Oh I did see some guys default back to the accessibility issue when they got some pushback on their bullshit. It's such an obvious pretense it'd be laughable if it didn't hijack/eclipse legitimate concerns disabled people might actually have.
Anyone still seeing lines of grace even after clearing out an area? I’ve done everything there is to do at Castle Morne, (including the boss, passing the letter, telling the old man about the sword), and I’m still seeing the line pointing to the castle (and beyond that is just the open sea, so that ain’t it …).
Currently 50 hours in at level 155. About two bosses to go before I have cleared them all. Been a hell of a ride! The underworld is probably some of the most beautiful scenery in a game to date.
There is one boss in this game who is absurdly powerful. Even at my level, I'm getting two-shotted. This reminds me of my time with Sword Saint Isshin in Sekiro.Wow, I'm in the 90s after 70+ hours and I thought I was over-leveled, but now I can see it's probably going to be necessary because these enemies are starting to get real hardy.
I'm just starting to work my way through this area now....glad I have something to look forward to .Spoilers for the extreme north east portion of the map, well beyond the Capital area:
Fire Giant: This fuckin' guy! More like Elden RNG, amirite!? So, in grand Souls tradition, I almost took this guy out on my first try, got him to 20% life, felt in control, etc. I actually thought he was just a big field boss at first. So, I figured I'd take him out in another attempt or two, got impatient, started pressing, and then proceeded to get killed by him what felt like dozens of times, but who's keeping score? I call him the RNG Giant because no matter how well the fight is going for you, one wrong turn into an off camera rock or tree and, surprise, you're fuckin' dead! Even my cheese tech wasn't very helpful, if not outright hurtful; Mimic Tear only made his movement more unpredictable, and except for when you knock off the shackle the Night & Flame stance isn't effective enough to justify the repeated risk, especially in the final phase (plus, then you're wasting flask slots FP refills). Anyway, I beat him the old fashioned way: until I'd seen everything he had so many times that he couldn't even hit me when I finally finished him off with aggressive satisfaction. Good riddance. My favorite loss was when we were both down to our last gasp, my horse was dead, and I was just having to hit, run and outroll this dude until one of his slow homing fireballs finally did me in before I could finish him (in retrospect I should have intentionally set it off and dodged it instead of going for the kill, as always, but he could have just as easily killed me with any other attack while I was doing that). That's when I knew I had him, though.
Random thought: The interface of this game, as in how your character is positioned, feels and moves on screen, and environments very much remind me of Dark Souls 1 and Dark Souls 2 especially, which makes sense given those were the closest the Souls genre had ever gotten to "open world" previously (Elden Ring perhaps owes more to DS2 than any other; perhaps a retroactive feather in its cap). I compared it to DS3 last night and that one certainly looks more like the next gen Souls game even though it's over half a decade old. This isn't a criticism, they're going for sheer scale here, it wouldn't have been feasible for them to to do it all with the same level of detail and graphic design as DS3 or Bloodborne (still their most visually cohesive, beautiful game). I also got the feeling early on, especially in Limgrave, that they're going for a bit more of a lighter, more stylized look, ala Nintendo with modern Zelda games for example, that fits the more high fantasy concepts and world while giving their graphics department some latitude in executing this world.
Really loving this game. Haven't felt this way about a game since Dark Souls. It's fully occupied my brain, and I find myself planning out things ahead of sitting down to play it.
My progress is much slower than others. I'm about 30 hours in, at lv 41, and just finished Godrick. I've explored a good chunk of Caelid already, but that place is fucked.
Right now I'm mopping up some more of Limgrave before I head to Raya Lucaria
Main weapon is Lordsworn Straight Sword (+9 currently) mostly dual-handing it for the moveset
with a Bloody Slash ash of war, which has amazing reach, and has allowed me to bite off way more than I thought I could chew, in terms of challenging bosses.
Speaking of ashes... one thing that bugs me is that I've hardly found any spirits yet. And it's not like I haven't been exploring... Folks, I'm still using wolves!
The music in this game doesn't get much attention, and it is admittedly subdued most of the time, but I find it quite cool. Aside from the awesome title track (which sounds like it's from some unsung '80s fantasy movie)
And probably the biggest praise I can give this game is that it does evoke the same feelings I got from Shadow of the Colossus. Not necessarily the big boss aspect, but the riding around and exploring the valley, poking around ancient ruins, trying to decipher any meaning to what I'm seeing. This was also my favorite part of Dark Souls. There's just a whole lot MORE of it in Elden Ring.
