There's no way in hell the supposed journalists played this entire game. I would bet at least one nut most beat a few bosses and then called it a day. They likely didn't notice the quest issue because they already knew what the score was going to be before they even created a character
I agree. While I thought the game was decent, never did I ever think the game was anything close to a masterpiece. The fanbase is so blindly biased that Fromsoft will keep making the same game over and over with little to no improvements. Fromsoft was criticized in the past for being a one trick pony and relying too much on difficulty instead of quality. In the past I disagreed with the criticism, but after Elden Ring I’m starting to think it’s at least partly true.
Yeah and probably the bigger annoyances apart from the clear mistakes, glitches, design flaws, changes for the worse from previous soulsborne games etc is that these games often lack quality-of-life features that arguably should be there and the reasoning for that seems to be that it makes the game more difficult / demanding. Even at the cost of the game's quality. For example at points in the Dark Souls games ( especially 3 with it's labyrinths in Izalith) I felt there it would have been helpful to already have a map. I realize that may be a heretical statement but even if people feel it isn't necessary, the only reason those games don't have a map is to make them more demanding / harder. Not as such better. This one finally has a map but... it's not exactly a good map. The quality-of-life improvement this game sorely and badly needs ( and so did Dark Souls 3 ) is a quest journal. There is no way a person can follow all the NPC questline without a walkthrough and a floatchart. And even then Fromsoft games are notorious for having point-of-no-return thresholds that come out of nowhere and you lose out on quest content. It seems the reason for this is to make the games "harder" or "less forgiving" but... it just comes across as obnoxious. And at some point I feel we could collectively come to a realization that an awesome game can have the Souls type combat difficulty and still have questlines and a map people can actually follow.
@@KriostyxSo you like to see a marker clutter on your screen. And hand holding to go here and go there, do this and do that. You don't want a sense of exploration or sense of discovery, do you? You want to be told that on this map here is a quest and go do it. Difficulty is not for everyone but this game is so easy to enjoy. From has given you summons to water down that difficulty. This game may have flaws but it is clearly better than the Assassin's Creeds and Horizons and other typical hand holder games. You know what I like when I pick up a controller; just to play a game without watching a freakin cutscene or a god damn tutorial that extends for so long that they keep on teaching you even at the endgame. Elden Ring is a breath of fresh air in such a rotten world of AAA titles.
@@respicio2990ok, so 1. He wasn't saying there needs to be that much hand holding in the game. He's just saying that having a quest log could help out with some of the more egregious quests in the game that can take hours to try and do without looking stuff up. It isn't wrong to at least get some information. He also wasn't saying the game needs to be like the other AAA games that people criticize, but with how much they incentivize quantity over quality, it starts to show those cracks and similarities to those other games. And while yes, this game is probably the easiest game in the series so far, it's because the game gives the playerbase, WAY too much freedom and has a lot of balancing issues, not only with the enemies and bosses, but with the weapons as well.
@@respicio2990and sure, while the game is better than the horizon games and the most recent assassin's Creed games, that doesn't mean we should just shit on those games and praise this game to high hell. There are other open world games that don't have hand holding either. Both breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom have this freedom. And to say that summon were there to water down the difficulty, that brought in some major issues for the game as a lot of bosses felt like they were made with summons in mind.
What really irks me is that there are basic mechanics that are just broken. Camera swapping targets when it shouldn't, enemies attacking and warping through walls. The way the community responds to objective criticism has made me never want to play another From game again. It's just putrid how they behave as if Mizayaki is some kind of deity and any legitimate criticism is completely ignored. It's culty and incredibly off-putting. I had to uninstall it at Mohg I was just hating the game and had no desire to keep going. The combat design was downright insulting to the player's intelligence as if we aren't going to notice blatant dev cheese compensating for bad enemy code. I can't think of any other franchise with such a toxic player base. It's disgusting and incredibly childish how grown adults behave. I really did not enjoy Elden Ring at all because of the amateur mechanics used to artificially pad the difficulty of a fairly easy game. Beneath the shiny exterior is a bad game with bad mechanics. If that were not true the enemies would be programmed properly so they don't need to cheese you to make the game hard. The problem started in Dark Souls 2 and has slowly just kept getting worse, it's lazy and it's insulting. I don't want to be fighting camera angles and lock on restrictions to beat a group of enemies, that's objectively bad game design that was done on purpose to artificially pad the difficulty. When players say get good they're really saying stop playing how you want, stop role playing and play how everyone else does because the game forces you to. The game goes out of it's way to punish the player if they try to play a ranged style by avoiding the enemies outside of their melee range. This is accomplished by bending the game rules to punish the player in an unfair manner, the NPCs essentially become Neo and break the Matrix to punish you for playing a legitimate playstyle. Okay then what's the point of having level up systems and classes if that's the case? It's not an RPG when the game forces you to play a certain way by cheesing you, the idea that gamers just accept the code in the game changing to punish a playstyle is... enough to make me never buy a From product that's for sure.
That is definitely a very involved account of your experience and I appreciate you sharing it! There's a lot there I agree with as well, I remember also being frustrated when enemies glitched out on me, this happens in large games kind of unavoidably sometimes but it hurts all the more when From games have made their reputation under the claim of having "deliberate movements" in combat from the player and the enemies. And the community's toxicity and cult-like tendencies are definitely a big problem. I also don't think I've ever seen a community be this off-putting. It's the main reason I almost didn't get into Dark Souls in the first place all those years ago. The fans were so insufferably off-putting. Acting almost exclusively in ways that lacked logic, reason and basic manners. It's also a huge problem in game review circles I fear. Where a large percentage of From reviews are made by the outlet's in-house Fromsoft fan and the review and verdict lacks the perspective to see the faults for what they are. All this is really a pity, since that leads to situations like Elden Ring where design flaws and issues are not recognized and the players therefore don't get better games.
@@ennayanneeh, I'd say mogh id one of the weaker bosses in the game. One part of this is how he was Resused in the dungeon underneath Lyndell. The other problem with his is the same with alot of enemies after Lyndell. They get increased health, damage, and felt like they require too much on gimmicks to be fought.
Newcomer to souls games and I think elden ring is really good, especially after I figured shit out. But ya, some of you guys should hop off the high horse and stop being fucking dickheads. Objectively, there are stupid things that shouldn’t be in the game. Godskin Duo is one of the worst game design decisions I’ve ever seen given that it’s mandatory…and just a poorly designed double boss. It made me want to get pegged by one of the twin gargoyles while I gagged on the others gargantuan cock instead
@@nathanwright6282 The entire game is a gimmick. Make sure you're 3 feet away and you respond in 2.3 seconds otherwise the coding will punish you. It's cheese. There's no improvisation or room for differentiation every single playthrough looks the exact same, every approach is the same. You attack the same openings from the same distance with the same pace and rhythm or you cheese the enemies with overpowered super long range magic. The best players just practice so much they memorized the moveset, timing and range of every single attack. That's not gameplay, that's memorization. In the old From games I never memorized the enemy movesets, ever, I would just improvise and figure it out as it goes. That's why I quit the game and never finished. If my options are memorize the moveset and play like everyone else or cheese it from distance then I'm out. It's nonsense. It's the worst combat I've seen in any game, ever. Responding to button inputs and cheesing the camera lock-on range is... insulting. Oh no I can't lock on to the enemy 30 feet away, but if it gets too close and flies around then it will randomly change to something else. It's preposterous, indefensible and a shame a once great company is putting out garbage like this. The enemies still attack through walls, the phantom hits and terrible netcoding is still there now they added two more problems that ended my playtime with their games.
There is wisdom in your words. I also did want to specify with that title that the video is not about just bashing the game with the fury of a thousand suns, but the opinion environment around the game also played a part in making that specification.
