The Worst Feature in Every Souls Game (Including Elden Ring) 

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Im so glad that FromSoft finally seems to have given up on the idea of having to run through a thousand enemies for minutes to get another chance at the boss

One thing that annoys me about by Bloodborne is how you can’t teleport from one lantern to another, you have to keep going back to the Hunter’s Dream and select where you want to go.

For Demon's Souls it absolutely has to be the runbacks. Having to do the entire level over again after getting killed once is brutal.

When i beat elden ring for the first time, i really did enjoy it and felt powerful. I felt like the culmination of everything i beat was supporting me throughout my journey. I could feel the elden ring coming inside of me. Why is there so many people liking and commenting.

sekiro’s learning curve is definitely smaller when its your first souls experience. the game clicked for me when i fought lady butterfly. im not sure about others but that was the point i got in tune with pressuring enemies, prosthetic tools, deflecting patterns, and all the perilous moves (except grabs, fuck those)

Honestly I think one of my biggest issues with elden ring see that fact that too many weapon will occupy the same niche, with a lot of them being just objectively worse. That's why bloodborne had greatweapons, because all of them were unique and extremely distinct from one another, not just a worse greatsword

My gripe for Elden Ring is that the dungeons aren't memorable and are rehashed, and how confused a new player can get with finding out how to progress due to the map size.

I think my personal gripe with Elden Ring has to be the quest 'system.' ER wants to have its cake and eat it too about being an open world game, and for the most part it works, but it is nigh impossible to figure out some of the questlines without guides because of how obtuse the requirements are. I'm not saying I want ER to hold my hand with them, but damn, I'd rather the game hold my hand than the internet.

So many options to choose from in DS2 , but I have to say my most hated addition is being able to be damaged during the boss fog animation. It's such a simple, tiny change that destroys so much of what made the trial and error of previous games so fun and rewarding. I think it's sort of emblematic of DS2's artificial approach to difficulty.

I really don't get why people dislike fan service in DS3, like c'mon, everyone i watched loved meeting Siegward, Anor Londo is a sight to behold, they show some love to DS2 too with the Earthen Peak Ruins, and the beautiful Soul of Cinder theme, it's a game about cicles, seeing that you ended where you started is on purpose, fan service is cool c'mon

What I hated most about Elden Ring was that simply being in a new area could automatically lock me out of a quest I had no clue about because the map is huge and a lot of NPCs are hidden or give vague hints. Also the late game dungeons for me felt like a copy paste of most others. I think the game would have benefited by cutting a few of them out.

When you showed footage of the run-up to the Smelter Demon in DS2 I felt that

I thought healing and bullets were fine in Bloodborne. The inability to rest/teleport from the lanterns was annoying though, and felt like a big step backwards.

Probably the most annoying thing in Dark Souls 2 for me, along with the boss runs, was the fact you could get hit as you were entering the fog, meaning that even if you reach the fog, you weren't safe. No other game has that.

I think the worst thing about demon souls (At least the original, since I haven't played the remake yet) was the fact the types of item drops were assigned to different worlds. So for example, if you wanted to get health items because you ran out of them you could only really reliably go to the first world and farm there; if you wanted Mana items than you had to farm the third world etc. It made playing through it a monotonous slog of returning to locations you've been through already solely to eliminate the enemies you've killed dozens of times before.

I have only played the Dark Souls Trilogy, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring. I'm still working up to playing Demon Souls and Sekiro. The worst part of DS1 to me was the areas in the 2nd half of the game (Lost Izalith, Tomb of Giants, New Londo, etc.) The worst part(s) of DS2 to me was the enemy placement (I played SOTFS), Boss hitboxes, and how confusing and mashed together the areas were. The worst part of Bloodborne for me was the weird inter-connectivity of the Cathedral ward to so many other areas, to the point where I wouldn't know what to do next. The worst part of DS3 to me was the early game areas that were annoying to get through (Road of Sacrifice, Farron Keep, and Irythill Dungeon - later area). The worst part of Elden Ring to me was the frustration of the late game areas. Areas like Mountaintops of the Giants, Consecrated Snowfield, Farum Azula, and the Haligtree were painfully obtuse to get through.

I struggled the whole way through Sekiro, with the challenge constantly ramping up. But then once I started NG+ I was demolishing every enemy with ease. Shit was so magical I ended up enjoying it way more. By NG+5 I beat Genichiro without taking damage... the same Genichiro that killed me over 20 times on my first playthrough. I love this game so much, it really makes you F E E L like the Guitar Hero.

