Holy shit.. All this effort and editing for only 300 views? This channel is truly a hidden gem. Keep up the good work and hope you get the attention you deserve 🙌🙌
Elden Ring was my first souls game, and I loved it. Visually, it’s amazing, I love the variety, and it truly challenges me to get much better, but I will say that there are a lot of small things like boss mechanics and enemy mechanics that are just plain annoying. Yes I want it to be difficult, but annoyingly difficult things like Waterfowl are just dumb
I have all from Software souls games but I haven't finished any of them. Elden Ring is the first game that I have come far ( i think I'm close to the end), having 100+ hours into the game I still haven't learned how to parry and I am only able beat hard foes since I am high leveled. I also haven't been able to beat one single main boss by myself, I have summoned other who basically done the work for me, which frustrates me since I really want to be able to do it myself but It's just too hard.... It's sad but it feels like this is not how I'm supposed to play the game and I'm almost at the end of it....
@@tokyo3128 Don’t give up! I started with Dark Souls 1 when it first came out and I still can’t get the parry down. Try out different starting classes and builds and find the one that best suites your style of play. Don’t feel discouraged for having to summon people for help either. There’s an NPC in Dark Souls 1 that even encourages jolly good cooperation. There really isn’t a “right” way to play these games. They are hard but when you finally take down that boss by yourself the feeling you get knowing you did it yourself is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in a game before. Hope that helps some! Now rise tarnished and take the throne of Elden lord!
As someone who used 2 ruin greatswords through I wanna say about the ladder half of my 1st playthrough, (I had one of my friends drop his ruin GS for me so I could use 2) the late game bosses were an absolute slog to get through. It took me ages to beat malenia because of the high recovery time on ultra Great swords. And because I wanted to use heavy armor with my ruin great swords, pretty much the only stats I had invested into were endurance and vigor by the time I got to malenia. I want to say I was around level 120-140 when I fought her, having around 70 strength, 50-60 endurance, and 30 vigor with some points into intelligence. The problem was that I had very high recovery times and would get one shot due to my low vigor, so I had to respec my skills to fight her. Once I did, I beat her in about 5-6 tries compared to my previous 50+ tries.i reinvested my endurance stats to my vigor where I had around 50 vigor. The thing is, I felt like I was forced into doing this. I wasn't able to fight a lot of the late game bosses how I wanted to fight them. I like big swords and heavy armor, but this games late game in your first playthrough does not support that style of gameplay at all, which is why I think a lot of the late game bosses are terrible. They force you to play certain ways, instead of playing how you want to. I never used summons unless I was the one being summon, and I never used spirits like the mimic tier or stuff like that. And the late game actively punishes you for it, especially malenia. I just wish they put more time into late game, because to me it was obviously rushed. If you read this, thank you. I appreciate your patience for this long ramble on the internet.
I had a very similar experience on my first time through the game: instead of double-wielding greatswords, I wanted to do the good ol' fantasy trope of a sword-and-board knight. So I went through the entire game with fairly heavy armour, 1-handing a sword or greatsword (i swapped between them when I wanted a small change up) and had a shield in my off-hand. I was excited that FromSoft had finally given shields a good use, and wanted to do this build centered around it. Then I got to Malenia, and found out that she gets life-on-hit even when blocked, and legitimately got excruciatingly frustrated. That being said, I got her to second phase on my 2nd attempt, and only 5-6 attempts in the first hour (I did use mimic tear though). After roughly two hours of grinding that fight, I effectively lost interest and just called on a friend and we 2v1'd her. I still feel unfulfilled about that, but even a year later I still don't care to rectify that feeling. :/
Very good and worked on video, you deserve much more recognition and a lot of people deserve to watch it, but no worries, people will and your work won t be for nothing. Good job for this awesome video fellow fromsoftware fan and keep it up, have a sweet day!
