Elden Ring (25th February 2022) | Shadow of the Erdtree (21st June 2024)

[drahkon]

Awesome. Keep the updates coming until I start NG+  

Will lend my copy to a friend for a while so I'll just revel in patch notes  

Edit: Aaaaaand new page...see the last page for Julius' post witch the notes.

Edited March 17, 2022 by drahkon

[Sheikah]

Hoarfrost stomp nerfed, right after I actually started using it yesterday. Typical.

[drahkon]

3 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

Hoarfrost stomp nerfed, right after I actually started using it yesterday. Typical.

Just use the mimic. It's apparently still very good, albeit mostly as a tank now instead of both a tank and damage dealer  

[Sheikah]

Just use the mimic. It's apparently still very good, albeit mostly as a tank now instead of both a tank and damage dealer [emoji14] 

I should note my primary reason for speccing hoarfrost was to defeat the wanker in the gaol up above on the separated clifftop where there's lots of dragons and crystal enemies. You can't summon there. It worked a charm though - and just in time by the looks of it.

[drahkon]

1 minute ago, Sheikah said:

You can't summon there.

Ah yes, the trials and tribulations of the evergaols  

That particular one you mentioned was annoying, yeah. Took me many tries.

[Sheikah]

28 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Ah yes, the trials and tribulations of the evergaols  

That particular one you mentioned was annoying, yeah. Took me many tries.

Yeah, I think in my case my build (pretty much pure mage) was just not compatible with that boss at all, which was a bit of a shame. My choice was to either completely respec my character just to beat it then switch back (a hassle), or go the hoarfrost route.

[drahkon]

 

[Julius]

My journey is finally over. 

Spoiler

Love how my character's final look turned out, very Final Fantasy Dragoon-like  also love just how well my planned character name of Aligare worked out in terms of the lore, based it on the Latin alligare which means to bind, as from the trailers the focus on metals seemed abundant so focusing on a character being an alloy of sorts (i.e. being tarnished) just seemed a natural fit. Yeah, I definitely spent a bit too much time thinking about that...

It's late, so I'll be brief for now, but I'll be back with my thoughts on the latter stages of the game and some final thoughts. 

As someone who loves to dig deep into lore, and finally playing one of these games at launch, I finally found myself able to enjoy these games in the way many others do, reading item descriptions and trying to figure things out about the world and it's characters for myself before the collectively accepted lore is settled upon, as I found to be the case with Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, what with being so far removed from the release of those games when I first experienced them. I actually want to make some story DLC guesses, because I'm sure it's coming:

Spoiler

• Miquella DLC. Writing is absolutely on the wall for this, what with how he's such a key focus of two of the six Shardbearers (Mohg and Malenia) and is actually physically represented in the game in his egg chilling with Mohg. The lore behind his relationship with Mohg taking a turn is gross, but yeah, I think we're interacting with that egg and Miquella is going to be pissed that we silenced his twin sister. 

• Godwyn, Prince of Death DLC. Writing also seems on the wall for this, the Throne of the Prince of Death places Godwyn in the game in a super weird form, and he takes a backseat despite being present in the world and being such a big part of the actual main story around the Night of Black Knives and The Shattering. 

• finally, this is more of a "I don't know if this will happen but I'd want it", but I'd love to see a bit of time travel so we see some of these characters in their prime. Radahn, for example, is probably one of my favourite characters from a lore perspective so far, and his boss fight was awesome, despite him not being all there and a husk of his former self, depending almost purely on a warrior's instinct. 

I'm one of those who loved Breath of the Wild, and yeah, the comparisons between the open worlds of Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild is absolutely fair. The difference? The world of Elden Ring is much more tightly focused, abundant in and saturated with discoveries - whereas Breath of the Wild wants you to breathe and just soak everything in, Elden Ring is much more keen to nudge you along, but it's up to you whether you want to follow their guidance - and those discoveries feel much more rewarding in how they enrich your journey, whether that be through finding a new location and your jaw dropping to the floor at its environmental design, finding an awesome item in a chest, or even coming across NPCs, of which there are plenty in this game.

For the first time in one of these games, I think the decision to make the game open world allows for some nice breathing room in how you approach things, as you aren't having to walk down the same corridor and die to the same boss over and over again, and this being coupled with more contextual NPC summons, Spirit Ashes, and a crazy variety of weapons, spells, and incantations means you're never truly taking this journey on alone (if you don't want to), which relieves a pressure that I've personally felt in both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls before. 

