Dear lord the area I am in now is just incredible. All of it. Wow. S tier.
There are so many awesome looking areas in this game that I can't even know which one this is about. I've been really impressed.
Since you are further than me:
OBVIOUS FUCKING SPOILERS BELOW Spoiler
Raya Lucaria Academy. Feels like that shit was lifted right from Yharnam but with five plus years more experience in game development. Seriously blew me away. Capped off with a great boss fight. Let the Rom/Rennalla theories fly.
Yeah great area. There are many more treats coming in that regard too. A friend of mine beat it yesterday. I've still got a bit to go but I've been exploring everything, my play time will be completely out of hand. The area I'm in now is FUCKING HUGE.
It's been a couple of days since I beat Elden Ring, and I've been tying up loose ends since then, which has given me some time to reflect a bit more on the game.
I feel like an open world game is only ever good while you are still discovering new stuff, and will usually nosedise the moment you run into repetition, which also ties into what I said earlier about how the game's negatives are a direct consequence of its open world nature. If the quality of an open world game is measured by the time it takes for you to run out of new stuff to discover, then Elden Ring still fares better than any other I have seen, as I'd estimate I was still finding new amazing areas at a rapid rate at least 80 hours into it!
The game has a lot of smaller caves and tombs which are very easily missable, and although I'm positive I got almost all of them at this point, there are most likely a few I've missed. These are basically Elden Ring's version of the chalice dungeons. They aren't randomly generated, but they are all constructed from the same few standard assets and room types. They are, I guess, the types of dungeons you'd *usually* see in a game of this style. They aren't bad, mind you! Fromsoft managed to design most of them uniquely enough that you'll still encounter new puzzles and approaches after having seen most of them. Some of them really make you think out of the box to progress through them, and most of them have several hidden areas or even hidden bosses that are easy to miss, and all of them end with a boss fight, repeated from somewhere else in the game, and often between multiple dungeons.
But compared to how good everything else in the game is, these are easily the weakest part of it, and I'm not really sure they do much great for the game outside of padding it, and the same can be said of a lot of other content in the game. It's just incredibly padded, and I understand why, because there is no real other way to fill up a large open world like this, even in spite of Elden Ring still featuring more unique content than almost any other video game I have ever played.
This also comes into play in a few ways that straight up hurt the worldbuilding and immersion, arguably the strongest asset of any Souls game. It's cool the first time you run into a lot of the game's unique enemy types. I would describe a bunch of super memorable moments to me, but I'd rather keep this spoiler free.
That moment however is ruined a lot, when you get many hours further into the game, and that same enemy type keeps showing up in brand new areas, including lots of places where it just feels much more disjointed, setting-wise. At the end of the game there's really no single creature that feels like it's specifically at home in one specific area of the game.
And when the same thing happens to bosses, it really starts taking the juice out of that. Think about the pivotal moments facing off against bosses like High Lord Wolnir or Pontiff Sulyvahn was in DS3. Now imagine if you start running into those guys again in the bottom of some random mine you just discovered, or if Ornstein and Smough and Father Gascoigne started showing up as regular respawning enemies every now and then.
The world building also takes a hit in another way that I feel could have more easily been prevented, and the only excuse that makes sense would be a rushed dev cycle. But considering how much craftmanship has gone into every other aspect of the game, that doesn't really add up.
Basically, there's a lot of teleporting going on. A little too much teleporting. The game has a few shortcuts that are just a teleport, which massively robs it of that classic experience like first taking that elevator back to Firelink Shrine, but there are also massive new major areas that you're intended to reach by just coming across a similar random inconspicuous teleporter somewhere on the map, which completely breaks the link between the place you just were and the place you are going, which reminds me a lot of the major backlash Dark Souls 2 received on release for how disjointed its map felt. This effect is felt no less on a game that's straight up designed as a unified open world map from the get go.
There are a few teleports early in the game that actually have the opposite effect, where you'll unexpectedly get transported to a much later area and back, just to get a glimpse of it without being able to actually explore it. I think those moments were actually quite breathtaking, but once teleporting becomes your primary mode of transportation, it's not as cool anymore.
