Elden ring

 

Publishers : From Software , Bandai Namco

Developers : From Software Inc.

Platforms : PS5 , PS4 , PC , Xbox.

Demo:        

        This game is just super fantastic. I am completely impressed by how much they managed to make this demo feel so refined. I just finished playing three glorious hours of Elden ring, and I am so blown away that this is probably going to be a gigantic contender for Game of the Year 2022 when it eventually comes out, but let's talk about the goods and the one giant fear I have about this game. What's up gamers Dreamcast guy here and please if you haven't already, give this video a like and subscribe if you haven't already. And now let's talk about what specifically this demo what so this is called the Elden ring network test. And essentially, it's a gigantic section of the game itself. It's a huge map that lets you ride around, explore, find some secrets, unlock new harbor and really level up the developers really just set you free and let you kind of make your own adventure but with a three hour time limit on it. I used every single second to try and learn every aspect of this game as best as I could. Now in my three hours I managed to defeat four bosses. I explored two separate dungeons. I died 12 times I fell off one cliff, and I got terribly lost twice. Every aspect of this game feels like the most refined version of Dark Souls. Now this is not a secret. I'm a gigantic fan of these developers from soft makes some of the best games I've ever experienced in my life. Each of their games that I've reviewed, I've ended up giving a 10 out of 10 score simply because they managed to be so polished and perfect even in their most savage moments. Now here's the thing I feel like is definitely the most important to talk about when it comes to Eltern ring which is the access ability. This is the easiest from software game I've ever played in my life. And I'm serious about that. I've played everything that from software has ever made including weird games you've never heard about like shadow tower. This is the easiest thing they've made but it's not because the enemies hit you softer or your weapons deal more damage. It's because this is the most playable. There are a lot of checkpoints whenever you die. There's always a spot to read within 100 feet so you can instantly get back to the fights. There's also some small changes like you have this magic horse that's whenever you want you can just instantly call it in right away which really kind of empowers you to go in there. Get some damage done and escape before things go bad. I like this game a lot because it feels like they're giving you all the tools you need to fight at the best of your ability. But instead of trying to hold you back or create artificial difficulty curves, everything in here is savagely fair. You're still going to die you're still gonna occasionally get ambushed, you're still gonna fall into traps or have some unfair deaths here and there. But even those feel extremely educational. Now I want to talk about what I think is the most fun part of this game, which is definitely the magic. Now typically, when I put my dark souls I usually go full melee I like to be the guy with the sharpest sword just getting people as quickly as possible. Well, this time to try something different. I went full blown magic and I was slinging spells non stop I was running around firing shots at everything from gigantic evil plants to knights in shining armor.    

        While I was playing this, I definitely realized that this is still the exact pace of whenever you're playing Dark Souls. It still has that nice heavy weight. When you stab somebody in the back. It still feels extremely good to get that instant killer. Pairing a blow and rolling away still feels great but it also feels more forgiving. Let me give you a specific example of how this game manages to be more forgiving, even if it still has some brutality just hidden inside it. So one point I'm just cruising along and I'm exploring this like falling gait thing and a huge ogre shows up this guy is obviously way too big for me to take on in an easy fashion. So I started to duck back and try and just fire off a couple little pot shots shooting him here and there to see how much help a lot of these enemies feel like they have a bigger weakness, while also still doing a lot of damage. A lot of times if you are careless in this game, you are still going to die. Like I did die 12 times during the course of this three hour demo, and all of those were completely my fault. Well, for the most part, some of these deaths were just kind of funny, like I'm wandering through a swamp, and a huge dragon shows up and like a complete idiot. I decided to try and hide behind a tree. I have no idea why I thought crouching behind a tree would stop a gigantic magic fire breathing dragon. But you know what sometimes I'm not the smartest dude. With that being said, let's talk about the new movement because this is definitely the biggest departure from classic from software games. You can jump there's just a straight up jump button now, which makes it very easy to actually just hop up ledges there's much more verticality to the environments, but more importantly, you can sneak you can just very easily crouch up and sneak around and this is built into the mechanics of the game itself. The enemies have much better ears, they're able to detect you if you're loud. If you're bumbling around if you're smashing into items and stuff like that. They will hear you coming and attack first. In fact, I made the mistake a few times where I was trying to just sneak into camp. And then once I stumbled over a gigantic stack of boxes or something like that huge swaths of enemies would group up to try and hunt me down simultaneously. There's a tactical ruthlessness to this game that feels so great, which is the fact that when you make a mistake, when you start to get outnumbered when you start to get surrounded, it truly feels like your fault. It's your mistakes that led you to this inevitable death. But this brings me to the final piece of movement that's different the most interesting, which is your magic horse. Now, I'm not going to talk about how you get it specifically, but at a certain point, you just get this ring that lets you pull a magic horse straight out of your butt. This mighty steed is very unique because he has technically his own health bar so we can actually take some extra damage separate from you. But additionally, he can sprint. So it means you can go very, very fast, which was clearly designed to be able to make it so you can get to this huge map very, very swiftly going from location to location, even if you don't want to use the built in fast travel. But finally he has the ability to double jump like this is very strange, but it feels nice. You can jump in the jump again to get onto higher legends. If you're unmounted horseback or the horse is able to use these like magic steam vents to shoot himself into the sky. Now I think we can admit that this looks a bit strange. I mean, it's weird to see a flying horse but you know what, after all the crazy other stuff we've done throughout the Dark Souls and sekiro and From Software's other experiences. I guess a flying horse at this point isn't too ridiculous. Everything about the balancing in this current version of the game feels so incredibly great.

