![[Discussion] What do you dislike about soulslikes and games with soulslike elements?](https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/2888337f-f3ae-45c0-a981-aa41cb854b35.webp){kind=link}
Something related to gameplay, lore, story - whatever.
I dislike the huge onus that new soulslikes put on difficulty. Dark Souls was notoriously difficult for people new to the genre, and it definitely is punishing and difficult, but not to such an extent as players and media make it out to be. It’s a pity that difficulty is what most contemporary soulslikes focus on, disregarding storytelling and level design instead. I enjoy the challenge for sure, but at some point, it just gets tedious to be stuck on a boss for multiple days. You’re just glad it’s over when it is.
What about you?
Artificial difficulty, controls that are designed to be frustrating unless you get the input perfect after multiple attempts.
It’s not skill but muscle memory and luck that leads to success. I equate it to a monkey being zapped enough times until it learns to push the correct sequence of buttons to get the piece of food.
Let’s add to this: Bosses that are so huge they go beyond your screen limit. Helps with scale but then the arm you can’t see one-hit kills you from somewhere you didn’t expect like some reverse deus ex machina.
Losing your progress for being unfairly killed in those ways should be added to this list.
There used to be a time where being unable to save your game unless it was at a specific place or time was considered bad game design. I’d happily go back to appreciating that instead of this horrid disrespect of my time.
Dude, I agree with all of these.
I also hate bosses that are too big. The fight against a certain dragon enemy in The First Berserker Khazan was horrible. I felt like it was made a little better than the average fight against a dragon or a very big boss, but it was still not nearly as fun as your average Khazan boss.
I really liked the last Soulslike I played, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, because it improves precisely on many of these issues.
A bit like Elden Ring, it offers many ways to “solve” bosses, so if you’re not mechanically perfect you can try in another way (there are many, many viable builds, not all requiring perfect reflexes). For huge bosses, the camera zooms in and out almost seamlessly according to size and distance. You can save anywhere.
I also hate features that punish you for fighting and dying (beyond losing souls/echoes/whatever), like losing max hp in Dark Souls 2 or dragonrot in Sekiro. Trying many times is the only way to learn boss patterns, and punishing the player for doing exactly what the game requires is awful. Wuchang handles that in a very graceful way, as dying raises Madness, which in turn raises damage done both by you and by enemies, which makes it more of a risk calculation than a disadvantage. There are even builds based around skills which activate once you reach 50 or 90% of Madness. Also, you can clear it easily if needed.
Sadly, the last controversy (political/historical self-censorship) in patch 1.5 of the game makes it harder to recommend, though for me it was a 8/10, maybe even a 9, before this patch.
More times than not, I see the term Soulslike and I back away in horror.
Nope.
I’m playing through DS1 for the first time, the last boss I defeated was Seath and… what the fuck was that fight. The camera was a mess, clipping happening everywhere, half the time I didn’t know what was going on, but thankfully he went down first try. ಠᴗಠ It gets a pass, 'cause its DS1 but still; I actually laughed at the chaos.
Which makes me think, the camera is one of the reasons Ludwig is one of the best soulslike bosses ever. (At least it’s my personal favorite.) The camera is SO fucking good in that fight.