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How do you feel about Elden Ring now that the hype has cleared?

Saber

Gold Member
Pretty damn good.

Good enought to keep going and going, and an open world worth exploring. Not like those generic open worlds, no wonder some delayed in response. Hope that Elden Ring stays as a lesson of how make open world better and compelling.
 
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it has its share of flaws, mainly how areas followed a clear difficulty curve and if you didn't tackle them in the proper order the game could end up being either too difficult or too easy at times. The snowy mountain area was also clearly below when compared with other areas.

But even at its lowest points the game still felt miles ahead other open world games out there.
The biggest problem is how easy the game becomes if you explore too much. I didn't follow any guide and had a very basic SRT build and yet I got ridiculous OP and the only challenge was Malenia.

Leveling and equipment should have more nuanced effects in a game like this or maybe there should be incentives within the game so that you wouldn't level too much. I wouldn't have minded some sort of time limit/passage of time, so that you'd know it would be impossible to explore everything in a single run.
 
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Fredrik

Member
Favorite FROM game and one of the best and most unique games in recent years, needs to start a new sub-genre, open-world soulslike.

It was a 10/10 and on my all time top 5 for me for a long time, but it stumbled at the finish line after 180 hours because of some of the most annoying boss fights I’ve ever played.

9/10
My GOTY so far.

But I haven’t played through Horizon Forbidden West and Horizon Zero Dawn was a 9/10 and HFW seems better, we’ll see what happens.

I plan to do a NG+ playthrough but right now I’m taking a break and playing other games.
 

Josemayuste

Member
It is:
Stick Around Bob Ross GIF by Originals
 

Bragr

Banned
It's a hard one, for while the world (art) is breathtaking and belongs in the legendary category, and for all the fantastic exploration, there were too many times in Elden Ring where I felt I played Dark Souls. I still value Sekiro higher because the gameplay is more novel, more unique, and more interesting.

FromSoftware has used the same trappings a bit too many times. The world itself made Elden Ring fresh, but the way they build enemies and how they design encounters and enemies is starting to feel familiar if you played all their games.

If you look at their gameplay design, which is based around encountering an enemy and having to figure out how to defend/attack it, and how they feed you different enemy patterns and boss patterns to make it feel fresh through the game, this is identical since Demon's Souls. I guess you could say the horse added something fresh to it, which it did. It's the same gameplay with slight variations in each game.

That's why I value Sekiro, the agility and counter of Sekiro add more nuance and novelty than what you see in their other games. It's a different sort of gameplay.
 

ShirAhava

Plays with kids toys, in the adult gaming world
Uninspired cash grab featuring "hip" George R. R. Martin flare as its Poochy to reel in the dregs and mask how tired the souls formula already is

If you've never played a souls game before its decent enough but its not for everyone and if you've played souls before and open world games don't appeal to you skip it entirely

Elden Ring isn't the standard its the minimum, Souls is this generations Dynasty Warriors thats right just think if DW was GOTY in 2001 or 2007 that would be unthinkable right?

Souls has gone medieval! gundam souls, final fantasy souls, sonic souls, where will our brave IP venture off to next? I am on the edge of my seat with anticipation (not)

In this creatively bankrupt industry what would be a middle of the road game is a shining beacon of hope is this game really that good or is this industry really that dead? You Decide

For me If Elden Ring truly represents the pinnacle of what modern gaming is all about then maybe video games aren't worth it anymore

Hidetaka Miyazaki's NFL Souls 23' gets a 6 outta 10 (if you hate open world rubbish and are burned out on souls games its a 3 out of 10)
 
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Guilty_AI

Member
The biggest problem is how easy the game becomes if you explore too much. I didn't follow any guide and had a very basic SRT build and yet I got ridiculous OP and the only challenge was Malenia.
Even malenia i was able to defeat in only a few tries, elden beast was the only boss i had more difficulty with in late game. But i think this kind of problem is unavoidable in open world rpgs unless you resort to some artificial limiters, which brings me...
Leveling and equipment should have more nuanced effects in a game like this or maybe there should be incentives within the game so that you wouldn't level too much. I wouldn't have minded some sort of time limit/passage of time, so that you'd know it would be impossible to explore everything in a single run.
Personally, even with its issues, i'm glad they made the game the way they did. Its a design philosophy that basically opens up to the player and isn't afraid of letting them exploit the game mechanics or do things in ways "they aren't supposed to". It feels much more liberating, and fun.

