The Problem With "Soulslike"

[Music] from software's dark souls needs no introduction recently crowned the ultimate game of all time the series is praised for its intricate level design satisfying combat and captivating world but you're probably most familiar with dark souls for its notorious difficulty [Music] look look in fact these games are so hard that every single challenging game that came after is actually paying homage to dark souls the first hard game see we all know that the very concept of difficulty didn't exist before hidetaka miyazaki invented it in 2009 with the release of demon souls before that video games were all just brain dead easy i mean look at this the games that they basically play themselves but then in comes demon souls [Music] then two years later miyazaki shits out another hood classic and game developers went wild bonfires stamina bars blood stains estus flasks if it was featured in dark souls then it would also be featured in the next 100 games that you played but we needed a name a name for these games these these copycats that were like souls souls likes medieval fantasy settings souls like invincibility frame souls-like difficulty like constipation souls like wife cheated on you soul's like wait wait wait wait wait what's that you live in an abusive household souls like parenting now of course i'm being facetious but there really seems to be a bit of a naming crisis surrounding games that share even the slightest bit in common with dark souls there's just this obsession with labeling everything that's even remotely similar as being derivative even among from software's other ips they just can't escape those same shackles i mean first it was just demon souls and then it was the souls games after that it was souls born and after that it's soul's born key so you you wrote this this is a thing that you wrote look it's undeniable that dark souls is one of the most influential games of our time the current gaming landscape would look incredibly different without it and several games genuinely are just carbon copies but a handful of problems arise when taking one major title and turning it into an entire genre take roguelike a genre named after the 1980 dungeon crawler rogue unlike dark souls however rogue didn't spawn an entire series and was released over 40 years ago so today it's not surprising when rogue isn't the first game that comes to mind when you hear the word roguelike that game could be faster than light slay the spire or for some people even hades for me the game that i think of when i hear roguelike is binding of isaac so i've just been kindly informed that binding of isaac is in fact not a rogue like but a rogue light initially called roguelike likes roguelites are rogue-likes that are like rogue but not as like rogue as roguelikes when you're categorizing a game based on what it derives from is derived from the label starts to lose all meaning rogue light is a genre born from games being too different from the original title to be called roguelikes so why even keep rogue in the name this kind of naming convention stifles creativity by suggesting the game should stick as close to the original as possible and for every box on the checklist that a game doesn't tick we'll just add another like at the end of the category all games are derivative to some extent there's no modern game that doesn't borrow anything from its predecessors even dark souls from software didn't invent the stamina bar or parrying and corpse running has been a staple of mmos long before dark souls was even a concept swimming around in miyazaki's nut sack art inspires and genres overlap it's the same with any medium of entertainment while there are definitely landmark films none of them have had their titles baked into their respective genres that's not to say that they've never been copied but after the wave of clones came innovation imagine if every movie with a ton of gore in a crash zoom was called a tarantino-like or look at hip-hop i mean half of all rappers would be called tupac likes it's exactly this phenomenon of derivative content mixing and borrowing from previous media that leads to imaginative ideas metroidvania is a portmanteau of metroid and castlevania and is used to describe games that borrow from both series or so the wikipedia definition says in actuality it's used to refer to any game with a sprawling world that has certain areas gated behind abilities upgrades and items like super metroid the term came into use after the release of castlevania symphony of the night which featured a lot of these metroid-like elements similarly the game devs behind the quote unquote souls like metroidvania hollow knight had little to no experience with dark souls before making the game and although they were inspired by metroid creating a metroidvania wasn't something that they set out to do their inspiration came from various different games but instead of trying to emulate anyone in particular they focused on trying to make a good ass game and spoiler alert they made a good ass game when developers stick firmly to a blueprint they're designing backwards creating a game that conforms to established game mechanics rather than designing elements that'll best complement their game grease is a game that was originally intended to be a metroidvania but the creators wanted it to be accessible to people even if they've never played a video game so they opted for a more linear approach linear is the antithesis of a metroidvania the devs would have to reimagine the formula in order to realize the vision they had for their game and they did a damn good job [Music] greece has five levels representing each stage of grief you progress linearly through them acquiring a new ability in each one the game features no combat and little exploration the abilities are largely used for platforming and puzzle challenges each level is designed around just the abilities that you have at the time so there's no backtracking with progression to each new level you restore color to a beautiful watercolor painted world until you're at the last stage and finally overcome your grief grease borrows metroidvania elements and uses them to tell a powerful story through little more than its gameplay rather than force unnecessary mechanics to fill a checklist grease takes only what it needs from the genre and still manages to capture the essence of having a protagonist that evolves over time and grows to interact with the world in different ways and that is what's at the core of any genre just a few unchangeable factors that really capture the heart of what unifies those group of games so what's the soul of dark souls mark brown of game makers toolkit made an excellent video in 2017 on the topic he suggests that the genre should be based around the elements that give dark souls it's slow deliberate combat but even from software's other ips don't entirely adhere to those elements bloodborne has faster more aggressive combat and this is even more true after sekiro's release in 2019 which got rid of the stamina bar entirely i would argue that the element that ties these games together is not their combat but their core gameplay loop the cycle of encountering a challenging obstacle dying and throwing yourself at it again and again armed with nothing more than your knowledge of previous attempts no estus flask stamina bar or dodge roll necessary that core gameplay is what makes these games so engaging and really makes you feel like you have the exaggerated swagger of a medieval fantasy protagonist of course we'd also have to rename the genre and ditch the whole trend of just adding like at the end of a title games have already evolved past just being soul's likes and it's time that the language we use to refer to them does the same [Music] if you made it to the end of the video uh thank you for listening to me talk my this is just a topic that really really grinds my gears really rustles my jimmies if you will so i just figured make a video about it but uh yeah tell me what you guys think if you like the video like the video uh it helps the video get seen if you dislike the video then leave a comment because that also helps to get seen uh send this to that one friend who shut the hell up about dark souls and subscribe to see more videos like this i'm just starting out but i have a ton of ideas lined up for future videos not just on games but like movies animation like that and that uh the new souls born eki roden ring game is dropping next week so i might do a video on that so i definitely stick around and i'll see you in the next one [Music] you

Channel: Nasu

Views: 2,441,721

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Id: VkI81do4vwg

Length: 10min 27sec (627 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 19 2022