Eldest Souls is a fantastic game that really tried my reflexes. Beautiful pixel art and intense music adds to the action of the game, which is fast, frenetic and deadly. I came in looking for a challenge and it's exact what I got. I think some accessibility features would be a good patch, like a way to slow down bosses to practice them (like in guitar hero). I would recommend you buy Eldest Souls if you want sweaty palms.

For anyone who wants to try but it scared of the difficulty then I would suggest you try it for an hour and if you feel yourself getting more frustrated then engaged then get a refund! This game feels like a complex puzzle game.

Eldest Souls is another in a long string of Souls-like games, looking to make its own spin on the formula. Unfortunately, while there are some cool bosses and nice pixel art to be found here, the game fails to provide the polished yet difficult experience expected from the subgenre.

I'll start with the positives. The pixel art is very well done here with some nice simple animation and effects that add to its already pleasing aesthetic. The soundtrack too is great, providing plenty of epic backdrops to the game's various bosses. The lore too, while not quite as fleshed out as one would hope, paints a haunting picture of a world ravaged by war. Really the presentation was very well done.

Some of the bosses too were very cool while also being fun to fight. Particular shoutouts go to Azikel, Hyem, Aryana, and Drakmur who all provided very unique and difficult fights.

That's where the positives end though. Unfortunately, for a game that expects you to maneuver difficult boss fights that can fling a multitude of attacks at you at the same time, it doesn't consistently provide functioning tools for you to do so. The overall design is very cool. You have your basic moves, and some neat specials that you can add onto with items you get from beating each boss. Added on to this are three skill trees of differing styles that you can very easily respec and switch between as needed. This was an excellent idea as I found many of the bosses needed different strategies to beat them.

However, it goes without saying that despite their simplicity, the controls feel particularly sluggish. You'll get used to them, but it can be frustrating at first. From there, you'll start to see the even finer gaps that'll piss you off further. Aiming with the absolutely essentially charge attack can be a pain sometimes.

The dash, provided with an extra bonus if you get perfect dodges, just sometimes doesn't work at all. My most frustrating defeats were when I hit the dash button well before an attack, and my little protagonist bro just stood there like an invalid. Other times, I'd get screwed because what usually gets counted as a perfect dodge just doesn't randomly, causing me to take damage when I otherwise wouldn't. If this were just at the beginning of the game, I'd chalk it up to me not being used to the timing yet, but this was a consistent problem up until the end. It doesn't help that some of the hitboxes can be quite questionable (if you're showing a big glowy circle where damage will happen, why am I taking damage when outside the circle).

The game also has a couple glaring bugs. A couple were purely visual glitches, but I ran across a few nasty ones. One of the abilities in the Counter tree just doesn't activate sometimes when you respec to it. I had to back out to the main menu every time this happened and then it would just work. The final boss particularly had a few. Without spoiling too much, the boss has two sub enemies that charge up at certain points. You must damage them enough to cancel them, but for one of them, it just sometimes doesn't take damage when charging up. This is usually paired with a visual glitch where the sub enemy's health bar will get separated from it. My character just also randomly froze during Phase 1 one time. That's a thing that can happen from an attack in Phase 2, but not Phase 1.

The inconsistent controls, questionable hitboxes, glitches, and other small problems such as poor or weird telegraphs and times when multiple attacks just unfairly blanketed the screen all added up to an experience that had me more frustrated than exhilirated. It's a shame because there are some really cool ideas and really cool bosses in here. Had it been much more polished, it may have been one of my top games of the year.

Eldest Souls is allegedly the first indie soulslike i've played in its most, even if it's actually a very boss focused one, but the jankiness of the attack patterns and hitboxes in it is so laughable.

In this game, you are sent to hunt down every god who in history had succumbed humanity, using your trustworthy sword and your instincts, but that's just the story right there, because apparently you aren't going to go wreck around killing enemies to become powerful, but you're just going to infiltrate into a citadel where the evil gods are waiting. However, like Dark Souls, there's less story integration in it and more gameplay, so don't expect a really amazing story or whatsoever.

The trial and error nature in this game is VERY prevalent just like in the Dark Souls series, you usually learn what the boss' skillsets are, BUT there's a drop of intentional trial and error placed into here as some bosses reveal slightly stronger variants of their patterns as you cut down half of their health, forcing you to learn again and again until you take it down.

