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[JayK47]

With all the hype, I thought to take a closer look. Watched several gameplay videos. Looks a lot like a Souls game, but more open and on horseback. No towns, no NPCs. Still not interested, but getting closer. Add towns, NPCs, a base, and save anywhere and then I may as well just play Skyrim.

 

[lefty1117]

I did end up refunding my copy on steam last night. Time for me to just admit that I'm not into these games. Same issue with Dark Souls 2 and Sekiro. Sekiro at least had a world setting that I found interesting, but I just don't have the concentration and tolerance anymore to die 5 times before progressing. Maybe 20 years ago but not now. And that's ok, I'm genuinely happy for the folks who have been waiting for this and are having a great time with it. Awesome for them! And I have lots of other stuff to play so no hard feelings about it.

 

[fran.fernandez]

I pass, played demon souls , and dark souls but later on just got bored (bloodborne and others )

I did finish demons souls remake on ps5 again (lack of release games)..

This one I don’t even care.

 

[Dr. Claus]

Theres twelve threads sucking this games cock. Deal.

Then make a proper thread that shows the faults of the game, of which there are many. Making a thread crying about saying how much you simply don’t care about a game? Its childish, infantile, and something you expect from three year olds and retards (console warriors) - not grown ass men and women.

 

[Arachnid]

Theres twelve threads sucking this games cock. Deal.

Make it 24.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

 

[Sub_Level]

It just barely came out today. A few people have had it for a handful of days. Give it time to simmer fam.

 

[cortadew]

If you are not into Fromsoftware games before, but somehow you'd like to try out, the best game I'll recommend you is Sekiro, the most new player friendly Fromsoftware game.

It had Tutorial, Training mode, Hints everywhere, a pause menu, easier to understand level design, a more focused plot line compare to other souls game, and lastly Death is much more tolerable in this game.

Lol

 

[anab0lic36]

Third person action games have never really been my favourite genre, they all kind of feel a bit too samey, mechanically at least, once you played a few you kinda played em all, its just - insert new theme. I guess I'm kind of always looking for new ways to be challenged and this just looks too much like something I already overcame in the past, with some slight variances. The only one that really differentiated itself from the pack for me, to hold me attention for an extended period was monster hunter, which I think has a more interesting combat system than what any of the souls games bring to the table. As for the open world aspect... bleh, don't care for it, traversing wide open spaces just delays getting to the more interesting engaging aspects of the gameplay, feels like a waste of time. Give me a Mario 64 castle level hub over that slog any day. Really, there is a whole list of other stuff Id rather play before this. Getting older and having less free time, you gotta decide what is REALLY worth your time, don't get carried away by hype trains, think for yourself about what you really value in a game.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[Bonfires Down]

i love the idea of a Souls game. and then I play one. never again.

Pretty much. The art direction is second to none. I love the dark tone. The combat and animations are heavy and satisfying. I love difficult games. But to actually play a Souls game is miserable.

 

[RexAnglo]

I'd rather try ps5 Demon Souls.

It looks and runs a lot better and isn't significantly different in any meaningful sense...save the open world nature of Elden Ring.

 

[Dr Bass]

I think this game is definitely special, its really obvious its something next level the moment you start playing the game. I get the same feeling I did when I played Myst for the first time in the early 90s.

Wow that’s a hell of a comparison, and strong praise.

I like the knowledgeable take.

 

[playXray]

I'm not trying to burst anyone's bubble but I think the hype for this game is way over blown. I knew next to nothing about this game until a few days ago being that From software games are not my style. I watched reviews from major sites like IGN, Gamespot, etc and many smaller reviewers on youtube. For the Life of me I can't see why the hell this game is hyped so much. I understand this is not a popular opinion and open myself up for some flaming. With that being said, watchng hours of footage I still do not understand the hype. Graphics are nothing special, Gameplay is nothing special, the game lacks the most important aspect, FUN! I want to like this game like people are shouting to the heavens about but I just don't see it.

You can't really judge how fun a game is unless you have played it - I think that's why you can't understand the hype.

 

[I collect VHS tapes]

Becoming possibly the greatest game I’ve ever played, outside of The Witcher 3

 

[SLB1904]

My question is why does it matter what other people hyping? You play what you like and dont play the game you dont like......Seriously, do you guy decide what games to buy based on other people?

What a stupid question. That's the all point of reviews

 

[Alphagear]

Dark Souls in an open world.

