From Khazan to Wukong to even Elden Ring: Long gone are the days of very methodical, deliberate combat like in Dark Souls 1 or even Dark Souls 3.
I’m not sure if it can be exactly pinpointed to it, but with the release of Bloodborne, the genre experienced a noticeable change towards fast-paced combat that doesn’t give much breathing-room, considering DS3 as well as Elden Ring are noticeably faster with their combat compared to previous entries. Games like Khazan, Wukong or Wuchang take it even further, leaning more so in the direction of third-person action games like Devil May Cry.
Boss fights with huge strings of combos, wide-reaching attacks, leaving barely any time to prepare for the next wave of attacks, are what comes to mind. In Khazan, for example, I felt well-prepared for these because Khazan can be equally flashy with his combos - it’s a more even playing field. However, in Elden Ring, I was struggling quite a lot, personally, because the tools I have access to aren’t congruent with the amount of BS hurled my way with some enemies.
How do you like this evolution in combat? Do you prefer the slower, more methodical gameplay from earlier entries, or do you welcome the change of pace, adapting to modern audiences?
You said it best in regards to Elden Ring, the tools are there… There’s maybe even too many.
Plenty of build variety as well.
That said… It’s also ok to not vibe with the game. And it would be interesting to see a modern soulslike demand a slower approach, sadly it’s just not what the market wants right now.
I wonder if a shift of tone could work for a slower one. Something more akin to Journey or Shadow of the Colossus where it gives you a bleak and lonely beauty rather than the decaying misery of once-great things that FromSoft tend to do. Keep the Soulslike gameplay of course, just present boss fights as laying wonderful but troubled things to rest instead of slaying gods and demons to take their place
Yeah, that’d be cool. I see the vision!