It's not flawless, but then, I don't think any game with any great complexity to it beyond its mechanics can be. I think there are a few weird boss fights, in terms of a lot of things: crazily overpowered combos, too many duos, and just a tad too much repetition for my liking with some of the minor and mid-level bosses. I think the decision to rebalance the single player experience of a game with a focus on the multiplayer experience made for a bit of a weird adjustment period for me when I sat down with the game after the update, and reading into it more now, I think they toned down a boss fight which should have been difficult a tad too much, whereas they kind of ignored another obvious candidate for tweaking. I also think by and large that the boss fight music was kind of forgettable; there's definitely a standout track or two, but I'm not going bonkers over 50%+ of the soundtrack like I might have done with the other games of From's I've played so far. 

I need to let my thoughts sweat it out some more, but honestly, I think this game is a masterpiece and will rightly be talked about in the same breath as Breath of the Wild in how it's revolutionising modern open world games. Now, open worlds - especially ones a bit more free of direction like these two - might not be for everyone, and that's perfectly okay, but I think the key difference above all else for me with Elden Ring is that it masters almost everything from a micro- to macroscale, and that legacy dungeons - while generally shorter than what I've experienced in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls - still have a level of intricate level design which shows From at a whole other level, so if that's what you're looking for and the open world isn't for you, you have the flexibility to beeline it to wherever the game is pointing you and enjoy the game how you want to, playing how you want to play. I've brought up Breath of the Wild a lot, and I typically hate comparing games so much, but that game had a lot of issues for me that I think Elden Ring very overtly addresses, so I hope they were paying attention to the criticisms before, because otherwise they're going to be unavoidable going into Breath of the Wild's sequel for now. 

I've said it before, but now having finished the game, I'll say it again: it's the end of March, and I genuinely struggle to imagine any game surpassing Elden Ring for my pick for GOTY 2022. The year is long, and we'll see what happens, but in terms of my own personal rankings, I think Elden Ring is firmly in the Top 5, and possibly in my Top 3, favourite games of all time. Hell of a game. 

Kudos, From! 

[Sheikah]

Just got the plat. Incredible game from start to finish.

For me this has set the standard for open world games and I can't wait for the inevitable Elden Ring 2. It's hard to imagine the last time a game got me this excited...possibly Breath of the Wild.

[killthenet]

Did anyone else seriously struggle with the Godskin Noble fight in Volcano Manor? For whatever reason I just couldn't seem to get anywhere near to beating it, it's the most frustrated I've got with a Souls game for a long time, but I finally managed to hold my nerve to beat it a few minutes ago. Is it a difficult boss or was I just being especially inept?

Anyway, most of the time I'm loving this game, don't think I've been this enthralled by a game since BOTW

[Aperson]

On 4/7/2022 at 8:18 PM, killthenet said:

Did anyone else seriously struggle with the Godskin Noble fight in Volcano Manor? For whatever reason I just couldn't seem to get anywhere near to beating it, it's the most frustrated I've got with a Souls game for a long time, but I finally managed to hold my nerve to beat it a few minutes ago. Is it a difficult boss or was I just being especially inept?

Anyway, most of the time I'm loving this game, don't think I've been this enthralled by a game since BOTW

 

I REALLY struggled with that fight quite a lot.

 

It forced me to leave Volcano Manor and go out to find the Mimic Tear in order to be able to beat it. Now I'm in the lategame and am on my way to go after the last Great Runes.

[jayseven]

[Julius]

Official guides are on the way courtesy of Future Press...and split between two books, which are £40 each:

Seem more like coffee table/collection books than actual guides in this day and age, but they do look cool I guess? 

Edited June 11, 2022 by Julius

[Julius]

Okay, we knew the game was doing well, but this is nuts: according to Piscatella, Elden Ring is already in the all-time top 10 best-selling premium games in the US!

Good (Elden) Lord, that's freaking wild. 

Edited July 15, 2022 by Julius

[drahkon]

Sales aren't a good indicator but Elden Ring will sweep every GOTY award  

[Julius]

35 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Sales aren't a good indicator but Elden Ring will sweep every GOTY award  

I can't disagree at all, it's one of few games I've played at launch where I'm playing it and it's impossible to not comprehend that you're playing something special. I'm actually really curious when everyone got to that point, actually? Was it a boss, a general feeling, a location? For me it was...

Spoiler

...heading underground for the first time. 

My jaw dropped so damn hard. Can still remember that feeling and going "HOOOOOOOLY SHEESH KEBAB FROM WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!", that was super special! 

It is mounting up to be a bit of a weird GOTY this year though, I've got to say, though it could just be me. Even with most of the games you would have favoured to be GOTY nominees going into 2022 being delayed to next year, Ragnarök is still coming, but it just feels like it has a bit of an impossible task on its hands to beat Elden Ring to GOTY, at least at the most visible awards ceremonies (like The Game Awards).