Biggest issue for Elden ring for me is the boss reksins/duplicates. I get that they gotta fill out the map and stuff but it's really annoying to travel through one area and see this dragon and then travel through another area and see it again. I don't know why but it just made the area seem less "special" or unique.

My problem with Elden ring is the difficulty scaling… some areas are super easy and then some are the worst time of your life! They don’t always find they comfort zone with difficulty, especially in the endgame

Great video man. I like how there was no needless outro with plugs, makes me want to check out your channel even more with the time I saved lol

I have about 900 hours on Sekiro, and I can say that one thing I really wish was there is the ability to cycle skills like you cycle prosthetics and items. Even just 3 at a time. I know theres a mod, but I really think it should've been possible in the base game.

delayed attacks feel so unnatural. it doesn't feel like you're fighting an opponent in combat. Just feels like someone watched you play all the souls games and is changing timing just to hit you

The one thing that’s gonna be a tragedy is when the DS2 death counter stops counting

I think one thing that has to be said for Elden Ring is sidequest design. In the older titles they could already be pretty obtuse but because there was less "real estate" overall you had an easier time actually finding and meeting people. Elden Ring with its gigantic world in comparison makes it near impossible to folloe sidequests since those often spread all over the map. Take Yura for example, at one point you have to warp to the main gate of Raya Lucaria to help him fend off an invade... but unless your game progress is such that you arrive there just as his sidequest is at that stage there's basically no way for you to ever find out that you'll have to help him there because he never mentions going to the academy. And of course the final step of that quest is to find him dying in a random church on the Altus Plateau which he also never mentions as a destination in previous dialogue. I really think any potential ER DLC or follow-up needs to be tighter about this.

Worst thing about all these games is how the game expects you to know how to finish certain quest Like performing a certain action in a certain place to a certain NPC When there is no way you could know to do that without typing it up on the internet

Dark Souls 3 is the game that got me into the franchise as well, and I have the same issue with its linearity. I'm someone who loves to replay games to death, and as a result DS1 became my favorite just for the sheer freedom you get for the first half of the game. Nothing saps the life out of me more than having to run through Farron again lol

i have to say dark souls 3 is the best way to end this trilogy. the way everything just crumbles into pieces, and how you revisit areas that you have seen in the previous games just to realize it all has turned into ashes always gave me chills. i know this video is about a bad thing in every game but i had to point this out

The reason spirit emblems can be purchased instead of just dropped by enemies or reset on death is because you can actually purchase emblems at the altars without resting. One of my favorite tactics for dealing with the divine realm is to make use of the reusable gachiin sugar to make myself harder to detect and sneak around eliminating difficult encounters then doubling back to supply so I can keep doing it. I can see why it would be annoying to some though, especially if you have difficulty staying alive and keep losing your money. Ironically, dark souls 2 was my first (well, technically 2nd, since i played like 6 hours of demons souls back on the ps3 when it came out) souls game that I actually played, but I never had issues with enemy placement or boss runs because of how I played the game, and wouldn't feel the hordes of hollowed being annoying until 3, 1 remastered and bloodborne when I would play them later. See, I grind a LOT in rpgs. It helps me get used to the mechanics and flow of combat, feel out my own play style and build up a power buffer so I never feel too weak, and in DS2 and even scholar of the first sin, enemies stay dead if you kill them enough times, a feature that wasnt in other souls games (much to my initial dismay) which would come to throw me off later. Once I realized in DS2 that enemies just stayed dead, I would completely genocide each map as I went through the game. I ended up being monsterously over levelled as a result and when I would have to occasionally re-attempt certain bosses, the walk up to them was barren and lifeless, devoid of any challenge or difficulty save for running off an edge while not paying attention. I never understood why people didn't do that more, but I guess I was still like 19 or 20 at the time and had a lot more free time on my hands.

Even though an optional boss, I remember the boss run to regular Smelter Demon in DS2 was unrelenting, to the point where I did it so many times that enemies started to despawn (guessing the game was forcing you to use Bonfire Aesthetics after too many times to get enemies back, lol). With Sekiro, it finally clicked during the Genichiro fight on the rooftop, where it was a combination of everything you'd learned up to that point, including parrying, jump stomping, and Mikiri countering, and it's probably why it was my favourite boss fight in the entire game!

In the original Demon's Souls, the biggest annoyance was the limited inventory space combined with the fact you couldn't send items to your storage box. This meant that if you stumbled upon an armor set and went overloaded, you just had to discard items to make space for that set or lose the set permanently. On my first playthrough I had to trash so many upgrade materials and healing items not to lose out on unique items, and even still I ended up losing some sets cause that mechanic you kind of learn the hard way. The remake fixed this.

