What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

[LibraryOgre]

So, my brother gave me Wildermyth. Anyone familiar with it? I dabbled in it for a minute, but would love some other opinions from those that have played a bit more.

[Cespenar]

So, my brother gave me Wildermyth. Anyone familiar with it? I dabbled in it for a minute, but would love some other opinions from those that have played a bit more.

I'm playing through my second campaign in it, and it's pretty good. Not extremely good, but pretty good. It's like a low level D&D meets XCOM kinda deal, but the scope is measured in weeks (for one scenario) and years (for a campaign), which gives it a very old school, proper table top campaign feeling, what with your characters getting married, having children, getting permanently injured, or sometimes having rare magical mutations, etc.

Then, when you start a second campaign (each taking, I don't know, 4-5 hours?), you start with brand new characters, but you can re-recruit some of your old characters from other campaigns (with limits), which have become some sort of folk hero or something by now.

Overall, it catches that "I'm building a legacy" vibe of tabletop RPG campaigns pretty well.

Also, the writing is above average despite having some procedural mechanics built into it.

[Rodin]

I'm playing through my second campaign in it, and it's pretty good. Not extremely good, but pretty good. It's like a low level D&D meets XCOM kinda deal, but the scope is measured in weeks (for one scenario) and years (for a campaign), which gives it a very old school, proper table top campaign feeling, what with your characters getting married, having children, getting permanently injured, or sometimes having rare magical mutations, etc.

Then, when you start a second campaign (each taking, I don't know, 4-5 hours?), you start with brand new characters, but you can re-recruit some of your old characters from other campaigns (with limits), which have become some sort of folk hero or something by now.

Overall, it catches that "I'm building a legacy" vibe of tabletop RPG campaigns pretty well.

Also, the writing is above average despite having some procedural mechanics built into it.

Pretty good summary. It's a charming storybook game tied to decent XCOM-style turn based combat. I adore the game, and the event list is varied enough that you should be able to go through all the campaigns and still hit new events. One thing I recommend is customizing or re-rolling new characters you get. This isn't to obtain an advantage, but rather to hit new story hooks. Pick character traits that you haven't previously seen and you're more likely to get story events you haven't seen before.

It also helps that the story events typically have a choice in them. Some are as simple as "do or do not pick up the obviously cursed dagger" and the "do not" simply sends your characters on their way wondering might have been. Others will lead to a drastically different outcome. It's also worth noting that the results are rarely clear cut - picking up the cursed dagger may result in your character getting cool new abilities further down the line.

Most important thing for those deciding whether to play it or not - you're there for the writing. If you like the idea of a bunch of short vignettes tied into a campaign the length of a short story, this game is for you. If you're just there for the turn-based tactics the game is merely average.

The campaigns themselves are all roughly equivalent in quality apart from one, and that's the Drauven campaign. The writing is a step above the rest of the game for that campaign, and I very much recommend making sure you play that one. Don't do it first though - the Drauven campaign was released last and it shows in the difficulty level. It's the only campaign to give me a full party wipe.

[Zevox]

Agreed with everything here. What's really ironic is that Bioware's best move away from "big world-ending threat" was in one of their least loved games - Dragon Age II. That game's other flaws overshadow one of the best stories Bioware has had. There's no army of demons at the gates, no Macguffin that's going to destroy the world. It's following the fall of one city out of many, and the stakes don't feel any less great for being smaller in scale.

Agreed. Dragon Age 2 is actually my favorite of that series, in part for precisely that reason. A shame it was obviously rushed and had so many corners they needed to cut, but, IMO, they clearly knew what they needed to focus on getting right.

[LibraryOgre]

Agreed. Dragon Age 2 is actually my favorite of that series, in part for precisely that reason. A shame it was obviously rushed and had so many corners they needed to cut, but, IMO, they clearly knew what they needed to focus on getting right.

Dragon Age 2 is pretty great. If nothing else, the DLC adding level-scaling equipment made it a favorite of mine.

[Rynjin]

DA2 is an odd duck because it has so much well deserved criticism (reused assets, boring encounter design, a "dumbing down" of the combat, etc.) that I think unfairly bleeds over into criticism of the story overall, which people at least when it came out claimed was "
boring" because the "stakes were so low".

