A Case of Soulslike Fatigue | Semi-Ramblomatic

[@adamloga3788]

There's definitely something to be said for a meaty challenge that takes you time and effort to overcome, leaving you feeling that haedy mix of catharsis, relief, and accomplishment, but it's worth remembering that you can only push things so far before your players start feeling less like Hercules and more like Sisyphus.

[@TomahawkXC]

Well said.

[@adamloga3788]

@@TomahawkXC thank you.

[@pickyphysicsstudent201]

THat last line hits so hard. Its like biting into a lemon.

[@GBSpiral]

absolutely. I find myself spinning up more lightweight casual games when i only have like 30 mins to play. if I'm sitting down to play a souls game that day, then awesome. but if I'm just trying to have some fun playing a game then loading into beat my face against a wall is less enticing. Elden Ring helped with this, being able to muck off and do something else but... i dunno. you put it really well though.

[@redkingrauri3769]

The feeling of tension leaving you as you beat a hard boss in a Fromsoft game is almost euphoric if it didn't feel like bullshit along the way. There's a sense of flow you can reach where you know what to do, you have the patterns down, you know how to react to each thing, you just gotta make sure you don't screw up. Beating the corrupted monk in Sekiro was a feeling of relief I've only felt from meditation before, and it was renewed when I finally beat [*Final Boss of Shadow of the Erdtree*] after dozens of attempts, deciding whether or not a summon would be beneficial or not and flipping back and forth between forcing my preferred style or shaking up my loadout for this one fight.

[@iangrapes6659]

Can we appreciate the irony of a soulslike fatigue is sponsored by the second most oversaturated genre, roguelike deckbuilders.

[@manjackson2772]

Second? I don't think it's even close, it's first by far

[@haruhirogrimgar6047]

I mean, Farming sims and slapping Metroidvania after the souls-like both have a strong case for second most saturated.

[@__-ni1kz]

There’s way more rogue like deckbuilders.

[@MousaThe14]

Oh I definitely noticed, though more the roguelike in general than the deckbuilder. the roguelike deckbuilder is the new up and coming oversaturater, while the roguelike and soulslike are the mainstays. Though I’d argue that the roguelike is the one that’s move over saturated because it seems easier for more indies to execute.

[@iangrapes6659]

​@manjackson2772 that's a fair assessment😂😂😂. I guess it would be more appropriate to describe it as the second most fatigued. As the more indie nature of the roguelikes make them less prominent.

[@tonycampbell1424]

As Frost said, all heat no flavor makes for a very spicy and unpleasant dish.

[@LethargicScientist]

It's like eating a fine curry vs drinking a bottle of hot sauce.

[@megamangos7408]

This, when people say they like it hot, they usually don't mean with added ghost peppers.

[@pickyphysicsstudent201]

It think he said it was "all heat; no spice" but that one works better. We want flavour - not spice.

[@TheKeeperofChaos]

And then people who are addicted to spice and eat nothing but ghost peppers want to harass you and act like you're an unworth wuss for saying you'd prefer normal food and maybe pure peppers aren't the best source of nutrition Seriously. I love every FromSoft game, but we have to stop acting like DS is above criticism and anyone who slightly objects to it is unworthy or their opinion is invalid

[@shazakito]

I kind of wish Yahtzee gave Sekiro another try because it's a better spice mix than he gives it credit for. That game actually rewards you for experimenting with your shinobi tools, and the boss fights and mini boss fights are much more about testing your knowledge of the game's different mechanics than just testing your reflexes and ability to roll, like in the Elden Ring. The final boss in Sekiro is probably the hardest boss fight FromSoftware has ever made because you can't summon, overlevel, or change your builds, yet it is so incredibly satisfying to beat him because the entire game is a learning experience that prepares you for that final battle.

[@KingOfElectricNinjas]

Kinda funny that when Dark Souls first came out, some people praised it for actually having the balls to BE hard and obscure and require patience and developing skill, in an era where it felt like publishers were hell-bent on dragging you to the end credits by any means necessary. Similar to how Breath of the Wild (and Elden Ring) was refreshing for being an open world game that was built around actually exploring, and not dragging you by the nose through every single setpiece terrified that you'd miss something that the graphic design budget went into. Lessons were learned, or at least they were ripped off a lot, but the novelty does wear off eventually.

[@Ziel23987]

Because those ideas and qualities aren't inherently good or bad. You can have a fun hard game or a shitty hard game. Or even something like I Wanna be the Guy that is so hard and unfair that the fun factor stems from something else entirely. And stuff with no fail states, like Spiritfarer or Oneshot can be great, because difficulty wouldn't add anything to those games. Likewise, the exploration can be so obscure than no one can figure it out without a guide. And at that point you are actually better off implementing markers - otherwise the players will just find stuff on the internet and spoil themselves on other things by accident. And this is a problem Elden Ring runs into. The previous games had much smaller worlds, even if they were more dense. But now it's just not feasible for the player to search every square meter on their own. How on earth does anyone find the Volcano Manor dungeon without a wiki? Randomly rolling into walls?

[@nifftbatuff676]

The problem with soulslike are not these aspects though. Is the boring game loop, that was repeated in endless other games, without questioning it.

[@GBSpiral]

@@nifftbatuff676 different strokes for different folks. the popularity of the genre suggests lots of people find the core gameplay loop engaging and fun.

[@Ghorda9]

@@Ziel23987 you find the volcano manor dungeon by leaving messages turned on. People also should just abandon the FOMO mindset that ruins everything.

[@Cergorach]

If you don't have those types of games anymore, then it's great that someone makes one. It's an outlier from a normally monotonous gaming grind. But when the thing you were missing becomes the new standard, it becomes the normally monotonous gaming grind. Ice is nice and cold, but at a touch of vanilla and it becomes tasty icecream (not how it works, but hang on), but when you put a bottle of pure vanilla extract in front of me, I really don't want to drink it... It's too much of a good thing (and I might die from alcohol poisoning)! A cold shower is great on a hot summer day, it's nice and refreshing. In the middle of winter when it's freezing outside, taking a cold shower suddenly isn't refreshing... The key words here are 'balance' and 'the right amount at the right time'. Something, that according to Yahtzee, isn't there anymore (difficulty arms race). Now, if that's the actual cause of his soulslike fatigue is the question, it might just also just be that as you get older your tastes change. And while 41 isn't that old, Dark Souls is already 12 years old. Children change a lot in 12 years, adults maybe not that much, but maybe just enough to get turned off by most Soulslikes they previously liked...

[@Sadarak1980]

It's not a soulslike specific phenomenon, genre fatigue is real for any genre, sometimes you just need something completely different for a while like a pallete cleanser before you dive back in :)

[@pramitpratimdas8198]

It doesnt help that modern souls games are so same-y and havent done much to reinvigorate the genre

[@rnf_mh]

Like an annual Disco Elysium run for example where you forgot the tiny bits inbetween that make the run unique but the bigger picture cuts deeper everytime you revisit it 👼

[@Kelebriel]

I really love Frost’s analogy for this - difficulty is like spiciness. Sure, it can be good, but spiciness is just one factor in making something taste good, and it seems like people are focusing just on making things spicy instead of taste good.

[@cranapple3367]

@@Kelebriel specifically, difficulty is valuable because it rewards you for learning and engaging with the tools the game gives you. To use a ds1/ER analogy: O&S is a great fight because it expands on ideas you'velearned already. A magic build has to deal with the speedy Ornstein and Smough's occasional gapclosers, but can still snipe with caution. A heavy weapon build has to figure out how to get hits in while avoiding Smough, but is rewarded by Ornstein's mediocre poise. A shield build has to get aggressive to avoid being cornered, but can mostly ignore Ornstein's attacks with stamina management. And all of this is communicated and rewarded through the core combat loop. Compare its spiritual successor, the Godskin Duo, where a ranged build can't reliably use the pillars to hide from the roll, a heavy build struggles to land blows against their rapid jumps away, and the main way to win is that they're so weak to sleep it effectively becomes a 1v1. Their weakness to sleep is, as far as I know, not telegraphed by gameplay or lore at all, and it requires no mastery of the game mechanics you've practiced since Limgrave - just a memorized knowledge of which pot to throw. That's consistent with "play as a community", but unlike tactics in DS1 doesn't feel skilled or like something you practice or learn, it just feels like cheating. Or compare a great elden ring boss, Margit. He's the first boss with combos certain to break guards, poise sufficient to eat multiple heavy weapon hits, fast ranged attacks to punish magic builds, all of which force players to approach him slightly differently. But the basic ideas established so far still apply. His tail swipe is like the Burial Watchdog's sword spin, his smash is like the Misbegotten's jump slam, and his dagger swipe is like the dungeon imps. You've dealt with all of it before and you're rewarded for your mastery, but have to expand on it. The ranged pokes that were safe on the Watchdog get mildly punished by dagger throws, the easy dodge from Misbegotten now needs you to get back in quick to keep his poise doen, and heavy attacks and shields could stop the imps in their tracks but won't stop the much bulkier Margit.

[@calvin7330]

Except "people" in this case are the players. ER is a set of sauce packets compared to the single flavor bag of chips that is DS. The average player isn't meant to just use the hottest packet every time

[@eneco3965]

I don't like spiciness

[@CaptainEffort]

@@eneco3965 Then you probably shouldn't eat spicy food

[@RabidDog20]

@@calvin7330 Blaming players is silly, you can summon for bosses or use overpowered builds designed online for one specific purpose, but it's just not a fun way to play the game. ER really suffers from almost requiring a respec for certain bosses, the DLC final boss being particularly egregious. I played the DLC coop with two friends, and they quickly found out they can just spam the bleed thorns spell while I'm trying to play the fun way with colossal greatswords, but me playing the fun way just meant doing tiny damage and being 2-shot, while my friends chunk off 10% hp at a time while being far from the damage

[@Jcostelllo118]

Also the internet in 2009-2012 was much different than it is today. As the internet continues to rot, a game series based on using the internet will only build resentment.

[@JorgeLopez-qj8pu]

Imagine when all these wiki servers finally go offline, and some kid can’t figure out how to remove that statue in dark souls.

[@lordbuss]

@@JorgeLopez-qj8pu We will always* have Web Archive.

[@TheRogueWolf]

@@lordbuss * (Always having Web Archive not guaranteed.)

[@xamyool]

Good point.

[@raguelelnaqum]

@@lordbuss not if game companies & privatized information repositories have their way (speaking as someone who has to deal with both corporate vectors trying to make my job as a digital archivist harder on the regulator). Corporations HATE publicly available nonprofit information repositories, mainly because they don't understand that just like physical & social infrastructure you can't privatize information infrastructure into monopolies without shutting the whole system down. But because of that greed based ignorance they regularly attack libraries & databases like the Internet Archive for 'copyright infringement' because they consider nonprofit public repositories to be competition. In their obsession to monopolize control of & monetize access to information they erode everything that made it valuable in the first place, and then wonder why they can't sell access to their hoards of media data, and why upkeep costs for privatized repository servers are so expensive, and just nuke all of the information so no one else can have it or profit from it, even if it wasn't originally theirs in the first place.

