Winning the day requires a mastery of Eldest Souls’ three combat styles: Windslash, Berserk, and Counter. Instant respawns also kept me engaged, as did the option to try my luck against other foes as multiple are available to challenge at a time. Sometimes the sheer number of attacks to look out for can feel maddening, but I always knew where I went wrong and ultimately succeeded by studying attack patterns while properly managing stamina. Surviving their assaults can be infuriating, and I saw the Game Over screen hundreds of times. Enemies are multiple-trick ponies that lob screen-filling traps, bullet-hell style projectiles, and often shift tactics or take on new forms mid-fight. Even the final big bad had me grinning with excitement as I cut through its seemingly bottomless well of offense. Favorites include a gravity-controlling mage and a deer god who’s much more than meets the eye. Each boss is fun, even those who took a dozen attempts or so to topple. The Old Gods offer an entertaining and supremely challenging gauntlet of battles that pushed me to use every skill.

Still, I love how this mechanic emboldens me to keep bringing the fight no matter how bleak things look and led to some incredible come-from-behind victories. However, it takes a second to charge up this attack so there's a risk to the reward. Lose 90 percent of your health during the opening seconds of a bout? A few hard hits can patch you up as if nothing happened. This system does an excellent job of encouraging and rewarding aggression and kept my morale from plummeting whenever I got stomped. Instead, you regain health by landing charged sword strikes.

My favorite aspect of Eldest Souls is that you don’t collect health pickups. It’s not a deal-breaker, but it could stand to feel tighter, and it took me a while to get used to combat. Armed with a heavy broadsword, your basic attacks are deliberately slow, to the point of feeling slightly unresponsive. Stamina only dictates how often you can dodge, meaning you can swing your sword all day without consequence. For one, you’re not collecting currency, so you don’t lose anything on dying. Eldest Souls wears its FromSoftware inspirations on its sleeve but is thankfully not as harsh.

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