Shadiversity is WRONG about ELDEN RING
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- Опубликовано: 18 мар 2022
- #eldenring #darksouls #gaming
I think it's really important that when people look at Elden Ring's story, they understand how to experience it. This isn't a movie, you have to work to find it so when the point is brought up that "the game doesn't tell the player the story," it must also be explained how to find it.
Elden Ring is an action role-playing game developed by FromSoftware and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. The game was directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki and made in collaboration with fantasy novelist George R. R. Martin, who provided material for the game's setting.
Check out my video on Elden Ring's Alchemy inspiration:
• Elden Ring is an Alleg...
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Thanks for the respectful reply.
You begin this video by wanting to not misrepresent what I’m saying, so I appreciate your intent, but unfortunately it doesn’t take long for you to misrepresent one of my points because you say that people are not supposed to know everything in the game, as a response to my opening, which I never said the game needed to do, which you later seem to point out so I don’t understand why you say you’re not supposed to know everything in the context that I was somehow saying the opposite. I was talking about the essential stuff, not everything, and it is the essential stuff that is kept from the player that the excuse, you’re not supposed to know everything, means utterly nothing.
Your next major point, the part where you feel there’s a point to the lacking context and meaning behind the beginning objectives, which is the fact the tarnished is supposed to know as little as the player, is first an assumption because there’s fundamental things relating to the lore that the tarnished should know, like the religion and many other things, and does not address my criticism.
I said the player doesn’t have enough information to care to want to see how the story ends, you repeat that, but then essentially say it’s intentional, that it’s obscure by design. The fact that you feel a flaw was made intentionally doesn’t mean it isn’t a flaw, and sidesteps my criticism entirely. You seem to understand that I’m saying this essential information needs to be given to the player much sooner, and not is such a way that the player has to hunt them out which increases the likelihood that many people simply just won’t find them and then get bored with the story. But you then dismiss it without addressing it by saying you can find this information later which only confirms my criticism. There is essential information that is not presented to the player soon enough to get them invested to see how it ends.
The next part is a massive misrepresentation of what I said, so much so it’s a flat out lie. You claimed I felt I had experienced the game in full. I never said that! I said I had played to the point where nothing was encouraging me to keep on playing, which happened at my first playthrough, and I did the second playthrough to try and find something to hold me to the game, hoping that a new build would do that, which it didn’t. The game literally had given me the impression that continuing with my first play would not give me enough of the story to make me want to keep going where I thought starting a new build would. That’s how much I wasn’t invested in the story. I don’t think you misrepresented what I said here, to such a contradictory level intentionally, but it does reveal a profound lack of understanding in what I was saying.
Never said I needed the core main elements of the story in the tutorial area, I said I needed the essential elements, the specific ones that would make me want to see how the story concluded, when I began or soon after I started playing, and I gave some examples of what they could have been. Saying you find those thing later on only confirms my criticisms that they weren’t given soon enough to where they were needed to invest me into the story.
You then also confirm another one of my criticisms, that essential story elements are hidden in item descriptions that most players won’t bother or care to read. You then seem to criticism me for not taking the time to do detective work to understand the story. I don’t mind mystery and looking for hidden gems of lore, in fact the game can have most of it’s story done this way, but hiding essential parts of the story needed to invest the player to see how it concludes, like this, is a massive flaw because most people won’t find it and not care about the story as a result. If a game doesn’t want me to know the essential parts of it’s story by hiding it, then well done, it’s achieving exactly that and shooting itself in the foot as a result.
You said, “Just because it’s not shown in a cutscenes doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” Where on earth did I say it didn’t exist? come on, this is a blatant contradiction and the opposite of what I was saying. I know it exists, I know a lot of this is in the game, my point was hiding the essential parts of the story this way is objectively bad storytelling.
At 9:00 you completely miss my point and just confirm everything I was saying, but then blame me for not “taking the time to explore and not finding it.” If it’s so easy to miss essential plot points to even understand or appreciate what’s going on, it’s a flawed story telling method, which you’re only confirming.
You say the story of the game exists, but I did not give it enough respect to seek it out. No, the truth is this, the story of the game exists, and is phenomenal, but the creators, and you, don’t respect that story enough to present even the essentials to the player in such a way to make then want to know what happens. That is disrespectful to the story. If you loved this story so much, you might want more people to enjoy it, but you then defend the detrimental way it’s presented and preventing so many people from enjoying it.
This is not get gud just seek out the story brah, story is not gameplay and when done incorrectly stand as objective flaws that I will call out. You say I don’t understand the appeal to the story, but we’re not actually talking about the appeal of the story, we’re talking about the appeal of the story delivery method. The story itself is great, I understand the appeal of it perfectly because I love the story, but the story delivery method specifically for the essential elements to get the player invested, is utter, objective, garbage.
You say regarding cutscenes that it quite literally does what I say. If you think that you don’t know what literally means, because guess what, you can easily miss the information you’re saying you can find where I was proposing a cutscenes you cannot miss. Literally, not the literal thing I was saying.
The conclusion of your video describes a worry that the game you love will change and if that was your take away form my video you did not understand it at all. I said multiple times you can have the souls like formula just as satisfying as it is, and not disillusion heaps of players by hiding the essential story elements, indeed it would enhance the game vastly.
If anything this video has just gone to convince me even more of the flaws of the way Elden Ring gives essential story elements and encourages me to make another video explaining why, referencing the points you make here which literally confirms it.
Still, I really do appreciate how respectful you were, just wish you didn’t misrepresent and misunderstand what I was saying.
@@corectinfluence the dismissive vapid comment of a brainlet overly invested in a game they are blinded to its flaws and attack anyone pointing them out, purposefully misrepresenting and vilifying others because they're fragile and pathetic.
@@devilofether6185 Thanks for the comment, and I agree for the most part. I still think they can achieve all their designs about having a world that doesn't care about you, and not shoot themselves in the foot by giving at least enough coherent story in the beginning to invest more people into this incredible story to make them want to see how it ends.
This guy down here in the comments writing a god damn encyclopedia
@@corectinfluence W comment
it's absolutely fine to point out places where he misrepresents aspects of your arguments or puts words in your mouth, but reading this response in full confirms that the title of this video is absolutely correct, and you're analysing Elden Ring's storytelling through a lens that is reductionist and inappropriate to the medium. If you need a concrete story-driven experience to guide you along the path of completing a game through your investment in the world and characters, that's fine, but to accuse a game that doesn't do this of having 'objectively bad storytelling' is disingenuous, and completely misses the point. Elden Ring showcases a world with characters and events that largely don't care about your presence by default, and rarely spoonfeed you contextual information unless you deliberately seek it out, just like the Souls games before it. It's very much a non-standard storytelling technique, and it very much leaves aspects of the world and story up to individual players' interpretation, and if you'd prefer it had a more standard structured narrative that's cool, but it's not how these games are designed. Thousands upon thousands of players (myself included) have gotten something from the way these games tell their stories (and the community interactions and lore theorising that goes along with it) that more traditional narratives simply don't provide. As far as I'm concerned it's an emergent approach to storytelling that is unique to the medium of games, and you're doing it a disservice by critiquing it in a way that would better fit the story of a film or book. It's fine if it's not for you, we each find different things engaging, but the issue with the way you've approached this is that you are trying to state your subjective opinion as objective fact.
I didn't even read most item descriptions but through direct storytelling, environmental storytelling, and ACTUALLY TALKING TO FRIENDLY NPC'S, it was actually incredibly easy to piece a lot of the story together. It's not as convulted as people seem to think it is
yeah, just reading what the npcs are telling you is enough to AT LEAST understand why you're chasing the Elden Ring.
You have to explore that's the whole point of the game, if you want the law or just beat the game.
I don't think that's really a fair counter argument though, ntm most average players would heavily disagree with that statement to begin with. There's a reason this topic is so heavily debated around and it's because it is a genuine problem. When you have to do a bunch of optional things you are in no way encouraged to do just to understand what your goal even is that's bad story telling. You should be able to know the story and main aspects of a game just through playing it but you don't in elden ring. You never understand why you are doing anything or where you are, you never really understand what your main goal actually is, while obviously you know to become elden lord and repair the elden ring you never know why or what it actually means. You don't know who any of the people you're fighting are or really why you're fighting them. To understand any of the bare necessities even of the game you are required to sit down and do like an hour of reading item descriptions. In a video game, the story telling method they used was not gameplay but reading optional descriptions, honestly tell me do you think that was the best thing they could have done? Look just have you ever played any game where you genuinely had no clue what your goal actually meant or who the people in the world were or why they hated you, or why the world was the way it was? And if you have think to yourself was that a game that had a good story telling method? If this was any other game everyone would objectively say the story telling was bad but because it's elden ring no one will admit that, hell even most reviewers didn't touch on the topic of story just because they probably like most people didn't understand what had just happened when they beat the game. You can hide extra details about the past or the characters or the world in item descriptions or little optional events or something if you want to, that's more than ok, a great game that does this although obviously very different is outlast 1 and 2. Files and documents and notes are scattered all over the place throughout that game that majorly help you understand what happened to everything around you and before you and why the world of the game is the way it is. But you don't have to read any of them to understand what you yourself or doing or why or why people are trying to kill you or what's going on. By the end of outlast 2 after reading none of the notes I understood all of what happened. After elden ring and reading occasional notes and talking to npc's I still had to watch probably around 3 hours of lore videos to understand the main point of the game. That objectively is poor story telling. I watched lore videos on both games don't get me wrong, but one of them I did because the story and way it was told was intriguing and I wanted to know more and the other one I did because I just wanted to know what had just happened. And that's the experience most people will and have had, and when that's what it takes to understand the story of your game clearly something isn't right.
@@afk2916 My dude, gideon ofnir and enia tell you all you need to know about the shard bearers and why youre tasked with becoming elden lord. You dont need to read item descriptions to know that, just talk to the NPCs every once in awhile. Ofnir literally has a list of the main shardbearers and eventually updates it to have a list of the optional ones. Enia and the two fingers tell you exactly why the tarnished are tasked with becoming the elden lord.
Not to mention Fia, D, and Rogier are moved to the roundtable hold once you get to liurnia so you dont miss them and give you easy to follow quests and directions that lead you down a rabbit hole conspiracy about the death of godwyn and the black knives. As someone who finished the rune of death quest from Fia, Rogier, and Ranni without a wiki, id say elden ring is a massive step up from the other games.
If you were arguing about any Dark souls game and Bloodborne, id agree that the storytelling in those games are cryptic at best but Elden ring actively does things different so you can piece together an idea of whats going on. You just have to talk to the NPCs my dude
@@churlbreak671 actually. It works for darksouls and bloodborn because the games are comparatively smaller to Elden ring. Elden ring is massive and while some NPCs have legitimately important information to give the player in order to help them understand, most do not and many are easy to miss on a first playthrough especially as you are learning the mechanics of the game. Fact of the matter is, item descriptions is not story telling, it's world building, it's lore. It's like the menu description of a dish as opposed to the actual dish. You are told alot about elden ring but you don't really participate in an actual tangible story with plot points and arcs and whatnot. Most people will have no idea who the pope turtle is talking about if they did go through that portal and if they don't out of commitment to the current level they are on they will most likely put that off for later.
I don't think shad, regardless of his overly strong language was completely wrong about his criticism. I think the fans are legitimately damage controlling for a criticism they don't really get.
Lore is not storytelling. Lore is an element of the story. NPC dialogue is not story telling, it's exposition, exposition is the whole "show don't tell" thing you keep hearing in any "how to write a story" tutorial ever. And in this sense, Elden ring does fail. Because it doesn't show the story but the aftermath and then goes "let me tell you about how this happened".
