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After 85 hours, Is the git gut really the best of the best?

First Fromsoft game, before I bought the game I was worried that I am going to waste 70E and not be able to kill even the first boss but I liked the open world nature of it and after some gameplay videos i wanted to try it. First playstation 5 game that I pay full price (everything else was second hand). And after 85 hours and couple dozens bosses felled, I have bested the big bad elden jelly.
The best game of the generation many have claimed but I think opinions are like an asshole, everyone has one. For me it was one of the best games that I played recently with many flows.
Why the best:
From the moment you start the game there is no handholding, there is no introduction to the game that does not give you freedom of decisions for couple hours just to teach you how to jump or dodge.
It is very straightforward what you have to do and you have to find yourself how to do it. A beautiful art design and very interesting enemy designs with enough variety that you don’t have to kill the same thing over and over.
No quests that send you to save the world by killing 5 rats and gathering 3 flowers. No quest that the NPC asks you to go to speak to his neighbour or to pick up an item from the next room.
Enormous amount of loot to customize your character and make the build you are interested to use to bring the elden morons to their knees.
Very beautiful and interesting side areas that often are even better than the main regions.
An addictive gameplay loop and the ability to mold however you wish your character.
One of the best feelings after killing a boss encounter in longwhile (Margit)

The flows:
The game has many flows and in no way is the game of the generation. Whoever claim something like that either is part of the From cult, fetishize the game and its creators and cant see the flows or he is disingenuous with himself and everyone else. Elden ring has a barebones stealth and WTF Is that bow combat, whoever tested that and after trying to use the bow more than two times thought its good, really must have never played any other game in his life.

The enemies have no stamina or focus points and they spam non stop their skills and combos, big combos that don’t leave you any room to react at all and only solution is to roll. The shield is a paperweight even with 30 points. Everyone brakes it with 2 to 3 hits does not matter how many points you have invested. And for a fast attacking boss the shield is useless if you don’t have parry on it because counter attack only works to the minor enemies.

There is some enemies that are more powerful than the bosses, they frustrate you and the only solution is to go past them (Brown armor tall soldier with horns helmet and wheel javelin)

I read the best quest is Ranni’s. After killing Rahdann I started her quest line but because I had encounter Blaid before most of the questline was broken. I wasted so much time to find where is what and gave up in the end and just went to kill the big bad guy she asks you and the quest was finished…..The quest had you to go to speak to Blaid come back to Ranni then speak to iIjin then kill someone and its finished. That is what is called the best quest in the game? Or is that you have to kill Radahn to move in her questline that makes it so great? Who knows.

The game has obtuse quests, I have finished only two in the whole game. One with the first Finger guy you meet out of the cave and Ranni. I tried to do some quest but there was no log to see what they told and had to seek the Wiki every time, quest givers go to places and you cant find them or you kill someone without even knowing that he is part of a quest and the questline is getting blocked.

The game has no explanation what some skills do, how much damage they do or anything. The game is resolved around skill points to customize your character but after that good luck finding what is doing what without every 5 minutes checking the Wiki. Crafting hundred of consumables that need obnoxious components that do nothing particular or they do minimal damage that one good swing with the katanas is enough to negate their use.
The biggest disappointment I had was that in 85 hours in pure melee build I had only used 2 skills. I didn’t want to play path of exile with 800 skills and auras but I got so disappointed that you have only one skill to use if you want to be melee and not invest on Int or Faith. They could not make so we can have two three skills to use depend the situation? I had to change my Ash of War depend the boss to be able to deal with them.

I have died maybe over thousand times from hills, mistakes, bosses or the fucking dogs but never got frustrated and angry, except at the last boss fight. Even after doing clean and perfect phase 1 it was very frustrating to deal with that jelly. In the end I won with the shield magic cheese that is OP but felt no gratification. When I killed Margit I was so happy and filled excited that after struggling I overcame this difficult boss.

Where is the LORE of this game? I killed the endboss and I don’t know anything about the world of elden ring, who is who, what is what or why we or some other character do what we do. Before a boss you get a cutscene with him telling you are not worthy to become elden ring or how I dare to try and when we kill him they say something cryptic and they disappear…that is all. Do you even learn who is this Marika or who is this Greater Will? I have no idea, the gameplay was good but I don’t even know who is who.
 

