I agree with your artistic assessment, but I disagree with Norse inspiration. A Gaelic person myself, I am fond of the Celtic and Gaelic aesthetic; the imagery and iconography are very Irish specifically; A lot of people seem to have mistaken some of it for being Norse inspiration, and while that is partially true I would disagree with those who have said it is its most prominent influence, I would say it's most prominent influences are the Gaelic cultures: Ireland especially, but Scotland and wales too. It is near omnipresent in Elden Ring. Artwork looks to be inspired by Irish novelist T.W. the Celts/Gaels themselves in terms of Aesthetics/Clothes and jewelery/Lore/Storytelling, etc. The English Adventure Book Novelist Steve Jackson looks like he inspired it too; it would be unsurprising as he's been sighted as an inspiration for their prior games. And in terms of historical/mythological stuff, I'll give some examples A maiden giving you a spirit horse. Balor is the Fire Giant, a giant race The Fomarians were entirely killed by the goddess, except the godly being Balor with a single closed eye guarded by six seals; if opened, a torrent of fire sweeps across the land and it is engulfed in a similar way to calid. Godfreys death in the Badlands I'd similar to cu chulainn's death; He leads a Heroic march against his foes, using his power he enters a warpspasm; an ability were his muscles flex and his body contorts until his skin let's off steam. He is felled in battle, in his last moment he ties himself to a great oak and stands to face the oncoming enemies; they run through him with weapons. You can see this in the intro showing where the main characters are. The art looks to be inspired by "The Death of Cu Chulainn" Evergoal is Irish, possibly French for forever jail; or eternal prison Siofra is Irish for Fairy and has a specific connotation to a type of fairy called a Changeling; which is a type of fairy with the power to transforn mimicking creatures; very similarly to the Nox silver tear. The second Bossfight is the regal ancestral spirt; which is literally the extinct Great Irish Elk; even the music is celtic sounding during this encounter. The Erdtree is probably inspired by Biathada/Bía: Feeding Tree. It is often depicted to be Golden, and is Holy. Whenever the Celts built a settlement they'd plant a Great Duar Oak (Like a lesser version of the tree) at the centre, this was a show of respect and thanks; not unlike the Lesser Erd Trees and Royal City Lendyll being built around the Erdtrees base. The Tarnished are Meleshians were the ancient ancestors of the Irish; they were guided to the promised land lured by the call of the gods, upon their arrival they are told that this is their place of origin abd that they are the decends of The gods, and so Demi-gods in nature. Long story short they eventually kill the Tuetha De Danann and claim free will. White Witch Ranni is similar to the Welsh goddess The White Moon Witch Riannon I could go on further listing way more examples, but that is far enough. There are obviously other influences; Anglo/English/Norse/Welsh, but I think this one is most prominent.
loved the art analysis. also, compared to some of the hour long videos out there I think you were able to say just as much in shorter time. Very concise
I think the Catacombs could've done with a more varied tileset in general. That's my only complaint. It feels like From Software was very focussed on polish with these dungeons, where I feel like some suitable departure from consistency with these locations would've added a notable amount of spice to exploring them. More creative use of tileset assets may seem like a small thing, but it pays off for dungeons like the Highroad Cave (which featured a unique implementation of the exterior ruins often found against cliff walls) or the way that the caves in the Altus Plateau begin to feature large roots from the Erdtree. It's done partially, to be fair - with a lot of the local catacombs near Leyndell being larger Hero's Graves, but they still often shared much the same assets as each-other. Hell, just apply a stone texture or something to the respective Heros of those dungeons and slap it in the level as a statue, and you've already got a unique landmark.
There's a lot more to complain about than that. It's a good game, but I don't believe it's objectively better than Bloodborne, Dark Souls 1, or even Demon's Souls. It's a lot of the same flavors, spread too thin across a pizza crust that's too large to appreciate. I had incredible highs, and horrible lows. Not because it's hard, but because it's full of copy pasting. The most tries I needed on a boss so far was 8, and it wasn't very fun. A lot of the game is just ... I don't see myself replaying this game as much as I have all the other games From has copy pasted since Demon's Souls.
@@phant0mdummy That's cool, good for you. I enjoyed pretty much all the content. Even if it was partially copy-pasted, I still feel like they took the extra effort to make encounters distinct. I remember way more Elden Ring dungeons than I do, say, Skyrim dungeons.
@@xx_amongus_xx6987 Ah yes, I agree AmongUsXX69, From Software shouldn't have reused any assets ever and should have made every dungeon from scratch. You are correct.
one problem I have with the sneaking is that you can't sneak up on any bosses like in sekiro, in sekiro you could get one execution in from sneaking up on them but in elden ring you're prevented from doing that because of fog walls. A way they could have added this is by adding a different/hidden path to where you could drop down onto the boss to do a plunge attack or come out through a hole into the boss room to then getting a backstab or just some damage. I have a vision of this working for maliketh since he's in a large room, you would find a path of floating rocks, go up them to then lead you to walk ontop of the building where beast clergyman/maliketh is and you would then find a hole/window to walk through to then fall and plunge attack maliketh, this would be rewarding for the player for exploring and would promote plunge attacks more since there's only about 2 things you could plunge attack in the entire game
Let me gather my thoughts too... What I liked: + Graphics and art (including UI), this is probably the best part of the game, from visual point of view this is From's most bewtiful game, or even most bewtiful game ever made, shame on AAA-dealers, FromSoft outplay them even using their not the best, so to say, engine. + Most animations are ok, some of them are poor though. + Combat evolvement. Now we have everything Froms developed since 2009: base combat of DeS, dual wielding of DS2, chargable attacks of BB, weapon arts of DS3, jump attacks (they already were there but performed in a different way) and posture breaking of Sekiro. On top of that block counter attacks and now chargable spells and weapon arts. The last thing is that now R1 is not just infifinte swinging weapon left-right, but series of attacks that have a strong finisher move with longer recovery frames. Though aiming with a bow, throwing bombs and knifes are still a pain. + Ashes of War, a synthesis of blood gems from BB, infusions from DS2 and weapon arts of DS3. + Bag mechanic, though it took some time to get used to the new 2hands input. + New flask with different effects is cool. + Great Runes mechanic, a combination of living\dead form from the previous games and covenants as they vere in DS3. Now this system doesn't only manipulate the player's HP. + Mounted combat is fun, Torrent is very agile. + Armor (fashion), best in the series. + Arsenal of melee, ranged weapons and spells. + The game looks epic as never before. I would criticise the game's world but it surely looks outstanding. + In general, the gameplay formula, mostly untouched and good as always. What I disliked: - The open world as it was executed. Almost all major problems come from the decision of making an open world (that big). Sometimes I felt like Elden Ring was my second job, grind this, grind that, and gather some more rowa fruits. This is a war against copypasta. Same dungeons and enemies over and over again. Just one example here. Do you remember dragons from Dark Souls games? Each of them was an outstanding event. In Elden Ring the first dragon on the swamp near the beginning was cool, escpecially if you use Torrent. But then you meet another dragon, almost the same, and another, and another, and another, and another... is this fucking Skyrim? Leave only the first one, Lanwhatever and Placidusax and that would be good, but no. - Level design. Open areas are too big and too dull to play (there is nothing to do apart from killing things). Dungeons were too repetative, I feel like Chalice Dungeons were better as they could provide some unexpected occasions. And my most pain - legacy levels, for me they are too big and complicated, I get