Black Souls and the Consequences of Nonlinear Progression

Nonlinear stage progression is one the systems game developers use to make their games more replayable. This video discuss the in-depth features of it using Black Souls and Black Souls 2 as the objects of analysis. Despite having very similar design, those two games have different approaches on how they tackle the system. The points discussed within the video is not limited to the analyzed games. It is still valid to other games, even ones from a different genre. Timestamps: 00:23 What Defines Nonlinear Progression? 02:42 Breaking the Line with Branches 07:20 Black Souls 1's Immaculate Structure 14:44 Black Souls 2's Messy Design 27:38 The Top Priority Target, Jubjub 31:30 Power Gap, the Inverted Difficulty Curve 38:16 The Good, the Bad, and the End Clips used in the video:    • Is Black Souls 1 sl1 difficulty 9 even pos...      • Black Souls 2 Mandatory Battles Only - End...      • The Peculiarity of SEN | Black Souls 2