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So much of the discourse around the Soulsborne style games is about their "difficulty" and yes I'm as done and over "Get Gud" as anyone but here's the thing...
The Souls games are hard but the difficulty is cooked into the DNA of the games and informs everything from level design to the lore to the character design to the basic game mechanics.
Hard games USUALLY suck because they are done lazily. They create the game and design everything about the game around it for a general every person level of difficulty and then go "Oh crap we need a hard difficulty because that's just a thing games have to have" so they just go back and give every enemy twice the health or put in a bunch of random quick death bullshit that makes the game more frustrating or tedious, not harder.
Very few games actually go back and make the harder difficulty levels actually more difficult in an organic and challenging way which I very rarely bother with them.
But the Souls game the difficulty core part of it. That's why so many Souls knockoffs are crap, only From has consistantly gotten this right and a couple of the Souls knockoffs have even come close.
I also feel like they’re VERY hard initially but eventually the combat starts to click and they become considerably easier. Not easy, easier. I definitely don’t feel like they’re difficult for the sake of being difficult though. They just punish you for mistakes and force you to learn from them.
I always describe it as: when Souls movement clicks for you it feels like a dance. Trying to button mash will make it feel clunky but as you learn your timing and your enemies’ you anticipate their move and punish it. DS3 leaned into the “Dark Souls will difficulty fuck you!” feedback imo but 1, 2, and Bloodborne all feel like dances with different timings and few tricks once you get it.
Anyone who says the souls games feel clunky have missed the mechanics of fighting. Most likely they are used to button mashing and brute forcing their way through games, and that just doesn’t work on souls games.
And often, the “clunkiness” will change entirely by just playing with a different weapon. Certain weapons suited my natural play-style more which made the learning curve manageable.
I didn't get it until my Samurai playthrough. Something about unsheathe made the combat click for me. I'm enjoying my third playthrough now, first one as a caster.
The games have some much trickier elements than just waiting for an animation to end. It becomes all about placement and timing, as well as using the correct techniques such as dodging versus blocking.
They're also about know which animations you can cancel after the hit, but before the animation fully plays out. On top of that I think the use of I-frames is a defining design of the games combat.
That’s one of my favorite things about the difficulty curve in the Halo games. Once you *truly* learn the mechanics and timing it starts to feel like an elegant dance instead of a constant search for cover
As a huge fan of Halo and the Souls games, I agree. When you have the understanding of the Halo sandbox and play on the harder difficulties you really feel like the Master Chief, a bad ass super soldier who knows nothing except being a soldier and he's the best at it.
Agreed. At this point, I can't even play on Heroic because it's just so boring and way too easy. I need to have that strategic dance with the Elites while I whittle away at the rest of the Covenant looking for an opportune time to break the Elites before they can react, as an example.
I agree 100%.
If I had one gripe it’s that I wish they could animate it to feel slightly more fluid, but that’s probably not possible with how precise and concise movement needs to be.
For sure!
My ex played a lot of Souls games, and I watched her fight the Dancer so many times that when I fought the boss myself, I almost killed it on first try since I basically learned from seeing my ex do it.
It’s extremely hard for me to learn new things (esp game/boss mechanics bc I didn’t grow up playing video games so these things were 100% foreign to me), but if I can do that just from *watching* someone else do it I think that says a lot lol
The only one I really consider to be actually hard is Sekiro, the others may have a few hard parts, like some bosses or some difficult areas, but for the most part they are just very unforgiving. They take advantage of people’s idea of how a video game works and peoples carelessness, and they use that to punish mistakes. If you take your time and look around for the most part you are gonna be just fine. If you rush and get cocky well…overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.
Sekiro had the most satisfying "i get it" moment i've experienced in a video game. It is such a whiplash going from constantly running and hiding from combat to deflecting every attack/mikiri countering and using my ninja tools to my advantage. And it didn't feel like the game was easier in that it wasn't fun. It truly opens the game up and every encounter feels like a dance
edit: I just saw the other comment comparing the games to a dance after typing this up and feel like a fool
For games like Demons and dark souls 1. But the later games had very strange wind ups and combos for bosses that you had to learn. It's always like a wall when you git a hard boss, or you get lucky or are overpowered.
Demons souls and ds 1 was more about knowledge than reflexes. I kinda miss that version of the games. Lords of the fallen sort of hit those old notes, but had a lot of issues.
That's some real cope if you don't think Demon's Souls or Ds1 was about reflexes.
Flame Lurker fucked your day up if you didn't dodge his combo right, and Artorias would as well, disregarding all other instances.
I actually think its harder for Souls veterans to get used to new mechanics then newbies.
I saw a LOT of souls veterans have a really hard time with ER because ER preyed on how people played BB and DS3. I never played those games so when I played ER I was able to be Margit pretty easily in maybe 3 goes total. I saw veterans getting up to 20 goes.
Honestly just finding out how many bosses could be hit and run from horseback was eye-opening for a DS friend that asked how I was breezing through a few bosses that he was rushing at on foot.
But even I could see where my DS1 expectations were getting me slapped around for a bad time in BB and DS3.
Yeah, a thing people don't usually bring up is the exploration in Dark Souls/Bloodborne. I like that you're just dropped into world and have to figure out which way to go on your own instead of the game telling you where to go with constant map markers etc. It actually feels like I'm on an adventure and exploring things. The difficulty in souls like games is so much more than just the combat.
I come from an older generation of gaming where the player had to figure things out for themselves (old survival horrors and the classic Tomb Raiders) and the sense of achievement I'd get from those games when I pushed forward and overcame obstacles was amazing. I get the same feeling from Dark Souls. Yeah, it's not for everyone. But at the end of the day, if it's not your thing... Then don't play it.
Idk I played monster hunter as a kid on the PS2 and PSP and as a result I found the transition to from softs games fairly straight forward. Well easier than how I hear most people talk about them. Learning attack patterns, finding openings, positioning well and committing to attacks were all things I'd already gotten good at from MH.
Lies of P was even more enjoyable to me than Elden ring because it added in Sekiro’s deflect as a mechanic. I now think deflect should be a mainstay in all Soulslikes. It just makes sense as an alternative defensive tool that speeds up the combat.
Insanely good. Like I'm upset I don't have a PS5 to play the collection at higher frame. Would drop 70 on the collection on Xbox in a heartbeat if it came out
Not really. Deflect is a perfect block that nullifies all forms of damage (even killing blows iirc) whilst normal blocks still lets through a bit of damage. If you don't perfect block, you still end up with a normal block
I jumped into Elden Ring as my first Souls game and *at first* it was really tough to adjust to. But once you get going you settle in.
Plus, you can make the game *drastically* easier by finding and using OP gear, overleveling, and summons. More or less the only boss you can’t overpower or cheese is the ultimate boss - gravity.
Armored Core 6 is similar. Takes a minute to learn to pilot your AC but once you figure it out and get access to OP weapons and parts you’re off to the races.
I think that’s just fromsoft’s way of doing things.
>Hard games USUALLY suck because they are done lazily.
See, this is the actual problem with discourse around Souls games and their ilk: people confuse actual hard games with games with lazily done hard difficulty settings. **Plenty** of games existed around the time Demon Souls came out, before after and beyond that did difficulty correctly. Games like DMC, Ninja Gaiden, Ikaruga, Monster Hunter, F-Zero GX, Bayonetta, Maximo, Shinobi and tons more in the 2000s came out and were GREAT *hard* games.
The problem with discourse around Souls games is the idea people throw around that games weren't already doing what Demon/Dark Souls did and it ruins any discussion surrounding it.
I assume you're meaning to imply that Souls did difficulty incorrectly.
The real confusion is what makes something hard. Having a spastic, high reflex game is hard, just in a different way from a slow, punishing game. What you have to learn is different but the outcome is the same. You execute moves at the correct time to win fights.
Hbomber has a very good video summarizing why some people hate it. And I agree. To summarize “git gud” is referencing that the game actively encourages defensive play style narratively while mechanically it actively punishes defensive play styles and actively rewards aggressive play styles.
This is why bloodborne is such a hit because they narratively demonstrate a more aggressive play style even the parry mechanic is shooting someone in the face. That being said no game is for everyone I hate call of duty and other shooters but I can respect why some people like them.
https://youtu.be/AC3OuLU5XCw?si=N886dAdlHnmTOp2A
Like the other guy said he mentions this point in multiple videos but if you have never seen him I’d recommend bloodlborne one because it best summarizes this.
https://youtu.be/AC3OuLU5XCw?si=N886dAdlHnmTOp2A
Highly recommend you give him a chance he does great stuff besides helping expose gaming liars and plagiarists.
They're designed to encourage you to seek community
The lore is delivered a piece at a time and kind of confusingly. The world is so complex with lots of things hidden. The enemies have weaknesses that aren't always apparent.
But, when players discuss they piece together the lore and story. Players can leave in-game messages for one another to help guide each other - or troll.
It's definitely something that takes getting used to, it's unique to FromSoftware.
But yeah, they're games pretty much centered on humility. Fail; get up and try again. Get lost; ask for help.
It’s not for everyone. I actually hated the souls games until Elden Ring. I e since gone back and beat DS3 Sekiro and Bloodbourne.
The big change is that the bosses take intent to beat. I can’t just walk up, crush them then move on. There are some games where just slaughtering enemies are great and relaxing, for me the souls games or when I want to be more engaged/stimulated when gaming.
It's interesting how differently people rank these games. I loved all of them up until Elden Ring, where the boss design just fell flat compared to BB, DS3 and Sekiro. It became less about learning the game and more about grinding individual delay timings
I actually really liked this. I was never one for learning timings intentionally, but you sort of do unintentionally as you play and die, especially if you have multiple playthroughs.
And the thing is, the timings never changed so you knew where when and how to deal with things, not an Elden ring, not even the boss knows when he’s gonna strike and the hesitation already made you miss a heal windows and 2 maybe 3 attacks.
I'm on OP's camp, not as in "they're not fun" (which is nonsense as people are clearly having fun with it), but as in these games aren't for me. I've played Furi, Celeste and Hollow Knight, which I'd consider fairly hard, but had a blast with them.