Thanks! I appreciate the compliment. And hey, you never know what could happen in the future! This time last year I think I just hit 1000 subs, and the year before that I was in the triple digits. Only time will tell :)
heres the thing about the "just level vigor" argument: The best games in the catalog (from a boss standpoint) don't need it. while I've never played Bloodborne, the two games you consistently put as top-tier are DS3 and Sekiro. it's entirely feasible to run through DS3 with 20 vigor, and I've done it before with mid-difficulty. In fact, my favorite run of DS3 was a dragon Dual Greathammer build with low health (i dont remember the specifics, but it definitely wasn't to 60), and I could routinely survive most hits even with all of the drawbacks. Sekiro, obviously, has the Prayer bead system that, while the difference in health between someone who explores and someone who doesn't is relatively large, never feels like a necessity. Even to the DLC DS3 doesn't necessitate health like Elden Ring does, with Midir as the sole exception (and oft-lauded "hardest souls boss" before malenia). Elden Ring just eats your levels. i dont know why it does, but it's a shame to see the lessons from what was their best "traditional" Souls game fall by the wayside. "Just level ADP bro" - "just level Vigor bro"
I agree completely, and it's something I hope I made clear in the discussion. I never felt like I needed to level Vig in any Souls game, and while extra HP was a nice bonus I never felt forced to level Vig at all with any other game. It was fun and fair all the same. Then comes Elden Ring, where you "can" get away with lower Vig, but the game frequently punishes you very hard for neglecting it. Radahn for me was the first instance of the game telling me to level Vig, and the Mountaintop was the next big warning sign. Having at least 50ish Vig felt like a requirement, not unlike having reasonable ADP in DS2. I understand the need to scale the game accordingly, but Elden Ring was definitely not the most balanced game in the From catalogue.
I think one thing we need to all keep in mind and take from this, like you said with either undertune or overturn. This is their first open world experience. So there stepping on toes and seeing right and wrong. And there correcting issues (for example Radahn, even tho I liked him as is haha) I think all in all definitely a big step in fromsofts career and I hope they give it a good polish on the next release and dlcs
I feel lucky that my first FS game was Elden Ring, because Penguinz0 kept saying Jedi Fallen Order was "souls like". Margit was my favourite boss the moment I faced him. When I beat him I was so happy but also sad it was over. When I fought him again in the field I was so stoked. Fighting Morgott I was actually smiling and cheering during the cinematic like "oh yeah, it's my BOY!" Then, I got to experience Sekiro, and while Elden Ring combat feels dull now, I will always remember my first playthrough
Elden Ring is my first Souls game, and while I do like it and spent many, many hours even after I platinumed it, I agree with much of your criticisms. The map could at least do without that whole snow region, bosses like the Elden Beast were frustrating, and the game in general could do with less unga bunga as that was likely part of the reason why we have Malenia, Blade of Miquella. I hear about people going through many playthroughs in previous Souls games having problems doing even a second run in Elden Ring, and after over a hundred plus hours in a first playthrough, I can see why. I don't mind the emphasis on optimization though. Learned real quick how to make a decent build. Anyways, happy to have found the vid, and appreciate the use of Karin's theme.
Thanks, I appreciate the remarks for sure! I'll always try to find an excuse to add SF music somewhere xD And I'm in agreement with most of what you said. I don't mind the emphasis on optimization either since I more or less try to optimize anyways after a point, and while I still really liked my hours spent in Elden Ring, I find I need to be in the right mood to replay it. I haven't gone back to replay Elden Ring after my initial playthroughs, but I feel like if I wanted to replay BB or Sekiro for example, I could easily fire em up and knock out a quick playthrough for fun. But the thought of doing that for Elden Ring feels mentally tiring, at least for now. But I'm sure that'll change in time, especially as I/we the players get even better.
@@ViviVariety At the very least, FromSoft has been paying attention to our gripes. Can't do much about the pve fatigue as that part is mostly set in stone, but at least pvp looks more alive thanks to them implementing a bunch of changes based on fan feedback and finally opening the colosseums. That said, even with players who actually stopped playing the game pleading to us to try the pvp after the 1.08 update, it is still a tall order to go back to the game in general until we see DLC for pve (at least we hope so; Sekiro broke players' hearts in that regard... playing Guts theme here).
Excellent video. I'm playing through it again to see if i can gain a better appreciation/learn the boss moves better. Edit: I tried, but I can't. DS3 set too high a standard.
I can understand where you're coming from for sure. I definitely prefer DS3 over Elden Ring in the boss department as well, but I wonder if the DLC will change my mind. From's DLCs are usually where the best bosses are at, so Elden Ring may follow suit!
I appreciate you actually talking about some of the game's issues in regards to boss design. I hated Malenia at first, same for Maliketh because I used a great sword just like DS3-2 but I didn't know that if you want to use heavy weapons, you should prepare to wait a lot for an opening tp punish without trading. Now Malenia is my favorite boss ever, still annoying that I have to be defensive so I can have enough space to run for her face waterfowl dance wave. Maliketh also can be fun if his AI lets you hit him and he doesn't do anime shit for what feels like an eternity.
