I was watching a few videos on the difficulty in Khazan recently (https://youtu.be/iRn_4QtYFiM and a different one which I can’t find any longer) where the creators argued that the difficulty, while very hard, is essential to the experience of the game. If the bosses were any less difficult, they would not pose enough of a challenge to players, thus diminishing the sense of accomplishment when beating the boss.

This made wonder if difficult bosses really are the most defining characteristic of soulslikes since that’s what most people seem to focus on. Dark Souls was notoriously marketed as the difficult game franchise, with FromSoft even leaning into this reputation with their DS1 Prepare to Die edition. But is difficulty really that important to a good soulslike?

Demon’s Souls, for example, mainly has gimmick bosses. Sure, Allan and Maneaters are quite difficult objectively speaking, but apart from Flamelurker (?) there was no boss in the game that gave me major trouble - it was primarily the brutal level design and lack of bonfires.

DS1, which had been heralded as this super hard game, doesn’t pose too many super difficult boss fights, by modern standards, either - the level design and interconnectedness of the world is the primary focus.

I feel like Sekiro (and maybe Nioh? haven’t played any of them) pushed the genre to include suuper difficult bosses, then Elden Ring did, now lower-budget studios with games like Lies of P or Khazan do, whilst the other pillars of what make up a “standard” soulslike take up a little bit of a background role.

With all that said, I was just wondering what your experience with difficult bosses has been recently and if you value difficult bosses over any other aspect of the games. Maybe you don’t care about difficulty at all and rather want to explore and feel the atmosphere of the world you’re in.

Have a nice weekend ✌🏻

  • Krudler@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    What speaks to me is how they feel like the “truest” RPG experience.

    You are in this completely unfamiliar world, you are holding a sharp stick and trembling with a crappy flap of leather as a shield…

    You have to creep through this terrifying dungeon world, having no idea what is around every corner. Every map layout tells a miniature story of what’s going on in that area, and it can be so subtle, sometimes it’s just the enemies they choose to place, or other small world details.

    It is such a true sense of bewilderment, despair, and scrambling to grasp where you are and what is happening and how to control it

    What are these weapons, how do they work? The game leaves it to you to discover for the most part. I’m going to use this pickaxe on this giant rock guy! Wow what a difference and now the feeling of a shred of control. You can deduce so many vulnerabilities in enemies just by paying attention.

    And it just keeps going from there.

    The best part of playing a Souls game is never looking at a Wiki. And fucking hating that you are stuck or can’t get past a spot and need to up your game. Not necessarily in the git gud sense but actually willingly learn and play the mechanics of the game sense. Or just try to discover more and find new solutions.

    I love that you simply cannot have a singular build and realistically expect to be able to have success throughout the entire game world. I love that at the very least you need to use a range of tools, not necessarily upgrade them, but you’re going to have a sad time if you think you can just hack and slash with some ultra mega dragon sword. Or get the pointiest magician hat and everything is going to be cool. Or think that because you are build x, you’re not ever going to be served by a bow.

    I have the most fun when I play the games in the dark, no hype, no wiki, no hints, no Googling answers. Making my own little maps and notes and trying to figure it out.

    So I guess to me that’s what it is, it’s a game world that is scary and brutally dangerous, but it gives enough tools to the player that they can squeak by.