I mistakenly chose the "Shura" ending in Sekiro and thus missed out on 1/3 of the game, so yeah that's my least favorite thing about it

I just started playing bloodborne a few days ago, and I've got to say that the blood vial system doesn't seem too bad. I have plenty of blood vials in my storage and never really run out, but then again I'm only 2 bosses in which I've first tried both of them so maybe I'll have to worry about farming later one. Adding onto what you said about ER I agree that the difficulty is a big issue and personally my first play through of over leveled by complete accident and did the first half of the game pretty much my first attempt.

My only problem with Elden Ring is the bosses. You can find most bosses in multiple locations, making them barely anymore special then normal enemies. The duo boss fights also suck, they have no balance compared to the previous games and their arenas are almost always designed poorly. Some bosses spam way too much sometimes, it's just annoying.

I agree with Elden Ring's balance issue, however I would like to highlight a couple of things; firstly, I think that one of the main issues with Elden Ring's balancing is definitely damage scaling for the enemies, it feels like fromsoft expected every player to be running 40% absorbtion + 60 vigor by the endgame because some attacks genuinely feel unfair with how much damage they do (1shots, and fast attacks that do too much damage.) Secondly in terms of items summons I do believe that they really missed the mark on this one, but this can be something that can be fixed in future updates. and lastly I just want to mention that enemy scaling would not work and would actually be a detriment to not just Elden Ring, but to all open-world games altogether (Think Fallout 3 vs Fallout New Vegas' balancing,) it's extremely satisfying to go back to an early area to see how far you've come. Very well put together and comprehensive video here.

In ds2 there is a spell you can cast that lures the enemies towards it, makes the run to blue smelter demon easy. I love this game, especially because it has the no death run and no bonfire run and their rewards! so fullfulling to complete those!

I would say my least favorites are these Demon souls: world tendency. Having the world change as you live or die is not only confusing and weird but just not fun Dark souls (remastered): rushed development of later areas. I used to lose my mind over the jump button being tied to the sprint button till I found out you can remap the jump button separate from the sprint, but I never don’t dread doing the bed of chaos and izalith run every time I play. Dark souls 2: the combat style change, ds1 has a nice mix of ganks and 1v1 combat, but ds2 just made all the combat ganks, so it dosent even throw you off anymore it’s just exasperation Dark souls 3: the color scheme of the early areas, every single area up until irithyll of the boreal valley it either brown, dark green, dark blue, grey, white, or black. It’s all just dark colors that mend together to create a lot of bland color in entire maps, making areas like the high wall of Londor or undead settlement very forgettable. Fire link shrine is also kind of boring when you compare it to the previous games hub worlds but I don’t mind it too much. Elden ring: the boss design. The bosses after Godrick the golden all feel like they sacrificed gameplay for the sake of spectacle. They all look awesome, but most of the bosses end up just being a large enemy with huge sweeping AOE moves, gap closers, and magic spam from ranged. It picks back up in leyndell with godwyn and Morgott but then you’re off the the mountain tops and it’s back to big dude with AOE. I also am not a huge fan of how the round table hold in just fully separate from the world like a pocket dimension, but the area itself is cool so it’s not that big of a deal. Bloodborne: haven’t played, can’t speak on it :( Sekiro: haven’t played, can’t speak on it :(

I really like the healing mechanics in Bloodborne because it promotes an aggressive style of play that you don’t get a lot the other games, and idk I never had problems with farming blood vials until I had to fight the moon presence. I definitely get why it rubs people the wrong way tho

While most people emphasize the boss fights in these games, I enjoy “conquering” the levels. So, for me, Dark Souls 2’s run backs aren’t an issue. Because I take the time to clear a path, anyways. I memorize the enemy composition, how to pull them efficiently, and killing them with the least amount of healing. Which itself isn’t an issue, since Life Gems. (But screw Frigid Outskirts and Iron Passage) No, for me, it’s the 8 direction movement. It didn’t bother me the first time I played, but after going back from DS3 and ER, the controls felt seriously clunky. It’s something you can adapt to, and compensate for. But you really shouldn’t need to. If they did a Demon’s Souls style remake of SotFS, this is the one thing I’d ask them to fix.

Enemies in DS2 cannot enter a boss room, I think you mean they can hit you while your transversing the fog.