Another Masterclass video... I don't understand how you can have so few views, it's frustrating. I agree on everything. What bothered me the most personally was really the recycling of the bosses and the snow map that was way too big for nothing. We also lost the community side when talking about bosses or others. When I hear people say "I first try malenia without a problem, it's so simple" it annoys me a little 😅 In my session I gave myself a lot of handicap to have a lot of difficulties because I love it ! I admit despite the handicap that I suffered well I didn't struggle that much. The only ones I found really hot are malenia, margit, radahn and radagon p1/p2. Mogh wasn't bad either. Maliketh has too little life for some reason and it's a shame because the boss is incredible. And there's a secondary boss that I really liked! I don't know his name anymore but he's a beetle bull. I find it really good! I think my favorite bosses are margit, godfrey, mogh and radahn. Malenia I loved but differently. Sorry that was a bit long for nothing. Also sorry for the mistakes. I don't speak English very well but I can understand quite easily
No worries mate, you're all good! I appreciate the kind remarks, and it seems we're both in the same page with Elden Ring. A lot of your favorite bosses are some of mine as well!
Me, a person who has never played a souls game and has absolutely no intention of ever playing a souls game: “hmmm yes this is the video essay for me good good yes” 😂
I appreciate the support regardless! I do that often too, sometimes I have zero intention of checking something out, but I'll be willing to hear what someone else has to say about it lol
Wtf that Tommy Wiseau part lol EDIT: Also, I love Elden's gameplay since it feels like a combination of everything they've tried before. HOWEVER the bosses and pvp kinda ruin that great gameplay, you can't really use the full movesets and what's worse it feels as if you get punished for not using the most broken stuff. Which brings me to my other complaint, balance is absolute dogshit in Elden. Been playing since og Demon's and ER is easily the most broken. My other complaint is how big it is, the open world gets old and annoying even before first playthrough is over (let alone multiple ones). There's other nitpicks, like how you can't change scaling unless you use ashes of war, but those are my main complaints. I still liked Elden (hell, I 100% it twice) because it has lots of content (in the form of weapons, magic and bosses), really cool art/designs and lore but I don't think it's as fun or replayable as other games. Too many bosses just backpedal or outright run away from you and pvp is abysmal (the biggest reason I replayed older Souls was pvp and makin builds)
Yeah you summed up a lot of my main thoughts. I still had fun with Elden Ring and I'll still play it again in the future, but there's a lot of issues that just build up and get to you.
The original clip is even funnier, like I originally thought it was like a clever joke or edit, but nope, it's actually Tommy Wiseau himself, playing Dark Souls lol
I had always been a huge fan of the Souls series, loved the lore..specially Bloodborne. I had watched my husband play and others but never tried. I decided to try Bloodborne and I got my ass kicked and thought I'd try Elden Ring instead. I feel like I ruined my Elden Ring experience by using the Nagakiba with the Bloody Slash ash of war. It took down almost every boss in less than 2-3 attempts, including Malenia...who I was the most excited for (I wanted her armor bad). This all went down hill when I got to the final bosses who bleed doesn't work against. They were the only bosses I struggled on and it made me hate the ending. I then tried Bloodborne again and beat it 3 times in a row, it's now one of my favorite games. The movement is so fast and I love all the mechanics more than the movement in Elden Ring. They need to add a boss rush into Elden Ring because I feel like I barely got to fight the bosses, I just did my ash of war and it was over. IDK what the point of this comment was but I hope I'm not alone with my first Elden Ring play through.
No you're good mate, it's always cool hearing about people's experiences. And I'm glad you were able to give Bloodborne a shot! Sometimes I worry Elden Ring can spoil new fans with the QOL changes and mechanics, so I think it's cool how people can go to the older games and still appreciate what they have to offer, warts and all :)
The balance is a nightmare, I have beaten the game three times, once with a tanky STR build with some INT just to cosplay as Radahn from time to time, 2nd one as a mage (only one I used spells and spirit ashes) and third one, low lvl (to be exact 69) with nothing but broadsword, not even ashes of war (ofc I used armor and talismans, but no other weapon) with 40 vigor still. The one thing that really bothers me is that whether you are full tank or rather more of a paper, you still die in 2-3 hits in late game areas. On the other hand you get things like the "37 second Malenia speedkill" or other videos with builds that make 99% of the game a joke. I think ER would really benefit from making both players and enemies deal less damage. The other thing that is really striking one of my nerves is the design of some bosses, skipping duo fights and all the repeated fights. Some of the bosses, while not necessarily as hard, are simply frustrating to fight. Especially during my last playthrough. I would rather have to beat Malenia 3 more times than fight Mogh or Placidusax again. I'd like to especially praise one boss you have praised as well. Morgott was the one boss that felt the best of all, be it early or late game bosses, be it on normal or low lvl playthrough, on normal he dies too quickly though. Apart from that, he's one of few bosses that really feel on par with player, in speed or agility, and he has no bullshit aspects to him that can just invalidate your fight, or artificially make it simply annoying (mogh's bleed, malenia's healing). Even in phase 2 his extra geysers are really easy to dodge. Godrick is also a good boss, but is too slow and his health is the size of a square of butter. What I am trying to say is Morgott is pretty much the hardest obstacle that is fair to us and shows us how strong we are, not how strong our build is.
