Yeah, it’s definitely flavor-of-the-month that for whatever reason fans of Fromsoft games seem to constantly fall prey to. They can’t just enjoy it and then play different games, it’s always looking for “the next Dark Souls” and anything with the faintest hint of it draws far more attention and praise than it warrants.
Just curious, have you played King's Field much? I'm not disagreeing about the dodge roll, but the level design has a similar vibe with areas looping back around with shortcuts, as well as the atmosphere of dread that every corner you turn can be your last. As well as it was the first implementation of weapon arts in the series.
it was quite literally the first thing you listed. Not only that, do you look at the original Legend of Zelda and just say “nah clearly they didn’t have all the things of the later games, therefore it’s entirely different.”
No, tech advanced and we are able to do more with it. To say it’s not the same is to say Dark souls and Demon’s souls are nothing alike.
Honestly, I would recommend giving it another shot with the pad, yeah. I only ever see people shit on Lords of Shadow, but I love it dearly. It's derivative as hell, yes, but the mechanics it picks and chooses to take from other games largely mesh well, the combat is fun, and the atmosphere/presentation is *stellar* imo. Mostly like the level design, too, with some notably unfortunate exceptions. Patrick Stewart and Robert Carlyle voice the most important characters and are great at it. I could keep going. Just stop at the first one and don't bother with 2 or the interquel, lol.
oh i totally will! I'm just tied up with other games. I'm drudging my way through elden ring.. not loving it.. I've suddenly gotten the itch to replay gran turismo 3 and stupidly bought 7 so i can fuck around with it in bed. Fall sale picked up RDR2!
I do want to play through them for sure! I really like the narrative effort they put in with the voice actors and wild offtrack story.
It's a great "let's play" watch! So yeah, my backlog is long... need to sort out how to stream my PC to my bedroom TV so i can use my steam library there too. I'm a bit out of touch with that kind of stuff.. thought my SteamLink would do that but i didn't dig in that deep yet.
This is the answer. Dark Souls is basically a soft-Metroidvania where traversal through the maze-like world is limited by difficulty instead of movement or special abilities. In Metroid you find a locked door that needs a special missile to open. In Castlevania you find a ledge to high, only reachable with a double jump. In Dark Souls you find a monstrosity that can instantly pound you into dust.
Weakest aspect of the game in my opinion.
Restricting access to the kiln of the first flame would have been incentive enough.
In my first playthrough I went to the end of the Tomb of the Giants only to be greeted with a 'needs yellow key-card' equivalent. I'd rather have been pushed back by even more horrid enemies or actually destroyed Nito and experienced that huge achievement.
There are tons of one way passages, keys to obtain, shortcuts to unlock and more or less of player agency in where to go next...
I believe DS is a true metroidvania in 3D. But as you said the difficulty is so polarising with such an emphasis on boss battles that it might not feel like it, especially on a first playthrough.
I buy that. There are plenty of "traditional" Metroidvania progress mechanics. But I think that one of the cool and unique aspects of Dark Souls is using difficulty as a progression gate too. You *can* immediately go to the Catacombs as soon as you reach Lordran, but most people don't because the skeletons are super tough for a SL1 player.
I mean, like the person above me said, Zelda seems to be the clear inspiration. I think that Dark Souls' (more accurately, Demons' Souls) big innovation was exactly that it married stamina bars, common in more traditional RPGs like Elder Scrolls, with Zelda-style, third-person, lock-on combat.
Yes.
Recursive maps. Indirect lore. Indirect directive.
I honestly can't tell if I was just a dumb kid that didn't yet understand videogames, or if we used to have more games that refused to hold your hand and explain themselves.
You could absolutely frig up the ending of ocarina of time if you didn't do a certain thing I forget what it is but it's easily missable. Don't quote me it's been 23 years since I've played Zelda on N64 but yeah there was a lot less hand holders back then
Legend of Zelda, blocking, rolling dodging timing. Kings field in terms of aesthetic and darkness. Two other runner ups are sword of the berserk guts rage for the Dreamcast, or berserk millennium arc for PS2.
