I don’t think it was a totally catastrophic mistake, I just think the composition and the pacing of the open world really collapsed from the capital onward, similar to how sekiro’s first third is so poorly arranged for many souls veterans, or bloodborne’s item farming and gear feels like a regression. it’s a weirdly conspicuous flaw, but doesn’t sink the project – the ranni throughline in particular uses the open world really well.
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it’s interesting to think about for me
i liked the open world because it was significantly more compelling and begging-to-be-explored than nearly every other open world i’d experienced (notable exceptions include Breath of the Wild, Morrowind, subsequently Death Stranding)
still, could the game have been even better with a more reined-in, knotted layout like DS1, just with more scope and scale? i mean… yes
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arguably from the plateau onwards really
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same top 2, can’t be bothered to order the others.
i like the open world a lot, not necessarily on a mechanical level, but for the scale and setting and sense of place. it sells me on the adventure and roleplay of the game. areas in previous souls titles have place, but they feel hotglued together. it’s much easier to imagine my play in elden ring as a grand adventure, because it fills in the gaps more convincingly.
the caves, catacombs, graves are almost enough by themselves to justify the open world to me. they’re nice, self-contained tightly-designed little adventures and i don’t know how fit them in without this structure.
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Indeed. But also, a year out from the game’s release I have gradually added another major criticism.
I think the open world structure also reduced the replayability of those good first two-thirds. I have replayed every other Soulslike at least once – it’s a core part of the genre’s experience for me – and I find I have very little desire to do that with Elden Ring.
The open-world structure relies on player curiosity and ignorance to function. On a second playthrough, idle roaming or exploration-for-exploration’s-sake no longer makes sense, and I also haven’t been able to think of any self-imposed “conduct” principles that would hold me back from pathing through the gigantic option space so efficiently that there would hardly be any friction left. I have a foreshadowing of a tedious and hollow experience due to excessive “spoilers” in my memory and lack of clear motivation.
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yeah i really agree with this having replayed demons souls something like 3 times this past year or so the linearity is part of the fun! an individual level or progression of levels is very fun to replay
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this makes sense to me! my enjoyment of souls games is so closely tied to discovery that i’ve never replayed any of them. that they happen to function really well mechanically or with varied builds is a bonus that enriches my initial experience, but doesn’t compel me to play them again.
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I also took a year off. Im like 200 hours in and just at the end area now. What a blast but I dunno if I’ll play this again. Other than maybe to do the quick step plus berserk sword build. And see how far i can get with rush bonking. One thing i dont understand is playing with weapons that do no stagger. Ive become a trina sleep sword and halbred junkie, using sword dance to whorl my way into fights. I love exploring the halig tree but I will prolly quit before melania. I already know im not good enough. Occasinally going back to mohg god of blood and getting pretty well stomped during the second half. Using a lot of tricks but once my buddy is gone im dead meat.
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I always go for new saves not NG+, so to me replaying Souls games feels something like a boss rush with the levels functioning as a particularly cool and elaborate menu, with detailed rules limiting what order I can fight them in and what loadouts I can carry to each boss to make sure it remains a challenge.
I enjoy the change in perspective from weeks-long, curious and tentative exploration on the first playthrough to brisk and decisive ~one-day playthroughs on my subsequent ones. It’s a way of showing off my hard-earned skills and expressing that I’m now at home in this world.
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i want it to be deranged subversive multiplayer shit so bad
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I’m at 300 something hours and haven’t really gone past the capital yet. That deep sewer area feels like some bullshit. Been doing a ton of summon sign dropping.
While running through Stormveil for the billionth time with someone else last week I just found a corner I had previously missed. I think all I got out of it was some crossbow bolts but still that was neat.
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btw I love talking about “the plateau” without any specific other referent in the context of elden ring because it always sounds like I’m a hair’s breadth away from complaining about Montreal traffic
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Reading this I feel like I caught a break with Malenia going down within like… ten or so attempts? TBF I had heard all the horror tales and had a friend tell me that if I find the mimic tear to boost it up just in case, so that was at max strength and with each of us possessing giant club-type weapons stunning her repeatedly wasn’t too hard. That said I still think I caught some good RNG luck and literally won on a “both swing, whoever hits first lives” coin flip, but it still felt like a fight you could meet on a realistic cheese vs cheese playing field.
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Well, I did it. I beat Elden Ring. 121 hours. Perhaps I’ll be motivated to do some more optional content, but I need a bit of a break before Armored Core 6 arrives.
The game mostly got easier the more I played, but I liked the home stretch a lot more than the last third of Dark Souls. I played an INT build so by the end I had a sorcery for basically every situation.
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Anyone else playing Remnant 2? I feel that it is good.
Got around to making forward progress again this week rather than mucking around with getting summoned for a quick fix.
There’s a bunch of obviously bad people telling me to do bad stuff, and some of the seemingly good people are at it too. If said bad stuff involves trying that wild platforming segment a sixth time (and from what I gather they’re pretty clearly sign posting that as that route), maybe I definitely don’t want to do it.
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if you see a naked lady with the Goldmask on and dual claws in Ainsel River… that’s me trying to get away from the rut of dual greatswords + lightning incantations
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got to the end of the lower part of the river, boss was a bit underwhelming. upgraded the claws and immediately regretted it, now ants die in 1 hit instead of 6-8
back to Dragonbarrow to try clawing up some enemies that were too tough 20 levels ago. how’s that going?
really appreciating Quickstep as “better dodgeroll”
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Nearly 400 hours in, after mainly using a series of halberds culminating with that Commander O’Neil one I leveled up the troll club from zero to +18 specifically to take out Borealis the ice dragon and it really really turned the tide. Even with those crystal alien dudes I just kept wacking them with my main weapon just because learning something new that they were vulnerable to didn’t feel worth the effort. I was ready to go with the club after a couple minutes of playing around with it and letting myself get summoned to fight those omen guys in the sewer.
Maybe I finally understand this series.
That blizzard area after the secret lift keeps kicking my ass though. I need to figure out a better way to approach that.
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