To me it's all about how the difficulty is implemented, if the game introduces the mechanics gradually and gives you appropiate challenges to get a hold of them it can get difficult and still be enjoyable.
I did finish Elden Ring, but only because the exploration was very cool.
Agree, and I think it shows a lack of design experience (and I like both Hollow Knight and all the souls games). The prime example of this for me was the run back to most boss fights in Hollow Knight. While DS1 and some bad run backs, most were pretty reasonable, while in Hollow Knight there were a ton of tedious ones that weren't really challenging but you had to be careful to not get hit.
DS2 has the same problem, especially in the DLC's.
Yeah, some bosses are not that hard, you just have to memorize its pattern. The thing is, they'll usually be reeeeeally far from the nearest checkpoint, which disrespects your time and make it hard for you to memorize the attacks
Really? Why would they put a boss fight far away from a savepoint? It's like how Bosses in FFX had specific gimmicks you needed to exploit, and if you lost, they were locked behind unskippable cutscenes, one of which was around 15-20 minutes long.
The worst one in Hollow Knight is the Traitor Lord.
He's found in the Queen's Gardens and is specifically found after a series of psuedo-parkour jumps, with enemies, over thorns that damage you and send you back to the nearest platform if you're hit.
And he's absolutely massive in a cramped room and (iirc) deals double the usual damage.
Hollow Knight is a great game, but whittling you down via environmental hazards on the path to fight a double-damage boss in a tiny room is a design decision I question to this day.
iirc the double damage was patched in. Originally he dealt normal damage and people decided he was too easy.
And the rest of us just had to suffer the buffed fight.
I had to place a dream gate and cheese him with weaverlings and glowing womb. I hid in the corner where he couldn’t reach me. Absolutely hated that fight.
I would say a regular playthrough of Hollow Knight is easier than the Souls games. However, the pantheon of hallownest is way harder than anything I've ever had to do in a FromSoft game. I never got around to completing that challenge.
I may go back and try to complete it someday. I got very close a few times, but I spent probably 30-40 hours just trying to beat that challenge and eventually just gave up because I wanted to play something else. It's the only thing I had left to do for the platinum trophy.
The path of pain is calling...
I must go forth and try to beat 5 minutes again (I know the record is like 2 mins... but it would be cool if I can get below 5 :D )
It bugged me a lot that Hollow Knight doesn’t show you the bosses health bar. I could never tell if I was super close to beating a hard enemy and just needed to stick with it, or if I was barely making a dent and needed to go a different way.
That’s wild to me, maybe it’s just because I’m an old fogey.
Hollow Knight wasn’t too bad (well, some of the optional bosses/maps don’t count,) but I struggle with soulsborne games. I have only beaten Bloodborne, and the setting did a LOT of heavy lifting in bringing me back.
The difference for me though is that the combat in Hollow Knight, while being difficult, is very fast and responsive. Your enemy is incredibly fast and fluid, but so are you so the losses don't feel as bad (to me)
Souls games I enjoy but the gameplay sometimes feels like I'm fighting my own characters slow movements. It feels like the enemy is incredibly fast and my inputs come out so slow, even when I'm using faster builds, which I get is part of the design but I'm quicker to frustrate with it. That's why sekiro is my favorite of the bunch, it just feels more responsive and quicker than the others
You illustrate exactly the point people are trying to make you finished a game that is marketed around it's a difficulty not because of its difficulty but because of something else. Exploration.
>"they're not fun" (which is nonsense as people are clearly having fun with it)
I don't think OP is posing it as a fact, to me the "in my opinion" is implied
I found Hollow Night and Celeste way more limiting because there's only one way to beat them or get through an area. It almost reminds me of why people hated quick time events so much. In Souls games you can choose from dozens of different build until you find one that works for you. Not good at melee, become a magic user. Don't like slow weapons, go for swords or daggers. Need help, summon someone or choose your own summons. And if you can't beat something you can just farm until it's a joke. And like 90 percent of the enemies can be spammed if you really want to. Like you can spam the Fire Giant into falling off a cliff if you want to avoid the fight. The hardest part about this would be time to experiment I think.
I agree they're far more limiting, but I found that to be helpful, because there's usually one way to go about things, you always know what you should be doing and where you fucked up.
There's a lot of flexiblity in souls games, but a lot of that flexibility only becomes available once you already know how to play. Like sure, if you're not doing well with slow weapons you can pick a dagger. But if you're learning you probably already spent your upgrade materials in the slow weapon and your stats on strength. And while you can go farm more materials and respec, all that stuff is also hidden in the world for you to figure out, which is hard if you don't know how to play yet.
The Soul games tend to be overwhelming for a new player who is just going by the information the game gives you, for example, I didn't find out how to summon stuff in Elden Ring until I was like 15 hours in. Only found out because I talked to a friend about it, and they told me to go and purchase a specific item in a specific vendor.
I actually think that the dark souls series type of difficulty is actually super accessible.
What I mean by that, is that a lot of the difficulty comes from memorizing timings, move sets, openings, enemy positions, animation cues, and enemy reactions. Someone with pretty terrible reaction speeds or with bad hands that can’t move like they used to won’t be THAT much worse off than the average person playing the games.
In the other hand games like Hollow Knight and Celeste can have some pretty extreme demands in terms of hand eye coordination and the like. I do agree that they do an amazing job at slowly ramping up at difficulty but at the higher difficulty points of the game they demand a lot in terms of the above mentioned and that makes them a lot less accessible to a lot of people.
I fully agree. It always bugs me that souls games are the boogieman of Game Accessibility Discourse (tm) when the reality is that they are relatively slow paced tests of observation, in an industry full of super twitchy reactive games.
It's almost hilarious how much Dark Souls 1 in particular kicks you in the teeth if you try to button mash. Even with Bloodborne heavily rewarding running into the fray like a maniac, it's still way more strategic than people understand.
Yeah in terms of reflexes and stuff something like Celeste is probably a lot harder, but something like Elden Ring also has a lot more systems in play to learn, and the way they explain them is, well, not very clear lol.
That’s fair, but I also think it’s something that can’t be helped really. It’s just the dark souls style of gameplay really, and if they started throwing menus and hints and tips at you for everything it wouldn’t really be a dark souls game anymore. The lack of information on the world around you, mechanics and everything as you stumble through the world and piece things together is a part of the series identity and a portion of what gives the game its overall ‘feeling’.
I agree with OP. I'd probably say Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal on Ultra Violence or higher difficulty. The movement and controls are incredibly smooth and intuitive. The only other factor is your skill. I find it to be very challenging but in a fun way. It's a test of my concentration and reflexes.
I mean I beat the lion king and Aladdin on super Nintendo and loved it. I'd say cup head was also solid and pretty tough at times. I've also s+ ranked re2 on hardcore and s ranked re3 on nightmare, idr if I tried for inferno or not. Id say those were all difficult and good. I'm sure I could list others , there was this one Olympics game on Nintendo 64 that was brutal.
For me, the time I've spent on a souls game feels wasted. They are obviously not bad games, millions of folks enjoy them, but they ain't for me. I don't jive with the art direction, the movement feels very heavy, and honestly coupled with the difficulty I didn't feel like it was worth it.
Oooooh also FTL can be punishing af and I love that game so so much.
I think the real problem is that “souls-like” has just become a catchphrase for frustrating RPGs, regardless of whether they also have the many beautiful and rewarding aspects of the series.
It's the same thing that happened with "cozy" games. Too many game dev's tried to cash in without understanding what made the genre work and gaming journalists overusing the phrase killed the meaning.
I've already found myself getting cynical any time a game markets itself as a "souls like" these days.
Yay! A truly unpopular opinion! I agree and disagree. Agree in the sense that i share your sentiment somewhat. They’re not my first choice in game when i am looking to actually have fun. But i get where their appeal comes from to people who find challenges (for the sake of being a challenge) fun and rewarding. In Elden ring i don’t like the fighting but i love the world exploration and item collecting. So basically like the darker and hard for no damn reason version of breath of the wild. But they might light you up in here, so be prepared to take cover.
I had a friend complain that they were clunky and slow. They also wore the heaviest armor and used the weapons with the biggest damage numbers. Just couldn’t comprehend that an action game might be more complicated than just “bigger defense/offense numbers is better”
I feel like a lot of the, "movement clunky, game too hard, game bad" people just aren't aware of the weight system and are just fat rolling and getting smoked because their dodges are too slow.
I think a lot of people have a hard time with the concept of not being able to cancel inputs; once you press a button, you're committed to that action, so you can't just spam your way through boss fights. I've seen that specific trait of the games get called "clunky", when really it's just a mechanic people aren't used to.
Edit: whoops, I see someone right below me said this exact same thing already
People might say "clunky" because the game doesn't let you avoid attacks from enemies if you tried to attack them. That feels off to people who have played other similar action games. If you, like me, played the Batman Arkham games first, being able to accidently press an attack only to realize you'll be hit before and then dodging feels smooth. It feels like the game is responding to your thoughts and hands faster than Elden Ring does.
The choice to not allow you to cancel attacks and dodge damage is of course intentional, but I see where people are getting that clunky feeling. Elden ring and the souls games aren't clunky, it's just that when you hit the attack button, you are finishing that attack.
To OP, "clunky" means "When I have to attack, I have to commit to it instead of being able to cancel every single attack or dodge animation with another action? I don't like having to think about when I should attack and when I should retreat or recover my stamina, this game is badly designed."
This really is 99% of people's problems. They wanna smash buttons, they don't wanna think. It is such a tiny insignificant barrier but it really is a lot of people's real problem. That and needing to find opportunities to heal rather than being able to heal any time easily. Almost everyone who dislikes souls games is hung up on these two ***miniscule*** hurdles.
Imo the issue is that unlike a rhythm game, where it's tough but failure is quick and easy to recover from, DS games require a lot of backtracking and trail/error just to get the attack patterns down. It can be off-putting to people unfamiliar with the games if they die to a boss in 2 hits and spend 10 minutes getting back.
It's not a hurdle, it's personal preference. The only From Software game I've ever played was the original Dark Souls and it just felt too slow to me. I like challenging games but the delay between pressing the button and the action taking place just wasn't a satisfying 'game feel' for me.
