Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Did Souls "no reload" spoiled other games for you?

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,999
Location
Platypus Planet
I got bored of Souls after playing the same game 5 times with a different title.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,999
Location
Platypus Planet

DragoFireheart

all caps, rainbow colors, SOMETHING.
Joined
Jun 16, 2007
Messages
23,731
I got bored of Souls after playing the same game 5 times with a different title.

Don't all genres have that problem?

Not necessarily.

Examples of those that don't?

I mean, first of all, Souls isn't a genre. They're Action RPGs and there are many other games that fall into the same category but are quite different.

Sub-genres.

I don't know of any sub-genres that avoid the problem of being the same thing 5 times but with different titles.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,999
Location
Platypus Planet
I got bored of Souls after playing the same game 5 times with a different title.

Don't all genres have that problem?

Not necessarily.

Examples of those that don't?

I mean, first of all, Souls isn't a genre. They're Action RPGs and there are many other games that fall into the same category but are quite different.

Sub-genres.

I don't know of any sub-genres that avoid the problem of being the same thing 5 times but with different titles.

Action RPG is a sub-genre. Just pull up a list of Action RPGs and you'll see there's lot of variance between the titles in terms of mechanics, game design etc., but Souls games are just rehashing the same shit ad nauseam. Bloodborne was the most freshest entry into the "series" since Demon's Souls and all they did was add weapons that have two different modes, removed dodge rolling in favor of fast stepping and kinda removed shields. Playing through the Souls series one can not help but feel the tedium set in hard as you keep exploring the same looking castle levels, forest levels, shit-swamp levels, prison levels and so on except that they're somehow less inspired and worse than in the previous iteration.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,230
Not really even a sub-genre, yeah. It's a game series. There really isn't much about Dark Souls that wasn't done time and time again in Japanese gaming history, but many people are ignorant of gaming history in general sadly.

On a serious note, I find it reasonable that a lot of people (me included) find Souls series "no reload" characteristic remarkable, if one considers that's a pretty rare quality in AAA games, specially RPGs, since a long time, AND completely absent from the cornerstones of the genre from the 90s up to now (PS:Torment, Fallouts, Darklands, Ultimas, Gothics, etc).

Restrictive saving utilised by design (as it damn well should be in most cases) was commonplace on any gaming platform that wasn't the PC up until about 10 years ago, not the 90s. Up until around the same time challenge and gameplay became thoroughly secondary to cinematics, graphics, story; just about anything that wasn't a potential barrier to optimal sales by appealing to non-gamers/non-nerds.
 
Last edited:

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
Not really even a sub-genre, yeah. It's a game series. There really isn't much about Dark Souls that wasn't done time and time again in Japanese gaming history, but many people are ignorant of gaming history in general sadly.

You act like the greatness of Dark Souls is due to its individual parts (which quite possibly have been already done before), and not the sum of them all (which I doubt any game aside from Demon's Souls have done before it; otherwise, please post them).
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
Damn, you've got a long way to go, friend.

You still haven't posted the alleged Soulslikes you say "have been done time and time again in Japanese gaming history". Maybe because you are full of shit?
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,230
You've...already played one game quite like it you dummy: Vagrant Story shares concepts and principles in common. Dark gothic fantasy ARPG restrictive saving hardcore difficulty...ring any bells?

You've a list of like 8 completed games there while doubting the whole history of JP vidja and you're telling me I am full of shit? Fuck off you ignoramusfag.
 
Last edited:

Silva

Arcane
Joined
Jul 17, 2005
Messages
4,778
Location
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Restrictive saving utilised by design (as it damn well should be in most cases) was commonplace on any gaming platform that wasn't the PC up until about 10 years ago, not the 90s.
Ash, there is a difference between restrictive saving by design, and restricted saving by design extremelly well tuned to the whole package, including Estus, level AND world design, enemy placement, souls recovering, and even lore. Honestly, I've never seen such a well tuned and coherent package. But then I may be an ignoramus, I don't care.

