This ain't it, chief

[it's a gabe]

The game looks stunning and the soundtrack is great, but I don't think the throwback to Dark Souls mechanics is at all necessary. I would much rather have an indie love letter to TLOZ instead of that with Dark Souls sprinkled all over it.

I get the cultural importance of Dark Souls and everything it popularized. Its mechanics work in some games (e.g. I think Hollow Knight handled currency loss in an interesting way and overall, it fits the gameplay and lore), but I will never agree that every game needs to be the Dark Souls of its genre (which, as we all know, has become a stupid claim). It's honestly getting really old that so many games now have a stamina-based combat, or that in others you lose your stuff when you die and you gotta go back to the place where you fell to recover it. And the demo has both of those, which just made me roll my eyes cuz at this point, having Dark Souls elements is mostly cliche.

And before anyone attacks me for focusing so much on Dark Souls, let's get this straight: I'm aware that Dark Souls wasn't the first game to present the ideas it has, and that there was Demon's Souls before it. Matter of fact is, Dark Souls popularized all of those ideas as it reached a much broader audience due to it not being a PS3 exclusive. And I hate it for it cuz now everyone wants one or more of those ideas in their games as if they're the most revolutionary thing ever and every game which features them is bound to be good. Not the case.

So devs, when you say the demo isn't representative of the final product, I hope you ditched the Dark Souls stuff. To be honest, I don't think the game needs them at all. Focus on the TLOZ aspects cuz that's what caught everyone's attention, to begin with.

[MyCabbages]

Ironically FromSoft are moving away from those mechanics if Sekiro is anything to go by.

[meow]

One of the things that "soulslike" games always gets wrong is the lack ot weapon variety. Every Dark Souls game has a huge roster of weapons of MANY different types, usable items, and magic to allow for a large amount of play variety.

The formula just doesn't work if all you have is a broadsword and shield the entire game.

[Jinx]

Oof I haven't played the demo yet but this is worrying. I was hoping for something similar to the first Zelda. This just sounds annoying. I hate those two mechanics, that's part of the reason I don't play Dark Souls. Maybe there will be gameplay/difficulty options to get rid of some of this annoying crap?

[Acme64]

your entire basis for this argument is that it hurts to get hit and the shield has stamina? is that all you got?

[it's a gabe]

Originally posted by Acme64:

your entire basis for this argument is that it hurts to get hit and the shield has stamina? is that all you got?

No, pal. It's just annoying. We've seen this sort of thing time and time again and as I said (it seems you missed it cuz you were so worried about mocking me), it's pretty old by now. If I want to play Dark Souls or something stemming from it, I'll play those games. I have more than enough of them (including all three Dark Souls), to the point where anything else that tries to be like Dark Souls loses my attention.

If you love those mechanics to bits, hooray for you. Some of us would prefer if every developer under the sun stopped trying to shove Dark Souls in every game they make, though. As much as you have the right to love the formula, we have the right not to. So if condescension is all you have to add to the post, I guess you're done here.

[brellom]

Just because something isn't necessary doesn't mean it's not worth featuring if that's what the creators want to do. The dodge rolling and stamina management can help make fights more engaging, and it's fairly light as far as "Dark Souls-esque" mechanics go. I think it's okay to not like these elements, but I think you're blowing it out of proportion a bit. I doubt it's done to be revolutionary, it's probably because it's interesting.

That said, I do think the demo itself was a bit rough so combat wasn't as nice as it could've been. I imagine the full game will give you access to more of the map, so you won't be as likely to hit some of its walls without being able to progress sometimes.

[404_Not_Found]

Originally posted by Jinx:

Oof I haven't played the demo yet but this is worrying. I was hoping for something similar to the first Zelda. This just sounds annoying. I hate those two mechanics, that's part of the reason I don't play Dark Souls. Maybe there will be gameplay/difficulty options to get rid of some of this annoying crap?

Sameeee. I've had this game on my wishlist for years. I enjoy Zelda for being an adventure-puzzle game, but this just sounds WAY too stressful to be fun.

If it's just gonna be really hard for dumb reasons instead of a chill adventure game then I'm out. There are a billion "classic hard" games out there, including too many roguelites saturating the market. There are not enough good zelda-likes, it's far more sparse a genre and far more necessary to fill, especially as Nintendo are scumbags and need competition.

[The Fourth King]

I rather prefer a difficult game than an easy game that end boring me.

[Samson Fairfox]

Originally posted by The Fourth King:

I rather prefer a difficult game than an easy game that end boring me.

I think that it being hard is going to make beating it more enjoyable, Nintendo's devs Might have at one point been cool. For example Zelda 64's beta looked really hard compared to the final game.