Has to be the most overated game out there. People call it game changing for open world games but can never tell what it has done that pushes open worlds to new heights. No Quest markers is something I hear offten But It was done by Morrowwind years ago. Its not a bad game but I feel It lacks the great boss fights that make Fromsoft ware games great.
Agreed. Morrowind also had the good sense to give sensible directions and helpful hints on how to reach the caves, towns, villages, crypts and so on your quest required you to go to. Immersing you into the world with sensible directions. Elden Ring ( and other Souls games to be fair ) are about a lot of things but " giving sensible directions " is usually not one of them.
@@John-996 Right. It's really unfortunate too, because the sidequests in Fromsoft games often imply some pretty interesting character lore that's going on. But completing them is such a pain to follow that it's not exactly immersive.
@@Kriostyx Kingdom Come did really great job with some of the side quests Sometimes you could be standing Next to a great side quest but There is no quest marker above them so until you talk to them you would never know. But once you start a mission They give you directions like Follow the river. AC Valhalla for all its issues has pretty good directions for Quests.
For real. I’ve seen too many people say it’s innovative almost like they all saw someone else say it and just repeated it. That or they never played any other critically acclaimed open world game
I tend to agree. There's a lot of reasons for that and they are pretty ingrained to what the game is and does too. Poor boss copypaste quality, level design being repetitive and boring, upgrade materials being such a hassle and so on.
@Kriostyx I love how they hand out somber and smithing stones at roughly the same pace, but you literally need 12x as many smithing stones. Boggles my mind
I have to say you hit the nail with almost all your points. Especially the Google visits we had to do to beat/cheese/ find out the story for Elden Ring. Auto removes 10/10 raing in my mind. I never played a game where I'm spoiling myself constantly in order to progress the campaign. Smh.
And with all that the Video Game Awards of 2022 nominated Elden Ring for " Best Narrative " Yes, when we want a real good narrative we choose the one we have to hunt down walkthroughs and lore videos for instead of.... you know, getting the story from experiencing the game.
This game is like something From Software fans needs in a emotional level. A game that will be praised to make the fan base happy and say to others that they have good taste in games. This explain the 10/10 reviews and all this "Elden Ring is a masterpiece". They dont put some thought and critical on their analysis, just this bias. This game came late. If it was 2011, I could understand all the praise. But the world design here is in a lower level that even From Software already achievied in the past. The world is repetitive and pointless for most builds. Makes more sense to skip most of the content than to play it.
I find it really curious that indeed the fanbase consider it such a perfect masterpiece, since when Dark Souls 2 happened they seemed very capable of voicing criticism. I don't think I've seen this sort of fan culture before where the loyalty is not even to the dev team but the individual game director in Miyazaki. And you are indeed in my opinion right in saying the world is very repetitive. The game has a some really cool qualities and at times the sense of scale in many levels is awesome but.... for every moment like that I was just riding past the " identical ruined building number 34 " and "identical grid of sarcophagi number 12 ". Not to mention even the stylistically identical smaller dungeons like catacombs and mines. I also very much agree with you that Fromsoft already achieved more impressive world design in their previous games.
@@a.g.m8790 well, Death Stranding for example received mixed reviews, indeed it sits at 82 on Metacritic. The cult is non-comparable at this point with Fromsoft’s.
fromsoft fan boys are really bad as they will not allow ANY criticism no matter what. 1. Story is bad? => "You just don't get how deep it is and you are to stupid to understand the brilliant writing" 2. Repetitive dungeons/enemies? => "There's always variations which require different strategies! GIT GUD!" 3. Poor boss mechanics? => "It's a skill issue! git gud!" 4. Missing quest log? => "Your memory sucks, hmm? Can't remember a few quests and npc locations?" fromsoft can do no wrong no matter what and discussing any of this in the Steam forum will get you a lot of hate. fromdrones are extremely toxic. I've seen comments like: "well, they have your money, sucker. Go cry in the corner!" Also I've seen people claiming that souls games are the "pinnacle of difficult games" where I simply have to laugh because a lot of the mechanics are rather simple in principle. And I've seen way more difficult games in the same as well as various other genres.
this is why fromsoft will never improve. They literally have the mindset of "why bother putting effort when the fanbase sucks my dick" if fromsoft heads down this path then their souls like games will basically be like COD just low effort lazy clones of previous installments.
I got in an argument by a fan once in what exactly Elden Ring does new. What I learned from the guy is that he seemingly hasn't played a single game in his entire life. "I've never played a game where other people can help you or harm you at the same time" -> every MMORPG ever "I've never seen an open world game that doesn't give you quest markers everywhere" -> Minecraft is a game "I've never seen a game without MTX and tons of DLC in it" -> 99% of indie games "I've never seen a game with such a good story in my life. It's like I"m IN Game of Thrones!" -> yes, I know it's written by GRRM, but come on dude I never got any response after I debunked every point he gave. He did flag my comment though. 🤣 And then there are the fans critiscizing other games they haven't even played for doing things they don't even do; all while forgiving Elden Ring for doing the same things. How many times I've heard people shit on, for example, Far Cry 6 for having "the same tower climb mechanic"... a mechanic removed 5 years ago... with 2 games inbetween...
In my opinion open world just sucks. Every open world ever will struggle with having too much content, without actually having the development time and resources to finish said confent. The result is a ton of reused assets. You can also tell that Elden Ring was very frontloaded in terms of development. The first few areas, while far from perfect, were put together far more carefully than any part of the lategame. The mountaintops are an absolute mess imo. The areas beyond that point have no redeemable qualities and I would have enjoyed the game more if they just made a linear game around the legacy dungeons instead of this open world.
Fully agree with this person. If you design a video game that requires that you Google the solution or that you must watch the RU-vid video to figure it out you might as well just watch someone else play it all together. A big pass on this game. I paid good money on it, wish I could get my money back.
There is just no immersion when playing this game. In previous souls games, when encountering a reused boss or enemy like the demons in ds1, my suspension of disbelief stayed intact and I accepted that as part of the game's lore. When I encounter yet another tree sentinel or agheel or tree spirit, or crawl through the same boring catacomb asset, I don't feel like I'm in a living, breathing world. It feels so artificial, like just more content to consume. I guess older from games didn't have that (although sekiro started to approach that near the end) because they did content recycling less often and in a much more careful manner.
And to believe I wanted to be a content creator because of this game, imagine my shock when I finished the game and not wanted to play again, ever. lol
"It's a good game. It's not a masterpiece." Sad story of modern world. When something good is being released into the ocean of shit, it's suddenly considered to be a masterpiece. People forsaken quality and forgot what it's all about. Same pattern can be observed in the entirety of entertainment industry. Well, those who were striving to lower the bar of overall quality for the sake of quantity probably won. Don't think that we will witness return to quality in our lifetime.
I found every single path secret, and enemy in storm veil castle with out looking up anything. I also had no messages. It felt extrmely rewarding and I hope fromsoft gets even more cryptic in the future.
Fighting the same enemies in almost every zone (let alone bosses) utterly defeats the purpose of having so many different zones. That's when I checked out.
Its sad to see that there are so few people willing to discuss the issues in the game. Reddit thinks its all perfect and any criticism is met with a crucifixion. Glad to see someone else discuss the issues with. I so wanted to like this game. I'm not a fromsoft vet but i did beat this game. And i was glad to be done by the end. I listened to all the marketing saying it was game of the decade better than the witcher, the most accessible. With this amazing story. Story? what story. Reddit says i have to read all the item descriptions and need a notebook to understand it. The combat. Well the player plays by different rules than the enemies they can all move twice as fast. and endgame everything can 1 shot you. Bosses don't feel good. They feel cheap. Like combo after combo. I never felt good at the game because the bosses felt cheaty. Just flying across the map. Input reading, 1 shot moves with little to no tell. And some moves that were undodgable unless you were placed perfectly. I so wanted this game to be great. But After this and seeing the way the community reacted to any perceived issues i doubt i touch another fromsoft game. I don't think they will fix any issues. They will just continue to make the games feel artificially difficult. Not hard but fair but hard and unfari.