This is a minor gripe in the bigger picture, but I think it especially makes the last few beats of the game a little weak, when you start just getting thrown from one area to the next, with no explanation of how you got there or why. Part of that is kinda standard for From's vague approach to storytelling, but I think there's a difference between intentionally leaving pieces out of the equation, and just straight not bothering.
Another reason the second half of the game was a little weaker to me, once again ties into what is also one of its strengths. If you compare Dark Souls to Bloodborne and of course Sekiro, the former has always been the more RPG influenced one, that really allows players a massive range of choices in how to piece together their builds and combat strategies in unique ways that exploit enemy weaknesses. Elden Ring takes this aspect and runs away with it. Not only can you completely break any boss fight if you wish just by using powerful magic and beefed up summons, leveling up your stats also makes you so super overpowered that it feels like you can just tank any boss in the game, and take it down without bothering too much getting to know it. I might be wrong on this, but I'm fairly sure the soft level caps in Elden Ring are just way higher than they were in any Dark Souls.
In the early game, most bosses I encountered really made me work for it. If you ignore the stuff I just said above, I'd say Elden Ring clearly has the hardest boss fights of any Souls game. Like DS3, every boss is able to just blatantly string together combos out of almost any move in their repetoire, and finding openings to retaliate for a melee build can easily end up taking a lot of patience. A lot of attacks have such a massive range and AOE effect, that not relying on either a shield and/or a massive health pool, seems like a futile approach (not that that'll keep quick SL1 clears at bay though).
Up until one specific pivotal boss fight that took me well over two hours to get down, I had a blast learning every boss's moveset, in order to intuitively dodge everything they had, and abuse their openings until finally getting them down. Some of these have been some of the most memorable bosses in the Souls series for me, really hitting Miyazaki's classic points about achievements through hardship. But just about at that point is also where you start getting so many tools in your arsenal that I just couldn't ignore them anymore, even if I had until then. The game *wants* you to make use of them.
It's hard to say this is really to the detriment of the game. Because some of the late game boss fights are still incredibly cool, and if you're making challenge runs for yourself, there's a lot of super involving bosses that will give you the experience of a lifetime.
But on your first casual run, if you decide to rely on nothing but a sword and a shield with no buffs, no magic, no ashes of war, and no summons ashes until the final boss, the victory feels kinda hollow, knowing that you could have made a superior strategic decision in a lot of different ways, and it can be hard to tell at which point you are really crossing the line to "cheesing the boss fights", and boss fights being satisfying starts feeling like a self imposed challenge.
So with that all out of the way, don't let it distract you. I think that exhausts all the criticism I could possibly direct at Elden Ring's primary design. And I think it's clear that pretty much all of it exists to benefit what is also the game's strengths, and ultimately it comes down to what style of game you want to play.
It won't possibly dethrone the tight design of Dark Souls 1 to me, but if you compare to something like Dark Souls 3, it's hard to argue that all of DS3 is pretty much already in this game, and then just a whole lot more, and the game's highs might even be the highest the series has ever been. Right now it still sits at probably a second place in my own super subjective ranking of Fromsoft games, but I think it's still hard to say whether multiple replays will eventually allow it to drop a place or two. I feel like most of the hype I felt for the game, came from discovering places for the first time, and getting absolutely helplessly lost in the superb level design they offered.
Blinge wrote:Lovely write up that i'm not gonna read because i'm not playing it yet
Yeah same, averting me eyes (me OIIIS) for now, ta still Sumez
Was gonna book it to Loop 11 and enjoy a relaxing evening in Central and Ol' Yharny, but felt bad skipping out on Larry, so I took the fucker down in my usual half-assed style. Larry doin' laps at the YMCA until he puked, while I shot him repeatedly in his fuckin face with me bowblade.
Turned down Gehrman's kindly offer of an immaculately clean decapitation, got bodied hard. Tried again, shredded. And again. "Damn," I thought, "ol' HUNTBURGER HELPER's tougher than I remembered at max scale..." went to switch from Saw to Pick, and finally noticed I'd stripped both's gems for that cunt Larry. Whoops.
Gehrman is nastier at higher loops though, being much more apt to one-shot misjudged evades, much like certain other enemies. Redeyed Saif in Hunter's Nightmare can easily 1HKO, as can the friggin Bag Ladies outside Marv's church. Having just done a quick 1ALL, it definitely feels like the Loop 8 upscale is geared for a more intensely punishing game. Which is nice.