bored before I manage to clear them 100% (the capital city as the best example). It felt like I was supposed to clear a part of a level at one time and then finish it at another not to get boredom and pain in my thumb that is constantly holding circle to sprint. In some areas it was obvious that Torrent could be handy, but you can't summon him. And all of that get worse when you have to perform some platforming. Now we can jump and that means we can cosplay Ezio Audiotore and jump on roofs to collect some items, and then load to the latest site of grace or run circle to get back to the drop point and jump onto another stupid roof and collect other items. Also in the Leyndell sewers when all those pipes began I was about to cry. - Enemy and boss design. It will take too much to describe what is wrong with most of them, there is plenty of videos on YT describing that issue. I only liked some repeated foes (Crucible knights as an example) and from main bosses maybe Godrick, Renalla, Rykard and that is all. Renalla and Rykard, btw, are the only bosses in the game with somewhat unique mechanic (in prev games there were enough of them). Also flying enemies are cancer if you have a melee build. Summoned spirits were a part of all of this. They are a cool idea by themselves, but the fights were designed around them too much. (in general I felt like the game was built more for mage classes) - The game is so inconsistent on where it places site of grace/Marika's stake before a boss and where it doesn't. Like getting to Placidusax is just masochistic. But in case of some bosses you respawn almost right before the fog wall. Oh, yes, now it is golden fog wall. With each game the devs were shortening the distance between respawn and bosses, and here we get almost a perfect system, but sometimes it just crashes. I am almost certain that they made this on purpose, to piss players off. - Crafting. For me it was much more convenient to just go to a merchant and by my 20 bombs, knifes and 100 arrows, not to vaccuum clean fields and every corner of the game for the materials. By the way, can I craft an analog of kukri or fan daggers? No? Oh, thank you. Besides, some craft items require the player to kill innocent animals and birds. And I am not from Greenpeace, it's just complicated and boring. - Quest design is stupid as always, but now it's even worse because of the non-linearity the game has. You can't reliably finish a quest without Google. Some more polishing in NPC dialogues and a simple questbook in addition to the world map could be a great idea. - RPG system. We get back to DS1 with stamina and equip load being the same stat, same for the poise mechanic. They got rid of the good things that DS3 and, partially, DS2 established. - Balance. Before it was R1 spam, now it is jumping R2 domination. Crazy spells and weapon arts. Bleed and frost (and both at the same time). Most weapons having D D scaling, and among physical infusions the default one outclasses str/dex/quality for some reason. Also they removed Raw infusion for some reason. +25 upgrade system is too complicated. PvP is broken and the last one third of PvE too. Everyone has tons of stamina now, because the devs tried to compensate the negatives of combining endurance and vitality. Talismans like the ones that increase one things but decrease others take away too much of damage absorbtion. - Like in DS2 and 3 there is so many useless items. Things like green blossom (turtle neck meat lmao) became oboslete since BB, even in DS2 in which stamine recovery is a problem I didn't see any people using it. And all those temporal defense buffs were always a joke. - The music doesn't really hold well. Ambient music is a cool addition. But the other tracks, I only liked few. And I can't imagine how tired are the PvP players from one the same track on each invasion. I don't really know what to think about Elden Ring. I want to say that this game is excellent so much, but I can't, as the two essential things (foes and levels) leave the game deeply flawed. I am kinda disappointed and impressed at the same time. Sorry for this little review in your commentary section.
I'm happy to see that someone else appreciates the dragon design in dark souls 1. I was disappointed that elden ring doesn't have as unique design as ds1 especially since it should not be that hard to create a new dragon, for example I think his name is ezykes or something, basically the dragon with ligma from Florida could have had a completely grotesque design where it would even be hard to identify him as a dragon, his design could have been composed of the roots that were everywhere along with those bumps covered in holes, so you could be normally walking but then suddenly a giant bundle of big roots and bumps starts moving and you can make out a dragon form
Completely agree on the Torrent thing, I wish he could have been seen resting at field Sites of Grace for instance. He likely wasn't included in any boss fight for the reason that he couldn't be used during co-op and they valued that feature more. As with the summons and crafting, Fromsoft preferred to provide options over railroading a player into content.
Probably a very unpopular opinion but I really disliked crafting and the ability to pick up items while sprinting or riding Torrent just by mashing interact button, it's one of the things that made me feel less immersed in the world. That combined with lots of crafting materials found even on corpses and as exploration rewards made me care less about things I find most of the time. I think it could've been better if it had animations, but there was less materials to find and less things to craft, while making every crafted item much more useful and valuable, even Arteria Leaf they like to place as a big reward even in side paths of main dungeons doesn't feel useful enough, because the Phys. Damage buff item you get from it doesn't give a huge boost and runs out quickly. Overall, I felt like there is a lot of other player convenience and gamey elements in Elden Ring that come at a cost of immersion or impactful experiences. A few that really stood out to me on my first playthrough: - Each side dungeon ending with a teleport well, often being the only way out. - So many Grace Sights close to each other and almost evenly spaced out robbed me of a sense of a difficult journey, even when exploring main areas I never felt that sense of relief and accomplishment of finding another checkpoint or shortcut. - The balance often felt immersion-breaking, when the same basic enemies across the world have wildly different stats, and at times hit harder than the strongest characters in the lore. - Everpresent compass on the screen, even though you now have a map, which also has a compass. - The map itself is quite beautifully drawn and has a lot of detail that can tell you about secrets and special places, but they slap markers on top of it when you come near any note-worthy places, so you don't have to look for anything on the map on your own. - NPCs, who're always willing to wait for you to change your mind, if you refuse whatever they request. - The tutorials that pop-up and interrupt the experience with a wall of text, instead of letting you figure things out on your own, it happens a lot even if you skip the combat tutorial section at the start. - Might be an even more controversial point but the way content is spread out in the open-world felt less like trying to build a believable environment and more like trying to give the player things to do, almost as if the developers were afraid that without having an enemy pack, a piece of loot, dungeon or a mini-boss every 30-60 second will make the game boring. To me, it made the game tedious and half-way through I wished they kept the size of the world but took half or more of the side content out of it. Fromsoft previous games were never perfect with immersion, but I felt like they were still one of the best at making gameplay immersive on a mechanical level, while in Elden Ring it doesn't look like it was one of their goals.
The other games literally had you sit at a bonfire and teleport from level to level as a mandatory means of transportation throughout the entire game. Not ever since DS1 did we have levels that actually connected to each other. Elden Ring brought a lot of organic teleportless exploration back, so it felt a LOT more immersive to me than BB, DS2, DS3 and Sekiro.
Played Elden Ring blind and offline no messages amazing game melee build claymore buckler parrying almost 160 hours of gameplay !! Loved the exploration ! Demon’s Souls was my first one in early 2009 JP import !
I have over 300 hours in ER across 3 characters and I still find myself stopped in my tracks by the sublime vistas that appear without warning, often after emerging from a narrow furrow through a cliff-face or cresting a hill beyond some corpse-strewn battlefield.