Your reaction to the community and the game is super understandable. The Fromsoft community has a loud percentage of toxicity in there that shrieks at any criticism. I've gotten my share of that as well. The story in these games is a strange beast indeed. The way previous Fromsoft games, especially the first Dark Souls told their story was indeed through item descriptions, a small intro cinematic and through some bits and pieces of NPC dialogue. It has never been easy to follow and always required basically an online lore video to learn what has actually happened in the game now or before the player's time. And I agree that the story just does not work in Elden Ring. Because the key difference between Elden Ring and Dark Souls games is that Elden Ring keeps pushing cinematics where bosses talk about the story. Which is really offputting since the player has little to no chance of being keyed in to any of the story on their first playthrough. In Dark Souls games the story was more under the surface, and existed more for the people who wanted to go digging for it. It's the difference between peeling open an onion and being hit in the face with one :D The combat difficulty I also tend to agree with you. As a veteran of these games I didn't feel the game was as such *hard* but what difficulty was there felt artificial and cheap. ( Flying / ranged / grab attacks / endless magic ) It seems like Fromsoft is making games for the core audience of people who are soulsborne vets and who can finish their games with ease, Instead of having a sensible difficulty curve that fits new players as well. That can definitely be a problem. I do think if you at all enjoyed the combat when it worked and the world visual vibes it may still be worth giving Dark Souls 1 a chance but I absolutely understand if you don't feel like it.
I have to respectfully disagree with both of you in the story department. Elden Ring has a story, it's your story, and you need to experience it on your own pace. The game takes place after a great war in the lands between and you have to piece together what happened. Fromsoftware's way of storytelling isn't for everyone, which is okay. Their way of storytelling is unique and is told through item descriptions, locations, themes, and atmosphere. It isn't your typical by the books storytelling where it is thrown right into your face. You have to piece together the items you find, the characters you meet, the locations you go to, and the bosses you fight in order to form the story. Why do you think these Soulsborne lore RU-vidrs like Vaatividya make these well-made videos on Elden Ring's lore, because they played the game and did what needed to be done in order to piece together the story that took place. I recommend watching Ratatoskr's video regarding Elden Ring's narrative to gain more insight.
@@struggler7164 With equal respect and love I must specify that I never said or meant to imply the game has no story. I went through a lot of the points in the longer previous comment on this thread that answers a lot of the points in detail you brought up, so I'll try to concise the problems I have and re-iterate what I must. I do agree with you in how Fromsoft games tell their story and in some games I like it more than others. Especially the themes of Dark Souls 2 spoke to me quite a lot and fit the disjointed and disorienting world and emotional states of the characters. I should maybe consider doing a video on that subject one day. However I also feel that you experiencing the world is a part of the story in a very loose sense that is true of every game. " Every bullet tells a story" in a mindless shooting game as well. And this leads me to a thing I've been pondering about lately about stories and narratives and their quality and validity. If a book is published where the entire content on the pages is html links you have to copypaste and read via your computer is it just as valid in quality as a narrative compared to a book that is written in the traditional sense but has an overall text and story quality as the first one? Or is the html book of lesser quality because it requires an outside device to actually understand for most people? Is a book where the pages are scrambled randomly also equal in quality to a book where the pages are in order? Is the sum of the story of the same quality and it just requires more work and "hunting down the story"? Is it of equal quality and "just not for everyone"? I'm not trying to be snarky, I sincerely mean that as a question worth pondering. Because Fromsoft games in comparison to something like.... let's say Ace Attorney have differences like that in between each other. Other RPG's also do step into the notion of hunting down the lore, other games usually just do it via optional dialogue finds, hidden notes, overheard conversations, holotapes and so on. Fromsoft storytelling is, as I said, an unusual beast and it makes one wonder about the qualities of what makes or breaks a narrative. And to me Elden Ring does one VERY big mistake in the Fromsoft storytelling formula. You mentioned that Elden Ring is not a case where the story is "thrown right into your face". And as I mention in the video and in the previous comment, that there is the exact point where I think you are, respectfully, mistaken. Cutscenes with a word or two are not unheard of in Dark Souls games but there the vast majority of boss cutscenes are strictly about looks, getting into a second phase or other functional stuff. In Elden Ring almost every humanoid boss breaks into a scene about " Dragon give me the strength to eat the earlobe of the chosen one who has desecrated the kneecap of the Elden Lord and you shall not find the fingernails of the Erdtree who once walked my poodle on a Monday and we ate pizza with a diamond shovel.... BLAAARGH " In this way, Elden Ring quite literally keeps throwing its story in your face, the story a non-item-description-reading and non-floatchart-keeping player has zero familiarity or understanding toward. The cutscene babble means therefore nothing. And those same bosses break into another cutscene essay mid bossfight to continue spewing out their nonsense. This just breaks the flow of the bossfights and hits the player in the face with a frying pan reminding then that this is NOT their story to interpret through experiencing it through themes or atmospheres. It's a story they are left out of unless they practically go listen to lore videos online and the game keeps hammering this point home in almost every major bossfight. You just can't have it both ways. One can't one hand claim that the story is a background lore, atmo and theme thing hidden in item descriptions and *also* keep interrupting the game and hitting the player in the face with cryptic nonsense cutscenes pre and mid bossfights. Dark Souls 1-3 handled this stuff quite well. Cutscenes of this nature were not unheard of but quite sparse. Often bosses talked while fighting instead. Elden Ring just slips in my opinion quite hard into doing exactly what Dark Souls games are praised for not doing. For not pushing the story in the player's face.
@@Kriostyx A well constructed response, so I must reply with respect and love once again. This will address the latter part of your response regarding the bosses. When you said that the bosses talk too much or spout out nonsense within a cutscene, you also said that this will affect the players who don't read item descriptions or keep a flowchart of events. So, I have to humbly reply for the bosses spouting nonsense part first. Take Godrick for example, he was hinted at and talked about by most characters you will encounter throughout the first half of the game (and not through item descriptions). He is described as an old, cowardly, and treacherous ruler that takes the strength from others because he is too weak, even as a demigod. So by the time we reach our first encounter with him, he presents himself as a proud and demanding ruler to us, ordering us to kneel before him. Then, when he reaches his second phase, he then uses his abilities to use a dragon's strength against us, proving that the people who described him as a ruler who takes the strength of others to himself, is true. He then says his infamous line of: "Forefathers one and all! Bear witness!". This means that Godrick wants to prove himself to his ancestors that he is worthy of being the next Elden Lord. Cutscenes and dialogue in Elden Ring are important to a boss character because they add more information and personality towards most of them within the game. This isn't just a thrown into your face moment, but a culmination of everything you've learned up to encountering that boss. This may not apply to every boss, but the ones that talk within/ without a cutscene are one of the most fleshed out characters that were built up through other characters, item descriptions, locations, actions, and themes related to them. Moving on to the next part of your argument, that the players who don't read item descriptions or don't have some kind of flow chart with them are left out. In my opinion, that's just not true. You really have to pay attention to at least the characters and the environment to know what you're getting into so you can understand the context. Even in previous souls games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne, people admitted that they didn't even understand the story of both until it was told to them by a youtuber who painstakingly gathered the information related to it. Once they understood what all of what they were doing was related to something, they really appreciated the story. Like I said, Elden Ring's form of storytelling isn't for everyone and it isn't perfect. You may find it to be very boring or lazy even, but for others, the joy and accomplishment of building the story from everything you've gathered and defeating a strong enemy is rewarding. You really have to play the game in order for you to get a good sense of what's happening within its world. If it doesn't appeal to you, then you may not like it, and I can respect that as someone who still enjoys how this game presents its way of storytelling. Advance Merry Christmas and New Year to you.
