You can finally play the Ghost of Yotei animator's dinosaur Soulslike, where you carve through dinos with a giant sword between your teeth, thanks to a Steam demo I can't believe I'm recommending

To say I'm not a Soulslike guy is an understatement. I kind of hate Soulslikes. I generally seek out cinematic, emotionally resonant storytelling, fast-paced action, and games that don't make me hate myself. Soulslikes offer none of that. And yet, here I am, recommending a Soulslike.

But this one's different! Dinoblade, a game that started out as a joke from Sucker Punch senior animator Jean Nguyen, has a fresh Steam demo where you're a dinosaur inexplicably duking it out with your fellow dinos. Gripping a giant sword between my blade-like teeth, I dodge-rolled around vicious dinos, timed out my parries just right, and hurled projectiles at my enemies. I died a lot. I didn't know what was going on. The game crashed twice. And still, I had a good time... wait, do I like Soulslikes?

No, I think I just really get a kick out of a game that originated as a throwaway meme between professional game developers emerging in demo form as an actually quite competent indie Soulslike where you're a Spinosaurus with a sword between your teeth. You know, cause those little front legs ain't wielding anything.

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Full disclosure: this game is rough around the edges. Menus and UI are primitive, hit registration is inconsistent, textures are all over the place, controller support is great but in-game tutorials only reference mouse-and-keyboard, and yeah, it crashed on me twice in about 30 minutes. Luckily, checkpoints are everywhere, so I didn't lose much progress.

With all that said, I do think it's worth checking out, whether or not you're a Soulslike sicko. The battles I fought included little dino grunts, mini bosses in the form of medium-sized dinos, and who woulda thunk it, full-blown boss fights with big dinos. I had fun in every encounter, although the final boss of the demo really kicked my ass. The thing is, I don't think I did what the game wanted me to do, and I still eventually emerged victorious. I can't put my finger on why, but it felt less intentionally punishing by design than other Soulslikes. It also helps tremendously that boss battles aren't 45 minutes long.

I really enjoyed the art direction and music, which is something I'll freely admit FromSoftware regularly nails. In Dinoblade, I appreciate how developer Team Spino was able to make the most out of its limited resources. It looks like a PS3 game and runs like shit on my RTX 3060 laptop, even at low settings, but it still perfectly captures that foreboding atmosphere and massive scale so often coloring Soulslike worlds.

I think the ticket really is the dinosaurs here. I suppose I'm a simple man. Give me a dinosaur with a big sword in its mouth, and I'm all ears, even if it means I have to deal with that nauseating rhythm of poking, dodging, parrying, and suffering at the hands of giant lumbering monsters in a confined space. You do it for the dinos.

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