis in 20 years. Graphics are such a flavor of the month thing.

>>8663520
Earth Defense Force that came out this year looks like something from 2002 and even that is badly optimized.

>>8663372
>>8663174
>>8663372
Not OP but still waiting for these to be debated or addressed.

>>8663570
Book of the New Sun is a deeply hopeful and religious, explicitly thomistic novel. Recommending it as being similar to Dark Souls should be banned.

>>8663574
Thank you.

>>8663570
While Wolfe's Solar Cycle may have a different conclusion than DaS1, its affect is quite similar. The theme of a chosen hero going through sacrifice to bring fire/sunlight back to the world is nearly identical. It was a very Christian game.

Dark Souls' world is not really empty or dead. It's full of belligerent creatures, very much like the Dying Earth, and is highly visual. Anor Londo is the kind of thing a Vance hero might expect to find around the next corner.

House on the Borderlands carries a mood of isolation and despair, but with that a feeling of entrapment. The Chosen Undead is never really stuck. The astral projection sequence is something entirely different from Dark Souls.

I enjoy the video game dead souls
And I enjoy the literature
But this thread does not beling

>>8663712
>The theme of a chosen hero going through sacrifice to bring fire/sunlight back to the world is nearly identical. It was a very Christian game.

Except if you'd actually played through the series, you'd know that that's the bad ending. It's more about breaking away from the idea of God and living independently.

>>8663735
*tips*

>>8663737
Never once did I mention my own beliefs. I'm not even an atheist. I'm just stating what the game was trying to convey.

>>8663553

Dark Souls was outdated the moment it was released. I just can't take Jap games seriously, they look like such mickey mouse crap.

>>8663739
The sequels weren't even written by the same guy, were they?

>>8663460
How is it not art?

Because you think they're for children, the thoughtless ignorant that you are? This does not change that games fit the definition quite accurately

>>8663745
The second wasn't, the third was. The third has a clear atheist message but without disregarding the beauty and splendor of religion.

>>8663755
Have you ever seen the Futurama episode where Bender meets God?

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>>8663755
>it's another everything I like has a hidden christian message thread

Fuck off with your Chesterton tier bullshit.

>>8663763
>you need to go sacrifice yourself so that everyone else can live again
>hidden christian message

>>8663763
>>8663737
>get berated for being a Christian
>get berated for being an atheist
I don't even understand anymore.

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>>8663763
Christianity is and has been the foundation for most of mankind's greatest aesthetic achievements. the human artistic tradition, especially in the English language, has an inherent hidden Christian message.

pic related is you thinking you're super cool.

>>8663769
it's almost like there are multiple people on this board hey anon

>>8663768
Listen here dipshit. The whole point is your sacrifice doesn't matter. No matter the choice you make the universe will repeat itself over and over again. You don't save anyone and not even gods can escape from their inevitable fate.

>>8663770
The fact you need to attribute the aesthetic to anything shows your poor understanding.

>>8663782
>Listen here dipshit. The whole point is your sacrifice doesn't matter. No matter the choice you make the universe will repeat itself over and over again.
So? Is a sacrifice less worthy because those it immediately saves will die? Or, more to the point, does it lose its Christian connection? It's much more interesting to view your interpretation as Christianity seen from an Eastern perspective, Christ in the role of Indra watching ants in his new palace, than to just say "not symbolism lol."

>The fact you need to attribute the aesthetic to anything shows your poor understanding.
Where do you think the creator got his aesthetics? Did you see any didgeridoos? I didn't.

>>8663793
Cathedrals and beards does not make it Christian. Taking away determinism, the belief history has a beginning and an end completely destroys Christianity.
The symbolism is as "deep" as the Biblical imagery in Evangelion. It's there to help tell facilitate the plot, not as proof of a hidden Christian message.

>>8663027
Cringe

>>8663803
Can you even read? I didn't say beards and cathedrals and swords and sallets made it Christian, I said the theme of sacrifice makes it Christian. Even if it COMPLETELY JOHN OLIVERS Christianity, it engages with it to do so. Did you not pick up the reference to Indra and the ants? Have you never taken a comparative religion class? I'm not saying Dark Souls was designed to make you say the Sinner's Prayer, I'm not telling you it has a "Christian message." I'm saying it has Christian THEMES.

>>8663812
You're acting like the idea of sacrifice is the soul (hehe) property of the christian religion. I've made my point, just because it has things that your contrarian, acceptance craving mind lashes onto as Christian doesn't make a video game you like support your worldviews. Do you think that Holden's Jesus because he wants to sacrifice himself? That Shakespeare making a deep Christian statement when he was Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern die for Hamlet's sake?

>>8663027
Maybe Hyperion, by Dan Simmons? Grand scale sci fi that explains the plot of the galaxy at large through tiny chunks narrated by individual characters, they're on a journey to meet a monster that will kill all of them and there's nothing they can do about it, and the whole thing is one big Keats reference.

>>8663749
>video games iz art
>especiall Dark Souls
>im the thoughtless ignorant tho

There was a time not too long ago where video games could have been considered "art" if they continued the upward trend, yet it was not to be. Ya twat. That's like saying CoD Advanced Warfare is art.

>>8664422
>all works in a certain medium have to have artistic merit in order for any work in that medium to have artistic merit
So does my using oil paints to scribble down decidedly ugly, unaesthetic, and unartisitic notes to myself on a spare bit of canvas (thus using the medium of oil on canvas to produce not-art) disqualify as art the entire, centuries long tradition of oil on canvas artwork?

>>8663820
>Do you think that Holden's Jesus because he wants to sacrifice himself? That Shakespeare making a deep Christian statement when he was Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern die for Hamlet's sake?
>what is literary criticism
Sure, Rosey and Guildey are making a Christian statement. Rather than Hamlet dying for his country, he's making them die for it, because things are twisted and justice is miscarried. And if you doubt Christianity was on Shakespeare's mind pick up a history book. DaS is based on a European aesthetic, and European spirituality is bound to enter. Even if it doesn't, we can make comparisons with it. We can look at Pure Land Buddhism and make some very cogent comparisons with American evangelical Christianity. Does that mean we're saying Pure Land Buddhists support the evangelical worldview? No. Because you're stupid.

>>8664422
>hurr lok at meh i iz faget

>>8664969
Rosenkrantz (Rosenkranz) is also German for rosary lol

>>8663553
it already is LOL no one remembers/plays that shit

Super Mario 64 is one of the games closest to art in my opinion

i say this unironically

>>8665598
this. the game functions as the peak of what a game should feel like. other examples include doom and silent hill 2.

Book of the New Sun is what you're looking for OP

>>8663483
Ur a dumb guy

>>8665656
3 u

>>8663574
You are a silly retard.

>>8663277
>people aren't allowed opinions except for those who are

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>>8665666
satan has it

>>8663574
They have the same fucking plot. Linking the flame and bringing the new sun are basically the same thing.

>>8663735
>linking the flame is the bad ending
No

>>8663041
giggled

>>8663027
David?