Literally my only issues with DA2's narrative comes from the errors introduced by the gameplay (like the absolutely horrendous boss fight with the Qunari leader) and the complete character assassination(s) of Anders and Justice.

[warty goblin]

So... D&D: Dark Alliance first impressions.

Based on the first level, Dark Alliance is a very, very mediocre third person action game of a nearly archeological vintage. I am filled by medium joy and tepid delight by this, because the extremely low-grade third person action games we used to get for like the XBox 360 and the early Xbox 1 are 100% My Favorite Trash. This feels exactly like one of those, with just enough graphical polish added to pass some degree of muster in this day and age. Not too much graphical polish mind, it's still the weird, endearing, almost by-the-polygon mix of good and terrible all the most virulently mediocre of its kind possess.

It's got all the greatest hits of its ilk too, from the visual signposts marking all the secret loot - so you don't have to pay too much attention - to the hordes of stupid weak enemies - again no attention needed - to repeating the same minibosses over and over, to having the major bosses just be the minibosses. The singleplayer is even clearly compromised by the focus on co-op, bless it's off-kilter little heart. The gameplay is exactly what you expect, run into a room, kill dudes, pick up some loot that doesn't matter, find a chest for more irrelevant loot, run into the next room and do that until the game decides you've reached the end of the level. The combat system is very button-mashy, but also strangely punishing, with really long knockdowns, an unclear view on animation cancelling (I think you can cancel an attack with a dodge or block, but maybe it doesn't work sometimes? I don't care) and very high damage on the larger enemies' attacks. So kinda an incoherent mess, as it should be.

Should you get this game? If you like the way that third person action games have gone in the last ten years, probably not, because this is absolutely not that. If you like games that are manifestly good and well put together, also probably not. If you just wanna turn off everything higher than your lizard brain and stab some goblins without needing to think or feel pretty much anything, this is a high quality way to get that low quality high.

[Anteros]

Been playing some more Last Spell. I really do recommend it if you enjoy tower defense games or turn based tactics games. It's quite good.

[Divayth Fyr]

DA2 is an odd duck because it has so much well deserved criticism (reused assets, boring encounter design, a "dumbing down" of the combat, etc.) that I think unfairly bleeds over into criticism of the story overall, which people at least when it came out claimed was "
boring" because the "stakes were so low".

Wasn't the more common story complaint "you promised me being able to forge my own destiny, all I do basically doesn't matter in the story as a whole"?

[Cespenar]

Been playing some more Last Spell. I really do recommend it if you enjoy tower defense games or turn based tactics games. It's quite good.

I had checked its prologue before and it was fun, but isn't it still on Early Access?

[Zevox]

So, I tried out a demo today for a game that got revealed last year in I think one of the Playstation "State of Play" streams without much fanfare, and I hadn't heard anything about since: Scarlet Nexus.

It's a Bandai-Namco game that seems to want to be an Action-JRPG, but at least based on the demo, is better at the "action" part than the "JRPG" part. The characters mostly seem pretty generic, and the demo at least sure isn't putting much effort into explaining what's going on in this world or what the story is. You're part of some kind of military or para-military group of people that have psychic superpowers, and fight weird creatures called "Others" (yes, really), and that's about as much as I can tell from it. But gameplay-wise, it's kind of neat. You have basic attack strings that have some different properties, although not into DMC/Bayonetta territory with how much the differences matter, and both lead characters share a telekinesis power, so they can toss random objects from around them at enemies to good effect. There's some details to how their abilities work, but nothing crazy on its own, but where it gets interesting is in their ability to borrow powers from their teammates, since, well, psychic links between characters. And each lead character (a guy and a girl, I don't remember their names) has different teammates, and thus different powers they can borrow. The girl's seem more interesting to me: invisibility, super speed, duplication (enhances her telekinesis to toss multiple objects at once), and lightning effects for her attacks (extra effective against certain water-based enemies). The guy gets teleportation, clairyovance (lets him see invisible enemies), fire attacks (extra effective against certain oily enemies), and surprisingly a straight-up invincibility power. And each of these, the demo tells you, will unlock additional effects as you improve your relationship with the characters you're borrowing them from, though you don't see what entails in the demo itself. There's also some kind of team attack system where you and one of your companions will perform a special move together, but the demo didn't really explain how that works, you just kind of get a button prompt that can activate it every so often. The two leads also have different basic attacks, with the guy using a short-range sword, while the girl telekinetically levitates a bunch of daggers around her for more of a midrange combat style.

