Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: soulslikes

Demos on my mind, part four

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Let’s talk more about demos. I have tried several more, and I do think the fun of plowing through a half-dozen demos has considerably dimmed. I’m still looking for that hidden gem, but there is just SO much slop. I think I have found one decent game for every twenty crappy games I see. I was talking yesterday about things that seem to be missing from so many games, and I want to continue that in this post.

One thing that I’ve noticed is how many copycat games there are. This is to be expected and it’s not just limited to games, of course. Anything that becomes popular gets hundreds of others trying to copy what made them popular. The problem is that most of the copies if not all of them fail to get to the heart of what made the original special.

I will use FromSoft as an example because they fit the brief perfectly. When they first came out with Demon’s Souls, there were more naysayers than supporters. In that time, games very very much hand-holdy and making sure that the player felt overpowered and unable to die. In fact, dying was made pretty toothless with the ability to respond without any negative effect becoming the standard.

FromSoft (especially Miyazaki) came along and said, “Nah, fuck that shit, yo.” Not those words in particular, but the sentiment. Demon’s Souls was hard and gave no quarter. I have not played it, but I have seen others play it. It’s hard and grueling as you would expect from a From game. More to the point, it does not coddle the player.

You could say the same for Dark Souls, which I have played.  Several times. Both Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls grew to be cult favorites, and Miyazaki was pressured to porting the latter to PC. It was awful. A really terrible port. It’s only because of a mod called dsfix that anyone could play it on the PC at something resembling ok. Because of that, I did not have to experience the Blighttown slowdown (it ran at literally 2 fps for some people).

Fast-forward to 2021 when FromSoft released the biggest game of the year, Elden Ring. It became a huge commercial hit, and it’s what made them cross the rubricon (heh) from niche to mainstream. In the time between Demon’s Souls and Elden Ring, their success has spawned countless soulslikes. A few have been good, while the vast majority have been serivecable, bad, or horrid.

This is the way it goes when something hit sthe cultural conscienceness. There are a bunch of lemmings in any industry (and shareholders desperate to jump on the latest trend–see the debacle of the live service nonsense of the last year), and they will milk the shit out of a trend until there is nothing left but a limp, lifeless husk. In the first few years after Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, there were no copies, obviously. Then the first Lords of the Fallen (Deck13 and CI Games) came out in 2014, and it was the first Souls clone (at least of any notability).


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Talking more about soulslikes

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Let’s talk a bit more about soulslikes. I brought up WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers (LEENZEE) yesterday beacuse it’s coming out soon, and the RKG Discord is going mad over it. Supposedly, a games journalist said that it’s to Dark Souls what Lies of P did for Bloodborne, and several people in the Discord were so hyped about it.

Once again, I felt as if I were a weirdo in a weird world. I have heard enough good things about it that I’m mildly curious, but I also know what’s going to happen. If I have any hope in my heart, it’ll be ruthlessly stomped on as I play the game.

Side note: The game is on Game Pass. Aaaargh. That makes it way too easy to try it out. In fact, that’s how I played Lies of P (Round8 Studio/NEOWIZ)–yes, the whole game. And Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sanfall Interactive).

This game has been universally praised as one of the best (if not the best) soulslikes to date. That is quite high praise, indeed. The Backlogs, a channel I watch sporadically, did a video on whether he could beat the game with magic. Since I heard from another YouTuber that the magic gets less useful as you go along, I am keen to hear what The Backlogs has to say. But, the video is over an hour long, and he was asked by the developer to break the game. And he could show everything but the ending.

I’ve included the video below. I’m about fifteen minutes in, but I don’t know how much I’ll watch. If I am going to play the game, I don’t want to spoil myself too much. In fact, if I do play it, I have watched more than I normally would before playing a game.

I’m installing it. Yes, even someone as jaded as I am can still have hope, apparently. Even though I have been disappointed countless times before, I still want to believe that the next game will be different.

