This is basically another Dark Souls game but in a more open world format. This is an easy pass for me.
The Shattered Elden Ring Thread: Tarnished Edition - (Shadow of the Erdtree p. 85)
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Elden Ring vs. Dark Souls: what's the same and what's just been renamed since Souls
Plenty is new in Elden Ring, but many familiar stats and items are back under new ring-themed names.
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Co-founder of Naughty Dog actually commented, making an interesting point -
Andrew Gavin 4 days ago (edited)
There actually is a generational leap shown with Elden Ring. It’s just subtle, but it is apparent to me as a longtime console game lead programmer and designer (co-founder Naughty Dog). In Dark Souls, while the art design was always fabulous, the engine with just good, not great like TLOU or God of War (OMG! I just, have to lol). But they still used extremely careful and crafty level design to showcase very large open vistas that depicted areas you could get to and were available in the game. However, those distant areas couldn’t be directly approached from the vista viewpoint, you had to wind your way through the convoluted levels in between. In this progression the viewpoint was always carefully managed so as not to overwhelm the amount of detail either required in memory or pushed through the render pipeline.
Likely, when you look down from high up and see the swamp far below it’s a low polygon replica of the swamp. In Elden Ring, this appears different, with a much larger amount of background assets connected into one less linear virtual level. Even still, they probably need lower polygon versions of far away chunks, and it’s highly unlikely you can spot the hollows on the battlements of a distant castle, but the Ps5/Xbox X can push enough through the pipe to render a far less toy variant and far more numerous actors than previous generations. The ER open design just wasn’t even possible on the PS3 and would be marginal (which big compromises) on the PS4.
FromSoftware is also a very efficient team. They reuse assets for 2 reasons, as you mentioned that they think it already works, and also to create emotional familiarity for players. This is most prominent in sound fx. Bloodborne, utter masterpiece that it is, and differently styled, borrows so many sounds from DS. But there is a deep emotional connection now to those sounds, like the sound of touching a bonfire/lamp or the use of a flask etc. it’s both instantly familiar and resonant.
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I saw that video and those people have no idea what they are talking about. I feel like a lot of hate is just clickbait tbh.
Because realistically if this game was nothing like Souls, people would be mad. At the same time people are also mad that it IS like Souls?
I dont get it. People were hyped because Fromsoft mastered the Souls formula (because they invented it). What did people think they were gonna get from Miyazaki and his team?
I remember people got pissed that Sekiro was too different. And those same people are saying ER is too samey.
I don't really see what the hype is all about. It's just more Dark Souls that From hardly seems to care about improving much. They are still using lock-on combat, which I said way back with Dark Souls is antiquated. Why not redesign the combat system so it's not lock-on so you can actually fight more than one enemy at a time so it's not a pain in the ass? If you don't wanna do that, why not take out the combat and basically make an atmosphere environmental puzzler with just a bit a combat sprinkled in (you can still do boss fights)? Sekiro was still too Dark Souls-y, the lock-on combat AGAIN, and the same Dark Souls design like bonfires, enemies respawning on death, etc when it made no sense for that game to have that same design decisions. The big dragon fight was pretty lame, Dragon's Dogma, Monster Hunter, and Horizon all do far better big enemy fights. The fight just showed really telegraphed attacks to avoid and then after so many hits you knock it out to then do a cool looking coup de grace attack. Mechanically the fight was really boring when you get past the visuals making it look better than it was. Dragon's Dogma, you can grab onto the dragon and it will then take fly you up so you fall to your death, the hydra can fucking eat you, etc. I want to feel like I'm fighting an actual dragon and Souls is just so video game-y (dodge at the right time then hit its chin a few times and repeat until dead), which really doesn't feel in tune with the overall atmosphere the game accomplishes when outside of combat.
Yeah been checking all of those, sadly no go. Can't be helped since I figure millions of people were applying for this. Ah well, hope you have fun with it anyways, I'll just watch vids and stuff. That energy greatsword stuff is hype.
