Ranking the "Souls-likes"

[strumpusplunket]

I just finished yet another of the loosely-defined "Souls-like" games in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. Another game I really enjoyed in the end, and that gave me the warm glow of satisfaction after having beaten the (fairly tough) final boss.

This is one of my favourite genres of game since I first played Dark Souls, and there are more on the horizon. I was weighing up where Wo Long sat alongside others in the field for me after finishing it, and that led me to start mentally ranking all the Souls-likes I could remember playing.

I've only included games with key criteria: third-person 3D perspective, Souls-like death/respawn mechanic with currency loss on death, bonfire-like checkpoint system, stamina/posture/spirit management/depletion systems, rolling/dodgiing/blocking/parrying as key mechanics, difficult combat with set-piece boss fights. I think those are the key elements.

It was suprisingly hard to do. I could easily make a case for Dark Souls, Sekiro or Elden Ring being my favourite, and they each have different qualities. For me personally, I can't imainge anything ever comparing with the experience of playing the first Dark Souls as the first of this genre, having my mind blown when winding my way back to Firelink Shrine from yet another direction and having another piece of the world's georgaphic design slot into place. Sekiro pares down and perfects a quicker parry-based combat system to absolute perfection. And the huge map realised in Elden Ring is a masterful opening-up of the Souls-like gameworld.

I enjoy the difficulty in these games, so that was another factor. Some fights - like Isshin in Sekiro, Manus, Fume Knight and Friede in DS1, 2 & 3 DLCs and Malenia in Elden Ring - really made me question whether it was all too much for me. Many of the others contained great challenges along the way that I really enjoyed overcoming.

This is how I ended up. Be interesting to know if I've missed any and where they would fit.

Best to worst	Difficulty
Dark Souls	Sekiro
Sekiro	Dark Souls 3
Elden Ring	Nioh 2
Dark Souls 3	Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty
Nioh 2	Dark Souls 2
Nioh	Dark Souls
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty	Elden Ring
Remnant from the Ashes	The Surge
Dark Souls 2	Code Vein
The Surge 2	Nioh
Hellpoint	The Surge 2
Jedi Fallen Order	Hellpoint
Mortal Shell	Remnant from the Ashes
Code Vein	Lords of the Fallen
The Surge	Jedi Fallen Order
Lords of the Fallen	Mortal Shell

 

[strumpusplunket]

From the ones I played:

Bloodborne
Sekiro
Elden Ring
DS3

I played DS1 Remastered but it was way too late to really impact me the same way it would've had back in the days but I do appreciate the level design.

Yet to Play Demon's Souls Remake.

I rarely bother with other soulsike since they're almost never as good as what From does.

Bloodborne is still king when it comes to the overall package of lore/atmosphere/bosses/level design and I've yet to see better combat than in Sekiro.

Elden Ring absolutely demolishes with its locations, secrets and the amount of stuff to discover. Even though side dungeons reuse assets they still get progressively more complex and introduce their own quirks to catch players off guard. And you're not even supposed to find all of them.

Frankly speaking, the legacy locations are so good that you could just string them together scrapping everything in between and you'd still end up with level design better than 99% of modern games.

DS3 was pretty fun but it felt somewhat diluted and was a bit too easy.

These games have different strengths but if I could only only choose one, then it's still BB for me.

Yes, I am wishing for Bloodborne to be ported to the PC more than any other game, Souls-like or otherwise. Demon's Souls too, but especially Bloodborne.

I also think there is a sharp drop-off in quality partway through the list, but personally I would put it after the Team Ninja games rather than the Fromsoft ones. I think From do definitely nail the format better than TN, but I find the Nioh games also to be top quality and great fun, albeit a bit more flashy and less serious in style. I certainly prefer them to DS2. I do like the way Team Ninja put some of the cool bosses in sub-battleground duels and sometimes include them in boss-rush side-missions or two-on-one team ups after you've beaten them in the main storyline.

To be honest, I still enjoyed the games I've ranked near the bottom, even if I could see the glaring flaws as I played them. Played them all to completion without regrets.

Difficulty was tough to rank, as the Souls games have their difficulty disproportionately in the DLCs (so do the Team Ninja games, come to that). Sekiro was in a league of its own here. Tougher levels, tougher mini-bosses, and some of the hardest to master boss fights out of all of them. The only one on my list where I found a cheese for a boss and still haven't gone back to best it in a clean fight afterwards.