Do We Need a Soulslike Genre?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 มิ.ย. 2024
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The rise of games inspired by Dark Souls has led some to suggest that Dark Souls invented a whole new genre of games. In this video, lets look at the ramifications of turning a game into a genre.
=== Sources and Resources ===
Nioh Suggests That Dark Souls Actually Invented a New Genre | Waypoint
waypoint.vice.com/en_us/artic...
Berling Interpretation | Rogue Basin
www.roguebasin.com/index.php?t...
Screw the Berlin Interpretation! | Darren Grey
www.gamesofgrey.com/blog/?p=403
Picture in a Frame | Amr Al-Aaser on Medium
/ picture-in-a-frame
Metroidvania List | VG Musuem
www.vgmuseum.com/mrp/multi/Ess...
Did we make a Metroidvania? | Two Tribes
twotribes.com/message/did-we-m...
The Lost Soul Arts of Demon's Souls | Matthewmatosis
• The Lost Soul Arts of ...
Bloodborne: You are the experience points (origin of “action warm-ups”) | Gamasutra
www.gamasutra.com/view/news/24...
=== Chapters ===
00:00 - Intro
01:28 - How Genres are Born
02:17 - Roguelikes
05:55 - Metroidvanias
07:36 - Immersive Sims
09:52 - How Genres Can Stifle Innovation
10:50 - Do We Need a Soulslike Genre?
12:41 - Conclusion
12:59 - Patreon Credits
=== Games Shown ===
Lords of the Fallen (2014)
The Surge (2017)
Nioh (2017)
Salt and Sanctuary (2016)
Death’s Gambit (2018)
Wolfenstein 3D (1992)
DOOM (1993)
PowerSlave (1996)
Heretic (1994)
Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995)
Duke Nukem 3D (1996)
Half-Life (1998)
Unreal (1998)
GoldenEye 007 (1997)
SiN (1998)
System Shock 2 (1999)
Dark Souls (2011)
Rogue (1980)
NetHack (1987)
Moria (1988)
Angband (1990)
Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer (1995)
DOOM (2016)
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007)
Superhot (2013)
Fallout 4 (2015)
BioShock (2007)
Devil Daggers (2016)
Tales of Maj'Eyal (2012)
Flinthook (2017)
Crypt of the NecroDancer (2015)
FTL: Faster Than Light (2012)
Spelunky (2012)
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (2014)
Nuclear Throne (2015)
Strafe (2017)
Invisible, Inc. (2015)
Enter the Gungeon (2016)
Monolith (2017)
GoNNER (2017)
Don't Starve (2013)
Rogue Legacy (2013)
Hyper Light Drifter (2016)
Darksiders (2010)
Ittle Dew 2 (2016)
Rime (2017)
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (2011)
Okami (2006)
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (2014)
868-Hack (2013)
Downwell (2015)
Axiom Verge (2015)
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (2001)
Song of the Deep (2016)
Super Metroid (1994)
Hollow Knight (2017)
Shadow Complex (2009)
Guacamelee (2013)
Ori and the Blind Forest (2015)
Toki Tori 2+ (2013)
Blaster Master (1988)
Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (1989)
Deus Ex (2000)
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011)
Thief: The Dark Project (1998)
Demon's Souls (2009)
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (1992)
Dishonored 2 (2016)
Prey (2017)
Hitman (2016)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)
LawBreakers (2017)
Overwatch (2016)
Team Fortress 2 (2007)
Dark Souls III (2016)
Let It Die (2016)
Dead Cells (2017)
Bloodborne (2015)
Arms (2017)
Tekken 7 (2015)
The King of Fighters XIV (2016)
Injustice: Gods Among Us (2013)
Resident Evil (2002)
Alien: Isolation (2014)
Dead Space (2008)
Soma (2015)
Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010)
=== Credits ===
Music used in this episode
Lee Rosevere - Music for Podcasts
leerosevere.bandcamp.com
=== Subtitles ===
Contribute translated subtitles - amara.org/v/C3BEy/ - เกม
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This video about game design is the Dark Souls of videos about game design.
0x20 you are right, bonus points to you for triggering at least one moron :D
Ephelizard What is your profile picture? It's so cute!
It's a sugar glider :3
Ephelizard That's the cutest thing ever.
Ephelizard this vid is about game desire I thought it was about putting me to sleep
It's really frustrating going into Steam or other online game stores and having the "RPG" section be filled with every game that happens to have leveling and/or a skill tree.
Same here with roguelikes. Although "RPG" is about as dead as you can be as far as meanings of a category go...
Mordalon well, to be fair RPG is kinda of a shit not well defined genre besides the Experience and Stats. I mean, if you pick an undeniable Western RPG and compare it to a undeniable Japanese RPG, the only thing that they have in common is really the Exp and stats, at least that's how I see it
Especially because the term "Role-Playing" refers to acting or making choices and playing your role as a team-member, like one always does in Dungeons and Dragons, which it was named after, but most "RPGs" are single player and may or may not have choices.
My favorite RPG:"Yoshi's Island'
I just love "role-playing" as a dinosaur with shoes.
Totally agree here. Just look at Madden NFL Football. EA has already added leveling player stats and Madden 18 will offer a mode to follow a high school player's rise to the NFL. How long before it's considered an RPG?
11:38 and ironically the only guys creative enough to make a soulslike game entirely different than the landmark ones...is From themselves, with Sekiro
FromSoftwareLike genre
I kinda feel like sekiro is too similar to dark souls
@@commanderleo neither game has an open world design, both are linear, there are different paths u can take, but still linear
@@commanderleo r u brain damaged?
冯裕洋
Sekiro is way different than dark souls
The combat is way different doesn't have a stamina bar and it's mostly deflecting and damaging the enemy posture
You don't lose all your souls once you die and then go back to get them but half of your money and EXP disappear
It focuses heavily on stealth in sekiro something you never see in dark souls
And you can't level up by using money but by using the memory of the bosses you beat
Imo the key take away from Souls-inspired games I see are:
- Well placed checkpoints between hordes of enemies, which you need to activate manually.
- You lose experience/currency on death, which you may collect after respawning, from the same location you lost it.
- The surprise factor from enemy placements with maybe some subtle foreshadowing preceding it.
- Combat mostly designed around 1v1 fights.
- Enemies respawn after saving at a checkpoint, or leaving and entering an area.
- "Door does not open from this side".
Aka, one of my favorite "SoulsLike" games, NOT from From Software, but Bandai Namco, Code Vein. Sure, they have an option, (not originally mentioned as an option, but an option nonetheless,) to go with or without a Partner, which actually has good AI, but it ticks off everything in this list, has it's own lore, and that lore even ties in to another one of their games, which ISN'T based on Dark Souls.
So basically Hollow knight is a soul game ? 😅
@@xellanchaos5386 Code Vein is a bad Souls clone imo.
Isn't that just action RPG with a fixed save systems?
Try the old Runescape with permadeath. Has got everything you point out but no saving.
Even better right?
@@artimist0315 soulsvania kek
You guys remember when we used to call FPS games "DOOM clones"?
Me neither. I was a small child.
I remember when Doom was mentioned to be like Wolfenstein 3d.
It was doom-like around here in France.
I didn’t even exist
No. But i do remember when open world sandbox games were all called "GTA clones".
@Steven Murphy It actually happened.
>it's just a renamed versions of estus flask from dark souls
>health potion
>health potion
@@seemoore9175 health potion
health potion
Not 4chan
Yeah a health potion is obviously just a renamed estus flask and not a item name you see in almost every fantasy game with a health bar nah what ya talking about
I think he meant an item that has limited uses, but more uses can be gained from upgrades, and all uses are regained upon resting. Where as in most games, Once you use a health potion, That particular potion is used up and gone.
its been 2 years and i am extremely disappointed that *"souls em up"* didnt take off as the genre name
sure
i will exclusively refer to these in that way now
Because the beat and shoot in ****** 'em ups is an action you perform, you don't soul anyone up in souls game, maybe if you count spells like Soul Spear as souling someone up but that's not the core of the genre.
@@night1952 u soul up ur character. Its part of the rpg system they all have. Gotta think outside the box with the name
I prefer " roll & soul "
HOLD UP i just realized.