Last edited by BIL on Mon Mar 07, 2022 8:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Apparently you can troll people with messages in front of intractable objects pretty severely since the generic interact button is used for both real objects and multiplayer specific objects like messages. Put a message in front of a door or ladder and make it nearly impossible to interact with sort of thing. Sounds like a definite game UX issue.
Makes me glad the first real Souls-like game I was sucked into was Sekiro which had none of that and even after introducing some of it allows you to play entirely offline.
Man, guys, after all that trouble writing a completely spoilerfree writeup :3
Well, I think criticism like that isn't relevant unless you've played it anyway. If you still haven't played Elden Ring all you need to know is that you should.
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:Apparently you can troll people with messages in front of intractable objects pretty severely since the generic interact button is used for both real objects and multiplayer specific objects like messages. Put a message in front of a door or ladder and make it nearly impossible to interact with sort of thing. Sounds like a definite game UX issue.
If there are two things you can interact with in the same spot, you can just use the d-pad to cycle between them, and the action you're most likely to want is always given priority. That sounds like a pretty good solution to me honestly.
And Elden Ring doesn't just "allow" you to play offline, it also forces you to do so if you aren't paying Sony extra money which is kinda BS IMO. Even for just the message system, which I'm honestly missing.
I wish you were forced to fight G-Man and Super Presidente in one shot, though. I always forget the latter's coming up and get jumped, in this case by standing around like a jagoff instead of reloading post-G. Ah wells. Time to rewaken to teh nightmare of blood and beasts. AGEEN! Dream Hoont Never Ends. Actually that gives me an idea.
Pretty good write up, Sumez.
I'm about 50 hours in, and I'm not that thrilled at how much they reuse bosses.
I wonder how many are genuinely "unique", and you only fight once?
They did that too much in Sekiro, and that was a much smaller game. Is this going to be a trend with Fromsoft, going forward?
There are some bosses I'm ok with reusing, ones that feel like you'd kinda expect there to be more of. And a few of them get some variations that justify the second or third encounters. But there's also even a few of the smaller ones that really start losing their oomph when they start getting clones all over the place, in places they don't belong anyway.
In terms of which ones don't get reused I think that's Spoiler
honestly only the case for the major story bosses. And even then, that's not entirely true for Margit and Godrick. And I guess Fortissax and Astel don't count as such either...
The game has an insane amount of bosses, so at the end of the day, there is still a very high amount of different types of bosses. At many points in the game it really feels like you can't take two steps without running into a boss fight. Which is kinda cool to some extent. It reminds me of that stupid excuse the devs of God of War 4 had, where they said making unique boss fights takes up most of their budget, which is why it was unrealistic for them to have more than the three or so bosses it has, repeated ad infinitum.
Sumez wrote:Man, guys, after all that trouble writing a completely spoilerfree writeup :3
Well, I think criticism like that isn't relevant unless you've played it anyway.
It is to me. I gave your post a cursory sweep and you already started to talk about where the game is weaker.
If I read this it will influence my perception when I eventually play.
Curious as to what version you guys are playing this on? I'm playing the PS4 Pro version on PS5, to get a good frame rate.
I miss the tall grass, but what can you do?
Ahhh, yes. >¦3 Much as I long ago realised HG101's "BUHHH, NOT BALANCED" meant "Chaps, this is a substantial action game!" so, too, have I come to treasure the mainstream's laments of "MUH ACCESSIBIRITY," re new From games. "Easy mode?" That's called "using all your HP restores and items to survive by your fingernails." THE LACK OF BALLS ON THESE PRICKS
Gentlemen, good gaming to you. Imma feck off until done with DS1 and ER.
You're sure to be in a fine haze about now, but don't think too hard about all of this. Just go out and kill a few beasts. It's for your own good. You know, it's just what hunters do! You'll get used to it.
I gotta tell you bud, as a From neophyte over a decade late to the party, this is my first launch, and I'd wondered if it'd be perfectly-timed to a hail of despair from fans, and much celebration from scrubs.
But instead!
