It seems to me that the most distinctive feature is the save mechanic that essentially splits the game into levels where you can only save your progress when you reach a campfire.
For example, Jedi: Fallen Order is a soulslike because it has the same mechanic (with meditation circles instead of campfires), despite being SciFi themed. It does also have all those other things you mentioned, but arguably, so does Skyrim, which is definitely not a soulslike.
It seems to me that the most distinctive feature is the save mechanic that essentially splits the game into levels where you can only save your progress when you reach a campfire.
By this definition, Demon’s Souls is not a soulslike.
I never played that, but according to its Wikipedia page “When a player is killed during a level, they are sent to the beginning of the level with all non-boss enemies re-spawned, while the player returns in soul form with lower maximum health and the loss of all unused souls.”
The real question is whether this makes Super Mario a souls-like.
It seems to me that the most distinctive feature is the save mechanic that essentially splits the game into levels where you can only save your progress when you reach a campfire.
For example, Jedi: Fallen Order is a soulslike because it has the same mechanic (with meditation circles instead of campfires), despite being SciFi themed. It does also have all those other things you mentioned, but arguably, so does Skyrim, which is definitely not a soulslike.
By this definition, Demon’s Souls is not a soulslike.
I never played that, but according to its Wikipedia page “When a player is killed during a level, they are sent to the beginning of the level with all non-boss enemies re-spawned, while the player returns in soul form with lower maximum health and the loss of all unused souls.”
The real question is whether this makes Super Mario a souls-like.
It’s almost as if the Souls series was a deliberate throwback inspired by classic games and used mechanics copied from them.
By this definition, Super Mario World is a souls-like
If it’s hard, it’s a soulslike