I like souls-likes. I'm just bad at them.

About a month ago I had some tests done by my neurologist to try and figure out what in the hell is going on with my nerve issues that have cropped up on top of my other issues. I got medically stabbed and tazed, and for once, all that pain and suffering? I got some (partial) answers.

On top of my rheumatoid arthritis (maybe - my rheumatologist is now wondering if I don't have something else instead thanks to the other nerve issues), I have demyelinating peripheral polyneruopathy (fuck me I hate saying AND typing that), which is what made my winter gaming such a horrible and limited experience.

I'm getting used to it, though, and that neurologist testing session? I also got a "positive" out of it.

As it turns out, I apparently have great reflexes.

If you've watched me play souls-likes, you're probably thinking something along the lines of.. "Ok, your doctor was on something, get a second opinion on EVERYTHING", but the more I think about it, the more I feel like it's kinda true.

I just have a hard time using those great reflexes now, thanks to my broken body.. And when you combine it with brain fog due to pain causing me to forget what button does what and which attack that enemy is performing so I can dodge/parry, you get my personal recipe for Being Bad At Souls-Likes (TM).

Still, despite being bad at them, I do occasionally get on kicks where I want to play a souls-like. I've even beaten one before: Elden Ring is the first souls-like I ever beat (as I'm sure is true for a lot of folks who just need to git gud, as they say).. And lately I've been wanting to play some souls-likes.

This started with me playing the Morbid Metal demo; I ordinarily hate Rogue-likes, but this one wasn't bad based on the demo (too bad it's been delayed, but such is life.. Wishlisted). After that, I was feeling sassy, so.. I bought Wuchang: Fallen Feathers.

It's initial release noted a lot of balancing issues on top of performance problems, but it seemed like many of those have been ironed out. In my brief experience? Yeah, it played fine.

It was just slightly on the wrong side of being accessible and fun for me.

Souls-likes require a delicate balancing of frustrations: You want the game to be challenging, but you want it to be challenging in the right ways. If you constantly fill your gameplay with "Gotcha!" enemies, you'll find users bouncing off of it hard.. And while Wuchang didn't have too many of those in the early portion I played, it did have enough on top of 2 other major issues:

1. It's a single player game that doesn't have a pause mechanic (seriously, fuck right the hell off for that).
2. A number of basic enemies don't provide enough of a telegraph of an attack that's about to happen, meaning you either have to hope you get lucky, or just deal with some enemies slowly whittling away at your health.

The first could've been dealt with thanks to a pause mod, but the second? Not much modding to fix that, unfortunately.

So, I refunded it, having a souls-like void in my.. soul.

I then went on a quest to find another souls-like to try, and ended up deciding to try AI Limit.

It's definitely not top-shelf AAA gaming, but initially it seemed OK.. But I kept encountering little bits of jank here and there that ruin the experience.

That's another key part of souls-likes: Users can only tolerate so much gameplay-ruining jank, and I have even less patience for it in souls-likes (despite being someone who loves Star Citizen, but it's the jank I know).

Refund requested.

So, now I'm sitting here wishing for a new souls-like to play. What really sucks, however, is that I keep wanting to play Wuchang more.

I liked it, for the most part, but.. as I said before, it was just on the wrong side of accessible for me. I'll keep an eye out for future patches that hopefully make it a bit better, but there are no guarantees in gaming.

My next steps in filling the void? Going back to some games that I never finished.

Right now, I'm seriously considering going back to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. It is fucking hard, but the last time I played it (on stream no less, which you can watch here) was around 3 years ago.

I also got further than I ever had back then, so.. Yeah, maybe. We'll see. I've got it installed, and that "Play" icon is beckoning at me pretty hard.

I just don't want to start over again like I always do, so I can see new stuff :)