A Brutally Honest Elden Ring Critique

[@xivkya6882]

Fort, night.

[@grimreefer213]

Offer pickle

[@Jade012]

Dog

[@StabbyMcStabwood]

Liar ahead

[@Nen_niN]

Could this be a dog? dog O, dog

[@powerspro3553]

Try fingers, but hole.

[@doyltruddy902]

You are correct about how fall damage is a bit funky. The way it works is that you get 0 damage between like 0 -14 meters, then you get damage that scales between 15-19, and then 20 meters just kills you. So you can fall for 19 meters and it takes half your health and you may think that you still have plenty of space next time for a higher fall, but the reality is you were just 1 meter away from death.

[@Venky-yo6iu]

Exactly.....its even worse when u try to slide on the cliff sides....It would look like ur torrent clearly stopped falling down...but it resumes to fall for half a second more and then boom....all that fall damage kicks in...I absolutely lose my sht when this happens...Such a jebait

[@cleverman383]

It's probably the worst implementation of fall damage I've ever seen in a video game.

[@nickmccarthy3162]

A good way to see if you will die is to swing a heavy attack at the ledge, if you fall off, your fine, if your domt, you will die.

[@nodlimax]

@@Venky-yo6iu The whole principle is even more stupid when you jump down a large cliff to then do the double jump towards the bottom only to realize that the double jump does nothing against the damage received from the overall fall. Makes navigating outdoors so much more of a pain in the ass because you always have to either teleport or search for specific routes where you're supposed to go down. Elden Ring claims to provide freedom yet punishes you constantly if you don't do what the designers want you to do.

[@aaronatkinson177]

It annoyed me to it made me keep calling bullshit

[@DiviTon]

Just a point about the abundance of sites of grace. I think this works for the overworld because the openness of the environment means the player will often ride right past sites of grace if they aren't the type of player that systematically combs the entire map. While the sites might seem redundant to more thorough players, some that are less thorough and tend to just go where their eyes take them might find themselves going much longer distances without finding a site of grace and if they weren't so abundant, this could lead to frustration. This wasn't a problem in previous games as their level design was more tightly guided than the open world of Elden Ring.

[@GlobalSingeing]

As a blind, I am grateful. Never realized just how many there were till I saw a filled map online

[@j0hny00s]

My first play through went 150 hours before I beat the game, now that I’m on my second character I’ve found so much shit I completely missed in my first run.

[@JimJamTheAdmin]

Another point is that it makes casting even stronger and easier. After a hard encounter there is always a grace, so there is never an incentive to not use all your spells and mama, because you know you'll never go more than one or two hard encounters before getting a full top-up.

[@tayzebenson6190]

Having adhd, the abundant sites of grace made the open world so much more fun. I never felt like I had to search for a checkpoint and whenever I died I didn't lose much progress.

[@sirflimflam]

Yeah for a more "linear" experience like the Souls games that come before, this game definitely would suffer if they limited the sites of grace. It would turn into ever pointless busywork having to travel long distances in the open world to get back to where you were. There's not a lot of challenge in the open world to get around. It would literally just be dead time riding Torrent or running to your previous destination. The punishment of dying in Souls games before made you contend with tight corridors and other challenges, but that is practically non-existent in the open world. Once you get into more dungeon-esque territories, the sites of grace definitely narrow down to strategic locations.

[@aghitsaplane4262]

I still don't know why they haven't pulled a monster hunter and make the camera zoom out farther when fighting large bosses,it would make 40% of the fights way less frustrating

[@dani.phantm]

that's a great idea honestly

[@MediumChungus223]

What makes this seem worse is that they DO have the camera pull out, but only for one single attack on the elden beast. It's only for the attack where the boss flies into the air and creates shrinking rings around you that explode.

[@poochymama2878]

I like this idea

[@7evan]

Last time I checked I'm pretty sure Sekiro had it pretty good with the camera for bigger bosses or enemies - panning out enough to see their movements, which is a good thing because not being able to see and read enemy movements would break that game's combat system in half. Granted there weren't many big bosses in Sekiro and none of them are even half as big as some the bigger bosses in Elden Ring but my point is they got the whole camera thing right before so what happened this time. Don't remember for Bloodborne though it's been ages since I last played that game so hopefully someone with recent experience can fill us up on that one

[@dankeykang4576]

I feel like both Dark Souls and Monster Hunter could learn a lot from eachother

[@Spudst3r]

I wish there were more non-violent NPC's scattering the land. It's weird to walk through a world where you literally just kill everything around you.

[@oleageoun1798]

Its cause the combat and bosses is all FromSoftware can do and they've been repeating the same formula since Demon Souls. Can't believe they actually made an open world game without any towns and actually got away with it

[@zosonte129]

It's wild because there's no darksign or beast blood driving people crazy if I recall, random soldiers and knights just attack a random person. It'd be cool if you could join one of the demigod's armies or something.

[@DaniGerman1499]

It’s because most the enemies have been alive so long they’ve gone crazy or the tarnished are their enemy because your mission is to kill their leader and steal great runes

[@shquankinket8068]

@@oleageoun1798 who the fuck plays Dark souls to go into a peaceful town and talk to npcs. I hate when an open world game stops me from doing the fun thing to talk to an npc. If you want dialogue play a Bethesda or cd game. Gameplay comes first for fromsoftware and sure the formula might get stale but they do it best and I see no reason for them to switch it up

[@daviddrewery6065]

@@shquankinket8068First off, the game isn’t dark souls and arguably From makes some of the most interesting, compelling NPCs so as the original commenter stated..it was a missed opportunity. TotK and BotW have similar dead worlds and there are plenty of npcs to engage with. It would be a fun twist and actually set ER apart from its siblings.

[@Xploshi]

Glad I’m not the only one who feels like the late game difficulty spike is ridiculous

[@j0ker032]

For me at least, the spike was very much needed, I explored quite heavily and ended up very over leveled and virtually one shot the last few bosses

[@corey_clip]

I heard everyone talking about it and I was scared but when I got there, I just felt like I was evenly matched after 4 shotting most other bosses. When I beat the game in 10 hours on a subsequent playthrough, the difficulty spike was way more noticeable since I was much lower level. It wasn't awful though. Bosses took longer but I didn't feel like they were harder

[@topdamagewizard]

Its really hard for them to ramp the difficulty in this game. Actually I would call it impossible. I have spent 120 hours and just cleared Margott. 5 shot him. It's impossible for a dev to tune the game for me. Someone who has over leveled and tune the game for someone who has just followed the path of grace and done nothing else. It's better to make the game too hard than to make it a cake walk for everyone.

[@311Thanatos]

@@topdamagewizard I wouldn’t say impossible level cap at the meta 150 and keep going in new ng+ till it’s hard. Try ng+7 and tell me it’s not difficult

[@SirZipper]

@@311Thanatos Well, if you're going up to Ng+7 and expecting it not to be hard you're slightly dumb. Just slightly, though.

[@jackbartzen9133]

14:10 the reason fall damage feels inconsistent is bc theres only a 4 meter window when falling that separates taking no damage and dying. anything between 16m and 20m will damage you depending on where you fall within that range. in ds1, the height for death was still 20m but iirc the height where damage starts is like 6m, so fall damage prob felt easier to judge

[@fenixchief7]

The reason it feels inconsistent is because it is. I was jumping down to the 3 fingers just last night and died on a jump I had made just a minute prior. Same spot, same jump, same landing. Obviously a bug of some kind but who knows when and where else it may have happened during the 150 hours I have so far.

[@matsysmellsbetterthanyou]

if you're on foot, just attack. if an invisible wall stops you from falling, then it's a height from which you'll die.

[@artemaniaco293]

@@fenixchief7 a random bug does not make an entire mechanic inconsistent. The mechanic itself is consistent, it's just that from a player's perspective it feels random

[@rubencid2575]

@@fenixchief7 you probably jump from a higher position than the previous so the total distance is bigger

[@favilliuswraith]

@@fenixchief7 You could have stepped on a brick, and it would have just barely been 20m

[@ambiguousfate.]

51:42 I went through my entire 1st playthrough without using a rune arc because I thought they were just a small health buff, but if you power up the boss runes they actually have meaningful buffs, there's a great rune that essentially just makes the game bloodbourne when activated

[@tmbfreak_16]

Too bad you get it after the endgame optional super boss and you can't take it to ng+ 😂

[@leeham6230]

Lmfao​@@tmbfreak_16

[@cinimini4854]

Sadly individual hits don't heal enough to make it a viable Great Rune. And the fact that you get it this late in the game means you don't have all that much game left to play using it.

[@uniquechannelnames]

I kinda ignored them and stacked up like 26 or 30 or something, I've only used it once (Morgot's rune) but by now I kinda like having not depended on them. Besides I've depended on ghost ashes so I think depending on both is overkill. Either your character got the nuts to conquer with a few aids, or you're just buffing, mimic tears/strong spirit ashes AND a rune arc? You're not even the same character lol

[@Duskets]

How in the hell did they NOT THINK TO INCLUDE TORRENT in the Elden Beast fight? That’s a fight practically *made* for horseback combat.

[@Clarity_Control]

Why they thought Elden Beast was worth putting in the game is more confusing. It’s a terrible boss

[@Duskets]

@@Clarity_Control I don’t even hate the boss, I just don’t like the design. The star/cosmic pattern is cool but it’s too basic. It needs to be more menacing, more otherworldly. Right now it looks like a dinosaur plushie.

[@c.g.b7262]

@@Clarity_Control that’s my father you’re talking about

[@weebto]

They clearly designed that fight with torrent in mind and they either forgot to enable him or retroactively decided to remove him altogether without tweaking the boss. I sincerely hope they patch this later down the line.

[@Gshellshock]

Yeah. Torrent would be really helpful. Overall bosses in ER are not FS peak design imo. That jellyfish dragon fight made it perfectly clear - Rushed development AF. They couldn’t even work something out with that Radagon model. He could have been given an interesting second phase, there was a lot of room for that. No, FS just figured out that flying and diving jellyfish with sword on a huge arena will be the best concept for an endgame boss. Meh.

[@Gyork_]

From all the repeated bosses I had issues with, the night cavalry was the least of my concerns It made sense to me that there were many hidden around I actually look forward to finding more of them and you win different attacks and weapons when you fight him including his armour

[@sneakretster]

The night calvary were genuinely one of my favorite experiences with Elden ring because it feels like things harken back to the boss design of dark souls since I always fought them dismounted. Fair damage, attack and dodge timing, punish timing, and I don't feel like I need to use overpowered mechanics or summons to win.

[@DazeyChaineMusic]

yup

[@kalenbennett2016]

I also think having 9 of them is a nod to the nazgul of lotr, given the visual similarity

[@itzpayday1238]

Yeah, repeats like Nights Cavalry or Tree Sentinelz don't bother me because it makes sense that there's multiple of them running around. Godefroy on the other hand...

[@mingQWERTY]

@@itzpayday1238 That one just makes me angry. I'm fine with them copying and pasting mini-bosses because well, it makes sense lore wise, it gives you a scale on how much you've progressed and it saves time and money for FS to work on other stuff. But Godefroy is just a lazy and terrible copy and paste. It doesn't even make sense. Like they both look the same, have the exact moveset and weapon.

[@melaniabladeofmiquella]

I'd say the knights cavalry makes sense to have 9, 1 cavalry horseman would be a bit weird. Like the ring wraiths, imagine if there was just 1 lol.

[@mail-lifts2058]

Agreed, it only makes sense to spread them all over the map

[@agarztheyounger]

Agreed but if that is going to be the case each one should somewhat unique with diffrent weapons and fighting styles which is resused content done right.

[@raywhite9069]

@@agarztheyounger They are at least vaguely unique if nothing less than power scaling or loot. Also, why would you not sprinkle them around if casual players will miss most of them anyway? Also, (This is my perspective) it's fun to find a cheap miniboss multiple times, It's almost like seeing an old friend or rival.

[@agarztheyounger]

@@raywhite9069 I think that's fair, but if you are going to face an old foe, wouldn't it be cool if they had some new tricks up their selves since last you met, seeing as you will have grown more powerful.

[@raywhite9069]

@@agarztheyounger fair response. Difference in opinion then I guess. I don't mind dying to the first one 20 times, slogging through the second then slaughtering the rest in like 2 hits lol.

[@motorizedbarofsoap6601]

If bloodborne 2 happened I really would not want it to be open world. Froms intricate level design is way more interesting

[@andreseh87]

What an opinion 👏 best open world game after BOTW and this is your thought process. Wow

[@Trigonxv1]

​@@andreseh87So froms open world design is better than its compact level design?

[@Keyw]

​@@andreseh87Elden Ring's open world is awful. It's tons of copy-paste dungeons and enemies scattered around an altogether mediocre, horrifically bloated map with abysmally boring traversal mechanics. Don't even speak Breath of the Wild in the same sentence. Skyrim (🤢) has a better open world than Elden Ring. Fromsoft has displayed mastery over level design time and time again. It's what makes their soulsborne worlds so fun to run through and explore. ER's legacy dungeons sometimes live up to that, in Stormveil, Volcano Manor, and the Haligtree, as examples. But the whole game should be those things. The open world adds nothing good.

[@sweetbabyrayso5262]

@@andreseh87 elden ring literally i just the typical open world but without a lot of the markers.

[@Alienshade]

So Chalice dungeons 2.0 in Bloodborne 2?

[@walter1383]

While I overall agree with two much copy paste boss fights, the fact that there is nine Night's Cavalry boss fights is brilliant for the Tolkien Nazgul reference.

[@solame10101]

@@stoffan00 I wish that had been the case.

[@solame10101]

@@RozKounelakion See this is the problem with souls going mainstream, now we have people worshipping Miyazaki as if even his turds are gold. Literally attacking the players as if its our fault we are experiencing it to be repetitive an uninspired.