Constant hand holding is why devs are afraid of everything now days, make it to hard won't sell, make it to different won't sell.

Not to mention that Link to the past had some hard as balls boss fights and dungeon layouts, Nintendo got to easy and boring over the years along with a good chunk of triple A devs.

[Samson Fairfox]

Originally posted by 🌈gӕb:

. Focus on the TLOZ aspects cuz that's what caught everyone's attention, to begin with.

Not true at all, the fox you play as did for me. Also if every top down RPG game you come across is Zelda you really have not played many RPG's. Not every game needs to be Zelda or Mario to be good you know, ever think of that?

I am also sick of every hard game is Darksouls, this is maybe one of the biggest Smooth Brain comments you could ever make now days. Also a bad gamer like myself, that sucks at many games beat Darksouls and it was pretty easy.

People that go into the Darksouls and be like all I have to do is mash my attack button's and I will win! Are the ones that stop at the first major boss in the game. If you die, it's your fault. very few places in Darksouls are cheap or unfair, if you go into a strange place and die you must have missed something.

Intelligence is something you need more of if Darksouls is a hard game.

[Jinx]

Originally posted by Samson Fairfox:

Originally posted by The Fourth King:

I rather prefer a difficult game than an easy game that end boring me.

I think that it being hard is going to make beating it more enjoyable, Nintendo's devs Might have at one point been cool. For example Zelda 64's beta looked really hard compared to the final game.

Constant hand holding is why devs are afraid of everything now days, make it to hard won't sell, make it to different won't sell.

Not to mention that Link to the past had some hard as balls boss fights and dungeon layouts, Nintendo got to easy and boring over the years along with a good chunk of triple A devs.

Link to the Past was a cakewalk as I recall, especially after playing the first game's Second Quest.

This idea that devs are afraid to make hard games in 2021 is silly. There are plenty of hard games, even entire popular genres like Souls-likes and rogue-lites that are built around being tough. I do think devs have gotten better at making games that are difficult without being *frustrating*, though.

That said, I really don't have the patience for overtly difficult games that I did in the 80s/90s. I just get bored and move on to something else if I feel like a game is wasting my time by being harder than it needs to be.

[Samson Fairfox]

Originally posted by Jinx:

Originally posted by Samson Fairfox:

I think that it being hard is going to make beating it more enjoyable, Nintendo's devs Might have at one point been cool. For example Zelda 64's beta looked really hard compared to the final game.

Constant hand holding is why devs are afraid of everything now days, make it to hard won't sell, make it to different won't sell.

Not to mention that Link to the past had some hard as balls boss fights and dungeon layouts, Nintendo got to easy and boring over the years along with a good chunk of triple A devs.

Link to the Past was a cakewalk as I recall, especially after playing the first game's Second Quest.

This idea that devs are afraid to make hard games in 2021 is silly. There are plenty of hard games, even entire popular genres like Souls-likes and rogue-lites that are built around being tough. I do think devs have gotten better at making games that are difficult without being *frustrating*, though.

That said, I really don't have the patience for overtly difficult games that I did in the 80s/90s. I just get bored and move on to something else if I feel like a game is wasting my time by being harder than it needs to be.

I forgot that NIntendo had a second quest in Zelda 1 NES, but that being true some of the fights without knowing what to do would kick your butt. I did not get the chance to play the demo of Tunic but from what I saw from videos looks like a very manageable game really.
Also "I just get bored and move on to something else if I feel like a game is wasting my time" I feel as if you don't have as much time as you once did growing up, and that you also don't want to push how much you can over come.

The dev did seem to point out that how hard the game is depends on if you are willing to take risk, and that's fine to me. Come back later when your ready or have the skill to do things different in your next playthrough. Makes me wonder if there will be a noob option to help go through the game with, a powerful sword or something?

To be fair I love super guide type items, Darksouls has a few of those, all you need to do it go pick them up level up a bit and boom!! the whole game is a cake walk.

[Elitepatriot]

Ya I was not to thrilled to the souls gameplay. Was hoping for a classic over view zelda game

[Jinx]

Originally posted by Elitepatriot:

Ya I was not to thrilled to the souls gameplay. Was hoping for a classic over view zelda game

What ironic is that while the original NES/SNES Zelda games are really old, very few games are really comparable to them. Meanwhile the whole "dark souls" thing is so played out that just hearing "soulslike" makes me want to gag a little. It actually would have been more original and interesting to go for the gameplay of the old Zelda games.

[blossom]

Dark Souls and its terrible game design is the worst thing to happen to gaming in the last decade.