Ban Souls-likes. Please, for the love all that is holy, ban them. I cannot think of a sub-genre that has so thoroughly burned itself out in so short a time while producing so little of value. Numerous imitators have come and gone while the very games they’re trying to ape continue to be made. What good is a middling Dark Souls clone when Dark Souls is right there? This very year we had Elden Ring for goodness sake!
Of course, there is one beloved From Software property you can’t play on PC (at least, outside of some wonky streaming options). Bloodborne has long been demanded for the platform and so, maybe, Thymesia has a place here? Offering players a taste of an experience beyond their reach? If it’s a taste, it’s no more than a mouldy breadcrumb.
Tell me if you’ve heard this before: in a city ravaged by plague that turns people into monsters, it’s up to one gifted hunter to cleanse these foul is nothing but a pale shadow of its obvious inspiration. Not so much wearing its influences on its sleeve as wearing their entire skin. From the protagonist looking like a cheap Halloween costume alternative to ’s Eileen the Crow to the hub that is obviously intended to be the Hunter’s Dream and even the fonts, this is a game without an original bone in its body. That’s a problem when your source material was lauded precisely because of its originality, twisting the format into something wildly different, introducing players to what seemed like a Gothic infused romp that eventually revealed itself to be something grander and cosmic. was imaginative in so many departments, with its trick weapons and dream worlds, it leaves ’s flaws exposed like gaping, festering wounds.
