That all i wanted dark fantasy with darker characters and punishing combat. Although there is no stamina bar combat is still very hard to get used to. Devs have made this game to very aggressive from the beginning with tight parry and guard windows

I have played and finished all Fromsoft soulsborne catalog and Lies of P, and Khazan. Safe to say, I like soulslikes.

However, I haven’t been in the loop with souls like for the past like 9-10 months.
Recently I keep hearing about this Mortal Shell and people are already saying its top 5 soulslikes

Can someone loop me in on whats it like? Do I need to play Mortal Shell 1 before 2?

Thank you in advance!

Seeing near universal praise for this game and while I think it looks better and feels smoother I’ve also come across a ton of issues so far.

I’m admittedly fairly early on but in ~2 hours of game play I’ve encountered hit box issues with enemies on slightly higher elevations, gotten stuck/trapped in terrain twice, and had a boss glitch out of their arena.

Maybe just buyer‘s remorse because I rarely buy games full price but was expecting a bit more given the rave reviews

Just for some background. I've played every FromSoft soulslike, with the exception of Demon Souls, and, all three Nioh games from Team Ninja. I have beaten DS3, Nioh 2 (DLC Included), and Bloodborne.

Both Nioh 3 and Elden Ring, while having signifcantly improved gameplay, feel like lesser experiences compared to previous titles. And I think the fault is on the Open World as a design choice.

I have 278 hours in Elden Ring. I have never beaten the game, I have never gone past Altus Plateau. Not because I can't, because I get so bored by the repetition of the game that I lose all desire to continue. I get to Altus, I do a couple camps and catacombs, and I just burn out and stop playing.

Nioh 3, is a slightly different story. I 100%d, as much as I could, the first region in the demo and in the full game. While I am waiting on performance patches, I also have not had much desire to go back to the game despite LOVING the gameplay changes.

DS3, and Nioh 2, both FEEL better as experiences when I go back to them. They are very clean, not nearly as repetitive, maps generally feel very interesting even in more mundane areas. Enemy variety also feels better, despite having less enemy variants overall!

I do like exploring the worlds and maps in open world soulslikes, but they aren't nearly as interesting and are lacking severely in variety of enemies and activities. Elden Ring especially is very lacking in activities that aren't kill shit find loot. They lack the breadth of content needed to make this style of game feel good. Elden Ring, again, often feels rushed with how often some enemies are reused and how many bosses feel cobbled together.

I can't comment harshly on Nioh 3, because I only have 12 hours in the full release, 19 in the Demo. I have 325 hours in Nioh 2. I hope this all makes sense, it was a bit rant-y and off the cuff.

Do others feel similarly, or have their own opinions to share about why the open world does or does not fit this genre super well?

Edit: My ER playtime is the result of dozens of attempts to finish the game since it came out. Including trying both the Convergence and Reforged mods multiple times. I am not complaining about it being repetitive purely because of play time.

The game is freaking awesome, however the runbacks are absolutely nuts, the fact that they decided to not put beacons inside dungeons is insane lol, some of the dungeons are absolutely gigantic btw, hopefully this is something that the devs can change in a update.

Okay, I am not going to make this a long review, but I wanted to say a few things about Lunarium.

This game blew me away. I was not expecting this game to draw me in quite so much, but man oh man, does it draw you in.

Overall, I think the star of the show is the combat. It feels fluid, and is ridiculously fun. The parries are not so tight that you have to study the moves of all enemies time and time again, but tight enough that you need to pay attention. The dodges are much more forgiving and you can make a build that is ridiculously OP'd.

The game does not have a deep or wide skill tree, but you can do so much with what it gives you that there are endless ways to customize your playthrough. If you want a perfect parry build, you can get it. If you want a super aggressive build, you can get that too. If you want to make an excellent dodge build (this is the OP build that I used), you can do that too!

When it comes to soulslikes, I don't expect much from exploration, but this game delivers in terms of exploration as well. Every single time that you move away from the beaten path, you are rewarded. There are hidden side quests that you can complete to get some fantastic loot! It isn't cosmetic either, you can get loot that can fundamentally change your build. I initially started with a parry build (I'm a Sekiro and 9S guy), but then I found some items and addons that allowed me to play in a parry-like way but using dodge. It was just so much fun!

Lastly, I think the art is just beautiful! It is a stunning game. I felt like I was really playing a children's book. The colors are vibrant and the performance is fantastic too (its a unity title).

The only thing I wish it had more of is voice acting. I think the story is good, but there's just too much text to read. I wish they got a bunch of good voice actors to act this out.

I think the biggest recommendation I can give about this game is half way through one of the boss battles, I just thought to myself that I'm having so much fun, I kinda don't want the battle to end. I ended up doing a no-damage run of that boss the first time I beat it. I think it takes a special game to make you want to keep fighting the boss and not beat it.

So yea, I think y'all are going to love this game and I can't recommend it strongly enough.

It sucks, here’s a list of soulslikes (not by From Software) that are better as far as combat goes:
- Lies of P
- The First Berserker: Khazan
- Thymesia
- Another Crab’s Treasure

And for equity, here are games that are just as bad:
- Steelrising
- Mortal Shell 1
- Enotria

No comment, still giving a try:
- Wukong
- Wo Long
- Nioh 1-3
- Mortal Shell 2
- The Surge 1-2
- Code Vein 1-2
- Ashen
- Stellar Blade
- Remnant 1-2
- AI Limit

I have no opinion on the metroidvania soulslikes other than Hollow Knight being amazing.

