Are we done with "souls-like" games?

>death stranding
Enjoy you’re shit movie game

Is it worth it? The art in the game looks fucking fantastic, but I wasn't sure if it was all style no substance.

It's pretty fucking soild, a bit slower than I was expecting but so far I fucking love it.

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Don't dare to insult Kojima. I'm not a fan per se, only played very few games from the guy, but he is certainly good and an artist at heart. We need more people like him in the game industry.
I'm sure Death Stranding will be good, though I still feel we missed the chance of Kojima's best game ever when MGSV went to shit thanks to Konami.

You expected a metroidvania but it was me, soulslike!

I much prefer Rogue-lite. Arguably more popular than soul-like games. Dead cells is a more recent rogue-lite that also has been called souls-like so there can be some cross-over there and that makes a pretty good game too. Dark souls if I remember wasn't a "hardcore" experience by most measure in that you couldn't really permanently lose your character (and progress). Unless you glitched yourself somehow and didnt have a save backup or something.

Dead Cells has nothing to do with Dark Souls.
I just checked and it actually has the "souls-like" tag. My dear lord, nowadays is turning into a synonym of rogue-like. FFS like if it was the only game ever where you die a lot.

>it's not a genre because I don't like it
Is that really your argument mr faggot?

>fast paced action series gets turned into a weighty stamina fest because the devs want to make a Souls game

So games where you can permanently lose your characters like Darkest dungeon for an example, and Risk of Rain, but offer dynamic bonuses and progression within that system are better than the strictly souls-like experience. They offer a strange amount of replayability for the content of the game being not necessarily as grand and large in design as some other games like Dark souls 3 or Bloodborne.

this but unironically

Ya people are calling all kinds of games souls-like that's what is sort of strange about discussing this "genre" most people seem too think it is synonymous with "die alot". While that isn't properly a souls-like or rogue-lite on its own. We wouldn't have called arcade shoot em ups either of those categories.

>someone is making me play games i don't like
>if it's not new then i can't play it
This is stupid.

Souls-like is not a genre, it's mostly a marketing gimmick.
That's like saying any slasher movie is a "Friday the 13th-like".

What I hate the most about them taking the concept is none of them are even trying to do anything special with it. For example one thing that makes Dark Souls 1 so good is that it has a Metroidvania type of progression in that its semi open but not open world type of open in its design. Companies could easily take that concept but ditch the shitty combat system these games are known for and make a way better battle system instead. Do they do this? Nope, they take the laziest approach and just copy and paste.

What an awful thread
Nioh is not Souls-like you goddamn philistine

Pretty much my point.

When a game has parry staggering, level up currency, bonfires, and shortcut based level design, it's a Soulslike.

Nioh is the most tryhard souls like, the fucking logo is a katana in a bonfire. Shit game.

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Did any of you guys actually play the original Dark Souls?

I used to think action games were all flash and no substance until the stamina thing happened. Now they actually feel like they have depth.

This is how the games industry works and how genres are created

>Ground breaking game comes out, usually not the first to do whatever it's gimmick is, but is the first to do it well and gain popularity (eg: Doom, Space Invaders, rogue, Minecraft, PUBG)
>Devs take inspiration from game, shortly after game is realised deluge of similar games pour out (eg: doom)
>Eventually, through torrent of shitty games, genre matures and a couple other influential games refine the genre's mechanics (eg: halo CE and CoD popularizing 2 weapon limit and regenerating health)

T. Unqualified to talk about this

Well, rogue-like is not a very defined genre, it is composed by various characteristics that might or might not be present.
So, rogue-like is the closest we have to "die a lot" genre.

>Companies could easily take that concept but ditch the shitty combat system these games are known for and make a way better battle system instead. Do they do this? Nope, they take the laziest approach and just copy and paste

Not as easily as you imply, heard of The Surge and the upcoming The Surge 2? That's exactly w hat the designers tried too do, do away with the way combat was designed in Dark souls and add their own unique mechanics keeping stuff like dodge and the relatively slow combat style. People didn't like it over-all, which there were problems with more than the combat system alone, the point is trying something new is a risk and doesn't always pay off equally.

I played a lot, a LOT of old games. I hardly have oldies that interest me nowadays. Sure, there must be some, but it gets harder to find them the more you keep playing.

I agree.

>i'm bored!
That means you're boring.

I'm OP and I did. God knows how that game became so popular.

The Surge was void of creativity. People like Souls games because the world is interesting and worth exploring.

What is a souls-like? Bloodborne? cause that's pretty much Dark Souls with another name.
Purists need to calm their tits. Nioh is similar enough to be deserving of the name, even if you don't like it. It's a souls-like, ffs, not the same franchise.

