Yay it’s on lemmy
Welcome, friend. Careful not to go hollow.
Out of all of them, I still think DS1 is my favorite. The connected world design is just something special.
Started a new character recently with the goal of “How much of the world can I explore, how many items can I get / level up, without beating a single boss”. This is without any glitches or out of bounds skips.
Ok, I had to beat the tutorial boss the get out of the asylum, but after that, with the master key, it is crazy how much of the world is available to you.
That amount of freedom really made me feel like I was exploring on my first run, and trying to calculate the risk/reward of continuing in a certain direction with difficult enemies/hazards just reinforced that feeling.
In my opinion, that’s what open world exploration is really about: treacherous areas, balancing the risk/reward of moving forward, and trying to survive. It beats a big open world that only challenges you with travel time.
Bloodborne
Descending release order, IMO. But then the games strayed from what I liked in order to focus on ball-busting boss difficulty.
This is a very valid take too
I do hope someone makes a good Souls ripoff that focuses more on slow tense exploration of hostile areas with sparse checkpoints but clever shortcuts, and bosses that have interesting gimmicks rather than pattern memorisation.
You may enjoy Lords of the fallen. It’s quite easy, going for big sprawling levels with secrets and little comedy ambush moments like ds1
Relatively simple combat, many many ways to bust the game wide open for hilariously overpowered things.
Maybe I should give it a look. I like the sound of some of that, tho it’s not that I want the game to be easy necessarily. I just liked the difficulty being more on getting to the boss than memorising his specific twitches that told me when to mash circle like it’s a rhythm game. Would love a game that was between Demon’s and Dark 1, with large stretches between checkpoints but lots of shortcuts, and with slow regenerating magic so it is as viable as melee.
you’ll love it. Initially the game was designed with only your portable bonfire and the main hub. There’s a billion shortcuts.
There are ways to regen magic although non consumables (infinite, constantly dropping) are a way into the game. There is also regenerating ranged ammunition on rest (and consumables to refill) so all builds get ranged options.
NG plus cycles progressively return the game to the devs original design deleting the bonfires. Initially it was just NG plus but people who hate fun complained very loudly :(
As mentioned you have portable bonfire you can plant many places. That used a consumable you can farm or buy which mostly you get from killing bosses. Other checkpoints can be blighttown levels of slog between them before you learn the map and open it up.
The game gives you a styilised map (showing landmarks) to help you identify the critical path, each level has many side paths with treasure or routes between the levels.
Not a flawless game but I haven’t really liked soulsy stuff since ds1 and this one is blowing me away.
Just so I’m clear, do you mean the 2014 version or the remake of the same name?
the new one. haven’t played the old, hear it’s shit.
I too hate modern naming :p
Some say there’s only Demon‘s Souls.
and some say it’s now eldensekisoulsbornecore
Lies of P is so close to being an absolute ripoff that you could include that as well.
Currently playing through it now. I’m having fun! But yeah, it’s the closest soulslike I’ve seen yet that isn’t FromSoft.
I am happy for you and all people enjoying it as I am really not fond of it. The level design is a bit too linear compared to other souls games but above all I think the combat is slow and clunky and I didn’t find a weapon I really like… There are some nice ideas like the weapons combinations… But for now I had more fun with Steelrising.
Totally understand. It’s different enough that I know some veterans will find it off-putting.
I’m surprisingly still using my starter weapon on zone 6. I have an alternate boss weapon too, but they’re really stingy with the upgrade mats.
At this point of the game, every boss is a speed demon, and it’s feeling more like sekiro with the necessary perfect blocks.
I’m with you. Played the demo based on all the comparisons to Bloodborne. Felt like the game was super slow and clunky. Didn’t really feel motivated to continue. I enjoyed Thymesia a lot more.
I feel that. Coming fresh off Elden Ring again reminded me how good (well, for the most part) a Miyazaki souls game is. A damn shame that I don’t like Lies of P as the aesthetic is really well done
That sounds like a good thing.