Nah the worst part of Bloodborne is accidently jumping while running instead of rolling

I really like the bosses in Demon's Souls, actually. I think the focus on puzzles and unique mechanics makes them really unique and memorable. Also a fan of World Tendency, though that can be a bit punishing for new players, as you mentioned. Really surprised you didn't mention the availability of upgrade materials. The way Crystal Lizards work in Demon's Souls is really annoying and frustrating. Failing to kill too many of them before they disappear can really screw you over. Not to mention how annoying it is to farm the highest level of upgrade materials, like the infamous Pure Bladestone farm.

Personally my list would be: Demon souls - Boss fights, for the same reasons mentioned in the vid Dark souls - Upgrade system, having to upgrade armor as well as carrying over the system of different paths having different materials was just too much given how little elemental types actually make a difference in most cases, this might be different if damage resistances were much higher Dark souls 2 - The level design, just the placement of the enemies as well as the way you work through some of the levels, there are entire sidepaths that look like the main path and just loop around, and there are main paths that are hidden in the corners of levels, I ended up enjoying later playthroughs much more than the first because I could explore the areas in more detail and spend less time hopelessly wandering. Bloodborne - The chalice dungeons, I know these have been talked about a lot and well I like parts of them they just weren't flushed out enough, especially given that gems, runes, and even weapons were locked behind them. Dark souls 3 - The weapons, everything in this game feels so similar. The strength weapons swing as fast as the dex weapons, the focus system feels limiting for both melee and casters, all in all I just can't enjoy making builds in this game. Sekiro - The dodge, in Sekiro each perilous move has a counter. Thrusts have to be perfect deflected or mikiri counterd, Sweeps have to be backed away from or jumped over, and Grabs have to be dodged. The dodge in this game has 6 frames of invulnerability, the reasoning behind that being so much lower than the rest of the souls games (11-17 from fat roll to ninja flip iirc) was so that deflecting became the primary tactic of dealing with incoming attacks, because of this *some* grabs become the most annoying to deal with because of jank hitboxes or tracking. IMO dodges should've had no invulnerability frames and instead had "intangibility frames" like fighting games where you can't be grabbed during certain moves, which would solve both the problem of janky grabs AND dodging being the #1 instinct of souls players. Elden ring - The difficulty and balancing problems, certain weapons (mostly strength) are just useless in this entry, along with this the game stretches so long that the back end of it just feels wrong, you kill bosses super quickly or get 1-2 shot which for a souls game isn't right, a lot of the time I beat a boss 1st - 3rd try not because I got better but because I just dealt SO much damage so quickly. Other times I struggled because of multibosses just stun locking you super aggressively, with no possible play to dodge both attacks (looking at you godskins) or Malenia and her mega combo 1 shotting me hard. All that said I enjoyed every single game, Thank you Miazaki and Fromsoft for all your work on these masterpieces

DS2 for me was the petrified people and needing the branch of yore, first time playing I got massively lost cause I used the branch of a random statue and then spent over an hour trying to find another one just so I could progress.

5 bucks that he says adaptability

2:59 FINALLY someone is saying this. I can't stand basically half the boss runs in ds2 (executioner chariot, smelter demon, sir alonne, demon of song, twin king's pets ecc) but blue smelter demon is by far the worst shit I have ever experienced in these games, it even made me quit dark souls 2 for like a year.

The sad part about your problem with DS2 is that it wasn't always like that, vanilla DS2 was balanced fine enough but then with the Scholar of the First Sin update (Which is the only version you can buy now) they just made everything ridiculous and spammed mobs of enemies at you. Such a strange balancing decision, and it's definitely tainted peoples' perception of DS2 in the long run

In DS2 enemies will eventually stop spawning after you kill them enough times, making the runs to bosses less hectic but making areas feel barren afterwards

I’ve never thought of Dark Souls 3 level design as linear honestly, I thought it was pretty amazing

Honestly the bigest gripe i had with elden ring was how obvious the ai is over reading your imputs. It went from learning and predicting attack paterns to oh you attacked once and now the boss is a ballerina and dodges every attack.

For me Elden Ring has a big problem, reused enemies. I knew from the start there will be reused enemies but.....it feels so awful going exploring new areas just to find an Evergaol with Godrick but blue....or the 14th Big Tree, or the 10th Ulcerated Tree and so on. It's not a problem for normal enemies but for Bosses and mini bosses it really sucks, I'm not even suggesting to change all of those 180 bosses just to add some more variety, different weapons, maybe spells etc. Also as much as I like the Soldier of God, Rick meme on a serious note it's probably the most stupid boss ever, even for a tutorial boss as Gundyr will remain forever the quintessential From Soft tutorial boss

I adore Sekiro, but the worst thing about it for me is absolutely the gank fights. Gank encounters “work” in the other souls games (for the most part, that is) because you have many more tools to deal with multiple enemies. Using ranged options to pick off enemies one by one or using big weapons that can do sweeping attacks, for example. Sekiro feels like it has a practically perfect 1 v. 1 combat system. When they throw more enemies into the mix, though, it can get really nasty really fast. It isn’t like this for EVERY gank encounter, like large groups of weak enemies or maybe a mid-difficulty mini boss with a few weak enemies. But there are some encounters that are genuinely dreadful, like that one balcony at the end of Senpou Temple or the final miniboss before the final boss. For a game that makes me feel like most of my boss deaths were genuinely just my own skill issue, they really made some of the enemy encounters feel like a design issue lmfao.

