Topic: Elden Ring Hype Thread

OK, I can confirm the map is bloody massive!! I found a treasure chest that straight up transported me to another area! I was not clearly not meant to ne there, every enemy there straight up wrecked me!

@R1spam haha I'm there right now too

Annoyingly I'd heard about this "teleporting treasure chest" I so wasn't a complete surprise, but I didn't realise how strong the enemies were, lol

Edit: just managed to get out of there. Bloody From soft. they do love their poison swamps, but this is the first time I've known them teleport you to a cave in the poison swamp in the early game, and then stop you from teleporting until you cross the swamp - not that you can usually teleport in from soft games (or did I do something wrong? I couldn't teleport from the exit from the crystal tunnel, I had to get to the other side of the swamp before it let me) I

Starting as the wretch clearly is the optimal choice - me after I’ve died to a pack of wolves for the 15 millionth time

@nessisonett IMO the battle axe that the Hero starts with is a bit OP in some situations. Not purely because of it's attack stats, but the "Wild strikes" skill that you can use if you two hand it - you literally just start swinging your axe like a mad man. I died so many times to the wolves in the cave, but the one time I used wild strikes they all died pretty quickly (and then the boss killed me anyway, lol)

@danlk1ng I actually love the wretch’s club. If you jump and hit R2 then you can bonk everything to death. Stun locks most of the smaller bosses too.

Went through that cave with all the wolves and beat the boss. And then the catacombs nearby with all the goblins that inflict bleeding on you. Opened up the door to the boss, but decided to have a bit of a wander around.

Didn't really get anywhere as there seems to be less graces around where I was exploring. There was this weird huge pink flower thing which spouts clouds (which I assume is poison) and lasers? And a few smaller flower type things. I stayed well clear of all of that.

Then over looking a nearby hill, I saw two giants pulling a huge crate thing with a load of troops guarding it, like has been seen in some of the promo material. V cool. It so easy to get distracted from whatever you had planned.

Stumbled on some place called Siofra River. Huge mobs of slow-moving enemies with gobs of health (seriously, they take like ten hits each to kill with my katana). Decided I probably wasn't meant to be in that place yet, but pushed forward anyway out of curiosity. Started killing some crabs until a mama crab the size of a tank descended on me, and... let's just say I hightailed it out of there.

Hope I can find some better weapons soon. I've found a few others, but they don't seem as solid all-around as my starter weapon.

Like with Bloodborne, exploration doesn't feel rewarding at all so far, and there's still nothing to do but aimlessly wander around killing everything in sight. Combat itself is functional but rather tedious. I'd kill for some puzzles or actual side-quests.

While I LOVE the inclusion of a map, the open world feels like 90% a big empty plot of nothing with little in the way of interaction besides enemies, item pickups, bonfires (or whatever they're called here), and those horse vaulting spots. Although at least you can use items to craft now.

@Ralizah Yeah, the individual named areas have been decent so far but I’m just not sold on the open world element. All they’ve done is increased the amount of time spent going from A to B.

The wolves have been surprisingly easy in this game. They die so easily.

That Beastman boss did kill me once, but he's not too bad.

@nessisonett tbh, I kinda wish they'd included the customizable map and just made it an interconnected, Dark Souls-y game level design-wise.

Then again, the more I think about it, the more I realize I wish I could turn this series into an action-rpg version of Etrian Odyssey, The aesthetic, sense of mystery, difficulty, etc. are all cool. There's a solid foundation to build something really cool.

I'ma try to enjoy this, though. I've wanted to give FS another chance for a while now, and my single biggest complaint about the series has been addressed with Elden Ring.

@JohnnyShoulder I actually liked the use of beautiful, elaborate art during the opening narration. Kind of reminds me of the motion comic sequences during The Witcher 3.

Currently getting smashed to pieces by a giant boss thing. Probably should pick up some armour at some point, I’m wandering about in a couple of bits of fabric.

I accidentally found a fairly hidden passage that enabled me to access a castle that I think is probably way, way later on in the game. Ended up running about a bit and then spent the next hour trying to get my 8000 runes back without dying. Can’t believe I did it!

For the last week I've been wrestling with my decision to purchase ER>Horizon... basically wanting to play both, but being realistic in that I only have time to give to one.

After my first 2-3 sessions with ER, I'm really pleased to have gone with this first (will pick up HFW later this year for sure, probably my next PS5 game).

In a similar vein to @Fragile .... my only big criticism is the framerate issues. I'm playing on PS5, and the FR problems were initially quite jarring for me. BUT I have been spoilt by recently playing DeS / Returnal / GoT Director Cut...which are all unashamedly gorgeous.

ER is pretty much everything I'd hoped and wished that From would deliver though. To call it "Dark Souls meets BotW" would probably trivialise how good it actually is, but I feel this description is fairly accurate.

I think From have kept the 'integrity' of the SoulsBourne IP, and not compromised on difficulty, but equally made it more accessible for those not familiar with the series and formula.

Gone with DEX build, starting class Samurai... loving the 'Unsheathe' skill which is carrying me well. Currently lv17, got wrecked by Margit many times. Plan to go away and level up a bit, farm some items to upgrade my katana to +3 and then head back.

In summary though, this is probably the first time since Returnal that I've actually been really excited to play a game again in a given day... DeS Remake was great, but didnt hook me like ER has so far.

(And to all those who got hood-winked by the glowing chest, and transported to that god-awful underground section, I also fell foul of this! Nice to see that From are still pulling new variations of dirty old tricks ha)

@nessisonett well done! Thats always the scariest part as you gather so many runes. How far ahead to press on vs finding that campfire/grace.
Myself, been just exploring everything avoiding most things and trying to gather more seeds for flasks. I lucked out getting the summoning bell, allowing me to use my wolves. I'm sure I would have missed it if I didn't need to camp. Hopefully I can find this elusive round table hub soon with out lookups.

I've been exploring this game all weekend and i am really enjoying it..i actually like the open world enviroment and the crafting on the fly is a really cool addition..i also like that you dont have to run through a whole level again to get to the boss encounters..i read a lot about people not liking the world because its empty? Sotc had no enemies in it at all apart from the bosses themselves and it also had one of the most visually appealing worlds and yet that game (with some of the worst controls and camera angle switches) is regarded as one of the best games of all time so whats different? Why be down on one game but not the other?

@CJD87 yes that glowing chest..took me ages to work out how to get back to the main world..got some really good loot from there though so it was worth it in the end..just..

@Northern_munkey Plenty of people are down on Shadow of the Colossus. We’re literally playing it as part of the game club this month and we’ve all had our issues with it. It’s not exactly the best example to choose as some sort of untouchable classic because it’s always been fairly divisive.

@nessisonett its the nearest example i could think of..

I have to say I'm enjoying the journey between things and the sense of discovery. The system I haven't engaged with too much is crafting. I'm still getting used to be able to loot resources on a horse in a souls game 😂

People have been bugging From Soft for years to put an easy mode on Souls games. I found Elden Ring's easy mode: Riding on horseback with a great sword

@Ralizah I did like the art when you start the game, but I personally would have preferred a cut scene. They have been really good in previous games and a bit gutted we didn't get one this time.