I love the game but honestly it’s a 7/10 MAYBE 8/10 at best. It shouldn’t have won GOTY and it’s nowhere near a masterpiece. It only has its reputation because it’s got one of the most toxic communities out there. If you criticize the game even a little you’re just “not good enough” or “only play shit like fortnite”
The toxic fanbase is indeed an unfortunate phenomenon. They are part of the problem that has caused the stagnation of the quality of these games. People would really benefit from taking a deep breath and trying to have an open mind about how a thing they love could be improved.
I once got into an argument with a toxic, cultist, elden ring fanboy (that's what I'm going to call them from now on). You know the ones I mean, the ones who reply legitimate critisisms by saying "gitgudscrub", "skill issue", "this game isn't for you, go play minecraft" BLA BLA BLA. Anyway, he was trying to convince me that Malenia is better than Gael. Said that Gael is an "Artorias ripoff". All you can say is just BRUHH. Aparently, the single greatest boss in these games is an Artorias ripoff😂
Nothing I hate more than those people ngl, and when anyone says they don’t like souls games; “HaHa YOU ObViOuSlY DiDnt GEt PasSed ThE FirSt BoSs” they are so infuriating
These are the kind of gamers who take their self worth from being good at these games. And will tell you to get "gitgud" if you play a different way than strength build, or something.
The interconnected worlds of the previous games work better for this style of game. The open world is too big and feels dead. Everything just seems to be there to make the game big, its pretty but thats as deep as it goes.
Resh-IX I wouldn't say Breath of The Wild wasn't That huge on innovation but it certainly gives enough freedom for the player to do the innovating on their own. That being said Breath of The Wild is probably still the greatest designed open world game up to this point even now. Elden Ring while a bit better in comparison to open worlds like The Witcher 3 or the Ubisoft titles, still isn't really that great as far as it's open world is concerned. It can't compare with greatness like Rockstar's open world, Bethesda's open world, or of course the masterclass Breath of The Wild world design.
They haven't played any game in their life, seemingly. Innovative this, innovative that... they all get these terms from RU-vid critics who praise the game and believe them word for word.
Has innovated in the sense of more mature games giving more freedom to the player, it's not perfect tho, it lacks guiding, and I often felt like I was going nowhere after the start, but when the hours passed, I started noticing patterns in the game, subtle things like the rays of the grace, statues, what meant the signs in the map, etc. Not a bad game, was better than most in that aspect.
I’ve seen people comparing it to red dead redemption and god of war which are both quite overrated themselves but they are overall better as a game Elden ring is more of a fighting simulator
Fighting huge enemies feels like a joke, the game handles these fights so poorly. Most of the time their movesets are useless against your tiny hitbox.
In most games where the draw is fighting huge enemies (God of War, Ninja Gaiden, Monster Hunter, etc), the game makes it so you can jump, fly and climb around them, and the camera helps with that. With a big enemy in Elden Ring, you're probably just running around its ankles.
Thank you for this! You had all of the exact same complaints I did. I have been playing since Ds1 in 2012 and not one of their games made me feel exhausted and bored the way Elden Ring did....again, a great game but I think it falls short of their previous work. On a side note, I still think Skyrim is the only game to do an open world action adventure game properly. I have 3,000 hours between the oldrim and special edition and never feel exhausted or bored ever
As someone who also played and enjoyed every Dark Souls game, everything you said in this video I think is 100% spot on. I wish there were more people giving this game the criticism it deserves so From Software can improve their games in the future. I’m worried the major flaws that plagued Elden Ring will persist in future titles from From Software. I genuinely don’t understand how there are so many people calling this game a masterpiece.
The concept of review standards is indeed really interesting, especially with Fromsoft games. I wonder if Dark Souls 3 or Sekiro was the time when enough of the review sites had outsourced the Fromsoft games they review to their in-house " fromsoft fan " so that the overall critical reception on average gets muddled with weird phrases like "Elden Ring transcends concepts like good or bad game design"
Solid review. I'll add some of my own criticisms here. 1. No pause button, WTF 2. There are too many bosses. Sorry, but 165 bosses (maybe more or less) is way too many. Should've just made some of these bosses just normal enemies that you encounter (no giant health bar). 3. The dungeons are actually really simple and too easy to go through. Just run past all of the enemies until you get to the sub boss, beat him, and run past all of the enemies until you get to the main boss. No puzzles, doors, or obstacles (no including enemies) to prevent progression in a dungeon. 4. The majority of the bosses fight the same way. Hard and heavy swings, followed by quick swings that also do a ton of damage. Not enough diversity in the boss fights (run, swing, dodge, roll, rinse, and repeat). 5. The game developers don't respect its own game physics. What do I mean? For example, Godskin noble can stab you through the pillars. His weapon doesn't break through or through a portal to hit you, the graphics just allow it to go through wtf? There are other similar instances that I'm just surprised they didn't fix, but I'm sure they let it be to make the game more difficult. 6. There are too many things that artificially make the game difficult. There, I said it. Slow character, fast ass enemies. The madness mechanic (seriously? Just stick with poison, ice, fire, etc.). 7. Too many ways to cheese bosses lol (see fire giant, commander Niall, etc.).
@@pepeundkaka477Souls games should just have pause buttons, Sekiro had it and Elden Ring had it but in a round about way that took a few additional buttons. Harder games than Souls have pause buttons, its just a holdover to design when Fromsoft didn't know how to incorporate that with always being able to be invaded
same I honestly feel like majority of ER fans are those who have never played previous fromsoft games. Its so overrated. It consists of similar problems dark souls 2 had. This game really isnt as good as previous souls like games besides 2. Open world was the biggest mistake its just so bland, bosses give dark souls 2 vibes of feeling like standard enemies with large health pools, bosses being rehashed, lack of difficulty, and the most broken pvp in the souls series. I fought every boss including optional bosses in other souls like games ER I have only done it once and really cant bring myself to do the optional bosses again due to how boring and repetitive they get.
The blandness and repetition really bothered me as well. The areas apart from individual legacy dungeons didn't feel like they mean anything. They're just.... large. Which indeed does make the open world feel like a choice that ended up backfiring overall.
@@Kriostyx honestly i fear the souls like games fromsoft makes are gonna be the new COD. Just a low effort cash grab that gets lazier with each installment. But it wont matter cause the fanbase will suck their dicks. If the diehard fromsoft fans and the fake new fans coming from ER as their first game take critism then fromsoft would be making much better games. If ER had unique bosses, an actual story narritive instead of the same storytelling through items that feels like its an early access game or proper side quests instead of the same fetch quest system from darksouls the open world could have worked. If they keep this exact same gameplay then it only works better as a linear dungeon crawler gameplay that dark souls has.
@@Kriostyx The combat system (from DS3) + their type of storytelling didn’t combine well with the open world,imagine Skyrim without the NPCs only with the main ones and of course enemies=ER in a nutshell
If they would make a new engine, stop capping the frames, put actual effort into a story and evolve the combat like sekiro, fromsoft would have damn near perfect games. As it stands now, I think they make strong 8s that people get fooled by thinking they are 10s. After bloodborne and sekiro I thought they were learning how to make engaging combat finally, but I was wrong after playing elden for 100 hours. The weird double jumping horse is only fun for so long before everything starts to geek very empty, cryptic, and pointless
That is a set of pretty good suggestions. I also can't escape the feeling that there is needless opinion environment where the review number feels inflated. Indeed an 8 that is claimed to be a 10 or a 9 that is claimed to be a 10. And in said opinion environment everybody loses. We get games that are less refined and Fromsoft doesn't get as much useful feedback as they otherwise might.
