Okay so I have never been into the Souls games. The whole “brutally difficult” thing never appealed to me, and watching my friends play was enough to turn me off.
However I decided to take the plunge and try Elden Ring recently because of all the amazing hype. Tons of “I’m not a Souls gamer but I loved it!” kind of hype.
And it’s pretty fun! I get why it got so much love.
But I also, after a week or two of play, have identified exactly what I don’t like about Souls games. It turns out it’s not the difficulty. I grew up playing in arcades and on the NES so I’m no stranger to trying things over and over until I get it right.
It’s the damn death penalty. I cannot express the depth of my hatred of losing progress. Games with save points that are too far apart or games where you can lose items when you die, etc, are just the worst for me. And in Elden Ring, the stress that goes along with trying to get back to my corpse to get my money/XP back is stress I don’t want or need.
So I ask you all this: can you recommend a Souls style game with the fun gameplay loop but without the punishing death penalty? Does that even exist or is it just not a Souls game without that? I’d love the carrot of [learn fight, get better, epic win] without the stick of [now go grind low level mobs for XP, loser].
I think it is kinda a big aspect of the Souls-like genre, no reward without risk. I will say I was very similar to you about not enjoying it. I bounced off of DS1 very hard. However, if you can manage ER, DS3 is a worth trying. It is a more conventional game with more clear goals and leveling. It also gets pretty steep discounts on Steam. DS3 taught me how to play a Souls-like aggressively, which massively changes the flow of combat.
It’s also worth saying that the death penalty is a mentality thing. I’ve been playing God of War, and I get way more frustrated when I die in that. GoW is a power fantasy ties together with an emotional narrative, so that’s what I want. DS games are about facing insane challenges with basically no hope, but through practice and determination you can succeed. Souls/runes are easy come, easy go, but you always gain knowledge. As hard as it can be, I’ve never been as satisfied in a game as I was when I first beat Midir or Gael.
It’s funny you bring up GoW. I was so fucking annoyed when I got that game blind because I thought I knew what a GoW game was, even a reboot. I was blindsided by how they’d turned it into a very different game. I found the combat super frustrating and quit pretty quickly despite how good the story was. I was also really confused by the bizarre controls.
I realize now that they turned it into a Souls style game but at the time I just felt like I’d wasted $60.
Maybe I should retry that one since the sequel is out now too.