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[TheSHEEEP]

ds2 is easily my fav. (not the best)

Some parts of DS2 are also my favourites in the series.
For example, I really love that they made armor more important and upgradeable. It increased the RPG factor of the game and elevated that aspect of it above "fashion souls", which is what all the others do.
Or the fact that mobs stop respawning when you kill them X times (was it 10? I can't remember). Gave the world and your actions a more permanent/important feeling and made those recurring paths a lot less annoying.

 

[Portugeezer]

People who say ER was barren are full of shit. There was a lot to discover - and sometimes a cool/unique area was enough of a discovery - but with there being a huge variety of build possibilities you'd get a lot of stuff that wouldn't suit your character.

It's still cool because you can re-spec your character at some point in the game and experiment different builds.

The huge world is what makes those discoveries interesting.

That's a multiplayer game.
Elden Ring is a single player game with opt-in multiplayer content.

There's exactly 0 technical problem in implementing it like "do not allow players to be invaded while paused, do not allow players to pause while being invaded". It's not rocket science...
It's not like it's fun for the invader, either, to invade someone who's just AFK.

If you're going AFK you can just quit the game.

I would love to pause (during a boss for example), but it's really not a big deal because quitting is so easy.

 

[Dutchy]

One of the uglier looking AAA games from recent years imho. OP's screenshots being another reminder.

I'm personally looking forward to the first from game that is as visually appealing as it is fun to play.

 

[The artful mincer]

Differences in individual taste. For me, nothing about how Kena controls and plays feels fluid. It's clunky and decent at best. Where you feel clunkiness in Souls combat, I feel tight, fluid, weighty, and satisfying combat.

While I mostly agree that your mentions, aside from Kena, arguably have more engaging combat than Souls combat, all (except Nioh) are different genres so I wouldn't even compare.

By Fluid I mean being able to chain your various abilities easily together. E.g. easily going from melee attack to bow to rot attack in a split second. The core combat is pretty fluid in souls but switching spells or items etc is very slow and awkward especially on a Controller. ( I did find out there was quick item swap you could implement after I finished the game but hey ho)

You seem to be arguing that souls feels better and is more Satisfying which I would agree with! I'm arguing about the amount of options you have during battle and I think in this regard Kenya beats Souls game.

Not saying Kenya is better game. All souls games are much better overall than Kenya

 

[Mr Moose]

Great game, would be better if it didn't run like shit.

 

[TheSHEEEP]

If you're going AFK you can just quit the game.

I would love to pause, but it's really not a big deal because quitting is so easy.

I agree it's not a big deal.
But it IS a deal and lots of people are annoyed by it. And it would be absurdly easy to fix and get rid of the deal altogether.
And the combo of being super easy to fix and devs not fixing it by the Xth game in the "series" just leaves a somewhat sour taste IMO.

The point is more that the game has too many flaws (big and small ones) to be considered flawless or the greatest game ever.

 

[Markio128]

You could argue that what ER has done has already been done in DS, Bloodborne, etc., but now in an open world. The game plays no better than the more linear games and I’d argue that there are only a handful of really interesting dungeons.

For me, Bloodborne is still the pinnacle of the genre, with just the right amount of freedom needed for a game like this.

I also don’t like the fact that I had to spend a large amount of time replaying the same areas to build my character. That, for me, is poor design.

 

[Soodanim]

ds2 is easily my fav. (not the best)
That is vanilla. Not sotfs and not dlc. these are quite annoying with traps and gank squads

Ah, OG 2 is the version I never played and you can't seem to buy it on PC anymore. Not at a reasonable price, at least.

If I could get an analog deadzone fix to actually work, I'd be happier. 2 has a lot to offer, and they shouldn't have abandoned all of it.

 

[Mr Branding]

Was this topic really necessary?

 

[DaleinCalgary]

It's a great game but too big and too many secrets if this is possible. Playing this game without online guides and hints most would never get very far.

 

[T4keD0wN]

LOL, its a ubisoft game minus the menus and proper shader compilation. Great game though, at least the first 66%

 

[crackajack]

I disagree. I prefer the game world to feel organic and realistic. Not as if it was made with you in mind. I need empty traversable landmasses to... traverse. You are not doing "nothing". You actually travel in it. Why do you need every inch of the land to have something to find or interact with? That would feel like a video game land, a theme park or Truman's Show world.

Super Mario Bros would have been so much better with a lot of this in between, right?

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Game design, not only for memory reasons, was imho very different in the still earlier days.