*Hardcore Minecraft is a roguelike*
Oh yeah youre right!
I know right?
Same i was thinking about that mid way through
Early on Minecraft was intended to be a 3D roguelike similar to Dwarf Fortress
No, Because Minecraft is a sandbox game cause you're allowed to manipulate the world to liking. Unlike Roguelikes which consist "in n out" approach to levels generated.
It's no surprise it took the Dark Souls' developer to innovate their own design. Bloodborne is still the same game in essence, but the simple switch to offensive over defensive mechanics was enough to make it original in it's own right. The issue I have with games like The Surge is that it doesn't justify some of it's mechanics such as respawning. Dark Souls builds the bonfires and death into it's lore while The Surge just happens to have it.
That is the biggest problem for me with Souls-likes and the biggest area they stumble in - I enjoy them a lot and I think Lords of the Fallen and The Surge are bloody great but the hand waving of lore for certain mechanics is bloody frustrating. Why can my character revive? How are my healing items refilling? What's the rest of the game's world like? It's infuriating how they skip out on something Dark Souls and Demon's Souls did so well.
Ryan Hollinger Exactly, this guy who made the video just doesn't get it. It's not just the mechanics it was the feeling and the world it built with it
You keep posting about how the video creator doesn't "get it" but I think it might be you who can't see the forest for the trees. People keep playing BECAUSE of the mechanics. The world and the atmosphere are a large part of the appeal for the first couple runs, after that you play for the gameplay.
You can go on and on about how important the "feeling" is, but at the end of the day, the community exists because of the appeal of the mechanics. You also ignore completely how important the mechanics are to the over-all feeling. That's why it's a great game, because the individual elements aren't distinct, they all come together in support each other in a cohesive whole.
EvTav Were talking about what makes a good game, and a genre definer. Nioh has good gameplay, doesn't mean it's a good game. And people certainly didn't just play dark souls for the gameplay. Ds1 pvp is dead, ds2 pvp is dead, and ds3 is close to dying. There's only so much you can do with a linear non radiant campaign. Not even Enb plays dark souls anymore. There maybe a tiny few hold outs that think dark souls gameplay is what made it amazing but they are leaving out the whole pie.
EvTav Stop only reading what you want to read. I NEVER said that any part should be prioritized above another. I'm annoyed he thinks that important parts like environment story telling should be left out if you are trying to make a game as good as dark souls.
Soulslike games like Lords of the Fallen, The Surge, Nioh, Crash Bandicoot N.sane Trilogy
That's the joke.
+Knight Warrior
It is. Nothing in Souls challenged me as much as Crash 1 did.
Isaac woosh
Still don't get why the Crash=Dark Souls meme even exists. Crash really isn't _that_ hard as far as oldschool platformers go.
Even as a kid i found the first three Crash games easy, with only a couple of levels being somewhat challenging. Some people are really blowing the difficulty of these games out of proportion.
a soulslike series is just a reverse dynasty warriors, where you're able to get flung into the air like paper and the enemies are the OP avatars of gods.
“Can anybody provide me with a decent breather?”
Imagine that mmo. You're just one amongst hundreds and there's just one AI super enemy out there that can tear through multiple people like they're nothing.
@@propheinx2250 Really gives you a different perspective
@@propheinx2250 great idea
@@propheinx2250 so normal mmos and mmo bosses?
"stamina management" laughs in sekiro
I immediately thought of that too. I think the poise bar was a cool alternative resource management.
When others are busy copying the souls game, the actual company that creates dark soul actually invent a whole new game mechanic that is even better than before
@@oldcowbb that's not really a new mechanic though
All they did was "reverse" the stamina bar in a sense
Made it so it breaks when it fills up rather than being empty
@@DeeMulaah
I'm pretty sure that's a different mechanic then. They serve different purposes, I think. Sekiro plays a lot one would play For Honor, and Dark Souls is, well, Dark Souls
@@LTinator you can call if "different" if you want to but it's not to me
There's is pretty much no difference between attacking to break an enemy's stamina bar to leave them vulnerable and deal a heavy hit or insta kill and attacking to fill up an enemy's "poise bar" to leave them vulnerable and insta kill
You're doing the exact same thing
The big difference between Doom and Dark Souls is that Doom spawned an entire new genre where as Dark Souls is spawning a new subgenre much like how Metroid spawned a subgenre of the 2d action platformer. This is the big reason that we had to transition away from calling FPS' "Doom Clones" but never had to transition away from calling Metroidvania games Metroidvania games.
Doom spawned the FPS genre because that is the game that popularized it and was generally the mold for later intries for a time. If you want to go back to prototype FPS' then something even earlier than Wolfenstein would be Mazewar.
Doom gave birth to the modern cognition of PC era of gaming/market that later was translated in consoles markets.
now for a game to be so popular to deserve it's own genre it's hard, especially with the "washing"of such games from light-critics ignoring actual qualities of games from a social, historical and artistic point of view.
if not we would have "Nocturne-like" genre (survival horror with fixed camera and focus on action) or "just cause-like" (open world with focus on destruction)...
instead we have Resident Evil-clones (that ironically is a clone itself) and GTA-Clone
lol if Wolfenstein was the trailblazer, not Doom, why were so many games called Doom Clones instead of Wolfenstein Clones?
You're right in that Wolfenstein was a prototype to Doom, but that doesn't mean it's the progenature of the genre as a whole. Think of it like Minecraft versions; Wolfenstein was Beta 1.7 and Doom was Minecraft release version.
Sure if you go by that definition then clearly it was Mazewar, which came out nearly 20 years before even Wolfenstein. Under your definition a ton of random games have claim to being the father of FPS, but when you take popularization into account one clear winner comes out which clearly had the most impact on the genre.
I want to call the new genre of dark souls roll'em'ups.
420 praise it.
LMAO
Rolling sim
......you sir......are a genius
And I was the one to bring the likes to 420
@@mysterio1967 and i was the one to destroy this achievement
I remember when people were still calling Demon's Souls a hack-'n-slash. My how time flies. To me these "bonfire games" have always been a combination of several other genres, namely hack-'n-slash, metroidvania, and rpg.
Plus a good story. That's one of the most important things and why most souls like are shitty.
They have no mystery, mystery is cool.
Except we're still in the clone phase. Once that settles down, we may find that there is no common thread except the hack 'n' slash. I wouldn't go quite that far but I think the only criteria are stamina management, animation priority and persistence on death. You add those features onto any third person hack 'n' slash (and rebalance damage, etc. so it doesn't feel shit) and the _primary gameplay loop_ will feel like Dark Souls. That's why I prefer the term "tactical/strategic hack 'n' slash".
I like "bonfire games". Haha that's a better name
That's interesting! The combat works as a hack 'n slash, the story and level management work as a rpg, and the connected world works as a metroidvania, I never thought in that way until now.
Except a lot of them aren't metroidvainas anymore that was mainly the first dark souls and some of it's clones
It's funny to me that dark souls is considered the first in it's genre, when it used lots of existing conventions of games in the action RPG genre. I think it's helpful to compare dark souls to a game like Kingdom Hearts and see what they have in common. The save-point system in KH is actually extremely similar to bonfires. The MP system for casting isn't the same as attunement slots, but is very similar to FP in DS3. Potions are very similar to how life gems function is DS2. Items are scattered around a level, and are meant to draw they player's eye and guide them in the right direction. You have multiple branching paths you can go down (in KH this is world selection), but the difficulty of one path might encourage you to try a different path first. The big difference between the two is how the combat is handled, how experience is gained, and how a character is built. The biggest similarity is how an individual level is built, and how level design is used to naturally guide a player in a particular way. They both also have very weird plots that are convoluted, and a player might not understand the deeper lore of the game the first time through. In addition to that, there is a simpler surface version of the plot that is pretty easy to get. Another thing they both do is use large beast type boss fights in addition to person type boss fights with similar abilities to the player. There is quite a bit of overlap between the boss designs, and KH1 even has a dodge roll! They are remarkably similar in a lot of regards, but kingdom hearts is rarely talked about in the same breath as dark souls. This might be because of the tonal disparity, or because kingdom hearts suffered from a lot of bad design choices that were a product of it's time, and dark souls players liked dark souls specifically because a lot of these mistakes were absent.