Definitely isn't Bloodborne which is still king.

Only played a couple of hours but I am not seeing why it got 10s. Getting frame drops and stutters everywhere. Surprising cause the game isn't a looker either.

 

[GymWolf]

With all the hype, I thought to take a closer look. Watched several gameplay videos. Looks a lot like a Souls game, but more open and on horseback. No towns, no NPCs. Still not interested, but getting closer. Add towns, NPCs, a base, and save anywhere and then I may as well just play Skyrim.

Well skyrim has ultra shitty combat, so...not really??

 

[Spaceman292]

Add towns, NPCs, a base, and save anywhere and then I may as well just play Skyrim.

What does that even mean? If you added lots of cars then you may as well play Forza Horizon. If you added Batman you'd be playing Batman.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

OP

 

[AmuroChan]

No, you are certainly not alone. Only a fraction of the install base will be playing Elden Ring. Souls games have a very dedicated following, but they don't have broad appeal and aren't sales juggernauts.

 

[Fake]

Yes.

Don't worry, when BOTW2 release you will change your mind.

 

[ClosBSAS]

Lol ppl bashing the combat as boring are the typical PRESS A AND AWESOME HAPPENS crowd..the main reason why dragon age 2 sucked ass, the main reason why bf 2042 sucked ass...filthy casuals.

 

[ClosBSAS]

No, you are certainly not alone. Only a fraction of the install base will be playing Elden Ring. Souls games have a very dedicated following, but they don't have broad appeal and aren't sales juggernauts.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHahajajajhaa what? Are u seeing steam numbers? Steam alone is at 6 million copies minimum in first three days. Maybe demons souls and dark souls when they first came out, putting them on PC gave them a whole new audience and each game dells more than the last. Elden ring has sold gangbusters.

 

[ClosBSAS]

Also, those who are interested in sales...so far, it's at 4 million copies sold on steam, once the week break even and numbers update it'll be in the 6 million o more for steam alone.

 

[Umbasaborne]

Yes, you are very special indeed. If only us sheeple had the clarity of vision that you do.

 

[Guilty_AI]

No, you are certainly not alone. Only a fraction of the install base will be playing Elden Ring. Souls games have a very dedicated following, but they don't have broad appeal and aren't sales juggernauts.

Game is in the top 10 all-time player peak on steam. Its literally the second most played single player focused game on the platform, only behind cyberpunk.

 

[Aldric]

I played the game for about 15 hours. I think the critical acclaim is ridiculous and after the Cyberpunk fiasco this is another example of how completely worthless game journalists have become, not like it'll surprise anybody.

This is just Dark Souls 4 with an open world that doesn't bring anything to the formula and even makes it significantly worse. The original DS with its interconnected maze like world reminiscent of a more fully realized version of Metroid Prime's map remains one of the greatest achivements in level design. The world was so well designed that even years after playing it for the last time I could easily draw the map and remember how all the areas are connected to eachother. The Elden Ring world in comparison is just gigantic expanses of land that are simply not fun to traverse riding a double jumping jittery donkey and don't really do anything to mentally stimulate you. There's a lot of striking vistas, but the topology is a clusterfuck which makes exploration a bizarre mix of galopping around aimlessly, looking at your map and then teleporting elsewhere once you got your shit pushed in by Assfuckax, the Despondent, some reskinned overworld boss using DS3 assets.

The combat also shows signs of tear, DS combat was never its strong point but it at least attempted to do its own thing with a more grounded take on fighting. ER continues DS3's transition to some bizarre pseudo Bayonetta style of combat where knights in heavy armor just frolick across the battlefield like gymnasts on speed. The shallow nature of the combat is highlighted by bosses patterns and their atrocious signposting, where Miyazaki's knack for delayed attacks reaches an absurd level. When your 15 feet tall boss leaps through the battlefield and then magically hovers in the air for a few frames before landing on the ground you know you have a problem. The best way to experience the combat is probably to play a caster so that you can stay a safe distance away from the retardation but that essentially means that you don't really play the game anymore.

I'll keep playing it because I probably only have seen a tiny portion of what it has to offer but yeah for the moment the game is a total mediocrity and its metacritic scores are a colossal joke.

edit Oh and of course the game runs like garbage on PC, with a lot of headache inducing stuttering, dropped inputs, textures and foilage loading late etc.

 

[jadefire66]

I played it for 6 hours and it's a really boring game so far. I can't think of anything positive to say about it. Feels like a 5/10 game.

