The Soulsborne combat debate

Souls games are for real gamers. Gamers that scoff at the challenge presented by a ninja Gaiden or super meat boy. Who turn their nose up at casual mobile games. Who spit of combat systems with one assassin's creed parry's and different Stances for colour coded enemies. Gamers with hairs on their chest and even more on their balls. Gamers who aren't afraid to git gud or die trying. Gamers that know that Ace combat 7 is the best game of 2019.

dreamers75 wrote: »

Souls combat is absolute trash, its not a git gud type of control scheme in any way shape or form. Who actually thinks thats a good combat scheme?

Me. And every fan of the series Think it's fantastic. Reading enemy patterns. Dodge moves with short i-frame windows. Varied and excellent enemy design and behaviour. Positioning is highly important. And then stamina management. And then the game uses the environment to mix up the challenge presented by the game. And even with all that complexity it's pretty easy to grasp but hard to master. It might not be realistic but when has realism meant a game is fun.

Then there's the different builds were every weapon attacks differently, you can also focus on magic for offence or buffs. The game just has a huge amount of variety. Boss battles range from good to exceptional. They're a call back to the likes of Konami and Capcom games were bosses were a highlight and actually well designed. Nobody does bosses as well.

And then there's the level design which feels like a classic dungeon crawler along the lines of Etrian Odyssey. You have to play careful as your resources are limited and can only be topped up at the next checkpoint. It adds a tension to the game that is missing from a lot of handholding modern games.

Bloodbourne mixes it up by taking your shield away and your defence is now offence to gain health back. It also speeds things up. And then there's Sekiro which is a totally different combat system to the other souls games but no less amazing.

But don't feel bad about thinking that way. It takes a bit of patience to get into and many people mistake their own lack of patience for bad design as they are too used to games babying them. It's what I liked about Demon's Souls when I played it first. It basically says to the player, here's your tools. It's all you need to beat the game, go figure it out for yourself. Oh btw, yes you do need to take out that massive dragon with just your sword and board.

Again you are not alone in that way of thinking. I've know a lot of people that think that way and I've converted a lot of them to loving the Souls series. Plenty of them have thanked me as well as in their own words they would have missed out on some of the greatest games ever made. I remember Giantbombcast saying how Demon's Souls is utter thrash and the combat is terrible and now they can't get enough of souls games. Ray Barnholt had to fight with the editors and management to give the game an A it deserved.

The only thing stopping people enjoying a souls game is their own patience and their own indignation at a game daring to tell them to get better. Also there's a misconception that souls games are hard. They are difficult and perfectly fair but there is far harder. And they have an easy mode: Multiplayer.

Sorry for the rant. But really gets to be when people criticise the game and it's systems. It's alright saying the game isn't for you, hell I can't beat Sekiro because of life commitments don't let me get a good stab at the game, but I think it's very wrong to say the mechanics in these games are terrible when they are in fact some of the best designed out side of a Nintendo or Platinum game.

Greyfox wrote: »

That's not the only thing stopping people, another reason would be that people would rather play better games, maybe a game with a better story or a game that doesnt force players to repeat sections over and over again. The games are hard which is why every review mentions this. Most people have backlogs of other games that value your time more and do a far better job at hooking you in at the start. Most games make sure your having fun before they become more difficult. Multiplayer is not the same thing as an easy mode.

I can tell you now the souls games are better than anything in your backlog. And they've got excellent environmental storytelling. And I really can't say the games waste your time as you are learning as you play them chipping away little by little and making more progress as you go on until you get a massive amount of satisfaction of overcoming a tough trial. It's classics dungeon crawler game design.

You might not have time to dedicate to playing these games which is fair enough but saying what are unarguably amoung the best games of the last decade are bad is just plain wrong.

And multiplayer makes the games way easier.