It's the difference between seeing Melania and radhan fight and only knowing they've fought because other people say they have. Like sure you'll get alot of the scale from just looking at caelid and meeting either of them. But the message is driven home far better by actually showing them lock horns in combat.
TL;dr Elden ring failed at the "show don't tell" bit of story telling.
Shadiversity: "Nowhere in the game does it explain Rennala's story"
The game: Literally places a teleporter three rooms before Rennala's boss fight that takes you to a friendly turtle who explains Rennala and Radagon's history in great detail
Or you can find that Turtle exploring lol Good old Church of Vows
Yup, that shows me he didn't bother to explore or engage with the game's lore.
She also refers to herself as renna, and when you go to the carian manor, you can find Renna's rise, which gives context to where she came from (unless I'm totally misremembering a different name or something), this is a good example of just how many threads are linking the world together, you just have to actually look for them.
Edit: I keep getting replies to this so I'm just gonna say, like I said later in this thread, I know I was wrong, lol I got all the r names mixed up, on top of not picking up that the second phase was an illusion. Like, I know guys.
@@AscendantStoic also in the response, oz, the cohost, says he's gone through the game three times without figuring out how caelid ended up the way I did. Like that just tells me you're just going from boss to boss, leaving alone that I'm sitting at forty hours with exploration and I've barely gotten out of liurnia, so triple new game plus is a little suspect otherwise.
@@chasesiersema2466 I'm pretty sure Renna and Rennala are different people.
The issue with this whole argument is that both parties are arguing about the wrong thing. The story in Elden Ring is very simple: You are a Tarnished. You go get the Elden Ring. Something happens.
The worldbuilding and lore are NOT the story -- this is why this all takes a backseat and is unclear -- it's not important to your journey unless you want it to be. Shad saying that he found the story lacking in regard to imparting some kind of forward drive in him as a player is fine, but its largely his own fault. The drive he's looking for isn't (for the most part) found in the "story" as he seems to be expecting. It's something souls players typically get from the gameplay/the challenge presented.
I never found my way to Gwyn because "I just really wanted to know who was behind the whole dastardly plot" -- I did it because I sought the challenge of facing the toughest guy in the realm and besting him. Whether or not I wanted to link the fire was purely a satellite objective. If Shad doesn't have that drive, he's playing the wrong games.
Exactly. That is more than enough for most people. If you want to get more in depth with the lore, just explore and read up on the items you get in game, and talk to the NPCs and ghosts you find along the way. Wanting hand-holding and everything told to you is why games today are mostly crap. Most people just don't have the attention span for this game.
Lotta people expect "film but I'm the main character" from gaming due to a pretty unremarkable AAA industry.
But Fromsoft respects the players intelligence and curiousity, and making understanding a reward in itself.
You can't wake up from a grave and suddenly expect the world to hand you meaning.
Meaning, in the existential tones fromsoft games take, is built by the player.
The story is made unique by the individual experiences.
The first time I played the game I played it while friend was playing it.
We both had such different experiences going different directions.
It was amazing.
And by the time our paths converged, we had picked up enough lore to make sense and have drive twords its goal. Me, for ranni the witch, my friend twords burning the tree. Both goals got us to where we needed. The story unfolding like a fractal.
That's what I love about Elden Ring, there are tons of stories that you can find and piece together just by exploring. The main objective takes a backseat by telling you what you need to do in the first 5 minutes, and the game lets you do your thing. It's a really basic plot, "go here and get this thing, become the strongest guy" has been done so many times before, but the really good storytelling is found because From rely on the players to just have fun and walk around.
Highly underrated comment. You get it.
Soulsborne games shouldn't be labeled as RPGs, you're not role-playing as a character who has their story and fate decided. You are playing as yourself in a different world with it's own history and inhabitants, and every playthrough will have a different story. If you want to learn about the world, explore, or only fight bosses then those are parts of your story. If you want to spend 3000 hours in Liurnia only fighting albinuracs so you can amass a fortune in boiled prawns, then your story is that of a genocidal shellfish magnate who is not well-traveled. Your journey is the story.
It's mind boggling how he mentions he "needed" to watch Vaati's video to get invested in the story when all Vaati did is piece everything the game tells you together.
I dont know... i love the souls games... but I never have a clue what the actual story is.. im just not invested in the story, im invested in the gameplay, exploration and the challenge of completing that boss that has killed me 100 times on 1 hp. I also have to watch Vaati's video to understand the lore and the story, the game doesnt invest you enough in the story to care about it. So i understand Shads perspective, its fine its not for everyone and we should just be ok with that.
@@hanzgrenade8961 Wait why do you even watch Vaati's lores video if you said you are not invested or care in the story?
@@kaikart123 probably after playing and ending the game the only thing left is to learn the lore in depth.. I never get a full picture of the story by just playing I just watch lore videos it's easier 🤣
@@ginonunes843 yea that means you care about the story though. If you don't you'd just left it as it is.
@@kaikart123 Ur probably right but I see it like more of a enhancing experience rather than just lore interest like adding salt to meat it make the experience so much better
Ah yes Godrick, the final boss of Elden Ring.
🤣
😀
What a joke of a video
wait what's this a joke about? is it in shads video?
@@penguinwolf3330 shad is irresponsible when it comes to making any statements other then surface layer analysis
dude all the things he says about the game that he looked up I learned by talking to people at the round table hold and reading item descriptions from items linked to the characters
Shad's problem It is the following Important parts of the lore are hidden in the poisonous swamps of Twitter.The history of the game is incomplete because important parts are on Twitter.
The way people are making sense of the game is thanks to posts from months before the game came out about things that aren't in the game.
same i don't understand shad's problem
@@aragonmoralesfaustodavid5548 i have a fairly strong grasp on the story and I've never seen these posts, i think it just depends on the person
@@aragonmoralesfaustodavid5548 what important parts are only on twitter and not in the game?
@@aragonmoralesfaustodavid5548 what important parts are on Twitter? I played the game and I don’t feel like I’m missing anything massive.
The biggest takeaway is he "got to level 30" with a mage and was done with that playthrough. He experienced all the combat possible with that character by level 30. I'll take didn't beat Godrick for 500 Alex
Considering how I’m approaching the game, I had a character that was level 40 something and I hadn’t even killed Margot yet tells me I don’t think he explored very much.
@@jkincaid582 lol right, I'm about lvl 60 right now and haven't even bothered with either of them, I'm just getting to the point where my build is capable and I have hunter down some handy items during exploration...and I'm getting gud... 😆 And you know what happened during all that time... I discovered the lore and npc quests! 😱
I don't know how many people actually watched Shad's game play video but he spent tons of time nitpicking while creating his perfect wifu..I mean character, then pays almost no attention to the actual game and his surroundings. People tried to give him tips but he didn't listen, though I think that having a bunch of ppl talking to you while you are playing would make most people miss the story. I just don't see how he can honestly say that he experienced the game fully when he admits that he didn't even scratch the surface. And then there is the fact that he's supposed to be a "writer" but thinks that reading the lore written in item descriptions is too hard...I guess he better give up on books then 🤣
He didnt get very far but the game should also be mindful of the players time. Not everyone has a weekend to sink into leveling. Besides im damn near level 70 and I still don't 'get' the lore
Seriously lmao. I thought I was a beast at like level 70, until I realized the game never ends & now I’m a God.
@@RS_mamf It's an open world game. It doesn't have to be mindful of your time at all. Open world games are play at your own speed. If you want to rush everything down then do so. If you want to explore then do so. It's your choice. But you can't go into a game made by Fromsoft and expect things to be handed to you on a plate. This is my first Fromsoft game and even I knew that. As soon as I heard that it was made by the people that made Dark Souls, I new I would have a rough go of it at first. But then I played the game. Sure I didn't spend a ton of time reading item descriptions to find the lore. Like you said some of us don't have an entire weekend to do these things. But that's why I appreciate the work Vaati has done in uncovering what he has. The information is in the game otherwise lore videos wouldn't exist. But it's not the developers job to give it to you. If you think it is then this style of game just isn't for you. But 12 million copies sold in just 3 days kinda says the opposite of both you and Shad's opinion. And due to the nature of opinions, they cannot be construed as objective.
Expecting a game to do things for you is a bit of conditioning from how games have been made recently. Developers have dumbed down the experience and players are becoming accustomed to these experiences. But think of Elden Ring as if it were a DnD campaign. The campaign would be dog water if the DM just sat down and told you the story. Instead you as the player have to explore and discover for yourself what the DM has prepared. Or you can just ignore what the DM prepared and do your own thing. Elden Ring is very much the same in that aspect. Miyasaki is the the DM and you have complete control over your experience. Whether you experience the story in full or just ignore it all is completely up to you.
The sites of grace literally point you in the direction of the main boss in the area. I don’t understand how you can miss the things specifically pointed out for you
tbh those things never helped lol.
It's like the statues telling you to go ... "somewhere over there underground"
Renalas entire lore was literally told by miriel, who a portal right before renalas boss battle will take you directly to. It can't be more clear cut than that.
@Tig Black I understand people miss things and that its bound to happen, the problem was that he was claiming that there was no way to find out renalas story in game. And also, there is no way they couldve made a better npc than miriel for it. Wise dog pope god is precious. I also cant think of a way for an npc to just show up and start explaining things in the debate parkor without it feeling weird. But maybe it would work 🤷♀️.
@Tig Black When you have a teleporter in the main pathway towards a great rune holder boss you definetly won´t miss that unless you are actively "speedrunning" the section.
They could have done it way more dificult, like putting the teleporter in the other side of the castle in the rooftops that are much harder to find, or literally not giving you a teleporter and expect the player to find the turtle.
Well of course it could be more clear cut. Just put an NPC in front of her boss room or she could explain her story herself.
But that’s not how fromsoft does storytelling. And another reason why I love their games so much.
@@ThatFuckinGame They actually could've locked that door and only made it accessible through the illusory wall that leads up to the giant ball summon because that leads right to the portal as well.
Her entire life is just like three lines of dialogue ending with the turtle saying it doesn't know anymore. That's pathetic exposition.
10:05 - 10:30
Okay. Did this dude even PLAY THE GAME?!?
I literally can’t even count how many times I’ve heard things like “Rennala, the sorcerer, is the head of the academy” or “The academy shut it’s doors after the golden order was broken, not allowing anyone in”.
I mean I’m pretty sure there’s an NPC at the roundtable that talks about Rennala not actually being a demigod, she was just married to one and that’s the only reason why she has a great rune in the first place.
Gideon, which he would have talked to if he... Well, simply went to talk to him after meeting the two fingers.
I fear he did not do that.
The only question i could see him making about the academy is "why are they attacking me?" Byt that's pretty obvious: the only reason a tarnished would have to infiltrate the academy is to get the great rune from rennala, which, being the head of the Academy and ruler of raya lucaria, obviously means the sorcerers will attack you on sight.
@@iota-09 Also probably there are too many rowdy tarnished making mess lol
Also turtle pope basically telling you about Rennala's and Radagon's story like bruh
"I got the big Shockwave thing, went around the first areas, and I did all that, that was fun, now I'm done with magic already"
Ok guy 👍🏻
I went into Elden Ring expecting an obscure tale, told through historical excerpts relayed through item descriptions.
You know , like every other FS game. I shook my head at Shad’s video, no idea what he was expecting…
Part of the fun is piecing it all together with the community
Yeah but every other software game apart from maybe seikro suffers from incoherent storytelling. The lore is brilliant and the themes are deep af. But the story? 🤷 You as the player/character seems to be the only one in this world that doesn't know what is going on. It's the same here. Everyone acts like they know what happened and how your actions impact the world. But you don't really get an idea of what happens. Even at the very end unless you get like the Lord of frenzy ending where it seems pretty clear the world is burning and you caused it.
@@benjeesilv1596 I get what you’re saying, it’s very untraditional.
