Elden Ring

[Maf]

If you pick the astrologer class they start with basically the best mage armour in the game. I didn’t find ‘better’ mage armour until 40+ hours in to the game. And even then other mage armour is only better in some ways, depending on the stat I needed. You can just pump up endurance and use knight armour, that’s what I ended up doing.

[Nag]

I guess I'll stop looking then...🤣

 

I'm quite surprised I'm enjoying this quite as much as I am... I'm sure I'll be raging at it soon though.

[DisturbedSwan]

I’m still on the starting Astrologer armour now at Level 138 or so 😂 I have a different hat but that’s about it.

 

Made some good progress last night thanks to the Wife nodding off. 
 

Made it through the entirety of the underground area and very easily defeated the boss at the end thanks to Comet Azur 
 

Spoiler

 

Then went back and tried my luck against Alecto, Black Knife Ringleader to try to get the Black Knife Tiche summon after failing mulitiple times before. Failed again a few times but in the end Comet Azur came through for me

Spoiler

 

So yeah, good progress and I actually enjoyed it last night.

[Maf]

Man, I thought rocks were cheap. What up, Goku? 

[DisturbedSwan]

Ha yeah, I only unlocked it a few sessions back so thought I'd give it a test drive for these two fights and it was effective. I will say though it's only really good against slow enemies or right at the start of a fight before an enemy has time to react and can't attack you, it was absolutely useless against Malenia.

 

I still wanna unlock the Moon spell as well but I need 68 INT for that so that'll take me awhile still.

[OCH]

There is a spell that is supposed to be Super Effective against Malenia. But you need to beat the boss of the mountaintop to get it.

[DisturbedSwan]

Good progress again last night, Fire Giant and Godskin Duo defeated.

 

Got all the legendary summons and spells too.

 

Not long left now, just need to do a bit more mopping up if I still want to go for the Plat.

[DisturbedSwan]

All bosses down now aside from Malenia and the final boss. 
 

Not long left to go now, hopefully get it done tonight.

 

Should be on for the Plat as long as I can beat Malenia and don’t fuck up the save sync stuff after I’ve beaten the game.

[Nag]

Does this game have point of no return or can you return to the map after beating the storyline... if you can call it that.

[one-armed dwarf]

Yes. Well sort of, point of no return is after beating a boss called 

 

Spoiler

Fire giant. You get to do 'a thing' after this which has consequences that will fuck up your quest progress

 

However you can still explore, it's just there's not as much point at that stage

[Nag]

👍👍

[DisturbedSwan]

The deed is done, Platinum ✅

 

 

[Nag]

I had a few goes at Starscourge Radahn today... yeah, I don't think I'm quite ready for him yet.😂... although a couple of times I did manage to get him to around quarter health then he just goes batshit crazy and annihilate me.

 

He needs to fuck off with his bullshit homing meteors.

[DisturbedSwan]

So I finished this the other night - as some will of gathered from the Platinum video a few posts up   - and I will be repeating myself quite a bit here but now I've finished it wanted to put my definitive thoughts all in one place. 

 

So as said previously, I absolutely loved the first 50 hours. Going out into this bewildering world, discovering how everything works, actively wanting to explore every nook and cranny, cave and dungeon around Limgrave and the Whispering Plains was great. Although the areas still aren't aesthetically mindboggling the exploration of the open world combined with the Soulsy combat combine for a great experience.

 

I was procrastinating at the end of those areas, going about trying to discover every place I might've missed on this vast map, not wanting to go to the Castle and await the inevitable bosses there as I was having so much fun. Stormveil Castle itself was another great place to explore, a traditional Souls legacy dungeon after all this exploration and open world adventuring. 

 

After defeating the boss of Stormveil and entering the new area of Liurnia this is where things started to fall apart. The same gameplay loop I'd been employing and enjoying to great effect in Limgrave the game expected me to repeat for this area until it was fully explored and the boss of the region defeated. The problem is that after 50 hours, doing all this again just isn't that interesting, I was pretty much ready to end the game after Stormveil and would've been happy doing so but instead felt somewhat compelled to explore this new region. 

 

So I set about doing so like a good little Tarnished, discovered all the region - which was thankfully much nicer aesthetically than its predecessor - defeated the boss in another cool Hogwartsy Castle and felt like I was ready for the game to end once again. But no, this was just the second region amongst a humungous map made up of about 8 of them, all gigantic and way bigger than they have any need to be. 

 

After Limgrave and certainly after Liurnia, I felt like I'd seen all the game really had to show me, I could see its seams, predict everything ahead of me that would be in the next gigantic area and not really be compelled to engage with all the superfluous bloated nonsense the game has in it. The dungeons are a prime example of this, in the first couple of areas I was like 'ooo what's down here' but after you finish those areas you've seen everything they really have to offer and realise they're all pretty much the same procedurally generated shite with (usually) a terrible boss at the end. 

 

It's just too big for its own good. After the first few regions the exploration doesn't differ at all, that sense of curiosity goes as you can already predict what's around the next hill, mountain or corner and just kind of roll your eyes at it, the open world aspect of the game completely runs out of ideas.

 

It got so bad that the last three areas I almost completely ignored all the side activities and just largely mainlined it. First unlocking the map with a scroll and then seeing where the big points of interest were and going there, when getting stuck I'd just look up where the next place I should be going was and hightailed it over to that point.