[@solame10101]

@@RozKounelakion I mean i killed probably 10 asylum demons, more than 3 capra demons, around 5 watchdogs, both the godskins probably 3 or 4 times each, margit appears 3 times, godfrey twice, mohg twice, bell bearing hunter appears like 5 times, ulcerated tree spirit maybe 5 times probably more, crucible knights probably 10 times, tree sentinels 5 times ish as well as the night cavalry probably 5 times too, the death birds 5 maybe upwards to 10 times. I mean its offensive that they reuse certain minibosses 10 times, but that they reuse the main bosses is absurd.

[@solame10101]

@@RozKounelakion You didnt notice that there are capra demons and asylum demons in ER? Its the Erdtree avatars and Capra demon appears in the village of the albinaurics called Omenkiller, with his dogs and all. Oh and ive barely ever heard anyone mention chalice dungeons as something positive. I shouldnt try to convince you to dislike the game, Im just very disappointed.

[@solame10101]

@@RozKounelakion I mean the hype built since they announced it just after Sekiro meant people are going to love it almost no matter what, thats just how it goes, and then others get pulled along in the FOMO rush. It means they had good marketing and a good enough game that people looked forward to because of legacy love for miyazakis titles. Honeymoon phases of these game are always a factor, i liked ds2 a lot on release. Dark souls 3 was a disappointment for me too because it was an uninspired game that just lives off of old dark souls 1 stuff, with knock off bloodborne style combat Sekiro was one of the best games ever made imo because it reinvigorated the souls formula into a sort of rhythm game style with new mechanics. It had no references to old titles, it was a new idea someone had. Ive played a lot of souls since Demons came out, seeing ds1 references still used blatantly is embarrassing to me. I dont have high expectations, im literally just wanting something that feels new. Elden ring is dark souls 4, with an open world of repeated content.

[@Ashephalt]

The dungeons could have been solved if they made them themed. Have the Caelid dungeons be scarlet rot/war themed (The War Dead Catacombs are a great example) have Liurnia dungeons be magic themed, have Mountaintop of Giants be ice and fire themed. Change the textures every so slightly and then it doesn’t feel as awful when you face your 50th ulcerated tree spirit because the dungeon was fun and thematic and not grey with imps every time.

[@russellelton5098]

They are.

[@765craven4]

Bloodborne Chalice Dungeons, imo, kinda did this. All of them have essentially the exact same rooms and layouts (with very minor differences), but the different Chalice Types all had different theming. Isz had the blue astral stuff and Lumenwood growing everywhere Loran had the yellow fog, lightning and stuff everywhere Hintertomb was overgrown and had mold everywhere Stuff like that. Small aesthetic differences that help them stand apart at least a little.

[@me_like_giraffe]

@@russellelton5098 Not really. You could walk into a Limgrave catacomb and a Linurnia catacomb and they would look and feel the same. There are the rare exceptions like the MoG has some ice themed caves but that is about it.

[@jamesgraves4724]

Game would’ve been better if they had more tailored items in certain dungeons, the build options don’t match loot drops at all in this game… you shouldn’t have to travel to literally 3-4 different areas to get low level spells to be a good mage… if even have fair fights the game is not balanced which makes it super broken… if elden ring was a fighting game literally everybody would hate it…

[@ThatKid7718]

Fighting Jon Snow on the mountain top would have been dope

[@ropo_o]

Honestly, I just finished my first playthrough and I'm not all that enthusiastic to start a second playthrough. Completing Elden Ring made me want to revisit DS3 and Sekiro actually, even though I can say for certain that Elden Ring is an excellent and thoroughly enjoyable Souls game.

[@thegreatpoo2electricboogal318]

Same here. I personally thought a majority of the monster designs weren't as cool as DS or BB.

[@ohmyboop3172]

Agreed, as soon as I finished Elden Ring it made me wanna play Bloodborne.

[@flaccgh8799]

I was telling a friend how prior to Elden Ring, DS3 was my favorite among the souls series but after finishing it I have the strongest desire to go back to 1. Also Bloodborne is still my favorite from the studio by a mile and Bloodborne 2 with an open-world feel would shatter my Elden Ring experience I expect.

[@NoReality204]

I’m trying to do everything I can in my first playthrough because I never feel particularly enthusiastic about NG+ in any game. It has made me go back to finish demon’s souls remake though, because I feel like I get it now, I couldn’t really get into it before. And also I’ve been playing dark souls remastered on the switch and have downloaded bloodborne. Elden ring made something finally click and now I’m hooked

[@GordKeen]

Elden ring made me appreciate DS3 even more. I do think the open world is cool, but it loses the importance of some areas like Rya Lucaria or storm veil when there is like a total of 10 enemies to fight "storm viel being a running simulator for the first half". Also ds3 boss design was significantly better visually and mechanically. The only notable bosses in elden ring are Radahn, mohg lord of blood, radagon/elden beast, and fire giant.

[@WickedKillaYT]

I know this is an old video now, but in my experience I appreciated the sometimes excess grace sites because I am oblivious and have countless times walked right past them. Many times when going to show a friend something or vis versa we each found a grace the other hadn't, so I feel it was done to make sure youre exploring the world instead of grace hunting

[@quantum5661]

hard agree. im here to play the game, not fucking walk around like an idiot looking for checkpoints.

[@metaphysicalparadox]

Open world games might not be for you then ​@@quantum5661

[@KLBoringBand]

As a new player, the abundant checkpoints were really helpful for me, and it def made it less annoying to backtrack or re-explore. My only main complaint is that the checkpoints in dungeons are placed on a map when so many of the dungeons are more vertical than spread out. It works well when you first do the dungeon, but I wish there was a vertical map for after you beat the main bosses or something.

[@sabershark3102]

I agree, i like dark souls having few checkpoints but for a game as big as this that wants you to explore i think there are a very good amount of sites of grace

[@c.l.a.u.d.e]

The dilemma of "when to fight an optional Boss" is rooted in the paradox between their high HP and low Runes Drop: if I'm not supposed to fight the Tree Sentinel or Crucible Knight early because they're high damaging hit sponges, why do they give barely 3k Runes, while Margit rewards 15k?! Why does it take half the game for dungeon bosses to start dropping anything near 10k Runes (Ulcerated Tree excluded)?

[@charlesguillergan8759]

To challenge the player

[@c.l.a.u.d.e]

@@charlesguillergan8759 They've bene doing the pseudo-open world since Demon's Souls, yet mid-to-late game scaled bosses in every other title still drop appropriate amount of currency. Challenge with no reward Is only meant for post-endgame content in RPGs, something that doesn't exist in this game.

[@charlesguillergan8759]

@@c.l.a.u.d.e you do realize that the early game tree sentinel has about equal to the same amount of Health as the beast man in crumbling Farum azula right? Early game he seems tanky but he’s really not

[@c.l.a.u.d.e]

@@charlesguillergan8759 You do realize that (apart from your reply having nothing to do with mine) the inflated HP pool is only a problem, because it isn't followed by an equal reward in terms of Rune drop, right?

[@tibik.8407]

@@charlesguillergan8759 There are Leyndell grunt mobs that drops the same amount of runes that the respawning crucible knight does does in Farum Azula. You know, the guy with the moveset, health and damage of major bosses. Balance does not exist in this game.

[@MediumChungus223]

I agree with your take on the bosses, especially the final boss. I think Radagon should have been the normal final boss, and Elden beast could have been a secret additional boss, locked behind a secret ending. Something like how Bloodborne does theopn presence.

[@skinless5136]

I think radagon would need a buff if he was the final boss without elden beast

[@AJ_Ol]

@@skinless5136 for sure, double his health, give him a second phase, and boom. Perfect final boss.

[@MrPatrickbuit]

@@skinless5136 He could have a larger healthpool, and maybe a third phase at 30%. So it'd look like: Base Radagon from 100% - 70% Radagon with teleporting, more AOES and more lightning attacks from 70-30% (Give him a damage resistance buff at 50% so that he can do his triple slam attack) Then from 30% - 0% give him a new phase, maybe with some new holy attacks? Regardless, Radagon is a perfect boss imo. Definitely my favourite in the game and one of my favourites in the franchise.

[@XxAJxX-qp1qp]

First phase Radagon, second phase Marika

[@thatguygabe3488]

Fighting ragadon every time before fighting a broken and unbalanced “boss” is ridiculous. I really like ragadon, but being forced to beat him around 7 times led to me dying multiple times to his bullshit impossible attacks, which made me hate him

[@nateputerbaugh5709]

"I thought I'd walk through a door and fight Ornstein or something" Capra Demon and his dogs of bullshit is literally a boss lol

[@Zarkrez]

There’s literally a normal enemy that triple capra jumps at you lmao

[@Zapdos7471]

There’s also a side dungeon with a boss clearly referencing the the arena of blood NPC from DS2 (small person with pointy hood). Sly references like that were welcome.

[@094176]

hey at least it's in a big open arena

[@Frugg]

My issue with the game is that so many of its flaws make it EASY to forget how good its moment-to-moment gameplay can be. The early game was one of the most unique and engaging experiences I've had in the medium as a whole. The late game on the other hand, seems intent on not just SHOWING you its seams, but smearing them in your face relentlessly until all memory of any semblance of a good time is lost on you. It wasn't until a day or so after beating the game that I was able to decide that overall ER is a good game, since SO much of the post-Leyndell content is just riddled with frustrating game design.

[@andreseh87]

Skill issue

[@Trigonxv1]

​@@andreseh87ah you are one of those guys, hate to break it to you but demon souls, dark souls 1-3, Bloodborne and sekiro are not as hard as you probably say to yourself so that you can inflate the ego there lol

[@NocturnalShogun]

Yeah... and elden ring is the easiest of all fromsoft games... nothing to be proud of ​@@Trigonxv1

[@christiancantu8505]

Yeah I think the biggest revelation for me was when I tried to fight Malenia with a colossal sword and no summons it felt almost insurmountable she is incredibly aggressive super fast and her damage is pretty damn crazy her healing if you get hit combined with her waterfowl dance is just so aggravating if I went for a jumping attack and missed I would be stuck in the animation so long that when she activated waterfowl dance after I’d just die since I could not get away from the two initial attacks and even without being stuck in an animation waterfowl dance is impossible to dodge without being a certain distance away from her to begin with or using bloodhounds step idk just kinda feel like in this game more than the others that you have to play what is meta and use summons or get stomped

[@111kino]

He only enjoyed the boss fights so much because he was using a katana, is my guess. If you use a heavy or short range(or worse, both) weapon, you quickly notice how little windows of opportunity bosses really give you. Elden Ring feels like the biggest "KATANA #1" game FromSoft has made, and thats even with considering the full "katana only mainhand weapon" games they've made.

[@Lextorias]

I used Guts Greatsword, a Pike, and the Mace through most of the game (mace in the early-game since I started as a wretch). After Fire Giant I started switching up to as many different weapons as I could to try them out since I had the smithing stones, so that included katanas, straightswords, and a magic build. The faster weapons do have priority, though this has been a consistency through a lot of the Souls genre, just amplified here. Getting hit is a massive punishment in the endgame, so any weapon that leaves you vulnerable to be hit has to have massive value otherwise, or else it's strictly worse than something faster in certain fights. Bosses like Malenia or Maliketh are definitely harder with these weapons due to high posture and small attack windows, but also lots of bosses like Rennala or Misbegotten are stunlocked to death by them, so I can understand it being hard to balance them out properly to avoid doing that to every boss.

[@111kino]

@@Lextorias they could've just made slower weapons hit harder and bosses not act as spastic with random quick jabs to punish retaliation. Short range fast hitting weapons don't even feel good because you don't get as many hits per swing due to naturally being outranged in most cases, combined with the lower stagger values. Even DS2 bosses didn't punish short range or big slow weapons to the extent that Elden Ring does. As clowny as seeing dual wielding colossal weapons heavy attack spam is, it's very indicative of the wall that heavy weapons have been pushed into to the point where a normal attack style is too punished to be considered viable/rewarding.

[@ishamtgmisham1654]

I mean.. there is a greatshield? You dont need to dodge waterfowl. Just tank it with shield.

[@kerrzUSR]

@@Lextorias collossal weapons should do way more damage, if you're going to make them super risky at least make the risk worth the reward. As it stands there is no reason to not use a katana in this game as it does better dps and it safer

[@ReyCardo]

The radagon/elden beast fight would be the biggest bang to go out on if they allowed torrent to be used on the elden beast fight. The perfect final test of the game’s basic and most used mechanics. First phase is to final test of grounded combat with how fast and (mostly) balanced he feels, and second phase would be the final test of horseback fighting with him constantly running and most of his attacks being low sweeps to jump over and moves that are clearly meant to keep you on the move, and it would just be cool as hell to charge down an Eldrich monster with your horse to recreate how it felt to do it for the first time against the dragon in limgrave. Such a simple change would make an otherwise lame ending one of the most climactic ones.

[@harryjd0_0]

Yeah I agree, I thought the Elden Beast was cool but I don't know it felt unnecessarily tanky. The only real difficulty was ending the radagon fight with not enough heals before fighting the Elden Beast

[@slaindesmond2574]

so true and whats worse is the boss area is beatiful and a great potential for a torrent fight

[@reesespieces8173]

Straight facts

[@heroicsquirrel3195]

You’re right, when I faced the Elden beast i actually laughed, so tanky and just fat looking then it runs away, I was just thinking is this really the final boss😂beautiful but comical

[@detroid_ntr26]

It still wouldn't change the atrocious camera or constant jumping of the beast, it would only make the entire fight feel less of a drag.

[@thebeybros249]

This is my first Fromsoft game and as a Souls newbie I found this game quite accessible. It did take a minute to grasp the mechanics but I think the open world allows for new players like me to figure things out at our own pace before diving into the story bosses and other challenging areas. This game is a masterpiece and has motivated me to explore all of the other Souls games.

[@cypruszion8442]

This warms my heart.

[@info0]

Until you get to mid-late game on Elden Ring, then you will start swearing. I know I do. Late game is so broken in balance that even going overleveled means nothing vs bosses. They still 1 or 2 shot you. I believe they wanted to do more with the game and left this as is. Hopefully they balance this stuff out in patches.