If it was back in the day sans obligations I’d be taking a half day tomorrow since the first session starts at 6am EST, meaning with my schedule I’ll only get about half an hour in. We’ll see what I’m able to do. Definitely starting out with the Bloody Wolf class as I love me some melee.
I know what he means in terms of needing to be sort of reacquainted with the mechanics a bit. Played for about half hour or so this AM and they reworked the controls just enough so that it takes some relearning, especially with how parrying and counters work. Kept wanting to L2 but that doesn’t seem to work like it used to. Even the blocking and counter is tricky because some enemies can break your poise first. Guard breaks are apparently with a charged R2 vs how you used to be able to tap forward and R1 to kick, which would also act as a guard break for shielded enemies.
They really nerfed the basic enemies and tutorial “boss” health though since they likely want everyone staying alive and active in the map for the network test. I haven’t yet fought a boss in the open world. Really easy to stealth most of the other randoms though. Hoping to play more tonight as my spidey senses were going into overdrive looking around the map for places to explore.
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No clue. The "Open Field" thing was put out a while ago and while it was unclear what that meant, it did imply it would be less linear then Soulsborne games have been in the past.
Either people don't pay attention or have some image built in their head for what they want something to be. I mean, god, how many fucking articles and forum threads have I seen that go "What the next game in X needs is?" when next game has not been announced and possibly never will be? MGS and RDR are two particularly annoying versions of this. Sure, speculation is fun, but unless there's a reasonable expectation of thing happening it's basically tossing hypotheticals around.
Sorry, that got a bit off track.
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So Ive been watching VaatiVideo and a few other choice YouTubers do some Elden Ring gameplay, and...Im not feeling this one guys. It looks like every AAA game ever.
I can already hear the criticisms, that the venerable SoulsBorne franchise has finally fallen to the cancer of AAA and is now a 3rd person action adventure game with crafting and stealth elements.
Dark Souls games are broody, atmospheric adventures in the futility of life and struggling against entropy. Bloodborne is a lovecraftian horror mystery about attempting to beat death and live forever.
Elden Rings is...a fantasy world, with Dragons and crafting. Just feels like such a creative step back. Like the writers didn't want to bother with a grand, sweeping narrative and lore because its just an Assassin's Creed game now.
I can already hear the criticisms, that the venerable SoulsBorne franchise has finally fallen to the cancer of AAA and is now a 3rd person action adventure game with crafting and stealth elements.
Dark Souls games are broody, atmospheric adventures in the futility of life and struggling against entropy. Bloodborne is a lovecraftian horror mystery about attempting to beat death and live forever.
Elden Rings is...a fantasy world, with Dragons and crafting. Just feels like such a creative step back. Like the writers didn't want to bother with a grand, sweeping narrative and lore because its just an Assassin's Creed game now.
Speaking of writing, I’ll reserve judgment until, well, we actually see any of the story when the game is released.
I mean setting and tone are a pretty good indication of writing. Big open-world fantasy game with horses and dragons. Not exactly A-Material in Creative Writing 101.
On the Surface, Dark Souls isn't exactly creatively amazing either. Digging into the lore makes it a bit more interesting for sure but just looking at DS on it's face is "Oh, castles and dragons. Looks pretty standard".
Sekiro just swaps this out with Japan, Samurai and Ninjas and BB is pretty Victorian Gothic until the Lovecraft shit starts seeping in.
We'll see in a couple months if the details make Elden Ring interesting.
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If this was Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age perhaps, but the game was originally stated as being an extension or rather, evolution of Dark Souls which has always had, well, at least dragons. Also steeped in Berserk references, which is no different here.
So really, it was never going to be something completely original, because neither Dark Souls or even Bloodborne was. They’re always based on some other work; it’s just that few were familiar with it.
Having said that, FROM has always known how to put there own unique spin on things with their last games, and will likely continue to do so here.
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It's actually less like DS than I imagined it, which for me is a good thing. It took a lot of my favorite sekiro things like the posture system and equipping weapon skills and jumping and so on.
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