Graciaus

Member
The lore comes from interacting with NPCs and reading item descriptions. Or people just watch lore videos on YouTube.

My personal opinion is the game is poorly balanced. I killed 99% of the bosses by myself no summons. Late game bosses are way over tuned. Even with 2,000 HP and the best armor you can get 2 shot. Bosses have crazy mobility, tons of multi hit combos, high damage and can half map travel. Then there is the whole throw two bosses together repeatedly. If you use any ash the difficulty plummets.

I find it hard to believe anyone who reviewed the game beat it before doing so. The flaws don't start showing up until the end. Games great but I'll never play it again.
 

Terenty

Member
Could've been a masterpiece, but they run out of money and the game suffered greatly for it.

Filling two major legacy dungeons with recycled bosses and enemies from previous areas is cheap.

I enjoyed exploring Limgrave, Caelid and Liurnia, but when you come to Altus Plateau the repetition and recycling becomes annoyingly obvious.

Elden Ring's open world still follows Ubisoft's philosophy of filling the world with repeated templates and "activities" unfortunately, not something like Gothic or other old school RPGs.

Loot, imho, should be more rewarding and varied. After you've picked a weapon you are basically locked into it for the rest of the game with absolutely no incentive to try anything else. Tree seeds and amulets and maybe a couple of ashes of war were the only worthwhile rewards in my playthrough.

Quests shouldn't have been as obtuse as the rest of the souls games.

These are the things that keep the game from being an all time classic for me
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
Git gut?

Fat GIF
 

Mr Hyde

Member
120 hours in. I'm a big fan of the Souls franchise, platinumed everyone that's come before Elden Ring, so expectations were high on this game. And for the most part, it has delivered the goods. The biggest strengths is the world, its art design, exploration and lore. However, this is also its biggest flaw. Elden Ring is just too big. I'm 120 hours in and I've just arrived in Forbidden Lands. Even though the gameplay is fantastic, it's starting to get a bit tedious. In previous games, the balance was great and you had a 40-50 hours of solid adventure to plough through. Your build was up and running midway.

I also hate the infinite stamina bosses with a myriad of attack flurries, who never lets up, all while your own stamina bar depletes and your guard breaks. It's either rolling or parry but that can be a gamble due to wonky hit boxes and frames. It's also annoying that enemies and bosses are programmed to read when you use a skill or heal up, attacking you in an instant if you use it.

I love the freedom this game offers, it's a vast and exciting world that's ripe for exploration, but in my honest opinion, From Software should've scaled it down. The game was excellent during Limgrave and Liurnia, but Altus Plateau and Caelid was not as fun, and became somewhat repetitive and "been there, done that". It's not really a fault with Elden Ring, but all open worlds these days suffer from the same flaws. They are just too fucking big, with developers seemingly pressured to fill it with content.

I applaud From for not having quite as bland copy pasted world ala Ubisofts Assassin's Creed, most of the content in Elden Ring feels fresh and unique, but even so, there is a lot of recycled assets in here, from bosses and locations to enemies and loot. Even more so if you've played the previous Souls-games.

I still love Elden Ring wholeheartedly, but the game suffers from its scope and ambitions. I prefer the more linear semi open world design from Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3. It felt more focused and balanced, and above all, more fun and rewarding.
 
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Like any game, enjoyment varies depending on the person. The pro that stands out the most for me is joy of exploration and art. I've lost count of how many times I went down a rabbit hole and it lasted my entire play session. Finding new beautiful areas and exploring them nervously. I'm only 65 hours in, but so far that joy has only grown stronger. Past couple sessions being long jaunts to the underground with no guide to steer me.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
I also hate the infinite stamina bosses with a myriad of attack flurries, who never lets up, all while your own stamina bar depletes and your guard breaks. It's either rolling or parry but that can be a gamble due to wonky hit boxes and frames. It's also annoying that enemies and bosses are programmed to read when you use a skill or heal up, attacking you in an instant if you use it.
This I agree with as well. It gets especially annoying when you get in a barrage of spam attacks and have to hear your character scream as he/she gets knocked down. But I think the game really wants you to use summons. I would have no chance without them as I am just awful at dodging despite my best efforts to get better.
 
