They seem so popular, dozens of games coming out, and reviews often positive.
But
When I see “Roguelike” I imagine a game that’s too small to be a real game, so they made it so you can never win and just have to keep trying and you’ll get a decent number of hours out of it. With just enough progression each time that you start to believe it’s possible you’ll get somewhere meaningful.
When I see “Souls-like” I think of a game where the difficulty is only there to give people with too much time on their hands a sense of superiority.
I have roughly a thousand games in my various libraries and I have never played a game in either of these genres.
I feel fine being so unreasonable about this.
Same here. I grew up on artificially difficult games along with other old millennials. I want a game that respects my time and gives me a sense of progression.
Real life is hard enough. I don’t need more frustration added to a hobby that’s supposed to be fun.
Its a fair point.
Gotta ask what we wanna get out of gaming.
Relaxing? Achievement? Challenge?
Probably looking to get what you’re missing elsewhere in life.
When I was a younger man, it was about getting new experiences. Now it’s about chilling at the end of the day.
Most of the time when I’m gaming I’m either tired or drinking, not a good fit for the tough games!
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Hey, just to be a pedantic asshole…
When I see “Roguelike” I imagine a game that’s too small to be a real game, so they made it so you can never win and just have to keep trying and you’ll get a decent number of hours out of it. With just enough progression each time that you start to believe it’s possible you’ll get somewhere meaningful.
You’re describing a ‘roguelite’, which implies metaprogression. ‘roguelike’ normally means that there is no (or extremely little) metaprogression… getting better is just about increasing player knowledge, typically. The terms are used somewhat interchangeably sometimes but some games, at least, still use them correctly.
That said, if the size is the killer… Take a look at Caves of Qud. It’s a traditional roguelike, but there’s non-perma-death options when starting a new game, and the size of the game was definitely not the reason for choosing the genre.
I am worried that reasonable points like this might change my mind 😬
My lack of knowledge on the points you make is partially willful ignorance on my part afterall 😁
Worried? Intelligent people change their minds when presented with new information.
You know what stops people changing their minds?
Worry, fear, anxiety, etc!
Thought police is real?
As an aside, one of the most petty things I get annoyed at is how badly named and organized these things are. In all things.
Any sort of dark and somber low-fantasy game could be called a souls-like.
Heck, even the term RPG could apply to almost 80% of videogames. The history of exactly where it came from is a bit messy, but seems to have been used differentiate D&D from other tabletop games like poker or monopoly, or maybe even war games. It makes sense in that context, but I today’s context it’s hard to find a videogame that isn’t engaging in roleplay in some form. Yet we look to things like level and stat progression as being “RPG elements” even if they have nothing to do with roleplay at all.
It’s not just games. “Metal” music very rarely has anything to do with metals.
A lot of it is marketing. These labels make it easier to sell things. Having categories at all hells consumers find things they like or don’t like (such as OP). I just wish things were better-organized. I like things like Steam’s tag system a lot, but the tags themselves have been halhazardly cobbled together over decades of making words up and changing what they mean.
Try Hades. It has a full storyline, wonderful characters, and each time you ‘lose’ it’s part of the story. And it’s super fun and addictive
Hades is what made me start liking Roguelikes. Great game and good story.
balatro is the best roguelike.
I’m like OP and there’s always this one game people swear will somehow change your mind.
I’ve tried Hades and nah, didn’t do it for me :)
That’s… the point of the descriptive tags?
I’ve never played a Souls game. Nothing about “you’re supposed to die a lot and redo it all until you’ve mastered it” is appealing to me. I don’t have the patience for it.
I’m not saying thats a bad format for a game. I just don’t want to spend my free time and money on something I’m sure I won’t like.
Thanks Bro. We’re aligned!
it’s true that in roguelikes you will probably die a lot in the beginning, the fun comes in improving and being able to win consistently. some games have an easy mode that’s just a power fantasy, but if you can win with little effort it gets stale quick. good roguelikes are about making the best build with what you are dealt by rng, once you learn the ropes you can experience tons of unique runs which is something not found in other genres.
roguelike is a popular genre now so there are probably some slop games, but there are still many good roguelikes with tons of content (I have like 900+ hours in risk of rain 2)
Honestly a lot of the “sense of superiority” and “these games will beat you senseless” types of sentiments regarding Souls actually stem from some really early marketing decisions that the developers didn’t originally intend
Fromsoft is actually self published in Japan, and Bandai helped them distribute the game to western audiences. There’s a whole essay worth of information we could talk about regarding what was popular in the west at that time, but basically when marketing the game they focussed on the intensity and the violence and how hardcore and badass you’d be for making it through.
It worked like a charm, and the games succeed financially and developed that frankly kinda rancid reputation (fans bragging about finishing a boss, coining “just get good”). It was enough to deter me from getting involved with it for literally a decade, until Sekiro came out
I go crazy for katanas and any samurai type stuff so I jumped in. Had a great experience, still one of my favorite games, and it was enough to get me to go back and try out the older souls games.
And the truth is the games are nothing like what the marketing or the rabid fans would have you believe. The art and presentation is that intense, but the actual game is borderline…cozy? In a weird way?
The thing that trips people up is the game has animation commitment, so once you hit attack you have to wait for the whole move to finish before you can act again. But the enemies are also like that, and furthermore, Fromsoft has the best animation telegraphing in the business. So you can just watch the boss, learn what they’re gonna do, wait to see how long they’re vulnerable after a given attack, and then subsequent times you see that attack you have a good idea of how much time you have to land your own attacks.