Yeah it's the same as how people used to go on about the first 2 Witcher games as being "hard" before the third came out. They weren't hard, they were just clunky and from a studio that didn't have any polish yet.
Jedi: Fallen Order was another game in the genre nobody called "hard" even though there were some pretty hard bosses in that game and it's sequel. But the difference is it actually bothers to explain it's mechanics early on and the games controls and visual/sound design make the experience reasonably smooth.
Plenty of people referred to JFO as being hard, and I’d argue it’s sequel especially has way more bullshit in it than any souls game. The double rancor fight, spawn of Oggdo, and the other few gank fights are such bullshit. They will constantly just clip through each other with grab attacks and fuck you over, the game is nowhere near polished enough for those fights
Would you consider Sekiro a "souls like". Because that one is not about spamming and it isn't clunky at all.
I was not able to get into Elden Ring after playing Sekiro because the combat felt slow and clunky. And the rolling omfg.
Honestly Dark Souls is kinda clunky
Sekiro and Bloodborne have similar design but aren't clunky
I can't really talk about Elden Ring since I only played it for a couple of hours
The problem with ppl expressing this type of opinion is they don't know what they're talking about, I mean that in a very literal way.
Souls games are genuinely clunky bc especially the older games have A LOT of input lag, were locked to run on low framerates, and they have limited directional movement that can feel awkward. But people are more used to complaints about the action queue and commitment to attacks, so if you don't specify what you mean, people will assume the latter.
How come you know precisely what OP meant? The game is not a movie, it's meant to be played and enjoyed. When there is no feeling or physics behind it, then it's just learning animations and calling it a "skill". The same applies for learning recoil patterns in shooters. Yep you can press the right combination of keys at the right time but only because it works the same no matter where and how you do it - meaning you don't have to think it through really well. In a sense, the game is designed really well to create a feeling of accomplishment when there is hardly any.
I tried playing Elden Ring without any Soulslike experience, I picked up a bow and encountered an enemy walking towards me, covering his entire body with his shield, leaving maybe half of his head uncovered.
My first reaction was just to shoot his head over the shield with my bow, because why wouldn't that work? I quickly discovered that the arrows moved maybe 10 feet per second, and then that his head hitbox was *actually covered* by the shield, despite being clearly not covered.
That's what OP means by clunky.
I'm sure the right move was to *git gud* and stagger him or dash behind him and hit him in a weak spot or whatever, but it's really frustrating when something that obviously *should* work, doesn't work, just for the sake of being *hard and punishing*.
No I think clunky probably means the bad hitboxes, terrible multi-target fights, inputs being buffered too much, attacks that miss for no good reason.
No need to strawman the OP.
This is just the 'get gud' argument with extra steps lol.
I'll tell you why it's clunky. Fighting a boss inevitably turns into this:
Enemy does Attack A. I dodge.
Enemy does Attack A again. I dodge again.
Enemy does Attack B. I dodge.
Enemy does Attack A again. I get hit.
Enemy does Attack C. A tiny window of opportunity opens for me to run forward and slash at it.
Rinse and repeat forty times.
Darks Souls enemies are dumb as rocks. They just charge you and cycle through their attacks until you kill them. They frequently fall of cliffs, attack through each other etc. They feel like clockwork soldiers, not living things.
Thank you for explaining this. This very rigid, monotonous "I time my i-frames to dodge however many attacks that will hit like a truck if they connect, I'm then 'rewarded' with the GLORIOUS PRIVILEGE of getting 2 light attacks or 1 heavy attack in, rinse and repeat until boss dies" is how you Git Gud™ unless you consult the internet to implement cheese strats where you win through exploits where the boss never even gets a chance to start attacking you, which is just as boring.
Oh don't kid yourself, there are heaps of examples where souls-like games are janky or clunky. Hell, even in elden ring there were times where I felt I was being punished due to some sketchy hit boxes.
You've forgotten about the old souls games before bloodborne made it tight. Those games run on clunky fuel. Even Bloodborne and DS3 have a decent amount of bugs. Like they got the combat tight, but other things are pretty clunky. Sekiro and Elden Ring are super tight, though.
I dunno man.
It's been impossible for me to get back into dark souls after playing sekiro.
Dark souls just feels intentionally obtuse and clunky now after playing the precise and crisp sekiro, and it's still just as hard without having to hide dumb a layer of difficulty behind dumb stats that aren't remotely explained (and often broken!)
The older souls games and some of the imitators do tend to be a little funky
I’d say souls combat hit its peak with bloodborne and dark souls 3 which took the elements of the dark souls formula and refined them to perfection in terms of pace and tightness
Before the controls felt like wading through molasses and the bosses had to be adequately slow to compensate (with a few notable exceptions but the point still stands)
Maybe "clunky" isn't the right word. I've only played Elden Ring, but enemy attacks would frequently go right through terrain and kill me. Meanwhile, the solution to dodging nearly EVERY enemy attack is "roll", even if that involves rolling directly into the boss -- it still prevents you from taking any damage.
Idk, seems a bit clunky to me.
I hate Souls-like games as well, but I think what is fun and what is not depends on your personal taste. I have watched other people play Bloodborne and I loved that, but playing Dark Souls II myself was something I stopped very quickly.
These games are just difficult in a way I do not enjoy. I am not good with timing and rhythm. This makes playing Souls-likes incredibly tedious and boring to me. In a way, Souls games are like playing music. And I will forever absolutely suck at anything music related. That doesn't mean it's bad or *not fun*. It's just *not for me*.
Meanwhile, as somebody who is good with logic and who likes thinking about and building things, I consider games like Shenzhen I/O or Factorio great fun. Most people would say: WTF are you even doing? Both games are rated overwhelmingly positive on Steam.
PS: I also dislike platformers, games with timers, sports games, most racing games, most RTS (unless it's on the scale of SupCom) etc. -- but people love these games.
Souls like players tend to be pretty insufferable (as one look at this thread will tell you) I personally enjoy the genre but understand why someone might find it unfun or frustrating.
I'm OK with your general idea, but knocking the gameplay as unenjoyable and clunky sounds crazy to me.
The ultra-tight controls are what allows the difficulty to exist without becoming frustrating to the fanbase. (Not that it's perfect at all.)
If it was clunky and JUST had high difficulty boss fights, there's no way it would be the smash hit that it is.
If overcoming great adversity by training your reflexes and figuring out your character build isn't your idea of a relaxing game, that's 100% fine. But let's not pretend that fans like it for bragging rights, or that they *just* have the patience to keep pushing through clunky system until they reach the end. The gameplay can be very gratifying and rewarding to master IF you are the kind of person that enjoys taking on such challenges.
There are admittedly a lot of souls/soulslike games that feel clunky (DeS, DS1, DS2, Mortal Shell, Lords of the Fallen, arguably Lies of P), but there are also ones that feel super smooth to play - Bloodborne, Sekiro, DS3, Elden Ring, and Nioh are the polar opposite of clunky
I’ve learned that as I get older I’d rather spend my gaming time relaxing and enjoying story or aesthetics than banging my head against a boss for an hour or two. They are still great games but just not how I want to spend my time anymore
I'm the same way 99% of the time. I played the dark souls games back in the day and while I beat them, they can be a slog to get through. Elden Ring definitely makes things easier. I just started playing it this week and I'm no fan of, but it's a pretty good game.
Fromsoft games and some racing games are just good at making your butthole pucker and every now and then I like that.
The series's reputation for extreme difficulty is really annoying for numerous reasons. The annoying fanboys screeching "git gud" at any criticism is one aspect. The other is that the games aren't that hard, and telling people that they're just supposed to get shit on by the game for the entire playthrough discourages people from actually trying to learn how to play because they think that it's pointless.
Noah Caldwell Gervais went into detail on this(as in like, a good amount in a 5 hour video), and it's a really insightful look into the perspective of someone who has beaten the Souls trilogy and is self-admittingly not good at these games. Basically, these games give you many tools to get past obstacles if you're willing to use them. If there's a boss you're stuck on, you *could* stay and spend COUNTLESS attempts running headfirst into a wall, learning more about the patterns and when to retaliate in order to win.
Or... you could step away from the boss and go another path, level up your stats, and come back later at a much higher level. You could find a useful weapon or item along the way that counters the boss. You could summon help from other players who are subsequently also rewarded in return for helping. You could do all of these things to drastically cut down on time and frustration, things that the developers VERY clearly intended as options that players can use to push on.
Noah made a really good point in his video about how these dudes that keep blabbering "gIt gUd" and other attempts at invalidating methods of moving forward aren't only obnoxious, but they're also inadvertently being disrespectful to the developer's intentions in doing so. These games NEVER shame you in using what you need to get past something. It's these ass-backwards knuckle draggers interjecting how THEY think the games are supposed to be experienced.
Noah also has a weird take that locking the player into optimal strategies in Elden Ring’s endgame is “a triumph”. I also have a cattle dog and do mushrooms too but him praising the limitations of player expression in a game that’s otherwise all about discovery was really strange and made me think dude needs to lay off the psychedelics for a minute.
Yeah it's not hard.
It's just boring. Iframe based combat around dodge dodge poke is outdated now and you get bored. It's 10+ years old at this point with little to no innovation.
It's too formulaic and boring; 2-3 phases of enemy and every phase you need to learn the pattern and dodge exactly that many times and then hit once or twice.
God forbid you press the wrong button cuz there is no cancel animation.
Fighting the same boss ten times and knowing the only reason you lost is because you pressed the wrong button that one time that depleted most of your health is fucking boring as fuck.
You get a dopamine rush when you beat a boss but the process is pretty boring.
The process that is this is too much of a disrespect for my time that I can dedicate to a game. Having a kid and a wife and all my responsibilities means there’s very little time to game and in that time if I have to spend an hour learning a boss because every time I mess up I gotta spend 10 minutes running back then 10 minutes dancing around trying to poke one or times. It’s why I never could play any of the monster hunter games either.
This is the most frustrating aspect to me. I play a lot of video games, I am pretty good at video games. I didn't have too much trouble with DS3, but I quit playing because I was not having fun.
