Topic: Soulsborne Series Thread

@Ralizah well dang lol. Two steps forward one step back I guess. I've tried to avoid spoilery stuff since the first trailer (I didn't watch the vid you posted even. Sorry) so I wasn't sure about things like character movement. I'm still stoked for the game, but less enthusiastic about its superficial similarities to Dark Souls.

There were parts that really impressed me(holy moly that castle looks nice) but there were also moments that looked a little bit standard, like the dungeon with the skeleton; looked a bit too much by the book for me. But it might just be one of the 100 mini dungeons or something.

Anyway, I'm not going to look at any more video's "explaining" the game, probably not even look at any new trailer if I can resist.

Im actually less excited than I was before, which is still pretty excited since before I was over the moon about this game. Which is only a good thing, marketing, hype and all that bull is getting in the way of how games really are.

@JoyBoy i get that. I think with Fromsoft games especially discovering things for yourself is such a crucial part to the enjoyment. Trailers and such take away from that more than they add.

@JoyBoy i beat Sekiro. I'm glad I stuck with it because it was one of my favorites. I thought the Demon of Hatred was the hardest boss. Outside of using the whistle (which doesnt even work after 3 uses) i had no idea how to gain an advantage. How do you speed run that guy? Skip him? Lol

@Losermagnet Lol, yup he is definitely the toughest boss. He wants you to be so specific in how you approach him that if you screw up once you are getting absolutely pummeled. I haven't looked up any videos of speedruns or anything like that, it seems you just have to be perfect and know how many times you can hit him after each of his attacks.

It's so on purpose where he is placed, isn't it? You don't get there without really going out of your way and then you meet him and you're like "This is so different from every other boss I fought". Not necessarily the boss I most enjoy I did beat him on ng+ 6, which I wouldn't recommend. How did you like the Ape and his bride fight? The first time I came across that fight I couldn't believe they, the devs, would do something so horrible!

@JoyBoy when I first fought the Demon I was riding pretty high because I'd beaten the second Owl fight pretty handily. And The Demon proceeded to smoosh me repeatedly. I still don't know how I did it, but I got him to his third phase and I'd saved the whistle to use exclusively for that part. It was a really close call though, i had no water gourds left and had to use the jizo item to refresh my revives. I plan on replaying Sekiro to get the platinum, but i'm less sure about trying to best The Demon again lol.

The Ape, uuuuuuugggh lol. The first fight was pretty hard and it happened right after I felt like I was really understanding the deflect mechanic, so his grabs and unusual movements were really challenging. And the fake-out comeback got me. It was unpredictable and I remember thinking "did he just fart on me?" and not knowing how to react lol.

Suffice it to say, I encounted the Ape duo pretty shortly after that fight and didn't have nearly as much trouble. I abused the firecrackers and killed the Ape's Mate and then it was back to 1 on 1 which wasnt too bad. When I saw it I was pretty upset though lol, and moreso when the other ape joined in. It's prolly why I was so aggressive lol. I know you can use the spear to yank out the parasite from the Ape's neck stump and do big posture damage but I could never get it to work 😕

@Losermagnet Right. The spear... I always wanted to experiment with it since its description sounds awesome, but I never got it to work... and I also just forget about it lol. I usually don't use many prosthetics, I just equip shuriken and that's about it, with the occasional hatchet for shield enemies.

The Ape I think is one of the most impressive fights; I don't know how they got it to work where you are fighting this big out of control creature.. but it works. I hope Elden Ring has a boss like that. Going by the gameplay preview, we see that horseback enemies are also in the game which I'm really happy with; seeing those 2 coop buddies tackling the knight on the horse really made me smile

Btw, do you know who The Demon is? If not, you might want read its battle description(?) carefully, or better yet, look at its arm.

@JoyBoy Oh crap it's the sculptor. I didn't even put that together. I was so focused on the end game I forgot the sculptor was even gone. That's awesome. I love when Fromsoft subtley do that kind of thing. It would've been so easy to make it painfully obvious. Knowing that it's the sculptor now I want to fight the Demon again (well....kind of lol). Thanks for sharing that! I had tunnel vision during the endgame because I was really hoping I did everything to get the Purification Ending (i did). I probably missed some details.

I only used maybe a third of the shinobi tools, but I used them a lot. The umbrella was the MVP for me. The purple one stopped Terror damage and strikes from The Headless, and the Magnetic Umbrella was just an effective catch-all. I think the only thing that would normally beat it was sweeps and timing it right for a deflection did more posture damage than a standard deflect. It was really useful against Owl's own use of shinobi firecrackers. Once he spread out the powder i'd just umbrella-up to tank it, then he'd either follow up with a thrust or try to move around me. Come to think of it, in the description of the spear it says you can "remove loose fitting armor" but I never did that. Likewise, I never used the shuriken (after Lady Butterfly at least), the poison katana, or the featherduster (or whatever it was lol. The thing that teleports you). I'll probably try to experiment with that stuff in subsequent play throughs because most likely they have at least one or two enemies they're very useful against.

