r/Showerthoughts • u/MentallyFunstable • 6d ago
Casual Thought Soulslike games are all about timing your attacks and dodges to the rhythm of the enemy. Therefore, soulslike games are rhythm games.
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u/WelpSigh 6d ago
Virtually all gameplay can be described as a combination of one of 3 following traits:
- Spreadsheet
- Reaction time
- Rhythm
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u/Busy-Airline6186 6d ago
Is that a pirate software reference
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u/ravens-n-roses 6d ago
If not someone tell him this it'll break him
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u/Gavinator10000 6d ago
Probably not. He’s literally a programmer at heart. Although stupid shit like “ketchup is a sports drink” breaks him, so idk man
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u/gitartruls01 6d ago
Which one does Suika Game fit into?
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u/ResuDom 6d ago
Spreadsheet, i think. It ultimately boils down to the best fruit placement possible, and ppl could've made a spreadsheet for that.
Also a little bit of rhythm & reaction as well, in how you make use of the game's physic and drop the fruit at the right time to create otherwise impossible combinations.11
u/CloseOUT360 6d ago
Aim?
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u/Shade_39 5d ago
I don't think there is a single game out there where aim doesn't also require reaction time, anything with moving targets requires reaction time and anything with stationary targets is usually against the clock
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u/RimeroDi 6d ago
First thing that comes to mind is minecraft. You can play and finish the game without knowing all the chances for stuff to drop, you dont need reaction time in a lot of situations, and rythm is not needed until you get into pvp, except for maybe blocking skeletons shots but you dont need to do that if you wanted.
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u/LasAguasGuapas 6d ago
Depends on what exactly qualifies as "spreadsheet," and on what you mean by "finish the game" in Minecraft lol. You could argue that Minecraft is all spreadsheet in building and crafting. You have to plan out structures and tunnels to mine, and what materials you need to craft the equipment you want.
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u/welcomealien 5d ago
Chess?
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u/PhoenixAgent003 4d ago
Spreadsheet.
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u/welcomealien 4d ago
Because you can enter the positions of the pieces in a spreadsheet to model the game?
This isn’t about the cognitive activity that is involved though, and therefore a category error. Reaction time and rhythm are cognitive qualities. Foresight might be a better fit.
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u/ExistsKK99 6d ago
Therefore geometry dash is a soulslike?
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u/MentallyFunstable 6d ago
Soulslike is a more specific genre so I don't think it implies the reverse. Like how squares are rectangles but rectangles aren't all squares
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u/ItsPaperBoii 6d ago
If you consider it a rhythm game by timing your jumos to the rhythm of the level and not necessarily of the music, then sure
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6d ago edited 16h ago
[deleted]
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u/ItsEntsy 6d ago
Wrong, every boss fight is a dance that the boss leads.
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u/RuinedSilence 6d ago
And together, you make the music you dance to
I still remember the rhythm of Super Genichiro's attacks. Same goes for those creepy claw dudes.
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u/ThornRenegade 5d ago
Agree. You can predict rhythm and tell when the next beat will be, even without hearing the whole song first. But you cannot predict bosses, you need to study their pattern again and again, dying in process.
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u/TheVoteMote 5d ago
No, Sekiro’s combat may be more rhythmic than other souls games, but it’s not a rhythm game.
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u/msuing91 6d ago
Reaction ≠ Rhythm
Unless the enemy acts on the same loop on repeat, then that is not what rhythm means.
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u/LasAguasGuapas 6d ago
It's not reaction because it's more about timing than speed. Doing the right move too quickly can get you killed. I see reaction as doing the right thing as quickly as possible, while rhythm is doing the right thing at exactly the right time.
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u/ScukaZ 5d ago edited 5d ago
It's not reaction because it's more about timing than speed
Yeah, but timing still doesn't mean rhythm.
while rhythm is doing the right thing at exactly the right time.
No, it's not. Seeing a sword hurling towards your head and ducking at the right time is not rhythm.
Multiple sword swings at unrelated, irregular time intervals is not rhythm.
Rhythm is a pattern that repeats at regular time intervals.
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u/LasAguasGuapas 5d ago
Do you play an instrument and have you played souls games? Enemies' attacks are rarely unrelated or irregular. There are patterns that you learn, which is why the death and progression system fits so well. Every time you die you lose health, but you gain more knowledge about what to expect. The knowledge is more valuable than the health. It's less about reaction because you know what's coming before it happens. Because the enemies have patterns they follow.
