What Returning to Dark Souls Taught Me About Elden Ring

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Elden Ring is, deservedly, widely considered to be the peak of developer From Software's creative output-featuring the most fluid combat and the most densely packed, deeply interconnected world yet. This got me thinking-with these obvious refinements, wouldn't it be fairly difficult to go back to the early days of this franchise, with all the clunkiness (both technical and inherent to the game's design) that comes with it? Well, I decided to go back to 2011's Dark Souls-analysing boss and world design, levelling, combat mechanics, etc.-to find out. Interestingly, it turns out that while both games share obvious visual and mechanical DNA, they could not feel more different from one another-a revelation that has further complicated my views on both an old favourite, and a new classic.
0:00 - Intro
0:22 - Context
1:50 - Why I went back to Dark Souls
4:51 - The evolution of speed and aggression
7:43 - Stamina
9:57 - Tactical play and i-frames
11:33 - Boss battles
13:28 - "Playing the right way" and exploits
16:31 - My problems with Elden Ring's bosses
20:17 - The problem with more options
22:11 - Elden Ring's late game
23:48 - Gaming the numbers
27:11 - Exploration, world design and purpose
34:50 - Bonfires and Lost Grace
36:48 - Elden Ring is shockingly streamlined
37:51 - Conclusion
39:25 - Outro
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Thumbnail by hotcyder - / hotcyder
/ hotcyder
Intro text animation by Isaac Holland - / drazgames

[@doboi8121]

Elden Ring made me appreciate how fair ds3 bosses are

[@ni9274]

No boss in Elden Ring is unfair, you can dodge every attack in this game. The boss are just more difficult for a pure melee build, but that’s a good thing cause ds3 bosses became too easy. If you can’t learn attack patterns it’s your fault, not the fault of the game

[@dinor9132]

​@@ni9274 dodging every attacks just for 1-2 hit and then repeat that proccess is just boring, and if you miss that slim window for attack it's even worse. There is also very important factors that it's present in previous souls games but it's lacking in elden ring, enjoment and feeling of victory. Elden ring bosses and enemies are just pain in ass

[@kobu4198]

@@dinor9132 The lack of feeling victorious and overcoming something special is in Elden ring not because the bosses are unfair or unfun but because the number of the bosses is so high that when you encounter a boss you are not as excited because it isn't that special of an experience inside the world since you encounter one every 10 minutes also the repeated bosses don't help. That said the memorable bosses are fair and have variety. Neither in dark souls you can dodge and do more than 2 attacks m8 its basically a dance and there are a lot of openings in Elden ring its just that people don't use them. Bosses like Maliketh,Morgot,Radahn,Malenia,Mogh,Godfrey,Godrick,Placidussax all have fair counter opportunities they just all require more positioning than ever before. If the bosses were somewhat ds3 difficulty everybody would complain that they would be too easy cause most players are experienced now.

[@NoxDeadly]

@@ni9274 this is not true, gank fights specifically have moments where dodging isnt a option, even a few solo bosses like the elden beast have unmissable attacks

[@danielmontilla1197]

@@ni9274 As someone who has played all these games, except for Demon Souls, Elden Ring's endgame bosses are among the worst unbalanced shit shows of the entire series. Take Malenia's Waterflow, it's virtually dodgeable, but practically undodgeabe at point blank (check Gabri's tests), and if you make the slightest mistake drop your controller cos the fight's most likely over. You end up fighting that one move, rather than the boss. Also, even if you hardcap your Vigor, in phase 2 you must keep health over 70% or risk a one-shot by any of her "R1's", so to speak. It's so bullshitty I thought they designed the boss as a meme or something. Artificial difficulty is somewhat uncharacteristic of From, but they just went pumping up the ol data values on this one and called it a day. You're pushed to respec your build just for one encounter or use some of the cheesy tactics this game seems to want to normalize. It also doesn't help that in terms of dynamics you're fighting a Sekiro boss with a DS3 character, same goes for Maliketh. Let's not defend the indefensible here.

[@adolfhipsteryolocaust3443]

On healing: in dark souls you usually die because you finished your estus, in elden ring you usually die because the boss managed to take away all your health in single combo

[@slipstream5762]

Definitely feels bad to die with 5 flasks still ready to go lmao

[@wijayleon8159]

Or you die while trying heal .. bosses has auto respond to punish your flask usage

[@theblancmange1265]

ER's health bar feels like Sekrio's. It's too easy to 1 or 2 shot in PVP.

[@pabloqp7929]

maybe don't get hit 😮

[@fatusopp4739]

its shifted from how much hits you can tank while whittling a bosses healthbar down to how much mechanical skill you need to have to beat a boss, and i love that aspect of the newer titles. its for that reason why manus and artorias are regarded as the best in ds1; they have complex (at least for the time) movesets that feel like actual fights and not just battles of attrition like every other fight in that game.

[@1Drakorn]

After the sheer psychotic madness that Elden Ring's bosses are, going back to Dark Souls is like a therapy session where everything feels nice and relaxing.

[@greenskiis]

Elden Ring really botched the boss difficulty. No game that scores as high as it has should have turtling as the best strategy for almost every boss.

[@oldirtyronin]

@@greenskiis what ? Elden Ring is bigger but it's easy mode Dark Souls for casuals lol

[@FirelixGaming]

@@oldirtyronin Nah, i finished elden ring not too long ago, and two week ago i started and since have finished DS1 (in 39 hours without Arthorias DLC) and the game isnt that hard, its punishing if your doing the wrong thing but you just die then correct what you did wrong. I started DS2 Sotfs, and bruh, maybe its artificial difficulty but boi some place i cant do anything but run away lol. Still nothing came close to Elden ring Malenia fight, i think i beat Ornstein and Smog on the 4th or 5th try, chilling with my bro smoking weed (not trying too hard)

[@FirelixGaming]

But i really agree with the og comment about DS1 being relaxing, the world felt a lot less theateningly big, and unfolded in a really cool and rewarding way, i was a lot more eager to search around most of the area (except Sen Fortress, didnt spent much time there)

[@oldirtyronin]

@@FirelixGaming malenia was pretty easy tbh you guys are just repeating memes and are probably souls first timers otherwise that's all bs elden ring is souls on easy mode and if they wouldn't have put all the stuff on different sides of the map on purpose elden ring would be a very short game. Anyone who took more than 5 trys at melania or elden beast should not even be allowed to talk 😅 and if you simply go for story only like comparable to other souls games you can get through elden ring in 2 or 3 hours lol. You cuys are delusional and completely fall into the meme of all the new souls players that's all

[@GGPlex_]

Going back to Dark Souls taught me that sometimes Less is More.

[@user-on6vz6sb9g]

You have the best comment. This guy is him.

[@antony9384]

You prefer dark souls?

[@GGPlex_]

@@antony9384 I don’t prefer any, I just play what’s fun in the moment. If I want a souls-like but don’t wanna invest 12+ hours just to get my build set up, I can just hop on dark souls 3 and beat the game under that time.

[@DonHaci]

@@GGPlex_ you can beat elden ring quicker than dark souls 3, it has less mandatory bosses and traversal is far faster than getting dogged by 3 enemies that slam you at the speed of light

[@claymenefee6999]

Except for weapon versatility. That is always better if its more

[@ttaylor7604]

I never got the idea that Smough getting stuck on a pillar was a glitch. I mean, the pillars are there for a reason, they are supposed to provide cover for you from both of them

[@enoo9003]

Exactly, I’m pretty sure it a purposeful decision. Like how in the godskin duo fight there r pillars to hide behind when the fat one does it’s roll attack.

[@nikolaosboukouvalas449]

It always felt cheap, seeing him pointlessly shoving against a pillar but... what's the alternative? Even if the AI was smart enough to move around the pillar, it would still be unable to punish you before you attacked them and strafed back to safety. Give them ultra fast attacks to punish you with or remove the pillars completely? That would make the fight obnoxious.

[@Tom-sd2vi]

@@nikolaosboukouvalas449 o

[@knavenformed9436]

@@nikolaosboukouvalas449 The Godskin duo seems to be your answer to what if they had the tools to punish even the pillar strat and backpedaling. They made it so you're punished for playing in the way you gain some advantage when outnumbered.

[@094176]

@@enoo9003 except that roll is so much worse and can sometimes randomly break free :(

[@ywmy]

In Dark Souls you actually see enemies stop attacking and turn towards the player after every combo, in Elden Ring the FIRST BOSS has a back-hit to catch players used to this

[@DZCOSENTRY]

THIS! the least they could do is allow you to cancel attack wind-up in reaction (like Sekiro). Nope, you have to first get hit by it and remember to NEVER punish that specific attack and wait for the rare ones that you safely can.

[@maskoblackfyre]

@@DZCOSENTRY You have just explained the essence of Elden Ring boss encounters perfectly. The thing is you see it as a bad thing, while I see it as just another From Soft game. Yes, you're supposed to get hit and possibly have to restart the fight to learn which moves are safe to punish and which aren't. Also, there aren't "rare" attacks you can punish, most of them are punishable, but a lot of people (including me when I first played it) go into ER expecting Dark Souls, where bosses do a combo then patiently wait for the player to R1 them a bit, rinse and repeat. And then they get frustrated and complain. This stuff doesn't work in ER. There you need to learn when to hit or interrupt a boss while they're doing their combo. Ever since the first Demon's Souls game, FromSoft and Miyazaki in particular have been on a mission to teach players how to be more aggressive and active, instead of passively waiting for "their turn" and "hiding behind a shield". When you look at the evolution of their games you will see less and less emphasis on shields and more emphasis on movement and aggression. Bloodborne and Sekiro basically don't even allow you to fight with a shield at all and instead force you to be aggressive to survive.

[@darrensucksatgames]

Pro tip: helping others beat a boss that you’re at least decent at is one of the best ways to level up and help others at the same time. Maliketh got me from 110 to 150 with a level up every two victories and you don’t lose your ruins on death of a coop session. It’s also a great way to get good at every boss in the game.

[@coolkid9967]

Where’s the best place to put your summon signs? I never. Have any luck

[@PequenoTaborlin]

@@coolkid9967 at maliketh i always put the signs in front of the grace, right before the stairs to the bridge

[@darrensucksatgames]

@@coolkid9967 If you don’t know, use the Small Golden Effigy and that lets the person on the other end decide as it does it for a whole area.

[@FTZPLTC]

Having not played the game co-op, I have to ask: do you think the complaints that people have about the bosses in the game are a result of them being *designed* to be played co-op?

[@coolkid9967]

@@FTZPLTC Yeah but it’s a mixture of that and spirit ashes. It sortof gives me the impression you can either powerlevel or try to distract the boss and cheese out good moves from it.

[@EZGaming0]

Agreed - bosses in DS games felt like: "How can we make an entirely unique experience based on this area and apply lore to attacks and design?" Whereas bosses in ER feels like: "How can we make a really, REALLY hard boss?"

[@shizukousapostle1stapostle710]

That is a very generally broad statement because ER has a range from very easy to very hard fights mostly but not always decided by how prepared you are level and gear wise for them..... Not all bosses in ER are hard far from it...and I am saying this comparing it to other souls games not any other games...the hardest bosses in ER definitely go above the majority of bosses in other souls games but to say they are just making every boss hard in ER is just wrong

[@EZGaming0]

@@mbaseballfan96 i’ll concede on those teo for sure - absolutely horrendous design. At least I remember DS1 & DS3 bosses, could hardly name an ER Boss lmao

[@EZGaming0]

@@mbaseballfan96 I have to agree on almost all of the visuals of the main bossfights in ER. Something about the fighting is just not it for me - I personally loved DS3 faster combat, but ER main bosses i.e. Margit, Morgott, Godfrey, all just felt like the exact same fight to me. similar arenas, similar boss design, idk 🤷🏻‍♂️ i’ll fight DS3 bosses, almost any of them, over 80% of ER Bosses just for the designs and wildly different fighting variations

[@shizukousapostle1stapostle710]

@@EZGaming0 Margit and Margott are the same person thus share the same move set...you know it was a "you fought the boss at the very start of the game now fight him at the end to see how much you have grown" kind of deal....

