the violet stripe is thinner—its height consists of 8 crewmates vs 9 for other colors

No (she’s cool)

There is the thing: DS1 and exploring enjoyers in general don’t play with wiki, and don’t watch Vaatividya. They play really slowly, exploring every inch of the map, and some even make notes. No help, you observe, connect the dots and make assumptions. I watch certain streamers who deeply annoyed by Vaati followers in chat, because they come, claim the streamers are wrong, and explain the lore the way Vaati told them, even though he made that part up.

The problem with LoP is that in the eyes of many “haters”, that it’s not cohesive at all. The game is inspired by the Pinocchio tale, but the action takes place in a town with a Slavic name, looking like France in the belle epoque period. The art direction is far from great. Areas and buildings look quite generic, and it’s especially striking on comparing the Krat view from the mountain, to FromSoft titles, where areas are recognizable only by buildings’ silhouettes or palette colors. Enemy design becomes quite boring after cathedral: I cannot even remember a few interesting mutant enemies, they feel the same. Bosses, except the two last ones, were good for me, but they share the same issues ER bosses have.

The game has an amazing “cover”, but not much of a substance. Did the developers care, or just tried to make an impression? It’s not so striking if you focus on overcoming challenges and experimenting with weapons, and follow the story as a spectator. And I value your experience if you get everything want. But if you try on the role of an archeologist, “a lore hunter”, it feels lackluster comparing to the FromSoft games, and even LoTF.

I don’t remember any useful interaction with him. The worst one is in the cable car when he straight up spoils the moment. Many times he starts speaking even before you get to an area, commenting it like “woah, something really terrible happened here!” It was especially ridiculous on DLC entrance, sounded like “there’s a big neon sign ‘GO HERE’ with an arrow. i guess, we should follow this arrow, don’t you think, pal?” the least annoying interactions are puns and awkward emotional support after the bossfights.

funnily, in the alchemist island, when the game shows you flashbacks with the legendary stalker and directly mentions Gemeni, he’s silent. the only time he really needed to get involved

Happy to see kind words about LotF! I really hope there would be more games like it, enjoyed exploring the world. And about Lies of P, i can’t remember a game with writing worse than this. The story itself is cool, but the way it’s presented to the player… Man, it’s painfully terrible. And Gemini is the pinnacle of that nightmare

I think there are two interpretations of the ‘soulslike’ genre: bossfight-oriented and exploring-oriented. Most non-fromsoft developers put a lot of effort into bosses and fighting mechanics. Lies of P is a bright example of it. There is really cool weapon customization, challenging boss roster, and the game looks really appealing. I bought it mainly because of a cool looking combat in teaser videos. But what happened to me is the more I played the game, the more I became bored of location design, repetitive exploring mechanics and annoying storytelling. The devs clearly do everything to prevent you from missing any significant piece of lore: any quest follows by a note filling all the gaps, and if that’s not enough—Gemini spells it out for you.

Lords of The Fallen, on the other hand, is a spiritual successor of early soulslikes, especially DS1, and is extremely exploring-oriented game. Locations there are intricate and interconnected, you just cannot hurriedly run through them to another bossfight. NPC quests are cryptic and easy to fail—they require reading item descriptions, backtracking, connecting all the dots by yourself, and luck. And even with all these factors combined, you will miss a lot—devs don’t fear that you miss the content, making each walkthrough unique, and giving you a great feeling of completion when you manage to solve a quest. And yeah, the game has downsides. It’s quite janky, some bosses are annoying to fight, and I wish there were more types of enemies. Does it make LotF a bad game? For me, it’s fully redeemed by the merits I described above, but for someone it’s a huge red flag.

So, the definition of quality soulslike varies depending on what you consider important in the genre. I personally consider LotF one of the best non-fromsoft games, and on the contrary, LoP was a disappointment. But there are plenty of players who enjoy tight bossfights without being forced to solve mysteries to follow the story. And each is right in their own way.

P. S. I’m interested, what LotF boss did you consider first? The tutorial kinght or the first major boss?

so true

Nah, i was asking by what rules the topic starter estimate and compare different distros. I’m fine with my Arch and don’t want to change it

how do you evaluate distros?

Not a soulslike, but i’m in the middle of my Expedition 33 playthrough (actually close to the end, but i don’t know hom. much time i’m gonna spend on the rest of the content)

I installed arch recently, like it. Soent some time on hyprland, but ended up with gnome. Absolutely satisfied

avoid holy water and crucifixes
Ethel Cain is a counter example

Everything else is true

R

LowTierGod:

sanest internet user

does “silly” actually mean “horny”?

love is everywhere ❤️

peanits

peanuts.