Don't fully agree but this somewhat explains why I've always found the RPG aspects of these games to be the least compelling bits as someone who came at them from a primarily action game background. The only one I've fully beaten is Sekiro as it's the most unabashedly action-gamey of all of them. Personally I would like From to branch out and to use their unique strengths to make more things that don't fit the soulsbourne label even if that means leaning even more into action gamey or a direction I have less personal interest in. If every game is too close to the previous one it's just going to get stagnant.
I wrote a summary of the video, with timestamps: 0:00 Intro 2:37 BotW’s “Freedom” philosophy 4:17 The Great Plateau as a tutorial faithful to the game as a whole 5:23 The Shiekah Slate with generic abilities should make puzzle solutions less obvious (good), however the simplicity of Shrines often make solutions obvious/less satisfying (bad) 7:15 Puzzle-solving Motivation 9:13 Temperature system is great, but equipment system is bad (too easy). Many things are good to be convenient, but need more restrictions on equipment to increase survivalist aspect. Could also give permanent upgrades 12:38 - Combat has problems but is more engaging/impressive than most games because all of Link’s actions are available at all times 18:11 Improvements on open-world design 18:49 The world still lacks realistic depictions in key locations, environmental storytelling 22:37 Less common overworld/characters would be more interesting 24:28 Motivation, utility 26:31 The power of permanence 28:28 Restrictive moments are more satisfying within a world of freedom 30:17 The paraglider is overpowered, enemies are too easy to avoid 31:47 Enemy variety is OK, and their designs are great 35:40 Climbing is dull and overpowered (48:46) 36:15 inventory is too big (or is it?) 37:42 Players can tweak difficulty for themselves 38:59 BotW’s definitive feature is that all objects can affect gameplay (physics, state calculation) 40:07 The Zelda series had always been building towards these new gameplay mechanics 40:59 BotW’s art style is a crucial component to the gameplay with meaningful decisions behind it 42:30 UI details 43:20 Reduced soundtrack allows the world to speak for itself, but still well-designed music 45:30 Divine Beasts are extremely well designed, combining classic Zelda dungeon feeling with new freedom philosophy, but unfortunately each one is short and visually repetitive 46:38 More on Shrines: They can be created in large numbers, and reward exploration, but are too repetitive and puzzles less satisfying 48:53 Nintendo will also need to defy conventions FROM botw 49:09 Hyrule Castle is very threatening (good) while also emphasizing freedom and exploration 49:43 Story is nonlinear, nonlinear memories make it complex, but it honors the player’s freedom. Even the story itself has a subject of “freedom”. But the ending doesn’t feel as bittersweet as it should 52:01 Final boss phase 1: Item usage should be encouraged (but not mandatory), and clearing divine beasts should enhance, not reduce, the experience. Dark Beast Ganon fight is OK because the overworld is the main character. 53:32 Outro: BotW’s new formula has problems, but also extremely great moments - both of these coming from the unwavering commitment to freedom.
Summary: Best things about BotW: - its concsious unwavering commitment to allowing player freedom - restrictive moments within that freedom - high incentives for exploration - physics and temperature engines - many streamlining and quality-of-life improvements Issues for improvement: - too many shrines causes puzzles to be broken up too much and unsatisfying - many features are overpowered (climbing, gliding, clothing, inventory, non-threatening enemies) - issues with environmental storytelling, divine beasts and final boss issues
I'm enjoying the Elden Ring DLC, mostly for the exploration and lore, but I couldn't help but think of this video after the third spammy roll-catchy boss. In Dark Souls 3 I was already feeling fatigued by that style of boss, but at least there only 60% of the fight time was taken up by rolling. I felt they truly jumped the shark with the endgame of Elden Ring, where bosses like Maliketh would spam 15 attacks in a row that could two-shot you, and where the opening afterward felt barely long enough for a single heal. Well, if that was jumping the shark, the new DLC is double jumping it, and I haven't even attempted the final boss yet.
I couldn't agree more. It's frustrating for people to say "Souls has always been about hard bosses!" while failing to realize the other 90% of the game exists. I finished the DLC and was left with the same feeling, just completely boring and dull.
the prepare to die marketing has effectively destroyed any possibility of an engaging discussion of the difficulty because people will throw out "AIEEEEEEEEEEEE SKILL ISSUE" and while that may be the case most of the time. I do think that some shit is going a bit too far lmao
@@solomon2466 People can't see how they've gone too far because they have gradually conditioned us into accepting poorly designed difficulty for the sake of making sure that even the most skilled players die often. If someone played Dark Souls 1, skipped 2 and 3 and went straight to Elden Ring the flaws in the gameplay design would be much more apparent. For example, people are used to the excessive enemy tracking and nobody complains about it these days even though it was one of the biggest complaints about Dark Souls 2 at launch. They have slowly added more and more trash mechanics as the series went on.
