I just wanted to gush for a minute about Mark of the Deep, Tombwater, and Hunt the Night. All of them are top-down (or isometric) exploration games with eldritch horrors and difficult combat. I’m terrible at “real” souls-like games but these top-down games are definitely scratching my itch.
Mark of the Deep has an isometric view and more modern graphics (compared to the others). The map is a set of interconnected regions where each region is a labyrinth of hidden paths. This one is very easy to get lost in but I think it’s well-made. It does a good job of letting you unlock shortcuts as you progress so you don’t have to backtrack too much after dying and restarting at the last save point. It took me ~20 hours to beat.
Tombwater is a new game that feels more like A Link To The Past than Mark of the Deep. It’s a spread-out open world with optional bosses and 32-bit graphics. I really like how it lets you disable the “corpse run” mechanic that is common in souls-like games. Like I said, I’m terrible at “real” souls-likes so this is a huge selling point for me (Mark of the Deep doesn’t have corpse runs either). I’m ~8 hours into Tombwater and I’m really enjoying it.
I’ve only played the demo for Hunt the Night but I absolutely loved it and since there was a bundle with Tombwater, I bought it on an impulse. I’m looking forward to playing it after I beat Tombwater though.
I know Tunic and Death’s Door both have great reviews and souls-like aspects but those are too cute for me. I don’t just want a zelda-like with difficult combat, I need that eldritch horror aspect to really scratch my itch. And I’m not sure about Mina the Hollower yet. It isn’t nearly as cute as Tunic or Death’s Door but I don’t know if it’s all that “dark” either with that artstyle.
Anyway, if you know of any other top-down/isometric action games with an eldritch horror aesthetic, please let me know. I can’t get enough of them right now.
I haven’t played it yet myself, but doesn’t Mina have an absolutely insane suite of accessibility options?
It does, and that’s a great thing, but playing the game as intended is pretty rough for me. Like I said, if that kind of difficulty is your gig, go for it, or, if you don’t mind tweaking the difficulty and playing an easier version, then go for it. I’m playing a soulslike for the difficulty, so changing it to make it easier feels like going against principals.
So the developers put difficulty and accessibility options in the game, but didn’t intend for people to actually use them? You play the game for the difficulty, but you also don’t enjoy the difficulty?
To me this just sounds like you’re putting artificial restraints on yourself and then blaming the developers for it. They want you to customise the game to your liking. That’s why they put all those sliders in. They’ve said as much themselves (although it should be self-evident). The only principle you should care about when playing a single player video game is “am I having fun?”. If your principles lead to you not enjoying yourself with games, you need to re-evaluate your principles.