- The open world is just a big waste of time. At no point does exploring feel fun or rewarding. When I reached the castle it got much better because it was more linear.

- The same items with the SAME MOVESETS as the Dark Souls games. The straight sword, the katana, the claymore, everything is identical. It feels like I'm playing the same game I already played 6 times before.

- Literally every weapon I have scales very very poorly with stats, specifically D/D Str/Dex. This just makes you want to put everything in health. Why does a katana have such poor dexterity scaling? I got it to +5 and only now did it *slightly* improve (D/C).

- The game is not punishing enough. There are graces/bonfires everywhere. You can't go 5 minutes before finding one. How am I ever going to lose souls? By the way, if you die to a boss, it takes literally 20 seconds to get back to him. What happened to the classic boss runs, where it was both dangerous and exciting to try to make it all the way back to the boss room? I feel like, the less bonfires to rest at, the better. DeS/DS1 were the best in the series at this. I'm not sure which game introduced bonfires immediately before/after bosses but it was a big mistake.

- Minor complaint but I find it very annoying to have to press a combination of buttons to two-hand the weapon or summon the horse (among other things). What happened to just pressing Y? It gets tedious having to press Y+RB or Y+Up all the time.

 

[Jimmyisback]

The returns have begun.. Haha.

 

[Madflavor]

I played it for 6 hours and it's a really boring game so far. I can't think of anything positive to say about it. Feels like a 5/10 game.

- The open world is just a big waste of time. At no point does exploring feel fun or rewarding. When I reached the castle it got much better because it was more linear.

It's honestly hard to tell if people or trolling or not with these types of posts. Exploring and discovering secret areas and dungeons literally rewards you with new weapons, gear, spells, ashes of war, etc etc. Sometimes you stumble upon NPCs giving you a quests, or you might stumble open huge wildly different areas. How the fuck is that not rewarding? What's rewarding then? Miyazaki showing up at your door and sucking your dick for discovering a hidden cave?

 

[Dr. Claus]

I played the game for about 15 hours. I think the critical acclaim is ridiculous and after the Cyberpunk fiasco this is another example of how completely worthless game journalists have become, not like it'll surprise anybody.

This is just Dark Souls 4 with an open world that doesn't bring anything to the formula and even makes it significantly worse. The original DS with its interconnected maze like world reminiscent of a more fully realized version of Metroid Prime's map remains one of the greatest achivements in level design. The world was so well designed that even years after playing it for the last time I could easily draw the map and remember how all the areas are connected to eachother. The Elden Ring world in comparison is just gigantic expanses of land that are simply not fun to traverse riding a double jumping jittery donkey and don't really do anything to mentally stimulate you. There's a lot of striking vistas, but the topology is a clusterfuck which makes exploration a bizarre mix of galopping around aimlessly, looking at your map and then teleporting elsewhere once you got your shit pushed in by Assfuckax, the Despondent, some reskinned overworld boss using DS3 assets.

Every Legacy dungeon, at least thus far, is exactly as tightly designed as anything in previous Soulsbourne games. Interconnected paths, secrets, shortcuts, paths that loop back around on themselves, etc. The overworld itself does add a lot to the formula and is, arguably, the best open world in any game. The sheer expanse and tons of secrets, lore, and history in every corner rewards players who want to explore, who want to learn about the characters and concepts in play. It doesn’t straight up tell you where things are until you explore and reach them. You see a shack on the other side of the plains? Go explore it, you may find a dungeon that rewards a powerful talisman, a unique weapon, or simply a treasure chest. Or it could Also simply be a home with tons of environmental storytelling. Reaching that point could be dull, or you could be attacked by a powerful dragon, a deadly horseback knight, etc.

The game eases you into all these concepts slowly. Even after 30 hours, I still haven’t even finished the first area, Limgrave, with all the secrets and dungeons that it has. And that isn’t even 10-15% of the game!

The combat also shows signs of tear, DS combat was never its strong point but it at least attempted to do its own thing with a more grounded take on fighting. ER continues DS3's transition to some bizarre pseudo Bayonetta style of combat where knights in heavy armor just frolick across the battlefield like gymnasts on speed. The shallow nature of the combat is highlighted by bosses patterns and their atrocious signposting, where Miyazaki's knack for delayed attacks reaches an absurd level. When your 15 feet tall boss leaps through the battlefield and then magically hovers in the air for a few frames before landing on the ground you know you have a problem. The best way to experience the combat is probably to play a caster so that you can stay a safe distance away from the retardation but that essentially means that you don't really play the game anymore.