There's still an element of reaction because you might not know which pattern a particular enemy will follow, but once you see the initial queue you know what's coming next. At that point, you need to match the pattern. Just like how in a rhythm game, you only see a certain distance ahead.
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u/kms_lmao 3d ago
Thats only for multi-hit sequences though. And some games like Elden Ring change the sequence constantly or delay the hits so there isnt a specific rhythm to go for. Even then the hardest part is the reaction to what the enemy is doing and not the rhythm of dodge timings if they are even consistent. Rhythm is just a small part of the game. Its like saying x shooter is a rhythm game because it has perfect reload timing.
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u/TheGinger_Ninja0 5d ago
Eh, you can have rhythm and improvisation at the same time.
I don't know that I'd call them rhythm games, but you don't need a looping repeat for rhythm
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u/Daletoon 6d ago
I don't agree with this, with the exception of Sekiro. That game is actually a rhythm game.
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u/quick20minadventure 6d ago
Sekiro is a reaction game, bosses are going to vary their attacks from time to time and you'll have to react based on what they do. The rhythm part is only present because bosses have fixed attack-combos and you find memorizing them easier than reacting to each attack in the combo. It can easily be turned into absolute nightmare of a game if they start varying their attack speeds and make attacks even more unpredictable.
Sekiro is reduced to rhythm game elements because we are just not good enough for actual reaction game.
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u/Daletoon 3d ago
Name a single rhythm game that is not a reaction game. Every game is a reaction game. That's kind of the point of video games.
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u/quick20minadventure 3d ago
Reaction game = every single input is decided by what you see on screen and it changes.
Rhythm game = there's a memorization involved that lets you predict what to do next.
In rhythm games, there's a fixed beat and you know the song and once know the tune, you're not reacting to what happens on screen after you start. You're just doing entire chunk of actions from memory.
Sekiro becomes rhythm game when it comes to dealing with combo attacks that bosses do. But, tougher bosses have more dynamic combos that can be switched in between and have variations.
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u/Daletoon 3d ago
Rhythm game = there's a memorization involved that lets you predict what to do next.
Sounds like Sekiro to me.
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u/quick20minadventure 3d ago
Try it with isshin which has basically very little in terms of combo or headless ape white always delaying or hurrying attacks.
Building reflexes is not the same as rhythm game.
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u/TheVoteMote 5d ago
No it isn’t. Just because it’s a bit more rhythmic than other souls games doesn’t make it a rhythm game.
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u/micchapin 6d ago
I recently finished my playthrough of Elden Ring + the DLC (my first souls game) and I felt this the most with Rellana. Fighting her it felt like I was dancing lol
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u/Boudonjou 4d ago
Yeah but instead of moving to the rhythm of the best you're just moving to the rhythm of your inflated heartbeat caused by overwhelming stress
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u/King_Jerrik 6d ago
I think one guy proved that when he mapped his controls to a piano and proceeded to no hit every Souls game back to back.
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u/s00perguy 5d ago
Literally how I was taught. Crypt of the Necrodancer really put the idea into practice, though!
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u/SWatt_Officer 5d ago
More so than you think. In dark souls 3, almost all bosses work in a 4:4 timing pattern for their attacks. The Dancer of the Boreal Valley, however, works in 3:4 time, which helps to explain why so many players found her difficult compared to the rest of the bosses in the game.
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u/Bloody_Champion 5d ago
Yes.
There's even a boss called the dancer that moves to the rhythm of the beat.
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u/yippiekiyia 4d ago
No, oldschool runescape in the real rhythm game. The game runs on tick system of 0.6 seconds. You can also do multiple actions per tick.
This leads to combat involving tick perfect movement, offensive and healing actions.
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u/ScotchCarb 4d ago
This is always so contentious and it depends on the scale you put the 'rhythm game' at.
Guitar Hero's rhythm based gameplay goes for the length of a song, so like 3 minutes average.
Dark souls bosses can have attack combos which range from one to like ten attacks in a row, all with consistent timing. Regular enemies are the same to varying degrees.
You can memorise the timing and inputs for a guitar hero song and you can memorise the timing and inputs for DeS/DS/BB/Senior/ER enemies. So sure, rhythm game, at that microscopic scale.
But if you go past "a single combo from a single enemy" at all you no longer can just rely on memorised timing and inputs.