One thing to note is that the Asylum Demon from DS3, while similar animations were not at all copied from DS1, they were entirely redone. The Erdtree Avatar's asylum demon attacks are straight from DS1, much like the Omen Killers (Capra Demon)
Great Elden Ring video 👍. I felt the same way as you and so many others when I was playing it for the first time, like a little kid again. It is such a great game that I enjoy listening others talk about it lol. I can only imagine what it takes to make a gaming video, nice work. Take care friend
I would definitely recommend going in as blind as possible, if only to explore some of the beautiful environmental designs firsthand for your initial experience. I was on the fence on including some of the things that I did in this video as a result, just because of the mindblowing (for me anyway) nature of one of them in particular.
@@HydefHyde I've already been spoiled quite a bit just by the nature of the internet and the unexpected amount of memes (there are way, way more than anticipated) that people have made with the game, but I'm still confident I have a lot more to see. And honestly, the beautiful vistas and the bosses are the only things that I care about avoiding spoilers on. I hope the game lived up to your expectations though, I remember you saying somewhere that it might just be your new favorite game, if it surpasses Demon's Souls it will be an experience for the ages.
@@JuliusCaesar103 It definitely lived up to my expectations. It's one of my new favorites. After finishing it, I wouldn't say it's my favorite game of all time but it's certainly up there. As to whether I prefer it to Demon's Souls, that's really hard to say as DeS is such a cohesive smaller and quiet experience whereas ER is this huge sprawling epic in comparison. They go for different feelings. I'd probably hand it to DeS personally, just because it was the original game that established this formula and I slightly prefer its atmosphere. But ER is definitely more fun and far more diverse mechanically by a significant margin... It's hard to say. Ask me again in 5 years, haha
@@HydefHyde I honestly don't think another game will ever replace Demon's Souls for me, its atmosphere, NPCs and their quests, the world still reign supreme, I kinda wish the remake improved on the gameplay aspect, i.e. brought the gameplay up to date with other FromSoft titles, other than that I think it is absolutely pointless. Ok why am I talking about the remake again...I'm glad Elden Ring delivered though, I can't wait to get my hands on it. The last games of FromSoft have been focused on the bosses and with Elden Ring focused on the world again, I'm glad to see FromSoft focused on creating the best possible worlds again. I thought Bloodborne's idea for the world was incredible but the execution left a lot to be desired, most environments were drab and forgettable whereas they could have been so much more. Ok sorry rambling again but what do you think?
@@JuliusCaesar103 I personally think Bloodborne's environments for the most part are really well executed given it's atmosphere and tone. There's probably the least amount of overall visual variety out of their recent titles but I think Yharnam is really well realized. The nightmare of the early industrial age / Dickens thing really appeals to me, plus the more fantastical stuff later like the Nightmare of Mensis and basically all of dreamlike / nightmarish aspects of the DLC. Would love to see it on PC at higher resolutions and framerates, of course...
Hit the nail on the head with the Zelda reference at the end, but for me so many parts of this game seem to hark from the promo material and artwork for the very first Zelda on the NES. That grim fantasy aesthetic and lonely feel that that artwork portrayed was something that went away in later games but always engrossed me. You can also kind of find art by Katsuya Terada of Zelda 2, LTTP, and Links Awakening that kinda evoked that atmosphere but that feel was never present in the subsequent games. I do get a lot of that from ER though and it's a feeling I haven't had in a very long time. Great video, appreciated going over some things that aren't mentioned in the many other overviews. Subbed.
Unpopular opinion but I can't believe how dripless ER is coming from DS3, BB and Sekiro. Like all those goofy Raya Lucarian mages look like nerds, the Bullgoat armor is absolutely hideous, and the overly regal high fantasy look is something I'm generally not big on. I love the grit and uniqueness of the Dark Souls armor sets.
FromSoft is working on a Warhammer 40k ARPG(currently 3 character types) that has me super excited. I'm a huge fan of their work and the Warhammer IP so I guess we will have to see if it's any good or not.
wow glad i stumbled across this, best analysis of elden ring i've seen so far. personally.. i didn't like it nearly as much as several of the other fromsoft games. partly i think due to souls fatigue. even the tropes of exploration and stumbling across new areas feel a bit like fanservice by now, and you hit the nail on the head with the 'tongue but hole' messages. the magic of the multiplayer has been lost since the emergent insanity of DS1 multiplayer as janky and imbalanced as it was, they really had something incredible there but it's not the same any more. there was some very cool fun stuff in elden ring though, i would have been happy with a whole game set in some of the legacy dungeons, stormveil and the capital in particular are some of the best maps they have ever made.
Hmm, off the top of my head it would be: 2001 A Space Odyssey (along with most of Kubrick's other work too), The Night of the Hunter, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Evil Dead 2, Robocop, Mulholland Dr... Hard to say - I love a lot of films and lots of kinds of films! How about you?
"Writing on Games" has a good video on how ER is so different from ER. Worth watching. It feels very similar until you play DS again. It's a nice evolution and a different focus. Try saying "Zdislav" no z. Quest design and boss fights are prob the weakest part of the game. A lot of your negative arguments - which aren't bad, are somewhat low hanging fruit. Like the idea of areas looking similar to other areas from other games - so (as an artist of 25 years) I find like saying: 1. Making new stuff - esp when it comes to close spaces like churches or villages etc is not always as easy as to keep fresh as you may think. What makes them being what they are can often make them feel similar. It's a design challenge, that all designers face. 2. Using ideas and utilising resources. This may not look like it, but From is not a big team. Not in the scope of Activision or Sony teams. In many ways it's a very large indie dev - in approach to ho they make games (for better or worse like we know from questionable UI in ER - aka do you want to spawn torrent popups), so they build all their titles on reusing a lot of assets and ideas to grow other ideas. So - here we have devs reusing ideas for a certain layout, but the game is 5 x bigger in scope, so once you consider that - you can see what makes an open world game while reinventing every part of your level design (aka your mentioned level similarities) would be a task that wouldn't work well with the resources in this "rather small" AAA-indie team. Something to think about coming from someone who plays and makes art for games for a while. Best,Adam
Hi Adam, thanks for your comment. In regards to the similar areas or experiences: I wanted to keep the specifics as vague as possible for the video, but I was talking about the very similar things like (spoilers ahead) finding the real world version of Roundtable Hold in the Capital. The same scenario, finding this spooky empty version of the home base you've spent hours in by that point, happens in both Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3, and to see that concept repeated again was a bit of a deflating moment. Again when it gets set on fire in the endgame, just like Bloodborne. I have no problem with FromSoft reusing animations or more generalized graphical assets or structures. Stormveil Castle for example - obviously they have done many similar looking castles by this point, but the more open ended structure and exploration enabled by the new jumping mechanic made it feel fresh. It's just very specific conceptual things are starting to get a bit repetitive. But as I said in the video, I still loved the game. Thanks again for your comment!