I think the most important thing Fromsoft brings to the table when it comes to action JRPGs is level design. This really clicked for me when I recently did a blind play through of bloodborne, as I could easily navigate it's world just by being familiar with the conventions of From's level design.
Souls-like I think is a bad name for a genre, considering how vague the requirement to be a souls-like is.
I mean what would be considered a souls-like? Rolling? Stamina? General gameplay loop of bonfire -> small enemies -> bonfire -> boss -> repeat? RPG elements with souls? Level Design? Difficulty?
Soulsborne doesn't deserve its own genre, because in truth it's just an ARPG, like any other ARPGs out there. It's not much different that any ARPGs out there. Probably the most unique part of a souls game would be the levelling system, since you can tune your characters towards a specific build (magic oriented, melee oriented, etc), but even then I'm absolutely sure there are some old CRPGs which has this levelling system.
@@ZX3000GT1it’s defined by turn based combat in real time action and limitation management on top of other limitations that make combos non existent
I've had this discussion a lot with friends, most imitators of an iconic game try to make what they view it as, and usually miss the mark on what made it so good to begin with. You end up with a slightly empty game that is evocative of the original, but leaves you thinking "why don't I just play that instead".
That being said I think Dark Souls and Bloodborne encompass what you were saying about taking a concept and making it a genre. I played both to completion and they still feel like entirely different games to me, you just have to look at some different boxes.
This is how they would look in my book:
Dark Souls
- Intentional combat (make your swings count, and don't get too risky or you'll be punished)
- Resource management (Set number of flasks, need them to last from bonfire to bonfire)
- Fair patterned bosses (Bosses have set routines with obvious areas to attack)
- Gear Weight management (Do I want more defense and less mobility, or more mobility and less defense)
- Structural level design (Levels are designed with some semblance of realism and connect logically)
- Sharp Increasing power level (start out weak, but get stronger in power and in sustainability as game goes on)
- Under-doggedness (fights leave player feeling disadvantaged and afraid, shown in victory message "victory achieved")
Bloodborne
- Aggressive combat (Taking risks is rewarded, as health can be regained by attacking more)
- Situational preparedness (all items have set quantities, and bringing the right items affects success dramatically)
- High-difficulty bosses (Bosses attack with intensity and rarely give the player clear open windows to strike)
- Gear optimization management (Gear has no weight, but bringing the right clothes/runes/weapons into combat is important)
- Dreamlike level design (Levels are made with little sense of realism and do not connect as logically)
- Light slope power level (Start out powerful, end feeling slightly more powerful, end bosses still 1-3 shot you regardless)
- Power fantasy (You're out to hunt your prey, not survive against it shown in victory message "prey slaughtered")
This is just a quick write up, but hopefully it shows how two games that start with the same concepts are approached and feel very different from each other. Ironically both are put out by the same studio, but hopefully other developers will catch onto the nuance and leave us with some interesting new places to push this potential genre.
bloodborne is not a powerfantasy. everything in the game is cohesively designed to make you feel contrasted by higher and higher levels of cosmic horror.
power fantasies makes you play out repressed feelings with empowerment ("Rus-fo-da" in skyrim).
bloodborne keeps you facing insanity without much power or abilities.
Or somebody make a new game but everyone calls it some genre it isn't just because it happens to have one aspect that for some reason is fucking copyrighted to a single game. If it's a large map to backtrack NO SHIT do I want a map telling me where I am. It's not metroidvania it's fucking Doom, they had the same thing and it's a simple fucking tool that's common no shit sensical to have in a large game. Do you want to play Ori And The Blind Forest without the damn map just so people stop calling it metroidvania!
don't know why, but I think Mark Brown may like spelunky
there's always a spelunky in every video. ahaha
what makes you think that?
Who is this spelunky? I like romance
This is amazing insight. Thank you!
ok
You mean insight 99? 👀
10:16 small something i would like to add. Once there is a formula the marketing team will use that too predict sales. In other words games that do not follow the formula will be regarded as dangerous investment.
Lot's of people seem to be getting the wrong idea of a genre. It is a descriptor, something used to describe games of similar values. I would rather link a small set of games together rather then chuck them on the pile of 90% of all games that is "Action Adventure", because that isn't helping anybody.
Genre is just a broad category, that's why you have sub-genres. That's like complaining that all novels fall under "Fiction".
Well, action adventure does imply certain qualities, like very involved gameplay and a certain level of exploration. Which not all games have.
well there is "species" just below "genus"
It's the very essence of the descriptor that hinders innovation and gameplay development, not necessarily that we associate games within a certain category based in similar categories. However I'm not certain to what extent a game can be innovated beyond what games have the force of influence during a period of development. I would assume that there's a lot of bandwagon jumping on successful game designs which directly associates with the lack of innovation within a certain genre pool. In addition I don't know how easy it actually is to create a game which is completely new barring the basic principles derived from precursor games which were successful; there is a mixture of economic and intellectual pressures which inhibit the growth of innovation.
Genres don't hinder innovation, setting out to make "a genre game" can though (although to be fair it can also do the opposite, if you set out to make a new game in a certain style but consciously bring in some fresh gimmick or spin to set it apart). That's on the designer side though, for the users genres are a powerful tool to allow people to find more of the things they like and avoid more of the things they dislike. So as long as the terms are intelligible and widely used enough there's really nothing at all wrong with bringing in more genre names to unify more sub-sets of works.
"When we reduce a game down to it's constituent components, dev's can copy them and end up with pretty much the same game as the original developer, but if we consider why those features were the way they were, and what sort of experience they lead to, devs can find different ways to give gamers that same feeling" - Mark Brown, 2017.
This is something I've been speaking about lately, especially with the MMO Genre. There are lots of games which try to be World of Warcraft. But very few actually manage it. Weirdly, even Wildstar which is made by a lot of Vanilla WoW Developers, also misses why certain elements were addicting and successful (I actually wrote an article on Wildstar Housing about this)
The problem is mmo's are one of, if not the most capital-intensive genre to break into. Indie developers can get by and make a lengthy, story driven game without relying on AAA voice talent or motion capture, and it'll still be good, because those things aren't crucial to the experience, but only big name companies can afford the server costs and technical support staff, and the plethora other costs an mmo incurs.
So the only ones left making mmo's are corporations. Indie devs make games with passion, because they want to. Corporations make games because they want to make money, which isn't inherently evil, but it means that they're constantly going off a formula to take as little risk as possible, and given mmo's substantial investment as it is, no company is willing to take the dive and try to break new ground on something that could fail. That's why every single korean mmo is pretty much exactly the same thing, it's an industry unto itself: Make an mmo cheaply and effectively, with shiny graphics and cosmetic wing accessories on a cash shop, throw in at least one "groundbreaking" new feature (tera's real time cobat, FLYFF's flying, blade and souls slightly different real time combat) to entice the audience
TL;DR mmo's are a genre run by fiscally responsible businessmen with no margin for creativity or risk
lol. just when i started reading the comment, Mark said exactly the Same thing.
This channel is basically Skillshare game design but on TH-cam
You make easily the most illustrative and insightful videos I have ever found on TH-cam. Every few months, I come back to one of your videos and am yet again astonished at all you are able to communicate so sharply, and without the confused noise I hear in most other discussion. You seem to always find what really matters; thank you for sharing it with us.
I call them Bonfire games.
MogwaiInjustice I like that, best suggestion so far! Because it helps define what makes it different then say Monster Hunter
Bonfire Simulator 2k18
Ehh...I get the appeal of the name, but a LOT of games use checkpoint systems for progress. It's not exactly a helpful descriptor.
Slow burn combat games seems to describe them well.
You shouldn't , because there is "Bonfire Studios". Formed by Rob Pardo and other devs that left Blizzard and the diablo Team. Stuff would get really confusing ^^
"Action warm ups, animation priority, and stamina management."
So Monster Hunter? :O
You see: it means something different to everyone. :)
(also: necroing)
I only have played world, but they have a similar feeling, specially with DS3 or Bloodborne. When I am in a high difficulty quests it is practically a Dark Souls with a new graphics with all the one shots I get when I make a mistake and because I play with bow and it is all about stamina management.
