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With Ghost Song does the Flowersong weapon do anything beyond a charged shot? It doesn't really seem to interact with flowers or anything else much like it suggests The flame shot and missiles seem more worth the energy price either way
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Nov 7, 2022 23:51
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Martman posted:I think people also attribute too much of Hollow Knight's vague, foreboding storytelling and world-building stuff to Dark Souls when it's just as much inspired by Super Metroid in those ways. Like sure, it's not really clear without reading the manga or whatever exactly why the Chozo left all their stuff there and where they went but the immediate plot with ridley kidnapping the baby is crystal clear.
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Nov 7, 2022 23:52
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S.J. posted:Also, souls games are just metroidvanias with corpse runs
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Nov 7, 2022 23:55
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I kind of want to play Ghost Song but I promised myself to (finally) complete Metroid Prime Trilogy and Other M this year. I made it through my first run of Sanctuary Fortress which is new material for me.
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Nov 7, 2022 23:56
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No Dignity posted:Come on man, Diablo and the Cyberdemon are both demons and that's about it. Hollow Knight is literally a nameless wander exploring the desicated ruins of an old kingdom, gradually uncovering how the world fell to ruin and claiming the Lordsouls to unseal the lock placed on final boss that will lead to a resolution of the stagnating status quo. You even have a cast of quirky NPCs with their own agendas and quests travelling through the land whose stories you can intersect with and a Firelink style hub where the last few sane survivors have conregated to form a small community and base of operations for the player. It is practically a bugsona Dark Souls fic Tbh I always thought lumping hollow knight in as a soulslike was a stretch, but these posts itt have made me come around to the idea. tildes fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Nov 8, 2022 |
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Nov 8, 2022 00:07
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No Dignity posted:Come on man, Diablo and the Cyberdemon are both demons and that's about it. Hollow Knight is literally a nameless wander exploring the desicated ruins of an old kingdom, gradually uncovering how the world fell to ruin and claiming the Lordsouls to unseal the lock placed on final boss that will lead to a resolution of the stagnating status quo. You even have a cast of quirky NPCs with their own agendas and quests travelling through the land whose stories you can intersect with and a Firelink style hub where the last few sane survivors have conregated to form a small community and base of operations for the player. It is practically a bugsona Dark Souls fic Much like how Bug Fables is a bugsona version of Paper Mario. I am all in favor of more bugsona games.
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Nov 8, 2022 00:11
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I'm not even dumping on Hollow Knight, it's a great game! But it's like noting that Kill Bill took a few cues from 70s grindhouse revenge films!
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Nov 8, 2022 00:12
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I thought Hollow Knight was 'Souls-like' in more than just how you have to get your currency you dropped at your last death, without dying. I mean, there IS that, plus... - exploration that eventually unlocks shortcuts between early and late areas - different builds but essentially the same gameplay - the need to be careful, aware, and sometimes patient when dealing with bosses who could easily wipe the floor with you if you make only a few mistakes. - weird and ominous story, told in pieces, sometimes through equipment info - literally the name, 'hollow' knight Where Dark Souls just makes places difficult with higher tier enemies, Hollow Knight pulls out its MV roots and makes places physically unreachable without newer abilities.
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Nov 8, 2022 00:12
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Souls games are classicvanias with backtracking. The metroidvanias dumped the earlier emphasis on positioning and having the players commit to attacks.
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Nov 8, 2022 00:12
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Soulslike has come to mean any game that's stupidly hard just to be hard, and where the most commonly accpeted means to progess is to git gud.
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Nov 8, 2022 00:13
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No Dignity posted:... and claiming the Lordsouls to unseal the lock placed on final boss that will lead to a resolution of the stagnating status quo. There are definitely huge similarities, not tryin to deny it.
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Nov 8, 2022 00:32
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Kheldarn posted:Soulslike has come to mean any game that's stupidly hard just to be hard, and where the most commonly accpeted means to progess is to git gud. Hollow Knight is much harder than any Souls game so does that mean that HK is more souls than souls?  I'm highly biased since I have like 1.5k hours between DeS, DS1-3,BB and ER and I played about 70% of HK but I've never had my rear end kicked as much in souls as I did in HK.
