Elden Ring: YOU DIED on a horse

Without exaggeration, Elden Ring is a marvel and a miracle to me. Like, it's a wonder it exists

xxxp damnit you're making me want to play DS3 now

Quick derail, but what are peeps' thoughts on DS3? I've heard wildly mixed reviews.

I have been playing Dark Souls 1 on and off for almost two years (I know!) and then out it down just at the end because I got stuck on Kalameet. Keep meaning to finish it, either by trying really hard with that dragon or just sacking him off to kill Gwyn.

Should I played DS2 first (it seems sprawling and very difficult, plus it looks and plays a bit jankily by todays standards)?

Fwiw I have started DS3 and have got as far as a boss in the first world proper. It has a slightly different tone to DS1

realising, only now, that I never played through the DS3 DLC properly. Another one to add to the list!

DS3 is fantastic IMO, right up there with the best From games

DS3 one of the very best - perhaps lacks the sheer brilliance of the map design in DS1, but more than makes up for it by incorporating the livelier play built into Bloodborne into the weapons-and-shields DS formula.

https://x.com/DaftLimmy/status/1760005616179753028?s=20

first look at Messmer the Impaler:

https://preview.redd.it/ymgyovvf7il61.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C1ubIgYXAAAH5rS.jpg

I haven’t played more than five hours of DS2. Aesthetically it seemed so wrong, immediately; throwing the talking bird right at the very beginning of the game (in an instructional area?), to me it felt and played like the mashup of Soulsborne and Banjo-Kazooie that nobody asked for

It’s hard for me to pick DS3 and say “it’s the best in the series” when I’ve definitely sunk more hours into Bloodborne and Elden Ring— the former for gem hunting, the latter for PvP.

But DS3 is probably the most memorable, for me, just mentally running through the areas and bosses feels like I’m remembering the most beautiful vacation of my life.

And ya DL I share your enthusiasm, I recall playing Elden Ring and feeling like I was living through a Renaissance

I loved DS3, I want to say it has some of the best design apart from Bloodborne. Ringed City's design rules, that's for sure. At the same time, checking back, it might be the only of the three Souls games where I got frustrated and didn't bother with a couple of bosses, albeit I think maybe just in the DLC. The flipside of that may be DS2, whose base game had a bunch of stuff I didn't particularly like, but whose DLC was iirc pretty good. All the games are pretty great, though, even the ones I liked less. Sekiro might have the most stuff I just never got around to, but that may be because getting to the proper end game required a bunch of particularly byzantine and esoteric stuff I just didn't have the time for, and the bosses are all hard as hell.

Which game has the shark trolls?

Bloodborne iirc in the DLC

Bloodborne rules. Also imo the only of any of these games with worthwhile lore that is more than just crazy feuding royal family trees or whatever.

There is something that appeals to me about the linear designs of pre-Elden games, it does feel like a curated adventure. I loved getting that same feeling in Stormveil and Haligtree... I feel like this series really innovated hugely when it comes to making environments vertical. DS1 in particular was a masterpiece of this style of design

DS3s DLC bosses were very, very punishing. I don't think I ever beat Midir without some summoned help. That said, between fighting Midir and all the dragons in Elden Ring, returning to DS1 to fight Kalimeet? nooo problem, snagged that tail weapon and everything

DS3 is my favorite of the Souls games, but it's mostly because of the pvp. I do love the pve, especially the dlc areas, but I could wax rhapsodic about the pvp and I've spent literal hundreds of hours of my only life engaged in it. They got the balance and feel just right for me and it results in these fun and often drawn-out invasions. There's drama to it because each side has a chance to win (host usually has numbers on their side and built-in advantages like more healing flasks and HP, but the invader is usually better prepared and more skilled), and I like all the little rock-scissors-paper games built into it (like the parry system, where you can't parry giant weapons unless they're one-handed or do running/rolling attacks).

I've had fun with the pvp in the other games but they all have elements that I get sick of, where DS3 keep me coming back:
DS1 - backstabs are much easier and more powerful than in DS3, combined with the fact that you have passive poise even when you're not swinging a weapon, means that pvp often a meta game based around the janky backstab mechanics. In DS3, you can start a backstab animation when you're behind someone, but it only hits if they're standing still, meaning you can only backstab someone if they're stuck in a long animation (like after attacking with a weapon art or huge powerful weapon).

Bloodborne - I loved duels in Bloodborne for a time, but it wasn't really suited to invasions (there was the weird system with the bell ringing ladies, it wasn't as popular as the Souls games, farming for blood vials was annoying, etc). It was kind of interesting that the speed of healing items was so fast that you couldn't stop someone from healing even with pressure (unless you shot them at just the right moment), so duels would be many lifebars long.

Elden Ring - I do like it, but everything does such crazy damage that even pretty novice players can spam weapon arts and spells and do pretty well. I don't mind the silliness of it, but one wrong move and it's over instantly. In DS3 I like that I can afford to make a few mistakes when fighting a group and learn from them.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk about Souls pvp.

