asynchronous multiplayer is not unique to souls games. like i'm sure it *did* influence watch dogs, but it's not like it was even a core mechanic really
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Gun to your head - Which game is more influential - Resident Evil 4 or Demon Souls?
- Thread starter Toriko
- Start date
RE4 invented a camera system but I would argue that Gears made it much more popular with its additions (and Uncharted copied those, not RE4)
"Souls like" is still name-dropped a lot more often and I think people still look at that series as the standard bearer of some new gaming phenomenon.
"Souls like" is still name-dropped a lot more often and I think people still look at that series as the standard bearer of some new gaming phenomenon.
No, not at all to everything you said and it didn't ask which generation.
Resident Evil 4 the more influential game. Fact! (Lol as if stating "fact" makes it so.)
I think it's RE4 too but I think people are underestimating DS's influence.
The Witcher 2/3's combat
Salt and Sanctuary
The Surge/Lords of the Fallen
God of War
Destiny
Watch Dogs
Dying Light
Nioh
Ashen
Titan Souls
And that's just listing games where developers themselves have acknowledged DS as a reference or comparison point. I don't think these games depend on DS as heavily as third person shooters do on RE4 but DS's design philosophy rather than just mechanics have definitely impacted the industry in a big way.
The Witcher 2/3's combat
Salt and Sanctuary
The Surge/Lords of the Fallen
God of War
Destiny
Watch Dogs
Dying Light
Nioh
Ashen
Titan Souls
And that's just listing games where developers themselves have acknowledged DS as a reference or comparison point. I don't think these games depend on DS as heavily as third person shooters do on RE4 but DS's design philosophy rather than just mechanics have definitely impacted the industry in a big way.
This isn't really a discussion. The answer is RE4. RE4 changed action games as a whole for a generation and a half. Demon's Souls (and Dark Souls more specifically) just influenced certain things within the action RPG genre.
I thought the same thing.
"I have kidnapped your children. If you want to get them back alive, rank all the Final Fantasy games. No police."
EASILY RE4, with the whole over-the-shoulder thing. Even with the success of Souls, there aren't THAT many games trying to be like it.
Some big ones that take a lot of things specifically from Souls: Nioh, Lords of the Fallen, Let It Die, The Surge, Hollow Knight.
There are also a bunch of indie games popping up all the time, either specifically reference Souls (sometimes even in their own title or description), or get compared to Souls mechanics by reviewers.
The thing about "the whole over the shoulder thing" we see in games now is that there isn't a clear line being drawn to RE4. Most games adopted the revisions from Gears of War, which also owes a lot of inspiration to Killswitch for aiming with the second analog and using cover. Most modern third person shooter games are closer to Gears than to RE4.
I can't think of any games referencing the original game mechanics of RE4, such as the tank controls on one analog, the shooting without moving, etc.
Is this thread even serious?
One is the pinnacle of 3rd person shooters/horror and often regarded as one of the greatest games of all times, and the other is Demons Souls.
I get that other people like it but the controls were way to clunky for me.
Good game and great atmosphere but the story, music, graphics, gameplay, design, pacing, characters everything was far far better in Resident Evil 4!
One is the pinnacle of 3rd person shooters/horror and often regarded as one of the greatest games of all times, and the other is Demons Souls.
I get that other people like it but the controls were way to clunky for me.
Good game and great atmosphere but the story, music, graphics, gameplay, design, pacing, characters everything was far far better in Resident Evil 4!
Fair enough. To me it seems like a clear misunderstanding of the ways in which Demon's Souls influenced other games. It might be harder to see, but it doesn't make it less true or therefore less influential.
Influence comes down to how people perceive the impact on their creative process. There is an easily verifiable and well-recorded trail of the influence RE4 has had on video game culture. Well-renowned creators have explained it in interviews and dev talks. It broke the post count record on NeoGAF back in early 2005 when the game came out. Resident Evil 4 continues to sell well even if relatively underwhelming remasters come out on modern platforms. Its original release has a 96 on Metacritic versus an 89 for Demon's Souls. RE4 has 10 GOTY awards to its name. Demon's Souls has 2.
I don't want to take away from Demon's Souls' success, but understandably there's little about the game that will make people feel compelled to rank it above RE4.
DS with its integration of online features into the "single player" game. It was so novel and well done. Also, it was an achievement in environmental story telling.
RE4 was amazing at the time but tbh, it wasn't the first thrid person shooter. It was just a really well made one that was very novel for RE as a series.
RE4 was amazing at the time but tbh, it wasn't the first thrid person shooter. It was just a really well made one that was very novel for RE as a series.