The guy and girl leads nominally also seem to have different stories, since they take place in different locations and involve different characters... though honestly, at least for the part that the demo shows, they hit remarkably similar story beats, including fighting the same boss at the end of the demo despite being in completely different places, so it's not clear to me how different things will really be depending on which you pick.

But yeah, gameplay-wise at least, seems like it might have some promise. I'm not going to go grab the full game right away, but I'll toss it on my "to pick up later" list.

So... D&D: Dark Alliance first impressions.
[...]
If you just wanna turn off everything higher than your lizard brain and stab some goblins without needing to think or feel pretty much anything, this is a high quality way to get that low quality high.

Sounds like something you could also just do by playing a good action game and putting the difficulty on easy.

[Lord Raziere]

Sounds like something you could also just do by playing a good action game and putting the difficulty on easy.

If I remember correctly, goblin's beef is mostly with souls-like games which doesn't have difficulty settings, just nintendo-hard game design applied to personal combat that makes blocking and dodging actually important where every strike counts, and has been popular for a few years now, though he could simply haven't had the time to find the good action games that aren't souls-likes....

[Anteros]

From what I've seen of Dark Alliance it just looks like a bad version of vermintide. I haven't tried it myself yet though.

I had checked its prologue before and it was fun, but isn't it still on Early Access?

It is. It goes up to wave 13 currently. With replaying maps I've had a good 30 hours of content though. For an early access game it's very promising.

[warty goblin]

If I remember correctly, goblin's beef is mostly with souls-like games which doesn't have difficulty settings, just nintendo-hard game design applied to personal combat that makes blocking and dodging actually important where every strike counts, and has been popular for a few years now, though he could simply haven't had the time to find the good action games that aren't souls-likes....

It's not really the difficulty that I dislike about Soulsalikes, or rather the difficulty is the thing I probably dislike least. Much higher on the list is the bonfire mechanic, which I hate in basically every game I encounter it in*, because I don't like respawning enemies or needing to meander through the goddamn maze levels to find a checkpoint like this is 1997 and nobody's figured out decent checkpointing yet. I also dislike the agonizingly slow combat pacing, which makes me feel less like a skilled swordsman, or even a vaguely competent swordsman, and more like a grandpa getting into a farcical walking stick smackfight with another grandpa. And I'm not wild about cryptic lore dumps in place of a story either. And honestly most of this would annoy me a lot less if it hadn't somehow eaten so much of the third person fantasy action genre. It's the same mind-slayingly dull copycat game design that made FPS games so unremittingly boring for like a decade after Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.


*Dark Alliance just skates by on this one, since it technically has it, but because there's basically zero backtracking enemy respawning doesn't matter.

[factotum]

It's not really the difficulty that I dislike about Soulsalikes, or rather the difficulty is the thing I probably dislike least. Much higher on the list is the bonfire mechanic, which I hate in basically every game I encounter it in*, because I don't like respawning enemies or needing to meander through the goddamn maze levels to find a checkpoint like this is 1997 and nobody's figured out decent checkpointing yet.

Preach! I honestly don't understand what's remotely fun about playing through the same part of a game over and over again. Allow me to save where *I* want to. To my mind, the Dark Souls bonfire thing is tantamount to adding an unskippable cutscene that I actually have to play through in front of every boss fight.

[Rynjin]

Preach! I honestly don't understand what's remotely fun about playing through the same part of a game over and over again. Allow me to save where *I* want to. To my mind, the Dark Souls bonfire thing is tantamount to adding an unskippable cutscene that I actually have to play through in front of every boss fight.

...It's not fun to play through the same part of the game over again. That's why doing so is your punishment for failing to get through it.

The game literally doesn't work if you can "save where you want to".

Not every game benefits from allowing save scumming.

[Anteros]

I'm kinda on both sides of this debate. I do agree that it's good when there's consequence for failure in a game. If a game just lets you retry as often as you want with no penalty then it's not really difficult, it's just time consuming. On the other hand, I don't like the Dark Souls system where you restart at the last bonfire. Consequences for death are a good thing, but 20-30 minutes of tedium that forces me to repeat content I've already seen is not a good consequence. There's much better designed systems in place.