[@ihappy1]

I think what adds to the feeling of fatigue is that a lot of Dark Souls 1 felt like a puzzle where if you're clever you can find an easy solution. The tutorial boss shows this because yeah you can brute force the asylum demon, but the game wants you to realize you can run away, which leads you to better gear and the ability to plunging attack it for a big head start. Compare that to Dark Souls 3, where the tutorial fight is just a fast and tough guy in a circular arena, no extra gimmicks at all. Or the Tauros demon, yeah you can fight it head on, but you can also abuse the fact that you can climb up a ladder and repeatedly plunging attack it. Or you can try to bait it into jumping off of the one broken part of the wall. Compare that to Margit at Stormveil, where the arena is a mostly straight path with empty parts at the edges. But Margot can't fall off, only you can. Dark Souls 1 was charming because it felt like generally everything adhered to following the same rules. Bosses can die from falling off of the arena just like you. But with the newer games the enemies get more exceptions but the player has to play by the same restrictions. Also your point about boss design is really true. A lot of bosses in DS1 felt like they had some puzzley aspect and we're closer to a Zelda like boss. There were plenty of straight up fights but there were some opportunities to be clever. In Elden Ring nearly every boss is just a straight up fight in a circular or square arena with very little extra things to make you stop, observe, and try to think outside the box. Rennala and Rykard being the only real 'puzzle bosses' I can think of

[@pramitpratimdas8198]

No souls game embodied this aspect more than Demon Souls. It didnt work all the time but its such a shame fromsoft completely abandoned it because the community complained about gimmick bosses too much

[@vitorpr1245]

Wow. I thought that Taurus Demon falling off was a glitch. Now my regard for DS1 is even higher

[@bartholen]

@@pramitpratimdas8198 The puzzle/gimmick boss is a hard thing to pull off in a satisfying way. Because once you figure out the gimmick, it's not usually much of a fight at all. Can anyone really call the Dragon God in Demon's Souls an enjoyable sequence on repeat playthroughs? Even the decent gimmick bosses, like Yhorm in DS3, are pretty meh once you know the timings well enough. How do you balance such an aspect with the Souls combat system without delving into Zelda boss territory? I don't really know if the Souls formula can really support more multilayered boss fights. Funnily enough, it might actually be the amount of available gameplay styles that ends up limiting what can be done with boss fights, because they need to be at least somewhat balanced against each one.

[@vazazell5967]

@@bartholen news flash: fromsoft games were never about bosses or combat. They are closer to survival horrors where the combat difficulty is there to add to world's atmosphere of dread. Late games lost this plot.

[@ni9274]

A puzzle with one very easy solution isn't that entertaining, I think people look at these games with too much nostalgia, it wouldn't take any thinking for gamers now to figure out you are not supposed to fight the tutorial boss with a sword that does practically no damage and while there is an open door in the arena. This apply to basically every gimmick bosses in DS1 and DeS, it's always "hit boss in the leg", "break item behind boss", "hit this obvious weakpoint", no complexity at all just a very simple puzzle. Compared to that bosses like Manus, Gael, Friede, Malenia... offer very entertaining gameplay and a lot of depth if you engage with all the mechanics.

[@ShinyGaara65]

"My name is Benjamin Yahtzee Wildebeest Croshaw." -Benjamin Yahtzee Sebastian Godzilla Croshaw

[@bar_bar9315]

I still enjoy their games. But completely agree with Yhatzee. Most of the weird uniqueness of DeS/DS1 got completely lost for the sake the difficulty. Many bosses nowadays are a mess with 200 attacks per minute, with a camera that spins and rolls non-stop. And the few bosses that aren't like that, are marked by the community as "gimmick/awful/not fun/disappointing" ones. I always recommend "The lost soul arts of Demon's Souls" by Matthewmatosis here on YT. A great example of the topic. In a video that is, by now, 7 years old.

[@pramitpratimdas8198]

Its funny that the video is 7yrs old now and its still the best criticism of souls games wrapped in a tidy

[@bronsoncarder2491]

I just... completely and entirely disagree.

[@ricniclas]

@@bronsoncarder2491 what do you disagree with?

[@Silbotronic]

@@pramitpratimdas8198 I get his viewpoint but I strongly disagree. I replayed Demon's Souls recently and found most bosses to be a snoozefest. Zelda-esque bosses don't really belong in a game that has so few tools available to the player.

[@Ghorda9]

@@matthewmuir8884 elden ring and sekiro does a much better job with this, rolling isn't the best option anymore and positioning/jumping/blocking is more important when used correctly.

[@Hagunemnon]

So, in short: it doesn't matter if you're hard if you don't do anything WITH it.

[@conor-smith572]

I wish I was clever enough to tease an innuendo out of this comment. It's so ripe for jokes!

[@seanmartin355]

Lies of P is an amazing soulslike tho, I finished it and completed NG+ and it was so fun. The atmosphere was incredible and the gameplay was really tight with a emotional story. Can't wait for the new DLC and the sequel

[@Sahgren]

The secret to Dark Soul's difficulty was always about being hard enough to force the player to learn and try. I've never seen much point in the more recent soulslikes pushing further past that purely for the sake of being harder. At that point, it's just masochistic without necessarily giving me any more of that good feeling of overcoming a challenge.

[@pramitpratimdas8198]

The difficulty of ds1 wasn't just forcing players to learn roll timings (less so than DeS but still). As yahtzee mentioned - the gaping dragon or butterfly boss weren't necessarily about dodging at the right time. DeS is probably the best in terms of keeping the game fresh by switching things up a bit that modern souls games fail to do.

[@AnimeUniverseDE]

Yup the worst offender being, ironically enough, Elden Ring and its DLC. Games like the original Dark Souls, DS3, Sekiro and Lies of P make me feel like I've really learned the bosses attack patterns and conquered the challenge. ER not so much

[@kingsleycy3450]

It's feeling like the bosses are designed for streamers to play in front of an audience, and not for player skill check or general enjoyment

[@c0n33r]

@@AnimeUniverseDE You can always summon a weak spirit ashe. You'll get some help, but not enough to invalidate the challenge. The game gives you these methods to adjust the difficulty to your liking.

[@jimifender22]

It's pretty funny how hard i felt ds1 was when i played it but going back to it after something like ds3 or elden ring, where the bosses have evolved a good bit, it feels flat out easy. Orstein and smough felt impossible when i first played it (even with an npc summon), now they feel somewhat trivial. It's kind of wild how out of place manus feels in comparison with the rest of the dark souls boss roster, you really can see in that boss the direction miyazaki was heading in with a lot of his bosses for bloodborne/ds3/elden ring

[@kingsleycy3450]

It's even more egregious now that soulslike combat is bleeding into every genre. Even if I am playing platformers and metroidvanias, I am still dodge rolling between the bosses. It's so tiring

[@Dorrovian]

To be honest it's much better than old metroidvanias where you were just spamming potions from inventory while tanking bosses' attacks. I love metroidvania era of Castlevanias, but you could just stand there and hit bosses while chugging in pause menu.

[@jemolk8945]

​@@Dorrovian Sounds like you're not accounting for the Metroid half of Metroidvania. Metroid never even had potions. The closest you could get is the reserve tanks from Super, and those are by default set to be automatically used, so they're really just extra energy tanks that aren't listed with the normal e-tanks.

[@Dorrovian]

@@jemolk8945 As you can read I specifically wrote about Castlevanias.

[@jemolk8945]

@@Dorrovian You also mentioned old-school metroidvanias.

[@Dorrovian]

@@jemolk8945 Yes, because Castlevanias are metroidvanias and with Metroid created the genre. And no matter how you look at that, at the modern times most well known indie metroidvanias look towards Castlevanias close combat/magic/movement abilities more than Metroid ones, so the comparison to these is more important in my opinion. And to be honest "standing in safe spot and spamming missiles" as you play Metroid bosses is not much better (joke) :D

[@MarioGMan25]

And then with Another Crab's Treasure has the reverse vibes. A little bit of darkness in a sea of wacky.

[@jurtheorc8117]

Similarly so with Clash: Artifacts of Chaos. Very colorful and inhabited by creatures that some have described as looking like they could fit in The Dark Crystal, yet the world's not kind. It's not outright decaying or has a plague over it or anything-- it's just a world where you need to know how to fight in order to defend yourself, even if there is a fairly stable and peaceful town. Can recommend that game warmly.

[@hildaibuyan4161]

For those who don't know, a "Souls-like" game is one that has its inspiration from Soul Reaver and/or Seoul, Korea

[@harrincourt95]

I am not necessarily tired of soulslikes, but I am definitely tired of the "enemy spins on a disc plate to track you to the very last frame and holds the attack just a little longer to catch you" nonsense that so many devs have now overused to a ridiculous extent. I recommend Mathewmatosis' "The Lost Art of Demon's Souls" video. It's from 2017, but very relevant today.

[@chriswest6988]

Yeah I'm not good at these, but coming from actual dark souls to one of the other genre entries, lords of the fallen I think? This aspect felt wrong. DS has less forgiving s and sometimes shorter telegraphing, but it's a lot more willing to let you find ways to just not be where a move is when it lands. The imitators seem to think letting you get away with anything but learning the dodge/block/parry timing is a shameful oversight on their part, rather than just another natural weakness of how the boss moves and attacks.

[@elisehalflight]

@chriswest6988 not to mention those devs seem alien to the concept of telegraphing attacks whatsoever.

[@boshwa20]

​@@matthewmuir8884 My favorite quote from the video: "People whine about gimmick boss fights, so bosses become basic combat encounters and nothing more" When I noticed all the SOTE boss arenas were just large square rooms, I couldn't unsee it

[@randomguy6679]

@@elisehalflightFor example?

[@randomguy6679]

@@boshwa20SOTE?

[@Runie549]

4:40 - 5:20 Thank you for saying this. Soulslikes going from "hard but fair" to "blatantly and demonstrably unfair" is exactly what's killing the enjoyment. See, people complain about gimmick fights, but the problem is, once the enemies start cheating, EVERY fight becomes a gimmick fight. And the gimmick is always just "figure out how the enemy is cheating and how to counter it, often with meta knowledge." Instead of just. You know. The actual normal gameplay knowledge you signed up for.

[@connorbutler5863]

Man nice to know it’s not just me. Elden Ring, while a good game, definitely made me feel like FromSoft are going for difficulty for the sake of one-upping themselves now. The end part frankly just feels miserable to get through. And yeah if you go through each game, you do notice them ramping up the difficulty of the bosses, sometimes in arbitrary ways

[@inciaradible7144]

I think the big problem is that Soulslikes feel the need to copy everything FromSoft does; it's not just the core gameplay regarding stamina management, exploration, checkpoints that respawn enemies, and a refillable healing item. No, it's also the way that status effects work, some fog wall that you gotta cross before entering the fight, ladders to kick down, an oppressive atmosphere, an incomprehensible plot, etc. I think the difficulty arms race FromSoft has entered isn't necessarily helping, but I don't think that's the core problem.

[@simplysmiley4670]

It's not a core problem but it definitely does _not_ help. Even worse is that some bosses in those souls games feel like there's no rhyme or reason to them, just random flayling around till the pattern gets hammered down into your brain after an hour of trial and error and a variable amount of luck of not getting attacks that you genuinely do not have any idea of how to deal with other then, not having the attack happen when you exist in the general vicinity of the boss, or the arena at all in some cases.

[@PikaPenny17]

@@kirinoa I would say that in indie gaming, a decent amount of the time copycats come from genuine love of the game and trying to capture what they loved about it. Bigger companies usually have the motive you stated.

[@simplysmiley4670]

@@kirinoa the sea of roguelikes, deck builders, survival games, mascot horrors, etc. and various combos of those

[@EGadjo]

yeah that's something that bugs me in particular when it comes to the soulslike genre- that they all have to have the same kind of oppressive atmosphere and theming of a dying world. Like, I'm glad we agree DS1 was a good game and that it had interesting mechanics but you do realize you can use that kind of structure to tell a different story, right?

[@noway8662]

@@kirinoa The thing is that imitating, mixing and iterating on game types is a way to improvement, eventually. Someone will find a way to move ahead. Look at Hollow Knight. It's a game that is heavily inspired by both metroidvania games and Souls genre. It's the supreme action-platformer game in existence. Best of the best.

