Elden Ring is like Dark Souls, but more. More scale, more options, more accessibility. God damn, it is good!
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Elden Ring – The Dark Souls Of Games That Aren’t Dark Souls (Jimpressions)
Elden Ring is like Dark Souls, but more. More scale, more options, more accessibility. God damn, it is good!
I love how the horse can jump really high, because it’s an excuse for From Software to make sure your horse doesn’t get stuck in weird terrain like other games, and they made it a feature.
I do like how they added things like stealth and the jump attacks, feels like they took stuff from Sekiro to expand upon gameplay for Elden Ring.
It’s so good. We got power stancing again, new spells and options, and a horse with horns that can jump, and then jump 180 degrees in the other direction while you hit pedestrians with your sword.
Amazing stuff.
“I’m done here. I need to finish this video so I can get back to playing it.”
TRUTH THIS GAME IS CRACK COCAINE AND I NEED IT IN MY VEINS
A quick note on performance – I’m playing on a Base PS4 and there are frame pacing issues, but it’s no worse than in DS3 – I’ve barely noticed it. If you’re on PS5 and you want a more stable experience, try running the PS4 version of the game via backwards compatibility. You’ll lose some visual fidelity. But honestly? I’m playing on a base PS4 and the visuals have still left my jaw on the floor. F**k the graphics discourse, art direction is more important and Elden Ring’s visuals are utterly captivating.
Spirit summons are such a good addition. Jellyfish supremacy is at a fever pitch, and I’m here for it.
I am being constantly amazed by this game
I really love how you put all your points in this. Perfectly explained. Thank you. I can get wait to get off work and play more
It’s really great. They took the open world stuff I like from Elder Scrolls games and put it in a much more fun to play game. I also love all the little quality of life stuff, like how your stamina bar doesn’t drain outside of combat, or that you get some flask charges back after clearing a group of enemies.
I do really like that if a boss is too hard, you don’t have to just ‘git gud’ throwing yourself at the boss relentlessly till you win.
You can instead wander off and explore other areas – Maybe find a new weapon type that you end up liking more, Or maybe you took 2 weeks off from the game, and just need to refresh that muscle memory before jumping into a difficult boss.
FINALLY someone else who likes linearity in games! I get lost and overwhelmed too easily in open world stuff, I always need a “hey dipshit here’s the objective” guide arrow
On the level design aspect, I’m like constantly amazed at how much work has gone into this front and how cleverly they’ve implemented level design into the world. Like I’ll wander into some empty looking ruins fight some enemies, walk around, fight some more enemies and by the time I’ve fought the last enemy the encounters and level design has lead me to the area where the mini-boss of that ruins is located. Which is like fairly clever since most of the ruins are just an open room basically.
Plus in like castles and shit they’ve really leveraged the jump button to make level design that feels the kind of design they’ve actually always wanted to make.
I love this game, always loved the souls series in general, and I hope some of its more forgiving elements (summons, less player invasions unless you open yourself to them, the open world actually being something that makes the game easier to step back and work yourself up when you hit places that are too much for you the first time) let more people enjoy the game.
Level design courtesy of From Software is just always ridiculously good. The idea that a company could in 1 game essentially go from being one of the best linearly designed games to one of the best open world designed games is just jaw-dropping. You’d think the change in mentality required to do this right would be immense.
I was looking forward to this game ever since it was announced I started my vacation on its release day and guess what it didn’t disappoint me goddamn i had forgotten what that feels like to look forward to a game and then it not only doesn’t disappoint it exceeds my expectations
It took me so long to realise the horse can frickin double jump. Mounted combat also feels invaluable against certain enemies whose ‘melee’ attacks seem to surge them forward 50 feet a swing. I’m loving the weapons and spells though, and the nifty summons.
Something I’m loving is that crafting isn’t a useless tacked on extra. I ran into a boss I could barely even hurt (17 damage woo), because I had gotten ahead of myself on exploration. And I managed to kill it by making a shitload of poison bone darts and keeping it perpetually poisoned. Most open world games just add that stuff in as pointless filler that doesn’t mean anything because your default weapon is super effective, but using random crafted shit has become a staple of my tactics now precisely because it’s just so good compared to stabbing things.
The shift from Chalice dungeons basically being a grind to unlock the next of the same thing, versus here where the catacombs, which are around the same style of thing, have to actually be found by the player makes such a massive difference in how much I enjoy them. It feels not like I’m generating the same set of things, but stumbling upon a secret. I think that’s just one example of how this game, unlike the vast majority of open world games imo, uses its open world to actually enhance an experience that was lacking something prior.