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?
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
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.
Dark Souls 1, but play it almost like you’re studying for a test. Research and plan your build in advance. Go to the wiki early, often, and with wanton disregard for spoilers. Use every cheese and glitch to your advantage. If all that makes it too easy, then you can still go blind into anything else in the genre.
Elden Ring is the best one for beginners, because if you get stuck at a boss you can just leave that area and go somewhere else. You are very rarely ever “stuck”. That is not the case with any of the other Soulsborne games.
In addition, it has spirit summons which make the game significantly easier.
And since it’s the newest one AND has a DLC coming out soon, it’s also the most played one right now. So finding other players for co-op is easy.
I also consider the bosses, on the whole, to be the easiest of all of the FROM Software games.
I second this, one of my good friends only started gaming over covid. We were all hardcore souls players and helped her get through bloodborne and ds3 but she was basically just letting us handle most of the fighting. But when ER came out she got really into it and has played through solo several times. From Software took a lot of the pain points out of the format while keeping it challenging and fresh. Elden ring also has great online, I wasn’t a huge fan of the game (I prefer Bloodborne, Sekiro and AC 6) just I spent hundreds of hours just running around the Lands Between with my friends during covid.
Yeah you’re right. I forgot to mention that with Elden Ring, FROM smoothed away a lot of the rough edges of the older games. And because of that it is much easier to get into for newer players. I’m glad your friend enjoyed it.
Honestly, I disliked Souls-like games until I played Hollow Knight (at that point, I tried Dark Souls but didn’t get very far). It isn’t a Souls-like game (2D Metroidvania), but as it shares some of their themes and elements, after finishing it I was motivated to try Dark Souls again (and ended up doing a full playthrough).
Not sure if it fits the bill, but it is categorized as a soulslike: Death Door. It’s an indie game, chill and cute atmosphere, still challenging but not too punishing. I haven’t played much soulslike before but I started this one on Steam Deck and I’m really digging it!
As the point of soulslikes is to overcome challenge, looking for something beginner friendly or easy is, in my opinion, not the right approach.
Play the fromsoft games in chronological order and skip the numbers entries if you are not interested in the stories.
So: Deamon’s souls -> dark souls -> bloodborne -> sekiro -> elden ring
Dark souls 2 wasn’t that great and has a lot of issues but it tried new stuff which I respect. Still wouldn’t recommend it.
Dark souls 3 was darks souls best of which made it a disappointment for me. You kinda know what will happen next and there wasn’t that much mystery because of that.
I’ll die on the hill that DS2 was misunderstood, and rather than being a poor game it just caters to a specific taste in Souls games, which turned out to be the minority.
It’s rather unforgiving with Stamina and requires more in terms of positioning and timing to handle multiple enemies, such as lining them up to hit multiple in one swing or singling out a target to stunlock thanks to weaker poise. Healing also requires more consideration to pick the right window. I like that. It feels more like a harsh and dangerous world where you have to watch out for your own survival.
The Small White Soapstone often works for a quick trip to another world, earning souls, lifegems and regaining humanity with less commitment than a full summon, which encourages jolly cooperation by lowering the stakes and raising the reward. I like that.
I also like the changes to the weapon upgrades and the magic system. Pyromancy becomes an actual magic discipline, that can still be worked in alongside miracles, sorceries and particularly hexes, like having more attunement gives you more casts, consumables can restore spell uses and you can use materials to lower spell requirements, all of which affects character builds. Being able to respec means you can change or fix your build later on.
I’ll concede that the learning curve is bad. There’s more mechanical complexity to learn and less explanation than in DS1, and particularly the differences between the games aren’t obvious if you go at it with the expectations set by the original.
In a way, that makes it a bad “Dark Souls” 2, since you’re obviously expecting more of the same because it has the same name. Trying new stuff may be good, but changing existing systems is always a gamble whether the people trying and liking it outweigh those that didn’t like it or never even tried.
That many people ended up not liking them was unfortunate. Particularly with DS3 going so hard in the other direction, the approval of DS2 has diminished even further. Its playstyle just isn’t to everyone’s taste, and many people conflate “I didn’t like it” with “It’s shit”, which is a shame.
In summary, I think it’s a good game, even a good Dark Souls that innovates on the original, but it’s probably a bad entry point for the genre due to the steep learning curve, and a rough transition from more faster paced titles. I acknowledge it’s not for everyone, but I liked it.
What’s hard for some is easy for others, and vice versa. There’s definitely an appropriate level of intended challenge to any Soulslike game that makes it satisfying as you gradually overcome difficulties and adversity. Fall below that, for instance by spending 10 hours on the tutorial boss, OR breach that difficulty by never falling below 50% HP, and the experience loses luster.
No matter how much equipment is in it, Dark Souls is still on a pretty set level of difficulty, and it’s too high for a lot of people. Heck, there are other casual games out there that were “ultra hard” for some infrequent gamers I know.
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.
How I did it may not be the best. But damn, did I feel accomplished afterwards.
I went into DS1 without any background. I only looked up things when I was 100 % stuck (I played with the broken short sword for far too long). I definitely used some summons (mainly the NPC ones), but you could also choose not to.
Beating O&S the first time after a week or so of trying was one of the best feelings ever (don’t want to spoil anything hence the vagueness).
Elden Ring is definitely more beginner-friendly, but the sheer mechanics you can learn in DS1 will help in all soulsbourne games (maybe not Sekiro).
I have not played Demon souls, so maybe that’s a better jumping off point?
I had the same experience: I played DS1 almost completely blind (I’d seen my old roommates playing it years ago so I knew some of the tricks, in a half-remembered sort of way). It was hard, and I got stuck in a few places for a really long time but wow it was extremely rewarding. Anyways I’m not that good at videogames, if you’re persistent pretty much anyone can beat dark souls 1 I think
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
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