This isn't a thread about success, it's about influence. You are coming up with bizarre metrics to justify your position. Influence would be up to developers, so pointing at post counts or how the average consumer or reviewer views it is irrelevant (plenty of unpopular games have heavily influenced developers). I posted articles earlier that cited Souls games as a direct influence on their games (and there are definitely more) as well as listed multiple recent examples.
And you're dismissing its influence because you're outright ignoring major features it introduced to gaming. If you want to argue that the messaging system didn't influence much, go ahead, but actually make the argument. But you admitted to not knowing about it, so you aren't even aware whether games you've played have had direct influence from Souls games. I'm trying to point out that its features and influence go beyond its controls or level design (which I don't think are particularly influential).
To go back to your Street Fighter example, it would be like claiming FF7 wasn't influential because not a lot of RPGs used a materia like systems in their games after it.
Headhunter did it in 2001.
RE4 is the correct answer. God of War 2018 uses the same context sensitive jump and third person perspective as RE4. And people really like that game. I think it owes a lot to RE4.
RE4's influence can be felt in basically any TPS after it. Souls influence doesn't much extend past others trying to copy it verbatim.
Like everyone else said, it's Resident Evil 4 and it isn't close. Also trying to see the influence of Souls on Shovel Knight, God of War, Destiny, Watch Dogs, the Witcher (especially with many souls fans constantly shitting on TW3), Journey...like, you need to explain where the influence is if you're going to use them as a means of proving how influential Demon's Souls is. That the influence is more obvious with RE4 is another point in its favor.
You are once again misunderstanding the point. In no way am I implying that Demon's Souls is worse than, or a lesser product than RE4 because of ratings or sales. I'm just giving you a number of reasons why it continues to hold a very high level of relevance, and therefore influence, in present-day gaming discourse. All the factors I mentioned aren't barometers; they're evidence of RE4's impact. Such impressive accolades don't exist in isolation. You're right that unpopular games can and have had influence, but that's irrelevant since both games are popular.
As a result, 81.9% of voters in this thread so far see RE4 as more influential than Demon's Souls. We haven't collectively lost our minds and we are certainly not grossly misinformed. We can all see what RE4 has contributed to video gaming; we can measure it throughout history. Demon's Souls clearly doesn't wield that kind of influence.
Lastly, your mentioning of SFII/FFVII is strange because I'm not the one who originally argued that Demon's Souls is more influential because, among other things, its influence extends beyond its own genre. I've been arguing this whole time that RE4 (and SFII and any game for that matter) doesn't need to spill over into other genres in order to be more influential than other games.
I'm going to be the contrarian.
I voted Demon Souls...but would've preferred to check off Dark Souls. I'm tipping the cap to where it originated.
My justification is there appears to be more blatant rip offs. Entire genre named after Souls games. How often does someone say RE-like?
Loved RE4 but the over the shoulder aspect didn't feel new at the time. The pacing and inventory management weren't as hard of transitions from 2D as the metroidvania inspired game design of the Souls series.
Souls is 2D gameplay translated to 3D but I don't think anyone successfully pulled it off on so many levels until Miyazaki did it. It takes the best of wrapping level design of the 2D era, precise boss battles and then set the bar with heavy melee combat.
Soulslike is a genre with a lot of blatant copying of game design. I'd contend RE2 2D has more influence on the survival horror genre than RE4. I'm not giving every modern over the shoulder shooter credit to RE4.
I voted Demon Souls...but would've preferred to check off Dark Souls. I'm tipping the cap to where it originated.
My justification is there appears to be more blatant rip offs. Entire genre named after Souls games. How often does someone say RE-like?
Loved RE4 but the over the shoulder aspect didn't feel new at the time. The pacing and inventory management weren't as hard of transitions from 2D as the metroidvania inspired game design of the Souls series.
Souls is 2D gameplay translated to 3D but I don't think anyone successfully pulled it off on so many levels until Miyazaki did it. It takes the best of wrapping level design of the 2D era, precise boss battles and then set the bar with heavy melee combat.
Soulslike is a genre with a lot of blatant copying of game design. I'd contend RE2 2D has more influence on the survival horror genre than RE4. I'm not giving every modern over the shoulder shooter credit to RE4.
Clearly everything before souls was shit, everything after it is gonna be shit. Basically if its not souls its shit. Praise Miyazaki sama for showing us the light, we clearly are not worthy
For those of you trying to bury RE 4's influence and instead prop up Gears, remember that Cliffy B said one his biggest inspirations for making Gears was RE 4. Gears 1 was even billed as a shooter under the horror genre when it was first being presented.
