This is a community for discussion, news, and memes pertaining to the video game sub-genre "soulslike".
Given Lemmy's size, the definition of soulslike may be treated relatively loosely. While games like the numerous FromSoft titles, the recent Star Wars Jedi games, Lies of P, Nioh and similar games should be the focus, games that incorporate soulslike elements - like Hollow Knight and Blasphemous, for example - may also be discussed here.
Basic Lemmy-quette applies. Additionally, since flairs don't exist yet, please do make sure to include a marker to denote what game your post is about in square brackets for clarity's sake. An example could be:
[BB] This enemy is so difficult!
or
[DS1] Anyone struggling with the gargoyles?
Friends:
Should you have any questions, please do let me know.
I know of Sekiro and Khazan so far - Sekiro via its reflections and Inner variants, and Khazan via just repeating the boss fight where you fought them initially. I quite like both and think it's cool to re-experience the fights if you feel like it. Which other soulslikes do that?
Yes, and you can do it multiple times, with the NG+ bump persisting and also increasing per each proper NG+ cycle. So if you were on NG and used bonfire ascetics to fight the same boss 3 additional times (NG+3 difficulty), when you finish the game and come back in a proper NG+ that area will be NG+4.
Speedrunners use it to farm to the 1 million soul memory threshold for a certain locked door and skip a lot of the game. There are also some unique item drops from bosses in NG+, like the soul for Moonlight Greatsword.
I really wish they had kept the bonfire ascetic mechanic in DS3 and Elden Ring. Not to mention DS2's NG+ cycles add additional enemies and some shop items, so it's a bit different and gives some incentive to actually play through multiple times. It's one of those quirky DS2 things they took a chance on and got it right.
Man, Peak Souls 2 really deserving of its name, it seems. Really gotta get around to playing it. Can't be as bad as people claim it is
The thing with sequels, they really tried a lot of things in DS2. some needed more work, some got discarded and some came back.
I find funny that the torch should play a bigger factor in DS2 but got discarded and the mechanic only came back in Elden Ring where the fire motiff is not relevant like it's to Dark Souls.
There are some things "wrong" with it, like with all of them, but I love it. Especially the DLCs.
The DLC areas are all incredible and unique, plus they make the biggest soul even bigger by a factor of two. It's insane how much they add to the game.
I feel that DS2 is the most consistent of all 3 games. The game is an average 8 all the way through. While DS1 and DS3 have areas where the game hits an amazing 10, they also have areas where the game feels unfinished and the quality noticeably drops hard (after Anor Londo, after Abyss Sentinels), where it can feel you're playing some weird AA shovelware project. BB is similar to DS2 in this aspect, but the whole game is at least a solid 9. Sekiro is the same again, the whole game is at least a solid 9.