I've played 150+ hours of 'Elden Ring' and I've beaten it twice already. I love it, I think it's a wonderful adventure and one of the best games of the generation. But, at the same time, I can't shake the feeling that it's no better than the rest of Soulsborne in almost any of the areas in which it competes. At least for me.
The BSO of Bloodborne, DS3 and DS2 seems much better to me. The story, lore and NPCs of Dark Souls or Bloodborne seem to me better developed and more interesting. The level design of Bloodborne and, above all, Dark Souls still seems to me From Software's top (although Elden Ring has one of the best areas the studio has ever made).
But the point where it seems to me that there is a bigger difference is in the bosses. I think Elden Ring will age very badly in that section due to how irregular its fights are. Enemies so big that it's impossible to see their moveset well, an exaggerated amount of enemies with delayed attacks, so much tracking or almost infinite combos, several enemies that resort to adds to artificially complicate the confrontation (and, I think, are designed to force you to use spirits), enemies with chaotic movesets very difficult to interpret and read, or enemies with absurdly difficult attacks and mechanics. And, if that wasn't enough, the reuse. I'm no longer referring to the fact that only 15 or 16 bosses out of the 120 in the game are 100% unique and not repeated in one way or another. I mean that even in the mandatory bosses there is repetition: without spoilers I will say that there is a boss that is reused with a slight change of name and some additional attack and another, one of the worst From Software has ever designed, which is to take two minibosses and put them together in the same arena, incorporate a tremendously frustrating mechanic and voila, we have mandatory final boss. Then, although not as bad, there are a couple of bosses that seem directly taken from other games.
And just as disappointing is that they haven't used those 120 total bosses to experiment and bet on some boss-puzzles like the ones we saw in Demon's Souls. I barely remember one, an absolute carbon copy of one from Dark Souls 3.
So, in general, the average level of the main bosses in 'Elden Ring' seems to me much lower than in games like 'Bloodborne', 'Dark Souls', 'Dark Souls 3' or 'Sekiro'. Much more if we take into account the DLC of the first three. Isshin, Genichiro, Ornstein & Smough, Artorias, Sif, Ludwig, Lady Maria, Orphan of Kos, Nameless King, Gael, Friede, Fume Knight... I don't think, in a few years, we'll be putting many 'Elden Ring' bosses on this list.
Evidently, the game does many things right: its extension makes its world the most varied, its secret areas are the best and most complete and its playable depth is the best within the Souls branch (personally I still prefer Bloodborne's gameplay). But, despite loving the game, I think the media have been carried away by the hype and expectation and that, in a way, the passage of time will leave a somewhat more irregular memory of 'Elden Ring'.
What do you think?
The BSO of Bloodborne, DS3 and DS2 seems much better to me. The story, lore and NPCs of Dark Souls or Bloodborne seem to me better developed and more interesting. The level design of Bloodborne and, above all, Dark Souls still seems to me From Software's top (although Elden Ring has one of the best areas the studio has ever made).
But the point where it seems to me that there is a bigger difference is in the bosses. I think Elden Ring will age very badly in that section due to how irregular its fights are. Enemies so big that it's impossible to see their moveset well, an exaggerated amount of enemies with delayed attacks, so much tracking or almost infinite combos, several enemies that resort to adds to artificially complicate the confrontation (and, I think, are designed to force you to use spirits), enemies with chaotic movesets very difficult to interpret and read, or enemies with absurdly difficult attacks and mechanics. And, if that wasn't enough, the reuse. I'm no longer referring to the fact that only 15 or 16 bosses out of the 120 in the game are 100% unique and not repeated in one way or another. I mean that even in the mandatory bosses there is repetition: without spoilers I will say that there is a boss that is reused with a slight change of name and some additional attack and another, one of the worst From Software has ever designed, which is to take two minibosses and put them together in the same arena, incorporate a tremendously frustrating mechanic and voila, we have mandatory final boss. Then, although not as bad, there are a couple of bosses that seem directly taken from other games.
And just as disappointing is that they haven't used those 120 total bosses to experiment and bet on some boss-puzzles like the ones we saw in Demon's Souls. I barely remember one, an absolute carbon copy of one from Dark Souls 3.
So, in general, the average level of the main bosses in 'Elden Ring' seems to me much lower than in games like 'Bloodborne', 'Dark Souls', 'Dark Souls 3' or 'Sekiro'. Much more if we take into account the DLC of the first three. Isshin, Genichiro, Ornstein & Smough, Artorias, Sif, Ludwig, Lady Maria, Orphan of Kos, Nameless King, Gael, Friede, Fume Knight... I don't think, in a few years, we'll be putting many 'Elden Ring' bosses on this list.
Evidently, the game does many things right: its extension makes its world the most varied, its secret areas are the best and most complete and its playable depth is the best within the Souls branch (personally I still prefer Bloodborne's gameplay). But, despite loving the game, I think the media have been carried away by the hype and expectation and that, in a way, the passage of time will leave a somewhat more irregular memory of 'Elden Ring'.
What do you think?
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