Happy holidays to all who celebrate! I’m on Easter school break, so I have no sense of time at all - my apologies. A day late, here’s the discussion post:
Some voices in the community want to have a distinction between different types of souls-games - games by FS referred to as soulsborne, games that come close to FS soulslike, and games that just take inspiration from FS and take a couple mechanics here and there are soulslites.
The distinction is a little arbitrary, I feel like, but it helps further distinguish games by their main characteristics which in a vacuum is absolutely fine.
Games like Hollow Knight or Darksiders 3 come to mind because they clearly take inspiration from souls-games without outright going for that kind of game.
Mine would probably be Hollow Knight, mainly for the fact I haven’t played Silksong as much and because I haven’t played too many soulslites overall. It blends the metroidvania genre with souls elements really well - the, at times, depressing atmosphere while maintaining a sense of hope, the challenging combat, the cryptic storytelling… It’s a very well-made blend.
So what’s your favourite soulslite and why?
As for soulslikes I’m playing right now: nothing. Been tinkering with my new home server for the past week, so that’s been taking most of my free time I’d normally use for gaming. If I do play something, it’s still back to League and more Slay the Spire 2. What about you?
Are Monster Hunter games Soulslites? I’ve played quite a bit of Monster Hunter. As far as Action RPGs go they are kinda similar with the different weapon types and builds and at least for me the combat at times feels kinda similar (I pressed △ quite a bit during my first fight against Cleric Beast, because the transformed Saw Cleaver reminded my brain of the Longsword). The larger gameplay loop is not that similar so I’m really not sure if it counts. Still Monster Hunter games are fun Action RPGs.
I’ve not played a lot: irl stuff + low energy. I still want to use the rematch feature in LoP a bit and formulate my thoughts on the game. I’m currently lounging on my sofa and playing Pokémon on my phone; I just beat Crystal (love those sprites). That’s pretty far removed from Souls games.
I’ll be playing Blasphemous 2.
I’m normally not into 2-D games, but this one is so good!
Happy gaming!
How do you find it compared to the first Blasphemous? I only played the first one but I have pretty mixed feelings about it. Too much platforming combined with instant death hazards and a lot of stuff that felt like its main point was to be annoying and/or waste your time.
I loved the art, aesthetic, music, world building and story though.
Well, I never played the first one. But I can say the platforming in Blasphemous 2 feels very crisp. I haven’t encountered any instant death hazards so far, but I’m not even 1/3rd into the game. I can definitely recommend trying it!
And I absolutely adore the art style, aesthetic and world building as well. Such a beautiful game all around.
Tunic, absolutely! But I posted about that relatively recently here, so I’ll suggest another that I like. I think Hellblade counts? I really haven’t played many things that qualify as soulslite, but it has the tone and it’s a third person action game with dodge-and-stamina combat. I’ve actually not played all of it, as my old laptop could only barely run it and I hadn’t thought about it since building a PC. I will perhaps need to go see the rest of it, because I did enjoy what I played
Thank god I’m not religious so I’ll be playing to my hearts content.
I fired up Enotria. The lanscapes are so beautiful it is making me feel GUILTY about staying inside intead of going out and touching some proverbial grass :s
Strong POV and interesting mechanics. The environmental puzzles particularly are really cool. The italian va rules, but subtitles are too tiny, good thing I can make out some of whats’ been said.
Took 3 major bosses down and only one of those fights felt janky. (Of course I progressed in the wrong order and got surprised by one boss’ difficulty spike. Glad they are keeping those traditions alive.) it turned out for the best, as I got a sweet-ass, very useful weapon.
Kinda wish there were more friendly npc’s, so far I’ve only found one.
We’ll see how the rest goes
I’m glad you’re enjoying it! I’m always nervous when people buy games because of my recommendations because I get this anxiety of “oh no, what if my taste sucks and I made them waste their money”. Which I know sounds weird coming from someone who fiercely recommends games all the time but, I never claimed my brain makes sense.