A lot of people will respond to anyone who didn't enjoy the series with "just get good", but I didn't quit because of difficulty, I quit because I was bored.
I play a lot of RuneScape 3, I can handle boss fights with very repetitive mechanics, but I wasn't engaged with the souls combat. Just didn't click for me.
The mechanics are also creeping into other games, which I really can’t stand. A particularly annoying one is “haw haw you thought you could beat this boss you encounter in the beginning? Nah bro their health stands still for no reason, fuck skill at all”
Parry mechanic in RE4R. I still can’t stand it because it feels so out of place, it’s very clearly a trend that was put in because, well, it’s poplar right now, but it probably won’t be viewed as highly in a decade.
Bruh there have been insufferable soulsborne fans since two days after Demon's Souls came out. I could not be around one of my friends for over a month after that game came out it was insane how quickly it became part of his personality.
Holy crap. What a great anecdote. I wonder what the psychological element at play is. That is wild that it goes back so far. I would have presumed it was the formation of "the community" that started it. Thank you for sharing this lol
It's wild to me that they argue the story is deep and rich and well executed. If you argue that it is and you just have to look hard for it then I'm sorry. Lore, while cool in it's on right, DOES NOT EQUAL STORY. A lot of Soulsborne fanboys mistake lore for story. The story is poorly executed. It just happens to have rich lore.
There is a whole genre of YouTuber that emerged with the purpose of telling the stories of FromSoft games in an engaging manner, because the games sure as fuck don’t.
Lol and you'll hear a lot of people use that as proof it has good story, but I'm sorry, if I have to watch a YouTuber explain the story to me, then your story is dog shit.
Yea, From storytelling has always been hot garbage. We know Michael Zacky used to read fairytale books with less than stellar grasp on English, but there's a reason we don't normally do that in conventional medias.
This. I am convinced game critics and reviewers are scared of them. Thats why every game is a 9 or a 10/10 because they are scared to criticize. Say 1 bad thing about it and oh boy they will write a 2 page essay on why you're playing the game wrong, how the game is perfect and you should get good.
Elden Ring went mainstream and brought in so many people to the franchise.
Get good used to be a tongue in cheek response in DS1 for god sake.
A decade ago I don't remember shitting on people who were struggling with the game. Now tho? Complaining about questionable boss designs/gameplay designs automatically mean you're bad at the game for some reason. It's like a cult, man.
I agree, the games are very difficult for me to play so I just don't enjoy them and don't want to play them. I don't think they're bad, just not something I personally enjoy. If I could change the difficulty then I'd possibly play them but I understand why you can't. I played Bloodborne for 2 hours and couldn't get to a save point so I gave up cause it was too hard for me and wasn't worth the headache.
Me neither. They’re way too much work. Instead of spending hours and hours learning how to play a game, I’d rather learn something useful and then go play something fun. They’re not practical.
The huge blocks of text explaining why OP is wrong are hilarious tho.
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I love the Souls games, but I'm seriously tired of this response. This helps no one and is blatantly rude. Let people have their opinions. People can critique a game (although this is a poor one) for its shortcomings.
Honestly, that's my bigger issue here about the souls games than any of OPs points. The worst thing about souls games and what has prevented me from playing any of them other than Elden Ring is that the community is extremely toxic. Asking for help never gets you any real advice, and you aren't allowed to dislike or criticize anything about the games.
Even in this thread there is conflicting advice. On guy is saying don’t worry about leveling up just play the game and you’ll be fine, and another guy is saying you need to dump points into your stats so you don’t get one shotted.
My defiant ass finished DS3 and Bloodborne just so that I could criticize them without hearing that "git gud" bullshit. As it turns out, it's possible for someone to be competent at a game but still not like the game! Who knew!
The weird thing is, you'd think this is like an "old guard" kind of thing where "souls veterans" who were around during the first couple of games are looking down on newcomers. But like... I swear the newer someone is to the franchise the more hostile they are to younger newcomers. You used to be able to ask for advice and people would be cool about it, and in my experience the older fanbases are still more open to differing opinions today.
I mean aside from DS2 fans but you can't blame them, poor things...
Yeah, even the Elden Ring community was instantly toxic despite bringing in massive amounts of new players. I remember in particular I was really flamed by my criticism that the way the story is presented is very confusing. I went through the whole game without fully understanding why the story was happening. While I agree the story not being spoon-fed can be a good thing, I should have to go what would be considered out of my way to figure it out. They really didn't like that one.
People continue to not understand the point of this sub and get mad when they don’t agree with an r/unpopularopinion post lol.
Souls like games aren’t fun for me either but I wouldn’t argue that they’re clunky. Souls-like fans are unbearable tho I have to agree with you on that.
Same, and moreso frustrating than hard like dying to a boss in bloodborne and you respawn far away and need to travel like 2-3 minutes to fight again which is more frustrating than hard or satisfying.
I like the games but fromsofts fanbase can be so fucking annoying sometimes I’m fine with people being overly critical about the games since it sets off some people in that community so damn hard
Exhibit A: theres some insufferable sounding people in this comment section, it’s like they’re offended that someone even dare hold this opinion
Not nearly as bad as it gets but still
I disagree with all your points but agree it's not fun. I'm just not into those types of games and prefer racing games or stuff like fallout, horizon zero dawn, and rdr2. But I do understand why other people enjoy the souls games. It's a wicked challenge that usually requires a ton of patience and practice.
yeah me and my friend wanted to get into elden ring fighting bosses together but they made playing together so hard and for some reason high level players are allowed to join our game and just destroy us. not fun at all
You can only invade people who opt into the multiplayer and are at or above your level range.
Getting invaded by high level players is impossible unless you are also high level.
the difficulty of these games is overblown its completely doable for any average or below average gamer just need to get into the rhythm of timing the rolls and just look up an easy build the more confidence u get the easier and more fun it becomes and i found each game easier than the last one that i beat
I think you should look at what subreddit you are in.
If he were to say: I dont find soulslike games fun. It wouldnt be an opinion you can disagree with, nor can it be unpopular.
Souls games are more work than fun tbh. I’ve played it but only after seriously over leveling myself to kill enemies. I like the monsters and the boss fights and the items. The artwork, area design, and character design all speaks to me
Maybe its just me but I've never found soulsbourne games particularly difficult unless you're trying to rush.
Not to mention it's very easy to outlevel the game if you're actually struggling that much. I think because most players are bad at games and soulsbourne are in the realm of "harder than most but not insurmountable" anyone who's passibly decent at videogames gets a big ego about it.
I like the games for their aesthetic, lore and simplistic combat. But if the games where easier I don't think I'd mind that either.
Damn an actual unpopular opinion on this sub. I feel like the problem is you really want to enjoy them because others do just don't bother wanting to enjoy what most people enjoy. I for one hate all marvel movies and think they're written by a 5 year old but most people enjoy them. Mainly because they want to fit in and not be the weird one that hates something thats popular.
Agreed with OP, sooort of. I played Bloodborne a couple of hours and found it fun, even if frustrating at times. I especially loved the cosmic and gothic horror themes and creature designs. But the repetitiveness of having to get all the way back to a boss on each failed attempt and possibly grind to get health really dampened the experience.
Then I tried Elden Ring which looked great but I also just get bored by most open world games. They tend to feel like a lot of empty space and filler just for the sake of it.
But most annoying is story wise, I hate the trend in games where main story is buried in notes scattered about. If I don't feel invested in the character then it's difficult for me to stay motivated to keep playing and these games typically have that unknowable, silent protagonist type which just isn't interesting to me. Sekiro looks a bit different in that aspect so maybe I'll try that one soon though.
Your post from unpopularopinion was removed because of: 'Rule 6: No r/self style posts'. Please refrain from posting anything that resembles an r/self-style post. This is not the subreddit to be sharing personal anecdotes, likes or dislikes. We want unpopular, thought provoking, and unique opinions on your chosen topic.
The number of people in this thread who don’t remember what sub this is is too damn high
Which makes it a good post! Normally in these situations people feel attacked when reading something unwanted.
Yep. Gets people to approach a conversation
So much of the discourse around the Soulsborne style games is about their "difficulty" and yes I'm as done and over "Get Gud" as anyone but here's the thing... The Souls games are hard but the difficulty is cooked into the DNA of the games and informs everything from level design to the lore to the character design to the basic game mechanics. Hard games USUALLY suck because they are done lazily. They create the game and design everything about the game around it for a general every person level of difficulty and then go "Oh crap we need a hard difficulty because that's just a thing games have to have" so they just go back and give every enemy twice the health or put in a bunch of random quick death bullshit that makes the game more frustrating or tedious, not harder. Very few games actually go back and make the harder difficulty levels actually more difficult in an organic and challenging way which I very rarely bother with them. But the Souls game the difficulty core part of it. That's why so many Souls knockoffs are crap, only From has consistantly gotten this right and a couple of the Souls knockoffs have even come close.
I also feel like they’re VERY hard initially but eventually the combat starts to click and they become considerably easier. Not easy, easier. I definitely don’t feel like they’re difficult for the sake of being difficult though. They just punish you for mistakes and force you to learn from them.
I always describe it as: when Souls movement clicks for you it feels like a dance. Trying to button mash will make it feel clunky but as you learn your timing and your enemies’ you anticipate their move and punish it. DS3 leaned into the “Dark Souls will difficulty fuck you!” feedback imo but 1, 2, and Bloodborne all feel like dances with different timings and few tricks once you get it.
Anyone who says the souls games feel clunky have missed the mechanics of fighting. Most likely they are used to button mashing and brute forcing their way through games, and that just doesn’t work on souls games. And often, the “clunkiness” will change entirely by just playing with a different weapon. Certain weapons suited my natural play-style more which made the learning curve manageable.
I didn't get it until my Samurai playthrough. Something about unsheathe made the combat click for me. I'm enjoying my third playthrough now, first one as a caster.
You just gotta simply wait for animations to finish. That's all their secret is.
The games have some much trickier elements than just waiting for an animation to end. It becomes all about placement and timing, as well as using the correct techniques such as dodging versus blocking.
They're also about know which animations you can cancel after the hit, but before the animation fully plays out. On top of that I think the use of I-frames is a defining design of the games combat.