(I never got into the DS2 pvp scene although I know it was some people's favorite - that game just never felt right to me with the unique animation style, and there was all that weirdness with 'soul memory' and limited invasion items)

I have vivid memories of fighting Midir, that's one where you truly have to learn every move of his and what to do in response (and it still takes forever because he has so much HP, it's mostly an exercise in patience or zen reaction). And yeah, it was hilarious doing the DS1 remaster afterwards and thinking back to how much trouble Kalameet gave me the first time around.

Btw there is a hospital system in Kansas called 'Stormont Vail' that sometimes comes up in the context of my work, and I can never not think of Stormveil.

Yeah, Midir is one I skipped after countless attempts. Not least because not only does the fight take forever (apparently) but iirc it takes forever to even get to the stupid fight.

The other was the second Gael. It's been a while, but I want to say after several tries I just thought, eh, I'd beat him eventually, I'm pretty OP, but the arena is so drab and the fight is mostly frenetic, and the game was basically done, so I just bounced.

Kalameet is where I'm stuck in DS1. He's soooo tough - and I say that after finding a lot of the other bosses not so hard, in fact some of them were a bit of a joke

I have never really played PVP in these games save for a couple of cursory goes either with a friend where we're just larking about or getting merked in the collosseums in Elden Ring

I think you can get kinda greedy/aggressive with Kalameet, you just need to know which attack cues mean 'start running away immediately'.

Midir and Gael are such different boss fights, Gael's phase 2 is so chaotic (like you say) that it's basically impossible to not take damage, they're just going for 'epic. So although phase 1 is very measured, you just need to make it to phase 2 with as many flasks as possible and wing (or at least that's what I remember doing). Whereas Midir, if you learn the fight there's no reason to take damage.

I'm pretty sure I read all the strategy guides, cheese tips, iirc asking here, the whole "get this over with" lot with Midir, and none of them clicked with me.

I probably watched someone like LobosJr do a soul level 1 version of the fight to learn the moves, lol.

The worst thing about this DLC coming now is that "Lords of the Fallen" and "Lies of P" look like totally awesome Soulslikes that now get bumped further back in the backlog.

I still need to try Lords of the Fallen again now that it's gotten one million patches.

It dismays me that Sony are saying the PS5 is already in its latter stages and making out that they're going to slowly phase out new releases. This feels echoed by Miyazaki when he says they're waiting for new technology before attempting a Bloodborne remake. Like, I get it - Bloodborne is a PS4 game and we're only a generation on from that; plus it's true PS5 has technically been out for three years (even though most people could only get it a full year after release), but yeah what did I buy if everyone's just giving up on it?

A recent Dunkey video, while somewhat cheeky, was still kind of OTM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA6Rq__Z8PM

I guess the challenge becomes, how do you sell a (rumored) PS5 Pro, let alone a PS6, if the PS4 was still good enough to play most (all?) PS5 games? Sure, you can promise exclusives (like a new Bloodborne, say), but the PS5 failed to deliver on the exclusive front, so why would I expect otherwise from a PS6? Don't get me wrong, I love my PS5, and love Bloodborne, and would love a new Bloodborne. But would I buy a PS6 *just* for Bloodborne? I doubt it. I mean, they're *still* releasing titles for the PS4, so the notion of them phasing out the PS5 seems ludicrous.

Yeah. It's ludicrous. I spent a lot of money on my PS5 and I love it because... well Demon's Souls looked great and I like to have fast loading times but...

The PS4 will probably still play most PS6 releases lol

I feel there's a lot of overreaction to the statement by Sony. It's in line with their console release history.

From this article I found, a bit of reasoning behind the messaging:

In late 2023 Sony introduced the PS5 Slim, a digital only model that came with an optional (and detachable) disc drive. This hardware refresh mirrored the three year timeframe it took for it to introduce revisions to its previous console, the PlayStation 4, marking the "latter stage" of that console's lifecycle. However, although Sony introduced the PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro in 2016, it was another five years before the company discontinued them, as it continued to produce PS4 models for over a year after the PS5 launched. It's unclear if this is a route Sony will take with the PS5 and its successor, but it's a good reference point to illustrate that the "the latter stage" doesn't necessarily equate to "the end". So, while Matsuoka's statement on the PS5 life cycle may sound surprising (perhaps exacerbated by the warping of time we've all experienced through the pandemic), things are actually tracking as normal.

I'd put my money on a PS6 or whatever it's called to be out in late '27 or '28 at the latest, and for games to continue to be made compatible with it (at least digitally), for longer assuming it sells as well as the PS4, which it's tracking to do. Backwards compatibility no longer incentives independent developers from creating too many launch exclusives, so I'd expect what you'd see from this generation's transition: a lot of backwards compatibility and support for the previous console years into the next one's release. One of the two games Naughty Dog is currently working on will be a PS6 exclusive I bet. Development times for AAA games are like 3-5 years, which is most of a console's lifecycle as it is.