[@melonne7278]

@a 1998 Toyota Corolla Ah yes, very delayed attacks are realistic

[@ZiggityZeke]

My problem with ER is that sometimes you'll find a boss thats super tough, then find a much weaker version elsewhere. Very strange feeling for progression

[@steeliuscup4803]

Like Mohg right? i feel like Sewer Mohg for example is just a way to show where Mohg was stuck to most of his life and meeting his fate basically. I myself thought that fighting boss like Mohg and Godefroy was nice

[@seamus4A]

@@steeliuscup4803 he was an omen, similar to margit is to morgott

[@anothermicrobe755]

Or not even weaker; they re-used the red wolf of radagon in a few locations, and I swear nothing breaks your sense of progression more than getting curb stomped by its clone 60 hours after killing the original one

[@TheY2G]

Bell-Bearing Hunter is the best example. The one in Caelid kept oneshotting me, while I had no trouble beating Elemer.

[@steeliuscup4803]

@@anothermicrobe755 now i feel like thats a fair argument but i think it comes down to late game scaling honestly, but i do see the issue of copies being tougher than the original

[@marathoneternal]

Really great to hear someone wrap up my thoughts on the endgame of Elden Ring so well. Also a good reminder that those old FromSoft games still rock :)

[@EndyHawk]

I did the whole game solo...until the terrible trio, Malenia, Maliketh, and Elden Beast. Sorry Miyazaki, I don’t want to waste hours of my life fighting chipper shredder lady, backflips McGee, and Catch-me-if-you-can.

[@AdamKirbyMusic]

@@EndyHawk I have soloed the whole game including those three (as well as doing playthroughs with spirit ashes). Spoiler: I didn't actually find soloing everything to be more fun and rewarding.

[@EndyHawk]

😆I KNEW IT!

[@nimazsheik5152]

Same except for Maliketh. The moment I fought Maliketh, I was like "wtf is up with the speed of the bosses, it's insane." However as unfair as those bosses were, I feel like the game ended on a really high note, I didn't like the snowy areas but the way the game ended I'm really hyped for a sequel or DLC exploring the Cosmos!

[@Gijontin]

@@nimazsheik5152 Yeah fuck me dude, thought the exact same thing when I went up against Maliketh, was an absolute pain as a Greatsword build (the colossal one) - didn't help that I was holy dmg focused either but at least I did expect that to come bite me in the ass at the end... :D

[@bluumane]

It's nice to hear someone talking about the leveling in this game. Killing a boss and not even getting enough xp to level up has just never sat right with me

[@Robotmonkey44]

Most bosses give 3-4 levels if your not over level💀 what are you talking about

[@WCIIIReiniger]

@@Robotmonkey44 If you play through the game as level 1 character maybe. A lot of the side dungeons have bosses that do not even give you half a level up when you get to them. Yes, they are not as hard. But if you need over 2 hours to kill Margit like I did (without any summons) than it feels quite sad to not even get a full level up. I mean what is the point, if you can farm 20 times the runes with generic easy enemies. Also you cannot kill Margit 20 times, so even if bosses would give a little too much runes, it would not be a problem as you cannot keep farming them.

[@Robotmonkey44]

@@WCIIIReiniger i mean main bosses😭 no shit its not gonna give you a level if Your lvl 103💀 its not that bad if you dont Get a level from a boss because then YOUR overleveled

[@WCIIIReiniger]

@@Robotmonkey44 I am in the 40s right now. The only boss I felt very overleveled so far was the boss of castle morne. The booldknight was also quite easy, I only died so often, as I tried to parry it. Eventually I killed him with good old R1s as my parries did not seem to connect with his attacks.

[@TheMurderBird]

​@@WCIIIReinigerif you're in the 40s you are over leveled for that stage of the game but that's okay. The open world design allows you to explore, level up, and come back to bosses if you have trouble. I take on Margit around level 15 now but my first playthrough i grinded my character before hand because I heard how much of a challenge he is, all that to say the 12000 runes from him is a fine amount for when most people beat him. P.s. levels 35-75 are generally considered mid game where you would take on Radahn, Rennala, or other more difficult bosses in liurnia and caelid that drop more runes

[@GrimSoulBanisher]

Going back to Dark Souls after Elden Ring shows that the From Soft formula works FAR better with intentionally built levels instead of an open world.

[@Kutsushita_yukino]

Nah your biased. Elden ring’s open world has it”s beauty aswell

[@GrimSoulBanisher]

@@Kutsushita_yukino didn't say it didn't look nice, but every Elden Ring player I've talked to from my work that had gone into NG+ and beyond says they ignore everything in the open world and just go straight to what they need to get done. Hell, most of them didn't even bother with most of the side dungeons.

[@NCemloen]

Careful now. People might complain you prefer linear dark souls.... Despite people praising dark souls one. The most forced linear game of them all. Say what you will of dark souls 2. But you can skip half the freaking game in dark souls two.

[@GrimSoulBanisher]

@@NCemloen I do. Especially Bloodborne.

[@valentinvas6454]

I think it works the best if they mix the two. If there were more and maybe even bigger legacy dungeons it would have been a perfect balance.

[@grfrjiglstan]

I actually just got my buddy into Dark Souls 1, and he found things I've never even seen before. In the undead Parish, he somehow got the Berenike knight to kill himself just by running for Andre's bonfire, and a bit later he found a super Evil Vagrant - in the Parish, no less. Shortly after, in the Moonlight Butterfly fight, he managed to get the butterfly to use its rare laser attack three times in a row, followed by the equally rare carpet bomb attack. I love that different playstyles can coax out different reactions from the entire world at large.

[@weebto]

I still think DS1 is the most exquisitely detailed game fromsoft has released thus far. Like, the endgame (rightfully) gets a lot of flack, but can we appreciate the fact that the bed of chaos's throne is fully modeled? Or that Kalameet comes with a unique death animation for when he's flying? Not even Bloodborne's orphan of Kos (phase 1) features that much attention to detail, and it's truly remarkable. I just pulled up a couple of examples that came to mind, but there are many more.

[@nimazsheik5152]

@@weebto Bloodborne and Dark Souls are in the god level of gaming. Even with its flaws it's up there with Ocarina of Time, RE4, Shadow of the Colossus etc. Sure Elden Ring and the rest of FROM's category is great, but it doesn't come close to BB and Souls.

[@btchiaintkidding7837]

​​@@weebto DS1 with all its flaws is still easily in S tier games with other godtier classics like dead space1, RE4, halo ce, bioshock, mass effect 2, deus ex etc imagine if we ever got a director's cutesque ds1 remake. damm

[@123afish]

Berenike?

[@KlaverKatten]

@@123afish It's the big knight in the church, where the channeler shoots magic at you from above. Neither of them respawn. If you want more info without booting up the game I suggest reading about it on a wiki, as the wikis collect the lore about enemies and factions and so on in the same place for easy access.

[@Crazymerc22]

As someone whose favorite souls games are those early ones in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1, this game perfectly encapsulates my feelings. I love the open world exploration and lore of Elden Rings. Its some of the best open world content out there. But I miss the slower pace, tactical gameplay of the earlier titles.

[@Mini-vi8oo]

best open world content out there? youre mental hi its just a few sh!tty enemies , there are no citezsens or small populations or anything that an open world should have. its only purpose seems to be making travelling to repeat dungeons and legacey dungeons a burden. apart from the dungeons and legacey dungeons what is in the open world? lmao what is there? copy and paste enemies? thats right.

[@cesarhernandez6861]

I'm with you on that. People today forget that. Elden Ring IS great. But it has kind of become a bandwagon game.

[@bungiecrimes7247]

Personally I found the lore to be tiring, like it's almost been done before, but a thin layer makes it different enough.

[@cesarhernandez6861]

@@bungiecrimes7247 Good thing the game play is always good right?

[@bungiecrimes7247]

@@cesarhernandez6861 yeh....

[@mushroom_man_jpg]

My biggest problem with elden ring is how hard it is to find a good balance of difficulty. You can make the game incredibly difficult and tedious by deciding not to use spirit summons, but if you do it turns most bosses into an absolute cakewalk

[@jakeforgey5378]

Godric without going for Area Item collection 110% and not knowing about upgrading them... in otherwords basic Lone Wolves or Banished Knight VS Godric with a melee-spell focus... yeah i lose a chunk of FP and die in 2 hits due to him stagger locking me sweeping for the wolves who ran over and got stuck on the damned boss fog...

[@youtubesucks1821]

Summons are for noobs, literally. Nothing wrong with using them to get you through, that's why they're there. But if you used summons, you didn't actually beat the game.

[@mushroom_man_jpg]

@youtubesucks1821 if you didn't play the entire game with the donkey kong drum controllers and only using the starting club then you didn't actually beat the game.

[@youtubesucks1821]

@@mushroom_man_jpg That's a ridiculous argument because there's no logic in it. Donkey Konga controllers were not built for Elden Ring and aren't part of the main experience that was intended. But beating it using those would be totally badass for sure. Summons were put into Dark Souls to make it easier for players with the drawback of possible invasion. They put it in Elden Ring for the same reason. They know their games are hard and put in an "easy mode". That was the intended experience for the player, to have access to those summons. But no, if you used summons you didn't beat the game, an NPC or other player beat it for you. I don't understand why it's so hard for people to understand this very basic thing. Use summons, I don't care. But don't go so heavy on the copium and act like YOU actually beat the game. People get mad at the truth and try to use mental gymnastics to defend poor logic

[@mushroom_man_jpg]

@youtubesucks1821 wow, that's a lot of words. Too bad I ain't reading em

[@MehdiHusain]

On point. I love Souls games. Starting Elden Ring, I was in awe but the more it went, the more I realized how much Dark Souls and Bloodborne were evocative and a test of will and skill.

[@CrestfallenLizard]

once i re-familiarized myself with Dark Souls, it felt like i had unlocked the matrix. it was all so much more deliberate, that i felt like i could beat anything easily. even the DLC i ran through easily, only dying once, to Manus. and it was so much fun. it was what made me finally decide to get every achievement and do the 2 and a half-ish playthroughs on one character to do that. in conclusion, Dark Souls rules.

[@stephenmclemore7614]

Right, everything seemed so much slower.. and it doesn't hurt my first run through Dark Souls after Eldin I got a Black knight sword off the 1st black knight. It's like a cheat code.

[@K..C]

After going back to play the older Dark Souls when I finished Elden Ring I felt like a god who was unable to get hit. I managed to get through a good portion of the bosses without ever getting hit. And while that is partially due to the fact that I played the fuck out of Dark Souls previously, the entire game just felt so much more deliberate and better

[@flamingmanure]

thats not deliberate though, thats just its archaic, slow and limited designs being put to the test, and it failed miserably compared to fromsofts newer titles IE ds3 and above. it says alot about how weak and flimsy the design of ds1 and bb are in the present ,when i can finish elden ring as a souls noob then laugh my way through ds1/bb almost instantly. i think i finished bb in 20 hours and ds1 in 30. overall incredibly disappointing games tbh. based on how their fan bases rave about them i thought i was getting an experience on par with elden ring, but NOPE!! not even close to half the quality or quantity of ER.

[@imstillaj]

I played ds3 for the first time and although the game being easier than elden ring I beat soc in 2 tries and nameless in 5 it felt way more fair when I died the bosses weren't broken but they weren't simple they made sense and were as fast as the player but in elden ring you are the same speed as in dark souls but the enemies are as fast as in sekiro or bb

[@kam2894]

@@flamingmanure L take

[@PantoniStrikesBack]

I did exactly that. After beating ER, I went back to DS1. Nothing has changed. Ds1 is still awesome. Cheers!

[@davidapples7248]

In DS1 & Ds2, Armor actually mattered, plus the ability to improve your defensive capabilities leaned further into the idea that you were meant to be patient, analyze, and retaliate with its combat pacing in play. BB's a 10/10 game, but it caused irreparable damage to Fromsoft's games as a whole, going forward. Damn shame too.

[@MatthewStevensOrMattDave]

I miss tank builds so much 😢

[@LuM4rex]

In fact, armor at 3 also mattered, although there was a significant difference, for example, between heavy and medium armor classes, and poise moved from the passive category (ds1 and 2) to active, at the time of hyperarmor activation. This was a necessary amendment to make the game more dynamic. But the partial return of passive poise in ER has seriously ruined PvP as it did with ds1, so they haven't found their sweet spot yet. (I'm still annoyed by the knife stunlock in Havel's set, it really looks weird)

[@midgetydeath]

@LuM4rex The way poise damage works in Elden Ring also screws over the player.

