Dark Souls

Oh. I'd heard Sekiro likened to a "ninja Dark Souls."

Is that William guy still the protagonist in Nioh 2?

I had a friend who played Hollow Knight. Weird to think of a 2D artsy platformer as a "souls-like."

Surge was bleh. It had a cool idea, but fell to repetitiveness, area not feeling distinctive enough, and and overall not really bringing anything new past the first area. It wasn't bad per se, but I like dark souls 2 more.

Bloodborne and Sekiro are probably my two favorites. Bloodborne for the atmosphere, lore and visuals, Sekiro for just how fun it is to master the gameplay despite a very rough start.

I really hope the PC port rumors of Bloodborne are true. Playing it at 60fps on my PC would be great, especially since I can't justify buying a PS 4.

I'd say RPG with a harsh but rewarding combat system and an emphasis on knowing enemy moves, some form of limited resources between checkpoints (obviously this isn't totally universal, it's POSSIBLE in various games to get infinite healing) that will reset the level or portions of the level, rewarding exploring your environments, and boss battles.

Preferably without too much in the way of missions or fetch quests or the like. Your goal is to get from A to B, if you kill everything or not.

x3 No, William isn't the protagonist in Nioh 2, it's a prequel. Instead, fully customisable character! I love the character creator in it.

Edited by RainehDaze on Sep 6th 2020 at 11:46:54 AM

I'd also say a metroid-inspired level design with lots of shortcuts and connecting paths, and an emphasis on telling it's story through environmental cues rather than cutscenes, although those are secondary elements (Nioh instead went for a cutscene-heavy approach and still qualifies)

And it's not a hard-and-fast rule, but generally a dreary and depressing setting with a scattered plot that's told mainly through ambiance, isolated info and level design rather than many infodump cutscenes.

As a subgenre of Action-RPGs I feel like there's a point where you need to distinguish between the same sort of thing from gameplay, and the same sort of thing from tone, rather than combining both and saying that they're a requirement.

The Surge has a cool idea (many moons ago, before that game was out, the idea of a scifi Dark Souls was discussed here, and the idea of basing gear around an exoskeleton was mentioned), but yeah, ultimately didn't grab me much.

And yes, I consider Bloodborne to be a Souls/Soulsborne game; it's made by the same devs, and is close enough to the original formula that it's not "like" a Souls game, to me. Sekiro is different enough that I don't consider it a Souls game, though of course there are similarities, and if anything I think Sekiro holds onto Soulsborne mechanics when it probably would have been better off without them.

Don't think I have much to add to what defines a Soulslike, but yeah, combat and level design are key. Combat emphasises skill over stats or simply swinging till the target dies, and levels are usually a contiguous world with areas that loop back on themselves for shortcuts. Since Hollow Knight was mentioned (a game I haven't got around to playing), being 3D is not a requirement of a Soulslike (Blasphemous also qualifies, I think). A dark fantasy theme is common but not essential.

As for Soulslike games I've enjoyed, Ashen is pretty nice. Combat isn't as varied as is usual in a Soulslike (weapons all feel kinda the same to use, and there's no magic), but the world has a bit of different feel; where most Soulslikes depict a world in some stage of collapse, Ashen is about rebuilding after an age of darkness.

Right now I'm also enjoying Mortal Shell, which, while a little rough around the edges, brings more interesting and new ideas to combat than any other Soulslike I know of.

Edited by artfulscruff on Sep 7th 2020 at 8:00:05 PM

We don't have a Demon's Souls thread so I'm dropping this here instead. We get to see more areas and a few bosses like Flamelurker and Armored Spider.

I have to say, while in a vacuum the game has great visual polish I kinda prefer the original on an aesthetic level, excess bloom and all.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Sep 16th 2020 at 4:56:46 AM

Talk gameplay details to me though, what's going on with the mechanics? Is item burden in the bin (it fucking better be)? Can you still gather too many healing items? Other things I can't think of specifically right now, but in general all the improvements they've made to the formula since the original Demon's Souls.

I don't think we have any news about specific gameplay tweaks right now but we could get some soon.

Its also gonna be on PC later, too.

I swear they have to fix world tendency to not drive people insane.

Very good news, happy that I don't have to miss out on this.

I think world tendency staying the same as it originally was is very unlikely. It was a very obtuse and poorly implemented system that meant newer players were punished the hardest while more skilled players who wanted to see more of the game had to tediously manipulate world tendency in a specific way to see certain bits of content.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Sep 16th 2020 at 5:42:42 AM

Do they... not want to drive people insane?

No it doesn't. At least until further information contradicts this again, you can forget PC demon souls outside of emulation for a while.

Edited by Yumil on Sep 16th 2020 at 12:38:56 PM

Well that's a bummer.

It really is. I was just thinking it'd be nice to be able to skip emulation to play this one.

I highly doubt a PC version got miscommunicated into existence. More likely Sony want to emphasize the exclusive in timed exclusive to sell consoles.

I mean, I certainly wish this is what will happen, but until I hear an actual announcement, I'm not gonna get my hopes up.

I've already played Demon's Souls and still own my original PS 3 copy, I even got it working on emulator at 60 FPS, so it isn't the end of the world if it doesn't come to PC, but it would be nice to experience a potentially better version of a game I enjoy.

I really hope the Bloodborne PC rumors are true, though.

Considering Bloodborne is part of the PS Plus Collection I highly doubt a PC version is coming for a bit.

I'm surprised no one said it: Demon's Souls is a launch title for the PS5.

This finally my opportunity to play this game

The only bad thing about the remake is the strange font change for YOU DIED. I admit it's sort of nitpicky, because everyone else about the remake I love.