Man you nailed it. Feel like their stale basic ass combat doesn’t get enough criticism. And yet somehow the real fanboys think they are playing dmc or something and think it’s amazing… Even sekiros combat was overrated because it was the first time from put out a reasonable action game. But it’s actually very basic and lacks any depth
Very much agree on most of your points, especially regarding the asset reuse and samey catacombs etc. While I'm fine with some asset reuse - and you can do even this tastefully, for example when you make something new out of the same parts, which Elden RIng mostly didn't - Elden Ring completely annihilated any sense of realism with this enormous map, which is as deep as a puddle. Even the former games did this better because there were many areas you couldn't go to, so your imagination made the world seem much bigger and more realistic by filling in the gaps. But in Elden Ring, where you can go nearly everywhere, your sense of realism gets shattered, when you realize that you basically have seen the whole world and are now disappointed with it's monotonous artificiality.
copied. The best word for this game. how many bosses? 100? and 15 are unique. And a huge map full of nothing. Everything is death. The NPCs are also dead. They don't do anything and just hang around. Skyrim may not be that big, but the game is alive. AND much is reused from DS 1 2 and 3. After Ng+3 I uninstalled the game. I prefer to play Skyrim.
I do respect your opinion BUT the whole level design bit is entirely subjective and in my opinion not true. Yet, you try to pass it of as cold hard facts, which I think really damages your quality and credibility as a critic. 1. I never googled anything before getting all the weapons for the achievements and such and never ran into the issues you said. You said "I feel confident that you googled how to open doors in stormveil" no i didn't. I found everything on my own. So did my friends. I only have 3 irl friends that played elden ring and they play the game the same way I do, that being, no guides, no wiki., but ALL of them had the same experience. I see so many people criticise elden ring for being too cryptic, I remember a video titled "elden ring is disappointing" where the guy said this exact thing, only extending the argument over to questlines like ranni, which i also completed on my own. 2. "these arent some optional things for secret items but legitimate ways to open doors/progress" Like what. I genuinely cant thing of anything required to beat the game that would be cryptic at all. Of course, I might have just forgotten something. (i doubt it i have finished the game multiple times) What you say at 9:02 represents my point the best. WHERE. Where is a required illusory wall in the main path? There is a ton of them in optional dungeons sure, like Vulcano manor HOWEVER that was absolutely the case in EVERY SINGLE PREVIOUS SOULS GAME (except sekiro). Remember the great hollow? remember Ariamis? remember Archdragon peak? Remember half the bonfires in DS2? remember daughters off chaos bonfire? that's just going off my memory. 3. To expand on the end of my previous point, everything you criticise here is present in previous souls games. Tight ledges that don't look like you can walk on them? Anor Londo. Cryptic paths to unlock shortcuts? that is like the first half of ds1 and one of the reasons people love the game so much. i take issue with other parts of your critique as well (such as the weapon experimentation bit, literally present in all souls games, but in elden ring you can easily respec and buy stones once you unlock the bearing, another factually incorrect statement), but the level design one is just stupid. Elden ring has some of the absolute best dungeons I have seen in videogames and Ive been playing those for a long-ass time. I just dont get it, elden ring genuiely isnt a perfect game or a masterpiece, It is a DEEPLY flawed game, but you picked so many things that just genuinely come down to you being an incompetent player (i dont mean this as an insult or something, just what it in my opinion is) Anyway, I think you're quite well spoken and you have a good enough vocabulary and script writing skills to make genuiely great videos so I hope you keep going, but I hope I made it clear why I dislike this úarticular video of yours. Good luck :) edit: typos, wording
amazing review, prolly the best there is of this so called "masterpiece", everyone else is so afraid of the fanbois coming for their heads with the pitchforks
Thank you! This has caused some negative feedback for sure, which is unfortunate since I feel we all win if we start being honest about Fromsoft mistakes being mistakes so they get more accurate criticism about their games and perhaps improve their craft more.
Valheim manages to make a more fun exploration loop with procedural generation Chalice dungeons tend to be more interesting than these with procedural generation Both cases are pretty sad considering the time and effort needed to make something so utterly lackluster. We need another DS1.
It's decent, but nowhere near a masterpiece. I firmly believe the 10/10 scores were a result of the journalists not having enough time to play it in full and then also being afraid of the fanbase if they marked it down.
Theres no way the reviewers them played the whole game because there was so many quests and endings that could only be done by using a guide and we know they didn't create the guides.
Yeah no way so many reviewers give Elden Ring a 10/10 if they actually played through mountaintop of giants to the end of the game without help and tried to finish the sidequests as well as did the minidungeons along the way. The quality of the game took such a nosedive in comparison I imagine we'd see many more 8/10s.
I like it but don't love it. I don't like having a open world for soul like games. I thought it would be cool but I was wrong. I rather play a open world game like witcher 3 . I'm 80 hours into Elden Ring , if I complete it. I don't think will ever play it again. I rather play Dark Souls 2 again , even with the BS in it that annoys me for the first few hours. The thing with Elden . I'm getting bored . Dark Souls 2 ,I was annoyed but not bored.
Agree on everything here. I LOVED Bloodborne, the mood, the world design, the music, the boss fights... A big fan of cosmic horror, Lovecraft stuff, and gothic horror. It had a clear artistic intent. A personality. Soul. Worldbuilding storytelling that interested you, made you look for more clues about whats going on. Elden Ring feels kinda random. Like they just as sprinkled random enemies: skeletons, zombies, beasts, what have you... on a map full of copy pasted assets. Maybe I'll get good at this game. But do I have the hours or love for the game to do so? Probably not. The bow is a joke btw. Feels like a 12 year old coded the gameplay on that one. Jeez 😂
I just picked it up last week because is was cheap on CDkeys it was gonna be my game to play through the holidays. I've only played just over 20 hours and I'm bored out of my mind already. IMO Sekiro was a FAR better game with FAR better combat. I completed Sekiro 3 times and DS3 twice but I can't see myself pushing through Elden ring it's not a bad game but its far from a great game
The analysis you provide is excellent. Elden Ring is the first FromeSoft game I have played and while there are a number things I think were done done well there are also a number of things I think were done poorly. In addition to the things you pointed out I would add that most, if not all, the attacks cannot be interrupted either to block or dodge. Once you start an attack or start casting a spell, you are locked into that animation. If an enemy attacks you while you are in an attack animation state there is nothing you can do about it. This is a game mechanic that largely disappeared in the PS2/XBox generation of games because it was considered bad, and was frequently criticized. It's also inconsistent with the game because you're playing a character who has the strength for things like blocking attacks from 20 foot giants, dragons, and demi-gods, but he can't stop swinging a sword into a dodge? I also frequently have issues with the weapon/tool changing controls. If the player tries to change weapons, grip, or items at the "wrong time" (I guess) nothing happens. The result is something like you will cast an incantation then try to change to a 2 handed grip or change to a shield, but it won't switch at a critical time and you get hit and/or dead. This is a very frustrating mechanic that I have rarely encountered with other games. I enjoyed the game world and the story, and would say the controls and gameplay are not bad, just not as polished as many of it's peers. I think Elden Ring is an above average game overall, but not a masterpiece.