But most games aren’t like this. There’s a million games with stories at the forefront of the narrative. I say keep FS games the same. Let the community detectives keep theorizing and speculating. It’s not like there are a lot of games that tell stories like this.
@@TheAlphaLegionnaire
Truth be told. In hindsight, I agree with this statement. I guess it's biggest quality is it's unconventional story telling. But I would also say it might need polishing in the future.
Shad: **Learns Glintstone Pebble**
Shad: I'm done.
Literally, unironically, the same as Noble Sorcery Ashes lore description XD
Fromsoft called this.
I mean, after Solider of Godrick there’s just no point in fighting another boss because you’ve seen it all. 0/10 game, too much grass.
To be fair, it is the best spell before the late game stuff. Seriously they did not balance magic right.
He got farther my guy you just haven't done the time to engage with his playthrough which you can find by looking it up. Gosh how could you overlook such an easy mistake on your part is beyond me.
@@christianlangdon3766 I do believe ZugZug is just hyperinflating Shadiversity's point, as in this video and Shad's own video, Shad mentions getting Glintstone Arc (Though not by name, just mentions the attack that spreads while showing a line motion)
@@TeckTheBlooded yea and I was reflecting the point of view that many in the comments take where they say he hasn't engaged with the game enough despite 20+ hours in the game.
As someone who has never played a Fromsoft game before I felt a bit lost as well. My curiosity was the only thing pushing me without a goal. After reading up items, ingame lore and i've started to look stuff up I began to love this. I wouldn''t know that I enjoy this kind of storytelling if I wouldn't have given it a shot however. As a new player coming to this kind of game and having played through multiple New Game+ I appreciate the way the world building works in ER and going forwars I will pay more attention to feed my ever growing curiosity. I wish others would be open to this very unique way of consuming media, especially when it comes to mystical storytelling like this.
You should try the other form soft soulsborne games as well since this is the basic story telling set up. And all of the stories are truly intriguing and create rabbit holes you never truly escape. Bloodborne for me is a favorite.
@@CynicallyGone After ER I will try the others for sure, I'm very excited! I'm a huge open world fan so I hope I will still be rewarded for finding secret items and the sorts in the different "legacy" type of dungeons as people call them.
@@Dividus so blooborne in specific has something called chalice dungeons. And they are seemingly endless. Cool weapons and runes can be found. And some of the major bosses towards the deep levels can add to the lore.
I think you’re really going to enjoy the content the rest of soulsborne can offer you.
The first time I play a from game I get little tidbits of it that make me know some of it as well as the essential info to the point I have a general idea of what’s going on as well as some side plots but have to watch lore videos to tie everything together
Thats literally the goal though. Like, they start you out like, 20 yards from a boss who is guaranteed to kick your ass, and you have a giant area to explore behind you. It doesnt say "go explore thar area and by the time you get back here you'll easily beat this boss" it trusts you're smart enough to work that out
What’s crazy is that I have never played a souls game and while playing elden ring I was so invested in beating it and after doing so I wanted to learn much more about the story so I think the game did exactly what it was built to do.
Exactly! That's how Souls games are usually played and enjoyed. No one understands everything that is happening on their first playthrough. Most people don't even understand a majority of what is happening.
But then we play again and catch more stuff. (and/or watch VaatiVidya's videos)
But did you understand the story after the first go around before stopping the game and reading the forums or watching lore videos?
@@benjeesilv1596 yes I did! the videos or lore I watched were actually for the bosses or characters I didn’t run into that I found extremely interesting like placidusax just by far my favorite boss fight and lore
@@Hamehh fair enough.
Shad wants predictability in his storytelling just like the book he wrote.
Savage
Gideon literally spoonfeeds you the entire damn story, this dude is pretty much there for the Shadiversities playing this game.
Jesus, this part 9:36 sums it up perfectly… 11:35 judging from the sales I wouldn’t worry about that
Bro really got one of the simplest spells in the game and said “I’m done, I’ve essentially played the whole game.” I think the problem here is that he just doesn’t understand video games in general
Considering the only thing I know about him is general real-life medieval content, yeah he doesn't really strike me as a gamer. Or one that is more surface water like.
Yeah I mean, I can't help but think he's a bit of an idiot at least when I comes to games. He just wants a movie experience
@@MorningSunGamer He is delusional narcissist.
He is almost exactly a real life version of the Noble Sorcerer Ashes
@@Cyrus_T_Laserpunch His "expertise" is shallow and presentation is Gish Gallop. Very delusional and sociopathic.
When he was talking about the game not giving any information about Rennala, my brain kinda hurt since if you find Mirriel in the Church of Vows, he'll basically explain you everything in nice detail.
Just like fighting. You wanna beat the boss? Then put in some effort to learn his moves. Then once you finally beat them it feels great, since all that effort you put into the fight was rewarded. The story is the same. You wanna know the lore? Well, put in some effort to look for the pieces and fit them together, you'll feel equally as rewarded, since once again your efforts were rewarded by the game.
That's the true beauty of these games.
Best part is not puting effort into story every time when replaying the game.
Even before than iirc the broken down church just after Godrick, a NPC tells you a bunch of the history about the school or at least enough I was like "oh wow that sounds cool"
Bro I’m not reading that 😭
Fully agree I was so lost at one point focused on building my character so I slowed down took my time read item descriptions exploring every book and cranny taking to npcs and the web really starts to form and improves the experience.
@@dylanroman8816 too much word caveman brain hurt
Even if there was no story at all, the gameplay and atmosphere alone would pull me in lol. I think it's all down to personal taste... if he feels that there wasn't enough to keep him invested, that isn't the game's fault, that's just how he feels.
Edit: Just to be clear I absolutely love the story and lore of all FromSoft games.
I mean even the thing soulsborn is based off doesn’t even explain everything massively which is Berserk, sure there’s a lot of self reflection, and inner conflict, plus story, though they don’t always explain every aspect, but Bloodborne, especially pulls me in, and Elden Ring, due to being open world, and having so much content I’ll be more busy with the game than story I’m honestly glad they hide the story since it lets you think for yourself, and make your own interruptions it’s like making a Silent Hill, game with a cheesy, and edgy story ohhh wait Homecoming did that shit, but you see.
What do you mean, so you don’t just play the tutorial and think you’re done like this guy? I mean, that’s the right way to play video games, right? After the first area, you’ve experienced it all, so why bother.
Of course I’m being sarcastic, if it wasn’t apparent enough. I still can’t believe some ppl play games this way. Ubisoft has really ruined the way many play games.
I make a habit of going in blind to every new game. Elden Ring, due to its very nature as an open world is a fucking mess for narrative. 160 hours and im totally lost. Restarted and following a rough guide its much more manageable
@@VeXeDZERO How?
I'm at like 90 hours and I have a general idea what's going on, and know exactly where I'm going.
@@kamikeserpentail3778 Good for you.
Shad's a smart guy, but from watching his channel I've come to find that he has difficulty separating his own preconceptions from the content. That doesn't mean he's necessarily "wrong", but he's essentially stating his opinion as though that's the way everyone should view things.
Actually if you state your opinion and expect everyone to view things that way, you are most definitely wrong.
Yeah and no offense to the guy but, I’ve seen the reviews on the book he made and let me just say I’ve come to trust his media takes less as a result.
Subscription to Shadiversity ended.
Subjection to Ziostorm added
@@spanishinquisition7623 not to be a dick or anything but his book has surprisingly good reviews seriously facebook 5/5 Amazon 4.6/5 and a 3.8/5 on good reads so your statement is false.
@Spanish Inquisition that's what initially made me avoid the dude because a friend of mine loved his stuff for writing inspiration but then shad proved he has no fucking idea what he's talking about. The ai art thing hopefully seals that for others
Shadiversity: *Ignores all the story*
Also Shadiversity: I wonder what's going on?
First timers......
@@sangerzonnvolt6712 “First time?”
@@sangerzonnvolt6712 There are so many first timers that realised the charm of these kind of games that I am actually more leaning on calling folk that refuse to explore, "casuals".
Though in all honesty it is more that these kind of games just isn't for them than anything else. But that doesn't make the game "objectively" bad.
If only shad hadn't used the term "objectively" and instead "in my personal/subjective opinion" the annoyance towards him would have been almost nonexistent.
Shad lore is one of a tarnished who shot a few spell then considered himself elden lord
Where do the external sources get the story then?! From the game!! They dont just make it up lmfao
Lol that's hilarious 🤣
Yeah does he think Vaati is secretly Miyazaki or something lmao
Careful with that basic logic
It is very sad that Shadversity supports NFTS, has very homophobic and sexist views and supports AI art.
@@Dracobytehe’s a Christian so homophobia and sexism is not unsurprising.
By the time I got to the academy, I had spoken to at least 3 NPCs about what had happened there. I walked in knowing who the final boss was, what it was like in its glory days, and what magic users were and were not allowed to do. No lore video required.
Learning Rennala's story is one of the funnest thing in the game, talking to Miriel the Turtle Pope is soo cool
9:35 This right here was my biggest fear. I was absolutely terrified at the possibility that the game would have been butchered beyond any recognition of a From Soft game to meet the expectations of new players.
would literally be the worst feature in the game. Also, he clearly didn't listen to what Melina has to say because she is not gonna be giving you any direction....You're there to help her, she helps you in return. But she doesn't really know what you are supposed to do, she doesn't even know what to do herself. She says she lost her way right away and that you need to take her to the erdtree...he demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding for the story and the character of Melina AND the entire point of Fromsoftware games by making a statement like that. That is literally a "this game has cutscenes to tell you exactly what to do" like every other f-ing game on the market. Nah. Leave that shit out.
To call these objective negatives is absurd. The game has clearly reached a massive amount of people. And a video like this by Shadiversity will only scare new players away for no good reasons. For one reason specifically that is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the game and its world.
The core of FromSoft games is the difficulty and that experience of overcoming an obstacle. Honestly the storytelling could use some help. It was always one of the weaker points of their otherwise amazing games. Often times you'd just run into random crap like "Hey you want to join the chaos servant covenant?" And nobody told you what the hell that meant. Unless you looked it up online, it was just a blind choice you didn't even understand. And it's full of a lot of stupid crap like that. I mean hell, in Elden Ring opening that one door to the three fingers and getting corrupted isn't even a choice you make. I opened the door expecting a hidden boss, get grabbed by the fingers and suddenly Melina is pissed at me, and I had to look up what the hell even happened.
I do wish you'd get more information in those sorts of things, and honestly if they improved that, it'd make the game better not worse. Not saying they can't still have a ton of hidden rich lore, but the basics can be explained and it would only improve the game experience. Honestly it always made no sense that your chosen undead / Tarnished / Hunter didn't just stop the NPC and say, "Wait hold the fuck up. Explain some shit here. You just spit out 6 different terms that I have no idea what the hell they mean." It really wouldn't hurt the game if they just told you basics like what the Elden Ring is and what a Tarnished is.
Sekiro had the most solid storytelling out of all the FromSoft games. I actually felt like I had a reasonable understanding of what I was doing and why. I really don't see why all the other games can't be like that.
@@certifedcupcake These people complain that there is no inovation in gaming, but when someone does something different they complain that is not what they are used to. Wtf? And FS games are not different for the sake of being different. This series is more than 10 years old and the community is only growing. This means that they are doing something right and that there is a audience for this type of game
@@taragnor I love getting told nothing, because it often means there is no right answer. The story leaves a lot up to personal interpretation.
@@taragnor the problems you talked about have an answer it's called reading the items in the inventory you say how should i know this or that well other players (like me for example knew it through the items description in game which then posted online in guide forms you also need to understand that these games except for sekiro are made this way on purpose you are not suppose to do everything the right way the game and the npc will not wait for you to talk to them or complete what they want if you don't they will progress on their own which make the games feel alive sekiro was different sekiro was an already existing story being told with an already established main character dark souls blood born and elden ring are stories you make the core of fromsoftware games is finding purpose not just challenges to overcome
9:40
Shad is basically wanting Melina to do the job of Gideon and the rest of the round table as well as yeeting the finger maidens.