@@mariot8732 yeah but monster hunter is way older than dark souls and monster hunter world literally being the easiest in the franchise is odd to be compared to dark souls
Monster hunter has elements that the Souls game borrow but I wouldn’t classify it like a souls games otherwise horizon zero dawn would be a souls game too
Those are two entirely different games
Glad to see some love shown for Thief's contribution to the development of the Immersive Sim. It's not often mentioned in connection with this design philosophy, probably because it came before the seminal Deus Ex (a game which codified the style in many people's minds), but it's a great example of how this type of design can be applied in a different way than the typical "lethal or non lethal, stealth or combat, rpg character building" dynamic.
Suggesting a new name for the genre would have great impact because of your influence. Great video. Well-developed points, and very informative
I personally think that the Monster Hunter series is an interesting take on some aspects of this "genre". (though they are actually older)
Respect towards the enemy is a central aspect of those games. They can take you down just as easily as you take them down. You can only win, if you think about what you're doing.
If I were to define the core of this new genre, this would certainly be a part of it.
THANK YOU!!! thats the phrase i have been looking for ^^ "respect towards the enemy"
its an aspect i realy miss in so many other RPGs... just rinning into a group of enemys and hacking them to bits is just... not the same.
That's definitely one aspect of Dark Souls. And also one of other games like Kingdom Hearts 2 FM Critical Mode (even though you can feel very powerful in it). It's when an expert who knows what he's doing can run circles around things for days but one mistake will kill you.
It's essentially just a proper skill curve, and ends up giving you a similar satisfaction of accomplishment akin to learning to play a song on an instrument or getting really good at something else.
I feel beating a difficult track on osu! - a rhythm game - is more similar to beating a Dark Souls boss than playing something like Dynasty Warriors. Even though the theme is much closer in the latter, it's not about precisely timed inputs and a great risk of failure.
That's absolutely right. When it comes to the three things Brown said might "define" the genre of souls-related games (action warm-ups, animation priority, stamina management), Monster Hunter pioneered all three of them, and I'm fairly certain From Soft has directly said they took inspiration from the series. Dark Souls could easily be considered a Monster Hunter-like, but with added RPG elements like a leveling system.
I think the most useful concept in this video is breaking down genres into several different pieces, which can be mixed an matched for interesting games. The closer a game adheres to the list of genre conventions, the easier it is to classify, but it probably would feel less innovative. On the other hand, games with very few genre requirements can have a wide variety of different games in them, but that just means the terminology itself becomes less useful. Perhaps instead of basing FPS's on just two or three tropes, or defining "Soulslikes" with a huge list of ~15, we should focus on creating genre definitions with a number that's more manageable and useful, like... I dunno, five-ish? I loved Nioh, but that's just because I like DS, and I like the aesthetic. It's still a clone, because it adheres extra-strongly to the conventions laid out by DS, much more so than games that just happen to be in the same genre. But placing Monster Hunter in the same genre as DS and Nioh feels a bit weird, am I right? Even if the combat is similar, the overall differences in broad sections of gameplay are overwhelming.
I dunno, I think I started rambling there.
respect towards the enemy is not a defining characteristic of Kingdom Hearts, especially if you have to point out a specific mode for it to be so. I never really felt like I had to respect the enemy in a *regular* playthrough of a KH game unless I was fighting some superboss at which point a lot of games demand you to respect the enemy.
The interesting thing about Dark Souls specifically is that it captures a lot of the exploratory essence of Metroidvanias with its interconnected world, bosses and items. For a while I actually thought of Dark Souls as the first proper 3D Castlevania game.
Great video! Thanks for the tasty food for thought.
Crurzor I was going to say the same thing, I completely agree.
It even has that element of planning and strategy for different scenarios!
+Belphegor666Iam Initially Souls games can feel aggressive like that, but you soon realize in these games that Souls are ephemeral and you can always get more. Suicide runs to certain items are a common strategy in subsequent playthroughs of Souls games, which is a major benefit to the high-level DLCs of Bloodborne and DS3 being accessible very early in the game, because you can just run past enemies and pick up the weapons you know where they are. Also, you learn to recognize ambushes and how to approach areas cautiously. While exploring may not be easy in Souls games, it's very much rewarded, because it's how you find shortcuts and unique weapons and other useful items, and sometimes even lore or important characters.
Would you say it's a 3D Metroidvania, or 3D Classic Castlevania? (the NES trilogy & super) Cuz while you're right in that it does all the things from the Metroidvania's, I say it's also a modern equivalent of the classic games.
The old Castlevania games where designed in a way so that players who tried to rush through levels would inevitably die quickly due to the clunky movement and slow attacks, forcing the player to approach every situation with careful calculation and caution.
Likewise in Dark Souls, the fact that you die easily from grunts, the frequent uses of ambushes and your long startup attacks, also force you to play defensively and safer with precise planning and calculation.
Short answer: Yes.
Dark Souls is everything I love about both types of Castlevania games, while also brining it's own "flavour" to the table.
Though, sadly, later DS games streamlined the world design in a way that removed it a bit to far from the SotN-style for my taste.
(Demons Souls exists in a bit of a grey area, as although the world is separated by stages, all the stages are design with exploration in mind. Perhaps it can be likened to the different sectors in Metoid Fusion?)
Dude, just discovered your channel. I love a few channels for their reviews and analysis, but you standout for truly taking mechanics or trends of the game market and analyzing them. All that to say great videos man!
This video is very relevant again after Sekiro's release and GOTY award. That game removes a lot of what is a staple of the series, like stamina management, stats and other RPG elements, to the point where some fans of the series even hated it. Most importantly, dodge is not very useful on it as it is on the Souls games. The influence of Souls can still be felt on it, but can every hard game with checkpoints and healing items be called a Soulslike?
I've never played sekiro so how did it cover the same feel as the dark souls game since the dodge isn't as good anymore
@@adityaanuragi6916 Are you implying that the "feel" of Dark Souls is entirely based around dodging? Sekiro has plenty of elements in common with Dark Souls: environmental storytelling, branching paths, deliberate combat, a lonely and isolating atmosphere, limited healing uses that reset upon rest, challenging boss encounters, currency punishment upon death, etc.
But it also has plenty of differences that set it apart from Dark Souls (and even Demon's Souls or Bloodborne): there's no corpse run mechanic, combat is much faster paced, there is less of an emphasis on dodging, blocking is discouraged in favour of parrying, level design is much more open and vertical, there are no classes or character customisation, no armor or weapon builds, there is a more set plot and character to follow. I think Sekiro is a great balance of a game that is clearly taking a lot of influence from Dark Souls but pushing it in a fresh and different direction.
Yea turns out the essence of the genre is turn based real time and no one’s gonna admit it
What they all miss in my opinion is that Dark Souls wasn't just about the combat. It was also about the ominous atmosphere, the not-in-your-face story telling, the realistic (and beautiful) armour sets and weapons, the highly unique dark fantasy setting, the unique level design, the multiple linear pathways (not quite open world) that give very specific and grueling challenges in between save points, and last but not least: the incredible and original role playing system of covenants and multiplayer.
While the combat is brilliant, there is so much more that makes a "souls" game.
No, what they are missing IS the combat.
Name me ONE OTHER GAME that has different swing heights/lengths and hitboxes so accurate you dodge something by crouching as you're doing a low attack. PLEASE I would like to know.
Chivalry
Most modern fighting games
F4c2a are you actually trying to say that dark souls has accurate hitboxes? are you kidding me?
Sam Lowry The sound design in most Souls clones is also really mediocre. Sound plays a massive, underappreciated,role in the immersion factor of the world as well as the visceral feedback of the combat. Things like subtle ambient noises from the environment, the effect you hear when your weapon impacts a target, the growls and roars of the enemies, the rewarding and satisfying sound from parrying/riposting someone - they all contribute to what makes the Souls experience so damn outstanding, and yet the developers that are supposedly "inspired" by FromSoft's formula rarely consider or acknowledge it
"wow I died and I have to start again ? It's just like Dark Souls !!!!
Wow, you mean there are enemies that can kill you ? Just like dark souls !!"