[@Sanquinity]

Same here. I have about 30 hours in DS1 before ER. No other souls games played. And for me the game is pretty punishing on mistakes, but doable and a good challenge. I feel like ER is the most newbie friendly fromsoft game so far. And I love them for it. As the exploration and anxiousness of the unknown is amazing. The best I've experienced in years. But if the game was like most other souls games I probably wouldn't have bought it.

[@bobbyDD]

same here, I bought psnow to play bloodborne and sekiro on steam lol. This game is a top tier gateway drug to soulslike games

[@zero0creativity]

@@info0 dunno man, new yo the series and i never got to the point of swearing, i guess 40+ vigor was good afterall

[@OwlScowling]

Aight, so I've been going and re-listening to all of the long Elden Ring critique videos after playing it through multiple times under different challenges and all that. I gotta say, I think this is one of the most balanced critiques of it I've heard. There's a bunch of two hour "bosses are bad" critiques on ER that I think aren't well thought out and are just complaining. But this one felt the most fair critiquing the bosses that deserve it while not forgetting to praise the bosses that are well designed.

[@lorexmusic1067]

2h about bosses is too much. But i can see why people is spending soo much time talking about it. ER as sth like 65 bosses, and some of them are even repeated

[@williamchristy9463]

Honestly, I've played elden ring 3 times, and beat it 0. I didn't get stuck, it just overstays it's welcome far too much.

[@therabbi9848]

Man this game really is a mix of the highest highs and the lowest lows. As someone who can easily cruise through DS1 without dying for hours there are way too many examples of enemies and especially late game bosses that have attacks that are either nearly or completely impossible to dodge and do way too much damage

[@jackbobb2711]

Worst best game ever

[@flamingmanure]

not really no. it has the highest highs and nowhere near the lowest lows as ds1 and bb, thats just laughable. nothing comes close to the trashy low quality of izalith and bosses like hemwick. "there are way too many examples of enemies and especially late game bosses that have attacks that are either nearly or completely impossible to dodge and do way too much damage" agreed with the damage part, the rest no. not a single attack in the game is undodgeable, nor are they ALMOST undodgeable. frankly most ppl with this opinion are salty bb and ds1 veterans that got hit in elden ring more than their souls ego would've liked, the enemies and bosses of old games are boring easily exploitable robotic morons that have maybe 4 preset combos based on ur distance, the dodge/strafe butt poke strat worked on practically all enemies and bosses for 4 games straight. after elden ring, i find ds1 and bb almost laughable to replay. "As someone who can easily cruise through DS1 without dying for hours" uhhhuhhh. and how much time did u spend in that game before u got that good?

[@sylwiaromaniak7172]

@@flamingmanure just try to campare waterflow dance with for example Ds3 Midir laser beam witch was imo The hardest attack to dodge in souls series before malenia show up. And the Mogh nihil second phase just cant be dodged at all...

[@Al-ji4gd]

@@flamingmanure Yes, it does. Like it or not, every Soulsborne games (bar Sekiro) has incredibly low lows at times, including Elden Ring. Plus, you're actually wrong about half the shit you wrote.

[@Metalgearfox2000]

@@Al-ji4gd also bloodborne and sekito had very mid lows.

[@ArnezBonsol]

"How amazing all SIX seasons of that show were.." Well Played Sir. Well Played.

[@guzelataroach4450]

what show

[@OGweener13]

@@guzelataroach4450 d&d are such fuckheads

[@Kozygrow]

@@guzelataroach4450 GOT

[@cleverman383]

@@guzelataroach4450 Star Trek

[@DubbaLubbaB]

​@@cleverman383 💀

[@rtyzxc]

What I like about Elden Ring's open world is that key items aren't hidden. Sacred Tears are found in churches, Golden Seeds under those glowing trees, Physick tears under minor erdtrees, making them impossible to miss. So, you can pretty much skip all the side dungeons if you want. The problem is that then the side dungeons, and combing the fields become incredibly unrewarding, becoming mostly a gacha for random armor or weapon that you don't need unless you are a collector. This kills the excitement, after a while there's nothing new to see. Fromsoft game where you are compelled to not explore? That's new.

[@ZodiacEntertainment2]

Sekiro didn't really compel exploration, either.

[@phiavir5594]

This is probably why they should've ditched exclusive upgrade items like seeds and tears and created a singular currency purely for flask upgrades, and made each mini boss drop said currency. This would prevent the one hour around the world item collecting and becoming overpowered at the start of a playthrough, and actually compel players to play the dungeons Honestly, they should've done the same thing with weapon upgrading too. Unique bomber weapons are far too easy to source, while normal smithing stones are heavily gated.

[@luisfilipe2747]

@@ZodiacEntertainment2 but sekiro is kinda linear Sure, you need to revisit some areas, but the maps are usually very self contained and don't have this much to be explored

[@charleshaughtry]

I'm really struggling to make sense of this comment. It sounds like you're saying "One thing I like about the game is that you can skip the game". Players should WANT to do the side dungeons. If certain content of the game is so uninteresting (or unrewarding) that players are inclined to skip it (and can feel good about skipping it) that's not a good thing - it's a sign that your game needs to be improved.

[@rtyzxc]

@@charleshaughtry My comment is two-pronged. On one hand, you want to reward exploration, but on the other hand, I didn't like how previous Souls games made you feel "I hope I didn't miss an upgrade that will permanently affect the rest of my playthrough". Realistically, you are going to miss an upgrade or two even if you explore. Elden Ring's recycled side dungeons are a complete joke and filler content that doesn't belong to Souls games.

[@sandman5522]

24:55 it's interesting that you bring up the "lack of backtracking" design choice. However, depending on the order of locations you chose to go while playing the game, some of the questlines REQUIRE backtracking, normally without even telling you. It sucks when you find an interesting character whose questline you want to do, only to never find them again because they spawned in a place you already cleared and have no particular reason to go back.

[@Soniman001]

Would be easy if the game had a quest guide of any kind but there’s zero. If the internet didn’t exist I can’t imagine finishing most of these missions on a first playthtough. Same thing with a minimap, basic convenience wouldnt break immersion

[@rumplespewskin6718]

@@Soniman001 that's just the type of game from software makes, and that design choice and game system is not compatible with everyone. It is charming and fun for people who like it, and the majority of the people that are fans of the dark souls games love it. It's not a bad thing that you don't though, plenty of other parts of the games to enjoy it's fucking huge, and if you really care about the quests you'll figure it out. The lack of mini map and quest panel in game are HUGE for the charm of the games, and they are a giant part in what creates interest for people and sets apart dark souls, elden ring, and bloodborne from the average rpg games. Doesn't mean it's the best system ever, just provides the gamer with a different experience that many people do intact look for in games.

[@sterloin]

@@rumplespewskin6718 Nah not having any sort of quest tracking system at the very least is just kinda shitty game design.

[@marche3273]

@@sterloin1. fight hard bosses then finally beat them = feels good 2. Complete very obscure quests by yourself = feels good The alternative would be 1. Fight easy bosses everyone already beat = feels average 2. Complete easy quests everyone could figure out themselves = feels average

[@ChrisDaAce27]

@@marche3273 tf are you even talking about. This response has nothing to do with what he said lol

[@mystymos3614]

"Lunging attacks that turn the entire enemy into a hitbox" Glad to know everyone hates the godskin apostles lmao

[@gottdashochstewesen4902]

I love the godskin apostle

[@rozoro4215]

Godskin apostles aren't that bad. Godskin Nobles on the other hand...

[@tinminator8905]

I disagree with almost every single point in that video even with this point when it comes to Niall as I think he is a perfectly designed boss that was intended to be fought with the two knights, not just a boring boss with random enemies slapped in as he suggested. He has very destinct AI when those knights are alive, alos buffing them, like a commander would and changing phases as soon as they are defeated, like a real commander would. But I hard agree 100% with Godskin Duo. Ok, not a 100% as I don't think this fight can be improved to be enjoyable ever. It needs to be either removed immediately or a path needs to be made to get around them so I don't need to get locked behind this bullshit with my challenge runs, when the rest of the game is so amazing. Whoever decided to make this useless reuse of often reused assets a mandatory boss needs to be fired immediately.

[@Lextorias]

lol

[@ArmorOfZeus]

Funny thing is you can totally Rick Roll the commander by using the bewitching branch on his knight summons and turn them against him.

[@Justinpitchford]

Hopefully... carefully respectful critiques like this will make its way to those who matter and we get something even better than elden ring. I love elden ring but there is always room to improve...and compared to his ps1 games i think they are being careful at keeping what works for us while growing the fanbase with careful improvements :)

[@Wuffskers]

I've gone back and forth on relying on summons and "cheese" initially I was having a lot of difficulty with some bosses and ended up relying on summons to at the very least hold aggro, but I reached a point where things started feeling too easy and it felt more satisfying and engaging to actually deal with the boss all on my own and I felt like I had the necessary vigor and damage stats to hold my own, I mention this because the reuse of bosses has actually made me go back to summoning because when I see the same boss again, especially late game where they do a ridiculous amount of damage but it's ultimately something I've fought before I end up feeling like "yeah yeah let me just get done with this as fast and as easily as possible" so I just throw out a +10 mimic tear and we both wail on the boss to just get it over with, and I do think that's kind of a shame that some bosses after seeing them repeatedly start feeling like a chore that you want to get over with rather than an achievement.

[@new_game2589]

I regret leveling up the mimic tear.

[@themaskedman2410]

@@new_game2589 It’s literally your character is your character that bad that they don’t do anything

[@new_game2589]

@@themaskedman2410 I fell in love with souls games for that satisfaction you got accomplishing something difficult, leveling up and using the mimic tear removed alot of that difficulty and the reward that would have come with it. I know I can just not use it, but it's a convenient crutch and the temptation is always there, that's why I regret it.

[@frostyfreeze966]

@@new_game2589 the only boss that i definitely will use summons for always is the double gargoyle fight

[@Don-ds3dy]

The spirit summons along with the ceaseless combos and "blink of an eye attacks" for bosses was obviously one of the worst design decisions in the entirety of Miyazaki's career. Remove summons, nerfing boss aggression or giving them limited stamina and removing what I like to call "anime attacks". You know the ones that have 0.3 seconds of wind up.

[@TheTroupeMasterGrimm]

My thing with this game is that I find myself complaining about the same thing every time, which is that after around Liurnia every boss starts to feel like the actual gameplay mechanics were sacrificed for the sake of spectacle or grandeur. Like, yeah this boss pretty much just has a shit ton of giant 5:13 AOE sweeping attacks and a grab that one shots you, but it LOOKS COOL!

[@Reginmund]

I'm happy you adressed the wild damage increase in the last part of the game. When you're over 40 vigor wearing the best armour in the game and still getting hit for over half your health from a regular (and reused) enemy, it starts to feel like all that thought you put into building your character doesn't matter. Probably my main source of enjoyment from these games is when I feel my build is clicking and actually making the game easier as I go along, but here I felt like all my build was doing by the endgame was getting me killed in two hits instead of one. Add cheap shit like homing projectiles, one hit kill boss attacks, enormous aoe damage, teleporting or invisible enemies, combos that stunlock you into death (even with poise up the ass), endless gank squads (all of which hit for over half your health as mentioned), every corner being an ambush... Ultimately I finished the game out of pure spite, but after some point there was no enjoyment in it for me. I just wanted to finish and never play the game again.

[@vorreiter2010]

G I T G U D

[@francomaray]

I felt the same way. I was playing Dark Souls (the first one) again in January 22. Liked it so much more this second time and wanted to see more of this world. I finished all FS games when they came out, starting with Demon's Souls. The conflict here could be that there is something in the way the game makes artificial difficulty, as you said, and this situation made the adventure somewhat of a job (for me at least). I felt that I had to finish the journey, after all the hours I had played, but I was finishing the game for the sake of crossing ER off the list. I loved the first 30 hours. Or even more. But at the end, I was tired and just wanted the game to end. Maybe this is how Sisyphus feels everyday of his existence.

[@fugazinemesis]

Same here, I get to Altus Plateau and want to turn it off. I only felt my build improving up to Altus and then the difficulty is ramped up too high. I've also got a 713 character and started NG+ with it and found the game too easy. Too hard at the start of the game no challenge at all levelled up. I've not played a souls game and felt this way with it. To be honest I think Miyazaki had had very little to do with the game, just directing staff to 'make it difficult, I don't want to see another Dark Souls 2' and the team don't know what makes the souls series fun.

[@ShaolinWanderer]

Lol welcome to souls games bud may o take your coat

[@israelpinon7355]

I ended up with a level 150 character with 45 vigor and strength all other points went to the rest of the stats to be able to cast some spells and wear some armor. So in the end I think it was manageable not too hard I did die a couple of times remembering the patterns and stuff but my point is a lot of people rush through the game and if you’re a pro that’s fine. But if not you might wanna take your time which is what I did. Explored every cave and dungeon, killed every miniboss and followed a lot of quests. Which rewarded me with a lot of runes and got me to the level I was at the end.

[@TheAliasGaming]

One point that I feel is worth mentioning is that, from an exploring perspective, it's easy to find the 10th Crucible Knight or 100th Erdtree Avatar and kind of groan at the repetition. However, the game seems to go out of its way to make the path to actual meaningful side content as obscure as possible. Signature areas and places like Volcano Manor, Mohgwyn Palace, the Grand Cloister, and the Haligtree are all hidden behind some seriously deceptive roadblocks. Signature fights like the Lichdragon, Dragonlord, both Mohgs, and Rykard are all easily missable, and yet a player can fight like a dozen of mostly similar horse bosses based on the direction the game steers them in. It seems weird that the game would litter its lesser content in the findable areas, and hide the great stuff mostly all behind obscure barriers. I would not have fought a lot of very fun, memorable bosses, and explored beautiful, worthwhile areas without googling, and that's a shame. It's okay to have a few true secrets plenty of people won't organically find and will go back and discover later, but this game hid a significant chunk of its best content.

[@braderslooloo]

.... both mohgs?

