Is Elden Ring a good "first" Souls game?

eldon ring is just the dark souls of open world games take a quick look at my channel and you'll see that certain games and topics usually appeal to me more than others sure i like to experiment with all sorts of genres but what do we got here anime nintendo indie nintendo anime nintendo indie yeah so what i'm getting at is that the games i talk about don't usually look like there is no original way to introduce the bastion of a series that is dark souls or its reputation as the de facto descriptor for hard video game so instead of regurgitating a wikipedia page i'll tell a personal story i'm just choosing from my high school notebook of ways to start an essay so i bought the game on pc right figured everything will be fine for this 10 out of 10 universally acclaimed aaa release but i didn't know about fromsoft's history of questionable pc ports release day arrives i install my copy on steam and i'm greeted by janky graphics constant frame rate drops and time manipulation that ranges from the game slowing down every time an enemy sneezes to a several second freeze followed by a sonic boost moment so after a couple hours of attempting various fixes i headed over to gamestop for the early midnight release to pick up a ps5 copy instead as i was checking out the cashier asked me do you want to buy a warranty in case you scratch the disk or don't like it or want to return it for any reason yadda yadda and on conversation autopilot i replied no thanks i'm good problem was their next words weren't all right you're good to go but instead are you sure it is a souls game so i just stood there for what was probably a millisecond but felt like one of those anime flashbacks where it goes black and white and time slows down and my brain went wow people have really tried returning dark souls to gamestop because it's too hard anyway i eventually resurfaced declined the warranty and the pro membership renewal my mom bought it for me when i was like 12 okay headed back home played the game wrote the script and this is getting too meta so let's start the review to get my chaotic set of opinions squared away immediately i loved breath of the wild i really don't like any other open world games medieval fantasy is generally one of my least favorite settings and i've never played a dark souls title so while i rarely cross paths with games like eldon ring on my channel uh [ __ ] you it's awesome sorry that was mean i want to approach this review from the perspective of a newcomer as i know some people are looking at how much others are enjoying eldon ring but are unsure whether or not the comments of it being the most accessible souls game ring true given that almost everyone reviewing it has already played fromsoft's previous titles oh and while i'll be making comparisons to the open world genre to look at the ways in which eldon ring breaks the mold i'm gonna do my best not to compare it to breath of the wild yeah pretty crazy i know it's kind of like they're not that similar since i want to look at this game through the lens of babies first from soft tidal i figured it'd be best to start off with how elden ring approaches difficulty what does the dark souls of insert genre here even mean when it comes to most of the games i play i usually have a preference toward linear design i enjoy fighting bosses at the intended difficulty and overcoming challenges carefully crafted by the developers however the ability to say [ __ ] it i'm coming back later makes elden ring incredibly accessible to new audiences while also setting it apart from the scaling systems many rpgs implement to varying degrees of success in a linear game like dark souls every boss is a wall that you must conquer to push forward but in elden ring that's almost never the case even when it comes to story bosses don't feel like fighting marget or godric yet there's literally a secret route that just lets you walk around the castle and go to the next area instead this non-linearity delivers an amazing sense of freedom as getting to traverse the world and explore ruins caves and castles at your own pace gives way to a lovely mix of difficulty with the potential downside that challenge is inconsistent depending on your level you might trivialize certain bosses and other times you might discover a whole new area of the map only to find that your attacks barely scrape a basic enemy however i think this is a more than acceptable trade-off that actually works well in some areas as it allows experienced players to defy the odds while letting new players level up at their own pace i'd be lying if i said i wasn't a bit disappointed discovering some areas that just felt too tough at first but there's so much to do that those few moments were negligible when considering the overall experience and sometimes being underequipped for a fight made victory all the more rewarding honestly whether i was bashing my head against a wall for an hour because i really wanted to kill that big snake or completely obliterating a guy by summoning a giant fire breathing dragon head a wins a win each in their own satisfying ways plus fromsoft makes sure you're never missing out with the sheer amount of secrets they manage to pack into every corner of what feels like an endlessly expanding map let's just say some of the bosses aren't satisfied after round one finally i beat the trees oh he's he's back i could beat this guy again no problem when it comes to the specifics of combat souls games definitely have a steeper than average learning curve but after playing eldon ring it wasn't nearly as bad as i was expecting maybe it is the most accessible souls game i guess i don't really have anything to compare it to huh on a fundamental level the game just demands more attention and