 

I can't tell you the number of times I almost gave up on it altogether, the number of times I'd actively dread playing it on a Friday night after I got home from work. It just became a massive chore overall with that feeling being too briefly abated by the great legacy dungeons (even if there is a few too many Castles) and some fantastic boss battles. After finishing it I can't help think it's like Dark Souls 2 but with a needless gigantic open world, the variety of the environments on offer is astounding but I'd rather go there directly like in DkS2 even if it did break the illusion and world building slightly than have to trudge over another huge, largely boring area devoid of life once again like in this. 

 

There's too many bonfires, it's just stupid. There's two bonfires right at the beginning of Stormveil which are literally like 10 feet apart from each other, I understand people didn't like the previous approach and like just being at a boss door so they can easily fight that boss again but this is just ridiculous, it's actually stupid the amount of them in this, like one level designer just placed them at random on some game engine not checking how far apart they were or if they were actually needed altogether. 

 

Another huge issue for me is the sense that you can actually let your guard down. In all previous titles you felt like most of the time you had to have your guard up and pay attention all of the time or you'd be punished by some nasty monstrosity lurking behind a corner or ready to leap on you from above but here, when out in the open world you can largely just relax and chill. If you get caught by an enemy 9 times out of 10 you can call Torrent and ride off and if you really get in a pickle you can usually just warp back to the nearest bonfire, although most of the time this isn't needed as it'll be 10 feet away lol. 

 

Another bugbear is the horse and horse combat in general. It just dumbs down everything about the game, that amazing Soulsy combat the series and studio are known for is reduced to circling around an enemy and stabbing him, avoiding his attacks until he inevitably snuffs it. It just feels stupid to do, you don't feel empowered doing so, you don't feel clever, you just feel like you're back in 2005 playing Oblivion for the first time or some shit. 

 

Playing the way I did as a mage, almost 95% of 'cool' stuff I picked up was completely useless as well which ties into the exploration and adventuring largely feeling fruitless and unsatisfying after awhile. 

 

Despite all these issues though, I did have a fun time with it sometimes, it's just those moments were largely too fleeting. As mentioned previously, the legacy dungeons and boss battles often put a big ol' smile on my face, it's only when going back to the tedium of the open world did the game start to lose me again. If it was half as long as the open world was pretty much just Limgrave and Whispering Plains it would be a perfect length, every other Souls game I've finished in 30-50 hours, this took me 110 and I felt every one of those extra hours. 

 

So overall, it's just a bit of a bloated mess with a boring open world, propped up by its amazing environments, boss battles and legacy dungeon design. Nowhere near a GOTY contender for me personally, doubt it will even be in my top-10 by the end of the year, but those first 50 hours were a blast at least, I just wish the rest of the game was the same.

[OCH]

As I said, I might come back to it at some point. Since I do understand I am right near the end. But I just can't be bothered. I think this is the first Souls game when I have lost interest the longer it has gone on. If a game makes itself feel like a chore by end game, something is amiss.

I know I could just respec. Equip the Kamehameha and have done with it. Even that, is more effort than I feel like putting into this game right now. I've noticed a couple of people have dropped off commenting here. Meanwhile, also not adding ER to their listed 'completed games'. So I'd be curious to know the general consensus so far.

[Maf]

Damn. I think I was the one who was least interested in this and am the only one (maybe @radiofloyd ) who thinks it’s just incredible. ER is far from perfect and I have my gripes with it, too. But overall I think it’s stunning and can’t think of another game that does what this game does better. 

[Nag]

Pretty amazing that I actually like this game too... it takes something special to stop me sinking time in to Gears 5 multiplayer on a Sunday and this has managed it two weekends on the trot.😂

 

I'm 44 hours now and level 73... as an aside what stats did people end on?... I killed Starscourge Radahn last night and some Dragon that couldn't fly which led me to another massive part of the map.

 

Maybe if I'd specced for magic in the Demon's Souls remake I would've enjoyed it more.

 

 

[mfnick]

42 minutes ago, OCH said:

So I'd be curious to know the general consensus so far.

Well, personally after completion I originally said

 

”Need some space from it I think before really knowing my final thoughts on it - my love for Sekiro grew much higher over time for example - but personally it’s a high 7 to maybe a 8/10 at the moment.” 

 

After that space from it my opinion is actually lower. Never a good sign. I’d now rate it mid 6 to 7/10. I remember the negatives far more than the positives. 

 

Good post @DisturbedSwan. A lot of nodding my head in agreement while reading it. Although I don’t think there’s too many graces, but I do think the placement is very stupid and random at times. As you say they can be 10 feet away from each other sometimes. Whereas there were other times I’d be playing for 45 minutes or more and not see one. 
 

In regards to being able to let your guard down, I think this game needed to allow you to do that TBH. In the previous linear Souls games I understand not being able to. But in a 60-130hour open world you’ve got to let players relax a bit or it would just be too overbearing. 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

If you want an open world game where outdoor traversal is fraught and you can't let your guard down especially at night well hmm do I have a game for you

 

Or perhaps even an unannounced sequel

[DisturbedSwan]

4 hours ago, Nag said:

Pretty amazing that I actually like this game too... it takes something special to stop me sinking time in to Gears 5 multiplayer on a Sunday and this has managed it two weekends on the trot.😂

 

I'm 44 hours now and level 73... as an aside what stats did people end on?... I killed Starscourge Radahn last night and some Dragon that couldn't fly which led me to another massive part of the map.

 

Maybe if I'd specced for magic in the Demon's Souls remake I would've enjoyed it more.

I loved it up to the 50 hour mark, it’s after that it went off the rails for me. I’m glad you’re enjoying it though 👍

 

I think I ended about level 150 or so, at the end it was taking me about 150,000 runes to level up lol.