Enotria The Last Song is the perfect 7/10 soulslike

It’s only September, but Enotria: The Last Song has got me thinking about the end-of-year PCGamesN awards. More specifically, I’m thinking about our award for Best 7/10. This hallowed category has seen Metal Hellsinger, Outriders, and Marvel’s Avengers receive a certain eminence that Elden Ring, God of War, and Baldur’s Gate 3 could never hope to achieve. With enough time, money, and talent, any studio can strive for perfection – and if all those unruly stars align, it might even come close enough to touch. The line between unlikely success and abject failure is arguably more difficult to walk. Enotria: The Last Song dances on it with wanton abandon.

So, Enotria is not a perfect experience. This is often typical of soulslike games developed by studios whose names don’t begin with ‘F’ and end in ‘romSoftware’. It suffers from the same issues as most indies that strive to touch the cultural lodestone Hidetaka Miyazaki chiseled out of the humble action RPG. I could go into details: difficulty spikes; jittery framerate; clunky animations; but odds are you’ve heard it all before. Even FromSoftware itself can’t entirely escape these criticisms. Instead, I want to look beyond parry windows and bonfires to tease out why, in the cavalcade of middling soulslikes, Enotria: The Last Song keeps me coming back for more.

It comes down to an often overlooked but no less important hallmark of the genre: soulslikes as a mechanical framework for aesthetics rooted in different cultures. Dark Souls is medieval Europe cast through the lens of Japanese mythology; Bloodborne is the Female Gothic made manifest through Lovecraftian horror; Enotria is a sun-soaked descent into the haunting hedonism of Italian Carnevale. It takes its cue from Dark Souls in its creation myth, where music is analogous to fire as the catalyst for life. The stock characters of the commedia dell’arte comprise its pantheon, and caricature masks worn by historical troupes are a source of divine power. “The stage is set,” Pulcinella declares at the culmination of Enotria’s prologue, and my in-universe simulacrum emerges, fully formed, as a nondescript wooden puppet. The conversations in Jyamma Games HQ after the launch of Lies of P scarcely bear thinking about.

That said, while Pinocchio would perhaps feel more at home in Enotria than Neowiz’s moody Belle Époque darling, self-determinism is the grand lie of the former. In Enotria, the definition of “player” in videogame parlance elides with the “player” as dramatic personae. The Maskless One is an agent of change because they don’t have a fixed identity. In that respect, they align closer to Dark Souls protagonists than young P, but even character creation predicates a background; a history. In Enotria, our protagonist is wood from the vine. Within this vacuum, the player’s self-definition emerges through Enotria’s build customization which is, in a word, staggering.

Virtues, masks, aspects, perks, mask lines, weapons… the list goes on. Many soulslikes demand you to define yourself according to a particular build, and reneging on it almost always comes at a cost, if the option is there at all. This uncompromising approach to character progression is great for replayability but can induce choice paralysis, where every decision feels like a misstep. By contrast, Enotria is hedonistic in its generosity, flinging upgrade materials at me and letting me refund their allocations at my leisure. Even its souls economy trends higher than its peers, giving me ample opportunity to grow after clearing the most innocuous gauntlet of trash mobs.

Amid this bounty, Enotria’s loadout system is the star of the show. Instead of carving out an archetypal role, I switch between masks at the press of a button, like an actor undergoing an ultra high-speed wardrobe change. Compared to Dark Souls, it’s positively gluttonous. Instead of choosing between the swift yet delicate rapier or the powerful yet pendulous colossal hammer, I can have my cake and eat it, too. It doesn’t make combat any easier; more variables create more room for error, particularly once elemental affinities come into play. With three builds to juggle instead of one, all predicated on a foundation of interlocking systems, I can confidently say I’ve spent more time sifting through menus in Enotria than in any other soulslike.

As I switch wildly between masks to dispatch the revelers of Quinta, it strikes me that the commedia dell’arte isn’t a world away from the performance inherent to soulslikes. After all, there’s a reason we see a near-endless procession of streamers proving to their live audience that they can beat Elden Ring on a dance mat; a Bop-It; a violin; a banana. You name it, someone’s probably beaten Godrick with it. Most game spaces are a stage for the player to perform, but Enotria’s world is self-aware of how soulslikes fit into that mold, from the intricate dance of a parry system to the black comedy of a surprise death. Nailing the timing of this performance is non-negotiable; it’s the difference between life and death.

As for the stage itself, Enotria’s pastoral Neapolitan vision is often lit so brightly that it borders on overexposure. It’s a striking contrast to the gloomy dark fantasy endemic of soulslikes. Even “double-A” indie games like Thymesia and Lords of the Fallen can’t escape – but with its blazing sunflower fields and stark-white sand, Enotria’s world taps into the daylight terror of folk horror reminiscent of Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man or Ari Aster’s Midsommar. Of course, this isn’t uncharted territory for soulslikes. Most Elden Ring fans will recall their first encounter with the Dominula dancers, adorned in flower crowns and ceremonial robes as they rejoice in their sacrificial festivities. This sinister merriment is endemic throughout Quinta, but it doesn’t end once you leave the city behind. Whether your adversary is a pitchfork-wielding yeoman or a myrmidon in skirts and sandals, the Danse Macabre persists.

However, like Dark Souls and masked theater themselves, Enotria is more than mindless entertainment; a note of tragedy coalesces in its soulslike strain. This manifests after my first victory against a major boss. It’s Zanni, the First Mask – one of the earliest characters of the commedia dell’arte, represented in Enotria as a potbellied cannibal. “Where has the bedlam and the merriment gone?!” he wails once I finally defeat him. While I’m quick to rejoice in overcoming a fearsome foe (and a very unruly camera), there’s an echo of Shadow of the Colossus here which becomes too great to ignore. My elation recedes as Zanni fades from reality, pleading for me to find his children. In the end, this masked fool is – like all the commedia characters – all too human.

This intersection of genre, aesthetic, and theme elevates Enotria above the perception of a soulslike looking to capture a particular audience or zeitgeist for the sake of it. Jyamma Games hasn’t delivered a genre-defining experience by any means, but I’m charmed by the confidence to dress such a venerated genre in a jester hat and hold up a mirror. It’s also the ideal comfort soulslike to pass the time on a damp weekend – especially if you’re nostalgic for old-school eurojank. It’s just a shame about the high price point.