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Nov 8, 2022 00:53
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Mostly it's Hollow Knight's tone and having basically the same setup as most every From Software game (and a few elements that make it more specific to Dark Souls as opposed to like Lost Kingdoms or King's Field), but there's some aspect of thinking critically about melee combat that makes people think of Dark Souls. A lot of the way NPCs work resemble some in Dark Souls, but the only direct parallel is Siegmeyer. And one of the things that's fairly unique about Dark Souls is how it will take moments to really depict the sad beauty of a ruined world, and that's something that Hollow Knight leans into even stronger and sadder. The game is very pretty, and the way that every save point is a bench is really calming. It really takes full advantage of 2D animation for every character, and every screenshot looks fantastic.    I think at around the midgame where you get the dreamnail the game starts to go in a different direction aesthetically from Dark Souls, but it still has some heavy Dark Souls themes to it, and the aesthetic is deep enough in the game's DNA that it goes back to the original gamejam game before it was even made into a sidescroller, Hungry Knight.
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Nov 8, 2022 01:12
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Kheldarn posted:Soulslike has come to mean any game that's stupidly hard just to be hard, and where the most commonly accpeted means to progess is to git gud. Tetris: The Grandmasters is a soulslike.
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Nov 8, 2022 01:43
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Kheldarn posted:Soulslike has come to mean any game that's stupidly hard just to be hard, and where the most commonly accpeted means to progess is to git gud. Not arguing with you, I think thats fair, but its such a weird non-genre that people are obsessed with using for... I dont even know some times. Seems like it has more to do with people thinking the games difficulty is something special even when it isn't. There have always been hard games. Expecting your players to die a bunch doesn't make something difficult, that just makes dying part of the progression of learning. I will say souls games are great for rage clips though, that shits hilarious.
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Nov 8, 2022 02:54
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Lol the ogre boss in Ghost Song keeps one-shotting me because the dodge iframes are still not working so I just take infinite damage in its model in a second e: I think the combat's just buggy in general - tried again with the hulking fist's invincible downpound on him and we both started just taking damage each frame until I died first. It kept taking damage as the game reloaded. On respawn the ground pound hit the save point RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Nov 8, 2022 |
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Nov 8, 2022 04:02
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I think there’s largely a few aspects to a game’s design that make me draw Souls comparisons. 1) Extremely dangerous combat, particularly if healing options are limited and leave you vulnerable while you do them. 2) Loss of money and particularly exp on death, particularly if it’s gone for good if you fail a corpse run. 3) Prominent unlockable shortcuts built into map design - as a function of the map design itself and less so “you got the double jump now you can directly go up to that platform and skip the long way around”. 4) Storytelling via inference and item descriptions/lore and not cutscenes or verbal plot dumps. 5) Character death having some sort of tangible influence on the world state. It’s certainly a descriptor that’s abused a lot, but some games in the metroidvania space do have these vibes as a result. Moonscars in particular really hit these points for me lately; the currency loss on death, the map design relying mostly on unlockable gates and elevators to ease progress on later visits, the combat lethality. Probably most significantly, the fact that death basically made the world a far more dangerous yet rewarding place to exist in by triggering the Moonhunger world state; you got more currency and could find hidden items, but far more lethal versions of enemies could spawn in place of their normal variants. (Much like undead state in DeSo, this could be reverted via consumables or killing bosses).
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Nov 8, 2022 04:34
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Tortolia posted:1) Extremely dangerous combat, particularly if healing options are limited and leave you vulnerable while you do them. I hate games that do this. #4 is one of the reasons I don't really care for Final Fantasy 8. Tortolia posted:2) Loss of money and particularly exp on death, particularly if it’s gone for good if you fail a corpse run. I've played enough roguelikes that the Loss Of Money On Death doesn't bother me at all. And as someone who played City Of Heroes for years, XP Debt got me used to what would become Loss Of XP On Death in other games. Tortolia posted:3) Prominent unlockable shortcuts built into map design - as a function of the map design itself and less so “you got the double jump now you can directly go up to that platform and skip the long way around”. These two don't really bother me.
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Nov 8, 2022 05:20
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Tortolia posted:1) Extremely dangerous combat, particularly if healing options are limited and leave you vulnerable while you do them. Another big signifier is combat that resists button mashing and requires some additional degree of tactical assessment and/or investment. Stamina meters, uncancelable animations, maybe an emphasis on careful blocking/parrying. Though admittedly even within From's own output this varies drastically. There's also the mighty dodge roll. If a newer game makes a big fuss about using your dodge to go through enemy attacks with iframes, then there's decent odds it's drawing from the Souls games, even if they didn't necessarily invent the concept outright. Really the secret is that "soulslike" potentially means a dozen different things hence why people always end up arguing and litigating the term. There's inevitably some pretty big grey areas to deal with when newer games tack on random bits of soulslike trappings. Like, HK clearly has that DNA in there. Dunno if I'd actually call it a straight-up soulslike tho.  Meanwhile, I think SotN is actually pretty close to being a prototypical soulslike essentially by coincidence.
