The Soulslike genre is one of the fastest growing trends in the industry, with several games nowadays clearly being influenced by FromSoftware’s work if not completely being Soulslike games. The increased presence and competition within the genre is no doubt a good thing, as it means they will only get better and better. Lies of P is one of the best non-FromSoftware Soulslike games, not just for its quintessential gameplay, but for its unique spin on the genre – exploring a mythos inspired by fairytales. While it remains to be seen, another Soulslike game is seemingly following a similar path, Enotria: The Last Song. It is a Soulslike game inspired by Italian folklore, with equally interesting innovations in its gameplay and mechanics as well.
Enotria: The Last Song is set in a world captured in an eternal play known as Canovaccio, where everyone is kept locked within their defined roles in an unnatural stasis. Every NPC, every character, and every major boss are all part of this Canovaccio, providing a lore justification for the main character’s constant rebirth and an enemy’s set location. It’s a unique spin on its own, but of course, the player must disrupt this Canovaccio. Players are the Maskless One, the Mask of Change, the only one within the world of Enotria to not have a defined role in this play, letting them instead master their own destiny. Game Rant played a brief demo of Enotria at Gamescom, building tons of anticipation for its upcoming September release.
Enotria: The Last Song’s Character Progression and Builds Innovate on the Soulslike Formula
The demo began with a quick tutorial, introducing us to all the basics of its Soulslike gameplay. Everything is there that anyone could expect: dodges, parries, attack combos, stamina, etc. Everything felt just right for a Soulslike game, showcasing how well developer Jyamma Games understands the genre on a fundamental level. How it builds on the Soulslike genre is equally well-informed. Two major differences exist in how Enotria approaches character progression compared to most Soulslike games, elemental effects and loadouts.
Elemental effects are nothing new to the genre, as many builds can sometimes be defined by the element associated with it. Wielding certain spells or enchanted weapons with something like additional fire or electric damage is understandable. However, Enotria ensures that every elemental effect is twofold, both rewarding and punishing the user. This doesn’t just mean the Maskless One either; it also applies to bosses. For example, one status condition is essentially being wine drunk. A Boss or a player can, when this condition is maxed out, deal more damage, but they also take more damage. This ensures that builds around elements have a unique push/pull, risk/reward factor that can really impact someone’s playstyle.
Enotria: The Last Song’s builds are incredibly deep, with all the spells and weapons one would expect from the genre. It seems the game has a lot of both build variety and build depth, two important components for a player to get the most out of their Soulslike experience. Enotria: The Last Song features 8 different weapon classes filled with 120+ weapons, a total of 45 available spells, and 8 ways to modify how a parry works. The main difference between Enotria and other Soulslike games here is that players can equip three builds at once, known as loadouts.
Loadouts are nothing new to gaming, but they are pretty fresh to the Soulslike experience. No doubt, players are familiar with fine-tuning their build or changing it entirely when confronting certain bosses in Soulslike games, but Enotria makes it possible to equip three at once, swapping between them instantaneously. A developer explained to us that maybe players have a preferred build for mobs vs. a preferred build for bosses, or maybe they love buildcrafting in Soulslike games. This feature streamlines all of that, but it also doubles down on how fine-tuned each build can be.
Generally speaking, it would be easy enough to say that players can equip three different builds at once and that they can swap them at any time, and call that innovative. Jyamma Games didn’t stop there, however. One build feature is called an Aspect, of which there are 30+ in the game. It’s perhaps best to think of these as the starting classes in Elden Ring, which modify stats. However, by a certain level in Elden Ring, these classes no longer matter and that’s doubly so once players begin messing with respecs. That’s not true for Enotria’s Aspects; players are able to equp these to each build/loadout, with each one adjusting the base stats of the loadout. There are some basic archetypes we saw but also much deeper ones that positively/negatively modify each skill, adding even more features to build variety. This is all in addition to Enotria‘s Path of Innovators, which is essentially its skill tree, and players can apply certain skills to each mask in the loadout screen.
As a result, it seems pretty clear that Soulslike fans who love working and tinkering on their builds are going to find all that and more in Enotria.
Enotria: The Last Song’s Level Design is Deep, Almost Literally
We got a pretty good look at the world of Enotria during our demo, beginning with the tutorial area, advancing through a field to the main city, all throughout and under that city, and later we jumped to a region based on Venice. There is a lot of verticality to the game design that we saw, especially in the city. Not only was the whole city something explorable with plenty of hardcore enemy encounters, but there were shortcuts aplenty and ways to dungeons and areas located beneath the city. Enotria is literally brighter than some Soulslike games, with a bright Italian sun always overhead, but there are areas that are darker and more fitting to the dark fantasy of most Soulslike games; beneath that city was one of them. The verticality within the city itself, traveling through houses and tight walkways, was representative of a real Italian city, and it made for a great level structure. Fans could easily get lost in this city in the best of ways, allowing them to uncover every nook and cranny at their pace.
The Venice-based region understandably had a lot of broken paths and a lot of waterways, ensuring that players have to get creative in their exploration. Indeed, one of the best things about Elden Ring is how it lets players explore The Lands Between, learning more about the world, story, lore, and combat in the meantime. The level design of Enotria feels the same; Jyamma Games truly understands the fundamentals of Soulslike game design, down to its environments. And even then, Enotria still manages to add its own flair to exploration.
Enotria features puzzles called Rifts that allow players to “alter reality.” This means finding puzzles that unlock new areas or secrets, sometimes traveling to a different location and other times unlocking a treasure chest. Some of these Rifts are permanent as well, with the player capable of reconstructing a bridge as one example. It makes it feel like players have a permanent impact on a world that is otherwise structured to be a certain way, and while how often these Rifts have such grandiose effects remains to be seen, it’s a top-notch puzzle addition to Enotria‘s environments.
Enotria: The Last Song’s Combat Understands Soulslike Gameplay
Enotria understands the fundamentals of Soulslike build and exploration design, but that wouldn’t matter much if the combat didn’t match the same heights. The good news is that it absolutely does. When dealing with mobs or bosses, it featured every sort of challenge someone would expect and it really taps into that “one more attempt” mentality. Players have to approach combat looking for the patterns and rhythms of each fight, while never taking a simple combat against a mob enemy for granted. Enotria‘s combat is Soulslike through and through.
It’s that straightforward: Jyamma Games understands what a Soulslike is, and Enotria executes that knowledge well.