Hearing about how you can effectively choose your own difficulty in Elden Ring depending on the class/skills you use (assuming it isn’t massively rebalanced based upon feedback from this demo thing), makes me think about checking this one out. I love me an open world RPG.

@DomGC yeah I've still got the Demon's Souls remake to playthrough but I want to give Sekiro some time to settle because, much like I was trying to play Sekiro like Dark Souls at first, I'll try to play Demon's Souls like Sekiro 😂. It's too bad they didn't keep the freedom of movement for Elden Ring.

@Losermagnet Yup, he also thanks you, and calls you by your name, when you put him out of its misery. That's what got me thinking about it.

@DomGC you mean that gameplay mechanic that balances the whole game design? Or else you just get Spam Souls.

@JoyBoy I thought that was strange when he thanked me. I was like "uuuuuhhh, no prob?" stab, stab, stab

Will you be getting Elden Ring at launch? I think I might. I'm trying to find the collectors edition for preorder but it seems sold out for the time being.

I like the stamina system, but not having it in Sekiro was really enjoyable. It just depends on what the game is designed around I guess.

Lol! Nice.

Regarding your question, yes I definitely want it at launch but I'm not sure what system to get it for yet. I'm still here with my PS4 pro. PS5 might be unobtainable for a good while I think, but then again, it's not like it's a OMG next gen graphics sort of game, so maybe a series s will suffice.

@JoyBoy yeah I'd say you're fine with the PS4 Pro. I was lucky enough to get a PS5 and, while I love the thing, none of the Souls games benefit substantially from it (heck, Bloodborne seems to run a little worse). Maybe there's a possibility Elden Ring will be a 'Cyberpunk 2077' and only function well on new-gen consoles, but I think that's unlikely.

I started Demon's Souls, I can't stay away from my Mistress 😂 really enjoying it so far, but playing this after everything else it does feel a bit generic. Kinda reminds me of playing Earthbound Beginnings and seeing the genesis of what would become Earthbound.

Yeah I wonder how I'll be judging that game when I'll eventually play it, if ever. I think I'll get used to the impressive visuals and all I'll be left with is a ps3 game which was the first of an ever evolving series.

Regarding Elden Ring, seeing the same animations of DS3 is kind of tiresome, even though I totally get it. They have a relatively small team and the game's world is ambitious. It's kinda funny though, when people say "It's just DS3 in open world", they somehow forget that it changes everything.

I will really like this game, that much seems certain. I'm even more excited for it than BOTW 2, but to be fair, they didn't really show much of that game.

@JoyBoy The Soulsborne series is definitely one that makes relatively small changes from game to game, for better or worse. I'm cautiously optimistic about Elden Ring. If the game focuses more on exploration and mixes combat up just enough to differentiate itself from Dark Souls I think it will avoid being a "been there, done that" kind of experience. However, if we're seeing bosses and enemy types that are slightly different versions of Dark Souls bosses I'll be a bit bummed. That's what I'm having now with Demon's Souls - I get to the boss and I'm like "wait a minute.....aren't you the one guy from Dark Souls?". Totally understandable being a remake of the first Souls game but it's just not as engaging the second (or third) time.

Im thinking Fromsoft needs to branch out. They made a VR game, Deracine, that Miyazaki directed and it seems driven by atmosphere, dialogue and puzzles (so basically a standard VR game lol) and I'd like to see more of that in a conventional game.

@Losermagnet I'm not too worried. Demon Souls was like the beta souls game, wasn't it?
Dark souls, irc, had a very short development time, so it sharing some bosses ain't so weird. I don't think we've seen something like that afterwards. BB was very different, DS3, apart not feeling super unique, had good bosses, at least not many complained about them being similar I think. Sekiro, great bosses... But you could be right...but even then, the context of the game will help differentiate itself. For me at least.

@JoyBoy I enjoy the familiar bosses in Demon's Souls, it is a bit like seeing the rough draft. Given the circumstances it's easier to accept. Contrast that with Dark Souls II which I'm not sure if they were rushed or trying to be referential.

Off the top of my head in DSII you fight:
-Ornstein
-a giant dog (Sif)
-Naajka, the scorpion woman (Queelag)
-Belfry Gargoyles (Bell Gargoyles)

I found those way less engaging than what I'm experiencing in Demon's Souls. The crazy thing is DSII has the most boss fights, like over 40 I think? I don't know why they didn't toss these out.