Soulslike
Soulslike is a term that refers to a sub-genre of horribly designed action RPGs that attempt to emulate Dark Souls and its shitty mechanics. The rise (and inevitable fall) of the Soulslike is very similar to prior shitty gaming fads such as the Roguelike, Metroidvania, Doom clone and GTA clone.
What the Fuck is a Soulslike?
A Soulslike will typically feature the following bullshit game mechanics:
- Combined experience/currency
- Losing your experience/currency on death
- No manual saving
- Fall damage
- No jump button
- Lots of traps and instant death pits
- Checkpoints that respawn all enemies
- Limited healing that recharges at checkpoints
- Leveling your character with 1 point stat upgrades
- Tons of weapons with different movesets
- An obtuse weapon/armor upgrade system that requires rare items
- Half-assed online features that are also fucking obtuse and stupid and unnecessary
- New Game+ mode that makes the game even more bullshit each time you finish it
- NPCs that only provide the player with cryptic bullshit
- Magic builds that are either complete shit or absolutely fucking OP
- Obnoxious game over text typically stating "YOU DIED" in ALL CAPS
- Fucking horrible Metroidvania level design with tons of unlockable shortcuts
- A stamina bar that serves just to annoy the player
- HP/stamina/magic bars that expand as your stats increase, often to the point of spanning the whole width of the goddamn screen
- Enemies that take off half your fucking HP bar with each hit
- Bosses that take scratch damage and require tons of trial and error or grinding in order to defeat
- A final boss that is extremely "deep" or profound in concept but is a mediocre and relatively easy boss in comparison to all the other shit you've fought so far
The First Soulslike
The first Soulslike game was, obviously, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link which was released by Nintendo in 1987. Widely regarded as the black sheep of the Zelda franchise, The Adventure of Link departed from its predecessor by featuring a side-scrolling perspective and introducing RPG elements such as the ability to level up each of Link's stats. These stats were:
Life increases Link's defense.
Magic reduces the amount of MP needed to cast spells.
Attack increases the amount of damage that Link can inflict on enemies with his sword.
Link could also collect several items that would also improve his stats.
Heart Containers grant Link an extra bar of HP.
Magic Containers grant Link an extra bar of MP and allow him to learn more spells.
P-Bags contain P which grants experience points.
To make the game even more frustrating, Nintendo capped each stat at 8 and added in a Mario-esque lives system that would remove all of Link's accumulated experience points upon game over. Sound familiar, Soulstards?
From Software Ripoffs
The Soulslike genre began to become a thing after From Software released Demon's Souls in 2009.
List of Soulslikes
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
- Demon's Souls
- Dark Souls
- Dark Souls 2
- Dark Souls 3
- Bloodborne
- Elden Ring
- Sekiro
- Lords of the Fallen
- The Surge
- The Surge 2
- Code Vein
- Nioh
- Nioh 2
- Remnant: From the Ashes
- Chronos: Before the Ashes
- Mortal Shell
- Blasphemous
See Also
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