[Rynjin]

I'm kinda on both sides of this debate. I do agree that it's good when there's consequence for failure in a game. If a game just lets you retry as often as you want with no penalty then it's not really difficult, it's just time consuming. On the other hand, I don't like the Dark Souls system where you restart at the last bonfire. Consequences for death are a good thing, but 20-30 minutes of tedium that forces me to repeat content I've already seen is not a good consequence. There's much better designed systems in place.

It's not really 20-30 minutes of tedium unless the area is both obscenely long AND you're making no progress at all, neither of which is the case in any zone I can think of off the top of my head in 2, 3, or Bloodborne. I gave up on Dark Souls at Sen's Fortress, which is...absolutely that.

Bonfires actually aren't that far apart typically (5-10 minutes on average to either get to a new bonfire, or open a shortcut to the previous one), and it shouldn't be "tedious" unless you're making the same mistakes every single time you try to get through an area. If you're trying new things and learning patterns, it's not going to be tedious at all. That would be "content you haven't seen", because it's something you obviously didn't notice the first time.

When you get to a boss, there's typically a bonfire either right beforehand, or an easy jog away. Remember, just because the game puts 4-5 enemies in between you and the boss doesn't mean you actually need to fight them. Most enemies are slow enough on the uptake to sprint past if you're in a hurry; they take a sec to register your presence, likely by design.

People overblow the difficulty and trial and error involved in 90% of the Souls experience.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I think I'm getting the hang of FTL. Just won two runs in a row, first with the Kestrel (spamming Flak Cannons, maxed shields, and oodles of crew to fill in the gaps) and then with the Torus (starting Ion Cannon II, Heavy Laser 1, max shields, mind control, and 2 offensive drones + 1 Defense Drone). Almost beat what I assume is the Rock quest (to unlock their ship), but ironically, it succumbed to the fires started by the star (next time, I'll leave it more than 4 health before I turn off the last of my damage dealers).

Next up, it's back to the Adjudicator. I almost won with it a few runs ago, but got overwhelmed in the final phase of the flagship-fight. It really kicks butt in the early game, but the Halberd Beam loses a lot of steam as enemy shields improve; previously, I tried to play around that, but I'm wondering if I shouldn't cut my losses and sell it at the halfway point?

[Spacewolf]

Been awhile since I played but once you've gotten into a good position with FTL I'd very much recommend the captains mod it's basically FTL but more. There's also a nice background mod that means you want be seeing the same stuff quite so often.

[Rodin]

It's not really 20-30 minutes of tedium unless the area is both obscenely long AND you're making no progress at all, neither of which is the case in any zone I can think of off the top of my head in 2, 3, or Bloodborne. I gave up on Dark Souls at Sen's Fortress, which is...absolutely that.

Ironically, Sen's Fortress is one of the easier places to shortcut once you have the hang of it. There's one-way doors to open, elevator shortcuts, and a secret bonfire near the top. Once I "got" Sen's Fortress it became one of my favorite areas in any Souls game.

Of course, that didn't make it any less painful on the first playthrough. You can bumble your way through a lot of the earlier game, but Sen's Fortress is where it relly starts demanding proper block technique and enemy management.

I like the bonfire mechanic personally. It brings me back to trying to beat Lost Levels in Super Mario, where you get better and better at an area each time you go through it. You steadily learn enemy patterns and the best way to lure out enemies and deal with the various traps. It only gets really frustrating when there's a hard boss with a long death run in front of it. Darkeater Midir is the worst case of this I can recall from the main Souls games - going down a secret passage with a long elevator ride right in front of it, only to get squashed in 10 seconds by a dragon landing on your face. The other really bad one was Bed of Chaos, where the run over was LONG and the boss beat you by sweeping you into a pit before you could do anything.

[Zevox]

And I'm not wild about cryptic lore dumps in place of a story either.

I'm certainly with you on that pat, at least. I know that works for some people for some reason, but oh boy, not for me.

And honestly most of this would annoy me a lot less if it hadn't somehow eaten so much of the third person fantasy action genre. It's the same mind-slayingly dull copycat game design that made FPS games so unremittingly boring for like a decade after Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

Has it? Aside from actual FromSoft titles (The Souls series, Bloodborne, and Sekiro), the only action game I can think of that took clear cues from Dark Souls is Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order - and honestly with how parrying works in that game it's more Sekiro than Dark Souls. Other action games I've played for the past, well, console generation have either been more in the DMC/Bayonetta vein, or have been their own style - the new God of War, the Assasin's Creed games, the Dynasty Warriors spin-offs, the Square-Enix Avengers game, the Spider-Man games, Batman: Arkham Knight, or InFamous: Second Son.