           It's so fun that you could damage so much. They're much more forgiving with the amount of weight you can carry before it actually exhausts you. damage you take and the damage you do feels very, very equalized. It makes so even in this early version of the game, I still feel like I have the power to defeat anything as long as I'm patient and don't make too many terrible mistakes. But I do want to talk about one thing about this which is that these bosses are still ridiculous like I fought so many different weird humanoids and weird gigantic things that wanted to smash me into the dust. It's really interesting to me how there's just these like hidden dungeons all across the map and wherever you want. You just go down into them and almost immediately there's just a boss waiting for you. It's an interesting mechanic but this does bring me to the one concern I have about Elden ring. Now I don't want you to consider this me insulting the game. I'm not dragging the developers or anything dramatic like that. But My one concern is just the fact that this map is so big as I was exploring it as I was trying to find all the highs and lows and secret areas and hidden armors and stuff like that. I did kind of think how well is this going to work in the final game? It seems like from some of the leaks and stuff that this map might be an entire fricking continent, this huge explorable island that has us going to the tops of mountains and the bottoms of rivers and crazy valleys and stuff like that. My concern is how well can the story exist in this huge open ended sense? I'm kind of curious. Is this thing going to be Dark Souls Skyrim like to me that sounds great, but I'm just curious how they're going to pull it off. I've always been a big fan of Dark Souls is pacing. I like the fact that there's these chunks of lore these earned cutscenes and that's all the bosses are in this set dedicated order for the most parts. I'm just curious how this story is going to work. Now that we'll get a chance to choose our own style of adventure with this game. All right, well, these are just been some off the cuff thoughts.

            Just Imagine how much healthier a lot of these enemies feel like they have a bigger weakness, while also still doing a lot of damage. A lot of times if you are careless in this game, you are still going to die. Like I did die 12 times during the course of this three hour demo, and all of those were completely my fault. Well, for the most part, some of these deaths were just kind of funny, like I'm wandering through a swamp, and a huge dragon shows up and like a complete idiot. I decided to try and hide behind a tree. I have no idea why I thought crouching behind a tree would stop a gigantic magic fire breathing dragon. But you know what sometimes I'm not the smartest dude. With that being said, let's talk about the new movement because this is definitely the biggest departure from classic from software games. You can jump there's just a straight up jump button now, which makes it very easy to actually just hop up ledges there's much more verticality to the environments, but more importantly, you can sneak you can just very easily crouch up and sneak around and this is built into the mechanics of the game itself. The enemies have much better ears, they're able to detect you if you're loud. If you're bumbling around if you're smashing into items and stuff like that. They will hear you coming and attack first. In fact, I made the mistake a few times where I was trying to just sneak into camp. And then once I stumbled over a gigantic stack of boxes or something like that huge swaths of enemies would group up to try and hunt me down simultaneously. There's a tactical ruthlessness to this game that feels so great, which is the fact that when you make a mistake, when you start to get outnumbered when you start to get surrounded, it truly feels like your fault. It's your mistakes that led you to this inevitable death. But this brings me to the final piece of movement that's different the most interesting, which is your magic horse. Now, I'm not going to talk about how you get it specifically, but at a certain point, you just get this ring that lets you pull a magic horse straight out of your butt. This mighty steed is very unique because he has technically his own health bar so we can actually take some extra damage separate from you. But additionally, he can sprint. So it means you can go very, very fast, which was clearly designed to be able to make it so you can get to this huge map very, very swiftly going from location to location, even if you don't want to use the built in fast travel. But finally he has the ability to double jump like this is very strange, but it feels nice. You can jump in the jump again to get onto higher legends. If you're unmounted horseback or the horse is able to use these like magic steam vents to shoot himself into the sky. Now I think we can admit that this looks a bit strange. I mean, it's weird to see a flying horse but you know what, after all the crazy other stuff we've done throughout the Dark Souls and sekiro and From Software's other experiences. I guess a flying horse at this point isn't too ridiculous. Everything about the balancing in this current version of the game feels so incredibly greats like it's so fun that you could damage so much. They're much more forgiving with the amount of weight you can carry before it actually exhausts you. damage you take and the damage you do feels very, very equalized. It makes so even in this early version of the game, I still feel like I have the power to defeat anything as long as I'm patient and don't make too many terrible mistakes. But I do want to talk about one thing about this which is that these bosses are still ridiculous like I fought so many different weird humanoids and weird gigantic things that wanted to smash me into the dust. It's really interesting to me how there's just these like hidden dungeons all across the map and wherever you want. You just go down into them and almost immediately there's just a boss waiting for you. It's an interesting mechanic but this does bring me to the one concern I have about Elden ring. Now I don't want you to consider this me insulting the game. I'm not dragging the developers or anything dramatic like that. But My one concern is just the fact that this map is so big as I was exploring it as I was trying to find all the highs and lows and secret areas and hidden armors and stuff like that. I did kind of think how well is this going to work in the final game? It seems like from some of the leaks and stuff that this map might be an entire fricking continent, this huge explorable island that has us going to the tops of mountains and the bottoms of rivers and crazy valleys and stuff like that. My concern is how well can the story exist in this huge open ended sense? I'm kind of curious. Is this thing going to be Dark Souls Skyrim like to me that sounds great, but I'm just curious how they're going to pull it off. I've always been a big fan of Dark Souls is pacing. I like the fact that there's these chunks of lore these earned cutscenes and that's all the bosses are in this set dedicated order for the most parts. I'm just curious how this story is going to work. Now that we'll get a chance to choose our own style of adventure with this game. All right, well, these are just been some off the cuff thoughts because I am loving that demo so much. Have you gotten a chance to play the Elden ring game? If you have told me what system you've been playing on? This is awesome PS 5.