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Comment by brootstrap | Hacker News Reader

Cool read thanks for sharing. Probably just bias but my experience with some games man the NPCs really make the game tick. Two quick examples, hollow knight, dark souls (or all soulsborne-kiro). Both are big on exploration etc. NPC interactions are so memorable. Will never forget certain times playing, making progress, finding crazy ass new hilarious NPC.

Fromsoft has plenty of these memorable NPCs from demon souls to sekiro!

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> (or all soulsborne-kiro)

Gaah, are we really calling them this now? Can't we just say "FromSoft games"? Are we going to lengthen it even further with Elden Ring? Soulsbornekiroring games.

Lest you forget Armored Core.

I would actually love a soulslike Armored Core. Please, FROM!

FromSoft also made Armored core, so no.

Most often people call these soulslikes. Kind of a dumb name and it might artificially constrain new entries to fit into a Dark Souls shaped hole (for example all these games don't have to have basically the same minimalistic light vs dark story) but well, that's how we talked about doomslike for a while as well.

Not sure what other descriptive we could use, intentional games ? The combat being more focused on giving weight to your actions vs allowing you to interrupt and change course anytime is the biggest differentiator IMO.

GMTK made a great video on what this genra by the way : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx7BWayWu08

The problem with "Souls-likes" is it encompasses non FromSoftware games, whereas people saying stuff like "Soulsbornekiro" are referring to their games only. I think Souls-like is a fine descriptor for things like Salt and Sanctuary, The Surge, Nioh, etc. It's harder to find a descriptor for FromSoft's games. Honestly, I think tacking Sekiro on is my biggest issue, because that game is by their biggest departure from the Souls formula.

> for example all these games don't have to have basically the same minimalistic light vs dark story

I would argue From's games themselves don't fit in the simple "light vs dark" mold. Dark Souls is honestly more of a deconstruction of "light vs dark" tropes.

As a primarily single-player gamer, I totally agree. The varied impact NPCs can have on a game is awesome, an example off the top of my head that I enjoy - Skyrim.

There are hours of entertaining content [0] just based on some of the weird quirky behaviors of NPCs in that game.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzxv-MKtXZc

Fully agree with that and the post above!

Most Bethesda games have amazing NPC's, and the lack of them is exactly what made Fallout 76 so unappealing to me.

NPCs are back in FO76, just in case you wasn’t aware. I picked it up for cheap the other week but have yet to play.

One of many[0] reasons Fallout 76 was bad.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjyeCdd-dl8

Fallout 76 at least had a relatively small number of players per server, so you can still largely pretend you are engaged in the main plot line by yourself.

ESO has just a steady stream of other players on the same quest chain as you, with absurdly short respawn times. You stumble on to the boss fight you need halfway in progress, help bring them down, while ignoring the other players, then by the time you loot the quest item and start back out the MOB has respawned.

WoW was infamous for the competition to get your 10 bear pelts or whatever, but it didn't feel this crowded.

Really? I feel like Bethesda game NPCs are mostly memorable for their "so bad, it's good" quality. Unless you go back to Morrowind maybe.

I liked em. They had good character, some made me laugh (John Hancock is trying to sell insurance?) though I was just watching my Girlfriend play through fallout 4 they kept it entertaining.

"A settlement needs your help"..

Thanks Preston... Well that NPC got kinda stuck on the same topic after a while..

The first NPC I thought of when reading the article was Jon Battle-born.

Those videos are hilarious though.

Agreed! Skyrim has some great writing. Case and point: Eslaf Erol.

I agree with all those. As a counterpoint, I felt salt and sanctuary didn't quite live up to either dark souls or hollow knight with its NPCs. They just felt kind of generic.

To add some more to your list though, Majora's Mask and Link's Awakening probably had my favourite NPCs in zelda games. Both of those games had weird trippy vibes that the NPC's helped bring out. Especially majora's mask, everyone just felt wrong and their side stories and quests really helped make the game.

Interesting. I love Hollow Knight and all of its characters but I could never take any of the From Software ones seriously (I haven't played all their games though, currently finishing bloodborne).

The maniacal laugh almost sounds like a placeholder

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