This is the most accessible Fromsoft story YET.
We were all invested just fine Shad, this defo feels like a you problem man.
Sekiro was a lot more accessable tbh.
@@hoked2194 God it wasn't, with certain things.
@@HandsomeGamerGuyyou could *maybe* make the case that Sekiro should still have some more explaining to do but you can't deny that it is more straightforward with it's story telling compared to the FromSoft souls games
The fact that I have to put the work in to understand the story is honestly one of the biggest draws to fromsoft games. It makes you feel as if you're apart of the world an just trying to survive like everything else
I'm sorry you had to read words.
With RPGs and if that's what they want Elden Ring to be you have to show not tell.
This guy gets it. 👍
When he suggested an expostion-dump cutscene from Melina when you enter a new area I had such a visceral reaction lmao that would be so terrible 😭 randomly and accidentally wandering into Caelid and getting way in over my head early game was so cool
if the world didn't feel like a cohesive, inter-woven whole (broken up by, say, gate cutscenes or divided by levels and whatnot) that wandering would've felt far less like going on an adventure of my own choosing, and more like filling out a checklist
Shad legit just asked for an exposition dump, if he’s an author then I doubt he’s one that writes anything particularly exciting since he seems insistent on being tutorialized and fairly warned about the dangers of each area whenever he arrives somewhere. I doubt his books have much in the way of imagination or elements of discovery for the reader it’s probably all layers of boring exposition so you’re never wondering what’s going on or what could come next.
I watched melena burn herself in front of the erdtree and didn't give a fk because I met her a grand total of three times throughout my 100+ hour playthrough for about 5 seconds each time. Yet somehow the game expects me to feel some kind of emotional connection to her.
Yeah no, that's just idiotic narrative design.
@@edenarchive4150 no its just the story isn't designed for YOU. to say that just because a games narrative design doesn't cater to YOU means that it is idiotic is foolish. if its such an idiotic narrative design then why is the game so successful?
its because the game is for those who DO like searching for the story. they are the ones who MAKE those guides. they are the ones who spend hours seaching every nook and cranny for delicious lore tidbits. they are the ones ENJOYING this story to its fullest.
@@thebeastmodeism his book, shadow of the conqueror, is exactly that. any actual plot sequence gets interrupted by multiple paragraphs of exposition with zero preamble. literally has a scene where the character gives a narration about physics while falling lmao
One thing I like about the storytelling of elden ring is also: it's the story of the tarnished, not of the world. If the player is too lazy to invest and gives up that's just how it is. A lot of the tarnished gave up. Also really ticked me off how he said he wants to be 'immersed', but then kept raging on about how the game is too immersive. Meaning: the character only knows what you as the player seek out to know, so literally: immersive AF.
The game does divulge too little for you to really get a good grasp of what is going on and most of the characters are really underused or have nothing to do with the grander story outside their own little quests.
@@user-vh7ks8px3s That second part I wouldn't necessarily say is a bad thing. I think it's both obtuse and incredibly heavy-handed to have every single character the protagonist interacts with have some large part to play in the grand scheme. It's just not plausible and in my opinion makes it very clear that it was a 'designed' story, not an organic one.
@@user-vh7ks8px3s And? That's amazing as far as I am concerned. That let's you focus on your own story. It's a game, not a picture book for children.
If you don't get a sense of awe and excitement by being plunged in a world that you can't quite figure out.. heck maybe play my little pony in stead.
The game is not immersive, though, like at all. It constantly shatters immersion in the way in which it delivers lore. You pick up an item and read its description and somehow, the fact you found random piece of junk inside an abandoned cave, your player character is now imbued with intrinsic knowledge of the game world, history, and characters he has never met or heard of. The game basically shatters immersion every time you pick up a new item and read its description. Delivering game mechanic information is one thing, but to have the entirety of your worldbuilding done via exposition dump, whether it's an NPC just blurting out a monologue for no discernible reason to the player, or a menagerie of artifacts that somehow grant you innate knowledge of events and people disconnected from you in time and place is just awkward. The latter is exceptionally immersion breaking, and both are objectively bad storytelling. Over exposition is bad. The problem with From games, in terms of "story telling", is that there is almost no story. Very little in terms of narrative happens over the course of the game, everything about the game and characters has happened in the past, so there's no way to deliver lore and worldbuilding other than exposition dumping at the player over and over. From still hasn't found a better way to do that than having the player just bumble into NPCs that feel the need to recite monologues to mute travelers, or take information that would have once been included in the game manual, and chop it into bits and paste it into item description boxes rather than a proper game manual.
Love Souls, love the world, love the lore, love the game. To say their method of story telling is free of flaws or that anyone who gives it criticism just "doesn't get it" is disingenuous. I've been playing From games longer than pretty much any of these content creators. I get it. Story by exposition dump is the clunkiest and least immersive way to deliver storytelling, and that is basically the ONLY way that From delivers world information to the player. Exposition dump via monologue or random item description. You get a teeny tiny bit of worldbuilding by analyzing environments, but really not much. It's much more crafted as a puzzle for the player to figure out, but not meant to be immersive and not meant to be experienced as though you are your character going through the world. Information is delivered to you the player directly (item descriptions) and essentially never to your character. That's the opposite of immersive. Doesn't mean you can't create a dope world with dope lore, though.
@@LC-wv7tz and? you just don’t get it this is a game not a picture book for children. Heck, if you criticize anything about how fromsoft does their storytelling then you should just go play my little pony instead.
This was my very constructive and highly intelligent contribution to this discussion.
Shad: "Hot Take!"
The rest of the internet for the last four years: "Not this again."
Right? I feel like he just does wild takes on purpose to get attention back
Yeah it sounds like he's just attention whoring now
@@DPD232 It comes to a point where his favorite hobby also clouds his judgment when it comes to ER. In short, he's overthinking this game too much.
It's the way he brings attention to his channel, since he's clearly unable to keep up with other people in the HEMA community when it comes to making videos about historical fencing.
I don't think he's doing it for attention. He makes a video about throwing knives and gets double the views as his videos about ER get.
I’d love to see his trophy case, Gamertag, or steam achievements. Did he even play this?
Most likely watched a few videos of someone else playing it and lies that he did.
This video exactly mirrors my response to Shad's video. Almost everything he said as a criticism of the game comes down to him disliking the way the story is told because as Shad said in his video "Some people like reading every single item and description like VaatiVidya does. I don't like doing that! I want to be immersed in a story, I don't want to have to read pages of texts to connect dots." He also said he is over 100 hours into his playthrough because he doesn't want to miss anything while simultaneously missing NPCs and locations that would inform him of the worlds lore. He misrepresents the content and storytelling of Elden Ring because he was unwilling to invest the time and energy required to play the game and find out the story for himself.
tbh never expected he'd be such a dumbass.. i only got 80ish hours in, yet i understand better about the lore than him and its actually not that hard, like even if ya don't read much from the item description, exploring the world and try to interact with any and everything u found as u explore, would give ya a pretty good grasp of whats going on in the story. and isn't it already obvious that the intention of the game is to explore the environment, the way it just releases ya into this world as if you're really born as the tarnished, and experience the life of tarnished in a first person perspective.. if that's not immersive enough, idk what is anymore
I literally cannot fathom how this guy didn't get more lore about the game by this point. He must have ignored every single npc you meet. I mean the npc you meet right outside of stormveil literally tells you all about how he was a male at Lucaria and how he was cast out by their spell and he needs a key to get in. And he obviously never talked to Godwin the Grey. Like once after he killed Godrick
@@krisr4285 maybe he attacked and killed them like Asmond did with D?
@@krisr4285 What NPC?
If it's that easy to miss a crucial NPC necessary to give you context on what you're about to do then it's a failure of narrative design.
I didn't know that NPC exists because their are so many different ways to approach the academy.
I never found the turtle until after I beat the game so I had no idea who renalla was or any context for what the academy was or why I was there.
That's just shitty design.
@@edenarchive4150 It is shitty design only if you expect to be fed the story - nothing wrong with that expectation except that you're not going to enjoy games that do what Elden Ring has done as much as others. It is good design if you get a kick out of putting the pieces together yourself and knowing that you're going to have to look - this is what makes Elden Ring more engaging for some.
Right he needs to realize that the people who made the lore videos he watched have taken that info from the game.
He got 30 hours into a roughly 120hr long game and was frustrated when he didn't have all the pieces yet... not only is that not how these games work, at the point where he was when he decided "he had experienced all the game had to offer" i had already learned a very decent bit about the lore. Bro obviously didn't read anything or talk to the npc's
@@krisr4285 -Not to beat a dead horse, but he has a fair criticism of how the lore is revealed. I don’t think he thinks everything needs to be cutscenes constantly. He is simply saying that good stories, in his opinion, keep the reader’s attention by adding well placed narrative motivators. There is nothing wrong with that idea. I do think that concept wouldn’t detract from how FromSoftware designs exploration in their world. The problem is that other game studios overuse non-narrative motivators. The idea presented here that it is all or nothing is wrong. They could reveal the narrative and lore at better times and places in the game without changing their old school gaming design. Because that is what it is. In many old school games, you had to explore to find the story, not be lead.
@@wordragon simply put i think there are enough narrative motivators in the world and world design to keep me and millions of others invested into the story to actually put the tinniest effort into reading the finer details of the story. in all of their games i didnt read the item descriptions until i played through most of the game and elden rings no different, i had a very clear understanding of what was happening from everything i received from simply the world and the major NPCs at the stronghold
@@dylanalbertson5269 -Btw, being a 40 something Game Developer, I am used to this method of story reveal through exploration and love it. I also love this game and agree with you. It is a beautiful and precious zenith in design.
The fact that the story is not clear from the beginning is exactley the reason i’m drawn to these type of games
I love to just explore, read the lore on the items and try to piece the whole story together. This in itself wants me to keep exploring and playing
For me it was a real awakening when I learnt where to look for the lore and I love that. It is such a grown up way to do storytelling and I’d never had that experience before.
My main issue in my first play through was I was having such a hard time just surviving that I didn’t have the brain capacity to also care about the story. This was totally my problem and in no way do I blame the game for this. I just needed to get used to how souls games work. I’m now going to go back through the other games, once I complete my third (maybe 4th) go at Elden Ring.
It's a matter of what you want the game to be. I think there's definitely room to give players a subtle hint towards "you might learn a lot by reading item descriptions (btw that's r3) and making sure you've combed through the entire map"
The lesson Shad should take away from this whole debacle is to not tell people that elements they enjoy are "flaws" and "objectively bad game design". That's basically just another way to tell people that you think they are idiots. Objectively idiots.
That's s what got people worked up. No one cares about Shad's opinion on a game or cares to convince him to change his mind. I'd never even heard of him until this vid of Zio's
He does similar things with his takes on weapons. He goes on a multi video rant on why Nunchucks are the worst idea ever with no redeeming qualities (I'm paraphrasing because he has literally made multiple video's and I don't want to rewatch them). And I mean I don't really care about Nunchucks but there's only so many times I can hear him say they have zero uses (he's made similar statements about flails) that a stick doesn't do better while I'm imagining him trying to block a nunchuck (or flail) with a shield and getting bonked on the head as it wraps around his defenses.
Something like Donald Trump of history and storytelling.
@@dragonwaz oh wow. For an actual weapon too.. I just knew bout that
When you get to the zone after Godrick there is literally an npc in the church right next to the grace that explains to you what's in the zone and why the academy is closed, and even gives you a clue as to how to enter it. I'm sorry to say it because I'm a believer that there is no "wrong" way to play a game, but, if you missed this npc you're playing the game wrong.