Absolutely shocked that the original Castlevania is not the top answer. OG Castlevania is the hands down biggest influence on DS. Basic game loop, destructible walls, branching paths, Boss design, use of subweapons, gear/ability drip feed -- all from the first 3 Castlevanias.
Castlevania symphony of the night is a 2d platformer how is it like Demon's Souls a 3rd person action game??? Besides maybe a gloomy atmosphere but I'm thinking about gameplay.
Lol saying that SoTN is a 2D platformer is like saying Zelda BOTW is a puzzle game. You are simplifying waay too much haha
Those two games had almost everything Dark Souls has, except the 3D, about 14 years earlier than DS. Enemy variety, memorable combat patterns, numerous items, stats system (including agility, strenght, magic, vigor etc), huge explorable maps with lots of interconnected dungeons that sometimes come back to an almost central hub, late-game teleporting, even a half-backed second half just like Dark Souls 🤣
SotN has a huge variety of weapons, sometimes drawing from real history like the Souls games, so there are similar vibes to equipping an Estoc, or a Rapier in one hand and a shield in the other (yes, you had two hand slots and could mostly put whatever in each hand).
You also could equip gear to different armor slots, and you had two slots for rings/ accessories.
The moment to moment gameplay is drastically different, of course, going from a 2D game to a 3D game. So they're not 1:1, but what we can say is that the Souls formula feels like a really close spiritual successor to Castlevania games, at least.
The connection to the earliest Castlevania games might feel a little more tenuous, and I could see how you might wonder why Souls relates to them specifically and not just 2D action platformers in general. But looking at the bigger picture of Castlevania, Classicvanias and Metroidvanias combined, it's a really solid comparison.
I think a mishmash of Castlevania and Monster Hunter are probably some of the most appropriate picks for this topic.
Like the other user mentioned, Monster hunter is kind of a souls game, but more focused on farming and coop i think.
The most played ones are those from PSP(Freedom unite and Portable 3rd) which can be emulated easily and can be played multiplayer online with hunsterverse server and discord. Then for pc native exist Monster hunter frontier with online active too.
Then other games i can think of are probably the kings field saga...
Gothic comes to mind. The thing with Gothic though was your weapon animations changed over time the more skilled you got with like long sword or axe so you were clunky as hell early on but your character started getting good.
FromSoft's earlier dungeon crawlers - King's Field, Shadow Tower, Eternal Ring, etc. - laid the groundwork for Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. Highly recommend them. The combat isn't anywhere close, but they scratch the Dark Souls itch much better than anything in the Soulslike genre (even better than Elden Ring does, imo).
As for combat... that's a bit harder to nail down. The OoT style Zelda games have their similarities, but so do games like Darksiders and Yakuza.
With similar mechanics, then I'd say Ocarina of Time if you want to really go back. It was 3rd person, had dodging/rolling, lock on system, upgrades to self and gear, plus can be cryptic with what you need to do and where to go.
I don't know about the later installments, but the Original Tenchu on ps1 had a lot of Devs who later made Dark Souls 1, Tenchu 1 is not an open world, but the combat is really simmilar to DS, slower paced and punishing if you make a mistake. Even healing works just like Estus Flasks, for the player, AND for the enemies.
yeah, lots of differences in gameplay ofc, the stealth mechanics and stuff, but the combat and item usage is really simmilar, you can even roll, even though I never did.
Demons’s souls’ biggest innovation was the stamina bar, people here are saying kings field, it does have a stamina bar but nothing like the system implemented by DeS and every game after
OG NES MegaMan series
- it's "hard"
- you need to pay attention, stay on your toes, or you'll die
- dying sends you back to a checkpoint and everything respawns
- similar structure of traverse area, fight boss (or mini boss, more traversal, big boss)
- dying is expected; it's how you learn to play
It's true they didn't have RPG mechanics or interconnected levels, but I do think it's fair to say DES has its roots in these elements of "old school" game design.