[@dirtytrout3489]

Nothing will beat that feeling dark souls has to me

[@SpookyGhostIsHere]

The thing that was most different about elden ring compared to the souls games for me, is in Elden Ring I definitely swapped out builds more to take advantage of boss’s weaknesses. Malenia could heal despite me blocking with a shield, but can be staggered a bit, so I used a big ass hammer with no shield. Malekith would shoot my health down, so I used allies to take the aggro while I burned him down with spells. Stuff like that was fun for me!

[@thatguywithslantyeyes5902]

Me an intellectual idiot: Nah that's too much work **Proceeds to bonk every boss with 2 badonka greatswords**

[@undeadwarrior88]

They should've made the respec item something you can buy unlimited of

[@SpookyGhostIsHere]

@@undeadwarrior88 this is my number one complaint about the game, I would love to explore builds more but the only way I could really do it now is to either cheat or do ng+ but I like where I’m at!

[@AsianIdiots323]

Meanwhile, hehehe Comet Azur go BRRRRE

[@bizmonkey007]

Yeah, you definitely have more options with Elden Ring and it encourages experimentation.

[@ileutur6863]

One of the things that really bothers me with elden ring combat is the mismatched pace of you and your enemies . In bloodborne, you were given a faster movement speed that can combat your enemies faster attacks. In elden ring, some enemies literally feel like they were ported from the bloodborne world, but you're limited to a more dark souls speed of movement and combat

[@BioMatic2]

no its not. Go replay dark souls and you are gonna see how much slower you really are.

[@gabrielbarros8140]

I think it depends on your build, there are extremely fast builds on ER, maybe that kind of opponent was a mismatch for your play style.

[@ileutur6863]

@@BioMatic2 yes, but still slower than bloodborne, which is my point

[@pwnmonkeyisreal]

I would love to fight malenia with the good hunter

[@lahunica2726]

Funny, that's exactly what people complained about in ds3.

[@Goofygooberston]

My biggest problem with ER was the sudden huge spike in difficulty after the capital and especially after the mountaintops. I beat radahn at release and he felt, then, like a massive (but fair) challenge. That's more than I could say for a lot of the late game bosses and area's.

[@tacticallemon7518]

yea, i beat most of the big name bosses before altus on like my 2nd or 3rd try Maliketh, Radagon/elden beast, Godfrey/Hoara Loux, and Godskin duo all take at least 10 tries each

[@user-gc9ef2np1e]

*ptsd after leyndell* ...seriously tho. It's more of a torture, than a challange.

[@samuel.jpg.1080p]

i have 60 vigor and Astel Stars of Darkness in Snowfield dungeon one-shot me with its grab attack. The late areas are not tested properly

[@Candleman90]

Damn fromsoft plz make a difficult game.. A real difficult one

[@geert574]

u just need to farm to max level bro...this is why u buy from games on pc with a big fat cheat engine they have ridiculous grind requirement nobody ever critiques

[@GothicCrimson]

For context: I'm a big Dark Souls fan. I've gotten about a thousand hours in each game and played the series in order, including Elden Ring and Sekiro. About a week ago, I've managed to get access to the original version of Demon's Souls, and it is absolutely night and day between it and ER. A lot of Demon's Souls' DNA is in DS1, so combat is very similar, but I think it's peak From Soft environmental design. You gain access to 5 levels at the get go, yet it never feels like Elden Ring where I'm grossly overpowered, mainly because each path has their own brand of difficulty. Stonefang Tunnels have enemies near-immune to slash and bashing attacks. Tower of Latria has wizards that can bind you and kill you. Valley of Defilement is a poison swamp. Shrine of Storms is a mix of Sen's Fortress and the Catacombs, where you have beefy agile skeletons and environmental traps to work out. Boletaria is more your run-of-the-mill Souls affair, including two fuck-off dragons. The boss design is pretty lukewarm; they're never that challenging and are more puzzles than bosses we see in Elden Ring. The most technical boss (probably King Allant) still doesn't hold a candle to Margit in terms of difficulty. It's not entirely a bad thing; you ONLY get bonfired from defeating bosses, there's nothing in between, and you are rewarded for finding various shortcuts. But I have never felt as big an oppressive atmosphere as DeS' Prison of Hope. I've never felt clueless navigation and anxiety as the darkened swamps of the Valley of Defilement. And the feeling of finding shortcuts back to Firelink Shrine in DS1 is at full force in DeS; the level designers relied heavily on building around this rather than giving bonfires where deemed reasonable. With Demon's Souls, it's about the journey, not the destination. For Elden Ring, it's almost the exact opposite; a damn shame for an open world.

[@SpookyGhostIsHere]

After beating dark souls 3 for the second time, I decided to try the original, and I was surprised by how easy it felt sometimes. I felt like I had way more time to hit openings, beat ornstein and smough on my first try. Super fun, just surprising!

[@johnnyboy2411]

You beat ornstein and smough on your first try?! Bro... you are a legend!

[@No_one3638]

@@johnnyboy2411 not really a feat especially if you stunlock smough with the zweihander heavy attacks

[@SpookyGhostIsHere]

@@No_one3638 I used magic so not a huge feat when you can get them stuck behind pillars, but dodging in that one was a bit easier too. That’s actually the only souls game I soloed all the bosses too.

[@bizmonkey007]

Makes sense. The Souls games have sped up greatly over time since Bloodborne. It can be a little over the top sometimes (Nameless King comes to mind), but it’s also forced players to adapt.

[@tooru872]

@@johnnyboy2411 No. They are easymode on a mage build or overleveled character like every other boss

[@tyote]

I can only speak for myself, but while playing Elden Ring, especially the boss fights, I just find myself thinking, "I miss Dark Souls."

[@matt5958]

Yeah. I had the same feeling.

[@bolson42]

Yeah, same. I really love the new gameplay, weapons, small tweaks to stats, and visuals, but the bosses just feel a lot less polished compared to bloodborne, DS3, and especially sekiro. I understand that, with it being a huge open world game they can’t focus all their attention on making each boss perfect, but some of the main bosses felt like their development was way too rushed…

[@raminMTL]

the bosses were terrible

[@mac1bc]

I felt that way going through some of those late dungeons. 😕

[@flamingmanure]

its alright. we all have some blind bias to sort through.

[@YeageristsTatakae]

It's funny how much I can relate to you in this video. I, too, was getting ER fatigue, but nothing scratches that itch like a FromSoft game. So I Reinstalled DS3 after it went back online, and I had a blast. It was also like a whole new experience trying to unlearn certain habits and relearn old ones. These games have had such an effect on my gaming life that I hope its spirit will continue in gaming and more people see the genius these games offer.

[@jakeforgey5378]

another way is if you have only been doing melee switch to spellsword style, paladin tank-heal type, Vergiling out Numen-warrior, simply try out a differnt fighting style and see how and more precisely why your previous style was not working enough to get fatigued over. alos DS3 is the most fair in bosses and you can only screw yourself over if you forget what build type you where going for...

[@CraigJS91]

My main complaint about the Elden Ring bosses is those "gotcha" wind-ups where the boss will lift up his weapon like he's about to swing only to almost freeze there for 1-2 seconds before swinging without any tell. The magic of dark souls (besides the amazing interconnected map, mysterious tone, deep lore, etc.) is that the boss fights were essentially a test of your ability to read and react. They wanted you to dodge their attacks by making each attack have a unique tell that if you saw and reacted in time could easily be dodged. Elden Ring seems to want to trick you with some of its boss mechanics by trying to draw a response from you only to punish you for doing what it was asking you to do.. Both still amazing games and I really enjoyed my time with Elden Ring, but man those last few boss fights were just exhausting.

[@stupidcomment6571]

Agree completly and imho i would have prefered the game ending at the Capitol. For me personally after the Capitol I just felt pretty much done with it (i did tVolcano Manor, Rannis Quest and Moghwhyn palace before tho). The Snowmap just felt so meh after the heights that Capitol and Nokron were....

[@jgn]

watch the hand movements (as in dodge when the hands move fast) and try positioning, I understand memorizing attack patterns is impossible for DS1 boomers but trust me it's worth it

[@CraigJS91]

@@jgn this is going to come off pretentious and petty so for that I apologize, but I've beaten every fromsoft game since demon souls multiple times, even platinumed most of them including Elden Ring. I guess that makes me a "DS1 Boomer". With that said, I don't need advice on how to beat bosses especially not from someone who is young enough to think that having played DS1 makes you a boomer. I was simply making a critical observation about the boss design. You think no one did pattern recognition in DS1? Cmon man.

[@jgn]

@@CraigJS91it's obvious from playstyle alone that there are many people that are still holding on to the "roll light roll light" playstyle past games emphasized but anyways I never saw the problem with delayed attacks -see the wind up -watch the hand movements -learn the delay exists -dodge it simple as that they're pretty much a non-issue

[@CraigJS91]

@@jgn It's fine that you don't have a problem with it. I did though. Just felt like the developers were intentionally using all the lessons learned from previous games against me. Obviously I am capable of adapting and did, but it didn't feel fun. I prefer the reactionary fast paced combat of Bloodborne and Sekiro to pattern recognition and memorizing move sets. Again, I loved Elden Ring, but that one part felt a little cheap to me no biggy.

[@shaunpinto3833]

The health requirement was my biggest issue with Elden Ring. I love the game but I felt forced to stat more into health than I ever have in previous from titles

[@ni9274]

Yes, that’s why you have more endurance.

[@Childofbhaal]

And even if you have tons of health and great armor you still die in 2-3 hits. No other souls game has successfully captured the feeling of being a tank like DS1 did. If you wore heavy upgraded armor and had high health it was actually insanely hard to die. You could tank so much.

[@solomonsanabria7092]

Vigor cap is 60 instead of 40 but u can get by with 50 just fine u can add buffs talismans take it more

[@dracotoy]

Eh, i dont think so. My first playtbrough i never went above 15 vitality and it wasnt too bad

[@parabelluminvicta8380]

@@Childofbhaal with incantantions and triple buff you can take even 5 hits you dont die

[@l.e.b.3541]

I hear you man & I agree with most of what you're saying - but, Radagons talisman + Fias debuff is not helping with the oneshots

[@markhohenbrink5230]

Radagons Talisman is the only one that can be mathematically useful compared to Marikas. Idk why he has Fia's debut if he isn't spamming the blessing.

[@iEduardo0214]

@@markhohenbrink5230 yea its mathematically good for early-mid game, but he has the Talisman on in almost every clip I noticed. Including the clip where he says it's ng+ and he's at 60 vig, so definitely wayy past the point that taking 15% extra damage is worth it.

[@Ahrpigi]

Isn't the debuff only literally 1 point of vigor though?

[@micahgraff8998]

@@Ahrpigi im pretty sure it's a very small percentage of your hp, but still very very noticeable lategame. anywhere below 40 vigor won't matter a lot

[@slugfeast8944]

@@Ahrpigi at least once you hit 60 vigor, im pretty sure you'll take more extra damage with radagon's than you would receive bonus hp. so in the end it's not worth. on lower levels it's very good though

[@NicholasSabin]

As someone just getting into Elden Ring, this was a compelling comparison of the two games. Your analysis was fair, and I didn't feel like there was a dead moment in the 40-minute run time. Excellent work.

[@psychofroggy8062]

Elden Ring felt like a celebration of all Souls games. It made me go back to every game and appreciate them in a much greater light than before. I love the SoulsBorneSekRing series lol.

[@_Tzer]

dark ring eternal ring anybody?

[@ciaranpatrick6859]

Elden soulsborne: shadows die twice

[@lastman7409]

That's what it is meant to be. If you've played past games, you can tell many bosses and areas are reference to those of past games.

[@based-ys9um]

​@@lastman7409*reskins

[@Caes3r_]

@@lastman7409 the bosses feel like playing Sekiro with Dark Souls combat

[@CaptainFram]

This is such a well paced video. I can't believe it was 40 mins long, it felt like 10!

[@wErikwSusan]

thsts y u like elden ring,u have time…

[@redpandarampage2191]

You return to Dark Souls for a deep experience. I return to Dark Souls because my PC can't run Elden Ring. WE ARE NOT THE SAME. Edit: Have now got a new PC and am 15 hrs into Elden Ring. Loving it so far, still not gone past stormveil castle. I too started to worry it might ruin older Souls games so I came back to this video. Simply watching footage from DS1 and Bloodborne made me wanna replay them again and you made a great point about how they get you to approach each game very differently. The older ones definitely hold up.

