Souls-likes

Karou

Gandalf Of Gibberish,
10 Year Member
Joined
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5,684
Rather it should say not free. Sry gredo. As it are fee
 

jro

Gonna take a lot
20 Year Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2004
Posts
14,410
Playing through Nioh now. I got to the Umi Bozu boss fight and died over and over and over again. Got so I could get through the first form without taking a hit, but that second form is just so awkward, and dodging felt completely unreliable for some reason. Finally dawned on me that I had Uchuko Cups (or whatever they're called), so I offered one and got a player who walked up to it and killed UB with magic in literally under 5 seconds. Felt kind of cheese, sure, but after being stuck there for more than a week, I'll take it.

Immortal Unchained is super weird, but it's oddly compelling. It's not "good" in the usual sense of the word, but it gets just enough of the formula right, for me at least, that I'm liking it. Anyone else playing it?
 

greedostick

Obsessed Neo-Fan
15 Year Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2003
Posts
4,474
Playing through Nioh now. I got to the Umi Bozu boss fight and died over and over and over again. Got so I could get through the first form without taking a hit, but that second form is just so awkward, and dodging felt completely unreliable for some reason. Finally dawned on me that I had Uchuko Cups (or whatever they're called), so I offered one and got a player who walked up to it and killed UB with magic in literally under 5 seconds. Felt kind of cheese, sure, but after being stuck there for more than a week, I'll take it.

Immortal Unchained is super weird, but it's oddly compelling. It's not "good" in the usual sense of the word, but it gets just enough of the formula right, for me at least, that I'm liking it. Anyone else playing it?

Nioh get easier for sure the further you get into it. Who is that boss? The giant slime guy?
 

jro

Gonna take a lot
20 Year Member
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Posts
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Nioh get easier for sure the further you get into it. Who is that boss? The giant slime guy?

Yep, that's the one. At first I kept using fire from the bonfires, and then on the second phase the little slimes plus the big one in that tiny area would just overwhelm me. Then I stopped using the bonfires and got enough practice on the first form that I could get through it fine but the second form just baffled me. Felt like I was losing and losing and losing and not really understanding what I was doing wrong, mainly since I kept getting hit by his lunges no matter how I timed the dodge.

Ultimately, I realized that was probably due to me standing too far away (trying to avoid the AOE), so I thought maybe I'd try standing closer, but then trying co-op worked first. Sounds like a lot of players have issues with that thing, but more so due to the one hit kill he can do in the first phase.

Other than that jaggy it does feel like the difficulty curve is easing up. Kind of interesting how that happens in any good Souls-like, how you learn the game plus round into your build and you get to that zen point where it just works and you go well damn this isn't so hard. It's like seeing the matrix.
 

greedostick

Obsessed Neo-Fan
15 Year Member
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Posts
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Yep, that's the one. At first I kept using fire from the bonfires, and then on the second phase the little slimes plus the big one in that tiny area would just overwhelm me. Then I stopped using the bonfires and got enough practice on the first form that I could get through it fine but the second form just baffled me. Felt like I was losing and losing and losing and not really understanding what I was doing wrong, mainly since I kept getting hit by his lunges no matter how I timed the dodge.

Ultimately, I realized that was probably due to me standing too far away (trying to avoid the AOE), so I thought maybe I'd try standing closer, but then trying co-op worked first. Sounds like a lot of players have issues with that thing, but more so due to the one hit kill he can do in the first phase.

Other than that jaggy it does feel like the difficulty curve is easing up. Kind of interesting how that happens in any good Souls-like, how you learn the game plus round into your build and you get to that zen point where it just works and you go well damn this isn't so hard. It's like seeing the matrix.

Ah. You must not have explored the stage enough. If you light ALL the bonfires before goung in, then no baby slimes spawn ever.
 

roker

DOOM
20 Year Member
Joined
Apr 12, 2003
Posts
18,871
The original Dark Souls is one of the best games I've ever played. Definitely top 5 for the 360 ps3 gen. I looped it 7 times. I was going to buy the remaster but I started a new game randomly before the announcement and by the time the game came around I sorta felt done with it.

Haven't played 2. 3 was ok.

Demons souls is just ok. I don't get people that like it more than dark souls but then again I played it after the fact.

Bloodborne has awesome atmosphere but not my cup of tea gameplay wise.
 

jro

Gonna take a lot
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Ah. You must not have explored the stage enough. If you light ALL the bonfires before goung in, then no baby slimes spawn ever.
I had all of the bonfires lit, thing was I was using them to light my weapon. Finally got so I didn't touch them to keep them lit and the little slimes out.

