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

[Lutte]

10-15 FPS drop for a decent PC to run raytraced ambient occlusion.

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Raytraced Ambient Occlusion: https://www.nexusmods.com/eldenring/m...
Texture Improvement: https://www.nexusmods.com/eldenring/m...
Snuggly's Cinematic Reshade: https://www.nexusmods.com/eldenring/m...

It looks really impressive but I think I'll just stick to watching the video.

The video you linked has some heavily crushed blacks, typical of reshade users who think pumping contrast to 11 is a form of improvement. Same type of people use Photoshop just to pump contrast on their photos and when you can see no detail in shadows or highlights they think they produced a masterpiece.

Whether it's the human eye or even the worst of digital cameras, they have more dynamic range than this dogshit.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Oh, and I already played Clash: The Artifact of Chaos.
It was fine. Gets a lukewarm recommendation. Maybe even a strong recommendation if you are artfaggy indie hipster like me.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Any non-Fromsoftware souls-like worth playing?
I consider buying the funny crab game.

Crab game is great. Worth a play
Lies of P is.. okay? It's soft bloodborne and about as good as you'll get if you want a bloodborne clone.
Lords of the fallen is good but it's own spin on things can be annoying.
Mortal Shell has a cool gimmick but the world feels linear and confined.
Nioh series is weeb souls. Much more complex combat but maps feel more gamey.
The Surge 1 and 2. Robot souls.
Ashen is an absolute gem. Very simple graphics but it feels like a souls game. Lots of exploration and depth with beautiful music.
Hell point. Souls set on a space station orbitting a black hole. Not many enemies but very creepy bosses.
Bleak faith. Ripping off a different manga than berserk souls. Complete jank top to bottom but the world is fascinating.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Hellpoint has good level design and decent atmosphere. Bosses were wierd and a bit janky though.

 

[Haplo]

Any non-Fromsoftware souls-like worth playing?
I consider buying the funny crab game.

Crab game is great. Worth a play
Lies of P is.. okay? It's soft bloodborne and about as good as you'll get if you want a bloodborne clone.
Lords of the fallen is good but it's own spin on things can be annoying.
Mortal Shell has a cool gimmick but the world feels linear and confined.th Surge
Nioh series is weeb souls. Much more complex combat but maps feel more gamey.
The Surge 1 and 2. Robot souls.
Ashen is an absolute gem. Very simple graphics but it feels like a souls game. Lots of exploration and depth with beautiful music.
Hell point. Souls set on a space station orbitting a black hole. Not many enemies but very creepy bosses.
Bleak faith. Ripping off a different manga than berserk souls. Complete jank top to bottom but the world is fascinating.

I relly liked The Surge, particularly part 2 (which I played first). Although environments were more interesting and varied in 1. But it was more janky.

 

[Cheesedragon117]

Any non-Fromsoftware souls-like worth playing?
I consider buying the funny crab game.

Only Lies of P is worth playing. Don't listen to these shills saying there are other good soulslikes out there.

Nioh was alright, but far as achieving everything artistically, thematically and mechanically that, say, DS1 or Bloodborne did? No other game comes close. They are all either too low budget or too artistically shallow. Usually both.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Ignore the fanboy faggot. If you read his previous posts you will see he doesn't actually play these games. He cheese From games and doesn't like the genre other wise. He's only looking to cheat his way through pretty visuals and wants zero gameplay depth or player skill.

 

[notpl]

Calling Nioh a soulslike is inaccurate, and more importantly insulting to some of the best action games ever made.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Cheesedragon is completely right. Saying that Nioh even comes close to the likes of DS1 or even Sekiro in terms of its aesthetic is absurd. Nioh looks good enough but is also profoundly mid in many ways.

 

[Multidirectional]

Somebody said Nioh can rival FS games aesthetically? Missed that post but it's obviously untrue. FS completely outshines Team Ninja in the area of presentation. Some of us just like the way Team Ninja design combat and prefer it over FS style of combat.