No it's just shitty game design.
I didn't even know that npc exists and I beat the game already. Only found the turtle after I beat the game so I had no idea who renalla was or any context on what I was doing at the academy.
Also the fact that I have to read random flavor text on inventory items to get any lore on the world or characters is beyond moronic in terms of narrative design.
@@edenarchive4150 No it's just a shitty user not paying attention or exploring.
There are plenty of clues and bits of dialogue etc. that tell you what's going on at the academy.
The game was designed around the joy of discovery. You don't get your map unlocked with markers, you have to go to the places to discover for yourself what's there.
You don't get the story spoonfed to you like an interactive movie, you have to piece it together from your interactions with NPCs and, if you're invested enough (which you clearly aren't), from a bit of reading.
It's this discovering the story for yourself and piecing it together that makes it so much more rewarding than traditional storytelling, and imposing traditional storytelling standards on this design is just going to result in disappointment.
Having the lore linked to item drops means that exploration and getting hidden items is rewarding not only to the people who only care about gear and enhancements, but also to those looking for lore without having to add exclusive lore only items like a journal entry which you would be disappointed with receiving after a gruelling dungeon.
You don't HAVE to read the flavour text on anything. You can get a basic grasp of the world and it's characters by interacting with NPCs. The item lore just adds depth and context.
TL;DR it's not bad design, you're just not the target audience if you want to be spoonfed.
@@edenarchive4150 Oh look we found him! We found the guy that plays the UEAbisoft games!
@@edenarchive4150 Tell me you want everything told to you or handed right to you. Go read and explore a bit, its an big open world. Use it.
@@sharlockshacolmes9381 no really I heard that part and I was like, "ha, this dummy couldn't even find Thops."
Brand new to your channel, glad to have found it. This is also my first Soul's Fromsoft game and I just have to say how much I am absolutely loving it, it's so refreshing to not be handheld in a game. This game feels like a breath of fresh air while most other games feel stale and boring.
The thing is in my first play through I had no idea of what was going on, my only objective was to kill all the bosses of this amazing game, the gameplay and the exploring part kept me invested. When I finished the game and started it all over and starter to focus on the story where I listened to the cutscenes and stuff and tried to do all the quests by the npc and got the full picture
The way the story is told reminds me of Metroid Prime in some ways where it's up to the player to want to seek it out. If you don't want to, you don't have to but if you do you can scan (in Metroid Prime) and read about what happened and piece the story that way.
These days AAA games spoon feed you the story with cutscenes and diaries so when a game like Elden Ring comes along it stumps a lot of people. We've been conditioned to expect that to happen.
Metroid Prime is a perfect example
Metroid Prime is a better example.
I like how Elden Ring is built like a natural evolution to most metroidvania games.
First off Prime is my favorite game of all time. But I disagree bc reading journals to know what's going on isn't fun. Primes story is rather simple so I'm ok with that kind of storytelling but Souls story is much deeper so the story NEEDS to be shown in a better format
well, all DS games are basically metroid games anyway. So this is a perfect example (:
as a new player whos never played more then 10minutes of Darksouls, i simply approch the game like a open world, i explore everything and once i feel that there is nothing left of interest in an area that i can find i will kill the boss and move on to the next one, i think the story does a fine job so far though i'm not very far, its keeping me gripped and interested enough to continue, even if i get my ass kicked by most things. even if i don't learn all pieces of the story, That's fine to me, because no one says i will find everything the first time around :) thats just how exploration games is too.
It's fine, the story is hidden on walls upon walls of text and a lot more is unwritten and visible only through observation and conjunction. You really need the community to piece the parts together which is part of the fun.
@@Rawkit_Surgeon literally pope turtle saying "the statue of radagon tells his secrets"
Tho tbh i've yet to find that statue, wonder if i missed it or if it's in the capital maybe?(i'm still in caelid)
But yeah, that's EXACTLY how the game is supposed to be played(with the alternative approach of "can't beat the boss? Go somewhere else for now")
@@iota-09 youll find it later
@@Rawkit_Surgeon ^This
Even the main story acknowledges that there are many more tarnished on the same path as us. Pretty much making me and all the other tarnished (you) in a giant rat race.
The tarnished themselves even share information about the world amongst themselves as everyone is taking different approaches. Take the player giving Gideon the "all knowing" information he was not aware of.
I think the different approaches to the end goal (player quest) can canonically be explain in the same manner. I have seen a lot of complaints about missing npc questlines but that is the point. It is fun to make a completionist character sure, but in reality it is more fun to "choose your own adventure" and see what happens along the way.
In that respect I think FromSoft did a fine job at making a very interesting open world without too many path restrictions. Some will cross and some will stray, just go with the flow to make it more fun to play.
In a way you can make a new story with every character you make, or opens up many stories for other characters along the path.
That's the fun, the community aspect. Some will help and some will hinder. It's all apart of the experience.
As I said before, not many games give me the feeling of being able to play the same game, but have a different experience based of choices of paths, builds, and priorities. Make your own story.
@@thewhistler6537 Yeah, all the tarnished with neon green skin and giga chads, not to mention all the people with an obsession with silly hats becoming elden lord is not a very appealing idea to me.
This game told its story precisely the way it intended to. if you don't like that style or experience then don't play their games but I'd hardly call that a mistake on their part. Souls games were never going to please everyone and that is by design. One of the most compelling and refreshing aspects of Elden Ring to me WAS this non-linear, no spoonfeeding approach to the story, quests and exploration. No quest markers, no cut scene exposition dumps - it was incredible. it made me WANT to dig deeper, explore ever Crack and Crevice and talk to every NPC. it's game if the year hands down.
All fromsoft games never let you figure out the entire story thats always been my favorite part. It makes you feel like an archaeologist.
I don’t get why people complain about immersion while simultaneously complaining about wanting cut scenes that spoonfeed that the Lore.
It's not about cut scenes it's about motivation. Being a souls fan isn't enough to be motivated. It's not the how it's the why.
@@Wilhelm4131 Pretty sure unless you want to progress whether for L O R E, waifu, or sheer masochism to beat the bosses, souls game always designed to discourage such people. It's not a roller coster, it's a free roam experience. You want something, you seek them or at least stumble into them
Do cutscenes make you less immersed in a world? What are you talking about?
It’s odd to me when people don’t understand the appeal to something, and then play this narrative of fans being gatekeepers. Buying a souls game, and then complaining to souls fans why you don’t like it, is like buying tickets to a metal concert when you don’t like metal music just to complain to everybody there that it’s too loud and aggressive. Fans aren’t gatekeeping by trying to keep the thing they love so much from catering to people who aren’t fans in the first place.
No I want your Rock music to sound like country, I also want it to be poppy with a upbeat tune but also make be feel blue and emotional ANNDDD it *all* needs to be played on a triangle!
@@Willow4526 This is the whole discourse in a nutshell, basically.
@@TheStruggler-wb7mk exactly. If someone can do it I'd love to see it, but you can't always have your cake and eat it too
Literally. My first and only thought listening to him was “have you played dark souls?” Idk what you’d expect considering their previous work it’s only bigger and more pieces of a puzzle to put together
If “gatekeeping” means to preserve what anything is known and is good for then hell yeah every fanbase should gatekeep away. Last thing we need is every single videogame to be generic garbage that tries to cater to everybody. The term gatekeeping is some of the dumbest, most laughable shit the internet has managed to come up with.
4:51 To be honest... this is exactly how I got into the soulsgames back when I played Dark Souls back in 2010/2011.
I was about to quit the game out of frustation and with the feeling have seen all of its gameplaydepth.
Then I saw Epic Name Bro's Lorevideo and I was so in awe of this game, its lore and its world... I couldn't stop playing. And wanted to see all of it by myself.
wish enb still made those deep lore dive playthroughs like from the dark
as long as i know vaatividya exists i know i'll be able understand the story one day
Same for me and DkS1, I couldn't get past Taurus Demon (Pathetic, I know), but after watching my older cousin play a bit, and watching some lore videos I redid my char and it felt much easier and I enjoyed exploring so much more now that I had passed one of my first hurdles. (Though 4 Kings still fucks with me every now and again)
@@tyhjyys yea, sad...
Remember how I came home from work and the first thing to do was turn on the TV to watch the new episode...
@@jonsotbh1565 I just love his voice...
So deeb yet gently calm... ☺️
One thing I will always remember and cherish about this game was when I found the three fingers. For a large part of the game its golden order this, two fingers that, and I always had the lingering question of why is it just two fingers. I saw multiple dead ones in the divine towers but hands have five fingers, so where were the other three? I stumbled upon frenzied villages and maddening spells that bore a three pronged crest when casting them. There was also vyke's spear and those weird Shabriri grapes. Then I met Shabriri. The first man that I ever heard mention the words "three fingers". Oh man was it ever satisfying to finally find an actual clue and discover the thing was alive no less! For all I knew, it could have been dead it that pit and everything could had been for nothing, but in the end my curiosity paid off and it was the best feeling ever. I don't know how many early game teasers or clues there actually are about those lovely fingers, but it didn't matter. What mattered is that I would become Elden Lord and along the way, I'm gonna get an answer to my question. Whether it was an answer I liked was for me to find out.
10:02 this summarizes why his argument is wrong. There is LITERALLY an NPC meters away from.the first grace of liurnia that gives you enough context to start exploring and searching the academy. He just literally didn't talk to any NPC or read the items, or try understand the very obvious and other subtle messages given by the world building itself. Like u see a soldier camp right at the start clearly showing the situation between Stormveil.castle and the academy just from the get go. Like what
B-but I want the stowy handed and spoonfed to me with 3 hour cutscenes without acknowledging the context that these are Fromsoft games and Fromsoft games are known for their usually vague story telling and never really advertised their games as narrative driven in a traditional way :(
There wasn’t a question mark above the NPC’s head so how was I supposed to know he had a quest for me?
@@AJ_Ol I know right. I know when my boss wants something from me when he stands still in a corner with a question mark over his head to start my next task
@@lobehold2263 These comments are so cringe. I bet you guys are so proud for making the same old jokes everyone else was making weeks ago.
@@cassu6 you're literally a sour puss being negative in a thread where everyone is just joking around. Is this how you get off at night?
It's so obvious that the guy didn't explore. Raya academy needs the key to get in and if he does not like to explore then chances are he looked up some guide for the key item and went straight to it that's the only explanation. I myself found the key after cleared the whole area (Caria manor, western and eastern Liurnia). That key is super hidden and the chance is super slim that a player could find the key before the church of vow.
I only found the key because i have a tendency to explore maps in a clockwise sense(mainly due to me knowing that south-east was rot stuff and i wanted to avoid that as much as physically possible) otherwise yeah, would have definitely found good 'ol turtle pope before the key.
Isn't there a map that tells you where u can find it?....I had that map for a long time but never bother to look at it and by the time I got there I was over level for the area.
@@hbpencil490 yes, there is a map right next to the academy main door.
@@hbpencil490 yeah there is but it's a fairly shit map to read
I found the key because i reached the academy gate and found the map on the body there, then i went into my map and looked for the island where the X is and found it, then i killed the dragon
What would be sick is a 1-4 coop arena mode where you have to take on really crazy odds depending on how hard the leader sets it to be. With more then one boss being sent at you at once would be sick.
04:54 - who else tried clicking on the button to close the ad before realizing it was on the video itself?
9:36 bruh Melina doesn’t do that…Gideon the all knowing does exactly what he says and more about all the main bosses and even more characters 🤣
There’s literally lore everywhere. On items, NPCs, pillars that describe the battles that took place in that area, merchant notes etc
I'm very glad that you brought this up. I had this same discussion with my friend. He said that there isn't a story, and I had to explain to him that it's literally right there in the item descriptions and the npcs. You have to seek out info. There is so much lore hidden in item descriptions. I hope that from software does not cater to the newer player base. What makes these games great is the challenge in both playing the game and in discorvery.