I will say that I’m glad there’s transmogrification beacuse I just cannot with the ridiculous armor. It makes me angry that this is still a thing in 20 fucking 25.

I think, though, that my time with soulslikes is coming to an end. I have not enjoyed a single one since Salt and Sanctuary (Ska Studio), and I only finished Lies of P because of my stubborn pride. I cheesed my way through it, and I did not feel a sense of accomplishment at the end. I have no desire to try the DLC, and a large part of that is because i would have to play the game again in order to get there. Roughly two-thirds of the game, at any rate. And, yes, they put in different modes, but still. Also, I would have to pay for it because it’s not on Game Pass any longer.


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I am over the soulslike genre

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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!


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Love/hate relationship with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

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I know I have written a lot about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive), and I have more to say about it. I’m stlil playing, but the dichotomy I felt when I first started playing it has only grown. I would say I have a love/hate relationship with the game, but it’s really the combat. I’ll get to that in a second.

I got to the end of the first act and was hit with an emotional stunner (cutscene). It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. I teared up and thought, “Surely, they aren’t doing–that?” I don’t know why as it made thematic sense, but it came out of the blue for me.

They earned the moment, storywise. I do not begrudge them that, but on the other hand, I’m not crazy about the story. I find it barely serviceable and not as clever as they think it is. In fact, if it wasn’t for the absolutely phenomenal voice acting, I would call the story mediocre. But, because of how incredible the acting is, it elevates the story much more than it deserves.

And the moment is clearly a ‘move my face to hit your fist’ moment. In other words, it was backwards engineered because they wanted to reach a certain conclusion. The more I thought about it, the less pleased I was by it (which is why I don’t like TV and movies). The moment was still powerful (well, it would have been more so if it wasn’t mired down with a really weird boss fight), but even as I was watching it, I was very aware that it was a created moment.

Again, the acting itself was incredible. I cannot gush enough about the actors in this game. They gave it their all and while i had my doubts about Sciel, it was the character and not the voice actor (Shala Nyx). The character grew on me, and while she’s not one of my favorites, she’s an integral part of the party.

Speaking of, things have really escalated in the second act. There are two new characters in the party, and the latter (while having a gorgeous voice) introduces a completely new attack system as well. Oh, and there’s another defensive move, too. At least that comes with a visual cue. The gradient attack, though, I have no clue what it actually is or how to do it–even though I did the tutorial for it and for the newest party member as well.

At this point, my brain went, “I think I’m good.” I was already have problems with the combat; I did not need more things added to it. I still don’t undrestand how to use Maelle and her stances, though, I will admit I have her doing high fire damage only beacuse I loaded her down with fire skills.


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Soulslikes are not for me (part three)

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We’re talking more aobut soulslikes and why I’m on the cusp of giving up on them. Before I get into that, though, I have to say that I talked a bit with Ian about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive), and his opinion is more in-line with mine than with other people’s. He’s enjoying it and thinks it’s gorgeous (no one has a bad word to say about the graphics and art direction), but he’s more circumspect about the combat. And he made a comment that validated my own half-baked thoughts on the combat. This is for people who like Kingdom Hearts and such. as I said in yesterday’s post, it’s a French homage to JRPGs. Which have never been my thing.

I try to avoid many of the fights because they get in the way of my exploring, and I dislike the combat so much. I am in the fifth or sixth major biome of the first act, which means new enemy types. There is one kind that holds its attack for so long, I don’t think it’s ever going to attack. There is one enemy who made a repeat appearence because it was summoned by a Petank to protect it during its boss fight. It does three super-fast hits in a row. I can’t even dodge it let alone parry. By the third or so time I had to fight it, I got the timing down a little better. I could dodge one of three or four attacks.

Sigh.