The art direction and visuals really are fantastic, and the environments are well designed too and fun to explore. I think it has some interesting gameplay ideas too, the status conditions having both positive and negative aspects is a really fun concept.
Let me guess, you went to Vermiglio pretty early? I did as well and was similarly stumped for a bit. I think maybe the idea is to come back there later? His weapon is great though yeah, I used it quite a bit as a ranged option.
There are some more friendly NPCs to come, even some minor NPC quests to do as is tradition. None are as charismatic as Pulcinella though.
I trust your recs and I already was planning on playing this one. So no worries, I also trust my intuition… So far I’ve never been wrong going off of vibes with a game and precisely the focus on art and the different setting was the appeal to me.
you went to Vermiglio pretty early?
Yup, I was hoping for a jump in difficulty so I just thought that I’d gotten more than what I bargained for.
I was so ready to complain about how bullshit of a fight it was for a second boss tho, but… I also fought him without all the available flask upgrades and killed him with only 21 hp to spare and a well timed parry…
I had to snap a pic XD
. (Coming from sekiro, I kinda hate taking chip damage and the parry window feels tight for how fast some of the attacks come. )
Didn’t even see the path towards the upper part of the town, so when I noticed it was a dead end after beating the guy I had to backtrack to find it. In my defense, it was kinda late.
Good to hear there’ll be more npcs!
Quick question.
There was also this guy in a balcony in that first town area that looks like one of the perfoming actors you find, and I accidentally killed him before seeing that he was unarmed and non-hostile. After reloading he wouldn’t talk to me. was he also an npc with a questline?
I was so ready to complain about how bullshit of a fight it was for a second boss tho, but… I also fought him without all the available flask upgrades and killed him with only 21 hp to spare and a well timed parry…
Whew, well done! If I remember right I think I actually killed him at the same time as he killed me - also out of flasks - so similar small margins 😄 The phase transition ground swell you need to jump took me by surprise the first time and took a few attempts to understand I need to jump it. Also felt bullshit at first since it one-tapped me at that point.
. (Coming from sekiro, I kinda hate taking chip damage and the parry window feels tight for how fast some of the attacks come. )
I’m pretty sure the chip damage comes from which parry gem you have equipped? I think the physical parry gem gives chip damage when parrying magical attacks and the magic parry gem chip damage on magical attacks. Later on there is a gem you can get that parries everything but has a tighter parry window.
You also take chip damage on an imperfect parry, but those are hard to spot since you also stagger a bit.
Didn’t even see the path towards the upper part of the town, so when I noticed it was a dead end after beating the guy I had to backtrack to find it. In my defense, it was kinda late.
I was the same I think! But the town is pretty maze-like with tons of winding paths so it’s easy to miss. Although I love that part of it. Fun verticality too, both with the way the town is on a hillside and all the rooftops.
There was also this guy in a balcony in that first town area that looks like one of the perfoming actors you find, and I accidentally killed him before seeing that he was unarmed and non-hostile. After reloading he wouldn’t talk to me. was he also an npc with a questline?
I don’t think so. I did all the NPCs quests on my NG+ and I don’t remember that being one of them. Did he have a lute?
I think what offended me the most about Vermiglio whas the heal… But that was Gratia weapon status effect I think. Damn it
I’m pretty sure the chip damage comes from which parry gem you have equipped?
Ooh right, probably. I was still too sekiro-pilled trying to parry everything. ( 𖦹‸𖦹) So far, I still have only the basic 3 and purchased a red one in the hub. But from thr description that one doesn’t looks like it parries everything.
And yeah the fact that I’m missing stuff is a huge positive in my book. It’s the mark of interesting level design for me.
Npc guy was just standing there, no lute. Phew
I played a little of it at GamesCom two years ago and it was kinda disappointing. It looked nice, but it felt so clunky. Is the gameplay smoother than what I’ve seen?
I never played it at Gamescom so I can’t tell for sure. It never felt unplayable for me though, it’s just not something you play for the smooth combat on its own. It’s definitely janky AA territory, but I have pretty high tolerance of that and charming AA eurojank has its own appeal to me.