Dark souls is one of my favorite game and is both innovating and inspired by former games. But it managed to create something so unique by mixing differents mecanism and adjusting all of them together so well.
but right now, people compare everything to it for no reason just because it has something in common with dark souls: very mysterious story without any clear backside story but the clues in the world, Great interconnected level design, epic music or huge boss fight, even HP potions.
But hey, dark souls hasn't invented any of these. It just used it so well to create strong feelings and game sensations.
There is no such things as a Dark souls genre. Even DKS 3 was close to a DKS 1 clone but it stilled managed to distinguished itself to be an excellent game.
According to me, Dark souls hasn't invented things like zelda invented 3d mechanics gameplay or "Pong" invented pvp. It perfected already existing mechanics and put them together to make a coherent whole. So you can't create a complete new genre based on Dark Souls.
it doesnt matter if clones for me if you make games like dark souls,sekiro.others are awesome for me too,like i said on my other comment ,darksiders 2-3,castlevania lords of shadows 2,hellblade senuas sacrifice,jedi fallen order,code vein,ghost of tsushima.all of them have roll,lock on,different plots and stuff.try them ,i see you like dark souls i think you will like those too,so i dont mind cloning or similarities as long as there good...
I think you said it really well. Especially the last para, stating some of the differences that dark souls has to the likes of Zelda or pong.
You summed up my problem with people hating on soulslike games.
Yea the original resident evil had back tracking interconnected level design that really made short cuts a value. It also progressed the story by way of in game items.
I rewatch this video every couple of months because it is absolute gold. It's about video game genres specifically, but this is literally how ALL media works. Music, books, movies, EVERYTHING. It's constantly growing and changing the more people get inspired to create, which then inspires others. This is how culture evolves and grows. Humanity is fucking amazing.
I would take this a step further outside "media" and say it's a useful framework to think about how all categorization of creativity works, even ones where we don't typically use the term "genre". There's a constant tension between using what works and expanding beyond it, and what we consider "beyond it" depends on how you frame what it as (a sort of Sapir-Whorfian effect). Take for example, food. How we think about a dish or a cuisine, focusing on keeping it true to some romanticized original, or abstracting the core elements of what makes it enjoyable, to be creative and explore new boundaries.
Like people getting into arguments about what is or isn't pizza. By trying to compare something like Deep dish pizza(clone) to Neopolitan "pizza", you're canonizing one type of pizza as somehow perfect, rather than a few abstract elements that people like(tomato sauce, cheese, flatbread). To an extent, I've seen attempts to broaden it, often with the use of the term "flatbreads" to refer to pizza-like dishes that are toppings with a bread based that can be eaten as finger food.
With food, the two main things that tend to be tweaked are flavor and form factor. So pizza made into a casserole, as deep dish is sometimes called, is tweaking the form factor but keeping the tomato/cheese/bread flavor, while tweaking the flavor like white pizzas or dessert pizzas but keeping the sliced finger food on a crispy flatbread keeps the same form factor and is a different approach.
Maybe more successfully in the US, the idea of "tapas" has been broadened from typical Spanish bar food, to a category sometimes called "small plates".
The boundary of what's a dish and what's a category of dishes is fuzzier than people realize. Eggs Benedict can be thought of as a dish, but there's plenty of clones, using smoked salmon, crab cakes, etc. At some point, you could consider Eggs Benedict a genre/category of dishes involving english muffins, hollandaise, meat and poached egg. Or you could take it further with all sorts of variation, from replacements of the English mufffin with biscuits, bagel, waffles, etc, the egg could be scrambled, the sauce is anything thick and gooey like melted cheese, at which point, you may think of the Eggs Benedict genre as just an open faced breakfast sandwich genre.
"Kingsfield-like"
really appreciate the re-done visuals and graphics in this. your content was always been impeccable and lately your editing style and obsessive details in videos have been outstanding. loved these dynamic transitions you keep introducing with that mirrors edge 1 to 2 roll transition, and this episodes thief torch fade to black transition. so i really welcome these new coloured backgrounds and bold serif typo. so nice seeing content that is both equally worth-wile to understand as it is to watch. keep up the good work mark.
Things to take from Dark Souls:
1) Subtle storytelling with a sense of grounded facts. From characters, sceneries, and items.
2) World building, how everything ropes together, making the world believable.
3) Engaging multiplayer communication, leaving long-term discussion going on *outside* the game.
4) Level design that awards keen-eyed observation, and ease in traverse.
A lot of the general takes on 'soulslike' these days are something on the surface level. Dark Souls is not just about 'Z-targeting' combat or how hard and brutal it is, yet we very often see newcomers market their games like "hard and challenging like Dark Souls". That's a marketing buzzword at this point. Every games can be difficult in their own ways, not the Dark Souls way. Every game can do the points above their own ways, not just 'Z-targeting' way~
I for one have had my fill of the subtle storytelling and the nonstop "Everything is depressing and is fuck." atmosphere.
But can't get enough of the z-targeting challenging combat, and minimum hand holding. But so far most Soulslikes bring that "fucked" atmosphere into their clone. Fuck me I mind as well go play Dark Souls if you're going to pull that shit.
Oreally , yea I totally agree with being over the bleak depressing atmosphere but addicted to that style of combat which is something my friends can't seem to comprehend when I try explaining it. I can't wait for more games that take aspects of this game (namely the combat) and put it into worlds that I long to inhabbit (like a Breath of the wild almost)
I agree with you, but it needs to be said, when talking about the game world coming together in Dark Souls.
Lava lake on top of a windmill.
Hahahaha you see, that is why I insist using the name Dark Souls, without the word 'series'. I love Dark Souls, I like Dark Souls 2. Still, wanna give props to the DLC levels of the sequel. Lava is a tricky one, put them into a different space!
For sure, man, haha. Looking at individual games, and putting rose-tinted glasses aside, I can't *really* fault Dark Souls 1's world, and there only the one issue I have with Dark Souls 2. And to be fair, I think all the DLCs across all the SoulsBorne games have come through easily, being put into completely new areas. Ultimately a good choice, in my mind - makes the world still feel cohesive.
"Immersive sim, which while it's not baked into the name is inspired by Deus Ex"
*BUT DEUS EX GOT ITS IDEAS FROM SYSTEM SHOCK*
It's a chicken-or-egg question though; Was "systemic games" named after System Shock, or was the game named as such because it's systemic?
Which got ITS ideas from Ultima Underworld.
Yeah, and with FPS Doom Clones were inspired by doom which is a refined and easier to play version of Wolfenstein 3D
Is it just me, or as this video changed since I last saw it ?
Anyway, amazing work Mark, definitely a video I'll be rewatching, it's just so full of interesting stuff :) !
You’re one of my favorite creators!
This is literally the first time I've heard the term "immersive sim" or that Thief is treated like a some failed prototype. I am so confused.
hey Mark, you're not a bad person
Thanks, I try
You sir, are bumping my creativity lots and LOTS and LOTS. Most helpful yt channel I´ve found on 2020
I love all the talk of mechanics defining a genre, followed by saying that's not everything it's about atmosphere and storytelling, sets up the video to restate this wordlessly by finishing on the game's first massive oh my god moment where the raven grabs you off the cliff. Excellent video direction.
This video also doesn't take into account people making "clones" to try grab onto a title's popularity to make a little more profit. I guess that's why we can look down on these game trends quickly sprouting up and have a negative backlash to them, calling them all "clones" or "(game title)like", no matter if their intentions are sincere or not. It is interesting that a genre is a group of works that have a similar principles, designs, or goals, yet games can focus on really complex, hyperspecific "sub-genere" where we have metriodvania or rogue like. Some times we can even use these words without knowing where they came from or why, but to describe an idea. I learned today about the origin of "rogue". Yet i used it to describe games that focuses on reparability through randomly generated factors.
On a completely different note, I can't help but think of the time Totalbisucit was so made and irratated on the term "rogue like" he made an one hour video talking about and dissecting it. That was a while ago.... I might need to go back and watch that.