Elden Ring kinda killed one of my favorite part of souls experience, watching someone else fight main bosses for their first time and see their struggle. Usually, it's either damn I'm better than you or holy shit this person is so good that it makes me feels like a noob player. Now these kinda of reactions just wouldn't work that much any longer. "Oh he won because he got lucky RNG" "Rivers of Blood, I see". I respect those who use Mimic or op weapon but still the balancing problem exist. I don't know if it is possible but I hope we get an amazing patch that can reduce the imbalance of the boss design
I enjoyed Elden Ring but not nearly as much as the other souls games due to balancing. Bosses had either combos that seemed unending like Maliketh or unnaturally delayed attacks like Morgott, PvP wasn't that enjoyable most the time since invasions had to be a gank squad that usually used meta weapons. Game was still fun though just kinda like the other souls games more.
I love almost the entirety of every fromsoft game, (Demons souls and above of course) but late games always feel just a little rushed. They flesh out the first 2/3 or 3/4 of the game really well with good loot and bosses, amazing areas and top tier fromsoft things. After this though they have to get it out by a deadline or need money quick or whatever so they do a few good things at best and throw a bunch of trash into it. For example, dark souls 1 after anor londo had a few decent/good things to offer and then you had the catacombs new londo and then fact that you go from depths to blighttown get anor londo as some fresh air then you drown in unbalanced and unfinished areas. Then, after mostly positive from buyers attention they completely sell people on the game by giving DLC's with stuff even better than the main game at its best so that people will spend more money on it. I love souls games and have been playing their games for eight years but even they cut some corners for money.
I love souls, great work man. For me as an objective non biast view this is probably their best game yet but if i had to rank them i would go from worst ( not bad ) to best: demons souls ( its just aged thats it ), ds2 ( i never really liked the gameplay and world in it but good story ), ds3 ( its very good but its lacking originality ), sekiro ( its amazing but it does lack replayability due to lack of builds and weapons ), elden ring ( the repeats really stand out because of its size ), bloodborne ( amazing but short and it does kind of lack in build varyaty as well because of ita combat shtick) , and ds1 as the best ( the level design and lore is the best here for me and yes bed of chaos exists but the quality of the first half is so high it overdoes the bad in late game ). All games exceed in different way. I am waiting for the day they do their perfect game
Yo idk if you’ll see this but you should check out a game called omori, It’s an entirely different genre of game (think undertale) but one with such in influence and discussion to be made that i think you’d like it and i think a video on it would be very intriguing. With the videos I’ve seen from your channel it seems like a perfect game to discuss
Update a year later, Omori is really freaking good. Mother 3 is one of my favorite games of all time so I always knew I'd like Omori. Still, it's good :)
I'll consider it for sure, I just have decent backlog of planned projects I wanna finish first. I'm also not sure about what's a good angle yet. For example, I think something on the Earthbound/Mother series sounds interesting, of which games like Omori and Lisa the Panful get discussed as well. But I need to think about it more. Of course I can't make any promises, but it's definitely on my mind for sure. I keep thinking about doing something on the Mother series eventually, and the logical extension of a project like that something related the games that were inspired by it, like Omori.
How did people find out who Maliketh was? I felt bad fighting him as Gurranq because of the quest, but I felt only one thing when he transformed: "Man, you look really cool, 'n all, but like... literally who tf are you? Maliketh's a cool name, though." I don't think I even found out in the game, but in a Vaati video.
You get it a snippet of dialogue with Maliketh if you finish Gurranqs quest first, he recognizes who you are when you begin the fight the first time. I got it completely on accident lol.
@@ViviVariety I knew Gurranq, and I quit out the game until I conviced myself I needed to beat him to beat the game, but I had no idea who Maliketh was. I've seen people react in shock to Maliketh's reveal, but I don't know from where. I don't know how people got their "Oh, sh!t, this is the guy!" moment for Maliketh, only for Gurranq.