You would need to invest a lot into a particular stat to “frolick across the battlefield like gymnasts on speed” while wearing heavy armor. Which would then mean your attacks are weaker, you lack the ability to use magic (at least this early into the game, or have extremely weak magic capabilities).

As for “grounded take” on combat and bosses - this has literally never been a thing. They have always had fantastical movesets, even as early as Demon Souls. Hell, even if you are only referring to the player characters, nothing is “grounded” about using magic and wielding a massive slab of iron that would feasibly dislocate your shoulders and shatter your forearms in a single swing. As much fun as it would be to be like Guts IRL, that is simply physically impossible.

As for the “hover for a few seconds” statement. Are you referring to the magical golems in a few of the crypts? They are incredibly easy to deal with even as a glass cannon colossus sword user. I have not had a single problem from “delayed” attacks thus far into the game. Sounds more like you are salty that you can’t properly time a simple dodge/roll.

I'll keep playing it because I probably only have seen a tiny portion of what it has to offer but yeah for the moment the game is a total mediocrity and itsou metacritic scores are a colossal joke.

I will say that you do have a lot of valid criticism in terms of how the open world is, but it gets so much better as you get further into it, even just from my very brief forays into other zones for particular weapons my friends told me about. Limgrave is very much a simple starting zone And its crypts/caves match that.

edit Oh and of course the game runs like garbage on PC, with a lot of headache inducing stuttering, dropped inputs, textures and foilage loading late etc.

Hopefully they fix this soon for PC players.

 

[Dr. Claus]

I played it for 6 hours and it's a really boring game so far. I can't think of anything positive to say about it. Feels like a 5/10 game.

- The open world is just a big waste of time. At no point does exploring feel fun or rewarding. When I reached the castle it got much better because it was more linear.

Different strokes for different folks. Personally I don’t see how it can’t be rewarding when you get very powerful weapons, armor, talismans, magic, summons, etc for exploring. Even in the more simplistic starting zone of Limgrave.

- The same items with the SAME MOVESETS as the Dark Souls games. The straight sword, the katana, the claymore, everything is identical. It feels like I'm playing the same game I already played 6 times before.

Do you want to wield a sword like a spoon or something? You do realize that there are only so many ways you can feasibly swing a sword.

- Literally every weapon I have scales very very poorly with stats, specifically D/D Str/Dex. This just makes you want to put everything in health. Why does a katana have such poor dexterity scaling? I got it to +5 and only now did it *slightly* improve (D/C).

You are litreally only 6 hours into a 100+ hour game. Do you realize expect to find weapons that are super great scaling at this point?

- The game is not punishing enough. There are graces/bonfires everywhere. You can't go 5 minutes before finding one. How am I ever going to lose souls? By the way, if you die to a boss, it takes literally 20 seconds to get back to him. What happened to the classic boss runs, where it was both dangerous and exciting to try to make it all the way back to the boss room? I feel like, the less bonfires to rest at, the better. DeS/DS1 were the best in the series at this. I'm not sure which game introduced bonfires immediately before/after bosses but it was a big mistake.

Graces/Bonfires only lessen the time wasted between running back to bosses. This was not a fun concept even back in Demon Souls. It was simply tiring. There was no challenge or excitement in going through 1-4 17 times. The only time it was challenging was the very first. The excitement has always been going through the area the first time and then fighting the bosses.

- Minor complaint but I find it very annoying to have to press a combination of buttons to two-hand the weapon or summon the horse (among other things). What happened to just pressing Y? It gets tedious having to press Y+RB or Y+Up all the time.

They gave you more options, that is a good thing. As for it being “tedious” it takes literally the same amount of time As pressing one button. This is the epitome of troll responses.

 

[Azelover]

No game can be for absolutely everybody.

I happen to love Souls games, but I totally respect your opinion. And I'm sure there are a lot of people that share your taste. In fact, it would be concerning if there was none of that whatsoever. It would feel weird.

 

[22:22:22]

Lol.

Hype

Reviews

"Is this the work of a troll or am I stuck in a nightmare?"

 

[\m/etalStorm]

Never got into Soulslike games. I lack the perseverance that is required to enjoy them.

