Soulslike - Discussion, News, Memes
This is a community for discussion, news, and memes pertaining to the video game sub-genre "soulslike".
Given Lemmy's size, the definition of soulslike may be treated relatively loosely. While games like the numerous FromSoft titles, the recent Star Wars Jedi games, Lies of P, Nioh and similar games should be the focus, games that incorporate soulslike elements - like Hollow Knight and Blasphemous, for example - may also be discussed here.
Basic Lemmy-quette applies. Additionally, since flairs don't exist yet, please do make sure to include a marker to denote what game your post is about in square brackets for clarity's sake. An example could be:
[BB] This enemy is so difficult!
or
[DS1] Anyone struggling with the gargoyles?
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Should you have any questions, please do let me know.
- Druid
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It's an interesting question. I am definitely more of a general gamer who sometimes plays Soulslikes, rather than a full-blooded Souls gamer. And that's not really been changing recently, if anything the ratio is slipping. I've said it before but there is definitely a concern in the back of my head that I might be falling out of love with the genre. That appetite for bashing my head against a boss for days and days is really diminishing. I still love the type of exploration and level design a good Soulslike offers but... I might not be cut out for them anymore. I don't know. Maybe I just need a longer break until the next one.
So yeah, no Soulslikes for me right now. Although I was actually very very close to grabbing Hell Is Us on the Steam Summer Sale, but decided against it. I did buy five other games though so might dig into one of those, if I have any time between World Cup games and F1. Or maybe I'll keep playing Splinter Cell: Double Agent first, I finished the first mission today and might actually be getting into it a bit.
I feel somewhat similarly. To me, Souls like solved melee combat. If I play any game that has swords and the like, 3rd person melee combat, I expect it to play like a souls, if not, it is, in my opinion, a subpar design. But, combat is not all I want in a game, actually, these days, I care less and less about it. I've been having a hard time playing pure souls likes because just the combat is not enough to keep me entertained anymore, I haven't even finished Elden Ring because it just felt "samey". I wish we'd see more souls likes that innovate around other gameplay elements, Ashen was a game that particularly struck me as being an interesting direction to go, where combat rebuilds the world.
For me actually I think I'm the opposite. I've played a lot of Ninja Gaiden the past year, and coming back to Souls afterwards combat felt bland and stale. I've come to prefer a more active and proactive approach rather than the reactive paradigm of memorising patterns and pressing B for thirty seconds straight then R1 once and then repeating for ten minutes. In fact, I think claiming any 3rd person melee combat that isn't Souls is straight up subpar design is absolutely crazy.
Same here. Bloodborne is the only non-fully-reactive/more-proactive Souls, and no wonder it's considered by many as their favorite (including me).
I'm now playing Crimson Desert, and their fighting game approach to combat is incredible. I've played like 300 hours and I'm still discovering new moves and combos every now and then.