This comment is everywhere. Congrats to you for reading... if you find it among the 2,413+ other comments :)
I went into this video with the thought "Yes, because there's a market" But when I really saw what you were saying, I was surprised to be confronted with how narrow minded my initial thought was. I was simplifying the argument that you were actually making in my own head. It amazes me now to look back at the games you mentioned that I have played and realize just how uninspired they actually felt playing them, never able to connect as to why this was. Thanks for this video, it's got my mind's gears turning now as to what this argument and topic is really all about.
"Renamed versions of 'estus flask'" **shows a health potion**
Great video! I’m rewatching it because I found out that Dead Cells describes itself as a Rogue-lite Metroidvania inspired action-platformer with Souls-lite combat
As someone who played Demon's Souls first and loved it, I wish more people could experience it as its own thing like I got to. It's got a strange sense of humor to it.
The thing about these "souls-like" games is that they are wholly uninspired. They saw Dark Souls and said "what if we did that but pretended it was our idea". At its core Monster Hunter and Dark Souls has similar combat. Scope the enemy out, understand it's move set, and beat the shit out of it until it dies. But they are completely different games. That's because they're each their own franchise. It doesn't matter who did it first. What matters is the game itself. Souls of the Fallen and Fallen 2: Sci Fi Boogaloo look intensely slow and boring. They also seem to be designed with difficulty in mind. Like the devs looked at DS and thought: "the fans like hard games, so let's make it really hard". DS is not a difficult game, it's meant to be challenging. Because it has its own set of mechanics and does its own thing. If you think DS and Bloodborne is hard, look at the people who can beat those games at SL1. Challenging =|= difficult.
Dark Souls is like a big fish in an ocean of games, whereas the uninspired souls-likes are lampreys pretending to be a big fish. Salt and Sanctuary is its own game, Monster Hunter is its own game, even Bloodborne is its own game within the scope of Miyazaki's work. Games like the Fallen twins are not. They're devs ticking boxes.
On the flip side, Monster Hunter annoyed the shit out of me because it kept tricking my mind into thinking I was playing Dark Souls.
I got these dual wielding blades, but I can't change the direction of each swing.
Enemy is about to blast my location with a fireball, better sprint out of there... why is my character standing still and throwing their arms into the air to embrace death? Why did they make the move fast button out of combat into the hold still button in combat?!
Why do I have over 100 kills on this fucking Pink Rathian and not a single Ruby? The rarest item in Dark Souls can be obtained by sane people.
Is it marketed towards kids? It's definitely kid friendly, but nothing about it says "Kid Audiance" to me.
Fucking thank you for this.
For me, as a more casual gamer, DS is a frickin' hard game and really frustrating at times, because it demands nothing less than perfection, since you do not have any space to make mistakes. I for example never came past the capra demon. I definetly know how to kill it, but I am just not able to, since I have to pull out the same tactic more than just a couple of times perfectly, whereas it just need one hit, or maybe two to kill me (and don't forget it's utterly annoying sidekick monsterdogs).
I would suggest that the naming of a genre after its parent game might be less responsible for cookie-cutter remakes than the simple success of the game. When some title is on all the gaming news headlines and they start selling merch for it at Target, many companies try to clamber into that space to have a taste of that success. Like with battle royale games somewhat recently.
Damn, you _really_ like Spelunky, don't you?
Top 10 games of all time baby
It is really good tho
@@quackquack8775 when will it come to switch
@@gasternecross I'm not sure, but there is a Spelunky 2 coming out supposedly in 2020-21 so I'm hyped as hell. Should come to ps, Xbox, Pc and switch
I don't know how, it's such a horrible game lol
The bit about genre classifications for roguelites would be a good point if it wasn't the developers for those games coming up with the different names themselves so as not to be put into the roguelike genre they didn't want their games classified as.
It wasn't the players who wanted to move away from the roguelike classifications. Even Rogue Legacy, despite having rogue in its name, attempted to move out of the genre's name by coining itself as a Roguelite. It's the same for a lot of the games within the more modern push of rogue mechanics.
So no, it's not bitter players upset a genre got wider. It's developers wanting to move on from the comparison you're sticking them back under. Especially because the more traditional sense of the genre is also still alive, moving forward with new games under its classification. They're two different entities at this point, and there is crossover between the playerbases even if it's not a complete overlap.
If i remember correctly, the developer for Rogue legacy is one of the first to use the "rogue lite" term
He is, yes. To move away from the typical judgements and audiences you get from the term "roguelike." Most people who really get into the platformers, and shooters, and more modern games tend to be more okay with the name "roguelite." It's stuck since.
Interestingly enough, traditional roguelike games have moved forward in design a lot too. With Rogue and Nethack originally being just dungeon crawlers, and most of the more recent games having open world and sandbox elements to them. Though they graphically still underrepresent what is going on, mechanically, they've come a long way. Even the original Diablo was originally an offshoot of Roguelike game design, which the developer talks about during his GDC post-mortem.
>Mark Brown mentions Matthewmatosis.
>Mind explodes
This is a 14 minute video that literally disses every single video game that has ever been made, and is 100% right.
Speaking of games that turned into genres in more recent history, perhaps the best example of the cycle you mentioned is DotA. Initially other games in the genre were called DotA clones and while Heroes of Newerth is quite literally an exact DotA clone just changing character names and a few abilities here and there, League of Legends took the ideas of DotA and made them more accessible by removing mechanics like denial, controlling multiple units(from skills of certain characters and items), etc and eventually added others including new maps and more recently new map objectives and turret plates. Smite iterated on the formula by being 3d instead of 2d with a completely different movement and aiming scheme, using the keyboard instead of point and click with the mouse. The core elements of a base with towers protecting it and minion waves marching onwards from each base to attack the other team remain consistent, as do the fact that the player choosing and playing as a single character, which makes for a rather rigid structure. However within that structure there is still room to innovate and other games have while DotA 2 stuck to its original formula, merely modernizing and streamlining it, and is still the most successful game in the genre. Speaking of the Souls-like genre, oddly enough it took id software themselves to iterate upon their own genre with Sekiro, staying inside Dark Souls' rigid structure but greatly innovating inside it. I think it was easier for id software to do it than for anyone else as they were the original creators thus fans are more accepting of changes made by them than by anyone else.
This video is kinda like Dark souls... I might even call it *_SOULS-LIKE_*
GamerRoman, more like a soulslike metroidvania rougelight vid
booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
nailed it
Souls-lite
GamerRoman the tl;dr
The problem with this reasoning is that if, for example, we apply the genre concept of "Immersive sims" to Zelda or Hitman, it starts to bend and blurry the line that separates different genres. Is it Zelda that is really an immersive sim or is it Thief that is actually an action-adventure game that focus a lot on stealth? Hell, how do you even define where each one of those catchy genre names apply and where they don't?
Seriously, how do we do this process? Of course, you could say that "everybody" knows what an RPG is, or what a text adventure or a FPS is. But how do everybody knows? Of course, comparing a bunch of games and noticing similarities, and then giving a random name. The games that stand out usually are the most referenced and the ones that guide the invention of the genre. But that definition is always limited. If I play Dungeons of Dredmor on non-permadeath mode it stops being a roguelike? Really?
Either those definitions are too strict or too broad. Even if they're not based on only one game, they are ALWAYS indicating standards that serve more like formulas than guidelines. And what determines if a game can really be unique is not if a "genre" is too narrow or not. It is HOW it puts together its ideas. A very genre-defying game, like Bwyond Good an Evil, can be memorable. But a game that respects all 123948 rules of the Berlin interpretation - Ultima Ratio Regum, for example - can also be extremely unique.
TLDR: what makes a game blend like most soulslikes, minecraft clones or newer immersive sims is not if their supposed "genre" is open enough, but HOW they use (or dont use) the genre guidelines.
3 minutes in and I knew I had to subscribe to you. Amazing content. Can't wait to watch the rest of your videos.
really guys, Zelda Ocarina of time, lock on, dodge rolls, and collision based damage with pre-set animations for attacks.
