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Julius

Elden Ring (25th February 2022)

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4 hours ago, drahkon said:

Think I'm gonna relax a little, explore some areas

Welp...here's what I found (slight open-world location spoilers - not very specific but as always: in spoiler tags, just in case)

Spoiler

 

This is basically how it's been for my entire playthrough so far:

  1. mark interesting looking places on the map
  2. chill and walk in the open-world
  3. stop in my tracks because the marker is at something to behold
  4. explore that something

Won't tell you what I found in the above place...but it's been another "WHAT THE FUCK?!" moment :laughing: 

Came across some weird complaints on reddit while trying to look some stuff up. Many people say Elden Ring is mostly a walking simulator and you have to skip many things to get to the "good"/"big" places. And when they do that they complain that they get wrecked by whatever boss is guarding the "good"/"big" places.

I mean...yeah...that's what happens when you skip literally everything ::shrug: 

Edit:

Quote

Won't tell you what I found in the above place

I can tell you that it was awesome :p 

Found a quest while exploring a little more. After about an hour I finished it. Got taken to a place way in the north. Seems to happen quite frequently :D 
Acquired an item useful for PvP (I was wondering when you'd get it, to be honest, given that invading others has been fairly limited so far).
Never dabbled with PvP in Souls games, but I wonder how it'll work with the open world.

Anyways, fast traveled back 'cause I want to explore my current area more before moving onwards.

Now it's time for bed, though.

I love this game :heart: 

Edited by drahkon
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On 28/02/2022 at 7:48 AM, Hero-of-Time said:

It's been fun reading the impressions from you guys. None from @Sheikah or @LazyBoy yet though. I thought they would have been both in here praising the (sun) game.

That'll be because I've been playing it every second I can spare from caring for my newborns (and I'm pushing that close to neglect).

I'll be writing up my extended thoughts soon, but suffice to say not only is this a masterpiece, but it gives me hope that it can inspire the next generation of AA/AAA games to improve, after what I thought was a very, very poor generation for blockbuster games. I can't review it yet, because fuck me is this game massive. And not in the Assassins Creed  - here's 100 hours of c&p quests - kind of massive. Its mysterious, challenging, rich and constantly surprising, and all I want to do is play it.

More thoughts coming soon. Praise the sun.

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8 minutes ago, LazyBoy said:

Praise the sun.

No.

We praise the ring here.

Elden-Ring-Gestures-Guide-The-Ring-Margit-Boss.jpg

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I took on a boss yesterday that we saw in some of the trailers, but was completely overcome by chills and nearly teared up. Was not at all expecting to so viscerally react to a boss fight in this game, much less because of the beauty of the track backing the fight, or the actual moveset of the boss itself. The atmosphere, lighting, sound effects... seriously, though not a hard fight, that's immediately up there with some of my favourites. 

Moved on from Limgrave yesterday as I did what I had to in that area, think I explored most of it in the available directions but no doubt I've missed plenty. There was an Evergaol I want to return to but was getting sorely beat into submission by, so might need to go back to that at some point.

In an odd spot with my build where so far most of my points have gone into VIG/END/STR - a standard build - but now I'm investing in INT to make use of a cool sorcery I picked up, which inevitably means a bit of invest in MIND, and I want to try out a different weapon too, so DEX as well. Aiming to get those to 18-20 for access to a greater variety of tools at my disposal before I go back to pumping everything into VIG/END/STR. 

I've started heading north, unlocked the map for those areas, but I just keep getting amazed by the scale and secrets of The Lands Between. I'm loving it, but at the same time, I think playing this I've just given myself an exponentially harder time when it comes to going back and some day experiencing the earlier Dark Souls games, III in particular. Again, I feel like I've just barely scratched the surface of this game, and I'm left awestruck time and time again by it, whether that be it's combat, what I can figure out if the story, it's characters, or secrets to uncover in the world. 

Keeping notes has been a big help, specifically with merchants (I'm taking note of their name, location, and any key items I figure would be helpful, which is essentially me buying every Stonesword Key in sight!). It's also helped me to actually progress some quests in a From game for a change...but that didn't save someone from dying :p

15 hours ago, drahkon said:

This is basically how it's been for my entire playthrough so far:

  1. mark interesting looking places on the map
  2. chill and walk in the open-world
  3. stop in my tracks because the marker is at something to behold
  4. explore that something

It's been really interesting on my journey just seeing how differently I tackle each area.