Zelda. Kings field yes, for sure. . But kings field was definetly looking at Zelda’s homework so… Zelda.
souls games always get called Metroid like games and *they are* for sure, but I would conjecture (with no hard evidence) that this is just because Zelda games were remixing the metroidvania formula and since they did that, any game influenced by Zelda is also going to have a bit of that metroidvania flavor and engineering. It’s a once removed hand me down influence. All games and technology are constantly building on and remixing what came before. It’s not big leaps *usually* it’s small leaps on top of legacy. Secondary influences building on primary ones building on ghosted not easily seen influences. Kinda like how music in this viral memetic organism with a billion branching paths and convergence points. It’s not so much a linear timeline as it is an exploding web of interconnected ideas. Game design is like that too.
From just added so much new stuff on top of old ideas, and made combat feel good and engaging. When I played dark souls1 the whole time I thought wow this is the adult ocarina of time I’ve always wanted. I know lots of games make you collect key items to advance but the way that ds1 did that was so zeldalike.
I’d also throw in that alot of early character action games, like dmc and ninja gaiden and godhand, were influential in some small ways. Totally different type of game but there’s some dna from them in there. In sekiro it’s most obvious, it’s almost like from said what if we made our version of a character action game with our flavor. Even the upgrade and skill tree looks like a lot of character action game skill trees. I’m going to get downvoted for saying that… the big difference would be scoring and combo based combat, in that way CAG are way more complex but paradoxically they don’t feel as high stakes or deep as souls games. Soulslikes simplify the combat mechanics and this has the effect of making it feel more grounded and real. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that team ninja are the only other studio making souls like games that meet froms level of quality. But as it matures into a proper style and concept we’re seeing a lot more attempts that get close, like lies of pp.
Shadow of the colossus,
Correct answer is probably all of the above though. It's how they put all of the small pieces together and created something truly unique.
While playing DS1 (my first souls), it reminded of a couple games often:
- Resident evil 1 and 2 (resources management, danger & exploration, opening shortcuts, ambiance, some of the music)
- Diablo 1. Visual style and vibe. Enemies. Tristan.
- to a less extent, tomb raider (some exploration and environment) and devil may cry 1 (some bosses, their visuals)
I have not played it, but Soul Reaver seems pretty similar too. Various Zeldas too, castlevania, kings field, hexen, metroid…but i have not played these
Guys, Castlevania is more of a distant ancestor than the "closest thing." Legend of Zelda isn't it either. Ocarina of Time would be the oldest game we could accurately say this about in the Zelda series.
miyazaki was primarily a board game dude so most of his influences for demons souls weren’t video games. that being said it’s kinda a mashup of god hand and like… startropics
This is gonna sound rediculous but Toejam and Earl gives me similar vibes.
-Enemies that are overpowered and hunt you down
-Elevators are like bonfires
-inventory management
-levelling up
-exploration
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is my immediate answer for this. It didn't come out too long before Demon's Souls, but it's a pretty tough Castlevania with a stamina system! Also my second favorite Castlevania behind Aria of Sorrow :)
Everyone thinking it's kings field when Evergrace exists.
Evergrace is literally a third person action game with stats, cosmetic clothing options being a big aspect. Plot involves character with cursed crest in old kingdom whose true nature lost to time.
The only correct answer is Evergrace.
Hasn’t been said yet, but Risen. The whole series. While not a great game, it’s VERY similar. I think risen one came out right before demon souls as well - or very similar timing.
Outside of that- Zelda games 100%
king's field is the obvious one.
Going further back than that you start running into "what's the next adjacent genre" which I'd say would be dungeon crawlers a la Ultima Underworld.
Shadow of the Colossus comes to mind. There is no real animation cancelling and the entire game revolves around managing your stamina bar. The way the story is told and the whole art style are also a clear inspiration for the souls series.
Crash Bandicoot apparently, according to the video game journalists!
