Well, I started playing this tonight. It crashed after about half an hour. Not a brilliant sign.
What I played seemed good. The combat controls are… generally good, but not godlike. I've always found that the Souls games' combat is a bit over-rated. The camera moves a bit too fast, and the controls are wierdly loose considering the reputation. It relies of invulnerability frames, where you can't be hit during the first part of a roll, and I don't like invulnerability frames in general. It just looks stupid when a massive axe passes right through you but you're fine because you were doing a roly-poly. Why not make it the hokey-cokey instead? You cannot be hurt while morris dancing or doing squat-thrusts. Or jazz hands.
I chose a Samurai, but the bow use was slightly counter-intuitive, so I died to the first enemy (who I think you're supposed to die to - it's a boss) because I couldn't work out how to fire forwards instead of sideways. After that, I started to enjoy it more. The tutorial cave is nice, although it's not a tutorial - the Souls games take a strange, smug delight in not telling you any of the information you really need to know. The big open are you get into then is very pretty, with it's gothic ruins and huge golden tree in the distance. It's one of the quite rare games where I've summoned ilweran to come and have a look at it. There's a real sense of a beautiful world to explore, and dark adventures ahead. Then five minutes later it crashed.
A couple of things I have always disliked about the Souls games are, firstly, the NPCs, which are unanimated mannequins. It's odd to have the voice actor emoting while their character stands there immobile. The other is the player messages. They break immersion. I wonder how many hours of intricate world-building are destroyed when you find a message that says "Try finger. But hole!" or "Tree?" next to every tree. It just reminds you that you are not exploring a mysterious fantasy world, but running around in a game environment with a load of other people, many of whome are fucking bellends.
It's not that hard though, not when you're as skilled as me (arf). The boss was the only enemy that had hit me so far. Maybe I gitted gud? Maybe the difficult part is the crashes. Or maybe I only played the first half hour, and there's nothing difficult there.
I switched to offline in the settings and all the stupid messages vanished. Much better.
The game just crashes constantly for me. Five crashes in two hours play so far.
Perhaps that’s part of the difficulty curve.
I’ve just bought this on Xbox, so expect me to be moaning it’s too hard this afternoon. Gonna go magic I think, just run away from the big stuff and lob spells over my shoulder.
How do I save?
The game crashes back to the title screen whenever I put the console to sleep – no quick resume – so do I have to travel to a Grace site and revive all the enemies every time I want to stop playing?
That might be something to do with it being an unpausable online game.
After a reinstall, I played for an hour last night without any crashes. I even killed a boss I found in a cave. I'm playing as a samurai, which is cool. I do need to figure out a reliable way to get arrows, though.
That might be something to do with it being an unpausable online game.
Yep this is it! I turned off the online gubbins in the menu and I can quick-resume now. Phew.
I've gone Vagabond, because someone told me it was the most noob-friendly. So far I've killed some wolves, found a map, and a few lost grace sites. The camera is annoying, I think it's the first game I've played where the vertical axis is more sensitive than the horizontal. I assume that means some of the bosses are going to be LARGE and require lots of looking up, but it makes exploring a bit of a pain.
Incidentally, I love how we now have two entirely separate Elden Ring threads. There's Alastor and the competent brigade talking about the bosses, and me and feltmonkey trying to find ammo and work the camera.
How do I save?
The game crashes back to the title screen whenever I put the console to sleep – no quick resume – so do I have to travel to a Grace site and revive all the enemies every time I want to stop playing?
Nope. Press the 'Start' button (not that Xbox has a start button, but hey), go to System, press LB once and choose 'Quit Game'. When you restart, you'll reappear where you quit the game.
I actually started a new character, as it really felt like I'd done my first one wrong, selling all the unique weapons (which, for those of you coming in new now, is really, really not worth it), and playing the caster playstyle, so I started up a Vagabond, played the tutorial again so I could get a refresher of all the mechanics I'd ignored by kiting around shooting pebbles at people, and have been really enjoying the Quality/sword and board life. Went and beat down the Bloodhound again so I could get the weapon that I nearly respecced into using the first time around - turns out I just really like a greatsword in every game…
Nine hours in, and it's amusing how much I've forgotten - I literally can't find the first dungeon I cleared on my first playthrough - and how much I've already learned / seen fresh this time; the disembodied voice of Boc had me running around like an idiot for a good five minutes.
