I’ve never played a soulslike games because they are a bit intimidating to me. Amy recommendations for soulslikes games to start on or for beginners to the genre?
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Another Crabs treasure
You could try Animus: Stand Alone, the android version isn’t available anymore but the PC, Xbox, Switch and iOS versions seem to still be available. It had a sequel called Animus: Harbinger but it seems like only the Switch and iOS versions are the only ones still available. There was also a third Animus game but Revenant is quite different from the first two.
Another game I can recommend is Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. It was only ever available for the PS2 and Xbox but it’s gameplay, especially during bosses, is similar to dark souls.
No one here has mentioned Hellpoint. If you like sci-fi and/or horror elements, this may be one you want to check out. It has a big map, plenty of secrets and shortcuts, creepy lore, cool weapons and armor sets
Or even either of The Surge games. You can target individual limbs and depending on how you kill the enemy you’ll gain more experience or more resources to upgrade your gear.
I’d avoid non-DS1/3/ER souls-likes to start with, because they tend not to have multiplayer.
There’s nothing wrong with summoning a friend or stranger to help you get through a difficult bit.
Lies of P is fairly easy in comparison to the FromSoftware souls games but it’s still a lot of fun. Great worldbuilding and some interesting mechanics too
I found Lies of P much more challenging than any of the FromSoft games I’ve played. I loved it, don’t get me wrong, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it for an easier introduction to the gameplay.
They did nerf the most difficult bosses and minibosses after release which made it a lot more approachable I think.
Ah gotcha, maybe that was it. I still find the dark souls style combat much smoother and approachable for a beginner to not worry too much about parrying or other mechanics. I made my first playthrough of dark souls without ever learning most of them, just blocking, dodging, and attacking like duels. It felt less dependent on twitchy reflexes and more just repetition and reading the enemies movements. All great games, maybe it just comes down to preference!
It’s got a huge focus on parrying, but it’s very forgiving on timing so it can be easy if you get that down. (But I’d still probably suggest starting with Elden Ring or Dark Souls 1).
I think it’s actually less forgiving on timing, just in terms of parry window number of frames. If I remember correctly, your timing just has to come towards the end of the attack animation (as opposed to FromSoft parrying which is generally closer to the beginning) I think, or I may have those reversed. On top of that though, something like dark souls 1 is much slower paced and the combat feels more give-and-take where Lies of P to me felt like parry, dodge roll for an opening and punish.
elden ring probably. like you i found souls-style games scary. i think i installed dark souls 3 and quit before getting anywhere but i managed to beat elden ring even though I did initially refund it :D
I do not enjoy Soulslikes, but I really liked Tunic. Some things it has going for it:
- It is extremely nonverbal, but what it does give you is invested in helping you figure out a path to success. By intention, that’s not always obvious. You may need to work out for yourself when to dodge or to block.
- The atmosphere is bright and cheery, though it has its spooky and atmospheric bits.
- The camera is top down, so you don’t need to manage the camera while playing.
- Dying is not very punishing. You lose a bit of currency, which you can retain at the same spot; and that currency isn’t often critical to progress
I’de just jump on elden ring. Get some experience before shadow of the eartree comes out.
Personally, I’d say Sekiro. You need to be good with timing but the experience is much more streamlined. There’s no equipment system so you don’t have to worry about finding what’s good for you, let alone slogging it through the first however many hours to get whatever items get recommended in Top X lists. Also, I find the movement system is much more to my liking. It feels immediate instead of trying to sprint through a field of porridge. However, if porridge is what you’re looking for, Sekiro is a poor pick for you.
Lies of P is also a good pick for having tighter movement and QoL upgrades over Souls games though I dare say a lot of fans will want to drag me across the coals for saying that.
Elden Ring fans are salty at this comment lol. That does like it’d be better for my play style though.
Came to make the same recommendation. It depends on what aspect of the games you find intimidating. Most people recommending Elden Ring will likely be assuming that you mean mechanical difficulty, but in my case, the openness, variety, stat numbers etc of ER are all intimidating.
Sekiro is more approachable in this regard, the way forward is mostly clear, and the mechanics are clearly communicated, so you’re just left with practicing them until you’re good enough to progress.