Love this game but dang do the bosses have some broken mechanics and WAY too fast and aggressive for what the player has to deal with it. Past games nailed the back and forth balance of boss battles for the most part. This game is just built on annoying bs throughout
I disagree that torrent would be good for the elden beast fight. Its not even a hard fight and torrent would trivialise it even more in places and make it Impossible to avoid damage in others. 1. Torrent can't jump twice very quickly and doesn't get as many I frames. So elden beast blade beam attack will hit on the second wave which is immediate after the first. Also torrent would be too big to jump between the triple ring elden ring attack you would take damage. While you get I frames while getting on and off your horse this is for wimps.
It's an apples and oranges thing. I would rank DS2 at the bottom of From's recent(ish) games but I still enjoyed it. It's existence doesn't take anything away from the other games and it has its own identity, for better or worse. In contrast, the Demon's Souls remake is presented as an iterative, definitive version that has basically replaced the original game in terms of mainstream representation despite the major changes to the presentation. I find that frustrating because of what I think is a loss of some really quality art (as I'm sure you're aware, haha). It'd be one thing if it was called Demon's Souls 2020 or something to differenate it, but all things considered, it has been positioned to effectively replace the original game which I think is a problem.
@@Erick-tv8oq Not at all. You keep on saying that to others but have you noticed how many people have said they had a problem with the repetitiveness? If they have a problem with it, you just can't say they don't and ignore their criticism because it hurts your perfect view of Elden Ring. I too had a big problem with the repetitiveness because exploration became pointless and I was aware of all the copy/paste only 30 hours in. Keep in mind they stretch out the bs to over 100 hours. Here's a little challenge for you, besides the legacy dungeons (which take up only a fraction of the game), what isn't copy/pasted? You have to prove your arguments, not just run around a comment section and say "I disagree" without further elaboration.
@@xx_amongus_xx6987 I'm not saying the repetitiveness isn't there, I'm saying this person in particular is massively overblowing it. I too have criticisms towards Elden Ring's repetitiveness, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize its qualities. The problem I see with people talking about how overused some bossfights are and yada yada is that they never contextualize their complaints amongst the qualities of the game. I never see them talking about good movesets or designs, never see them mentioning soundtracks they liked or anything else. It's almost like they played a slideshow that showed the same image one times too many and now they're here complaining endlessly, when in fact Elden Ring is a nuanced experience. There are good things, there are bad things, but there's no place for "Um acxtually Elden Ring is a 6/10 because I willingly fought this boss too many times". I'm gonna say again, I do think the game would benefit significantly from having two or three more boss types and enemy types (would make Mountaintops way better), but what about everything the game did right? That's why I always argue against people who hold these simplistic, outrageous views. Sometimes their own perception of the game is deepened, sometimes it becomes clear they just want to complain, sometimes the grievances they have with the game are well founded and we leave the discussion shaking hands.
@@xx_amongus_xx6987 Also, I'm not gonna bother with your copypaste challenge. First reason is because I'm too lazy to search up enemy's names, second reason is because I don't actually mind repetition as long as it isn't overdone. Elden Ring is an open world game, and by design those are repetitive to some extent. Play Skyrim, RDR2, Breath of The Wild, Oblivion or Dragon's Dogma, and you'll find that by hour 30 you've seen most of what they have to offer you, yet they go on for an indefinite ammount of time. Why? Because repetition doesn't matter as long as it is fun. Every time I stumbled upon a Crucible Knight, I rejoiced because I got to dance to that awesome moveset again. Same thing for the Godskins, the Blacknife assassins, the duelists, the perfumers, and some others I can't remember from the top of my head. The game is fun sometimes despite its repetitiveness, and sometimes BECAUSE of its repetitiveness. I would hate to have to start an entirely new game to fight the enemies I described previously a second time. Also, as you have implied yourself, 99% of the "copypaste" content is placed in the open world sections. That is something I agree with, but there's one thing you've forgotten: the open world gives you the freedom to simply not fight. This freedom is actually a big part of the point of an overworld, being able to engage with content however and whenever you want. When I'm running a build with slower weapons and I'm at the stage where I don't have much damage yet, I really don't like fighting Revenants, so I simply don't. At the same time however, I really like fighting Burial Tree Watchdogs using the very same build, so I go out of my way to hunt them. If I HAVE to find something to get a talisman for my build or whatever and I don't like the fight, I use other methods to make it fun, like testing out spirit ashes or obscure ashes of war, or summoning a naked version of myself and letting it duke it out with the boss. That's why I say the repetitiveness argument is overblown, because there's just so much fun to be had in the game, so many ways to engage with its world, that highlighting a flaw that stands so small against its qualities doesn't make any sense.
@@Erick-tv8oq No one ignored the good things that Elden Ring did? The original poster gave his review of the game, and then I came here to give in my criticism too. I understood what you said, and my previous point still stands. If someone had a massive problem with the repetition, you can't just force them to not have that experience or say they are massively overblowing it because you didn't have the same problem. I never said the game was completely bad, but the reputation was a huge stain on the game that brought down everything that was good about it. It doesn't matter how great the rest of the game was, the repetition was horrible and made me want to stop playing the game. And that is only one problem out of dozens of problems that have led me personally to rate the game a 7.5/10. You're also gaslighting by saying that we "willingly fought this boss too many times". One time a copy/pasted boss is actually required in order to beat the game, and like half the game is filled with copy/pasted material, not just bosses. So yeah, all the bad content is optional, but then why am I even buying the game if half of it is bad content? This is my opinion and experience based off of the facts that I have observed, it's not oVeRbLoWn. You can't just call everything you disagree with overblown lol. You don't have to agree with my conclusions, but you can't pretend that my conclusions and others who greatly agree with me are suddenly discredited and are lying about what they experienced.
am I the only one who thinks Elden ring is just a dark future version of the knights of the round table Guinevere being Fei and the lady in the lake being melina the safe place keep area is a round table with swords in it with a friar/priest there melina finds you and sends you on a quest and all the heros you fight are the former knights of the round heck, the first major boss in the game Margit looks like merlin, uses a staff and casts magic attacks. Melenia is Morgan, King Arthur being Godfrey, Blaidd is Melion( knight who transforms into a werewolf for the love of his wife who betrays him)
I agree with your artistic assessment, but I disagree with Norse inspiration. A Gaelic person myself, I am fond of the Celtic and Gaelic aesthetic; the imagery and iconography are very Irish specifically; A lot of people seem to have mistaken some of it for being Norse inspiration, and while that is partially true I would disagree with those who have said it is its most prominent influence, I would say it's most prominent influences are the Gaelic cultures: Ireland especially, but Scotland and wales too. It is near omnipresent in Elden Ring. Artwork looks to be inspired by Irish novelist T.W. the Celts/Gaels themselves in terms of Aesthetics/Clothes and jewelery/Lore/Storytelling, etc. The English Adventure Book Novelist Steve Jackson looks like he inspired it too; it would be unsurprising as he's been sighted as an inspiration for their prior games.
And in terms of historical/mythological stuff, I'll give some examples
A maiden giving you a spirit horse.
Balor is the Fire Giant, a giant race The Fomarians were entirely killed by the goddess, except the godly being Balor with a single closed eye guarded by six seals; if opened, a torrent of fire sweeps across the land and it is engulfed in a similar way to calid.
