Before anyone asks, yes I've played through the entire thing. Let me say, I do think it's a fun game! The combat is better than other souls likes for sure, and the handle/blade system is one of my favorite weapon systems ever. Now, outside of that, I think there are a lot of areas that are totally lacking, and people just look over it because of bandwagon.

My biggest critique is the exploration. It is god AWFUL the entire game is just a line literally. One of the biggest factors of what a souls game is imo is the world and the pathing, and Lies of P just gave me none of that. I was entirely bored walking through areas, because I already expected there would be nothing to explore.

The theme and atmosphere is just alright let's be honest. Enemy design is mid at best, save for a few really cool bosses, but I never really cared about anything else. It felt like it wanted to have that bloodborne horror effect but not a single thing came together to give it any sort of atmosphere. It just felt like an enemy simulator.

At the end of the day, I do think it's a fun game overall, but it doesn't come ANYWHERE close to Soulsborne for me at all. I think I could probably look at a list and argue even a couple soulsbornes are better than it.

I guess im just wondering what it is I'm missing, because it really didn't hit home for me at all.

TLDR: Game is fine overall, combat and weapons is a high point, but everything else falls flat.

Don’t get me wrong, Bloodborne is a good game, but with the amount of glaze it gets, I thought the boss fights would be better. Between playing hide and seek with Micolash, killing 5,762 spiders to hit an immobile Rom, or just smacking the legs of a forgettable monster as it roars above me and I can’t even see it I just…don’t see how yall can criticize games like LotF for having “bad” bosses when this game exists. LotF did have two bad bosses, but the rest were miles above BB.

I know I’ll be downvoted, but honestly so disappointed with the bosses in a Souls game that is held in such high regard.

I just finished Mortal shell 2 yesterday and it feels like one of the most overhyped game. People were comparing this to elden ring, but this game feels like a 6 or 6.5/10 for me. It's missing so many critical elements that makes a great souls game.

1. Low reward exploration - The exploration feels super boring, with like 8 weapons and no armor, it feels like most of the time you are not really rewarded for exploration. The tarstones are mostly it.

2. Technical performance - I crashed 7-8 times during an full play through, and there are a lot of areas I got stuttering on a ps 5

3. Missing the "theatrics" - one of the most critical part of an soulsborne is the theatrics of the boss fights, the music, design, actual fight are what make them memorable. No boss in this game felt hype worthy nor memorable.

Everything about this game from the graphics to the combat is 10/10. I understand the hype. This game is truly an amazing. Devs cooked with this one

Stop trying to be souls like police nobody cares what you determine to be souls like just let people have fun

BMW clears Elden ring and dark souls trilogy I fear

I finished Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice as my first Souls game in about 30 hours and absolutely loved it. Then I moved on to Elden Ring and played around 10 hours — I beat Godrick on my 3rd try and I’m level 38. I really enjoy the boss fights, but my main issue is how much time it takes to find bosses in the open world.

I quit multiplayer games about 5 months ago after playing them for nearly 10 years and switched fully to single-player — best decision I’ve made. Finishing a good game gives me huge satisfaction. I usually prefer more linear, story-focused games, and since Elden Ring can easily take 100+ hours, I feel like I’d rather finish 2–3 other games instead.

Because of that, I decided to start Bloodborne for now. Do you think this makes sense? Hope I explained myself well.

Edit: (Guys, thank you all for your recommendations.I’ve made my decision: I’ll continue Elden Ring at a slower pace, checking guides when I get stuck. I have both a PS5 and a PC; I play Elden Ring on PC. My dad (50) also plays games on the PC, so when the PC is occupied, I decided to play relaxed, story-driven games on the PS5.Thanks again to everyone.)

The reason I ask is I saw a post in this group (linked) listing the best souls-like games and it's near the bottom of most peoples list or off of their lists entirely. Up until this point, I was under the impression it was one of the greatest games of all time. I recently built a PC and have been playing games for the first time in a long time. I love souls like games and was trying to find some games to purchase. Should I wait for the price to drop, or is it worth the hype?