[Anteros]

Has it? Aside from actual FromSoft titles (The Souls series, Bloodborne, and Sekiro), the only action game I can think of that took clear cues from Dark Souls is Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order - and honestly with how parrying works in that game it's more Sekiro than Dark Souls. Other action games I've played for the past, well, console generation have either been more in the DMC/Bayonetta vein, or have been their own style - the new God of War, the Assasin's Creed games, the Dynasty Warriors spin-offs, the Square-Enix Avengers game, the Spider-Man games, Batman: Arkham Knight, or InFamous: Second Son.

No they definitely have a point. Soulslike is a whole genre now as a quick steam or Google search will show you. It's just mostly that they're not AAA titles like the ones you mentioned, so they don't get the same exposure.

[Rynjin]

Ironically, Sen's Fortress is one of the easier places to shortcut once you have the hang of it. There's one-way doors to open, elevator shortcuts, and a secret bonfire near the top. Once I "got" Sen's Fortress it became one of my favorite areas in any Souls game.

Of course, that didn't make it any less painful on the first playthrough. You can bumble your way through a lot of the earlier game, but Sen's Fortress is where it relly starts demanding proper block technique and enemy management.

If it "requires" blocking then that may be the issue. I've never bothered using a shield in a Souls game. Dodging is way more fun.

It's why I dropped Sekiro too. It requires you to stand still and block attacks before you can counter. Why bother adding all these excellent mobility options and such insanely fluid movement if you can't use any of them in a fight? Makes no sense.

I like the bonfire mechanic personally. It brings me back to trying to beat Lost Levels in Super Mario, where you get better and better at an area each time you go through it. You steadily learn enemy patterns and the best way to lure out enemies and deal with the various traps. It only gets really frustrating when there's a hard boss with a long death run in front of it. Darkeater Midir is the worst case of this I can recall from the main Souls games - going down a secret passage with a long elevator ride right in front of it, only to get squashed in 10 seconds by a dragon landing on your face. The other really bad one was Bed of Chaos, where the run over was LONG and the boss beat you by sweeping you into a pit before you could do anything.

Midir is easily the worst designed Souls boss because he's not even that difficult due to moveset. He's just a boring wall of meat that literally has all of his damage resistances tuned to max, including electricity which dragons are meant to be weak to.

The only bosses that are worse are all in Bloodborne, like Rom who is basically a roulette wheel on whether you're allowed to beat him or not; you basically either win without getting hit in a horrible anticlimax, or he keeps spamming moves that completely zone you out until his dozens of minions kill you.

[Man_Over_Game]

I think I'm getting the hang of FTL. Just won two runs in a row, first with the Kestrel (spamming Flak Cannons, maxed shields, and oodles of crew to fill in the gaps) and then with the Torus (starting Ion Cannon II, Heavy Laser 1, max shields, mind control, and 2 offensive drones + 1 Defense Drone). Almost beat what I assume is the Rock quest (to unlock their ship), but ironically, it succumbed to the fires started by the star (next time, I'll leave it more than 4 health before I turn off the last of my damage dealers).

Next up, it's back to the Adjudicator. I almost won with it a few runs ago, but got overwhelmed in the final phase of the flagship-fight. It really kicks butt in the early game, but the Halberd Beam loses a lot of steam as enemy shields improve; previously, I tried to play around that, but I'm wondering if I shouldn't cut my losses and sell it at the halfway point?

Yeah, Halberd Beam is pretty weak without good anti-shielding.

Speaking of, use Ion stuff as much as possible with beams. They are amazing at stripping away shields and can be a complete replacement for rockets if you get a pair of them. The great part about them is that they are never redundant. Even if you have a decent boarding party or gun setup, being able to disable their drones or weapons in a pinch will always make you more efficient.

[Rodin]

If it "requires" blocking then that may be the issue. I've never bothered using a shield in a Souls game. Dodging is way more fun.