After that mission the Onmyo mid-rank dojo mission opened, just finished that and I've been messing around with magic. It's so useful. Had a hard time with invitation to duel Tachibana at first, he kept just barely beating me. So then I set lifeseal, sloth, and devigorate to my skill slots and rolled over him. The magic in Nioh is fun to use and well-designed, but it seems overpowered compared to straight melee/bow.

The original Dark Souls is one of the best games I've ever played. Definitely top 5 for the 360 ps3 gen. I looped it 7 times. I was going to buy the remaster but I started a new game randomly before the announcement and by the time the game came around I sorta felt done with it.

Haven't played 2. 3 was ok.

Demons souls is just ok. I don't get people that like it more than dark souls but then again I played it after the fact.

Bloodborne has awesome atmosphere but not my cup of tea gameplay wise.
Demon's Souls is tough to judge, agreed. I played it right after 1 and 3, and it felt like some of the level designs were rougher, with significantly fewer shortcuts, but healing is far easier than in any of the other games in the series, with grass piling up and (especially) gear that heals like the Adjudicator's Shield and the Ring of Recovery. I don't think it's as good as Dark Souls, but I'd have it on about the same tier as 3, or maybe slightly above.
 

jro

Gonna take a lot
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Anyone playing Ashen? It's on PC and Xbox (Epic published it, I think, it's on their store on PC), I'm playing the XB version on GamePass, but I'd gladly pay full price for it if it leaves GP before I finish it. VERY similar mechanics to Dark Souls, uses a lot of animations that look nearly identical, but they work right, so I'm not complaining. You get an AI companion if you're in 1P, and it's very competent.

Good bosses so far, second one was in a nearly pitch black room so that me (or the AI) usually needed to have one of us with a lantern while the other person attacked, very cool design. The world design is more linear than DS, but that's alright, not getting lost is cool with me. Still enough little side paths with random items to pick up that there's room for a little exploration.

I'm about 3 hours into it so far. Surprised me quite a bit with how well it does the formula so far.
 

Yoshi

,
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I don't want to support Epic money hatting exclusives that they didn't develop (especially when they're likely using Tencent's money to do it), so it'll be a bit before I play Ashen. I'm probably on hiatus from this type of game until Sekiro. I'm pretty excited about that one.
 

jro

Gonna take a lot
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I was mistaken, Annapurna Interactive published Ashen. It's just on the Epic store.

Darksiders 3 is like an unpolished mashup of Dark Souls and God of War III. Works some of the time, but a lot of the time it's just irritating. Enemies do damage like in DS, but they usually attack in large numbers, which messes up the combat that actually works okay when it's just one. The camera angle is awful, it's usually so low that it's right behind the player character, which makes it impossible to see enemies' attack tells. Game is okay, overall, but it's got some very amateurish design choices that make it worse than it should be.
 

fantat

NEST Puppet
20 Year Member
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Mar 1, 2003
Posts
175
Anybody try out Immortal Unchained? Supposed to be Souls like with guns.
 

Montatez

Aero Fighters Flyboy
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Jun 7, 2012
Posts
2,078
I am still playing DS3 on ps4. It is keeping my attention fairly well this winter.

Since we are ranking these games ds3 then 2 then 1 then demon BB I never cared to play. All of these games are great but I think everything improved as they continued on. And probably my favorite franchise of all time.

If anyone wants to play 3 still hit me up let's play!
 

jro

Gonna take a lot
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I finished Ashen, 100% completed other than finishing Children of Sissna mode, which sounds incredibly difficult and annoying.

Really good game, overall, but I had two significant complaints with it (and the first one exacerbates the second)- the game is designed to be played by two players, but co-op generally sucked in my experience. I'd get a partner who would go the wrong places, charge into fights he couldn't win, and then he'd die and I'd be alone anyway. So after a few times of that I disabled co-op to just use the AI partner, but the AI is glitchy and unreliable, also. It falls off of things and dies often, doesn't prioritize enemies effectively, and does other bizarre things quite a bit.

My second issue was with the second main dungeon, The Seat of the Matriarch. It's a shitty dungeon, no other way to say it. It's super dark, and most of it is on thin elevated platforms (it's like A44 said to themselves hey let's copy Tomb of the Giants!). The AI constantly falls off and dies. Luckily, there's a huge shortcut that cuts off about 75% of the level that I found out about after I had died maybe a dozen times.

