Chapter 120
Chapter 120
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 120
Chapter Title: The Beginning (2)
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About five days passed.
“I beat iiiit!!!”
Han Seo-rim had finally cleared the entire flagship Soulslike series.
It was a rather short amount of time, and the reason was clear.
“See if I ever lay eyes on this again!”
Han Seo-rim had cleared only the main route, without playing any of the side bosses or DLCs.
Of course, a clear was a clear, so I had to give her credit.
The most memorable battle was against the Nameless King from the recently released *Demon’s Souls 3*.
‘She died sixty times on that one alone, I think.’
Come to think of it, she didn’t seem to be completely devoid of gaming talent.
Of course, there was an incident where Han Seo-rim couldn’t contain her anger and started sobbing… but what was the signature trait of a Soulslike?
This game was fun to watch.
Han Seo-rim, spewing all sorts of curses as she fought, became a famous spectacle at Rewind for five days, and a new sound source for Jo A-yun.
But that, too, was over.
Having brought an end to the five days of entertainment for everyone, Han Seo-rim spoke to me.
“There’s nothing else I have to do, right? This is really the end?”
She looked as if she could shoot lasers from her eyes, and I found myself nodding reflexively.
“There’s nothing more you need to play.”
“Then?”
“Now, we create. We played this to study up before we started making our own, remember?”
“Ah.”
A dazed sound escaped her.
So she had forgotten even that while playing.
A short sigh slipped out.
“…So you get the gist, right? What a Soulslike is.”
When studying a genre, playing its representative titles and experiencing it firsthand is the most effective way.
The same applies when injecting various theories later on.
Playing experience aids comprehension.
So, the explanations that followed would likely not be difficult for Han Seo-rim to understand.
“In your opinion, what do you think is the biggest feature of a Soulslike?”
“That it’s hard?”
“And where does that difficulty come from?”
“Uh…”
After struggling for a moment, Han Seo-rim answered without confidence.
“…The difficulty level?”
A half-correct answer.
“The difficulty level is part of it. But that’s not the answer for an art director.”
“Huh?”
“The answer is ‘intimidation.’”
“…?”
She didn’t seem to understand right away.
I elaborated.
“Why do Soulslikes feature such bleak worlds? Why is the central narrative so precarious, and why are the monsters all so massive and grotesque? And if they’re not going to show the full story anyway, why do they put so much effort into the boss cinematics?”
Han Seo-rim’s eyes widened.
Yes, it seemed she finally understood.
“…Visual pressure?”
“Exactly. One of the most important factors that fulfills the immersion and reward psychology of a Soulslike is visual pressure. The massive build, the long health bar, and attacks that are perilous with every single hit. The wide-sweeping attacks classified as patterns, the boss introduction cinematics, and the phase change cinematics—all of it creates a sense of crisis.”
Thus, the moment of victory is all the more thrilling.
The more the player narrowly dodges the attacks of a formidable foe who allows not a moment of relaxation, and the more they die and challenge again, the greater the psychological return they receive upon clearing it.
That was one of the invisible visual grammars of a Soulslike.
And there was more we needed to do.
“Motion.”
“Sorry?”
“Motion and angle. We need to be especially mindful of those for this project.”
This time, Han Seo-rim understood immediately.
“…Ah, the Nameless King.”
It was understanding through experience.
This was an extension of the earlier discussion on visual pressure.
The highlight of each pattern performed by a boss monster owed a great deal to the camera angle, no matter who you asked.
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
The boss’s attacks were directed as if they were lifted straight from that maxim.
The Nameless King flies on a dragon and shoots lightning.
The player is forced to look up at the boss soaring through the sky, never knowing when it will strike, and can’t help but feel pressured by its very presence.
Of course, delving deeper into that problem would take it out of Han Seo-rim’s domain and into mine.
Still, there was one reason I told her to be mindful of the angles.
“What’s the design concept for *Hellic 4*?”
“…Surrealism, right?”
“Right. And a key feature of surrealism is optical illusion.”
Of course, the actual Hell of Slaughter wasn’t designed with optical illusions as its main theme.
It would be more accurate to say that the distinction between objects was grotesquely twisted, rather than illusory.
But was there any need to recreate that faithfully?
Games have presentation styles that suit them.
There were ways to make it better.
“When you’re designing the boss room, there’s one thing you need to pay special attention to.”
“What is it?”
“How to frame the background angle when the boss uses a pattern. And what kind of optical illusion to create at that moment.”
Imagine it.
The moment a boss of immense size suddenly levitates into the air or moves to a specific position and takes a stance.
The moment the camera, which had been following the boss, aligns with a device in the designed boss room and creates an optical illusion.
The background will change the instant the pattern begins.
That will be what pushes the visual pressure to its absolute limit.
“You see what I’m talking about, right?”
“…You only ever make the most difficult requests.”
Despite her grumbling, Han Seo-rim smiled.
“I’ll give it a shot. It does sound fun.”
It seemed her fighting spirit had been ignited.
* * *
Now that I had given the visual direction, it was time to create the mechanics.
In other words, to establish the in-game devices and combat gimmicks.
It wasn’t going to be difficult.
There was already an established grammar.
As I said, every element of a Soulslike must create ‘intimidation.’
In essence, the pressure from high difficulty and the return at the end is the core of the genre.
So, what did I need to do?