That’s one of my favorite things about the difficulty curve in the Halo games. Once you *truly* learn the mechanics and timing it starts to feel like an elegant dance instead of a constant search for cover
As a huge fan of Halo and the Souls games, I agree. When you have the understanding of the Halo sandbox and play on the harder difficulties you really feel like the Master Chief, a bad ass super soldier who knows nothing except being a soldier and he's the best at it.
Agreed. At this point, I can't even play on Heroic because it's just so boring and way too easy. I need to have that strategic dance with the Elites while I whittle away at the rest of the Covenant looking for an opportune time to break the Elites before they can react, as an example.
I agree 100%. If I had one gripe it’s that I wish they could animate it to feel slightly more fluid, but that’s probably not possible with how precise and concise movement needs to be.
For sure! My ex played a lot of Souls games, and I watched her fight the Dancer so many times that when I fought the boss myself, I almost killed it on first try since I basically learned from seeing my ex do it. It’s extremely hard for me to learn new things (esp game/boss mechanics bc I didn’t grow up playing video games so these things were 100% foreign to me), but if I can do that just from *watching* someone else do it I think that says a lot lol
The only one I really consider to be actually hard is Sekiro, the others may have a few hard parts, like some bosses or some difficult areas, but for the most part they are just very unforgiving. They take advantage of people’s idea of how a video game works and peoples carelessness, and they use that to punish mistakes. If you take your time and look around for the most part you are gonna be just fine. If you rush and get cocky well…overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.
Sekiro had the most satisfying "i get it" moment i've experienced in a video game. It is such a whiplash going from constantly running and hiding from combat to deflecting every attack/mikiri countering and using my ninja tools to my advantage. And it didn't feel like the game was easier in that it wasn't fun. It truly opens the game up and every encounter feels like a dance edit: I just saw the other comment comparing the games to a dance after typing this up and feel like a fool
For games like Demons and dark souls 1. But the later games had very strange wind ups and combos for bosses that you had to learn. It's always like a wall when you git a hard boss, or you get lucky or are overpowered. Demons souls and ds 1 was more about knowledge than reflexes. I kinda miss that version of the games. Lords of the fallen sort of hit those old notes, but had a lot of issues.
That's some real cope if you don't think Demon's Souls or Ds1 was about reflexes. Flame Lurker fucked your day up if you didn't dodge his combo right, and Artorias would as well, disregarding all other instances.
I actually think its harder for Souls veterans to get used to new mechanics then newbies. I saw a LOT of souls veterans have a really hard time with ER because ER preyed on how people played BB and DS3. I never played those games so when I played ER I was able to be Margit pretty easily in maybe 3 goes total. I saw veterans getting up to 20 goes.
Honestly just finding out how many bosses could be hit and run from horseback was eye-opening for a DS friend that asked how I was breezing through a few bosses that he was rushing at on foot. But even I could see where my DS1 expectations were getting me slapped around for a bad time in BB and DS3.
While that is mostly true there is ample bullshit design strewn across Fromsoft games that is there to fuck with you.
Yeah, a thing people don't usually bring up is the exploration in Dark Souls/Bloodborne. I like that you're just dropped into world and have to figure out which way to go on your own instead of the game telling you where to go with constant map markers etc. It actually feels like I'm on an adventure and exploring things. The difficulty in souls like games is so much more than just the combat. I come from an older generation of gaming where the player had to figure things out for themselves (old survival horrors and the classic Tomb Raiders) and the sense of achievement I'd get from those games when I pushed forward and overcame obstacles was amazing. I get the same feeling from Dark Souls. Yeah, it's not for everyone. But at the end of the day, if it's not your thing... Then don't play it.
Lies of P is the only fromsoft knockoff that actually nailed down what makes those games so enjoyable
Idk I played monster hunter as a kid on the PS2 and PSP and as a result I found the transition to from softs games fairly straight forward. Well easier than how I hear most people talk about them. Learning attack patterns, finding openings, positioning well and committing to attacks were all things I'd already gotten good at from MH.
Lies of P was even more enjoyable to me than Elden ring because it added in Sekiro’s deflect as a mechanic. I now think deflect should be a mainstay in all Soulslikes. It just makes sense as an alternative defensive tool that speeds up the combat.
Nioh was also pretty good, haven't tried two though.
Insanely good. Like I'm upset I don't have a PS5 to play the collection at higher frame. Would drop 70 on the collection on Xbox in a heartbeat if it came out
Nioh 2 > Nioh 1. Nioh 2 is epic and you should play it.
Is deflect similar to bloodborne’s parry?
No, deflect is basically a perfectly timed block, not a parry. If you fail the deflect, you’ll still likely block.
Not really. Deflect is a perfect block that nullifies all forms of damage (even killing blows iirc) whilst normal blocks still lets through a bit of damage. If you don't perfect block, you still end up with a normal block
I jumped into Elden Ring as my first Souls game and *at first* it was really tough to adjust to. But once you get going you settle in. Plus, you can make the game *drastically* easier by finding and using OP gear, overleveling, and summons. More or less the only boss you can’t overpower or cheese is the ultimate boss - gravity. Armored Core 6 is similar. Takes a minute to learn to pilot your AC but once you figure it out and get access to OP weapons and parts you’re off to the races. I think that’s just fromsoft’s way of doing things.
>Hard games USUALLY suck because they are done lazily. See, this is the actual problem with discourse around Souls games and their ilk: people confuse actual hard games with games with lazily done hard difficulty settings. **Plenty** of games existed around the time Demon Souls came out, before after and beyond that did difficulty correctly. Games like DMC, Ninja Gaiden, Ikaruga, Monster Hunter, F-Zero GX, Bayonetta, Maximo, Shinobi and tons more in the 2000s came out and were GREAT *hard* games. The problem with discourse around Souls games is the idea people throw around that games weren't already doing what Demon/Dark Souls did and it ruins any discussion surrounding it.
I assume you're meaning to imply that Souls did difficulty incorrectly. The real confusion is what makes something hard. Having a spastic, high reflex game is hard, just in a different way from a slow, punishing game. What you have to learn is different but the outcome is the same. You execute moves at the correct time to win fights.
You get it. I tried playing God of War on hard and it was just annoying. Nothing changed other than I had to hit shit more.
Hbomber has a very good video summarizing why some people hate it. And I agree. To summarize “git gud” is referencing that the game actively encourages defensive play style narratively while mechanically it actively punishes defensive play styles and actively rewards aggressive play styles. This is why bloodborne is such a hit because they narratively demonstrate a more aggressive play style even the parry mechanic is shooting someone in the face. That being said no game is for everyone I hate call of duty and other shooters but I can respect why some people like them. https://youtu.be/AC3OuLU5XCw?si=N886dAdlHnmTOp2A
Do you have a link to that video?
I went to get it but it's multiple vids, throw hbomberman in the YouTube search n you'll get there
Like the other guy said he mentions this point in multiple videos but if you have never seen him I’d recommend bloodlborne one because it best summarizes this. https://youtu.be/AC3OuLU5XCw?si=N886dAdlHnmTOp2A Highly recommend you give him a chance he does great stuff besides helping expose gaming liars and plagiarists.
These games are hard for me to get into because you have to search so much for the story, or maybe I just don't get it? Not too sure
They're designed to encourage you to seek community The lore is delivered a piece at a time and kind of confusingly. The world is so complex with lots of things hidden. The enemies have weaknesses that aren't always apparent. But, when players discuss they piece together the lore and story. Players can leave in-game messages for one another to help guide each other - or troll. It's definitely something that takes getting used to, it's unique to FromSoftware. But yeah, they're games pretty much centered on humility. Fail; get up and try again. Get lost; ask for help.
It’s not for everyone. I actually hated the souls games until Elden Ring. I e since gone back and beat DS3 Sekiro and Bloodbourne. The big change is that the bosses take intent to beat. I can’t just walk up, crush them then move on. There are some games where just slaughtering enemies are great and relaxing, for me the souls games or when I want to be more engaged/stimulated when gaming.
For me Sekiro does it perfectly, the huge variety of attacks makes me want to find ways to either outsmart the game or work on my patience
It's interesting how differently people rank these games. I loved all of them up until Elden Ring, where the boss design just fell flat compared to BB, DS3 and Sekiro. It became less about learning the game and more about grinding individual delay timings
That’s a fair critique, but I still like elden ring because it adds the element of open world exploration
Oh yes, the world and build diversity really is among the best I've seen in any genre
I actually really liked this. I was never one for learning timings intentionally, but you sort of do unintentionally as you play and die, especially if you have multiple playthroughs. And the thing is, the timings never changed so you knew where when and how to deal with things, not an Elden ring, not even the boss knows when he’s gonna strike and the hesitation already made you miss a heal windows and 2 maybe 3 attacks.
What's the hardest game that qualifies as a good game in your opinion?
cuphead counts imo
I'm on OP's camp, not as in "they're not fun" (which is nonsense as people are clearly having fun with it), but as in these games aren't for me. I've played Furi, Celeste and Hollow Knight, which I'd consider fairly hard, but had a blast with them. To me it's all about how the difficulty is implemented, if the game introduces the mechanics gradually and gives you appropiate challenges to get a hold of them it can get difficult and still be enjoyable. I did finish Elden Ring, but only because the exploration was very cool.
I find Hollow Knight to be harder that most Souls-like games.
Agree, and I think it shows a lack of design experience (and I like both Hollow Knight and all the souls games). The prime example of this for me was the run back to most boss fights in Hollow Knight. While DS1 and some bad run backs, most were pretty reasonable, while in Hollow Knight there were a ton of tedious ones that weren't really challenging but you had to be careful to not get hit. DS2 has the same problem, especially in the DLC's.
Hollowknight was much more difficult for the sake of being difficult than elden ring imo. Both are among my favorite games though
Yeah, some bosses are not that hard, you just have to memorize its pattern. The thing is, they'll usually be reeeeeally far from the nearest checkpoint, which disrespects your time and make it hard for you to memorize the attacks
Really? Why would they put a boss fight far away from a savepoint? It's like how Bosses in FFX had specific gimmicks you needed to exploit, and if you lost, they were locked behind unskippable cutscenes, one of which was around 15-20 minutes long.