[@MightyManotaur22]

I just don't like beating my head against the same boss 20 times. Soulslikes aren't for me. I have kids and there are tons of games I want to play, I don't have the time to "get good." So it's been a HUGE bummer to see tons of 3rd-person combat games go the "we're gonna make this combat super difficult the whole time and dump a boss on you every 10 minutes" route.

[@pie6088]

hilarious. an ad for a deck building rogue like in a video about genre fatigue.

[@sun332s7]

Did you watch the video on mute?

[@ponponpatapon9670]

@@sun332s7 what makes you think OP did?

[@doublepinger]

Being proud of liking Dark Souls sounds like being a speedrunner for the 100% knob hammering competition

[@GBSpiral]

lol, ow, nuh uh, okay maybe you're kind of right....

[@Ile333]

Lovely to hear Yahtz to break down their love for the Souls-series in hindsight. It's a love we've seen growing over the years, so it's nice to get some insight on it.

[@TCPolecat]

As someone who bounced off the difficulty of the Souls games right from the beginning, I do apprreciate some of the side games that scale back the difficulty a bit. I am having fun with "Another Crab's Treasure" because it actually offers some help for those of us who lack that skill and precision to handle the Soulsborne difficulty spikes without making the fights feel irrelevant. So for me, the spreading out of the Soulsborne genre has been a boon for me. I actually get to enjoy the exploration and lore crap without the insanely frustrating difficulty. I freely admit some of it is from the fact I've noticed a severe slowdown in my reflexes as I enter my 50s, as a kid I used to eat "Nintendo hard" games for lunch and come back for a 2nd helping, but now? I don't have the energy for that crap.

[@jurtheorc8117]

Have you tried Clash: Artifacts of Chaos? It's not fully Soulslike, but like Another Crab's Treasure it's quite colorful, creative, got good voice acting and is on the more managable end of difficulty. It doesn't have as many accessibility options as AC'sT but while it gets challenging, even on the normal playthrough you won't have to replay bosses as much as in AC'sT. The game's got an emphasis on finding different martial arts styles which all have their unique animation movesets and utility, plus a mechanic where you can input a non-combo move the moment your attack hits an enemy, and it comes out immediately. Makes it a lot quicker to dodge, for example. But if a stance's combo is not doing it for you, you can equip a weapon. There's only two varieties of weapon and they have durability, plus have slower startup but they give extra range, reach and simply extra edge if you want to. They don't limit the dodges, dodge attacks, jump, jump attack and other offensive and evasive options. Just replace a main combo string. Can warmly recommend the game. Not just for the gameplay alone. Also, wasn't expecting to see a profile picture like that today.

[@kungfuskull]

​@@jurtheorc8117 i am really wanting to get into soulsys for the logic of I really enjoy 'Vanias, even ones that stretch the definiyion (but have that vital spark of exploration and finding what works *for you*) and on the advice of some friends have picked up a couple but not played yet (surgeries), so, can you please elaborate on other non-From titles you'd recommend to somebody who's been gaming for 30 years, but nearly zero third person action games outside the (quite debatable applicability) of the DMC and Resi series. I did get Clash; waiting for a sale on Crab; I got the new Morbid, both Remnants, code vein, and thymesia; none of which i've been able to play yet (again, multiple surgeries) besides about an hour of remnant 1 which seemed to be in a good zone of "this is hard, but unfairly so, and I think some more practice + paying attention will help over time" So... I'd really appreciate input on which (couple, perhaps) to do first; as well as onther ones I really need to have on my radar! Thanking you kindly in advance!

[@jurtheorc8117]

@@kungfuskull Oooh, that's an interesting yet tough question. Truth to be told, Clash: AoC is the only game even close to a Soulslike that i've played in my life. Sadly I can't comment on any games besides Clash: AoC from my personal experience, of which you just read about. My own tastes are very specific and lean towards the unusual and smaller titles. So my apologies for that. But i'll do my best to try and mention some third person 3D action games that I hope may be interesting and fun to you, and giving some clarification. I hope no more surgeries will be needed and wish you good luck and fun where possible with recovery and further strengthening of the self, amidst whatever else will require your attention. If it's not too personal to ask, how badly are you currently limited by the surgeries? And what makes you say the DMC series would make for debatable applicability? There are not many new ones I know. As i don't know what consoles you have either, so for now i'll stick to mainly PC-available games. One of my all-time favourites is the Darksiders series. I've not played 3 yet. They have a core of Hack-and-slash type combat (like DMC) and puzzles (like in Legend of Zelda). Darksiders as a series switches things up a bit between each game and it depends on the individual how much they may like each game and all individual elements & systems within a game. Darksiders 3 was the most contentious for having combat and structure more in line with a Souls-type game. Darksiders Genesis had a different perspective (isometric), chapter/level structure and slightly different combat, but to me felt more strongly Darksiders like 1 and 2 than 3 did. I've heard there may be some technical issues with Darksiders 2 on PC though, but i'd say it has the best combat out of all the games. There is an RPG loot-and-armor aspect with a unique mechanic where you can "Feed" other equipment to so-called Possessed Weapons, to level them up up to five times and add new effects, which can proverbially break the game in your favor. (like high Crit chance and health steal on hit) I want to replay it with deliberately underleveled gear so that I can focus on the moveset and enemies rather than numbers. Anyway, aside from the Darksiders series... what may be interesting to note is that Clash is a prequel to the Zeno Clash games, which came out for PC back in 2009 and 2013 respectively. They were first-person brawlers. Not very long, had some jank, but if you find yourself intrigued in Zenozoik, then Zeno Clash as a whole may prove interesting. What else, what else... perhaps the Sands of Time trilogy. They were initially for PS2 though got ported to PC much later on. I've heard the PC ports have technical issues (again), though. On the note of 2000s Ubisoft action games, Beyond Good and Evil was a lovely one. It leaned a bit more on the stealth side of things than action, but to this day there's nothing quite like it. It's remembered very fondly for its style, atmosphere, story, characters... gameplay is alright, with the high points probably being the general exploration, the hovercraft races and the photo mechanic. (In-game there's a sidequest of taking pictures of the wildlife, which you immediately get paid for. Giant snails, five-legged spiders, seagulls, flying fanged worm-like monsters with a carapace like a shrimp, and more.) Oh, and there was No Straight Roads from 2020. A short, boss-centric hack-and-slash title entirely based around music. Bosses would attack in line with the rhythm and different parts of their own boss themes. And the theme itself would shift between the neutral, EDM and Rock versions seamlessly depending on if you or the boss got the upper hand in the battle. Colorful and lovely time. Admittedly, the stuff surrounding the gameplay is generally seen as stronger than the gameplay itself. For more high-action third person 3D games, when time and opportunity allows for it, i would recommend keeping an eye out on - Genokids - Gori: Cuddly Carnage - Enenra Daemon Core - Yasuke: A Lost Descendant But those are more befitting of the DMC-type game genre. Gori is a special case because it mixes skateboarding with hack-and-slash. And I want to mention Soulstice too, because it's one of my favourites in the genre, but it's not the most accessible in the genre. Moment-to-moment gameplay does feel good but there's a bunch of systems surrounding its core combat that don't make it as straightforward as the others. Big comment of mine, thank you for taking the time to read it all the way through if you did so. I don't know to what extent each game may be to your interest, but I hope the ones that do catch your fancy will be good stuff. Again, wish you good recovery and a lot of fun on the games whenever opportunity may allow.

[@TCPolecat]

@@jurtheorc8117 Eh, my profile picture is a leftover from when I used to draw and such. But that said, I actually have Clash: AoC, but haven't really dug into it yet. It's on my backlog list right now, waiting to be played after acquiring it in one sale or another on Steam... To answer the other question about souls-likes, I probably should preface that I loved and played the creators of the Metroidvania genre when they first released, and loved each to tears (Bloody tears, in the case of the latter half of the name there). So I'd eally suggest going back and trying some of the ground roots of those genres,s: Metroid and Castlevania. Tho it's REALLY hard to find Symphony of the Night on anything but the original format, I know the C-vania Advance Collection has Aria of Sorrow. Unfortunately it's direct sequel was a DS game, so I don't see that making the jump over anytime soon. Looking outside of the official games, there's always Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, but that one can be surprisingly hard if you aren't familiar with the Castlevania tropes. Hollow Knight is a good 2D souls-like with a lot of excellent exploration, but I will admit the boss fights are a bit too hard for me in the later game. An odd one I found myself enjoying is "Recompile", which is on a steep sale on Steam right now for $3. I freely admit tho, this could be a strange but acquired taste, where the difficulty is more in the exploration than the boss fights.

[@jurtheorc8117]

@@TCPolecat Thanks for clarifying and answering. I don't know what happened to make you stop drawing, but I hope that sometime you may be able to return to it, that it may make you feel better in tougher times and generally bring joy. And likewise, wish you a lot of fun on Clash: AoC when you may try it out! It's become one of my favourite games in the last few years. Love the gnarly monster world setting, the characters, the atmosphere and story. It had 70% off on the summer sale-- don't know when it may be on sale next.

[@Snake-pg2jh]

For me, soul-like fatigue is the nihilistic nature of the games breaking me down( the fact that nothing I do has a positive outcome)

[@christopherschneider2968]

Damn Right! You go up against gods as some random human, comes out on top and theres no game that frames that as hopeful or inspiring?

[@elisehalflight]

Exactly the same reason why I can't get into grim dark stuff.

[@chrisdaughen5257]

Makes me think of Lies of P. That game takes place in a very broken setting, but the tone of the game isn't completely hopeless. Pretty much all the characters in that game can have a happy ending if you know what you're doing. That part did a great job at making it stand out from similar DS games.

[@moonnis4608]

@@christopherschneider2968 and when you finish the game its always a shitty low-effort ending that you could remove from the game and nothing of value has been lost like in elden ring, youre always sitting on that stupid throne with a different narration, fck that shit, its like mass effect 3 color-pallette change endings.

[@lightsideofsin8969]

That's exactly why I didn't like Dark Souls. Nothing you do matters at all, you slog through all this bullshit and your prize is deciding if this doomed and dying world gets to limp on a little bit longer or if you wanna put it out of its misery. I greatly prefer Bloodborne. Dark Souls is dead and dry and nothing matters but Bloodborne is alive and kicking and the game is full of intrigue. You get to unravel the mysteries of why hunters exist and what every faction tries/tried to achieve and how. You even get to succeed where everyone else failed. Bloodborne isn't even particularly bleak because the scope is never quite clear. Is everything fine outside of Yharnam? You don't know that.

[@michaelfranke8622]

I’m reminded of some advice on DMing for table top games, as the game master your objective shouldn’t be to “win” or beat the players, you have infinite dragons, your victory is assured if you want it to be. You goal as the game master is to facilitate an interesting story with your players. I feel a lot of indie souls likes especially could benefit from this train of thought.

[@1925683]

This is why I adore Another Crab’s Treasure and despise Lords of the Fallen. ACT has an actual fun and interesting story to tell. LotF is just a generic edgefest with some of the worst storytelling in soulslikes

[@PikaPenny17]

That's not entirely true, if the game is stringent enough with what the GM is allowed to do in order to enable full fairness, the GM can try their hardest to kill the players. Just in the case of DND 4e does this fairly well, at least in combat. I suppose thats not entirely not the same thing, just putting the onus on the rules instead of the GM to make it fair in some way.