 

[Anonona]

Missed that post but it's obviously untrue. FS completely outshines Team Ninja in the area of presentation.

I think that there is one area where it does reach From's level, or at least comes close; the Yokai and spirit design. The way the enemies are based on Japanese folklore while giving them a coherent artistic vision and elaborated designs is great, probably my favorite thing aesthetically from Nioh's games.

 

[Multidirectional]

I think that there is one area where it does reach From's level, or at least comes close; the Yokai and spirit design. The way the enemies are based on Japanese folklore while giving them a coherent artistic vision and elaborated designs is great, probably my favorite thing aesthetically from Nioh's games.

Yeah that's true, there's definitely some pretty cool looking Yokai throughout Nioh 2, among both regular enemies and bosses.

 

[Silverfish]

Any non-Fromsoftware souls-like worth playing?

Most of them tbh. Nioh, despite the lies being spread these last few posts, absolutely competes with Fromsoft in terms of atmosphere & presentation. One oddball recommendation is the original Lords of the Fallen, which is kind of shitty, but is trivial to break in half and as such has some comedic / relaxation value.

 

[Anonona]

If aesthetics and explorations are the main qualities, the new Lord of the fallen I think is actually pretty good in both aspects. The game had a very rocky development and was rushed, so it is very janky and somewhat unfinished, but the environment and level design for the most part are pretty good. There is also the Umbral world mechanic which is an exploration focused mechanic where if you die or use your lamp, you can interact with an alternate dimension, allowing you to reach new places and find hidden treasure. Also great fanshion imo.

Be warned though, most NPCs are quite ugly and the game is very janky, with low enemy variety and some late levels being worse due to being rushed, but still interesting enough to try out.

If you like Soulslike I'll recommend trying metroidvanias (they are pretty much the same thing), including 2d's ones. Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, Nine Sols, Castlevania games from SotN onward, etc. They share both good aesthetics, rewarding explorations and simple but fun and challenging combat systems and a variety of bosses, with some of them having some decent RPG's elements.

 

[Hell Swarm]

If aesthetics and explorations are the main qualities, the new Lord of the fallen I think is actually pretty good in both aspects. The game had a very rocky development and was rushed, so it is very janky and somewhat unfinished, but the environment and level design for the most part are pretty good. There is also the Umbral world mechanic which is an exploration focused mechanic where if you die or use your lamp, you can interact with an alternate dimension, allowing you to reach new places and find hidden treasure. Also great fanshion imo.

Be warned though, most NPCs are quite ugly and the game is very janky, with low enemy variety and some late levels being worse due to being rushed, but still interesting enough to try out.

If you like Soulslike I'll recommend trying metroidvanias (they are pretty much the same thing), including 2d's ones. Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, Nine Sols, Castlevania games from SotN onward, etc. They share both good aesthetics, rewarding explorations and simple but fun and challenging combat systems and a variety of bosses, with some of them having some decent RPG's elements.

TBH you just described From games there too. It's pathetic how the fanboys have to lie about posts being made that weren't so they can try and shit on superior games. Sorry From drones, lying about what was said just makes you look like a no games faggot.

Blasphemous 2 is one of the best souls likes ever made.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Nioh, despite the lies being spread these last few posts, absolutely competes with Fromsoft in terms of atmosphere & presentation.

It absolutely does not.

 

[racofer]

 

[Silverfish]

It absolutely does not.

"No crumbling old cathedrals and the poison in the swamp can be removed. 0/10. Learn aesthetics, Team Ninja."

 

[Old Bald Bad]

FromSoftware games have amazing art direction. But after playing Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls 1, 2, 3, and Bloodborne, I think I have seen it all: cathedrals, caves, swamps, fortresses.

In the case of Dark Souls 3, they got extremely lazy with the lighting and color. It’s like they did not hire a lighting artist and said, “Don’t worry, we will put a gray filter on the ground and a yellow filter in the sky. Job well done, guys.” Thanks to Sekiro, they proved they still have the ability to put good color in their games and create something fresh.