I absolutely hated how in Sekiro minibosses would automatically regain all their health bars if you hid from them. It was obviously put there because, even though the game highly encouraged the use of stealth, it still wanted it to be played "the right way". Its an artificial shackle that really muddied the experience for me.
 
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Aion002

Member
Great game.

Although I hated Farum Azula and Leyndell Sewers, also Runebears and Revenants are probably the most annoying, unfun and stupid enemies I fought so far in a souls game and just remembering them makes me angry...

Angry Lilo And Stitch GIF



Also... The optional dungeons are boring, shallow and just filler content.


Still... Great game... I guess...
 

ANDS

King of Gaslighting
The Souls franchise didn't need to go open world. Im also tired of the dead/fallen worlds. From need to challenge themselves and create a living world. The formula and settings are growing stagnant. Dark Fantasy is fine still. The Warhammer universe/setting is dark fantasy yet its still full of life.

Before ER I would have said, drag your ass down to the lake and go for a swim. After ER, absolutely. It's an interesting idea, but they've never made an open world game before and it shows. The best content in the game are the legacy environments and small dungeons/castles: the rest of the open world is honestly just THERE.

. . .maybe in a year or so, when folks can come off their high horse, we can talk about how the open world design in ER isn't any less offensive or bog-standard than the perennial open-world punching bag UBISOFT.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
Right up there with Red Dead 2 as a GOAT. It’s dominated my playing time, and even after being thorough on my playthrough I keep finding shit to mop up on. Went from an Intelligence/Dex build to a strength build to sample some of the weapons I didn’t get to mess with.

I guess for regular Souls fans maybe ER is standard sort of. But this is the first time I’ve ever completed one, and I’ve been so into it. There’s still some weapons I want to mess with and I haven’t even touched the arcane stuff. A massive world full of so much cool shit - and so much HIDDEN shit.

And no microtransactions or battle pass anything!

If this is considered overhyped then what’s considered better? Halo? Sonic the Hedgehog? Uncharted? Please. ER deserves every drop of praise it gets. Games like this are rare as fuck.
 

R6Rider

Gold Member
A fantastic game.

The first time through was so damn amazing. One of those moments I wish I could experience again, much like the first time through Morrowind.
 

mxbison

Member
It was overall a great experience but I find the combat absurdly overrated.

90% of encounters is just rolling through the mid-air tracking enemy attacks. And the only thing making it difficult is not knowing how long they're gonna delay the attack.

The open world design and lore was 10/10 though.
 
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Fredrik

Member
Personally, even with its issues, i'm glad they made the game the way they did. Its a design philosophy that basically opens up to the player and isn't afraid of letting them exploit the game mechanics or do things in ways "they aren't supposed to". It feels much more liberating, and fun.
Yeah that’s the best thing about it. In other FROM games I always get bored from running into a wall of increased difficulty with grinding as my only choice to possibly get further into the game. Elden Ring let me experiment, explore, I didn’t even feel stuck when reaching the mandatory bosses since I always had huge areas to explore.
Even after finishing it I have areas I haven’t cleared and bosses I’ve never seen. I’m saving that for NG+. I want to try another build, another ending, went with melee and age of stars for the first playthrough. I want to try focusing on magic too just to experience the ”easy mode” I hear people talk about.
Amazing game.
 
Middle of the pack Soulsborne game with repetitive bosses and worst level design of any Soulsborne game. Open world lacked any feeling of reward for exploration, and just felt like tons of bloat The combat was top notch like every Soulsborne game though
 
Phenomenal with some jank. My only glaring issue is it clearly needed more balancing. I'd be way overleveled in some areas but die in two hits to normal enemies. Also, plenty of enemies could murder me easily despite having softcapped endurance/vigor, armor almost at heavy rolling, and a fully upgraded Greatshield.

Oh, and it's absurd that FromSoft still hasn't found a solution to sprinting and moving the camera at the same time. 10/10 games don't require the claw.
 
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Relique

Member
I'm pleasantly surprised the general sentiment landed somewhere more reasonable now that some time has passed since launch. A few months ago people would come out with the pitchforks if you had any criticism for the game at all.

I thought it was very good. It was certainly good enough to see all the way through. It has some problems though, and I don't think it reached the highs of some of their other games. The big selling point is the sheer size which is fair enough, I like getting more for my money. Beyond that I think they've shown better effort in story, music, gameplay, dungeons, and bosses in some of their older games.
 

tmlDan

Member
I can't take anyone seriously who says best game ever made.

