Summary
- PS1 games offered the same level of difficulty as the challenging Soulsborne franchise, making them a fun choice for fans of the series.
- Games like Parasite Eve, Shadow Tower, Tenchu: Stealth Assassins, Dragon Quest 7, Echo Night, and Nightmare Creatures share certain elements with the Soulsborne franchise and are worth exploring for fans.
Though the original PlayStation console came out long before the Dark Souls franchise came into existence, many fans of the franchise love going back to that console for the general difficulty that other games had during that period of gaming history.
The average game is a lot lower in difficulty than a Soulsborne game, but the average PS1 game was much closer to that level. For this reason, there is a lot of fun to be had among the challenge-loving Dark Souls community and the catalog of old PS1 games which loved producing the kinds of challenges gamers of that time could rage at and struggle through.
7 King’s Field
It may be an obvious place to start, but it has to be said. It is no surprise that King’s Field is thought of as one of the PS1 games with the most affinity to fans of the Soulsborne franchise, it is made by the same people. FromSoftware had only developed business software up to that point but tried their luck with a video game for the first time and released it as a launch title for the original PlayStation.
Players take control of Jean Alfred Forrester, a man searching for his father who has disappeared while exploring with his men in an underground graveyard. Players have to deal with a huge number of enemies and extreme difficulty even for a game of its time, FromSoftware never really makes things easy for players of their games. The King’s Field franchise would later help inspire the company in making Dark Souls and their other games, and all the first three entries in the King’s Field franchise were PS1 exclusives that still haven't been remade.
6 Parasite Eve
There weren’t many RPGs that attempted in the PS1 era to go for the dark worlds and lore-heavy style that the Soulsborne franchise would later make itself known for. However, Parasite Eve attempted something even stranger, a survival horror RPG. Set in the real world, in New York City, players take on the role of a cop who must unravel a mystery, playing unusually as a ghost.
Parasite Eve was one of the most ambitious games of its time and was filled with ghoulish creatures to fight, mysterious elements to uncover, plenty of fascinating lore, and a cinematic style that lay the early foundations for some of the best horror games of today. Whether Soulsborne fans are big on horror or not, this is well worth a look.
5 Shadow Tower
Thought to be a little too similar to King’s Field for some, Shadow Tower was also developed by FromSoftware and released in 1998 as one of their later game entries for the PlayStation. Players were once again situated in a dungeon-crawling game with a heavy focus on the action aspects. This time, they were taking control of a mercenary who finds his city sucked underground.
Set on the fictional continent of Eclipse, the player is a mercenary who returns home and finds his city having been completely shifted. He is gifted a dark, magical sword that can vanquish the demons responsible for the city’s displacement and goes on a quest to save the old woman who raised him along with the rest of the city. Another great early FromSoftware adventure, Shadow Tower deserves a replay from any fan of the Soulsborne franchise.
4 Tenchu: Stealth Assassins
The first game in the Tenchu series feels like an unusual one to compare to the Soulsborne games. However, this 1998 game pit players against eleven sandbox levels filled with enemies and challenged players to make their way through with various pieces of chosen equipment and scored players based on their stealthy and non-stealthy kills.
Tenchu was a great early example of the level style of Soulsborne games, even if the combat and gameplay differed somewhat. All the Tenchu games are extremely fun to play through, and the lore as well as the artistic style are points that will help intrigue Soulsborne lovers, unfortunately, Tenchu hasn't yet been remastered to make it more available.
3 Dragon Quest 7
This is another incredibly fascinating game to revisit today which just got a remake, if only because of the sheer size as an RPG that rivals and even surpasses the largest, most lore-filled worlds of the Soulsborne franchise. For gamers looking for something older that they can really sink their teeth into in a major way, Dragon Quest 7 is a great option.
Not only does this contain by far the longest intro in RPG history, but players after only a few hours will begin to feel the weight of just how much there is to do as they adventure across Estard and attempt to refill the world with the lost continents.
2 Echo Night
Another game that isn’t exactly in the same genre as the Soulsborne franchise, Echo Night is another game made by FromSoftware prior to their creating Dark Souls. Echo Night was a whole franchise of adventure games that were a little spooky in nature and possibly gifted some of the world ideas that led to the Dark Souls franchise.
The plot focused on a man searching for a ship that disappeared at sea, attempting to uncover the mysteries surrounding it and whatever supernatural powers are at work. This wasn’t a franchise that was considered one of FromSoftware’s best early efforts, but fans of Soulslikes will enjoy seeing the early inspirations that could have led toward Dark Souls.
1 Nightmare Creatures
A straight-up survival horror game, Nightmare Creatures definitely featured monster designs that might look similar to some Soulsborne enemies. More than that, Nightmare Creatures used a lot of 19th-century gothic horror as inspiration for its design, and even gave players control of both guns and magic abilities, making this game feel like the best PS1 equivalent of Bloodborne.
The design and creeping terror in addition to similarities in gameplay make this a great game to retroactively try out for the first time if players are big fans of Bloodborne in particular. The story is set in London in 1834, following a pair of people who want to stop the random transformations occurring to people on the streets, all to do with the former work of a cult.