One interesting plus i'd like to add is that you can switch between three types of special abilities which help you decide your strategies. Personally, i started the game with the Berserk abilities, but later on had to start switching between the other two in order to think of the best skillset i could ever pull out in order to beat the enemies. Another thing to note is that, like Dark Souls, performing a dodge also has invincibility frames that, with careful timing, will let you easily dodge each attack no matter where you are. As a Dark Souls veteran (not an expert by the way, i just played all the three Dark Souls games with almost all the DLC bosses beaten) this has greatly helped me take advantage of this particular mechanic.

BUT the main problem of this game is the goddarned hitboxes. It may be probably the reason why 3D is better suited for non-Metroidvania soulslikes, or probably is the fact that the programming of hitboxes in 2.5D coordinates isn't done so well... who knows. And another concern of mine is the way the boss attack patterns are programmed and how certain bosses are designed to have you concentrate the eye on many fucking things, especially EOS which has been a pain in the ass because of its small arena and the way it looks like an elemental version of Ornstein & Smough from the first Dark Souls (and i also really found that boss to be a greatly annoying chore as well). Around late game i had to forcedfully concentrate on dodging the patterns with my iframes because later on the game gets to the point where boss patterns are starting to become just freaking unfair to manage, i'm really sick.

After the final boss (in which i'm currently facing by the time i wrote this review), this Italian-developed game should've done things a bit better, but i'd not really recommend this game to a high degree unless you really want some traditional Soulslike experience just for funsies, with some jankyness in exchange.

Ci sta - IGN

Divertente, boss fight difficili ma raramente frustranti: se un giocatore dovesse accorgersi di aver adottato una build poco adatta a un certo tipo di boss fight, può riassegnare i punti talento e le abilità a propria discrezione quando gli pare. Questo permette un minimo di sperimentazione e, chi apprezza lo stile boss rush, può cimentarsi in più stili di combattimento. Purtroppo, è difficile che le boss rush in quanto tali mi piacciano più di tanto. Devo però dire che preferirei che, in questo contesto, venissero eliminate tutte le (brevi) sezioni consistenti di ostacoli (piattaforme levitanti e laser) dato che, almeno a mio parere, non aggiungono nulla al mondo di gioco e non rendono la sfida o la componente adventure più interessante. Cosa fondamentale, comunque, è che le boss fight sono ben pensate e i moveset dei boss sono fatti nel solito stile souls: bene o male, tutte le tipologie di attacco sono prevedibili in quanto anticipate, e possono corcare malamente di mazzate il giocatore poco attento o che insista con il solo attacco senza ripiegare sull'evasione (o, laddove possibile attraverso i talenti, sulla difesa). Purtroppo, una cosa molto poco gradita è l'impossibilità di annullare un qualsiasi proprio attacco (sia esso semplice o caricato) così da poter evadere un attacco avversario in caso di necessità.
In generale, tra comparto grafico e musicale non è particolarmente degno di nota.

I was loving this game the first few hours. The art style is gorgeous, I liked the setting and the first bosses were really fun. Then I reached the boss that's basically a ball that shoots stuff and splits into two smaller balls once you've dealt enough damage to it. There, I felt like the game was a bit too hard. And it wasn't hard in a Dark Souls way. It felt very pushed, which isn't a bad thing per se, but that combined with the way some mechanics work and the fact that the controls didn't feel as responsive as they should've for a game so fast paced and precise as this is, resulted in a very frustrating experience.

My main issue was with what is probably the main mechanic of the game, which is that when you hit a charged attack you fill a bar, and when that bar is full you basically heal with every hit you land, plus some other stuff. This bar depleates overtime or when you use some abilities that can only be used when the bar is full.

It's a great mechanic. The problem is that the bar only fills if it's below 50%, so if you land a charged attack when you're at 51% it will do nothing, and then you have to wait until you get another opening to get another charged attack.

This may not seem like a huge deal, but when you take into accound how fast and unforigiving the combat is, you really don't get to choose when you get those charged attacks into, because the bosses don't give you that many windows. So you're basically at the mercy of the boss giving you the window at the exact time you need it, otherwise you won't be able to heal or use the special abilities. It ends up feeling very unfair.

I'd also like to mention how bad I think that particular boss's design is.

So this boss I'm talking about is basically an entity comprised of two spheres: a red one that has fire attacks, and a blue one that attacks with what would look like sound waves or something, and the way the fight works is by alternating two phases: one in which the spheres are merged into one, and another in which they separate and act on each own.