I feel in some of the fights it’s balanced for the use of summons and OP weapon arts so trying the play it the same way as I have the other Souls games, it is the hardest one for me. Also ER makes the re use of bosses in DS1 look tame.

The only part i would say for bloodborne is increased damage when hit during a dodge. the blood vial problem only bothered me one time, other than that i general relied on attacks and dodges rather than parries, except the church doctor guys. its an issue, but not too glaring. 20 vials is generous, and can carry you through if you are filled with them. I havent finished the game though so maybe it will hurt me more later

The problem in Dark Souls 2 is as you mentioned "The boss runs". A good example of this is the path to Sir Alonne. When i first got to the area/memory i tried to run through the area, but with no succes. On the next attempt i decided to kill all the enemies, only to get to Sir Alonne. I was then killed due to the lack of healing and exposure to the boss. This left me scratching my head since i really didn't know what to do. I then got to the conclusion of clearing all the enemies "15 times" to make them despawn. This and other areas simmilar aren't really the issue. The issue is rolls. If the rolls were like Dark souls 1 or 3, it would actually be possible to advoid the hoarde of enemies charging after you on your way to the boss.

You forgot the Ancient dragon boss run. Some of us didn't cheese it and it felt like a nightmare going back there every time. For me the Sir Alonne was way easier in comparison. Maybe because I had a particular path and I was constantly not taking any damage in the second section.

I know im late to the party, but i just recently beat sekiro for the first time and while obviously my favorite part of fromsoft games is that they dont get easier, you get better. My biggest biggest gripe with the game was either gimmicky boss fights that require a shinobi tool to make it easier like guardian ape w/ the spear, how insanely annoying confetti was to get, every death divided my money by 1/2, and definitely the annoying groups of enemies during a boss fight. Off the top of my head it was so frustrating doing the juzou the drunk fight because of the group of enemies before and then his 5 body guards all the while dodging a giant tank. I found myself looking up easier ways to defeat enemies or bosses that suffered from this. I feel that concept would work good in a souls game, but for the combat style of sekiro, fighting off 12 enemies at once plus a boss is just too much

My biggest issue with sekiro is something that's probably unique to me, I'm colourblind, so when an enemy did an unblockable attack, the symbol that pops up to show that it's coming was basically invisible to me, which made things substantially more difficult

The "late game problem" of Ds1 feels exactly the same in Elden Ring, both games first halves are legendary and then it suddenly just feels like a chore. I do like ds1 ending way better though, the Kiln is such a cool location and Gwyn is a much more lore-heavy boss than the random Celestial Slug in Elden Ring

bro you said that ds2 enemies placement is bad,but have you ever played the og version?

I personally didn’t think the level design in the latter half of DS 1 was that bad. After Anor Londo, it sort of gave a feeling of mastery of the world after experiencing everything the world had to offer. The rest of what happened after that felt like exploring the remaining dark corners where the bosses had explored. It felt like each main boss had their own corner of the world with unique aesthetics to them. Besides, you got the ability to warp between bonfires so interconnectivity kind of goes away after that. And that ability is earned by exploring the vast majority of Lordran since you know where everything is, making your feeling of mastery over Lordran feel more earned as you overtake each of the lords

Dukes Archives and Tomb of the Giants get a bad rap because of Lost Izalith. Tomb is fairly short, but I found it really fun + the big skeleton creatures are some of my favourite enemies. Dukes Archives is just cool all around, and the whole cave leading up to seath is one of the most visually impressive areas in the game.

I'm so glad that someone acknowledged my only problem with elden ring. My first run I did a faith strength build and it was pretty challenging but fair throughout. That is until I got to the last like 1/3 of the game. It went from a difficult and fun challenge like other souls games to damn near impossible. I just felt like I was whacking a steel gurder with a wet noodle hoping it'd eventually fall over. It wasn't until I respeced to an arcane dex build that I realized I wasn't bad, I was just playing the game wrong. It became an absolute joke, I basically just walked through the rest of the game.