I’ve noticed a number of “Hill of Swords” graveyards around that remind me of Berserk.Found some cool Berserk references in some item flavour text that I thought you all may appreciate. I had a quick look and didn't see anyone post about references recently but my bad if it's been discussed.
So first of course is the Colossal Greatsword. Which visually is a reference to/inspired by the sword Guts wields when they rescue Griffith. The first sword Godot made for him. Mixed with a little oversized Dragon Slayer themes. The flavour text reads: A coarse iron lump of an ultra greatsword. Mows down foes by utilizing its incredible weight. Though handling it likely requires the wielder to have surpassed the realm of the merely human, it is precisely for this reason the weapon is used to slaughter even inhuman foes.
Second I came across the Hand Ballista. Basically a giant version of a hand crossbow, not a repeater though but similar look to what Guts has. It gives me some Berserk vibes and the flavour text for me kind of adds to that: An unconventional ballistic device modelled on a weapon used to besiege castles. Only capable of firing greatbolts. Perfect for reckless acts such as storming a castle or facing an entire army alone.
Lastly I also noticed on the talisman called Arsenal Charm there is a reference. This I found especially cool because it raises your equip load so it's a talisman that easily enables a Guts style build. The flavour text is: An iron charm that resembles a mass of weaponry. Boosts maximum equipment load. This talisman was derived from an unusual greatsword once wielded by a hero hungry for vengeance.
I am sure there are tons more and lots of character references too - shoutout to Prisoner Griffith and Blaidd!
Just wanted to share as these made me smile when I saw them in-game. Hope you enjoy :)
PS: This really is one hell of a good game, best of luck in your next boss battle!
Just finished up the platinum for Elden Ring. NG+3 is where the game really shines.
All in all, this is easily one of my favorite games in the last few years (second only to Red Dead 2). I spent 69 hours on it (nice), but from what I've seen...that's really, really fast compared to some others. Even though I got through it fast, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. NG+3 is about my limit, though.
Found some cool Berserk references in some item flavour text that I thought you all may appreciate.
I am sure there are tons more and lots of character references too - shoutout to Prisoner Griffith and Blaidd!
Sometimes this game makes you feel like a badass and a wimp at the same time. Like I can go take out a dragon in one attempt with almost no damage taken, then the next moment get my ass handed to me multiple times by an overgrown shrimp.
Also while it may just be coincidence there is literally a Wyndham Castle later on that I found in the Altus area.
I’m at 44 hours and L62. Taking my sweet time. The weather is starting to get nice again here in the NW but man I want to just be playing this game all the time. I’ve got it bad.
Honestly? I wanted to get through the game (and all endings) before they went and nerfed everything. And, by way of luck, I finished it a few hours before the latest patch went live. Now everything has been nerfed into oblivion!You're a regular Ringfinger Tryhard, I can't even quote your posts directly out of fear of seeing your awesome endgame, post-game, and post-post-post-game secrets (and I'm very jealous =).
Nice to see you have limits, that's about where I ran out of gas with Dark Souls 3 and Demon's Souls, though I got to like NG+5 in Bloodborne, but sadly that save may now be lost for good. It remains to be seen if I get THAT into Elden Ring, as I've actually been drifting back into DS3 on PS5... the 1080p 60fps on the big screen is some nice Souls action from a simpler time. I probably will though because I spent like 300+ hours playing Dark Souls II and it kinda sucks, so the only reason I'd go less on Elden Ring is overall Souls fatigue.
Honestly? I wanted to get through the game (and all endings) before they went and nerfed everything. And, by way of luck, I finished it a few hours before the latest patch went live. Now everything has been nerfed into oblivion!
That being said, I would still say that Bloodborne is Miyazaki's masterpiece
I played a fairly straightforward swordsman strength build, partly because that's my style in those games and partly to spite some friends who claimed (whined) the game is unbeatable without magic (on a related note: I won a bet to beat Malenia without co-op or magic). Swinging that colossal greatsword Guts-style never got old.
George R.R. Martin's influence was not hard to spot too, with the differing houses fighting over the land and all the inter-similarity in naming (Eg. Godfrey, Godwyn, Godrick, etc.).
COOP was fun as usual, but not as fun as it could have been. It was a waste of opportunity to restrict the horse to just single-player, especially when you're exploring such an enormous map.
There were some bugs and age-old issues (such as enemies hitting you through walls) too. But overall, the game doesn't have any major defects. It's near-flawless, a very rare thing to say these days.