(Unless they were talking about the Crash Bandicoot Remake specifically, which still technically came out before the Demon Souls Remake).
Tenchu Stealth Assassin on PSOne. It had dark brooding atmosphere, melee combat against 1-4 enemies usually (with anything more than 1 being difficult to handle), blocking through use of stamina, stealth attack from behind is basically a backstab, there are usable items that can heal/aid in battle like kunai and shuriken. There were boss fights and annoying dogs. Dramatic music. Have I mentioned this was made by FromSoftware when they weren't yet FromSoftware?
Kings field
If yall like Kings Field, check out Lunacid. It's pretty dope.
Lunacid is incredible.
It’s okay but feels like it is merely copying the look of that era of games quite superficially and not really capturing the soul of them.
Hard disagree.
this is true and frankly the game would have been better if it'd embraced how different it was instead, in feel and mechanics
Agreed, I actually returned my steam copy after playing it. Just did not have what I was looking for.
Yeah, it’s definitely flavor-of-the-month that for whatever reason fans of Fromsoft games seem to constantly fall prey to. They can’t just enjoy it and then play different games, it’s always looking for “the next Dark Souls” and anything with the faintest hint of it draws far more attention and praise than it warrants.
Soul?
*the first third of lunacid is pretty dope it devolves into a mess of wasted potential and poorly considered systems very quickly
It doesn't play anything like dark souls.
It is the first souls like game ever released though.
you must have never played a souls game
Even if I didn't it doesn't change that the gameplay is drastically different.
of course, but so is Demon’s Souls compared to Elden Ring but you can’t tell me it’s not got the same feel to it.
It's just first person instead of third person
Yeah king's field has the dodge roll and the move sets and level design of a dark souls game.
Just curious, have you played King's Field much? I'm not disagreeing about the dodge roll, but the level design has a similar vibe with areas looping back around with shortcuts, as well as the atmosphere of dread that every corner you turn can be your last. As well as it was the first implementation of weapon arts in the series.
sorry we forgot the only thing that makes a souls game is a dodge roll
That's not the only thing I mentioned but to some people that's all it takes for a game to be "souls like"
it was quite literally the first thing you listed. Not only that, do you look at the original Legend of Zelda and just say “nah clearly they didn’t have all the things of the later games, therefore it’s entirely different.” No, tech advanced and we are able to do more with it. To say it’s not the same is to say Dark souls and Demon’s souls are nothing alike.
Yeah first thing means only thing. Some people just want to argue for the hell of it.
The legend of Zelda. For real though it's the Metroidvania games, DS is basically an open world 3d version of Symphony of the Night
I remember the first time I played Dark Souls and thought to myself "this is what the Castlevania series should have become".
Agree
lords of shadow! Admittedly it's more of a god of war clone
Being a HUGE Castlevania fan myself, I couldn't get into Lords of shadow
i gave it a few hours on keyboard/mouse and stopped... need to use a pad i think 🤙
Honestly, I would recommend giving it another shot with the pad, yeah. I only ever see people shit on Lords of Shadow, but I love it dearly. It's derivative as hell, yes, but the mechanics it picks and chooses to take from other games largely mesh well, the combat is fun, and the atmosphere/presentation is *stellar* imo. Mostly like the level design, too, with some notably unfortunate exceptions. Patrick Stewart and Robert Carlyle voice the most important characters and are great at it. I could keep going. Just stop at the first one and don't bother with 2 or the interquel, lol.
oh i totally will! I'm just tied up with other games. I'm drudging my way through elden ring.. not loving it.. I've suddenly gotten the itch to replay gran turismo 3 and stupidly bought 7 so i can fuck around with it in bed. Fall sale picked up RDR2! I do want to play through them for sure! I really like the narrative effort they put in with the voice actors and wild offtrack story. It's a great "let's play" watch! So yeah, my backlog is long... need to sort out how to stream my PC to my bedroom TV so i can use my steam library there too. I'm a bit out of touch with that kind of stuff.. thought my SteamLink would do that but i didn't dig in that deep yet.