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TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Loved the game. Exploring the world is amazing and doing so while enjoying the Souls combat and it's other mechanics has been amazing.

Game has it's flaws, mostly repetition towards the end, specially towards enemy variety. But I guess it's normal... If a game lasts me 160 hours I can't expect it to keep it fresh all the way through. That said, game still has much more and better enemy variety than games like BOTW, Skyrim, Witcher 3 or whatever, so props for that.

What could have been a bit better was the world design. On Limgrave, Caelid and Liurnia everything feels fresh, but once you reach the Altus Plateau you really see how everything is going to be just more ruins, more wizard towers and more caverns/mines/catacombs for the rest of the game. Kinda ubisoft, but at least the wizard towers are interesting to figure out, and some of the later catacombs have some puzzles or quirks that made it really enjoyable. That said there were still cool unique places to explore, like the big castles and legacy dungeons, which imo were pretty good even towards the end. And that's without talking about the underground.

So yeah, game isn't perfect and could have been better, but still imo much better than anything else in the genre and better than most modern games. Game lasted me around 160 hours and I still want to play it more.
 

nkarafo

Member
It's impressive to me that, despite being a last gen game and a huge open world, it still manages to look better than Dark Souls 3/Bloodborne/Sekiro in the details. The castles/structures/ruins, etc, are bigger and more detailed at the same time. Which is a big deal because those games have some amazing structure/geometry detail.

This reminded me of the first time i saw GTA V and how they managed to make it as detailed (or more) as Max Payne 3, despite the later having small, linear levels.

I think modern engines may have so huge geometry budgets that it's no longer an issue of tight/linear levels VS big open worlds. Now it's more of an issue with the devs themselves and whether they are willing to spend the time to use all that budget, by meticulously detailing and carving everything.
 
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Tomeru

Member
Flaws:

I got upset because the game gave me a whooping at times, I also made mistakes (lol), while its great that the game has no hand-holding, its also bad that it don't be telling you where to go or what to do (thanks blaidd), can't know what skills do or how much dps until you use them, crafting items is less gud than swinging a katana, I only used two skills. Oh, and why dont enemies get tired? Why should I keep using up all my stamina? And why are shields bad even with 30 points?





Lolwut
 
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nemiroff

Gold Member
Could've been a masterpiece, but they run out of money and the game suffered greatly for it.

Filling two major legacy dungeons with recycled bosses and enemies from previous areas is cheap.

I enjoyed exploring Limgrave, Caelid and Liurnia, but when you come to Altus Plateau the repetition and recycling becomes annoyingly obvious.

Elden Ring's open world still follows Ubisoft's philosophy of filling the world with repeated templates and "activities" unfortunately, not something like Gothic or other old school RPGs.

Loot, imho, should be more rewarding and varied. After you've picked a weapon you are basically locked into it for the rest of the game with absolutely no incentive to try anything else. Tree seeds and amulets and maybe a couple of ashes of war were the only worthwhile rewards in my playthrough.

Quests shouldn't have been as obtuse as the rest of the souls games.

These are the things that keep the game from being an all time classic for me

I'm genuinely curious, which games has more enemy types (and general variety) than Elden Ring? The thought that there are plenty games out there with more variety in locations and enemies is fascinating........
 
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RoboFu

One of the green rats
I beat he fire giant .. no cheese.. last night so I’m feeling pretty good.

When I first got to him he destroyed me for a good two hours. Then I started to learn the moves and find the weak points. 30 mins after the initial 2 hours I beat him with 3 health drinks left and the jar guy still alive.
 

NinjaBoiX

Member
I honestly have no idea what you have to do as the main thrust of the story, it isn’t clear to me. I’m just walking around bashing monsters, as the story is a complete bore fest as usual.

These “quest lines” people talk about, what exactly is that in these games? I genuinely don’t really know, other than sometimes when you talk to someone they end up back at round table hold.

🤷🏼‍♂️
 

Swift_Star

Banned
Could've been a masterpiece, but they run out of money and the game suffered greatly for it.

Filling two major legacy dungeons with recycled bosses and enemies from previous areas is cheap.

I enjoyed exploring Limgrave, Caelid and Liurnia, but when you come to Altus Plateau the repetition and recycling becomes annoyingly obvious.

