Since its release in 2009, Demon’s Souls has helped shaped a new form of games genre referred to as the “soulsborn” style of games. Developer Fallen Flag Studios, in conjunction with CI games, is currently working on their isometric, pixel art take on the genre with Eldest Souls.
Eldest Souls is very much a soulsborn style game, forcing players to rely on patience and reflexes to take on the bosses in a broken, devastated world.
Unlike other soulsborn style games, Eldest Souls will play more as a boss rush style of game. Players can, and are encouraged, to explore the world and find the secrets and lore of the world, but the bosses will be laid out in a fairly straightforward manner.
As players trounce the various bosses of the game, more abilities, stat ups and upgrades will be made available to them. The ultimate goal, as explained to us, is to eventually take on the Old Gods and destroy them.
While still very much in the early stages of development, many interesting ideas and development plans are in the works for Eldest Souls. They include things like allowing the players great sword to change and morph, depending on which talent tree the player chooses to go down.
The interesting aspect of Eldest Souls is the fact that the player will not change arms and armor as the game progresses, instead relying on talent trees to gain new abilities and change up how they decide to play.
During our play time, I can say that the characters great sword weapon felt like a great sword should. It hit with slow, semi sluggish attacks that dealt destructive damage on our foe. Coupled with a very tight dodge mechanic and the ability to charge up attacks and gain increased attack power after landing a connecting hit, combat was fun and a joy to take part in.
If I can take a moment to brag here, dear reader, I would like to say that, at the time of our demo, only a handful of people had been able to successfully fell the boss that the demo placed against us. Three of the six people who were able to successfully kill the boss were members of yours truly.
Rory, Brandon and I were all able to take down the boss that stood as a wall against all corners. And each of us agreed that the combat was very well done and after a bit of experimentation and getting used to, became very intuitive and natural once you caught the swing of how the battle played out.
If the team is able to add in all that they spoke about during our sit down, Eldest Souls is shaping up to be one of those games to keep a sharp eye on and should turn out to be a game that any fan of the genre will be pleased to add to their collection.
Speaking for me personally, Eldest Souls is one of my top five indie games of E3 2019 and I greatly look forward to seeing how the game shapes up and what the team is able to accomplish with what they’ve started.
