Summary
More and more Soulslikes are experimenting with different ways to expand on the formula that FromSoftware created and continues to evolve. Much of this experimentation revolves around offering players unprecedented levels of freedom that will help them tackle the arduous challenges ofSoulslike games, and that’s somethingEnotria: The Last Songmakes every attempt to achieve, though it falls short in many ways.
At the heart ofEnotria: The Last Song’s gameplay is the Path of Innovators, which is essentially its version of an RPG skill tree. Unfortunately, in its current state, the Path of Innovators could use a bit of innovation itself, as its claim to allow players the freedom to experiment backfires and becomes a giant wall instead.
Enotria: The Last Song’s Path of Innovators Needs a Respec Option
Enotria: The Last Song’s Path of Innovators Is a Core Part of Its Build-Crafting Gameplay
One ofEnotria: The Last Song’s main selling points is the freedom it provides players to customize their build any way they wish. It attempts to accomplish this in various ways — like withEnotria’s elemental system, unique weapons, and dozens of skills called Mask Lines — but its Path of Innovators is another core part of its gameplay that can’t be put on the back burner by players who wish to succeed. The Path of Innovators works similarly to passive skill trees found in most other RPGs, exceptEnotria’s passives aren’t all automatically applied once they’re unlocked. Instead, players can only have six of them equipped at one time, allowing for much more strategic build-crafting.
The Path of Innovators inEnotria: The Last Songconsists of four different classes (paths) for players to choose from and the skills from each path can be mixed and matched as much as necessary. The four paths in the Path of Innovators are Battlemage, Bruiser, Trickster, and Elementalist, each one providing unique passive skills to utilize in their build. Battlemage perks revolve around buffingEnotria’s Mask Lines, Bruiser perks enhance the player’s Health and Physical Power, Trickster perks primarily focus on Stamina Regeneration and evasion, and Elementalist perks specialize in increasing the player’s Elemental Power. All in all, combining perks from each of these categories, in theory, should result in some fairly versatile builds.
Unfortunately, the whole system is held back by an interesting design choice.
Players Can’t But Should Be Able to Respec the Path of Innovators in Enotria: The Last Song
While players can respec their Bruiser, Assassin, Elementalist, Trickster, and Battlemage stats, it is currently impossible to respec perks unlocked in the Path of Innovators. While some players may not find this to be an issue, anyone who doesn’t take a considerable amount of time to develop a firm strategy before unlocking perks in the Path of Innovators may find themselves spending valuable points on perks they may never use. This is especially disappointing, given that there are 68 skills to unlock in the Path of Innovators andEnotriaboasts 150 million different build combinationsthat can be formed from them.
Ironically, it’s impossible to experiment with any build combinations as far as the Path of Innovators is concerned, unless, of course, players manage to unlock every single perk in the game. However, that kind of game design caters more to hardcore gamers than anyone else and alienates those who don’t have the time, skill, or patience to acquire enough points to unlock every perk. If allowing players the freedom to experiment with various builds inEnotriatruly is important to the game, then it needs an update that will give players the option to respec their perks, even if it costs them something valuable to do so. Perhaps then,Enotriamight see the 150 million different build combinations it claims to offer become a reality.
Enotria: The Last Song
WHERE TO PLAY
Enotria: The Last Song is an Action RPG SoulsLike set in a fantasy world based off Italian folklore and culture.It aims to take the genre in a new direction, with a vibrant and sun-lit world based off Italian summer where the gameplay allows you to alter the world & enemies in systemic ways.It is defined as a Souls-Like but unlike other souls-likes we are depicting a world based on Italian summer colours, as we call it, ‘‘Summer-Soul’'.The objective is to bring Italian rich past and culture to the fore in a new way that is appealing to the broader public.What we need to convey from the art direction is the colours, vibrancy and general feeling of visiting Italy.Enotria: The Last Song wants to capture the heart & soul of souls-likes fanbase, with rewarding exploration, diverse player builds, varied enemy designs while giving a unique twist.With Ardore, the player always has access to different strategies, allowing them to influence enemies behaviors, dynamically alter the world around them, solve puzzles & harness the very elements of Enotria.