[@FuyuYuki92]

This is sincerely one of the best and most balanced review/game comparisons I've ever seen. I love how you talk about the best and worst aspects of each respective game in your opinion, while still trying to put things into perspective and looking at the games more objectively. Truly refreshing, great vid!

[@callumbird2749]

I think Elden Ring has both the best and worst elements of boss design. Malenia is a prime example of this. Everything about her move set is perfect and fair, apart from the waterfowl dance which just turned that boss from being a challenge to being unfair.

[@peirces.1696]

Skill issue

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

The main thing is that the regen works fully against blocked hits, which is weirdly punishing to a particular playstyle. I've never really built a shield centric build, but it'd be like if a game just threw a boss that took no physical damage in there. Have to beat it with spells. People would seethe over that because its antithetical to the whole focus on character builds. A bigger deal isn't made about it because it's blocking.

[@ghastlyshimmer]

Waterfowl dance is very telegraphed move tho.

[@lesd3vil]

This reminds me of when I went back and replayed the original Tomb Raider games a couple years back. For all the advancement of game engines in the intervening quarter of a century, the way Tomb Raider 1997 was built means that once push a button to make Lara move in any way, she's locked into that movement - a single step, a backwards hop, a standing jump, a running jump, or a somersault in whatever direction - in a way that modern climb-em-ups just don't force on the player. On the one hand, I can see why; many's the crater a falling Croft left from misjudging the size of a platform and accidentally performing an acrobatic manoeuvre two feet past the edge... But, it also gave Lara's movements a sense of weight and momentum that's missing from modern games. Like, the need for precision meant that even though the moveset and often the area you'd traverse are relatively simple, you really took stock of the lay of the land and the limitations of your abilities to move within it. By comparison I often feel that modern platform games equip their protagonists with ledge-seeking gloves and socks by default. I'm not saying one way is better than the other, but that sensation of weightiness really stuck with me. I felt like it gave Lara an incredible sense of presence within the game world

[@unendingdeluge2545]

I don’t think the weightiness or more realistic platforming/climbing of tomb raider was a limitation of the hardware. Pretty sure it was a design choice. I’m positive that adding a gravitational pull to every ledge like they do in some of today’s games could’ve been done back then if they wanted to.

[@Randomness65535]

Pretty sure the streamlining of climbing is partially a design choice and partially a meme within game design itself. It probably started with Assassin's Creed 2's success. But that sort of thing is a spectrum with the original TR on one extreme. I think games like Prince of Persia (the first one), Mirror's Edge and AC1 were a good balance of precision versus convenience.

[@saedt]

@@unendingdeluge2545 I think the square grid was intentional too yeah

[@MA-go7ee]

It was a proper traversal game, it turns movement into a challenge, movement into *gameplay*. That in addition to the spare, sparse, hostile nature of the environments, the need to puzzle out which path to take etc makes it just about the only *proper* exploration game I can think of. (please no one mention the Uncharted games, Ugh)

[@noop9k]

@@unendingdeluge2545 Yes, modern game design is simply “cheap”, because they are trying to be more accessible by correcting player’s mistakes to the point where many action segments become a QTE event, without Q even. Just press some buttons in a certain order and try to not do it too slowly. Combat in many Souls clones is like that too. The Surge or Mortal Shell, for example. Where you end up abusing cheap running/sliding/leaping attacks that always home on the enemy.

[@TheNickofTime]

Full disclosure, I haven’t finished the game yet, but one thing I find Elden Ring bosses do better than Dark Souls are the ‘beast’ boss types (as opposed to the other major category, very tall armored humanoids wielding weapons). In Dark Souls, I had a definite preference for the more ‘duel’ style knight encounters, Velstadt, Dragonslayer Armor, etc. In Elden Ring, I’ve realized I look forward to that type of fight far less, beat out by bosses like the Fallingstar Beasts or that flying skeleton moose thing whose name I can’t remember. Their size and shape makes them less prone to Elden Ring’s temptation to fall back on ‘stunlocking flurry of doom’. EDIT: Oh, and can’t forget- Dragons. Dragon fights have never been more fun in these games than they are in Elden Ring.

[@Choryrth]

i was definitely the same (the skeleton moose, is called the Ancestor Spirit, for future reference). mainly because, to me, the "duel" type fights, were either laughably easy, or stupid hard, with no inbetween, and it was solely decided by my level.

[@MartinHindenes]

@@Choryrth the exception I found with duel type fights was the Crucible Knight / Misbegotten Warrior duo. That fight is so entirely skill based and rewarding (when playing melee), requiring maximum attention towards especially the crucible knight's moveset to look for openings and intimately learning all the combos he can make and how to avoid taking damage. One of the most fun bossfights in the game imo.

[@MartinHindenes]

As a bonus, once you have learned the crucible knight's moveset, you will have no trouble with them in the endgame sections despite their strength, which feels so rewarding.

[@Choryrth]

@@MartinHindenes definitely a good fight, yeah. unlike most of the other duos(pre-nerf), they actually synced, instead of stacked(worked together with their differences, rather than adding onto each other via similarities. the difference between smough and orn, and the godskin duo.) post-nerf, most group fights(though not all), have the ones not directly in the fight just fucking stare at you, cause people bitched too much.

[@Choryrth]

@@MartinHindenes definitely, my strength character sat there in the early game for like an hour, before even fighting margit, getting the gaol crucible knights moves down, to the point where when i killed him, i just parried him to death.(this was before i went down and got grafted sword, so i was still using a shield.)

[@captainbeefster]

Elden Ring’s endgame absolutely soured me on the game. Which sucks, because I played it for almost 60 hours before that point and loved every second. But the fact that after the capital, there’s really not that much to look forward to other than ridiculous damage and hp pools from bosses, combined with move sets that seem ripped straight out of Sekiro, just makes starting new characters much less fun that it has been in every other Souls game.

[@Thefuhhinfoo]

The real issue in ER is the power level that the game is balanced around. It is both possible to have a build that feels quite weak, and have one that is capable of a ridiculous amount of damage. I personally did not think hp pools were very high, in fact after Radahn I was capable of doing a ridiculous amount of damage so quickly that I was disappointed that outside of a couple of the very late game fights i, I didn't have to actually learn patterns. The issue is indeed in the spikes of difficulty later in the game that probably for the first time for many players, shows you how inadequate your build probably actually is.

[@gushakofficial5549]

Maliketh, Godfrey, radagon, and mohg are amazing bosses you’re missing out by dismissing them just because they will require you really learn their move sets

[@KarlRock]

Incredible video, thank you. I just started Dark Souls: Remastered. Enjoying the pain.

[@RedLogicYT]

Hi fake pewdiepie

[@VenusAsAFormerBoy]

I tried DS1 after Elden Ring and couldn't figure out why I was heavy rolling constantly... Turns out I wasn't, I just forgot how slow the game was! Loved it though

[@cloudbloom]

Are you sure your equip load was medium or lower? The roll speed is practically the same as in elden ring, maybe slightly slower but the difference isn't too broad. However the pacing is a bit slower in ds1 with certain attack speeds

[@VenusAsAFormerBoy]

@@cloudbloom You must be misremembering. I compared all the different equipment weight tiers and medium rolling was definitely slower than in Elden Ring. And heavy rolling was even slower than that! I might just be more sensitive to it though

[@flamingmanure]

@@VenusAsAFormerBoy ure 100% correct about ds1 midrolling.

[@thefebo8987]

You know about the Mid role? The fast role is not slower.

[@Tenchigumi]

I think a lot of people forget that that DS1 (and only DS1) had you fat rolling at medium weight and fast roll under 25% (DeS had fast roll under 50%, DS2/3 Elden Ring under 70%). But DS1 also had the coolest fast roll with the Dark Wood Grain Ring.

[@alexanderilthari9328]

Regarding your points on Elden Ring's difficulty, I think that the difficulty in that game was partially based around buildcrafting and exploration more so than just around combat execution. Do you still have to execute? Absolutely, but if you don't engage with the systems of the game, you are making it far harder for yourself. Elden Ring is still built on the fundamentals of a Dark Souls combat system, but that system now exists within an open world format, where if you don't engage as much with the exploration to hunt down powerful new items, upgrade materials, and crafting recipies, you will have a far harder time of it. Depending on how much you're willing to engage with the systems, understand them, experiment, and adapt, Elden Ring is either the easiest Fromsoft game or the Hardest. You have every tool necessary to face every encounter, if you are able to find it. Now, this is not entirely a good thing, but I don't think it's strictly speaking a bad thing either. It is clearly something very different and quite experimental for a Souls game, and I look forwards to seeing how they address it going forwards.

[@Exel3nce]

You can call it Options or forced Design

[@bloomingteratoma]

i see your point but littering the world with a couple of OP weapons that are necessary for some bosses is the wrong way of giving the player options imo

[@OtepRalloma]

@@bloomingteratoma necessary is a very strong word, considering not everyone used moonveil or blasphemous. I personally beat the entire game in NG with nothing but a two handed claymore, and even as I adapted to NG+ to use blasphemous blade and inseperable sword, I still found myself focused more on dodging than weapon art usage. That said, I get that after taking hours and getting frustrated vs a boss you might want to get the OP weapon and that can suck... just that it IS still possible regardless to beat the game without Moonveil or Rivers.

[@MartinPurathur]

@@bloomingteratoma I just used a starter estoc, thing is good enough I'd say

[@ethanbrock5453]

@@bloomingteratoma They are not necessary

[@jeremyl2728]

I almost always hate multi enemy boss fights in every souls games but I think ornstein and smough is the most enjoyable and fun fights in the series for me. It feels like they did it right with them

[@mellomoose_]

their opposite speeds and the pillars lets you 1v1 easily, makes for an enjoyable fight and nice victory. although in my experience super smough is a butt slam spammer fook that guy.

[@IItsIgor]

I haven't managed to fight the o&s yet but twin demons was a good ass fight that didn't feel bs, sister friede was also a solid one as well

[@spinavejzvuk9496]

I really like Shadows of Yharnam bossfight

[@jakeforgey5378]

Crucible Knight Duo... Godslayer Duo... Misbegotton and Crucible KNight... ER has the worst due bosses and disguising enemies as common enemies without a boss cover locked me outof the game for a month due to terror that each common would suddenly spring upa boss bar and Tree sentinal me to death!...

[@finalfantasy14orxiv]

I feel like they do 3 bosses right though like shadows of yarnahm and the abyss watchers in ds3, gargoyles were also good too imo

[@PetrusMaffai]

"Why did victory here feel so hollow?" I think thats my feelings about ER bosses in a nutshell sadly.

[@ArroyoRiver]

Absolutely

[@FuZzOtagE]

I think it's the shoddy stamina system and 2 handing weapons is unreliable as all hell.

[@hunternot]

Honestly two handing weapon should make it swing faster, greatsword attack speed feels unsatisfactory

[@Simon-fc9hg]

I noticed that you're wearing a scarseal when talking about damage taken in Elden Ring. If you have 60 points in vigor, drop the scarseal talisman. It raises stats, sure, but also increases the damage you take by a significant amount. Try replacing it with a dragon shield talisman to significantly cut down on the damage you take.

[@Daeyae]

It's like 10% more damage... When you have 2400hp at 60 vig that's like take 200hp affective... I mean yeah at 1000hp 200 is a lot, but at 2500hp you should be neigh invulnerable. Hell I went back to ds2 a few days back and managed to get 890 slash defence - 99% resistance and close to 800/850 in physical defence, about 90% resistance or something. Ds1 you can do the same and just sit and tank if you build right. I used cheat engine to get myself to max level, 99 in all, the best armour just to see, NG not even NG+. The fucking fire giant CAN STILL 1 SHOT YOU, WITH 99 VIG. oh and he has more hp than like 3 midirs combined, an enemy which could never one shot me with 39 vig and decent armour on ds3. Which allowed me to dump more into dex, str and luck - was running a bleed build so had 60 luck. Elden ring is massively flawed and unfortunately just wanted me to go back and play ds2 and 3 more so than beat the game without cheating.

[@jimjimson6208]

@@Daeyae ??? It's been a while since I played but the fire giant definitely didn't one shot me and I had like 50-60 vig im pretty sure and reasonably heavy armour

[@Daeyae]

@@jimjimson6208 not with every move, but he can with one, as he did

[@nsomjimi]

@@Daeyae that's why you need attack his weakspots. Attacking his other part of the body would just give little damage.