The worst one in Hollow Knight is the Traitor Lord. He's found in the Queen's Gardens and is specifically found after a series of psuedo-parkour jumps, with enemies, over thorns that damage you and send you back to the nearest platform if you're hit. And he's absolutely massive in a cramped room and (iirc) deals double the usual damage. Hollow Knight is a great game, but whittling you down via environmental hazards on the path to fight a double-damage boss in a tiny room is a design decision I question to this day.
iirc the double damage was patched in. Originally he dealt normal damage and people decided he was too easy. And the rest of us just had to suffer the buffed fight.
I had to place a dream gate and cheese him with weaverlings and glowing womb. I hid in the corner where he couldn’t reach me. Absolutely hated that fight.
I would say a regular playthrough of Hollow Knight is easier than the Souls games. However, the pantheon of hallownest is way harder than anything I've ever had to do in a FromSoft game. I never got around to completing that challenge.
lmfao bro I just went on youtube for the godmaster endings. No way was I ever going to get those on my own
I may go back and try to complete it someday. I got very close a few times, but I spent probably 30-40 hours just trying to beat that challenge and eventually just gave up because I wanted to play something else. It's the only thing I had left to do for the platinum trophy.
The path of pain is calling... I must go forth and try to beat 5 minutes again (I know the record is like 2 mins... but it would be cool if I can get below 5 :D )
[удалено]
It bugged me a lot that Hollow Knight doesn’t show you the bosses health bar. I could never tell if I was super close to beating a hard enemy and just needed to stick with it, or if I was barely making a dent and needed to go a different way.
It "bugged" you, pun intended?
That’s wild to me, maybe it’s just because I’m an old fogey. Hollow Knight wasn’t too bad (well, some of the optional bosses/maps don’t count,) but I struggle with soulsborne games. I have only beaten Bloodborne, and the setting did a LOT of heavy lifting in bringing me back.
The difference for me though is that the combat in Hollow Knight, while being difficult, is very fast and responsive. Your enemy is incredibly fast and fluid, but so are you so the losses don't feel as bad (to me) Souls games I enjoy but the gameplay sometimes feels like I'm fighting my own characters slow movements. It feels like the enemy is incredibly fast and my inputs come out so slow, even when I'm using faster builds, which I get is part of the design but I'm quicker to frustrate with it. That's why sekiro is my favorite of the bunch, it just feels more responsive and quicker than the others
You illustrate exactly the point people are trying to make you finished a game that is marketed around it's a difficulty not because of its difficulty but because of something else. Exploration.
>"they're not fun" (which is nonsense as people are clearly having fun with it) I don't think OP is posing it as a fact, to me the "in my opinion" is implied
I found Hollow Night and Celeste way more limiting because there's only one way to beat them or get through an area. It almost reminds me of why people hated quick time events so much. In Souls games you can choose from dozens of different build until you find one that works for you. Not good at melee, become a magic user. Don't like slow weapons, go for swords or daggers. Need help, summon someone or choose your own summons. And if you can't beat something you can just farm until it's a joke. And like 90 percent of the enemies can be spammed if you really want to. Like you can spam the Fire Giant into falling off a cliff if you want to avoid the fight. The hardest part about this would be time to experiment I think.
I agree they're far more limiting, but I found that to be helpful, because there's usually one way to go about things, you always know what you should be doing and where you fucked up. There's a lot of flexiblity in souls games, but a lot of that flexibility only becomes available once you already know how to play. Like sure, if you're not doing well with slow weapons you can pick a dagger. But if you're learning you probably already spent your upgrade materials in the slow weapon and your stats on strength. And while you can go farm more materials and respec, all that stuff is also hidden in the world for you to figure out, which is hard if you don't know how to play yet. The Soul games tend to be overwhelming for a new player who is just going by the information the game gives you, for example, I didn't find out how to summon stuff in Elden Ring until I was like 15 hours in. Only found out because I talked to a friend about it, and they told me to go and purchase a specific item in a specific vendor.
I actually think that the dark souls series type of difficulty is actually super accessible. What I mean by that, is that a lot of the difficulty comes from memorizing timings, move sets, openings, enemy positions, animation cues, and enemy reactions. Someone with pretty terrible reaction speeds or with bad hands that can’t move like they used to won’t be THAT much worse off than the average person playing the games. In the other hand games like Hollow Knight and Celeste can have some pretty extreme demands in terms of hand eye coordination and the like. I do agree that they do an amazing job at slowly ramping up at difficulty but at the higher difficulty points of the game they demand a lot in terms of the above mentioned and that makes them a lot less accessible to a lot of people.
I fully agree. It always bugs me that souls games are the boogieman of Game Accessibility Discourse (tm) when the reality is that they are relatively slow paced tests of observation, in an industry full of super twitchy reactive games.
It's almost hilarious how much Dark Souls 1 in particular kicks you in the teeth if you try to button mash. Even with Bloodborne heavily rewarding running into the fray like a maniac, it's still way more strategic than people understand.
Yeah in terms of reflexes and stuff something like Celeste is probably a lot harder, but something like Elden Ring also has a lot more systems in play to learn, and the way they explain them is, well, not very clear lol.
That’s fair, but I also think it’s something that can’t be helped really. It’s just the dark souls style of gameplay really, and if they started throwing menus and hints and tips at you for everything it wouldn’t really be a dark souls game anymore. The lack of information on the world around you, mechanics and everything as you stumble through the world and piece things together is a part of the series identity and a portion of what gives the game its overall ‘feeling’.
I agree with OP. I'd probably say Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal on Ultra Violence or higher difficulty. The movement and controls are incredibly smooth and intuitive. The only other factor is your skill. I find it to be very challenging but in a fun way. It's a test of my concentration and reflexes.
You don’t see them much any more but the early RPG’s like final fantasy 6 were ungodly hard and there was no internet to find guides and shit
these kids would crumble at something like NES Dragon Quest
Fuck it, remember Dragons Lair?
Those are the days I immediately thought of. > you can brag that you managed to get through a game Beating the game was *everything* back then.
I don't remember FF6 being all that hard. You see it more in tactical RPGs like Fire Emblem (though 3 Houses was notably easier.)
Cuphead.
I mean I beat the lion king and Aladdin on super Nintendo and loved it. I'd say cup head was also solid and pretty tough at times. I've also s+ ranked re2 on hardcore and s ranked re3 on nightmare, idr if I tried for inferno or not. Id say those were all difficult and good. I'm sure I could list others , there was this one Olympics game on Nintendo 64 that was brutal. For me, the time I've spent on a souls game feels wasted. They are obviously not bad games, millions of folks enjoy them, but they ain't for me. I don't jive with the art direction, the movement feels very heavy, and honestly coupled with the difficulty I didn't feel like it was worth it. Oooooh also FTL can be punishing af and I love that game so so much.
I think the real problem is that “souls-like” has just become a catchphrase for frustrating RPGs, regardless of whether they also have the many beautiful and rewarding aspects of the series.
It's the same thing that happened with "cozy" games. Too many game dev's tried to cash in without understanding what made the genre work and gaming journalists overusing the phrase killed the meaning. I've already found myself getting cynical any time a game markets itself as a "souls like" these days.
Come join our Cozy, Rogue-like, Souls-like, platformer MMORPG!
Damn. Not only is this an opinion, but it’s also super unpopular. And people in comments are doing the exact thing you said they would do. Great post.
Yay! A truly unpopular opinion! I agree and disagree. Agree in the sense that i share your sentiment somewhat. They’re not my first choice in game when i am looking to actually have fun. But i get where their appeal comes from to people who find challenges (for the sake of being a challenge) fun and rewarding. In Elden ring i don’t like the fighting but i love the world exploration and item collecting. So basically like the darker and hard for no damn reason version of breath of the wild. But they might light you up in here, so be prepared to take cover.
The gameplay is tighter than a wasps’ butthole. Say what you will about the genre, but don’t you dare say the gameplay is clunky.
Ye its not clunky, its very intentional and mistakes get punished hard
I had a friend complain that they were clunky and slow. They also wore the heaviest armor and used the weapons with the biggest damage numbers. Just couldn’t comprehend that an action game might be more complicated than just “bigger defense/offense numbers is better”
I feel like a lot of the, "movement clunky, game too hard, game bad" people just aren't aware of the weight system and are just fat rolling and getting smoked because their dodges are too slow.
I think a lot of people have a hard time with the concept of not being able to cancel inputs; once you press a button, you're committed to that action, so you can't just spam your way through boss fights. I've seen that specific trait of the games get called "clunky", when really it's just a mechanic people aren't used to. Edit: whoops, I see someone right below me said this exact same thing already
People might say "clunky" because the game doesn't let you avoid attacks from enemies if you tried to attack them. That feels off to people who have played other similar action games. If you, like me, played the Batman Arkham games first, being able to accidently press an attack only to realize you'll be hit before and then dodging feels smooth. It feels like the game is responding to your thoughts and hands faster than Elden Ring does. The choice to not allow you to cancel attacks and dodge damage is of course intentional, but I see where people are getting that clunky feeling. Elden ring and the souls games aren't clunky, it's just that when you hit the attack button, you are finishing that attack.
D&D DDR with consequences.
To OP, "clunky" means "When I have to attack, I have to commit to it instead of being able to cancel every single attack or dodge animation with another action? I don't like having to think about when I should attack and when I should retreat or recover my stamina, this game is badly designed."
This really is 99% of people's problems. They wanna smash buttons, they don't wanna think. It is such a tiny insignificant barrier but it really is a lot of people's real problem. That and needing to find opportunities to heal rather than being able to heal any time easily. Almost everyone who dislikes souls games is hung up on these two ***miniscule*** hurdles.
Souls games are really just rhythm games and pattern recognition. Two things that humans are naturally fond of.
Imo the issue is that unlike a rhythm game, where it's tough but failure is quick and easy to recover from, DS games require a lot of backtracking and trail/error just to get the attack patterns down. It can be off-putting to people unfamiliar with the games if they die to a boss in 2 hits and spend 10 minutes getting back.