Oh, and it's a good thing I'm not intending to use Sorcery anytime soon this playthrough, because I found the Sorceress in the wrong place first, thought it was a trap, hit her, and now she's not spawning in the usual place. I'm not sure how I'll fix that, but seeing as this character has been built with the intention of being able to respec later if necessary/wanted, I probably need to try and work it out :D
4 bosses down: fire-breathing cat statue thing, pumpkin boi, twin trolls in cave, Darriwill the something. I did not enjoy the cat thing, but the others were fun. The boss fights themselves are quite speedy affairs, which I hadn't anticipated (never played a Souls game). I was expecting 30-minute long, multi-phase slogs, but you take a big chunk of life off the bosses with each swing of your weapon.
I don't actually mind the difficulty (so far), because you're only wasting a minute or so if you fail. It's almost Super Meat Boy-esque.
My only complaint so far is the visuals. It's a bit bleh, both technically and artistically. I assume later areas get more impressive, because everyone talks about how great the world design is. But so far it's just a brown, boring fantasy world.
4 bosses down: fire-breathing cat statue thing, pumpkin boi, twin trolls in cave, Darriwill the something.
who what where
I've not seen any of these yet, and they all sound incredibly early on.
Spoiler - click to showFire-breathing cat statue was at the end of a mini dungeon, I don't recall where. Pumpkin boi was underneath some ruins with a big poisonous plant on top – kill pumpkin boi and you get access to some spells. Twin trolls were in a cave on the beach. Darriwill the wotsit was in some sort of prison, marked by a big circle on the ground.
They were all in the first area, the bit that's revealed when you grab your first map.
Ahh, the evergaols. I've found three and failed in all of them, because you can't summon spirits or use the horse in them. Will try harder!
Oh no, Mr Party Hat has already transitioned into the pro camp, leaving me alone in the noob squad trying to level up by picking flowers.
I've got even bigger problems, as I have been advised to turn off XMP on my bios in order to try to fix my crashing problems. I've got into my bios and turned it off, but there doesn't seem to then be a way to save the settings and return to the desktop.
The problems have persisted. The general frame rate is no problem, but the game freezes for a fraction of a second every so often, and eventually freezes for a few seconds and dumps me to the desktop. I was fighting a big enemy (the giant who jumps down off a bridge early on) and it was really frustrating with the freezing at crucial moments as I was trying to dodge attacks. I killed him eventually, but had to get to the nearest Grace Place to spend the runes on levelling up, as I could feel a crash coming. Of course this meant that he respawned, so I have to fight him again. It's really putting me off. I can see that it's a fantastic game, but I seem to be one of the unlucky people for whom it's unplayable.
Spoiler - click to showFire-breathing cat statue was at the end of a mini dungeon, I don't recall where. Pumpkin boi was underneath some ruins with a big poisonous plant on top – kill pumpkin boi and you get access to some spells. Twin trolls were in a cave on the beach. Darriwill the wotsit was in some sort of prison, marked by a big circle on the ground.
They were all in the first area, the bit that's revealed when you grab your first map.
Fire-breathing cat statue is actually in the dungeon I can't find again this playthrough, the person pumpkin boi is guarding is the one I've pissed off/is now elsewhere for me, twin trolls I never even found the first time around, and Darrwill is the one that drops the weapon I'm using primarily this playthrough.
Has anyone else actually found Boc (the disembodied voice), by the way? Also in Limgrave (the first area).
Not I. But then, I also haven't found the blue witch lady who's apparently really obvious.
I found Boc, yes. Do you want a hint?
I beat Margit first time, without using a summon friend. Am I accidentally a l33t gamer?
Whoa, nice job! Normally people get there not too long after starting, break themselves upon him and realise they want you to come back after you've explored the world a fair bit and got stronger.
I beat Margit first time, without using a summon friend. Am I accidentally a l33t gamer?
I think this means Al has to adopt you.
To be fair I then went into the castle proper and got ground into dust by the regular enemies. I think Margit was probably a DPS check, as they used to be called in WoW.
More bosses down: boat boi, horsey boi, nondescript warrior boi. The open world has done wonders for the Souls formula (for me at least). The regular dungeons are my least favourite bit so far, because if you get stuck you’re properly stuck. I like running away and finding something more level appropriate.
