Topic: Soulsborne Series Thread

@Losermagnet Ah... Ranni the blue nose witch girl... of course. I haven't seen her in a while so that quest line is probably over.

I agree with you about the souls-like, for me what's lacking especially is the level design and world building.

Yeah, the menu could be a lot better. I mean they have never been particularly great but the expansive item list doesn't help. I always try to pay attention to the icon when you grab an item so I at least can look for it in the right tab lol. But sometimes I forget, it goes by so fast and then I'm like whatever lol I'll watch some lore videos later.

@JoyBoy i've had to watch the short videos my ps5 takes when i earn a trophy just so i can find the item I acquired from a boss 😂 but fair is fair - the menus have never been amazing with fromsoft games. My inventory always fills up with random trinkets and trousers that i never use.

I can't remember the pathway her questline follows...and i'm not sure if it has a "point of no return" moment. I feel like once you've met Blaidd and beaten General Radhan it takes you to an underground area....but thats all i remember.

I finally beat Elden Ring. In the last year and a-half I've beaten all of the Fromsoft Souls games and I can say that Elden Ring is the one I'm the most conflicted about. It has things I love and loath in equal measure. Even the ending felt abrupt compared to the gauntlet of three bosses leading up to it. Only missed 4 trophies (including the platinum). I'm sure i'll play NG+, probably whenever they decide to release DLC and maybe then I'll enjoy it a bit more. That was basically my experience with Bloodborne: I actually wasnt that into it on my first playthrough and it wasnt until I started NG+ that I started to enjoy it deeply. As it is now I'm gonna take a break from the series and pick up ME2.

I definitely have a love hate relationship with elden ring lol.

Ooh, be sure to let me know how you like that 1, in some suitable thread, please, @Losermagnet ....

Just did some new areas I wasn't aware of, one of which was Volcano Manor. Playing online does reveal all or almost of the secrets. Really liked that area, felt at times very Bloodborny.

I'm practicing a little bit of parry in the starting area lol. It's super satisfying to parry someone off their horse haha.

Anyone still playing this game ? If anyone is up for some co-op action, be sure to notify me.

@JoyBoy During my playthrough I stumbled naturally into Volcano Manor via an NPC and it became one of my favorite areas. Almost all of the areas that have a shardbearer are great and, generally speaking, I think the lore surrounding the Demi-God family to be really interesting. I'm hoping that it gets expanded on in the inevitable DLC.

I'd love to do some co-op but unfortunately i dont have PS+ and i'm on a pretty tight budget right now. While I finished my playthrough I think about the game often and I've been watching a ton of lore and discovery videos about it. So even though I've been playing Mass Effect 2, Yakuza 0, and Bioshock Infinite I can't keep from thinking about Elden Ring lol.

@Losermagnet Yeah... I recently started Mass Effect and I was really beginning to enjoy it but Elden Ring is everywhere so I see footage and I'm thinking about checking some of these extra quests/areas and it was more than I expected lol. I was playing the game yesterday the whole day... So yeah, just finished Ranni's quest and I always enjoy helping some players out in PvE.

Also I changed my stats from a strenght build to a faith build and I got the sword from the Elden Beast and I'm getting in these new areas and absolutely destroy everything in my path with its skill lol. It has such a wide range and goes further than you would expect... Quite the contrast from my simple longsword playthrough.

I was thinking, since I haven’t played elden ring I a wile, and I’m further in the game, and probably rusty, I was thinking of playing demon souls first remake, and them playing elden ring, or should I finish elden ring first?

@Snatcher if you already own Demon's Souls its worth a shot I'd say. They play similarly enough and Demon's Souls is probably the next most approachable souls games in terms of difficulty. Worst thing it does imo is only give you checkpoints after you beat a boss, so if one kills you it means repeating the portion of the level to try again. If we're talking the PS5 version it looks fantastic. Let me know how it turns out 😁

I played Dark Souls Remastered and I still love it. It was NG+ and I was enjoying it enough I went for the platinum trophy. Took 1 and 1/2 playthroughs but I did it and it was great.

@Losermagnet Yeah it’s on the new ps plus subscription, so might as well, and I got through an hour, and yeah, I died some time after the first boss in that castle area, (lol I’m sure there are a lot of them) and got the nexus tutorial and lore dump and all, and I’m enjoying it a lot so far, definitely feels odd that I can’t jump anymore!

