this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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Soulslike - Discussion, News, Memes
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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.
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[BB] This enemy is so difficult!
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[DS1] Anyone struggling with the gargoyles?
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Good analysis, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I can only speak from personal experience that I didn't vibe a lot with farming vials just to give a boss another try. It kind of makes sense to balance out the amount of vials you get, but I felt it didn't add to the challenge, personally, but rather made the game more tedious and annoying at times. If I want to keep bashing my head in against a boss because I'm stubborn and don't want to let up, that should be my perogative to decide and not the game's. It feels a little like an arcade machine gating me from further playing the game because I didn't throw in another quarter.
Don't get me wrong - Bloodborne sits in my top 3 favourite soulslikes. But I think they could have done without non-replenishing healing items and it wouldn't have made the game worse in the slightest. There are a lot of different mechanics in soulslikes that add to the challenge of the game without adding artificial scarcity to a required item that you use on the regular. For example, it makes sense that Beast Pellets are non-replenishing because they're not an integral part of the gameplay loop like healing items are unless you know what you're doing and/or are speed running the game. Same with the sugars in Sekiro.
Didn't like it a lot in Demon's Souls either where it was a lot more of a problem to me because the levels themselves were really difficult to navigate through vs. the bosses themselves.
In the end, the game is still fantastic. I just think a lot of players bounced off the game simply because healing needs to be farmed for.
It's the only one I know well. Isn't it also unique that you can heal yourself by doing damage? It stands to reason they'd look for a way to balance that mechanic with scarcer healing artifacts.
That's something I thought of too, yes. The rally(e?) mechanic allows you to regain the damage you have been dealt within a certain time frame. It's like the red portion of your health in Monster Hunter games which you regenerate when not taking damage for some time, but here you need to go in for damage.
Visceral attacks immediately heal that lost portion and with runes you can heal even more than the health you've lost.
It pushes you to be aggressive, and people who fail to adapt and over-rely on health potions are going to feel like they are being forced to grind. I liked the tension between wanting to heal, but wanting to conserve pots, and so trying to hang on for a free heal longer than I would otherwise. That gamble was important to the game, and there has to be a penalty that players don't like for that tension to exist. I feel like whatever mechanic they used would have drawn complaints, because not liking it is a feature of the mechanic, not a bug.
It's like wanting to have a novel with no antagonists, no people you don't like.
Different strokes for different folks in the end, I guess. Awesome that it worked out for you the way it did. I see where you're coming from. :)