The lock on in Elden ring is HELL in crowds it screws you over so often

As a big time DS2 defender I have to say that ADP is just the worst. I’m a defender of the ganking too. I think it really makes you play differently than other fromsoft games and isn’t too bad when you know what you’re doing, but yea iron keep boss run is horrid.

Good stuff, I agree with most all of it. I think the difficulty fluctuation in Elden Ring is really the only thing I ever complained about, but you have so many options it's really up to you how easy or hard you want it to be. If you want a challenge, dont use spirit summons or bleed weapoons, but if you want to make it easier just grab your mimic tear and ROB spam everything to death. Also, Sekiro doesn't have a "lack of build variety" it has like... no build variety at all. Which is why, even though it's an amazing game, I dont consider it a souls game. It's more of a Tenchu-like with some souls elements.

I know this is a weird take but I actually think Elden Ring's largest issue is the crafting system. I know that sounds stupid but just hear me out. With the way I play Soulsborne games I like to fully explore everything, kill every mob, every boss, loot every item etc even on NG+ and other playthroughs. I'm not a "Run past mobs or skip level" kind of player. And my first clear of Elden Ring took me over *200 hours of actual play time* I feel like I'm almost forced to ignore crafting mats or else the game just takes way too long, but with how I play games it's so hard for me to do that because I can't help but gather everything I see. So I end up spending way too much time wandering around gathering stuff instead of playing the actual game. Feeling like I have to ignore a part of the game or else it just takes too long doesn't feel good. I feel like it would have been way better without the crafting system.

My biggest issue with Sekiro was the Dragonrot, originally, because early on I had been told by a friend and a couple of early guides that if too much dragonrot built up, your NPCs would die permanently and your game could get softlocked or at least you'd never be able to complete everything. I need to go back to that game at some point.

I agree with Elden Ring's inconsistencies with difficulty balancing. Another personal gripe on my end is, being a mage enemies just sidestep my spells. Makes end game bosses a real pain, especially Radagon and Malenia 🙄 (also the Godskins and their input prediction)

One of my most hated things in DS3 is how rare infusion gems are. For example, if you waste the Raw gem you get at the start of the game, the only other ways to get one is a fixed loot in Lothric castle (endgame area) or farm with a 0.5% drop rate.

Honestly the thing I hate about Sekiro is the fact that the teach you stealth and then force you to fight. I like stealth so I used stealth though my playthrough so when it came time to fight a boss I wasn't any good at the combat. The game shouldn't have had it in the first place if it was just going to punish me for using it. Also on Elden Rings difficulty, I like my cheese. I'm not someone who has a level of pride boarding on stupidly. Refusing to use mechanics in a game like summoning, leveling, upgrading is called a challenge run.

Tbh I thought Eldin Rings boss designs were pretty hard, some builds have an easier time than others, it all just depends on how you approach it in that game. Sure there were a lot of side bosses that were pretty easy that were in dungeons and stuff. But the main story bosses were pretty difficult and even hard for experienced souls players. Especially in the later part of the game when you get to the godskin duo.

The biggest issue with Sekiro is the massively scaled down exploration aspect. It's hard to realize when you're used to these games, but the rewards you get from exploring in Sekiro are largely minimal/scarce. With no armor or weapons to find, and a slimmed down upgrade system you are largely just finding consumables upon consumables. I remember the first time I played the game it just felt like boss fight after boss fight because the areas in between feel rather pointless.