Godfreys death in the Badlands I'd similar to cu chulainn's death; He leads a Heroic march against his foes, using his power he enters a warpspasm; an ability were his muscles flex and his body contorts until his skin let's off steam. He is felled in battle, in his last moment he ties himself to a great oak and stands to face the oncoming enemies; they run through him with weapons. You can see this in the intro showing where the main characters are. The art looks to be inspired by "The Death of Cu Chulainn"
Evergoal is Irish, possibly French for forever jail; or eternal prison
Siofra is Irish for Fairy and has a specific connotation to a type of fairy called a Changeling; which is a type of fairy with the power to transforn mimicking creatures; very similarly to the Nox silver tear. The second Bossfight is the regal ancestral spirt; which is literally the extinct Great Irish Elk; even the music is celtic sounding during this encounter.
The Erdtree is probably inspired by Biathada/Bía: Feeding Tree. It is often depicted to be Golden, and is Holy. Whenever the Celts built a settlement they'd plant a Great Duar Oak (Like a lesser version of the tree) at the centre, this was a show of respect and thanks; not unlike the Lesser Erd Trees and Royal City Lendyll being built around the Erdtrees base.
The Tarnished are Meleshians were the ancient ancestors of the Irish; they were guided to the promised land lured by the call of the gods, upon their arrival they are told that this is their place of origin abd that they are the decends of The gods, and so Demi-gods in nature. Long story short they eventually kill the Tuetha De Danann and claim free will.
White Witch Ranni is similar to the Welsh goddess The White Moon Witch Riannon
I could go on further listing way more examples, but that is far enough. There are obviously other influences; Anglo/English/Norse/Welsh, but I think this one is most prominent.
loved the art analysis. also, compared to some of the hour long videos out there I think you were able to say just as much in shorter time. Very concise
Great video man. I beat it a couple of weeks ago, it's a 10/10 game for me. So relaxing to explore every inch of the map
Thank you very much. I'm wrapping up playthrough #4 at the moment!
I think the Catacombs could've done with a more varied tileset in general. That's my only complaint.
It feels like From Software was very focussed on polish with these dungeons, where I feel like some suitable departure from consistency with these locations would've added a notable amount of spice to exploring them. More creative use of tileset assets may seem like a small thing, but it pays off for dungeons like the Highroad Cave (which featured a unique implementation of the exterior ruins often found against cliff walls) or the way that the caves in the Altus Plateau begin to feature large roots from the Erdtree. It's done partially, to be fair - with a lot of the local catacombs near Leyndell being larger Hero's Graves, but they still often shared much the same assets as each-other. Hell, just apply a stone texture or something to the respective Heros of those dungeons and slap it in the level as a statue, and you've already got a unique landmark.
There's a lot more to complain about than that. It's a good game, but I don't believe it's objectively better than Bloodborne, Dark Souls 1, or even Demon's Souls.
It's a lot of the same flavors, spread too thin across a pizza crust that's too large to appreciate. I had incredible highs, and horrible lows. Not because it's hard, but because it's full of copy pasting. The most tries I needed on a boss so far was 8, and it wasn't very fun. A lot of the game is just ... I don't see myself replaying this game as much as I have all the other games From has copy pasted since Demon's Souls.
@@phant0mdummy That's cool, good for you.
I enjoyed pretty much all the content. Even if it was partially copy-pasted, I still feel like they took the extra effort to make encounters distinct. I remember way more Elden Ring dungeons than I do, say, Skyrim dungeons.
@@TheMightyNovac That's cope, they shouldn't have copy/pasted their dungeons at all
@@xx_amongus_xx6987 Ah yes, I agree AmongUsXX69, From Software shouldn't have reused any assets ever and should have made every dungeon from scratch. You are correct.
@@TheMightyNovac Yeah, you're entirely right. That's what they did for every game that came before.
Quality > Quantity
one problem I have with the sneaking is that you can't sneak up on any bosses like in sekiro, in sekiro you could get one execution in from sneaking up on them but in elden ring you're prevented from doing that because of fog walls. A way they could have added this is by adding a different/hidden path to where you could drop down onto the boss to do a plunge attack or come out through a hole into the boss room to then getting a backstab or just some damage. I have a vision of this working for maliketh since he's in a large room, you would find a path of floating rocks, go up them to then lead you to walk ontop of the building where beast clergyman/maliketh is and you would then find a hole/window to walk through to then fall and plunge attack maliketh, this would be rewarding for the player for exploring and would promote plunge attacks more since there's only about 2 things you could plunge attack in the entire game
Let me gather my thoughts too...
What I liked:
+ Graphics and art (including UI), this is probably the best part of the game, from visual point of view this is From's most bewtiful game, or even most bewtiful game ever made, shame on AAA-dealers, FromSoft outplay them even using their not the best, so to say, engine.
+ Most animations are ok, some of them are poor though.
+ Combat evolvement. Now we have everything Froms developed since 2009: base combat of DeS, dual wielding of DS2, chargable attacks of BB, weapon arts of DS3, jump attacks (they already were there but performed in a different way) and posture breaking of Sekiro. On top of that block counter attacks and now chargable spells and weapon arts. The last thing is that now R1 is not just infifinte swinging weapon left-right, but series of attacks that have a strong finisher move with longer recovery frames. Though aiming with a bow, throwing bombs and knifes are still a pain.
+ Ashes of War, a synthesis of blood gems from BB, infusions from DS2 and weapon arts of DS3.
+ Bag mechanic, though it took some time to get used to the new 2hands input.
+ New flask with different effects is cool.
+ Great Runes mechanic, a combination of living\dead form from the previous games and covenants as they vere in DS3. Now this system doesn't only manipulate the player's HP.
+ Mounted combat is fun, Torrent is very agile.
+ Armor (fashion), best in the series.
+ Arsenal of melee, ranged weapons and spells.
+ The game looks epic as never before. I would criticise the game's world but it surely looks outstanding.
+ In general, the gameplay formula, mostly untouched and good as always.
What I disliked:
- The open world as it was executed. Almost all major problems come from the decision of making an open world (that big). Sometimes I felt like Elden Ring was my second job, grind this, grind that, and gather some more rowa fruits. This is a war against copypasta. Same dungeons and enemies over and over again. Just one example here. Do you remember dragons from Dark Souls games? Each of them was an outstanding event. In Elden Ring the first dragon on the swamp near the beginning was cool, escpecially if you use Torrent. But then you meet another dragon, almost the same, and another, and another, and another, and another... is this fucking Skyrim? Leave only the first one, Lanwhatever and Placidusax and that would be good, but no.
- Level design. Open areas are too big and too dull to play (there is nothing to do apart from killing things). Dungeons were too repetative, I feel like Chalice Dungeons were better as they could provide some unexpected occasions. And my most pain - legacy levels, for me they are too big and complicated, I get bored before I manage to clear them 100% (the capital city as the best example). It felt like I was supposed to clear a part of a level at one time and then finish it at another not to get boredom and pain in my thumb that is constantly holding circle to sprint. In some areas it was obvious that Torrent could be handy, but you can't summon him. And all of that get worse when you have to perform some platforming. Now we can jump and that means we can cosplay Ezio Audiotore and jump on roofs to collect some items, and then load to the latest site of grace or run circle to get back to the drop point and jump onto another stupid roof and collect other items. Also in the Leyndell sewers when all those pipes began I was about to cry.