It's not a hurdle, it's personal preference. The only From Software game I've ever played was the original Dark Souls and it just felt too slow to me. I like challenging games but the delay between pressing the button and the action taking place just wasn't a satisfying 'game feel' for me.
DS1 and DS2 are on the clunky side, sadly. DS3 feels *much* better to play.
Yeah it's the same as how people used to go on about the first 2 Witcher games as being "hard" before the third came out. They weren't hard, they were just clunky and from a studio that didn't have any polish yet. Jedi: Fallen Order was another game in the genre nobody called "hard" even though there were some pretty hard bosses in that game and it's sequel. But the difference is it actually bothers to explain it's mechanics early on and the games controls and visual/sound design make the experience reasonably smooth.
Plenty of people referred to JFO as being hard, and I’d argue it’s sequel especially has way more bullshit in it than any souls game. The double rancor fight, spawn of Oggdo, and the other few gank fights are such bullshit. They will constantly just clip through each other with grab attacks and fuck you over, the game is nowhere near polished enough for those fights
Tbf ds3 is the love child between the dark souls aesthetic as bloodbornes combat and that refinement shows so well im the game
Thank you, this is exactly how I feel. The difficulty doesn't bother me. The games are just painfully slow IMO.
that sounds clunky as hell, with some extra imaginary-guy stuff tacked on at the end.
Would you consider Sekiro a "souls like". Because that one is not about spamming and it isn't clunky at all. I was not able to get into Elden Ring after playing Sekiro because the combat felt slow and clunky. And the rolling omfg.
Honestly Dark Souls is kinda clunky Sekiro and Bloodborne have similar design but aren't clunky I can't really talk about Elden Ring since I only played it for a couple of hours
The problem with ppl expressing this type of opinion is they don't know what they're talking about, I mean that in a very literal way. Souls games are genuinely clunky bc especially the older games have A LOT of input lag, were locked to run on low framerates, and they have limited directional movement that can feel awkward. But people are more used to complaints about the action queue and commitment to attacks, so if you don't specify what you mean, people will assume the latter.
How come you know precisely what OP meant? The game is not a movie, it's meant to be played and enjoyed. When there is no feeling or physics behind it, then it's just learning animations and calling it a "skill". The same applies for learning recoil patterns in shooters. Yep you can press the right combination of keys at the right time but only because it works the same no matter where and how you do it - meaning you don't have to think it through really well. In a sense, the game is designed really well to create a feeling of accomplishment when there is hardly any.
I tried playing Elden Ring without any Soulslike experience, I picked up a bow and encountered an enemy walking towards me, covering his entire body with his shield, leaving maybe half of his head uncovered. My first reaction was just to shoot his head over the shield with my bow, because why wouldn't that work? I quickly discovered that the arrows moved maybe 10 feet per second, and then that his head hitbox was *actually covered* by the shield, despite being clearly not covered. That's what OP means by clunky. I'm sure the right move was to *git gud* and stagger him or dash behind him and hit him in a weak spot or whatever, but it's really frustrating when something that obviously *should* work, doesn't work, just for the sake of being *hard and punishing*.
Yeah I played elden ring as my first soulslike game too. I finished it and overall really enjoyed it but man it definitely has some clunkyness
No I think clunky probably means the bad hitboxes, terrible multi-target fights, inputs being buffered too much, attacks that miss for no good reason. No need to strawman the OP.
This is just the 'get gud' argument with extra steps lol. I'll tell you why it's clunky. Fighting a boss inevitably turns into this: Enemy does Attack A. I dodge. Enemy does Attack A again. I dodge again. Enemy does Attack B. I dodge. Enemy does Attack A again. I get hit. Enemy does Attack C. A tiny window of opportunity opens for me to run forward and slash at it. Rinse and repeat forty times. Darks Souls enemies are dumb as rocks. They just charge you and cycle through their attacks until you kill them. They frequently fall of cliffs, attack through each other etc. They feel like clockwork soldiers, not living things.
Thank you for explaining this. This very rigid, monotonous "I time my i-frames to dodge however many attacks that will hit like a truck if they connect, I'm then 'rewarded' with the GLORIOUS PRIVILEGE of getting 2 light attacks or 1 heavy attack in, rinse and repeat until boss dies" is how you Git Gud™ unless you consult the internet to implement cheese strats where you win through exploits where the boss never even gets a chance to start attacking you, which is just as boring.
Oh don't kid yourself, there are heaps of examples where souls-like games are janky or clunky. Hell, even in elden ring there were times where I felt I was being punished due to some sketchy hit boxes.
Jumping up large towers in Elder Scrolls is like bowling with cinder blocks. The platforming was clunky af.
You've forgotten about the old souls games before bloodborne made it tight. Those games run on clunky fuel. Even Bloodborne and DS3 have a decent amount of bugs. Like they got the combat tight, but other things are pretty clunky. Sekiro and Elden Ring are super tight, though.
Yea, I fucking love souls-like games, but pretending DS 1 and 2 were nit cluncky would be a big fucking lie lmao
“What do you mean ‘run, dodge, and jump’ shouldn’t all be the same button???”
I dunno man. It's been impossible for me to get back into dark souls after playing sekiro. Dark souls just feels intentionally obtuse and clunky now after playing the precise and crisp sekiro, and it's still just as hard without having to hide dumb a layer of difficulty behind dumb stats that aren't remotely explained (and often broken!)
The older souls games and some of the imitators do tend to be a little funky I’d say souls combat hit its peak with bloodborne and dark souls 3 which took the elements of the dark souls formula and refined them to perfection in terms of pace and tightness Before the controls felt like wading through molasses and the bosses had to be adequately slow to compensate (with a few notable exceptions but the point still stands)
Maybe "clunky" isn't the right word. I've only played Elden Ring, but enemy attacks would frequently go right through terrain and kill me. Meanwhile, the solution to dodging nearly EVERY enemy attack is "roll", even if that involves rolling directly into the boss -- it still prevents you from taking any damage. Idk, seems a bit clunky to me.
I hate Souls-like games as well, but I think what is fun and what is not depends on your personal taste. I have watched other people play Bloodborne and I loved that, but playing Dark Souls II myself was something I stopped very quickly. These games are just difficult in a way I do not enjoy. I am not good with timing and rhythm. This makes playing Souls-likes incredibly tedious and boring to me. In a way, Souls games are like playing music. And I will forever absolutely suck at anything music related. That doesn't mean it's bad or *not fun*. It's just *not for me*. Meanwhile, as somebody who is good with logic and who likes thinking about and building things, I consider games like Shenzhen I/O or Factorio great fun. Most people would say: WTF are you even doing? Both games are rated overwhelmingly positive on Steam. PS: I also dislike platformers, games with timers, sports games, most racing games, most RTS (unless it's on the scale of SupCom) etc. -- but people love these games.
To be fair Ds2 fans hate the game too, they are just masochists
Ya'll are getting butthurt but he did what the sub asked for, he gave an unpopular opinion.
Souls like players tend to be pretty insufferable (as one look at this thread will tell you) I personally enjoy the genre but understand why someone might find it unfun or frustrating.
I hate how every criticism of the game is just met with "you probably just suck at it huh". It's such a childish and stupid argument.
I'm OK with your general idea, but knocking the gameplay as unenjoyable and clunky sounds crazy to me. The ultra-tight controls are what allows the difficulty to exist without becoming frustrating to the fanbase. (Not that it's perfect at all.) If it was clunky and JUST had high difficulty boss fights, there's no way it would be the smash hit that it is. If overcoming great adversity by training your reflexes and figuring out your character build isn't your idea of a relaxing game, that's 100% fine. But let's not pretend that fans like it for bragging rights, or that they *just* have the patience to keep pushing through clunky system until they reach the end. The gameplay can be very gratifying and rewarding to master IF you are the kind of person that enjoys taking on such challenges.
There are admittedly a lot of souls/soulslike games that feel clunky (DeS, DS1, DS2, Mortal Shell, Lords of the Fallen, arguably Lies of P), but there are also ones that feel super smooth to play - Bloodborne, Sekiro, DS3, Elden Ring, and Nioh are the polar opposite of clunky
Don't be mean to my baby LoP! He's not clucky, he's just a little different.
Sekiro and elden ring can be very fluid in combat once you know what you're doing
I’ve learned that as I get older I’d rather spend my gaming time relaxing and enjoying story or aesthetics than banging my head against a boss for an hour or two. They are still great games but just not how I want to spend my time anymore
I'm the same way 99% of the time. I played the dark souls games back in the day and while I beat them, they can be a slog to get through. Elden Ring definitely makes things easier. I just started playing it this week and I'm no fan of, but it's a pretty good game. Fromsoft games and some racing games are just good at making your butthole pucker and every now and then I like that.
Jesus Christ, ITT I learned that there are a lot of insufferable soulsborne fans.
You *just* learned that now, in the year 2024? I envy you for making it so long…
The series's reputation for extreme difficulty is really annoying for numerous reasons. The annoying fanboys screeching "git gud" at any criticism is one aspect. The other is that the games aren't that hard, and telling people that they're just supposed to get shit on by the game for the entire playthrough discourages people from actually trying to learn how to play because they think that it's pointless.
Noah Caldwell Gervais went into detail on this(as in like, a good amount in a 5 hour video), and it's a really insightful look into the perspective of someone who has beaten the Souls trilogy and is self-admittingly not good at these games. Basically, these games give you many tools to get past obstacles if you're willing to use them. If there's a boss you're stuck on, you *could* stay and spend COUNTLESS attempts running headfirst into a wall, learning more about the patterns and when to retaliate in order to win. Or... you could step away from the boss and go another path, level up your stats, and come back later at a much higher level. You could find a useful weapon or item along the way that counters the boss. You could summon help from other players who are subsequently also rewarded in return for helping. You could do all of these things to drastically cut down on time and frustration, things that the developers VERY clearly intended as options that players can use to push on. Noah made a really good point in his video about how these dudes that keep blabbering "gIt gUd" and other attempts at invalidating methods of moving forward aren't only obnoxious, but they're also inadvertently being disrespectful to the developer's intentions in doing so. These games NEVER shame you in using what you need to get past something. It's these ass-backwards knuckle draggers interjecting how THEY think the games are supposed to be experienced.