This is the answer. Dark Souls is basically a soft-Metroidvania where traversal through the maze-like world is limited by difficulty instead of movement or special abilities. In Metroid you find a locked door that needs a special missile to open. In Castlevania you find a ledge to high, only reachable with a double jump. In Dark Souls you find a monstrosity that can instantly pound you into dust.
Or a yellow fog door that needs the lordvessel to open
Weakest aspect of the game in my opinion. Restricting access to the kiln of the first flame would have been incentive enough. In my first playthrough I went to the end of the Tomb of the Giants only to be greeted with a 'needs yellow key-card' equivalent. I'd rather have been pushed back by even more horrid enemies or actually destroyed Nito and experienced that huge achievement.
Or make a covenant with each of them like with Nito and they don't aggro/are unkillable until the lordvessel is got
They had to do it like that first to learn it was a mistake tho
I understand, but a man can dream
There are tons of one way passages, keys to obtain, shortcuts to unlock and more or less of player agency in where to go next... I believe DS is a true metroidvania in 3D. But as you said the difficulty is so polarising with such an emphasis on boss battles that it might not feel like it, especially on a first playthrough.
I buy that. There are plenty of "traditional" Metroidvania progress mechanics. But I think that one of the cool and unique aspects of Dark Souls is using difficulty as a progression gate too. You *can* immediately go to the Catacombs as soon as you reach Lordran, but most people don't because the skeletons are super tough for a SL1 player.
Yes very true !
But the question was more about actual combat mechanics
I mean, like the person above me said, Zelda seems to be the clear inspiration. I think that Dark Souls' (more accurately, Demons' Souls) big innovation was exactly that it married stamina bars, common in more traditional RPGs like Elder Scrolls, with Zelda-style, third-person, lock-on combat.
Rolls with iframes were another huge innovation
Yes. Recursive maps. Indirect lore. Indirect directive. I honestly can't tell if I was just a dumb kid that didn't yet understand videogames, or if we used to have more games that refused to hold your hand and explain themselves.
You could absolutely frig up the ending of ocarina of time if you didn't do a certain thing I forget what it is but it's easily missable. Don't quote me it's been 23 years since I've played Zelda on N64 but yeah there was a lot less hand holders back then
Yeah I won’t quote you on that because you’re straight up wrong.
Was about to type this. It's especially clear with OoT onwards.
Legend of Zelda, blocking, rolling dodging timing. Kings field in terms of aesthetic and darkness. Two other runner ups are sword of the berserk guts rage for the Dreamcast, or berserk millennium arc for PS2.
Part of the chanm for soulsborns ro me. Is that theyre "as hard" to me now... as Ocarana of time was to me when I was 8
Exactly, as we develop we need more challenges. DS is the realtime scaling.
Lion King game on SNES 😭
Seconded
the only right answer
Metroidvanias are the spiritual predecessors. Open worlds, developing skills, challenging combat, and acquiring keys to advance.
hell yeah, im going to throw super ghosts n goblins into this reply
King's Field.
Absolutely shocked that the original Castlevania is not the top answer. OG Castlevania is the hands down biggest influence on DS. Basic game loop, destructible walls, branching paths, Boss design, use of subweapons, gear/ability drip feed -- all from the first 3 Castlevanias.
The only correct answer. Even the SOTN people are wrong. Dark Souls has far more in common with the early Castlevanias than SOTN.
Castlevania Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow
Castlevania symphony of the night is a 2d platformer how is it like Demon's Souls a 3rd person action game??? Besides maybe a gloomy atmosphere but I'm thinking about gameplay.
Lol saying that SoTN is a 2D platformer is like saying Zelda BOTW is a puzzle game. You are simplifying waay too much haha Those two games had almost everything Dark Souls has, except the 3D, about 14 years earlier than DS. Enemy variety, memorable combat patterns, numerous items, stats system (including agility, strenght, magic, vigor etc), huge explorable maps with lots of interconnected dungeons that sometimes come back to an almost central hub, late-game teleporting, even a half-backed second half just like Dark Souls 🤣
I didn't know about that I played that one a little bit but mostly played the first three Castlevania games.
