Elden Ring - From Software + George RR Martin

Rajaah said:

Another one down in the Souls Speedrun, just have an ER replay left now which I'll prolly do in June. Thanks to the COVID I've had for 9 days I was able to plow Bloodborne already. Finished this one in 13 hours, similar number to the others. Str build for the first time ever. Only boss that really gave me grief was Shadows of Yharnam for some reason. I've got no trouble saying that Bloodborne is the best game in the Soulsborne series...besides ER and Sekiro, which are both potentially better in their own ways. I'd rather be stuck on a desert island with ER than BB. ER has way more to do. Sekiro has better combat. However from a pure "quality Soulsborne experience" perspective I'm not sure you can do better than Bloodborne.

Doing Str builds (in all of them except Souls 2) has been like playing a new series, since I never did that before. Feels more like I'm playing them "as intended" and it's pretty cool. Now all that's left is an ER replay (gonna do another Str build there) to prepare for the DLC, but I'm gonna hold off on that one until closer to the actual DLC's launch.

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For my money, Cainhurst is one of the best zones Fromsoft has ever devised.



Scholar just ups the resolution to at least 60 FPS, improves the visuals a LOT, and adds a new final boss. It's easily the "definitive version" but nothing super groundbreaking if one already played all the DLCs.

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Play Dark Souls 3 you heathen. Stop "saving" it.

Dr.Retarded said:

Is Blood Borne getting a remaster soon? I never played it, and don't own any consoles.

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Nobody knows. Just a 60 FPS version of Bloodborne would be a huge deal and probably sell well. They don't even have to do anything else.

I'm hoping it gets the full Demon Souls Remake treatment by Bluepoint though. It's the one thing that'd be worth doing that with next. They could do that as a PS6 launch game or something. In the meantime I'm surprised at the lack of any sort of remaster but it is what it is. It's the only Soulsborne game that Fromsoft has basically completely ignored since it came out.

Best Fromsoft game besides Elden Ring, IMO.

Went back to finish Dark Souls 2 DLCs. Man, these are super tough. I see why I never replayed them after the one time in 2015. Managed to beat Fume Knight thanks to someone putting down a summon sign. Guy with two giant swords with blue fire. I kept dying to Fume's second phase, but when I summoned this guy, Fume never even went to the second phase. He just stayed in first all the way through.

Now all I have left are the gank cat duo, Sir Alonne, Ivory King, and the Blue Smelter Demon. BSD is an awful fight and area, I hate everything about it. The side-areas of all 3 DLCs are pretty awful. Managed to take down the 3 NPC tank squad somehow by running in circles and poking.

In other news I found out about Chikage in Bloodborne, somehow never realized Bloodborne had a katana. I didn't know Logarius' crown unlocked a hidden area either. Pretty awesome that you can still find stuff in these games after X playthroughs.






Now I want to play the game again to do a Chikage run... gotta say, this is the only one of the bunch that I actually want to do NG+ on, so I maintain my previously-held belief that Bloodborne is the reigning Fromsoft champ besides ER.

Rajaah said:

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Went back to finish Dark Souls 2 DLCs. Man, these are super tough. I see why I never replayed them after the one time in 2015. Managed to beat Fume Knight thanks to someone putting down a summon sign. Guy with two giant swords with blue fire. I kept dying to Fume's second phase, but when I summoned this guy, Fume never even went to the second phase. He just stayed in first all the way through.

Now all I have left are the gank cat duo, Sir Alonne, Ivory King, and the Blue Smelter Demon. BSD is an awful fight and area, I hate everything about it. The side-areas of all 3 DLCs are pretty awful. Managed to take down the 3 NPC tank squad somehow by running in circles and poking.

In other news I found out about Chikage in Bloodborne, somehow never realized Bloodborne had a katana. I didn't know Logarius' crown unlocked a hidden area either. Pretty awesome that you can still find stuff in these games after X playthroughs.

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Now I want to play the game again to do a Chikage run... gotta say, this is the only one of the bunch that I actually want to do NG+ on, so I maintain my previously-held belief that Bloodborne is the reigning Fromsoft champ besides ER.