 

[Aldric]

Every Legacy dungeon, at least thus far, is exactly as tightly designed as anything in previous Soulsbourne games

That's fine but they're a minuscule part of the map. I've enjoyed the minidungeon I've cleared at the very south of Limgrave, very much less making my way down there.

The overworld itself does add a lot to the formula and is, arguably, the best open world in any game. The sheer expanse and tons of secrets, lore, and history in every corner rewards players who want to explore, who want to learn about the characters and concepts in play. It doesn’t straight up tell you where things are until you explore and reach them. You see a shack on the other side of the plains? Go explore it, you may find a dungeon that rewards a powerful talisman, a unique weapon, or simply a treasure chest.

Sorry but I don't care about the Youtuber fuel "lore" and I've found the loot extremely underwhelming, most of the time it's stuff I can't use because it doesn't fit my starting class. That's not even mentioning the crafting materials (what a completely worthless addition) or how quickly the typical open world copypasting problem becomes apparent, oh here's a mook camp, oh cool a graveyard where you can grab souls, neat a shitty Skyrim minidungeon that's three rooms long and then you fight a cat statue and then you go in another mine and at the end of it fight a three headed cat statue and mobs around it because that was fun in DS2 and we should do it again.

You would need to invest a lot into a particular stat to “frolick across the battlefield like gymnasts on speed” while wearing heavy armor. Which would then mean your attacks are weaker, you lack the ability to use magic (at least this early into the game, or have extremely weak magic capabilities).

Now you're just being pedantic. The characters carry solid steel weapons and armors and still roll around and jump high in the air as if they were on the moon. Giant bosses swing slabs of iron that weight metric tons as if they were feathers and seemingly have no stamina. It looks and feels janky.

As for “grounded take” on combat and bosses - this has literally never been a thing. They have always had fantastical movesets, even as early as Demon Souls. Hell, even if you are only referring to the player characters, nothing is “grounded” about using magic and wielding a massive slab of iron that would feasibly dislocate your shoulders and shatter your forearms in a single swing. As much fun as it would be to be like Guts IRL, that is simply physically impossible.

You'd have to be particularly disengenuous to argue the first games didn't have a slower, heavier feel to the combat. You're conflating the games being fantastical with their combat system always being so Iframe centric with neverending attack strings and uncoventional timings. Of course DS was always a dark fantasy game with unrealistic aspects, completely trite thing to say which doesn't address my point at all.

s for the “hover for a few seconds” statement. Are you referring to the magical golems in a few of the crypts? They are incredibly easy to deal with even as a glass cannon colossus sword user. I have not had a single problem from “delayed” attacks thus far into the game. Sounds more like you are salty that you can’t properly time a simple dodge/roll.

No I'm talking about Stormveil's first boss, haven't fought him yet but I saw a video of his jumping attack and immediately picked up on that animation, looks ridiculous and it's such an obvious abuse of that "hold the attack for a few frames to fuck with people's reactions" trend that it pissed me off just looking at it.

Hopefully they fix this soon for PC players.

It should never have been released in this state and if it did journos should have docked points in their reviews.

 

[ntropy]

video card prices killed my hype

 

[JayK47]

What does that even mean? If you added lots of cars then you may as well play Forza Horizon. If you added Batman you'd be playing Batman.

I guess I was hoping Elder Ring would be more like Skyrim. But the developer is sticking to the Souls formula, which I am not into. I am glad others are enjoying it. It is not my cup of tea.

 

[mitch1971]

games I already found frustrating, now with an added large open world trek.

 

[ForAcademicPurposes]

I've had my fill of these games but I personally don't like the Sekiro influences in the art direction of Elden Ring. I'll wait until the hype dies down and the kinks are sorted out and then pick it up on the cheap and play it with my expectations set on low.

 

[MiguelItUp]

No game can be for absolutely everybody.

I happen to love Souls games, but I totally respect your opinion. And I'm sure there are a lot of people that share your taste. In fact, it would be concerning if there was none of that whatsoever. It would feel weird.

Exactly. That's all there is too it. It being "hyped" shouldn't change how YOU feel about it. If you're not into it, you're not into it, and that's really it.

But I do think it's funny seeing posts that start with "Am I the only one...." or similar. No, you're not some unique flower, there are most certainly other people all over (GAF included) that share the same or similar opinion.

It's impossible for every single people to love or enjoy the same things. I personally just don't see a point in threads like this or posts that just don't seem constructive. You can break it down and dice it up all you want. But it won't change how someone that likes/loves it will feel about it, and vice versa. It's just all subjective.