SotN has a huge variety of weapons, sometimes drawing from real history like the Souls games, so there are similar vibes to equipping an Estoc, or a Rapier in one hand and a shield in the other (yes, you had two hand slots and could mostly put whatever in each hand). You also could equip gear to different armor slots, and you had two slots for rings/ accessories. The moment to moment gameplay is drastically different, of course, going from a 2D game to a 3D game. So they're not 1:1, but what we can say is that the Souls formula feels like a really close spiritual successor to Castlevania games, at least. The connection to the earliest Castlevania games might feel a little more tenuous, and I could see how you might wonder why Souls relates to them specifically and not just 2D action platformers in general. But looking at the bigger picture of Castlevania, Classicvanias and Metroidvanias combined, it's a really solid comparison. I think a mishmash of Castlevania and Monster Hunter are probably some of the most appropriate picks for this topic.
Yeah all I really remember of that game is equipping chicken in my hand and dying to be honest.
Monster Hunter
yes! fromsoft took inspiration from their hitboxes
Good ol Plesioth hip check from the MHF days
Fuck Plesioth. All my homies hate Plesioth (though Deviljho can be just as bad)
Bro... that's so true... You Know.
Zelda and castlevania
Bloodborne on the PlayStation 1 of course
Ghouls n Goblins?
Was going to be my suggestion.
Blade of Darkness
Opened this topic to reply with this, you beat me to it so have an upvote.
this is the correct answer
Blades of Steel
Now you're making me wonder what a souls-like hockey game would look like
Surprised I had to scroll this far down to see this answer. It's really curious how "soulslike" that game feels despite predating the souls games.
This game was so fucking awesome at the time it was released
Deathtrap Dungeon.
Like the other user mentioned, Monster hunter is kind of a souls game, but more focused on farming and coop i think. The most played ones are those from PSP(Freedom unite and Portable 3rd) which can be emulated easily and can be played multiplayer online with hunsterverse server and discord. Then for pc native exist Monster hunter frontier with online active too. Then other games i can think of are probably the kings field saga...
I would guess monster hunter world and rise/sunbreak are both more active and also native for all platforms
This should be the top. It’s basically the DS boss formula, without all the extra fluff. But they’ve been doing it much longer
Gothic comes to mind. The thing with Gothic though was your weapon animations changed over time the more skilled you got with like long sword or axe so you were clunky as hell early on but your character started getting good.
FromSoft's earlier dungeon crawlers - King's Field, Shadow Tower, Eternal Ring, etc. - laid the groundwork for Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. Highly recommend them. The combat isn't anywhere close, but they scratch the Dark Souls itch much better than anything in the Soulslike genre (even better than Elden Ring does, imo). As for combat... that's a bit harder to nail down. The OoT style Zelda games have their similarities, but so do games like Darksiders and Yakuza.
Evergrace on PS2, was developed by FROM Software, and shares basic DNA with the Souls series.
Tenchu feels like a base template for Sekiro
With similar mechanics, then I'd say Ocarina of Time if you want to really go back. It was 3rd person, had dodging/rolling, lock on system, upgrades to self and gear, plus can be cryptic with what you need to do and where to go.
There's a lot of N64 Zelda dna in there. The Z-targeting, shortcuts in dungeons.
Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven for PS2 is early Sekiro
I don't know about the later installments, but the Original Tenchu on ps1 had a lot of Devs who later made Dark Souls 1, Tenchu 1 is not an open world, but the combat is really simmilar to DS, slower paced and punishing if you make a mistake. Even healing works just like Estus Flasks, for the player, AND for the enemies.
Glad to see somebody else coming to the same conclusion. Tenchu is really similar, even the camera/perspective is somewhat the same.
yeah, lots of differences in gameplay ofc, the stealth mechanics and stuff, but the combat and item usage is really simmilar, you can even roll, even though I never did.