A little bit of scale, for immersion and believability, okay, Stalker, Mafia, even the imho not really good SotC (where the emptiness, had a clear contrasting purpose) did it right, but ever since GTA 3, probably already with Daggerfall or whatever, way too many games went big just to tick the we have a huge map and humongous amount of hours of play time boxes - "value" for your money- and all they did was stretch mostly lacking video game stories even more. Morrowind, Far Cry, AC, RDR could all be awesome games if they would not waste so much of my time for those "epic" empty game worlds.
It would be clever if every game that wants to be big, to design it in a way that the player can toggle the distances between towns, boss areas etc. so players who want to spent half of their game time traversing can do that (and I guesss the majority does, otherwise it would not be so successfull in sales) and those who just want to have the juicy bits can actually enjoy it too with a "dumbed down" Greatest Hits version.
Vast landmasses are usually anyway copy paste deserts, so toggle/crop that crap. AI tools to the rescue!

 

[cortadew]

it was a 7/10 for me. I hated the open world and honestly it's the weakest story and world of the Fromsoft games by far.

Bloodborne and Dark Souls 1 will forever be the best for me. ER is the first Fromsoft game that I didnt finish. I have zero desire to beat the final boss and do any of the content I missed tbh.

You are not missing much to be honest, even the most die hard ER fanboy would agree Elden Beast is not a good final boss

 

[nial]

Fromdrone detected, people attached to a brand/company will always say that game X is "the greatest of all time". It happened with God of War and Breath of the Wild.

 

[The Infectious Paradox]

I wish it wasn't open world.

Amen

 

[Spukc]

Breath of the wild remains king in the genre.

However elden ring got close

 

[gow3isben]

You misspelled God of War Ragnarok

 

[cortadew]

Breath of the wild remains king in the genre.

However elden ring got close

Breath of the wild is peak game design

 

[Spukc]

You misspelled God of War Ragnarok

I should really play that game.
But i got out of it.. no idea why but i just dropped it

 

[DaleinCalgary]

Great game, would be better if it didn't run like shit.

I came very close to restarting the game using the ps4 version on the ps5 because its locked at 60 fps but the VRR update does help a ton and made the ps5 version playable.

 

[Thief1987]

You need to git gud friend.
FromSoft have been making near flawless games and Elden Ring is the natural evolution of that tried & proven formula.

How is it evolution if they are dumbing down gameplay systems and mechanics with each new game since Demon's Souls?

 

[SmokedMeat]

Possibly the most overrated game of all time imo.
Its innovation on the Souls formula's exaggerated tbh & it's major flaws somehow escaped actual criticism.
But hey whatever works with you man.

Nothing exaggerated about it.

The horse adds a layer to the combat, plus it’s fun traversal. Massive open world in a sea of open world games that vomit icons and hold your hand throughout the entirety.

Ashes of War are fun to use, and make the game a little less punishing for beginners. Interesting side quests you’ve got to stumble on and continue yourself without once again having your hand held.

If only 99% of the other AAA game releases bothered introducing meaningful new additions.

 

[lefty1117]

Maybe I'm being unfair to the game because it just didn't click with me, but there hasn't been anything for me that has toppled RDR2 world design. Enjoyment of the setting/genre probably plays a part in these kind of discussions. I'd probably add GTAV so that exclusive list - clearly Rockstar has a wonderful expertise. BotW and TW3 fall right behind as "1-A" candidates in my mind. I don't quite know how to place Elden Ring because I just didn't like the game all that much, but I recognize that many many players absolutely adore it so it seems to warrant a top spot.

 

[Nankatsu]

The sheer quality of the exploration can't be denied. Hell, first time I hit a new region my jaw dropped, because they manage to make them really unique.

It's a joy just to explore and stumble upon a hidden dungeon or boss.

Combat and build variety is extremely unique, full of options. It hits hard until you manage to get the grasp of it.

However, I'm not a fan of the quest design. At the very least I think we should have a backlog of some sort. I don't want the game to pinpoint me the way, but most of the times I forgot at which stage of the quest I am and I end up completely clueless on what to do.

And it's not a perfect design because I'm pretty sure a large chunck of the player base ends up googling what to do.

 

[Filben]

I wish the combat system would look as cool as in Sekiro. And they seriously need to work on their tech and engine. A little more questions in dialogues from the alter ego to get to know of NPCs incentives and motives would be cool, too. Also a diary that tracks what you've already learned. You can do that without handholding and guiding the player through every obstacle and without giving up From's cryptic writing and lore.