I think ive reached my breaking point with the er dlc. i think i did most thinks up until that band of the hawk fight but i just cant do it anymore. im just not having fun with all this. and yes its 100% a skill issue. these games just arent for me anymore i guess. or maybe i just install a mod that cuts enemy damage in half lol. i just miss the old days. like remember when we were complaining that artorias had too many anime moves? those were the days man.
I think it's not truly "hard," it's just unbalanced. DMC5 on DMD difficulty is hard. Infinity Climax on Bayonetta is hard. Tactical Challenge 6 in Vanquish is HARD. Elden Ring's combat is nowhere near sophisticated enough to be difficult on the level of these kinds of true action games, so they pump up enemy health and damage in an attempt to conceal the fact that there's relatively little going on under the hood. It's like Matthew points out in this video, all your moves do the same thing in Souls game, it's just "make enemy health bar bar go down." There's no interesting combos, there's no shields that you have to break or statuses to inflict or guards to counter or whatever. It's literally just R1 and circle, again and again and again. It's boring.
I return to this video with a new comment because with Elden Ring DLC this video still rings true, especially with the bosses. So many people right now as I post this are arguing about the difficulty of the DLC and its bosses. My main issue with the bosses more so is that it's more of the same old shit. I'm just not finding the "learn pattern, dodge at right second, deal with the bosses bullshit spamming of infinite stamina and two hit kills" engaging anymore. I don't feel a sense of accomplishment when I beat them, I just feel like I pulled an annoying pain away from my body. I really hope whatever FromSoft does next is something new, something that will ignite that Demons Souls energy again with new ideas and just subverting expectations. However, due to Elden Ring being such a huge success, I sadly doubt they'll be willing to do it and just make another Soulslike and critics and people will give it more 10s. Because apparently now you can't say any criticism of these games anymore, when I remember a time when people would regularly shit on these games. But while I, along with many others saw what was special about them, it feels FromSoft might have forgotten. FromSoft excel at their art, level design and just core function as working as a team. But now it feels like they're kinda playing stuff safe and expected and I never thought that would really happen.
I have this feeling that in like six months from now, we're going to get some sort of viral RU-vid video talking about how the DLC's bosses aren't all that interesting, and it'll be much more positively received than now (although there will still be detractors and fanboys to be sure). We're just in the honeymoon phase right now-a lot of fans can't accept that Fromsoft's entire combat formula has gotten really stale, even if they do excel in other areas (and they definitely do-the art direction and environments in SotE remain unparalleled). It feels like they should have either (a) kept the weird puzzle-gamey-type experience of DeS as the series matured, or (b) refined the combat to be more interesting as the series became more action-oriented. They did neither, and now we're left with something that's just...not that fun.
@@tweeeeeex We're left with a game that is aimed at pleasing a large audience and narrow minded fandom rather than take risks and doing something interesting/potentially alienating.
A Mathew quote went through my head all through the dlc “so many times it felt like the design team asked “how can we make this fight difficult” when what they should have asked is “how can we make this fight interesting””
@@brandonthomas6602 EXACTLY. This was also hitting me during the main game. That said, I really like Elden Ring, but I along with many others have played these games for 10+ years. Had time to reflect back and think on stuff. The people whos first one of these games was Elden Ring I feel are the most toxic and not willing to take any amount of criticism of their favorite Elden Ring.
They're afraid of alienating the "muh hardcore" fanbase they've attracted with the prepare to die marketing. Their biggest fear is people saying their games are too easy so they have to up the ante every single time.
Please make a video expressing your opinions on Elden Ring, even if you recount many of the points from this video. It's been 7 years and your fans would love to hear you voice your opinions on where the series is now.
With every new FS content I come back to this video and I realize how insightful Matthewmatosis was. It's so sad that the devs themselves, including Miyazaki, don't get what's so great about the Soulsborne games, and they keep doubling down on their mistake with every new game or IP.
I think what really resonates with me most after SotE is Matthew's point about how, with the Soulsborne series' increasing reliance on action, he could just play a better action game instead. Imagine if Shadow of the Erdtree were a genuinely mechanically complex and deep action game, with lots of options on how to inflict damage/statuses and interesting elements from the enemies (stances, blocking, shields etc) that required you to change strategies or input special moves. It would be the sickest action game ever. Instead, they've just completely come to rely upon the same old tired "roll at the right time" mechanic, over and over and over again. I beat the DLC tonight and I was bored to tears-despite all the pretty environments and presentation, every fight is literally *exactly* the same. They desperately need a refresh with these games.
