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From Software Elden Ring - From Software's new game with writing by GRRM

Duralux for Durabux

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Don't bother reading, It can harm your brain...
And yes this is the truth if you have played it in its entirety but since everyone here haven't a PS4 and haven't played it, they can't even comprehend what I was saying.
Moreover, The only downside of Bloodborne is the fact that it's a PS4 exclusive. I'm 1000% sure that if it was a PC exclusive, it would be considered the best and rightfully so.
Simply, Bloodborne is an improvement over Dark Souls in like everything except maybe level design which is still good in Bloodborne whereas in Dark souls 3.
 
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Silverfish

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Sorry, friend, but I actually have played it (three times, even) since I'm a console pleb at heart. Bloodborne is the worst Souls game, it's a piss-poor action rpg, and it's outright laughable compared to real action games. Credit where it's due, the game's a masterclass in presentation, but this isn't Grasshopper Manufacture where that's all that matters.
 

Duralux for Durabux

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Sorry, friend, but I actually have played it (three times, even) since I'm a console pleb at heart. Bloodborne is the worst Souls game, it's a piss-poor action rpg, and it's outright laughable compared to real action games. Credit where it's due, the game's a masterclass in presentation, but this isn't Grasshopper Manufacture where that's all that matters.
Playing it 3 times doesn't mean everything, Did you complete the Chalice Dungeon and even the cursed ones ( The most difficult dungeons, those dungeons only are more difficult than everything else in Dark Souls)? Did you complete the all game? Did you find the hidden locations?
Bloodborne is the worst Souls game, it's a piss-poor action rpg, and it's outright laughable compared to real action games.
Which action games ? I'm curious.
 

Silverfish

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I only dabbled in the Chalice Dungeons. The exclusive bosses were a nice touch, but the dungeons themselves were pretty sloppy and repetitive. So far as hidden locations go? I think so, but I'm open to being corrected. Any specific locations you had in mind?

Which action games ? I'm curious.

Take your pick. DMC, Ninja Gaiden, God of War, Platinum Studios as a whole, God Hand, post-reboot Shinobi, Lament of Innocence.
 

Bester

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Moreover, The only downside of Bloodborne is the fact that it's a PS4 exclusive. I'm 1000% sure that if it was a PC exclusive, it would be considered the best and rightfully so.
You may not know this, but on 4chan it's considered "superior to DS" due to its PS4 exclusivity. I think it's a meme. Same thing applies to Demon Souls. So in regards to what you said, it's actually the other way around.

But as an impartial person, I can't help but notice that PS4 did the game a disservice. It plays at 20-30 fps, and there's an extremely long input lag. I'm not sure whether the platform should come into play when discussing a title, but if you want to bring it up, then you have to admit that the input lag alone is something that makes Bloodborne a problematic souls-like.
 

Karellen

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I really liked Bloodborne, but I certainly wouldn't call it the best Souls game. To an extent it's a matter of emphasis, though: Bloodborne's faster, more aggressive pace and the interesting trick weapon mechanic work well for the boss battles, which are the highlight of the game, and arguably better than in other Souls games. I found the boss fights (well, the ones in the Old Hunters) more difficult than the other Souls games, and I felt like I really had to delve into the nitty-gritty details of how different trick weapons worked to deal with each boss; for instance, the small form of Beasthunter Saif has a really neat quick lunge on R1 that was essential for killing the Orphan of Kos while a bit underleveled. Dark Souls has more variety, but overall a lot of the details don't matter so much because the boss fights aren't as technical.

That said, I don't think that boss fights are the central element of Souls games, since you spend most of your time going through the levels instead, and in this area (which, to be plain, I consider the most important area) Dark Souls is clearly the best of the Souls games. And so:

And in environment variety, Bloodborne wins , you go to a Dark victorian city during inquisition to a Castle hidden to campains inhabited by lovecraftian monsters to a church surrounded by a singing monsters choir celebrating litterally Cthultu to a surnatural place full of crazy demons to the center of city of Yarhnam surrounder by multiples invisible gods which can only be seen by madness creatures to etc...