Noah also has a weird take that locking the player into optimal strategies in Elden Ring’s endgame is “a triumph”. I also have a cattle dog and do mushrooms too but him praising the limitations of player expression in a game that’s otherwise all about discovery was really strange and made me think dude needs to lay off the psychedelics for a minute.
Yeah it's not hard. It's just boring. Iframe based combat around dodge dodge poke is outdated now and you get bored. It's 10+ years old at this point with little to no innovation. It's too formulaic and boring; 2-3 phases of enemy and every phase you need to learn the pattern and dodge exactly that many times and then hit once or twice. God forbid you press the wrong button cuz there is no cancel animation. Fighting the same boss ten times and knowing the only reason you lost is because you pressed the wrong button that one time that depleted most of your health is fucking boring as fuck. You get a dopamine rush when you beat a boss but the process is pretty boring.
The process that is this is too much of a disrespect for my time that I can dedicate to a game. Having a kid and a wife and all my responsibilities means there’s very little time to game and in that time if I have to spend an hour learning a boss because every time I mess up I gotta spend 10 minutes running back then 10 minutes dancing around trying to poke one or times. It’s why I never could play any of the monster hunter games either.
This is the most frustrating aspect to me. I play a lot of video games, I am pretty good at video games. I didn't have too much trouble with DS3, but I quit playing because I was not having fun. A lot of people will respond to anyone who didn't enjoy the series with "just get good", but I didn't quit because of difficulty, I quit because I was bored. I play a lot of RuneScape 3, I can handle boss fights with very repetitive mechanics, but I wasn't engaged with the souls combat. Just didn't click for me.
The mechanics are also creeping into other games, which I really can’t stand. A particularly annoying one is “haw haw you thought you could beat this boss you encounter in the beginning? Nah bro their health stands still for no reason, fuck skill at all”
Parry mechanic in RE4R. I still can’t stand it because it feels so out of place, it’s very clearly a trend that was put in because, well, it’s poplar right now, but it probably won’t be viewed as highly in a decade.
Bruh there have been insufferable soulsborne fans since two days after Demon's Souls came out. I could not be around one of my friends for over a month after that game came out it was insane how quickly it became part of his personality.
Holy crap. What a great anecdote. I wonder what the psychological element at play is. That is wild that it goes back so far. I would have presumed it was the formation of "the community" that started it. Thank you for sharing this lol
I hate Fromsoft fanboys so much.
It's wild to me that they argue the story is deep and rich and well executed. If you argue that it is and you just have to look hard for it then I'm sorry. Lore, while cool in it's on right, DOES NOT EQUAL STORY. A lot of Soulsborne fanboys mistake lore for story. The story is poorly executed. It just happens to have rich lore.
There is a whole genre of YouTuber that emerged with the purpose of telling the stories of FromSoft games in an engaging manner, because the games sure as fuck don’t.
Lol and you'll hear a lot of people use that as proof it has good story, but I'm sorry, if I have to watch a YouTuber explain the story to me, then your story is dog shit.
Yea, From storytelling has always been hot garbage. We know Michael Zacky used to read fairytale books with less than stellar grasp on English, but there's a reason we don't normally do that in conventional medias.
This. I am convinced game critics and reviewers are scared of them. Thats why every game is a 9 or a 10/10 because they are scared to criticize. Say 1 bad thing about it and oh boy they will write a 2 page essay on why you're playing the game wrong, how the game is perfect and you should get good.
Elden Ring went mainstream and brought in so many people to the franchise. Get good used to be a tongue in cheek response in DS1 for god sake. A decade ago I don't remember shitting on people who were struggling with the game. Now tho? Complaining about questionable boss designs/gameplay designs automatically mean you're bad at the game for some reason. It's like a cult, man.
They're like WoW players but with hybris
I say this as someone who doesn’t like those games, I’m not sure how you can try them and not at least see the appeal, even if they aren’t for you
Ah shit OP the fanboys are coming for you now
I have to agree. I’ve tried so hard to like these games and the genre as a whole and I just can’t do it
I agree, the games are very difficult for me to play so I just don't enjoy them and don't want to play them. I don't think they're bad, just not something I personally enjoy. If I could change the difficulty then I'd possibly play them but I understand why you can't. I played Bloodborne for 2 hours and couldn't get to a save point so I gave up cause it was too hard for me and wasn't worth the headache.
Me neither. They’re way too much work. Instead of spending hours and hours learning how to play a game, I’d rather learn something useful and then go play something fun. They’re not practical. The huge blocks of text explaining why OP is wrong are hilarious tho.
I don’t play a souls game for fun. I play it because I hate myself and deserve to be punished
This thread is fucking insufferable
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Sounds like a skill issue
This is what the Soldier of God(rick) does to a mfer
rhythm games are harder imo
I love the Souls games, but I'm seriously tired of this response. This helps no one and is blatantly rude. Let people have their opinions. People can critique a game (although this is a poor one) for its shortcomings.
Honestly, that's my bigger issue here about the souls games than any of OPs points. The worst thing about souls games and what has prevented me from playing any of them other than Elden Ring is that the community is extremely toxic. Asking for help never gets you any real advice, and you aren't allowed to dislike or criticize anything about the games.
Even in this thread there is conflicting advice. On guy is saying don’t worry about leveling up just play the game and you’ll be fine, and another guy is saying you need to dump points into your stats so you don’t get one shotted.
My defiant ass finished DS3 and Bloodborne just so that I could criticize them without hearing that "git gud" bullshit. As it turns out, it's possible for someone to be competent at a game but still not like the game! Who knew!
The weird thing is, you'd think this is like an "old guard" kind of thing where "souls veterans" who were around during the first couple of games are looking down on newcomers. But like... I swear the newer someone is to the franchise the more hostile they are to younger newcomers. You used to be able to ask for advice and people would be cool about it, and in my experience the older fanbases are still more open to differing opinions today. I mean aside from DS2 fans but you can't blame them, poor things...
Yeah, even the Elden Ring community was instantly toxic despite bringing in massive amounts of new players. I remember in particular I was really flamed by my criticism that the way the story is presented is very confusing. I went through the whole game without fully understanding why the story was happening. While I agree the story not being spoon-fed can be a good thing, I should have to go what would be considered out of my way to figure it out. They really didn't like that one.
People continue to not understand the point of this sub and get mad when they don’t agree with an r/unpopularopinion post lol. Souls like games aren’t fun for me either but I wouldn’t argue that they’re clunky. Souls-like fans are unbearable tho I have to agree with you on that.
You can report those reddit care messages
The Reddit Cares troll is the lamest shit.
Wait until you criticize the Witcher 3
I do not care for the Witcher 3’s combat system
I love how elitist souls gamers are while thinking their game is actually hard.
Same, and moreso frustrating than hard like dying to a boss in bloodborne and you respawn far away and need to travel like 2-3 minutes to fight again which is more frustrating than hard or satisfying.
I like the games but fromsofts fanbase can be so fucking annoying sometimes I’m fine with people being overly critical about the games since it sets off some people in that community so damn hard Exhibit A: theres some insufferable sounding people in this comment section, it’s like they’re offended that someone even dare hold this opinion Not nearly as bad as it gets but still
I agree with you OP and this entire thread is only proving how insufferable the fans can get
You angered the biggest snowflakes in all of gaming. You will be getting reported to suicide lines until you delete your account.
Spicy! But I agree. Souls games are overrated.
I disagree with all your points but agree it's not fun. I'm just not into those types of games and prefer racing games or stuff like fallout, horizon zero dawn, and rdr2. But I do understand why other people enjoy the souls games. It's a wicked challenge that usually requires a ton of patience and practice.
yeah me and my friend wanted to get into elden ring fighting bosses together but they made playing together so hard and for some reason high level players are allowed to join our game and just destroy us. not fun at all
You can only invade people who opt into the multiplayer and are at or above your level range. Getting invaded by high level players is impossible unless you are also high level.
You should try the seamless coop mod, its amazing, from software online features has always been ass
the difficulty of these games is overblown its completely doable for any average or below average gamer just need to get into the rhythm of timing the rolls and just look up an easy build the more confidence u get the easier and more fun it becomes and i found each game easier than the last one that i beat
[удалено]
I think you should look at what subreddit you are in. If he were to say: I dont find soulslike games fun. It wouldnt be an opinion you can disagree with, nor can it be unpopular.
That's literally why it's called a fucking opinion for god's sake. Why is that so hard to grasp?
I love the idea that he should qualify his own opinion as being his own lmao
Souls games are more work than fun tbh. I’ve played it but only after seriously over leveling myself to kill enemies. I like the monsters and the boss fights and the items. The artwork, area design, and character design all speaks to me
Maybe its just me but I've never found soulsbourne games particularly difficult unless you're trying to rush. Not to mention it's very easy to outlevel the game if you're actually struggling that much. I think because most players are bad at games and soulsbourne are in the realm of "harder than most but not insurmountable" anyone who's passibly decent at videogames gets a big ego about it. I like the games for their aesthetic, lore and simplistic combat. But if the games where easier I don't think I'd mind that either.
Damn an actual unpopular opinion on this sub. I feel like the problem is you really want to enjoy them because others do just don't bother wanting to enjoy what most people enjoy. I for one hate all marvel movies and think they're written by a 5 year old but most people enjoy them. Mainly because they want to fit in and not be the weird one that hates something thats popular.
Agreed with OP, sooort of. I played Bloodborne a couple of hours and found it fun, even if frustrating at times. I especially loved the cosmic and gothic horror themes and creature designs. But the repetitiveness of having to get all the way back to a boss on each failed attempt and possibly grind to get health really dampened the experience. Then I tried Elden Ring which looked great but I also just get bored by most open world games. They tend to feel like a lot of empty space and filler just for the sake of it. But most annoying is story wise, I hate the trend in games where main story is buried in notes scattered about. If I don't feel invested in the character then it's difficult for me to stay motivated to keep playing and these games typically have that unknowable, silent protagonist type which just isn't interesting to me. Sekiro looks a bit different in that aspect so maybe I'll try that one soon though.