Thank you for the kind words! I agree with a bunch of the problems you raise as well, the UI in From games has always been a bit of a mixed bag in how it sometimes eats your inputs when you try to switch out an item or a shield or such on the fly. And yet sometimes it DOES change the item due to an input you made multiple seconds ago just to make things more confusing. It takes some getting used to. It probably has something to do with how difficult it is to prioritize inputs when a player is mashing multiple buttons in a sticky situation. Which in turn makes the inputs behave a little weirdly in other situations as well. The movement stuff you describe I often hear called "move cancels" or "canceling a move". Most of the Soulsborne / From fans I've talked to like the mechanic where you are essentially locked into the movement or attack you choose to do. It forces the players to plan ahead and this is often called "deliberate movement". Whereas canceling a move would be a step closer to games like Devil May Cry or perhaps some Ninja Gaiden games. You are absolutely not wrong in preferring or liking a more cancel-friendly moveset, but it does probably place you in the minority of which players want what kind of changes into Elden Ring. It's an interesting datapoint that shows how "changing a game for the better" can mean a lot of different things for different people. Thanks for the well thought-out comment and telling about your experience with the game! ^^
Maybe the worst of quests is the fact that you need to do them if you want to understand something of the lore or at least undestand how to complete the game. Playing Elden ring made me feel bad for what I said to ds2 back then...
The lion type enemies with swords in their mouths were outright broken at launch. With a small(er) weapon you literally could not hit them. You didn’t have the swing range. This is a small example of the broken enemies when this game first came out. It was extremely frustrating. It wasn’t a matter of how good of a player I was. My starting weapon literally could not hit those enemies in between their attacks. Never in all of my previous souls games did I feel that the game depended on gear instead of skill. Yes so many bosses and enemies have been fixed since then but damn people don’t realize how broken this really was on launch. Malenia and Radahn were literally broken at launch. But it was intentional!! For the difficulty fame. Edit: The combos are insane in this game. And wayyy too long. They are inorganic for the player to learn.
11:25...finally, someone noticed or at least tries to shine light on the obnoxious state of notification cancellation. I believe it is definitely intentional as it places the player in situations that require them to 'stop doing what they were doing', in order to complete a task that has already been accomplished. Imagine if in RDR2, after feeding your horse mid-battle, there was a prompt plastered on the screen requiring you to 'clear the notification'. meanwhile, until you do just that... the horse is unresponsive to your commands, Arthur/John is immovable or, just like in the case of FS games...you get ganked because they programmed a task that games since, I don't know, Q-Bert even knew to remove from the screen as to allow the player to...'play'. 12:21... perfect example.
i really fail to see your point on boss fights as you speak on elden beasts almost specifically when some to most of the thing you mention are specific to elden beast only and not the majority of bosses so im not sure if that point actually stands
A pixel hunt, really? That is a little disappointing, yes. Add the weird gui and the frustrating upgrade mechanics and it sounds...weird. The guy with a brass pumpkin on his head has an interesting look though. :)
It has some rough design choices, but it's for sure a good game, I just take issue in the notion that the reviews essentially claim the game is perfection itself, which is... nonsense :D The pumpkin helmet is awesome though! x)
@@Kriostyx Mmm, I don't see how it could be honestly. My own feeling? People got so wowed by how it looked that their brain's fell out - it is a very beautiful game. I havent played it myself but I have watched a bunch of it.
Don't even start me on Catacombs and s%^!@@!$... I actually liked the fricking Chalices. Played them more than the story in BB. Did they really have to take a good concept, which worked well when placed somewhere "along" the game, and put it everywhere like cheep padding, ughh, seriously, show them Big Map with No Markers and gullible audiences will gobble it up like young pelicans, ezz gg 🤷♀
Well said. While I think you drifted off topic with your thoughts on game reviewers (what someone else thought of the game is irrelevant to your point), I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment.
I loved the game. It's one of my favourites. I dont disagree with your points, but they don't bother me too much as well. I also don't disagree that it being overratee but its still better than pretty much anything new I've played recently. Witcher 3, Mass Effect 2 and RDR2 are imo best ganes ever made and then maybe Monster Hunter World and Elden Ring. I have only just got into the Souls games and enjoy them but 3 is infinitely better than 1 and 2 imo, one probably being the most overrated although the way its levels interconnected wae great. All great games but even they are possibly a bit overrated. You did a good job explaining your issues with the games in a calm manner without hyberbole and being overly dramatic and thats a good way to be. A good video.
Also as this game is compared with Skyrim and Witcher 3 etc... Let me point out my biggest complaint with it. Elden Ring has 1 thing to do and that is killing enemies. It's all there is. No matter where you go, whatever region you explore, any hidden dungeon you go into, you'll only be killing more enemies. For an open world game, it gets so repetitive. Also, ER doesn't make it easy to try different weapons as you don't have enough materials or stats to try out different weapons on a single run. So if you play ER for 50 hours, you're literally only killing enemies for 50 hours with one weapon. How fun is that???
I think they intentionally designed parts of the game where you will absolutely have to look up guides and ask the internet. I think its some kind of sick a meta joke design decision.
Dmg curves, learning curves, single bonfire level design with looping paths/shortcuts e.g. Cathedral of the Deep, and to a notable degree, even enemy variety - a lot has been sacrificed on the Open World Altar and lost among the abundant Sites of Grace. Shadows of Yharnam once relegated to mobs and becoming Shadows of Themselves used to bug me alas... not anymore. Finally, long story short, online barely serves it's purpose, making invasion mechanic just an annoying punishment for already much interrupted, fragmented, co-op experience. Phantoms and Blues, not even mentioned by the game's lore which otherwise has some (pvp) potential with many fractions that never became Covenants How?? 😮💨
"Until you google them" no no that's the antihandholding! All these current sissy AAA games with their subtle direction is for babies! Sure it's mostly still on the player and hints can be turned off but don't listen to logic! Whole vid is good but the point on exploration is a big one for me. As it genuinely seems like other games and previous fromsoft games even do it better, but the attitude is like they don't compare to ER
Some people find the community in finding secrets & sharing that online as part of the fun. I.e being the first to discover an important illusory wall for progress & getting to tell others. This doesn’t justify the design nor does it mean you have to like it, but if you don’t maybe play another game, this has been a thing for years in souls games.
My opinion: Elden Ring has many flaws, while also managing to be the most fun game I've ever played throughout my whole experience. This made it better than any game that has no flaws but just isn't as fun. So this game that fails to be perfect is still better than some of these other "masterpieces" for me.
Exactly my thoughts. I can clearly see the graphics not being that good, the mechanics being kinda cryptic, or the lack of polish in many aspects but oh boy this game is the most fun I had since I played the DS games 😊. That should be the main reason to like a game. Not perfect storytelling, graphics, or being mechanically flawless just having a fun and addicting gameplay.
there literally is no perfect game tho, elden ring is a masterpiece it just isnt a perfect game and i feel like people need to research the word "masterpiece"
@@tomasvillafane2052 There aren't, at least none that even come close to the gold standard set by previous games. Games take 5x longer to come out now while not even offering a 5th of the quality that games used to offer, on average.
you keep saying "it's not good or interesting design". that is just too vague a criticism, really doesn't mean anything. i agree with your overall point but i think your arguments are in general pretty weak.