In central Limgrave during the CNT I explored most of it, so here it was mainly going through and completing things I'd come across before as I came across them, but sometimes I just find myself in the mood for wandering off ahead and seeing how far I can get, and what cool things I can see, setting up a bunch of Sites of Lost Grace along the way before coming back at some point and slowly going through the area, no doubt still missing plenty.

But the thing with Elden Ring is it gets to 21:00, I've been on most of the day, so I start winding down...and then I think "eh, you know, I could just explore a little more, maybe 30 minutes and then I'll start to properly wind down for bed" or I get an idea of how to deal with some secret/cave/quest, and so I go back on for a bit. I do whatever I planned to do in that 30 minutes, and then I find another thing: "okay, let's quickly check this out, and then I'll go off to sleep." 

And then it's 01:00 :D the "oh, okay, just one more thing" nature of the game is making it incredibly tough to put down, which I'm very surprised by as my time with both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls gave me times at which I was more than happy to take a break, as the bleak and oppressive nature of the games could get a bit overwhelming at times. Here, I don't mind just trying something else, somewhere else, because I can and the game has no issue with me doing that.

I only have Demon's Souls and Dark Souls as my points of comparison - the two mechanically oldest games in this style - but I can already comfortably say that this is my favourite From Software game. There's no doubt in my mind. 

Edited by Julius
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16 minutes ago, Julius said:

but sometimes I just find myself in the mood for wandering off ahead and seeing how far I can get, and what cool things I can see, setting up a bunch of Sites of Lost Grace along the way before coming back at some point and slowly going through the area, no doubt still missing plenty.

Yeah, sometimes I do this, too.

Walk into a new area, find the map and some Sites of Lost Grace, maybe check the odd location and then go back to where I think I'm actually supposed to be :D 

17 minutes ago, Julius said:

Keeping notes has been a big help

I decided not to take notes for my first playthrough. Maybe it'll make the inevitable NG+ playthrough a little "fresher". If I took notes I'd no doubt use them as a checklist for my second run.
But I can see how keeping notes is very helpful.

18 minutes ago, Julius said:

 the "oh, okay, just one more thing" nature of the game is making it incredibly tough to put down

Tell me about it.
I've been playing this game mostly at night, starting at 8 or 9pm and end up going to bed at 2am.
Yesterday was a prime example: Completed a quest, got a PvP item and then spent almost 2 hours using that item. :laughing: 

20 minutes ago, Julius said:

I took on a boss yesterday that we saw in some of the trailers, but was completely overcome by chills and nearly teared up. Was not at all expecting to so viscerally react to a boss fight in this game, much less because of the beauty of the track backing the fight, or the actual moveset of the boss itself. The atmosphere, lighting, sound effects... seriously, though not a hard fight, that's immediately up there with some of my favourites. 

Hmm...I wonder which boss you're talking about and if I've fought it.
Gimme some hints :p 

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That'll be because I've been playing it every second I can spare from caring for my newborns (and I'm pushing that close to neglect).
I'll be writing up my extended thoughts soon, but suffice to say not only is this a masterpiece, but it gives me hope that it can inspire the next generation of AA/AAA games to improve, after what I thought was a very, very poor generation for blockbuster games. I can't review it yet, because fuck me is this game massive. And not in the Assassins Creed  - here's 100 hours of c&p quests - kind of massive. Its mysterious, challenging, rich and constantly surprising, and all I want to do is play it.
More thoughts coming soon. Praise the sun.

Mate, we praise the ring now.
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27 minutes ago, drahkon said:

I decided not to take notes for my first playthrough. Maybe it'll make the inevitable NG+ playthrough a little "fresher". If I took notes I'd no doubt use them as a checklist for my second run.
But I can see how keeping notes is very helpful.

Oh yeah, that's totally fair! The game's huge...no doubt I'm loving it that much I could see myself playing a NG+, but if I were to do it after beating the game for the first time or in the next six months, I could see myself taking the crit path, depending on what carries over to NG+ and if there are multiple endings (which I imagine there probably are?). I'm mostly doing it for sanity ("wait, where was that thing I saw / wanted to buy?!") and to keep note if cool things, but nothing massively exhaustive. 

For me I guess it's just to keep track of things, and it's making it much easier to remember the quests, as just writing down what I need and where an NPC was makes me much more likely to remember it. It's already gone wrong once (unless that NPC was meant to die? I have no idea with these games) but with the game being so big it's definitely helping me keep my head straight. Especially helpful when I find a sorcery, armament, set of notes or Stonesword Key at a merchant too, just writing down all the interesting stuff they have that I want, how much they have of it, it's price, etc.

