Any donations are truly appreciated, but so is the fact that you took the time to read my articles.If you love Soulsborne/Soulslike games but rather just cut to the chase and fight the genre’s tough-but-fair bosses in a 2D top-down fashion, Eldest Souls is going to be your 2021 indie jam. If you did want to support the site and my writing, you can do so at either of these links: /geekmid or PayPal. Many thanks to White Bear PR for providing me with a copy of Eldest Souls for review purposes.Įnjoyed what you’ve read? Want to support my blog? There’s no pressure of course, but every penny helps to keep this site running, as I earn no income from my writing here.
#Eldest souls play time series#
If you’re not intimidated or put off by an unapologetically brutal, challenging series of fights against huge, inventively designed enemies, then Eldest Souls might just be for you.
Though I am not ashamed to admit that I haven’t quite managed to make it to the end, the variety and inventiveness of the game’s bosses – both from a visual standpoint and from the point of view of their devastating attacks – is keeping me pushing on. With nine bosses to overcome in the game’s world, I may be stuck in the compelling gameplay loop and drenched in the amazing atmosphere of Eldest Souls for some time.
Patience, experience and skill will, however, see you through – it’s a difficult but definitely very rewarding game. There’s also a skill tree, with different paths of progression to suit your play style (though none seemed to match my play style of ‘awkwardly and repeatedly dying’). You’re blessed with a charge attack, the successful deployment of which – when fully charged – allows you to steal the health of your enemies or break through their shields, for example. To its credit, Eldest Souls does fight fair, with plenty of audio and visual cues to help you dodge attacks and fight back when it’s safe to do so. One of the key components of a brutally difficult experience is the sense that, though progress may be slow due to the extreme challenge, the game must always seem fair. That first boss? A walk in the park compared to the next one, though I can’t say I wasn’t warned by the characters I ran into on my journey to reach him. I am not ashamed to admit that I was wrong. Maybe, I thought, as the dust settled and I moved on, maybe this game wouldn’t be so brutal after all. One of my proudest gaming achievements is beating the game’s first boss character without dying, though it still felt like a hard fought victory. It has an incredible atmosphere, with some very clever foreshadowing – the notes, weapons and mounts of former warriors litter your approach to your first battle – and the soundtrack, which is ethereal and spooky during the game’s quieter moments, then all frantic strings and percussive beats during battles, does a fantastic job of setting the pulse-racing tone when you come face to face with the game’s terrifying bosses. The animated intro and accompanying voiceover set the scene for Eldest Souls, with a tale of the long-imprisoned Old Gods escaping from captivity and wreaking desolation upon the game’s world – and the player’s task, as a lone Crusader, is to slay them all. Yay, a participation trophy! The developers, though clearly possessing a sadistic streak that reveals itself immediately in Eldest Souls, definitely have a sense of humour there’s a few achievements here that trigger after failure, which does soften the blow somewhat (aside from the shame of being offed by a log – there’s no ridding yourself of that, achievement or otherwise). The game even gave me an achievement for being killed by it.