precision than you might be used to as death is often unavoidable while you learn how each boss moves and functions pressing a button also means dedicating yourself to that choice as opposed to most action combat games built on instant dodges and cancelable everythings because of all this the first 5-10 hours were pretty tough no question about it i was so in my own head about the reputation of dark souls that i thought one wrong stat point could [ __ ] me over i'm glad to say this obviously isn't the case but it did take me a while to build up the confidence to just gun it head first into any challenge i stumbled upon at first i struggled to conquer even a single boss and felt a little dejected until i began to grasp the dance a term commonly used to describe the combat in dark souls yet at the same time it was incredibly refreshing to learn such a unique form of gameplay defeating even the most basic of enemies felt like a genuine accomplishment and being rewarded with after beating my first boss yeah yep okay i like this game combat also manages to stay interesting thanks to the diversity and creativity of weapons items skills equipment abilities summons spells what have you while i know some people like to waltz their way up to every boss with nothing but a big club doing the same thing in every fight would probably put me to sleep so being able to do sick jumps and dives and teleports and summon a giant dragon arm while my constantly reviving skeleton boys draw the boss's attention is incredibly amusing and the thing is you aren't given these tools to easily break the game nor are they required it dishes them out intentionally because depending on your skill level or current location you might need whatever you can get your grubby little hands on elden ring is one of the smartest games i've ever played as bosses actively dodge both physical attacks and spells so it wouldn't be too long after feeling like i was cheating that the game would cheat back and spit directly in my face even after you die the bosses just keep jumping and swinging like dude i'm already dead are you gonna fortnight dance of me or what anyway being able to feel my character's growth not just numerically was also fantastic i stumbled upon a cave in my first few hours of playing and got the absolute [ __ ] kicked out of me by these little [ __ ] gargoyles my sword was banging against the wall they were jumping on me shooting me with little darts it was not a good time when i finally made it to the boss he absolutely steamrolled me and after learning i'd have to deal with the gargoyles again to get back to him i left but then 10 or 20 hours later understanding the concept of the dodge roll and all of combat a bit better sweeping through those stone bastards and winning an intense duel with the boss felt great i think scaling health bars or a world level system would take away from the sense of triumph and progress after winning each fight honestly my only real disappointment is that i was only able to experience a fraction of the combat styles on display while there are ways to switch things up going through the process of respecting stats and upgrading new weapons just to try out a new build isn't always an exciting prospect and the game is a little too big for me to easily say yeah i'll just try out something different next play through bro i have over 80 hours in the game i'm still not done and there's a new kirby game how much free time do you people have enough about combat though what i really want to talk about is the design choices that make elden ring both the subject of widespread praise and heated debate among gamers and developers alike the magic of exploration didn't i put that as a section title in my breath of the wild video wait i can use big fun words like mysterious and cryptic and obtuse and ambiguous and veiled and find more at thesaurus.com to describe elden ring's tone and overarching design philosophies but what i'm getting at is that it just doesn't tell you where to go or what to do every five seconds thank god when you start up the game you get a cut scene about the loathsome dog eater and some optional dialogue about being maidenless but despite having a massive open world the game doesn't have a quest log at all there's an overarching story and some side stories but no real intended order to fight bosses or explore the map you want to remember what someone asked you to do better write it down yourself there's also no minimap or automatic waypoints find something important better mark it yourself if you want to remember where it was you think an npc is actually going to tell you where to go for their own quest these features can sound menial on paper like if a game can track everything for you who would want to do it themselves uh me i want to do that keeping a journal has been a strange yet incredibly rewarding way to experience elden ring's storytelling as jotting down important findings while keeping track of characters and quest lines gives them much more meaning than bullets on a list to be finished due to the nature of hidden quest lines displaying them as traditional side quests could potentially damage the way players approach these tasks quest logs often imply a sense of intended completion despite the fact that some requests have alternate solutions or that they have moral and story implications i didn't want to do some of them so i didn't and i don't mean like didn't want to do a quest as in fetching grass i mean like evil [ __ ] and i wouldn't do anything remotely evil ever i'm gonna i'm gonna jump on uh stop it flesh is a king to stone and it made it iron pineapple told me to do it there's a feeling of immersion sorry that's a gamer term of being on a real adventure that permeates through every design choice in elden