Everything else was really well done. The soundtrack was fire. The main theme reflects the game itself as opposed to Dark Souls for instance. This one is more heroic and upbeat as opposed to the oppressive and depressing Dark Souls universe. I liked that change of tone.
I was playing Horizon: Forbidden West when Elden Ring dropped, and couldn't go back to it while I played Elden Ring. Seeing the Horizon (and Ubisoft) devs getting salty about ER's success only sweetened the experience. I can't believe the gall those folks have for lecturing others on world and quest design. Their design philosophies are what wrecked open-world games to begin with.
among other issues, such as Aloy being a bland, god-awful character).
They should have thought twice about dropping their game at the same time as Elden Ring.
Anyway, Elden Ring was a wonderful experience. I can't wait to see the next evolution of From Software and where Miyazaki will take us next.
On a related note: Elden Ring's success has somehow led woke twitter to discovering Berserk. I won't offend you guys by repeating the horseshit I read over there, but needless to say it wasn't pretty
That's a really good point. I never thought about them making separate movesets for bosses in different modes before as opposed to simply buffing the boss' health bar and damage. I don't think any dev will do that though, even hard-working Japanese ones. It's probably too much work. But I hope to be proven wrong here.Though the mechanics are probably ridiculous to any newcomers to Souls expecting traditional multiplayer, it does have a lot more potential than the previous games and playing with friends really works. The horse thing IS a bummer, and if they really want to get this right someday they need to create specific solo and co-op movesets for bosses, which would actually justify beating them in co-op in addition to solo.
Hey, let it never be said Miyazaki is unfair!Bugs? Those are features; you can hit through walls too!
I do enjoy the themes of Dark Souls, but I'm relieved ER had a different tone to freshen things up. I noticed the FromSoft tones becoming more positive/heroic post-Bloodborne. Sekiro was all about Buddhist themes. ER is grand and heroic, and so on. That said, there are still some depressing mini-storylines in ER too. Guess old habits die hard.Agree on the music, though tonally I still love the meta nihilism of Dark Souls III, "Another dogged contender."
Except they've been doing the same thing over and over too (I mean western devs in general). As for Horizon, honestly you could show a side-by-side gameplay of Zero Dawn and Forbidden West and you won't tell which game is which if they had the same graphics.Yeah, this had to be a bit of a shock that the underground basically flipped on them in this case. It really is like these guys are making the most polished, state-of-art pop music everyone kind of hates and here comes Miyazaki killing them with a 12 minute variation of the same punk rock song he's been working on in his garage for 15 years.
I don't want to derail this thread into a Horizon discussion, but I will say this: Aloy is fucking soulless. No personality to her save what you mentioned (being a condescending bitch). No interests or hopes or desires or whatever. She's perfect at everything she does. Everyone's kissing her ass all the time. She's unstoppable, even by folks who should be a lot more dangerous than she is. And she's only 19! She's basically a Mary Sue.I wasn't far into it when I dumped her for Elden Ring, and I get what they were going for thematically with her being isolated as the world's only savior, but turning your once sympathy hero into a condescending asshole to everyone, even their friends, is an odd choice! I guess it appeals to the popular notion with the kids these days that any of your awful behavior is justified if you think you're righteous, which... *checks history book* has never gone wrong!
Dunno the details tbh. But regardless, releasing in the same week as ER didn't do them any favors.Well, to be fair, didn't Plymouth Rock decide to land on them? I know ER got pushed back another month near the end, did Horizon move up to that spot after?
I'm thinking FromSoft could explore a more modern-esque setting? Maybe take us to outer-space? Who knows? But a new setting would be nice, even though I'd still enjoy another dark fantasy setting anyway.If it's a third person action game in a dark fantasy setting with unforgiving combat I won't be surprised (but if it doesn't still use animations from Demon's Souls I will be =).
Perfectly summed upI couldn't help it and went down the rabbithole, but didn't mind because it does just sound like some whiny teen twitter stans doing what they do, but there was some cool Berserk fanart in the trending topic, including a lot of Souls and even Vagabond crossover (I can't help but feel partly responsible =), plus I found my center of the Venn diagram on this issue, save for the unfortunate username:
That's a really good point. I never thought about them making separate movesets for bosses in different modes before as opposed to simply buffing the boss' health bar and damage. I don't think any dev will do that though, even hard-working Japanese ones. It's probably too much work. But I hope to be proven wrong here.
