cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/28095114
Vapor World: Over The Mind is a Soulslike Metroidvania with an evocative, painterly art style reminiscent of Lies of P and the narrative platformers of Playdead. According to Korean studio Alive Inc, the game had 100,000 wishlists just before its early access launch on August 19, mostly on the strength of a demo available since January 2025.
But what should have been a triumphant early access launch went pear shaped very quickly. At launch, few talked about the quite distinctive worldbuilding or the parry-heavy combat. Instead, all focus was trained entirely on something absent from the popular demo: very obvious AI use.
Is this the gaming equivalent of increasingly niche music genres?
In my experience if a metroidvania game is described as soulslike it means it will have time wasting mechanics like corpse runs, and the spawn points will be placed in awkward locations. Mostly inspired by hollow knight.
Souls is already kind of like a Metroidvania. Like some areas are much easier with certain things, if not downright required.
It just means they liked hollow Knight
One of the things that drew me into Dark Souls to begin with was that it had some of that metroidvania feel. A soulslike metroidvania just sounds kind of redundant as a genre.
I believe the defining feature of the metroidvania genre is that it’s essentially an open world, but certain paths are barred by the need of a specific item/movement mechanic. Like “you need to learn double jump to reach the high platform that lets you access this new area”.
Where as Dark Souls immediately lets you wander into the graveyard or spooky ghost area and get your ass handed to you repeatedly until you wonder, oh maybe this wasn’t the best path!
At the same time, most of the endgame zones are gated behind the lordvessel. And that is gated behind sens and the bells. Four lords behind the ring from sif. That’s gated behind the crest from andre. So there are certainly some walls.
I haven’t played souls games, but perhaps the difference is how central that is to progression? In a metroidvania the world is typically littered by both paths you can’t go through and secrets for you to find, both of which require abilities you’ll be gathering consistently as the main method of progression. As you wander the same paths, the abilities make it easier and faster while letting you find those secrets and now-usable paths to progress further.
I was about to say the same thing. Any Souls-like that actually understands the format is already a Metroidvania. Some think it has something to do with combat, or bonfires, but really it’s the exploration that makes it soul-like.
Honestly, it’s really just a new trendier way to call a game a Metroidvania. I can’t think of any functional differences between the genres. Arguably, RPG mechanics, but many games using the Souls-like description don’t have this, and Sekiro doesn’t, so I think they’re just two terms for the same genre. Metroidvania often has a 2D connotation, and Souls a 3D one, but they’re both used for either.
Maybe ideally but mostly it means “hard combat against bosses with predictable attacks you learn to dodge around”.
Yeah, that’s the bad understanding I’m talking about. It’s a purely surface level view of them, and it’s not what makes them interesting or popular. There are plenty of games with that that suck, so it can’t be the foundation of what Souls-likes are.
It’s also a mechanic that Metroidvanias classically have too, so yeah…
Being good or not isn’t what qualifies something to fall into a particular genre, though
That’s not what I meant. I meant that the core experience will be good if it replicates what the Souls games do, which is why they’re successful. Many “Souls-likes” replicate the combat, and it sucks. Honestly, the DS1 and Demons Souls combat is pretty rough, but they revolutionized gaming, and the boss fights weren’t the unique thing they were doing. Boss fights like them have existed forever.
If you look at the older FromSoftware catalogue, you can see what makes their games special. The older games have incredibly clunky combat, but they still have the core exploration loop. There’s a hand built world with care and thought put into every detail, and the game gives obstacles that get easier if you engage with the world and explore. This is often with items or levels, but it’s sometimes just with information. This is what makes a Souls-likes, and the copycats that fail are missing this (or they just didn’t make an interesting world to explore). Hollow Knight isn’t great because of the combat. The combat is fine, but it’s the interesting world that’s begging for you to engage with it that makes it compelling. That’s the core of Souls-likes.
I mean, even you seem to be struggling to describe what makes a game a like… Which is exploration? Which could apply to a dozen other completely unrelated genres.
I’m sure there are also plenty of games with exploration that suck, I don’t think that really makes it a valid point. I can’t speak to what soulslikes are, since I haven’t played the original games, but a game can implement one element well and still fail at being an interesting game, which doesn’t invalidate that element in any way.
Realistically, can’t both combat and exploration be foundational elements of soulslike? I got the impression a big part is the way the combat works, usually involving a lot of commitment into your combat moves, with animations on attacks, dodges, heals, and multiple ways to be punished (and punish enemies), including plain damage, wasting items, wasting stamina.
There’s something at the heart of them that makes them interesting. It isn’t just “exploration”, but a particular style of exploration, which will not fail. It isn’t just boss fights with dodging, because having that alone doesn’t have the heart of a Souls game. The exploration alone could, but yeah, obviously it has to be done properly, not just “exploration”.
It could. I honestly don’t think it is. Sekiro is also a Souls-like, and the combat is very different. I’m pretty confident you can make a good Souls-like with no combat. The combat, in my opinion, is there to give you a reason to explore. It’s there to be a challenge, where exploring is the key to overcoming it. There will be items and secrets that make the combat easier if you search for it. It’s not required, but you’d need something else to take the place of this.
Chants of Sennaar comes to mind of something I’d consider to capture a lot of the spirit of Souls games without combat. They’re obviously very different games, but I think they share a lot. You can try to brute force your way through, but you’re encouraged to explore and engage with the world, and discover it, which makes the critical path easier. This is the goal for both Souls-likes and CoS.
Dilution of buzzwords like roguelike and roguelite. I’m waiting for soulslite to pop up soon.
Although metroidvania I somehow have no qualms with, since pretty much any that I’ve seen is pretty faithful.
Roguelike = like Rogue, no meta progression
Roguelite = usually just means like Rogue with meta progression
I had to go look these up to know there was a difference and I like these games.
Roguelike is more complex, there’s no governing body to decide on a proper definition, but I think the consensus that was reached long ago includes elements like turn-based, grid-based, non-modal, playable in an ASCII terminal. I think the last one is outdated, but the rest are significant components of what makes roguelikes… roguelikes.
Modality in games is a particularly interesting aspect when you start looking at various other games, and something that matches up with things I dislike in games. One fun example is movement in FPS games, which can be built either on universal mechanics or a predefined moveset - some games will allow you to perform a vault move when next to a low obstacle, other games might let you crouch, jump, and crouch while jumping to get over low obstacles.
My new game is a roguevania, souls like, gothic horror version of Metroid. /s