None of God’s mercy here, one false move and you are toast in Blasphemous. The sharp, responsive controls and tons of unlockables give the game plenty of meat to chew your way through.Įxpect to grind your teeth on some gristle along the way, though, as this one can kill you in a hurry. Outside of the look and feel of the game, however, Blasphemous can actually be a lot of fun. Essentially a blood-drenched romp through the most macabre elements of Christianity and Catholicism, Blasphemous has enough endless suffering at its heart to make a knight of The Crusades blush. Far from it, this game is a lot of fun and it has just enough of that brutal difficulty and dust-covered lore to eke its way into the realm of Souls-likes.Ī game with a lot of depth hiding beneath its cartoonish veneer, Hollow Knight is a tough adventure that also happens to be oozing with charm and personality.ĭark religious overtones have colored the lore of many a Souls-like, but there are none that are as horrifically dark as Blasphemous. Hollow Knight certainly isn’t a bad game though.
Alas not every game can connect with every critic, hence this placement. I’m sure this placement is going to be a bit of a scandal, given that a lot of folks have called this the greatest metroidvania of all time. Those who happen to jive with its endearing flavor, however, will find a real one of a kind game here.
Still, the general feel of the game and its intense, unforgiving difficulty just barely earns it the distinction of a souls-like.Īn odd little gem, this one definitely isn’t for everyone. While novel, the experience of playing Titan Souls can grow grating over the course of your journey, so only invest in this one if you’ve got an excess of patience.Ĭertainly one of the weirdest games to earn the distinction of Souls-like, Rain World is absolutely unlike anything you’ve ever played.Ĭasting you as a strange alien creature exploring a dilapidated and dangerous planet, Rain World is a game more about survival than triumph. Titan Souls is one such game.Ĭentered around the idea of a single shot bow and arrow as your only means of offense, Titan Souls sends you into a world of increasingly crushing difficulty, forcing you to adapt with only this menial means of achieving success. Some of the best games begin with a very simple conceit and elaborate on themselves from there. Nioh might still be worth your while if you really dig this genre, but with the advent of the far superior Sekiro, there seems to be little reason to revisit this one. Further, basic design flaws, like the inability to run up a sloped surface for example, made the game feel awkward on a rudimentary level. While the general feel of combat was solid and the levels were often well-designed, the mission structure of the game made it feel much more sporadic than your average souls-like. Unfortunately, this one comes up a slice short of its inspiration. One of the earlier proper 3D Souls-likes out of the gate was Nioh, an eastern tale of samurai and demons battling it out for control of Japan. While the lore heavy world and character customization options were bright spots, they weren’t bright enough to obscure the shadows of an otherwise spotty effort.ĭeck13 would try again with The Surge a couple of years later, with much greater success, rendering Lords of the Fallen a mostly failed experiment at best. A middling game by almost all accounts, Lords of the Fallen isn’t exactly bad, just a bit too dull. Maybe the first 3D Souls-like out of the gate (aside from the Souls games themselves, of course) Lords of the Fallen had the advantage of entering into a rather sparse subgenre upon its time of release.Īlas, this early worm philosophy is one of its only redeeming features. However, if you’re still here, and you’ve got the stones for challenges that go beyond the pale, read on for our list of the 15 best Souls-likes we’ve ever played.ġ5. Yes, you will find few lists of games as punishing as this one, but if you didn’t come here to get punished then you’re reading the wrong article.
So much so that the Souls-like genre was born, and hardcore gamers found even more ways to get their asses kicked.
The spiritual successor to Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls reignited gamers’ retro passions for a game that could totally kick their asses and keep them coming back for more. It takes an incredible game to jump-start an entire genre, and Dark Souls is just such a game.
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