You play it for the art direction, visuals, cool world and theme, music, beautiful environments and different vibe. The combat is just kind of there and still a serviceable Soulslike at the end of it. I had a good time playing around with the elemental system, the mask switching and the active abilities. The game is also only about 25h so it doesn’t wear out its welcome.
If you’re a combat purist or have strict AAA polish standards you might not enjoy it.
I wouldn’t even call myself a combat purist, but the combat should feel somewhat good and clean. I don’t want the game to “stand in my way” of having fun via combat, if that’s makes sense. Definitely not one to shy away from AA games in general for sure
It depends on what you mean by stand in your way I suppose. There’s still dodging and parrying to be done and bosses killed. Ultimately most Soulslikes are just varying degrees of pressing Circle at the right time and R1 at the right time and you get to do some of that here. There are definitely titles with higher production values though if you want fancier more cinematic fights, like DS3 and ER.
I enjoyed it for the different vibes and unique environments and ideas, but Soulslikes is probably the most oversaturated genre on the market the past decade so if those things don’t appeal to you and you don’t like jank then it’s not like you’re running out of other options.
It’s not terrible; but It could be so much more polished. I’m playing mostly for the vibes and because Coelacanth gave it his seal of approval but warned me to keep my expectations within the (I’m paraphrasing) ‘AA, kinda janky game’ zone.
I don’t know if they have updated the combat since you tried it. If it was already out, probaby not.
For someone looking for a smooth experience, yeah this 'aint it.
Which is totally fine too. Not every game is for everyone
Does Armoured Core 6 count? Probably not, but I recently beat it.
Surely Hollow Knight is a full-on Soulslike? What is lite about it? Doesn’t it have both the difficult combat, punishing design and upgrade currency lost on death/enemy respawn on checkpoint activation?
Personally I am not fussed about distinguishing between Soulsborne and Soulslike, but I do think the Soulslite moniker is useful - increasingly so as more games come out that are souls inspired but not true Soulslikes. I haven’t played enough of them to have any favourites though, I was sort of facetiously calling Rise of the Ronin a Soulslite earlier because it does borrow some elements, but I think it’s a stretch to even call it that. One name that tends to come up in the Soulslite talk is Flintlock, which I own thanks to a humble bundle but haven’t played yet.
This weekend I’ll probably not play too much as I’ll have some family commitments for Easter, but I hope to get some more progress in Withering Rooms if I can. Game is absolutely stellar, seriously if it is even half your vibe I recommend checking it out. It’s not really a Soulslike but it has plenty of appeals that overlap with things people love about Dark Souls: dark atmosphere, weird NPCs, interesting lore, secrets, punishing combat, story partly told through item descriptions, exploration-heavy gameplay… It’s seriously fantastic.
Since it’s a metroidvania first and foremost I think it’s fair to say souls-lite, so it’s core style and mechanics get properly highlighted.
Maybe, although Soulslike Metroidvanias are so common now that Soulsvania is basically its own genre at this point. And I think Hollow Knight is way too punishing to earn the Lite classification, it has all the hallmarks of a true Soulslike except it’s also a 2D Metroidvania.
Soulsvania.
I’m so out of touch, of course that’s a term/ genre now.
I’ll adopt it.
I haven’t played too many of them, next on the docket is probably giving GRIME another shot but yeah. It’s a very popular genre for indie developers. I feel like there is a new announcement of an upcoming Soulsvania every other month over at !metroidvanias@infosec.pub and I have probably a half dozen of them wishlisted on Steam.
Getting into No Rest for the Wicked again. Played it when it first came out in early access and it has come a very long way since then. Not totally Soulslike but the influence is obvious. They pull mechanics from so many games and you can tell it is made by people who love gaming - plus the art design is fantastic. Wouldn’t hesitate to recommend even though it is still maybe a year from full release.
The little I’ve seen of this one looks super fun. Hopefully the console port doesn’t take too long after the full reelease
