Topic: Souls-likes (& dislikes)

Finished off my first (& second) playthrough(s) of Hellpoint this afternoon and had a really decent time with it all told. It’s not the flashiest souls-like in terms of looks nor combat… but they’re both solid enough imo. It consistently surprises in terms of the exploration, in-game systems, lore and npc side-quests though. It really reminded me of the original Dark Souls in all of those ways… even though it wears a dark sci-fi skin rather than dark fantasy.

There are a lot of souls-likes out there at this point, so there are a lot of options for fans of the genre (many of which are probably far better overall products)… but if you’ve played all the From soft and Team Ninja games, Lies of P, Black Myth, First Berserker etc. and are still on the look out for more, this could be worth a punt.

@Tjuz To my knowledge, the World Tendency and Character morality are unique to Demon’s Souls. Most of the other mechanics that constitute a “Souls game” were present in the game, but the World and Character Tendency were not carried on. When I first started DeS, users on here told me one can just ignore the WT/CT mechanics and yes, you can certainly just play the game and ignore them, but you might quickly realize the game is getting harder the blacker you let things get. But like most Souls aspects, there’s a workaround to cheese the system from letting that happen and so I played through that way. But I was grateful that From didn’t include the morality system in future entries.

There’s a few other smaller things that didn’t make it into the Dark Souls series, but otherwise it’s very much like a Dark Souls 0.5.

@Th3solution

To my knowledge, the World Tendency and Character morality are unique to Demon’s Souls.

This is true.
You can still influence the world in dark souls 2, by joining the champion covenant which would make enemies hit harder and they never stop respawning, basically a hard mode.
Edit: alternatively, joining the way of blue will permanently stop invaders.

@Yousef- Ah, yes— this is true. That is a really nice opt in, opt out system that I used to farm souls. The way Dark Souls 2 did away with the infinite respawning was both a blessing and a curse. On one hand it was great to clear out a run up to a tough boss so that you could go into the boss fight straight from a close bonfire fully healed, but it also took away the opportunity to grind out souls in good farming areas unless you use the Covenant of Champions.

@Th3solution yeah, I’ve edited my original comment for a small clarification since I mix up the two covenants a lot, considering they’re both found as soon as you start the game. Dark souls 2 has my favorite covenant system by far, just all around great World building, such a cool game…