It's also proving useful for some of the occasions where I do run ahead but done explore, say, some Catacombs that I open up and get the Site of Lost Grace for, just by keeping a list of the bosses I've beat, where they were, and keeping track of how many attempts it took to beat them has been funny to see too :laughing:

27 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Hmm...I wonder which boss you're talking about and if I've fought it.
Gimme some hints :p 

The first "HOLY CRAP!" moment I posted, it's around there :p three tiers of spoiler tags below: explicitly the general location (just clarifying the hint), how to unlock the fight, and the explicit location of the boss fight :peace:

Spoiler

Down in the Siofra River. 

Spoiler

Light the fires

Spoiler

The temple grounds a stone's throw away from the second Site of Grace you should come across down there

 

 

 

Edited by Julius

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Played some co-op with my 13 year old lad last night, thoroughly enjoyed it and he is so much better at it than me it made clearing the bosses together a good laugh!

 

Golden horse guy is down, coastal caves, weird frog cave things and the other cave near that.

 

Tonight we take on the sparkly cave near the water.

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This is probably my twenty-somethingth "HOLY CRAP" moment of the game, but seriously, at this point - what the heck is this game?! 

Pretty far north of Limgrave to give a rough idea of where in the world the spoiler tag is for, trying to keep text in the tags brief/obscure enough to avoid spoiling for Tapatalk folks. 

Spoiler

Well it doesn't get more blatantly referential and magical than that :bowdown:

 

Edited by Julius

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8 hours ago, Julius said:

The first "HOLY CRAP!" moment I posted, it's around there :p three tiers of spoiler tags below: explicitly the general location (just clarifying the hint), how to unlock the fight, and the explicit location of the boss fight :peace:

I was determined to find that boss. Didn't read your spoilers, but I figured it was in that area.

So I went there and I did find a boss. But it was...just a boss. Nothing special. I actually fought a more difficult version of it in a different place. I thought: "Nah, this isn't what Julius was talking about."
I then entered that area again and looked for something. Anything.
When I reached the first Site of Grace it hit me:

Spoiler

There was this lit up fire place.
And a bit further up a pillar was lit up on the top. With more pillars not lit up.

AHA!

Well, well, well, look who's a genius. In all seriousness: This is a brilliant puzzle. The solution is right there and it's also the hint that there even is a puzzle. Love it.

And yeah...

9 hours ago, Julius said:

was completely overcome by chills and nearly teared up. Was not at all expecting to so viscerally react to a boss fight in this game, much less because of the beauty of the track backing the fight, or the actual moveset of the boss itself. The atmosphere, lighting, sound effects... seriously, though not a hard fight, that's immediately up there with some of my favourites. 

While I didn't have a similarly intense reaction, it was an incredible boss fight. :o 
A little on the easy side, though. But maybe that's because I thought the area's normal enemies were annoying and surprisingly brutal :p 

There seems to be just a little more to that area, though. But no idea how to reach those places ::shrug: 

Edited by drahkon
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After briefly dabbling with the game on Saturday, I started playing it properly this evening. After a couple hours of play I'm not really sure how I feel about it.

When I watched trailers of this game and looked at how big the world was, I was worried that the Souls formula may lose something with this type of environment and for me, that's exactly what's happened. What I love about Souls games is how tight and close quarters a lot of the areas are. It was about learning enemy patterns but also managing the limited space in the environment. So far I've not witnessed any of this. In fact it's quite easy to engage with enemies and then just peg it if things start going south.

The samurai class is working well for me. I always prefer going hand to hand in these games and it's no different here. I love the jumping attack that's on offer here. It's very satsfying when both the initial attack and follow up attack land correctly.

At the moment I've fought one mini boss in a very early cave and just generally ran around looking for enemies that dish out some good exp. I'm currently saved at an area that dishes out 1094 experience per kill, which is a healthy amount given that I'm still at the start of the game. I've levelled up strength and dexterity up to level 20 and will probably hang around this area until I've done the same with my health and endurance. At that point I'll go back to the starting area and begin cleaning house with my new found power.

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5 hours ago, Julius said:

 Pretty far north of Limgrave to give a rough idea of where in the world the spoiler tag is for, trying to keep text in the tags brief/obscure enough to avoid spoiling for Tapatalk folks. 

Just reached that place, too. :o Not sure what you with referential, though (not entirely sure, what that word means - translating it doesn't help much :D).