That was ironic, right?

No that shitty game still looks too much like a Souls game. I want to see a game actually have a massively different battle system and even the way enemies approach the player. These clones take everything about the genre, even the massive faults with it like dumb enemy ai, and they barely do anything different at all with it.

And that might be the problem with the genre itself. It has so many specific nuances about it that make it identifiable and this includes a lot of its shitty faults. So I guess if you change too much of these faults people wouldn't even see it as a souls like no more. Its sad that people think that somehow a lot of these faults in souls-like games are somehow good when its shit.

Please say syke

FPS are not doom-likes nor try to be a copy of said game.
Diablo made the action rpg genre popular and, though we do have games that try to imitate it, they are not called diablo-like.

You can argue rogue-like, but even so it's a sub-genre and it's not very solid by itself.

The thing is a genre needs to be a general concept that gets detached from the source that gave it birth. Will souls-like turn into a real genre someday? maybe, but that day has yet to come.

It only means I know way more about games than you.

I'm pretty sure that at least half the people who played DS didn't give shit about the story, most probably didn't even get it entirely.

>story
I meant interesting locations, items, and enemies to find.

That's because souls-like is not a damn genre. You can't build a genre by copying the exact qualities of a game, you need to take them in a more general way. That's why is not working and all the games feel or either more of the same or even worse.

Yes but early FPS games were literally just copying Doom, that's why then called them Doom Clones, my point is that Souls-like games are the early stages of a new genre.

"souls-like" isn't a genre dumbie. Only people that don't know shit about vidya say something like this.

Souls isnt unique enough to be a genre. Its few unique traits are too obvious when put in other games.

>That's because souls-like is not a damn genre.

It is though, just not an official one. Official genres are hard to gauge and most have been established already long ago is the thing. That is where the internet and communities come in. Metroidvania was never an official genre either but now its pretty unanimously agreed upon to be a genre despite it not having an official name. Most official genres with names are very broad in their definitions. Point is that souls-like absolutely is a genre at this point.

is "souls-like" the "doom clone" of the 2010s?

Oh well, we can agree on that. I'm not sure if it is going to happen though, but it might be.

youtube.com/watch?v=lRDNiQr5Hps

Anyone has that short parody video of Vaati talking about Salt and Sanctuary?

see You stupid kids had no clue FPS used to be called doom clones I bet. And yeah souls-like is the doom clone of the 2010s years.

I feel like only a handful of devs even really make "souls-like" games so I don't see what you're complaining about. It's not particularly obstructive or anything.

I'm interested in this too.

That's because the game journos started with Dark Souls 1, whose progression design gives it a very distant Metroid/SotN lineage. It's lazy hack writing that is inherently wrong in suggesting it's a series trait

If you think dark souls is as revolutionary as doom, or at all for that matter, you need to go back to the drawing board my nigger. "souls-like" is only uttered by retards who don't know what action rpgs are

FPS is a genre, doom clone isn't.

Action rogue-like with RPG elements.

or something like that.

i never said it's nothing like souls. did you even read my post user? r u o k

Soulslike isn't a genre. They're ARPG's.

It has literally zero roguelike elements you donut. What, is Diablo 2 a roguelike too just because it has a corpse retrieval mechanic?

It's more like an action exploration game with light roleplaying opportunities. There aren't any rogue-like/lite elements

I don't like the term either but it can't be denied that Demon's Souls and Dark Souls brought about a sort of syllabus of gameplay mechanics, though none of which were novel individually, work really well together and it's really easy to trace the lineage of a game that now uses several of those.

Die a lot genre gets pretty dumb. Remnants Ash is a good example of a soulless "Souls-like" that misses a lot of the good parts of actual Souls games and ends up just throwing a ton of bullshit to make you die a lot

Souls just set the standard for ARPG's for the last couple gens like Diablo did before it. People didn't call ARPG's Diablolikes. Diablo clones were called out for what they were though, clones. Same with WoW clones. MMO's didn't become WoWlikes.

FPS became a genre only after doom clone got better defined. Gaming didn't always refer to FPS as FPS.

Dark Souls is certainly more revolutionary than Metroid and sold more copies of its respective franchise yet Metroid has a genre named in its honor. Quit being a fag. souls-like is a genre.

.Dark Souls is certainly more revolutionary than Metroid
Okay, user. How?

Dying often and losing, total or partially, your character are also key elements of the rogue-like genre. Those games are pretty much based on the idea of having to play them several times to "git gud". Sure, the random-generated dungeon isn't there, but I'm not sure if that's enough to not say it's not, at least, "roguelikeish".
If you look it up there are a lot of key features a roguelike can have and it's still a subject that can be broadly discussed, unlike the characteristics of other genres that are pretty general, basic and obvious.

