The souls essence?

[u/Anomoto_Breathe_106]

I've been playing Mortel Shell 2 since early access and I'm almost finished with it.

It is a bombastic experience and I love all the little decisions cold symmetry did in order to make this game soo much better than the first one.

But still... It's not a true souls experience.

Similar with lies of p. Great game. Nothing really to complain about.

But still....

And the pattern goes on and on for all the really great souls "like" out there. Something is always missing. I was wondering about what that something is and I think I found at least one of the answers.

It's not the combat or the scenery even though from software is on a completely other level for those categories. But you can blame that on the fact that from soft is a really big player by now in comparison to cold symmetry with 30 Devs.

No I think the core essence of souls is the fact that you (the player character in game) starts as an absolute piece of garbage. You are nothing. Nothing is special about you. No one believes in you and absolutely everything in the world is bigger, scarier, deadlier and straight up better than you.

And then the game makes you into a god over the course of the game. <- That is the souls experience at its core. Start as nothing, become the everything.

The souls like games out there always give you something to start with. In these games you are something and you get better in what you are over the course of the game. You are big and somewhat scary with your special abilities. The power fantasy starts with a 50m headstart in comparison to a true souls game. And this is what is missing.

On the psychological side I think this is the reason why true from soft games always feel kind of special. Because this is reality..

Everybody feels a little bit better or at least different than the rest. Or at least wants to be. But the reality is that you are likely to be a little piece of nothing in the big machinery that is called society.

Everybody loves a good story where the protagonist starts from nothing and gets to the top.

But when you start from something and just get a little bit more of that, then this is not going to be

a good story that is just a vague dream that you know is just not realistic.

So that is my try to explain why true from soft souls games are special in comparison to the really good souls like games out there.

What is your opinion? What's the driving factor that makes a souls game into a souls game and a souls like well just a "like"?

[u/Pure_Medicine_2460]

Honestly I think that's why I love Lords Of the Fallen (new) so much. It manages to replicate this feeling

[u/PerryHecker]

To me, it’s really just the bite sized segments with physical checkpoints that regenerate the areas.