- Enemy and boss design. It will take too much to describe what is wrong with most of them, there is plenty of videos on YT describing that issue. I only liked some repeated foes (Crucible knights as an example) and from main bosses maybe Godrick, Renalla, Rykard and that is all. Renalla and Rykard, btw, are the only bosses in the game with somewhat unique mechanic (in prev games there were enough of them). Also flying enemies are cancer if you have a melee build. Summoned spirits were a part of all of this. They are a cool idea by themselves, but the fights were designed around them too much. (in general I felt like the game was built more for mage classes)
- The game is so inconsistent on where it places site of grace/Marika's stake before a boss and where it doesn't. Like getting to Placidusax is just masochistic. But in case of some bosses you respawn almost right before the fog wall. Oh, yes, now it is golden fog wall. With each game the devs were shortening the distance between respawn and bosses, and here we get almost a perfect system, but sometimes it just crashes. I am almost certain that they made this on purpose, to piss players off.
- Crafting. For me it was much more convenient to just go to a merchant and by my 20 bombs, knifes and 100 arrows, not to vaccuum clean fields and every corner of the game for the materials. By the way, can I craft an analog of kukri or fan daggers? No? Oh, thank you. Besides, some craft items require the player to kill innocent animals and birds. And I am not from Greenpeace, it's just complicated and boring.
- Quest design is stupid as always, but now it's even worse because of the non-linearity the game has. You can't reliably finish a quest without Google. Some more polishing in NPC dialogues and a simple questbook in addition to the world map could be a great idea.
- RPG system. We get back to DS1 with stamina and equip load being the same stat, same for the poise mechanic. They got rid of the good things that DS3 and, partially, DS2 established.
- Balance. Before it was R1 spam, now it is jumping R2 domination. Crazy spells and weapon arts. Bleed and frost (and both at the same time). Most weapons having D D scaling, and among physical infusions the default one outclasses str/dex/quality for some reason. Also they removed Raw infusion for some reason. +25 upgrade system is too complicated. PvP is broken and the last one third of PvE too. Everyone has tons of stamina now, because the devs tried to compensate the negatives of combining endurance and vitality. Talismans like the ones that increase one things but decrease others take away too much of damage absorbtion.
- Like in DS2 and 3 there is so many useless items. Things like green blossom (turtle neck meat lmao) became oboslete since BB, even in DS2 in which stamine recovery is a problem I didn't see any people using it. And all those temporal defense buffs were always a joke.
- The music doesn't really hold well. Ambient music is a cool addition. But the other tracks, I only liked few. And I can't imagine how tired are the PvP players from one the same track on each invasion.
I don't really know what to think about Elden Ring. I want to say that this game is excellent so much, but I can't, as the two essential things (foes and levels) leave the game deeply flawed. I am kinda disappointed and impressed at the same time. Sorry for this little review in your commentary section.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, kudos for typing all that out. Never a bad thing to have more opinions visible!
I'm happy to see that someone else appreciates the dragon design in dark souls 1. I was disappointed that elden ring doesn't have as unique design as ds1 especially since it should not be that hard to create a new dragon, for example I think his name is ezykes or something, basically the dragon with ligma from Florida could have had a completely grotesque design where it would even be hard to identify him as a dragon, his design could have been composed of the roots that were everywhere along with those bumps covered in holes, so you could be normally walking but then suddenly a giant bundle of big roots and bumps starts moving and you can make out a dragon form
so are you happy you can use Torrent in the boss fight now? :D I know I am
Completely agree on the Torrent thing, I wish he could have been seen resting at field Sites of Grace for instance. He likely wasn't included in any boss fight for the reason that he couldn't be used during co-op and they valued that feature more. As with the summons and crafting, Fromsoft preferred to provide options over railroading a player into content.
I like the idea of him resting beside the Tarnished at the sites of grace
Probably a very unpopular opinion but I really disliked crafting and the ability to pick up items while sprinting or riding Torrent just by mashing interact button, it's one of the things that made me feel less immersed in the world.
That combined with lots of crafting materials found even on corpses and as exploration rewards made me care less about things I find most of the time.
I think it could've been better if it had animations, but there was less materials to find and less things to craft, while making every crafted item much more useful and valuable, even Arteria Leaf they like to place as a big reward even in side paths of main dungeons doesn't feel useful enough, because the Phys. Damage buff item you get from it doesn't give a huge boost and runs out quickly.
Overall, I felt like there is a lot of other player convenience and gamey elements in Elden Ring that come at a cost of immersion or impactful experiences.
A few that really stood out to me on my first playthrough:
- Each side dungeon ending with a teleport well, often being the only way out.
- So many Grace Sights close to each other and almost evenly spaced out robbed me of a sense of a difficult journey, even when exploring main areas I never felt that sense of relief and accomplishment of finding another checkpoint or shortcut.
- The balance often felt immersion-breaking, when the same basic enemies across the world have wildly different stats, and at times hit harder than the strongest characters in the lore.
- Everpresent compass on the screen, even though you now have a map, which also has a compass.
- The map itself is quite beautifully drawn and has a lot of detail that can tell you about secrets and special places, but they slap markers on top of it when you come near any note-worthy places, so you don't have to look for anything on the map on your own.
- NPCs, who're always willing to wait for you to change your mind, if you refuse whatever they request.
- The tutorials that pop-up and interrupt the experience with a wall of text, instead of letting you figure things out on your own, it happens a lot even if you skip the combat tutorial section at the start.
- Might be an even more controversial point but the way content is spread out in the open-world felt less like trying to build a believable environment and more like trying to give the player things to do, almost as if the developers were afraid that without having an enemy pack, a piece of loot, dungeon or a mini-boss every 30-60 second will make the game boring. To me, it made the game tedious and half-way through I wished they kept the size of the world but took half or more of the side content out of it.
Fromsoft previous games were never perfect with immersion, but I felt like they were still one of the best at making gameplay immersive on a mechanical level, while in Elden Ring it doesn't look like it was one of their goals.
The tutorials felt annoying for me, too. Luckily, you can deactivate them in the options.
The other games literally had you sit at a bonfire and teleport from level to level as a mandatory means of transportation throughout the entire game. Not ever since DS1 did we have levels that actually connected to each other. Elden Ring brought a lot of organic teleportless exploration back, so it felt a LOT more immersive to me than BB, DS2, DS3 and Sekiro.
Love your videos man. keep it up!
Played Elden Ring blind and offline no messages amazing game melee build claymore buckler parrying almost 160 hours of gameplay !! Loved the exploration ! Demon’s Souls was my first one in early 2009 JP import !
I have over 300 hours in ER across 3 characters and I still find myself stopped in my tracks by the sublime vistas that appear without warning, often after emerging from a narrow furrow through a cliff-face or cresting a hill beyond some corpse-strewn battlefield.
Excellent video man. Almost makes me want to make my own videos like this, which I hope comes across as a huge compliment :)
You should!
Definitely would love to see more on the connections to Tolkien. Great job on this.