What Dark Souls does, and Bloodborne largely doesn't, is give its areas variety not only aesthetically, but mechanically. In Dark Souls, you're more likely to die falling of a cliff than by the enemies of each area, and so various enemy encounters are more strategic, since you have to figure out how to engage them in light of whatever natural hazards present in each area. These escalate as you get further into the game, in a manner that differentiates each area: The Undead Burgh is quite tame, but lead to the disorienting Depths with its narrow spaces and pitfalls to lower levels. Blighttown has large but precarious spaces, with the poison blowdarts forcing the player to keep moving and avoid blocking, and the incredibly annoying mosquitoes. Sen's Fortress is full of traps, the Catacombs have respawning enemies, Tomb of the Giants is dark and full of falls, New Londo has ghosts and water, the Crystal Cave has invisible bridges (admittedly kind of silly), the Demon Ruins have lava and Lost Izalith has dinosaur butts. The Great Hollow is essentially a climbing challenge. Each area being different, the player is incentivised to gear differently to deal with the circumstances, since the game does in fact contain stuff that can mitigate the challenges in each area if you have it. The Metroidvania-ish, half-open nature of the game world means you might do things in different orders and different equipment, making things harder, easier or just plain different for yourself.

My point, I suppose, is that an interesting encounter is the sum of the environment and its enemies. Dark Souls II's best area is the Shrine of Amana, because it's the one where the environment has the biggest impact on how you have to approach the encounters, and this is something Bloodborne mostly lacks. Bloodborne's areas are decent, but ultimately they don't have the same escalation of danger; there are few significant hazards that would impact the gameplay (the Astral Clocktower is great, and I guess the Nightmare of Mensis counts), and so, the game is mostly just about fighting the mobs in each area, which too have less variety than Dark Souls' enemies, on the whole. The trick weapons are great, but the encounters are pretty samey and unlike boss battles, they don't really call for much strategy or experimentation, and in any case you don't have the equipment variety to really approach situations in significantly different ways. Bloodborne's areas look great, and searching for the secrets and shortcuts is fun enough, but ultimately they're pretty formulaic, structurally, and so the game doesn't quite have the sense of wonder and danger that makes Dark Souls so delectable.

Which, I suppose, is the crucial question for Elden Ring (that is what this thread is about, right?): how do you make a bigger, "open" world with the same character as Dark Souls' obviously handcrafted world and environments? It's not obvious that it can be done, but then again, maybe it's not going to be an "open world" the way the term is commonly used at all.
 

Duralux for Durabux

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Take your pick. DMC, Ninja Gaiden, God of War, Platinum Studios as a whole, God Hand, post-reboot Shinobi, Lament of Innocence.
All of them are beat'em all not action-RPG ish, only the last God of War is relevable to competition. And Bloodborne is better than God of War.
Which, I suppose, is the crucial question for Elden Ring (that is what this thread is about, right?): how do you make a bigger, "open" world with the same character as Dark Souls' obviously handcrafted world and environments? It's not obvious that it can be done, but then again, maybe it's not going to be an "open world" the way the term is commonly used at all.
My ideal Elden ring "Open world" would be Dark souls excellent level design extended to a much bigger scale. Many people on this thread thought I despised Dark Souls, this is wrong, this game is a very very good game.
Overall, I read everything, Nice post,:salute:.
 

Silverfish

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Silverfish

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What can I say? We're a passionate fanbase. We're like even sloppier Irishmen.
 

ArisatoSeldom

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Shadow Tower rules them all! (just kidding)
However, I wonder why no one remembers roots of soul's games. Froms could make nice (in terms of gameplay) first-person resource-management dungeon crawler with today technologies. Given what they try with Elden Ring.
 

PrettyDeadman

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Demon's Souls > Bloodborne > Dark Souls 2 > Dark Souls >>>>> Dark Souls 3

Dark Souls is half-finished and throughoutly derivative game. Conceived with a single purpose to circumvent legal restrictions contract with sony put on them. Dark Souls 2 was an original game, conceived as a proper sequel and it shows. Dark Souls 3 is a copy of a copy....
 
Unwanted

Ataraxia

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Shadow Tower rules them all!

This. But unironically.


Demon's Souls > Bloodborne > Dark Souls 2 > Dark Souls >>>>> Dark Souls 3

Dark Souls is half-finished and throughoutly derivative game. Conceived with a single purpose to circumvent legal restrictions contract with sony put on them. Dark Souls 2 was an original game, conceived as a proper sequel and it shows. Dark Souls 3 is a copy of a copy....

Based.

Switch up Dark Souls 1 and 2 then my ranking will be the same as yours.

And Dark Souls 2 should have been set in a new universe/world - with original lore, history, etc... seperated from the world of Dark Souls. It seem to me that it wanted to do and be its own thing but had to hold back its ambitions out of respect and deference for the first game.
 

Lutte

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But to get the vials, you have to GRIND. Which is mind blowing, why the fuck would I grind in a single player game.