Oh there's definitely a story. It's just not told well. Item descriptions and 1 way Npc dialogue where you can not ask questions most of the time is not storytelling.
@@benjeesilv1596 I mean, if you want a story just told to you you can always read a book.
@@F1REGEEZERnot an unfair thing to say yes.
But in my defense, video games are as much storytelling mediums as books are.
It's just an opinion at the end of the day/Year.
Shad lost me as soon as he said he got to "lv 30" and felt that he had sufficient experience to criticize the game... Like yeah dude you know this is the biggest souls game ever made right? Lv 30? First area cleared? And he felt he has experienced "enough"? Dude basically ranting about how the world building is bad while it's essentially him wanting to get spoon fed information cuz he has the attention span of a toddler.
I'm so pissed at how annoying, pompous and disingenous he felt when he cricized the game for not telling him Rennalas story and "having" to find it externally. Half the charm of lore hunting is finding stuff on your own. I wouldn't have cared half as much if I didn't find the story coincidentally while I wanted to find a replacement for Corhyn in that ever so lovable turtle pope.
I really hate how people seem to feel this need to bolster themselves with an "opinion" because elden ring is popular. Like it was with those dumb Ubisoft devs
Pompous little shit probably just needed arrows pointing exactly where to go that you can see from fucking orbit. This game makes me want to find every item just to read them, talk to everyone, do their quests, and just explore.
@@jordanbauerly8843 This game finally made me understand why people detested the new direction Ac games took. I've never experienced an open world that actually feels as rewarding to explore.
A favorite instance of mine is the divine tower of Caelid with my first Godskin apostle. That discovery was the cherry on top for the amazing area that was Caelid
Why would I expected to lore hunt when the game never told enough to care in the first place?
@@wiswc work on your grammar, I can’t tell what you’re trying to say.
@@wiswc because to satisfy that want to understand the world Elden Ring takes place in and to form your own conclusions on what happened like the game wants you to? listen; I get that some people just aren't interested in that, and that's totally fine, the scarcity of the lore and having to progress through game to have enough puzzle pieces to form a coherent picture can be a major turn-off, but for us who played through other souls-games, that's exactly what draws us into the game - combat and difficulty aside.
A good comparison for this would be the mystique you'd feel whenever you're curious about something. Now apply that to elden ring. You have this vast world that's teeming with mysteries waiting to be unveiled, the sense of curiosity that you get is what makes the discovery of what happened all the more meaningful. When I first found out that Radagon was Marika during my first blind playthrough, my mind just went overdrive with the theories and assumptions on how this could be, and that itself was enough to hook me into the game.
it isn't JUST the lore that entices players, it's also the rewarding sense of discovery - that one "AHA!" moment as you finally figure out something that eludes you and suddenly, you start to understand why the world is the way it is. You didn't need to be spoonfed information, you did that on your own, and it feels almost as accomplishing as beating that one boss that kept beating your ass and on NG+ you aren't having nearly as hard as back then on your first playthrough, sure levels play into that as well, but notice how you're using less flask and getting hit less by attacks that you never seem to avoid? You're getting better, and not just better, but also learning - if you commit a bit of your attention to it that is.
Again, it's fine if you don't want to. The way fromsoft tells their stories is definitely flawed, but it's their niche, the thing that makes their game stand out from others like it. It's vague, but there's enough breadcrumbs to lead you to a conclusion, and if they change that they lose what made their games unique in the first place and risk alienating some, if not more, of their core audience that stuck with them to this very day.
One thing people seem to forget about story is in media res, or starting the story in the middle of things. It is a highly valued aspect of good storytelling, and the souls-type games are the best example of that. Like everything in souls-like games, you have to earn it. Want the story? Fight for it. Seek it out. Make a poster board filled with lines and index cards. Its all there, but you have to seek it and put it together yourself. It amazes me when self-proclaimed lore hunters give up on the story when they're only 15% into the game and proclaim its trash. This story isn't going to be spoon-fed to you. It just isn't. There's a lot of allegory, nuance, and metaphors for what the story means. And that might change depending on the player, because after all, that is what true art sets out to accomplish - personal meaning. The question is: do you want to hear a story, or live it?
All of that is fine and was done well enough in previous FromSoftware titles, but I'd argue that they did drop the ball a bit in some aspects with Elden Ring. The beginning in particular is just really jarring, and the entire concept behind the "tarnished" is really handwavy and never really explained much at all. Can be as obtuse as they want about everything else, but they at least need to give the player somewhat of an anchor.
If we go with what the game tells us, the tarnished were banished for some reason at some time, and now are "called" back. Which apparently can either mean being resurrected (as apparently is the case with Gideon, I suppose, judging by the fact we see his corpse in the starting cutscene), or just being asked to return (as is the case with Rodrika, I suppose, who apparently just took a boat). Apparently it's also inheritable, as probably neither Rodrika nor Nepheli were alive and/or present in the Lands Between when that banishment happened, I suppose. It's a bit hard to tell, because it's never really made clear when anything actually happend, and who lived when and where for how long. But okay, fine so far.
But what about us, the player? Pretty much all starting equipment and class descriptions heavly imply that we're from the outside (and so likely inherited our tarnished status). Yet we're apparently resurrected in probably one of the most inaccessible places of the entire map. Why? How? That would maybe be a great setup for a murder mistery or a new Hangover movie, but here it's just jarring. And to my knowledge (please do correct me if I'm wrong) the game never even attempts to resolve that conundrum. Game essentially just air drops you from the sky and expects you to roll with it. There is a difference between a mystery and a non-sequitur.
@@apomk2 yea just like the last games other than Sekiro....you start out as a random nobody who only has slight relation to the story. Its up to you as the being to decide your fate. You don't need a backstory for a character that is supposed to be a placeholder for you. Your actions in game are what matter not what you did before. Let's not pretend like this game is vastly different storytelling that the rest.
@@dbearded130 Not having a backstory is fine. If anything Elden Ring has too much backstory for your character, and the problem is it doesn't make sense. Previous titles didn't have that problem.
its not in medias res. Some things are happening, somewhere. You arent told WHEN the heck things are. When was the shatterin, yesterday or 6000 years ago? You dont know, and you arent told.
In medias res start? Skyrim, as much as I hate it. Civil war RIGHT NOW, why civil war is happening, showing the basics of 1 side. All in the intro.
Completely agree. I am new to Souls like games and I am absolutely entrenched in this game. The one thing I really love about this game is that the lore isn't spoon fed to you. It is there, you just have to find it. Though I do wish there was a log of some sort so I could go back and check things I have found but I really enjoy the fact that how I much I get is completely up to how much I put in
I really wish that instead of stumbling into Caelid and being perplexed by a super fucked up area, there had been a big cutscene explaining all of the things I'm about to discover there
The problem here lies with Shadiversity, not the game itself.
Fully agree 💯
Totally, he said he got his mage to lvl 30 then thought he was done, by lvl 30 you didnt even beat stormvale yet, so he didn't play the game and complain about it.
Lowest common denominator….this guy is way too inexperienced to even be able to form an informed opinion
No the problem is the game. The marketing and hype was good enough that people who are used to the normal way of story telling ("hello there new player let me tell you everything in the story and make the twist obvious so you can feel good about yourself when you guess it") got interested. And it restarted the should dark souls get an easy mode argument too.
Yes.
How does knowing what's in the area make you want to explore? It would make sense to explore in order to find out what's in there. It's like he has never heard of the term CURIOSITY.
Great video, I have to say as someone who's new to fromsofts game design. They gave enough intrigue at any given time to keep me hooked, even if i didnt fully understand the story by the end it is all there. Item descriptions, NPCs, worldbuilding. They all added depth to the world and built on the game and its story, the guy you're replying to just didnt want to give the game the time it needs. I was hooked from the get go but I can understand those who need more of a push to kick things off, but I have to agree with your remarks on the matter rather than the person you're replying to.
Thanks Ziostorm for all you do in the Souls community I hope all people learn what and all souls fans Love about this game so much
The awesome thing about these worlds is it actually feels like the role you play in the world is largely dictated by how much you invest in it. Just like in real life, there’s no narrator or cutscenes telling you what’s going on. The more you interact with the world around you the easier it is to make sense of things and give yourself purpose.
Long time souls players love this feeling of being rewarded for making that effort. There’s always a base goal given to you and the information needed to accomplish it is plain in sight. The what and how are given, but the why wholly depends on how badly you want to know, and lore diggers get all their information from the game so you can’t say it’s not there.
I 100% agree but I still think Elden Ring is extremely vague and cryptic even for a Fromsoftware game. Due to its open world setting it is waaaay easier to miss hints or important NPCs than in the more linear earlier games.
@@bingobongo1615 Yeah I can agree it's easier to miss stuff, but at least some quests like Ranni's are pretty explicit with where to go next
I’m so baffled by all the comments that there is no story. I was rather surprised with how much story content is present or made clear throughout the game. The quests themselves are also far clearer than they have been before. Previously I have always looked up guides or lore videos in order to understand, yet in Elden Ring I rarely needed to do that.
I suppose it’s because we have a different experience with Soulsborne storytelling
It's not a lack of information just a lack of motivation to finish other than its a video game and beat the bosses which kills immersion.
@@Wilhelm4131 I mean it has a lot of secret bosses that require specific quest lines of which some are very deep in optional areas that a lot of people will never go to unless they searched the area up or were specifically looking for secrets (deep root)
@@K40005 I literally just finished Gowry's side quest and it wasn't even hard to figure out. He literally just told me head to the middle of the swamp to find the golden needle to cure Millicent. It is not that hard to figure out and you just have to exhaust the entirety of dialogue at times to get the full picture.
@@toledochristianmatthew9919 I dunno how far into the game you are and don't want to get into spoilers, but there's more to their quest after you save millicent. Gowry ends up giving you more information about her past
@@toledochristianmatthew9919 yes there are some fairly straight forward quests but there are some that are in already hidden areas that require you to make specific choices to even fight some bosses (if you didn't understand you haven't found the boss I'm on about) and many other optional bosses
Coming back to this video after Shad has become a routine printing machine for horrendous takes over the course of the last year 😞
can somebody explain to me why the elden ring is shatered but then we get to the end and the elden ring is complete inside of radagon and then we must kill the elden beast and then everything is fixed?
This just illustrates so perfectly why souls games aren’t for everyone and how western AAA games have ruined peoples ability to appreciate anything outside of there tiny little mold.
Very well said. In a comment higher up, Shad keeps going on and on about how the game does a bad job at explaining its story and someone replies: "I find it disingenuous that the moment a game tries to tell its story differently, you say it's bad story telling" and then he just goes off on how he's right and the game's way of telling the story is bad; point being, you're completely right, modern AAA studios like Ubisoft and EA have completely poisoned the well and made people like Shad need rails to understand a story.
@@nezahuatez Sure, when did I say they were doing something groundbreaking? You're strawmaning the shit outta me it's insane. None of what you said, I actually said in my comment. You're arguing with yourself lmao I merely said that for Shad, if the game doesn't fall in the cookiecutter mold that is EA or Ubisoft games, he calls the story telling dogshit. That's literally all I said, none of what you claimed I said. Please stop with the strawmaning and actually start arguing my points instead of talking to yourself about points nobody mentionned here.
Moreover, you saying "stop with the random EA and ubisoft hate" shows me you're a complete AAA shill. None of the games Ubisoft or EA have made in the past 5 years have had good stories. It's all been rehashed bullshit we've seen for the last 10 years. The only time they tried something new in the case of EA, with Anthem, they failed miserably. So no, it's not "random hate", it's actually quite warranted and you're shilling for some AAA company. Pitiful.