Elden Ring's open world still follows Ubisoft's philosophy of filling the world with repeated templates and "activities" unfortunately, not something like Gothic or other old school RPGs.

Loot, imho, should be more rewarding and varied. After you've picked a weapon you are basically locked into it for the rest of the game with absolutely no incentive to try anything else. Tree seeds and amulets and maybe a couple of ashes of war were the only worthwhile rewards in my playthrough.

Quests shouldn't have been as obtuse as the rest of the souls games.

These are the things that keep the game from being an all time classic for me
Well, this is an open world game and it’s virtually impossible to make new content all the time. There was bound to have repetition. The biggest problem though, was to have a main quest being a palette swap being faster and with a few new moves. That was a really low point in the game.
 

ethomaz

Banned
It is an amazing game turned a bit down to gather non-Souls fans.

How it start is exactly like a Souls games since well Demon’s Souls in 2009.

The Lore is there… you need to listen from NPCs or read it on weapon/items… I means if you exploring a unknown place how do you find the story? Or somebody tells you (NPC) or you find some item that some story written… it is great story telling.

About enemy being stronger than bosses… well why bosses should be stronger at all? Not all Kings are stronger… most time some Knight are way stronger than Kings.

You don’t need wiki to play or finish the game… why do that in first play thought? It is fairly easy to be fair and dying from your mistakes are well just that your mistakes… do you want the game to a baby sister you?

I believe “Flow” do you mean “Flaw”… well I disagree with some of them… the quest system is like it should be… you talk with somebody that tells you a story and you check that and so the quest naturally progression… like well in real life when you try find a place asking people on streets (you can’t expect to rely on GPS in a medieval game).

Said that there are dumb quests that doesn’t make sense in a Souls game… they should had not put them in game… the quests should be obtuse thought NPC or item text… not some generic open world task to make something.

I agree it is not a game of generation because it doesn’t add anything to the generation… it is an old school Souls game that some guys are finding to exists over a decade late.

But it is one of the biggest game this year.
 
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slade

Member
No quests that send you to save the world by killing 5 rats and gathering 3 flowers. No quest that the NPC asks you to go to speak to his neighbour or to pick up an item from the next room.

It's got plenty of those actually. But whereas NPC's in other games actually tell you what you need to do, the NPC's in this game don't. That is about the only difference other then that you're just doing these quests for some obtuse reason in Elden Ring. The opening questline in Horizon before you make it to the Forbidden West had more of a story then anything I've found in Elden Ring so far.
 

Shifty

Member
Done at 80 hours, but I don't think that's long enough to leave the honeymoon period.

It is a masterfully crafted game without doubt, but it needs to slip into the same "played it liked it finished it moved on" space occupied by the rest of the series before an unbiased conclusion can be drawn on whether it's top.
 
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Plantoid

Member
Will try to counterpoint some points

1. Bow is really bad, game needs balancing

2. Enemies do have stamina and poise breakpoints, a enemy that can be poise broken by a polearm or a colossal may tank the poise DMG from a dagger for instance, same applies to you, if you have low poise you gonna get interrupted by anything, with that said, the worst enemies are the ones with apparently infinite poise, like lobsters, crucible knights, big hands

3. Shields are actually overpowered you just ain't using them the right way, if you plan to block instead of parry, you need a shield with high stability, think manor towershield or even the brass shield, there's some builds that can block anything without losing stamina with 100 stability shields, AND you can use trust weapons while blocking AND you have guard counters

4. Enemies more powerful than bosses, true, but with every build enemy difficulty changes, if I'm playing a fire build the big hands in caria manor aren't a issue at all, if I'm playing a bleed build last boss is harder, but mohg is super easy, see it all depends on your character's strengths and weaknesses

5. I agree about everything you said about quests, game really needs improvement in this area

6. Agree about skills not showing DMG, we have AR for weapons, we should have it for spells too

7. Melees not using spells unless spec into faith or int... Games that have skills for melees are games that don't have this weapon variety, so to keep things more interesting than just button mash they use skills and skilltrees.. imo a bad design

8. "Last boss is hard", literally git gud

9. LORE, totally agree on this, it's specially hard to follow whats happening if English isn't your first language since they use this Shakespearean way of speak all the time, had to to look up the wiki about the history, which isn't that bad
 
