Okay so I have never been into the Souls games. The whole “brutally difficult” thing never appealed to me, and watching my friends play was enough to turn me off.
However I decided to take the plunge and try Elden Ring recently because of all the amazing hype. Tons of “I’m not a Souls gamer but I loved it!” kind of hype.
And it’s pretty fun! I get why it got so much love.
But I also, after a week or two of play, have identified exactly what I don’t like about Souls games. It turns out it’s not the difficulty. I grew up playing in arcades and on the NES so I’m no stranger to trying things over and over until I get it right.
It’s the damn death penalty. I cannot express the depth of my hatred of losing progress. Games with save points that are too far apart or games where you can lose items when you die, etc, are just the worst for me. And in Elden Ring, the stress that goes along with trying to get back to my corpse to get my money/XP back is stress I don’t want or need.
So I ask you all this: can you recommend a Souls style game with the fun gameplay loop but without the punishing death penalty? Does that even exist or is it just not a Souls game without that? I’d love the carrot of [learn fight, get better, epic win] without the stick of [now go grind low level mobs for XP, loser].
Dark souls 1 or the remaster is still worth playing. The map design is once-in-a-lifetime good. There is a pretty hefty penalty like in other souls games, but it’s just getting hollowed and losing some souls. DS3 is also good, maybe a more refined version of 1, but I personally don’t think the world is as cohesive with the loading screens.
The trick is to just get used to being hollowed all the time and spending souls asap when you get them. You don’t lose gear when you die, and gear is pretty important. The real progress comes from learning how to deal with each enemy though, and that comes from dying. I guess it sort of boils down to “git gud”, even though that wasn’t what I was trying to say here lol.
Death is another obstacle in all the soulslike I’ve tried. I’ve learned to not put so much stock in valuing souls/xp as they come and go, but more important is upgrading gear/learning move sets
Yeah I definitely try not to worry about it. But sometimes I find myself dying at the same spot over and over and that pile of XP keeps growing as I kill mobs to get back to that spot then die again and that just adds to the frustration and stress of dying in the same damn spot over and over! deep breath Sorry.
But yeah, I try not to worry about it but that yellow flower is always there taunting me…
Try celeste and super meat boy if you want a skillful platformer with low penalty.
I know it’s different, but you might enjoy the new Zelda games. The combat is kind of similar with the i-frames and learning attack patterns. It’s definitely more casual.
People might flame me for this but I’d say skip BotW and play Tears of the Kingdom. Those are the two new ones. If you like the fantasy action adventure type thing, you’ll probably want to check out the Zelda franchise as a whole. It’s much more lighthearted than Souls - it could be enjoyed by all ages.
You can even get an item in Elden Ring called the Twiggy Cracked Tear about a third of the way through that lets your Physick flask grant the same effects as a Sacrificial Twig for 3 minutes. Once you get that, the stress of losing Runes can be greatly diminished.
Simply drink it prior to crossing a fog wall or at a difficult point on the path to Rune retrieval.
If that’s not enough, and you’re on PC, you can download a simple mod off Nexus which eliminates Rune loss on death entirely.