Petank is optional (and one of the recurring field bosses), but I’m stubborn. I know I can do them, so I tried again. And again. And yet again. They all have different gimmicks. This one’s is that it summons other enemies to guard it (one per turn). After failing to kill Petank three times (he flees after a certain number of turns), I did a quick look up. Wthi this particular Petank, the suggestion was to kill the other enemies with counters as quickly as possible. SIGH. Fine. I hunkered down and did my best to parry. One enemy summoned has one attack that is fairly easy to parry. The other one summoned often was the enemy who is so fast, I can’t actually see the attacks. I hate that enemy. That’s the one I mentioned above. By the end, I was able to parry it about half the time. Still not great, but much better than before.

Once Ian confirmed that the game was more JRPG than a soulslike, everything made sense. The combat, even with the parry, is not very soulslike with all the min-maxing you have to do and all the turn-based actions. I will say that I like the turn-based part of the combat much more than I thought I would. I like being able to think out what I’m going to do without being attacked, to be honest. On the other hand, I still have only a vague idea of all the different components of each attack working together. I know that you’re supposed to build on the element in your weapon, but I choose the skills I like rather than what element it’s based on.


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More about soulslikes and why I don’t like them (part two)

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I have more to say about soulslikes and why I don’t like them in general. Yes, this was spurred by me playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive), but I’m done talking about that specific game for now. I probably will bring it up later, but right now, let’s just talk about soulslikes in general.

The first soulslike was the first Lords of the Fallen is 2014 (Deck13 and CI Games). It was slow and clunky, and they did not understand what made Dark Souls special. They made the bosses really hard, but not interesting. Well, to be fair, I think I did two bosses. And they sucked.

The game did have an interesting mechanic where  after you lost your souls (or whatever they were called in that game), you had a timer for how long you had to collect them. And by interesting, I meant bullshit. They made The Surge after this game*, which I really like.d It also had the mechanic, but I just ignored it. Most of the time, I would never make it to where I had previously died, anyway.

The Lords of the Fallen (2014) just felt so sluggish. They misinterpreted deliberate combat for slow movements. Their enemies and bosses were damage sponges, and the magicks were useless–at least in the portion of the game I played.

By the way, CI Games SE, the developers of the current The Lords of the Fallen as well are absolute pricks. I regret buying their game, and I will never buy another game from them again. And their second game was shit. There. I said it. I did not get on with it at all, but I do not want to talk about it so I’ll leave it there.

I tried most of the soulslikes that came out. Or at least a good chunk of them. I will list several of them to show the variety. Deep breath: The Lords of the Fallen (2014) (Deck13, CI Games). The Lords of the Fallen (2023) (CI Games SE). Ashen (A44 Games), Salt and Sanctuary (Ska Studios), Remnant (both) (Gunfire Games), DarkMaus (Daniel Wright), The Surge (both) (Deck13), Mortal Shell (Cold Symmetry), Lies of P (Round8 Studio/Neowiz Games), Hollow Knight (Team Cherry), Nioh (both) (Team Ninja), Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty (Team Ninja), Blasphemous (The Game Kitchen)–to name a few.

I have finished The Surge, Salt and Sanctuary, and Lies of P. I have almost finished The Surge 2. The rest I have played anywhere from a few hours to half the game. I thoroughly enjoyed Salt and Sanctuary, but I immediately forgot it once I was done with it (played one complete playthrough and one mostly-finished playthrough). It was so much like Dark Souls, but in a cute chibi 2D style. There was even a hunter starting class with a whip.

It did not have the depth that FromSoft games have, but it was immensely enjoyable as a mage/caster. It sucked, however, as a melee player, and that’s why I quit my second playthroughh. I can remember the boss I rage-quit against, which I had absolutely no trouble with as a caster. Weirdly, it was a magic user boss that tripped me up.


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Musings about soulslikes in general

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I’ve been playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive), and I have written several ‘quick looks’ about it. Here’s the last one, which is part four. I have mentoined that my interest wanes with each play session (I can now play for two hours at a time rather than just one, but it’s still less than I can play, say, a FromSoft game).