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vpance

Member
3. Shields are actually overpowered you just ain't using them the right way, if you plan to block instead of parry, you need a shield with high stability, think manor towershield or even the brass shield, there's some builds that can block anything without losing stamina with 100 stability shields, AND you can use trust weapons while blocking AND you have guard counters

+1
 

TonyK

Member
I just got the platinum today and after spending 105 hours in it I don't know anything about the story. A cryptic story for a 30 hours game like the rest of Soul saga was fine. A cryptic story for a 100 hours game doesn't work. I killed the final boss and I didn't know why, who was it. I saw 5 different endings and no one has sense to me.

One of the best games I played in my life. But not the best because the lack of story, lack of characters to empathize and lack of meaningful goals.
 

Hezekiah

Banned
Could've been a masterpiece, but they run out of money and the game suffered greatly for it.

Filling two major legacy dungeons with recycled bosses and enemies from previous areas is cheap.

I enjoyed exploring Limgrave, Caelid and Liurnia, but when you come to Altus Plateau the repetition and recycling becomes annoyingly obvious.


Elden Ring's open world still follows Ubisoft's philosophy of filling the world with repeated templates and "activities" unfortunately, not something like Gothic or other old school RPGs.

Loot, imho, should be more rewarding and varied. After you've picked a weapon you are basically locked into it for the rest of the game with absolutely no incentive to try anything else. Tree seeds and amulets and maybe a couple of ashes of war were the only worthwhile rewards in my playthrough.

Quests shouldn't have been as obtuse as the rest of the souls games.

These are the things that keep the game from being an all time classic for me
Man that's really disappointing.

Why didn't they just make the game shorter. I'm currently playing Sekiro, and have already put in about 30 hours with plenty more to do. Games don't need to be 100 hours ffs.
 

Plantoid

Member
Man that's really disappointing.

Why didn't they just make the game shorter. I'm currently playing Sekiro, and have already put in about 30 hours with plenty more to do. Games don't need to be 100 hours ffs.
Game isn't long, you don't have to do every cave and boss, my first playthrough trying to do everything and still learning bosses clocked at 60hours

I'm doing another one right now 17hours and I'm already at the capital, 10 or 15 more hours to go only
 

Barakov

Member
First Fromsoft game, before I bought the game I was worried that I am going to waste 70E and not be able to kill even the first boss but I liked the open world nature of it and after some gameplay videos i wanted to try it. First playstation 5 game that I pay full price (everything else was second hand). And after 85 hours and couple dozens bosses felled, I have bested the big bad elden jelly.
The best game of the generation many have claimed but I think opinions are like an asshole, everyone has one. For me it was one of the best games that I played recently with many flows.
Why the best:
From the moment you start the game there is no handholding, there is no introduction to the game that does not give you freedom of decisions for couple hours just to teach you how to jump or dodge.
It is very straightforward what you have to do and you have to find yourself how to do it. A beautiful art design and very interesting enemy designs with enough variety that you don’t have to kill the same thing over and over.
No quests that send you to save the world by killing 5 rats and gathering 3 flowers. No quest that the NPC asks you to go to speak to his neighbour or to pick up an item from the next room.
Enormous amount of loot to customize your character and make the build you are interested to use to bring the elden morons to their knees.
Very beautiful and interesting side areas that often are even better than the main regions.
An addictive gameplay loop and the ability to mold however you wish your character.
One of the best feelings after killing a boss encounter in longwhile (Margit)

The flows:
The game has many flows and in no way is the game of the generation. Whoever claim something like that either is part of the From cult, fetishize the game and its creators and cant see the flows or he is disingenuous with himself and everyone else. Elden ring has a barebones stealth and WTF Is that bow combat, whoever tested that and after trying to use the bow more than two times thought its good, really must have never played any other game in his life.

The enemies have no stamina or focus points and they spam non stop their skills and combos, big combos that don’t leave you any room to react at all and only solution is to roll. The shield is a paperweight even with 30 points. Everyone brakes it with 2 to 3 hits does not matter how many points you have invested. And for a fast attacking boss the shield is useless if you don’t have parry on it because counter attack only works to the minor enemies.