As for Souls-like games to play outside of FromSoftware’s titles: Why play anything else? FromSoftware already has six Souls games, and I’m surprised that people play all of them and still crave more. Or, in the worst case, you can replay them with different builds and weapons.

 

[The Decline]

As for Souls-like games to play outside of FromSoftware’s titles: Why play anything else? FromSoftware already has six Souls games, and I’m surprised that people play all of them and still crave more. Or, in the worst case, you can replay them with different builds and weapons.

Different settings and styles and different takes on the overall combat system. Lots of souls-like games are worth playing.

 

[Decado]

Haha, Nioh. Ugh.

 

[Decado]

As for Souls-like games to play outside of FromSoftware’s titles: Why play anything else? FromSoftware already has six Souls games, and I’m surprised that people play all of them and still crave more. Or, in the worst case, you can replay them with different builds and weapons.

Different settings and styles and different takes on the overall combat system. Lots of souls-like games are worth playing.

iMO the game with the least replay value (from a build variety perspective) is Sekiro. But it is also an amazing game. The lack of build variety actually helps make it less cheesable. You either learn how to deflect properly, or you die. It is the hardest of all the Souls games, I think.

 

[Lyric Suite]

FromSoftware games have amazing art direction. But after playing Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls 1, 2, 3, and Bloodborne, I think I have seen it all: cathedrals, caves, swamps, fortresses.

Yeah but you being bored with those enviorments has nothing to do with whether FromSoft's art is in fact objectively superior to that of Nioh (which it is).

Nioh too can also be considered quite "generic" if your metric is the amount of times you got exposed to its setting. Every art form can fall into that. Watch enough Renaissance art and you'll end up thinking Michelangelo is boring as shit but that doesn't mean his art isn't objectively greater than that of most of his contemporaries. It's just that you can only see the Pieta' so many times before you feel you've seen it enough.

It's a common phenomena in fandom that eventually you are going to get bored with the "best" until you begin to convince yourself the games you overlooked because they didn't seem as good at first were actually better all along, which is not an objective assessment at all, it's just that they are now fresh to you because you never played them before.

During the years i hang around the various classical forums it was very common for people to fish out lesser known composers and claim that they were just as good as those in the established canon if not better even, but in reality they never were. If you spend decades listening to Bach, Mozart or Beethoven you WILL eventually get bored with them, at which point you may think all those minor composers you ignored before are actualy better where as it's just the hype generated by the novelty that is warping your perception.

 

[toro]

Any non-Fromsoftware souls-like worth playing?
I consider buying the funny crab game.

Crab game is great. Worth a play
Lies of P is.. okay? It's soft bloodborne and about as good as you'll get if you want a bloodborne clone.
Lords of the fallen is good but it's own spin on things can be annoying.
Mortal Shell has a cool gimmick but the world feels linear and confined.
Nioh series is weeb souls. Much more complex combat but maps feel more gamey.
The Surge 1 and 2. Robot souls.
Ashen is an absolute gem. Very simple graphics but it feels like a souls game. Lots of exploration and depth with beautiful music.
Hell point. Souls set on a space station orbitting a black hole. Not many enemies but very creepy bosses.
Bleak faith. Ripping off a different manga than berserk souls. Complete jank top to bottom but the world is fascinating.

Good stuff:
Asterigos: Curse of the Stars
Sands of Aura
Salt and Sanctuary
Black Myth: Wukong (this I did not play but it looks decent)

Stay away from:
Thymesia
Steelrising
Code Vein

Other mentions:
Ashen was abandoned by the devs. They also released another flop called Flintlock and they work with Sweet Baby Inc.
The Surge 1 and 2 suffer from backtracking galore. They are soul crashing.
New Lords of the Fallen is garbage. The original game is better.

Bottom line:
FromSoftware has monopoly on the genre. Elden Ring is close to pure decline but no other dev is able to come closer.
On the other hand, Dragon's Dogma 2 combat shits all over DaS combat.

 

[Lyric Suite]

On the other hand, Dragon's Dogma 2 combat shits all over DaS combat.

In what way?