‘First, the combat pacing.’
I had earlier likened the pattern style of the Nameless King to ‘floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee.’
In truth, that maxim didn’t just apply to the Nameless King.
Why is Soulslike combat so difficult?
It’s because of the massive enemies’ wide attack ranges and the chunks of health that get shaved off the moment you’re hit.
But what if the monster’s attacks were fast?
Or if the pattern’s gimmick was too complex and lacked intuitiveness?
‘That would be a disaster.’
It would become too difficult.
The fatigue would overwhelm the sense of reward, erasing any interest in the game.
The genre itself is an extreme tightrope walk.
If it’s too easy, it’s not fun, and if it’s too hard, it becomes too tiring to play.
In other words, I had to find that ‘deliciously spicy’ line.
So, what was the way to create deliciously spicy combat?
The answer was ‘weightiness.’
‘Soulslikes don’t have a sense of speed.’
To deliciously utilize the ‘high difficulty’ ingredient, the Souls series drastically lowered the game’s combat pace.
In doing so, they used a formula that further raised the risk associated with each attack.
‘The wind-up animations before a boss uses a pattern are large. They take about one to three seconds.’
This instills in the player the perception that ‘something is coming!’
Then, at the moment the wind-up animation ends, the boss monster unleashes its pattern as fast as a fired bullet.
This way, the user can easily recognize the monster’s pattern.
Even without knowing the pattern, they can remain vigilant.
The reverse was also true.
‘The playable character’s speed needs to match. A slightly sluggish control scheme is good. A character that’s too fast for the user to handle eliminates the thinking time necessary for control.’
Slow combat proceeds based on analysis and thought.
Therefore, the playable character would be built in a way that suppressed acceleration, which would be a hindrance to that process.
Alright, the basic framework was complete.
But I couldn’t just follow it verbatim.
‘This is a Souls-lite, not a Soulslike.’
It would be made lighter than the original genre.
Besides, simply copying it completely would only result in a derivative work.
It needed a unique feature.
How would I give it a unique feature?
The answer had to be found in the protagonist.
‘The man was…’
A police officer.
He had an exceptional ability to use his environment.
An example was how, when we first met, he stood in a rainy area to detect approaching individuals.
However, I later learned that the man possessed an ability even more prominent than that.
It was something I realized only while watching his journey.
‘He was capable of profiling-like analysis.’
What better ability could there be for the Hell of Murderers?
I would melt that into the gameplay.
‘The bosses are mostly monsters who have lived in the Hell of Slaughter for a long time.’
There are monsters who have been buried there for so long that their human forms have crumbled.
However, that didn’t mean they were impossible to harm.
Because there was one unique feature exclusive to the Hell of Slaughter.
‘A reverse scale.’
Every sinner has a backward-growing scale, said to be a dragon’s weak point.
Even that man had one.
Of course, this didn’t mean there was an actual scale growing on their body.
Murder committed with murderous intent.
It meant that for those who came to hell for such a reason, the emotions, situations, or past memories that formed the basis of their murderous intent were their weaknesses.
‘The profiling ability becomes a detection ability in-game.’
Rather than pattern detection… it would be better to have a system where the player farms for information while exploring the map before reaching the boss room.
Perhaps a red smoke could rise from places where information could be found.
Next, the concept would be that the man understands the information about the murderer, which is treated as their reverse scale, and uses that understanding to more effectively take down the boss monster.
Of course, obtaining the information wouldn’t be mandatory.
‘Optional.’
What if the damage dealt to the boss, or the boss’s health gauge, was adjusted based on the number of pieces of information acquired?
No, expanding on that a bit more…
‘Representing the understanding of the boss through the UI would be good, too.’
For example, if the player enters the boss room without collecting any information, the boss’s name would appear as ‘???’.
A choice between ‘like’ and ‘lite.’
It would give the user a choice in their playstyle.
Now that the gameplay framework was set, it was time for the combat gimmicks.
As mentioned before, Soulslike combat is slow.
It’s heavy and painful.
Naturally, the boss is stronger than the player.
That’s what makes it fun.
But I know.
‘There are people who find that stressful.’
There are definitely users who find the combat itself too tiring, playing only for the return that comes after the fight.
There are also users who dislike Soulslikes for that very reason.
That was precisely the factor that cost the Souls series points in mass appeal, despite receiving such high praise.
Later, in ‘22, Flare Soft did alleviate this problem to some extent with a title called *Eldering*, but that’s another story.
What I needed to focus on was ‘how to add a difficulty-mitigating device to the combat.’
That’s when a fact came to mind.
‘The revolver.’
The single revolver the man always carried with him.
It could be used as a very special gimmick in combat.
If it were simply a choice to mitigate difficulty, I would have made it a ranged weapon, but that wouldn’t bring any dramatic novelty or fun to the combat.
So, not as a ranged weapon, but as a gimmick.
Not just to mitigate difficulty, but as an element to make the combat itself more diverse.
‘The revolver has six bullets.’
That would be displayed in a corner of the screen as part of the UI.
Ammunition would be acquired by killing monsters or damaging the boss, accumulating in a stack-like fashion, similar to how mana builds up.
The bullets collected this way would then be used as ‘skills.’
To put it simply.
‘Executions.’
Six execution moves with special animations and gimmicks, triggered when certain conditions are met.
That would be the core of *Hellic 4*.