I agree the blood vial system is a bit dumb but it's not much of a real pain point for much of the game.
In the early game I had to grind them because I died to Gascoigne on my first playthrough a little too much (truly shamefur) but after that part every time I went to level up I also bought some reserve vials and by the end of the game I had enough of a stock that I could have afforded to die a hundred times to something before I would have needed to grind, which never happened. In the end if you handle it right it just works like a worse estus flask, one that punishes not spending a % of your earned resources whenever it is opportune to do.

The difficulty curve of this game is one of the worse of the series too so you really ought to have some reserve by the time you reach the difficult bosses, most things after experiencing Gascoigne felt ezpez for a while.
 
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Alphard

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Cmon guys DS2 is the worst soul game, don't always be a contrarian for a sake of it.
My ranking of soulsborne i played is (including Nioh)

Dark souls >>> Nioh> Dark souls 3 >> Dark souls 2

By the way i watched a stream of BB and it seems a great game. I really hope they'll port on pc sometime
 
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Alphard

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Demon's Souls > Bloodborne > Dark Souls 2 > Dark Souls >>>>> Dark Souls 3

Dark Souls is half-finished and throughoutly derivative game. Conceived with a single purpose to circumvent legal restrictions contract with sony put on them. Dark Souls 2 was an original game, conceived as a proper sequel and it shows. Dark Souls 3 is a copy of a copy....

Dark souls is the pinnacle of the serie. From put all learned lessons in demon souls and refined the recipe to create a masterpiece. Even half finished (not true actualy, the only really unfinished zone is izalith, and seath boss fight) DS shit on 99% of old and modern games.
Dark souls 3 is boring because filled with fanservice and as you say derivative.
Dark souls 2 is just a bad soul game (even if it a good game on its own) hard for the sake of it (sometimes artificially with hordes of enemies coming at you every second) and lack that "soul" other games of the series have. Maybe it has good and balanced pvp, but that's all that the game has to offer better than DS1 and DS3
 

Bester

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Cmon guys DS2 is the worst soul game, don't always be a contrarian for a sake of it.
My ranking of soulsborne i played is (including Nioh)

Dark souls >>> Nioh> Dark souls 3 >> Dark souls 2

By the way i watched a stream of BB and it seems a great game. I really hope they'll port on pc sometime
Nioh doesn't even deserve to be installed to be honest.
 
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Alphard

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Cmon guys DS2 is the worst soul game, don't always be a contrarian for a sake of it.
My ranking of soulsborne i played is (including Nioh)

Dark souls >>> Nioh> Dark souls 3 >> Dark souls 2

By the way i watched a stream of BB and it seems a great game. I really hope they'll port on pc sometime
Nioh doesn't even deserve to be installed to be honest.
Nioh sucks in many ways compared to souls, but its combat is very good same as weapon and build variety. There are some 1-2 shots some bosses can inflict you if you are undergeared or use light armor, but i found much more artificial difficulty in DS2 than Nioh.
I'm waiting both Nioh2 and Black Myth Wukong . The trailer of the latter especially gave me a lot of hype.
 

Black Angel

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Best Souls game is Dark Souls 1. I haven't played Demon's Souls, but when I do I'm pretty sure I'll love it just as much as Dark Souls 1. Bloodborne is Bloodborne, and Sekiro is Sekiro. I love them all for all their strengths, and wished they'd do better at what they're weak at. Dark Souls 2&3 are lesser in my eyes simply because they didn't live up to what I feel to be the best of Dark Souls 1, and also I believe in FromSoft who admitted themselves being not too keen on the idea of making sequels in general, but still I appreciate them for trying.
 

Child of Malkav

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DkS 1 = DkS 2
Bloodborne = Bloodborne
Sekiro = Sekiro

All these. Fantastic games.

DkS 3 = pure, raw trash. Worst From game. Only good thing about it was some of the bosses and the OST of most of the boss fights.
 

ADL

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I agree Dark Souls and Demon souls are probably the best ones. (didnt play bloodborne).
Bloodborne is better than Dark souls and Demon souls.
Don't understand how this is a controversial statement whatsoever. Bloodborne is universally recognized as being superior to Demon's Souls, Dark Souls and even Sekiro. Arguing otherwise is just cope from people who didn't get to play it.
 

Villagkouras

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If you like Dungeon Crawling -> DeS
If you like interconnected level design -> DS1
If you like build variety and lots of content -> DS2
If you like fast combat -> BB
If you like boss fights -> DS3
If you like parrying and straightforward stories -> Sekiro

If you like video games just thank From Software.
 

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