KubeRoot

One thing I’ll say is that Chants of Sennaar is, to my knowledge, usually compared to metroidvanias, part of a subgenre sometimes called “metroidbrainia”, also known as knowledge-gated/rule-discovery puzzle games. Though it’s a bit debatable in terms of how much of it is gated by knowledge, and how much is built to be mechanical progression, but the general idea holds.

I’m also not sure if you can really bruteforce your way through it, but it’s been a while since I’ve played it.

Roguelike is more complex, there’s no governing body to decide on a proper definition, but I think the consensus that was reached long ago includes elements like turn-based, grid-based, non-modal, playable in an ASCII terminal. I think the last one is outdated, but the rest are significant components of what makes roguelikes… roguelikes.

Modality in games is a particularly interesting aspect when you start looking at various other games, and something that matches up with things I dislike in games. One fun example is movement in FPS games, which can be built either on universal mechanics or a predefined moveset - some games will allow you to perform a vault move when next to a low obstacle, other games might let you crouch, jump, and crouch while jumping to get over low obstacles.

There are plenty of games with that that suck, so it can’t be the foundation of what Souls-likes are.

I’m sure there are also plenty of games with exploration that suck, I don’t think that really makes it a valid point. I can’t speak to what soulslikes are, since I haven’t played the original games, but a game can implement one element well and still fail at being an interesting game, which doesn’t invalidate that element in any way.

Realistically, can’t both combat and exploration be foundational elements of soulslike? I got the impression a big part is the way the combat works, usually involving a lot of commitment into your combat moves, with animations on attacks, dodges, heals, and multiple ways to be punished (and punish enemies), including plain damage, wasting items, wasting stamina.

I haven’t played souls games, but perhaps the difference is how central that is to progression? In a metroidvania the world is typically littered by both paths you can’t go through and secrets for you to find, both of which require abilities you’ll be gathering consistently as the main method of progression. As you wander the same paths, the abilities make it easier and faster while letting you find those secrets and now-usable paths to progress further.