By the way, people are talking about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 in very lofty terms. not just Game of the Year, but also a game that starts its own genre. Which, ah, I’m willing to believe that I’m wrong about it, buut it just did not strike me as that kind of game. Even knowing that it’s a special game and much better than I perceive it to be myself. I don’t think it’s going to be a genre-setter, but as I said, I could be very wrong about it.

Before I go on with the topic of this post, I want to say that I met the best NPC in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and I will do whatever I need to do to protect him. It was much needed, too, as the storyline was lagging. Again, that’s partly my fault because of how much I’m dawdling and re-treading old environments.

But, it’s a bit draggy in parts. And a bit obscure. I know, I know, the name and all, and they are huge fans of FromSoft–who are masters of being obtuse. But there’s a difference between being obtuse with a purpose and being obtuse just to be obtuse, and I feel like this game is the latter. There are small cut-scenes called Maelle’s Nightmares, and if they’re going where I think they’re going, then I have to take back a lot of the credit I gave them for their narrative.

I also am a bit disappointed in the fourth party member. Her voice actor doesn’t quite hit the mark in my opinion, and this character is jarring. To be fair, the voice actor is probably doing the voice the way she was asked to do it. I read that the character is meant to be upbeat and positive, despite her tragic past (and, I’m assuming, the events that happened at the start of the game). I get it, but it just doesn’t fit.

In the beginning, there was some wry joking between Gustave and Lune, which fit their relationship. It walked a fine line between a needed lightening of the mood and ill-landing comic relief. Maelle is on the gloomier side and a bit too sarcastic for me, but she’s fine in general. This new character, though, she just does not mesh with the party (to me). I use her in the fighting because I love her style even if I don’t quite understand it yet, but–wait.


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My ideal soulslike, maybe, part two

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This is the second post about my ideal soulslike. Here is the first post from yesterday in which I managed to list 3 things that I would/would not include. The platforming thing is a big one. In fact, if I were the monarch for the day, I would decree that no non-platforming games could have platforming in it. Period. I’ve just had too many non-platforming games cram platforming in them, and none of them have been any good. Again, I know this is partly my own issues, but it’s so fucking frustrating.

Back to what I want in a soulslike.

4. Bring something new to the table. This is a tricky one because there are some unspoken rules that have to be followed for soulsikes devs. Bonfires, souls as XP/monies, etc. The names may be different, but they have to be there. Another is run/dodge on B. This is one of my gripes with Stranger in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. Run/dodge is on A, and that ain’t ever going to happen. I believe it’s the same with Nioh 2, if I remember correctly. It’s because they want to put one of the three blocks on B (the other two are on LB and…LT in certain circumstances), which is irritating as fuck. As a result, I rarely use dodge or run in Stranger in Paradise. No, you can’t change it–at least there’s no way to change it that I’ve found. And I hate it.

Back when Salt and Sanctuary (Ska Studio) came out, there was one control scheme–this was on the PS whatever it came out on. The run/dodge was on LT. Er, L2. L. Fucking. 2. That was fucking bullshit and so many people pointed it out By the time it came out on PC, you could change the controls. Which is how every game should be. There is no excuse in this day and age not to let people reconfig their buttons.

Sheesh.

Back to bringing something new to the table. This is the reason it’s so tricky. Yes, they have to do something that isn’t just iterative, but stray too far, and it’s no longer a soulslike. You can’t get fans to agree what makes a soulslike a soulslike, exactly, but they sure as hell know when a game isn’t doing it right.

Lies of P (Round8 Studio/NEOWIZ) is held up as a recent soulslike that nailed it. The thing is, though, it’s really iterative. When RKG streamed the demo, they were commenting on how close to a From game it was. “Taking the piss” was muttered more than once by the lads. I learned you can’t sue for infringement in most cases in game development (unless it’s the stealing of assets), which means you can pretty much copy a game beat for beat and not have to worry about it. Which is what Lies of P did.


