Why not let the #1 Sekiro reference on YouTube speak about it?
Why should I watch this? Is this guy Miyazaki or something? Besides, Sekiro is NOT a Souls game. It's a Soulslike.
And to expand on this, again taken from Reddit and modified for my own taste
- Faceless character : The character in a Souls game is insignificant. They have no personality. No voice. It's not a story of a character, the player uses the character as a tool
That's most RPGs. The Destined One has also no personality or voice and is also used as a tool by the player, so I don't know what you're telling me, or did you mean "character creation"?
- Seamless multiplayer : multiplayer in a Souls game is not only a game mechanic. It's heavily tied narratively to the overall game mechanic. You see, the best way to show the player that their player character is insignificant (see above) is to show that they're not alone in this dying world - messages of other players, ghosts, bloodstains - even without actively cooping or dueling each player participates in the Souls game multiplayer. This unique twist on multiplayer is an important narrative tool
Multiplayer is entirely optional, so no. You'd perhaps have a point if those games had multiplayer, but they don't. You can have the full Souls experience offline or without ever summoning.
- Character customisation : not only the player's character is a unique person in the world with customisable looks, player can fine tune the stats of the player's character and their equipment, which results in different gameplay experiences. The replayability of a Souls game comes from this customization - different builds tend to have different pros and cons, while using different builds the player experiences different outcomes - it's ridiculous how a difficulty of a single bossfight can be dependent on the player's character build.
So like in Wukong?
Only thing that's an hallmark of Souls games and is core to the experience that you named.
Jedi games, Sekiro and Wukong do not belong to souls like
Haven't played Jedi. Wukong and Sekiro absolutely are Soulslike.
The stats in skill tree of Wukong are widely considered to be end game skills because you want to max a playstyle, almost all play guides do. It's like God of war picking whirlwind or Atreus's higher dmg with arrows, who will pick Atreus' skills first? Nobody. You can finish Wukong entirely without ever putting point in stats and it's not considered to be even close to « hard » to do so unlike souls run at lvl 1.
Wukong without leveling up would be insanely challenging. WTF are you on? Most bosses would one-shot your ass. Yin Tiger was demolishing me and my level was fairly high. I didn't beat him until I leveled up some more and got stronger. If I was a basic-bitch level 1, I would have never ever beaten him.
And again, stances and advanced combos blow « souls » out of the fucking water in Wukong, not seeing this as an action game is basically blowing my mind
The two aren't mutually exclusives. Wukong is a Soulslike
action RPG.
Last time I post on this subject. You're wrong but it's ok, whatever you think. I want to give
adamsapple
another opinion than « omg souls like » because there's a bonfire mechanic
What turns people off from Souls games is the difficulty and Wukong in that regard is fairly challenging and is a "git gud" type of game where you cannot lower the difficulty. If Adam doesn't vibe with that, then he ain't gonna vibe with Wukong.
Now, instead of a random youtuber, let me use Miyzaki as a source regarding the design philosophy of his games.
If we really wanted the whole world to play the game, we could just crank the difficulty down - which, in my eyes, would break the core of the game itself."
So already, having difficulty levels practically disqualifies a game from being a Soulslike except if the difficulty is just "hard" or "harder". Wukong in that respect is deliberately difficult and beating the challenges is part of the experience. Checkbox 1.
Which leads us to the stamina management Miyazaki states:
Yes, the stamina bar exists in Elden Ring, but we feel it has less influence on the player overall," Miyazaki says. "We wanted to make it feel less restricting again and contribute to that level of freedom moreso than our previous titles."
It's an important part of the core mechanics. Wukong has it and the drawbacks are similar to Souls games. You cannot dodge or perform combo finishers, but it isn't as punishing. Sekiro has no stamina bar but has a posture bar instead. Checkbox 2.
"If we really wanted the whole world to play the game, we could just crank the difficulty down more and more. But that wasn't the right approach," Miyazaki explains. "Had we taken that approach, I don't think the game would have done what it did, because the sense of achievement that players gain from overcoming these hurdles is such a fundamental part of the experience. Turning down difficulty would strip the game of that joy – which, in my eyes, would break the game itself."
Once again, Wukong checks that box. The game's story is based on Journey to the West, but the narrative is disjointed and presented through logs, items, and end-of-chapter cutscenes. Most of us didn't have the faintest idea of what was going on and even those familiar with the books had to piece the story together to make sense of it. This also applies to the quests, which are so comically lifted from Souls games in design that you have a character randomly appear throughout 5 chapters, only to die at the end exactly like in Souls games. Checkbox 3.
Translating a reddit post from a Japanese interviewer paraphrasing Miyzaki:
Hidetaka Miyazaki designed the slow healing mechanics in "Souls" games to heighten the tension and challenge, forcing players to make careful decisions and adapt their strategies.
Same thing in Wukong and Sekiro. Checkbox 4.
I could keep going, but you know what I mean. The things you have mentioned aside from the corpse running aren't integral to the Souls experience or Miyazaki's design philosophy when it comes to those games. You can keep screaming that I'm wrong and quoting random youtubers, I'll stick to understanding the reasons behind the design decisions and see if they apply to other games and to what degree. This is what makes me determine whether a game is a Soulslike or not. It doesn't have to tick every box, but when it ticks most of them, it qualifies.
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. Not knowing fightingcowbow says it all really how much you know the subject.