10 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

What I love about Souls games is how tight and close quarters a lot of the areas are. It was about learning enemy patterns but also managing the limited space in the environment.

Keep at it. Eventually you'll reach places like that.

If I understand the game correctly, the big areas from past Souls games are now interconnected via the open-world, as opposed to just travelling via load-screens between them. At least that's how it's been so far. I've beaten two major bosses and their "locations" are literally the typical Souls locations you know and love.

Edited by drahkon

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11 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Keep at it. Eventually you'll reach places like that.

If I understand the game correctly, the big areas from past Souls games are now interconnected via the open-world, as opposed to just travelling via load-screens between them. At least that's how it's been so far. I've beaten two major bosses and their "locations" are literally the typical Souls locations you know and love.

Yeah, but I have to traverse a huge open world to get to the good stuff. :( 

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Just now, Hero-of-Time said:

Yeah, but I have to traverse a huge open world to get to the good stuff. :( 

To be honest...you won't find much joy with this, then. :hmm: 
The open-world is a big part of the game. There's secrets, huge locations, small camps, etc everywhere and are as much a part of the game as the "typical Souls locations". Everything is well worth exploring, but traversing the world is a necessary part of it.

15 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Just reached that place, too. :o

By the way, @Julius: There's not a lot to do, when you reach that place via the means we found, right? Or am I missing something?

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3 minutes ago, drahkon said:

To be honest...you won't find much joy with this, then.

Yeah, that certainly seems to be the case. I've never been one who is in awe of huge worlds and exploring every nook and cranny blindly. I'll obviously persevere with it but my initial impressions aren't filling me with confidence, especially when I fell in love with Demon/Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Seikro very early on. 

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1 minute ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I've never been one who is in awe of huge worlds and exploring every nook and cranny blindly.

Why did you get the game, then? You knew what you were getting into:

27 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

When I watched trailers of this game and looked at how big the world was

:p 

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Just now, drahkon said:

Why did you get the game, then? You knew what you were getting into:

:p 

Because I'm willing to give most games a chance, especially if I like the series. BOTW is another case in point. Once played, I can at least give an accurate opinion on them.

Apologies for not enjoying the game as much as everyone else. I'll leave the thread to the positive banter.

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9 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Apologies for not enjoying the game as much as everyone else. I'll leave the thread to the positive banter.

I didn't mean to be negative. I was just genuinely wondering, why you'd give the game a go when you knew beforehand that you most likely won't enjoy one of the major aspects of it.
Sorry if I came across as patronizing. 

I'm always open for opinions, even if I don't agree.

12 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Once played, I can at least give an accurate opinion on them.

Very valid reason. I forgot you did the same with BotW.

But now I know what to expect from your future posts :p This time, however, I'll probably mostly disagree :D 

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1 hour ago, drahkon said:

While I didn't have a similarly intense reaction, it was an incredible boss fight. :o 
A little on the easy side, though. But maybe that's because I thought the area's normal enemies were annoying and surprisingly brutal :p 

Yeah, think tiredness might have played a part, but there was just a sense of wonder for me that I just can't nail down. It just made me feel more than a boss fight in a game, it's a tough one to explain!

And yes, those guys are a pain in the ass! I actually bolted out of that area the first time because of them, but at that point I'd figured out what was going on with how to unlock the thing, just thought I was under-levelled ::shrug:

1 hour ago, drahkon said:

There seems to be just a little more to that area, though. But no idea how to reach those places ::shrug: 

I spent about 30 minutes jumping around the place with Torrent and had no luck, so I figure (I don't actually know anything, but stick it in a spoiler because just referencing it feels spoiler-ish):

Spoiler

I reckon there's probably another area to access that part of the map, I just don't know where for the life of me. Maybe it'll open up in the story or something, but there's definitely more up there judging from the map. 

Ditto that experience for a plateau south of Liurnia Lake that I can see on the map. There's some cool stuff under there, but I must be missing something, or be blocked off. Getting close to its cliff faces plays some intense music, so I'm confident there's something, but I can't seem to find a way up there. 

 

56 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Just reached that place, too. :o Not sure what you with referential, though (not entirely sure, what that word means - translating it doesn't help much :D).

Spoiler

I kind of guessed that there were some references to Ghibli's first film, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, from some of the trailers we had before, and then the CNT, and the full game now is being very explicit about it. The place basically looks like a fallen apart version of:

GHI_CastleInTheSky__Select2.jpg

Alongside Nausicäa, it basically helped mould the foundations of early JRPG's...meaning basically most JRPG's ever made, if we think about how much is taken from Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy specifically. The trope of an ancient civilization becoming disillusioned by power/wisdom and falling apart practically stems from the film, at least in the world of fiction. 