[@mittensbro]

@@PikaPenny17 I've never played 4e, so I can't speak to what it is that 4e does to prevent the GM from murking players, but I sort of doubt that whatever it is would be enough, to be honest - a gamemaster is always capable of spawning more dragons, so they will be able to kill their players if they try hard enough. The point is that doing that is a waste of time and energy - obviously, the players are just gonna get bored and frustrated if every single fight they ever encounter is a dozen dragons regardless of whether they win or lose. The point is that the GM is not just supposed to try to constantly murk his players, nor is he supposed let his players steamroll every fight like they're playing a video game with cheats enabled; the point is to play off of the players' intentions and allow an interesting narrative to emerge from their reactions to his actions, as well as his reactions to their actions - i.e. the gameplay is meant to benefit the narrative and vice versa. Players can't enjoy a narrative that feels like it's designed exclusively to punish them for playing, nor can they enjoy a narrative with no stakes. The cool thing is that what I'm talking about with regards to TTRPGs applies almost exactly to video games. Obviously, video games aren't capable of letting players have anywhere near the same amount of agency, but the overwhelming majority of the same skills still apply.

[@raymondthrone7197]

I don't actually think this is a good comparison in the slightest. A DM can adjust the scenario to fit the players at hand and meet in the middle to where every encounter is satisfying and fun because, generally speaking, the DM is the only person who knows what they have planned in advance. A video game cannot change the rules mid-game because it is hard coded. My players will never know I only used half the reinforcements I planned (because they were getting more hurt than I expected), but a player will always know and feel cheated if a game puts them on easy mode without them explicitly agreeing to that.

[@mittensbro]

@@raymondthrone7197 Resident Evil actually has a sliding scale of difficulty that quietly adjusts the game's difficulty up or down depending on how well the player is doing. If the player dies multiple times during a boss fight, that boss fight will get easier; if the player is running low on ammo or health, the game will spawn more of whichever resource the player needs. Obviously they had to plan that in advance around the player's needs, but the only difference between a video game and a D&D campaign in this regard is that a video game is a shipped product and D&D is a live thing that can be adjusted on the fly by a human being; that doesn't mean adjusting to player's needs in the moment is impossible, it's just something you need to write into the software.

[@julianleverton7045]

I got into Dark Souls through your DS2 Lets Drown Out with Gabe. Good memories of my first wander through Drangleic, following in the path of the intrepid bath mat salesman.

[@herohades2230]

The back and forth over difficulty, at least in the case of Elden Ring, I think comes down more to a problem of complexity than it does of hardness. Most of the people I've seen that came to Elden Ring from Dark Souls 3 found the late game difficult, but not in the same way that the popularized idea of Elden Ring's difficulty is. I think this is because Elden Ring has been really iterative of DS3, a lot of the bosses use gimmicks from DS3 used then in only a fight or two. So what used to be "10 wait for boss to stop attacking, 20 smack them back, 30 go to 10" had become "Keep an eye on which attacks are feints, which are spasm moves that hit the same area a dozen times, which are slow and punishable, which are easily shielded and which can be dodged". It's still the same learning curve, just die a bunch and learn how the boss works. But it's more layers that have been added on, more spinning plates to keep track of. It works when you play them sequentially cause each game adds another plate, but it's hard to just jump into.

[@bronsoncarder2491]

I think a big part of the problem is that y'all are out there learning bosses instead of learning the game. Every time I tell people that Elden Ring is the easiest Soulsborne game, every single one of their arguments against are about the bosses. It's like the rest of the game doesn't even exist in this discussion. Yes, if you just compare DS1 bosses to Elden Ring bosses, DS1 is marginally easier. Elden Ring is a FAR easier game.

[@devinnix9071]

@@bronsoncarder2491 Imma be honest the reason why no one talks about anything else for Elden ring is bc the bosses are all the game has. The level design is much, much worse than any other souls games. Nowhere near as memorable either

[@KingPiccolOwned]

@@devinnix9071 It *is* an open-world game though, tbh. Increased scope usually tends to leave nuance & complexity of world design in the trash.

[@gwen9939]

The biggest issues I have is when a move has a follow-up of anywhere between 0-3 extra moves and it's basically impossible to tell before the follow-up has been initiated. It if was like, say, there's an optional follow-up but it's a low-hitting move so a jump attack means you dodge it while hitting them that would be cool, but a lot of the time the follow-ups are unreactable and unavoidable. The Morgott fight is a masterclass in FromSoft boss design though, I wish more of the boss fights were as satisfying as that one.

[@elisehalflight]

@devinnix9071 oh no, you just confirmed all the fears I had when I heard Elden Ring was going to be an open world...

[@cantrip7]

We could use more games made in Demon's Souls image where levels and bosses are more about *gesticulates* experiencing weird fantasy scenarios. Then I wouldn't have to compare them dryly based on minor mechanical changes, but take them for granted as something more than the sum of its parts.

[@xpirate16]

IMHO Fromsoft has been leaning too much into the arms race against the diehards. The few psychopaths who do SL1 fists only, No Hits, and "DDR mat" runs should not dictate how the other 99% experience the game. The rush of victory has lost it's sweetness so now after a couple attempts I use any game mechanic or cheese I can just to clear it so I can go back to exploring. I only have X amount of hours a week I can dedicate to games, and I'd rather not spend 70% of it painting a brick wall with my forehead blood

[@finthechatboisqwq5602]

I don't have 'Soulslike Fatigue', I have 'Soulslike more concerned with difficulty than crafting a balanced and engaging experience fatigue', and frankly I'm exhausted. Playing Dark Souls and Bloodborne had me jumping up and down with joy whenever I overcame an unrelenting boss. Shadow of the Erdtree, more often than not, left me thinking: "Well, that was ridiculous. Thank god *that's* over." Arguments of difficulty aside, it feels to me that Fromsoftware is leaning into a mentality of game design I just don't find fun anymore. When I overcome a challenge it either feels like a fluke, an advantage in stats, or like I cheesed the game to make it happen; I never feel like I'm actually LEARNING these fights. It's rather telling that the primary advice struggling players are given is to level up their Scadutree blessing, but that's just the thing; beating a boss by way of a number advantage doesn't feel like a substitute for well designed, balanced enemies. In previous Souls games and in much of Elden Ring, I nearly always have an acute understanding of how I perished and what mistake I made to lead to that outcome; in Shadow of the Erdtree, I could fight a boss 20 times and still not have the slightest clue what you're supposed to do about 'that' attack (they all have one, it's like Fromsoftware gave every major boss their equivalent of Waterfowl Dance). All the mechanics that make the game "easier" are just ways to avoid doing the things I used to consider "fun", that being learning the moves and dealing with them. I'd argue mechanics that negate the need to learn bosses don't reduce difficulty, but effectively skip challenges entirely. And in much the same way, a boss with such small windows of opportunity so as to negate many types of playstyle - in a game that encourages you to experiment and do what you want no less - is not "hard", it's just unfair. If every challenge beaten felt like a stroke of RNG luck, is that really a challenge overcome? Tell me to "git gud" should it please you; I'm off to play a game that doesn't feel like a chore

[@elisehalflight]

Nah, I'm both with and against the argument . I certainly agree that the Souls Genre was never about difficulty, but rather about outsmarting the game, to me souls games were never hard, they just played dirty, and in turn it incentivized you to play dirty tricks too. So while I can't agree with the fact that you think that leveling up and such are legit ways to overcome a challenge, i also loathe how the game seems to be destroying the creativity of play style and player expression by over focusing the Mechanics in the boss fights.

[@theblackknight101]

I totally agree.. I remember fondly the "easier" souls-likes more and more..

[@TheSeriousPain]

"...in preparation for Shadow of the Erdtree, I played through the main story of Elden Ring. I want to preface this by saying I absolutely suck at video games, so my approach or play style was to use everything I have at my disposal, all the assistance, every scrap of aid that the game offers, and also all the knowledge that I have as the architect of the game ... the freedom and open-world nature of Elden Ring perhaps lowered the barrier to entry, and I might be the one who's benefiting the most from that, as a player, more than anyone else." - Hidetaka Miyazaki

[@c0n33r]

Sadly, Yahtzee clearly didn't use spirit ashes if he's having so much trouble. Objectively the easiest souls game in terms of skill floor just for that. Misplaced pride, perhaps?

[@Pr00ch]

Sounds like Michael Zaki needs to git gud

[@tarikalic8939]

@@c0n33r I really don't think it's about stubborn pride for most people that don't use Spirit Ashes in ER. I can only speak from personal experience, but I spent an absolute eternity fighting Margit without exploring beforehand, because it felt weird leaving him for later after discovering him. The challenge felt insanely overtuned to me, especially that early. After what must've been a good couple of hours, I gave up and explored a little, found the Jellyfish spirit ash, went back to Margit using the Jellyfish and beat him first try with no effort, because it seemed like the boss AI wasn't made with having more than one target in mind. The feeling of anticlimax was awful. It felt like the difficulty went from Sister Friede to Pinwheel, and what should've been a satisfying triumph just ended up feeling like the game asked me "I see you're having trouble here, would you like to skip this boss?" and I clicked "yes please". I think the added accessibility is an awesome thing, but the gap in difficulty between using Spirit Ashes and not using them felt too drastic for me, and I stopped playing soon after.

[@dawildbear]

@@c0n33r so you're telling me he summoned for the gargoyle fight in dark souls, but you think his pride stopped him summoning in elden ring?

[@Dahras1]

@@c0n33r Objectively? Like, really? For one, not all Spirit Ashes are good. Many are very mid. The best Spirit Ashes are found in endgame areas and even then, it is hard to tell which ones are good and which ones are not. Sure, if you look up which are the best Spirit Ashes are the best, seek them out and level them, some of the bosses can be very easy. But if you don't do that, then you are liable to never find a good Spirit Ash to use. Secondly, the way that Spirit Ashes make the game easy is not the same way that earlier Souls games are easy. In earlier Souls games, the bosses were at base easier, so the difficulty of personally overcoming their challenge was lower. Spirit Ashes make it easier to *clear* a fight, but they also do the fighting for you and a lot of their benefit is just the fact that bosses in ER can't handle multiple targets well at all. Ashes are part of the game, and people should use them if they want. But it isn't crazy to not *like* the system, or the think it isn't fun.

[@richardcatlin4390]

Pretty much agree with everything Yahtzee said, but I want to add that I don't think the newer games are just harder, I think they're less fair. Second phases and multiboss fights are the first thing I think of, what Yahtzee said about them is basically true. I honestly don't understand why newer souls games do that. Having a boss change movesets halfway through their healthbar is fine, but a completely new healthbar with a completely new moveset just frustrates you. Along with that, your character is noticeably slower than most enemies and especially most bosses. It's why a lot of the time you're just dodge rolling out of attacks instead of just attacking, the fun part. With the older games, you usually matched the speed of bosses and enemies, since dark souls 3, it doesn't feel the same way. Along with that, enemies and bosses do way too much damage now. A boss able to one or two shot you just isn't fun, it gives very little margin for error. Yes, increasing vigor helps by making those one shots two shots and two shots three shots, that doesn't do much. This combined with bosses having large health pools in the tens of thousands means that you're just going die so much and add so much frustration that honestly doesn't need to be there. Worst of all, there are moves that are difficult to counter. Malenia's waterfowl dance, Elden Beast's Elden Stars, revenants, Mohg's Nihil (yes there's an item, how many people found them without the wiki though?), and others. I think a perfect example of this is Malenia. I personally think she is unfair to fight. Large healthbar (especially since she has two of them), fast, high damage, difficult to doge moves, and worst of all she heals on hit. Not damage, on hit. Want to use a shield to avoid the damage? The damage you did is nullified because she healed it when she multihit your shield with a combo. Want to use long range? She dodges all but a few spells and incantations and will close the distance in seconds. Want to do the classic dodge and hit? Well be sure to go onto KZbin to learn how to dodge one specific move that can happen at random and used multiple times and will one shot you regardless of your vigor level. You beat her first phase after multiple tries? Too bad, she has a second phase with a full healthbar, a new moveset, still heals, and she also deals one of the most powerful statuses in the game with each attack that connects. You died in her second phase? Well, your progression in the first phase has been disregarded, do everything again until you get it right. Yes, she is optional. Yes, you can beat her. Yes, there's cute little tricks you can do to help like throwing a freezing pot during her waterfowl windup to cancel it. No, this does not make her any more fair or fun to fight. I don't care that the lore called her the best swordswomen in the land. I beat a literal god, twice, and that was easier. I love Elden Ring, it's my second favourite souls game, but if it gets any harder than this I don't think I'll be able to enjoy them. The DLC for Elden Ring was my absolute limit for difficulty, especially the final boss. It's getting to a point that playing these games feels more like a chore than a game. I really hope the newer souls games from fromsoftware tone this down a lot, or at the very least never have a boss heal on hit ever again.