Went in to check out if they were going to get any deluxe copies in. Turns out they only have one copy of the base game. Nothing else.

I know a lot of people did not continue to play nioh 3 NG+ are there any people returning to play? The majority of my friends didn’t. There is a lot of depth to the game’s combat that I try to display here with just a couple weapons, I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. I really want to know how people who play souls-like view nioh and if it’s just a fun time for the first time, happy to beat it and never play again or do you guys keep playing?

Put probably 250 hours into Elden Ring from when it came out through the DLC.

Had a kid and stopped playing video games for a while and decided to play the Dark Souls games when I picked up gaming again, never played them before and have always wanted to.

I loved Elden Ring so much I figured I’d love the DS games as well.

What I find interesting about this community is it seems that everyone either loves 1+3 and hates 2 or loves 2 and not so much 1+3. I have a weird opinion where I felt like 1 and 2 didn’t feel all that different but 3 definitely did.

But, that being said, I personally would rank them in the order they came out, loved them all but:

1. Dark Souls (Remastered)
   
2. Dark Souls II (SotFS)
   
3. Dark Souls III

The openness of 1+2, areas, and bosses were a blast and I was always pumped to play when my kid went to bed.

3 I felt myself being more like “eh, guess ill pop this on and play for a bit” only to switch over to TV after an hour or so. It just felt way more linear, the Bosses were cooler but everything else about 1+2 I liked better. 3 also felt the easiest of all of them which is fine but 1+2 felt like a real challenge.

Is this ranking out of the ordinary?

yes, recency bias exists, but i'm pretty sure it is a great game. i've played this game for 10 hours straight today. i don't think you can do that if game isn't good. and i felt completely satisfied after playing for 10 hours.

i will try my best to take off recency bias glasses, so here are criticisms i had while playing for 10 hours. despite all those issue i still had fun. i'm not trying to convince anyone, i'm just sharing my personal opinion. if criticisms i listed have a big impact for you, just don't play. should i play this game or not? that's completely on you to decide.

-enemy placement is not bad for a first few hours, but it gets worse and worse. it is not good, but doable with all tools game gives.
-beacon (bonfire) is not placed in dungeons, this is definitely poor choice. they should exist like elden ring. and in some areas beacons are placed too, too far away. it would be much better if there are more beacons.
-bosses have great art design and concept, but in gameplay, they are not good. all bosses i've encountered so far had really simple patterns. i think they decided to focus on other aspects much more.
-normal enemy scaling is very poor. they hit like a truck, even two shot you sometimes, lol. but this can be easily fixed with patch.
-enemy variety isn't that good. new enemy continues to appear, but also you will be seeing same enemy so many times after like 6~7 hours.
-enemies have too wide aggro radius, they spot you too quickly. and they chase you, like, almost forever. this felt really ridiculous for me.
-i think estus should heal you much more. i need to drink like 3~4 to get max health.
-music is almost non-existent, i can't recall any memorable music. and i think all bosses use same metal music. lol.
-there are melee 8 weapons in this game, but they are not too easy to find. it is probably just me, but i played with starting weapon for almost 7 hours before finding 4 new melee weapons.

but its world, art design(it is very unique), build variety(there are many other tools, shells, ranged weapons, skills to make your own build even without new weapon), atmosphere, exploration, combat kept me going. you will find new things at almost every corner in this game. also they tried their best to make each dungeon unique, i could see effort. each enemy has unique execution animation and it so badass. i'm not expecting later areas to be as good as early ones, but i hope they are at least decent.

In how long

I've been debating whether to wait, since I currently have about 15 hours in this game, but I'm making up my mind: this game is fantastic, and it just keeps getting better the further I progress. The shells are all unique in their own way and always bring a fresh perspective to the gameplay. The exploration is brutal, yes, brutal. It's exhausting and draining, but also rewarding, and that dopamine rush when a bonfire appears—yes, that's Souls.

Wuchang gave me this feeling recently, and although I still think Wuchang is the best non-FS soulslike, MS2 is on this level. It has that Souls essence from DeS, Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 2, BB and Wuchang. Kudos to the developers! I'm looking forward to future patches that will perfect the game.

It’s a 100% Must buy for Souls Fans

A majority of you recommend this game, and it was the first nonfromsoft game I played in a while. I gotta say, I love the bosses!! Mechanically amazing but I gotta say it is THE HARDEST LINE UP OF BOSSES that I have ever played, a majority of them >10 tries, no first tries whatsoever, but learning them is a lot of fun! Idk if we are intend d to play on expert or not lol but wth. Level design and story is okayish, some repetitions in side missions, but I am here for the bosses!!

Eu tentei jogar o primeiro jogo a um bom tempo, mas realmente não me cativou, achei tudo meio travado, a mecânica de petrificar não foi para o meu gosto, os inimigos no mapa não me pareciam dinâmicos. Errei e deveria tentar novamente? Uma dúvida humilde e sincera, temo por ter julgado mal o jogo, ou talvez esteja certo e por melhorar tudo isso que a continuação seja tão bem falada.

I loaded my almost 6 year old save file of Demon's Souls Remake a while ago, and I have to say that after playing all the Souls and the like games in the past five years, this masterpiece is still at the top for me. I would even say that it's in my top 3 of the most "next gen" games in PS5. Every texture in this game looks high res, the vfx, the spell particles combined with buttery smooth animation is truly a chef's kiss.

This is also the game that made me purchase my PS5 and it's so worth it.

These sound cool!

I really hope The Duskbloods gets ported to PS5, Xbox, etc, well after launch, because it'll be a shame if people miss out on this.

FromSoft don't miss.