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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Probably won't be gaming much this weekend between the World Cup and F1, but definitely won't be playing any Soulslikes. Might plug away some more at Darkwood but... it's going slowly. Game does genuinely get to me, I don't really play for long periods at a time. I love the setting, the story, the characters, pretty much all of it. It just stresses me out to play. I will typically get through a single day/night cycle then breathe out and exit and do something else, haha. And also it's really fucking difficult. I still don't know if I have it in me to actually beat the thing, even though I'm very glad to have played it.
So I started Lost Odyssey yesterday on Xenia Edge. Unfortunately I'm having some performance issues that I need to look at or this might be unplayable, which would be a shame. Otherwise it's been pretty much exactly what I expected: "I can't believe it's not Final Fantasy"-the game. It has some interesting art direction and design which sits in that patented JRPG space where you're not sure whether it's cool or ridiculous, and the story opening has been alright if nothing too special. I do wish it looked a bit better though, while it's graphically pretty impressive for its period it's from the peak of that grey-brown design era and not even RTX HDR can save it from looking incredibly drab and dull. But maybe this is just the first area.
As for favourite cheese, the dung pie kill on Capra Demon you already mentioned is an absolute classic, that's probably the first one we all think of.
My other immediate thought is killing Nameless King (phase 2) with a bow. If you keep far away from him he just slowly walks towards you menacingly and throws out the occasional easily dodged ranged attack and you can kind of just stay away and plink him down with a bow.
Darkwood definitely isn't a cozy game. I haven't played in a bit too, but I'd usually play for like 1h, maybe 2 at a time until I need a break. I haven't died yet and am yet to leave the first area of the map, so there's probably lots I haven't seen and experienced yet, but I'll get there sometime soon, I'm sure.
The 2010s are certainly guilty of that colour palette, damn. Add in a yellow-tint filter on top and you've got your average shooter.
That cheese sounds fun! I feel like ranged weapons in general are underutilised in soulslikes already. Weapons like Simon's Bowblade from Bloodborne add a little variety to the very melee-leaning weaponry.
It feels to me like soulslikes haven't really figured out the balance of how to have an interesting ranged weapon that can coexist with melee weapons. Monster Hunter figured out, and I'd say they share a couple of similarities when it comes to combat.
Yeah, cozy is probably the exact opposite of what Darkwood is haha. "Oppressive and stressful" is more like what I'm feeling. I'm in the second area still but I've also been watching Mapocolops playthrough of it because I want to see at least one ending of it and I'm not sure I have it in me to beat it as I said. And I can tell you the game just keeps getting worse and harder. It's actually well balanced in that way, that despite you getting more and better weapons it never really gets that much easier. Though maybe playing on controller is just way worse than KBM. I definitely struggle more with aiming and dodging than Mapocolops does. You definitely have a lot more to discover, I won't spoil anything but it feels like the second area is where things really starts to happen in terms of characters and story and world. Although the wedding in the first area was awesome too.
I guess I should play Monster Hunter at some point, that is a franchise I'm not familiar with. How do they adapt their bosses so that both melee and archers can have interesting fights?
I've tried playing with a controller for like 5 minutes and found the controls to be pretty clunky tbh. It didn't feel precise enough vs MKB.
I'm not sure if I like that the difficulty keeps up with your getting stronger, but I guess I wouldn't fit the vibe the game is going for if you could just plough your way to the end like in Diablo (bar being too scared by the game). I'll stay optimistic.
It used to be that ranged weapons had the highest DPS and didn't have a lot of counterplay to them. Similarly to souls games, you can stagger monsters if you deal enough damage, either by breaking parts of their bodies or just dealing enough damage in general. For really high kill times, you'd have four hunters stand in a circle around the monster and shoot them with their Heavy Bowguns for insane amounts of damage. In later installments, some monsters got quite a lot of mobility - think dashes, jumps, teleports even - to close the gap to ranged hunters. Given that you'd fight the monster across the entire map, following them from area to area with sometimes drastically different environments and verticality, you could either win out and have some kinda ledge to shoot from or your stuck in a very flat area with barely any cover to hide behind, so you're more likely to get hit. Stronger monsters sometimes have huge AOE attacks that could one-shot you as a ranged hunter if you're not careful. It was only recently changed that ranger hunters had to have a gunner armour vs a blademaster armour with lower resistances and defense to balance out their ranged DPS.
Similarly to Souls, ranged weapons played a little monotonous and one-dimensional, unfortunately. Across the three ranged weapons there used to be (maybe there's more now - haven't kept up with newer titles), you'd only have different types of ammo and coatings for your arrows for a bow and essentially the same kinda moves to attack with. In later games, additional moves have been introduced, kinda similar to Fable Arts in Lies of P or Ashes of War in ER, that spiced up the gameplay and allowed for more customisation and personalisation. Other than that, melee weapons were always and will likely remain the favourites among fans - they are just more fun and play better. Plus you're in the thick of things like in soulslikes which is the main drive of playing these games in the first place, I feel like.
Hope that answers your question somewhat :)
I might try KBM then, although I do like being able to lean back with the controller. Helps me relax a bit which is kinda needed haha.
I mean, some things do just make it easier like inventory upgrades and better tools like flashlights and such. But the threats also keep getting more challenging, the nights get tougher and hideouts more open and less defensible. So you never really feel safe. Though I suspect if you get really comfortable with the dodge and melee swing timing you could probably defuse a lot of the danger of most enemies.
Thank you for a super detailed explanation. Though from the sounds of it it seems like they still haven't figured out how to make the fights interesting for both melee and ranged then, if most people prefer melee? Which I completely understand - like you say it's central to the fantasy most people are looking for to be swinging a weapon in the face of a boss.
That's probably why we don't see too many bosses with specific ranged movesets meant to be engaging for archers. Whatever that would look like. It's a huge design demand for very little reward considering most players want to melee anyway. Better just add some gap closers and make ranged a non-issue.
There are plenty of games that have both satisfying melee and ranged, but I don't know if any of them have Souls (or Monster Hunter) style bosses. Maybe I'm forgetting something?