We can discuss how much of a roguelike DS is, but saying that DS is NOTHING like one would be a wrong statement.

>instead of dying and restarting, you just lose your souls and restart
wow so this is the power of souls like

That's pretty much the game that made me write this thread. That one and the one with robots, I can't remember the name.

Holy shit, losing stuff when you die is not a roguelike concept.

I'm just saying DS is not there yet, and that if it will turn or not into a genre is something only time will tell.

>being this much of a fanboy

Wow. I don't like Metroid but even I consider that an insult.

You mean well but I'm sorry friend that is not what a rogue-lite, let alone a rogue-like is about

There is well over two dozen souls-likes or souls influenced games at this point. Indies have copied the shit out of or have devs that mentioned souls as being an inspiration for their game. Fuck off already.

It's kind of a hardcorish experience. It's not permadeath, sure, but it's certainly punishing enough to be considered somewhere close to it. It doesn't mean you lose the character completely, but you certainly lose a portion of your progress.
Of course that alone isn't enough, but it certainly shares other traits with the genre.

>I'm not nowhere close to want to play another game like that soon
so... you are somewhere close to want to play another game like that soon, op?

Point is, even some damn mascot platformers from the 90s make you lose in-game currency on death. There is nothing "rogue" about this.

You can insult me or try to belittle me as much as you want, but that won't make your statements right.
Souls-like is not a genre and a bunch of games trying to copy the style are not nearly enough to turn it into one.

No way. People always complain about there being so many souls clones but no one ever says what they are. All I can think of is low budget shit like lords of the fallen and you wouldnt play that anyway. or is the definition of soulslike you have to pick up your corpse? does that mean world of warcraft is a souls like? where and what are these soulslikes because i want to play them

But the point is not losing progress, it's just a part of it. The point is to force you to replay it a lot to get the hang of it, rogue-like is the closest to "die a lot and git gud" genre we have. I guess it's a matter of how important is for you the random generated dungeon thing, but in general is only one of the main characteristics so I don't feel like ruling out the roguelike category only based on that.

You do not personally get to decide what is and isn't a genre. You just want to shit post. And if you arent, your opinion means nothing because as you scream in the wind, more soulslikes are being made. Souls is the most innovative franchise in the last 2 decades. Deal with it kid

dude "die a lot and git gud" is not what a roguelike is about. is ninja gaiden a roguelike? The words you're saying don't mean what you think they mean

sekiro showed that souls-like is not nearly exhausted, though it should be left to from software exclusively since everyone else who does them is just a fucking hack who has no clue how to make the game work

Salt and Sanctuary
Dark Maus

Eh you do not personally get to decide what a genre is, and something being popular doesn't turn it instantly into a new genre.
And if you believe Souls franchise is the most innovative thing we got in the last 2 decades then you must be quite illiterate game-wise.

Do me a favor, go and read a little about the genre. I'm not saying it will make you see things my way, but it will at least show you why I'm saying what I'm saying.

here you go user - youtube.com/watch?v=Lx7BWayWu08

textbook example of zero ascension nigger talking about a genre he don't know jackshit about

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Prove me wrong, not with your opinions but with facts and information sources.
Otherwise you are just an ignorant fool.

Genre: a category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter.

The fact there are dozens of games that are similar to souls makes it a valid genre. Your opinion literally doesn't matter. The masses have decided

>rogue-like is the closest to "die a lot and git gud" genre we have
Super Meat Boy is a rogue-like

"the masses" assuming DS is actually THAT popular and not only composed by a very loud fandom.
I'm not saying the game isn't popular enough, but I would hardly say it's something "the masses" play. It's a game that appeals to a certain fanbase and that's it. The kind of game you either love or hate.

Also please go ahead and tell me what features that are not included in other genres are key to a souls-like game. What makes it so unique? how come nobody can make a game of the "souls-like" genre that doesn't feel like a copy? I don't know what you think, but games like Doom, Half-life, CoD and many others don't feel like a copy of each other, yet they share the same genre.

Why? You can't really argue against a retarded statement. If someone told you that vikings colonized the moon - you can't say anything other than "No they didn't".
You can't engage into an argument about it because it'll make you just as retarded as the person who made that statement.
Besides, If I do that you won't make fool of yourself online anymore.
Just pretend you won so I can get a cheap laugh every once in a while.

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in fact, every platformer is roguelike.
because rogue was a game about jumping over spikes!