[@Daeyae]

@@nsomjimi his weak spot, the leg which you do 800 a hit too with 40str and a great hammer, again 40000hp or whatever he has. And phase 2 it's the eye which kinda hard to hit with a big hammer, or his hand, which he kinda uses to attack you with, leading to the aforementioned one shot

[@johnnysilverhand6045]

Dark souls really did open my eyes. It was my first souls game. I’m so glad a gave it a go all those years ago. I was one of the ones that immediately fell in love with the game and same with the rest of the modern fromsoft games.

[@drteeth362]

Dark souls 1 was my first love for these games so I always go back and do at least a playthrough a year. I’m so familiar with it that it’s a bit of a comfort experience whenever I go back

[@Patrick-jr1gh]

Beating Elden Ring's bosses feels like an adhd dodge fest instead of figuring out a tactic.. Aside from that it's a fantastic game, mostly in terms of world design and build variety

[@ni9274]

Beating DS1 bosses feels like beating soldier of God, Rick in Elden Ring, just press R1 and he will die before he can kill you.

[@tilly3702]

Why do you say that?

[@TheGamerThing]

Weird how this fanbase is literally willing to write off just a big complaint just because they need to love it

[@darius9329]

There is no build variety and the world design is uninspired compared to any other souls game. Oh wow this is the red area oh this is the yellow area oh yeah this is the snow area oh yeah this is the blue area god damn what a joke

[@ni9274]

@@darius9329 You never played a soul game if you think there is no build variety in Elden Ring. DS1 has exactly the same type of area, the lava area, the green forest area, the grey castle area, the black catacomb area, the yellow city area, the blue crystal area... Delete this comment before further humiliation.

[@fnkyron]

After being burnt out on Elden Ring after one 111 hr play through, i picked up hollow knight. THAT game is incredible and is hitting the monkey part of my brain that I wanted.

[@ubyn3816]

Hollow knight is amazing, truly a masterpiece imho

[@SuperLapulce]

I did litterally the same, just finished POH. Hollow knight is an amazing game.

[@Oknahidwin]

So you didn't like elden ring?

[@soullesspancake7405]

I am super hyped about silk song

[@psterud]

I really loved the Elden Ring experience, and as a big Souls fan I just enjoyed having such a huge Souls experience that went on an on, even if towards the end I became increasingly guilty that I was spurning my real-life responsibilities just so I could finish the game (195 hours total within about two months - I tried to do everything, which I didn't). And then I had to wonder, in the thick of it, if Elden Ring was a better game than Dark Souls 1, which for me, as someone who'd thought that DS1 would always be the best game ever, was a very hard question to answer. I still think the original, non-remastered Dark Souls is the best game ever. I've been trying to find a way to describe it, and I think I found it. Dark Souls 1 is the sophomore album by your favorite band. It's coming after their hit debut (Demon's Souls (yes, I know there were many previous From games)), and there's a lot of built confidence, but also still a lot of desperation to be successful, and they are still cool and underground, which tends to be a recipe for greatness. Elden Ring, however, would be the seventh album by the band, when everyone has heard their hits on the radio, but not everyone has dived into their albums, and now everyone is buying the new album and listening to it. And it's still a great album, a huge concept album that is played nearly perfectly (almost too perfectly), and the band is selling out their arena tour all around the world, making shit-tons of money with lots of media presence. And so you listen to that album for a while and it's great, but the albums you keep going back to are the original albums, because they've got more spark in them, more vitality and magic and raw eagerness, as well as errors that come across as charming. From Software is my favorite band. I will keep buying their albums. But it's going to be hard to top the unadulteratedly horrifying, tragic, frustrating, mystifying, and eminently exalted experience I had with the unremastered version of Dark Souls 1 on vinyl. They'll never make that album again.

[@John_on_the_mountain]

If you play it in reverse it foreshadows elden ring

[@heroicsquirrel3195]

@@John_on_the_mountain 😂

[@psterud]

@@John_on_the_mountain Haha.

[@ethanhanes4427]

Very well put I agree.

[@psterud]

@@naturallawgiver Loved it. I'd put it in third place after DS1 and Elden Ring. You?

[@masonstringfellow5757]

I think for me the bosses killing me with one shot is offset by the stakes of marika or close sites of Grace. In DS1 I was gutted every time a boss killed me because I had to run all the way back to it. In Elden ring a death isn’t as painful an experience.

[@AlaZenH]

It is because the bosses are boring in elden ring.

[@jacobrichard6709]

Dark souls will always be my favorite fromsoft game. It taught me how to be patient and to learn most of the bosses patern and mechanics in order to beat them. It is a classic that deserve to be played at least once.

[@dearkazuscorner2549]

Dark Souls has weight to it, all the newer games feel kinda floaty. Every attack, every animation in Dark Souls feels deliberate, and the risk/reward of every choice we make makes stakes higher. Almost like Bushido Blade did in comparison to, say, Samurai Shodown or Soul Calibur

[@MartinPurathur]

I mean, if you want deliberate, try wielding a great hammer

[@Fewe00]

I disagree that the newer games feel floaty. It’s faster sure, but the weapons sounds and impacts are 1000 times better than the old games. They’ve got some crunchyness in the new games. I do like the slower paced combat too I just don’t think one is necessarily better than the other

[@Dravianpn02]

Elden ring after a few hours, feels like you're hitting wet playdough. Sekiro and ds1 doesn't. Idk why it's like this lol

[@dualwieldroxas358]

Bloodborne, despite looking floaty, is probably the tightest in terms of fluidity and movement

[@jonnymario771]

@@dualwieldroxas358 Its the most forgiving in swinging your weapon, the hunter is faster than 90% of the monsters.

[@themadhattress5008]

I've always admired the physics in Dark Souls 1. From DS2 onward, we've just never gotten that level of realism and strict, deliberate nature of gameplay that DS1 had.

[@allanchon1361]

I for one adored the fight against rykard. The spectacle and conveniently provided serpent spear made it feel like they wanted every character, regardless of build, to experience being a serpent slayer. Hands down my favorite boss experience in recent memory

[@goldsocks9999]

Elden Ring and Dark Souls fully deliver in the feeling that you're a tiny speck in the grand scheme, but the tone makes all the difference. One feels like you're an insignificant speck that fights through all the darkness, the other you're an insignificant speck discovering the land and becoming a fantasy legend

[@cailancook9720]

The modding community has years of potential content to go through w/ Elden Ring. I'm so excited to see where we go from here. Same goes for From Soft following this immense success. Thanks for the analysis as always!

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

The sheer depth of niche mechanics that show up once or twice feel like they were designed for just that at times.

[@starfthegreat]

Imagine Cinders mod but for Elden Ring

[@hoponpop1261]

I'm excited for the day Sekiro combat is added to Elden Ring so I can play Malenia the way she was probably designed

[@loladas9]

I've been playing Elden Ring's Seamless Coop mod, and I really wish they made this mod for DS3. I usually play souls games like a singleplayer, but seamless coop is so fun that I wish they made for my favourite title, because I'm not a big fan of the open world exploring, where you're mostly riding a horse and ignoring most enemies. Love me some legacy dungeons

[@swaggadash9017]

​@@hoponpop1261 Unpopular opinion but I thought sekiro sucked. I thought the game was really cool and interesting. But no matter how I tried, I just couldn't get into the combat.

[@mojotheaverage]

As much as I love elden ring, that lack of satisfaction from beating bosses was palpable to me and as someone who got very tired of the exploration by the end of my first playthrough it makes me think I might struggle to motivate myself to play through it again any time soon. That end game difficulty spike was incredibly frustrating to me on both of my playthroughs and made me very aware of how limited the number of viable builds actually are. Elden ring almost feels like it's punishing you for creating suboptimal builds where I never felt that way in dark souls or bloodborne. When I first played dark souls one, I created a pretty bizarre build that was in no way optimal and revolved a lot around blocking with tower shields as I wanted to play it relatively blind. Subsequent playthroughs saw me creating dex heavy builds based around rolling which felt so good it took me literally years to try anything else when I finally tried a strength build and had an absolute blast with the zweihander. Compare that to elden ring where I felt compelled at the end of my first playthrough as a dex build to abuse rivers of blood after it was patched and my second playthrough as a strength build that felt like I was flinging an oversized twig at most bosses and it's shocking to me just how little entire classes of weapons feel in a game that seems tailor made for experimentation.

[@jellyfishjig]

My first Soulslike was Nioh, and that kinda spoiled me on the actual Souls combat, which has a lot less options available for characters at any given moment in a fight (though Souls games have more weapons to choose from). So in some ways I've mostly enjoyed Elden Ring as a good open world game, and haven't really considered the combat as much of a main feature except to provide challenge and texture. That's why I totally agree that I probably won't replay Elden Ring once I finally finish scouring it for secrets/exploring locations. Do you think at least some randomized side dungeons would help make additional playthroughs less draining?

[@haoyu53]

Doing a RL1 run bring back that satisfaction for beating a boss for me. Godrick, Morgott, Placidusax, Hoarah Loux was such a push over in my normal playthrough, but RL1 made me appreciate their movesets a lot more. Sad that Maliketh is still trivialized by flame of the redmane, even in RL1

[@kaz7886]

One thing i have to oppose is the builds. EVERY build is viable. Double daggers, double katanas, every dual, every singular weapon. Deals a really good amount of damage and rolling is the key. There's no build that is not viable.

[@zernike1014]

I got one shot by Magma Wyrm Theodorix in Consecrated Snowfield with 60 vigor, relatively heavy armor and was long done with using a sorseal. He did it to me 3 or 4 times. That will always stick with me because it felt so special in its bullshit

[@kaz7886]

@@zernike1014 Hmm.. Weird, if you were in NG+ i could understand, but in your first playthrough i had 50 vigor and i was not oneshotted by any of it's attacks, and i even had light armor on.

[@malachy2232]

I think something I appreciate more in Dark souls compared to elden ring is the story. Dark souls has such a complex and devastating richness to it. For example, Gwyn. The entire game you see how powerful he is and how much of a big deal he’s been. You see statues everywhere. You see his city, which is the most majestic shit you’ll witness in the game. The entire reason you exist with a dark sign is because of him. He wiped out an entire race of dragons considered to be immortal and all powerful. Only to be met with a husk, and one of the few bosses in the game you can parry. There is no epic music. There is no dramatic fight. It is completely harrowing and shows you what your doing. The importance of either a new age or strengthening the first flame to re-invigorate a dying world that Gwyn is dying alongside. It is a truly impressive masterpiece and that is only one boss. One facet of the interwoven puzzle of a story that is perfectly paced by its progression system. In Elden ring however I didn’t get this feeling from the story, which is why I think bosses are also so flat and frustrating. I don’t actually care about beating the bosses because they don’t provide me with clarity of my purpose or actions upon the world I’m playing. I think the only reason Melania is any part interesting to fight is because of the narrative built around her in online communities.

[@malachy2232]

Sorry for the large comment, writing a literature review and in the mindset I guess

[@Its_a_bad_idea]

idk, you get out what you put in. Everything you said about ds1 is applicable to elden ring (and any fromsoft work). ds1 is more obvious with its storytelling, admittedly, but I found that to be more frustrating than clarifying. Elden ring has one of (maybe the most?) intricate stories in gaming and one of the most impressive of all time, and most rewarding, if you put in the work

[@yanatrei5965]

That's why the last boss of Elden Ring - Elden beast - feels so lackluster. In every other Fromsoftware games the last bosses were either hyped throughout the game (like Gwyn) or player got to form some sort of connection to them (Gerhman, Isshin). While I was really glad to meet Radagon in the end of ER (and I really love this fight), mandatory Elden Beast felt so weird and unnecessary. Like what is this blob, why did it crawl out of Radagon? And explanation that "it is the true form of Elden Ring" is unsatisfying. Overall, among the sea of different bosses in ER I only really enjoyed Radahn - because of the grand entrance to his fight (both festival and his arena), the music, the fact that we knew about him and his previous deeds. Maliketh would be memorable too if I didn't burn out when I came to him (the game is huge and started to feel very repetitive after Leyndell). Malenia would be ok if not for her waterfowl dance - and why do we even fight her? Radahn lost his mind and we needed his death for Ranni's questline - but Malenia seemed reasonable enough. I'd really like to see her as NPC with the possibility of boss fight in case you get greedy for her rune.

