I feel like this has become a somewhat contentious topic as of recent. Upon release, ER was heralded as a grand new direction for soulslikes, praised for its seamless open world, amazing bosses and freedom of choice. It’s regarded as one of the best open world games, being put in the same conversations as games like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.
However, not everyone seems to resonate with the game equally: repetive mini bosses and dungeons, rather empty open stretches in the overworld, leading to the feeling of just being funneled from one boss to another (at least on repeat playthroughs). Its lack of tight linearity compared to “classic” soulslikes is also brought up as a negative sometimes, with people wishing for more tight and honed experiences.
What’s your guys’ thoughts on this? I feel like Elden Ring is owed a huge deal since it’s the de facto soulslike that’s brought in millions of players who would never have touched a soulslike ever. It’s debatable whether it’s the best entry point, but its impact is undeniable.
I vibe with tighter experiences personally but still like Elden Ring and am coming around to it more and more playing the DLC. I think I might have spoiled the fun out of the game by watching entire playthroughs on YouTube before playing, thus already knowing most of what’s in the game.
Great game, played the hell out of it, but to me its the easy mode dark souls people always asked for, especially with regards to multiplayer. Invasions are almost always 1 v 3 people, and the reward is minimal when you can craft the item you need to summon people endlessly. There’s no covenants, so theres no decent rewards for multiplayer participation. I almost never felt threatened getting invaded, I always easily had two allies and could just run away in the massive areas.
I played way more single player in this than most other souls games as a result, and felt like I overleveled for most of it just because of exploring. Exploring was fun, but wow, being thorough just led to me being rich even when spending on weapons and armor I didnt really need. Even respeccing allowed for way more uses than I ever actually needed. All the other souls games felt way tighter on resources and required a little more consideration when using them, or leveling up, or even summoning help. Can I handle an invasion? Am I running out of uses - will I be able to summon for a boss? Shit I might need to invade people if I cant (or go help others with a boss Im better at). Elden ring just never felt that way, I just helped occasionally because it was easy to top off for a level up. Invading was just tiresome.
I have played every soulslike from FromSoft
I like Bloodborne most, but Elden Ring is close second.
The huge open world was an awesome change from the more linear routes through the older games. It was disappointing seeing repeat bosses but what are you gonna do when you like triple the size of the game? It takes longer to make a single new enemy than multiple dungeon maps.
Also it would be great if they could decide on if they want their games to be multiplayer or not. Not this in between where you and a small group of consenting adults all share a password and go to a specific summon spot every time they die in a game that constantly tries to kill you. They can’t seem to balance the PvP either, in one game the invaders can consistently take on a host+summons and then the next game is gank squads discouraging anyone from ever invading.
Fantastic game that will sit with the greats for the rest of gaming history.
praised for its seamless open world, amazing bosses and freedom of choice.
repetive mini bosses and dungeons, rather empty open stretches in the overworld
These can be true statements from players with different engagement levels.
If you only do the content you stumble across toward the end, it may well feel boundless.
But if you cleared every annoying catacomb, every gaol, etc then you start to see the seams and artifice.
I guess the boss funneling is accurate, because the entry toward the Morgott bottleneck is technically a funnel.
In fairness I adore the bosses because they made me level up as a player and now Consort Radahn is my absolute favorite boss to spank.
The real universal praise should be for the jump button 🙏
Great game. For me the open world was maybe 10 or 20% larger than it needed to be for the content that is in it, but not a big deal. I enjoyed the catacombs/dungeon crawling caves probably more than most, but I understand why some people don’t like them. Repeated (mini) bosses were whatever, didn’t bother me, but it would be fine to have unique ones every time if it were possible.
My ranking for the ones I’ve played would look something like this: DS2, DS3 > Elden Ring > Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls. I love all of them, though.
![[Discussion] How does Elden Ring stack up to your favourite soulslikes?(lemmy.zip)](https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/c1b7cab8-7289-4720-9084-14a03fb2a923.webp){kind=link}
Got the platinum and have no interest in replaying Elden Ring. It’s a slog to get through the empty open world once you’ve explored it. There is this huge wall to overcome, search up where the good pieces of gear are for your build and grid through the copy pasted dungeons and bosses before getting to fight the handful of good bosses. It’s just not worth it nor is invading fun with the pvp gank squads.
Elden Ring is definitely overhyped by the people who never played a souls game before and it’s sad that Fromsoft is now more profit oriented and will pump out more and more generic slop for the masses.