Apart from that I think it's a great game, but there's still room for improvement. So it's not quite enough for the best game ever.

 

[Flabagast]

Yeah yeah mate every game is the greatest thing ever in this board. I just read that Last of Us is the greatest story ever, Elden ring the greatest game ever, what else now ?

Lmao some of the gaffers are such uneducated clowns

 

[Ar¢tos]

I would prefer a somewhat more closed world, like an area gives you access to 2 or 3 areas but then funnels down to next area that gives you access to 2 or 3 areas, etc, but I enjoyed how open the world is while maintaining gated areas (underground areas, capital, farum azula, etc)

 

[Topher]

I like it a it a lot better playing with my son using the "seamless coop" mod.

Seamless Co-op

Overhaul to the co-operative aspect of Elden Ring's multiplayer

www.nexusmods.com

 

[ShinyMan]

This whole "greatest X ever made" thing is ridiculous.

You can like something without superlatives and hyperbole. I promise you it's allowed.

Why is that?

I mean I get the exageration that might cause, and I don't agree with Elden Ring being the GOAT (hell, it's not even Miyazaki's best work), but why are discussions about something/someone being the greatest ridiculous?

 

[hemo memo]

Greatest game ever made is Portal 2 followed by Ocarina of Time.

 

[Duchess]

I sort of agree. Up until Crumbling Farum Azula ...

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

You misspelled God of War Ragnarok

Already forgot most of that game and its story. Drawn out, repetitive game no where near as iconic as the originals.

 

[ANDS]

We're getting these threads about once every few months or so, and they always focus on the same thing: the art design in the world and the lack of "explicit direction." We've now mythicized the "hand holding" of other open world games to the point where we're now giving kudos to a game simply because it doesn't do this. Which isn't hard when there isn't actually anything of note to be hand held towards.

Folks eat this obtuseness in narrative up like candy and call it ambrosia and then sneer at the attempts by other studios to actually make a game world that feels alive and lived in instead of visually inviting but empty.

. . .my oh my I can't WAIT for the countless articles comparing SF to ER and how having nothing in ER is better than actually actually trying to build a world in SF (and every other open-world that isn't ER or BOTW).

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

anything to shift the conversation away from zelda breath of the wild.

 

[Allandor]

Possibly the most overrated game of all time imo.
Its innovation on the Souls formula's exaggerated tbh & it's major flaws somehow escaped actual criticism.
But hey whatever works with you man.

Well even i like the game. It is quite good but has many, many flaws.
A simple example: spells from other mages have auch higher range than your own spells..

The open world is ... well sometime impressive but also damn empty. Yes here and there is an enemy or something to find but most of it is just quite empty traversal area.

The story is ... well just not my type ... I guess somebody smoked to much

The fight system is clunky and often unfair

And I'm still missing an easy mode (just don't have so much time to ever complete that game)

But still ... damn this atmosphere is just phenomenal.

 

[hemo memo]

We're getting these threads about once every few months or so, and they always focus on the same thing: the art design in the world and the lack of "explicit direction." We've now mythicized the "hand holding" of other open world games to the point where we're now giving kudos to a game simply because it doesn't do this. Which isn't hard when there isn't actually anything of note to be hand held towards.

Folks eat this obtuseness in narrative up like candy and call it ambrosia and then sneer at the attempts by other studios to actually make a game world that feels alive and lived in instead of visually inviting but empty.

. . .my oh my I can't WAIT for the countless articles comparing SF to ER and how having nothing in ER is better than actually actually trying to build a world in SF (and every other open-world that isn't ER or BOTW).

There is a middle ground between handholding and directionless.

 

[ANDS]

There is a middle ground between handholding and directionless.

Good thing EVERY modern Ubiopenworld allows you to tweak the hell out of the non-diegetic feedback that you get. AVC or FC6 in unguided (I think it's called "Explorer" in ACV) mode is not the same as ACV or FC6 in its default, UI littered hellscape.

 

[GC_DALBEN]

Its awesome, some of my friends that hated the souls series played Elden Ring and LOVED, Elden ring is fucking awesome, great experience.

 

[Thebonehead]

Having never enjoyed any souls games including Bloodborne, Elden ring got me engaged ( For 117 hours )

Then I dropped it like a stone as I lost a load of Runes, and on the way to scoop them back up got trapped in a wall and killed.