I’d say that most people who say Sekiro is one of the hardest fromsoft games probably came from playing souls or Elden Ring and have the extra challenge of unlearning some of the foundations. I hadn’t played any, and though Sekiro is hard as hell sometimes, it clicked with me pretty quickly. Completed 3 endings and most of the optional, hardest content so far
I’m pretty used to it at this point. My best friend is a big Souls fan and is one of the many who refers to Elden Ring as the most approachable From game yet as well as Sekiro as possibly the hardest. The comments I’m used to seeing are ones calling X boss the hardest they’ve ever gone against and those are consistently the easiest for me. Personally, I’m terrible with the bosses that have a wind up for their attacks and make you wait for the timing as opposed to the ones where it’s almost pure reflex. If that sounds more your bag then I’d say Sekiro is your thing and you likely won’t enjoy DS or ER. Bloodborne is somewhere in the middle, debatably closer to Sekiro though I’ve seen arguments for both ways.
Sekiro, like Bloodborne, is different from the Dark Souls series. The mechanics, story, and atmosphere of each are distinct, with Elden Ring falling most closely with the Dark Soul series in mechanics and ‘feel’.
Dark Souls 1 has the best atmosphere and environmental storytelling, in my opinion. It really is clear how innovative and influential a game it was.
Sekiro is hard to play from a Dark Souls foundational playstyle. Sekiro players, I find, seem to have an easier time adapting to Dark Souls. So it may very well be a good start for a FromSoft game.
I very much enjoyed Sekiro and it led me to Elden Ring that I then, in turn, did not enjoy at all. haha Sekiro feels much more approachable but it doesn’t have the replayability of other Souls games.
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I guess I assumed Elden Ring would have more replayability due to all the classes you could do playthroughs with.
I’d have to agree with that. Sekiro has a lot of the trimmings of other From games while having a movement system much closer to the standard hack-n-slash adventure game like Assassin’s Creed or Ghost of Tsushima most recently.
Hm, what didn’t you enjoy about Elden Ring? I started with Sekiro, finished it, and have moved on to Elden Ring (in co-op tho). I have very much enjoyed both.
I guess the tuning of the game. With Sekiro there was, for the most part, a general linear path that you did to complete the game. You could go in some different ways but for the most part it was linear. With Elden Ring you can go in any way and as people have said, if you get stuck, go somewhere else and get higher level and go back. But I don’t like leaving so I would proceed to get dumpstered over and over and get frustrated which is entirely my own fault. But, in Sekiro it seemed like the difficulty of the encounters were created in regards to where you were in the story and even though they were hard, were better tuned to your character power. I bet co-op would be a ton of fun and could make my play through more enjoyable if I got back into it.
Oh I already own this one somehow haha. Prob humble bundle. I’ll have to check it out
I recommend Code Vein. Then just jump into either Elden Ring or DS3.
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I primarily game on the steam deck and I think Elden ring is one of the top played games so I’m sure it works well on that.
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You could try dark souls 3 for the closest to eldenring experience while being 60fps. Then go onto eldenring or dark souls remastered. Dark souls 2 is a black sheep that plays and feels different to the rest and has all around wild design choices.
Elden Ring runs just fine on my Deck, but it drains my battery pretty fast.
But I have a refurbished non OLED deck so ymmv.
I think Elden Ring would be a good place to start since it’s the one that lets you customize your difficulty the most. You can use spirit summons (both other players and NPCs) and vary up the order in which you do things, so if you get stuck on something, you can go do something else and then come back with more experience and better equipment
Seconding Elden Ring. It’s also going to be more active since people are hyped for the new content - which means you’re more likely to get help if you need it.
It has a handful of QoL features too that’ll make the learning curve more manageable
Agree. Elden Ring is the only one I’ve liked personally. And a big reason is being able to fuck off and go do something else if you find a boss battle or section of the game too difficult. There’s so much to do and explore and check out that it didn’t feel like I was “grinding” ever.
Elden Ring! I think they really refined the formula, made it a bit more user friendly (I started with Dark Souls and it wasn’t easy to know what to do), and is generally fun to play. Also the open world format means you can just go somewhere else if you’re stuck, not just have to bang your head against the same boss over and over. Then you just come back when you’re stronger.
Sekiro is not a bad option too, it’s a bit more like a regular game than the others. You can pause! Imagine.
I haven’t played DS2 or Demon Souls though
Fallen order. You can adjust the difficulty!
Fallen order has this magnetic attraction between you and the enemy when swinging that really urked me. Felt likes souls on rails. Beautiful game though and nice levels
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Oggdo Boggdo flashbacks.
He’s just a harmless little froggo. It’ll be fiiiine
“Oggdo Boggdo, I’ve come to bargain!”
“For the love of all things holy, it’s just a pink poncho, please leave me alone.”
