Healing is a staple of any soulslike. From the very beginning, Demon’s Souls introduced healing items to the genre to fight off the dangers of the world. The healing items were consumable, however, forcing the player to either get good enough to use fewer healing items or find spots to farm the various levels of healing items to have a stash.
Dark Souls ditched the types of consumable grass and instead introduced the Estus Flask - the healing item that comes with several healing charges which auto-refill when you rest at a bonfire or die.
Apart from Bloodborne, which had Blood Vials (controversial), Estus Flasks or similar have become a mainstay of the genre. But which of these are better for the game and which do you prefer?
Estus Flasks come with limited charges, but they refill automatically, so you don’t have to farm healing items and can just focus on the boss fight that’s giving you trouble. Consumable healing usually comes in larger quantities (20 Blood Vials plus a couple extra if you use specific runes), so you have more healing at your disposal in a boss fight, hence you can be more aggressive and reckless, but you run the risk of running out of healing at some point, so you might have to farm them at some point.
Thoughts?
No Soulslikes for me this weekend, I am still on the Withering Rooms kick I’ve been on for the last two weeks or so. I finished my first playthrough today, got an ending I think might be canon (considering the upcoming sequel) and then immediately went into NG+. There is an extra ending exclusive to NG+, and I’m curious to see what that payoff is like. So far the NG+ experience has been pretty remixed, so it feels somewhat fresh. Also feels snappier - certain puzzles and story beats seem removed in NG+ so it might play a lot faster. There are also some new and pretty cool mechanics introduced.
Overall I can’t say enough good things about this game. The world building, the exploration, the story, the art direction, the vibes, the mechanics… It’s such a good and unique game.
Great to hear you liked it so much!, I have it lined up for when I finish these current playthroughs.
I hope you’ll like it as much as I have! I promise you’ll get used to the clunky combat eventually, and everything else in the game is just top tier. For a solo dev game it’s just so impressive and I’ve loved every second of it. So many neat little things, such a cool setting and story, so many little game design elements that are just perfectly thought out…
I haven’t looked at sales but I hope it sold well so that the upcoming sequel can have even higher budget. I know it is going to move from 2.5D to full 3D environments, but I am just so curious to see what this dev could do with an AA budget.
A solo dev project, holy shit! And a sequel planned? that’s really awesome to hear :)
Not just a solo dev, but he also wrote all the music for the game (except one track and a Bach piece). And the music is all phenomenal too! Some people are just too talented, this guy gives me the same kind of inferiority complex I got from Lucas Pope when I played Obra Dinn, hah!
The sequel actually enters early access this year, and by the looks of it might be even closer to an actual Soulslike. It goes full 3D and from the sounds of it will have something bonfire-adjacent, so it may well be a full on Soulslike instead of Roguelike.
Some people have no chill, leave some talent for the rest of us! Reading that now I wish I’d paid full price for it.
Ooh…sounds nice, soulslike - rouguelike is an awesome combo.