I've shared my POV before but i found the game to go on too long, it became a drag. The last half was boring and tedious, the game was easy and required repetitive combat patterns, the abilities in the game and summons make the game too easy to scale and you get so strong you just spam your combat/weapon ability.

I know people say there are so many places to explore but i found them, despite being slightly different, to have the same gameplay patterns throughout the entire game where it never evolved. Last point, the camera system still sucks, giant enemies are annoying not fun unless you get caught up in looking at them from a distance.

I really just think the game is great but not that great.
 

NinjaBoiX

Member
I thought it was WAAYYY overhyped, people calling it the pinnacle of game design and the new template by which open world games should adhere, yadda yadda.

It’s a good game don’t get me wrong, but it’s rife with issues (from both a technical and design standpoint) and it’s not even the best FROM game, never mind being even remotely in contention for GOAT.

It’s good, maybe even great. But it’s not as good as some of the more fervent fanboys would have you believe.

8/10
 
Elden Ring is more From Software. The good and the bad. As someone who didn’t mind Chalice Dungeons and had fun with DS2, I was amazed at the best stuff ER had to offer and had the tolerance to push through the worse content it had. Played about 150 hours in total and grabbed the Platinum. Waiting for DLC and RTX update to decided to do a 2nd playthrough.

It’s a 10/10 game for me.
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
I dont think I like the open world as much as the tightly controlled metroid like experience of the other games but it was still fun.
 

Rea

Member
Personally It's the worst open world game I have played. The only thing I like about Elden ring being an open world, is the exploration. The game is bloated with useless shits. Also the boss mechanics are shit, I feel like fighting Sekiro bosses, without Sekiro's parry. I really wish they go back to traditional Dark Souls.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
The same as day after finishing it
It’s good. Dark souls 2 is the better.
Er got shit balance, every boss is repeated like 2 or 13 times and a lot of running around. Every item is for magic users.
Speed runs or no hit runs from er are much much worse than trilogy
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
The game was an absolute masterpiece. My only complaint is that it didn't allow for weapon respecing the way it allowed for character respecing. I have a high faith/quality build with 7int, which means I have no int based weapons that would be worth experimenting with.

Game is a 10/10. Absolutely incredible and easily GotY.

My biggest complaints was that you didn't access to the highest tier upgrade material until way into the game.
 
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Spaceman292

Banned
Uninspired cash grab featuring "hip" George R. R. Martin flare as its Poochy to reel in the dregs and mask how tired the souls formula already is

If you've never played a souls game before its decent enough but its not for everyone and if you've played souls before and open world games don't appeal to you skip it entirely

Elden Ring isn't the standard its the minimum, Souls is this generations Dynasty Warriors thats right just think if DW was GOTY in 2001 or 2007 that would be unthinkable right?

Souls has gone medieval! gundam souls, final fantasy souls, sonic souls, where will our brave IP venture off to next? I am on the edge of my seat with anticipation (not)

In this creatively bankrupt industry what would be a middle of the road game is a shining beacon of hope is this game really that good or is this industry really that dead? You Decide

For me If Elden Ring truly represents the pinnacle of what modern gaming is all about then maybe video games aren't worth it anymore

Hidetaka Miyazaki's NFL Souls 23' gets a 6 outta 10 (if you hate open world rubbish and are burned out on souls games its a 3 out of 10)
I think you just hate video games bro
 
Amazing game, best RPG I've ever played, even though I'd score it a 0 out of 10 in terms of story and quest design.

ER was my first. After that, I played Demon's Remake on PS5 and Dark Souls 3.

ER is the best in almost every way, imo, including balance. I enjoyed Demon's just as much, because of the technical qualities (graphics and especially sound, which really impressed me). I also like the slower pace, but there're some awful design choices in some parts, mostly related to checkpoints and the fact that it was their first game.

There's a lot of recycling through the series, so the impact will probably vary depending on the order you play the games. Dark Souls 3 being the last I played, it didn't cause much impact and I felt that it didn't have the range of flexibility that ER gives you in terms of creating the build you want. For instance, you can't create a decent Faith build until you're almost at the end of the game, whereas in ER you can go pure faith from start to finish if you want.
 
90 + hours logged, stopped to take a break and haven’t picked it back up. At the end I was feeling worn from the the increasing repetition of enemies, dungeons/caves and areas. I’d prefer a tighter experience.