Demons souls: I thought the unique boss gimmicks made them all a lot more memorable for me, and personally it meant more to me than the memorization for every other boss in every other souls game. The bosses in the other games are all amazing, yes! but I just think that I liked demon's souls bosses more for having something other than a moveset, but a trick up their sleeve as well. Honestly I forgot the penetrator existed cause he's just a dude with a sword. That's just a different preference though. Dark souls: Honestly I think the only late game area I really dislike going back to is the crystal place, Seath's area. I never minded the lack of interconnectivity cause the teleporting really made it kind of inconsequential for me, wasn't a good or a bad thing. Also seeing Izalith from the tomb of the giants is pretty fucking cool you gotta admit. Dark souls 2: agreed. Bloodborne: I never really minded this. I don't know why but I never really had to grind in this game, or in any other souls game. I have never grinded in a souls game and don't want to just cause I hate games where you have to grind shit out tediously. As for the hunters dream thing... yeah it's annoying I agree. I just never really thought about it until now because I would really just be going there for a quick level, some upgrades, and to relax a bit. Often I'd spend 5+ minutes there so I didn't realize the load times were so egregious. I never really had to deal with your problem with bloodborne. Dark souls 3: I agree a lot. I kinda dread a lot of the areas in dark souls 3 and find them kinda bland and annoying. The early game is really just not that fun and I don't look at any of the areas in the game positively, except for the ringed city DLC... And Anor Londo actually just cause of nostalgia. Bosses really were the driving force of fun in this game, and pvp. Sekiro: Everything about this is perfect. Again actually I never had a problem with spirit emblems just like in bloodborne. And I loved using the tools. The combat is the best in every fromsoft game and I don't think the learning curve was that bad. Elden ring: I didn't really mind any of this. But also I oddly didn't feel too attached to elden ring despite having been hyped for it since it was announced and despite loving it through my first playthrough. After having finished the game I just kinda don't feel any certain way about it. If you love it great, if you said you didn't like it I would just say okay. It really felt like an adventure up till beating morgott though and I don't know why I still feel like it was an adventure thinking about it now. But something changed after morgott and I don't know what or why but it lead to me kinda just feeling meh about the game after that point.

For bloodborne it’s the fact that to jump you double press circle which means sometimes when you let go of run sometimes you jump. And that will fuck you over way more than you’d think it would. Like I can remember it screwing me over at least 5 times in my last run alone. It just happens just enough for it to constantly piss me off

The worst part for dark souls 2 is it feels too slow in movement and combat, it takes you out of the flow of the other souls games and becomes jarring at the beginning

The worst part about bloodborne for me is the chalice dungeons. They detract from what makes bloodborne so great aesthetically and on a fundamental level. Having to search every nook and cranny to make sure you got a the ritual materials you need(including the damn side rooms) slows down the game dramatically. On top of that half of the fights are re-fights or just basic enemies as bosses. It’s a struggle to grind them out to just get to the unique bosses. Elden ring also suffers from this philosophy although you don’t need to find materials for those. I will give props to the cummmfpk dungeon though

I think that with elden ring, like many of the other games in the series, they were experimenting with new mechanics and new ideas. The crafting system for example opens up tons and tons of options to very quickly kill very strong foes if you know what to craft. I remember a moment during my mage playthrough where I got stuck since none of my spells worked against a type of foe. So I crafted some fire jars and NUKED EVERYTHING! For me it's all about trying new ways to kill stuff rather than just using one OP power or tool.

ER worst part: no solo host invasions. Tonight I wanted to prove a point to a friend, so I tried invading in DS1,2,3 and ER. I was able to find invasions INSTANTLY in DS games, whereas in Elden Ring I had to switch to “meta level” characters to find an invasion, even then it took way longer. And when I found it, it was a dedicated gank. So from my perspective it’s fun to jump in souls games every now and then to play invasions and singleplayer, but with ER multiplayer is kind of dead because of no solo host invasions.

the trade off with the healing in bloodborne is the aggressive playstyle if you take advantage of hitting enemies to regain lost health, you won’t use too many blood vials but otherwise, i take farming blood vials the same way i take farming for specific armor sets or weapons and farming erdleaf flowers it’s just one of those things in fromsoft games, that time it was for the healing

The boss runs made me drop ds2 entirely I can tolerate all the other flaws but this was just painful

I don't think that ds3 being overly linear is the biggest issue just that so many areas are boring and kinda of a chore to get through dungeon,farron keep,road of sacrifices... The color palette is kinda ugly ngl

My biggest issue with ds2 is that the lock on just didn't function as it should.

I'll never get over how some builds in Elden are so overtuned from the get-go, while others (faith) have to wait the whole game to actually be slightly viable and reach the cool stuff

The Blood Vial thing always seemed like an unintuitive change to me, some type of half measure closer to estus than grass would have been less frustrating. If the reason they made them 1 time use consumables is because you couldn't rest at the lantern to reset them like estus, they could of still had them auto-refill like estus when you die or return to the Hunter's Dream, but also let you scavenge them from enemy bodies up to your body's max carrying capacity like how it is in the game so you don't _have_ to return to the Hunter's Dream to top off your heals as you explore if you don't want to. Bullets didn't bother me as much since you could always protect your ammo a bit by using blood bullets instead.

See with the Frigid Outskirts in DS2 if you use Vengarl as a meat-shield/bait for the Kirin you can easily sprint to the boss, de-summon Vengarl, and suffer through a double boss fight where phase two is near invinciblity for like 5 minutes lol.

