/vr/ - Retro Games

How far back do you want to go? 3D graphics? 2D?

3D: King's Field, Ultima Underworld, Arx Fatalis, Vagrant Story

2D: Ghosts 'n Goblins, Zelda II, Faxanadu, Wizards & Warriors, Gargoyle's Quest, Battle of Olympus, 8 Eye's
Castlevania - anything prior to SotN, which saw a dramatic decrease in difficulty

Souls is clearly a successor to King's Field, so maybe that's the closest you'll come to retro Souls. Just bear in mind it lacks any sense of character classing or customization.

A GC and PS2 are the most modern pieces of hardware I own. I don't actually have that many games for either console, and a surprising number of them are just ports of emulated arcade classics and shit.

The GC was an impulse buy since it was only $15 at the time, and I got Smash Bros. Melee for the same price. I got the PS2 just so I could play around with RPG Maker 3, but then I slapped Free McBoot on it and started pirating everything else.

The only modern PC game I play is New Vegas. I kind of wish my system could run Dark Souls, but it's a shitty port that was horribly optimized and therefore has needlessly high system requirements. But hey, there's always King's Field for PS2, which is almost like Souls.

King's Field is the closest thing you'll find, at least if you're looking for 3D environments. KF is also by From Software, and is very much a spiritual predecessor to the Souls series.

The only thing it's lacking compared to Souls is the class / character customization mechanics. Maybe. I'm not entirely aware of what impact your class choice has in the Souls games, but in KF, your attack and magic power increase simply as a result of putting those skills to use. You also gain generic stats from level ups, including your HP and MP. As for skills, you can just swing your weapon, ingest a potion or cast a spell. Your character can learn every spell in the game without any restrictions, as you're not bound to any specific class-based role.

As for being open world, that's very much the case with KF2 and 3. (or KF1 and 2 in the U.S., as the first game was never localized) Walking just a few steps from the starting point in KF2 puts you next to one of the game's later bosses, which will 1HKO you if you get too close.

I might be derided for this, but the lack of cutscenes and drawn-out plot developments. With newer games (even dating back to the fifth generation with PS1) it seems like there's an FMV or QTE sequence every 5 minutes in.

I can appreciate good writing, but I don't think detailed characters or settings are necessarily incompatible with games that feature a more spartan storytelling approach. e.g. King's Field has a lot of interesting lore to go along with it, but none of that has to be hashed out during the course of exploring the game world before the game can hold my interest at all. I'm quite comfortable with being dropped off in the middle of nowhere and told to pursue the bad guy at my leisure.