As with HG101 and arcade games, it ain't even about X-TREEEM difficulty, the whole "prepare to die" ad spiel. Nothing against that - I'm thrilled it worked, and these guys are still around, let alone mainstream - it's just nice to get what was once normal, ie, action games that'll give you a decent run for your money. I wouldn't care if there *were* easy modes in any of these games, no more than I do that virtually every arcade game ever has them. As long as we can have the defaults, it's all good.
At the same time, there's a beauty to tougher-than-average stuff, where the resistance is an innate part of the game's character. Goes for music and movies and just about any other past-time, too. Some people are connoisseurs of outlandishly hot peppers that'll blow the roof of a normie's skull clean off. I don't enjoy them, and I definitely don't pretend to, either - that sounds extremely painful!
They mention having kids :/ I'm not gonna say they're pulling a human shield approach, but someone shoulda told 'em that having kids rules out a whole fuckton of fun things one might've enjoyed doing before, certainly doing them to the same extents. So will many career paths. In our universe, time and calories are things! Shit sucks! I plan to resume The Hardest Of Hard Gayming: The Hardening when I'm retired, then fall dead off my chair like Al Pacino in that one film.
I'll stop before I go full participation trophy-decrying get offa moi lawrne.
Completed three loops of Elden Ring (instead of "NG+" the game calls each loop a sequentially numbered "Journey") and got all the achievements. That was honestly more time consuming that it was challenging, but if you know what you're doing you can easily rush through the whole game in a couple of hours, so it wasn't really that bad.
Speedrunning doesn't seem too fun either because of all the ways you can easily make the game completely non-threatening with little effort, and the sub-hour runs that are out there already, additionally use glitches to completely bypass required content, and make bosses unresponsive while they wail on them, not fun.
I'm going to be away for the weekend, but I'll begin my Level 1 run on Monday and we'll see how that goes. Should be able to keep me from using some of the most busted exploits in the game............ maybe....
Yeah the further I get into it, and I still love it, I feel that Elden Ring minus the open world would be even more awesome.
The legacy levels are soooo good.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed some talented motherfucker will mod the overworld out and connect all the legacy dungeons together and legit make it Dark Souls 4.
I can dream right?
You're sure to be in a fine haze about now, but don't think too hard about all of this. Just go out and kill a few beasts. It's for your own good. You know, it's just what hunters do! You'll get used to it.
Sumez wrote:Completed three loops of Elden Ring (instead of "NG+" the game calls each loop a sequentially numbered "Journey") and got all the achievements. That was honestly more time consuming that it was challenging, but if you know what you're doing you can easily rush through the whole game in a couple of hours, so it wasn't really that bad.
Speedrunning doesn't seem too fun either because of all the ways you can easily make the game completely non-threatening with little effort, and the sub-hour runs that are out there already, additionally use glitches to completely bypass required content, and make bosses unresponsive while they wail on them, not fun.
I'm going to be away for the weekend, but I'll begin my Level 1 run on Monday and we'll see how that goes. Should be able to keep me from using some of the most busted exploits in the game............ maybe....
Yeah once you've beat it once, the game goes very quickly. The first time, I fully fleshed out everything. Explored every corner. I killed every boss, collected every dragon heart I thiiiink (there are a handful not tied to named bosses but don't drop from every dragon). My personal favorite was Spoiler
Great Wyrm Theodorix
. If you are just focusing on the main game, it's fairly short, the world is just huge.
RE your write-up: I also disliked the recycling of enemies and bosses. I get why it happened but I'd rather have had less enemy types in some areas than recycling them where it makes no sense at all. Example Spoiler
WTF are the spiderhands doing in the Mountaintop of the Giants??!
I see where you are coming from with the teleporting but this game did need fast travel badly. Those warp chests were wild though, absolutely. Thought I got stuck for a second, you probably know which one.
GL on the level 1 run, my friend.
Stevens wrote:Easy mode? You should enjoy this then BIL:
Going back to one of Sumez's points this game totally has easy mode. So mind you I'm playing unpatched and despite what the patch notes says, there are some very real differences that I've seen with weapon stat requirements, damage on weapons etc But as far as I see it easy mode things include Spoiler
Mimic Tear Ash, Sword of Night and Flame
I saw a video clip the other day where someone cast/used items for multiple attack buffs, had talismans on for boosting etc and proceeded to kill Spoiler
Malenia
in one hit. That's severe but you definitely aren't really experiencing the boss fight that way or similar. I did use summons for Spoiler
Radahn
because lore wise if felt correct.