When I read the OP's post, I wholeheartedly disagree, and it's apparent others do too. But others also share the same opinion, and that's fine. Just like how I felt like TLOU2 was overrated, along with both Horizon games. People praise them like they're God's gift to video games, but I didn't see that, and never will. But I'm not going to fault the opinions of others.

 

[eastcoastkody]

welp. i got it by accident for free i guess. So i got to play it. I dont care about from software games that dont involve mechs. I do however care about open world games
I wouldn't say this game is the 2nd coming. Or that any non souls games fans are gonna miss out. If ur already a souls fan this is probably great. If ur not. I dont think this games gonna instantly change ur mind. First time i played skyrim/botw/red dead/ i couldn't put the games down.
After 2 hours i put this down. I feel the difficulty kinda hampers what might be the cool exploration. Because u are punished for exploring by getting obliterated by an enemy that u probably shouldn't be fighting 20 mins in to the game

 

[RafterXL]

Just a heads up for people who don't normally like Souls games due to the difficulty, or whatever. They've added a bunch of QoL features that *can* make it quite a bit easier.

1) Killing groups of enemies will refill your health vials.

2) There is a crouch button which reduces enemy aggro range and brushes you can hide in. Also night time reduces MLB aggro range. Basically you can play stealth through large portions of the game.

3) Mounted combat makes a lot of fights easier and it's an instant cast it also make a great escape tool. The mount also outruns everything in the open world so you can skip or explore without having to fight every mob in your path.

4) Shrines are everywhere and and they've even added waypoints between them that you can spawn at should you die. You can also teleport from anywhere on the map.

5)Spirit summons. Not only does the game have the usual NPC and Co-OP summons, but you also get spirits that you can summon to aid in the fight. They cost FP (mana) to use.

5) Heres the biggest one. Guard Counter. When you block an attack, if you hit heavycattack right after, it deals huge posture damage and many times will stun for an instant kill or backstab.

Plus, since it's an open world, if you hit a wall you can just explore a different direction. Basically, difficulty shouldn't stop you from playing this excellent game. If you have other issues with ER, so be it.

 

[kraspkibble]

it's alright if you don't like it. you might not find it fun but i do and so do many other people. it's rated 97 (and 12th highest rated game of all time) so a lot of people are having fun with it. just because it's highly rated doesn't mean you have to buy it and enjoy it.

if it's not your thing then forget about it and move on.

 

[ByWatterson]

I wasn't hyped either until I saw reviews. I'm a FromSoft fan, but I don't worship their style and had kinda grown tired of it.

But the descriptions of how uniquely designed the open world is are hooking me. I won't play until I've cleared some backlog, but it's a priority pretty soon.

 

[Dr. Claus]

That's fine but they're a minuscule part of the map. I've enjoyed the minidungeon I've cleared at the very south of Limgrave, very much less making my way down there.

They really aren’t a miniscule part. They are freakin’ huge. STormveil is bigger than the entirety of Boletaria in Demon Souls (1-1 to 1-4).

Sorry but I don't care about the Youtuber fuel "lore" and I've found the loot extremely underwhelming, most of the time it's stuff I can't use because it doesn't fit my starting class. That's not even mentioning the crafting materials (what a completely worthless addition) or how quickly the typical open world copypasting problem becomes apparent, oh here's a mook camp, oh cool a graveyard where you can grab souls, neat a shitty Skyrim minidungeon that's three rooms long and then you fight a cat statue and then you go in another mine and at the end of it fight a three headed cat statue and mobs around it because that was fun in DS2 and we should do it again.

It isn’t “YouTuber fuel“. Its simply story. Your starting class means literally nothing as soon as you unlock the ability to level. As for dungeons, aside from a handful early on, they become very very intricate. As intricate as entire levels in Demon Souls or BloodBourne.

Now you're just being pedantic. The characters carry solid steel weapons and armors and still roll around and jump high in the air as if they were on the moon. Giant bosses swing slabs of iron that weight metric tons as if they were feathers and seemingly have no stamina. It looks and feels janky.

This has been a thing since the very first game.

You'd have to be particularly disengenuous to argue the first games didn't have a slower, heavier feel to the combat. You're conflating the games being fantastical with their combat system always being so Iframe centric with neverending attack strings and uncoventional timings. Of course DS was always a dark fantasy game with unrealistic aspects, completely trite thing to say which doesn't address my point at all.