To take this further, there's a robot warrior in that film - basically a golem - who falls to the earth, and because of this we get to see it's crazy powers, such as unleashing enormous blasts of power which naturally creates a lot of fire.

PoliteSameGourami-size_restricted.gif

And then in Elden Ring there's an enemy type with a not too dissimilar moveset made of some crazy durable natural material similar to those golems, and even a field of them which I think are implied to have fallen from the sky (the one south of Stormveil Castle, with only half health). These guys:

elden-ring-network-test.jpg?x60655

Definitely recommend the film, it's a cosy time on a Sunday with a hot chocolate! 

 

41 minutes ago, drahkon said:

By the way, @Julius: There's not a lot to do, when you reach that place via the means we found, right? Or am I missing something?

Not that I could find...

Spoiler

You can drop down a few ledges and maybe there's a Site of Lost Grace? I'm not sure as I couldn't get further than those two Beastmen, but I think it's similar to the other one which takes you to the Capital but doesn't let you do much there. Seems more like a tease with a view. 

Also find it super cool that one of the first bosses you fight in Limgrave in one of the caves is a Beastman from that area. 

 

@Hero-of-Time sorry to hear you're not as crazy hot as some of us on here from the get-go, but as you've played the other From games - and played a hell of a lot of games in general! - I always find your perspectives invaluable. Even if this becomes my favourite game of all time and you hate it (not saying you do or will, just hypothetically if you came away really down on it), I'm sure I'll be able to understand where you're coming from, so by all means go for it, I think it just makes for much better, more rounded, and more meaningful discussion around the game. I've definitely got some minor nitpicks with the game (ahem, why not tell me how many Gold Seeds or Tears I have when asking me if I want to upgrade and then saying I don't have enough!). 

I also appreciate the honesty because I've definitely heard and read some things around the internet the last few days (not here, but on some of the early impressions stuff and review talk last week) where I'm just sitting there like "you're blazing hot on this game...but you don't even seem to understand the game? What are you talking about?!", and it's infuriating because it sometimes feels like people get caught in the zeitgeist and basically are throwing up the same buzzwords and opinions without giving it much thought. It's nice to read some level-headed "this is where I'm at with the game, this is how I feel about it", and for it to be something other than the usual non-positive thing about the game's difficulty.

For me, I loved Breath of the Wild, even if it had a lot of areas where I want it to improve when it comes to its sequel. Demon's Souls and Dark Souls I thoroughly enjoyed, but it was just too oppressive for too long at times for me, and made me feel overwhelmed and need to take regular breaks, whereas with Elden Ring, because it's much more open and I'm not being bottlenecked down a certain route, I can find my own room to breathe, which is giving rise to some super long play sessions. I also just love the mechanical additions, like with the Jump Attack and Shield Counter coupled with stagger, and as I said before, I'm very worried about how willing I'll be to go back to Dark Souls II and III after this. 

Funnily enough, though, when I talked to a friend on Friday during our weekly GTA session, I was only some 4 hours in or so, and remember saying "there hasn't been a great interconnected space yet which feels like a proper From dungeon - I haven't gone to the castle yet, so know something like that could be coming, but I kind of miss it and I'm concerned about how it'll be handled." I've played through that legacy dungeon (think that's the buzzword they were using in the marketing) since and I think it absolutely captures that feeling, so look forward to hearing your thoughts on that when you get to some of them :peace:

EDIT: I'm also sorry that got so long-winded :laughing:

Edited by Julius
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Yeah, but I have to traverse a huge open world to get to the good stuff.  

Just think of it as traversing Hyrule field and you'll be fine.

 

In all seriousness, for me this game is nothing like most open worlds in that its environment is packed full of unique and interesting content. There's nothing copy and paste about, and I never get that feeling that it's endless wandering through boring stuff to get to interesting stuff.

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Loving it, I'm now at level 33 and still getting my arse kicked regularly.  There so much to do and see though, it's all quite overwhelming really but in a good way.  

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12 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Because I'm willing to give most games a chance, especially if I like the series. BOTW is another case in point. Once played, I can at least give an accurate opinion on them.

Apologies for not enjoying the game as much as everyone else. I'll leave the thread to the positive banter.