[@TheAliasGaming]

@@braderslooloo there is a Mohg boss fight DEEP in the sewers of Leyndell, his minor version. The signature version of him is on the Mohgwyn palace

[@MrBevoRules]

So true. I've always found illusory walls and such things annoying. Like the combat is the challenge here, I shouldn't also be straight lied to by the game. And Elden Ring turns that shit to 11. People say the game is all about exploration, but I feel like exploration is pointless because most of the good stuff is impossible to organically find.

[@bloodborneguy4697]

@@MrBevoRules the importante secret Stuff is not hide in obscure ways, i only think Fía quest as the only obscure important quest

[@TheMusicolophile]

Those deceptive roadblocks are part of the philosophy of the game. In simple terms, the game intentionally makes it difficult to find everything. The reasoning being that it creates simultaneously a true sense of mystery and the true jubilation of discovery. That is a glaring positive in a world of gaming where everything is handed to you on a silver platter with a shiny quest marker. The modern philosophy turns true exploration into a checklist and therefore eliminates the feeling of a true discovery. The game didn’t hide its content, it’s simply hoping that you use skills such as deduction and intuition to find what is correctly placed in a world of deep and thoughtful mystery. This is what makes it a hardcore RPG. You’re making a mistake thinking that you’re being punished when the philosophy of this game is simply asking you to think. That has been missing in games for too long and a great many of us are elated to see its return in a, hopefully, impactful way.

[@Amaryryry]

I'm glad you addressed the endgame, as most other reviews haven't yet. That being said, the HP of the enemies was also ridiculous, alongside their damage ramp up. Compounded with the absurd amount of minibosses being shoved in locations they don't work in, and enemies that just don't work in the rooms their put in despite being native to the area, it made me just run past all the enemies in the endgame areas. I would be sitting there for a good minute spamming some of the highest DPS options on mobs and just watch them tank it. Haligtree was the worst for this, in my opinion, and the straw that broke the camel's back. At that point, I just stopped giving a shit about the experience and cheesed the rest of the game. I was so tired of the game at that point, and I still have yet to do a second playthrough. This is the only Souls game, Dark Souls 2 included, where that is the case, and the sharp quality drop in the end game makes it unlikely that I'll come back to it.

[@Vashetrockner]

Could not have stated my endgame experience better. And i played every Fromsoftware game starting with Dark Souls at least twice. DS 2 3x ( for the builds)because i loved the pvp. Sekiro i played 4x and it has gotten better with every playthrough. I won't play ER again if some things don't get adressed.

[@originoa]

completely agree. haligtree id done so much and left these things to the end. so at this poiint i just ran through this bitch eager to wrap it up finally (after hundreds of hours). also the final bosses were all great but i kept thinking this is the last boss n im done! then another 2 phaser.. then another.. then another.. i couldve spaced it out over 2 more days and enjoyed it but i was already trying to wrap it up for 3 days ina row and it kept throwing ANOTHER boss.. and by the last one.. elden beast. second phase that just one shots you with the beams i was like fuck it man.. im summoning someone and ending this . beat radagon alone multiple times and just had enough. i think if they simply made elden beast a diff boss instead of a second phase itd be fine.. bu tthe second phase was exhausting and ruined the boss and forced me to cheese it w summon.. didnt use summons for ANY boss (except Niall but hes bullshit too) . so yeah beautiful masterpiece perfecgt game EXCEPT the very end they fucked that up. but again im not mad at the challenge and wouldve been down to bang it out solo i just couldnt after four other two phasers and me banging my head against it for hours.. kinda of wihs i spaced it out but then i would be able to be here and enjoy all the reviews and spoilers n memes n stuff ive been avoiding for so long

[@erickbeltran7338]

this is entirely unrelated but “this is the only souls game, dark souls 2 included…” is an oxymoron..😅

[@Amaryryry]

@@erickbeltran7338 Lol good catch. Although, if anything, I think it’s redundant??? It was meant to add emphasis to the statement as Dark Souls 2 is the black sheep of the series that most people do not come back to play a second time, if they even finish the first. I’ll note it though haha.

[@OfficialWEIRD]

Honestly, git gud. This game is not meant to be easy

[@NPixel7558]

One of the biggest issues I had is in the late game it really feels like if you didn't spec into a meta build your damage is garbage, on top of being able to casually get 2 shotted even with 50+ Vigor at a high level thanks to how completely and utterly useless most of the armor sets in this game are outside of fashion. This makes it feel like you're a glass cannon but without the added effect of being a cannon. Hence why I felt like I was pressured into respeccing into a more meta playstyle that I didn't want to use to begin with, but it was better than spending 30 minutes fighting a boss that can 1 shot me even if I enjoyed the pure strength build more.

[@ich3730]

Dont really get your problem here. You saying that you should just be able to put points into random stats? Everything in this game is a meta build, every offensive stat is busted if pushed to high numbers.

[@NPixel7558]

@ich3730 Not at all what I was saying but good guess.

[@WhySoSeriousSenpai]

@@ich3730no it isnt if that were the case everyone and their grand mother wouldnt be running around with bleed katatana

[@arpyx8707]

@@WhySoSeriousSenpainot many people do that tho? nowadays people run pure strength, faith, and magic are stuff that I see a lot. Sorcery is probably the most popular

[@jay18001]

@@NPixel7558right? I’m always amazed at people’s ability to completely misinterpret a point. lol

[@Stormzsayshi]

1:01:51 Someone said something in a review and I agree, I think Elden beast was supposed to be fought with Torrent but when they tried to put Torrent in the fight something broke so they had to lessen the fight and we got this version, because a lot of the moves like the beam attack and that attack where you take unavoidable damage from the stars that follow u can be dealt with if u have torrent, even the boss running away SO FAR wouldn't be bad with Torrent because of his speed.

[@beasthayabusa1999]

I do feel like a lot of the bosses in this game that had such small openings I could get one jump attack off. Almost half the bosses devolved into dodge dodge dodge dodge dodge jump rt repeat

[@mmmohyeah281]

Were you also using a colossal weapon by any chance?

[@beasthayabusa1999]

@@mmmohyeah281 anything. Great sword, greataxe. Anything that benefits from two handing pretty much

[@mmmohyeah281]

@@beasthayabusa1999 I'm having the same problems with the slower weapons too. Some of them become way too slow for the bosses during the endgame unless you keep spamming jump attacks. It becomes really tedious. I'm really hoping they buff them somehow. Maybe lower recovery frames or add a new mechanic? I'm not a game designer so I wouldn't know.

[@lunarbreeze5019]

That's because you're rolling away. Even Crucible Knights have big enough openings to do a rolling R1 with a colosal sword between each hit.

[@mmmohyeah281]

@@lunarbreeze5019 rolling r1s need smaller windows than normal r1s

[@mpbros207]

I personally enjoyed the Night’s Cavalry, but there were a few tedious overused bosses the death birds and Tibia Mariner. Those both come to mind.

[@thecreator4296]

Tibia mariner is exempt from that imo just because of how funny I found his fight. Especially the final one, where he summons the big fuck off skeleton,

[@mattbradley408]

erdtree avatar and ulcerated tree spirit have entered the chat

[@misterbadass2089]

@@thecreator4296 I second this

[@JB-sc1tg]

@@mattbradley408 Imagine my shock when I found out I had to fight the Erdtree avatar in the dam capital and haligtree city. Like what was it even doing there?

[@Draffut2003]

@@thecreator4296 He summoned that in Altus for me.

[@TerenceChiII]

The burnout you mentioned at 52min hit me hard. After 108h, I burnt out. Just before the Firegiant. Haven't gotten back to continuing, even though I absolutely adore the game.

[@j0nnyism]

That’s fair but what other games manage to keep ur attention for that long? Over 100 hours is pretty impressive

[@user-ns4zm8qe9p]

@@j0nnyismI really think people just have insanely high expectations for fromsoft

[@islayzombies1]

The difficulty spike is an interesting concept because, other than Miquella’s Haligtree and a few of the bosses, I didn’t experience it. I think partly because I was so over-levelled. My main issue is balancing. Some enemies have ridiculous multi-hit spam moves that are borderline impossible to avoid and do huge damage. I wouldn’t mind either of those things in isolation, multi-hit moves that are difficult to avoid are fine. High damage hits are fine. But multi-hit spam attacks that do massive damage and can almost one-shot you are not fun. Also some of the bosses feel like you basically just have to stay at a distance and bait certain attacks, rather than perfectly learn their moves. Sekiro perfected the boss fights imo, where you can if you’re good enough, respond to each attach perfectly without disrupting the flow of the fight. DS3 and Bloodborne had similar, e.g. Nameless King where you can learn to perfectly dodge all his attacks. But a few Elden Ring bosses felt like you just have to avoid the boss for ages until one particular window arises.

[@luisfilipe2747]

Exactly. Although I did find that an awful lot of enemies could easily one shot you, specially at kaelid like areas, where even if you have 60 vigor you would still get 2-shot by some enemies and bosses. The game is TOO unforgiven and does not give you much space to learn enemies patterns, so you need to exactly what you said, keep your distance and wait the enemy to finish his wambo jambo combo so you can hit once or twice and make space again

[@stephensetcoski7171]

@@luisfilipe2747 agreed. The bosses are quite the spectacle to watch, but are much less fun to fight. Malekith is a great example. I love watching people fight him but I don’t enjoy fighting him myself. Elden Ring bosses are spectacle + delayed attacks + long combos. Even though Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 bosses are less exciting to watch, most of them are far more exciting to fight. Whenever I think about booting up Elden Ring, I always dread it a little bit, not because it’s challenging (even though it is) but because I know how frankly unfun most of the late game bosses are.

[@MrSignman65]

@@stephensetcoski7171 This could've been so much better with an option to refight bosses like in Sekiro. At least then you'd be given as much time as you need to perfect bosses movesets and familiarize yourself with the fights. With how intricate many of the movesets are it only seems fair to be able to appreciate them at any time and master them without going through a full playthrough. Seriously, I enjoy Radagon, Godfrey, and Maliketh and would like to be able to fight them when I want to and not once per 20 hours at max efficiency.

[@sk8legendz]

Malenia highlights that perfectly

[@brianfiszman3179]

Its because the game is unbalanced. You play with almost the same core mechanics than DS3 against bosses that are much faster. I played with Dark Moon overhaul mod that mostly leave the game as is but adds bloodborne fast dodge and life recovery system by playing aggressive and also sekiro's deflection system. It completely changes the game into a better one.

[@poochymama2878]

I can't stand when RPGs scale enemies to your lvl. It completely neuters any sense of character progression, which (imo) is one of the main pillars of a good RPG. One of the best feelings in RPGs (for me) is coming back and stomping an enemy that stomped you earlier. It really lets you feel how much more powerful your character has become. That feeling of character progression probably the thing I love most about RPGs. Scaling completely ruined Obvlivion, Skyrim, and ESO for me. Big reason why I loved Morrowind so much more, despite the terrible combat. I had to wait until modders were able to remove the scaling for me to have any fun with those games. That said, I know a lot of people disagree with this sentiment. I'm just so happy to finally have a great RPG with no lvl scaling. One thing I'll add is that heavy armor can get pretty OP late game, to the point where you can just face tank melania with no dodges, but it requires a bunch of other items/spells. If you get the 3 physical resistance talismans, Bull Goat armor, as well as Black Flame's protection, Golden Vow, and or boiled crab, defense physic, and perfume, you get get physical resistance up to ~85% or so, and all non physical above 70%. Great critical review btw. Easily the best I've seen, and the only one I've found with legitimate points/critiques. Most of them are simply people that played 10 hours and threw up a review out of frustration. I think it shows in the like/dislike ratio of this video compared to those other negative reviews. That the like/dislike ratio is still really positive, despite this being mostly a negative review, is nice to see.

[@Lextorias]

Scaling ruining progression is a valid point. But Elden Ring as is can ruin content by too easily overleveling the player. Stomping a boss should be done intentionally, not accidentally. The reason scaling is so prevalent is because the alternative is the problem presented in Elden Ring. I think harsh scaling is a bad solution if implemented poorly, but there is something that needs to be done. I'm pitching solutions to the game's current problems as opposed to hypothesizing about future ones. I also explicitly say that I trust From Soft to come up with a better solution than just slapping Oblivion scaling in.

[@marcosdheleno]

@@Lextorias i completely disagree with this, simply because there's not really a reason to go back to the earlier areas after you found all you needed to, and even then the game does still offer at least a few challenges that are problematic later on, like the sentinel knight(which you can kill earlier, but was clearly at least a mid game boss) and the twin grafted scions. a case can even be made about the assassins you can face but are far stronger than the other boss in the dungeons they are presented. and its not like the late game areas lack challenge either, even with a full build caelid will still be troublesome, same for altus plateau. having 2 areas(limgrave and liurna) that arent hard late game is not an issue for the vast majority of players. and for those that are, i will simply ask, what do you need to do in limgrave, after reaching farum azula, that you would need it to be challenging for?

[@Dopameme]

I prefer enemy scaling tbh. It's the only way the game can offer consistent challenge regardless of the order in which they finish content. In Elden Ring, I went back to fight dozens of bosses I missed but by that point I was so overleved for them that the fights weren't fun. I can see how some people enjoy stomping enemies to feel powerful, but its mechanically boring and gets old fast.

[@Lextorias]

The point of many of the dungeons in the open world is specific items behind them. Most caves, for example, exist solely for the smithing stones within. So if you want to continue the game and upgrade any amount of gear, you'll need to go back to many different places to get to these caves. This is the same with most of the dungeons in the game. Go back to get ashes of war or weapons or such. There's a valid reason for most players to go back to these areas, and if you've done any amount of content in a harder area then gone back, most of the area bosses and dungeon bosses will be complete pushovers. With how many are in the game, your first encounter with a lot of them will be killing them in three hits. Which ruins your first encounter with a From Soft boss. You can fight that boss again later, but stomping it the first time sucks all the magic out of a game about fighting fun bosses.

