Ok, it's just there, hidden at the sight: Eldest Souls, another independent tribute / clone / inspired by / reminiscent of the Dark Souls formula, this time in a pixel art game up downwards. At this point, we are so flooded with Soulslike games that it is the rare action game that is not done next to the mechanisms that have made from software on the map. Leaving the boredom aside for a moment, the particular variant of Eldest Souls is to remove almost anything except the bosses.
There is a story, but not a lot of one, and it is told to the Dark Souls through cryptic messages and fragments of guarded traditions. It does not matter much because, throughout the process of restoration of humanity, the player is simply directed to a series of increasingly difficult bosses. If you are the kind of Dark Souls player who considers the NPCs, the construction of the world, the development of characters and the legions of enervilians such as unrelevant soft stuffed animals - the boss - then the souls The oldest will be downright in your wheelhouse. If, on the other hand, you appreciate the souls games for their regular and rhythmic progression and their rewarding loops, Eldest Souls may seem more frustrating than gratifying.
The Boss Rush games are not new, not even for the third-person action games with the aesthetics of Pixel Art. What Eldest Souls makes explicit, it is the idea that the true essence of Dark Souls is the difficulty and the requirement of impeccable timing, associated with the patience and aggressive play style that made Bloodborne so different for the time. This is the underlying vanity behind Each Eldest Soul's boss. Memorize the diagrams, find the opening, attack and hope to have enough endurance to retreat before being nailed by an AOE attack or a vicious shot.
The aggressive game is linked to healing because a successful loaded attack will partially fulfill your health gauge, although there are also some consumables. Beat a boss and you are rewarded with a jurisdiction and a fragment of boss, which can be applied to passive and active skill trees divided into three specialties: Windslash, Berzerk Slash and Counter. In Dark Souls, engaging in a character class implies a relatively permanent choice. But Eldest Souls wisely allows the player to reconfigure his point assignment at any time, potentially helping to find the key that unlocks a successful fight. That said, all the world's enhanced skills do not have a radical impact on the flow and rhythm of the fight and never give the character the impression of being divine, just slightly more capable.
Any game that has the courage to realize its convictions is worthy of praise, including Eldest Souls. Where things are starting to become problematic, it is in execution and mechanics.
The first problem comes from the artistic direction and the camera of the game. Eldest Souls is an attractive pixel art game, with a feeling of bad mood and melancholy in its environments and decaying structures. Better still, its imaginative and varied bosses, which, unlike some Soulslike games, do not recycle yet and still the same design. The problem occurs when the player's character moves behind the boss and it suddenly becomes difficult to attack or dodge precisely. Depending on the design of the boss and AOE effects or other complications, this can be extremely frustrating, especially given relatively small boss arena.
The second problem concerns slow character movements and the management of endurance, which never feel very well. I understand that watching endurance bars that run out and turn them into a winning combat style is a feature and not a bug, but Dark Souls attenuates the problem with a plethora of options - Shields or weapons improving endurance , spells, consumables and of course an upgrade path that focuses on its increase. Not so many older souls. At its periphery, Eldest Souls has NPCs and secondary quests that reward the player with useful objects, and there are a lot of control points. In most cases, make a quick return to a boss and another attempt is painless and there is no real penalty to die.
For the fan of Dark Souls who sees every game from software as a validation of the "Git GUD" mentality, Eldest Souls will probably scrape a persistent itching. For all others, especially those who appreciate the souls type games for their travels and not their boss destinations, older souls may seem too concentrated on one thing, no matter how successful it is. Eldest Souls is designed around frustration and challenge, and if it's your idea of a good time, then this game is for you.
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