Its funny, we had a similar disagreement when we were discussing BotW. I think you ended up winning that argument, because when I pointed out that you can just go and try your luck on the end boss (thus justifying the need to 'level up' in the world first), you said you did, and you beat it.

Now if you did that in Elden Ring you'd really be showing off.

However to give you some credit, I had doubts when I was just out in that first open world section. As you highlight, I was just running about in the open world, riding away from areas I found too hard, and just doing the 'easy' bits. This weakened the experience, along with other doubts that were starting to seed. Where the game really came together for me was that first proper dungeon, the first checkpoint and first 'wall'. I implore you before you give up on this game to ride up to the gates of Stormveil Castle, and try your luck. I won't say anymore, but please come back to us if you do try it and let us know whether your opinion changed.

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Horsey can be annoying at times. He just can't stand still after a double jump :D 

Just found a new location with an interesting character.
Went to that location again at night, because messages all around said to do that...and boom, boss fight :laughing: That dude kicked my ass for a while. Shame that the reward for victory wasn't great.

Also finally did the thing with the finger snap. Turns out I completed part of that quest much earlier.

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On March 2, 2022 at 10:48 AM, LazyBoy said:

However to give you some credit, I had doubts when I was just out in that first open world section. As you highlight, I was just running about in the open world, riding away from areas I found too hard, and just doing the 'easy' bits. This weakened the experience, along with other doubts that were starting to seed. Where the game really came together for me was that first proper dungeon, the first checkpoint and first 'wall'. I implore you before you give up on this game to ride up to the gates of Stormveil Castle, and try your luck. I won't say anymore, but please come back to us if you do try it and let us know whether your opinion changed.

Who said I was giving up? People on here should really know me better than that. It's VERY rare that I will give up on a game and shelve it, even if I'm not enjoying it. 

As for if my opinion has changed on the game...kinda. However, that's only because I've changed how I approach it. I still care very little for the open world and much prefer the size of the worlds in their previous games but I'm getting around this by playing the game how I played BOTW, as well as many other open world games,  in that I'm just pegging it to all areas of the map, unfogging it and then finding as many warp points as I can. This has allowed me to skip around the world as I need and cuts out the traversal that I don't care for.

I'm now 7 hours into the game and have my character at level 44, with Utchig....Uchitag....that samurai sword that I can't spell or pronounce at level +6. I've killed many a mini boss and wrecked the first two proper bosses. I have to say, so far this is definitely the easiest SoulsBorne game I've played. Even if I done lots of early grinding in the past games, some of the early areas still provided a bit of challenge but so far that hasn't been the case here. It's been pretty much smooth sailing.

I usually play these games offline but decided to start this one with online options enabled. Yeah, that didn't last long. There were far too many messages kicking about the world for my liking and was happy enough to get rid of them all by playing offline again.

It's been great having the banter at work about the game. One of my co-workers is also playing it and the discussions have been plentiful. We arrive in the lab each morning and spend a good hour talking about what we've found, where we have been and how much we've upgraded our characters. With the game being new, it's been fun exchanging experiences and talking about what are plans/goals are for when we each get back on the game in the evening. It's interesting seeing how differently we play the game. He's put about 30 hours into it and yet I'm pretty much at the same point as him but at a higher level. He's definitely one for sightseeing and absorbing the lore of the game. Me? Not so much.

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33 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

It's been pretty much smooth sailing.

Not to discredit your skills, of course, but you're using a pretty strong weapon. The Blood effect is ridiculously powerful.
I'm using a Katana myself and its damage output is stupidly high :D If I can consistently get hits in, almost nothing stands a chance. Only when enemies gang up on me, I get into trouble. I Should maybe invest in some Vigor.

It's interesting, though. Many people say this is the most difficult Souls game, but I, as do you, disagree. It's actually pretty easy.
Maybe I should give Sekiro another go...I remember people saying it's very hard.

35 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

There were far too many messages kicking about the world for my liking and was happy enough to get rid of them all by playing offline again.

The messages here are so annoying.
"Fort,
night"

"Try finger,
but hole"

"Dog?"

I enjoyed the message system in the older Souls games. Sure, there were also some stupid ones, but those were mostly genuinely funny. And the amount of actual helpful messages made that system worthwhile.
In Elden Ring, it's just dumb thanks to some of the playerbase.

39 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

It's been great having the banter at work about the game.

I can only imagine.
Been playing the game mostly at night and a mate and I chat via a PSN party while we both explore the world.
We're kind of similar in that we explore a lot, so exchanging information is very helpful.

 

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