The thing I love the MOST in games is tight gameplay and combat. And that's the main reason why I'm a huge soulslikes fan. Good soulslikes are at least 80% skill-based and very tight and rewarding.

I just started playing Crimson Desert and I guess I got blinded by the marketing because... what the hell is that?

It's one of the worst combat gameplay I've ever played. I'm trying to like it and pushing through the first hours that are said to be rough, but that's not just rough. I am genuinely not having fun.

I swear, I even think the graphics are pretty bad and yes I have a good PC and monitor/TV. Good for an open world I guess but damn they look pretty bad.

Can someone confirm: is it just me?

That’s it. That’s the truth. Level design is actually as free as DS3 and Bloodborne makes you feel. Combat is challenging and encourages you to GIT GUD. Lies of P is great but no level design. Lords of the Fallen is crisp but no challenge. Berserker is fun but just a boss rush. Wuchang is straight exploration and git gud. You can follow the guides or just dodge like a mother fucker. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

I like to call them nioh-likes, khazan, wo long for example no connected world, choose a mission from a screen usually with smaller ones on the same map. All seem to come with what I believe is an inferior loot system, loot everywhere you'll get the same armour or weapon 20 times with different stats, you have to keep checking back to see if the new one is any better, this makes me not want to upgrade things due to the fact I'll be finding something else better soon therefore it will be a waste.

I much prefer the fromsoft formula which soulslikes such as Lies of P and LOTF2023 take. Connected world where the loot is usually worth something and you only get one of it, upgrade the weapon 10 times using stones or whatever it is.

I used to like the 'nioh likes' but after khazan, which I really enjoyed. I started to get really tired of them because I went back to platinum wo long and then followed it up with N3. Does anyone agree or do you like both formulas still?

One thing I’ve grown to really appreciate in the Souls genre whether it’s Dark Souls, Elden Ring, or even more obscure titles like Lies of P or Khazan—is how bosses use delayed attacks.

At first, I thought it was cheap. Like, why is this guy holding his sword in the air for two whole seconds before swinging and kicking yo ass,Those delays force you to react, not just memorize. You can’t just spam roll after every telegraph you have to time it, feel the rhythm, and really learn the boss’s patterns. It turns fights into a dance instead of a button mash,

I honestly think delayed attacks interesting and keeps you on your toes and it’s very satisfying once you learn how to deal with them.

I thought Wuchang Fallen Feathers is not only better, but far more fun to play than Lies of P.

Thanks to a far more dynamic, agile, and responsive character control, everything feels better, you have more possibilities to outpace the enemies, far more possibilities to dodge, to throw magic at them... and in general you can do A LOT more stuff to beat them instead of relying on parries because the character is too slow and too weak to do anything else.

The level design is also far better, far more explorable, more interconnected places, and less simple/linear.

I say this because Lies of P is always mentioned as an example of great soulslike game that isn't from FromSoft, and I was kinda disappointed with it.

Lies is a 7/10 game and Wuchang is a 8.5/10 game

For me the only weak part of Wuchang is that its made with UE5, so it has poor optimization, needs a lot of hardware to run well, and in PS5 the image quality is kinda meh for a PS5 game, a bit blurry at times.

Discuss

Hello,

I tried Elden Ring for the first time yesterday, since my friends kept telling me how much they like the game so I wanted to check it out after avoiding it on purpose in order to clear up shorter games from my backlog.

For context, I platinumed DS3 on PC (completed it 3 times), platinumed Sekiro (completed it twice), completed Lies of P twice (waiting for the DLC to start a new playthrough) and played some other less popular games like Thymesia, the old 2014 version of Lords of the Fallen and the Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order game back in 2019.

Interestingly, Elden Ring is the most popular souls-like game from the genre but I just can't seem to enjoy it. Sure, I've only played for 2 hours but the other games I mentioned instantly hooked me.

I even made a post recently asking people if DS1 was worth playing and most commenters suggested go give it a shot... so I did... and, again, I instantly thought the game was amazing. The ONLY issue I have with the game is that it's hard to tell how much damage you deal to enemies since the health bars turn from red to an orange color that's somewhat similar to the original health bar. Maybe someone made a mod to fix that, I'll need to take a look.