ring the bosses feel like real enemies the entire world feels hostile and dangerous the map's topography allows you to navigate without waypoints and the visuals themselves are given the chance to shine thanks to the simplicity of the game's ui the only element shown during exploration is a compass allowing you to fully take in the world around you and man is it a cool ass world to take in sure it might not have the latest 4k supersonic ray traced no computer on earth can run it but it manages to make every area stunning and memorable from the grand structures of the capital to the decaying ruins of churches and the lush yellow forests of the altis plateau to the oh [ __ ] i'm leaving i'm out of here of the caled wildlands elden ring manages to avoid feeling repetitive and ensures it's more than just a medieval fantasy world i've never watched or read game of thrones but something tells me george rr martin didn't come up with the giant turtle wearing a pope hat if any of my friends looked at my screen while i was playing or vice versa someone was always able to say oh yeah i know exactly where you are even if it was just a [ __ ] cave we all knew which cave it was my appreciation of the game's atmosphere is also demonstrated through the importance of audio i find that in so many games not just open worlds you can't hear the sounds of the world around you or even your own thoughts over the droning of constant dialogue sometimes this dialogue exists for comic relief or delivers an interaction that builds a relationship and contributes to the story but other times i'm sorry horizon it's just too easy to point fingers at you elden ring is a far cry from most open world rpgs though as you aren't given constant reminders hints or solutions for anything if you get lost you have to sit there and figure it out yourself study your map or try talking to various npcs again for directions even during longer stretches of traveling on horseback which is when most games would bring up a phone call or internal conversation i'm playing as my own character and man is he literally silent that means i get to do the metaphorical talking myself you know make my own choices in the story take my time gazing in a nice view or actually solve a puzzle without the help of a screaming toddler what i'm getting at is that eldon ring isn't gentian impact wow that is a comparison that should have never been written where every step is rewarded with a shiny gem nor is it your average open world rpg where every point of interest is revealed and tracked and every event has to give the player some fundamentally usable reward or completion percentage to trick them into thinking the menial fetch quest was valuable the reward is the accomplishment of finding or beating something you might get a rad weapon at the end of the catacomb but the excitement of actually discovering the cave solving the puzzle and overcoming the boss is what gives it meaning as a reward i know the concept of intrinsic motivation in video games isn't for everyone and isn't always an effective choice depending on the context but for myself and what seems like plenty of other people it's a breath of fresh air after feeling bogged down by overly complex and repetitive systems with mechanics that feel like they're rushing you through an intended experience or refuse to let you find out anything on your own or want you to [ __ ] buy your gold from a micro transaction shop fellas why do we let ubisoft do that like that just screams objectively bad with a capital objectively however i do want to mention that the silence of elden ring does extend to almost every aspect of the game and i definitely struggled a bit early on while trying to understand things the game chose not to explain it took me 50 hours to realize this little gravestone means spirit summoning is available and i still have no idea what 80 percent of the debuff icons mean this sense of obstruction can definitely be a negative for some players as there are a plethora of useful mechanics you might not know about unless you watch the iron pineapple video but this is from software talking about i say that as if i've actually played dark souls but i can tell that all of it or at least most of it is intentional even finding a way to change up your combat style is another secret the game wants players to find on their own i'm not trying to go down the route of the game isn't for everyone to defend a design choice or imply that any improvement would go against some holy order holding the game together i've definitely seen my fair share of [ __ ] on twitter people brewing up a storm on both sides and it makes me tired but while this type of game design might not be for everyone that's okay i don't even know if i can conceptualize a video game that everyone would like sonic there are obviously smaller details that could have been improved upon if the devs had unlimited time and resources but i do not possess the patience or the sanity to make a three hour video essay called elven ring retrospective so i'll just continue gushing instead not having my hand held through every fight or constantly pointed in the right direction led to something i wouldn't always mention in a review but feel significant here the moments i shared with my friends the sheer amount of secrets behind every hidden wall and in every piece of item text and in every back corner of a desolate castle leads to a sense of community and collaboration that feels absent from a lot of games the developers hid a bunch of crazy [ __ ] from everyone but they only want dedicated players to find it i'm not saying every game needs to hide an entire sub area in a coffin behind a waterfall but for this type of open world really feeling like you've had an experience different from everyone else