[@hyper0505]

Same thing goes with Vendrick in Dark Souls 2

[@zargg5328]

Bonfires are one of those things that I’m glad are better in Elden Ring, I really hate running between lots of enemies just to try the boss fight again.

[@weewer3369]

I do have to say, you are taking WAY too much damage. I had similar Vigor values as you in NG+, but I was definitely surviving enemy attacks better than you. I think the game tries to emphasize using the talismans that boost damage negations towards overall damage and certain damage types.

[@itzpayday1238]

Thats what I was noticing too. Is he using both soreseals or something? I was taking like a third as much damage as he was.

[@mitzi3262]

@@itzpayday1238 He had one on, just one though. Damage is still way too high

[@karr1265]

@@mitzi3262 also brought baldicans blessing into lategame

[@Cypher10110]

This was my thought, when seeing the NG+ footage vs fire giant. He's got a scarseal and the FP-per-kill talisman equipped (along with the -5% hp blessing). Health is more than HP; damage negation is extremely variable and powerful (and has very little to do with rune-level). Also it's much easier to understand than in DS1, as it lists them as actual percentage values! I found that due to the crafting system and flask of wonderous physik (along side a wide variety of talismans), the game gives to alot more tools that do not involve leveling up to adjust your build to adapt to different challenges - certainly in terms of surviving boss attacks! Combining this with being able to change ashes of war to better exploit weaknesses or give access to alternative attacks/defenses (praise the bloodhound step!) gave me the feeling I was actually really engaging with the mechanics much more completely than I had in previous games. He does make a point that he felt the game was pushing him to engage on a "numbers" level rather than gameplay. Personally I saw this as a good thing, it pushed me to experiment and actually learn the game's systems. In my first DS1 playthrough I used the heaviest sheild I could find at any given moment and a greatsword with medium roll (I managed to get the Black Knight Sword in undead berg). This appeared to be a build that could handle every boss in the game, it didnt trivialize them but it never felt like I needed to branch out. I think I didnt really have to learn much, just master what I started out with. I love DS1, but I really enjoyed being encouraged to explore Elden Ring's systems on my first playthrough. Great video, there's tons of stuff I totally agree with/totally understand, but not everything.

[@javi7636]

Funny enough, the boss that really scratched that "git gud" itch was the Crucible Knight in one of the first evergaols. He was completely unbeatable the first time I fought him, but I kept coming back every few hours and tried again. Eventually I learned his moves well enough to dodge every attack and take him down. After that I had the confidence to take on the rest of the game.

[@joelharrison4654]

Same, when the game first dropped my roommate ran in to tell me about him and so I went to find him and we both dodgy a few hours fighting him at like level 20 till eventually we got it😂

[@BennyPress]

I think the Morgott fight in the beginning is worthy of the legendary boss fight status. It really is a good encounter

[@victory8928]

If only they didn’t attack so much delay to him, still one of the 2-4 best bosses in the game.

[@ZinxTheSlayer]

Hes too aggressive for dark souls like combat imo

[@piotr78]

@@ZinxTheSlayer Godrick is where it's at for me. The rest is downhill

[@ZinxTheSlayer]

@@piotr78 godrick and maliketh are my favorite, even though maliketh was the hardest in the game for me.

[@angelgustavoulloagalvez3366]

It doesn't even come close to the Soulsborne bosses.

[@marsvin55]

The gaming in numbers section is why i LOVE the dark souls games. I absolutley love elden ring but i think ds1 and ds3 is the best there is.

[@conker690]

I think there’s a few things to consider based on your experience with the two games. You finished Dark Souls at level 85 and Elden Ring at 130. Is that perhaps because it is much, much longer than Dark Souls? Why wouldn’t it scale much higher as a result? You can fight any boss or enemy pretty much whenever you want. Whether you are going to kill them is a different story. You have two options. Either get to a high enough level (like any other RPG, including Dark Souls) or use some tool or strategy that helps you beat that specific boss (like...every other RPG, including Dark Souls). It’s not clear what the point is here. You compare tools in Elden Ring like the Frost Stomp to strategies like kiting Smough into a pillar. But a much more accurate comparison is to how certain bosses in Demon Souls are significantly weaker to certain attacks than others. You are supposed to experiment to exploit and kill the enemies or just “git gud” and kill them the way you choose. I think people also don’t appreciate that rolling isn’t absolutely necessary and isn’t the only defensive option, especially in Dark Souls. Shields are absolutely viable but the commentary on how slow and clunky Dark Souls feels ignores that rolls aren’t the only option to the player.

[@Mordoras1379]

Yeah shields have gotten less viable as the games have progressed. With how forgiving i frames and stamina consumption of rolls have become. Good luck beating malenia with a shield.

[@conker690]

@@Mordoras1379 I did beat Malenia with a shield. With her loss levels of poise, the shield counter had her on her ass through most of the fight. I don’t see how they are less viable when there are new mechanics associated with it lol, but my main point was that shields were likely the primary intended means of defends in Dark Souls and yet the only thing being considered is the rolling.

[@JF-vz1ju]

@@Mordoras1379 Shields are pretty good in Elden Ring (and fun too, which is a first for the series). A high stability greatshield with proper talismans and high stamina could definitely take down Malenia. It'll just be a longer fight, which imo should be expected of a shield build.

[@saulgoneman]

​@@Mordoras1379 Shields are incredible in Elden Ring (Greatshields especially are straight up broken). Malenia is an exception in that rolling most of her attacks is a better idea than blocking, but even then, waterfowl becomes much more manageable with a shield. An insistence on just rolling is why so many people think the game is bullshit, because rolling is punished far more in this game than DS3. Roll catches and combos make timing rolls far more difficult, but aren't really a problem with a good shield. Add in guard counters and shields are at their strongest since DS1 imo.

[@JohnDoe-kn7ex]

@@Mordoras1379 Yeah they really went crazy with the i-frames in the newer games. 13 i-frames in Elden Ring is way too many. They need to go back to having 13 i-frames on a roll like in Dark Souls, that was so much better. I do hope they fix the i-frames getting so out of control.

[@MarionetteDuAuguste]

Honestly I’m somewhat excited for any upcoming DLC that Elden ring might get simply because it is likely to be smaller in scope. It’s bosses more tailored to their arenas, it’s mechanics more fine tuned to the challenge set before you. As epic as Elden ring is, it’s sheer size can and does hold it back in some key areas. Those moments that should tie an area together almost feel lacking at times. It’s very similar to how I feel about dark souls 2, though with the base game’s quality far exceeding that of its predecessor. Hopefully the DLC will exceed the base game in quality simply by being a much more focused experience

[@stevenlaverty8044]

i hadnt considered this and now i am even more excited for any future DLC's! excellent points!

[@TheFantomsLair]

Very optimistic and naive to think that tbh, to me it's pretty clear ER's bullshit is actually an intentional design philosophy change. You don't overtune something this bad, this consistently due to lack of time and polish. The intentional aim of ER boss design is to be unfun and bully you into using summons and/or use the new overpowered clutter they piled onto the base souls gameplay it copies. DLC is gonna be even worse probably. I'm done with Fromsoft until they release something again with focus on polished gameplay, rather than this meta copy-paste simulator they've turned their souls line into with this game.

[@Ghorda9]

@@TheFantomsLair except it's not over tuned, you just need to use better positioning and actually think about the openings.

[@evankoetsier3259]

Very solid point and I hope that turns out to be the case!

[@yourdad5799]

@@TheFantomsLair very salty huh

[@impossiblebeans9954]

Ng+17 on Elden ring and as for what I have to say about bosses, positioning is probably the single most important part of any boss. Beyond where you dodge, it’s where you are before you dodge. There’s a fair and reasonable location for every attack, barring maybe Malenia’s waterfowl dance, which can still be avoided multiple ways. The only reason I mention it is because there’s a thin range where the startup, if you are mid attack, doesn’t let you use either method of getting away and you kind of have to improvise. Dark souls is about learning and managing through, Elden ring is about mastery, especially in ng+ cycles.

[@sinelacico823]

The issue is the time it takes to attain that master, I’ve finished Elden ring once and I’m currently doing a RL1 run immediately after and up to Gideon. When it comes to Morgott and maliketh it was horrible, the amount of times it actually takes to learn those things and the sheer lack of opportunities you have to figure out the positions and openings before you die in one shot and have time reset is ridiculous. Mastery is definitely something important and I’ve needed to master or borderline master some fights but others are so fast, spazzy, complex and varied that it cannot be achieved in a single playthrough, or two, or three, or even four. There is NO satisfaction for finally edging out a victory on those bosses, I felt nothing good at all. It will take me several more runs before I truly understand them, I beat them but I simply could not truly overcome and master them with the way that they are designed, which is the main issue with the bosses

[@ukranian_deadbeat]

@@sinelacico823 I would argue that you need to learn bosses first, before trying to do RL1 run

[@TheAurgelmir]

I never played Dark Souls, but I did play Dark Souls 3. I did personally like the "long grind to get back to the boss" It serves two purposes: 1. You internalize the level, learn where every enemy is, so that you get back to the boss quickly. This gave the game a sense of mastery 2. You go into a boss with a certain level of resources lost, which means the better you are at the first point, the better your chance will be. Lastly, it compelled exploration to see if there were shortcuts. With Elden Ring the focus wasn't so much on mastery of the area, so there I felt more annoyed every time a grace was far away from the boss.

[@ni9274]

All the boss run in ds3 are not dangerous or complexe. You can just run in straight line and no enemy will reach you. And the short cut are always obvious.

[@Extrarium_v1]

the issue in all fromsoft games imo is once you master the first point it just becomes tedious

[@NobleVagabond2552]

It shouldn’t be necessary to level vigor to 40 to not get 1 shotted. And 60 to not get 2 shotted. And some bosses its basically impossible to do anything to not get 3 shotted in a rapid flurry combo attack

[@soracool1234]

Unless you're wearing fairly light armor with soreseals equipped. You're definitely not getting one to two shotted with 60 vigor I promise you lol

[@yvindvego9404]

wear something like scaled set with dragoncrest greatshield talisman and you will have something like 50% phy dmg resist. or if you want something lighter then you can use the knight set or fingerprint set which both give good dmg reduction for a lot less weight.

[@Dreamagus]

DS1 is still easily my favorite souls game but holy fuck I had a lot more fun with ER's combat. It actually felt more like ds1 than bloodborne did and it felt awesome having to really craft a build with all the various options at my disposal. There were a lot of things I've always wanted to do in ds1 that ER allowed me to do with efficacy and style. Of course I also had issues with it, sometimes the input reading feels unresponsive and a lot of bosses have at least 1 bullshit attack that breaks the flow of the fight, but overall I don't think I've ever had more fun with the combat in any other souls game.

[@darrensucksatgames]

First thing I noticed with Elden Ring is they finally toned down the speed and went for accuracy and using the new mechanics. Felt like a breath of fresh air, but some of the new boss mechanics stink. I hate the button reading and I can’t stand the overuse of AOE attacks to make a boss deadly. It’s fine but it overstayed it’s welcome in a lot of key fights.

[@wanderingknight7777]

My thoughts exactly.

[@f.p.2010]

@@darrensucksatgames button reading has already existed in ds3

[@darrensucksatgames]

@@f.p.2010 definitely, but never this egregious.

[@f.p.2010]

@@darrensucksatgames I didn't notice any difference in intensity

[@theeggthatsurvivedhowtobas778]

Elden ring definitely has its lows like late game difficulty and lack of casual replayability. (Some bosses feel unfair but people forget the absolute Jank that came with alot of the previous souls bosses) But id still argue that its highs are so high that it outweighs most of its cons and makes it one of my favorite fromsoftware games ever

[@zorro8027]

I honestly feel like elden ring missed out on the level of integrations covenants had in game. They felt way more integrated into Ds3. Hopefully elden Ring can add unique covenant rewards again.

[@arellajardin8188]

While I’ve enjoyed all of FromS games (well, not so much Sekiro), I still prefer the pacing of DS1 and DS2. I’m one of those insane people who counts SotFS as their favorite FromS game. I appreciate those older games for their deliberate flow, stamina management, and the “feel” of the bosses. The emphasis was more on timing than reaction, whereas the newer games lean more towards pure reaction. I liked old, decrepit giants winding up a massive hit that would leave themselves reeling from the impact. Now everything is a hyper aggressive anime ninja, darting around endlessly while you dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge before they maybe give you a punish window. Both can be fun, and I’ve done several builds in every game, but my comfort zone was how DS1 and 2 played.

