someone should make a dark souls clone but the messages are filled with deliberately silly things to make messages with. Oh sure, you can absolutely give other players hints, but if you just want to say hi there's plenty of room to write crap like "so bonely" next to a skeleton, or "terrible breath ahead" right before you enter a corridoor where a dragon breathes fire down it at you.
like, an absolutely played straight grimdark setting, but the player characters and various key friendly NPCs are the only ones who are like "...this shit is absolutely ridiculous oh my god" and just refuse to take the super-edgy crap seriously in any capacity, which is why the villains are trying to kill the players, they're upset that nobody takes their ridiculous "WOE IS ME I AM SO DARK AND EDGY" crap seriously.
final boss is defeated and right before they die the hero takes off their helmet, whips out a cellphone, and takes a selfie of themselves dabbing right in front of the bad guy's face as he's on the floor just to capture his look of absolute disgust.
I mean sure you've got "horse but hole" and "don't give up, skeleton!" from actual darksouls games but that's IN SPITE of the seriousness of it, and like, the game should absolutely lean into the ridiculousness.
I see you favving that @outie :3
and like me you're probably imaginign like, a cutscene of the player character rounding a corner all casual like, seeing a huge bridge, and just like... deflating, facepalming. and then they hold up a hand, counting down from three to one, and RIGHT on cue, a dragon flies overhead, lands on the battlements opposite and roars threateningly, and they just throw their hands up in exasperation because OF COURSE there's a fucking dragon.