First of all thanks for your well thought through review. I myself joined kinda late to the souls genre with ds3 and even quit the game for about a year midway through my playthrough. But after watching some (or more like all) of the lore videos i could find i was just so fixed on this game that i got all achievements. I think that elden ring came in a time where we were used to messy launches. Was elden ring perfect from the start? No. Is it perfect now? No. But it was still a (for me) very enyoable and playable game. All these tiny things weren't able to destroy the essence of what i like about fromsoft games. The unique world and atmosphere. i hope that FromSoft keeps innovating themselves with new games and even if it's not perfect, that's still better than the safe option of doing everything the same way and releasing Dark souls 27.
Personally, I felt that for the most part the game was incredible. The balancing, which is always the hardest thing to get right with rpg's, was the best I've ever played.... or at least it was right up until the end game. That's where things started to change & there were troubling warning signs that From are in danger of believing their own bullshit, artificially creating difficulty for difficulties' sake. I put over 250hrs into my first playthrough, explored every inch of the map & did every boss, coz I wanted to experience everything From intended first time around but I agree, towards the end I'd kinda had enough. I think if they'd left MotG & the Consecrated Snowfields out, the game would have been better for it. It felt kinda like Lost Izalith all over again, with just too little content to justify the effort. The pacing of the end game could definitely have been better too & while I loved the Radagon fight, I think the Elden Beast was a terrible boss to finish the game with. Seriously, I'd love to know who thought that was a good idea? Still, when you compare Elden Ring to any other title released by any other developer in the last 5 years, for me it's a no contest. The game was head & shoulders above the competition.
Yea they patched a lot of these problems, I’ve played Ds3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, I enjoyed sekiro’s and Bloodborne combat more, but I feel like elden ring has great bosses and more memorable, I haven’t gotten into ds3 yet which I’ve heard has the best bosses.. but in my opinion elden ring is slightly the best souls game I’ve played so far.. with Bloodborne being second followed by sekiro
I have heard there's been a lot of good Elden Ring patches, and I do wanna give it another try at some point. I think I sort of burned myself out of it by doing three back to back runs, plus the length doesn't help either. Still, there's always prep for the DLC!
I like Elden Ring but quit really, really early (After Margit). The combat seems just not for me and personally find that the open-world does not work well with FS-games. I'm coming from Sekiro & BloodBorne, so take that as you will.
Mountaintop of the Giants was the only dissappointment for me in this game. For a sacred place it felt just the same as all the other locations but with snow, also Melania is just a bad boss, feel like I have to rebuild my char to a bleed build for 1 boss everytime. Otherwise a great game, I have more than 700hours in it. For now I'll go back to DS3
I don't feel as strongly about Malenia, as I like the fight in spite of her annoying quirks, but I feel you on the last stretch for sure. It's the last half of DS1 all over again.
I don't mind Elden Beast as a spectacle fight, I think for me it was the back to back Radagon to Elden Beast I find really annoying. As a counter point, I really like the Moon Presence in Bloodborne, but I imagine I wouldn't like it as much if I had to fight Gehrman every time.
Great video! Personally I loved elden ring. I adore changes made to the combat and I probably prefer elden ring's combat over bloodborne's. And I find bosses to be the second best base game bosses in the series right after sekiro. Obviously I'm only counting the remembrance ones. But I do agree that this game has a ton of problems and most of them are coused by very poor balancing. Dozens of game breaking tactics, horrible pvp, slower wepons being less useful and fun to use, exploration feeling unrewarding after some time, spirit summons being an easy mode instead of an interesting tools, mid game bosses feeling far too easy and end game bosss feeling too hard. Most of these can be solved by simply playing the right way. Exploring areas in the correct order, leveling vigor, not using summons, not using op builds. But the fact that any of these factors can be extreamly harmful to players experience is a sign of a very poorly balanced game. The rest of criticyzm I often see brought up such as main bosses being unfair (exept malenia's waterflow dance) is imo usually caused by people failing to adapt to the changs that elden ring made in the formula. I have no real arguments for that statement exept the fact that I'm always having a great time fighting them. Even the Elden Beast.
Elden Ring feels like a tightrope at times, because it's just as you said: if you adapt your playstyle, level vig, explore, etc, it's a blast. I love the combat changes and a lot of the main bosses. Hell I'd still probably put Malenia in Elden Ring's top 5 bosses. But the balance makes the rest of the game tricky at times, because it only takes a few missteps to go from an awesome experience to a frustrating one.