I do enjoy the themes of Dark Souls, but I'm relieved ER had a different tone to freshen things up. I noticed the FromSoft tones becoming more positive/heroic post-Bloodborne. Sekiro was all about Buddhist themes. ER is grand and heroic, and so on. That said, there are still some depressing mini-storylines in ER too. Guess old habits die hard.
Except they've been doing the same thing over and over too (I mean western devs in general).
I suppose the best (or worst) statement about her character is that she reminds me of that other awful, soulless protagonist: Rey from Disney Star Wars.
Dunno the details tbh. But regardless, releasing in the same week as ER didn't do them any favors.
I'm thinking FromSoft could explore a more modern-esque setting? Maybe take us to outer-space? Who knows? But a new setting would be nice, even though I'd still enjoy another dark fantasy setting anyway.
Perfectly summed up
Yeah. Before the nerf mine had around 10k hp at +10. You could pretty much use it as a tank to distract the boss while you trickle it down. I was able to take out Malekith in one go by just watching my summon trickle down most of his hp before I joined the fight. I haven't played today yet, so I haven't had a chance to inspect all the changes, but from what I gather, it can't heal itself anymore, and they might have reduced its damaged output. I don't think they've reduced the hp on it thoughI’m glad they nerfed the mimic tear. I’m not sure what they were thinking with it costing HP rather than FP? I’ve heard it has more HP than your character when it’s fully maxed out. It doesn’t seem like a great design choice for what stands out as the best summon in the game in most cases.
I’ve still only scratched the surface of this game but I’m already thinking about where they could go from here? Even as far as DLC. New mounts? Horse armor? More PVP style arena stuff? The horse armor would be funny but I feel they could expand the mount system a bit.
I had the same feelings had Walter with this game. It reminded me of playing SOTC for the first time. It’s a feeling that I haven’t felt while playing a game in a long time. A rare one for sure.
Someone also brought up how FROMSOFT probably reused a lot of dark souls assets for this game and just built off it to create more content. I agree and I’m so glad they did. The amount of content in this game is staggering and who knows how it would’ve turned out if they tried to make the whole thing from the ground up.
I’m glad they nerfed the mimic tear. I’m not sure what they were thinking with it costing HP rather than FP? I’ve heard it has more HP than your character when it’s fully maxed out. It doesn’t seem like a great design choice for what stands out as the best summon in the game in most cases.
I’ve still only scratched the surface of this game but I’m already thinking about where they could go from here? Even as far as DLC. New mounts? Horse armor? More PVP style arena stuff? The horse armor would be funny but I feel they could expand the mount system a bit.
Someone also brought up how FROMSOFT probably reused a lot of dark souls assets for this game and just built off it to create more content. I agree and I’m so glad they did. The amount of content in this game is staggering and who knows how it would’ve turned out if they tried to make the whole thing from the ground up.
Yeah. Before the nerf mine had around 10k hp at +10. You could pretty much use it as a tank to distract the boss while you trickle it down. I was able to take out Malekith in one go by just watching my summon trickle down most of his hp before I joined the fight. I haven't played today yet, so I haven't had a chance to inspect all the changes, but from what I gather, it can't heal itself anymore, and they might have reduced its damaged output. I don't think they've reduced the hp on it though
I agree with everything except the horse bit. I don’t think the game engine could handle two players on horse back. At least not the last gen consoles.I think the best thing to improve, and not even as DLC, is co-op and specifically giving you more solo game options, particularly the horse. I do like that they essentially weaken your attack to the host's level if there's a big disparity so you don't break their game using your main character, though the cutting all life and flasks in half is a bit much, and they should get rid of being dumped after beating a boss, etc. It's just being true to Souls co-op with those things, but I think they did enough normal stuff otherwise, passwords, etc to go all the way and just let you 2 player the game essentially. Other than that, well, I'm not even through enough to want more yet
I just beat Godrick for the first time. I'm not sure if he was nerfed but after every two or three combos he stopped to wheeze for like a minute.can anyone confirm if the new update also nerfed some of the bosses? I heard rumors but I’m not sure if they were true. I hope it’s not the case.
I agree with everything except the horse bit. I don’t think the game engine could handle two players on horse back. At least not the last gen consoles.
can anyone confirm if the new update also nerfed some of the bosses? I heard rumors but I’m not sure if they were true. I hope it’s not the case.
I just beat Godrick for the first time. I'm not sure if he was nerfed but after every two or three combos he stopped to wheeze for like a minute.