Not a lot of boss fights, but they were almost uniformly very good. Last two, in particular, were awesome.

Great sense of discovery. You're guided more than in DS, but there's still lots of stuff that isn't marked and interesting areas to explore.

Definitely recommended, just be ready for the aggravation your partner will cause you on occasion.
 

Leback

Stakes Winner
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Apr 27, 2017
Posts
98
I really liked Dark Souls 2, even though it's not as good as the first one. But it's very different in a good way and the DLC pack is great, especially the last chapter.
Sekiro looks cool as hell also, will get it on release.
 

Montatez

Aero Fighters Flyboy
Joined
Jun 7, 2012
Posts
2,078
I really liked Dark Souls 2, even though it's not as good as the first one. But it's very different in a good way and the DLC pack is great, especially the last chapter.
Sekiro looks cool as hell also, will get it on release.

I prefered ds2 over the first one by a long ways. To me the game just played better and pvp had a different feel.
 

jro

Gonna take a lot
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I finally finished Nioh, all the way through the epilogue. Brilliant game that I like better than DS in several ways.
 

greedostick

Obsessed Neo-Fan
15 Year Member
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Aug 11, 2003
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I finally finished Nioh, all the way through the epilogue. Brilliant game that I like better than DS in several ways.

Dark Souls is probably my favorite series ever. Nioh nailed the combat though. So much more technical, and enjoyable. I like everything about Dark Souls more though, but combat is obviously a huge piece to factor in the quality of the game.
 

Tung Fu ru

Actual Musician,
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Aug 17, 2002
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Just started playing Nioh a few weeks ago. I wasn't sure how much I would like this game, I'm very glad I gave it a shot. This game is fucking great. I'm with greedo with the DS series being one of, if not my favorite series currently. Nioh definitely does a good job of being similar to a Souls game but not really ripping it off too much, and I agree the combat in Nioh is probably a little better. Not too far in yet, but really enjoying it so far.
 

jro

Gonna take a lot
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Nioh's combat is much faster than DS, closer to Bloodborne, but the things that strike me as the two biggest differences are the level design and ki. Seems like Nioh usually gets docked in comparison to DS for having smaller, discrete levels instead of a massive interconnected world, but I appreciated that aspect of it a lot. Felt like I could make my way through the levels without getting lost and without any long paths that just ended in lol dead ends. But levels usually still felt like they were worth exploring thoroughly, with chests, kodama, etc.

And ki vs. stamina is a bigger thing than I realized for much of the game. Running out of stamina in DS is annoying, but that's almost all it ever is. In Nioh, losing all your ki usually means you're going to get killed, since you're stunned and vulnerable to a finisher. But you get reward with the risk in that enemies have ki, too, and many can be stunned and then hit for major damage if you make them use their ki up. At first I hated the ki mechanic, felt very punishing, but after I got used to it and tried to play to it (build, armor, etc), I ended up really appreciating how it's implemented.
 

Gaston

Mature's Make-up Artist
Joined
Jan 15, 2003
Posts
1,352
I just read Demon's Souls remaster is happening. Based off the ds3 engine, this is one of my most beloved games. It is pretty crude by today's standards but I'm hoping they'll clean up some of the roughness. Nevertheless, world tendency (you die, the world becomes darker and enemies become harder) is an underused concept.
 

Gentlegamer

Sakura's Bank Manager
10 Year Member
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Dec 7, 2014
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I just read Demon's Souls remaster is happening. Based off the ds3 engine, this is one of my most beloved games. It is pretty crude by today's standards but I'm hoping they'll clean up some of the roughness. Nevertheless, world tendency (you die, the world becomes darker and enemies become harder) is an underused concept.

Fake News
 

Taiso

Remembers The North,
20 Year Member
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Dec 29, 2000
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13,156
This genre even has options for falling in love.

 

twalden

Leona's Therapist
20 Year Member
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Dec 30, 2000
Posts
2,322
Immortal Unchained is surprisingly good considering it's a $20 budget game. There are a ton of Borderlands style weapons to upgrade and choose from. Graphics are a little clunky and dated, but gameplay and controls are spot on. Difficulty seems about the same as Souls games, but there are a lot more checkpoints to save at.

I played through both The Surge and Lords of the Fallen, didn't really care for either of them.
 
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