AI Limit, the other big Soulslike that released this week alongside The First Berserker: Khazan, has strong elements of FromSoftware games in its combat, but its developer prefers to refer to it as an action-RPG due to qualities that distinguish it from other games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne.
Talking to 12DOVE, AI Limit producer Yang Bin didn't outright reject the Soulslike label that's the top user tag on the game's Steam page, but he did confirm that it's not his ideal descriptor.
"In the sense of combat, AI Limit is indeed a Soulslike game, and it inherits many traditions of the Soulslike genre, especially from Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3," Bin said. "However, we hope that players will look beyond just this aspect. AI Limit possesses many unique traits such as Sync Rate system, Cel-render art style, post-apocalyptic wasteland setting, which goes beyond 'Soulslike.' We would rather call AI Limit an action RPG."
I refuse to engage in the frivolous and exhausting debate around what parameters define such-and-such video game genre, but AI Limit studio Sense Games is certainly within its rights to label its games however it wants. That said, it's valid for Bin to point out AI Limit's Sync Rate system, which is a gauge that is filled and depleted when the player character deals and receives damage. It seems like a genuinely innovative twist on action-RPG combat that I don't recall seeing anywhere else, so even if the anime aesthetic and post-apocalyptic setting aren't enough to distinguish AI Limit from other Soulslikes, its combat definitely isn't entirely derivative.
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