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].
Sifu maybe?
That’s got some definite soulslike features, but it’s wrapped up in a completely different aesthetic and vibe. It’s still very punishing though.
I played that on PS5 when it came out and really enjoyed it. It was still extremely difficult but very fair. And it even had meta progression, which was cool.
Thinking about it, Sifu is EXACTLY the kind of game I’d consider a Souls-like without the XP death penalty. It’s funny because there’s still a death penalty but it feels different enough that it doesn’t trigger me the way losing runes does. Really good call on Sifu. Might have to pull that game back out. I never beat it… it’s really hard!
I finally got around to it on Steamdeck a few months ago and was blown away by it to be honest. Tough but fair and incredibly demanding in the best way. There’s no fluking this, you’ve got to learn the game, otherwise you’re going to get absolutely smashed.