I think knowing what to expect - and having such high expectations - is a bit of a factor in that, I don't think it has that shiny new toy allure that most seem to give greater weight to when it comes to GOTYs, even if I'm confident it will still turn out to be great. I feel like it could fall into the same sort of camp as Naughty Dog games (they're great, but they're expected to be great), and genuinely think the only game which stood a realistic chance of challenging Elden Ring for GOTY is Breath of the Wild's sequel, just considering that Elden Ring caught fire in a very similar way and for similar reasons to Breath of the Wild in 2017 

Elden Ring will fully deserve recognition come the end of the year, though, and I feel like that's a feeling that everyone who played it recognised back in February. It's an awesome game. I feel like GOTY discussions this year deeper than a surface level "X is GOTY" are going to quickly become dragging Elden Ring for its weaknesses compared to earlier From games (music, some repetition in mini bosses, some jank to boss battles) and the usual stuff you'd expect when criticising From games (difficulty - which I'd argue is easiest to overcome in this game, but whatever - and then stuff like quest tracking, some jank, etc.).

Whereas, on the other hand, Ragnarök I feel will likely be all of us going "well, it's a great game, but GOTY?" and the inevitable "it's more of the same". Should be nice though, after a Year of 9's we've got two potential heavyweights to duke it out for GOTY this year, and that should be fun

(and I'll just nominate The Last of Us Part I )

Edited July 15, 2022 by Julius

[Glen-i]

14 hours ago, Julius said:

Okay, we knew the game was doing well, but this is nuts: according to Piscatella, Elden Ring is already in the all-time top 10 best-selling premium games in the US!

Good (Elden) Lord, that's freaking wild. 

Actually, it's not certain whether that's the case.

Like, it's still doing crazy good, but not quite there... Yet.

[Julius]

1 hour ago, Glen-i said:

Actually, it's not certain whether that's the case.

Like, it's still doing crazy good, but not quite there... Yet.

Ah, appreciate the clarification! 

I definitely had a moment first reading it where I questioned it seeing as it sold 12 million in three weeks but staying on that trajectory would've been nuts (mainly because I thought "well, CoD sells most of its copies in the US, GTA V and Red Dead 2 have to be up there too, but for premium games other than those it's likely just then a case of them making up diminishing proportions of Japanese and European games"), so it makes sense. 

I simply had too much faith in the NPD, and it has now been shaken. 

Damn it Piscatella, read your dang numbers! 

Edited July 16, 2022 by Julius

[Julius]

The GOTY-elect still killing it: 16.6 million units shipped as of the end of June. 

 

[RedShell]

On 23/02/2022 at 3:24 PM, RedShell said:

I really want to get this, but at the same time... I don't want to get this.

Well, I finally plucked up the courage to play it.

A few hours in so far and I think I’ve already died way more than I did when starting out with DSII or Bloodborne!  Perhaps I just underestimated the difficulty due to so much talk of this being the easiest souls game, or I chose the wrong character type (Hero), or… (most likely) I just suck.

Game is fun though, and absolutely stunning!  
No problems with performance on PC either, but I’m guessing it’s been patched quite a bit since launch, and I’m also using VRR which is keeping things nice and smooth.  

Here’s hoping I’ll be able to get through the whole game, wish me luck, N-E!  

[Hero-of-Time]

Good luck! You're in for a treat.

[RedShell]

I’d forgotten just how much From Software like to troll players with their games.  They really do an amazing job of getting inside your head and messing with you. Enemy placement and traps in dungeons can be so damn fiendish!  The messages system helps to balance things out a bit though… mostly.

Have to say I’m loving how the horse impacts gameplay in this. Makes getting around the world super speedy and also provides a nice option for cowardly avoiding danger. Shame you can’t ride it inside really.

Going to have to spend some time properly looking into all the crafting malarkey soon I reckon, as I seem to be acquiring lots of items but not sure what to do with them. I tend to overlook most of the options like that these days, but it feels like I won’t be able to get away with doing that in this particular game.

[drahkon]

2 minutes ago, RedShell said:

Going to have to spend some time properly looking into all the crafting malarkey soon I reckon,

No need.

I don't think I've crafted a single item during my 95 hour long playthrough  (aside from gear, of course)

Edited November 26, 2022 by drahkon

[RedShell]

2 minutes ago, drahkon said:

No need.

I don't think I've crafted a single item during my 95 hour long playthrough  (aside from gear, of course)

Yeah, that’s fine for you, but I’m blatantly going to need all the help I can get.  

[Hero-of-Time]

5 minutes ago, RedShell said:

Yeah, that’s fine for you, but I’m blatantly going to need all the help I can get.