There is some enemies that are more powerful than the bosses, they frustrate you and the only solution is to go past them (Brown armor tall soldier with horns helmet and wheel javelin)

I read the best quest is Ranni’s. After killing Rahdann I started her quest line but because I had encounter Blaid before most of the questline was broken. I wasted so much time to find where is what and gave up in the end and just went to kill the big bad guy she asks you and the quest was finished…..The quest had you to go to speak to Blaid come back to Ranni then speak to iIjin then kill someone and its finished. That is what is called the best quest in the game? Or is that you have to kill Radahn to move in her questline that makes it so great? Who knows.

The game has obtuse quests, I have finished only two in the whole game. One with the first Finger guy you meet out of the cave and Ranni. I tried to do some quest but there was no log to see what they told and had to seek the Wiki every time, quest givers go to places and you cant find them or you kill someone without even knowing that he is part of a quest and the questline is getting blocked.

The game has no explanation what some skills do, how much damage they do or anything. The game is resolved around skill points to customize your character but after that good luck finding what is doing what without every 5 minutes checking the Wiki. Crafting hundred of consumables that need obnoxious components that do nothing particular or they do minimal damage that one good swing with the katanas is enough to negate their use.
The biggest disappointment I had was that in 85 hours in pure melee build I had only used 2 skills. I didn’t want to play path of exile with 800 skills and auras but I got so disappointed that you have only one skill to use if you want to be melee and not invest on Int or Faith. They could not make so we can have two three skills to use depend the situation? I had to change my Ash of War depend the boss to be able to deal with them.

I have died maybe over thousand times from hills, mistakes, bosses or the fucking dogs but never got frustrated and angry, except at the last boss fight. Even after doing clean and perfect phase 1 it was very frustrating to deal with that jelly. In the end I won with the shield magic cheese that is OP but felt no gratification. When I killed Margit I was so happy and filled excited that after struggling I overcame this difficult boss.

Where is the LORE of this game? I killed the endboss and I don’t know anything about the world of elden ring, who is who, what is what or why we or some other character do what we do. Before a boss you get a cutscene with him telling you are not worthy to become elden ring or how I dare to try and when we kill him they say something cryptic and they disappear…that is all. Do you even learn who is this Marika or who is this Greater Will? I have no idea, the gameplay was good but I don’t even know who is who.
That's how Souls games usually are. Most of the story comes from item descriptions and inferences. That's part of the reason people like them and why some people hate them.

Also Git Gut?
Meme Say What GIF
 
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The lore comes from interacting with NPCs and reading item descriptions. Or people just watch lore videos on YouTube.

My personal opinion is the game is poorly balanced. I killed 99% of the bosses by myself no summons. Late game bosses are way over tuned. Even with 2,000 HP and the best armor you can get 2 shot. Bosses have crazy mobility, tons of multi hit combos, high damage and can half map travel. Then there is the whole throw two bosses together repeatedly. If you use any ash the difficulty plummets.

I find it hard to believe anyone who reviewed the game beat it before doing so. The flaws don't start showing up until the end. Games great but I'll never play it again.
Completely agree about balancing, but as a FromSoft casual, this felt accurate throughout the whole game for me. No matter what talismans, armor, and level-ups, a flurry attack would melt your endurance/health instantly.

Had to overlevel because i don't enjoy fighting bosses 10+ times. I'd rather armor protect more, and have attack damage rebalanced on both sides so boss battles are a little bit longer but you'd be able to figure it out and beat them in a few tries rather than getting slaughtered within seconds constantly
 

Krappadizzle

Gold Member
I've beaten it twice. Both on fresh characters. First time through was as a Strength/End Heavy Armor build, second time as a Dex/Arc build. I can say that as a Dex/Arc build it was much easier, but a pure strength build was more fun. Staggering enemies was very cool. That said, being melee in general and not using ranged made some bosses and certain enemy encounters a nightmare.

Elden Ring has some very classic design philosophies that harken back to the NES/SNES era of games/rpgs. You just kinda had to figure out shit and experiment back then to learn how things work. It can be very rewarding to do, but if you are lazy, incredibly frustrating. The one upside now is that the access to information is essentially so easy to get that you need not be frustrated if you choose not too. I'd rather more games err on the side of self-discovery and identification than just spoon feed you ALL the information with no mystery left. It can suck sometimes, but it's also more rewarding.