Otherwise, please, cite a couple games that do it as well as DS1.
 
Last edited:

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
You've...already played one game quite like it you dummy: Vagrant Story shares concepts and principles in common. Dark gothic fantasy ARPG restrictive saving hardcore difficulty...ring any bells?

It doesn't play anything like Dark Souls. I would know: it's probably one of my favorite games. It doesn't have real-time, very punishing combat. It doesn't rely on player reflexes. It isn't third-person with the camera behind it. It certainly doesn't have fucking "restrictive" saving, unless by "restrictive" we begin to understand it as "you can't save everywhere at any time". And that's just some of the surface elements.

Try again. Give me a game where I can say "this feels like Dark Souls", without it being Demon's Souls, Dark Souls II & III, or Bloodborne. To illustrate what I mean: New Vegas shares a lot of elements with Fallout. But Arcanum feels like Fallout.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,230
Don't bullshit. It has many similarities and you know it. Besides, that wasn't even your original question: you've steered the conversation from "what games have restrictive saving utilized in a hardcore manner" to "what JP games are a sum of their parts like Dark Souls" now to whether or not something plays extremely close to or exactly like Dark Souls.
 

Silva

Arcane
Joined
Jul 17, 2005
Messages
4,778
Location
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
It doesn't play anything like Dark Souls. I would know: it's probably one of my favorite games. It doesn't have real-time, very punishing combat. It doesn't rely on player reflexes. It isn't third-person with the camera behind it. It certainly doesn't have fucking "restrictive" saving, unless by "restrictive" we begin to understand it as "you can't save everywhere at any time". And that's just some of the surface elements.

Try again.
Even if you stretch the definition it's still hard to find something like Souls. Castlevanias are the series that most feel like Souls to me (only in 2D) and even that is completely lacking in comparison.
 

Whiny-Butthurt-Liberal

Guest
Save-scumming is punishable by beheading. I only play RPGs on iron-man mode, and they're still usually way too easy.

Although, the problem with many storyfag RPGs is a piss-poor quest design that often punishes the player for failing to complete a mindless action like being in random area A before talking to character X, and getting locked out of content/choices. What's that, beat the ninth area boss before backtracking to area three for no reason and exploring a hidden nook behind a door that opened without you having any way of knowing?? The relevant NPC has vanished forever, and you'll NEVER get to finish this side-quest, hahahahahaha! Try again on your next playthrough!!!!

It's like they want you to either save-scum, or play with a walkthrough. :abyssgazer:
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
Don't bullshit. It has many similarities and you know it. Besides, that wasn't even your original question: you've steered the conversation from "what games have restrictive saving utilized in a hardcore manner" to "what JP games are a sum of their parts like Dark Souls" now to whether or not something plays extremely close to or exactly like Dark Souls.

I've always held the same point: that the Souls series is unique, and nothing (or nothing that I know of, I could always be wrong) like it has ever existed before Dark Souls. Vagrant Story has surface similarities, but like I said, Dark Souls isn't just "checkpoints and losing stuff", or "importance of weapon types", or "good combat", or "level design", and so on.

It's how everything works together, how the game plays like as a whole, that makes the Souls series (for the most part) completely different than anything that came before them. It's why I also have said in the past that you just can't make "a game like Dark Souls" just by copying the combat. The combat is meaningless without everything else, and without everything else it may actually hurt some games as opposed to helping them.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,230
Don't bullshit. It has many similarities and you know it. Besides, that wasn't even your original question: you've steered the conversation from "what games have restrictive saving utilized in a hardcore manner" to "what JP games are a sum of their parts like Dark Souls" now to whether or not something plays extremely close to or exactly like Dark Souls.

I've always held the same point: that the Souls series is unique, and nothing (or nothing that I know of, I could always be wrong) like it has ever existed before Dark Souls. Vagrant Story has surface similarities, but like I said, Dark Souls isn't just "checkpoints and losing stuff", or "importance of weapon types", or "good combat", or "level design", and so on.