Whelp. I finally beat this game and the Valkyries. The Valkyrie queen is the best boss of any god of war game. I think I hate Atreus. I give the game a 7 out of 10. This video gets a 2 out of 10 fir being pretentious
My dude why do you keep commenting on this video on this video attacking Matt as if calling the game you like mediocre is the same thing as murdering your family?
The final boss for the DLC of Elden Ring feels like a massive shitpost. The phase 2 for that fight is genuinely mindboggling. What the fuck were they thinking? Even with mimic tear I was struggling lmfaooooi
I calmed down a little bit and I do think overall the ER dlc is p good. The visuals are excellent but the open world is expectedly empty for the most part. P much all of the bosses are rollslop but I think Midra and Messmer are great despite that. The rollslop bosses can also be reasonably doable without mimic tear if you're patient enough but the final boss is actually retarded. Gaius took me like four fucking hours or some shit without mimic tear and I just broke down and cheesed the fuck out of the final boss because I was so sick of the dlc at that point lmfao
This game is delightful. I thought it was easy to dismiss after Cave Story, because it seems so unassuming and slight. Cave Story is hardly heavy on story, but much more so than this game, and both the funny and emotional moments of that story I thought were very well done. Kero Blaster obviously isn't the same thing, but once you give it a try it becomes clear that it's just as fun. This recommendation is what got me to try it out and I'm happy I did.
Well, in DS3 they still tried something new for the formula, too, even though there was a lot of fanservice. At least there were some gimmicky bosses and experiential moments like what Matthewmatosis discussed in this video. It's really Elden Ring that turned into what Matthew feared the most, just a ton of samey bosses with no focus on these experiential moments like in DeS and DS whatsoever. It's really sad, ER is still a good game overall, but I'd call it one of the weakest modern FromSoftware games, better only than DS2.
@@sharkchannel61DS3 was nothing new it was just more DeS with less good levels, and faster ds1/2 that uses the better bloodborne pace without the gameplay that made BB fun and the same goes for ER that only put a bandaid on ds3s gaping wounds and opened more flaws.
Yeah I saw the first boss and her 15 hit combo and just sighed. I'll still play it, but I'm a little sad. Just like elden ring, it'll be good, but not great. Looking back over all these years, the high water marks of FromSoft have been Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Sekiro.
every fight is literally exactly the same. It sucks because the level design is still excellent and the art direction is unparalleled at this point, but if you've fought one Shadows of the Erdtree boss (or enemy for that matter), you've fought them all. People meme about the combat of ER because it's supposedly so hard (it's not, it's just tedious), but it's easily the worst part of the game.
With the release of the Elden RIng DLC what a perfect time to revisit this video, Saying as how Elden Ring is just a culmination of all the things mentioned in this video.
The corpses crowded against the New Londo gates were probably people wanting to flee the city and getting trapped there by the keepers of the Abyss when they decided to flood the whole underground area.
23:43 I liked how quiet they were in the original because it helped set the scene. Clearly they weren’t allowed to even speak to each other and that added to the brutal situation they were in.
I honestly prefer that the game tells you when you unlock a storybook segment just so that you can see them spaced out throughout the game instead of watching all of them in one go
Late to the update of Ragnarok but my last takeaway is that when they made this game, when they were done with it I feel as if there was nothing they would have changed even if they could, because very little in Ragnarok was updated with this. The compliancy is astounding when all you choose to look at is the numbers and 10/10s instead of criteques
Thanks for the outstanding review videos! It’s been so insightful hearing your take on some of my favourite games over the years! I hope you do an Odyssey review, as I think you’d have some great things to say about it 😊
I still lose myself in thoughts while Matt is so organiclly jump from point to point. Once I come back, I always rewind so much to get the context. Matt is a modern day magician.
I played Demon's Souls well after playing Dark souls several times over and the thing that stood out to me the most was how Dark Souls maintains its immersion better with the lack of cutscenes. Demon's Souls was a great game but you could tell that Fromsoftware was actively trying to improve their games from the beginning.
I've known of this game for ages but never tried it due to the unforgiving difficulty. I just feel I'd be more frustrated than challenged and I try to play games to relax. Spoiler warning, for any one else who isn't going to play it, (or already has), I recommend "The Affairs of Passing Gods" by Solemn Sunday. They cover the entire storyline and lore for the game including full voice acting for characters that have dialogue, and helped me enjoy what this game had to offer without the headache of trying to experience it on my own.