And I like the small "You have no idea what you're talking about", my dude, if you're strawmaning people like that, I don't think you should be the one giving lessons on knowing things, you seem pretty ignorant yourself. Instead of us hushing, how about YOU shut the hell up and learn your place.
Can we stop pretending western triple A games are some defective type of video games that only dumb people play? There are so many phenomenal western games to play just because their presentation is different doesn't make them ,,worse,, than fromsoft games and vice versa . But yeah let s insult the game other poepl like because it makes our game look better.
@@mj-hn5jx When did anyone say that here? Holy crap boys, stop strawmaning people and actually read what they're fucking saying. No one said that you were dumb playing a AAA game, literally NOBODY said that. You're arguing with yourself about points nobody made.
I quite specifically called EA and Ubisoft out, I never called out Santa monica, the studio that made Spiderman, the studio that made Horizon Zero Dawn, I didn't call out the studio that made Last of us. You see how you're literally arguing about points nobody made?
Moreover, I didn't insult anyone over the games they play, I specifically insulted him over the fact he wants us to stop giving EA and Ubisoft "random hate", which that hate is completely warranted for points I said higher up.
My ultimate point being: For fuck's sake dude, argue points that people actually made instead of crafting an argument nobody every said in this thread and then applying it to everyone and arguing with yourself about it.
I think the best part of souls games is how when a new title is released the community will dive deep for a full understanding of not only the main story, but the roles and motivations of the characters in the world, the items they wield and how they came to be. I think both of you are right in the sense that yes, the story is there for you if you look for it, but at the same there is a lot of story elements left open ended and up for debate. If that weren't the case, all the lore related content creators would be out of a job.
Exactly, it brings people together, to gather everything... the more invested you are in the game the more you will find out... its not like other games that hand everything to you and explain stuff in long cutscenes...
Yeah, the games don't tell you the story, it SHOWS you the story.
That is one of the best part of these games. To gather evidence, items, lore description and form theories and debates about it. It fun to speak theories about the game story and form your own head cannon. The game is a giant novel with blanks for you to fill in and there is no right answer. What you get is your own version of the story.
I remember starting with the demon's soul's game on ps3 after I first heard about ds 1 being a ''sequel'' and I loved the open-ended story telling.
when I noticed the lord and story being told this way i was hooked and i love to dig for story lore because of it
The story in elden ring or any souls like game is hard to find but its there. A lot of time I dont know where to go, who to talk to, how to trigger a quest but it really feels good when I figure it out by myself.
The whole charm of the lore is that it's obscure and mysterious. Deliberately not telling us stuff actually makes the game MORE interesting, because I want to explore and find out for myself.
You're literally meant to feel that you have no idea what is going on because it makes the lore (and world) feel really vast, like there's all these major players that have had existed for eons and to them you are absolutely nothing, and throughout the game you're literally slaying gods that you as a tarnished can't even comprehend.
fromsoft tells a lot of stories just by how the world is built.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Beneath the moonlight altar there is a little village of pale humanoid creatures, and they drop a item that says that they are a impure form of life, not touched by the grace, and when you discover the plan of Ranni you will know she "killed" herself and gave up her rune just for the Golden order to not have a way to control her, and you can kinda guess that those little albino people where made by her because the golden order would not be able to control them. I probably butchered that but just by placement of a location there is already history there, dark souls 1 whole map is like that.
and thats just the difference right there, me not knowing anything means I dont give a fuck about the elden ring. 60 hrs in and I still dont know why it matters.
@@bleeem You also realized all of them were annihalted, tortured, eaten and things even worse? They are covering in fear underneath a giant Mountain. Its a bit weird to think Ranni has anything to do with it. As the only thing that we know is that they are imperfect, and guess what? They are genocided. But you can at least help them survive.
The whole thing is Shad justifying to himself and to us why he doesn't like Elden Ring. He doesnt like the game and that's totally fine. But since it's so widely praised, he doesn't want to just say he doesn't like it, so he does this half assed critique and basically tells those of us who enjoy From's style that we are idiots because the things we enjoy are "flaws" and "objectively bad game design"
And he's being extremely disingenuous when he says how great the world building and story is. He just says that so he can then say "even though the story is Lord of the Rings level quality, the terrible storytelling renders the game unplayable"
He admits he quit fairly early on, twice. Because the storytelling couldn't keep him interested.
If you truly think the story is in par with the greatest fantasy story of all time. But yet the game is unplayable because of the "flawed storytelling" then that must mean you think the storytelling is truly terrible
Pretty obvious to me he doesn't really think the story is as wonderful as he says it is. He just says that so he can compare that with how bad the storytelling is.
And anyways the story is basically like every Dark Souls story. Tarnished=Hollow, Ring=Flame/Fire
The story is cool, but it's made better by the oblique storytelling style in my opinion. If it were told like the Witcher, it would be boring.
You obviously didn't watch his video because he loves Elden Ring. He things the lore itself is fantastic and studying it made him want to continue, but the scarcity of the lore while having a normal playthrough (especially as someone new to fromsoft games) was a turn off. My own experience with Dark Souls 1 was similar. I got to Bed of Chaos, and it was so annoying that I dropped the game for months because I knew so little about the world that I didn't really care to finish it. After watching a few hours worth of Lore videos, I eventually had the motivation to go back and finish the game.
@@sonicfan4511 I watched the video and I don't believe he's being truthful when he says he thinks the story is Lord of the Rings level quality. That's why I said he's being disingenuous.
@@sonicfan4511 shad should just take the L
@@sonicfan4511 How can he love the game, yet quit before he even finished ~5-10% of it?
@@sonicfan4511 Love Elden Ring but quit without even finishing it? What kind of love is that? It sounds like he's just sour-graping to me.
want to point out that have completed 2 full playthoughs, I still don't understand the story. there a hours between a little dialog that you need to remember exact phrasing and with multiple meanings. And I have to connect dots between things that not remotely in the same area. Most of it was great they told me about something... but what was this event that gives it context?
i personally love the story that is exactly that not obvious. As an example: you wake up and see theres a dead finger maiden, you think nothing of it but later hear its of some importance. The first person you meet outside of that place is covered in blood and somehow knows for a fact that you are maidenless. Later he also wants you to collect maidens blood. low and behold he did it and it was awesome to find out by yourself.
I havent seen the referenced video but my jaw dropped when i heard that he did not know about Rennala’s story. It was the most exposed story in any FromSoft games. You don’t have to read item descriptions etc, just explore the world, talk with NPCs(particularly Pope). I am not a lore digger but talking with NPCs were enough to understand the journey even more than Sekiro. What differed Sekiro was more linear so you would see the characters on the way. ER wants you to go out and seek. I really hope they won’t change this in the future. It gives you as much as ‘you’ want. I wanted the general story, but not so deep into item descriptions, got it. This guy was not looking for it so he did not got it. Ziostorm was looking the deep metaphors he showed us the alchemical connections and was so amazing to see. People get not what they do desire but what they look for and invest upon
THIS.
The problem is that shad did not know this.
ER is a game built on "getting what you want, when you want, as long as you put equivalent work into it"(i.e. want to know about the general world and bosses? Go talk with the guy who is literally known as "all-knowing" in the hub, don't want to know anything and just want to beat the next boss? Just go forward and talk to nobody, want to know why radagon had to leave rennala and what his secret was? Explore the world and item descriptions) yet he completely missed on this and wanted the game to be what it doesn't want to be.
The only valid complaint of his is that the intro scene says too little to give him a hook, but personally i found that to be enough, yet he says that was objectively too little, making it objectively bad.
@@iota-09 For me the hook was “Arise tarnished”, i can’t describe the rush that i felt when i hear those words
He just didn't play past margit
@@ajackass5950 He played up to killing Rennala after watching a video from Vaati
@@ReTeCe94 bruh he had me hooked at " Arise, Tarnished " and proceeded to reel me in with each word after, seriously he had no right making shit sound that epic.
U know i do kinda agree with his point of " a cutscene with melina plays when u enter a new area", not because i think thats how u should get the information about a new place, but mainly because i would have loved to feel like I'm kinda actually teaveling with her. I know she sometimes has things to say on graces and maybe its just because i liked her and wanted to see more, but i just wish she had more representation on the journey.
Yea her story was very distant and not what I expected
I wouldn't would want a cutscence because that would take me out of the experience. But having more opportunities to have dialog at new points of grace throughout the world would have been nice
@@Ziostorm I'm hoping someone will mod the PC version to that Melina and Boc warp in and sit with you whenever you rest at a grace.
Melina is severly underutilized when we cant even talk to her when we level up.
I think part of it is her story but the game is YOUE story, YOUR choices. Being able
To talk with her more would be good but more cutscenes like Shadvirsity wants would ruin the game.
Great video. I can't believe people who haven't played the game are actually making hour long videos hating on it. This is insane
The vague storytelling has actually gotten me involved with a gaming community for the first time trying to research questions I have. I’ve always been a solitary gamer with no interest in the online aspect of games. That has changed with Elden ring and I’ve played a ton of multiplayer on this game. I love going through the item descriptions and trying to piece things together. Right now I’m trying to figure out the story behind all the main boss’s disabilities and need for prosthetics which is actually really interesting. It was a challenge to go from games that will give you a map marker and a fetch quest just by walking by an NPC conversation that you the player didn’t actually hear, to a game that says “here is the artistically beautiful world, now go have fun” and just kind of lets you loose to form your own path in the game. I am so glad I am able to accept the game for what it is and throughly enjoy it. You actually get to think for yourself which is so refreshing.
From Soft games are like a book, you’ve got to read into all the gritty little details. The devs want you to go through multiple playthroughs and by reading through all the item descriptions and talking to all the npcs you start to piece all the parts of the story together. The story of From Soft games isn’t handed to the player, it’s part of why you want to play it over and over to discover and U.S. it’s part of the mystery that I love about their games. This means it’s not going to be a game that everyone has time to fully delve into but thankfully the community has an abundance of lore videos created for that.
Uncovering the story is part of the drive to keep playing. If melina showed up every 20 min and reminded me "HEY GO TO LUCARIA NEXt!" Id be so disapointed that from has devolved its game design to that level. These games are a literal statement against that mentality.
Dont go to a metal concert expecting Ed Sheeran to open. and then complain when the metal is too loud. lol
This has only been true in Dark Souls 1, since then it's a convenient way to convey no story at all or even, in the example of Dark Souls 3, get away with how unfinished and mashed together the game was. Really, since DS3 I have no respect for this form of storytelling, because you pretend there's a "deeper mystery to uncover", but the mystery is that you had to cut 1/2 of the game.
What you're describing is not a book, but rather a leaflet that tells you pages on wikipedia to look up to understand what the meaning of the leaflet is. That's not good
@@singami465 yall are fried and miss the point of these games lmfao. to each their own. dont @ me. elden ring goated.
omg when Shad said the part about having to find out Rennala's story from an external source and not the game that made me angry. It might be my interpretation of his words but he acts like that information isn't available in game, IT IS, Miriel in the Church of Vows tells you about it, and he'd know that if he just KEPT EXPLORING. Thanks for pointing this out!
Long story short, FromSoft games are made for people who don't want their hands held.
also dude is basically complaining that FromSoft games have an incredibly active and engaged lore community XD
part of the beauty of From soft games has always been how open ended they are. There is soooo much lore in Elden Ring. part of the fun of the game is uncovering that story. getting spoon fed plot is nice but I really like how lore is treated like an additional reward to exploring.