It's why I dropped Sekiro too. It requires you to stand still and block attacks before you can counter. Why bother adding all these excellent mobility options and such insanely fluid movement if you can't use any of them in a fight? Makes no sense.

Well, dodging or blocking. The point is that Sen's Fortress is a big step up in enemy difficulty, with the snakemen being a lot more dangerous than the regular hollows you've faced thus far. They're on par with some of the miniboss type monsters (like the Butchers in the Depths) and come at you in groups. Having a good shield is pretty helpful in Sen's because there's a lot of ranged attacks from the snakewomen.

Sen's is the first place that requires you to be good at the game rather than just bulldozing your way through with Estus.

Midir is easily the worst designed Souls boss because he's not even that difficult due to moveset. He's just a boring wall of meat that literally has all of his damage resistances tuned to max, including electricity which dragons are meant to be weak to.

The only bosses that are worse are all in Bloodborne, like Rom who is basically a roulette wheel on whether you're allowed to beat him or not; you basically either win without getting hit in a horrible anticlimax, or he keeps spamming moves that completely zone you out until his dozens of minions kill you.

I was talking more about bad boss runs. Rom's is one of the easiest since there's only a couple enemies (maybe only one?) between you and the boss gate and it's a very short trip.

If you've beaten the other Souls games I'm surprised Sen's put you off. There's far worse in the other games, 2 in particular. Darks Souls 1 in general is by far the easiest game in the entire series, with the possible exception of Demon Souls. The difficulty level is lower in Demon Souls but it makes up for it with sheer jank.

No they definitely have a point. Soulslike is a whole genre now as a quick steam or Google search will show you. It's just mostly that they're not AAA titles like the ones you mentioned, so they don't get the same exposure.

I agree that Soulslike shows up all over the place, but if you look a bit deeper you find that it's a very deceptive tag.

Looking at the first page of the Soulslike tag:

Monster Hunter World - Uh, no.
Code Vein - Fromsoft's attempt at a Souls game without Miyazaki, fair enough.
Hollow Knight - uses Souls storytelling, gameplay is pure Metroidvania.
Nioh 2, Remnant - yep, deliberate Souls ripoffs
Dead Cells - again, Souls atmosphere and storytelling, in no way is the gameplay related.
Ender Lilies - It's a SotN game, not a Soulslike
Ori and the Will of the Wisps - okay, now you're just being silly

-----

What's my point here? Essentially, the term "Soulslike" is meaningless most of the time. There are some cases where it very clearly applies, like Code Vein, Nioh, and Salt & Sanctuary. These are games which very explicitly copied from Dark Souls and bragged about doing so whlie they were in development. They're made for the same audience that loves Souls games. For most of the others though? If you can dodge roll, it gets called a Soulslike. If it has a dark and mysterious world, it's a Soulslike. If the game is difficult, it's a Soulslike. If there is a bonfire somewhere in the game, it's a Soulslike. It's like how everything gets called an "Action RPG" these days. The tag is used for marketing far more than its actually appropriate.

[Rynjin]

Well, dodging or blocking. The point is that Sen's Fortress is a big step up in enemy difficulty, with the snakemen being a lot more dangerous than the regular hollows you've faced thus far. They're on par with some of the miniboss type monsters (like the Butchers in the Depths) and come at you in groups. Having a good shield is pretty helpful in Sen's because there's a lot of ranged attacks from the snakewomen.

Sen's is the first place that requires you to be good at the game rather than just bulldozing your way through with Estus.

Ah, gotcha. I remember my main issue being that the entire Fortress is a series of "gotcha" traps. The enemies alone wouldn't be that hard, but it's just a series of narrow corridors where you'll walk 3 feet and get killed by rolling boulders or whatever out of nowhere and it was just...tedious and un-fun.

I was talking more about bad boss runs. Rom's is one of the easiest since there's only a couple enemies (maybe only one?) between you and the boss gate and it's a very short trip.

There are zero enemies if you unlocked the shortcut and can run to the right; well technically I think there's one bug man you sprint past but he gives up immediately and can't catch up to you unless you completely stop moving.

If you've beaten the other Souls games I'm surprised Sen's put you off. There's far worse in the other games, 2 in particular. Darks Souls 1 in general is by far the easiest game in the entire series, with the possible exception of Demon Souls. The difficulty level is lower in Demon Souls but it makes up for it with sheer jank.

