I have never excelled at Soulslikes, or even been remotely competent at them. I would go so far as to say I was born with zero coordination, 🔯and therefore can ne꧒ver ‘git gud’. I was never great at sports, and my chosen way to exercise now that I’m an adult who cares about my health is powerlifting, a sport that benefits from as small a range of movement as possible, relatively short sets, and repetition of a set number of movement patterns. You learn how to do three or four different lifts, and just keep doing those in different combinations of sets and reps for years - no catching or running involved.
Unfortunately, most things in life are not so simple. Soulslikes, in particular, require flexibility, persistence, patience, quick reflexes, and anger management. I have none of these virtues. I skipped Elden Ring entirely because I knew I would ge🌟t frustrated and toss it aside, wasting my money. I will drop my difficulty settings in an instant if I decide I’m banging my head against a boss fight too hard. I refuse to let my blood pressure rise too high because of a game, though I’m aware that there are people who love games precisely because they’re stressful – it’s all about the satisfaction of finally beating a boss they thought would never die.
Imagine my alarm when I accidentally ended up playing a Soulslike at Tokyo Game Show. I saw a massive, stylish booth and a surprisingly short line for Enotria: The Last Song. I was between appointments and had some time to kill, and I’d seen a tweet about the game the night before. I decided I might as well see what was happening. Thank god I’d chosen to do this on a press day, because if I’d embarrassed mysel🍒f like this in front of a line of impatient gamers who actually thrived on Soulslikes, I might have passed out on the spot from shame.
Enotria: The Last Song is a reality-bending Soulslike set in a gorgeous world inspired by Italian folklore. The demo dropped me in front of a ‘knot’ that I untangled, creating a checkpoint much like the bonfires in Dark Souls. Developไed by Italian studio Jyamma Games, its cultural heritage is apparent in every aspect of the game, from its stu🅠nning sun-dappled setting to the simple ‘Morte’ that flashed on my screen every time I died. I saw that word a lot in my short time with the game.
Despite my growing embarrassment every time I got my ass kicked, I was still struck by how beautiful and bright the world was. Leaving the first checkpoint brought me to a path between two fields of sunflowers, sunlight illuminating petals that floated past me, carried by the wind. It was a sight so serene and lovely that I gasped. Following a small road led me to a small rocky coast, waves rippling and gently breaking on the ground near ruins strewn across the beach. Going further brought me to aꦬ lovely Italian seaside town nestled high up in the cliffs, a setting whose dressing felt wꦏeirdly familiar to me as a long-time player of Assassin’s Creed. Tapestries covered the walls of rustic Tuscan-style homes, and there was greenery everywhere. It’s as far from the moody grit of a typical Soulslike as you can get, and it’s stunning.
The gameplay will feel familiar to Soulslike fans, but it adds a number of mechanics that shake things up a bit. You have light and heavy attacks, and a stamina bar t💞hat limits your use of both. You can collect the equivalent of ‘souls’, which lets you upgrade your character. But there are also different masks you can equip and different loadouts you can build around them, allowing you to use different weapons and combat styles tailored to your tastes. There are special abilities called ‘lines’, which are charged by landing blows on your enemies and allow you to unleash attacks that put you ahead strategicallyꦍ. You have grenades and potions at your disposal. Again, I’m shit, so I was lobbing grenades with impunity.
Interestingly, Enotria has reality-changing mechanics that I assume tie in with its theatrical themes. Using Ardore Blas🥃ts to interact with glyphs and rifts alters your surroundings to temporarily open up paths to previously inaccessible areas, allowing you to explore more deeply. I used a rift at a dead end to fix a huge broken bridge that brought me to an entirely new area, and I realised too late that I couldn’t go back – it had disappeared behind me. I’m not entirely sure how much exploration rewards you since I kept dying before I could fully explore anything, but it’s an unexpected addition regardless.
Enotria: The Last Song humiliated me soundly, to the extent that I knew if anybody ever saw footage of my attempt, I would be quickly derided as an awful gamer, which is entirely fair. I died about six times in twenty minutes, a shocking failure that I hope I will never again repeat, especially not in public. That doesn’t mean that it’s especially hard, it just means I suck, and that’s fine – it’s not my job to be great at every game, it’s to analyse what’s interesting about the game♏s I try, as much as I can with the short time I’m given with them.
Enotria: The Last Song may not be revolutionary, but it’s interesting, from its unusually bright and cheerful setting inspired by Italian theatre and mythology, to its reality-altering mechanics whi💞ch give you agency to change the world around you, even if just temporarily. While its combat will absolutelᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚy continue to kick my ass, especially as I have no intention of ever trying to get better, there’s enough to the game that I’m willing to give it another shot, knowing that it will decimate me. As long as I can get trashed by its enemies in the privacy of my room, I’m intrigued enough to keep playing.
