WG writes: "I truly believe that Elden Ring isn’t as hard as people say it is. Games like that are tough – make no mistake – but they aren’t without a ton of assists. The assists just aren’t structured and presented in a traditional way people expect. Elden Ring, even more so."
The Souls-like genre remains popular, along with FromSoftware's classics there are many contenders. But which are the best Souls-like games?
Hmm... In my opinion, the 7 best are the 6 made by FromSoftware (DeS, DS1, DS2, DS3, BB and ER), then Lies of P. But each to their own.
Still DS1? You don't feel it's been surpassed yet?
Demon's Souls has the remake of course, but DS1 has surely been outdated?
I think that the DS1 remake is better looking than DS2. The interior lighting matched with the low resolution textures in DS2 is very garish, IMO.
Besides graphics, what do you mean by DS1 being "outdated"? I'm someone who played through Elden Ring and just recently played through the DS series, and as far as gameplay went, there were all very similar.
I haven’t played many but Bloodborne and NIOH1 are on top of my list.. had a blast with these 2
For world design and interconnectedness (that's a word, right?) DS1 is yet to be beaten.
Parrying has been creeping into more games, with almost every high-profile title of the last few years featuring it in some way. Why?
i understand the authors frustration i'm not the best at parrying in games. not that i can't complete a game that requires it but it is a definite harder thing for me than other kinds of techniques in games. which might be the main reason it's so heavily added in games nowadays. want to make your game challenging without having to do a lot of work? just add a parry boss. (what i mean by parry boss is a boss you have to beat by parrying such that their attacks will kill you otherwise)
I always think it's fine as long as such games also have the roll/dodge panic button. But I understand the will to parry, it seems so cinematic in a fight when you pull it off.
There are many ways that a game developer can choose to raise the difficulty in their games — but which ways are the most effective?
A great example on how to do difficulty in a video game is DOOM ETERNAL. Started playing on ULTRA VIOLENCE but then I started playing on NIGHTMARE after a couple hundred hours of playing on UV . What makes DOOM ETERNAL fun, is on Nightmare, the enemies are very aggressive ,but they give you the tools to defeat difficult enemies , you just have to learn how to use them .
Doom Eternal was so tough, but it felt so amazing to finish that game, even when the enemy feels unfair and gang up/box up into a corner.
Personal dislikes are bullet sponges and bosses with regular enemies thrown in. Just make the boss hit harder if it's too easy.
I think Helldivers 2 really gets it right. If enemies are easy, they swarm. If they're high level, they tend to have good defense and need strategems to take down...or bait.
I never feel too angry if I die by swarm because it is usually my fault for not checking my 6. I don't even mind dying if a teammate drops a bomb on the swarm that is gutting me.
I don't like cheap deaths. When the game allows you to progress only to hit you with an enemy that is suddenly immune to all the things you've unlocked and mastered is just dumb. If the game doesn't do hit boxes right and you get killed in lame ways it is dumb.
The screenshot is from Elden Ring, a game I really enjoyed, but the scaling was silly. I didn't do the Eligtree til late game so it was goofy difficult. I thought the Elden Beast was rather cheap. Not a fun skill based match, but just cheap enemy. There was no sense of, "oh it defeated me because I did this or I did that" like all Souls/Borne games.
1. Intelligent opponents that don't have some set, optional strategy to win and requires more critical thinking.
2. Game provides players with the knowledge and tools about a game world to stand a chance (or at the very least, the opportunity to gain the knowledge and tools).
3. Don't insist on enemies having much more health than the player arbitrarily. Sometimes, you'll have more durable enemies who are armored or inhuman which I would say is fair. The best approach to this I can recall in recent memory is Naughty Dog games: You're extremely vulnerable without armor and can get picked off pretty easily, but your enemies are pretty beatable with the right weapons and strategies where you can't just brute force it. That said, ammo is in short supply, so you engage at your own risk.
4. Depending on the type of games, make resources more scarce without necessarily making enemies bullet sponges. It simply means you'll have to choose your battles carefully and have damn good aim. Like Uncharted. If you're not good at headshots, Crushing is a rough time.
The last line in this is 100% where I'm at: This game needs a demo! I miss demos...
I own a bunch of the Souls games, mostly through bundles, but Bloodborne & Demon's Souls 2020 by direct purchase. I liked that more than any of the other Dark Souls games. I just didn't get DS2020.
There's a lot about this game, though, that is intriguing to me. The open world having a true sense of discovery, for one. I've watched some streams, and at least there appear to be some concessions for this being an open world (some low level enemies appear to fall to spamming attacks, for instance).
So I am interested, but I'm not a huge fan of plopping down $60 on something that might be just like the rest of the Souls games. How punishing dying is in this compared to the rest. How confusing the traversal is, or if literally everything is obfuscated with unclear or obtuse ways to improve characters (stats/gear) without a wiki. Amount of time & effort lost each death, if there's entire sections you have to waste time replaying to try a boss again in hopes of learning something before being pasted into the walls...the 1st boss in this game appears to have a spawn right nearby, so that's encouraging.
I just miss demos lol.
Here's my thing. The game does NOTHING to help new players, you have to unlock and figure things out yourself because even descriptions suck in the game and are pretty vague unless you're well versed in these games. The game isn't near impossibly hard. I can start a new game and run through all the first area bosses right away without much issue now. Once I learned them. But that's not the issue. It's the fact nothing is explained. They drop you in the world and say learn by dying. Is that an issue? Not if you have an option to opt out of those things. Is the difficulty an issue? No. But there's no reason there isn't a demo for people who are more casual, who doesn't want this experience.
I just don't get this weird idea the community has where when it's another game, example Returnal, people cry that it's too much but then others like this, it's okay. Just because it's from software and it's how they make their games. If this is going to be okay, it needs to be accepted from any developer choosing to make a challenging game that sends you in blind. I'm enjoying the game but there's a million things that I don't understand even with descriptions lol. Also one thing I'm not okay with is the hit box inconsistency. Being hit by hits that don't touch you is one thing, but when one time you can do a near dodge and you replicate the exact scenario and get farther than the first time and get hit. Somethings wrong, and it's not just me. I've seen it happen to alot of different people
I don't really get that there has to be a debate, if the dev doesn't want there to be an easy mode, they should be able to do so, and if they do, i respect the decision. Sometimes difficulty is what makes the game though. Many "hard" games wouldn't be nearly as good if they were easy, and sometimes difficulty is used to change the way and pace you play the game.
This game is a Souls game in everything but name. After a decade of Souls games you should know what you're getting yourself into. If you feel these games are "too hard" just play something else at this point. These games are clearly not for you and it's okay. Not all games are for everybody.
My whole issue with the "Soulsborne" style of games has never been the difficulty, it's the fake difficulty that comes from shoddy/cheap mechanics/gameplay. A perfect example is Nioh. It's tough as nails, but it's super fun to play and you actually feel like you want to try and "git gud."
But most of the Soulsborne games I've played, I just can't dig the clunkiness of the controls. I much prefer more action style controls versus the slow, clunky, methodical style from some of those games. Ninja Garden too, that was hard as hell but it was so fun to play that you felt super badass when you got good pulling off those insane combos and when you died it was your fault. In stuff like Demons and Dark Souls, it just feels too slow and clunky to be fun.