Id also like to point out the out of all the souls games elden ring is without a doubt the easiest to understand the lore of the game
From Softwares games are built around a communal effort of lore hunting and tips giving. The only reason I got into them was Vaatividya explaining Bloodborne
The game is so rich one of the most fun things about the game is discovering the story. And its so refreshing that a modern game actually respects the players intelligence and doesn't spoon feed everything.
But there's still people need to be spoon feed. And they scream alot.
right, games with dialogue and cutscenes for the first 3 hours of gameplay are so fucking boring. I can barely drag through it and am constantly "when will youi let me play the game" pokemon is the worst offender of this.
@@certifedcupcake I love 3 hours of cutscenes if they are good. In the end Elden Ring didn't deliver a good story experience. Sure the world is kinda cool, but it's such a ball ache to understand the world that the story just gets left under it. Gameplay was fun, but can't really see myself playing through the game again.
@@cassu6 “it’s such a ball ache to understand the world” my sister who has never touched a game in her life, let alone a dark souls game, played ER with me the other day and was able to understand the entire objective story of this entire game and what was taking place through dialogue and scenery. It didn’t deliver a good story experience because you weren’t spoon fed the story. That’s it.
@@cassu6 disagree wholeheartedly. its a world that you step inyto and learn about. the world doesn't give a shit if you learn about its history. most tarnished give up and dont. you're one of them i guess. its beautiful how even players who prefer cutscene games are sort of written into the lore by being the tarnished who doin't make it.
He was expecting an experience that a NAMED character would give. This is a real open world where the Tarnished is YOUR vessel to explore it and immerse yourself in all on your own. In fact you could even link the grace floating towards you in the intro to be the player itself.
The environmental design is already enough to not need any fucking exposition from Melina.
I realize that you have a FromSoft boner, but pleaser don't act like they reinvented the fucking wheel with this game. "It a real open world" yep congratulations, FromSoft did the thing everybody else has been doing for years. In some ways better, in some way the same. The issue I have with this is that this is FromSoft's schtick, it's not anything new. They always make their stories ridiculously obscure and expect you to interpret what the hell you’re watching happening in the games based on item descriptions or random bits of notes and the vague mumblings of NPCs. Elden Ring is a bit more straightforward than some of the others in this regard, but lets be honest, what's the difference from "gather the pieces and become the Elden Lord" and "Seek the paleblood to transcend the hunt." I love Elden Ring, but I think there is fair criticism to be said for not making some elements of the story a bit more straightforward.
As in you're a sociopath who hates nothing more than interacting with actual PEOPLE.
And it's hardly immersive to receive a museum plaque style exposition to every item you find.
@@jkincaid582 when did I say it was new? When did I say they were the originator????
@@renno2679 by implying that this is an open world so we shouldn’t expect the story to make sense without hours of exploration. Or that the world design supersedes the need for straightforwardly story telling. Plenty of other open world games provided exploration with a more coherent main story, and the design of the world has zero impact on how this story was presented. They did the same thing in every Soulsborne game.
@@jkincaid582 Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed? NOWHERE in that comment did I read what you somehow ended up reading.
10:45 also there’s npc like thops that explains extra things about the area
my first playthrough i felt a little like shad but my second and third playthrough i would notice how the story is told through a lot u only have to look
That's pretty much how all FromSoft games work. Although I'll admit, Elden Ring is such vast world that it's easy to miss the subtle intricacies, if you don't know to look for them. Probably an advantage of starting with any of the three Dark Souls or Bloodborne instead, their smaller scope and comparatively linear design more naturally funnels the player down a path of discovery.
I think the issue is it doesn't sound like he really enjoys gaming. Him saying he done after stormveil is the equivalent of me saying I'm done with basketball after learning the rules and playing 3 or 4 games. That's suppose to be the beginning.
When people ask me how I can love games which story I don't understand I always say you gotta play it yourself. It adds to the magical feeling of exploring the world of the game and it creates wonderful communities
Tbf the answer is actually fairly simple: it immerses you more.
(The example he gives in his video of the dragon dogma fight where the enemy does exposition dialogue in the middle of the fight simply had me go "why is he saying this to me now? Why does he care? I'm(the player character) trying to kill him who tf cares how important of a fight or location this is, think more about keeping your skin on and less about schooling me on what's going on", that actually took me out of the immersion and he said it was good storytelling.
A published writer.
Bah)
@@iota-09 It also gives the players the option on how much they want to explore the world and it's story
@@julienpoeschl No it is trash plot without telling you why and where. Its not rpg its trash. Places where you are wasting two houres to get somewhere and then from the other place u just teleport there, its stupid and not rewarding
@@maciekprokop3780 sad that this made you experience the story negativly. It has so much to offer
@@julienpoeschl u must be joking, every souls game before 90% people dont even read what npc say. Interesting story u have it in Witcher 3 or Gothic where it matters. In souls game there is no logic, u can find most important items on the roof xD
The story in Elden Ring is like reading a book with 95% of the pages missing. You get a little bit every few hours or so. The real problem is that there is no quest tracker or journal keeping you connected to the story. Without that, you're basically just wandering around, clearing areas with the hope of finding something. Even if you get a quest or information, which is rare to find, its meaningless. It only matters because its a prerequisite to get to the next stage of the conversation, quest, etc. I disagree with those who are attacking the game, but what's worse are these souls fanboys who can't admit anything is ever wrong in a From game.
you ever heard of a notebook? If not let me tell you these things are fantastic. They let me write things down inside of them no mater what game I am playing if I think I need to remember something for a quest or stuff!
I feel like the point of this video can be summarized in this quote from Gideon Ofnir:
"Oh, are you aggrieved? At the notion that you are but a visitant here?
Then you would do well to remember the first words of grace given to you.
Stand before the Elden Ring, and become the Elden Lord."
That's the story. That's your objective, your motivation. Stand before the Elden Ring, and become the Elden Lord. Everything else is set dressing. Very nice set dressing, but ultimately not important for pursuing your goal.
There's also tons of clues pointing you the way you should go. After the intro, you meet Varre pretty much immediately, and he directs you to Stormveil Castle. The guidance of grace, which Varre explains to you, also points you to Stormveil. Melina asks you to take her with you to the foot of the Erdtree. Gideon Ofnir tells you that you can't be one of the big boys until you claim a great rune. Once you do beat Godrick, Gideon opens up to you and describes all of the demigods and your ultimate goal of getting two great runes to mend the Elden Ring before going to Leyndell to face Morgott. Enia gives further exposition. Compared to Dark Souls, ER has way more exposition. There might be a lot of obscure lore details hidden from the player, but the basics of the story are all in plain sight.
It's weird because I thought Shad was already at least somewhat familiar with Dark Souls, and a lot of these same criticisms could be applied to Dark Souls. This is just how From writes their games, and a lot of Souls fans like it this way. Instead of spoonfeeding you the story you're given the bare minimum needed to pursue the end goal, and honestly more than the bare minimum as long as you don't outright avoid talking to NPCs. Uncovering the deeper lore is something of a detective game, leafing through item descriptions and correlating that with random bits of NPC dialogue and then reading between the lines to find implied connections. We actually know quite a lot about both DS and ER that frankly isn't necessary for the game's story but was included anyway because it doesn't get in the way of that story.
I will never understand people who get upset at story details hidden in obscure descriptions or codecs. I think lore is waaay cooler when you have to search for it
You really don't understand that that isn't for everyone?
@@vaguepepper4028 its fine that it's not for everyone. It's not fine for those people to complain about it not being for them
@@vaguepepper4028 I don’t relate to the sentiment. Obviously I understand people will disagree lol
The fact he thought playing a couple different builds to level 30 in limgrave was enough taste of the character and their potential tells you all you need to know. I just ignore people like this, go watch a movie or something if you just want a narrative.
I am very curious what level he was before making that new character. Cause in a game where you can reach well over lvl 120+ being lvl30 is still a weak little baby. It just comes across like he only played a small amount of the game and made assumptions without taking the time to confirm his assumptions.
Shad truly played about 5-10% of a Fromsoft game and believed he had it nailed.
*beats the FIRST main boss* Shad: Welp I've beaten this game!"
Also why the fuck did he make a new character to try a new build, like wtf
I was honestly shocked that he found the story so hard to follow when it's the Fromsoft souls-like that explains itself THE MOST
4:55 very subtle click on the ad there ;)
Thanks for bringing this up . I will say this , the reality is mostly all people don't understand this game , the story , lore or the type of game and writing style from soft is using to understand the whole process. Ask 99.9 percent of the fanbase and if they being real they don't completely understand it . I don't understand everything. I'm using others research to a degree while making my own sense of things . But I'm blind to many things . Whole the community has its scribes, diggers and storytellers these games is not easy to break down and make sense of on purpose mind u. Compare this to many esoteric media and this is rated highly as very hard to grasp
I'll be honest ive just now started looking at things online regarding the lore but only to fill in the blanks. I'm a father to 3 and don't have the time I wish I had to explore the lore in game. Well said by the way
In his defense, shad too actually likes having secrets, as he exposed in the comments on the video, his problem wasn't so much with the story not being freely given to the player, as much as it not giving enough from the get-go to have the player invested.
Basically at the end of the intro cutscene, instead of going "but why do i want to follow this? Why do i want to become elden lord? I need to figure that out"
He went
"But why? If you don't tell me, what stops me from just not giving a damn and simply go pick some flowers? I can't tell exactly what i'm going to earn from it or why"
But on the other hand...
That's... Not even a "problem" with elden ring storytelling, it's something common in most japanese storytelling.
And he goes on to claim it's "objectively bad"
THAT is the issue with his argument.
Basically he can't understand a different way of storytelling, and instead of going "fair but i don't like it" goes "this bad, what a waste."
Which is all the more of a redflag when he actually wrote and published a book of his own (which i haven't read, but that i remember people saying very exposisition and characters-conversation heavy)
Tho i guess that also bring him to compare ER to books and movies which is honestly a huge mistake.
@@iota-09 I completely understand and agree with you . I don't agree with shad statements but I can understand to an extent that many feel this way . I don't think the devs should create as they should . I like the whole Scooby Doo , Carmen San Diego vibes the community has in solving the mysteries of the game . It's not to different from kojima community . It keeps the community together and finding stuff out
@@ImarBenIsrael indeed.
I just think the guy had the wrong expectations tbh, he went in thinking he was gonna get a plot explanation at the start, but what he got instead was a concept explanation instead, and that had him in such whiplash thinking he was gonna get big exposition shoved in the face in an unavoidable way sooner or later that he didn't even try looking for the story... He was waiting for tbe story to come to him, even though these games and elden ring specifically, are built in a way that beyond the very first cutscene, you can literally ignore virtually anything plot-wise or get everything depending on how much you are invested in uncovering its secrets, the story isn't coming to you, you gotta go get the story for yourself.(in-game, no need for looking at tweets 'n stuff)
Basically he wanted the game to force the story more with either more cutscenes or more exposition in the already present cutscenes, not realizing that would hurt the control the player has over rhe gane's flow in terms of balance between story content and gameplay.
Vattividya was making lore videos on Dark Souls 3 a few years after it's release. They story is like a puzzle. You have to find it out by yourself.
One of the things i always liked about the Story and world building of FromSoftware games is that the Story is told by the characters and because it is told by the Characters it is therefore Fallible, The character may be lying, they may be working for an opposing faction or so on, it up to you to objectivly look at the information you are presented and decide what path you want to take.
Also how can you say you experienced the game in full when you didnt even finish the first area? the game hasnt started you know nothing xD
thankfully elden ring isn’t my
first fromsoft game, bloodborne was a good intro into this studios environmental storytelling. there is so much here people can miss and that is awesome, i love watching lore and theory videos about these games after i complete an area and i realize there was a lot more secrets there. i get how this can be frustrating to some completionists or people who are not used to this type of storytelling, but i do not want fromsoft to change their design that has worked so great for us.
That last clip O_o I need to know more