[@VIVc-art]

@@theholypopechodeii4367 If I had a choice to miss out on a huge world that is filled with copy paste meaningless content that may make my character stronger or get fucked repeatedly by the same boss but with cool and epic move set, I would rather beat my head against that boss for hours. When ds3 first came out I would sit for hours at the Abyss Watchers trying to get a perfect hitless victory just because I loved the fight so much. Especially the music. I couldn`t play Elden Ring but when I watched the playthrough vods I would just skip hours of mindless walking around. I love open world games like skyrim because they allow you to actually craft your own little story in a simulation of the medieval fantasy world. But From Software games have a clear goal from start to finish and their worlds do not abide by common logic they work in an apocalyptic mythical setting, that you are simply meant to fix or destroy completely. The fundamental problems of previous souls games where never that they lacked an open world or jump button, and these problems where not fixed in this game but actually made worse. Like shallow endings that don`t have any clear impact on the world, just different color schemes of a same cut scene. Just like typical obscure character side quests that always have unfulfilling ends, that are meant to immerse you in a depressing atmosphere, but are done over and over every game so you just don't care.

[@KLBoringBand]

I love the big, you-can-miss-stuff format for the first few sections while you’re grinding and figuring out the controls/your build. But once you hit like the snowy area, I’m kinda exhausted with just wandering around aimlessly because of the repetitive discoveries. It’s a doubly bad problem because the enemies get this huge damage spike then too, so you’re forced to go grind again at a point where you sort of just want to feel masterful of the skills you’ve acquired and have a few tough challenges to test those skills.

[@sandman5522]

42:00 during my first playthrough, I went to Liurnia before going to the Weeping Peninsula. I actually found Weeping Peninsula to be a lot easier to clear than Liurnia, as there were even much easier variations of certain bosses (Cemetary Shade, Leonine Misbegotten Warrior, etc). For a game that encourages freedom of exploration, they clearly put a progression in difficulty in each location.

[@dragonchr15]

You are free to go south when you south instead of north and the WP would be much harder.

[@tapewoerm]

Yea as the other guy said, you can go to weeping peninsula lvl 1 so the game kind of tells you to go to weeping peninsula before liurnia since you can’t go to liurnia before beating Godrick. I know there’s a secret path to go around storm veil but that’s clearly placed for people who come back for a second play through or at least make them to use later in game. Only bad thing is that everything highlights you going towards stormveil since you literally get torrent and meet melina on the path towards stormveil. If you got Torrent more in the middle of Limgrave or maybe at the church outside of the first step it would be easier to motivate players subconsciously to explore however they want. Also, they probably thought people would struggle with Margit and Godrick and since they only could go south they would try to explore that area if they got stuck but since you can over farm and find a lot of good items early game it isn’t that much of a pressure.

[@TheCompleteMental]

It's an issue with dark souls 1 as well. Sure you _can_ go to the catacombs right off the bat, but you know exactly what happens when new players try that.

[@night1952]

@@TheCompleteMental It's not an issue, it's intended, if you don't like it that's on you.

[@TheCompleteMental]

@@night1952 if nonlinearity is intended, then it contradicts the intentions. That's poor game design.

[@Dualblades47]

I agree with the story part most of all. I do prefer making my character, but I was really hoping for a more in depth story with at least a less vague ending, and maybe more dialogue and development for Melina and some other key npcs.

[@massiveprogressive9488]

The problem with From Software as much as I love them, is that their lore and world building are on point, but their present storytelling really sucks and that goes back to the first King's Field. Their endings in my opinion are lame as well. When you choose not to link the fire in DS1 for example. I'd love to see what your character does/did after leaving through the fog gate and plunging the world into darkness. I get it's probably open to interpretation, but I would have loved to have seen a bit more to the ending/s :P

[@Dualblades47]

@@massiveprogressive9488 I totally agree. Unfortunately they seem to have something of a "if it isn't broke, don't fix it," approach which for the most part is great but shoots them in the foot when it comes to stuff like this. I'm not done with AC6 yet but I really like the direction the story is starting to go in, and the rest of fromsoft could stand to take notes.

[@sagenebula7120]

@@massiveprogressive9488miyazaki has always wanted people to put their own interpretations on his stories so i doubt thats ever gonna change unfortunately

[@ich3730]

@@sagenebula7120 yeah its almost like thats the point and the games he makes replicate a specific experience from his childhood.

[@cxMiquella]

@@ich3730Just because that’s the point doesn’t mean it’s immune to criticism. I do prefer it being left to interpretation myself but some things are simply left way too vague

[@spnked9516]

One of my biggest issues with Elden Ring is that, every so often, the game seems to earmark a fight and demand you meet it in a very particular manner. The Godskin duo wants you to use sleep, Commander Niall wants you to use that item that charms enemies, Melenia screams at you to use bloodhound step, and the Elden beast wants you to be a mage and void 3/4 of its moveset with retaliate or black hole - just for a few examples. You can absolutely beat any of these fights without these methods, but there is a night and day difference in difficulty when you approach them with the "intended" method. This kind of feeds into another complaint I have which is weapon and item balancing. Weapon arts like bloodhound step and nebula trivialize the game, and meteorite of astel may just be the single most broken sorcery From has ever put into a game.

[@courtneycherry5582]

Maybe that's why they made rescaling a thing? Maybe you're supposed to play it, as multiple classes. 🧐

[@Psychosomatic63]

@@courtneycherry5582 that's a great point...if the respec mechanic didn't require you consume a finite item each time you do it.

[@adc7071]

wait those sorceries work on elden beast??? WHAT???? WHY DIDNT I KNOW THIS EARLIER WTF

[@Shizzmoney74]

Agree, the game for the most part champions "your way" to get through it (including looking like the Burger King with the Glintstone mask) but once I got to Radagon, I had to build out a certain way to beat him/Elden Beast.

[@zeehero7280]

the way I beat niall was using a weapon that does very high burst damage, and killed the dual wielding enemy first, then quickly got the other. after that I was free to focus the boss.

[@mhasemore]

I can definitely relate to the story criticism in this video. You get so much agency when it comes to gameplay, progression and combat, but you can't do something like talk to Malenia before she attacks you. Lansseax is also apparently a sentient shapeshifter but in the game she's just a boss. Two huge wasted opportunities for good stories right there, and that's only scratching the surface. Still kinda hoping they might do something with DLC though.

[@FRealw27026]

I agree with this. In ds3 you could talk with Sister Friede before her boss fight and that was perfectly executed.

[@grossartus]

I was so stressed out leveling up and finding good weapons/ashes of war that i forgot there was any lore at all, i just got hooked up to Ranni's storyline, but the rest? Couldnt care less specially when i still have to level up

[@talalzubari1964]

53:25 “The game subtly guiding you to run past them” couldn’t have said it better, especially in the exact area of the clip when you go up the stairs and face the erdtree keeper and the two knights behind him and the enemies shooting arrows at you, even if you try you wont succeed, the knights are too strong with alot of health and poise, the erdtree keeper keeps shooting things at you, you get staggered so quickly, at this point of the game i was really just fed up and just wanted to get to the end of the area (melania) skipping all other enemies. I usually tend to return to enemies i didnt beat, but close to the end game i was just not giving a damn it felt like they just wanted you to die making it harder just for the sake off.. making it harder.

[@illastration1]

The points about reused content and balance were spot on. By the end of my play through it felt like a kick in the teeth to spend time exploring and only get a reused dungeon ending with a boss that you’ve already beaten and are over levelled for.

[@ThreeGoddesses]

My theory is that they never intended for you to get EVERY dungeon done, so to save money on developing new bosses, they placed dupes all over the place so you can get as many of the unique ones done as possible. Because I spent hours doing nothing but new stuff, and that was like 200 hours of content. No way they intended for people to be 100%ing the game their first playthrough. edit: also, there are a LOT of bosses. And lets assume you ONLY ran through the story relevant missions. You wouldnt see more then a handful of duped bosses, but each second encounter is an improved, more complicated fights. From there, imagine if you only experienced like 20% of the dungeons, catacombs, and caves, but roughly evenly spread out through the zones. You STILL wouldnt see too many dupes.

[@lvtcs]

​@@ThreeGoddesses Well, I'm sure they did not think the majority of players to explore every location completely, but that's sort of the point of souls games. If you neglect exploration, you will be punished and disadvantaged since you don't have important items. Not to mention, exploring is fun and sort of the entire hype surrounding this game and open world games in general. I could argue they are a triple A studio that is simply just lazy, but FromSoftware was clearly just over ambitious and were under budget or time constraints. On the other hand, "Saving money" is not an excuse to leave aspects of your game as underwhelming or repetitive. Like I said, they were over ambitious and just shouldn't have released the game this year. I would rather they released it two years from now with more creativity and original, momentous experiences. I still think highly of the game, but I am annoyed that people try to justify its issues. This game has problems, a lot of them, there's no denying that.

[@MarigoldAW]

Honestly really great review. Very well written. Your comments on the endgame and damage and boss design feel so vindicating because you said exactly what I had been thinking. It's like you read my mind haha. One silver lining about the lack luster armor resistances is that Greatshields are actually very very very good now. With the Greatshield talisman and the Turtle charm you can reliably block and face tank a full combo from Radagon without being guard broken. Currently on my 3rd playthrough and once I get to the Consecrated snowfield I run past everything and go straight to the boss and I do the same with Farum Azula. The enemies are so difficult to fight for so little reward that I would rather just skip them all. It sucks because those locations look visually stunning and I wish I had more of a reason to stick around. The reused enemies, the damage, and the scattered minibosses as regular enemies just make the areas feel unfun to explore. We also had similar thoughts on boss design as well. The Fire Giant and Elden Beast feel like a chore because I'm spending more time chasing them to get a few hits in rather than actually actively fighting them. The fact that they are so big and can create such huge distance between you is quite annoying more than it is difficult. It's a shame because I really liked both of them on my first playthrough. On my second and 3rd however I was more frustrated because of things that were out of my control like the player camera whipping around or the boss running away for the millionth time while spamming me with ranged attacks. Great review all in all with very reasonable criticisms of the game.

[@elitereptilian200]

This was much more level headed and well put together than I was expecting.. great job you did!!

[@Rocket-yc8pj]

A big problem I had was the importance of upgrading weapons over levels because whenever leveling up I felt like there is little reason to do so when it's only 5% more dmg to get 80 dexterity and strength from 60 and 70 and when upgrading fallingstar beast and ghazal wheel from 9 to 10 its a 20 percent difference when it took a minute to get the stone instead of hours of grinding

[@Gabriel-eq9tx]

Reallyate here but, in every souls game is better to just upgrade the weapon instead of leveling up

[@jeremiahdavis8590]

​@@Gabriel-eq9txbut in the earlier games leveling up your strength or dex 10 levels felt just as powerful as upgrading your weapon. Just five levels. Now ill upgrade my stats all the way to 45 and it feels like it hasn't really done anything compared to just one level of upgrading my weapon

[@DronesOverTheMoon]

​@@jeremiahdavis8590It really didn't lol, the Strength of the stats are relative to the level of your weapons and their scalling, leveling dex and strength earlier wouldn't net you the same damage increase as just upgrading the weapon because in the early base damage is what matters the most, that's usually why you usually level up stuff like vigor, stamina and focus before everything else

[@jeremiahdavis8590]

@@DronesOverTheMoon of course. But the degree of which upgrading is superior to leveling is smaller in the earlier games. That's all.

[@adremmelech]

@@jeremiahdavis8590 wrong

[@AnonymousInternetUserLaine]

1:03 I just want to say that I've spent 250+ hours on this game and this is my first time seeing that specific npc there, just makes me appreciate how large the game really is

[@kaiderhai86]

Wait. You never saw the "D" ?

[@arugula517]

@@kaiderhai86 “there”

[@fy4b230]

Yeah I saw him there on ng+. (140 hours in). I missed a good amount even though my first playthrough was 139 hours. Being able to explore without worrying about getting destroyed in the “early game”, I’ve already faced 4 new field bosses, found 1 new NPC (poc), and seen NPCs (D) where I never seen them before. This is 1 hour into the ng+ cycle.

[@showlottathings]

Is there a lot of reused content? Yes. Will a player experience a lot of reused content in a typical playthrough? No.

[@AnonymousInternetUserLaine]

@@showlottathings Unless you spend alot of time in the catacombs searching for Deathroot

[@pretzelboi64]

Of all the new features in this game, stealth has to be the most welcomed one. There are times when you just want to get items from higher level dungeons without fighting the obviously overpowered enemies. It makes the rest of the game actually playable and feels satisfying.

[@andrewstephens5885]

Starting off as a wretch who chose the one wrong path at the start and got teleported to Caelid: stealth is the only way😂

[@Oakshield2]

Well, except the part where a lot of times, enemies are blind and deaf as shit and you basically have to walk over to them and tap them to be noticed.

[@pretzelboi64]

@@Oakshield2 Yeah, I actually started noticing that only like a week after I made that comment. I thought I was good at stealth but the enemies are just poorly programmed. They don't react to sounds at all and some of them are outright noticing you based on invisible triggers. It's a bit of a shitshow.

[@lunasene]

@@pretzelboi64 those 2 revenants in the haligtree guarding marikas soreseal noticed me even though i was wearing the full black knife set, had assassins gambit on a dagger, AND decided to crouch walk in the bushes just to be safe. the invisible triggers are... definitely something lolol

[@pretzelboi64]

@@lunasene To be honest, I mostly played that entire dungeon in coop as a summon before heading straight for the grace. I didn't bother soloing that shit after I fell into the revenant area on my first run. In coop, the fucking invaders would always try to bait us there and they'd often hide right next to the triggers. It was such a strange dungeon ngl

[@0ptimuscrime]

One thing I haven’t heard people talk about is crafting. There are so many recipes that you can make, but I think the game doesn’t really encourage people to use them at all. Which recipes you get and where you get them from feels completely random, and I suspect a lot of people end up doing what I did: picking up heaps of materials but only ever crafting very specific things in specific circumstances. I think it’s easy to fix too, just make all crafting items respawn infinitely, and maybe highlight new recipes in the crafting menu so it’s not just an avalanche of pots and perfume bottles. Edit: plenty of other games have this same issue, but I think From could probably figure out a great solution.