Yeah I agree about the difficulty balance. It seemed like they designed some encounters for spirit summons and some for 1v1, but that just makes it so that every encounter that is more fun to fight 1v1 is trivialized by spirit summons. And a From Soft game having a free win button kind of ruins the entire appeal of the From Soft gameplay loop for some players. I think the lack of agency other than your own sheer tyranny of will (the entire theme of Dark Souls in the first place--don't grow hollow, don't give up etc.) is the reason the games work so well, and spirit summons give you way too much agency. I prefer it in Dark Souls where you have no other option other than to get good. To improve this, I think they could have: -Balanced every encounter for spirit summons. -Made spirit summons last only 15 seconds or so, just enough time to help out, rather than beat the boss. -Have two difficulty settings, one with spirit summons and one without, that explains the way the game is balanced. Spirit summons on = "You will have the option to call in assistance in battle. Makes it easier to get past encounters you're struggling with." Spirit summons off = "You have no assistance. If you get stuck on a boss, your only option is to keep trying until you win." Then also give you the option to lock the difficulty at the start of a playthrough or not. -Remove mimic tear.

The worst feature is that I will never be able to play it for the first time again.

Yeah I love Elden Ring and I have 100% achievements but playing the bosses melee only (no AoW, Magic, Summons, Items, ranged) in the late game sucked (Apart from phase 2 Maliketh who was awesome). The way in which bosses can chain moves together means they can randomly decide if they will let you punish them or not. RNG NEVER felt like a factor with previous bosses, but a select few tougher bosses in Elden Ring did, which didn't feel fun like DS3 DLC tough bosses

I've always thought a possible solution to Elden Ring's difficulty inconsistency would be a level cap that gets progressively higher as you beat mandatory bosses and progress through the game. Perhaps the great runes could've also functioned kind of like the talisman pouches where obtaining one increases your level cap (which also encourages exploration for the optional runes if you are stuck somewhere). I do think this may be hindered a bit by a "true" open world structure, but to be fair Elden Ring's world design, at least on your first play through, is a fairly linear trek through large hubs with the exception of Caelid whose difficulty varies from early to late/end game throughout the area.

With 3 being my first game the linear pathing made it easier while still being a fun and difficult game and I intend on playing the rest

i bought sekiro a couple days ago and my problem is that there arent any ash walls or something alike because i get swarmed by enemies while going to a boss and when i try and clear the enemies i have no healing left for the boss, does this get better later? or will i just have to deal with it?

9:57 This! Every time I saw a streamer's chat lambast the streamer for using magic and summons, it was like no one believed that the developers were aware of what they put in their own game.

Hey man, I just discovered your channel and I am really enjoying your content. Very well thought out discusion pieces and I find myself agreeing with alot of your points. Great follow up to your best feature video

lack of paths in the early game? You can go up lothric into the castle or gardens early, undead town is massive with huge variants on how you traverse it with optional bosses , the swamp lets you go to the church or into the catacombs while also being open ended Comparatively the catacombs are reused dungeon tiles but a big area to get lost in.Irithyll/analrodeo is at best a forked hallway that at least goes down to the profaned capitol which sort of leads to dragonland If anything it falls off pretty hard in terms of level design until you get to go back to Lothric/Archives

what's the torso armor at 9:58? edit: found it. It's the eye sourcoat. happened to have it on one of my elden ring characters.

Spirit emblems made me get sekiro on PC then get a infinite spirit emblem version.

elden rings boss design just didnt stick with me. For me, dark souls 3 has some of the much more inconic, thematic, non-bullshit bosses. I will always remember Gael, soul of cinder, champion gundyr, and a few more. Always felt like elden ring bosses had one attack that was incredibly annoying. Godfrey had a nice first phase i feel, but i didnt like how he always had to stomp every damn sec suddenly, with an attack that hits the whole arena. We dont talk about Melania, we just dont. Godskin duo is dumb. Maliketh the black beyblade was flying around the damn arena. I can forgive Radahn, we get alot of tools to defeat him either way. Theres probably a few more.. I only remember some cause they were a pain in the ass to fight. I spent way too much time on Melania, despite being optional. Just my opinion Dont flame me, bois.

So weird, I went to school with you and just randomly stumbled across this video with the two things I’m passionate about Zelda and music 😅 good to see you Kevin, I can’t wait to see what else you got coming.

I'm very surprised to hear your gripe with Demon's Souls wasn't the awful encumberment mechanics, but then I realised they didn't carry over into the PS5 remaster lol... That encumberment system, where it counted your ENTIRE inventory towards your maximum weight, was absolutely such a massive incentive to never experiment with any weapons, which then turns into never pick up items, which eventually turns into "why am I playing this".