[@gu3z185]

That's a really fair take. I actually liked DS1 more than DS3 for a time because I also preferred the slower and more tactical feel of it, but the main issue I had with DS2 was how the game felt to control. DS1 felt weighty and deliberate while DS3 felt slightly less weighty and more impromptu, but DS2 always felt floaty and mushy to control. I came into it really wanting to enjoy it, but I never could because of how it controlled (among other things, like enemy placements.) I actually find more in common with how DS1 and 3 played than DS2, all things considered.

[@imstillaj]

Why don't you like sekiro?

[@arellajardin8188]

@@imstillaj It just didn’t click for me. I like making different builds and trying all these games with different play styles. Sekiro demands you learn one specific playstyle, and if you don’t like it, too bad. I can’t remember how far I got, but I struggled to get there, and I still didn’t “get” the combat pacing. I know people joke that it’s a rhythm game, and that’s partially true. I just couldn’t force myself to enjoy it.

[@imstillaj]

@@arellajardin8188 I didn't find sekiros difficulty to be hard because maybe it was my first fs. I think alot of fs players struggle with it because they have to ditch the being patient, rolling and how fast pace the game is. As for the builds I think its great the game has one weapon because you focus on mastering that weapon specifically.

[@WarriorofSunlight]

I feel like DS3 and BB are the ones that emphasize timing and reaction more. In DS3 and BB there are bosses with wider and faster move sets that may have multiple different ways they can finish a combo, all requiring different timing or reactions to deal with. They’ll try to throw your timing off and tend to gravitate towards the “dodge through the combo and hit it during a small opening” type of boss design that you can see an early example of in Artorias. It’s really a game of learning the bosses’ move sets and developing the technical skills, knowledge, and timing to beat them, which I love. Bosses like Gael, Nameless King, Friede, SOC, dragon slayer, pontiff and twin princes are technical masterpieces that require timing, full knowledge of their move sets, and awareness of which direction you’re rolling in. Older FS bosses just didn’t require the same sheer level of precision and timing to deal with. I really think that BB and especially DS3 really improved upon the gameplay aspects of the bosses big time. DS3 has the best dodging mechanics and weapon move sets of the DS trilogy. You may be able to get away with dodge spamming, but if you take your time to focus and try to react appropriately instead of going wild, it has the best combat by miles of the trilogy. Stopping using shields and using dual-wielded weapons like the Gotthard twin swords made me a MUCH better player. TBH playing shieldless in DS3 is just as good as BB if you practice and get good at it. People really underrate that games’ combat because a lot of people just choose to be generic and spam R1’s with a straight sword. DS3 has a lot of cool mechanics and weapons and good handling if you choose you actually use them.

[@zach.hanford]

I think the damage difference is the biggest change I noticed going back to Dark Souls 1. DS1 is so forgiving when it comes to getting hit. I was shocked at how little damage I was taking, since I'm used to fighting against Godfrey or Malenia.

[@lemmingrad]

It reminds me on a Demon’s Souls video basically making the point that damage taken was a matter of perspective. Back in its day, most first impressions were that having half hp when in soul form seemed unecessarily punishing, in reality, enemies didn’t actually did so much damage to one shot you.

[@EddieInzauto]

Lots of great observations in here. Thanks for the video!

[@raidenslicingwatermelon]

You said it yourself but I think what I enjoy most about From’s games is that they’ve evolved so much but core elements are always there. Like walking into a shop that’s changed hands a dozen times but feels familiar no matter what it’s become

[@dualwieldroxas358]

Combat in soulsborne is like this, for me. Demon Souls: A bit clunky, timing can be awkward, but mostly enemies react naturally, and combat feels fair Dark Souls: Lots of weight behind movements and combat, but you actually feel that weight. Striking with a greatsword honestly feels powerful as you send foes flying. Combat is decently paced, and tough. But pretty fair, enemies follow the same rules as you, save for some exceptions Dark Souls 2: More fluid than Dark Souls, and heavier too. But there is a disconnect between combat weight and impact, where enemies have little to no reactions to heavy hits. Combat is somewhat difficult, but mostly fair. There are several points where combat is blanantly unfair though, particularly in DLC areas. Adaptability and Poise are nonsense. Bloodborne: The most balanced weight vs impact in the series, you are tearing enemies apart as viscerouly as they are with you. Even larger bosses react to your hits, and the fluidity makes combat fast paced and hyper aggressive. Dark Souls 3: Pretty much Dark Souls+, the combat feels weighty and balanced, and it has some fantastic bosses (and some BS ones). Fluid combat with some clunky weapon arts, but over all a very well balanced experience, save for some of the DLC area. Sekiro: Extremely fluid and dynamic combat, focused on skill and specialization over variation. Solid mechanics that greatly reward high level skill making even late game bosses fair, only depending on your own skill. From early to endgame, combat is extremely deadly, and every mob unit is a dangerous opponent. Imo, it has the best combat mechanics in the series, and is extremely satisfying. Elden Ring: Excellent early and mid game. Great combat with high manueverability, good weight vs impact, and realistic enemy reactions. There are some decent bosses, but probably has the weakest roster with some standouts both good and bad. Late and end game is an absolute slog, however. Regardless of build, enemies will almost always two-three shot you, even the trash mobs (like rats). Combat arts become pretty much necessary to succeed, and bosses are now getting one or two hits in every 30-45 seconds, making bosses absolute slogs. It is like an entirely different game from early and mid game, and is a severe detriment to the series.

[@dustinmyeye8752]

Get good

[@TheCosmicUprise]

@@dustinmyeye8752 😒

[@jar_knight]

@@dustinmyeye8752 No amount of getting good is going to make those flaws go away.

[@dustinmyeye8752]

@@jar_knight ppl have done no hit runs

[@johndiesta9744]

Have you done it dustin?

[@TheThunderbirdRising]

I totally get what you were saying about using the Hoarfrost Stomp on Radhan. I had to completely change my build to something totally OP (it's ya boy, Rivers of Blood) in order to beat Malenia, Maliketh, and the final boss. When I finished, I was just like "Welp. I feel nothing about this." Pretty disappointing ending. I wish the Elden Beast was a well designed boss

[@itsaUSBline]

I didn't change my build or approach to Malenia or Maliketh, or any boss for that matter. And it felt like a major accomplishment when I beat Malenia at least, though I got Maliketh within about a half hour of attempts and was sorta disappointed because all my friends told me he was a wall. I do agree all the endgame bosses beyond Maliketh were pretty underwhelming. Got Hoarah Loux on like the 4th or 5th try, and Elden Beast on the 2nd try no joke. It was a far cry from struggling on a boss and fighting them again and again, making incremental progress as I started to grasp their patterns and timings, and ultimately getting that rush as I finally overcame that the best bosses in the series gives. In Elden Ring, I only really got that feeling from the first tree sentinel, Radahn, Mohg, and Malenia. Nothing remotely on the level of Isshin, still by far the best fight in the series imo, other than Malenia, which came close in terms of difficulty, but wasn't nearly as fun or tightly tuned as Isshin. I think part of the problem might be me. Once you've played enough of these games, they just can't provide that same feeling to struggle and overcoming adversity that they did that first time. I absolutely adored Sekiro, for many reasons, I maintain it's absolutely their best game to date, but one of those reasons is it managed to put a twist on the combat formula that really challenged me in a way that made me feel like I was playing through the earlier games for the first time again. That struggle is kind of central to what the games are trying to do artistically. I think Elden Ring is still great in a lot of ways, but it lacked that oomph of the Souls games, and I felt underwhelmed by the storytelling after Sekiro. I was really hoping for more of a blend of Sekiro style storytelling and Dark Souls style storytelling, but it was really just Dark Souls style with a bigger world, like it felt like there wasn't any evolution there in terms of how they conveyed the story. Again probably a me problem for expecting so much from it.

[@nuclearsimian3281]

I mean, I used RoB to beat Malenia too, and she's still one of my favorite fights in Soulsbornring.

[@steveclock6051]

@@itsaUSBline dude I'm on my NG+2 on Sekiro, and yes, Ishin is the best boss, most finely tuned experience FS has ever put out. I adore Sekiro and was always surprised by how well they changed enemy encounters

[@RobOngrui]

@@itsaUSBline IMO the guardian in front of maliketh is harder than maliketh itself.

[@flamingmanure]

@@itsaUSBline it lacked that oomph of the Souls games? how so exactly? boss wise? cuz to me the bosses in ER are far better than bb or ds1. just not as good as ds3 and sekiro.

[@bearieroblox6451]

My problem with elden ring is the end game, not because I think it’s hard but because early to mid game I felt bosses were well thought out with good pacing in between them natural progression with each boss having an entire zone with its own story. Then you get to late game where they just through half of all the games bosses at you at once. It doesn’t give you a proper chance to level up accordingly and it makes areas such as mountain tops of the giants or farum Azula as bland. You can skip through all of the mountain tops right away just to fight the fire giant even though it’s the biggest area in the game. Like imagine if you had to go through the badlands and fight horaloux there with his own legacy dungeon, imagine if there was atleast 1 or 2 more unique bosses in the mountaintops before the fire giant. It would make the experience feel more worthwhile in the later game.

[@Robotmonkey44]

There’s lots of things to do in mountain tops tho. And I’m pretty sure Halig tree is one of the reasons that mountain tops didn’t have much content. Some things you can do tho is kill the hoslow knight, okina, the big frost dragon, do the okina dungeon (gods skin duo as boss but better) and I guess you can do some stide stuff like the wagon and finishing the halig tree girls side quest. Ion know more about the area but there’s probably more to do. You can get sepukku there to. But yeah if you want to get more of this area just go to halig tree and kill one of the best bosses in the game mate

[@michaelduffy3423]

I know I'm late to the game, but here it is. I have played all the souls games (minus Bloodbourne) but I've beat each of them like... once. So, in all of them, I'm pretty average. And while there is definitely some truth to what you're saying about Elden Ring's bosses with their massive health bars and their incredibly powerful strikes, I could say the same about the older games. I've been playing through them all again lately, and I'm currently on DS2 and it is ridiculous how often I am getting one-shotted. Finally managed to beat Freja, but I was stuck on her for a long time, because no matter how good I was doing, eventually I'd get mobbed by the little spiders, or I'd just get caught by a big attack and I was done for. People who have been through that game a hundred times would probably ask, "Why didn't you use the torch? Why didn't you just bait her magic attack?" I did... eventually. But I had to figure that out. So, while I think you are right to some degree in your comparison of the two brands of boss battles, I think your own experience going back to DS1 still isn't completely objective. Like you said, you catch Smough on the pillar instinctively whereas I... didn't know about that, and so I died about a thousand times in that fight before finally getting it. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that if the really experienced souls players out there honestly think back to their first few playthroughs of their first souls games, then they might actually remember that their experience actually had a lot of similarities to some of their frustrations with Elden Ring. Artorias is so blazingly fast that you wonder how you're ever going to keep up with him. Manus hits so freakin' hard that you have to play perfectly to even have a chance. Just when you start to feel powerful in Demon Souls, you decide to go to the Shadowmen archstone and you find out that the golden skeletons are the hardest enemy in the game... why does that stupid grim reaper constantly one shot you and he's not even a boss? I enjoyed the video, and I have always wondered what the experience would be like for some of you veterans to go back and play the oldies again. Interesting stuff. Thanks, man!

[@agularis_]

Great video! I wanted to throw in, did you happen to have 2+ talismans on that lowered your damage reduction in those late game clips where you were getting almost one shot by most bosses? After 40 vigor, the soreseals for example will always cause you to die in less hits than before, despite the hp boost. It's even worse if you were also wearing an elemental talisman, which also reduces damage reduction.

[@crimsonblade2519]

I was about to point that out but I read your comment first. I'm playing a low endurance build with less than 30 poise and the talismans do a LOT of work, to the point I don't even need armor. The defensive talismans are much more powerful than the offensive ones.

[@agularis_]

@@crimsonblade2519 definitely, the Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman by itself is worth more than many whole armor sets

[@TobyKBTY]

ER blew me away, probably gonna be my GOTY (or potentially the next few years if competition isn’t gonna be much to talk about) But DS1 and BB are still at the top in terms of the player experience.There really was something special with those games.