You reply is void, like any argument you might have.
If someone said something like that you could, for example, say that they existed way before we got enough technology to leave Earth. There are many, many valid arguments for why vikings didn't colonize the moon. Exposing them wouldn't make you look like a fool, on the contrary, you'd make the other person look like one.

The thing is you don't have valid arguments besides your opinion, so you are trying to insult your way to an empty victory.

I see the Dark Souls fanbase is still composed by bigots. I thought we were over the "git gud" times, but you boys will never learn, you still think you know better.
Poor ignorant players, believing they know shit about games.

Yes, yes. You're absolutely right dude! Dark Souls is literally a rogue-like!

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Thought we were discussing souls-like being a genre.
Strangely enough nobody replied to my request to define it. Can you?

>please go ahead and tell me what features that are not included in other genres are key to a souls-like game. What makes it so unique? how come nobody can make a game of the "souls-like" genre that doesn't feel like a copy? I don't know what you think, but games like Doom, Half-life, CoD and many others don't feel like a copy of each other, yet they share the same genre.

okay nerd

>We can discuss how much of a roguelike DS is, but saying that DS is NOTHING like one would be a wrong statement.

youtube.com/watch?v=Lx7BWayWu08

Now check this:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike

My statement stands right. It looks like your comprehension skills aren't that good, bud.

Anything else you want to say?

>you people who like this style of game aren't you bored of this style of game
are you an idiot? might as well ask people HEY YOU LIKE RPGS AREN'T YOU BORED OF RPGS THOUGH. YOU LIKE RTS GAMES AREN'T YOU BORED OF RTS GAMES THOUGH.

it's a type of game, and it's going to exist forever now just like every other type of game. if you don't wanna play it there's a real easy solution of not buying it and playing something else instead you know my lad

well you're conflating your opinion, insofar as a game "feels like" a complete copy of another game. CoD might actually "feel like" a copy of Doom in terms of its mechanics, but they were made on different hardware. The comparison is hardly apt. Half-Life actually does feel a lot like CoD, with the story, setting and one or two actual mechanics that set it apart.

The recurring mechanics are stamina bar and souls. You drop your souls, you have to pick them up. Those are the features that make each installment in the genre, if you want to call it that, feel so similar.

Really though, if you weren't such a cunt, you'd realize that a game like Nioh takes that formula and adds a stance system, ninjutsus and spells which DS doesn't have, and throws it all into a mission-based game. the setting, narrative and themes are unique to Nioh.

if these souls-inspired games feel similar that's your opinion, it doesn't mean they're actually grossly derivative.

>links a page proving his own shit wrong
>My statement stands right
>It looks like your comprehension skills aren't that good
pottery

Are you saying that NONE of those features are present in Dark Souls?? Cause my statement never was that DS is a full-fledged roguelike, I just said it would be wrong to say it has completely 100% nothing related to said genre.

You are a joke.

Who is the official Genre Deciding Organisation?

Okay, how on Earth can anyone think this video is against what I'm saying?
According to the video DS is nearly on stage 2 of becoming a genre.
Besides the approach this youtuber gives to the genre thing is closely related to when a game is copied exactly, seeing the genres almost as a bad thing as well. That's not my view at all, I believe the vision he embraces is the one related to a genre while the thing this guy discourages is what we are getting nowadays with most "soulslike" games.

Hopefully we are, these games have already peaked and run their course. Play something different instead of insisting upon more of the same

The worst are 2D games trying to emulate mostly the atmosphere and other shit no one cares about while forgetting that 3D is essential for souls gameplay, be it combat or exploration.

Except it literally feels like someone took SotN and Dark Souls and smashed them together, the game has clear dark souls influence

>DS1
That's a good example of metroidvania shit getting everywhere. They'll go and say even an action adventure with RPG elements is a metroidvania.

The worst part is that these games already belonged to an established genre, they're adventure games. I know there's a lot of elitism in the fanbase but that's what they are at the end of the day. A "Souls-like" would be amazing if they even understood what made Demon's Souls unique, the simple answer is gimmicks.

Getting your health cut in half when you die to intimidate the player is fun, but putting it in another game would be pointless. The game getting harder is you fail is unique aswell, so is World Tendency. The problem is people focus on the combat which is the least interesting part of the game, and only exists as a means to make the adventure/exploration meaningful/dangerous, it's not,never was and never will be the focus of the game (just look at developer interviews from that time).

It's the same feeling you get from playing pic related, which heavily inspired the souls games and takes a lot from it. Most people would never play Zelda 1 or games like it since they think it's not the same "genre" as it, when it is, it's just an adventure game.

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