While I prefer a less obtuse story as well, the story in From games have always been supplemental and the story in Elden Ring for me is about my character;s journey. Which I actually really liked. As it's designed, it wouldn't work for every game, but for how it is here, I really like it. It also makes multiple playthroughs more rewarding as I'll pick up on new things or read things I might have skipped the first time and understand them more because I'm more familiar with the world/characters.
 
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luffie

Member
Nah, this game give you TONS of support options. From mixed physicks support, negating damage, 0fp consumption, to a lot of meat and coating, ashes summons etc. My friend just discovered crafting items makes a difficult battle into an easy one.

People think that just because they are souls veteran, all fights should be familiar and that they should be good. Same thing happened with Sekiro. You are fighting demigods, not normies.

The first rule of Git Gud is humility.
 
Nah, this game give you TONS of support options. From mixed physicks support, negating damage, 0fp consumption, to a lot of meat and coating, ashes summons etc. My friend just discovered crafting items makes a difficult battle into an easy one.

People think that just because they are souls veteran, all fights should be familiar and that they should be good. Same thing happened with Sekiro. You are fighting demigods, not normies.

The first rule of Git Gud is humility.
Of course no one asked to steamroll the enemies, anyway I had good fun with the gameplay. Just it felt that as a pure melee I had not many options. We have different idea what is ton of support options. The mix physics is cool but is essentially a buff that you can customise, the meats are the only craftable items that are worth to use while the coating is essentially unusable when you have Infusion to you weapon. It would be awesome if you could coat an infused item to make some interesting damage combination. And after you find some whetstones you don't need coating because you can change most of the ash of war infusions.

The interesting thing in this thread is people have good discussion without arguing and it has me surprised.
 
I do feel like the last part of the game can use some re balancing. Some bosses are way overtuned. Still one of the greatest game i ever played.
 

Valt7786

Member
Honestly if they were to change/nerf enemies or bosses in this (and since the game is very beatable, it's hardly necessary) they just need to tone down their aggression, give players an actual chance to fight back, especially in melee.
 

cireza

Banned
The formula doesn't work well for me. Interesting content is way too diluted because of the open-world, and you get a ton of very repetitive stuff. For now, bosses have been pretty forgettable (and the soundtrack as well).
 

Dorago

Member
The lire in this game has so much more show than tell I've been consistently amazed with each new area I visit.

Epic battles which have just concluded, calamities which rended the land decades ago, magic spells which effected an entire continent.

People withered to a husk, living as a phantom version of themselves, alive so long they've taken on half animal forms, or who died recently yet seem more alive than the rest.

Ghostly apparitions first of strange creatures, then of every creature, finally of things embued with meaning yet mysterious. Are we in the past, the future, some in between state? You just can't tell.

In conclusion, you don't get story from dialogue or from tape recordings in a visual medium. The story is told in your own mind by piecing the images together and having the narrative form from the aether. Elden Ring does this better than anything I've yet played.
 

MiguelItUp

Member
A lot of what you're talking about is honestly standard for the FS Souls/Souls-like games. Aside from the obvious, like how this is a true open world game this time around, etc.

I'm not sure where I place it in my list of favorite FS/Souls or Souls-like games. But I do think that what it does well, it does VERY well. It's incredibly ambitious for them, and it's done very exceptionally. But it isn't perfect, but nothing really is.

After 200 hours in the game and 100% the achievements, I DO think that the later half of the game kind of slows down a bit. I mean, there's a lot to explore in the beginning, a great deal actually. There's a lot of to see and take in. By the latter half of the game, you've practically seen all the enemies and bosses, aside from the demigod bosses.

Per the other Souls games, there's some bizarre stuff regarding balance on certain incantations, and weapons. They tried to adjust some, but then didn't adjust others. Or they violently nerfed some demigod bosses, etc. All while you can combine some Ashes of War with certain weapons and just melt through every kind of enemy and boss. It's really strange.

But to be quite honest, I still loved it, and thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. I hope there's more to come. But experiencing it also makes me super hyped to see what other projects come from FS in the future.
 
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