The analogy makes a lot of sense to me. Once you have an “easy button”, it’s hard to not use it. It’s sort of like when you’re at work and see the “quick workaround” effectively become the standard process.
I remember burning out on games because the cheats made them really fun in the short term, but afterward playing normally felt like agony.
Im playing a bunch of soulslikes for the first time now. You gotta exhaust everything you can think of, then check a walkthrough just for the hint youre missing.
The process is the fun part. Looking it up is just a way to minimize frustration because you can’t find the goddamn ladder.
In other words im with you
I think souls likes are just not for me. I just want a cool story told in a relatively linear fashion. I’d take a linear 15 hour game over an open world 150+ hour game any day.
Most of em are pretty linear, really. Elden Ring is the exception. But like Bloodborne for instance, youre gonna go pretty much in the same order till you have to return to earlier areas to finish stuff. You’ve gotta explore a lot though.
Not trying to be like “LOVE THE THING THAT I LOVE DAMN YOU”, theyre totally not for everyone.
I also don’t wanna grind/retry a boss 500 times just to hear ‘git gud scrub’
Only the most braindead of gamers has a chance of bouncing off a single Souls fight more than maybe a dozen times. Two dozen if you’re especially thickheaded.
The thing about Soulslikes - and Fromsoft games in particular - is that they teach you new things primarily by killing you with them. Once you know whatever the thing is that this encounter is trying to teach you, you can blow through the entire thing at level 1 and people do it all the time. And I do mean “people” and not just professional streamers. SL1 is a popular challenge run for souls fans, specifically because once you know all the rules of the game it becomes very easy.
But there is no easing-in to learning new things in Dark Souls. You will get flattened into paste by some bullshit without warning, and it is up to the player to figure out a) why they died, and b) how to prevent that. Throwing yourself at the same brick wall 200 times with no change in strategy is a losing prospect no matter what game you’re playing, souls or otherwise.
The essence of “gitting gud” is literally just stopping for 10 seconds to think about why you failed last time. If you’re capable of that - and 99% of gamers definitely are, it’s a core component of game design - you’re capable of not only completing but excelling in Soulslikes.
People have been jerking off how difficult Souls games are for a decade and a half now and it’s never been true. Souls games are just rhythm games that don’t give you the rhythm onscreen. Find that rhythm (through observing patterns, and especially through listening to the boss fight music) and you’ll first-clear every single fight.
I’ve bounced off some fights way more than that. It’s not even about not getting what to do, my concentration just dies and I also get greedy (or in the case of margit in elden ring was insanely underleveled on top of that). Playing claire obscure on the highest difficulty while ignoring defense isn’t very different in terms of dodging difficulty, but since I couldn’t really get greedy and my brain can go off on a journey on my own turn it was pretty smooth and much less frustrating for me.
I do agree souls games aren’t super difficult, but they are unforgiving and if concentration isn’t your strong suit that will fuck you relentlessly. I still enjoy them personally though I’ve never completed one, there’s always some area that just annoys me too much to bother after a bit.
Yeah this is absolutely true start to finish. Once you slow down and stop spamming buttons, and think, it becomes really surprisingly easy. Mostly. Some bosses are just gonna ruin your day for a bit. Till you figure out what youre doing wrong and adjust. Sometimes easier said than done.
Then, by the time you’ve finished like a single run of any game, youre totally ready to crush the entire genre catalog. You’ve got months of dungeons to explore if you want.
Sigh. Im so grateful for these games lol. Theres so much love and creativity in their DNA.
Oh yeah that boss music tip made a world of difference with Bloodborne. Once someone pointed it out on a flame-themed hunter boss that was giving me pause, i was amazed. Like, how the hell does that work so well??
I made it all the way through Dark Souls 1 and 2 and about half of 3 before I even knew that was a thing. I was getting curbstomped by Dancer of the Boreal Valley and went online looking for discussions about her. Lo and behold:
this video is a re-upload because it looks like the original was removed
Tl;dw - Dancer’s song is in 3/4 time instead of 4/4 and she dances with her music. This gives her a crazy pattern that people always get got by because what feels like an opening actually isn’t. In order to defeat her you have to listen to her song and learn to dance with her.
Once I learned that it opened up an entire new world of understanding across every soulslike game I played and immediately halved my average number of boss attempts. No joke. Not every boss can be beaten blindfolded by just listening to their OST but it’ll give you good timing cues for the fight more often than it doesn’t.
That was a fun watch, thanks!
Interesting take.
Thing is I do enough of problem solving already so this just isnt my jam.
And if you like that genre/game series I wish you the best to getting more :)
That’s fair.
I’m sorry, I just can’t stop myself from launching into this spiel every time I hear a comment like your first one. There’s a huge swath of gamers that I feel like would actually love my favorite game if they weren’t scared away from it by gamer circlejerk. It’s not my mission in life to defend Dark Souls to people who don’t care about it, but I often assume that mantle despite myself.
At the end of the day though it’s just a game about self reflection and personal growth, and I like that.
Soulslikes are great if you’re looking to scratch an itch for mechanical mastery, discovery, exploration, etc., but stories are not their strong suit. I’m not saying the stories are bad, just the delivery of them, unless you’re the type of player who wants to play detective.
First few games were delightful to me precisely because they didn’t beat you over the head with a story. It’s up to you the player to make your own meaning of the understated story.
I unironically think that The Witcher 2 is the best game in the trilogy for this exact reason.
Something something sense of pride and accomplishment