I’m surprised how easy I’ve found everything so far, which is largely because I’ve been able to outlevel mobs.
Fuck this game.
Not because of the difficulty or anything like that, but because it is completely broken for some people, and I am one of them. Every time I played it, it would stutter, freeze, and crash. I tried a number of solutions, and in the end yesterday followed a workaround to disable the anti-cheat and play the game offline. Last night was the first time the game has actually worked for me, no stuttering, good frame-rate, no crashes despite playing for a whole hour. So the anti-cheat was the culprit all along. Now today it doesn't even launch.
When I managed to play the game, I really liked it. But imagine trying to play a game as difficult as this, where so much relies on timing, with frequent freezes. I'm uninstalling it. Let me know if they ever bother fixing this, or if anyone comes up with a reliable way to turn off the anti-cheat.
Ugh that's a pain. I think the whole game's a bit of a technical, and visual, mess. The framerate is dodgy, the controls feel floaty, on Xbox it looks like the screen has vaseline smeared over it. And of course there's the litany of PC issues.
I don't understand the praise that the world itself has received. I think I've seen quite a bit of it now, and it's been a whole lot of brown fantasy. I haven't been stopped in my tracks once; I've barely been interested. Some of the enemy designs are stunning though. They're a real highlight.
Having said that, the minute-to-minute gameplay is great, so it's a shame you've had so many issues.
I think I've seen quite a bit of it now
For me the world isn't always 'woah, look at that' beautiful, but I still like the design to it.
Okay yeah I've just looked at a map and I was talking nonsense about seeing lots of it.
Big innit. I might start skipping some side content, or I'll never get through all of this.
Godrick down and I’m through Stormveil Castle. I didn’t enjoy that at all; not the difficulty*, just the oppressive, narrow corridors. It was all a bit TOO bleak. I had to sneak in a Mario Kart race to recover.
*Killed Godrick first attempt because I’m such a leet gamer. Or I’m about ten levels overpowered from combing the map for every last encounter. One or the other.
I loved Stormveil, I think someone said it best on the internet when they said FS do good at the type of level design where you end up looking up at a structure and slowly make your way through to where you can look back at where you started.
Aww, that's like my favourite thing in games. I'm really going to have to get this.
I've had a couple of attempts at Rennala's second phase and she's one-shotted me both times. And I can't be arsed running back to her again, so I need to just summon someone to help; but I can't figure it out.
I used the furled finger but no golden things appeared on the ground outside her room – is that just because no-one was around? Do you just have to get lucky and hope a real person is waiting to be summoned? To be honest I assumed the golden things were AI shadows of real players, not the people themselves.
The thing you need for this (and it's not clear at all) is the furcalling finger remedy. I honestly can't remember how you get these but seem to remember something about the guy you meet straight out the gate. You also have to activate the summoning pool before using it or the item just goes back into your inventory. These are statues in the area you can examine.
Em, I'm in a manor house in the west of Liurnia and there's an enemy on the lower level that genuinely makes me feel sick. If anyone had asked I doubt that in a million years I'd have said that my greatest fear is spiders made of fingers but here we are. Thanks 2022.
Also, I'm 100% clear on this but I saw that there's a feature where if a group all use the same password everyone in the group receives rune rewards when one person beats a boss/hits a certain level or similar. Might be worth doing for some passive co-op.
The thing you need for this (and it's not clear at all) is the furcalling finger remedy.
Thanks, this worked! I just cheesed through the moon lady fight by keeping her stun-locked with the help of another player. A crap end to a brilliant dungeon – much preferred Raya Lucaria to Stormveil.
And now I can respec, huzzah! I had completely ballsed up my points, dropping a little bit in everything. Now that I've focused on vigor, endurance and dexterity I'm a stabby machine. Although I don't seem to have any more of the items needed to respec again, which is a bit concerning. I hate it when games make it difficult for you to respec.
Em, I'm in a manor house in the west of Liurnia and there's an enemy on the lower level that genuinely makes me feel sick. If anyone had asked I doubt that in a million years I'd have said that my greatest fear is spiders made of fingers but here we are. Thanks 2022.
Yeah they can get fecked.
20-ish hours in now, and this is managing to be both great, and a disappointment. It's great fun, and I'd recommend it to anyone. Even the people, like me, who hate the idea of Dark Souls games. But there is NO way this deserves to be the highest rated game of all time on metacritic. I think the reviewers had a collective fanboy moment and lost all sense of proportion.
