Hell Swarm
Learned
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2023
- Messages
- 1,985
I think you're arguing something different to what demon meant. Some of the best games ever made are linear games and they still have a lot of player expression and work well with the medium's strengths. A linear game would be something that isn't open world rather than a game on rails. Devil may cry, Halo, Doom are all linear games. The hallway simulator genre where they're glorified movies are also linear but they're linear in a different way and generally get called something else.That is explicitly a very bad thing. If a game is designed that way its no longer a game but a movie that pauses every few seconds. It defeats the whole purpose and goes directly against the mediums strengths and emphasizes its weakest points.
I like people comparing FF13 to Elden ring because both have the same problem. Their exploration is entirely visual and the presentation is top notch but everything else is scarified for it. FF13 maybe more on rails but the developer focus was woefully off target in terms of making the most of the medium. Riding torrent across an empty field with spooky grave stones may as well be a screeensaver for all the engagement it has.
I've never found any souls boss gatekeep anything as hard as Elden ring's final boss rush. Dark souls 3 DLC bosses can be quite nasty but Maliketh is in a league of his own. I think the DLC patched his AI some what. Fighting him recently I noticed he does a bit less of the bullshit like attacking through pillars. He still can but it's nothing like it was.The problem with early Soulslike design is that you sometimes felt like you were headbutting a brick wall over and over again as your progress is blocked until you beat certain bosses. Elden Ring isn't perfect but at least there are either ways around bosses causing you trouble or you can easily just go and do something else and come back when you've levelled up a bit.