When the two spheres are together, this one entity attacks fairly slowly and alternates red and blue attacks, one at a time. In this phase, the boss basically has a shield which you deplete by attacking it, and once the shield is done, the two spheres separate and we go into phase 2.

Phase 2 is when you get a chance at actually dealing damage to the boss. The problem is that in this phase, both spheres act as individual enemies that move and attack on their own and at the same time, so it's a lot harder to find an opportunity to attack them than in the previous phase. Also, this phase is time based, and when time's up we go back to phase 1.

You can probably see how this is a pretty flawed design. You can't have a boss with a shield mechanic, and have them be a lot more aggressive and harder to damage when they have their shield off, it's just not fun and makes the fight drag a lot.

Worth mentioning that when the boss is in this second phase the fight basically turns into bullet hell, because both spheres are constantly shooting stuff all around. It's not like that's a bad thing, but I personally don't enjoy these types of designs.

I still think the game's pretty good and would recommend you to try it, and that's why I'm not giving it a bad rating after all, but I just wasn't having fun with this fight after several hours of attempts and gave up.

Um boss rush feito muito bem: o combate é sensacional e personalizado por diferentes árvores de talentos e escolhas de "runas" para alterar cada mecânica do game de acordo com seu gosto de build. O gráfico pixelart é lindo e a "exploração" estilo Titan Souls é, apesar de não tão contemplativa, eficiente. O design dos bosses se prova impecável para mim a partir do momento que em meu primeiro New Game levei 10-20 mortes em cada, enquanto no segundo New Game (sem ser NG+) derrotei todos de 1-4 tentativas (perfeito balanço de dificuldade e "get good"). A lore é simples com diferentes finais igualmente simples, mas não é necessária. Contudo, os problemas desse game começam a aparecer no New Game+, o que é relevante citar pois como o jogo só possui 9 bosses (1 de tutorial) meio que o NG+ é canon caso você goste do game, e ele é bem feito, pois altera fortemente o dano e moveset dos bosses de forma saudável, mas o problema de Eldest Souls é o seguinte: O NG+ torna o jogo extremamente difícil, o que torna o theorycrafting de builds tão importante quanto a habilidade do jogador e, sobre isso, basicamente toda parte esquerda das árvores de habilidade são infinitamente superiores a parte direita, o que torna o meta do jogo restrito. Isso se agrava a partir do momento que a build de Counter não só é extremamente defensiva, o que permite qualquer um zerar o game sem decorar movesets direito, mas também o fato de que essa build também é a que mais da dano, pois permite que você ignore ataques extremamente perigosos para as outras builds. Ou seja, o jogador que usa um estilo de combate diferente enfrentará coisa de 30+ mortes em cada boss do NG+, enquanto o pior jogador de Counter conseguirá passar dando facetank. O pior de tudo é que o CD do counter é quase nulo mesmo sem buildar "runas" ao redor disso, o que faz que você spamme isso e exploda todos bosses no NG+ super facilmente caso você seja minimamente bom. Ou seja, o meta do game é super restrito e o jogador é desencorajado a usar playstyles que não seja Counter com Warding Blades caso tenha o mínimo de lógica de theorycrafting para jogos. Infelizmente, por conta desse problema de builds a minha nota diminui de 9 para 8, pois minha preferida é a build Berseker, a qual obtive cerca de 40 mortes por boss no NG+. enquanto com a counter eu os solava com apenas 1-3 mortes. Concluindo, o problema é grave, mas muito fácil de resolver para um próximo game da empresa, a qual revelou grande potencial de game design. Ansioso pelo próximo.

An dem Spiel macht wirklich nichts Spaß.
Leveln gibt es nicht, die Bosse sind Marathons und keine Sprints.
Egal wie gut du bist, die Bosse werden ewig dauern.
Die Spielmechanik funktioniert nicht.

Man kann seine Schläge aufladen, das dauert aber meist zu lang, also ist es "klüger" lieber viele kleine Schläge auszuteilen, was den Kampf NOCH LÄNGER macht.
Boah Leute.. Steine stapeln ist auch schwer, aber trotzdem spielen die Leute lieber Dark Souls als Steine zu stapeln.. wieso nur?

An actually good 2D version of Dark Souls that isn't Hollow Knight (which you should also check out), with interesting and challenging boss fights and good controls and customization. I like that you can also respec your character at ANY time (this is what Dark Souls is missing).

Only issue is sometimes you'll get stuck at bad spot where you'll have no choice but to get hit.

Also F U C K UNITY (you'll understand eventually)