Sorry to be posting so much about videogames and not even commenting on other posts. I need to type all of my thoughts out.

I am still going through Silk Song. This is a very good game. I wasn't on the hype train, but I imagine this has lived up to every ounce of heaps of hype the fervent fans have fomented.

Souls death mechanics are good actually

Look, this is a table explaining how death works in Metroidlikes vs Soulslikes

This is just better and easier, I think.

Caveat, this is just my experience with Tunic and Silksong. I have not beaten a mainstream AAA Souls game.

I don't like the clunky controls, though

I think my issue with Soulslikes is that a lot of them have intentionally clunky controls. I can understand and appreciate that, I'm a big clunky asshole in a big suit of armor wielding a heavy sword, it takes some time for my hit to connect.

But I don't like that! I want to press a button and then see its impact on the screen immediately. I want to minimize input lag in absolutely every thing. I'm typing this from a Commodore64 because it has less input lag on its display, actually.

So I love Tunic, Hollow Knight, and Silksong for having super responsive controls. All throughout these games, it felt like every action I intended to do is the action that appeared on the screen. No unfair hitboxes, no "that's not what I pressed!", etc.

Surely "dark fantasy" will get tired soon

I like dark fantasy! But, uh, do Souls games come in any other flavor?

Soulslikes all seem to share an edgy tone, with a lot of non-cohesive worldbuilding meant to imbue everything with a grave and grandiose tone.

I say this all with the caveat that I've not actually played a mainstream AAA soulsy for more than an hour or three! I also don't think being overly edgy is a bad thing. Shadow the Hedgehog is cool, for example. Being edgy is not a bad thing.

I even like the idea of being a dying being in a dying world. But maybe instead of asking, "What if our dark fantasy world was Japan" or "What if our dark fantasy world was Pinnochio", we could make a game that wasn't a dark fantasy world?

The only cohesive lens with which I can imagine these worlds is in being a dying protagonist in the final era of a dying land. The pervasive sense of loss is felt by everyone, not as a default state of being but rather as a new thing imposed on the world. Enigmatic lore is strewn across the land and much is unknown, because people who bear the memories have all died. "There once was a locksmith who crafted special keys for this land..." could just be lore from 10 years ago, as there aren't enough people around for a culture of keeping knowledge. The zero-sum caloric game we see on nature documentaries is already brutal enough, but the negative-sum game of a dying world would be oppressive.

I would call this "darkened fantasy" if someone asked me to give names ot things. The shadow cast upon the land is new and everyone is sad about it.

But that also describes "Fallout", a game series with a lot of humor and whimsy and for which "dark fantasy" would be a strained interpretation.

Anyways, I think that's why I like Tunic and Hollow Knight so much, because they balance it with cute whimsy:

• You "sit at a bench" to save in Silksong rather than "eulogize at a grave".

• You don't have "forsaken artifacts", you have "charms" in Hollow Knight.

• You get a "stick of dynamite" in Tunic rather than "A Manifestation of the Gunpowderkeeper's Penultimate Testament".

Silksong isn't that hard

I don't like onerously difficult videogames. I dislike videogames with a difficulty level where it's intended that every player dies more than three times before beating a boss. I think that's just too many deaths.

But Silksong wasn't like that! I beat the final boss the second try. I imagine the people complaining about the difficulty must be a vocal minority. This would be considered a normal (or even easy) game if it came out in the year 2000.

A lot of the joy in Silksong is in being able to figure out how a boss or enemy forecasts their moves. Every enemy is an anime character who has to announce their moves. Silksong is a "Guitar Hero"-like, actually. I beat a lot of bosses and minibosses on the first encounter, I beat the final boss on the second try, etc.

For some of the bosses, they announce their coming moves with some simlish-style announcement. The penultimate boss took me seven tries for this. The flamboyant boss took me nine. But all the other bosses have windup animations that forecast the moves, with very few (no?) fakeouts.

I progressed through Silksong at a pace that felt appropriate and on par with every other Metroidvania I've played.

Side note: As someone who likes Metroid-likes, I appreciate Silksong despite being Vania-heavy and Metroid-light. Melee attacks are way better than bullets actually.

That said, my whole body hurts from these fights. That's not an exaggeration, Silksong made me physically sore, especially in my hands. But that's because I played it too much for too long.

"Silksong isn't that hard" what about Moorwing? You complained about Moorwing.

I did have an issue with Moorwing. Moorwing was the hardest part of the game for me, by far. It turns out that's because I used the "Make Moorwing Hard To Beat" Crest which specifically makes Moorwing hard to beat.

I used the Wanderer's Crest, which I like a lot. But it makes your range very short, and flying enemies hard to hit. You have to get close to enemies, and contact damage does two hearts of health.

Moorwing, however, is optional. I did not know that.

Moorwing is the only thing I'd change in Silksong. I'd add a sign to communicate to the player that a hard and optional bossfight is ahead. Or, maybe I'd make the Crest descriptors more descriptive, so I would even know that the "Make Moorwing Hard To Beat" Crest had a shorter ranger in the first place.

Editor's note - After writing this, Team Cherry actually nerfed Moorwing a bit. That's good, because Moorwing was way too harder.

But what about--

That one runback is good actually. It's actually very good to have that, for reasons I can't tell you.

But it's bad,

It is just one minute, and it's easy and fun. Think of it like the first phase of the boss fight.

Video games used to have 5 minute+ runbacks! Metroid boss runbacks are a few minutes long as a default. And they aren't even fun runbacks!

But what about THAT runback?

Oh I didn't get there yet. No spoilers!

Sorry Soulslike for lumping you in with other genres that I dislike.

"Roguelikes" are an incredibly economical genre, since you can put a small amount of dev time into a small amount of very high quality content, which people play for dozens of hours. "Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy" is something of a roguelike in this regard. But for me, those games are just a waste of time.

"Deckbuilders" are games (usually roguelikes) which add a lot of RNG to the mix, and progression is tied to manipulating this RNG. (Say, replacing bad cards with better cards). This adds a huge element of luck. I dislike that a lot. You mean I can perform my best on a run, and fail because of the deck?

I really dislike roguelikes and deckbuilders for many more reasons I won't get into here. They, along with Soulslikes, seem to be three genres which dominate the Indie game space.

I think a lot of the scorn I had for Soulslikes were just by association. You can pick three genres and make for a funny sounding game (Roguelike deckbuilding quirky JRPG visual novel farming simulator with Souls elements and dark undertones. Haha funny)

Sorry, Blue Prince, we had some fun together but I can't see this going anywhere. I'm leaving you for the Red Princess.

But you only like three Souls likes so far

Yes. Four if you count Outer Wi-

Anyways, I am looking forward to "Mina the Hollower", a dark fantasy Soulslike from the makers of Shovel Knight. Get in early on the "Mina, the Hollower Knight" jokes.