They seem so popular, dozens of games coming out, and reviews often positive.
But
When I see “Roguelike” I imagine a game that’s too small to be a real game, so they made it so you can never win and just have to keep trying and you’ll get a decent number of hours out of it. With just enough progression each time that you start to believe it’s possible you’ll get somewhere meaningful.
When I see “Souls-like” I think of a game where the difficulty is only there to give people with too much time on their hands a sense of superiority.
I have roughly a thousand games in my various libraries and I have never played a game in either of these genres.
I feel fine being so unreasonable about this.
I used to not like those, I now like them.
For souls like, the dark souls community was straight up a repellent to the game for me, seeing thr game for myself and not thinking about them was what got me into it. The sense of accomplishment is one thing but for me what I fell in love with was the atmosphere, level design and ARPG-ness.
For roguelikes, my distaste was just the frustration and futility, and not keeping progress. What I dislike now from them is the time sink to sense of accomplishment ratio. I’m still not sold on the concept itself but these days I can enjoy a game despite of it, since good games carry some properties with that that I do like (power ups, builds, the possibility of completely breaking the game, etc).
I see nothing wrong in disliking them, it is true that for many developers the second is a way to make the content last longer but just like with any other tool, as long as it’s well used it shouldn’t be an issue.
Regarding souls like, these days its used very loosely and I like that, it doesn’t tell you much of what you’re getting other than some general direction, sometimes it’s a stamina bar and a dodge, sometimes is the level design, sometimes the atmosphere, sometimes.
Don’t get carried away by just the tags, but once you see too much of the bad examples I can see why they would push you away.
So, twist in the story.
Turns out I’ve enjoyed them maybe a bit.
Greedfall perhaps qualifies, and I love it.
Expedition 33 also perhaps qualities and that’s fun, challenging but fun
And it’s absolutely the setting, the atmosphere, the story and the characters which I fell in love with.
Add metroidvania into the mix.
If I see another game self-described as an indie retro pixel dungeon Metroidvania soulslike I will punch a wall
Is there treasure hidden in the wall?
That’s… the point of the descriptive tags?
I’ve never played a Souls game. Nothing about “you’re supposed to die a lot and redo it all until you’ve mastered it” is appealing to me. I don’t have the patience for it.
I’m not saying thats a bad format for a game. I just don’t want to spend my free time and money on something I’m sure I won’t like.
Part of the appeal of Souls games, at least for me, is that you can team up with others.
Hey, just to be a pedantic asshole…
When I see “Roguelike” I imagine a game that’s too small to be a real game, so they made it so you can never win and just have to keep trying and you’ll get a decent number of hours out of it. With just enough progression each time that you start to believe it’s possible you’ll get somewhere meaningful.
You’re describing a ‘roguelite’, which implies metaprogression. ‘roguelike’ normally means that there is no (or extremely little) metaprogression… getting better is just about increasing player knowledge, typically. The terms are used somewhat interchangeably sometimes but some games, at least, still use them correctly.
That said, if the size is the killer… Take a look at Caves of Qud. It’s a traditional roguelike, but there’s non-perma-death options when starting a new game, and the size of the game was definitely not the reason for choosing the genre.