FWIW re stat caps I was seeing meaningful gains up to 78 INT (I was basically melee, using a katana so you can guess which one).
So easy mode is totally there if you want it IMO. If you can't get past the first couple bosses to open up the game that's on you lol. I also won't fault anyone for taking these options nor do I think it really cheapens challenge runs.
Stevens wrote:Yeah the further I get into it, and I still love it, I feel that Elden Ring minus the open world would be even more awesome.
The legacy levels are soooo good.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed some talented motherfucker will mod the overworld out and connect all the legacy dungeons together and legit make it Dark Souls 4.
I can dream right?
It's good to dream. I made a similar comment fairly early on. Something like "I can see the game it would have been w/o the open world aspects and that game is a 12/10".
That sword you mention is absolutely easy mode. I recommend anyone who hasn't already beaten every boss by their own skill not to click the that spoiler tag.
That said, I intend to use it on my level 1 run, and I've planned a route that should allow me to do so, though breaking it open might require overcoming a few minor obstacles. I'm curious how OP it'll actually make you when anything is still able to kill you in a single hit.
I clicked the spoiler. I wanted to make sure wasn't using that sword. I'm not.
My gear hasn't changed much at all tbh. Still running hooks/fang bleed build. Zero points in anything magic related.
I somehow beat Spoiler
Radahn on my first try, blind, solo, and on foot.
SL 68. It wasn't easy - I had zero resources at the end. I looked online after and saw a lot of people struggling with him. Seemed in most cases they were massively under leveled. The people who weren't having a hard time were those with similar builds/level/+ weapon.
It was admittedly a spectical. Only Guardian Ape surprised me more. I look forward to dueling with him again.
From there I've headed north.
You're sure to be in a fine haze about now, but don't think too hard about all of this. Just go out and kill a few beasts. It's for your own good. You know, it's just what hunters do! You'll get used to it.
Can you use it at level one? Thought you couldn't due to the requirements.
Sumez wrote:I think a lot of people have trouble with the Spoiler
Radahn
fight specifically because they try approaching it Spoiler
mounted. It's a LOT easier on foot
I got him first try Spoiler
mounted
. I don't remember my level but I certainly wasn't OP at that point probably around where Stevens was maybe a bit less. I'll have to try the other way next time.
Steamflogger Boss wrote:Can you use it at level one? Thought you couldn't due to the requirements.
Between talismans and your physick flask, you have a lot of ways to beef up your stats just enough without leveling up.
Some of the items I'll need are gated behind boss fights, but most are ripe for just riding a long distance to pick them up, thanks to the open world nature of the game.
Steamflogger Boss wrote:Can you use it at level one? Thought you couldn't due to the requirements.
Between talismans and your physick flask, you have a lot of ways to beef up your stats just enough without leveling up.
Some of the items I'll need are gated behind boss fights, but most are ripe for just riding a long distance to pick them up, thanks to the open world nature of the game.
. Took me a while to find something that worked and then like another 25 tries to bring you down. I bow to you in reverence - you were a worthy adversary.
You're sure to be in a fine haze about now, but don't think too hard about all of this. Just go out and kill a few beasts. It's for your own good. You know, it's just what hunters do! You'll get used to it.
Is that another butt hurt dev? From leaving a trail of them.
In general corpse runs in Elden Ring are extremely generous. I've found two in dungeons that, well, not so much.
One of the dungeons isn't a difficult runback, but it's like a good minute and not straightforward at all. The other is populated with spell spamming motherfuckers. Going to try and put one of them to rest today.
You're sure to be in a fine haze about now, but don't think too hard about all of this. Just go out and kill a few beasts. It's for your own good. You know, it's just what hunters do! You'll get used to it.
This is literally worst AAA game of past 10 years. This is absolutely awful, pathetic, insanely bad.
A guy with username Soulsgamessuck gave it a zero. I'm shocked.
You're sure to be in a fine haze about now, but don't think too hard about all of this. Just go out and kill a few beasts. It's for your own good. You know, it's just what hunters do! You'll get used to it.
Legit one of the unheralded great 3D ninja games. 
Should be able to keep me from using some of the most busted exploits in the game............ maybe....