That “slower, heavier feel to the combat” is still. Here. It just depends on the stats you have and the weapon you are using. You literally don’t even know what you are talking about. I question if you actually played the game or any souls game at that point with how little you seem to understand it.

No I'm talking about Stormveil's first boss, haven't fought him yet but I saw a video of his jumping attack and immediately picked up on that animation, looks ridiculous and it's such an obvious abuse of that "hold the attack for a few frames to fuck with people's reactions" trend that it pissed me off just looking at it.

Stormveil’s first boss doesn’t hover at all. He actively falls as he leaps towards you. Any of his “hold the attack“ moves are easily noticeable and you would have to be exceptionally slow to not understand when to dodge and counter.

It should never have been released in this state and if it did journos should have docked points in their reviews.

I agree, however your first mistake was to put any stock into gaming “Journalists” to begin with.

 

[Draugoth]

Only if you are a souls like fan honestly, but im seeing a lot of people bad at these games playing

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

I never played the Dark Souls games and Bloodborne but the massive positive press and good word of mouth has gotten me more interested in the game. I'll eventually get the game on Steam.

I recently got Bloodborne digitally on PS4. It'll be the first game in the genre I have played

 

[Bogeyman]

After not having read a single preview until a few days ago, I quickly got sucked into the hype and all those incredible reviews and bought the game. (Admittedly only) a touch more 2 hours in, I regret buying it.

I entirely understand this game is a revelation for all souls fans, because.. well, it's an absolute carbon copy of every prior FROM title, plus some sensible improvements of certain detail aspects. The open world probably being the biggest, though to be fair, I didn't even perceive DS1 to be extremely linear thanks to its clever level design.
Anyways - surely a stellar game for any souls fan.

However, the reviews made it sound like this is some absolute must-play milestone of gaming history, one of the GOATs. It's absolutely baffling to me how they came to that conclusion.

For someone who's mostly been a bit lukewarm on the souls series, I don't see how Elden Ring does anything to really change my prior views on the series.
The combat is extremely similar, I believe the animation and UI is identical. Movement and combat animations feel very heavy-weight and slow to me.. just like any prior DS game, obviously. Story telling seems to be about the same - a bunch of low-detail NPCs, many of which don't even have any lip animation, telling fragments about a, who would have thought, grim and mysterious world in which we once again are some sort of chosen nobody who will end up killing the godlike things. Been there, done that.

Moreover, my personal experience with its greatest novelty - the open world - has been slightly negative so far. Very very minor super early game spoilers ahead:
First thing I did after getting out of the starter building was .. not following the markers, and going south instead. It's an open world after all, right? Right. So, going some cave, opening up a chest, oh no its a trap (chests being traps, how creative and new!). So it teleports me into this mine. All enemies in there are clearly stronger than me and presumably not meant to my starter character whatsoever. But alas, there's no exit either.
So now I'm in this giant mine, surrounded my overpowering enemies, and no clue where the exit is. So I end up having to consult google. And thank god I did, because the "exit" is quite far away - you need to make it to the first bonfire. From which for whatever reason you can't teleport out. And then to the second bonfire, from which you finally can. But I didn't even know that I could use those to teleport (either the game didn't tell me, or I missed it). And in fact, it was quite unintuitive on the UI for me - even after explicitly reading online that this is how I could get out, it took me a few mins to actually figure out how to teleport on the map (and that is after I fortunately figured out how to change the control button tooltips to PC keyboard tooltips instead of gamepad - something the game should've probably done automatically, given.. well, I don't even have a gamepad plugged in). If I hadn't googled, I would've probably been close to throwing the box away right there.

So I'm finally back out in the world. Ok, maybe I'll follow the marker this time. A bunch of mobs and some mini boss later, I find myself with lots of souls, wanting to really level up. But the option isn't there while at the bonfire. Huh? My character screen clearly says I have way more souls than I'd need to level up, so what the hell is going on? Some more googlin' later, it seems I need to follow the first parts of the story further until I'm given the ability to level up. Great, so much about freedom and open world.

Very bad start into an open world concept for me. (Plus, I don't particularly love mob respawn in an open world - it's very subjective, but I like clearing out area by area)

Anyways. I think a lot of people are going to be extremely happy with this game, and I'm stoked for them. But I think I probably won't be one of them - and so far, I really don't get the universal praise it received from the media. It's a stellar souls game - but imho, not more and not less than than.