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Nov 8, 2022 05:44
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You're a soulslike if every character speaks through ominous laughs
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Nov 8, 2022 05:47
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RBA Starblade posted:You're a soulslike if every character speaks through ominous laughs
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Nov 8, 2022 07:27
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I can't really say I liked any part of HK in retrospect: the healing builds being a dead end like Fuzz mentioned is annoying BS, but along with the rest of DS-inspired mechanics, I really loving hated the nonsense with the maps requiring you to buy one to even be able to see it and not having them update until you use a bench as well as the fact that there's no boss lifebars of any kind. Few things destroy my tolerance towards an NPC as quickly as serving as a source of timewasting cutscenes in an rear end in a top hat bossfight you need to retry tons of times and that can't end until they steal the kill. Also, if I wanted to play Super Meat Boy, I'd play SMB.
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Nov 8, 2022 08:32
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Hollow Knight is quite good, but there are a few things about it that I really dislike. It's very much a solid 8/10 game for me. Granted, I only played it the one time, but I also don't think that replaying the game would improve my opinion of the game.
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Nov 8, 2022 08:36
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Schwarzwald posted:Souls games are classicvanias with backtracking. The metroidvanias dumped the earlier emphasis on positioning and having the players commit to attacks. I wouldn't say this is exactly right, but it does get to what I feel is the heart of the difference. Like, obviously the definition is fuzzy, between it being a reference to one game, being arguably a subgenre to another genre, and genres being weird in general. Sort of an "I know it when I play it" thing But I would say a Soulslike is a game with: A Metroidvania structure, but not necessarily side-scrolling RPG Elements A cost of some sort for every attack, be it stamina or commitment A sense of weight and at least somewhat methodical pacing Platforming is not the main focus, although it can be present Optional, more appearance: Dark tone Environmental storytelling Difficulty Hollow Knight has all the optional stuff, it is a game like Dark Souls. But the RPG elements are arguable, the movement is light and attacks are fast and cheap, and it is so platforming focused that even the combat is platforming, with the pogoing off of enemies being, like, the best loving move. It's a kind of easy assumption to make, because Hollow Knight has all of the outward Dark Souls appearance stuff, but at it's heart, it is not a Soulslike. (According to my fuzzy definition for a fuzzy genre--still, I do not know how you can call a game with a protagonist as nimble as The Knight a Soulslike when you play it, the game feel is like, almost the opposite) --edit: Also yes every side-scrolling platformer Soulslike is also a Metroidvania, and honestly if you don't require the side-scrolling and platforming for the definition, every Soulslike in general is a Metroidvania. Captain France fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Nov 8, 2022 |
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Nov 8, 2022 08:57
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Soulslike games are not necessarily Metroidvanias, though they do tend to have a lot of similarities. I agree with Schwarzwald here, they're Classicvanias more than anything else. They're just Classicvanias where instead of choosing between several characters with defined moveset, you define your character over the course of play. They also have shortcuts in addition to checkpoints, because that's fun and makes the rewards for exploring feel more meaningful than just finding a full heal in a wall.
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Nov 8, 2022 09:37
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The Souls games have the looping, interwoven map design of Metroidvanias, but the itemization isn't there at all. There's a couple of exceptions to quibble over, but the grand majority of key items are...keys, rather than cool new abilities that make you go "hmm what if I used this back at the start of the game?". It's funny because something like Salt and Sanctuary, despite being as blatant a 2D souls clone as you can get, also threw in some of those making it more of a MV than its direct inspiration.
John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Nov 8, 2022 |
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Nov 8, 2022 11:59
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This conversation is mainly making me want to replay HK, which is still probably my favorite game in the genre. But I get how some aspects of it turn people off.
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Nov 8, 2022 13:42
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Sounds like Ghost Song needs a few balancing or bug fix patches? Also is it like the Metroid games where you're able to take a bunch of hits while exploring and it doesn't really matter?
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Nov 8, 2022 13:46
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Mercury_Storm posted:Sounds like Ghost Song needs a few balancing or bug fix patches? Also is it like the Metroid games where you're able to take a bunch of hits while exploring and it doesn't really matter? I haven’t seen any bugs, but a few people mentioned steam achievements and I’m playing via the Humble client, so could be some weirdness there. But yeah, the balance itself is not overly tuned well and there’s some definite cheese options. You can take some hits while exploring but there’s not a lot of health sitting around unlike how you could often farm respawning enemies for health in Metroid. To go back to the Souls thing, though, enemies don’t respawn until you rest at a save point, so it’s more about overall resource management. It’s generally not an issue if you use your tools well and keep an eye on the environment for dormant enemies that will aggro you.