[@TheFezHat]

The "completely new boss" second phase design is mostly just an Elden Ring thing, isn't it? DS3 loves it's two-phase fights, but the second phase is almost always an extension of the first. But yeah, that stuff sucks. If you can't re-use anything you learned from phase 1 in phase 2, then phase 2 should just be a separate boss fight entirely. Poor Radagon was ruined by being stapled to Elden Beast for no good reason. It does seem like they learned from this at least. I haven't seen any of that "two bosses in a trenchcoat" design in the DLC.

[@richardcatlin4390]

@@TheFezHat the only bossfight I can think of is Sister Friede, although it's not as bad. I guess the moon presence sort of counts since you go into that boss fight immediately after Gehrman, but if you die you don't have to beat Gehrman again. Yeah it's mostly an Elden Ring thing. The only other game that sort of does it is Sekiro, but it makes sense in that game.

[@thegodofsoapkekcario1970]

@@richardcatlin4390 It 100% will get harder from here. People said that about Friede being the first real fight with three phases, now we’re at Isshin who has 4, more like 3 and a half. I give it 2 games before Miyazaki adds 5 phases.

[@debater452]

God forbit I change my playstyle and use the tools I have for a boss. No boss is unfair in Elden ring the problem is always either the player being too passive and refusing to adapt to boss agression. In Elden Ring your damage is so high that the bosses take about as much damage from you as in every other game dispite their massive health bars. Asidd from Waterfowl every attack in Melenia's movesett is fair and learnable. Mogh's nihil is also peak

[@richardcatlin4390]

@@debater452 which playstyle would that be for Malenia? I covered all of them and showed you how Malenia severely counters them. I'll give you that, unfair isn't the right word. All of the bosses in the souls games are unfair on paper, there are very few fights where you are on an even playing field with a boss. You're supposed to use skill and trial and error to beat the boss, that's the point of the bosses. So I'll rephrase since it's not the right word. Bosses like Malenia are so overturned with mechanics that aren't fun to fight. She heals on hit, even if you successfully block, she deals scarlet rot, has a move that is very difficult to dodge, and deals so much damage that you get such a small margin of error. That's not fun to fight. It's fun to beat the odds and win, but not actually to fight against. I don't think that just because something is beatable that it is good design. Getting crabs isn't the end of the world, it's pretty easily beatable. Doesn't mean I'm going to go and get it just so I can beat it, and as far as designs go it sounds awful. You have fun with a stranger and then you get squatters in your crotch.

[@karpi470]

I actually started playing Elden Ring again about two weeks ago, after experiencing a similar loos of interest and feeling of fatigue when playing it the first time (I liked it at the statt, but then got tired as I had increasingly more problems with the late-game bosses, and dropped the game at Maliketh back then). And I've really been enjoying it a lot more this time around. Part of it is thst Ive been going for a different approach built-wise this time, but I could also feel that already being familiar with the world helped.

[@mononoke721]

Would agree with this general sentiment - I've enjoyed the Elden Ring DLC (general boss design notwithstanding), but I feel no compulsion to replay either it or the base game in the same way I did for previous From games. This is partly because ER is just such a massive undertaking, but mainly it's the fact ER is a continuation of the dark medieval fantasy genre, set in a fallen/broken world, one that From started playing around with in Demon's Souls, and this whole tone/setting is starting to feel more than a little played out 15 years later now! That's why Bloodborne and Sekiro were so good, and amongst my favourites of their games - they need their next game to do something different like them.

[@jurtheorc8117]

Clash: Artifacts of Chaos was a kind-of Souls-ish game, but as a prequel to the Zeno Clash games, it's set in a very unique world. The world's more like a prehistory, the very dawn of civilization. There's only a single main town,one law, no recorded history, not even written language or central currency. The can be rough & violent, but it's not horrible or depressing. In fact it's rather colorful and pretty. The inhabitants of the world are also all freaks, monsters, aberrations and generally gnorpy fnorpy morpy kersplipilous blahangilic creatures. These words to describe them are nonsense and yet i feel that the way they sound gets across what I mean. It may make more sense when you look at images of it. Combat's also more along the lines of a 3D beat-em-up/brawler where you find different martial arts styles. Warmly recommend it.

[@ihappy1]

Agreed, as good as Elden Ring is I felt kind of tired by it by the end mostly because of how I felt like every story, location, and idea it had came with a very 'been there, done that's feeling. I've played all 3 Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro, and nearly everything in Elden Ring is just a remix of an idea that came before. Sure the scale is bigger but it mostly all feels like the same ideas. What made Bloodborne and Sekiro a lot more interesting was mostly them playing with the setting, yeah there were some nods towards the older games but Victorian Era and Warring States Japan felt really fresh compared to medievalish European fantasy. I feel like Elden Ring sits next to Dark Souls 2 in a very 'this was just made to make money's way, which I realize is harsh because there absolutely is so much love and care on display, but it still feels like they were phoning it in. Also I'm bummed that the one big pretty original idea of Elden Ring, grafting, is a pretty minor part of the overall world. I'd love a weirder and wilder version where grafting was all over the world and the player could do it too. It would fit with the tree heavy themes too.

[@Voted4Trump]

Started my third dlc playthrpugh today. Still got 4 more characters to do it with

[@debater452]

​@@ihappy1DS3 is way bigger offender of this tho. It constantly completly recycles things from DS1 and that's honestly most of the game. Elden Ring has more than enough new ideas to it

[@debater452]

Elden ring bosses are peak

[@InfernalMonsoon]

For me, difficulty isn't what drew me to these games, but it certainly helped immerse me into their worlds in the older titles. I think that's probably because they weren't overbearing in their challenge and felt like much fairer and rewarding games. I think a huge part of the fatigue is definitely the continuous desire for developers the up the ante, as they try to make the hardest game in the genre. Without a doubt From Software are succeeding on that front with some of the bosses in Shadow of the Erdtree. I enjoy a good challenge, however I fear it's gotten to a point where the fun is beginning to dissipate. I still love Elden Ring's base game though and I really enjoy the Souls-likes that tend to be on the easier side but more experimental with their mechanics and design. One really janky indie Souls-like called Bleak Faith is one of my current favourites because its systems are more like a traditional RPG, where death doesn't really matter as XP and level ups are stored even on death. It's a small but really refreshing change of pace that I appreciate, and that's not even mentioning a lot of the cool and interesting stuff that game does that most other Souls-likes don't even try to do. I think Souls-likes just need to drop the difficulty card and focus on being interesting, and not about how much they can put your nuts in a vice. Even then they'll never surpass the hardest NES games that are beyond crushing to most people nowadays.

[@bubbasbigblast8563]

Elden Ring is definitely harder: some of the parries make little sense, bosses delay attacks, and second phases often change how boss fights work entirely instead of building off previous patterns.

[@c0n33r]

Lower skill floor though thanks to spirit ashes. It's his choice not to use them and then complain.

[@Ziel23987]

@@c0n33r Oh no, he's not playing the game the way you want him to play! Horrid.

[@lred1383]

@@c0n33r i'm going to be a pedantic prick and say that what you're describing is a high skill floor, not a low one. The "vertical" axis on that graph is effectiveness, not skill. High skill ceiling means something gets REALLY strong if you're REALLY good at it, therefore a low skill floor means if you're bad at it, it's going to be REALLY bad Edit: Turns out i was wrong. Interesting, because i went for almost a decade believing this and with nobody correcting me, but it is what it is. I was just going to leave it originally, but the notifs are kinda annoying so i'll clarify that i get it now

[@redfly8797]

​@@c0n33r Spirit ashes are actually too effective. They completely break bosses because most were not designed to handle them and so you lose out on the satisfaction of overcoming the challenge. Same with summoning a "I'll solo her" type player. What's the point of beating a boss if someone else does it for you?

[@kingsleycy3450]

I was playing GOW: Ragnarok and was annoyed with how every enemy does delay attacks. Feels like the recent soulslike combats are difficult just to be difficult

[@jamesstanley792]

As someone who doesn’t play a lot of souls like anyway I think one of the more frustrating aspects of them is that you’re often not allowed to get through certain parts at whatever pace you choose pace on account of the difficulty which can become grating when you’ve got other commitments to consider. The genre has increasingly become a kind of “instant good game” card for developers as well being one of the few gaming styles with little stigma attached (aside from maybe the diff ultimately curve itself) leading to an over saturation which makes it hard for mechanically robust games of a different like that aren’t impossibly difficult to poke through.

[@nickmalachai2227]

To think people mocked me for being a casual. All these years and I'm still a casual, but now while everyone else is going through fatigue, I'm still having fun.

[@ighopfrogged3202]

I'm trying to get to that point and I do still have fun with Dark Souls. I've just always been jealous of people that have the free time required to really get into games like Dark Souls. I only have an hour here or there to play and I lose any "get goodness" (yeah I think that's a thing) that I gained until the next session. But then I'm old so I'm also jealous of people with knees that work properly.

[@nifftbatuff676]

Soulslikes have become the casual genre preferred by casual players. Even every game journos like thems now.

[@Voted4Trump]

What fatigue? I'm still here dunking on noobs and having fun.

[@dominicjannazo7144]

How dare you do something for enjoyment! You make me sick!

[@elisehalflight]

On the other hand I am not a casual, I'm just poor, so I can't afford every new release. So I'm still having a blast playing dark souls 2 this year.

[@RiKSh4w]

Elden Ring is interesting as a case study here. Because if you run around, collect all the easy runes and the upgrade materials, then you can make the game easy for yourself just by being overlevelled/geared.... Until the last few bosses. Godfrey, Radagon and the Elden Beast (and Melania I guess) have nothing 'after' them. So you can't skip around them, grind up your level, and come back when it's a bit easier. They sit at the softcaps so there's no way to get stronger if it's too hard. Your only choice is to 'get gud' and that is, as Yahtzee said, mentally tiring. You can do it but it takes a certain amount of commitment that not everyone is prepared to give.

[@vinnythewebsurfer]

The “variety” in the earlier souls games are kinda a hit or miss affair. Yea the Moonlight butterfly isn’t egregious but then you’ll be given the bed of chaos and everything before that fight stinks. That said, it is a shame that Fromsoft’s solution to more gimmicky fights was to just stay away from them as they can and stick to more reliable stuff.

[@boshwa20]

Still better to have variety rather than making every boss fight a generic boxing match

[@a2aaron]

a thing about DS that i havent quite felt be captured in elden ring is just, the interconnectivity of the world. the first time i took the shortcut elevator back to Firelink Shrine i legitmate could not believe that it wasn't warping the player. genuinely, i though that it was physically impossible for firelink shrine to be under the undead parish, and experiencing that moment was absolutely mindblowing. the rest of DS1 ended up carrying this feeling throughout--you had these areas that were so tightly designed and linked back to eachother in so many intricate ways. it made the world feel much larger than it really was because it was so packed full of details. with elden ring, i think some of that magic was lost. yes, the world is HUGE (and so far every time ive seen the map expand my mind feels like it should be impossible for a game to be this big), but it also feels a lot less interconnected. there's just places on the map you go to, not a maze of tightly connected locations. so far, the place which has best captured the DS1 feeling that I've been to is Stormveil Castle, with just how many side areas and alternate paths there are to explore in what seems like a mid-sized castle.