[@Lextorias]

It is strange. I do enjoy it for essentially opening up the previous throwing pot/dagger system from the previous games, but then I think back on how I rarely ever used them in other games. I think bow/crafting item only playthroughs are much more viable and might be fun to play because of it. For most people you might only craft 1% of the available items though.

[@onaucc9899]

I don't know. I discovered crafting early in the game (unlike my friend who first saw it after Fire Giant, lol) i simply haven't used it. The only items i've crafted are those yellow coop-summoning items, and that wasn't even really needed. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have, but in my opinion the craftable items are just not valueable enough to actually bother. I would have loved to see some unique, great items, or maybe the ability to craft super rare stuff like the +10 Somber Smithing Stones or something (with A LOT of different, hard to get materials, of course). Like this it just kinda feels like a more complicated way to get stuff that would otherwise been available at some merchant and not like some epic crafting system.

[@Malfeasance1]

For me the issue with a lot of the crafted items, especially a lot of the magic throwables, require FP to use on top of the mat cost. With the game having so many incredibly strong weapon arts and spells, why am I going to waste FP on a pot or magic stone in a random standard fight when I can otherwise use it for a better ability? I will say the attack + one hit defense up perfume is a winner though. It's basically the same as the opaline bubbletear in the flask while granting attack up, applies to allies, and you can carry something like 9 at a time.

[@gamzeemakara7409]

What I’ve found with crafting, as in most games, is if you think it’s not encouraged enough, it’s just because you didn’t care enough to try and use it. There’s plenty of times items can be fun but you never *have* to use items to beat something. It’s that simple. If you think they’re underused, use them more.

[@elijahtalmud8281]

@@Malfeasance1 The throwable FP items are there to give ranged options to melee builds, as well as give them access to damage types they might not normally use. Spellcasters will just use spells.

[@klipk7296]

If the skinny godskin was its own boss, not reused 50 times, and wasn't lumped into a duo fight, it would actually be one of my favourite bosses. They kind of ruined that boss for me by throwing it at me constantly

[@z_jaydee6040]

There are only 4 of him him and they are VERY far apart.

[@weebto]

​@@z_jaydee60404? windmill village, caelid divine tower and? unless you're lumping them together with the ones from godskin duo and spiritcaller snail

[@Onefishygal]

@@weebto why wouldn't you? they are the same enemy, there are no differences other than the spiritcaller snail one is debuff immune.

[@weebto]

@@Onefishygal yeah I was just questioning the technicalities

[@sagenebula7120]

Yeah that duo fight is god awful, ornstein and smough worked because one was fast and one was slow, the apostle is fast and the noble is faster so it makes it too much to deal with when you cant pull them apart so you can deal with one or the other

[@ghostraven377]

I have to say the balancing aspect is a big deal. I always play my first play throughs offline without help. I enjoy the struggle that ensues as well as the satisfaction you get from your first clear. So I didn’t know any of the boss fights or any of the rune farms, none of that stuff, only what I figured out myself. That being said, right from the get go, I kept at the tree sentinel until I beat him as a wretch. Took hours, was awesome, continued on exploring, found dungeons, ended up in rotting swamp land, died a ton. Found loads of weapon upgrade materials as well as summons, didn’t even have the ability to summon for nearly twenty hours of game play. Long story short, I fought a ton of bosses early on that I wasn’t supposed to, got good, killed them, eventually found my way back into the path of progression and got to the bosses I knew about and was excited to fight! Radahn being the first...I watched all the rage videos, I enjoy them. This guy broke a ton of controllers....I smoked him in less than a minute. It took me longer to figure out how to activate his fight than the actual fight. This happened again with the beast cleric guy or whatever he was, before barricade wore off of my shield he was in phase two, and died almost as fast there after. I didn’t find milenia yet, but honestly I don’t think it’d be that much different and will definitely look her up now that I’m on new game+. But my point was that a lot of the iconic boss fights I was hoping to experience, I bulldozed through all because I fell off the beaten path early on and it never caught up to me. Was I nearly thirty hours in and my weapon +8 before I killed Godrick....you betcha. The two bosses that trolled me the most in my first play through was the fire giant, took me about thirty tries to kill, and elden beast. I found out later, my holy lancer build was no bueno for that guy and I got curb stomped for hours on him before switching on the noob bleed mode than mopping him up. Turns out people were just getting the fire giant to break a leg off the cliff side this whole time. But otherwise, yeah. I played dark souls 3 for years, I couldn’t even guess how many clears I did. Spurred on by watching lobos do his challenge runs and trying them out. However, I can already tell that while elder ring was amazing and huge, the second play-through, even on a new character, isn’t as fun. I can’t see myself playing this game for years like I did with bloodborne and dark souls 3. But it was still an amazing experience.

[@qAnon118]

All that text & you said fuck all. Lmao.

[@texastoast9448]

Not going to lie you sounded like you were a bigger KZbinr with the way this video is set up which surprised me so you gained a new Sub

[@caedus93]

I liked this review quite a bit, even if I don't feel the way you do about some of the critiques you made. My biggest issue is definitely the one you alluded to about endgame balancing. It feels like everything starts to 2 shot me and I ended up using summons for bosses when I would ideally have preferred to 1v1 them (i.e. Malenia) Kind of a downer, but still really fun game.

[@evanmarogen]

How much vigor?

[@hisholiness4537]

Don't neglect vigor

[@kaiderhai86]

I have 45 vigor and the +2 talisman for physical damage. I fought Godfrey and could tank 3 to 4 hits depending on the attack. But if you get staggered in multiple hits (like the octoslash from Malenia) its over no matter how tanky you are

[@3CODKing]

Malenia is an easy boss if you can constantly and consistently break her poise. There is a weapon that can do this very easy too and it has a decent amount of range.

[@ameshizen381]

@@3CODKing consistently. Not with all the hyperarmor she pulls out of her ass.

[@captainmacmellon8909]

Thank you for talking about the flawed boss design cause I felt like I was the only one that noticed the flaws and everyone thought I was bad but then I see them play and they just use op magic and stunlock the boss until they're dead

[@TheLamealot]

Yeah, that‘s because they‘re good and you not.

[@snowarmth]

Seems like people are mistaking losing with being bad and winning with being good.. A person using Comet Azur to defeat the boss without dodging anything or engaging with the boss at all isn't pro play, nor it is being accustomed to the game's combat. When people talk about "getting gud", they mean to find what the game demands of you and meet its expectations. I don't think they're meeting the game's expectations, seeing that they just cheese every challenge... That, and I think that the bandwagon for this game is among the worst I've seen.. There's so much elitism in this community.. I hope people can come to see that...

[@hitogi06]

It be nice if we could upgrade Armour. This would fix the damage spike in late game, and make it less frustrating to learn the moves of the enemies.

[@Nazylexx]

Oh god no, upgrading armor isn't good idea because it's so costly (look DS1) and prevents switching armors for fashion or some bosses. If you run with different weapons, armor upgrades would kill experimentation.

[@nelson_rebel3907]

I dont think we need armor upgrades. The system for weapons improving is grindy enough for the bells and you only get them at the end of the game. But unique bonuses for damage types would be a more interesting take. Similar to how when you put ashes of war on a weapon you select its "scaling" and such. But instead for armor it would give damage bonuses or damagae reductions for the existing system

[@kaiderhai86]

Armor upgrades would be awesome! If youre a wizard and cannot afford to wear heavy plate you can atleast put some extra stats on your clothe to make it better. But they can surely come up with something better than farming smithing stones or tons of runes for that system.

[@hitogi06]

@@Nazylexx experimentation is tied to the person. That not a good reason to not add armor upgrades, especially in end game. Thus whole game is a grind if your bad at reading enemies, so that also a weak reason to not ad armor upgrades. And it being costly is not any different then the weapons anyway. And if it's fashion you are worried about, then that easily achieved at end game once you get all the bells. Not that it actually effects you anyway, by this point you already finished the story and unlocked all the bells. Farming runes for armor upgrades would be easy by that point and you can play a second playthrough with whatever armor you want.

[@SaffronTheBat]

talismens my friend

[@theodorehunter4765]

I definitely feel like enemy damage get's out of hand after Morgott. If armor upgrades were still in the game, and you could, say, double the absorption between a base set and a fully upgraded one, I think the spike would be more palatable. I also wish that there were more than 3 sets of "light armor" that weren't robes. Most of the armor in the game is plate mail or robes. The other thing is that the armor alterations are lacking. I just cleared out everything in Limgrave on my current playthrough, and I have maybe 3 pieces of armor that can be altered. I was kinda hoping for much more depth in that department, including changing colors or various pieces. (Unfortunately, we get 5 sets of Knight armor for the different kingdoms that are barely any different. Why couldn't that be one set of armor with 5 color palate options?)

[@ThePopeOfAllDope]

Fair enough

[@cloudshifter]

Mountaintop of the giants is just poorly balanced from the devs. I have 80% negation on physical damage and 70% on magic negation and still get 3 tapped by a common enemy.

[@Eli.j4h_._]

Yeah i was telling my brother that at a certain point past like the 2nd boss reg mobs are basically just mini bosses everywhere

[@ThePopeOfAllDope]

@@cloudshifter what sort of stats did you have at that time?

[@cloudshifter]

@@ThePopeOfAllDope Preety spread out, 60 vigor, 40 mind, 30 endurance, 40 strenght, 32 Dex, 52 intel, 36 faith, 30 arcane

[@hideodaikoku]

Incredible critique. I thoroughly enjoyed watching your video all the way to the end. The only thing I would add is that multiplayer and co-op need a lot of work. The experience of roaming the open world on foot, re-summoning after defeating a boss or entering a dungeon, delay during duels, 2 v 1 balance for invasions are among the many things I find could be improved.

[@mrragecage9312]

I think my biggest gripe with Elden ring, is I enjoy making multiple characters. But, after playing through the game once, I do not want to start over and try other builds, just because I feel like I have to run ALL around the world and complete a checklist of items before I can have my flasks, and weapons/spells. I enjoy the open world; I just don't want to run all around the world over and over getting tears and flask upgrades.

[@IgnemAeternum]

I know what you are feeling, but you can EASILY get a lot of flasks early in the game if you plan on invading low level for example. Sure, you need a friend to transfer some items or gear if you want fashion, and the weapon of your choice for example (Just giving an example). But getting Flasks is very easy in the first area, and even others. You just have to skip everything and go straight to them, shouldn't take more than 2 hours. And you can go even further with this by going to Volcano Manor early in the game too. I have 4 characters, and all of them have everything completed, but most of my time was spent invading people and trying different builds such as Black Knife/50FTH spells like Black Blade and Elden Stars, etc. It really makes people panic at meta level 125 when they get hit and half of their HP is gone with 10% total non curable.

[@TZerot0]

My friend is similar, so what he did is create a bunch of character templates in the character creator and use Rennala to respec as he saw fit. Not a perfect solution, but there are enough larval tears available that it shouldn't really be a problem.

[@doomraven0]

I honestly have always wished that the stories in From games were more in depth because when you actually see all the lore for each game sequentially, the stories, npcs, and events are quite good and even involving (including DS2). The reason this game's story doesn't feel terribly different is because GRRM was a huge fan of the Souls series and their storytelling style. From what i have seen and read, it appears that most of the overarching world lore and big events were Martin's input, while many of the smaller stories and NPC questlines were From's. The story in ER is more up front than the Souls games and, for my money, the NPCs are generally very interesting and personable compared to previous games. That was enough for me to really dig it but i can also understand why you would want more from the story. On the other hand, i like that the From games are pretty much a pure gaming experience, and i never got sucked into them because of lore.

[@drawinglikeasir]

18:24 - Getting dunked on by skeletons.. Is it just me or was that reference intentional :D

[@ibrokeintourhouseandstoleu5453]

One of my memorable moments from the game was early on in limgrave. It was night and I took down the giants pulling the carriage. I killed the small enemies then the giants and because it was night I was in the area of one of them black knights on horseback. It was such a cool moment that I won't forget.

[@samuelbarrett1082]

This game was super hard for me. It's my first from soft game since Kings Field 1&2 a million years ago. I didn't know you were invincible while rolling until halfway through the game and didn't get past 30 vigor until very late in the game. Almost everything one shotted me everywhere. I wanted to be a magic user but didn't feel safe without a shield, so it really affected my build. I was stubborn about re-specing because I thought that was mostly for multiplayer. I turned off multiplayer so I didn't see any messages or bloodstains the whole time. After 390 hours I finally beat it and did most things....I think. But, it was pretty punishing. I didn't get the rewarding feeling of beating the game more than relief it's finally over. Plus I had little clue of what the story actually was besides little, seemingly unrelated, tidbits of information.

[@samuelbarrett1082]

@@professorplebian sorry you were disappointed. I liked it. It pissed me off at times and was really hard, but I found it satisfying to discover things and overcome those challenges on my own, without looking up the answers. Hence playing for so long. I like to relax playing games too, and sometimes challenge myself. Whether that's a super hard game, puzzle game, or scary game. Not every game is for everyone. Apparently you don't like this one. There are plenty of others to choose from. Personally, I'd never play a sports game or multiplayer fps. That's just my preference.

[@danielurban8987]

I subscribed to your channel based on the high quality of this review alone and I want to tell you I appreciate the work you put into this video. It's not only a very pleasant watch but it also seems like a very fair and honest review. At the same time I feel like among all the reviews I have seen this one probably is closest to what can be called the truth. Keep up the good work!