I'm probably those "toxic Fromsoft fan" most new comers is talking about but I think this is a fair criticism of the game. The game would be perfect with maybe 40% of the size which makes it a typical Fromsoft made souls-like sized world. Fanboy me would still argue it's still much better than any other open world games right now in terms of enemy/environmental diversity and quality, but this is one thing FromSoft that is better than any developers and they had to water it down for a giant map just to appeal to everyone. For a game that boasted build diversity they can't still make bow-and-arrow right. Sure it's always like this and it's combat is always designed around melee but what's the point of the lock-on if it will just straight up miss a standing enemy that emotes slightly, especially if they also cost ammunition/arrows. And why are they so much weaker than spells. I get that it is hard to balance ranged (they are either OP, or they are next to useless). I inherently disagree on many who claimed the combat is bad when it comes to normal play tho; while it is weaker than the rest of the series it is by no means bad and is still enjoyable; the only complain is the horrible weapon balance; but is something that can circumvented by experienced player who knows what to expect from a Miyazaki game and limit/adjust their loadout to reflect the gameplay they want (which should not be a thing, wtf.). Although I would say, as much as Elden Ring is praised despite its flaws, their latest game Armored Core 6 doesn't seems to pander to the Elden Ring crowd and made an entirely different game on the other spectrum, which is; while have their own flaws; is a well packaged game for it's intended target audience, and hopefully is a sign that FromSoft don't blindly buy into "journalist" review and stop improving their craft.
Less is more - this describes Elden Rings world. It ist full of things to Explore. But you get nö reward. I dont need the 173th weapon or the 37th spirit Ash. Once you got your build items ITS useless. Also i think the Questdesign and the cryptic story is Just too much for the Game size. Elden Ring is a good Game. But for example bloodborne is much more a masterpiece than Elden Ring.
Never played Souls games and I won't probably this one. Don't like games with bad exploration, games WITHOUT difficulty settings and without good story.
Yeah souls-likes stories are almost all terrible and are better told in youtube videos than in-game lol. I even like Souls and Souls-likes but don't defend the storytelling, all I can say is they have cool atmosphere, world building and lore if you like feeling like a treasure hunter wandering around ruins.
As for exploration I'm not going to defend it, being open world is one of ER's biggest flaws but it does have a very good story, you might not like it but it's objectively deeper and more well presented than virtually all games out there. As for difficulty this is the easier souls game to date, if you want to make it easy there are lots of different paths you can take that will help you do so
You know, I've been a fan since DS1 when it started getting popular in america. I'm pretty disappointed with the game. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying it! It's fun! but its just no longer dark souls. I mean every other game they've made has been fantastic and felt perfect without this open world. It felt big enough without it. I can't understand expanding the scope to make the game THIS big. I woulnd't have minded it being much bigger, it the whole world was crafted with the same quality of ANY of the other souls games. Meticulous level crafting HAS, and in the legacy dungeons STILL is a staple of fromsoft. and its a shame to see it just get watered down by (lets be honest here) Most of the rest of the game.
I want them to make better games than Elden Ring. I just don't think listening to this review would be of any benefit. Honestly, illusory walls bad, boss cutscenes bad, where is the environmental story telling, map is uninformative. There isn't some conspiracy of silence about these things, many of your criticisms are just daft. Edit: ok that was a bit harsh. I don't think many of your criticisms are very compelling, which isn't the same thing as their being daft. I just found the way the criticisms were presented as objective flaws needing to be addressed *despite* my not finding them compelling very galling. I've said my piece about cutscenes and illusory walls. Environmental story telling: yes, I agree there's not much going in the basic 'ruin' features. Fair enough. I would prefer it if they converted assets from appropriate hand crafted areas, such as Sellian style buildings round Sellia, Leyndell style buildings in Altus, etc. The thing is, though, there is plenty of environmental story telling on offer. They just happen not to be in those ruins. The game as a whole is a clear 10/10 for environmental storytelling, and if you don't believe me you should watch the Tarnished Archaeologist. As to the map: you simply don't need to know whether you've found everything, and the map certainly doesn't need to tell you. You know whether you've fought the boss or not, which is the main thing, and if you're in danger of forgetting, you are able to mark the map yourself. Some hints from Gideon about the purifying crystal tear for Mohg would have been good, but basically this is a non-issue. In an Elden Ring 2, or other new FromSoft open world, I would like to see a map that is smaller but more refined, with a few more hints towards npc questlines, significant items like the Mohg tear, and so on. But this is still room for improvement, or even just iterative development, on what is already a masterpiece in my eyes. I will add that I feel like many of your criticisms, as well as other similar criticisms, come from a completionist mindset. Hence people are either bored running through minor dungeons, or frustrated teasing out very secret from Legacy Dungeons. I think Elden Ring is not built for completionists, but rather for multiple shorter playthroughs in which different paths are taken. The deeper elements of the game can be explored ever more deeply, and the shallower elements can be played around with to taste. Naturally players who want to take it all in on their first playthrough will be disappointed, but they should also be prepared to acknowledge the element of preference here. Designing for multiple incomplete playthroughs is a fair artistic choice, and FromSoft have carried it off terrifically.
I agree that the game was very overrated, but I don't truly understand which side you come from As a true fan of these games, I find it disappointing in many aspects, mainly difficulty and replayability wise alongside many other petty things that when summed up, result in a bigger problem Like for example, the sound design is very "generic", the art style in most areas is mid, the world is fun at first but then it's empty, lame and an annoyance on consequent characters; the bosses aren't difficult up to Maliketh, Malenia and Radagon, the music is kinda mid, the PvP is dogsh*t, the ease-of-acces is bad, the jump ability single handedly breaks one of the main things that made past Souls games feel "dreadful" which is the feeling of being grounded and knowing that you can't beat the environment The horse has the same problem Just so much stuff in this game that, again, as a veteran of this games who looks for punishing difficulty and great PvP and PvE mechanics, just disappoints me
The side I come from as a true PVE veteran of Dark Souls games is that I hoped for a better game. I hope mostly in ways that are universally considered the signs of a better game. And I worry greatly about the opinion environment surrounding Elden Ring where it is in wide circles, even in professional review circles, considered heresy to say Elden Ring is anything other than perfection. Which makes it less likely that From games will actually improve in the future since From gets less constructive criticism for their games. As an individual notion the point you raise about the jumping controls is an interesting anecdote in how it can be quite the challenge to appease "the Soulsborne community" when making design choices, since the jumping controls split Souls fans into multiple camps. Some feel that DS 1 has the perfect jumping controls, others prefer the DS 2 controls and others still don't value the idea of making jumping complicated, unwieldy or awkward which then often drops them into the camp of preferring the simple jump controls of Elden Ring. It's actually pretty interesting, because often when talking about Elden Ring or Souls games I get people saying " but the community likes this thing specifically " , while quite likely either not recognizing that the community is more split on individual issues than they realize or they don't consider dissenters with that specific issue "true fans". So your comment raised some interesting thoughts and I appreciate you writing it! ^^ In a big picture sense I think I agree with most of what you overall said about the game's shortcomings. Such as the world feeling empty and the bosses being not very challenging or interesting. The open-world approach overall seems to have sapped out a lot of the magic that the previous games had. The substance is spread on such a wide area with such a lack of focus it ends up feeling mediocre in many aspects.
@@Kriostyx damn right, I appreciate it you replying to me and pointing out more interesting aspects that you didn't mention in the video and again I have to agree with you The honeymoon phase is now over but the 10/10 reviews are out and the GOTY award, delivered; so not much for us to say, only hoping Fromsoft realizes that they could've done better and more - with less and that future Souls games from them will be better and more old school than ER
About your 5th point, that stuff is optional and the hiding is intended. The idea was for people to stumble upon these things almost by chance. You don't have to like it, but it's been fulfilling its purpose. You can see a bunch of people being pleasantly surprised by randomly finding these hidden and obtuse areas. The idea wasn't for everything to be found or kept track of unless you yourself did something to run into it and keep track yourself. The fanbase loves that stuff. About your 7th point, you have infinite upgrade materials.