Yeah, I think all these outlets have a Soulsborne fanboy on staff, and they let them review it, on the basis that I’m one too, and I think it’s absolutely fantastic, but I still wouldn’t recommend it to absolutely everyone.
On the respeccing front, it does become easier - I’d spread my points too wide, and decided to focus on hitting things very hard with (colossal) greatswords, as a tribute to my other favourite obtuse Japanese ARPG series, at least until such a time as I felt like I had some other interesting weapons to build around, and in the last few hours it’s thrown a lot more larval tears at me. If anything I’m more worried about having enough materials to level all the weapons I want to, though I suspect they’ll come in time too.
Got halfway through Altus Plateau and I think I'm done. It started getting super repetitive, and later areas never reached the heights of Limgrave (with the exception of Raya Lucaria). It feels like a 20 hour game stretched out to 80 – I lasted 20 hours, got to about level 55 and felt like I'd seen everything the game had to offer. Two or three times, in most cases.
Having said all that, I thoroughly enjoyed the 20 hours I spent with it. It's not the best game of all time (it's not even the best game of the last few months), but it was well worth the money. And it really needs praise for stripping back the hand-holding and UI; it feels like the first game in five years that actually paid attention to Breath of the Wild.
One interesting point–and this may be a consequence of being able to 'out-level' enemies, although according to an area level map I found, I was always within the level range–I genuinely didn't find Elden Ring that difficult. I am not Good at Games. I died about four times to the first boss in Guardians of the Galaxy. I couldn't finish the Arkham games for weeks because I was stuck on various bosses. Metroid makes me quiver with fear. But I was cutting through the Elden Ring bosses like butter.
The only time I gave up was Moon Lady, and that was because I couldn't be arsed running to the boss room again, because the save point was so far away. That's not difficulty, that's inconvenience.
I lasted 20 hours, got to about level 55
Having said all that, I thoroughly enjoyed the 20 hours I spent with it.
I'm at 70 hours (level 90-something, respec at 70 for more magic). Did you do the General Radahan boss? I've been persuing quest lines in the last week and Ranni's quest took in that boss along with other quests that I could've probably missed easily. That has kind of kept me going in tandem with the exploration. I'm only posting this because checking out the aftermath of the Radahan event has the potential to ruin a day off tomorrow. I looked at what it did to the world and decided to leave it.
The only time I gave up was Moon Lady, and that was because I couldn't be arsed running to the boss room again, because the save point was so far away. That's not difficulty, that's inconvenience.
There's always a shortcut. I don't know what your patience threshold is but there's an ember less than a minute away. But that first phase is really tedious in the fight as well.
What I'm less clear on with the game is the point of mobs in the world. In pretty much every other game in the series you're either duty bound to remove all obstacles in your way each time or to hoof it past baddies to make a quick return to lost souls. When you're between dungeons in this game is there any reason to engage mobs after a certain point? Last night I cleared that tower of madness but that was mainly for fun and that's a permanent change to the world. Same with giants etc. I'm actively looking for stuff that doesn't come back at the moment or areas that move stories forward (plus the odd 'you fucked me earlier now i will fuck you' personal revenge side quest). I've got Volcano Manor on the back burner too which is intriguing.
Like all Souls games I'm going to do my time with it and see the end, this feels like the game they've always promised; the 'if you can see a field you will be able to go to it' game writ large. I've dipped into the lore a bit because that feels legitimate at this point. The games have been like this since Demon's Souls but now I have two kids and need to move things on in a more timely manner. Same goes for summons/ash of war/magic/co-op: anyone bashing their head against this game and viewing these legit game mechanics as "easy mode" can do one. I'm not in a position to spend 3 hours bouncing off a boss anymore.
I'm just glad you tried it and enjoyed it @"Mr Party Hat" , even though people agree it's the most accessible game, it's still seen as a souls game so the more people here trying it and realising it's not that bad at all is a good thing
What I'm less clear on with the game is the point of mobs in the world.
Most world mobs aren't even worth the time it takes to kill them in terms of runes, yeah it's kind of whatever.