It's how everything works together, how the game plays like as a whole, that makes the Souls series (for the most part) completely different than anything that came before them. It's why I also have said in the past that you just can't make "a game like Dark Souls" just by copying the combat. The combat is meaningless without everything else, and without everything else it may actually hurt some games as opposed to helping them.

So you're saying no game has ever been more than a sum of its parts before Dark Souls...which is ridiculous.

Ash, there is a difference between restrictive saving by design, and restricted saving by design extremelly well tuned to the whole package, including Estus, level AND world design, enemy placement, souls recovering, and even lore. Honestly, I've never seen such a well tuned and coherently designed package. But then I may be an ignoramus, I don't care.

Otherwise, please, cite a couple games that do it as well as DS1.

Of the things you've listed, the only one that old games did not typically do is implement it alongside semi-elaborate lore. It playing into level design, enemy placement, resource usage and so much more is old school standard. Semi elaborate lore backing it up is not required to be defined as "well-tuned", but rather only relevant to narrative and resulting in narrative-gameplay harmony.

As for which games held these ancient Japanese secrets: Castlevania and Vagrant Story have already been mentioned, for two examples. But it was extremely commonplace back then. Don't argue with what you don't know.
 
Last edited:

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
So you're saying no game has ever been more than a sum of its parts before Dark Souls...which is ridiculous.

No. I'm saying that just because other games have had certain elements Dark Souls also has doesn't mean Dark Souls is a "meh" game, because no other game has used all those elements at once, in the exact same perfect combination Dark Souls has.

A big difference: Fallout is more than the sum of its parts, and so is Dark Souls. But just like I wouldn't say "Fallout 3 is like Fallout" just because it has skills and a post-apocalyptic setting, I won't say a lot of Action RPGs are "like Dark Souls" just because they share some very basic similarities that never go beyond the concept.

But Arcanum is like Fallout. Just more broken and less polished, but it has the spirit of Fallout nonetheless.

The point I'm making is that we shouldn't dismiss Dark Souls as "just a good game that did a lot of things other games have done before". It makes it sound like Dark Souls is just like "1994 game, but better graphics and more polished". Before Demon's Souls, there's nothing like Soulsborne. Even King's Field, by the same developer, is considerably different.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,230
Dark Souls is far from "meh", and indeed it is one of the best examples of the restrictive saving concept. The original point people were making including myself only was it isn't really anything mindblowingly new, aside from some minor innovations. Respawning and narrative has seen harmony before. Restrictive saving has been implemented with gameplay design excellence before (a thousand times over).

Also cut the rambling about vagrant story qualifying as a "souls-like" or whatever. It wasn't even provided as an example of something that plays just like Dork Souls. Nonetheless the similarities are numerous enough to agree that yeah, these things are sort of cut from the same cloth in ways.
 
Last edited:

GrainWetski

Arcane
Joined
Oct 17, 2012
Messages
5,080
Binary = 0 or 1 = keyboard press.

Modern controller has two ways to give gradual input as in states between on/off with two sticks. Mouse does it differently by you controlling speed with your hand. Keyboard has no way to control speed or anything of that nature. You either press key or don't.
Clearly the part that was retarded in your post.
 

SkiNNyBane

Liturgist
Patron
Joined
Dec 13, 2017
Messages
1,090
Location
NY
Grab the Codex by the pussy
Binary = 0 or 1 = keyboard press.

Modern controller has two ways to give gradual input as in states between on/off with two sticks. Mouse does it differently by you controlling speed with your hand. Keyboard has no way to control speed or anything of that nature. You either press key or don't.
Clearly the part that was retarded in your post.

Are you being obnoxiously stubborn pretending you still don't get it or really that dense? Either case I'd keep your thoughts private from now on to avoid further embarrassment to yourself.
 

Master

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 19, 2016
Messages
1,160
I always felt from the way people described DS that Gothic 2 with Night of the Raven expansion was similar to it and was something like our (PC) version of that type of thing except you could save whenever you wanted, like a real man. Is there any truth to this?
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom