Tobold's Blog: Old Man Ring

Sunday, March 06, 2022

Old Man Ring - Final Part

I just uninstalled Elden Ring. I had spent the last few days playing a new character, a confessor, because I thought that maybe a character with melee combat would be more fun. That was true, to a degree: There are parts of the game, like Ashes of War, that simply aren't usable by mages, because there aren't any ashes for staves. And the whole weapon/shield/armor collection and upgrading made a lot more sense with a melee character.

Then I decided it was time to finally leave Limgrave, and, still using the infinite hitpoints cheat, managed to kill Margit, the Fell Omen. But the story still made absolutely no sense to me, and other than following the glowing pointers at sites of grace, I still had no clue what to do next. So, with the pointers and help from YouTube, I set out to understand the story, by doing a sort of cheating speedrun from boss to boss. I got until Starscourge Radahn until I noticed something: Without external help I would never have discovered the rather laborious sequence of tasks needed to unlock that boss fight. And after having done it and killing Radahn, the whole thing still made no sense to me. And I still needed external help to find out where to go next.

At that point I realized that it was unlikely that even if I followed the story all the way to the end, there would be some sort of satisfying narrative emerging. So what is the interest of playing? Generally, for a RPG, I am interested in mastering the (turn-based) combat and progression system, and in following the story. With Elden Ring I thought I could skip the combat part and just do the exploration and story part. But after a grand total of 39 hours, the exploration had become boring and the story was still far too obscure. Time to stop and uninstall the game.

While I can see the attraction of Elden Ring, I still think that in many aspects it is a very flawed game. Not just technically, but also in game design, regarding exploration. Much has been said about Elden Ring being such a great open world game. But Elden Ring is only open world until you reach a location. Locations are very often rather linear, with sites of grace telling you that you are on the right path, until you reach the location boss. Very often there is just a single way to get from A to B within a location. Often you are forced on a linear path by the fact that you can't climb, that jumping is very limited, and that you can drop down only a certain distance without dying (which curiously is true even if you have god mode cheat on). Even in the open world I quite often had to take the long way round for a cliff or mountain. It wasn't the most fun exploration experience, not like Breath of the Wild. Not even as good as Assassin's Creed or Horizon games.

In the end, Elden Ring is the best Dark Souls games. And the number of people who can really enjoy a Dark Souls games is small. For the average gamer, I wouldn't recommend Elden Ring. And even with cheat mode, Elden Ring was an experience for me, but not a great one. I don't regret having tried it, but I reached the limit of my patience with the game. It simply doesn't have many of the features that I enjoy in a game. I would rather play something like Triangle Strategy. Or replay Breath of the Wild, if I wanted an open world game.

- posted by Tobold @ 6:56 PM Permanent Link

Comments:

Thanks so much for all these insights. I had a sense that I would not enjoy the game, but the reviews made me feel like I should like it. From what I heard the world was what would be a selling point for me.

However, I've been playing Horizon Forbidden West and it has hit a lot of the points that I think would be selling points of Elden Ring plus more.

# posted by

Newyearsproject : 6/3/22 19:43

Thanks, Tobold. I would probably feel about it similarly. I'll stay away from it for now, at least at this full AAA price. It probably wouldn't run that well on my aging rig anyway.

I was curious if you ever looked into playing Bard's Tale IV. The revised Director's Cut shaves off some of the worst of the flaws that many howled about. It has a fairly unique, turn-based party combat system that is worth exploring. As a whole I can't really recommend it to most people. It still has a number of flaws, and requires a ton of backtracking, bookkeeping, and meticulous attention to environmental detail that isn't for most. I spent a couple of days just making a tracking spreadsheet before I could really get far. It's also about 60% puzzles, 40% combat, and not that much else. I find the puzzles quite quick & easy, so that doesn't bother me. It's regularly at 75% off now, at which price (< $10 USD) it's worth a look even if most are likely not to finish it. I recommend playing on hard, which is actually not that hard.

# posted by

Perkus : 6/3/22 22:05

@Perkus: I will have a look. Bard's Tale IV : Director's Cut is available to me for free on the Xbox Game Pass for PC.

# posted by

Tobold : 6/3/22 22:17

Souls games are definitely not for everyone. I like the way the narrative is told in these games. I like reading the item descriptions or getting tidbits from NPCs. I like the environmental story telling. I like piecing together the story of the world from all these bits and pieces. I also like going to the wiki or watching videos and finding the things I've missed along the way after I've beaten the game.

Very few games do what these games do. And even fewer do it well. Hollowknight is probably the most recent game that pulled off a similar style of showcasing its narrative.

Absolutely nothing wrong with playing and you did and uninstalling when you got your fill of the game. Now at least you know what these games are. And since you didn't like the legacy dungeons you likely won't like any other games in the franchise as they are basically all legacy dungeons stitched together.

# posted by

Bigeye : 6/3/22 22:40

Thanks for all the write ups. Seems like you gave a thorough try.

# posted by

Joe : 7/3/22 03:17

I was concerned based on your previous comments what your conclusion would be.

But ultimately, "Elden Ring is the best Dark Souls game" is absolutely fair and explains how it can be simultaneously 10/10 and not worth playing for many.

When you took away the challenge of execution, the fun had gone. For those of us that love it (Including apparently many game reviewers), the thrill comes from banging your head against the brick wall of difficult boss fights and obscure confusing narratives.
If you like Horizon-type games, you are spoilt - try anything by Ubisoft. Conversely FromSoft fans having been waiting for years for the next evolution.

# posted by

Bernard : 7/3/22 16:29

I would say that using cheats in ER (or any Souls game, in general) completely defeats the purpose of playing it. Sure, you may enjoy the scenery for a while but... What for? Removing the challenge from this game is like completely destroying its soul (no pun intended!). Because that challenge IS the game.

# posted by

Rugus : 8/3/22 08:50

@Rugus: Have you seen the Thai advertisement for Elden Ring? Have you seen the various reviews comparing Elden Ring to Zelda: Breath of the Wild?

I'm not saying that you are wrong, challenge *is* the game in Elden Ring, and it isn't really all that suitable to visit and enjoy the scenery. But there is something seriously wrong with the way the game is advertised and promoted. It is being pushed to people who have no ways to actually enjoy it.

# posted by

Tobold : 8/3/22 08:59

For anyone questioning the validity of Tobold using cheats I'll just drop this youtube link of one of the top souls content creators completely trivializing the game in about 30 minutes with a magic build.

These games have always had things like this. When this is doable in game Tobold throwing on some cheats accomplishes basically the same thing.

https://youtu.be/xCu8PBoj-Ks

# posted by

Bigeye : 8/3/22 21:23