I went back to Elden Ring, and I don't know if they've patched it, but it runs a lot better. It still crashes very occasionally, and the second-long pauses do crop up every now and again, but it generally works fine. The fight against Godrick was a nightmare, as the game kept freezing and speeding up, which is not ideal in a game where you are supposed to be executing attacks and dodges with perfect timing. I play as a completely non-magical samurai as well, so I was having to stay very close to Godrick.
I defeated him in the end, and I've killed a lot of bosses now, a couple of dragons, some weirdos in evergaols, some at the bottom of mines and caves, even that guy who kills you right at the start - the grafted something or other.
It's a brilliant game, one of the best I've played in years. I wasn't sure about the combat at first, but now I'm used to it, it is fantastic. The lock-on is a bit poorly-implemented (I'm fighting a dragon, so it suddenly shifts lock to a dragonfly half a mile away) but overall it's one of the best, most satisfying combat systems I've ever played. I am still wearing all the starter gear, because I don't want to mess with my cool look, although I have enhanced my armour, and my sword is +9 or something.
Anyway, I'm glad I went back to it and got something out of it. Those first few days when it was unplayable for me were incredibly frustrating.
I'm increasingly of the opinion that learning when to use the lock-on is part of the Souls experience - if you don't need it, don't use it, in case it flips out, or you forget there are walls, yawning chasms at the edges of the arena, etc.
I respecced my character and started NG+ on this almost immediately after finishing it the other day, and within half an hour found a whole (small, but relevant) area I'd never been to before, despite having been quite thorough the first time I played. I've not really played much this weekend, but can't quite bring myself to play anything else (bar Slay the Spire, again). I think I'm going to keep playing it for now though, until I fully wear it out, and have to play something completely different.
It's just a brilliant, brilliant game.
Em, I'm in a manor house in the west of Liurnia and there's an enemy on the lower level that genuinely makes me feel sick. If anyone had asked I doubt that in a million years I'd have said that my greatest fear is spiders made of fingers but here we are. Thanks 2022.
Yep, I've found these guys and have had to stop playing out of sheer nope. I've defeated dozens of bosses, a few dragons, crucible knights, invaders, all sorts. I have a small collection of reliable fighting styles for most situations. But as soon as these finger spider things jumped out, it all went out the window. I forgot all the skills I've developed and reverted to a frenzied combination of trying to run away and swiping blindly at the unspeakable horrors. I'm not scared of spiders in the slightest, and as far as I was aware I don't have any deep-seated fear of fingers either, but something about this combination is profoundly repulsive and unsettling.
If you'd like to get some payback, they really don't like fire…
I have set them on fire a bit, yes.
Then you get a spider made of fingers, that's on fire.
I haven't delved deep into the games lore so the obsession with fingers is so weird lol
I have set them on fire a bit, yes.
Then you get a spider made of fingers, that's on fire.
When they get set on fire they panic first though, and you get to take a few swipes while they try and put themselves out.
Yet another reason I miss my Blasphemous Blade… I’m going to respec when I can so I can go back to Faith, and then get another (in NG+) so I can dual-wield.
I went off and had a poke around that weird pink land instead, the one where everything is rotten. I managed to score not one, but two special katana blades - Moonveil and the Meteoric Ore Blade. Getting Moonveil involved beating up another dragon.
Speaking of Faith, really impressed with the patches for this, apparently the latest one buffed a lot of stuff including Incantations. Maybe one Day I''ll find out.
The boss fights with Starscourge Radahn and the Ancestor Spirit are both very cool. I felt bad killing the Ancestor Spirit in particular.
I keep joining factions I'm deeply suspicious of. There's something a bit off about Ranni, but her and her crew are all Welsh (especially Iji) so I had to join up with them. The Lands Between are filled with Welsh people, actually - some of the first Welsh voice acting I've seen in a game since the wonderful Mr Drippy, the fairy from Ni No Kuni.
I joined the wierdos at Volcano Manor too, and they make Ranni's team look wholesome in comparison. They live in an evil red manor, with evil music playing, while everything glows an evil red. I suspect they might be evil. They are against the Erdtree though, and I am of the opinion that that thing is the cause of all the problems.
I happily joined the Volcano Manor loons as soon as they spoke out against the fingerfolk. I'd spent about 30 hours not having a clue what I was doing, who the fingerfolk were, or why I kept going to their roundtable thing. I was happy to vent a little of that frustration by killing some of them.