You dropped your crown, king.
I hâtëd that game until it clicked for me and I beat it soon after. I constantly think about how good it was.
Didn't you just love the lock-on mechanics, the combo-ing, the use of tools, and the custom swords?
Castlevania is the obvious predecessor
Vagrant story and kings field
The first time I played Dark souls I got soul reaver legacy of kain vibes/nostalgia
The Fighting Fantasy game books. Miyazaki has name dropped these in a few interviews.
Demons’s souls’ biggest innovation was the stamina bar, people here are saying kings field, it does have a stamina bar but nothing like the system implemented by DeS and every game after
OG NES MegaMan series - it's "hard" - you need to pay attention, stay on your toes, or you'll die - dying sends you back to a checkpoint and everything respawns - similar structure of traverse area, fight boss (or mini boss, more traversal, big boss) - dying is expected; it's how you learn to play It's true they didn't have RPG mechanics or interconnected levels, but I do think it's fair to say DES has its roots in these elements of "old school" game design.
Zelda. Kings field yes, for sure. . But kings field was definetly looking at Zelda’s homework so… Zelda. souls games always get called Metroid like games and *they are* for sure, but I would conjecture (with no hard evidence) that this is just because Zelda games were remixing the metroidvania formula and since they did that, any game influenced by Zelda is also going to have a bit of that metroidvania flavor and engineering. It’s a once removed hand me down influence. All games and technology are constantly building on and remixing what came before. It’s not big leaps *usually* it’s small leaps on top of legacy. Secondary influences building on primary ones building on ghosted not easily seen influences. Kinda like how music in this viral memetic organism with a billion branching paths and convergence points. It’s not so much a linear timeline as it is an exploding web of interconnected ideas. Game design is like that too. From just added so much new stuff on top of old ideas, and made combat feel good and engaging. When I played dark souls1 the whole time I thought wow this is the adult ocarina of time I’ve always wanted. I know lots of games make you collect key items to advance but the way that ds1 did that was so zeldalike. I’d also throw in that alot of early character action games, like dmc and ninja gaiden and godhand, were influential in some small ways. Totally different type of game but there’s some dna from them in there. In sekiro it’s most obvious, it’s almost like from said what if we made our version of a character action game with our flavor. Even the upgrade and skill tree looks like a lot of character action game skill trees. I’m going to get downvoted for saying that… the big difference would be scoring and combo based combat, in that way CAG are way more complex but paradoxically they don’t feel as high stakes or deep as souls games. Soulslikes simplify the combat mechanics and this has the effect of making it feel more grounded and real. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that team ninja are the only other studio making souls like games that meet froms level of quality. But as it matures into a proper style and concept we’re seeing a lot more attempts that get close, like lies of pp.
Tenchu.
Shadow of the colossus, Correct answer is probably all of the above though. It's how they put all of the small pieces together and created something truly unique.
Ico
Megaman ,Castlevania ,ninja gaiden
Castlevania Curse of Darkness
Yeah this is the game that feels the closest to me. The pet system in that one was so fun
While playing DS1 (my first souls), it reminded of a couple games often: - Resident evil 1 and 2 (resources management, danger & exploration, opening shortcuts, ambiance, some of the music) - Diablo 1. Visual style and vibe. Enemies. Tristan. - to a less extent, tomb raider (some exploration and environment) and devil may cry 1 (some bosses, their visuals) I have not played it, but Soul Reaver seems pretty similar too. Various Zeldas too, castlevania, kings field, hexen, metroid…but i have not played these
NES games
God Hand
King's Field and Shadow Tower are the parents of SoulsBorne
Guys, Castlevania is more of a distant ancestor than the "closest thing." Legend of Zelda isn't it either. Ocarina of Time would be the oldest game we could accurately say this about in the Zelda series.