[@yracpontiferous4846]

My first Souls-like was Another Crab’s Treasure. It felt so much like Alice: Madness Returns that I remapped the controls to match that game and breezed through ACT.

[@SirSicCrusader]

I hit souls fatigue back in the Ds3/Blood Bourne era and it was actually Elden ring that brought me out of it, the fact that I could just wonder off and poke around catacombs for goodies when I got stuck on a boss was massively helpful for making the game feel less of a slog, BUT it also was fast enough that it just made me way better at soulslikes in general, Blood Bourne put me off initially cause everything just felt so fast that even basic encounters stressed me out, especially the werewolves, after coming back, suddenly I knew how to deal with them without taking any damage at all and when I was sat there farming them for whatever one day I realised OH I like this game now. Since then Lies of P has been a highlight and the Elden Ring dlc was a treat :)

[@DangerB0ne]

I've posted this before, but I guess I'm more in Yahtzee's camp today. I still enjoy Elden Ring but I realize that I don't like the direction the bosses have been going since DS3. There is such a thing as an unfair moveset or bullshit attacks. The delay attacks are annoying, but attacks with mammoth hitboxes that demand a strict dodge timing and have perfect tracking are 100% bullshit. Flail machines in a setting where DS1 poise is a fond, distant memory are not appropriate because it will usually just mulch the player via stunlock. Spastic enemy movements that rely on quick reaction make sense in a setting like Bloodborne, where minor mistakes can be partially fixed by pressing the attack (the rally system) not where I have to dodge into a corner and take a sippy if I get tapped. Bosses can have delayed strikes and flowing combos that greatly reward well timed parries and patience if parrying works like it does in Sekiro, not when I have to parry a boss two, three, or four times in a row to peel off 8% of their total health. Elden Ring has these problems because it distills a lot of the mechanics from older titles for enemy encounters without giving the player much more than DS3 controls, a jump button, and a horse.

[@debater452]

Or meaby you should adapt and stop playing the game like you played DS3. Waiting for the bosses to give you openings isn't going to work you have to be agressive

[@DangerB0ne]

@@debater452 I know I have to be aggressive, but the game doesn't reward aggressive play like other Fromsoft games have in the past. I'm pointing out some flaws I feel could be addressed with a better method of player movement, better incentives to press the attack, or simply reducing the tankiness of some bosses. The new Ashes of War and weapon classes have made some fights a lot more enjoyable because their movesets involve dynamic player movement, making it possible to evade certain enemy attacks by simply pressing the attack. Fromsoft has had to up the ante with every new title and it shows. I still love the games but Christ Almighty do some of the bosses feel unfair. It feels like "hard but fair" became "hard but hard" for some encounters.

[@based-ys9um]

@@debater452 this game is DS4 to be fair

[@debater452]

@@based-ys9um it really isn't especially with the bosses

[@Lucax97]

I also felt like Elden Ring was homework. I played 80 hours, liked what I did but then it began to feel tedious. The boss fights especially, as you do nothing but watch them finish uninterruptible attacks. The story was always nothing to me, which I can't say about their other games. I guess it's why I love Armoured Core 6.

[@emilytheimp]

I started playing Nioh 2 of all games with my partner in coop last week, and having just come off of the Elden Ring DLC, i distinctly remember saying to him after an hour of gameplay "Wow Elden Ring made me forgot Souls Likes can actually have fun combat". Which is a darn shame because Elden Ring at its core has an incredibly intricate and fun combat, but the difficulty breaks all the fun over its knee and ultimately boils down to "spam the couple of moves and spells that let you cheese the enemies".

[@debater452]

What on earth are you talking about. If the bosses are too difficult for you why on earth don't you adapt to them.

[@boshwa20]

​@@debater452 They did adapt, im assuming they didn't have fun doing so

[@debater452]

@@boshwa20 Dosen't seem like it to me. Trying to play Elden ring as DS4 is a terrible idea

[@rcurl44]

​@@debater452You are shadowboxing your own strawman, my dude.

[@Crosshill]

im getting soulslike content fatigue. in the time of dark souls 1 and 2 people really took their time to savor it, there was a steady slow stream of content and exploration and funny videos and lore theorizing but now you get early access players scrambling to be the first to put out every obligatory bit of content for their souls channels before people even have a chance to play the dang thing through to the end

[@OneStealthyNinja]

I played Elden Ring to finish when it came out, did a load of the optional stuff, 100+ hours. I went back in to replay it before playing the DLC and after kiling Margit and Godrick, I just, sort of, couldn't be bothered to go any further? And I chalk that up to fatigue, and all the souls-likes that I've played since ER came out. It's, ironically to the ad, the same with deck-builders. I loved Slay the Spire, but ever since then, none have quite scratched that itch again...

[@jamesstanley792]

For a long time I wondered if Elden Ring has pushed the souls-like genre as far as it can go despite evidence to the contrary.

[@Unknown-jt1jo]

Love this Semi-Ramblomatic. It feels like the format is more thoughtful and in-depth than FR.

[@SilverShion]

For me at least, the boss phases in sekiro felt like getting into the second round of a fighting game.

[@ruleofoz2207]

I Think it works in Sekiro because it's expected, so you're not going to let your guard down as the second phase starts. That and you also have multiple lives, so it feels more fair.

[@AM-uo2kf]

The original problem I had with dark souls that soon became something I kind of loved about it was it’s somewhat obtuse mechanics. It’s kind of like a role-playing game where you could spec your character all wrong or more accurately it’s like DND but no one’s quite explained the rules. I first played it and didnt even leave the Asylum, i felt intimidated by the Asylum demon, hated that enemies respawned upon player death and put it down for maybe 3 years till I can’t remember what brought me back to giving another go but I pushed through the things i didnt like at first and found it very rewarding. Choose the knight because sword and shield is easier to understand than the pyromancer character. From there i got out of the Asylum and made my way around firelink till i found the right way to undead burg and was off. I used the wikis to understand what wasnt simply explainedand quickly became addicted to the challenge. Each boss beaten bought relief and satisfaction, new and better weapons made progression more satisfying and needed more levels the Bonfire mechanic of enemy respawn was a tool now not a hinderance. This did all however start a decade long addiction of Fromsoft games and Soulslikes. I certainly didnt play all of them but most i beat were rewarding. Bringing us to now where while i loved Elden ring and wanted to get the dlc i just kind of said meh ill wait.

[@chriswest6988]

So the three experience types I hear most often about the really hard bosses are, in order: 1: It kicked my ass for a long time and it was so satisfying when I finally beat it 2: it kicked my ass for a while and then I decided to do something else with my limited time on earth 3: It kicked my ass for a while and then I resorted to using summons/consumables/a guide/whatever. It was sort anticlimactic but then I was able to move on, so I don't really regret it. I've had some of these experiences, but mostly in other genres - platformers or metroidvanias or twin stick shooter roguelikes etc. What I experienced pretty frequently with soulslikes was getting killed for a really long time, finally beating a guy, and then feeling nothing. Part of this is a personal problem, but I also partly blame the tone, setting, and overall aesthetics of the games. When you beat a dark souls boss well you generally still look like a slow idiot getting out of the way of an even slower but much larger idiot and kind of laboriously poking him for a while. Then once the fight is over you still have no personality or motivation and everything you're doing is likely going to perpetuate or repeat a miserable and doomed cycle, or maybe (if you're lucky) annihilate the universe.

[@jordanscott8854]

For me personally I think it’s fatigue fatigue. Played a lot of Souls and had a wonderful time. Have had the same experience with trying to go back to do another Souls 3 play through. Treating Elden Ring DLC as my goodbye. Sometimes you’ve just been to a bar you love too many nights and it’s just time to move along. Bar is still great, but it can’t be the same for you again

[@lastimosaz]

Even Miyazaki said he sucks at his own games and just use all the tools given to you and Elden ring will be easy.

[@fare-5174]

I think a lot of the fatigue comes from the disconnect of what players want vs what the devs think players want. Every review of DS-like games make sure to stress how hard the games are, even when the core gameplay loop is not particularly difficult and it's the controls and camera that are fucked beyond reason that give players pause. It took FromSoft ten years to separate the jump button and now they only have three different actions bound to the spacebar, not four. Amazing progress, I might see those issues resolved before I die of old age! And in the meantime, players will keep swinging that sword left to right and right to left, in precisely that order because variation does not exist in a souls-like game. Have fun casting frostbolt ten thousand times in a row by swinging your staff from left to right and right to left (in precisely that order) because apparently it's too much work to animate a different attack pattern to a melee character. The DDR tilt that goes on as time goes on doesn't help matters. You have to kill the boss in a very precise way that the creator envisioned with no deviation or it'll do some unavoidable bullshit that will send you back to the starting line. How about some skillful plays or innovative, unusual uses of your kit like in Baldur's Gate? Nope, that can't exist in a DS game. You dance to the routine beat carved into you from the first boss, or you can't progress, simple as. And then they wonder why whatever flavor of the month DS game has no replayability value and fades into obscurity in a month. Guess what, they are all the same, with the same unfixable issues that people are sick of already. Wish game companies forgot about the genre already and moved on to something interesting instead. And no, I'm not talking about rogue-like deck-builders either.

[@Klemkee]

It just irritated me how for a good while people would act like Dark Souls was the only game ever made that was actually challenging or had any depth when really it was Baby's First Hard Game for a generation of gamers. And that's okay but it's not as if no games were hard and had dodge rolls and light/heavy attacks before Dark Souls. OMG Dark Souls Dark Souls? The only game ever made, Dark Souls? And people got so smug and haughty over them. If From fans were really so hardcore about mechanics and difficulty they'd be playing fighting games.

[@WolfyRagnarok]

1:54 "Yeah it's kind of urgent" had me laughing so hard for some reason.

[@NekuZX]

"A touch too labyrinthine" is maybe the worst, least accurate way to describe dark souls 3 of all things. "Oh boy, this straight path sure is hard to memorize"

[@thegodofsoapkekcario1970]

Literally, people hated DS3 and started swallowing on DS2 for having as much exploration as a school hallway, but even then the probably school hallway has more interconnectivity.

[@B20K3]

Admittedly he DID also ask for the return of the Gimmick Bosses that Demon's Souls once had-- which are usually considered the low point of the games they're in. I think a major part of his fatigue here comes in part from a rose tint of the past. It's easy to get wrapped up in the feelings you felt when you were first entering the genre, versus what we feel nowadays that it's so well established. Yahtzee has said before that he struggles to enjoy sequels because they ultimately just can't live up to the feelings that the original gave, which is completely fair. But I think that extends to this genre as a whole for him. It just can't live up to the original feelings it used to give for factors that are much harder to pinpoint.

[@Roronoa2zoro]

Something tells me the final boss of the Elden Ring dlc would do nothing to make Yahtzee fall in love with FromSoftware again.

[@Tunaria]

Bit of a shame Lies of P didn't click with him, since it's easily one of the best non-FromSoft Soulslikes that actually understands the formula that makes those games good and got it working, but at least he gave it a shot. After Elden Ring it was kind of a relief playing a game using a similar formula minus the open-world aspect and I'm very much looking forward to get back to it once its DLC also releases. It was nice getting back to Elden Ring for the DLC release, but that game gives you a double-whammy of fatigue due both the Soulslike and open-world formula. There is a good reason why most people coming back for Shadow of the Edrtee don't start off with a new character and also why some of the more popular mods at its release was either a save editor to revert characters back from NG+ or a collection of "DLC-ready" characters.

[@based-ys9um]

The people that made lies of p are going to surpass from soft.