I truly admire the vibe of approaching the question of illusory walls through positivity. And there is a lot to be said about the value of having secrets in video games. The question is about being mindful of what one hides behind illusory walls. A sensible thing to hide could probably be categorized under "a cool extra". Such as a piece of equipment, spell, cool lore stuff, etc. That is not really the at the center of the issue here. I'm not saying every extra piece of equipment or material should be found just like that, instead I'm talking about the balance of making the player feel they have "cleared" a dungeon/cave/mine. As in "enter the place, reach the boss or the treasure that in the game's language feels like the main treasure of the place and get out". And those are sometimes hidden behind illusory walls in Elden Ring. That just doesn't strike me as sensible. I very much doubt that the majority of the playerbase loves the fact that the only way to reach the boss of this or that catacomb required them to hit or jump at every wall to find the illusory wall that hid the lever they have been taught by the game to find in every catacomb to open the boss door. That's the difference between hiding a cool obtuse area or secret and hiding the main way to complete the cave or dungeon. I make the case the main way of simply clearing the cave should not include illusory walls. It strikes me as a step toward pointlessly annoying instead of improving on the Fromsoft formula. And it plants the idea in the player's head that in order to find the boss or main treasure of the areas they may have to check every wall. That runs the risk of creating unfun playstyle reactions in then hitting every wall. For hiding optional bonus lore stuff, equipment, soul items, smaller cool areas etc the risk doesn't seem to be as high. Elden Ring takes a lot of obtuse steps from for example the Dark Souls games in terms of all of these secrets. I also mention the taunting nature of putting an inactive huge elevator in a legacy dungeon in front of the player and making it a lot harder than the... let's say "fromsoft average" to find the route to unlock it. I remember also cursing like a pirate at the hardest "find these turtles" tower, since the game misleading on how far they can truly be. All of these steps for going more secretive are steps toward being way too far. And that trend is worrying. At some point on that curve we reach "Milon's Secret Castle" levels of secrecy where in order to progress the game at any point you have to essentially hit every square of the game with projectiles. And I don't feel it's sensible to go further on this curve. Also seeing anecdotal people being pleasantly surprised by something I likely am not specifically talking about is not a great argument for something being good. We should also be careful about not assuming what the players of this game overall like. I probably also fall into that trap from time to time when talking about games or media. "the fanbase loves that stuff" is... a questionable statement as all the data to support it is anecdotal comments. Especially in Fromsoft circles as the vocal and reactive part of the community is notorious for crucifying anyone who dares to criticize most any aspect of these games. At least when Miyazaki is involved in the game's creation. This creates a phenomenon where the fans who disagree with that vocal doctrine are more quiet and are even less heard about than in a generic player fanbase. So should a game be only designed into a direction that a vocal part of the players want regardless of what the overall players like on average? Also is a "fanbase" only the people who are vocal in comments sections or is one a part of the fanbase simply by liking fromsoft games? I place myself as a part of the fanbase and I hope for even better games and I'm throwing my opinions in my work on how that could perhaps be achieved. The upgrade material question is more simple to tackle. Not all of them are infinite and what I'm talking about is the hassle and impracticality of upgrading a weapon for testing purposes to be at the level of the one you are currently using. In my experience when I had used all my upgrade materials to for example get my main weapon to be a +11, I could only use the buyable materials to upgrade a second weapon to +6 or less. The placement of the bell-bearings to buy the materials are scattered in such random places that they sometimes don't even try to fit the difficulty curve or main progression of the game. This creates the environment I criticize where experimenting with weapons is essentially impractical as you cannot upgrade it to be competitive and test-worthy in terms of numbers. By the time, even with the help of the internet, I found the bell-bearings to buy a material, it was already mostly obsolete and I would've needed the next bell-bearing at least to create competitive weapons to test against my main weapon. And indeed the highest level upgrade materials are not infinite in the sense you probably mean. The game has 13 of them for the normal weapons and 8 for the special weapons. With all this though I appreciate the comment, thinking it through and wording out a response to it was genuinely refreshing and I hope my tone doesn't come across as rude or blunt!
@@Kriostyx It's encouraging curiosity, exploration, and thoughtful engagement with the level design. It induces a sense of excitement when the secret is uncovered. It increases replayability, since you keep getting the satisfaction of finding new things in subsequent playthroughs. Volcano Manor's Prison Town is supposed to be a secret in-world, and isn't required to fight Rykard. I was sure that there was a proper dungeon to explore because of the exterior's size, and it didn't take long to find the secret passage for myself. In the case of the minor dungeons, it's a way to maintain player engagement across several similar levels in a single playthrough. There's no need to hit anything pre-emptively: you know you are looking for a lever, and if you are struggling to find it, hitting the walls becomes a natural part of looking more carefully. Not to mention the player messaging system, which makes a lot of this much easier to deal with anyway. Reviewers and fans aren't somehow compromised by ignoring the problem of illusory walls. They just think they're good.
They did so well with Bloodborne, introducing new trick weapon mechanics, blood rally and gun parries - then they regressed 5 steps back with Dark Souls 3 - then they actually took 10 steps forward with Sekiro, excellent 1v1 bosses and generous deflection mechanic with prosthetics - then they regressed 10 steps back again with Elden Ring, Elden Ring brought nothing new to the table mechanically. Its just ds3 combat but your slower and the bosses are much faster Game gets a 6/10 for me I'd give it a 7/10 but they ripped the jump animation straight from ds3 and called that stiff bunny hop an actual 'jump mechanic'
this comment makes no sense whatsoever. How is sekiro ten steps behind? Sekiro is set in a different framework so how can you say it is worse than elden ring when they are different types of games. The gameplay and design is done differently so how would specific "steps" be "behind." You can subjectively see sekiro as worse but it isn't objectively worse as implied by your specific "ten steps" comment since people can prefer the more streamlined combat focused approach of sekiro which refutes your point.
Yeah it is overrated... that is why it is by far the most awarded game of all time and won all the most important goty awards, which only BOTW and Skyrim did before.
The combat is amazing and fun, cmmts saying they aren't say it like it is objectively bad. Its smooth and well animated with great hitboxes, so not liking it would be subjective but wouldn't you already know how the combat would be before buying so where does the not liking combat come from. Biased people in the cmmts I wonder? And what artificial difficulity are yall talking about, you can literally no hit Malenia, the boss people say is the most "artificial." Artificiality is just code for finding something more difficult for a lot of people saying it, it seems.
Just because a feat is technically possible doesn't mean it was designed with fairness in mind, in fact it is very deliberately obtuse for the fact that her hp is astronomical compared to any other bosses, but especially the player characters max hp. Malenia also deliberately goes against all the conventions the souls games are known for because she can animation cancel and perfom moves no player on first impression can respond to in the linear and appropriate manor or repeat themselves. Its not even trying to be remotely fair in its duration, which is the main issue though not her moveset, although the game would be better if the players' pace matched the bosses. Its not even very hard to anticipate what shes going to do after you've seen it but the avidness and agressivness in this game vastly outclassing the tools you are given so you have to play in a way that is repetitive and unsatisfying especially since the moves and boss get boring after the same few attacks rinsed and repeated, its not really a battle of skill after a while just attrition or mostly your attention. She would be much impoved if she didnt have so much hp for the express purpose of prolonging the inevitable but thats just how it has been with these titles for a while, it's just easier to use the same animations from demon souls and sprinkle a couple new status bars and extend their health bars I guess for the people who wanted new content without actually innovating or creating anything especially difficult and new other than the main bosses that are also reused mutiple times within the same game to save on development time.
Teleology is the word you're looking for. It is essentially the idea that all of creation has an ultimate purpose. Video games, as a medium, are the epitome of teleology. Elden Ring throws this concept out the nearest window for the sake of "CONTENT", and it really shows as soulless.