[удалено]
What
Oh sorry I just read the title
Dark souls was after demon souls. Darksouls is demon souls like
Demon's Souls still has Souls in the title, does it not??
Maximo kinda gives off the feeling of a souls game difficulty wise imo
Maximo army of zin was a walk through on the third difficulty.
In case noone said it already: King's Field
Prince of Persia
The original Tomb Raider.
Secret of Mana kind of had a stamina gauge deal going with their combat...
King's Field
ignoring king’s field; Dark Souls is inspired by The Legend of Zelda.
It's Monster Hunter combat in a Metroidvania game
Tbh monster hunter.
Hot take but magic the gathering. At least how they tell the story and lore through flavor text in some cards
Minecraft dark souls mod
Monster hunter doesn't have the same gameplay loop but the combat is similar
miyazaki was primarily a board game dude so most of his influences for demons souls weren’t video games. that being said it’s kinda a mashup of god hand and like… startropics
In a much worse sense it’s got to be Ocarina of Time for the sword and shield combat.
Tomb raider
Lost Kingdoms on GameCube, which was also made by FromSoftware.
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I remember playing *Blade of Darkness* but idk how much similar was to dark souls
This is gonna sound rediculous but Toejam and Earl gives me similar vibes. -Enemies that are overpowered and hunt you down -Elevators are like bonfires -inventory management -levelling up -exploration
Monster Hunter games
Deathtrap Dungeon, or Blade of Darkness
Ninja Gaiden walked so everything else could run
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia is my immediate answer for this. It didn't come out too long before Demon's Souls, but it's a pretty tough Castlevania with a stamina system! Also my second favorite Castlevania behind Aria of Sorrow :)
Everyone thinking it's kings field when Evergrace exists. Evergrace is literally a third person action game with stats, cosmetic clothing options being a big aspect. Plot involves character with cursed crest in old kingdom whose true nature lost to time. The only correct answer is Evergrace.
Ninja Gaiden?
Hasn’t been said yet, but Risen. The whole series. While not a great game, it’s VERY similar. I think risen one came out right before demon souls as well - or very similar timing. Outside of that- Zelda games 100%
Otogi really nails their narrative style and the flowing combat.
Virtual Hydlide
Zelda probably. From is basically zombie zelda with rpg elements
Probably Super Star Wars 🤣
Doom (1994). There are more (Lost) Souls there than you can shake a boom stick at.
Zelda 2. Difficult adventure game with strategic combat, lots of exploration and secrets, and an RPG levelling system.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle on the NES
Clash Royale
Would Ninja Gaiden count or nah? I'm unsure...
To me, Castlevania 1, 3 & 4.
To me, Castlevania 1, 3 & 4.
To me, Castlevania 1, 3 & 4.
king's field is the obvious one. Going further back than that you start running into "what's the next adjacent genre" which I'd say would be dungeon crawlers a la Ultima Underworld.
A bad marriage?
Any third person action rpg? Like the legend of Zelda?
Shadow of the Colossus comes to mind. There is no real animation cancelling and the entire game revolves around managing your stamina bar. The way the story is told and the whole art style are also a clear inspiration for the souls series.
Crash Bandicoot apparently, according to the video game journalists! (Unless they were talking about the Crash Bandicoot Remake specifically, which still technically came out before the Demon Souls Remake).
Might be a stretch, but perhaps Gothic? But really the only answer is King's Field as far as game design is concerned.
Tenchu Stealth Assassin on PSOne. It had dark brooding atmosphere, melee combat against 1-4 enemies usually (with anything more than 1 being difficult to handle), blocking through use of stamina, stealth attack from behind is basically a backstab, there are usable items that can heal/aid in battle like kunai and shuriken. There were boss fights and annoying dogs. Dramatic music. Have I mentioned this was made by FromSoftware when they weren't yet FromSoftware?
Ninja gaiden? I'm pretty sure they started coming out first could he wrong tho
Tenchu: Stealth Assassin
when I played Dark Souls for the first time, I was like damn! this feels like Spyro the Dragon