Dark Souls 1 was the first one I played, and the only one I've never owned; I'd rented it from Gamefly and just wasn't having fun with it by the time I got to Sen's. So I rented Dragon's Dogma instead, good game.

Dark Souls 2 is where I really got into the series, and it's still my favorite of the bunch. In terms of pure difficulty I'm sure DS1 would be a breeze now (I've struggled through Nioh 2 in the last few months, and that game is exponentially harder than anything in the extended Soulsborne franchise), but I've never really felt the desire to go back to it.

Nioh 1 and 2 I'd also dispute being a "Souls ripoff" by the by. It shares some basic elements (bonfire equivalents and a focus on hard bosses being basically it), but it's really nothing like it when you get into the nitty gritty. Particularly, it's much more skill based. Every weapon has a unique moveset which can be customized, and so it plays much more like a 3D fighting game or character action game with customizable attack strings like God Hand.

It even has a very clear, very linear story. I hated Nioh 1 and everything about it so never finished it, and Nioh 2's story sucked ass, but it was there, with cutscenes and everything.

[Corvus]

I've been playing Mass Effect Legendary Edition of late. Just finished up with ME1 and having improved graphics and a few other quality of life fixes is nice, but they made it really easy mode. Even insanity mode isn't much of a challenge, and I even refused to take Liara along as biotics make it even more a walk in the park. I did my run through as an engineer and took Wrex and Ashley along most of the time. I'll have to see what ME2 and ME3 are like but by all accounts very little was done to them.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I've started replaying The King's Bird, and I'd forgotten just how fun this game is. Jumping, gliding, climbing, and sliding to the upbeat-but-relaxing soundtrack just feels so nice. I've played some excellent games this year, but I think The King's Bird is on track to be my GotY.

[Anteros]

Well, dodging or blocking. The point is that Sen's Fortress is a big step up in enemy difficulty, with the snakemen being a lot more dangerous than the regular hollows you've faced thus far. They're on par with some of the miniboss type monsters (like the Butchers in the Depths) and come at you in groups. Having a good shield is pretty helpful in Sen's because there's a lot of ranged attacks from the snakewomen.

Sen's is the first place that requires you to be good at the game rather than just bulldozing your way through with Estus.



I was talking more about bad boss runs. Rom's is one of the easiest since there's only a couple enemies (maybe only one?) between you and the boss gate and it's a very short trip.

If you've beaten the other Souls games I'm surprised Sen's put you off. There's far worse in the other games, 2 in particular. Darks Souls 1 in general is by far the easiest game in the entire series, with the possible exception of Demon Souls. The difficulty level is lower in Demon Souls but it makes up for it with sheer jank.



I agree that Soulslike shows up all over the place, but if you look a bit deeper you find that it's a very deceptive tag.

Looking at the first page of the Soulslike tag:

Monster Hunter World - Uh, no.
Code Vein - Fromsoft's attempt at a Souls game without Miyazaki, fair enough.
Hollow Knight - uses Souls storytelling, gameplay is pure Metroidvania.
Nioh 2, Remnant - yep, deliberate Souls ripoffs
Dead Cells - again, Souls atmosphere and storytelling, in no way is the gameplay related.
Ender Lilies - It's a SotN game, not a Soulslike
Ori and the Will of the Wisps - okay, now you're just being silly

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What's my point here? Essentially, the term "Soulslike" is meaningless most of the time. There are some cases where it very clearly applies, like Code Vein, Nioh, and Salt & Sanctuary. These are games which very explicitly copied from Dark Souls and bragged about doing so whlie they were in development. They're made for the same audience that loves Souls games. For most of the others though? If you can dodge roll, it gets called a Soulslike. If it has a dark and mysterious world, it's a Soulslike. If the game is difficult, it's a Soulslike. If there is a bonfire somewhere in the game, it's a Soulslike. It's like how everything gets called an "Action RPG" these days. The tag is used for marketing far more than its actually appropriate.

Well the Steam search engine is garbage. Anything that lets users set the tags is going to be. Off the top of my head though in the last few years we've had Code vein, Nioh, Nioh 2, The Surge, The Surge 2, Hellpoint, and Jedi Fallen Order as clear Souls rip-offs. This is obviously not including the main games like Bloodborne, Dark Souls I-III, Sekiro, and Elden Ring. The market is flooded.