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Play Dark Souls 3

Seananigans said:

Play Dark Souls 3

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All I have left is Frigid Outskirts and the two cats from hell, then I'm done with everything outside Elden Ring. Maybe I will Souls 3, there's like six weeks before SOTE. Depends on if time permits with the EQ stuff later this month. I've pretty much dropped Stellar Blade (for now) so that frees up some time. My first inclination is to finish Nioh if I have room for another game, though (I got about halfway through it).

When I play Souls 3 I'm gonna want to go All In with it and get the platinum / do everything so it's gonna be a substantial amount of time. Nioh on the other hand I'll be happy if I can just get to the end.

In other news, Frigid Outskirts and the two cats from hell is hands-down the worst area Fromsoft has ever put in one of their games. They should have called it Reindeer Fuckland. You can't outrun the reindeers and you can't even get them to despawn after 10 kills like you can with every other mob spawn in the game. Saving outside the boss room and doing a cloud backup isn't an option either cause the NPC summons are all the way back at the beginning and I need those for the boss. No way I can take on the cat gank squad without help. Clearing the zone and going back for the summons with a backup save wouldn't work because infinite mob respawn. Well, I'll get it eventually. I got the cats down to like half HP each on one try. Need to focus one, but usually the fight just breaks down into chaos.

The optional areas in the Souls 2 DLCs are pretty terrible. Well, 3 out of 4 are. Memory of the Old Iron King (Sir Alonne) is okay and has a great boss. Iron Passage and Cave of the Dead are both ass and a half, and Frigid Outskirts is pretty much the worst thing ever.


The ice DLC in general was great to revisit and I fully explored it this time, never did that before. You can see a lot of Demon Souls 6th Archstone elements in it, like Giants being prevalent and so forth. I'm pretty sure this shot right here is what the theme of the 6th Archstone was gonna be. I bet Mountaintop of the Giants in ER got a bunch of influence from the 6th Archstone too since it has all the frozen giants and stuff.

Dark Souls 2 done. Okay, I was totally doing the Lud and Zallen fight wrong. If you fight them solo, the fight is WAY WAY easier. The second cat joins when the first is at like 30% HP, as opposed to 90% or so if you bring NPC allies. Also they have way less HP. Having NPCs distracting them isn't worth it at all and you end up just dealing with much-stronger cats once the allies die.

I burned the consumables I'd been hoarding, like Elizabeth Mushrooms and Brightbugs, and popped a fire enchant, and just completely mopped the floor with Lud and Zallen. Had that fight built up in my mind as being Souls 2's biggest, nastiest obstacle.

Now everything's done except Dark Souls 3 Elden Ring and getting prepped for the DLC

Rajaah said:

Finished the Souls 2 replay, took as long as Demon and Dark combined (so like 18 hours). Really good game, think people underrate it. The Scholar of the First Sin version has really nice framerate and light effects and the DLCs are basically their own game. I did the Ivory King DLC to see what the 6th Archstone in Demon Souls would have been like. Ran around a bit in the other two and called it a day.

Now I just need to do a quick Bloodborne run and an ER replay before the DLC is out. Gotta say I was apprehensive about doing all of this, but it's worth it. None of these games are particularly time-intensive on a replay, and I don't think they're ever a waste of time.

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Anyone who hasn't played Dark Souls 2 in a while, or didn't play the Scholar version, I'd recommend checking it out again before the ER DLC. It's probably ER's closest cousin in the rest of the From catalog.

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DS2 is the game that grew on me the most. The others I loved right away. This one I really grew to love , particularly because of the expansions.

Rajaah said:

except Dark Souls 3

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I’m revoking your FromSoft Fan Club card and issuing you a FromSoft Fag Club card.

Going back to Dark Souls after ER seems like it'd be tough. In ER there is so much variety and you get a break from challenging dungeon/boss gameplay with some open-world freedom to cleanse the pallete. In DS you clear a shithole dungeon with bullshit mechanics and fight a shitbird boss only to go to another shithole dungeon with bullshit mechanics.

Tuco said:

Going back to Dark Souls after ER seems like it'd be tough. In ER there is so much variety and you get a break from challenging dungeon/boss gameplay with some open-world freedom to cleanse the pallete. In DS you clear a shithole dungeon with bullshit mechanics and fight a shitbird boss only to go to another shithole dungeon with bullshit mechanics.