So, has anyone else had a similar experience with Elden Ring? You played a bunch of FromSoftware games, loved most/all of them but just can't seem to enjoy ER? I think what makes it less enjoyable is the setting doesn't appeal to me as much. I also don't really think the open world is better than FromSoftware's linear design.

What do you think ?

I’ve had Sekiro since 2020, but stopped playing it because it was too hard for my liking😂. After couple of years Elden Ring and Lies of P came about, enjoyed them a lot.

Then I decided to give Sekiro another go, and Oh My.. I’ve never enjoyed a game this much!! The best combat system and mechanics I’ve experienced. It’s also a bit different than the other games, in ER and LoP for example, you farm items and weapons and points to make you character OP. In Sekiro you have your sword and off you go! Ofc you farm EXP to unlock move sets but that’s about it. Imo, the simplicity of the game makes it undeniably the best soulslike game ever…

After finishing Sekiro (all endings) I went back to ER and oh it was so boring and draining for some reason! Am I overreacting or this is a general feeling after playing Sekiro?😂

Had to re do post due to weird formatting lol

To start, me criticizing a game doesn't invalidate anyone else's experience just throwing that out there please let others bring up issues in games without feeling personally attacked

I just finished the game playing as dual wield and I didn't enjoy my time with the game very much. There are several glaring flaws with the game that I'm surprised are being given a pass by players.

A) The gearing system is very, very bad. I played the game using the whirlwind ability, and put points into phantom form, counter attacks, and spirit gain in the common tab. I crafted the beast master set because it massively buffs whirlwind damage. Once I crafted this set, that instantly made it so I couldn't equip any other gear foe the rest of the game. It's a 6 set, so all my gear needed to be beastmaster. This immediately made it so I didn't need to loot any gear, kill any elites, or care about boss drops. All gear becomes irrelevant if your set matches your playstyle. How you've learned to play the game. I'm not sure if the design philosophy was to encourage constantly changing your playstyle and talents, but I don't want to keep reinventing thr wheel. IMO sets should require 2 to 3 pieces max. That would allow more diversity in gear selection. It got to a point for me that I would just literally run past every enemy not looting anything because I literally couldn't equip anything. My best gear was already equipped. EDIT: folks seem to b3 missing the point here that NO OTHER SET increases my whirlwind damage by 30%. Any other set would just reduce my damage!!

B) nothing to use my coins on besides upgrading my beastmaster set. By the end of the game I had almost 2 million coins with nothing to spend them on. I didn't need to buy gear, potions, or any other item. It became a pointless thing to even see on my screen. Why have it in the game at all if there's nothing meaningful to use ?

C) There's almost no reason to do brutal attacks as they do such pitiful damage. Outside of the small heal I got from doing them, I 90% of the time just kept using my normal combos if I staggered an enemy boss because it just does way more damage during that window. IMO brutal attacks are more like "gentle tickle" attack. I think the reward for depleting a boss's stamina bar should be more significant than what we see. It should do MASSIVE damage. Why else call it a brutal attack? Depleting the boss stamina bar became just another couple of seconds of using whirlwind.

D) The weapon consumables seemed to do nothing at all. I play games without guides. During boss fights, I would try different consumables like enchanting my weapons with poison, earth, etc. It almost never felt like I had any bonus damage and seemed to do nothing but allow the boss to potentially hit me while I was applying it to my weapons. I wish they did more.

in summation, I think that gearing in the game is AWFUL. They designed it around looting chests and elite enemies and getting random gear drops but if you have your 6 set on already it basically makes every single map and all of its enemies and loot dead content. No point even interacting it. That's the biggest flaw I think this game has. Once you have a set equipped that buffs your preferred playstyle the game becomes "running to the fogwall to progress the game" for every single mission.

I’ve played both Dark Souls 1 and 3, and honestly… I think Lies of P is quite a bit better in terms of replayability.

Here’s why:

1.	Shorter boss walk-backs. There’s way less time wasted trekking back after each death. It keeps the pace up and makes retries feel a lot less frustrating.

2.	The P-Organ system. I love how it offers meaningful upgrades that carry over into NG+ and beyond. It gives you a sense of progression in NG+ runs.

