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A touch of AI is all it takes to trigger backlash, as a promising new indie falls afoul of slop skeptics (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/28095114

Vapor World: Over The Mind is a Soulslike Metroidvania with an evocative, painterly art style reminiscent of Lies of P and the narrative platformers of Playdead. According to Korean studio Alive Inc, the game had 100,000 wishlists just before its early access launch on August 19, mostly on the strength of a demo available since January 2025.

But what should have been a triumphant early access launch went pear shaped very quickly. At launch, few talked about the quite distinctive worldbuilding or the parry-heavy combat. Instead, all focus was trained entirely on something absent from the popular demo: very obvious AI use.

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[–] 2 points 1 week ago (1 child)

There are plenty of games with that that suck, so it can't be the foundation of what Souls-likes are.

I'm sure there are also plenty of games with exploration that suck, I don't think that really makes it a valid point. I can't speak to what soulslikes are, since I haven't played the original games, but a game can implement one element well and still fail at being an interesting game, which doesn't invalidate that element in any way.

Realistically, can't both combat and exploration be foundational elements of soulslike? I got the impression a big part is the way the combat works, usually involving a lot of commitment into your combat moves, with animations on attacks, dodges, heals, and multiple ways to be punished (and punish enemies), including plain damage, wasting items, wasting stamina.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    There's something at the heart of them that makes them interesting. It isn't just "exploration", but a particular style of exploration, which will not fail. It isn't just boss fights with dodging, because having that alone doesn't have the heart of a Souls game. The exploration alone could, but yeah, obviously it has to be done properly, not just "exploration".

    Realistically, can't both combat and exploration be foundational elements of soulslike?

    It could. I honestly don't think it is. Sekiro is also a Souls-like, and the combat is very different. I'm pretty confident you can make a good Souls-like with no combat. The combat, in my opinion, is there to give you a reason to explore. It's there to be a challenge, where exploring is the key to overcoming it. There will be items and secrets that make the combat easier if you search for it. It's not required, but you'd need something else to take the place of this.

    Chants of Sennaar comes to mind of something I'd consider to capture a lot of the spirit of Souls games without combat. They're obviously very different games, but I think they share a lot. You can try to brute force your way through, but you're encouraged to explore and engage with the world, and discover it, which makes the critical path easier. This is the goal for both Souls-likes and CoS.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (1 child)

    One thing I'll say is that Chants of Sennaar is, to my knowledge, usually compared to metroidvanias, part of a subgenre sometimes called "metroidbrainia", also known as knowledge-gated/rule-discovery puzzle games. Though it's a bit debatable in terms of how much of it is gated by knowledge, and how much is built to be mechanical progression, but the general idea holds.

    I'm also not sure if you can really bruteforce your way through it, but it's been a while since I've played it.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago*

    You can't totally brute force it, but you can brute force certain words IIRC.

    But yeah, it's basically a Metroidvania where combat is replaced by puzzles, but that's my point. Souls-like is just a trendy new way to say Metroidvania. I literally can't think of a functional difference between them. Every Metroidvania I think could just as well call itself a Souls-like, and vice versa, and nothing would change. I remember DS1 being called a Metroidvania originally.

    The difference is almost purely aesthetic. Like I said earlier, possibly the only real distinguishing factor is RPG mechanics, but there are examples of games using either genre description with and without that, so I don't think it's required.

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