Soulslike games: list + scores

[Desman]

Salt and Sanctuary is literally 2D Dark Souls you idiot. I don't see why it would force you to add the other 3. Those are very different.

Actually looking back at the list, S&S copies more from Dark Souls than any other soulslike.

You seem to be the kind of faggot who talk about "roguelites" like if those games are related to actual roguelikes.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Salt and Sanctuary is literally 2D Dark Souls you idiot. I don't see why it would force you to add the other 3. Those are very different.

Actually looking back at the list, S&S copies more from Dark Souls than any other soulslike.

You seem to be the kind of faggot who talk about "roguelites" like if those games are related to actual roguelikes.

And you just seem like a faggot. S&S is Dark Souls translated to 2D, beat for beat. It is Dark Souls.

 

[Ezekiel]

Black Myth: Wukong should be there as well. Didn't play it, but very similar controls and camera.

 

[Desman]

Salt and Sanctuary is literally 2D Dark Souls you idiot. I don't see why it would force you to add the other 3. Those are very different.

Actually looking back at the list, S&S copies more from Dark Souls than any other soulslike.

You seem to be the kind of faggot who talk about "roguelites" like if those games are related to actual roguelikes.

And you just seem like a faggot. S&S is Dark Souls translated to 2D, beat for beat. It is Dark Souls.

Retard, you just asked in the roguetrader thread if the game is like SM2, you have no fucking clue about video games.

Since I liked Space Marine 2 will I also enjoy this game? How is the shooting and swarm mechanics?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I'm reluctant to add Salt & Sanctuary, as this would mean I would need to proceed with all other 2D games like:
- Hollow Knight
- Blasphemous 1 & 2
- Bloodstained

And probably many more, no? Or am I missing something?

Unless we have a separate table for 2D titles hmm...

Metroidvanias, among other differences from Soulslikes, contain a large element of platforming, not something found in either Demon's Souls or Dark Souls.

 

[Sukhāvatī]

Reposting this Brightis vid because the game needs a bigger rep.

While i have yet to play Demon's Souls and Bloodborne

 

[Damned Registrations]

Should add Diablo 2 to the list. Currency drops on death, grimdark setting, stamina bar, and magic is completely overpowered. Obviously a soulslike.

 

[ferratilis]

Both Salt and Sanctuary and Death's Gambit belong on the list, fuck the naysayers. Just because they're wrapped in a 2d metroidvania container doesn't make them any less of a Soulslike. Actually, they're more Soulslike than some of the games on that shitty list. And if you haven't played them because they're 2d, you're a fag. There.

 

[Machocruz]

Games can only ever ape the mechanics and features -many of which are not unique in themselves- not the ineffable FS qualities that has been in their games for a very long time, regardless of form/genre. KF had it, ST had it, Otogi had it, AC had it. It's a vibe, as the kids say these days.

Nioh 2 is an excellent Action RPG though. Highly recommend.

 

[cvv]

Both Salt and Sanctuary and Death's Gambit belong on the list, fuck the naysayers.

If a Formula 1 game introduces a mechanics whereby if you crash you have to go back and retrieve your shit, is it suddenly a soulslike?

Sure, there is no god-given definition but there has to be a line. If I look at Hollow Knight or Grime I REALLY don't think "it's just like Demon's Souls!", even if I squint hard.

 

[ferratilis]

If a Formula 1 game introduces a mechanics whereby if you crash you have to go back and retrieve your shit, is it suddenly a soulslike?

See, this is the point. S&S takes all the Dark Souls 1 mechanics and puts them in a 2d metroidvania. It's not only having to retrieve your souls, it's the controls, character building, cryptic storytelling, classes, zones, boss design etc. The biggest criticism on release was that they copied Dark Souls too much, but that's a good point actually. They merged all the good things from DS1 with a metroidvania and the result is amazing.

Now, if someone said Hollow Knight was a soulslike, I'd call it a stretch, but S&S and Death's Gambit definitely fit the bill. The problem is most people here either never played them or outright ignored them because of the presentation style.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Souls-like is such a bastardized term that it means nothing at this point and makes it frustrating to even search for games in this genre. I blame westoid gaming journalists for this retardation. I just saw a guy on Twitter complaining some platformer had just gone "Dark Souls" on his ass because of some mildly challenging jumping section. Anything that requires the slightest amount of effort is "Souls-like" to those fucking morons.

I personally propose we use Souls-clones as this is pretty much what we are actually looking for in threads like this, ain't it?

Now is S&S a Souls-clone? From what i've seen in the foregoing above, it appears that it is (obviously until i play it i cannot know for sure but i'm willing to accept the argument). Now to my view Souls combat does hinge a little bit on the game being 3D, probably because of how it started (with King's Field and the rule Sony had back then that every game on the PS1 had to be 3D, which means FromSoft had to come up with a system that was designed specifically for a 3D space, hence the stamina bar and moving around the hitbox, which laid down the seeds for Souls combat down the line), but, it's not entirely impossible to adapt this system to a 2D space, even if partially, and there's a whole lot more to Souls than just the combat system.

In either case, i restate that Souls-clones is a much more useful term here. Worked for Doom-clones back in the day, didn't it?

 

[cvv]

My take is this - the only way these labels are actually useful is if they help you find similar games. So someone discovers Dark Souls, has a blast, starts looking for similar games.

Do you point him to Hollow Knight? I'd bet more people than not would take one look and say "no, not that, I want something like Dark Souls".

I was one of those. When I fell in love with Dark Souls and was looking for a similar experience people were pointing me to HK and S&S that just came out. I bought them, tried them, thought "what the actual fuck". Hated that shit at first, it wasn't what I was looking for.

I only started loving those 2D games much later when I felt like playing some metroidvanias. Then I started binging HK, S&S, Grime, Blasphemous, DG and many others.

 

[Damned Registrations]

My take is this - the only way these labels are actually useful is if they help you find similar games.

Bingo.

I think even more than journalism making it into a buzzword, the problem is with players with limited experience sharing their advice. Same reason 'best X genre game' of any type tends to get shit up with popular games that are vaguely related at best. If Jimmy has only ever played 10 games in his life and someone asks what the best rpgs ever are, he's going to lump anything with stats into the same pile whether it's Nioh or Pokemon. You get the same effect with series- if the best game was #3 but the series didn't get popular till 6, 3 won't show up in polls as 'better' because it's being voted on by people who only played 6-8.

The games listed in the OP are good enough. Even a little too lax maybe; I wouldn't consider Stranger of Paradise a soulslike because the class system is too different. (I'd also rate it higher than that but I'm a sucker for build optimization.) I certainly wouldn't lump anything 2D in with the genre, even if it is stealing everything that isn't nailed down from dark souls. 2D is just a fundamentally different beast due to the way it changes things such as line of sight, projectile attacks, being surrounded and so forth.

 

[Dark Souls II]

Black Souls - 76% Rating
https://howlongtobeat.com/game/89623

Black Souls II - 100% Rating
https://howlongtobeat.com/game/102421

Black Souls I is definitely underrated. These two are, on the level of absolutely fundamental ontology, the only two real "soulslikes".