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My ideal soulslike, maybe

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Talking about Stranger in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (Team NINJA) in the last several posts as well as about soulslikes in general has made me muse about what would actually be my ideal soulslike. Here’s the last post I wrote about SiP: FFO. I mention it because I am stil playing Killing Chaos (it’s alternate name. I kid, but it should have been), and I am trying so hard to love it. I just can’t, though, and I’m thinking about why that is.That led me to thinking about how I would build the ideal soulslike if I were a game developer. Here’s a list of what must be included, in no particular order.

1. Intricate and elaborate level design. Look. This is why I play the games. I know that makes me sound like a wanker, but so be it. It also makes me sound like one of those snobby elitist who doesn’t want to admit that I play the games because of the hard bosses. For me, though, this is what kept me going when I first played Dark Souls, despite how much I struggled with the game. It was the oppressive environments with a few brighter ones sprinkled in. It was the subtle but exquisite breadcrumbing that leads the player in the right direction. From is not perfect by any means. I have gotten lost more times than I care to admit in a From game (some of that is my complete lack of a sense of direction), but for the most part, if I’m observant enough, I can find the right way to go.

You can usually guess which of the three paths is the main path and which is a side path. Except in the beginning of the game in which there are three paths and two of them are for the much later game. From apologists will say that Miyazaki hallmarked that the two later-game areas are earmarked by their difficulty, but that’s retconning in my opinion. What is the one thing people know about the games–people who haven’t played them, I mean? That the games are fucking hard. This has also been retconned by longtime fans to say that, no, the games aren’t hard–you just have to learn how to play them properly. I mean…that’s every fucking game! To an extent.


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What I (don’t) like about you (soulslikes)

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I’m still playing Stranger of Paradise; Final Fantasy Origin (Team NINJA. Note: That’s how the write their name. Previously, I had been calling them Team Ninja, but have realized they capitalize all of Ninja). I just went up against the second boss, who was much easier than the first and only had one health bar, no (noticeable) second phase. I’m playing an normal (three modes) and try to be over-leveled for each mission (because Team NINJA makes the level suggestion ludicrously low for each mission). When I was playing Nioh, I learned I should try to be at least 1 1/2 times the level they suggested. Oh, by the way, here’s part four in that series.

I was telling Ian that I really appreciated the flamboyancy of the second boss. *SPOILERS* It was a pirate…Captain, ah, Bilke, I think it was. Captain Bikke. With a siiiiiick big axe of some sort. He wasn’t very hard and afterwards, I apparently unlocked the axe category of weapons because the tutorial showed up. 

Brief sidestep into the tutorials. I hate them. Not just for this game, but for all Team NINJA games. They want to show you the combos, which, fine. It’s good to know the combos. However, in the tutorial, it’s a study in frustration because you need to do the combos as they appear on the screen. For whatever reason, I cannot get the timing on the last combo on the first page of almost every category. I have Googled it, and it’s not just me. Other people have had frustrations with it as well. I watched a few vids of people doing it and most seemed to have no problem. I have to conclude that it’s my reflexes/dexterity that is the issue.

Side note: I’m watching a review of the game that I have included belowe. I am grateful to hear him say that the level design is hot trash. He mentioned several of the things that I find frustrating about the game–most especially how same-y all the corriders look. He said that it was like, “Was it down the vaguely purple hallway or the vaguely blue one?”

He clarified that he played it pretty soon after he played Elden Ring, so he couldn’t help compare the two. He was frustrated with how there were no signifiers as to where to go next, nor a map. He said the same things were true for Elden Ring, but he implied that that the level design was much better in that game. Which is very true. One of the classic examples was in Dark Souls. Blighttown is a notorious area for several reasons. One being that it is really confusing to navigate. I did not notice until I read about it much later (like, perhaps on my third or fourth playthrough or later) that the ladders all have a torch by them. It’s obvious once you know about it, but until then, it’s easy to overlook.


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