souls-like

I just finished up Hell is Us this week. I hadn’t heard of this game until I read this RPS article a few weeks back. Admittedly, the article doesn’t give the game much praise but I was intrigued by the prospect of a “souls-like” in a more modern setting.

Hell is Us takes place in an alternate 1993 in a country called Hadea where civil war has broken out. The Palomists and the Sabinians are engaged in a viscous war full of all sorts of horrible atrocities. Talking to the various NPCs, they don’t even know why they hate each other so much, they just always have. There are also these creatures that have appeared and seem to be linked to strong human emotions.

The story itself is a mix of government conspiracy in Hadea and story line of ancient orders and fanatic cults of Hadea’s past. So there’s still some gothic fantasy going on here. There’s also the story of the main character, Remi, looking for his parents and unraveling his own past which ties everything together. I’m loving the mix of “modern” Hadea filled with computers, office buildings, and secret labs and also unraveling the story of “historic” Hadea through the various books, artifacts, and monuments throughout the game. It’s a slow burn but it never lost my interest.

Hell is Us executes well on the “souls-like” style of exploration and storytelling through environments and objects in the world. I spent time combing each zone for secret passages, shortcuts, and new items that revealed a bit more information about Hadea. I was often more excited to find an item with something to read on it than any new piece of gear.

There are so many different things to find. There are research items which explain Hadea’s troubled history, there are miscellaneous items like diaries and newspaper clippings that give contexts to present day events. There are also items that lead to puzzles or “Good Deeds” where you have to give the correct item to the right NPC which help connect the player to the world.

Combat is not the main focus of Hell is Us. It’s there, and it can be challenging at first, but once I got the rhythm down and found a weapon I liked, it was almost trivial. Combat ends up being just one more puzzle to solve to get to where you want to go, rather than a main focus of the game. There aren’t difficult bosses, there’s no leveling or character builds, there’s hardly any combat customization save a few weapon choices and skills.

Death doesn’t punish you either. Enemies killed before you die stay dead, no health is lost, and, typically, there isn’t a long run back to where you died. There’s no “souls” to collect and sometimes dying is the better outcome because all your health is restored.

For me, this is more of a welcome relief than a deal breaker. My favorite part of Souls games has always been exploration. The combat tends to leave me frustrated, especially if I have to do the same section and kill the same enemies over and over again. The only time enemies respawn in Hadea is if you leave an area without closing the Timeloop. Something I always made sure I did so I didn’t need to repeat fights.

As a result, there are some mechanics I engaged very little with during my playthrough. You’re able to swap between two weapons but I never found the need to. If there are resistances and weaknesses of the enemies based on weapon type, I didn’t notice. I powered through everything with my Rage Pole-arm. I also had a Grief Pole-arm equipped but hardly ever used it. Defensive equipment can also be upgraded, something I forgot about and still found the final fights manageable. There are consumables littered throughout the world but I hardly ever needed them either. I did play on normal so this might be different on a higher difficulty.

I found Hell is Us to be the perfect length. It took me 27 hours to finish the story and I never once felt like it was dragging on. I did a lot of exploring and I read everything I came across, made sure to do the optional Good Deeds as I found them, and went out of my way to solve optional puzzles. There’s still plenty of things out there that I could have done or found but by story completion, I felt like I had a firm grasp on how everything connected together. I don’t feel a need to go back through and find everything I missed.

For this months Blaugust Reviews Humble Choice I took on the task of playing GRIME, a souls-like, metroidvania developed by Clover Bite. I played GRIME for just over two and a half hours which, honestly, was about an hour and a half longer than I thought I’d spend on it. I don’t typically last long with games in this genre. They tend to end up uninstalled out of frustration.

Now everyone get out their souls-like bingo cards and let’s see what we’ve got here:

A currency gained from killing monsters that you’ll use to level up and buy weapons that is called something but you’ll only ever refer to them as souls…Check
A level up system that requires increasingly more souls for every stat increase…Check
Weapons that scale with your stats based on the letters….Check
Enemies that respawn every time you reach a checkpoint or die…Check
A green stamina bar that depletes far too quickly with every attack or dodge action…Check
A barely coherent story set in a dark world that you’ll either find incredibly interesting or ignore completely….Check
Losing all of your souls when you die…No, actually. That’s odd.

*Capital letters on a red banner….Check!*

There are a few things that make GRIME stand out from your average souls-like game. The first is that last bullet point, you don’t lose your souls when you die. This is a wild departure from all of the other various souls-like or souls inspired games I’ve played over the years. Some would say it’s a core mechanic of the genre. How can you be a souls-like if you’re not punishing the player at every turn?

Instead, you lose a currency called Adore, which you gain from killing monsters as well. This is a multiplier of sorts that determines how many souls you get per kill except for bosses. This feels way less punishing if you die before getting back to your body. But don’t worry, GRIME has replaced this inconvenience with a limited healing ability. So while your not going to lose your souls you are going to die a lot more without a handful of healing flasks to cover your mistakes!

This brings us to GRIME’s other interesting mechanics: absorbing enemies. You see, whatever it is that your playing has appears to have a black hole for a head, which is cool, and also useful. Your able to absorb enemies by countering an attack right as they hit you. On the small enemies this will usually kill them outright and on the big enemies it will take a chunk of their health out. It also has the added benefit of filling your healing ability back up after about 4 absorptions.

When you absorb a new type of enemy a few times passive abilities are unlocked which can help you steer your build towards a particular play style. The passive abilities are unlocked with Hunt Points which are obtained from killing large prey. These are bigger than your average enemy but not quite a boss and don’t respawn when you reach a check point or die.

Overall, GRIME is a solid game. I don’t typically like hard games but there was something compelling about the gameplay and exploration that kept pushing me to play a little bit more. GRIME isn’t easier than other souls-like metroidvania’s that I’ve played in the past but it feels less punishing. It plays at a slower pace and when I died I always felt like I knew why. Mostly because I’m wasn’t patient enough. I enjoyed my time with it and if I wasn’t actively playing other games I might have dove in to this one further.

So is GRIME worth buying June’s Humble Choice for? Well if you like this sort of thing then there’s enough of an interesting take here to try it out. It also just had an update which adds a new new game + mode so there’s a decent amount of content to get in to. I wouldn’t buy the this month’s Choice specifically for it but it’s a welcome addition to the other games.

Many Welps

Hell Is Us

GRIME: A Souls-like Where You Won’t Lose Souls