One thing to note is that the Asylum Demon from DS3, while similar animations were not at all copied from DS1, they were entirely redone. The Erdtree Avatar's asylum demon attacks are straight from DS1, much like the Omen Killers (Capra Demon)
Great Elden Ring video 👍. I felt the same way as you and so many others when I was playing it for the first time, like a little kid again. It is such a great game that I enjoy listening others talk about it lol. I can only imagine what it takes to make a gaming video, nice work. Take care friend
Amazing as always. Do you plan on streaming more Armored Core?
Definitely eventually, I want to finish AC1 (on my own) first though, then I'll stream some AC2!
Cannot wait to watch this after getting the game!
I would definitely recommend going in as blind as possible, if only to explore some of the beautiful environmental designs firsthand for your initial experience. I was on the fence on including some of the things that I did in this video as a result, just because of the mindblowing (for me anyway) nature of one of them in particular.
@@HydefHyde I've already been spoiled quite a bit just by the nature of the internet and the unexpected amount of memes (there are way, way more than anticipated) that people have made with the game, but I'm still confident I have a lot more to see. And honestly, the beautiful vistas and the bosses are the only things that I care about avoiding spoilers on. I hope the game lived up to your expectations though, I remember you saying somewhere that it might just be your new favorite game, if it surpasses Demon's Souls it will be an experience for the ages.
@@JuliusCaesar103 It definitely lived up to my expectations. It's one of my new favorites. After finishing it, I wouldn't say it's my favorite game of all time but it's certainly up there. As to whether I prefer it to Demon's Souls, that's really hard to say as DeS is such a cohesive smaller and quiet experience whereas ER is this huge sprawling epic in comparison. They go for different feelings. I'd probably hand it to DeS personally, just because it was the original game that established this formula and I slightly prefer its atmosphere. But ER is definitely more fun and far more diverse mechanically by a significant margin... It's hard to say. Ask me again in 5 years, haha
@@HydefHyde I honestly don't think another game will ever replace Demon's Souls for me, its atmosphere, NPCs and their quests, the world still reign supreme, I kinda wish the remake improved on the gameplay aspect, i.e. brought the gameplay up to date with other FromSoft titles, other than that I think it is absolutely pointless. Ok why am I talking about the remake again...I'm glad Elden Ring delivered though, I can't wait to get my hands on it. The last games of FromSoft have been focused on the bosses and with Elden Ring focused on the world again, I'm glad to see FromSoft focused on creating the best possible worlds again. I thought Bloodborne's idea for the world was incredible but the execution left a lot to be desired, most environments were drab and forgettable whereas they could have been so much more. Ok sorry rambling again but what do you think?
@@JuliusCaesar103 I personally think Bloodborne's environments for the most part are really well executed given it's atmosphere and tone. There's probably the least amount of overall visual variety out of their recent titles but I think Yharnam is really well realized. The nightmare of the early industrial age / Dickens thing really appeals to me, plus the more fantastical stuff later like the Nightmare of Mensis and basically all of dreamlike / nightmarish aspects of the DLC. Would love to see it on PC at higher resolutions and framerates, of course...
Hit the nail on the head with the Zelda reference at the end, but for me so many parts of this game seem to hark from the promo material and artwork for the very first Zelda on the NES. That grim fantasy aesthetic and lonely feel that that artwork portrayed was something that went away in later games but always engrossed me. You can also kind of find art by Katsuya Terada of Zelda 2, LTTP, and Links Awakening that kinda evoked that atmosphere but that feel was never present in the subsequent games. I do get a lot of that from ER though and it's a feeling I haven't had in a very long time. Great video, appreciated going over some things that aren't mentioned in the many other overviews. Subbed.
I agree completely. I'm a fan of Katsuya Terada as well, he really captured something special in his Zelda art. Thanks for your comment :)
Well I can agree with everything, yet as for ambient - I like them all. I like minimalistic ambient as in Breath of the Wild ☺️
Great video very much enjoyed
Unpopular opinion but I can't believe how dripless ER is coming from DS3, BB and Sekiro.
Like all those goofy Raya Lucarian mages look like nerds, the Bullgoat armor is absolutely hideous, and the overly regal high fantasy look is something I'm generally not big on. I love the grit and uniqueness of the Dark Souls armor sets.
Agreed. I do think there are some cool pieces but overall a step back from those other games, like you said
FromSoft is working on a Warhammer 40k ARPG(currently 3 character types) that has me super excited. I'm a huge fan of their work and the Warhammer IP so I guess we will have to see if it's any good or not.
What? Never heard of that. Do you have a source?
wow glad i stumbled across this, best analysis of elden ring i've seen so far. personally.. i didn't like it nearly as much as several of the other fromsoft games. partly i think due to souls fatigue. even the tropes of exploration and stumbling across new areas feel a bit like fanservice by now, and you hit the nail on the head with the 'tongue but hole' messages. the magic of the multiplayer has been lost since the emergent insanity of DS1 multiplayer as janky and imbalanced as it was, they really had something incredible there but it's not the same any more. there was some very cool fun stuff in elden ring though, i would have been happy with a whole game set in some of the legacy dungeons, stormveil and the capital in particular are some of the best maps they have ever made.
loved your review dude well done also ... fingers required ahead
for all the praise fromsoft get for their game play and story telling, the art direction often gets overlooked
Great Video 👍
nicely done
What are your favourite movies?
Hmm, off the top of my head it would be: 2001 A Space Odyssey (along with most of Kubrick's other work too), The Night of the Hunter, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Evil Dead 2, Robocop, Mulholland Dr... Hard to say - I love a lot of films and lots of kinds of films! How about you?
@@HydefHyde American Beauty,
The Matrix 1,
Perfume: story of murderer,
Requiem for a dream,
Parasite.
Oh wow you should continue making videos
Thanks, I will!
"Writing on Games" has a good video on how ER is so different from ER. Worth watching. It feels very similar until you play DS again. It's a nice evolution and a different focus.
Try saying "Zdislav" no z.
Quest design and boss fights are prob the weakest part of the game. A lot of your negative arguments - which aren't bad, are somewhat low hanging fruit. Like the idea of areas looking similar to other areas from other games - so (as an artist of 25 years) I find like saying: 1. Making new stuff - esp when it comes to close spaces like churches or villages etc is not always as easy as to keep fresh as you may think. What makes them being what they are can often make them feel similar. It's a design challenge, that all designers face. 2. Using ideas and utilising resources. This may not look like it, but From is not a big team. Not in the scope of Activision or Sony teams. In many ways it's a very large indie dev - in approach to ho they make games (for better or worse like we know from questionable UI in ER - aka do you want to spawn torrent popups), so they build all their titles on reusing a lot of assets and ideas to grow other ideas. So - here we have devs reusing ideas for a certain layout, but the game is 5 x bigger in scope, so once you consider that - you can see what makes an open world game while reinventing every part of your level design (aka your mentioned level similarities) would be a task that wouldn't work well with the resources in this "rather small" AAA-indie team. Something to think about coming from someone who plays and makes art for games for a while. Best,Adam
Hi Adam, thanks for your comment. In regards to the similar areas or experiences: I wanted to keep the specifics as vague as possible for the video, but I was talking about the very similar things like (spoilers ahead) finding the real world version of Roundtable Hold in the Capital. The same scenario, finding this spooky empty version of the home base you've spent hours in by that point, happens in both Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3, and to see that concept repeated again was a bit of a deflating moment. Again when it gets set on fire in the endgame, just like Bloodborne. I have no problem with FromSoft reusing animations or more generalized graphical assets or structures. Stormveil Castle for example - obviously they have done many similar looking castles by this point, but the more open ended structure and exploration enabled by the new jumping mechanic made it feel fresh. It's just very specific conceptual things are starting to get a bit repetitive. But as I said in the video, I still loved the game. Thanks again for your comment!