or knowing that you found something really cool that someone else didn't but that you still haven't even scratched the surface it all just feels so cool hearing the yells of friends getting ambushed in a cave or the hearty screams of clearing a tough boss hell even just sharing how we all found our cool weapons it made me feel like we were all on an adventure together despite the fact that i was completely alone in the dark in my room on my ps5 although i did have a couple moments of despair while sitting in discord listening to my friends fight bosses together let's [ __ ] do it it would be silly if someone couldn't play with this but it's fun they were playing that would suck that sucker okay um password is is [ __ ] out of gloves ps5 sucks you say the password is ps5 sucks no i'm not mad about the pc port or the fact that i spent 50 which i then couldn't refund because i bought it from a reseller that's on me then 60 on the ps5 copy and another 10 on a month of playstation plus just to be able to open a goddamn note that says dog every time i walk up to a turtle you know what never mind i am mad now this wouldn't be a video of mine if i didn't end with some weird tangent in an attempt to make my video game is good stand out from the million other video gamers goods that have been posted already i don't have any crazy emotional parallels or profound things to say about the storytelling and characters but the game is fun and it gives me the itch i don't know that sounds weird i'm still workshopping it it just means i want to keep playing all the time procrastinate work literally spent my whole sunday just sitting there [ __ ] 12 hour play session i play a lot of video games but i don't finish all of them i could acknowledge they're cool but every game has a differing level of the itch that brings me back after the first session in terms of things i've been playing recently disco elysium is super engaging but the intensity of the writing limits my little baby brain from ingesting communism for more than a couple hours a day pokemon legends arceus was kinda neat but after the first couple play sessions there was no strong sense of anything calling me back for more for some games it can be engaging gameplay for others a story with twists and turns galore and for the ones that are too lazy to do either of those just add battle passes daily logins and skinner boxes it's it's proven to work for elden ring it's everything except the manipulative ones exploring caves riding around on a horse and fighting bosses for a hundred hours might sound repetitive but the game manages to throw so many new ideas at you that just when you feel like you've seen it all the game says the [ __ ] you have and that sense of wonder brought about by the mixture of intense combat and an intricately crafted open world is just amazing i often express my distaste for games that take up way too much time but elden ring does it in the best way possible the absurd amount of effort it takes to explore all of the lands between is what makes the journey so exciting and rewarding by the time i neared the end looking back on my map filled with grey sights and markers flooded me with memories of all the things i'd experienced or still hadn't fully unveiled fighting boss after boss might have taken up most of my mental faculties in the moment but every time i sat down at a site of grace or rode to a new location on horseback i was given time to reflect on how i subconsciously learned the landmarks and shortcuts of every region or watched bosses turn into basic enemies as i grew stronger over time how i experienced a chaotic mix of dastardly lies and kindred discovery by reading player messages or spent way too much time climbing big rocks for absolutely no reason all culminating in my brain saying wow look how far i've come i mean i've just been hitting buttons but i'm starting to feel maidenless for real wait even as a newcomer my time with elden ring has been fantastic but my recommendation comes with a warning it's tough and it really doesn't tell you much of anything i literally walked past the tutorial area until my friend noticed and quickly told me to go back it's definitely not as rage inducing as a gamestop employee may have you believe but it takes patience alongside an entirely new approach to exploration that i can tell not everyone's going to be a fan of however if you are willing to die learn die explore and die some more then eldon ring is an incredibly rewarding experience on a scale unlike any other the game is so accessible with its wide variety of combat options that even if you don't want to get near the bosses you can just shoot a giant laser at them like what the [ __ ] that is so cool if you enjoyed this video maybe consider no you know what scratch that i gotta be more confident if you enjoyed this video click that subscribe button over there it's looking kind of nice isn't it and on the subject of blatant self promotion i also have a patreon and you can check that out in the description if you're interested in supporting my videos but that's about it i'm all out of jokes and i don't really like giving scores so i'm not going to nothing will really change that it's just how i do things great champion would you allow me to hold you but briefly uh what yeah yeah please you are very warm okay i changed my mind uh 10 out of 10. that's the score for the game [Music] you

Channel: yakkocmn

Views: 1,123,690

Keywords: elden ring, dark souls, yakkocmn, souls like, review, yakko, yakko dark souls, shin megami tensei, gameplay, guide, elden ring review, elden review, elden, ring, PS5, PC, elden ring PC, beginner, elden ring difficulty, iron pineapple

Id: CTi2JJlblks

Length: 23min 30sec (1410 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 26 2022