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Absolver
Five years before developer studio Sloclap made strategic story sparring socially acceptable with Sifu, they dipped their martial arts toe into the pond of Dark Souls-style gameplay with Absolver. However, as is usually the case with first-party games, the game was only granted a rating just above average. A fate that user HarperNguyen aptly predicted in the YouTube video on the various combat techniques with the words "This game is gonna be painfully underrated".
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Hollow Knight
Für kaum ein Genre wie für Indie-Spiele ist es so schwer, erfolgreich zu sein. Während große Marken mit dickem Budget die Fallhöhe eines Fehlschlags im Normalfall durch Marketing und ihre Stammklientel reduzieren können, fangen viele kleine Entwicklerstudios für gewöhnlich bei null an – so auch Team Cherry, die Entwickler vom 2017er Metroidvania Hollow Knight. Denn die haben genau ein Game auf ihre Releaseliste und nur den Nachfolger, Hollow Knight: Silksong, in der Pipeline.
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Dead Cells
I will probably forever associate my student days with Dead Cells. Not because I played the game excessively back then instead of focusing on my academic education - that was with League of Legends, Overwatch and of course Skyrim. No, I actually remember the game so much because we featured the early access version in the first edition of our Game One imitation, called WohnGameinschaft (a pun with 'shared apartment' and 'game'). If you're interested, here's the link to the video.
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Dark Souls
Leute, die ein paar meiner Reviews gelesen haben, werden häufiger über das Genre der Souls-Likes und dessen Begründer Dark Souls gestolpert sein. Coregamern sollte das Spiel ohnehin ein Begriff sein, wird es doch von seinen masochistischen Jüngern als Heiliger Gral des Gamings angesehen. Ich persönlich konnte nie viel mit dem Gedanken anfangen, regelmäßig den Verlust meines hart erspielten Fortschritts in sackschweren Kämpfen zu riskieren. Außerdem war die PC-Version total verbuggt, weshalb ich noch vorm Zweikampf mit dem ersten Mini-Bösschen schon keine Lust mehr hatte.
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The Surge
The Surge is a sci-fi souls-like from the German development studio Deck 13 that came out in 2017. I haven't played it (although I know someone who has and might consider writing a guest review ...), but the idea of violently depriving enemies of their limbs through the surgical use of hacking and sawing tools and equipping yourself with them actually sounded pretty cool.
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Thymesia
The score of the Bloodborne clone Thymesia has only just been released and is already in my review section. The game, which is not only reminiscent of From Software's Souls spin-off in terms of gameplay and setting, is accompanied by a soundtrack that could just as easily come from the Dark Souls series. In 15 tracks, composer Ben Ridge creates a pleasantly dark, melancholic and action-packed musical experience that is in no way inferior to numerous AAA productions.