Love this game but dang do the bosses have some broken mechanics and WAY too fast and aggressive for what the player has to deal with it. Past games nailed the back and forth balance of boss battles for the most part. This game is just built on annoying bs throughout
I disagree that torrent would be good for the elden beast fight.
Its not even a hard fight and torrent would trivialise it even more in places and make it Impossible to avoid damage in others.
1. Torrent can't jump twice very quickly and doesn't get as many I frames. So elden beast blade beam attack will hit on the second wave which is immediate after the first.
Also torrent would be too big to jump between the triple ring elden ring attack you would take damage.
While you get I frames while getting on and off your horse this is for wimps.
I find it kinda hilarious that bloodborne has more npcs to interact with and questlines than this big ass game and it makes absolutely no sense
i dont understand how someone can enjoy dark souls 2 while hating on the demaster of demons souls
It's an apples and oranges thing. I would rank DS2 at the bottom of From's recent(ish) games but I still enjoyed it. It's existence doesn't take anything away from the other games and it has its own identity, for better or worse. In contrast, the Demon's Souls remake is presented as an iterative, definitive version that has basically replaced the original game in terms of mainstream representation despite the major changes to the presentation. I find that frustrating because of what I think is a loss of some really quality art (as I'm sure you're aware, haha). It'd be one thing if it was called Demon's Souls 2020 or something to differenate it, but all things considered, it has been positioned to effectively replace the original game which I think is a problem.
@@HydefHyde agree on the demons souls part, not so much on ds2, its by product of miyazakis abscense while doing bloodborne
Elden ring is repetitive. Falls apart halfway. 6/10. Watch Synthetic Man review
Completely disagree. Massively overblowing the repetitiveness argument.
@@Erick-tv8oq Not at all. You keep on saying that to others but have you noticed how many people have said they had a problem with the repetitiveness? If they have a problem with it, you just can't say they don't and ignore their criticism because it hurts your perfect view of Elden Ring. I too had a big problem with the repetitiveness because exploration became pointless and I was aware of all the copy/paste only 30 hours in. Keep in mind they stretch out the bs to over 100 hours.
Here's a little challenge for you, besides the legacy dungeons (which take up only a fraction of the game), what isn't copy/pasted? You have to prove your arguments, not just run around a comment section and say "I disagree" without further elaboration.
@@xx_amongus_xx6987 I'm not saying the repetitiveness isn't there, I'm saying this person in particular is massively overblowing it. I too have criticisms towards Elden Ring's repetitiveness, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize its qualities. The problem I see with people talking about how overused some bossfights are and yada yada is that they never contextualize their complaints amongst the qualities of the game. I never see them talking about good movesets or designs, never see them mentioning soundtracks they liked or anything else. It's almost like they played a slideshow that showed the same image one times too many and now they're here complaining endlessly, when in fact Elden Ring is a nuanced experience. There are good things, there are bad things, but there's no place for "Um acxtually Elden Ring is a 6/10 because I willingly fought this boss too many times". I'm gonna say again, I do think the game would benefit significantly from having two or three more boss types and enemy types (would make Mountaintops way better), but what about everything the game did right? That's why I always argue against people who hold these simplistic, outrageous views. Sometimes their own perception of the game is deepened, sometimes it becomes clear they just want to complain, sometimes the grievances they have with the game are well founded and we leave the discussion shaking hands.
@@xx_amongus_xx6987 Also, I'm not gonna bother with your copypaste challenge. First reason is because I'm too lazy to search up enemy's names, second reason is because I don't actually mind repetition as long as it isn't overdone. Elden Ring is an open world game, and by design those are repetitive to some extent. Play Skyrim, RDR2, Breath of The Wild, Oblivion or Dragon's Dogma, and you'll find that by hour 30 you've seen most of what they have to offer you, yet they go on for an indefinite ammount of time. Why? Because repetition doesn't matter as long as it is fun. Every time I stumbled upon a Crucible Knight, I rejoiced because I got to dance to that awesome moveset again. Same thing for the Godskins, the Blacknife assassins, the duelists, the perfumers, and some others I can't remember from the top of my head. The game is fun sometimes despite its repetitiveness, and sometimes BECAUSE of its repetitiveness. I would hate to have to start an entirely new game to fight the enemies I described previously a second time. Also, as you have implied yourself, 99% of the "copypaste" content is placed in the open world sections. That is something I agree with, but there's one thing you've forgotten: the open world gives you the freedom to simply not fight. This freedom is actually a big part of the point of an overworld, being able to engage with content however and whenever you want. When I'm running a build with slower weapons and I'm at the stage where I don't have much damage yet, I really don't like fighting Revenants, so I simply don't. At the same time however, I really like fighting Burial Tree Watchdogs using the very same build, so I go out of my way to hunt them. If I HAVE to find something to get a talisman for my build or whatever and I don't like the fight, I use other methods to make it fun, like testing out spirit ashes or obscure ashes of war, or summoning a naked version of myself and letting it duke it out with the boss.
That's why I say the repetitiveness argument is overblown, because there's just so much fun to be had in the game, so many ways to engage with its world, that highlighting a flaw that stands so small against its qualities doesn't make any sense.
@@Erick-tv8oq No one ignored the good things that Elden Ring did? The original poster gave his review of the game, and then I came here to give in my criticism too. I understood what you said, and my previous point still stands. If someone had a massive problem with the repetition, you can't just force them to not have that experience or say they are massively overblowing it because you didn't have the same problem. I never said the game was completely bad, but the reputation was a huge stain on the game that brought down everything that was good about it. It doesn't matter how great the rest of the game was, the repetition was horrible and made me want to stop playing the game. And that is only one problem out of dozens of problems that have led me personally to rate the game a 7.5/10.
You're also gaslighting by saying that we "willingly fought this boss too many times". One time a copy/pasted boss is actually required in order to beat the game, and like half the game is filled with copy/pasted material, not just bosses. So yeah, all the bad content is optional, but then why am I even buying the game if half of it is bad content? This is my opinion and experience based off of the facts that I have observed, it's not oVeRbLoWn. You can't just call everything you disagree with overblown lol. You don't have to agree with my conclusions, but you can't pretend that my conclusions and others who greatly agree with me are suddenly discredited and are lying about what they experienced.
am I the only one who thinks Elden ring is just a dark future version of the knights of the round table
Guinevere being Fei and the lady in the lake being melina
the safe place keep area is a round table with swords in it with a friar/priest there
melina finds you and sends you on a quest
and all the heros you fight are the former knights of the round
heck, the first major boss in the game Margit looks like merlin, uses a staff and casts magic attacks. Melenia is Morgan, King Arthur being Godfrey, Blaidd is Melion( knight who transforms into a werewolf for the love of his wife who betrays him)