And invasions are a thing right? I will keep the internet on bc I like the messages, but if I lose in a invasion do I also have to go all the way back from my last checkpoint? And is there any negatives to losing them? Or even starting one up myself? (If I can)

@Snatcher oh yeah, i forgot about the jumping somehow. You can kinda jump by holding down 'O' to run, then pressing it again. Nowhere near as intuitive or useful as jumping in Elden Ring.

I usually play offline so im a bit foggy on how online works specifically with Demon's Souls, but when you're online and you're in human form (full health bar) you can be invaded. I'm pretty sure the invader functions just like an enemy would - killing you, making you drop your souls and sending you back to your last checkpoint. If you're in spirit form (reduced health bar) you'll still read see messages and bloodstains, but you can't be invaded. You also have to be in spirit form to invade or assist other players.

I started it up just to check and see 😂 I paid for a month of PS plus a week or so ago, and it was my first time playing it online. Seeing all the player spirits running around always startles me lol.

Also - if anyone has any interest in the Futurepress guides for Elden Ring they're available to preorder on Amazon (in the US at least) for $30. One comes out later this month, and the second volume sometime later. $30 is a great price as the list price is $50 and once/if they go out of print the price on the Souls guides always skyrockets.

@Losermagnet I just looked into that, apparently dying in human form makes the game harder, and well, the whole system just kinda, it’s not the best, and it seems why it wasn’t used in any other from software game, So I guess I can get invaded another game lol.

I need to go upgrade my items next.

@Snatcher it always irked me when you get punished for dieing in a Fromsoft game. Dark Souls 2 and 3 do something similar and it just sucks.

World Tendency in Demon's Souls is a neat idea that doesn't really stick the landing. If you die repeatedly (in human form) the world moves closer to black tendency and it becomes harder. The way to avoid that is by dieing in the Nexus (which doesnt influence world tendency) and play through a level in spirit form. If you get to pure white world tendency it can change things in the level (NPCs appear, doors unlock, etc.) but when I played offline it was too easy to lock yourself into a pure black world tendency because the only way to increase it is by defeating bosses and assisting others online. Neat idea but I'm glad they dropped it for Dark Souls.

@Losermagnet I’m so happy it’s dropped in later games as well, but now knowing this, and not really liking my class choice, I changed it to temple knight, and I’m loving the starter weapons for it so far, and now that I know about the whole dying in human form thing, I can now makes sure I don’t do that. Plus I was a heavy faith user back wile playing elden ring.

Now at just need to head back to the lords path it was called?

@Snatcher Hows the Demon slaying going?

I've had the weirdest urge to get back into Elden Ring. I occassionally come upon a YouTube video covering it and it makes me want to go through and absorb more of the lore and experiment with things I didn't really try before.

One online theory that I find pretty i interesting is that the Erdtree, and to an extent the Two Fingers, are mushrooms. That not only do they resemble real life types of mushrooms but they function by thriving on the decay of the Lands Between . Not sure how much stock I put into that but it's an interesting idea.

@Losermagnet So sorry for the long response.

It’s going pretty well, aim noticing that these bosses are harder to get too then the actual boss itself lol.

But I did the first boss for islands edge was it? I had to have gone through the path like 100 times before finally getting there, and beating it in my 2nd try, The rolling skeletons suck tho lol.

The lore for elden ring is really good, and wile I don’t know it or seen many videos for it, It’s all there. And that’s why I just couldn’t agree when critics (Ubisoft ones at that) said it had no story, because there dead wrong!

@Snatcher late reply - totally agree with the run to the boss being harder than the actual boss. Those rolling skeletons are the absolute worst lol. I just tried that area on NG+ last night and it was soooo frustrating. I got all the way to the boss fog gate and then was one shotted by the dual wielding skeleton right in front of it 😑 NG+ Demon's Souls is legitimately the most difficult thing I've done in a Souls game (including Sekiro); which is really unexpected because I thought my first playthrough was on the easier side.

I think I bungled my character build. I've never been very good at that in these games but in NG+ Demon's Souls it's really making things harder. Ostensibly my character is a strength build, but my pure melee approach is not working. The Flamelurker one shots me without fail 😂 any body have any suggestions?

I did it! I finally beat my first soulsborn! It was a great ride, aside from a few hiccups here and there! I’m so happy to have this in my gamer logbook!