Bla bla bla yeah yeah yeah the mechanics of the game ladidaa... ...impossibly repellent idiot story line anyone? It is, like, worse than a poop grenade thrown towards me.
Playing the demo of the remake has me coming back to this. "Figuring out the meaning of this symbol is one of my favorite puzzles of all time" -- there is something near the very beginning of the remake that in my opinion seriously undermines this. Was pretty disappointed to come across that.
I played Rain World and just recently, Ghost Trick because of these "Recommending" videos. Both were fantastic experiences I would have otherwise missed. Thanks a lot for this video series Mr. Matosis
I just now realized that the dooming "thud" at the start of each day is the same sound as what's used for large doors that shut behind link. So really it's not a copy of the "Law and Order" sound effect warning you of time passing, it's actually the door closing on your current day before a new one begins.
This game was awesome and has flaws. Mediocre video ngl. Just comes off as spiteful that new gow is so much more well liked. The greek games are overrated. In God of War 1, 2, and 3 you'll die from falling down a pit thanks to mediocre design instead of dying during a battle.
Glen I'm starting to wonder if you're actually Matthew in disguise trying to boost the algorithm, seems like the most believable reason anyone would keep commenting with so many alts
@frogglen6350 yet it's better than the norse god games in regard to combat, level design, puzzles, and game design overall. You know, the stuff that actually makes a good video game.
i am a bit disappointed since I put this video of until I had beat Demon's Souls (the new one and the Original) I don't know, people say this video is ''prophetic'' (especially since they did reuse the concept of ashen estus), but to me it seems a bit narrowminded in the view what the games should be. Ignoring that maybe they want to be approached differently. It doesn't see all these games as seperate entities but as one large series. Just like there were games before Dark Souls there were also games before Demon's Souls.The same way he seems to not like blood vials, some people seem to praise. It especially is funny too that Demon's Souls also works similarly with it's healing system. I also find it a bit confusing if he is critiqueing the combat system or not. He seems to have that weird notion that any sort of action game is only good if it's complex, when he says that if he wanted action he would play something else, completly ignoring the possibilty of someone enjoying these games, as action games, because of their simplicity. It seems very much like a view of, if this one thing is different in a way I don't like so I should ignore everything else in what ways the developers are innovative. Because they certainly have. And if you disagree and you don't like the new bosses of newer games that's fine, but as pointed in the video itself it's not what these games are solely grounded on. Each of these games have pretty unique worlds and interesting NPCs plus different stories and philosophies they want to tell Also in the same vein as said here that it would repetitive to always use snow scapes or gwyns them, I would very much argue that the gimmicky nature of Demon's Souls' bosses is indeed quite repetetive. And also DS3 has boss gimmicks, like Abyss Watchers, like Yorhm which of course is a reference to Storm King, like the Wyvern etc. It's just that the gimmicks are interspliced in to the action. I certainly appreciate those gimmicky bosses more than some fans and complains certainly come from the internet's obsession with boss rankings, but I also think that it makes sense that they aren't 90% of the games bosses. Demon's Souls is a great game by it's own merits just like any of Fromsofts other games, but it seems a bit skewed towards the view that Fromsoft already ''Fell Of'' in a sense. When realistically you will find a fan of any of their games just like just like you will find one hating any of them, specifically because of how they are creative in different ways. This includes Armored Core 6 (and theoritically the 15 AC titles before) and Sekiro which weren't out when this released I might come back to this later but there is a bit about this video that can be critiqued that people purposefully seem to ignore for the sake of nostalgia. That said I do think it's a good video.
This video is “prophetic” because it predicted the direction future installments of the series would take. As for the rest of your comment, as you wrote yourself, you beat Demon's Souls not that long ago, so you are not part of that small niche group of gamers who are “responsible”, so to speak, for the success of the series. The thing that was responsible for Demon's Souls' success in the West was the game's downright bizarre design, which brought it a huge fan base. The criticism from Demon's Souls fans (such as myself) stems from the fact that, over time, all of the uniqueness of the design has slowly begun to fade away in subsequent games in the series, to the point where even the difficulty level that was once “difficult but fair” is more or less a thing of the past. Essentially, this critical approach is no different from the opinions of fans of older Assassin's Creed games, many of whom are unhappy with the way Assassin's Creed has changed in recent years. Are they too narrow-minded and a bit skewed towards the view that Ubisoft already ''Fell Of'' in a sense, or does this only apply to Demon's Souls fans who share Matthewmatosis' view? Edit: Just to be clear about what I define as “games in a series.” Personally, I don't count Sekiro and Bloodborne as part of the series started by Demon's Souls, due to the fact that in both of these games the combat system was designed according to a different design philosophy.