[@evilashxero]

I like how people say "Fromsoft games run terrible at launch". They run terrible, until a more powerful console comes out to run the game properly, or your PC can power through it. They screwed up on the PC version, and I don't think they'll actually fix it. Someone will probably have to mod it, to get rid of all that stutter. For console players, you probably won't be playing a locked 60 until PS6 or XBox Series XX. As for the critiques, I agree. The game should be about 30 percent smaller, to cut down on all the reuse. That's my biggest problem, hands down. It's a very good game, but if no one complains about it's faults, they may just keep making this same call each time. They may anyway, but at least someone said something about it. I'd love a "Director's Cut" of this game, where they just took out about 30 percent of the game. lol

[@jessenelson4154]

I really really felt your section of reusing bosses in my very soul, though I feel the nights Calvary is not the absolute worst (some have glaives and some have maces with ever so slightly different moves) I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been riding around at night and all of a sudden “oh look at that, I’ve just become a landing perch for yet another death bird” with a slight surprise when they started showing up with their frost flame abilities, or god forbid I have to fight yet another version of the erdtree burial watchdogs, where no matter what kind of weapon they have in their hand, you already know what moves and magic they are going to whip out, because they are the exact same boss with a different weapon. I’ve been absolutely loving the game so far though, don’t get me wrong, I think the story is fairly good once you can piece together whatever pieces of the puzzle are available to us (as I am expecting them to expand on the story eventually with DLC) I think the amount of weapons and armors are good, I love the environmental story telling, a lot of the enemy designs, really cool and unique abilities, the whole works. Of course all of those things have their own flaws, and those flaws may differ from person to person, but man, the amount of repeat bosses in the game is honestly something I have a hard time overlooking, fighting the same type of boss a couple of times can be alright, and really good if it has significance that this enemy is repeated, but when I can count the amount of times I’ve fought “boss A with a slightly different name/ability” on both hands, and some even more then that, I really get burned out on exploring, because I know at the end of whatever adventure I’m on, or mini dungeon I’m slicing though, I know that I’m going to have to fight a boss that I’m sick of fighting.

[@VVENDINGEN]

Yeah that’s exactly my gripe. Like You and Lextorias said, I overall love this game for all the usual From flair. But can’t shake the feeling that I would’ve preferred if it either went even more in a “Dark Souls 4” direction with a tighter, smaller open world, or changed up the formula more than it did. One thought I might add on the recycled/upgraded bosses: In previous FromSoft games, bosses from early in the game would often pop up later in the game as “regular” enemies. And even if it was a boss that the player hated to fight and/or really struggled against, since the player usually gained enough power since the first fight that the boss now becomes a pushover, it gave the player an opportunity to “settle the score”. So the player can say “man I really hated this gargoyle boss 20 hours ago but with my new big ass sword and awesome spells I really stomped him this time”. I think it was a super smart and extremely deliberate design choice to “skew” the players memory of the encounters they didn’t like in a positive direction. And that’s what irritated me most about Elden Ring having so many bosses that pop up 3-9 times over the game with each variant having either none or only small changes to their gameplay or appearance, but huge upgrades in power level: Because to me it achieves the complete opposite of the effect I described above. Every player will have different fights they enjoy and dislike. If a boss that you really enjoyed to fight pops up again later in the game, the most positive outcome of that will likely be you having another good fight, minus the novelty. But the bosses you didn’t like to fight popping up again, with nothing changed other than their increase in power or added minion enemies meaning that they might be even harder to defeat while all the things you disliked about it still present feels just absolutely discouraging. (Yes, I’m looking at You, Ulcerated Tree Spirit Nr. 53)

[@eldendynast]

@@VVENDINGEN From really should have deleted especially some dungeons, or at least their bosses. I don't get why every dungeon needs a boss especially if it means 90th burial watchdog, if there's a cool puzzle or loot that's one thing but so much copy and pasting. I like your idea of just making them regular enemies later like they did with the chaos demons in DS1. ER just reminded me of BotW with the same enemy over and over again in each temple.

[@marcosdheleno]

i think everyone can agree that this is only a problem because of the godskin douches and the crucible knights. every other repeated boss is either only repeated once, but added a new gimmick to set it apart(godrick, margitt, loretta), or are the same but have a lore reason to be there(the tree stumps/ulcerated trees). overall i feel like aside from those 2 earlier cases, i did not have a problem with the repeated ones, be it the dragons, or the death birds(even if a couple of those gave me a major headache).

[@danielsolomon63]

Dunno man, finished it once with around 180 hours put in but could not come back to it. Got back to Bloodborne and Sekiro as those are beste SF games in their entire roster for me. I really tried a journey 2 in Elden Ring and stopped around 10 hours as the game feels too tedious on a 2nd play...Even tried to start a new class with a fresh start and stopped aroudn 5h in as i kept envision how huge and long is the road ahead...

[@dumpsta-divrr365]

The best example of that bit about absolutely needing i-frames to deal with certain attacks during mounted combat is Adula's greatsword move, very easy to avoid on foot but feels damn near impossible on horseback due to the insane tracking and AoE. It would have been cool if you could have gotten some sort of upgrades for Torrent throughout the game, one of which being some kind of dash.

[@Hatemx1]

His sprint starts with a dash...

[@jaredminjares3361]

What is an I-frame? New to these games

[@dumpsta-divrr365]

@@jaredminjares3361 Invincibility frames, you get them when you roll

[@kraned946]

Damn I was actually so shocked to see you only have 4k subs keep up the good videos man subscribed and belled

[@BhargavaMan]

While I may disagree with some of the points you made, I think we can all agree that your channel needs waaaaaaayyy more subs. Great work, my guy.

[@mightyakkylex]

Trust me, backstabs don't always alert enemies. My favorite farming route is the path from outside the Prayer room in Miquella's Halligtree and the 2 crosswbomen standing face to face on the ledge have seen the other be backstabed multiple times and not even flinched unless I flung the body of their friend at them

[@lyger8742]

It's wonderful to see a review that isn't just praising the game till it's blue in the face. A truly honest critique. You have my subscription, fellow tarnished

[@HolySok]

I mean people can praise the game and still be honest. Elden Ring has some divisive elements. But "divisive" is key here. Some people really don't like the boss design but some people really love it. Someone who loved the bosses in ER isn't going to do a critique of them like someone who didn't enjoy their experience.

[@lyger8742]

@@HolySok That's fair. At the time I think I wrote this in relation to multiple websites giving the game perfect scores when there were some major problems with the game (and this is coming from a fromsoft fan). It felt like a really fake reaction to the game based on first impressions rather than a full critique. I love that Elden ring is being treated like a big deal but I guess the 10/10 reviews from multiple websites just felt forced to me so hearing someone mention where the game doesn't hit the mark was refreshing.

[@HolySok]

@@lyger8742 I think it's because the Freedom the game affords and its open world design was so exhilarating and refreshing for many critics. At least that's what I gleaned. Maybe there would be more 9/10 if more people had time to play the endgame. Maybe even lower ( though for reference the IGN guy played the whole game). But even with that said it's clear Elden Ring offered an experience unlike the brutal linear gauntlets of Dark Souls 3, Sekiro or Bloodborne. Personally I'd argue Elden Ring is the most unbalanced and unwieldy From Soft Souls game. Some of the reused bosses were a bit disappointing. Even though all that's true I'd put it above every other Souls game just because, in my experience, the highs outclassed everything from before. Exploration in a fundamental pillar of Elden Ring in such a profound way. I played Dark Souls 3 after. though there were things I think it did better (like the opening hour) and it's a tighter designed game ultimately it didn't compare to what Elden Ring offered. Well, not that it didn't compare, but it wasn't as great an experience. As since I had no expectations of ER boss design (since I hadn't played DS3) I really loved it. And then I was able to appreciate the difference with DS3. So I can see why it got a load of 10/10s even if there were some flaws.

[@arshenchromewave]

I swear this is the best review of elden ring I've listened to in this platform. your honest and well thought critiques really shows the genuine passion you have on this game. Really reminds me of when I was listening to Favyn's Halo Infinite review. I myself still barely halfway through the game, main story wise, i think. Since I love the exploration part the most, and having beating the same boss 3 times in 3 different catacombs, well... Let's just say I'm not really a fan of it when i heard there are more this same boss which i might find in another catacombs. Tho overall I've been really enjoying ER. Cheers ^,^

[@jenfine]

Good review. This was my first Souls game so it’s all new to me. I find two of my biggest challenges are that (1) I don’t understand the story/lore - more is needed as you point out and (2) I need a quest or dialogue log. I don’t need a detailed log that tells me what to do or where to go, but something to remember conversations or something an NPC told me would help. Then I could figure out the rest. I have to use KZbin to follow quests because I don’t know what to do aside from wonder and kill shit. I can’t just play this game 12 hours a day. I work. I can only afford time to play here and there and can’t remember every little NPC I talked to. Overall I enjoy the game. It’s challenging, but leveling and summons do help when needed. It took me a while to learn the mechanics, but I’ve got it pretty good now. Just making my way through at my own pace. When I get frustrated, I put it down for awhile and come back later. The open world is what works for me. I like wandering and just discovering new stuff.

[@edgarallenpo8330]

You know what... The one nitpick I have is i wish they added some more backstab or critical hit animations instead of the same 2 or 3 ones we've had for most of the games.

[@Discotechque]

The number of sites of grace littered in elden ring is how many feet pics Miyazaki had in his PC that was discovered by his level designers.

[@Lextorias]

The original design of the sites were actually bare feet sticking out of the ground that you would rub to activate, but it was changed later in development.

[@mysteryneophyte]

thank God I hear somebody that feels the way I do about the story in this game I love this game and I love Dark Souls but I always feel like I want more story something that I could become emotionally invested in

[@Omegaoutlaw84]

I was expecting to at least get a good ending but nope maybe the lamest cut scene of all.

[@Iritis-]

Something that I feel doesn't get brought up enough is how repetitive the music is. Outside of a handful of main story fights, most of the tracts don't feel particularly memorable because they're shared by far too many bosses and zones. Too many story route bosses have generic boss music, I feel like if they're going to repeat bosses so frequently then they should probably have tracks dedicated to the bosses they're doing it with. I also kinda wish they just had an option to disable exploration music but keep the other music on. Some of the tracks get grating after a while.

[@Spearhead401]

I definitely don't feel that way.

[@Ausdrake]

Gosh yes, after replaying Bloodborne I realised just how mediocre the BGM in Elden Ring is, none of it gives me goosbumps, it all feels like extremely generic "epic fantasy" music, very little character and we hear the same tracks repetitively. Side note: If I never hear the underground oboes again, it will be too soon.

[@JC-kl3uc]

The sadest part there was no second Round Table theme after some major events...

[@Aztronaut001]

@@Ausdrake yeah the ost has been better, the best music from the game in my opinion is the main menu theme (witch is a first on a fromsoft game lol), but there's nothing on the level of the osts from Lawrence, Ludwig, Cleric Beast, Amygdala, shit the list goes on... But I think that's more on how perfect bloodborne's score really is (focusing on transmitting horror and despair to the player) than on elden ring's being bad

[@Ausdrake]

@@Aztronaut001 That's a fair take, I'd rather just keep saying Bloodborne is like, the best game ever made than bring down Elden Ring too much.

[@TinyAnnieLeonhart]

Some miscellaneous points from someone who never played a Souls game before this one: - Enemy stats increasing without any visual indication has me running up the wall! Especially when it's in the same area. That is just bs. - The meta is also bs. I don't want to have a wiki open when I play a game out of fear that I might be playing it wrong. All builds should be more or less equally viable. Or just increase the amount of upgrade materials since part of the problem is that you cannot respec your arsenal mid-game without excessive grind. - This game has ZERO replayability. As far as I understand, replaying the game just means dashing into certain areas and grabbing specific weapons for a specific build. Which, again, wouldn't be necessary if I could upgrade new weapons easier to tap into other playstyles. And even if I did that, why would I want to go through the same grind as my last playthrough? More randomization in the loot would help, plus if they are going to throw the same 4 enemies at me anyway, at least make the crypts randomized dungeons.

[@sora5982]

agree with replayability. back whr I finished DS1, I was itching to get back into it with another build when I forgot enough of it. Elden ring I was hesitant to even try despite the build options. I do plan to replay it now that I've seen hours of lore content and the DLC is coming.

[@andrewmanthey6005]

I know this is late but about half way through my first play through it got really monotonous. I was having a hard time despite leveling up in areas i needed, until i switched up my kit. It made a huge difference to use different weapons and experiment around!

[@sm901ftw]

One thing you pointed out that I've also found frustrating is the "geographic" enemy scaling. Where the same enemies are arbitrarily more difficult in some regions despite supposedly being the same ones you've been slaughtering elsewhere. There were several times when I explored a "high-level" area early and learned the enemies, only to go to a lower level area and find I was untouchable and had no reason to stay besides item hunting. I wish I had some idea of how to address it because on paper I like the idea of enemies being independant of your level. But the only way for it to make sense is to have a lot more enemy types or find new ways to make the old ones dangerous (i.e. numbers/terrain/equipment/etc.). That's much more costly for the developer though, and I imagine they were stretched enough as it was.

[@namanhnguyen2649]

Love your critique, and thank you for spending so much time and effort into crafting this masterful video. I pretty much agree with a lot of things you said, but 2 things I think you could taken into account: 1. Torrent combat. Though yes Torrent seems to make many fights easier, but easily killed by higher level enemy, I rarely see people craft the resin that can be fed to heal Torrent. Plus, in my experience, all bosses that can 1 shot Torrent should be fight dismounted anyway, because they have larger and faster hits, making me have to use eye frames/combat skill. 2.The exploration. I don't know if this justify it, but yes, the duplication of bosses seem absurd, and yet, they reward very differently, and with different tricks to the different catacombs, I myself love the arcade puzzle vibe that it has. Additionally, I think if players dont go out of their way to find night time bosses, they wouldn't even get to fight that many night time calvary. ie I have 100+ hours, and I only meet 2 of them and 2/3 other death rite birds.I think they were meant to give hardcore players more things to collect, as each time you fight a dup boss, you get a reward relating to their skill set :D

[@Lextorias]

I agree with your point on Torrent. I think the game having the ability to rip you off of them for things like invasions gave me the sense that fights would be more curated for Torrent if they let you fight on horseback. That and the fact that they do punish you for fighting an enemy on Torrent you shouldn't be able to, because you get knocked off (and being knocked off torrent is one of the only recovery animations in the game that doesn't have i-frames, so you usually just die). This gives conflicting information to the player where they're usually told Torrent is the best strategy even against some ridiculously hard bosses because they can't react, but some enemies and bosses will punish you for using Torrent. The different rewards for bosses and different trick catacombs are varied a bit in the game, but not all of them are like this. You could easily remove the half dozen catacombs that are just a couple hallways, since not all of them have tricks. And you could remove all the Night's Cavalry/Erdtree/Tree Spirit bosses that don't have different movesets and combine the rewards into the remaining ones. And if the game was smaller, it would naturally cause you to find a higher percentage of content because you wouldn't have to wade through the duplicates. I didn't want to find all the Deathrite Birds because I knew they were the same. If they were different, I'd be more inclined to search around at night.