So once you “tune in” to this style of combat, it becomes a really meditative experience, one that rewards patience and observation. What makes it work so beautifully is that the presentation and music is so intense, to the point where you can actually become wrapped up in that and lose focus.
So in essence, I would say Souls games more than anything are about cultivating a mentality of remaining calm and peaceful during a storm, and then witnessing how your peaceful nature will allow you to endure any hardship.
We didn’t really get that sentiment much in games in the west at that time. So everything about the perception of the games stems from that. People feel so strongly about finishing the games because doing so genuinely taught them an important lesson. But the early marketing colored the public perception of the experience in a way that really misled many people who I think would ultimately adore the games
beatng Malenia in Elden Ring was legitimately character building for me
Exactly! Although it may seem contradictory, this “animation commitment” gives you the feeling of exact control over your character, unlike in any other game. Everything turns into beautiful choreography. The next time you pick up a standard “button mashing” game, you will truly notice the difference.
Agree. I’ve blocked Rouguelike, Roguelite, and Deckbuilder tags on Steam.
It seems to be a popular belief that Souls-Like games require players to have “too much time on their hands”. If I have 15 minutes to kill and I want to boot up a game, most Souls-Likes are a great option to kill the time. They are really designed to be picked up and put down at any moment.
I won’t try to change your mind on these genres, but it is kinda wild to me that people have these strong negative opinions about games they have never played. I’m not saying you need to try a game to know if you’ll like it or not, but it seems your understanding of these games is very uninformed.
That’s the exact opposite of my experience, souls-like require you to have a large chunk of time to put into the. Just looking at dark souls: you can be far away from a bonfire, have no idea where the next one is, dying means losing most progress, and you can’t pause.
Also, when facing bosses, taking a break in between can reset your rythmn meaning you lose some momentum if you put the game down.
Dark souls games can definitely be fun, but I think rouge lites are better for a pick up and play mentality since runs will range from 15-45mins typically (depending on the game).
Aside from being in the middle of combat you can turn off the game from anywhere and you’ll load back exactly where you left off. Bonfires aren’t checkpoints, you don’t have to be anywhere near one to save your progress and leave the game. Your point about losing momentum is dependent on the person playing the game, not an issue with the game itself. I’ve never had an issue with loading into a game for 10 minutes at a time. Someone else responded that boss fights are too long, but I cant recall one that took more than 5-10 minutes.
Strangely, your experience with Dark Souls is my experience with many rogue lites. You generally cannot leave in the middle of a run without losing all progress for it. You either have to win or die for it to count. And if you’re set on winning, then those games can last upwards to that 45 minutes you mentioned. The games I play (Spelunky and Vagante) do not allow you to resume your current game when you shut down and return later.
Wait if I turn off a darksouls game without stopping at a bonfire, I’ll pick back up where I left off?
Yes. Some people even do no bonfire challenges
Seems that way coz it is!
“Soulslike” is almost meaningless without context. It can mean “a game that is like dark souls” or “a game that is nothing like dark souls but we bolted on a corpse run to reclaim your cash”.
If I see another game self-described as an indie retro pixel dungeon Metroidvania soulslike I will punch a wall
Is there treasure hidden in the wall?
Dracula’s dinner
Wall chicken
Personally, I prefer games that are 3D. The old school style graphics of “roguelike” 2D side scrolling games feels outdated.
I don’t like playing “souls-like” games either. I used to play much harder games when I had all the time in the world to play as a child. But as a working adult, I don’t have such luxury anymore. I still prefer some challenges but i don’t want to crank it up to “souls” difficulty, or even to arcade games difficulty.
When I see “Souls-like” I think of a game where the difficulty is only there to give people with too much time on their hands a sense of superiority.
Yeah I completely agree xD
I play games for the story (mainly) rather than for grinding. Grinding is only worth it when you get a visual feedback like building a farm or a city
“Rogue-like” is a different matter. Combined with souls like, then yes, it’s just buzzword and pretty not-good. But it typically means more replayability because of maximised procedural level generation. If you have time, check out Shattered Pixel Dungeon, as it’s free. You can objectively “win” at it, over and over again, and it isn’t small in the sense of “lacking in content” or gameplay.
A few generations prior see us mashing buttons all day without any apparent effect. The rules of any game only make sense when you develop your gaming experience to accommodate them. Just like movies only make sense because we choose to believe in the mechanics of storytelling.
The best roguelite to try doesn’t appear to be a rogue-like game at all. It’s called Blue Prince.
I like rogue type games, but soulslike stuff? I don’t have the time to play something like that these days. Roguelikes you can pick up, play a bit, and then get back to whatever is requiring your attention. I think my fondness of roguelikes is because I liked games like Rogue and NetHack back in the day.
Roguelikes/lites are good for me because I’m usually done with a run in under an hour. I have very little time for gaming these days and being able to do it in little doses is great.
FTl, Hades, Slay the Spire, Into the Breech, Heat Signature, etc work well for me.
I feel that souls like games are 100% the same. I can boot up, swing a sword at a few enemies, then log off and do whatever else. It seems a lot of people think they require your attention for long spans of time. Couldn’t be further from my experience with them.
Boss battles can take forever though and you can’t save mid battle in most of the ones I’ve played
I can’t think of a single Souls game where a Boss fight takes longer than ten minutes; in fact the overwhelming majority of bosses take less than five minutes per attempt.
