Five years ago or so when the glut of soulslike games really started taking off, I was intrigued. I tried most of them, and I didn’t like any of them. I have listed them in the past so I’m not going to do it again. Every time, I went into the game with hope in my heart. Every time, I was disappointed and shook my head (metaphorically) as I set it down.
Fast-forward five years, and I am done with the genre. DONE. I am so over it. Now, I sigh heavily when I hear the phrase ‘soulslike’, and while I may try the game, I know I probably won’t enjoy it. I did not like Lies of P (Round8 Studio/NEOWIZ), which I did finish; Lords of the Fallen (Hexworks); and I really did not like the demo for The First Berserker: Khazan (Neople). I played maybe an hour of it before metaphorically hurling it into the trash.
In fact, I can’t think of one that I really liked. I enjoyed Salt and Sanctuary (Ska Studios), but immediately forgot about it once I was finished (which was halfway through a second playthrough). The reason I liked it so much, though, was because it hewed so closely to the Dark Souls formula.
The reason I don’t like the vast majority of soulslikes is because they focus on making their game hard–which is the least-interesting aspect of the From games to me. I put up with those things in a From game because the level design is beyond compare. And I just like the whole gestalt of the games.
Yes, when I played the three Dark Souls games and Bloodborne, I bought into the ‘you must solo the bosses’ mentality. And in Sekiro, you have to solo the bosses because there is no multiplayer. Elden Ring broke me of that because there was no way I was going to do that shit again.
The reason I’m musing about this is because there’s yet another soulslike coming out. It’s called WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers (LEENZEE), and it’s from China. It is heavily influenced by FromSoft games–it’s easy to see from the trailers. I’m including the gameplay trailer, and the first boss the protag is fighting is the last boss from Sekiro, and it’s even in a similar field. And it’s tagline is ‘Nothing is Forever’. That has BIG ‘Shadows Die Twice’ energy.
Side note: I HATE that they made the protag a walking sex doll. Yes, it’s a woman, and they clearly spent a lot of time on their jiggle physics. And they have several (I’m assuming) very skimpy outfits (I saw two). Come the fuck on. It’s 2025. Why the fuck are we still treating female characters like anime dolls? For fuck’s sake!