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Not tough at all. The games are timeless.

I can’t think of an extended area or set of areas in any DS game that qualify as shitholes. Usually the cadence is good, if they hammer you with something really annoying the next area soon after is much better/different.

Maybe you’re just not cut out for the Souls.

Kaige said:

Dark Souls 1 is incredible until you acquire the Lordvessel, then it starts getting sloppy after that.

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Can you expound on this?

Seananigans said:

I can’t think of an extended area or set of areas in any DS game that qualify as shitholes.

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My brother, to call Blighttown a shithole would be an insult to shitholes everywhere.

Meanwhile, Tomb of the Giants



I enjoyed working through many of the shitholes in all three Dark Souls games, but I don't think you understood my post.

Tuco said:

My brother, to call Blighttown a shithole would be an insult to shitholes everywhere.

Meanwhile, Tomb of the Giants

I enjoyed working through many of the shitholes in all three Dark Souls games, but I don't think you understood my post.

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The key point of your post seemed to be that they chain them together. "You clear one shithole only to come to another shithole." Thus, my rebuttal, and usage of terms like "extended area" and "set of areas."

Yes, the annoying areas exist. I haven't historically found that they're chained together as you suggest. If you're poorly managing your path then perhaps you've left them all off until there's nothing left to do other than shitholes? In which case that's on you, and could happen in Elden Ring too.

Seananigans said:

Can you expound on this?

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He's right, the second half of Dark Souls 1 feels very unfinished. I think they had to rush development towards the end. Think of how cohesive the world is up through Anor Londo and O&S, then compare that to how sloppy and haphazard places like Crystal Caverns and Tomb of the Giants are. Lost Izalith feels like it's about a third-finished. The only post-O&S zone I actually like is probably Kiln. Duke's Archives could have been good if it didn't have so much cheapness with archers and spellcasters sniping you from distances.

After O&S all you really have left are shithole zones, unless you skipped an optional zone like Depths... which is also a shithole.

RAJ'S LEAST FAVORITE ZONES IN EACH SOULSBORNELIKE:

Demon's Souls - World 5-2, AKA the poison swamp
Dark Souls 1 - Tomb of the Giants
Dark Souls 2 - Frigid Outskirts
Bloodborne - Lecture Building
Sekiro - Abandoned Dungeon
Elden Ring Overworld - Either Consecrated Snowfield or Mt. Gelmir
Elden Ring Legacy Dungeons - Either Redmane Castle or Volcano Manor

Elden Ring doesn't really have any weak points when it comes to the overworlds and legacy dungeons, that's for sure. Meanwhile probably 60% of Souls 2's zones are "weak points", even though I like the game. All of Elden Ring's shitty zones are catacombs and tombs that are totally optional out of the way places only completionists will likely find.

taebin said:

Boo this man. Play DS3 you pussy.

You have seriously platinumed the same game on multiple platforms, rave about From games (as you should), but are holding off on playing a Dark Souls game.... why??

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TBH I was leaving DS3 for a time when I'm really down about something (like a death in the family) because Fromsoft games are the only thing guaranteed to completely pull my mind off of whatever bullshit is going on around me.

That said, this would really be a good time to get to it, since I'm crusading / speedrunning the series, and I most likely would go for it now if the EQ TLP wasn't in the very near future and I didn't have a ton of stuff to get done over the next week and a half before that. Though quite frankly it's probably irresponsible for me to run another EQ TLP at this point in life and I shouldn't be doing that either.

Well, when I do get to DS3 (probably within 2024) you all will be the first to hear all about it on here.

Chanur said:

DS2 is the game that grew on me the most. The others I loved right away. This one I really grew to love , particularly because of the expansions.

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Yeah I maintain that DS2 is better than people (and me) gave it credit for in the past. It's got a super memorable world and a level of polish that the first doesn't. Even though the first is technically a better game with better story and level design, and Souls 2 was made by a B-Team, TBH I think I prefer Souls 2 now after this latest replay of both. The expansions for Souls 2 are superb, mainly Frozen Eleum Loyce and Brume Tower. I'm looking forward to Souls 3 being kind of a combination of Bloodborne (my favorite besides ER) and a Souls.