[@Sizzer1337]

I love both, Elden Ring and Dark Souls. But I prefer the slower paced thoughtful combat from Dark Souls. That speed we got in Elden Ring shouldn't be increased anymore in future titles. Tactic > Speed/Action In the end it's and RPG in my eyes. Doesn't need to be speedy.

[@issa3220]

Interesting, I had the opposite experience with Elden Ring's endgame. I never felt under leveled and instead saw it as more of a boss rush with some of my favorite bosses in the entire series.

[@neonbible08]

Same. I feel like a god in it but I did take a while with first play through. Now I’m like cos playing boss run with all the builds

[@laesar2299]

Yeah same, this video was so dogshit.

[@Its_a_bad_idea]

I’m almost certain it was designed as a boss rush. If you approach it like that rather than getting frustrated by the change in pace it becomes a lot more enjoyable (assuming you’re leveled enough).

[@zachtaylor5312]

I've grown tired of the "roll,attack,roll, roll,attack,attack,roll" gameplay of these games. Who would ever fight like that?

[@gu3z185]

Especially in Elden Ring there's more variety than just Rolling and then pressing R1. The game does a good job rewarding you for using shields + new mechanics like guard countering, and finally makes heavy attacks useful by occasionally rewarding you with a free riposte. DS3 had that kind of gameplay, but ER fixed that for me, despite its other problems.

[@frankcaggiano8282]

I've got over 10k hours in DS1, and I still think it is one of the best games of all time. It has that classic, chess-like feeling that none of the other From games have been able to recapture; the games have increasingly gotten too fast and "meta"-y, and while it's been great for increasing the number of things that can be done and drawing in players to the franchise, they've also lost a certain something that made the first game special in the first place.

[@sean7332]

agreed, don't think it will ever be possible to find that sense of awe again what made it special playing a souls game for first time we just know what to expect now

[@ta3-mnp4rk4]

Elden Ring is pretty awesome, and the art direction blew me away but I agree with you. I wound up just feeling burned out in Elden Ring and never felt the desire to go back. Dark Souls has me coming back all the time. It feels like a much more rewarding experience.

[@AidanMcSweeney-rt7gh]

As someone who played Elden Ring before even hearing of Dark Souls, I don’t think it’s all just nostalgia at all, Dark Souls Remastered truly still is a masterpiece of a game. Sure, it has a lot of issues, but so does Elden Ring… I don’t think I could name a game that doesn’t.

[@FROEZOEN]

Going back to dark souls 1 and 3 made me realize that boss fights used to actually be fun

[@sirgoo9962]

Shame you feel that way, since Elden Ring has a much higher average quality of bosses for me. DS3 was my first, and moving on to 1 and 2, well... to say the least those bosses were not very good.

[@malware2128]

@@sirgoo9962 that really depends on whether you use summons if you do then the bosses are too easy if u don’t the bosses are stupid hard damage sponges and I feel that bosses like Gael, artorias, midair, sister friede, and the ornate in and Smough duo far outshine any boss in elden ring

[@sirgoo9962]

@@malware2128 Personally, for me, Godrick, Rykard, Radahn, Morgott, Maliketh, Mohg, Godfrey, Radagon, and yes, dreaded Malenia, are amongst Fromsofts finest. I know its a pretty common opinion that ER's bosses are aren't as good as those of previous games, and despite really trying to understand the reasons why, I just don't agree. I don't use summons these days either, and I don't find the bosses now to be any harder on average than those of earlier games. But Gael and Isshin are GOATED. Still by far Fromsoft's very best.

[@zeehero7280]

Most elden ring bosses are fun. it's just that some of them are bullshit for many builds. most are fine, great even.

[@zeehero7280]

@@sirgoo9962 Elden Ring has far more bosses, not a fair comparison. think percentages.

[@schrimpgaming]

I dont get why he's surprised that he felt nothing after using a cheese strat agaisnt radahn it's very different to using the pillars to avoid smoughs hammer

[@aaronjones5742]

He literally addressed that and specifically said it was different than the aforementioned cheese tactics for dark souls. He mentioned that and explained why it still felt hollow. Did you watch the video or did you just look for something to bitch and moan about?🤔

[@jaswanthvardireddy2243]

@Women should cook And clean unprompted he’s a fantastic boss with good move telegraphs in comparison to most of the other bosses in the game

[@casaroli]

You know what DS1 has that DS3 and ER don’t have? Charm. There’s something about the first games in some series that give it charm that their sequels just don’t have.

[@knightofvirtue613]

Going back to Dark Souls after Elden Ring, I learned how to improve my build by simply reading the item descriptions. Lots of stamina regen and increasing endurance make managing stamina during big fights easy. It also made me appreciate how much faster Elden Ring feels. Finally, staggers in Elden Ring last 10x longer than Dark Souls

[@stephenmartland-buck9590]

As always, great video! 40 min felt like 15. I always look forward to your thoughts and passion for amazing games. Mostly I agree we with you, occasionally I don't but the way you present your case for any opinion or game is always worth my time. Thank you friend and keep doing what you're doing!

[@suhfee]

i really disagree with the bosses being easy/bad, but that might just be an effect of spirit ashes making most of them trivial or overleveling being incredibly easy to fall into through natural exploration. it's a concession made for offline players and the open world, and that's honestly fine for me. if you avoid summons and keep your levels in check (by spending those runes at shops) you're pretty fine

[@totallynotsane4495]

yeah using magic and mimic tear trivialize almost the entire game.

[@matthewschulte7158]

I’ve really been watching a ton of souls borne videos as of late since I can finally play elden ring. Since that first boss, I’ve been debating what game to start with, and it’s crazy how much thought has gone into some of these choices

[@tristianparnell7086]

I’m very surprised to find that so many feel this way about late game Elden Ring, even if it’s more a minor criticism than a major one. Elden Ring is my first FromSoft game and I’m going back to play dark souls 3 and bloodbourne after that for extra context so I’m still very early game for those two. I LOVED late game Elden Ring for all the reasons you mentioned, hence my surprise at all your feelings on that. I ADORED the difficulty and the rush of dodging through the game’s insurmountable odds. I really enjoyed the steep difficulty curve that bosses like Maliketh, Godfrey, and especially Malenia presented. Another important point to mention was that I didn’t really change my build all too much until after my first run when I started experimenting with builds. I was perfectly happy with the Dark Moon Greatsword from Ranni’s quest throughout my entire first run, and still use the crap out of two Dark Moon Greatswords. I wonder though that maybe the reason I seem to enjoy the parts you describe as downsides are because I started on Elden Ring, while you started with earlier From Software installments.

[@GiganticPawUnit]

To be honest, it seems like there are a whole lot of resources that the game provides that either escaped your notice, or which appeared from your point of view to be less valuable than they potentially can be. Since some of these things weren't mentioned much in your video, it seems like an early lack of success with certain aspects of the game made you disinclined to seek out ways to improve their viability. For instance, I don't see what you mean about the necessity of dodging in Elden Ring! The guard counter mechanic is so, so effective against so many enemies, and even a lot of bosses. You can actually decrease the stamina you lose from blocking by improving your shield at a blacksmith - if that was the case in previous games, I didn't know about it, but it makes a huge difference here and I appreciate it so much. And if you really want to block as effectively as possible, there's the Barricade Shield skill and the greatshield talisman - though those can be hard to find without searching for "Elden Ring why can't I block good" or something. The observation that you can roll forever is dead on, though. Since that's how it was in Dark Souls 3, it seems like a conscious priority on From Soft's part, to make combat fast-paced and dynamic after how well Bloodborne was received. I don't think endless rolling is always a necessity in Elden Ring even without blocking, though. There are plenty of major enemies you can just run circles around, like Erdtree Avatars, or which you can use positioning or timing to give yourself a respite from. For instance, I noticed I had time to heal during the windups of some of Margit's attacks! I think the real issue with Elden Ring is the impossibility of balance in an open-world game. I think it's a fallacy to describe individual bosses as being "easy" or "hard" as if that was an inherent aspect of their design! The game gives you no indication of what level you "should" be or what equipment you should have at any point in the game. By the end of the game, you can just walk around with 1600 or even 1900 HP, wearing the heaviest armor in the game while still being able to do standard rolls (which doesn't demand high endurance, since there are a few talismans that are like super-Havel's Rings). I also don't find that much difficulty in leveling up! Aside from finding lucrative enemies to get runes from, the game gives you SO many Golden Rune items if you poke around for treasure in every corner of each location you visit... At several points in the game I added up the rune items I had and realized that if I really needed to, I could pop them all and gain five, six, seven levels on the spot.

[@enman009]

Yeah, the balancing was thrown out of the window. You could say other Fromsoft were also unbalanced, but the open world made this much more apparent. Also agree on the difficulty. What everyone forget is that the difficulty will mostly be subjective. Some people didn't struggle with Farum Azula or Mountaintops, but some struggle. This is neither bad or good and will vary depending on your mastery of the game.

[@dominiccasts]

When it comes to rolling I've gotten the impression that From has been trying to figure out what to do with it since Dark Souls released. Dark Souls 2 went in the direction of massively increasing the stamina costs and making both distance (due to equip load) and i-frames (due to the agility stat) a character build question, which was widely hated; while Bloodborne went in the direction of embracing rolling as *the* core defensive tool, but then making every enemy attack close distance such that you have to time your rolls or you just die, and BB was much better received. Dark Souls 3 then seemed to end up a weird spot where stamina costs, distance, and s were all very forgiving, but enemy attacks were no longer universally gap closers like in BB, so it easily had the strongest rolls and thus got a lot of flak for being about "roll spamming". Sekiro then ditched stamina but made roll distance minimal, thus making it impossible to play that way but providing a great blocking system to use instead, and Elden Ring went in a similar direction where you can effectively roll as much as you like, but the distance is also made quite short, such that a lot of attacks will catch you out even with the correct roll timing if you picked a bad direction or just rolled when jumping or running would have been better. So it seems like From's experiments with designing around their roll systems has led them to realize that allowing the player to roll as much as they like feels great, but that there are tons of other levers they can pull to rein in the power of rolls such that players don't get frustrated feeling like they are being told "no" because of stamina costs, but they are still being funneled towards using a variety of defensive mechanics due to the limitations rolls have been given.

[@David.Marquez]

I wonder in the long run whether Elden Ring or Dark Souls will have a more active community/cult following? Seems like Elden Ring right now but in ten years? Who knows.

[@squeemlives]

I think Dark Souls had the benefit of being a small, underappreciated game with a rabid fanbase that grew gradually over time. Those sorts of communities always last longer. Elden Ring did gangbusters right out of the gate. It took years and years for Dark Souls to reach its peak - Elden Ring hit its peak immediately, there won't be any word of mouth grassroots enthusiasm to keep that community going and growing

[@jellyfishjig]

It seems easier to replay Dark Souls for fun/try something interesting. Replaying Eldin Ring seems like the equivalent of rewatching all extended cut Lord of the Rings films back to back (with the Hobbit films thrown in if you especially want to hurt yourself). Maybe you do it once a year or so, but it's probably not something you'd be as eager to start and play around with as frequently.

[@TheFaqvideos]

@@jellyfishjig Yeah, that endgame of ER is the equivalent of throwing the Hobbit films in, just thinking about it makes me not want to do it.

[@pwnmonkeyisreal]

@@TheFaqvideos leyndell feels like the true peak and climax and after that ED doesnt seem to have quite the grandeur and character as earlier bits

[@guilhermecaron8468]

@@squeemlives Its funny that you describe a feeling that I had, but with being a Demons Souls fan and community member against the release of Dark Souls 1. It felt like this niche thing we had just exploded into mainstream.

[@tylerberringer5366]

Just found you, and am very impressed and love how you gave me words for what I've been feeling. I love this game, but I think I'm having the same experience with ER, as I did with BOTW. Both of these series were built on a similarly linear, difficult, but FOCUSED experience. I still think those smaller games gave the devs better creative pinpoint accuracy. Love the video, thank you!

[@ujyb6581]

Ironically, I still feel dark soul's interconnected world still outshines elden ring's rich environments in a sense of awe. Nothing in elden ring gave me the same feeling of being deep in blightown or the catacombs early game without any way to escape via teleportation. Sure dark souls has its problems but it still remains the best in the series in my opinion.