Without RE 4 we can't say if he would have made Gears or not. So you can't simply cut the thread of inspiration at a certain point of your choosing.
Without RE 4 we can't say if he would have made Gears or not. So you can't simply cut the thread of inspiration at a certain point of your choosing.
I understand your point. I disagree with it. It certainly explains the poll results, but that doesn't make it a convincing argument.
The FF7 example was because I feel that game influenced a lot of games outside of its genre, but if you were to similarly ask is FF7 or Street Fighter 2 more influential and only stuck to mechanical arguments limited to its genre, you'd be changing the initial question.
My point is that Demon's Souls influence is much wider than people here realize because they are actively limiting their view of its influence. Again, if you want to argue it's messaging or multiplayer wasn't influential, make the argument. But if all you wanted to do was say why RE2 would runaway in a popularity contest, then sure. I'll cede the point, but I think people are mistaken (or at least haven't been very convincing).
I don't know... remember how third person shooter cameras and mechanics were before RE 4 and Gears? We've clearly seen the Souls influence in a subset of games but it hasn't had as huge of an impact on an entire existing genre enough to reshape it entirely. There are still action adventure RPGs out there doing their own thing instead of following souls. I can't think of any third person shooters this day and age using the Winback, Syphon filter, MGS 3, or Oni camera and mechanics. Remember when they used to place the character directly in the middle of the screen and thought that was fine? Also remember how barely anyone back then figured out to use left trigger and right trigger for aim and shoot and instead used a combination of face buttons while asking you to move both sticks?
And RE4's is likely wider than many realize. It doesn't catch up.
That's fine but I see a lot of posters saying how lots of games don't control like Souls and I just find that view limiting since it influenced games in other ways.
I guess I just find the comparison inherently strange since where they have influenced games the most are in completely different ways.
Of course, but Demon Souls was far more of a niche title. It didn't expand into popular culture until Dark Souls, and that's the game most developers hold as an influence, not Demons.
RE4, Demons Souls brought back difficulty in a period where games were intentionally being made easier, but RE4 kicked off the third person action game going into PS3/360. Still today we see big, AAA projects from many different studios that can be tracked back to RE4, but the only truly successful, non-From Souls-like is Nioh, while RE4 has Gears/Uncharted/Tomb Raider etc
I hate to sounds this way but how old are you! Because the fact a game from 2005 didn't become a meme shouldn't really count against it - given we didn't have memes the n?
And the reason games aren't referred to as RE:4 genre is because *everything* that came afterwards in the 3rd person action genre took things from RE:4. It's a seminal game and moment in gaming history. It's influence is far wider than an internet meme and a few copy games (as good as Nioh was!).
Also, games being referred to as a 'souls' game really is a bubble effect. It's a thing for fans and fans alone. Sales figures show that.
By reducing RE4's advantages to a mere "popularity contest" shows that you're continuing to misunderstand what others and I have been trying to say.
There is no true "argument" being made here by people who support RE4. They're simply observations about real things that have actually occurred. If you say you're unconvinced, that doesn't change the fact that CliffyB cites RE4 as one of his main influences, or that EA altered the development and marketing cycle of a greenlit game in order to go after the market RE4 brought. Coming up with arbitrary things like "well RE4 didn't go beyond its genre" is completely irrelevant to the sole question of influence and that's why you're not finding many similar viewpoints.
Calling it a popularity contest is just a means to hand wave a set of very important factors at play.
I voted re4 but also in general think re4 represents something more appealing and easier to reach at to many ppl than demon souls did; part of this is due to from software just executing too well and too singularly, like it's easy for a game to claim ds inspiration but it always feels like it's missing ingredients. Re4 on the other hand can be broken apart and reassembled pretty handily, even if the us->japan->us campiness of re4 (one of the main things it's great at imo) is usually missing.
In terms of influence i want to say it's hard to argue against the influence re4 has had materially vs ds, but also i think ppl who have played ds series have it burrowed in their brain more than re4, that's just me tho
In terms of influence i want to say it's hard to argue against the influence re4 has had materially vs ds, but also i think ppl who have played ds series have it burrowed in their brain more than re4, that's just me tho
You literally turned it into a popularity contest with your argument....that was your argument...you used its popularity to justify the arguments for RE4 over Demon's Souls and never addressed any of my points about how and what Demon's Souls did that's still seen in games today.
It's clear you just want me to tell you you're right. I'm not downplaying RE4. I just see lots of people dismissing Demon's Souls by pointing at things it didn't popularize while ignoring features it did. Seems like if having a conversation about influence, it'd be important to talk about actual innovative things a game did you can clearly trace to lots of recent titles.