Could God Hand (PS2) be considered a souls-like?
It’s a thought that crosses my head every once in a while…
Usually I see it referred as a #BeatEmUp, but given the narrow timings and how at disadvantage the player usually is, could #GodHandPS2 be considered a #SoulsLike as well?
No. I have not played it (yet…) but God Hand is a Beat 'Em Up and/or a CAG (character action game). Please just let it stay what it is.
Can we please stop calling every fucking game in the known universe a Soulslike? No, a game simply being moderately challenging does not make it a Soulslike. No, just because a game has a dodge button and boss fights does not make it a Soulslike. I’ve seen someone unironically call Kingdom Hearts a Soulslike. This shit needs to stop.
Kind of a harsh response imo, but you did clarify that your frustration does not lie with OP themselves and likely stemmed from a misinterpretation of their question
Yeah, maybe I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, sorry. I have just had too many experiences with people saying Witcher 3 is their favourite Soulslike or whatever.
lmao yea I get that :D
I didn’t say it is. And acting like this could scare people from asking for clarification or even clarifying, further increasing the confusion and lack of understanding. As someone I follow says, against bad information, more information.
This may just be an autism moment for me of not understanding what someone is meaning, so I apologise if that’s the case. To me it did read as someone positing that God Hand could be considered a Soulslike. I think if you had asked more directly about what the core elements of a Soulslike are to see if God Hand matches up then I would have reacted differently. I did not understand from your post how unfamiliar you are with Soulslikes. Luckily @v4ld1z@lemmy.zip gave a good and level-headed reply anyway.
The main source of my frustration was not with you in particular, but this trend in general. People all over the internet have started to call everything and their mother a Soulslike, really ever since the genre went mainstream with Elden Ring. And it’s extremely frustrating for me because it makes things so incredibly fuzzy and difficult to talk about and people are starting to misunderstand each other more and more and that makes me frustrated.
💯 agree with you
Well, a soulslike is usually characterised by a couple of things with varying importance:
- heavy focus on role-playing elements and character customisation (Sekiro being an exception)
- difficulty of the game (relative, of course, but in general)
- heavy emphasis on lore, sparse storytelling that’s up to the player to figure out
- usually some kind of restorative item, like the Estus Flask
- possibly a dodge roll or other evasive maneuvers (parry, for example), heavy emphasis on “committed” combat (ie. you can’t cancel out of an attack - once it’s initiated, you have to see it through)
- a bonfire-equivalent to respawn at if you die in an area
I don’t know the game like you do, so you might be able to deduce from this if it classifies as a soulslike/-lite better than I can :)
Honestly, I dont disagree with any of your points but in my opinion you missed three of the most important ones:
- Resting at a bonfire to heal respawns enemies in areas you’ve been through
- You lose upgrade currency when you die, which often can be retrieved if you collect your corpse before dying again
- Stamina-based combat
Right, forgot about those. Although I’d say stamina is not as important of a factor as the other two. Of course you could say Sekiro has a stamina-equivalent in place, but it’s not a 1:1 replacement - could you imagine if Sekiro has a posture bar and stamina? That would be horrible lol
Hollow Knight (Silksong), while more of a souls-lite, also manages fine without stamina. I know it’s a very different kinda game being a metroidvania but still worth mentioning imo
It’s a bit of an interesting topic. To me, stamina does not necessarily make a game better or more fun to play. But we’re not talking about that, so much as genre definition and feel, and when the genre was established then I would say stamina was one of the cornerstones of combat, along with iframes during dodge rolls and animation locking.
I still think your examples are more like exceptions, personally. A Soulsvania like Hollow Knight would probably feel very unnatural with a stamina system given all the acrobatics and platforming and jumping and dashing involved in gameplay, not just during boss fights. As far as Sekiro you’re probably right (I have not played it) but I thought everyone was kind of in accord that it is almost its own thing rather than a normal Soulslike. Like yes - it doesn’t have stamina. But it also doesn’t feel like a normal Soulslike. So, point proven?
When I played AI Limit recently it was very obvious too, almost to the point where I wouldn’t argue with anyone calling it a Souls-lite. Not having to think about stamina and plan your resources for dodging and attacking really does change the feel to a very large extent. Not necessarily for the worse, mind you, but definitely different from a typical Soulslike.
Gotcha, I see your point
Thanks! I guess I got things confused because I had forgotten about these finer details. Been a while since I last played a souls-like. e.e"
No worries whatsoever. How else will you know unless you ask?
What’s the last one you played, if you remember?
So, you’re telling me Dungeon Master is a souls like?
god hand predates dark souls by half a decade so no, it cannot be a soulslike.
I normally associate a souls like game with a game that is quite unforgivable. I remmeber beating godsend pretty easily. While I did love every aspect of the game from demon elvis poison chihuahua, and aliens at one point.
I wouldn’t call it souls like. It was really open world exploration with some rando one taping you for not paying attention.