Dark souls took its combat from many early RPG's on ps1 and n64
Combat is different than zelda so much so that whatever comparison there is might be to small yo notice
@James Chris "you shoot you reload you aim down sights" so that makes every fps the same
...anyone remember kings field? it was a dark fantasy action rpg dungeon crawler with stamina management based combat made by fromsoft... before oot. the whole souls thing is nothing new. also rpgs existed on game consoles since the 70s so I'd hardly call 90s rpgs early
@@nasirbarbee5940 ... and FPS *is* a genre. I'm certainly not saying Dark Souls is derivative but I don't think it deserves to codify a new genre. If we got a sudden rush of Super Mario Odyssey clones, they'd still just be 3D platformers. That doesn't mean Super Mario Odyssey suddenly needs its own genre.
@@Robert399 okay if thats the case then why not just call metroid and castlevania reguler platformers ? Because those people who are looking for those types of games need to specify what it is they are looking for. Thats why metroidvania exist.
Mario odyssey and crash bandicoot both 3d platformers. But both are different. Darksouls deserves its own genre because it has spawned a bunch of games made specifically for a type of player. You dont get the same thing from zelda twilight princess as you get from. Surge 2 or nioh the fact that we are even having this debate is foolish in my opinion.
I would say that the ''Action-warm ups'' ''animation priority'' and ''stamina managment'' as a staple of Monster hunter more than dark souls.
Dark Souls is Hunter-like.
x-like is a terrible way to name a genre.
We should use x-esque instead, it's fancier
Doom Clone
@divide two nah, "-spirit" is too edgy. "Souls-spirit"
Nah, if that were our other option, "-like" is waaaaayyyyy better. No need for fancy explanations, a game that is like X.
TheWickedWeenie
So I assume you have a problem with the term “Metroidvania” too?
Sometimes that’s the only way it can work. Luckily for Doom the genre it popularized could be defined easily and quickly. First person, and shooter.
How do you quickly explain a game like rogue? How do you quickly explain a game like Dark Souls? DS isn’t JUST an action rpg, when someone says X game is an action rpg it’s a real crapshoot on if it will be anything like Souls.
Alternately, we could break down what makes a Souls game, a combat focused action rpg with minimal overt storytelling and a...I don’t even know how to succinctly explain the leave your currency/experience at the place where you died and then have to retrieve it or lose it system. Hey how bout we just call it a soulslike?
It’s inelegant but it gets the point across and that’s really the whole point of genre isn’t it?
Thank you for actually including links to the videos you mentioned, many channels claim "Links in the description" and then there's nothing... LoL! Anyway, interesting video. New subscriber here. Keep it up!
I have been enjoying your videos for years now and just wanted to send my love. Your work is brilliant and I genuinely appreciate all the fantastic insight and videos that you share with the world. Much love, buddy.
As GMTK already mentioned(in another episode), Dark Souls is essentially one of em “Zelda-Likes” with different priorities.
Man, Demon's Souls is still so underrated. Most people haven't played it because it's only on PS3. We need a PS4 remaster!
OR just release it for PC so it doesn't become obsolete when the next console gen without backwards compatibility comes along. Then for bonus points keep it mod friendly, so dedicated fans can keep brushing up the graphics and have it stay palatable.
Hate it when a game is held hostage to force people into buying hardware. Especially annoying when the game is then basically erased once said hardware becomes unobtainable. Certainly don't want encourage this scam of selling you the same game over and over for full price, just for the privilege of keeping it.
It's likely getting a ps5 remake, at least that's the rumor.
@@danielschroedinger2090 You mean the people who made a game don't have the right to do with it what they want? HOW DARE THEY.
Keep port begging I guess.
@@IskandarTheWack Who said anything about rights? You can acknowledge peoples right to something while also disagreeing with it. Also why wouldn't the devs want their game on as many plattforms as possible? This is not about what the people who made the game want to do, but about what the people, who own the publishing rights want.
@@IskandarTheWack Also no need to beg for a port. At this point you can just emulate it.
Fantastic video!
And you know what surprised me when I learned it was a Metroidvania kinda? Kirby & the Amazing Mirror. Lots of branching paths and backtracking
By the way love the quality of your videos, you deserve the support that you have
While a huge part of DS1 success was its combat mechanics and importance of DYING lol
I feel like some Devs think if they nail that type of combat mechanics etc then it is a souls like...DS1 was a game changer partly because of that along with the LORE and the exploration.
Surge is not a souls like. Neither are honestly all the others.
The combat is close and everything else is either badly done or missed completely.
Too many downplay the importance of those other factors and the reason DS1 still has and will pretty much always have a dedicated playerbase.
You can play through the game ten times and without a doubt %100 there will still be secrets and tidbits that you have never seen before.
I ran it the other day and there was more then enough players online for invasions and summoning.
7 years later.
why would i want genres to be broadly defined? thats not helpful for me when im looking for a specific experience. perfect examples are "first person shooter" or "rpg" which dont mean anything nowadays
None of the base-level genres mean much in gaming today. I find the Steam tag system to be a little more defining, but ultimately a game usually needs a paragraph, or a Let's Play, to fully understand the style and mechanics.
Not to mention even in well established mediums such as novels and films they still have genres to help define what type of experience you'll get, much to the chagrin of others who desperately try to defy said genres and ironically go into the "try too hard to not be genre fiction."
+Wimpleton Duck
Go to a music forum
Ask what genres are real and not gimmicks
Watch the ensuing shoutfest
Wimpleton Duck It's funny you specifically called out metal, because for pretty much every music genre, there is a subgenre of metal that uses the same kind of structure 'specific' to that genre.
EG Trash Metal and Jazz have the same form structure, despite sounding wildly different.
Ah good that we have Ishkur as the world authority on naming at least electronic music genres. But then again, new subgenres occur daily, and he's always 10 years behind.
the weird thing about genres named after games (to me, at least) has always been "what do we rename them?"
what should a "roguelike" be called if we renamed it? When I hear the word, i think of perma death and procedural generation which sometimes have a story. I didn't even know they were named after rogue until a few years after i got into the genre.
Single-shot procedural generation? SSPG, shotproc?
Perma-death dungeons? Permaduns? Procedural death labyrinths came up in the video.
Randomized levels?
How have I never found Mark Brown before!? These videos are awesome! I've been watching for hours and am still captivated!
I think you can also argue that some genres can *stop* being genres and become even more broad. Like, nowadays if you just say of a game “it’s an FPS” that doesn’t really give that much information, because there are SO many different ways developers have used first person shooter mechanics. Like yeah Doom Eternal is kind of a “true” FPS, but something like Overwatch is also an FPS. In that way, FPS is almost more of a medium than a genre.
Well in other arts genre can also define an extremely loose thing qnd things like sub genre exist, like Rock just means that it has a guitar or abstract art refers to everything that is not photorealistic wich is most paintings ans sculptures at this point
The only real staple a soulslike game needs to have is the plunging attack, the most reliable move in the game. Doesn't count if it doesn't.
Great video - as always! 👍🤓🧡
Today I Felt like re-watching this video for some reason and I still love this video. I agree with everything you said. 👍
Action warm ups, animation priority, and stamina management are all present in monster hunter. I would be fine calling monster hunter a soulslike game in terms of combat, but the game is very unique in other aspects...
If were comparing combat then it would be more accurate to say that soulslike games have monster hunter like combat, since it came out first.
Marvo Langeberg doesn’t really matter what came out first, it’s what popularized the genre. They didn’t call them Wolfenstein Clones, they called them Doom Clones.
So if MH was the one that popularized them it would be "MH-like"? that doesn't sound right, I think the "Hunter Genre" should be there.. but then again that would be more of a simulator. :/
@@SuperSecretAgentNein MH did actually popularise those elements and had a lot of rivals which released in Japan and the West prior to Souls. It isn't like MH World is the first million selling game with those parts: www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/finance/million.html
100% agree
I actually struggle to play souls games because I'm so used to MH combat I keep defaulting to MH controls haha
This has really got me thinking, thank you!!
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damn 12:20 was so true to me, I am kind of surprised no other soulslike dev picked up on that... yet.
7:18 "Where you've bean" Can't unhear it
I like how similar metroidvanias are, honestly. It's a set of mechanics I really like, and sometimes I just want to play something similar with different aethetics or slightly different mechanics
One thing to consider though is that roguelike is not really its own genre; rather, it is a specific subgenre of dungeon crawlers. I don't think it's really fair to say that naming a genre "roguelike" stifles the development of the genre when it is already used to refer to a specific type of dungeon crawlers.