[@DaisyBallz]

@@Lextorias I kind of disagree for the bosses, the same bosses being used, mainly the tree spirits and the ulcerated tree spirits, are there to tell the player what type of reward they are going to get, because the player then knows the type of reward they can choose to back off and come back another time or fight them now to get what they want from the boss adding an air of consistency to rewards and exploration

[@godtierbp1928]

@@DaisyBallz This

[@Lextorias]

But the bosses in a game about fighting bosses shouldn’t be the weakest designed element. The rewards are cool, but every reward in the game is there to help you fight a boss or enemy. So the priority should be unique and fun bosses with items behind them rather than the items being focused on first, and the bosses being filler to gatekeep them.

[@DaisyBallz]

@@Lextorias every boss that is repeated is a mini boss though and you can technically ignore every single one they are there to give the player an extra challenge, rewards, etc i think asking for what, 30 extra unique mini bosses on top of the already unique ones is a bit much especially for a game of this scope

[@matthieupaty5032]

I bought elden just 2 weeks ago now closing on 90 hours of gameplay I am way too addicted and yet it’s my first souls game😂 Ofc KZbin guides and the interactive map help a lot as a new player

[@runano3007]

Did you finish the game now ?

[@ivanbumaschny3758]

I loved this video and I have nothing to say that wasn't said before by other comments. But what I will say is that, after finishing the video, when I looked down to subscribe and saw you had just under 200 subs I was astounded!! Your work is awesome. You deserve much more subscribers, and I sincerely hope you get them!

[@xuanathan]

I'm really mixed on Fire Giant, my first run was a bleed build, so dps was never an issue, and I loved the spectacle and design of the boss, but on repeat runs with less broken weapons that have slower movesets, the fight's 2nd phase is hellish. I felt like I was healing him each hit. I actually had to emergency forge up a bleed weapon since it was 4:00 am and I just wanted it to be over. If they just slightly nerfed his phase 2 defence I think it would be easily one of my favourite fights.

[@jimjam9387]

People will literally hack at the ankles of the Fire Giant phase 2 and be like hurr durr whys he not taking damage and rolling away?? It’s like he’s responding to my actions and not letting me just R1 his ankles. Another player complaining about Elden Beast because the rings of the light in the ground is “impossible to dodge”. Same thing with Malenias Waterfowl Dance. A lot of these gripes come from a place of ignorance you’re literally just engaging with the fights incorrectly and then complaining about it. Just hit his hands/wrist in phase 2 and he almost immediately stumbles where you have to “ATTACK THE WEAKSPOT FOR MASSIVE DAMAGE” hit him in his fucking eye not his ankles. Literally just throw fucking knives at his eyes and he is likely to take more damage than hitting his ankles and won’t be scripted to roll away directly on top of you.

[@andrewpaul8732]

I played the whole 2ed play threw with duel scythe and had more fun than my firdt int build. But when I got the maliketh I had to level up rivers of blood to just get threw it and I killed him in 5 minutes. The end of the game takes a sharp turn at 60 miles an hour and I was not expecting that

[@enjoiskate3]

@@jimjam9387 Ngl I didn't even know there was anything special with his eye because attacking his ankles in phase 2 is still not hard. If he rolls just follow him on horseback and if he uses the lightning AoE, stand in a spot where there isn't lightning. If he does the meteor thing just don't move cause they won't hit you there anyway. He has like four moves total. I really don't get how he's such a low point in the game for some people (in a game that has far lower points imo)

[@russellwestbrook462]

@@jimjam9387fire giant is still a boring boss

[@DFivril]

There are very few quests in Elden Ring. The accord you receive from Melina is one, but most are storylines. I see the difference like this: quests are TASKS given to you which upon completion yields you some type of reward(resources, story progression etc.); storylines on the other hand are story developments you can TRIGGER(example being Alexander storyline, you just meet him at different locations, with very little interaction). Now these can of course overlap, you can have quests in a storyline, and storylines in quests, but most storyelements will have an overarching theme(quest or storyline). I really like it being this way, giving the NPC more depth than just existing for our sake and to reward us, but them having their own parallel stories to our own. Now to close I should point out that this is just my perception.

[@Lextorias]

That's a good point to make. I think I've used quests and storylines interchangeably in most RPGs (e.g. some quests in Skyrim, New Vegas, etc. are just meeting an NPC and talking to them as well) so it's harder to separate in my brain. I do also enjoy that NPCs will almost always have some dynamic element to where they are and what they're doing. Similar to Dark Souls, lots of them are on their own quest that you just happen to overlap with sometimes. I think my point in the shallowness of the NPC storylines just comes down to how the storylines are very basic in their actual story. So you're not getting much out of the little interaction you have. I like storylines like Blaidd's, but there aren't that many characters in the game that even get that level of depth to their story. I think there's only so many memorable stories they can tell with the limited nature of the encounters, since lore and small interactions can only intrigue you so much. I think adding some amount more interaction like in Sekiro would've made me invested more, because even if the story and character aren't inherently interesting, having me interact with them more would make them more memorable for the interaction. Most of the stranger encounters in GTA or RDR2 aren't complex or intriguing stories, but I still remember them because I had some hand in how they turned out. That being said I fully understand that people can enjoy the NPCs as is. I'm not saying Elden Ring is bad in any way for this, just that I didn't have as immersive or memorable an experience due to wanting more.

[@DFivril]

@@Lextorias Totally agree with everything you said. It is sad that the storylines in Elden Ring are so few and short, and I wish there were more interactions. Good point about encounters; RDR2 did those really well and more like those in the From Software formula would be absolutely awesome. They did add the whole Jarburg storyline post-release, so if they keep doing that for years we will have tons of cool stuff to explore. Really liked the video btw, wish you all the best.

[@christopherr6284]

I don't care if you call them storylines or quests, FromSoft needs to do better at it. I have 100%ed the game and the "storylines" break too easily. I have been playing Souls games since Demon Souls, but it's not 2007 anymore. It's time to improve the "storylines," or whatever you want to call them.

[@DFivril]

@@christopherr6284 Sorry if I offended you by calling some storyelements for "storylines". I swear to never call them "storylines" - or whatever - again.

[@Lextorias]

The official name is “story thingies”

[@4shotpastas]

I never even finished dark souls 1, but when you mentioned the skeletons, my mind immediately went to the necromancers and how I just kept trying to kill the skeletons.

[@Lucrei.]

Doctor's orders: go back and finish Dark Souls 1

[@kawaiioppai6962]

damn that was a great video . Didn't even feel like 1 hour

[@piszanshid1953]

Have to agree with almost everything you said. The one I strongly disagree with is your view on Radahn. I love that fight. Top 3 fights in the game for me. Liked and subbed btw great video

[@piszanshid1953]

@adsdfdfsdldsllsdlslalalalalddaaa ok 🏅

[@esmerylan]

Funny that I came to this video after bashing my head against Godskin Duo for the last few days and hating the fight for precisely the reasons you described here. The collective health bar/resurrection mechanic is the most frustrating thing and I don't understand why anyone thought it was a good idea.

[@hoked2194]

I had an incredibly easy time with that fight. Lv 125 (50VIT, 50END, 55STR) using powerstanced halberds (Heavy Nightrider Glaive and Gargoyle Halberd). The bosses died so fast. I imagine it's even easier with Mimic Tear.

[@cooper2211]

I reached the point of frustration with bosses at the beginning so I used mimic tear and spammed sword of night & flame to melt them I don't like the boss design in this game at all

[@ShadeUnderTheSoul]

That silly fight forced me to abuse the NPC summon, spirit summon, and swarm of flies miracle. Wasnt fun at all

[@andrewwitham8493]

This was my first FromSoft game and it is my personal favorite. Currently on NG+7, Was going to do another run but I'm patiently awaiting for the DLC. Fallen Order helped me understand this type of game as it was my first.

[@stanleyharno4534]

Great video. Actually i wish you had gone into several more topics, such as spirits and other equipment in general, as well as talked in further detail when talking about most things (for example, when you mentioned halig tree, there's plenty to talk about in reference to terrible encounter design), you even talked about plethora of different bosses, but didn't mention Malena, Rykard or Mogh. Overall it's very refreshing to listen to someone who doesn't blindly praise this game as a 10/10 flawless masterpiece. I've played for 90 hours and enjoyed vast majority of my time, but there's definitely room for improvement. It really saddens me, when people put down previous Fromsoft titles in attempt to praise this game. Ds1 is in no way inferior to ER, in fact I like it even more and many things it did so well are completely gone at this point.

[@Lextorias]

The video could've been 3 hours long, since I did originally have all those in my script, but cut them because they didn't fit in with the larger topics I had and I didn't want to specifically criticize minor things in the game. The video has my main criticisms and things I think were the most apparent and detrimental to me. Anything I didn't talk about was something I might have a bit to talk about, but they didn't wholly detract from my experience.

[@eldendynast]

The great irony is that some of what makes ER good is inherited from DS2 which had the opposite problem of being a generally sub-par game but having some big improvements which were conveniently ignored. I think Elden Ring just came at the right interval after DS3 and profited off a somewhat arduous wait. 10/10 can be warranted if the flaws in question don't bother that specific reviewer but to me it really detracts from the whole.

[@TheArmyofHades]

Lul elden ring is a good game but it isnt the best by a long shot in the series.

[@misterbadass2089]

RIP plunge attack

[@eternalfps3124]

@@misterbadass2089 Plunge attack still exists, although the areas to even use it are almost non existent. Found out those mechanical green head enemies can be killed by a single plunge attack to the yellow grate on the top back of the head does a cool little animation. There’s only one area in the game that even opens up the possibility for this move to actually work. It’s in some Ruins within Caelid not far from where you can find the greatsword from Berserk. There are a few of these enemies here, you can climb onto the ruins and then plunge attack them. This is the only enemy I’ve come across that actually has a unique plunge attack animation.

[@thedoomslayer5863]

34:04 is why this is the greatest elden ring review of all time..... Sen Armstrong approves this nanomachine filled message

[@thrace5134]

Like you, I loved the game and after three playthroughs I feel like I can contribute to the discussion. As I played through the game many of your thoughts I felt as well. Right form the start I noticed my cursor often flying off screen onto my second monitor while my guy was left running around in a circle or just suiciding off a cliff. The camera auto bouncing to different enemies was something I've never experienced before and no matter what setting I toggled in the menu it didn't help. I adapted and learned to play with these inconveniences because I loved being in the game. The reused content one is a big point that many people bring up. The bosses were at times tiring, the Ulcerated Tree Spirit became a meme at how many times you had to fight it and how annoying of a fight that was. I have to give this one a pass though because the game still does provide so many different and unique encounters from major bosses to minor ones. Combat is so fun, builds change and it's nice to test your growth and use your learned skill of defeating a boss again. It allows the player to feel progression. As far as reused content goes, I felt like there was more than adequate variety from mines, ruins, catacombs, hero graves, a divine tower, puzzle towers, sewers etc. to the point where it felt overwhelming at times. The catacombs and hero graves for example progressed in difficulty the further you went into the game allowing the player to build on learned skills and introduce new challenges at the same time. The difficulty generally scaled up in difficulty the further the zone in the game the dungeon was. And they all had their own specific purpose, for example a mine would provide upgrade stones and eventually bell bearings and the player then learned to look for mines to upgrade their weapons. A ruin would provide relatively simple but good treasure and so on. The point you make that struck home with me the most was the accidental over leveling, therefore, trivializing content. The under leveling wasn't as big of an issue for me because it was pretty obvious that if you went into Caelid within the first 4 hours of the game, you didn't belong there. Summons holding aggro at all made the game easy mode vs nightmare. So balancing overall needed to be looked at with certain abilities existing in game the way they were. The balancing issues around summoning trivialize almost everything in the game. In fact, I would argue the difficulty is so different that it's like almost playing two different games. I don't think summons should ever hold aggro and I don't think they should do so much damage. I think they're main role should be to provide support, therefore, buff you, debuff the enemy or provide some sort of heal. Jump attacks became a staple because they were just too good and, therefore, minimizing the need to use other attacks, bloodhound step was also too good to not use and made every boss fight feel incredibly easy. I get why they did it though and that was probably to make the game as accessible as possible. Still it would be nice to have a better indication overall in the open world on where you belonged in terms of your level vs the enemy. I agree with your points on the story or quests being too vague. I get that this is intended by design but it almost felt too vague. I was very interested in the Lore and the characters but I just felt like there wasn't enough of it to really digest. I would have liked to learn more about myself, the tarnished, as I progressed. Why am I killing everything, what's in it for me to become the Elden Lord, what are my motivations. I just didn't know enough about everything and I wanted more. The NPCs were particularly annoying to me. The quests were incredibly vague. For example, after dealing with Millicent in Caelid, she says she's going on an adventure ... and that's it. No indication of zone, where in a zone, the game is huge give us a hint. Spoiler, she's just standing behind a bush in Altus Plateau. There was no way to track quests or quest progression. No way to know what quests would break others. Or at what point in a quest it would kill off other NPCs and thus locking you out of certain items. I think there's room for improvement there. Overall, I loved the game and feel passionate enough about it to share my opinions. I can't wait for the continuation of this title and eagerly anticipate the next chapter in whatever form that may be

[@TheRyGuy1776]

I can answer for the Night Cavalry part, there’s 9 of them because they’re a reference to Lord of the Rings, they’re supposed to be referring to the Ringwraiths, as there were 9 of them.