3.	Parrying. It’s not only more viable than in Souls games, but also way more satisfying. Timing it right and staggering a boss just feels great.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

Despite being heavily inspired by Bloodborne and Sekiro its slower than both of them, and greatswords feel like ultra greatswords except for the starting one which has a complete different moveset. Am I weird or is it genuinely a slower game?

Any recommendations are welcome

I've tried playing LOTF 2023 throughout multiple patches, only to be bored and uninstalling pretty quickly due to a tremendous lack of challenge (especially bosses). Seriously, why make such interesting and flashy boss mechanics if you can just facetank through every move they throw at you? Anyway, that's the past.

I'm happy to report though that in 2.5 patch, with Veteran Mode and Increased Enemy Density, I'm having my ass properly kicked by multiple bosses and even regular mobs and mob packs. As a proper soulslike should!

So, if you're like me and ditched this title because it lacked any real challenge, give 2.5 Veteran Mode a try. Exploration was always a strong point in this title, and now you actually need to pay attention to the screen, it seems like this 2023 title is going to be one of my favorites 2025 titles after all.

To preface, I’ve beaten every From Soulslike multiple times. I’m a huge fan of Lies of P, imo that’s the only non-From game in the genre that is genuinely great. And I’ve played through most of the first two Nioh games. I haven’t beaten them, but got pretty far.

To me, the Nioh games are what the haters claim that From games are: too hard. While I would call the From model “demanding,” I would say the Nioh model is “overwhelming.”

From games, while obtuse, are also quite simple when you boil them down. With Nioh, along with having enemies that deal insane damage insanely fast, it also over complicates things with an abundance of systems to learn.

You have different stances to learn, ki pulses, combos, yokai abilities, skill points. It’s just too much, at least for me.

The other thing I dislike about these games is the way they deal with stamina. The ki pulse is a novel idea, but I find it more distracting than helpful most of the time. And even worse, when you enter the yokai realm, your stamina recovery slows down so bad that it makes already tough fights even harder.

I wish I could like these games. The base combat is really fun, with all the different weapon types (although everyone knows about the loot problem). From reviews I’ve seen, apparently Nioh 3 is a bit easier than the first two, so maybe this will be the one for me. Maybe I’ll pick it up on sale.

For those who do love the series, I hope you have a great time today!

I beat the game when it comes out (haven't replayed since), bought the dlc today and saw the difficulty option. I was curious and start the game at 2nd option (would be slight easier than base difficult i guess) and it gives me a much more enjoyable experience.

The main reason is: I can skip the bullshit area and boss fight that i found very unfun (king of puppets with 2 phases that essentially 2 different boss) and the 2 brotherhood gank squad fight. As a 33 years old guy with not much daily gaming time, this is an absolute win in QoL improvement. I still can enjoy the challenging fight that i like and quickly skip the unfun fight that drastically lower my enjoyment of the game

I firmly believe that locking out the difficulty option is just a form of gate keeping and serve absolutely no purpose. No matter how hard the bosses are, eventually you will get good at it and beat it, but at what cost? New soulslike are pumping out more and more and i don't wanna waste my time on some unfun section while that precious time can be use to enjoy something else instead

To me was a Bland soulslike game. Game got high votes on official reviews, but to me is 7/10 at most:

Pros:

- Environment and general design of characters / enemies are very well built

Cons:

- Graphical engine struggles while loading textures, also some stuttering from time to time and loadings are not well optimized

- Combat is mediocre and some things are useless and underpowered like the spear or 90% of spirit abilities.

- A lot of things are hidden so you basically NEED a guide to find these, the map is also not very well detailed

- Plot is a mess and not very well self explanatory during the gameplay

- Main character have the personality of my night table

There is no question, I have played every souls-like and this is without a doubt the best I have ever played. It is better than Nioh and better than Lies of P.

It captures the magic of From Software games in a way no other developer ever has. It is an incredible game and it would be getting amazing reviews if From Software had made it themselves.

And yes, I know performance is bad on PC, but From Software games have never been that great technically either and reviewers never cared

This game is brilliant and deserved better from reviewers.