Also, games like Rogue Legacy aren't truly Roguelikes, they are not like Rogue. Those games take some mechanics from Rogue, like permadeath and random generation. That isn't enough for Roguelike to be a useful descriptor, if we include those games
Excellent video regarding not only creators who tether themselves to a genre and hike down the apparently gilded pathway for video games, but also all types of mediums. I think i lot of the pillars of this conversation can be applied to anyone writing books, essays, films, albums or compositions as well. Brilliant insight on how to think outside the box without absconding into the blatantly abstract.
Also, yeah, this is 3 years past the initial video post, but boy am I tired of hearing “[GAME] is the Dark Souls of [GENRE].”
First video of yours that I've seen, and I subscribed. Wanna know why?
You: "I wonder what would happen, then... If games kept closely following one specific game, and we were still naming the genre after that landmark game, years and years later."
Me: Wait, wait, that's just Roguelikes, isn't it??
*'roguelike' appears on the screen*
Me: *Cheers*
(that, and you used Sword and Sworcery for reference!)
It's kind of how when Auonuma began developing Breath of the Wild he took a large amount of inspiration of Skyrim, but he made his own interpretation of Skyrim's formula which eventually became Breath.
Probably off-topic, but why do I get the feeling that THIS will be the theme for true upcoming Game Jam?
Some obscure genre to think around would be cool, but i'd rather be more surprised.
probably because you're just learning about the genre now.
There's a few directions this could go, but I STRONGLY got that sense too.
I'd hope he would do an older video instead of one that went up after the announcement, personally.
Contenterful Either this or downwell
Another excellent video! Thank you.
I feel like now released Sekiro and Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order would have been interesting to discuss in this video.
I recall playing Dark Souls for the first time and saying to myself, "This is a lot like a Survival Horror game" and me and my friends dubbed it as Namco/Bandai's response to "Resident Evil".
God, I feel old... I remember in the 80s when we stopped calling them "Pac-Man Clones" and started calling them "Maze Games." Jeez...
Something this reminded me of is deckbuilders, a genre in board gaming that is just over a decade old. It was very clearly started by the game called Dominion, but it's named after its defining mechanic. And because it is easily mistaken for another genre by those who haven't heard of the term before, I do sometimes use Dominion to describe what the game plays like. That is of course also based on the fact that Dominion adds the bare minimum besides making that one mechanic work. Some games feel like clones, but others have moved the genre forward to a point where to many people Dominion feels outdated.
You talking about how a very original and influential game can spawn many similar games until a genre forms reminds me of how games with a passing resemblance to other games can be confused for the same genre when they're actually quite different. For example, it's a major pet peeve of mine whenever people refer to the Metroid Prime trilogy as First Person Shooter. It is not, it is a first person adventure that just happens to feature shooting as its primary mode of attack. The distinction is that First Person Shooters are normally all about how many things you can kill and what best weapon to do said killing with, often with ammo management. Metroid Prime isn't that at all, most rooms you can walk through without needing to kill anything. Nor is it about the weapons, the weapon upgrades are more to help you access previous inaccessible areas i.e. exploration than they are for killing things more efficiently. First person shooters generally have little variation in where you can'are supposed to go and it's just about killing everything between your starting point and the end goal to win, whereas Metroid is about exploration, where you're supposed to go is deliberately non-obvious, there are many branching paths that in some way are all valid to an extent. It is a first person adventure that just happens to feature shooting, as its primary attack mode- it could just as easily be melee combat and the game would largely be pretty similar; if you call it a first person shooter you may as well call Minecraft a first person shooter just because it happens to have some projectile attacks.
And every new Hero or Arena Shooter is "Overwatch-Like". Even if they play and feel different.
It looks that dark souls and overwatch were the only games wich were played by those people. So that's why everything must be like them
XSlim you misspelled "Quake"
XSlim tf2
Quake isnt based on classes though. The game that added classes to the shooting was the first team fortress. If anything, hero arena shooters are TF2 clones.
team fortress was originally a quake mod
I really agree with the notion that it's dangerous to turn a game into a genre. The name "metroidvania" has pretty much killed most creativity in what should be known as the 2-d action adventure platformer. Everything tries so hard to be Super Metroid or SotN that they just end up feeling like derivative clones. One of my favorite metroidvania games is Cave Story and that's largely because it tries to be different. It almost constantly has the player moving forward to new zones. There is very little backtracking. And what little backtracking there is, usually has a story reason tied to it. It feels fresh because it isn't rigidly trying to adhere to a formula established by a now 23 year old game like Axiom Verge (not that Axiom Verge is bad but c'mon, it's pretty derivative)
Otoo Andoh, no offence, but you didn't really get it. In your example, you still turn it into a (sub-)genre... you just named it differently and thereby limiting other games to be in 2D or a platformer, whereas Nintendo itself already stepped out of those limitations with the 3D Prime games.
se7enhaender But I do like the idea of splitting up genres into pieces that can be combined. Then you can have one game that is a 2D action adventure platformer, another that's a 3D action adventure platformer and a third that's a 2D adventure puzzle game and so on. It's descriptive, but flexible. Genres should ideally be thought of as independently assigned tags and not mutually exclusive categories.
Axiom verge may have some similarities to Metroid, but the mechanics are completely different.
Considering a genre is basically any group of something, it seems near impossible to stop one from being created around a successful game. And where is this idea that genres are inherently limiting come from? Yes, there is the risk that the developers of a Soulslike would miss the ominous atmosphere or careful worldbuilding, but that isn't something that is inherent in creating a genre. It could be that they create the genre based on the deeper themes of the Souls games and change the gameplay to get to those themes. Shouldn't we aim to make a genre based on these themes, instead of trying to disown genres altogether out of some misplaced idea that it will keep the games from stagnating? Why would a thematic design not count as a genre?
Which modern metroidvanias do you find are stale/uninspired, and which ones do you like? I was surprised to learn that I am finding Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night to be actually very boring/not compelling, despite how many unlockables/etc there is.
All of what u said that people may enjoy, well i enjoy all of them! Love the punishment, Love the atmosphere, the exploration when finally getting through to another area, the boss fights, the story of the world the characters live in, the interesting characters u can meet and everything else. Just love them to be fair
Probably worth mentioning, now in the year 2019 we have an isometric souls game called EITR coming out
11:05 If those elements are the basis of the genre, does that make Punch-Out the first Souls-like? Or is Dark Souls a Punch-Out-like?
No, because those elements encompass just a single aspect of Souls games. Otherwise any run 'n gun that came before Metroid would be definable as metroidvania.
Skeletroy Exactly that's why his ideas are so stupid. He has the same philosophy the people who made nioh and the surge had. The combat and game mechanics aren't what made dark souls special.
Luckee Strikee But that single aspect is the focus of the potential genre...like how (in my opinion) the core aspect of Metroidvania games isn't running and gunning, but backtracking to previously inaccessible areas to fill out that map. I'd argue that you could make a Metroidvania style game that doesn't have any platforming, as long as the exploration factor is there. Maybe Dark Souls, with its expanded ideas and mechanics, would then be considered a Punch-Out-light?
Souls are Punch-Out-like as much as they are Diablo-like, or Metroidvania, or ICO-like even (as admitted by Miyazaki himself). They clearly brought various elements from past titles, but they reinterpreted them uniquely and elegantly enough to be be seen as, well, something new. Even taking combat alone, for example: Punch Out doesn't contemplate spacial awareness, but it's one of the key aspects to Souls games combat.
It's the case where where Civilization can be considered a roguelike due to it sharing a few major mechanics with Rogue. However, Civ isn't a dungeon crawler, you don't play as one character, turns aren't based on time units, etc. It's more so how the mechanics come operate, are utilized, and presented rather than just being there.
It's crazy how to see just how much the genre has started to expand post Elden Ring
And I'm all for it lol
shadow tower abysslike
Great Video dude!
Gosh, I just recognized Unreal's campaign and Sin ! Sin was damn hard, but so fun to play. Also, we used to call games like Doom, Doom-like back in the day, not Doom Clones. Well, at least I haven't heard that name before seeing your video :)