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Nov 8, 2022 14:06
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Mercury_Storm posted:Sounds like Ghost Song needs a few balancing or bug fix patches? Also is it like the Metroid games where you're able to take a bunch of hits while exploring and it doesn't really matter? Nope, it's like Dark Souls where healing is limited and rare, but recharges at bonfires. There aren't a lot of bonfires and most are badly placed. It also has a hollowing mechanic that basically doesn't matter because anything that'll really kill you will kill you in three hits tops (so 40-60 damage) and it takes like 5 max hp at a time, and one enemy's worth of killing to solve - but you can only do this at special locations. You do get a healing consumable you can buy but the game doesn't pause in the inventory so it's more to use mid-exploration or before a boss. Also it's bugged and will keep going if you die lol Balance wise I don't think the game's that bad. A few weapons are pretty useless or situational, but every boss is basically an endurance test. You're not managing your weapon's heat as much as magdumping, waiting, then doing it again (and sometimes bonking them with the melee for bonus damage but with the bad hitboxes and no grace period between damage on everything this is a gamble you might auto-lose). As a result the game is trivially easy until you run into anything at all that requires use of dodge or evasion then it ramps up into frustration. It really just needs a bug patch. It crashes often (especially on Game Pass), there's bugs around i-frames and the dash, and sometimes both you and an enemy will get stuck triggering your weapon's hurtboxes until one or both of you is dead. Since you restart at the last bonfire (which are again badly placed) it mostly just makes things aggravating at times. I'd definitely give it a go though. It's really just underbaked but it's fun to go through.
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Nov 8, 2022 14:07
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Damage adds up. You have a limited number of heals (like dark souls!) and occasionally find another healing vessel thing. I think I have 6 now. There are no health drops from enemies. There is an equipable upgrade that causes flowers to randomly appear, if you grab them you get healed for like 3 hp. They are random so you cannot really depend on them, though they spawn fairly frequently. What this amounts to is you will be moving from left to right when suddenly a flower appears behind you, so you turn around and pick it up for 3hp, then continue for 5 seconds until another one spawns and you turn around to pick it up. Kind of annoying
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Nov 8, 2022 14:09
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WHY BONER NOW posted:Damage adds up. You have a limited number of heals (like dark souls!) and occasionally find another healing vessel thing. I think I have 6 now. There are no health drops from enemies. Oh, that's what that is supposed to be doing lol
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Nov 8, 2022 14:11
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https://www.mcvuk.com/development-news/when-we-made-hollow-knight/ there's this interview with the hollow knight devs where they say they hadn't actually played much dark souls before hollow knight released and they kept getting the comparison, so it wasn't much of a direct influence on them
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Nov 8, 2022 15:11
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No Dignity posted:Honestly it's wild you don't think it's a Soulslike, from the moment I picked it up it just screamed to me the devs though 'what if Dark Souls was a Metroid?' Dark Souls already is a Metroidvania.
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Nov 8, 2022 15:32
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Forgive me as I actually haven't played much Dark Souls, but is there any ability-based gating in the world design or is it all enemy level-based "discouragement"? Dandara was the first 2D Souslike Metroidvania I played and while it was pretty apparent in the design of the original portion, the free expansion that added something like 50% more content straight up references Dark Souls, Super Metroid, and SotN.
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Nov 8, 2022 16:23
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ExcessBLarg! posted:Forgive me as I actually haven't played much Dark Souls, but is there any ability-based gating in the world design or is it all enemy level-based "discouragement"? There's a few keys and an area that's a pain to fully explore without the lava ring (which you get on the main path in the same area), imo It's no more of a Metroidvania than Baldur's Gate or World of Warcraft
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Nov 8, 2022 16:28
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Dark Souls is actually a Doom-like
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Nov 8, 2022 17:09
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If you just want to see the side stories and exploration in Ghost Song and not get overly bogged down in the nuances of combat, make liberal use of the special weapon that launches eggs. You shoot them like grenades (so you can aim them up, down or offscreen), they hatch into invulnerable stinging bugs that attack enemies for like 10s, and do a surprising amount of damage for how minor their power and energy costs are. I’ve beaten multiple bosses just launching swarms of bugs at range and running away if the boss actually approaches.
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Nov 8, 2022 17:18
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I've seen a bunch of people mention they've run into crashes or other bugs but I've played the game for about six hours now and haven't run into any on the gamepass version, so your experience may vary.
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Nov 8, 2022 17:30
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On PS5, I haven't seen any crashes or bugs either. Instant loading between rooms, too.
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Nov 8, 2022 17:31
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