Today in a yum I have no problem yucking:

Imagine typing Japanese backwards with
your feet in the dark, and if you make a typo, 
you get tased. That's what these games are like.

Please, stop telling me how awesome Elden Ring is. It's just not--ok, no, not you, just, people in general need to stop telling me to play this game. I won't go so far as to judge this game by it's cover, but I will judge it by the other games in the Dark Souls/Bloodbourne genre, which the cool kids call Soulsbourne. I've tried both of the games that make this portmanteau, and they're just infuriating. It's not so much because of the obtuse design or the preposterously high difficulty level but because I find them clunky. Like, aggressively clunky. 

An elegant weapon, from 
a more civilized age.

There was a time when we all balked at the jump from NES controllers and their two buttons to the SNES and the four buttons on the surface, and two on the "shoulders." Like, how could we even live in a world of six buttons? But we did. And it was great. The SNES pad goes down as one of the best designed input devices ever and you can draw a direct lineage between it and current generation controllers. Playstation and Xbox controllers added triggers, and then analogue sticks, and it's fine. It's better than fine. Controllers are more comfortable and responsive than they ever have been.

Except on a phone. What kind of 
sociopath puts Mega Man II on iOS?

So how is it that when confronted by a Soulsborne, I am instantly transformed into a ham fisted buffoon, constantly fumbling my weapons, and drinking the wrong potion every goddamn time? Like, every goddamn time. Have I've just gotten old? I mean sure, I have. I absolutely have. But I can still beat Mega Man II. Huh? What's a flex? Oh, like a brag? Yeah, yeah, ok it kind of was, but something something, back in my day...Anyway my point is I'm not ready to accept that this is on me.

"My butler takes over when I go to the john. And  
he better not get me killed or it's goodbye insulin." 

-some idle rich

Like, there's no excuse for these games to be so deliberately counter-intuitive. I don't need to be good at a game to like it, but I don't need it to stress me out. Did you know that Elden Ring, like Dark Souls before it, doesn't have pause button? Who likes this design decision? Sure, maybe if you're a child and it's summer vacation or you're idle rich or something, maybe then you can set aside hours of uninterruptible game time, but what about the rest of us? What about basic human needs like going to the bathroom? Why do people like this? Is it a kink? Do they hate themselves? Both? It's both isn't it?

Except they do like it. Lots of people love these kind of games, and Elden Ring has preposterously good reviews. Like, the meteoritic score is ninety-seven. Ninety-seven. That makes it tied with Breath of the Wild, and GTAV. And I guess if they're that beloved, it must be that I'm the one with the problem, right?

No, not right. It's everyone else that's wrong. I need neither the stress nor the
 the series' trademark "You Died" message, burned into my television screen.