I liked the game but it’s not in my list “All Times”.
 

Aesius

Member
It's weird, I was completely blown away by the game when I first played it, but like others, I hit a wall towards the end and lost a ton of momentum/desire to keep going. I ultimately beat it and got all the achievements but by the end I was just ready for it to be over. It would have been a better game had it ended at the Capital or shortly thereafter.

All that said, I still love it because it was so awe-inspiring on a first playthrough and captured gaming magic like nothing else has been able to do in years for me. But I think DS1 and Bloodborne are more impactful and memorable for me, and they are probably better games overall.
 

MagnesD3

Member
After 3 playthroughs 300 hours and platinum, coming from someone who doesnt really like open world games, I think it's easily the best open world ever made and I really want dlc and a sequel. However people who give it a 10 are mistaken as it does have things it needs to improve on I'd give it a 9.7 as a masterpiece in open world game design.
 
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Best game ever made still. No game will reach its heights for years to come sadly. Especially when it comes to exploration. It’s really amazing what from accomplished with it.
 

NeverYouMind

Gold Member
The addition of a spirit horse makes for an amazing mode of transportation, though the delay in attacks from horseback is disappointing. The addition of blood magic is cool and Flask of Wonderous Physique being customizable to prevent rune loss, increase stamina regen, or temporarily remove FP restrictions is amusing. I am happy about additional checkpoints provided by statues in the world.

Aesthetically it is a step down from Dark Souls series. The bosses are more fair than in Dark Souls 3. In multi-boss scenarios they are even kind enough to only attack the player directly one at a time based on proximity. Gameplaywise it is an evolution of Dark Souls 3 both in fluidity of weapon move sets and the idea of interchangeable weapon arts/affinities. Them nerfing R1 poise break sucks, but addition of guard counters makes up for it. The jumping mechanics in combat are awful and throw out the homing and efficient forward heavy jump attack in Dark Souls. Even the drop down strike is poor compared to its counterpart in Dark Souls. For normal weapons it takes an absurd (9*12+1) 109 stones to fully upgrade and the simple somber upgraded weapons cannot have their affinities changed. Also the general move set for every weapon in a class is extremely similar.


Oddly I am likely one of the only people that hates the convoluted design of Elden Ring's legacy dungeons, but enjoys the simplicity of mini dungeons and the open world, which sadly does not have any living residential areas like most open world games. The crafting system is done pretty well as the player can finally forgo trips to a merchant for ammo, cure, and buff/debuff items, but fails to do something as basic as heal or replenish FP still necessitating trips to sites of grace.

Disappointingly, it does not incorporate the best aspects of Dark Souls II with restoration items, unique weapons, bonfire ascetics, early respec access, standardized upgrade/affinity system, and unique power stance weapon combos. Even Twinblades do not feel as fun to use. Some weapons like the Claymore feel like a step down from the original Dark Souls, but others like the katanas are a step above.

It also does not live up to the movement and aggressive gameplay mechanics of Bloodborne with its amazing charged attacks. If I had to rank the lot:

Scholar of the First Sin > Bloodborne >> Dark Souls Remastered (Backstep/Roll/Teleport/Early DLC Mods) > Elden Ring >> Demon Souls >> Dark Souls III: Deluxe Edition

Worth playing Elden ring in the Ps4 versión?
Yes, it is relatively stable and looks/plays well.
 
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GigaBowser

The bear of bad news
Best game ever made still. No game will reach its heights for years to come sadly. Especially when it comes to exploration. It’s really amazing what from accomplished with it.
What specifically about the exploration do you like? I liked the art, but there's not really any meaningful interaction with the world other than combat.
 

Fredrik

Member
I know people say there are so many places to explore but i found them, despite being slightly different, to have the same gameplay patterns throughout the entire game where it never evolved.
If you think like that then other soulslike must have the same gameplay pattern throughout the entire game too for you.
But without the open map, horse platforming, mount combat, summons, alternative route exploration to mix things up.

Is Haligtree the same as Stormveil castle?
Is Sofria River the same as Volcano Manor?
Is Farum Azula the same as Limgrave Tunnels?

There are no doubt ”samey” content but that goes for all games. If you look at a list of enemy types or dungeons or maps then you’ll quickly notice that ER is ahead of pretty much everything out there. Personally I don’t understand how they’ve managed to make the game in just a couple years.
 
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