@@hellomadet This is pretty different from AC. Simply in the fact that it's selling itself as a series. It would only really make sense if for example Dark Souls 3 was Sekiro. But Sekiro is Sekiro, so it's really not the same kind of change. Especially since Dark Souls and Demon's Souls are still actually different things. A spiritual successor is still not an actual sequel. And the comparison with AC would actually make more sense with Fromsofts own AC. Just because ideas are more focused nowadays does not mean they lack creativity. Demon's Souls very much is a big assortment of ideas thrown together, which has it's good points but also low points. The video very much claims in a way to know what the developers actually want to create and being forced by some mysterious exectuives to operate the way they do now, when actually from what we know nowadays it's seems very much that swamps are just made because the director likes swamps and he sees Elden Ring as the type of game he always wanted to make. In fact from what we know they are very good at pushing through the idea of letting them do their own thing, if you look at interviews about activision. Also sorry but as someone who has played all of the titles multiple times the claim that they aren't challenging but fair anymore is just bs. My play style hasn't changed all that much and I came through every game just fine, with no extra help. All of these games have moments that can be seen as bs, that includes Demon's Souls. To claim this is more of a case in newer titles is just not true at all and makes me question if you even played all of these games.
@@Romapolitan I can clearly see why you don't understand Matthewmatosis' point of view, and I can see that any attempt to explain his perspective to you is a waste of time. By the way, the game released under the name “Demon's Souls” was a project that was in development hell, and Fromsoft assumed in advance that it would be a flop, so Miyazaki was given a free hand as the game's director. Therefore, the game is a great conglomeration of many quite creative ideas. While creating Demon's Souls Miyazaki and his team were not constrained by sales projections, unlike when creating Elden Ring. If you think Bandai Namco didn't insist on creating a game that would appeal to the largest possible audience, you probably aren't aware of the principles by which our modern world operates. The fairness of the “Souls” games was founded on the fact that our opponents were constrained by the same rules as we were (or rather, that's the impression they gave) if a player can't cancel an attack once its animation has begun, the opponents couldn't do it either. Imput reading and cancelling animation at any time to punish the player the way it is in Elden Ring doesn't quite fit this form of “fairness”, but what do I know after all I haven't played any game classified as “Souls” by Fromsoft fans. 🤷♂ Edit: I have a better slogan for Elden Ring: "Difficult but devoid of complexity."
@@hellomadet I'm very well aware of Demon's Souls development hell. Did I ever state I was not? You again don't seem to be aware of how independently they work and just exclaim they don't. When we do know from Sekiro how they very much keep their independence. Elden Ring as an example is also really weird to use since the only hype 2 years before release came from earlier fans. Neither From nor Bandai expected Elden Ring to be a gigantic hit. The popularity came by surprise, a few months before release. You do realise that Fromsoft made games before Demon's Souls under different publishers? Where did the publisher influence go there? If the publishers did so much meddling why does AC6 even exist? But sure I'm just the fool who can't see the truth because I didn't play Demon's Souls as the very first game. All the other titles don't have their own merits.
@@Romapolitan No one is saying anything about “the truth”, I'm just trying to show my and Matthewmatosis' point of view. All sarcasm about Elden Ring aside, I realize that a lot of people like this game, and I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong. But it's most of the newer Souls fans, especially Elden Ring fans, who seem unable to understand that some of the more ancient fans of these games (I remember King's Field II on PSX) enjoy them for different reasons than you do. It wasn't the heavily advertised “high” difficulty level that drew me to Demon's Souls, it was the clunky, slow combat, unclear PVP mechanics and variety of boss fights that made the DS one of my favorite games. These are all things that most fans of “honorable duels” in PvP and memorizing patterns of pressing “B” in boss fights have been complaining about. You can like repetitive to the point of tedium boss fights of Elden Ring, but I personally have a lot more fun “fighting” Maiden Astraea than, say, Malenia Blade of Miquella. There are many difficult action games focused on fast-paced combat, for people like you, but there are not many games like Demon's Souls for someone like me to enjoy.
I’ve been looking through the comments before watching the video because I just played through this game for the first time recently (and the last time) and I was wondering why it had a good reputation. I enjoyed Bioshock 1 much more and I played that just last year. Of course they both suck compared to Dark Souls but that is just stating the obvious.