My guess is GTA6 will be a watershed game for the current gen that up until now has been lacking one due to the backwards compatibility on most titles the last few years. Demon Souls, Rift Apart and FFXVI weren't it

I feel we're getting to a stage where processing power is so strong that it's ludicrously expensive to make games that truly take advantage of it. And if Nintendo's success with the Switch is proof, game design trumps tech (though to a certain point, of course).

I kinda feel console gaming is at a bit of an inflection point. With most game engines easily ported to different platforms and current gen's graphics architectures largely backwards compatible for over a decade now I wouldn't be surprised to see the console market turn into more of a modular setup, like a PC. You get games that will work on the platform no matter the hardware, but with varying improvements to graphics and performance if you pay for more expensive components like graphics chips (and they're stupid easy to replace, like without opening the box). Newer games will just say it requires component X or better to work. The console itself remains the same.

One big prob is spending hundreds of millions on games that take years to finish but don't really move the ball forward. The key is to under promise and over deliver, not the reverse. From seems to have it figured out. The AAA Sony games right now? Not so much, imo, good as the games are.

my twopennorth's fwiw – gaming growth has slowed substantially in decline (across mobile and consoles), sony have just announced a 'significant drop' in operating profits and off of that have said they're in the second half of the PS5 cycle. but in those conditions why wouldn't you do what microsoft is doing and seek to maximise revenue across your gaming IP across a number of consoles rather than launching a new console?

Plus Switch 2.0 is due out (and note Nintendo sweated the Switch 1 successfully for a *long* time), so I think it will be (prediction so i can be proven wrong) minimum three more likely four years before we see a new "PS" launched, if the product even looks like a console then.

PLENTY MORE TIME TO DIE ON A HORSE.

Switch launched 7 years ago in just a week or two. That's an excellent shelf life, and people are still pretty happy with theirs

Worth keeping in mind, of course, that Nintendo's bread and butter is virtually all exclusives, and the company has been among the biggest offenders when it comes to remasters being sold at a premium. Lest we forget, "Mario Kart 8" and "Super Smash Bros.," the current iterations of those games and linchpins of the system, were originally released for the Wii U (as was "Breath of the Wild"). By far "Mario Kart 8" is their top selling game, and it came out 10 years ago.

I dunno what they hope to deliver with a Switch 2 that would inspire people to upgrade. It sure won't be the Ring Fit 2 or Labo 2. If anything, Nintendo is in the opposite place as PS/MS: if people are not buying the system for the graphics and computing power, why upgrade?

ELDEN RING!!!!!!!!!

lol

I'm just gonna post that every few hours until it comes out

lol. I have to say that while I really could care less about the lore for the most part, on my new playthrough it's more interesting to hear about all these weirdo demigods having already killed them all. Y'know, it's nice to put a face to name. Otherwise it was really like someone telling boring stories about a bunch of friends you don't know.

oh the lore is what i live for. but yeah it's more fun the second playthrough when you're like "oh wait, I KNOW that place. I've got a timeshare there"

I've definitely fallen into the lore video wormhole. Big fan of the Tarnished Archeologist. It's crazy how much depth there is in the game and you begin to see where GRRM's influence into it too. Harder to grasp if you just go in and play blind and ignore all the item descriptions

By the end of my first playthrough, I had no idea who I was fighting and why. Second playthrough it all came together, the loreplot is convoluted but rewarding

YEah I got a lot from watching VaatiVidya, Smoughtown, Zullie The Witch and listening to the Bonfireside Chat podcast. I don't think I'd get half as much fun from this without knowing a bit about the lore and why stuff is happening. It becomes like a cryptic detective game, and I'm all up for that.

On this playthrough I'm especially struck by the world/quest design. You really do have a ton of freedom in terms of the order in which you approach things, but the enemy scaling is very clear too. I did most of Altus before ever visiting Caelid (and Radahn is a shadow of his former pre-nerf self, sadly), and now I'm lvl 50 with a +10 weapon and Leyndell is the obvious place to go quest-wise, but that Draconic Tree Sentinel is quite obviously telling me that I should probably go explore all those areas that I skipped (like the underground and Volcano Manor proper) before continuing forward.

The difficulty curve is remarkably smooth if you know what the intended order is. Of course it's unlikely anyone could know it without having played before or consulting a guide, but I found it impressive on my last run; especially considering how much farming and grinding I used to do on this game and previous Fromsoft games. Seriously, I've no idea how anyone can get through Bloodborne without occasionally farming those werewolves on the bridge at the beginning

I'm now up to Stormveil on my third proper playthrough, around lv30, and I'm realising how much stuff I missed on my previous playthroughs, like Dear Ratboy and not-Vampire-Hunter-Undead-Hunter-actually D out in the wild. The Blood Katana with boosted Dex, Arc and Vig build seems to be working well as a build, you can really take down those giants hardcore!

It's been a while since I played but... who is Dear Ratboy?

D is a weak link in the game imo, but I forget that it's possible to meet him before you get to the Roundtable Hold. I do like the voice-casting and his peculiar Rotherham (I assume Rotherham based on a friend who sounds similar) accent