[@realkingofantarctica]

In my opinion, saturation is the result of companies thinking that "Dark Souls hard" is the only type of hard there is, ignoring numerous other examples of challenging game design that pre-date or came after From Software's.

[@DrJigglebones]

I've always been of the opinion that boss fights with secret second phases should STAY in that second phase even if you die to it. you've already proven yourself once with the first phase, and often their transition to the second phase has something pretty major go on in that fancy cutscene. I mean just look at godrick the grafted, chopping off his damn arm. you're saying that since he killed me, he just stuck that dragon head in a back pocket and popped on a new arm? (although to be fair, that happens at the halfway point of his healthbar rather than giving him a second healthbar, which is also a solid solution to the problem.) personally, I quite like the subversion of a second health bar, as long as it's done in moderation. really makes a certain boss feel intimidating when you kill them (or think you kill them) and they just stand back up twice as strong. that said, more than like, 2 instances of that in a souls game is probably overdoing it. i.e., elden ring doesn't just overdo it, it takes the whole lid off the shaker and dumps it right in

[@Ghorda9]

with the multi health bar boss fights in elden ring you can often get through the first phase really fast, also the dlc only has one boss that does this.

[@iMasterchris]

@@DrJigglebones Yeah I think it’s kind of funny how people say the deaths and respawning works in these games, but it fails at the first hurdle with these ridiculously transformative second phases that somehow get reset when you die.

[@vincentvalen72]

Thanks for this, for all the praise Elden Ring gets, I can't be bothered to slug through the open world to get to the parts I like the most, being the boss fights. I always find myself going back to DS1, 2, and Bloodborne. I find 3, Sekiro to an extent, and Elden Ring to be too big for my tastes. I hate that linear became such a dirty word, and open world/sandbox games became the expected standard for video games the last decade and change. I don't want to pick a direction and walk for half an hour to find something to do.

[@Vipus2501]

Considering I still haven't finished Shadow of the Erdtree, I guess I'm really over fantasy Soulslikes.

[@igor_kossov]

Man, I am so grateful I am not a game critic, forced to play through a thousand soulslikes, so I can still enjoy Elden Ring. Your sacrifices were not forgotten, Yahtz.

[@KaletheQuick]

Personally i am tired of being so goddamn depressed all the time. I want something with the detail and spectacle of Dark Souls and Elden Ring, but thats happy for once. Do you know how fucking NICE it was in Tears of the kingdom, to see a post apocalyptic world where people were actually rebuilding? To see people other than the hero acting to better the world? I remember being a kid playing Ocarina of time thinking "Why does everyone else just stand about all day while i do everything?" A childish observation of course. But the people rebuilding their towns, the monster hunter squads. It was so nice to not just get en epilogue saying things got better, but seeing, experiencing, everyone making it better.

[@Zoombeanie132]

Weird, I'm the complete opposite of you. Soulslikes tend to pull me out of depression, overcoming the challenge gives me strength. Tears on the other hand just bored me to tears. That game lacked personality imo, sure the new mechanics were impressive, but the combat and exploration were so easy and honestly felt like a chore by the end. I feel like it lacked the charm all the previous Zelda titles had, felt like a retread of BOTW that largely ignored a lot of the cool stuff that happened in that game. I wouldn't mind a happy soulslike though, I hear another crabs treasure is just that.

[@regularshowman3208]

Honestly the depressing NPC quests in Elden Ring felt kind of exhausting to me. Like the novelty of all these characters having tragic ends wore off a long time ago and now it just kind of feels like a tedious formality that nearly every character with a sidequest inevitably dies horribly and depressingly at the end of it.

[@jamesstanley792]

@@regularshowman3208 Evidently fromsoftware may benefit from making a consciously light hearted game but with same commitment to difficulty, almost like if in Nintendo did a souls-like.

[@SuperBulldogWarrior]

Cheers to Yahtz for shouting out another crabs treasure. One of the best recommendations for any souls fan or anyone curious about the genre. Its also absolutely hilarious in its writing

[@nicklager1666]

You know its bad when the souls maestro himself is somewhat fatigued by the genre. It is genuinly fun hearing someone talk about his journey through the souls games. I have never seen the appeal myself. I did play elden ring but it was more a matter of me enjoying open worlds.

[@SkylerEvansAK]

​@@kingbaard5395 It's a little weird because realistically, there WAS a solid break. 3 years between Sekiro and ER, and 2 years between ER's release and the DLC. It's just that, yeah, From has basically done it to mastery by now, and there's so much to go back to. If I'm tired of ER, I can easily dip back to any of the actual souls games, BB, etc. Between that and the fact that most imitators/inspired games are often missing some of the special sauce, it's tough. I usually prefer not to play soulslike games because a lot of them leave me feeling disappointed. It's kinda like Tony Hawk. There were a TON of sports games that followed in that vein in the early 2000s. Some were good, some were awful, but very few (imo) were as good/fun as the actual pro skater games. Then those got done to death and the whole genre kinda died out. Guitar Hero/Rock Band is another one.

[@cooperlittlehales6268]

@@kingbaard5395 Miyazaki said that elden ring was "close to his ideal game" but not quite there yet. How tf does he keep doing this? What does his ideal game even look like?

[@ileutur6863]

Personally, what made me bounce off the entire souls like genre is the endless repetition. I don't mind the difficulty and "getting gud", but after the 15th boss run back I'm suddenly reminded that I have a day job and obligations and can't sit all day grinding away at one hallway or courtyard.

[@mr.e2239]

@@ileutur6863 By that logic couldn't you say that any game is bad because you get stuck on it for awhile? I got stuck on a bit of half-life and I died over 22 times oh I guess it is like a day job now. Oh you lost at chess too many times? Guess it is a day job now.

[@ileutur6863]

@@mr.e2239 That doesn't make the game bad, it just makes me unwilling to push on and get past it. I'm much less frustrated with games that let you try the hard part almost instantly

[@markwazny6361]

THANK YOU. Finally someone else voices what I experienced with the Demon’s Souls remake. I thought I was going nuts having gone through the game and having died to exactly 3 of the bosses in the entire game, and one of those just being because it was a puzzle boss that would frequently one-shot me without any real warning or ability to dodge out of the way.

[@slimchelmi6940]

god I get more and more worried about the fact that I just agree with you on basically everything you say

[@ShatterPalm]

If anyone's curious I am like, 90% certain that the let's play of Souls 1 he was talking about was the one by Geop done for the Let's Play subforum of Something Awful, its the an exact match to how he described it, (newbie guided through the game by smug friends), and its also the first playthrough of the game I watched to get my head around it. A good watch for the commentary alone.

[@ninjabiscuit1095]

Last time I was this early I was still in the Undead Asylum

[@gotenksjr]

I'm glad to see the honesty regarding Demons Souls, I remember enjoying that video so much ^^. Then I remember how it went at Sony where opinions magically changed as they often do xD Edit: I also didn't finish Sekiro, wish it had stayed a Tenchu game and Elden Ring just didn't grab me at all, didn't like it being Open World, also yes Elden Ring stats wise is just dumb :P

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

Design Delve is enough to get this feeling honestly.

[@mastersKaaP]

I love Elden Ring, played through it and the new DLC multiple times, but I do kind of agree with you here. I started with Elden Ring as the first souls like game I ever played. When I played through Dark Souls remastered after 500 hours in Elden Ring there was barely any challenge. It took a while to get used to the slower pace, but once I got into the rhythm the bosses dropped like flies in one or two attempts compared to the badasses in Elden Ring which took me many, many attempts to kill on my first run. When the DLC dropped it started to feel to me like there's a bit of a arms race between FromSoft and the players. Almost like Miyazaki watches a youtube video of some nutcase completing one of his games on level 1 without dying once and goes "this is obviously not hard enough!" and the 99.9% of the rest of the community suffers for it. Personally I love these games and I literally don't want to play anything else, regardless of the challenge, but I can see the danger of them estranging the community by making their games too hard. And like you mentioned, these games just wouldn't be the same without the community around it.

[@awesomeness1122]

Thank you I have been saying for years souls likes are the new realistic shooter craze that Call Of Duty caused.

[@tahunuva4254]

I've never played a souls game and I have soulslike fatigue

[@gyga100]

Not even close

[@c0n33r]

It's not like fromsoft are pumping out greedy mtx filled sequels every year. If anything, boomer shooters seem to be the flavour right now. The new roguelikes.

[@nifftbatuff676]

Yeah, it is the new popamole game that everyone copy.

[@thomasvogel106]

Nah, multi-player shooters have always been a thing. It's more like when battle royal became popular. So, the souls games are the fortnight of open world fantasy rpgs.

[@zaboomba6635]

I definitely understand this sentiment. I personally have not stopped getting completely absorbed in fromsoft games, but I got into the series later on, around when sekiro came out. I haven’t had an issue with the difficulty of these games until Elden ring. Elden Ring specifically feels so overturned and excessive in its difficulty sometimes, because they balance the fights around you having summons. The thing is, I don’t want to summon, because I don’t enjoy having to rely on a summon taking aggro off of me, but I basically have to use them unless I want to bash my head against a wall for three hours to learn every boss’s ten different combos. Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro’s bosses are perfection to me, they are extremely challenging but still approachable. I hope they scale things back with their next game.

[@doctor-goggles]

I have never understood why Yahtzee didn't like Sekiro, and this video just adds to my confusion. Second healthbar for the monkey aside, of course. Unique gameplay mechanics not just repeating the same Souls formula. A plot with a story you can easily follow and engage with. Characters that at least try to get you to care about them. And I have personally maintained for 5 years that Sekiro is not any harder than the other Souls games. I know "difficulty" is kind of subjective, but anecdotally I am mid-to-bad at Bloodborne, DS3, and Elden Ring, but I was able to complete challenge runs in Sekiro. To me, the combat is more about timing and pattern memorization, and has a real rhythm game feel to it. Meanwhile I'm over here summoning Spirit Ashes for most fights in the Erdtree DLC. Sekiro is definitely DIFFERENT than the others, though and clearly Yahtzee didn't gel with the combat/gameplay loop. But I wonder if he could have if he wasn't suffering from his general years-long souls fatigue I would suggest anyone who bounced off Sekiro to give it another go sometime. It's really a special game.

[@BW-CZ]

Personally, I've always been saying that Sekiro is so different that it's not really a Soulslike anymore (but then the definition is so vague anyways), you have to play it too differently IMO. Personally it's my favorite FromSoft game by far, but it's also the one I suck the most at. I think it's just a different "genre", and that's why it "feels harder". As you said, difficulty is ultimately subjective, and it really comes into play when comparing games that are quite different. A bit of an extreme anecdotal example perhaps, but I suck at modern FPS. So something like Call of Duty, a casual series if there ever was one, is infinitely more difficult for me than Dark Souls, a series regarded for its difficulty. It feels wrong to say CoD is harder, but sometimes that can be the case. This is what's happening here - while Souls players are better equipped than some to handle Sekiro (pattern memorization especially comes in handy), it's still a different game with different combat system that demands different things from its players. Hell of a game though. Absolute blast.

[@jurtheorc8117]

That second paragraph makes me think of Clash: Artifacts of Chaos. It wasn't made by Fromsoft themselves but has noticable Souls influences while also doing its own thing, and pretty well at that. For example, a focus on finding martial arts styles and individual attacks rather than weaponry, with all of them having their own unique animation moveset and utility. A mechanic where inputting a new non-combo string attack the moment your previous attack hits the enemy, the new attack comes out instantly instead of waiting for the previous attack to finish. A variant on a stamina meter called the Guard meter. It operates similarly with depleting and replenishing, but makes it so you take 50% damage and take less stun for as long as there's even a *little* bit left in the meter. And of course, the Ritual. Against any sapient opponent, you can challenge them for a short game of dice before the physical altercation. The winner gets to impose a special condition on the upcoming fight. Like setting down an arena and the first to get knocked out has to take a free hit. The opponent having to cover themselves in something that attracts a swarm of wasps which deals a little bit of damage if they don't keep moving. Being able to summon the opponent as an ally in a future fight, and some more. Warmly recommend it.