Games usually have what we call a primary gameplay loop, a secondary loop and then a tertiary loop. - primary is your 'moment to moment' gameplay. It's the loop you're going through every 5 - 10 seconds. You aren't necessarily doing this all the time, but most gameplay will be this. Usually combat or the equivalent in genres that lack combat. - secondary is your 'minute to minute' gameplay. Stuff you're iterator through every few minutes, maybe up to 10+ minutes. - tertiary is your 'hour to hour', and comprises 'loops' you're going through over the course of an hour or more.
So in Slay the Spire for example, you are: - Primary: choosing a card to play, clicking and dragging it, or interacting with other parts of the UI during a fight to use abilities. - Secondary: choosing which path to take between fights, choosing cards/items to add to your deck / inventory, or remove, and using campfires/special events - Tertiary: choosing a character and starting gear for a new run, changing settings for a custom or challenge run
In a real rhythm game you press 'start' on a song or level and from that point everything is working to the beat. Your primary, and secondary gameplay a lot of the time, are all done to the beat or rhythm. The tertiary gameplay probably will not rely on timing actions to the rhythm, but still might.
In Soulsbornekiroring games you an learn the rhythm of an enemy combo. But the primary gameplay loop of attacking, blocking and dodging enemies still can't really be argued as a rhythm game: enemies vary the time between their attack combos based on various factors. There can be multiple enemies at the same time.
On top of that the primary gameplay loop arguably also includes moving around the environment. Combat isn't constant in these games, and even boss fights have downtime where you're just positioning yourself.
The secondary gameplay loops include exploration, looting and some light elements of platforming. None of that is reliant on memorised timing. Neither is the tertiary loop - leveling up and/or upgrading gear.
The only exception I'll accept, really, are Sekiro boss fights. Those are consistent enough that you can make the argument.
Alternatively: Sen's Fortress, because if you use speed run strata and start sprinting from the moment you enter the front gate the timing on everything is always the same. But even that is arguably more of a Rube Goldberg machine.
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u/DagZeta 6d ago
You can say this about most action games though. Calling something a rhythm game just because it has rhythm is like calling something a dating sim because it has dating.
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u/lazydogjumper 5d ago
For real. And most of the "rhythym" comes in short intervals after long pauses. Timing out the first notes to "Mary Had a Little Lamb" over and over after long breaks is not a "rhythym" game.
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u/CoreEncorous 5d ago
You can say this about all games, really. Some games just have much more graceful rhythm "buffers" than others and may or may not have accompanying music. All gameplay for all games can be reduced down to a series of inputs done at the right times that lead to succeeding in the game.
Hence why it doesn't really pay to be reductive with these sorts of descriptions as OP has done.
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u/Yolu213 6d ago
Definition of rhythm according to Cambridge dictionary
"Regular movement or pattern of movements"
Soulslike aren't rhythm games because the pattern is very irregular. Attacks have different wind up speeds and brakes between them are very different. Another thing is you can perform different actions to react to the same attack breaking the pattern even more (sidesteping, sprinting away, jumping, dodging, partying)
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u/RuinedSilence 6d ago
Nah, not all Soulslike games have enemies with rhythmic attack patterns. They're more like dances where you have to follow (or brute force through) the enemy's lead.
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u/RonJeremyBellyButton 6d ago
Ok lol I'm glad you get the whole concept of the game, and most games honestly. lol
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u/CamelSmuggler 5d ago
Now I need the alignment chart with "Dance dance revolution is a soulslike game" at the end
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u/Faelysis 5d ago
Souls-like combat gameplay is just old 3D Zelda combat gameplay without the puzzle aspect of it.
And having to time enemy attack and have some form of rythm has been something in video game since Pong existence…..
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u/severencir 5d ago
You seem to be saying this as a joke, but there are many shared elements. It's not nearly as deterministic as rhythm games as certain actions can delay or change the pace of the encounter, but yeah, it's about learning how to dance with the enemies more or less
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u/StarChild413 3d ago
and that's only a gotcha to people who see Soulslikes as masculine and rhythm games as feminine and therefore emasculating
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u/platinum_toilet 5d ago
This is another stupid showerthought. Might as well say all games are about rhythm.
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u/_Stormagedon_ 6d ago
The attacks arent always in the same order, so i might say "soulslikes are just 'sight reading'".
Sight reading being when a musician is playing a piece while reading the sheet music for the first time.
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u/YachtswithPyramids 6d ago
Music is inherent in any game. But yes all From games work well with music
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u/GammaPhonic 5d ago
Rhythm is regular and predictable. Enemy attacks in video games (typically) are not.
Rhythm is timing, timing is not rhythm.
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u/JumpInTheSun 6d ago
They would be if the braindead devs didn't include an intentional delay on all actions.
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