Apart from that I found it a barren world with little to no story / background / characters to engage with versus contrast with any other rpg

 

[Madflavor]

One of the best games ever made. Typical cycle of once something becomes incredibly popular and successful, the "Overrated!" crowd sounds off, as if pointing out a game isn't perfect and has flaws is a shocking revelation.

Btw I love Bloodborne, but don't come at Elden Ring's technical issues, and then start sucking off Bloodborne. That shit is borderline unplayable these days.

 

[HL3.exe]

Tried it like all the other Souls and From soft stuff. Hope it would finally get into this style. But I find them immensely boring and predictable (from a gameplay standpoint, not art design ofcourse).

Respawning enemies with no real impact on the world by the player. (yes, i'm aware it's lore based, still makes it a boring design choice) Just a series of tedious boss fights. A 'been there done that' Metroidvania level loop design style. There's no real dynamism to these games. NPC don't really react if i'm being attacked which makes it even more gamey. It's just grinding stats until you're finally ready for the next area.

I was halfway into Elden Ring, but eventually just stopped booting up the game. This is no disregard for people that like these games. 'Like what you like' of course, i'm glad it works for a lot of folks. For me it just never clicked which saddens me a bit. Which is also double weird because i'm into hardcore Immersive Sims and deep Roleplaying titles. It's not the difficulty of the souls-likes, It's the structure and lack of world reactivity that I find boring about these games. :/

 

[BbMajor7th]

BOTW and to some extent Skyrim, more so BOTW are both games where you have the freedom to do what ever you want and your own pace, much like ER.

This is backwards to honest - both games have roughly the same freedom of traversal in terms of picking a point on the map and just going there, but Skyrim has way more variety of indoor and outdoor exploration, alongside things like underwater traversal and large settlements that BotW never really attempts. On the gameplay side, Skyrim also has infinitely more freedom. It let's you shape your character, both narratively and mechanically and interact with the world in countless ways that the world will actually respond to. From your choice of skills and weapons to who you side with or betray, who you talk to, what locations you visit. It's by no means the pinnacle but the difference to BotW is night and day.

ER probably has BotW beat too, in terms of build variety, indoor and outdoor locations, even NPCs (limited as they are in FromSoft games) respond more meaningfully to your actions in ER than they do in BotW and can even influence the ending of the game.

BOTW is so hands off, it lets you take on the final boss in the first hour of the game if you want to.

I'm still waiting for someone to tell me why this is a good thing and not just a very obvious gimmick.

 

[gow3isben]

Already forgot most of that game and its story. Drawn out, repetitive game no where near as iconic as the originals.

If we talking about Elden Ring I agree

 

[Raven77]

Because of circumstances out of my control I just restarted playing after a really long break.

Have any of the updates in the past few months changed strength and Dex combo builds? I've been using the same weapons for a while and I'm just about ready to head into Liurnia. I barely remember how the combat works so it's been a bit of a struggle.

 

[Paltheos]

In many ways Elden Ring is fantastic and in many ways it's absolutely terrible. The scale of the game world is staggering and there's so many great things to see and do, but the game's also a victim of the series' success. It was something I noticed as I was playing the game, not too long after finishing Dark Souls 1 for the first time (which is too easy, by comparison, when you're working through the series backwards), but the encounters push the envelope on difficulty too far with what can be done with its mechanics imo. Too many encounters are too difficult for classic one-on-one Soulsborne fights. There are also issues of too much repeated content and poor scaling due to the non-linear nature (of such a massive game).

Current Fromsoft tier list for me is DS3>BB>ER>DS1>DeS>DS2>Sek (Sekiro's a good game by the way; I just don't like it personally).

 

[AngelMuffin]

"Taste, like your ass is divided".

I Think you’re missing a comma.

 

[Skifi28]

After Sekiro, it's really difficult to go back to the traditional souls combat which is why I'm still just 20 hours in and slogging through the game, cheesing bosses with summons instead of fighting it out.

 

[Nankatsu]

After Sekiro, it's really difficult to go back to the traditional souls combat which is why I'm still just 20 hours in and slogging through the game, cheesing bosses with summons instead of fighting it out.

That's their next game. Sekiro combat with Elden Ring's open world.

 

[Astral Dog]

Huh, i honestly didn't find it as enjoyable as Bloodborne or the Dark Souls series and lost interest, but also normally can't stand open world games. with very few exceptions.

open world design is something i don't think improves a game always, but its cool Elden Ring fits like a glove to many people,(i just wouldn't place it above their previous games)

 

[Drizzlehell]

Sorry brew, that title belongs to Metal Gear Solid. But Elden Ring sure is up there.