[@richardvlasek2445]

for years i've got the vibe that yahtzee just hates actually learning new things which is why he always rags on about the imaginary competitive pvp sweat gamer stereotype and why he bounced off of sekiro (and nioh) so hard

[@pramitpratimdas8198]

Sekiro is less soulslike and more parry simulator similar to rhythm games. Also i think the monkey's second health bar is pretty easy to defend compared to bosses like Rennala or Rykard in Elden RIng where you know theres going to be a second phase. The first phase doesnt serve any puprose

[@GodOfGames523]

I love Sekiro but I don't think it fits the desire for older Souls like, if you dislike how Elden Ring pushes you to play in a certain way to even have a semblance of fun, you'll heavily dislike Sekiro, as there is only one way to win and that's by parrying baby

[@dr2boomer]

juggling Elden Ring's run, dodge, and camera cramps the fuck out of my hand DX

[@LeDardeursPalace]

I had to finish Elden Ring to realise how good Dark Souls 3 really was, like you I felt that Elden Ring was mostly a chore and it made me wonder if I should replay DKS3 for a second time. I'm finishing it right now, and it was as good as I thought it was. But funny thing much like you again, first time around Dark Souls 3 kinda felt maybe boring is not the right word but I never felt like OMG I have to play until I find another Bonfire like I use to do. But this second playthrough is much much better. I have to add, I played Dark Souls 3 in 2019 and waited 4/5 years to come back to it, waited until I HAD TO play and i'm left mostly satisfied.

[@gogauze]

I'm a little suspicious that the last gag, before the ad read, is a multi-entendre that simultaneously references toon-Yahtzee's extreme kinks, the infamous googly-eyed bum dance, the FLDS, Fia's Deathbed Smalls, and his own ad read in the most recent Fully Ramblomatic (Nine Sols); potentially, even more. Either that, or Yahtz just really likes jokes about underpants.

[@GodOfGames523]

Elden Ring was the breaking point for me too funnily enough, there's just something about it that feels artificial, as if the enemies and bosses aren't made to challenge the player but rather challenge the Souls like veteran Input reading, characters holding out attack for uncomfortable amounts of time, waiting minutes on end until you press something to do any attack (look up how long bosses take to start being aggressive if you just move around without attacking), overall super flashy combo strings that last a ton of time, years after my finishing playthrough, it's the only Souls like I haven't replayed, and once the dlc I tried it for a couple hours before dropping it as it just didn't feel fun anymore I think the whole lore part also reached a breaking point thanks to it's open world nature, characters would just randomly disappear never to be found again, the wikipedia became now something mandatory to have, hell the only character who's storyline I managed to follow was actually bugged at launch so I never found the resolution (I still remember people coping thinking it wasn't unfinished actually it was just meant to be that way, only to be patched months later) and the whole ''just use your imagination to fill in the holes'' became much more daunting when the game was hundred of hours long and the holes were literally everywhere, by the end boss I didn't even know who the fuck I just killed or why, unlike the Soul of Cinder, Gwyn or Geniichiro, who had stayed on my mind for far longer because the world was far smaller I didn't feel the same with Sekiro tho, maybe it was the strict gameplay and not having to account for any other builds that allowed Sekiro bosses to be a challenge instead of a bother, as now the classic ''roll towards them and beat their ass'' was inaccesible to the experienced players

[@danielwilliams7161]

It doesn't help that Elden Ring is an open world game too. That genre's been pretty well done to death for years now.

[@eldibs]

The problem I have with soulslikes is that most of them don't bother teaching you the skills you need to win **before** testing you on them. At least Another Crab's Treasure has the decency to stop early in the game and explain how blocking and dodging work. That and the telegraphing from enemies is a lot more clear. Soulslikes are usually like signing up for your first computer science class and immediately being asked to build a three-node server cluster before even cracking open the textbook. And off course they're better with help from friends, almost everything is better with friends! If your game isn't fun playing by yourself, but it's fun to play it with friends, it's not the game that's fun, it's friends that are fun.

[@boshwa20]

"You can do EVERYTHING in the game" is now just code for "the game was not at all balanced in a good way"

[@praisetheoak]

Before Demon's Souls, Fromsoft made dozens of King's Field and Armored Core games among many other titles, and it was from these games that they learned, gained experience and iterated in order to make the Souls franchise that we appreciate and love today. Not only that, but Fromsoft also retains a huge amount of veterans and talent that worked on these older games and still continue at Fromsoft to this day. Fromsoft's souls games are a result of decades worth of experience, veterans and talent allowed to grow and iterate. 99% of these modern "souls-likes" made in the West and many other indie studios don't really seem to understand the absolute gargantuan amount of work, direction, polish and experience needed to not only make these games, but to make them feel "right" too.

[@stevenking9612]

I think this is why I enjoyed Code Vein as much as I did. Souls like that was challenging enough but not so controller smashing difficult so I could enjoy the story

[@LordZylok]

Honestly, I would really enjoy FromSoftware trying their hand at another rpg genre. Do a hat-trick, completely revolutinize, I dunno, traditional cRPG as a genre, like they did with action-rpgs with Dark Souls. If nothing else, flex those other game-desing muscles a bit more, dialogue writing, quest design, more hands-on story writing, etc.

[@smergthedargon8974]

FromSoft should do a survival horror game - perfect for Miyazaki's storytelling styles.

[@giorgitsereteli2809]

Agree with almost all your points. I myself came to the scene after Sekiro was released and my engagement with the genre peaked at Elden Ring. It was the best single-player gaming experience I've ever had. ER gives you the most options to adjust your own difficulty with builds and summons out of any fromsoft games. Rushing past the bossed with summons just because you want to see what happens next and waiting to see if you feel like going back to fight those bosses is a very fun playstyle in its own right. I hope one day you just stroll through the endgame of Elden Ring and experience the joy that is the Shadow of the Erdtree. Love your content as always.

[@Soulspeed68]

I am currently playing through the DLC of Elden Ring and I dread it every time I have to fight a boss. Exploring these beatiful enviroments is great, but with every boss it comes to an abrupt halt. Every boss has 20 hit combos with 0 recovery and some even have abilities that will oneshot you. It's exhausting without much variety compared to the previous game. I think the video The Lost Soul Arts of Demon's Souls by Matthewmatosis explains the issue with modern soulslike realy well.

[@debater452]

Perhaps you are the problem not the bosses. You can't just except Dark Souls tactics to work you have to adapt. Agression is the key to Elden ring bosses

[@BurningTNT]

Sorry, but isn’t that also the guy who said dark souls two was bad for, amongst other reasons, having too many group encounters? And how the game engine/mechanics aren’t designed for groups because whilst you’re locked on you can’t see all of them? Because I don’t think his insights into why the devs don’t understand their own game won’t be of much use to me I’m not sure what you mean by 20-hit combos, no recovery and oneshot attacks. I’ve had basically no issues with the bosses so far vs the base game ones? Rellana does some pretty long combos - sure, but with a few attempts I started to learn when she was done and when she was just pausing for the next couple swings.

[@Soulspeed68]

@@BurningTNT First of, he never said Dark Souls 2 is, but that it is more flawed than the first game. Secondly when I fought a death knight he constantly threw thunder without stoping. That isn't fun to deal nor the attack patterns of all the other bosses.

[@smergthedargon8974]

@@BurningTNT "Dark Souls II has lots of bad design" So has has the correct opinion?

[@manzanito3652]

​​@@debater452 If I wanted to play aggresively without using "dark souls tactics", I would play any other bloody game in the market. Especifically, I would play Punch Out, which focus entirely on dodging and countering at the right moment. It's still a hard game, but it's direct and doesn't waste your time forcing you to backtrack an area, or making builds that may not work.

[@Rorschach87]

Ironically DS3 is pretty much my comfort game now. I always wanna start DS Remastered but am dissuaded by the memories of the 2nd half.

[@anexplosion5436]

The type of game popularized by a series about people who can't die, is beginning to die out. There's something poetic about that. Edit: I meant the mass-production of the genre, not the success of the ones that work, Sorry I guess?

[@RiddleAnim]

I question where you get this notion from,considering that Elden Ring sold 13.4m copies by the end of March 2022,and 25m by the end of June 2024,and currently has a concurrent player count of almost a quarter million on Steam alone,handily beating the pants off of each and every one of its predecessors. Then there's efforts like Elden Ring Reforged,Elden Ring the Convergence,and Seamless Co-Op that will take the community far. Some people are getting fatigued with the genre,and that's entirely valid. There are times where I take entire months off of Elden Ring (Like right now) to play things like Stellaris or SMT 3: Nocturne. People'll play what they like,and fatigue is ultimately temporary if exposure's eased off. But calling the genre in decline when the trendsetter themselves is doing better than ever inside said genre doesn't strike me as genuine.

[@suru2915]

@@anexplosion5436 more like it’s getting oversaturated. Still nothing scratches the fromsoft itch.

[@ACuriousTanuki]

"But soon the flames will fade, and only Dark will remain. Even now, there are only embers." I'd say it speaks more to some individuals' experience of the games rather than the industry trend (Elden Ring being the biggest and most successful), but having personally also drifted off of ER without finishing it it's a vibe I gel with.

[@Rorschach87]

Elden Ring is the best seller of the genre by a huge margin. Lies of P is a non From game that almost matches them in many aspects and betters them in some (imo). Many excellent 2d Metroidvanias have also fully embraced the sub-genre. I'm constantly pumped to see what is next with Souls likes. While I mostly understand where Yahtzee is coming from, I always wonder how his time with Sekiro has contributed to this change in outlook. Its also ironic because if someone came to me and said they loved Nine Sols, i would wholeheartedly recommend Sekiro to them.

[@Oscar97o]

Souls-likes are going hollow

[@Luukluukluuk12]

I feel soooooo validated hearing someone else criticise the weird boss combat of Elden Ring: Extreme flailing, chaos, endless combos and almost no time to respond. Literally hard for the sake of being hard, and that’s no fun

[@AshnSilvercorp]

Dark Souls 1's difficulty was in part, solving problems in combat. If you could knock something off with ranged attacks in the field, it was a good idea. It made the weapons like the greatbows an enjoyable treat if you could use them, despite the pricey arrows. Meanwile, Dark Souls III was really just the "get good" motif dialed up to 9000% with every boss. Even with how difficult Nine Sols felt, my calls of "oh that was an unfair hit" were suddenly calmed to a lull of "parry everything" like I was sipping on tea calmly on a sunny day. It rewarded you for learning the timings by just letting you instantly destroy bosses with some of the later moves in the game.

[@wyvernjack6068]

What a surprise: The creative likes novel gameplay experiences with good writing. >____>

[@Tyrael007]

ah i think the Elden Ring DLC fixed the multiple health bar thing, i cant remember atlest apart from "the one not so sunny thing" that had em, most second phases started 1/3 or att haf health. so thats a steep in the right direction if thats what you fancy. (Give me Friede again on a persanal note)

[@cagemonster]

Not all soulslikes are quintessential; that's how you avoid souls fatigue.

[@parkerdixon-word6295]

Cartoon Yahtzee munching on salted-caramel Bloodborne yelling "Nom!" at 4:30 now lives rent-free in my brain, and I love it.

[@CErra310]

That's the DS2 cover

[@2fingacriminal]

chatgpt created comment

[@parkerdixon-word6295]

@@2fingacriminal Well I'm sorry if I didn't feel like writting you a fucking sonnet about this video and giving you an actual deep insight.

[@Notdaedalus-nc1qv]

nom